This book should not be your first book on C or C++, but after you know some basics, you might want to check this out. There are many exmaples of real world programs in the book written using either the MS or Borland compiler for DOS. This book does a good job of portraying real C programming and covers the old K&R C as well as the new ANSI C styles.

Do not however buy this book if you are looking for a C++ book. C++ has changed dramatically since it was standardized in 1997 and this book is from 1993.

I have used Women Ethics and the Workplace for four years now teaching to undergraduate business and design students. My ethics class is definitely enhanced by the combination of helpful overviews of the major normative theories and the critical perspectives the book generates. The theory is supplemented by both empirical and statistical data and always sparks great discussion in my college classroom. The book is especially strong at illustrating for students the tensions of career versus family in a capitalist economy. This is a refreshing business ethics text that is theoretical without being dry, and critical without being pedantic. Should be used alongside classic ethics sources.

It is a very interesting book about the history of coffee, coffee around the world, the art of coffee drinking, and many recipes of cakes, pastries, in which coffee is one of the ingredients. There are many nice pictures in the book. The only thing I dislike is that there are some spelling mistakes.

It's a sad sad tale of an ugly duckling. Once upon a time there was this boy whom everyone called alien for his looks were quite odd if not freakish. Even own parents of his shipped him off to a distant boy boarding school as not to see his grotesque visage.

The book merrily skips the boarding school years -- thank god. Imagine the torture and suffering poor Rowan must have endured in a British school.

No wonder, the man is quite quiet and reserved. That was his survival technique. The only way poor Rowan could touch life was through playing out characters on stage. His inclination, like a snubbed wicked cripple who hates the world, was to play the bad guys and sort of get back at the world.

But the story, as you know, has a happyend. Rowan makes it big. Real big. He turns his oddity into a golden mine. Where are those pretty boys that once picked on Rowan now? Getting up at 5 lining up to catch the bus to ferry them to and fro their dead-end jobs as nobodies, carrying a mortgage on a semi-detached dwelling with a hefty dose of stress to boot.

Well done, Rowan. Way to get back at all of them. And in fact, in Blackadder II or III (The one where you play the court guy doing a great deal of hanging around with the giddy queen) you look rather dashing.

Yes, you may interject, but Atkinson is synonymous with fun... he's a hoot... he's great... that all is well but not in this case. Not in the pages of this dull paperback. Not in its confines. The retracing of steps of this comic giant leads into a boring staleness of a rather common and not so happy plight.

I'm giving it 2 stars only because I like Rowan. The book itself deserves none, really.

I'm Rick Friedman. This has been the Awful Truth, bringing you reality like no other. Take care.

Something of a lesson in not judging a book by its cover (or the blurb on the back). After purchasing this book, I was disappointed to learn in the opening acknowledgements that this was an unauthorized biography and that not even one of Atkinson's friends or close business associates agreed to be interviewed by Bruce Dressau, which in my mind, somewhat discredits the biography. On the other hand, if you're an American who didn't stumble upon Blackadder until it began airing on public television in the 90's (the way I did), this book isn't a bad read. It closely follows his career from his Oxford days up through The Thin Blue Line, which was interesting, especially when you see that seeds of certain characters (particularly Mr. Bean) took root early on in his career. Other than that, though, don't expect to gain any insight as to Rowan Atkinson the man, because there isn't any. The author tries to draw parallels between things like Atkinson's love of cars and his performing (if I had the book by my side now I'd subject you to the metaphor)but they just don't fly. I also realized, after reading the book, that the numerous articles that he quotes from (since no one was willing to talk to him) are mostly available on the internet. So while I'm willing to say that I learned something about British comedy and Rowan Atkinson, in the end I was still disappointed.

Bruce Dessau's book begins with his childhood and school life at St. Bees, then into his gradual abandonment of a science degree (he was expected to go into electrical engineering) and onto the theatre, where via connections to the Oxbridge mafia, he got the biggest breaks and the funniest lines.

