I learned more about house repair and mantenance by reading this book than I had learned by trial and error over the last 10 years. The photos are beautiful, the topics on point. This book is an eyeopener!

This book is just what you would expect from the guys at This Old House. It includes tips and how-to advice on a wide range of common household problems. The emphasis is not only on repair, but on maintenance and prevention of problems. This book serves as advisory tool for those of us who can't afford to call a professional for every small household problem.

Most Old Testament survey books quickly get bogged down in details about dating, theories of composition, and the like. As such, the end up being pretty useless to the person who simply wants to better understand what is actually *in* the Old Testament.

Thankfully, Leithart avoids this. There is not a word about composition or dating of the documents themselves. Instead, he focuses on the themes of the Old Testament, beginning in Genesis, and shows how these themes are reiterated throughout the Old Testament in preparation for the work of Christ and revelation of the New Testament.

The book is intended to be used for family devotions or study classes. To facilitate this each chapter is divided into a few (generally 3-5) sections with associated scripture readings, review questions, and questions intended to stimulate further thought. There are 8 chapters in all, focusing primarily on the narrative portions of the Old Testament. The prophets are discussed where appropriate, but primarily in relation to the coincident narrative sections.

My only complaint is that the psalms and wisdom literature are mostly omitted. This is understandable given that Leithart's focus is the Old Testament as a single story of redemptive history. Perhaps someday Dr. Leithart will be persuaded to produce a companion volume.

If you have difficult understanding how all those stories (and even those pesky genealogies) that you vaguely remember from Sunday School fit together into a coherent whole, this book is a must read.

This book will challenge your typical "Sunday-school-like" interpretation of the Old Testament. Far more than just a series of somewhat applicable moral lessons, Leithart shows the stories of the Old Testament have been placed by God to tell a much larger story. This book is a must read for students. It should also be read by all Sunday School teachers and Christian school teachers. The information and insights located in the footnotes should not be overlooked.

So why is it out of print? (Had no trouble getting one though.) This book is based on a series of magazine articles for Old Home Journal, so the style is informal. The carefully chosen color pictures set it apart from its competition, A Field Guide to American Houses, by the other husband and wife team. But mostly it's the authors' ability to explain in simple language the events that caused the rise and fall of the various styles: the switch to stud framing, the widely circulated pattern books, the Arts and Craft movement, World War I and the various European styles brought home by the soldiers, etc.

House Styles in America is a well constructed collection of american houses dating back to the old Ironworks houses, Like the Turner house and Bacons Castle,but this book also contains modern houses, like Phillip Johnson's glass house. This book is a great addition to anyones growing architecture library.

Tremper Longman III's "How To Read the Psalms" is a wonderfully informative book on the basics of the Psalms. A person who is either wanting to learn the basics about the Psalms or those wanting to direct their Biblical study in this direction will get a solid foundation. Longman offers other titles to perhaps further one's knowledge in the topics covered in this book.

The book is very easy to read, articulate, informative and Biblically sound. Longman also makes good use of personal application as well as good theological insight. The sections I found particularly interesting were sections on "parallelism", "imagery" and a Chapter titled "The Psalms: Mirror of the Soul". Longman's conclusions are theologically sound and therefore solid.

The author's exercises are good practice for analyzing the Psalms. For me, having an understanding of Psalms makes the context and purpose easier to discern. A good book to add to your library.

I believe that this book is a good tool to help one understand the Psalms. It is easy to read and it uses language that the common man can understand. I like how the book starts off with showing how the Psalms fit in the Bible. I like how it explains them as a mini Bible in itself. I think that Longman does a good job explaining the different types of psalms that are in the book of Psalms. I like the way that Longman explained parallelism and the other elements of poetry that are visible. I was always afraid of poetry and all the different things that it included but it makes more sense. It is very good for Longman to provide some psalms in the back and give an example of what he just wrote about in his book. It makes it easier to understand when there is an example provided. At the end of each chapter it also provides a psalm study of things that were just explained in the chapter. This helps the reader practice what they are learning and I think that that is a good idea. I think that the author did a good job of showing how the psalms relate to the common man. He showed how people could use them to worship and how they can learn from them. Longman did a good job of getting his purpose across and helping one to read the Psalms better.

While we were young, our family read a story each evening together. Hearing the book several times gave me an overall picture of God and man's history and relationship. That's a treasure from my family that will never die. Now my children and grandchildren are appreciating the stories and truths that will enrich their spiritual growth and knowledge. Recently I began using it with international women in Bible studies. They find the larger print and simplicity of language a great help. Yet the Bible's message is unchanged. It is something they can share with their children who often pick up English faster than they have.

