This book is great! I've tried all the vegetarian and seafood dishes at this point and have loved each and every one. This is Thai food at its best. It's been better than a lot of stuff I get at Thai restaurants, and it's soooo easy. Ingredients are very easy to find no matter where you are.

Ruth is the woman!

This is a wonderfully clear, concise cookbook with easy-to-follow recipes and colorful photos that represent various Thai dishes and the lovely art of Thai display. The book fits perfectly on any shelf, and the spiral allows it to lay flat so you can simultaneously follow directions and prepare food. It is well arranged and thought out, and the mouth watering recipes are simplified for people on the go. This is a definite for your cookbook collection! Highly recommended.

RUTH'S APPROACH TO THAI COOKING IS DESIGNED FOR THE AMERICAN TASTE BUDS. FLAVORABLE AND EASY TO PREPARE. RECIPE INGREDIENTS ARE CONVENIENTLY LOCATED AT ANY ORIENTAL FOOD STORE OR YOUR LOCAL SUPERMARKET. THIS BOOK IS A NECESSITY FOR THE GOURMET COOK AND THE THAI FOOD LOVER.

Judith M. Fertig's "Prairie Home Cooking" is a wonderful compendium of heartland recipes that will make you feel like a modern-day Laura Ingalls Wilder in the kitchen. It is the kind of book you want to sit down and devour while sitting on the couch, drinking a cup of tea and nibbling at a homemade oatmeal cookie.

The recipes are wide-ranging, taking their cue from the many immigrants who settled the American west and midwest. There are many German and Scandinavian recipes here, which is in keeping with the immigration percentages, but there are lots of Native American, Russian, Italian, and other "flavors" in the mix as well.

Sara Love's superb illustrations deserve special mention. These block print pictures lend such a homey, heartland atmosphere to the book and complement Fertig's comfortable-as-old-slippers voice beautifully. This book is a treasure!

Prairie Home Cooking is the kind of cookbook you curl up and read with before ever entering the kitchen. Wonderfully written, it interweaves heartland history with beloved recipes. Growing up in the country, this cookbook took me back to simpler times and the comforts of food made with love. As I plan my move back to the prairie and grow my own food, this book will serve as my never-ending reference and companion. The Blue-Ribbon Brownies recipe (page 373) will make you the most popular baker around! My ancestors, being German, probably made many of the recipes in this cookbook. I am honored to replicate them. Prairie Home Cooking is my very favorie cookbook. A huge variety of recipes- something for everyone!

I gave this cookbook as a Christmas present to a very good German friend of mine who loves to cook and we had fun noticing the similarities between the recipes in the book and the traditional recipes of Germany.

This book is on the mark for anyone not just women who are moving at a very fast pace and need to find peace and comfort in their daily lives. The Prayer of page 12, I call "The Stress Reliever's Prayer" is very powerful and has been of great comfort to everyone I have shared it with.

Dr. Cook's approach to women of the Bible brought them in to the "sisterhood" of my life like I have never understood before. I highly recommend this book at a training I do on stress management called "Are you too stressed to be blessed?"

For me personally, the book has been a great source of peace and comfort and a guide to seek and trust in God. Once reading it and not all at one time, I recommed her other book, SisterStrength as a companion to TBTBS. She indeed takes you on a personal journey to find less stress and more peace in your life. If you are seeking to manage the stress in your life this is a good investment to start with. TDBS

I took this book with me to the hair salon. A stylist sitting a little distance away asked if what the title listed was possible. Answering her was easy...the blessed state of mind from reading the book caused my lips to open to a resounding YES!!!! We as women are indeed "too blessed to be stressed". Thank you Dr. Cook for bringing life into such a dynamic perspective!!!!

Too Blessed to Be Stressed found me on the first pages of the book and ministered to my spirit throughout. Often we get so caught up in the drama that we lose sight of the choices we make that create our scenarios. I found myself humming me back to a centered wholeness and peace that I don't want to let go. Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook, thank you for this wonderful work. It has certainly blessed my life and the lives of my Sisterfriends!

First of all this book ain't cheap so I was rather disgusted that if you exclude the cover it contained not one single picture .... OK so it may be hard to take a picture of pasta sauce bubbling in a skillet but .....

Now for the good part ... recepies in this book are stupendous and many are quite unique with some equisite new flavours for pasta sauce that I think I've been making for over 30 years or so.

Although the book is titled 'while the pasta cooks' and its true that all the sauces are whipped together in a pan or wok the intriguing flavours presented by the authors usually will require some planning and a stop at your local supermarket ....

