As another reviewer of this particular Karl May travel and adventure story, I was mesmerized by his stories when I was growing up in Luxemburg. It is shame that he is virtually unknown in North America. I've started my great nephew (who unfortunately does not know German) reading the stories in translation. I hope that he will get a greatly expanded view and understanding of other peoples, ways, mores as I did; and that he just plainly will enjoy the stories, because they are SUPERB.

This book is a gripping tale of adventure and suspense that left me unable to put it down especially towards the end. I was drawn into the characters and found myself laughing at their antics. In reading this story I felt like I was traveling through the land alongside the heroes of the story.
I especially liked Halef who was a very important part of the story and I can't wait to see if he continues his journey in the next book.
Even though the book was written more than a hundred years ago the customs and traditions of the Arabs have not changed through to the present day.
Not being an avid reader, a book must be exciting to keep my attention and this book met and exceeded my expectations.
Growing up in my grandmothers house who was from Germany I know the German language can be very difficult to understand and with many of the translations from German to English the true meaning of the prose is often lost.
It is obvious that a great deal of time and effort went into this unabridged translation of this adventure story.
This is the first Karl May book that I have had a chance to read and I can't wait for the next book to be translated.
To the translator I say, 'Great job!'. I highly recommend this book to readers of adventure stories and to children - most enlightening.

The Shadow of the Padishah

This book is a step into the world of Shaharazhad and a little beyond. Our Hero, the Frank, Emir Nemsi, is a German writer on an odyssey into the realm of the Padishah, of Arabian Knights and the rich culture of the Middle East, in search of adventure. He travels with a native companion, little Halef, a devoted servant, bent on converting his beloved Master to the True Faith of Islam. It is interesting to note that our hero becomes a Muslim against his will, all the while remaining a devout Christian, an interesting twist of events. The series of adventures, beginning with the discovery of a murder victim, through the Hajj to Mecca to the victory against the Haddadihn leaves the reader panting for more and more, until you are dropped on your head with a cliffhanger. I feel much like the Shaharazhad' sultan, I simply must know what happens next.

I was quite surprised to find out that this story was actually written in the late 1800's, as it has a fresh and modern feel. I especially liked the author's use of the Arabic words, with the translation right behind. It gives the story an exotic cast, without sacrificing the meat of the Tale.

The story is an honest portrayal of this world, with only a slight European smugness, but much less than most of the literature of the day. The Arab Culture is not portrayed as barbaric or savage; rather we are shown its depth and richness.

I am waiting less than patiently for the next installment of my hero's adventures.
HURRY UP!!!!

This wonderful book is written by someone who obviously knows both the country and its food-everywhere. It's amazing that so much food information could be packed in a book that fits in my pocket. This little jewel is essential for traveling in Mexico whether you think you know the food or know for sure that you don't.

Heaven help the hapless traveler who wanders off to Mexico without this enormously helpful book. I thought I knew Mexican food until I used the Hungry Travelers- Mexico. What a resource!

As fun to read as it is accurate, packable and irreplaceable, The Hungry Traveler for Mexico is the right book for anyone who enjoys eatings as much as traveling. The book is as much an appetizer for travel as for dining; I wasn't sure whether I was salivating more over the descriptions of the food or the thought of being in a place where I could eat such things. Forget your Spanish-English dictionary (it doesn't have important food terms anyway), and tuck this delicious little culinary guide into your pocket. The pronunciation guide is extensive and exact, and Marita Adair not only knows food, she knows Mexico and she knows travelers. It's as if you've found a good friend to eat out with--she won't lead you astray. You'll eat well using this book, you'll learn the nuances of dining in Mexico, and you'll find the way to the heart of the country.

I have tried different types of meditation over the years with limited success. Basically, I either get bored, tired or spaced out. That is, until I picked up a copy of "Meditations on Everything Under the Sun" and read about apllied meditation.
Applied Meditation?
It is a meditation based on getting what you need based on tapping your unconscious and listening to it/changing it through this kind of meditation. I found it personally transformative working on my own issues of anger and relationships and my relationships to illness. But really, whatever is bugging you, there is a meditation for you. Basically you relax and then read (aloud or to yourself) the meditation that most interests you, be it based on social justice, stress or getting unstuck.
For me, it truly works, and truly shows me what I can change within myself.
Another aspect of the book I truly enjoyed was the beginning discussion on consciousness and spirituality. Ms. Adair makes a good case for an interconnectedness between all people and the planet, and speaks eloquently about tapping into those connections in a beneficial way for yourself and the world.
All in all, it is a great resource book and a transformative read.