Influences? Jacques Tati's Mr. Hulot character, whose tics and twitches he memorized during his time at St. Bees. The significance of this is that it helped him in his technique of using silent comedy, miming even, to get laughs. Coupled with the faces he pulled in front of a mirror to gain a rubbery-faced elasticity that rivalled Jim Carrey, we can see the beginnings of Mr. Bean. Naturally, Monty Python is an influence, as it aired when he was 15 years old. John Cleese's nasty sarcasm was later felt in each of the Blackadders, as well as his portrayal of hideous comedy star Ron Anderson in his first starring movie, The Tall Guy, opposite Jeff Goldblum.

There are a lot of comparisons between him and Cleese, come to think of it. Each of them had many years behind them, cutting their teeth on TV series, working with other performers, never being in something for too long, before making it big.

In terms of his TV series, there's quite a lot devoted to each of them: Not The Nine O'Clock News, Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and the Thin Blue Line. Brief plots are given of each episode, as well as major performers who appear as guest stars, such as Miranda Richardson, Rik Mayall (The Young Ones), and Robbie Coltrane (Harry Potter movies). It is with the third series of Black Adder (my personal favourite) that he won BAFTAs (the British equivalent of the Emmys and Oscars).

Mr. Bean, despite being his breakthrough series, was not only his fulfillment to create a comedy that could be more universal instead of being directed strictly at British tastes, was in a way the culmination of sketches he did on stage in the late 1970's, so it was basically old material (e.g. face shaving routine) refined. The movie was a success here, but because it was so Hollywoodized, was panned quite a bit in Britain.

Atkinson though comes through as a genius who despite striving to be a perfectionist, realizes that perfectionism unhealthily reduces someone to a bundle of ragged nerves. More an introvert, he is two different people, a comic onstage, a very private person offstage.

At this point, the Bean movie seems to be the pinnacle of his American success, but has the backlash happened? Sure, he came out the painfully jejune Rat Race, but Johnny English may be his saving grace, as Hollywood seems at a loss how to use him optimally. Then again, he didn't quite break into movies, as the book points out. Most of his movie roles have been minor (Never Say Never Again, Hot Shots Part Deux, Four Weddings And A Funeral). Yet through this book and from the time I noticed him in Not The Nine O'Clock News, the thing I've learned is never to anticipate what Rowan Atkinson will do next. Overall, a well-done book that casts Atkinson in a positive light and recommended for those who want to find out more on Britain's most talented comic since John Cleese.

If I start writing now when I'm not really rested it could upset my thinking which is not good at all. I'll get a fresh start tomorrow, and it's not due till Wednesday, so I'll have all of Tuesday, unless something should happen.

Why does this always happen, I should be outside playing, getting fresh air and sunshine; I work best under pressure, and they'll be lots of pressure, if I wait till tomorrow... I should start writing now. But if I start writing now, when I'm not really rested, it could upset my thinking which is not good at all.

Peter Rabbit is one of four rabbits in his family. Very much curious as well as disobedient, Peter decides to wonder off into Mr. McGregor's garden. He has heard the warning given to him by his mother of what Mr. McGregor does to curious, wandering rabbits. Peter slips away from his brother's and sister's while they play in the fields and decides to see this wonderful garden. While in the garden, Peter fills his stomach with delicious carrots, lettuce and other various vegetables. While eating, Mr. McGregor finds the somewhat stuffed rabbit and chases him around his garden. Peter, realizing the mistake he made, only wishes to be free, that he might not make the same mistake again. This book is very well written and can capture the heart of even the oldest person. Filled with detailed pictures, Peter comes to life in this classic tale of tales.

The pictures in this book are absolutely wonderful. It was my oldest nephews favorite book, his little brother also loves it, unfortunately after five years of hard use I just replaced it with a new one. This is the first time we've ever "worn out" a book!

If my two nephews could write a review, (they are boys, 5 and 2 yrs old), they would tell you that this book is a treasure!