It is wonderful for use as a Bible School teacher.It condenses, stays true to the scriptures and adults as well as children will enjoy it. I use it constantly.Makes a wonderful gift.

I was sixteen when I found a battered, old copy of this book in our local library. I pulled it out and started reading ... and could not stop. The girl who wrote this diary was fifteen, addicted to drugs and alcohol, and an artist able to speak the unspeakable, draw the undrawable. At the time when I read this diary, I was suicidal and could not stop the things in my head. In these pages I found someone I could identify with, someone who had felt my pain, and who had come out the other side. Someone who had called herself a witch, slept in her backyard once to get away from it all, fell in love with an older man, loved her horse more than anything, and was painfully, tormentedly, honest. This book changed my world forever. I wish every teenager could read it.

Reminiscent of "Go Ask Alice," this book is a bible for teen-agers coping with drug or alcohol addiction. It doesn't preach; it's a tell-all story of one girl's triumph over her addictions. Although I couldn't relate to the author's problems with drugs and alcohol, I could relate to her problems as a teen-ager. Her brutal honesty went beyond the threshold! Two of the things that separate this diary from others are the author's illustrations and poems-very thought-provoking.

I often refer to it and always find it to be full of insight and wisdom.

I just finished reading it and it is a hoot and a delight! By the way, the author's name is Kathleen "Casey" Null, and I don't know why the title is not in caps up there, it is on the book cover and it is a CAPITAL book! This is a great book to give to a friend who is turning 30-40, or 50! It is like commiserating with your best friend, but it is even more than that. There are great vignettes (I think my favorite is "Eternally Seventeen") and fun stuff like, "The Care and Handling of the Middle-Aged." Casey has a fun sense of humor, but she is also inspiring and even spiritual. I really enjoyed this book and I pick it up when I need a little perspective!

Frances Weaver writes about the options and opportunities available to people of any age, how to make the most of our senior years, and offers good advice -- with such a delightful sense of humor that you truly enjoy reading about coping with the present, enjoying the future, and sharing precious moments with family and friends! Great!

couldn't put it down. exteremely inspiring since i'm where ms. weaver is in life. cleverly written. makes you think how lucky we "older" folks are to be able to do all the things we never had time for when we had families to raise. i agree with her admonition - NEVER WHINE! i reccomend this book to any older person who has lost their zeal or just needs encouragement to reach out and up! i plan to read grandmother faces now.

First, i come to this book as an extended directed self study on the issues involved in the Creation-Evolution-Design debate. This book i rate as one of the 5 most significant books for a conservative reformed Christian who wants to come to reasoned and faithful conclusions in the CED debate. It is conservative which i define to be conscious and considerate of the traditions of the past, to take them seriously, not simply accepting something because it is new. It is Biblical in the way the author is very careful to allow the Scripture's Words to speak for themselves, being very careful not to read into the words his own cherished beliefs, but to allow the Word to speak to him, authoritatively and reliably. To this end he is not infected by the liberal J-P-D documentary interpretation so often evident in exegesis or interpretation.

Second, the book is significant on two levels, the first is the exegetical level, the principles of understanding that the author explores in the first few chapters. Second is the line by line study that forms the bulk of the book, roughly chpt 3 on.

The structure of the book is that of Gen 1-3 but the way he writes is interesting and worth a moment of reflection here. The chapters are more like consistent essays than the usual exegesis bound to the text. He takes a major theme in the next section of Genesis then expands it to cover this issue through the past interpreters and links to other related Scripture. It roughly follows the systematic organization of reformed covenant theology.

pg 26 has what i think is the best analysis of the human writers relationship to Scripture. "That rule follows from the humanity of Holy Scripture. In the act of inspiration God did not turn his sookesmen into robots; his Word became their word, under their signature and their responsiblility. Thus we have no right to go over their heads in order to set forth a 'divine' meaning which they would never possilby have imagined-even if those men did not grasp the whole import of what they attested God in his condescension has limited himself to their instrumentality; our interpretation must conform to the corresponding discipline."

If the church would hend this advice much of the CED debate would be solved, for we would cease to search Genesis for the equivalent of quarks, trying to query the first few chapters of the Bible and mine it for scientific truths. Rather we would, as this author does, submit to the authority of Scripture to speak to the way we do science, to the ideas that we bring to the universe as we question the master workmen's creation that we are a small part of.