Buy two copies. One to lend out and one to keep. One of the best books I've read.

This book is sooo great it should come in a small size to carry around in your pocket! It can be a reference book for a moment, a day or your life. It's enthralling, simple, straightforward and totally useful for transformation! Margo brings the power of meditation to a working high that can be applied directly to our daily walk. Read it! It can change your life!

I stumbled upon this book and bought it on the spot (and am back to Amazon for the author's others - just finished buying one). Anyway, it has no words, just [many] pictures. Ricardo Delgado makes pictures worth much more than a thousand words. Each picture adds another part to the story in a really quite clever and interesting way. This story itself is good as well.

The age range indicated is 9 - 12 (which is appropriate, though even adults would like it) but I got this for my 3 year old. He loves dinosaurs, but also it enabled him to look at each picture and tell the story himself (which is supposed help when it comes to reading or something). [As the name implies, there are a few fights amongst them, but nothing too horrid I thought.]

It's hard to discribe the pictures ... for example, to show a particular dinosaur had travelled a long way, you see him walking across several elongated frames, with sun light then fading light, etc. By the end, his head is hanging implying his energy is failing .. To show a year passing at a particular location, it shows first autumn colours, then snow, then spring, etc. These are the two least interesting examples but I didn't want to give anything away and also they were the easiest to describe. The book must be 60 plus pages long with several hundred frames. I think it's something a lot of boys would like, and I took the time to write this because I found it to be sufficiently unique.

PS It's award recognition such as through the 'Eisner Award for Best Limited Series and Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition'.

I'm a dinosaur artist myself, and this book graphically portrays Delgado's dinosaurs as what dinosaurs should be: smart, agile, and fast. His dynamic shading adds real depth to his images. His wordless narations tell you exactly what's happening, and leaves you waiting for a continuation.

This was one of the coolest comics I've ever purchased. I would say It's more of a work of art than a comic. There is no or dialogue, no words of any kind. The magnificent artwork tells the story. If you love art, and, or, dinosaus this is a must have.

Even though the price in the book title is probably no longer applicable, the recommendations are. Especially the Tropicana Inn in San Jose del Cabo -- clean, safe, great location in downtown area. Near great shopping. Avoid the tourist trap of Cabo San Lucas -- go here! Marita Adair would never steer you wrong. We took a trip to hotels she recommended in Mexico and would go again -- our best recommendation!

I have purchased several editions of the Mexico on $__ A Day books, and have found them about the best for my moderate budget needs. And Marita Adair has done an excellent job of keeping the book updated; the 22nd edition may have been the best ever--certainly a classic guide! There has not been a Frommer's budget Mexico guide published since, and I have been very disappointed in the 1998 and 1999 editions of the general Frommer's Guide to Mexico--seem kind of flat with no really new information.

I used this guide to plan my trip to Mexico in January 1997. Overall, I was impressed with the quality of the research. It is oriented toward budget-conscious travelers, who want clean, comfortable accomodations and bargain eats. It could use some more information about the history, culture and customs of the Mexican people.

This book makes for a great introduction of particles & fields for the layman who is inclined to take on a book which surpasses the completely qualitative & popular (non-technical/historical) books that one can easily find at your local bookstore. I should clarify that this book might be seen as somewhat more than an easy introduction by the kind of reader who enjoys reading, for example, Paul Davies, John Gribbon, Steven Hawking, and Michio Kaku's popular expositions on science (physics & cosmology). From a popular science reader's perspective it could said that this book has a technical element to it in that the mathematics are present however I believe they are at an approachable level (i.e. there are no daunting calculus derivatives, integrals or other scary looking formulas). Here, let's have the author speak for himself from the preface:

"In this book I have tried to present those basic concepts of particles and fields and of space and time, as illustrated by modern physics, very much as a professional physicist understands them. I believe that these concepts are accessible to the nonprofessional - that which I can't explain to an interested layman, I must not understand properly myself. Which is not to say the ideas are so trivial that they can be understood by physicists or layman with the "attentive mind"...
The text is nonmathematical, though on occasion simple relations are expressed in algebraic forms that should be known to anyone with a high-school education. Some more complex relations that seem to be especially interesting are presented in the extensive set of footnotes. Though few of these require mathematical sophistication beyond that taught in the first few weeks of a high-school algebra course, mathematical simplicity does not translate into conceptual simplicity, and these presentations often require careful and time-consuming thought. Once written, a book has a life of it's own independent of the author's control; however I suggest that the mathematical footnotes be samples rather than consumed. There are those who can "read" mathematics like a novel, but for most of us so compact an information transfer cannot be assimilated easily and the time required to penetrate the arguments interrupts the narrative flow excessively."