At the end of this confusing, and often difficult to read, book the author puts forward the view on the last two pages that the human race should abandon art as something out-dated and work instead on personality development. Personality development? Imagine a world with no movies, no music, no TV, no art of any sort, just people sitting around "developing their personalities" in their heads. Give me a break. Despite Mr. Rank writing this 431 page opus of obscurity, he must not understand much about artist if he thinks they would be satisfied with a substitute of this sort. He misses the kinship artist feel towards their art, and the fact that often artists enjoy performing their art for its own sake, not merely for an interest in immortality. Artists enjoy the feeling of power that comes with creation, and they need the relief and catharsis that comes from creating something beautiful. Personality development could never replace this, since art is a means for the artist to express himself not create himself. In this little flaccid daydream of Mr. Rank's I detect a desire to have psychology replace art, since psy. is concerned with the development of personalities. In retrospect, thinking back over the previous portions of the book, it seems as if Mr. Rank's whole theory of art is constructed in order to make artistic creation seem identical to his theories; to make it seems as if art and psychology functioned by the same mechanisms. This made it easy for him to topple his own house of cards after its meticulous construction with one final blow. ***** I gave this book an extra star only because it had some interesting things to say about ancient civilization and the history of art. However, I am sure there are countless heaps of other books that cover the same subject matter more interestingly. I see no reason anyone should buy this book. It's certainly not what I was looking for. What a waste of money! ***** This book was written in the 1930's I believe. After 70 years I think it's save to say that Mr. Rank's sour obituary can be dismissed. Good art is still being produced and will be produced as long as human beings have the capacity to dream. True, there have been declines in the standards of art, but this doesn't not show a decay in the concept of art itself. Rather, there are two factors responsible for the decline. First, mass media makes the public more accessible to the artist. The culture is flooded with the worthless debris of talent hacks every year. But there are still great works being made. Second, the general trend of the public towards lower and lower taste makes for a bad reception of works of genius, and clears the field for the afore-mentioned debris. **** Beyond this there are many factors that cause different developments in art history. For instance, representational art saw a decline with the invention of photography, and abstract and non-representational art saw a growth in popularity. There have been long periods thought-out history, such as the middle ages, where art standards have dropped severely, but art has always emerged victorious in the end. Art has been with us from the beginning. It will be with us until the end, regardless of how wet blankets like Mr. Rank feel about it.

For anyone who is interested in "Beauty and Truth" as a problem requiring intense evaluation, Chapter Eleven of this book starts by considering the conquest of nature "really her successful deception by the human intelligence." The interesting feature is "the pleasure which the individual gets from this sham activity, in that we regard this as a saving of vitality and, indeed, of life." Otto Rank associated this kind of activity with "the realm of freedom ~ even if (again as in play) this liberation can never be wholly successful." As an ideal, art can lead to a way of life which approaches the pathetic in finding pleasures in pushing the envelope which maintains order for the prone thinkers in any society. Rank considered it a component of "head-culture, . . . saturated with the scientific ideology" associated with "the egocentric outlook which produced the competitiveness and quarrelsomeness of the various Greek tribes, cities, and heroes that is evidenced even in the Trojan War stories." My knowledge of the history of American psychiatry clings to the memory of the minor role played by Harry Stack Sullivan in establishing the professional ethics that kept Otto Rank from treating his patients as a psychiatrist because he wasn't a doctor. While some memory of artistic character development clings to people's emotional problems, medical practice in the mental health field makes this book almost irrelevant to modern treatment of these problems, and I only mention it to show what fools we would prefer to be as a society dedicated to the suppression of all uncommercial efforts in the area of art, which remains a highly suspect activity, subject to ritual condemnations by the critics in the press who can't print what the artist is thinking. For people who don't expect to read this book, I would recommend the movie "I Shot Andy Warhol" as a study in character of the wanna-be kind of people which a culture that celebrates art and drama produces.

