Most Americans think of Chicken Parmessan, Alfredo sauce or Italian salad dressing when they hear Italian cooking. As an American soldier stationed in Italy I've never seen either of the above. They are all American inventions.

Italian cooking is very diversified. Venice is big on fish and seafood while the inland areas eat more meats. Jeff Smith's book is as close to authentic Italian cooking as one can get. The sheer number of recipes alone will give a person an insight of how Italian cuisine influenced modern American food.

The amazing thing is that there is at least one recipe that I wanted to try that I couldn't find all the ingridients for. It called for a Sicilian wine and being stationed near Venice I couldn't find it in any of the local wine stores. Great book. I will continue to use it for years after I come back to the US. It will remind me of the years that I spent here.

As an Italian tired of Olive Garden-fare Italian cuisine, I bought Smith's book with two ideas in mind: 1) I wanted to understand both the context of the dishes I hoped to prepare and the constituent ingredients (for instance, how is Parmesan-Reggiano made?) and 2) coming to the book with little previous cooking experience -- let alone Italian cooking -- I wanted to be able to prepare most of the dishes in the book. Smith's book excelled at both these. The book is well-written and easy to follow, but avoids pedantry. Some of my favorite recipes are: Italian peasant bread, Italian Rolled Chicken, Bracciole, and the Fresh Tomato Sauce Sicilian.

Anyone who is about to become (or already is) "Older Than Dirt" should read this book. I enjoyed every page. Plus it gave me some usefull tips on how to deal with The IRS !!!!!

Grandpa was reading this book when he died...At least he went with a smile on his face. Some of my friends who read it weren't even offended. This will probably win a Pulitzer Prize, provided the Pulitzer people enjoy high quality booger humor. I am buying this book for all of my friends who are old and still having birthdays.

I found this book incredibly insightful if you are looking to see God's nature more clearly. Though I am not a member of a denominational, and tend to stay clear of books written to support teachings of a churches doctrine - the bottom line on this book is that it will assist you in getting a better picture of God and His BIGGER plan.

Prof. Jeske gives an easy-to-read summary of Genesis, one of the most fascinating books of the O.T. The book goes verse by verse through the text, with running commentary every ten verses or so. This is the standard format for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's series of the People's Bible.

While this won't answer every exegetical question, it remains a very good introduction for the average reader. The story of Genesis is expounded in a simple, sound manner.

This book and the continuing ones are the best comentery on the book of genesis - A MUST to everyone who wants to understand it.

Westermann's Genesis commentary, long held to be a classic, is a valuable addition to any library concerned with serious study of Genesis. This volume, the first of three, concerns itself with the stories from creation through Noah and the Tower of Babel, traditionally called the "pre-history". Westermann carefully examines each pericope from a scholarly perspective with notes, commentary and comments. The bibliographic notes are also very helpful. His awareness of the vast amount of scholarship in this area is carefully processed to provide all but the beginning Bible students with a most valuable resource to which they will return again and again.

The problem with Indermark's Genesis of Grace is that it ends. I wanted his insights and daily readings to continue beyond Easter. Here it is fifty days later and I still miss the book. I hope the author will publish other materials.

Indermark's writing combines biblical stories (readings each day in Genesis) with a commentary that ranges from biblical practice to a very contemporary visit to Auschwitz. This is a good daily devotional book.

Daily readings in the book of Genesis are a bit of a surprise for the season of Lent, but I found this book to be an exception aid during Lent of '98. Indermark focuses on the spiritual journey and makes some surprising connections with contemporary concerns.

This book is not for people who want to hear how inerrant the Old Testament is. Rather it is a fine example of what true Theological examination looks like. Gerhard von Rad takes Genesis and dissects it into fine details. Rarely does von Rad overlook a single detail. Taking into account language, history, and literary device, von Rad deals with Genesis in a way that will open up the stories into a new light, revealing pictures you've never even noticed before. Theist and atheist alike will find this commentary very insightful and useful in their study of Genesis.

This book is an excellent resource for pastors. It is a commentary after the tradition of german higher criticism. I am an orthodox reformed pastor who does not submit to the presuppositions of higher criticism. However, using such a commentary allows me to gain insight into language and cultural issues of the text that might not otherwise come to my attention. Pastors and lay people without training in the origional biblical languages and intricacies of higher criticism should take great caution in utilizing a resource such as Genesis: A Commentary. Others with proper training will appreciate and benefit from Von Rad's excellent work.