Some of the nice features of "The Great Design" include plenty of intuitive examples, illustrated figures (with some decent Feynman Diagrams), important graphs and tables. I always enjoy when an author includes famous quotes at the chapter headings as Dr. Adair does. I think that you can see into the author's mind just a little more. As promised in the authors preface I quoted above, there are a generous amount of end of chapter notes referenced throughout the main text by number. Many of these offer slightly more rigorous (and technical) mathematical elucidation of the subject or just a deeper peek at the heart of the matter. So, if you are a layman like myself, I would warn you that this book might pose a challenge but a rewarding challenge nonetheless. Based on my experience with other books I have to say that a glossary would have been nice in this book but I did without.
Finally, I thought you might like a peek at the Table of Contents:

Preface.
Contents:
1. Concepts in Physics.
2. Invariance and Conservation Laws.
3. Covariance, Scalars, Vectors, and Tensors.
4. The Discrete in Nature - The Atoms of Demokritos.
5. The Continuum in Nature - Faraday's Fields.
6. The Nature of Space and Time - The Special Theory of Relativity.
7. The Equivalence Principle and the Theory General Theory of Relativity.
8. The Electromagnetic Field - The First Unified Field Theory.
9. The Problem of Change - The Second Law of Thermodynamics.
10. Quantum Mechanics - Determinism to Probability.
11. The Atom - A Quantum Laboratory.
12. Fundamental Particles and Forces - An Introduction.
13. Symmetries and Conservation Laws - CPT.
14. The Strong Interactions.
15. The Weak Interactions.
16. Cosmology - The World's Beginning and End.
17. Gauge Invariance - The Unification of Fields.
18. To the Ultimate Theory - Through a Glass Darkly.
Index.

I've really enjoyed this humble book and benefited from its comprehensive & comprehensible exposition of particle & field physics. It served my wants & needs very well. My hat is off to the author expanding my appreciation and understanding of the subject. A fantastically well-written book which is similar yet smaller (wonderfully succinct & concise) and has less mathematics is "In Search of the Ultimate Building Blocks" by Gerard 't Hooft. If you want a more popular book (no mathematics) you might want to look at "The God Particle" by Lederman & Teresi. As a final suggestion, I am compelled to insist that "The Force of Symmetry" by Vincent Icke would complement "The Great Design" very well! I've written a review of "The Force of Symmetry" as well.

Pick up a copy of "The Great Design" quickly before it goes out of print and enjoy your pursuit of knowledge (it's a wonderful adventure)!
Ciao!
IndiAndy
p.s. remember to read the other reviews as well as the book description & editorial reviews above my review.

This is the finest overview of physics for the layman or beginning physics student I have seen yet. This is not the usual history or biography based introduction but a good low-level mathematical expository on just about every current physics concept.

Perhaps the most lucid introduction to the quantum and touches of cosmology I have yet read. You can take it to many levels and go with the author and his sometimes clever, understated manner. Provides the MOST UNDERSTANDABLE explanation of the twin paradox of any of the (32) books I've read.

What a delightful book! I have read this book at least two times, and it keeps getting better. How wonderfully unique Mrs. Adair writes. I not only read, "Wind Chimes and Promises" I went further, and placed myself in the mist of a large, close knit family. What a joy to read of the strengths portraid, and the Prayers of Sal and Pru. It is very obvious this author did excellent research. I cried when "Papa and Sal." died. I loved reading about the events from the dinners at the "Knoxes." Mrs. Adair has placed so much love and patience in this book, and the readers are all the better for it. A Black family movin and adjusting from life in the South to life in Indiana. This book exhibited endurance, perserverance and a lot of love. Well done Phyllis J. Adair.

What a wonderful book. I have read, "Wind Chimes and Promises" twice. If any reader of this delightful book has an imagination; they must be able to here Sal's wind chimes. I laughed at the antics of the Knoxes boys. I cried upon the deaths of Papa and Sal. I understood what Pru. went through with her husband. This book delivered a message about a Black family. A Black family moving and adjusting to the life from a small southern city to Indianapolis. Mrs. Adair opened her heart, put pen to paper and shared the courage, endurance, perserverance and most of all love of a large family. Well done Mrs. Phyllis J. Adair.