Beginning with a monograph in 1907 that first brought him to Freud's attention, Otto Rank became his mentor's closest colleague until 1926. The present work, published in 1932, follows three earlier elaborations of the first monograph, and covers artistic endeavor, language, play, architecture, etc. through the ages as an expression of a striving for individual/communal immortality and a reconciliation with mortality. The creative type lives life, affirming the inevitable, while the neurotic is frozen with life-fear. A fine translation reads well but Ludwig Lewisohn's terrific preface has been replaced here with one by the lighter-weight but better-known Anais Nin. The book rewards study; see an excerpt on the Otto Rank Website.

i had the pain to use this book for my undergrad. coursework for a 200 level class at Cal Poly. Contrary to the other reviewers, i believe the exercises are mediocre, and the material presented lack depth to provide a solid grounding to numerical analysis. Codes are inconveniently written in fortran-97? instead of the more readable pseudo-code. It may provide a good application supplementary for engineering students, but i strongly advise against it for mathematics undergrads. No fun. Lots of handwaving and smoking mirrors.

The author presumes that the reader has an advanced knowledge of calculus even though the book is intended for use by undergrads.the content in the chapters of the book are not enough to solve the questions at the end of ech chapter.if you are looking for an introductory course in NA dont even think of using this book.

I'm biased because i had the good fortune to take Intro to Numeric Analysis from Ken Atkinson himself. I beta-tested this edition of the text, so my copy is in a loose-leaf binder.

Some reviewers have complained that the book is difficult because examples are in FORTRAN rather than C. I disagree. The real meat of the book is written in mathematical form; what source he provides is merely a convenience. When i took his class, most of the students (myself included) implemented in C rather than FORTRAN. No problem, because he was looking for correct results, not reviewing code.

And yes, this book assumes a solid knowledge of calculus, linear algebra, basic differential equations, and discrete logic. Did you think you'd be able to code mathematics without *understanding* it? If you understand the math in the first place, his implementations are very clear. If you don't understand the math, no amount of clarity will save you.

The real beauty, for me, was how he logically built a progression of topics, with each step providing the foundation for the next one. It was like seeing two years of college math in miniature.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately," Thoreau writes in his most familiar work, WALDEN, "to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get to the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion" (p. 86). These were the words that forever changed my life when I first read WALDEN more than twenty years ago. I have since returned to WALDEN more than any other book.

Recently reading another Modern Library Paperback Classic, THE ESSENTIAL WRITINGS OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON, prompted me to revisit Thoreau in this new paperback edition of his collected writings. It opens with a revealing biographical Introduction to Thoreau (1817-1862) by his friend, Emerson. Thoreau "was bred to no profession, he never married" Emerson writes; "he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely no doubt for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and Nature. He had no talent for wealth, and knew how to be poor without the least hint of squalor or inelegance" (p. xiii). This 802-page edition includes WALDEN in its entirety, together with other writings one would expect to find here, A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, "Walking," and "Civil Disobedience," among others.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desparation" (p. 8), Thoreau wrote in 1854. Few would disagree that WALDEN remains relevant today. "Most men, even in this comparatively free country" Thoreau observed more than 150 years ago, "through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that" (p. 6). "Our life is frittered away by detail" (p. 86); Thoreau encourages us to "Simplify, simplify" (p. 87). "To be awake is to be alive," he tells us (p. 85). "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak" (p. 305). Truth be told, WALDEN is as much a about a state of mind as the place where Thoreau spent his "Life in the Woods," 1845-47.

WALDEN is among the ten best books I've ever read. Thoreau was a true American original thinker, and the writings collected here could change your life forever.

G. Merritt

"A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck." ~Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard from 1833 to 1837. He had a complete fascination with the natural world and great literature in general. Life seemed to him to be a playground of thoughts. He draws from a great volume of understanding and his thirst for information seems unquenchable.

If you have read or listened to The Iliad and The Odyssey, you will especially enjoy some of his references. He also weaves verses from the Bible into his writing in an interesting way and you will appreciate his writing more if you have a basic understanding of Homer, Shakespeare, Plato, Chaucer, John Milton, Alexander Pope and Emerson.