The book is literary framework in its approach to Gen1-3, M. Kline being the best example of this in the english speaking world. Anyone familiar with the CED issues would be advised to read the first 2 chapters of this book simply to see a careful analysis of exegesis and the result of allowing Scripture to speak for itself rather than being pushed out of shape by young earth creationists whom would interpret the 7 days too literally. Or by scientific reconcilationists would would try to find modern science confirmed in the light appearing before the sun(ie the big bang).

The first principle he outlines carefully is to allow Scripture to speak to its first listeners, their culture, their history. His exegetical task doesn't end there but extends to teaching what these things mean to us in our place in space and time. But this application, this preaching follows critical-historical interpretation not prior to it as so many would desire.

Thanks to the author for this excellent book and i hope to read more from his pen.

When I was single and about to leave college some 15 years ago, a semester-long private study of this book and the book of Genesis itself filled me with a new sense of meaning concerning my existence as a man in this world.

Blocher argues on the basis of the elaborate literary structure of Gen. 1:1-2:3 that the original readers would have read it figuratively. The 7 days of creation represent neither 24-hour periods of time, nor long epochs of natural history, but are instead a literary structure that conveys meaningful and true content about the relationship of God, humankind, and the creation. No chronological significance was intended whatsoever, Blocher believes, nor inferred by the original readers. The literary phenomena he explores include the repetition of certain key words 7 or 10 times (numbers with symbolic value to the ancient Hebrews), the symmetrical correspondence of creation day 1 (light and darkness) to day 4 (sun, moon, stars), day 2 (sky and ocean) to day 5 (sea animals and birds), and day three to 3 (land) to day 6 (animals and humankind), etc. Moreover, the parallels--or rather deliberate contrasts--between Gen. 1 and other ancient Near Eastern creation stories, show how Gen. 1 served as a pointed polemic that exalted a higher concept of the utterly transcendent/immanent God to whom we are accountable, over and against polytheism. Even the reader who retains some kind of chronological understanding of the days of creation will be enriched by an exploration of these literary phenomena of the text. (A fascinating article, "Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony," by Dr. Meredith G. Kline of Westminster Theological Seminary in California and Gordon-Conwell Seminary, argues similar conclusions, and makes good companion reading to Blocher concerning Gen. 1.

Blocher sees the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2 and 3 as a depiction in mythical terms of a genuinely historical fall of our first human ancestors from fellowship with God. The "seed of the woman" promised in Gen. 3:15, Jesus Christ, restores our access to the "tree of life" (see Rev. 22:2,14,19) of which human sin deprived us. The whole Bible is God's revelation about real historical realities, even if some of those realities (such as our remote origins and distant future) are more aptly and naturally described to us in figurative terms, while others (such as the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ) are more appropriately narrated in a literal manner.

Blocher's book has pastoral value that goes far beyond its relevance to these particular issues of biblical interpretation. The chapter on Man and Woman is worth the price of the book. I was left with a deepened appreciation of the significance of our earthly lives and their activities (marriage, family, work, etc.) in the context of God's plan to call out for himself a redeemed human community that is restored through Christ to be the image of God, and that will enjoy communion with God and one another forever.

This book challenges the standard feminist spirituality notion that paganism in the ancient near east was good for women just because it worshipped goddesses. In actuality, ancient Canaanite, Babylonian, and Egyptian religions were very sexually exploitative of women. The Torah reacts against this exploitation and attempts to liberate women, as well as men, from the sexual slavery of pagan rites. This is the author's thesis as she examines every woman, and every issue pertaining to women, in the biblical books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The author does this through the lens of traditional rabbinic commentary and a belief in divine revelation (rather than academic biblical criticism). A truly fascinating, inspirational book, of value to Christians as well as Jews. It is a virtual encyclopedia of women in the Torah from a viewpoint that says the Torah WAS the feminist document of its day and should be seen and utilized as such today. Thus she takes on, at the same time, sexist clergy and antisemitic feminists. Quite a unique approach!

Using classical Jewish sources as well as material from history, anthropology, sociology, ancient religion, and feminist theory, Judith Antonelli has examined every woman and issue pertaining to women in the Torah, parshah by parshah. The reader will discover that the Torah is not the root of male supremacy that it os often made out to be. Rather, by looking at the Torah in the context in which it was given - the pagan world of the ancient Near East - it becomes clear that the Torah actually improved the status of women as it existed in the surrounding societies. It refutes the common feminist stereotype that Judaism is inherently a "patriarchal religion". The existence of sexism within Judaism is acknowledged - and challenged - but illustrates they are the result of sociological factors, not "divine law.". For instance, the author asserts that even within Orthodoxy, women should be able to become rabbis, and that denying them such roles is a sociological problem, and not a problem inherent in the Jewish tradition itself.