Wind Chimes and Promises is the lovely and lovingly told story of the Knox-Adair family. The book, written in the voice of the author's mother, Prudence Knox Adair, chronicles Prudence's life from the age of nine in the year 1919, when, with her parents and brothers and sisters, she fled the family farm in Georgia after her father received threats from the Klu Klux Klan. The Knox family settled in Indianapolis, Indiana, where Prudence grew up, married, and raised her own children. The characters in these stories are unforgettable, ranging from the mysterious Miss Abigail, who helps the Knox family escape safely from Georgia, to fiesty Mama who keeps everyone in line. We meet Mr. Quiggels, who helps Prudence and her young daughter, Phyllis (the author), cope with the racial prejudice all too common in the 1940s and 50s, as well as Peter Lorre, who tries to persuade Prudence's husband, Morgan Adair, to work for him. In her book, Phyllis Adair shares with us her very real family (wrinkles included) with warmth, kindness, dignity, and love.

Queneau offers a caleidoscope of satirical views about Paris and the people there, and he populates his novel with truly bizarre guys. Zazie is a perhaps twelve-year old girl that comes to Paris with her mother for some days; the mother visits her lover, and Zazie visits her uncle Gabriel. Gabriel works as a dancer (with a balley costume) in a gays' night-club without being homosexual himself. Some of his friends (a shoemaker, a pub owner, a parakeet, a taxi driver, Gabriel's wife, an almost-rapist) make the scene complete.

Queneau does not forget to fill the book with swearwords and other vulgarities that are common in Paris, and he leaves no opportunity out to make everyone look ridiculous - a bus full of tourists, the "gendarmerie", the Parisian car drivers...

I laughed a lot.

Raymond Queneau's comic cult novel is an unjustly neglected classic that was once distributed by the same French publishing house that handled Burroughs' Naked Lunch and Miller's Tropic Of Cancer when no one else would dare. Zazie is a sweet, sassy, cynical little girl with the mouth of a truck driver. She arrives in Paris to visit her uncle (a female impersonator), but what she really wants is to ride the Metro. Alas, the Metro workers are on strike, so our little heroine goes off on her own in search of adventure, driving her poor uncle nuts in the process. This wonderful book manages to be funny and heartwarming while maintaining a raunchy, satirical edge. A perfect book for a rainy day! Definitely not for children or the easily offended, but great entertainment for young-at-heart adults. Be sure to see Louis Malle's great 1960 movie version, which he directs with the pace and energy of a Roadrunner cartoon!

You see a portrait of your beloved inner-Zazie. Isnt't she just adorable

I'm a literary dilletante and I admit it. I picked up this book because of its swell cover and title.

Upon skimming it in the bookstore, I was hooked. Poems about life, without sappy metaphor or tricky construction. Good earthy, practical poetry. Such breadth of matter, such depth of understanding. I felt that I'd met a poet of substance.

Let's leave it at this, Adair nudged me into reading more poetry, more often.

Virginia Hamilton Adair was raised in an environment which seemed truly perfect for a (budding) poet. She was born as the daughter of Robert Browning Hamilton (a poet himself). Her parents suffused her with poetry and gave her loving encouragement. Though for certain reasons she began only to publish them as a book collection in her eighties.

And I for one am very glad to have discovered her! Mrs. Adair doesn't mince words and speaks in a direct, assured and clear voice, so no mannerisms here. She takes a refreshing and intelligent look at things. I do love her fine and wicked humour.

These poems cover a wide range of subjects. The experience of a long life is distilled here. Heartwrenching are many of the poems in the Exit Amor section, because in 1968 her husband committed suicide. Her grief and despair found it's voice in her poetry (One Ordinary Evening, Dark Lines, The Ruin, Exit Amor, The Year After or Coronach).

So try out Ants on the Melon and you'll discover a wonderful poet!

It's always unfair to compare one writer to another, but if you love Emily Dickinson, then Adair's book is for you. Succinct, masterful use of the language. I loved this collection. Buy it!

While the content of this book was excellent, I was even more drawn to the illustrations. Ms. Jones demonstrates poignancy, wisdom, wit, and whimsy in portraying the book's message, always remembering that kids have great sensibilities and that, while words may teach us, viual appeal "sits us down" to be taught.

A delight to the eye.

I read Sugar Was My Best Food to learn more about what it must have been like for my husband when he became a diabetic at age 13. I was so impressed by the honest feelings expressed by the young author, and by the tremendous support he got from his family. Anybody who loves or works with a child with juvenile diabetes should read this terrific book. And diabetic kids should read it to learn how heroic they are and that things will get better with time.

My 9 year old son was just diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. He has never been interested in reading . He received this book as a gift and started reading. He finished it in 4 days and has never finished a chapter book in his life. We need more books about kids with diabetes for him to read. Excellent book.