Within this book you will meet a man of independent thought who is completely consumed with the sheer delight of discovery. To wander in the woods in solitary thought was a spiritual experience. He was also involved in a philosophical and literary movement which flourished in New England from 1835 to 1860. Both he and Ralph Waldo Emerson were at the center of transcendentalism and influential in American thought and literature.

Thoreau's thoughts flow from one subject to the other throughout this book. The contents include Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Cape Cod, The Allegash and East Branch, Walking, Civil Disobedience, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown and Life Without Principle.

Walden - Walden represents our ability to follow our individual dreams all while being willing to be satisfied with less in order to gain greater intellectual freedom.

Thoreau built himself a cabin on the edge of Walden Pond and lived there from 1845 to 1847. During this time he supported himself by surveying and growing vegetables.

He rambled about in the woods and collected his thoughts in detailed journals. His friendships seemed few and far between, however the friends did make seemed to turn into deeply satisfying relationships.

Walden Pond becomes Thoreau's lover. He drinks from her cool refreshment, swims in her enveloping waters, knows her every mood in summer or winter and observes her with the utmost attention as she freezes, melts and dances playfully in the sun. The descriptions of this pond are well-worth reading as he has a talent for capturing her very essence with his extensive vocabulary.

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers - Thoreau and his brother made a river voyage in a boat they built. This experience was the basis for his first self-published book in 1849. One minute you are reading about the river and the next you enter an entirely different world of thought about friendship.

"You are the fact in a fiction, - you are the truth more strange and admirable than fiction. Consent only to be what you are. I alone will never stand in your way. This is what I would like, -to be as intimate with you as our spirits are intimate, -respecting you as I respect my ideal. Never to profane one another by word or action, even by a thought."

Cape Cod - Thoreau made the first of four trips to Cape Cod in 1849, and he later delivered lectures about his experiences.

Allegash and East Branch - A journey made in 1857 with Edward Hoar and an Indian guide who brings some humor to the tale. Edward gets lost and we see a side of Thoreau that shows his concern for his fellow human beings. He is normally just so independent.

Walking - Quite humorous at times and explains his love for walking and for letting the wildness in man come out to play.

Civil Disobedience -This essay seems to have been born during the time Thoreau had to stay in a prison because he refused to pay a poll tax. This essay is said to have influenced Gandhi in India and the civil-rights movement led by Martin Luther King.

Slavery in Massachusetts - A lecture given in 1854 at an Independence Day meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Plea for Captain John Brown - In October 1859 the abolitionist Capt. John Brown raided the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and Thoreau spoke in defense of his character.

Life Without Principle - Here he gives his views on rushing off to California in search of gold.

This man's mind was a deep forest and his descriptions of nature are quite inspiring. Where else would I have read about a whale's vertebra being used as a mortar or been so highly entertained by his conversations with an eccentric elderly gentleman?

There are also descriptions of shipwrecks and discussions about survival in the woods. Thoreau's humor will often catch you unaware and if you collect quotes, you will find quite a few.

Since most of us will never build our own homes, cook over a wood fire on a regular basis or take our baths in a pond, this book presents a lifestyle we may never experience. You will rarely find an individual in your own circle of friends who would encourage you to downsize your life in a super-size world.

The uncommon perspective presented in 732 pages will appeal to writers, poets, philosophers and anyone who values their thoughts more than material possessions.

During the week of reading this book, I was inspired to take a trip out to the mountains, walked along a river, and worked in my garden with a new sense of purpose. The world became a vibrant, new environment filled with possibilities.

Intense reading? Yes. A week's worth of reading will inspire you for a lifetime.

If at all possible, read while this book while floating in a boat on a pond or while on a camping trip in the woods.