This is a truly wonderful book. This author draws on remarkable and broad fluency with text--from Shakespeare and Sartre to Harold Bloom, the Bible itself from Genesis to Chronicles, and rabbinic literature from the Tanhuma to Rashi to R. David Hutner. What pervades this textual fluency is a marvelous attention to language, to the words with which worlds are created.

This book is no easy read. I recommend reading each chapter twice and highlighting or underlining, writing notes in the margins and discussing passages with a partner as you go. Active reading is required, but isn't that just what "midrash," literally to "search" for the meanings of a text, is all about?

This is a study of the book of Genesis but it is also a study of rabbinic midrashic exploration of the book of Genesis. I cannot recommend it highly enough!

Zornberg's love, for the created order and its Creator, is just one of the refreshingly different things about this book, but perhaps in the last analysis the most important. If you are tired of titled and degreed fools who long ago stopped believing that God exists and cares about us, but have to keep publishing, get this book. But be prepared to invest time, and to sacrifice most of what you learned in Sunday School! Most highly recommended!

Paul Borgman gets to the heart of the Genesis matter in Genesis: The Story We Haven't Heard. Through an absorbing analysis of the Biblical narrative, Borgman shows us that Genesis reveals truth in the way that all great literature reveals truth: through relationships. And what he keeps coming back to is that the most compelling story at the heart of Genesis is the relationship between God and His people, a story of partnership, parting, reconciliation, and--ultimately--love.

Genesis: The Story We Haven't Heard by Paul Borgman, IVP, 2001.

As the story of Genesis itself, Borgman's Genesis: The Story We Haven't Heard is a marvelous blend of literary, theological and historical insights. The author encourages readers to go ahead and be bothered by the text of Genesis to their profit. Nothing worse than a complacent reader who already knows what the narrative recounts.

Borgman's study of the Genesis text is excellent. This book is brimming with insights and Genesis readers are truly in Borgman's debt for producing such a fine volume. Reading the narratives in Genesis will never be quite the same after reading, The Story We Haven't Heard.

Specialist and non-specialist readers alike will profit from this book. Written in a very accessible style and with clarity, Borgman moves the reader through the text of Genesis pointing out a diversity of new perspectives that often go missed in the larger commentaries. His major focus is on the narratives concerning Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Esau / Leah and Rachel, and Joseph. The book comprises a select bibliography and useful subject, author, and Scripture indexes.

Dr. G. Laughery

...It is a joy to read, and transports the reader to a world that is lost and which few of us living today ever knew existed. But that is only part 1.
It gets better! Taking up the narrative twenty years later in the shambles of post-war Amsterdam, the story, like life, gets deeper. I guessed at less than half of the intrigues and interconnections that are revealed in the denouement.
I was up half the night trying to finish this book, and the other half trying to comprehend what I had read. It is a compelling commetary on the interplay of good and evil, the limits of government, and the tension between truth and diplomacy. I was left turning over in my mind the well-worn words of Edmund Burke "In order for evil to flourish, all that is required is for good men to do nothing". But which of us is good, and which "nothing" should we not do?

For those who appreciate the old-fashioned British style of novel writing, this Penguin paperback telling of life as a British consul in the 1920's-1930's Venice will be a delight. The man plays as if in his 80's, writing of his youthful work when sent out to Venice. (The author in fact seems to be an Anglo-Indian born in 1955!) He tells of interesting English ex-patriates enjoying the cheap prices of post-WWI Europe, and life in Venice amongst their charms, their parties, their endless hours of leisure. He becomes fond of one Jewish art appraiser and comes to his rescue, he finds himself in confusion over love, and he comments always as if he were now very old and considering all of it again, but in retrospect.

I thoroughly enjoyed this style, and his ability to keep one attached and interested in the motley characters who are tied together by time, place, English language and money, but who then find themselves blown apart by the rise of the Fascisti and the revolutionary forces afloat in Europe.

Though this book covers many topics and Psalms, chapters 9 and 10 (tape 4 in audio) are an incredible fresh look at Psalm 23. Some history and descriptive context explain phrases that are well known, but easily glossed over. Though he is a popular men's author, this section is applicable to everyone - as often as that passage is quoted, it's nice to understand more fully the love and compassion the shepherd has for us and our need for him.

Steve Farrar's new book is terrific. This book will bring encouragement to any man out there - regardless of age. His use of the Psalms in this book and how they apply to your daily walk are true to the Word, insightful, and absolutely 100% Farrar - if you liked Point Man (and I did) you will love this book.