The flavours presented in many of these recepies are so unique, do not fall into the tempatation to either skip or subsitiute ingredients because the simplicity of the recepies makes them very very unique .... nuff said ...

Appart from my whining about the pictures this is one great cookbook ....

This book is awesome! It sits on my counter and I use it on a weekly basis. My friends have quit asking my for my pasta recipes as they assume it is all from this book - they are usually correct.

Recipes so short you can make them in the time it takes to cook a pot of pasta. And if they are that short how complicated can they be? These are easy recipes.

Great for when you get home, tired and hungry, and need to cook. Simple, interesting, tasty and best of all fast recipes that won't let you starve while you wait for dinner.

This book is about our sixteenth president,Abe Lincon,
who dresses very sharply. He wears a special hat. The
book tells how Abe Lincon helped people.I will read
this book again and again.

"Abe Lincoln's Hat" is a light-hearted, but true-to-the-facts, biography for young readers written at a 2.9 reading level. Unlike most biographies about Lincoln, it does not end with his assassination, which allows children to focus on his humanity. While Martha Brenner's book is written for kids to "step into reading," it works just as well as a read-aloud for primary grades.

This 48 page title could have easily been arranged into chapters for students wanting to read a "chapter book," however it still meets a need for engaging non-fiction titles, notably biographies, for emerging readers.

This title is much more appealing to kids than a similar book by Jean Fritz, "George Washington's Mother."

Recommended.

From the "Step into Reading" series comes this humorous, well-illustrated, and engaging book, appropriately described as suitable for young readers in grades 1-3. And, with all the bad-mouthing of lawyers, it's nice to show kids that the legal system can be a powerful tool for justice, personified here in Abe Lincoln.

That's the adult perspective. Kids will enjoy the humorous stories, evocative pictures, and Abe Lincoln's witty, winning ways in court. The book touches on the slavery issue, perhaps too briefly, but this can be a good starting point for further discussion. It also illustrates how Lincoln got along with his competitors (e.g., opposing lawyers, opponent Stephen Douglas). Presenting values without preaching, this is sure to delight the young reader.

I am the kind of cook who routinely misreads tbl. for tsp., wonders how long "browning" should take (and keeps poking to see what the underside looks like), and tries to substitute ingredients--all with disasterous results. The Basic Gourmet has been a lifesaver for me in this regard: it tells me exactly what I need to know when I need to know it, and it doesn't leave me guessing or, god forbid, interpreting.

The book's first section lists and discusses equipment in detail, setting a teacherly--not bossy or condescending--tone that continues throughout its many delicious recipes, each of which is followed by tidbits such as when you might want to substitute one herb for another, what might make a good accompaniment, etc. The book is detailed and packed full of tips and suggestions, but it doesn't bury the information so that a beginning cook can't see the forrest for the trees. From scrambled eggs and omlet flipping techniques to stuffed pork chops, this cookbook covers all the basics while managing to treat its readers like the potential gourmands they are: even the scrambled egg recipe makes me feel like I'm sitting down to really appreciate a meal rather than taking baby steps or just "making do" for dinner that night. The authors anticipate common mistakes and questions, explain their terminology, give a range of preferred options for altering a recipe, and, best of all, have included all the information you need for each recipe with the recipe itself--not in an index or introductory section somewhere else in the book.

I love my Joy of Cooking, and I refer to it and the Silver Palate often, but this is the cookbook that I learned from and to which I regularly return. This is a great cookbook for beginners, well-conceived and well-executed, and very well designed.

This is great cookbook for dedicated beginners who want to learn to really cook not just get by. The recipes are varied and once you master them are easily adapted and changed around to suite your sense of adventure. The zucchini bread and chocolate gingerbread are always a hit and the tabbouleh page is the dirtiest page in the book...always a sign of a good cookbook...pages that stick together!

As a cook who has over 15 cookbooks this is the one I reach for most often. The recipes are simple but exceptionally tasteful. An experienced cook will find a multitude of useful variations and substitutions listed for each recipe, as well as forgotten techniques. For once there is a whole cookbook full of items you can find in a regular supermarket.

I think my Four Stars are misleading. It is worth Five, if you account for the price and market of the book.

"Line by Line : How to Improve Your Own Writing" provides solid information on editing your own writing and therefore, improving your writing for professionals needs, but it doesn't meet my needs as a communications professional. Writers, in general, will find this a worthy tome, but as a professional copy editing my coworkers and clients I think you'll find this a bit limited in scope.

For the price, "Line by Line : How to Improve Your Own Writing" can't be beat, but I recommend spending a few more dollars on a more thorough text. Check out, instead, an Associated Press Manual of Style and far more meatier text, like "Copy Editing For Professionals" by Rooney and Witte. You'll pay many times more the price, but in the long haul, you'll be glad you did.