~TheRebeccaReview.com

Thoreau is sometimes classified as a "nature writer", but his reflections extend into economics, politics, health, recreation, aesthetics, moral issues of personal character, fidelity to principle and self discipline, and to the very nature of reality and perception. He was a dominant figure in the Idealist school of philosophy labeled Transcendentalism. Emerson called Thoreau the truest American. This because of his passionate respect for the dignity of the individual. Years before the Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil War, more than a century before the American civil rights movement or the global push for 'human rights', there was Thoreau's Resistance to Civil Government, which is commonly titled Civil Disobedience. (Mahatma Gandhi acknowledged Thoreau's influence on his life as did Martin Luther King, Jr.). Several decades before the environmental movement was born and ecological awareness began to seep into public consciousness, while John Muir was but an infant, there was Walden. On issues of human dignity, moral consistency, environmental responsibility, even diet and health, he was as an unappreciated light in a gray world of small thinking. In his short life, he had rather few readers and was generally thought of as being a nutty malcontent, as has been the case for so many thinkers of antiquity and of today.
"The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad," states Thoreau, who like other great Idealist thinkers insists that Truth and the crowd generally stand in opposition to one another. Solitude being the state in which one can "discern his proper objects," Thoreau's record at Walden Pond is a wonderful account of such discernment. In his opening treatise on economy, Thoreau says that philanthropy is esteemed so highly only because we are so selfish. It is in his less provocative yet careful analysis of objects of nature that Thoreau delights his reader. His account of a battle between an army of red ants and an army of black ants is meticulous and absolutely wonderful. This great work of American writing and philosophy is an invitation to hear the music of "a different drummer."
"Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails."

I had never read anything by Kate Atkinson before this and was quite pleasantly surprised. What I hastily concluded from the jacket description was that this was going to be a play-like dialogue between a mother and daughter. This is, instead, a multilayered, multigenre piece of experimental fiction that is fun to read, thought-provoking and original. As much as anything else, Emotionally Weird is about writing and the creative process. Effie, the young woman who is the narrator, tells stories which may or may not be true to Nora, an older woman who may or may not be her mother. The two live on a secluded island off Scotland. The stories Effie tells are mainly whimsical character studies of bohemian college life in the 1970s. By contrast, the scenes that take place on the island beteen Effie and Nora are told in a somberly poetic, almost gothic (and very Celtic) style. To further complicate things, Effie is also herself writing a detective novel about yet another set of characters. If this sounds confusing, at times it is. Yet, you don't have to completely understand what's going on to enjoy this novel. After all, there is very little plot to worry about following. There are, appropriately enough, several references to Alice in Wonderland, though, compared to Emotionally Weird, Lewis Carroll's tale is almost conventional and straightforward. James Joyce is also mentioned, but despite her radical style, Atkinson is much, much easier to read. There is a very deliberate pointlessness to the book. When Effie is at college, for example, there are scenes that are little more than parades of absurd characters. Professors are portrayed as gibberish-speaking buffoons; some of my favorite scenes took place in the classroom, where the professors uttter meaningless jargon to apathetic students. Nora often interrupts the tales to deliver her quite valid criticisms, such as the fact that Effie creates too many characters. Some of the scenes could be considered more like writing exercises than actual scenes that propel a story. Some readers will find this novel tedious; it does take a suspension of your usual expectations regarding fiction. I enjoyed the contrasting styles and the existentialism of the characters that is alternately tragic and comical. Finally, I found it's labyrinthian stories within stories to be a fascinating exploration of creativity and of identity.

I will admit, it was really hard to continue reading Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson. You're immediately thrown into several stories -- stories that are told within stories and stories that aren't. It's hard to figure out what's going on when, who is who, why you're even reading the book. But believe me, you must continue reading...it's worth it in every way.

I think the parts that I love the most are when Effie's "mother" Nora interrupts her story telling of her experience at the University. Nora's quips are perfect ("does this story have a plot?," "There are too many characters and I can't keep them straight," and "No! Don't kill of Olivia!") for how I felt as a reader. Effie's story (which is a huge chunk of the book) is really funny. Atkinson holds a dry wit that just continues to roll with each page.

And the end...yes, there is an ending, and yes, everything pulls together more coherently than you could ever imagine. I won't say anything more about the ending. If your fear is that you won't be able to get through Emotionally Weird, then just take heed that it will all make sense in the end and you should just keep plugging along.

