Considering this book is by a musician and professor of music, it contains surprisingly few insights into what was unique about Cole Porter's lyrics and music, and does little to set his work within a musical context. From time to time the author embarks on embarrassing little journeys into pop psychology of the 'Was Porter's homosexuality an attempt to find a significant father figure in his life? We may never know.' variety. The quality of the writing is disappointing. At one point Schwartz describes a meeting between Cole Porter and Louis Mayer, the movie mogul. Schwartz describes Mayer as 'literally oozing with charm', or some such. Unfortunately, this is typical of the standard of writing throughout the book.

Frommer's has always been tremendously helpful when my husband and I plan our vacations. We have followed their advice in the past through the Caribbean and Italy, and their recommendations were right on point. For years, I have recommended them to friends and family as some of the most reliable, informative travel books out there.

I was excited to see the 2001 Caribbean from Frommer's and ordered it immediately. When I received it, I went straight to the Aruba section since we had just booked our second trip to that island for next May. I couldn't believe what I was reading! If you haven't been to Aruba before, the information contained in the 2001 book won't help you at all. It was obvious that the writer hasn't been to the island in some time - I found many of the reviews to be outdated, lacking accurate descriptions and exclusive of many fine restaurants on the island.

In my eyes, Caribbean 2001 has really put a dent in my high regard for the Frommer's reputation. Will think twice about recommending them again....

Good for research but not exactly coffee-table blurb.

I was very disappointed in this book. One of the main story lines in the book is the main character, Linda, helping one of the boys at her high school so as to be the valdictorian of his class over another boy who happens to be Japanese. There are some parts of the book that are terribly racist-America for Americans and preserving it from the "red communists" the "yellow Japs", the "treachery of the Mexicans" and the "slowly uprising might of the black man". The rest of the book is ok-a girl's struggle to do the work she was meant to do and getting her fair inheritance from her selfish sister. I am halfway through this book, but i don't know if I will continue. It is tragic that the author of The girl of the Limberlost descended to such a level-fear based propaganda.

DeSade never actually describes any of the sex acts which I found disappointing. Maybe what were are exposed to today, regarding sex, it wasen't that shocking. I think a lot of people forget that DeSade was from the upper class and never worked a day in his life. So he felt he could look down on the lower class and woman and tell everyone what was wrong with them. Also, from reading his books that he has a deep hatred for woman and men, which I suppose stems from his mother leaving him with his perverted uncle who allegedly molested him when he was a young boy. I expected more.

At 400+ pages, I expected the book to have plenty of recipes and information. But with very large type, and lots of white space, there are actually comparatively few recipes. And, what is there isn't particularly different from other historic cookbooks.
Not worth the price.

If you would like lots of great pictures of many canaries of color and type varieties, you may enjoy this book despite its sometime misidentification of the birds in the captions. I have noted that the quality of the text published by TFH in recent years varies widely. Some of it now seems to suffer due to poor editing and author error. This is especially true of THE PROPER CARE OF... series. For more sophisticated and more accurate text try some of their older selections like: CANARIES AND RELATED BIRDS-- Horst Bielfeld or ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CANARIES-- G.T. Dodwell. The information in these older books may lack the latest trends in aviculture, but these trends aren't covered in the present book either!

I don't know

Taming Monster Moments is a cute book of so-called "meditations," which come across like unrhymed poetry. They are nice and fun for the most part, although the repeated references to monsters will be scary for some children. Other children will find the entries interesting, but the intended messages are at times rather abstract for young children. While the book is listed as appropriate for children ages 4 to 8, I did not find it useful for my five year old.

This book is the real sequel to "Freckles." Yes, the *character* of Freckles O'More shows up in "A Girl of the Limberlost," and is never seen in this book. But "Her Father's Daughter" carries the *themes* of "Freckles" -- that your "station" in life is properly defined by your birth, that there is a true elite "ruling class," that it's wrong and presumptious to aspire higher than your "place" -- to their repugnant logical conclusion.

The central characters are a pair of orphaned sisters. Linda Strong is the titular heroine: seventeen, "exactly like Father" in her fascination with wildlife and the natural world, and with "so many different interests involved" that there is in her life "not the time to spare for boys." Her sister Eileen, four years older, is "exactly like Mother," as Linda says: a clinging vine obsessed with boys, with clothes, with shopping, and with making certain that no other woman stands a chance with *any* man while Eileen Strong is around. She is also an hilariously parodic "evil stepsister" character. After their parents' death, Eileen manages the household accounts, and goes around in the latest fashions and $300 coats, with "many pairs of expensive laced boots, walking shoes, and fancy slippers," while Linda has exactly three "sunfaded, stained, and disreputable" outfits to her name, wears shoes "scuffed, resoled and even patched," and waits on table when Eileen has guests.