I recommend "Line by Line : How to Improve Your Own Writing" but with reservations.

Anthony Trendl

This book is fantastic. It's only about 200 pages, but densely packed with useful information, and every single page deserves careful study. The glossary of commonly confused words at the end is worth 10$ all by itself.

This is not a grammar book (though there is an appendix that gives an overview of English grammar). It is a book designed to improve your writing. It helps you make solid decisions about sentence structure, placing punctuation, and choosing the right words. This book can help guide you through some of the thorniest and most subjective aspects of writing English.

One of the neatest things about this book is that, in addition to the copious examples, the text itself serves as an example of excellent writing. Perhaps the major drawback is that after reading this book, you will end up being much more critical of the writing you encounter!

This book attracted me the second I saw it. I found it to be very helpful, especially the main points the author makes (about wordy sentences, and bad writing). It is very helpful in seeing your own mistakes, for those of us without a copy editor of our own.

There are a few imperfections I would like to mention though. The author began to bore me after repeated examples after examples after the 1st chapter. Though the book itself is an example of good writing, the author uses the word "But" to start of sentences.

Another example of books being just a guide and not a codification of absolute rules, is the author's condemnation of pronoun use in one particular sentence. What the author does not know is the tradition and fact that actors are supposed to refer to their characters AS IF the actor was referring to himself (the author, unaware of common knowledge, criticises one actress for doing this.)

The grammar usage reference at the end of the book is very helpful. It is proper to note one failing, the unnecessary entries which normal people should be aware of. For example, she writes that the proper use of the word "Dilemma" involves a choice of "two assumptions" to a difficult problem. She also takes the time to say that the words "verbal" and "oral" are different (one is words, one refers to the spoken word). My response is: who does not know these obvious facts, and why are they reading an intellectual book on writing? It is rather superfluous.

But I give this 5 stars because it succeeds in its goal, small questions of perfection aside.

My Grandfather (Robert Baboian)'s mother wrote this book. It is a very good Armenian Cookbook. I like the recipe for pilaf the most because pilaf is excellent.

Many great childhood memories were cooked up from this book in my house...we grew up on some of these favorites...even the one for "American" stuffing (dressing) - I've never come across anyone who didn't love the recipes from Rose's book.

I really love this cookbook! I have about quite a few Armenian cookbooks, but this one is becoming one of my favorites. I am Armenian, born in the USA, and have grown up on Armenian food. My parents were from Egypt, and my mother is an excellent cook. Sometimes I enjoy surprising her with Armenian dishes she hasn't had in quite some time, and the recipes in this book come out right and tasting authentic, even without her input! Rose has also written some silly little poems about her recipes, and it just makes me smile picturing this Armenian lady including little rhymes about her recipes! There are no photos, but there are different versions of dishes, as well as different amounts based on portion size, which is really a useful tool. I think this book is a real bargain for anyone who would like to try cooking some Armenian dishes. Whether you are a beginner, or a seasoned cook, The variety of Armenian dishes and Rose Baboian's light writing style will make this a favorite in your cookbook collection.

This book is much more than a bunch of recipes, it teaches process. I've recently found a passion for cooking. This book has been extremely helpful in allowing me to become a better cook. The other cookbooks I have didn't help nearly as much.

I also like that it is large and lays flat without me having to put something on it. It means I can check the recipe without having to hold the book open at the same time. The vibrant pictures really inspire you to want to try out a recipe. I find that inspiration is often the hardest thing.

In addition to all this, the recipes are great. I wasn't a huge fan of the pumpkin soup, but everything else has turned out wonderful.

This is a must have for anybody who wants to start cooking good meals for themselves.

Lots of color pictures (who doesn't want to see what they're trying to make) that remind me a bit of a certain European furniture catalog....The food is really good and easy, and the lists of M (must-haves), L (luxury) and XL (extra-luxury) ingredients are handy, so you don't buy lots of stuff that looks interesting, and sits on the shelf for years. There's a good mix of healthy and not-healthy stuff for carnivores and vegetarians, so everyone will be happy, and most recipes don't have huge lists of things to slice and dice-great when you're starving and just want to eat. The Chicken Saltimbocca is mighty tasty.

I've been cooking for a long time so I really didn't need to know the basics. In fact, as a graphic designer, I only bought the book originally because of its beautiful yet trendy book design. But EVERY single recipe I've made out of that book (about 12 so far) has been incredible! They have everything from sushi, creme brulee, to the BEST guacamole. I HIGHLY recommend this book for anyone looking for a wide range of easy to follow yet great quality recipes!