This book succeeded for me on two levels. I read because I enjoy a good story and this book has several. It has stories within stories within stories. And I found that to be a fun concept. It is sort of like the old play within a play carried to extremes. I kept turning the pages to see how it would all turn out, and how the author was going to bring everything together. I enjoyed the multiple plots and the author's use of language. I found the descriptive narrative wonderful.

It also was a very funny picture of university life in the early seventies. The characters resonated for me - I think I met a version of most of them during my years at university. And I certainly attended the same philosophy classes. I kept assocciating the various characters with people I knew. It was great fun.

The first few pages are a bit confusing, but it is worth carrying on. It was a fun book.

Readers of Brown's BEFORE AND AFTER, a novel that packed a tremendous emotional wallop, may be disappointed in HALF A HEART. The author starts with an intriguing premise: Miriam, an idealistic young Jewish woman, gets caught up in the civil rights struggle during the 1960's. In the course of teaching at an African-American college in Mississippi, she has a passionate love affair with a charismatic fellow teacher, the consequences of which profoundly affect the course of her adult life. While the reader is made to care about how Miriam will resolve her conflicts, the author spends far too much time describing the characters' feelings and emotions instead of letting their words and actions speak for themselves. In addition, Miriam sometimes comes across as a kvetch! Get on with your life, woman, you want to say, and stop all this analyzing and brooding. The book would have been far more effective had it been one hundred pages shorter. (For a more tightly written, suspenseful examination of how the baggage of the 60's can affect lives in the 90's, read Sue Miller's WHILE I WAS GONE.)

This novel disappointed me deeply because it started out so good, with so much potential. A white woman gives birth to the child of a black man in 1960s Mississippi. She leaves the child to be raised by the father, but eighteen years later, still haunted by the daughter she lost, she goes looking for her. That premise has potential for melodrama, of course, but also for an interesting exploration of what it means to be a mother, as well as some complicated racial issues.

For the first hundred pages, I thought this novel would probe those issues in a sensitive and intelligent way. The two main characters Ð Miriam, the mother who left her daughter behind, and Ronnee, her bi-racial child Ð start out as intriguing characters. The pain of Miriam, who has a good life, but canÕt appreciate it because of the hole left by her absent child, is palpable. And Ronnee is a beautifully written character. We learn early on that she agrees to meet with her mother mainly because sheÕs hoping for some money to finance her way to college. And yet she doesnÕt come across as a greedy villain, but rather as an intelligent, ambitious and complex young woman.

But once Rosellen Brown goes into flashback to tell the story of MiriamÕs affair with RonneeÕs father, the novel goes astray. The biggest problem is that the author doesnÕt seem to know what to make of MiriamÕs lover, Eljay. She begins with a promising portrait of a charming and intelligent man, somewhat edgy and resentful because of all he has had to suffer to get where he is. But then, out of nowhere, he gets involved with a group of black separatists who seem to take over his personality. Suddenly heÕs a different, incomprehensible, man. Because we never get inside EljayÕs head, but only see him from MiriamÕs point of view, the change in him seems weird. I have the feeling Rosellen Brown was merely trying to make the point that black racism can be just as bad as white racism, but her political point gets in the way of the story. It would have been a lot more interesting to see what Afrocentrism meant to a man like Eljay. Dismissing his point of view seems like a betrayal of a potentially fascinating character.

And the novel goes downhill from there, with one clichŽ after another. Almost all the characters, black and white, are bigots, and the bigotry is so blatant and obvious, so crude, that it makes the novel seem anachronistic. God knows racism has not disappeared, but the author seems unaware that it usually takes subtler forms than it did in 1960.

Rosellen Brown is obviously a talented writer, and this novel had a lot of potential, but unfortunately the promise remained unfulfilled.

As the mother of several grown children, I've often wondered who my children would have been without my influence...who I would have been without them at the center of my life. This wonderful story explores those "What if" questions in an engrossing and authentic way. By creating a mother and daughter who are desperate to compensate for a lifetime of seperation, this book pays beautiful tribute to the amazing power of parenthood. As is always true of Ms. Brown's books, the writing is lush and lovely.