I don't think it's a spoiler for me to announce that Eileen and Linda are NOT really sisters. In fact, it's given an overdrawn Foreshadowing by the fourth chapter, when Linda says, "It puzzles me ... The more I think about it, the less I can understand why, if we are sisters, we would not accidentally resemble each other a tiny bit in some way, and I must say I can't see that we do physically or mentally."

Later, Linda finds a letter from her father, written before his death, and even before she opens it she surmises that it will tell her she and Eileen are not related by blood: " ... I believe that the paper inside this envelope is written by my father's hand and I believe it tells me that he was not Eileen's father and that I am not her sister. If it does not say this, then there is nothing in race and blood and inherited tendencies."

She's correct, of course, and it's at this point that Stratton-Porter's genotypy-as-destiny motif -- her obsession with "race and blood and inherited tendencies" -- shows itself even more clearly than it did in "Freckles." Because Linda's father was of the UPPER class, the natural elite, while Eileen's mother was of the crude and unnaturally ambitious UNDER class. Her brother, Eileen's uncle, is of this same under class: he's described as "a coarse man who stumbled upon his riches accidentally," and says things like, "We'll eat a bite because we need to be fed up, and I sincerely hope they's some decent grub to be had in this burg." (Linda, of the upper stratum, is given to saying things like "Commendable perspicacity, O learned senior" to her schoolmates.) And despite all the advantages of growing up with a Strong as a father-figure, Eileen has inevitably inherited the basic selfishness, crudity, and crassness of her mother's family.

But while they're of different classes, Eileen and Linda are at the same time of a *shared* class: they are both of what Gene Stratton-Porter evidently regarded as a natural elite of the white. Because the balance of the story is a truly horrifying racist polemic. An entire subplot involves the heroine's school friend Donald, and his competition with a Japanese student -- "a little brown Jap," Linda calls him -- for the top rank in the graduating class. It turns out that Oka Sayye, devious Oriental that he is, is not really nineteen. He's thirty, and has come to the US to take advantage of America's free schooling. Not just to learn English, but -- as Linda says, in GSP's typically overblown speech patterns -- to "absorb the things that we are taught, to learn our language, our government, our institutions, our ideals, our approximate strength and our only-too-apparent weakness."

Not only that, but he is willing to murder an eighteen-year-old boy who threatens his position as head of the senior class.

Other reviewers have suggested that this book's racism is a product only of its *time*; the racist element is called "a rare twist for Ms. Stratton-Porter". This, I argue, it was *not*. The elements of racism, classism, and elitism are, as anyone can see who has read "Freckles," all too typical of GSP's mindset. It is possible to acknowledge it without being required to like it. Stratton-Porter, speaking through Linda, uses -- without the faintest trace of irony -- such expressions as "yellow peril," and "the white man's right to supremacy," and "a mighty aggregation of colored races," and "they are imitative ... [but] they are not creating one single thing."

I give this book one star, only because Amazon's software will not allow me to give it none at all.

I am a HUGE fan of Gene Stratton-Porter's "Girl of the Limberlost", and I thought the problems with this book couldn't possibly be as large as the reviews said. I apologize to previous reviewers. The problem IS that bad.

I enjoyed the plot centering around Linda taking control of her life and money from her "sister," Eileen, and I enjoyed the somewhat soapy twists of the various relationships in it.

What I did NOT like was Linda's passionate protests against the "yellow peril," in general the Japanese immigrants-and in particular Oka Sayye, a Japanese student at the school. Linda shames the second-best guy at school when he is bested "by a little brown Jap"-evidently this is awful, huh? (Gack!)

There were paragraphs devoted to describing how non-white races cannot create, only imitate; and it is, shall we say, more than insinuated that there is some kind of racial competition, and that Caucasians must come out on top or the world as we know it will grind to a screeching halt.

Linda's racist generalizations were enough to turn me completely away from the character, to her best buddy Marian. These statements are made doubly offensive by Linda's announcement that her Irish cook and best friend, "is a human being!" Just what was the author implying here?

The racism poisoned a story that otherwise could have been quite enjoyable. If, after this review, you still have any shred of desire to read the book, I advise you to borrow or download it.

Gene Stratton-Porter is my favorite auther but frankly I didn't prefer this book to her others. As usual her characters were delightfully charming,(Peter Morrison,Linda Strong) but I forese strong racial controversy against Japanese immigrants. Casting that aside, I enjoyed this book very much!