This is a fascinating account of a devastating fever epidemic in Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States, in 1793. Nearly overnight-- people contract the disease and die within the hour-- Mattie's life goes from being a slightly overworked teenage daughter of a proprietor of a successful coffee house, to a young woman struggling to survive in a city that's taken on the bleakness of a Mad Max film.

Yet somehow we never come as close to Mattie as we might, or as we do with the main character in Anderson's SPEAK. Mattie's thoughts are so much on survival and on food that at times the book feels a bit like a travelogue of a disaster. Salvation, when it comes, also seems abrupt. In the end, this is a quick way to get an immediate feel for a terrible time in history, but although we are told a lot about Mattie, her family, her hopes and dreams, somehow she stays elusive. Emotionally, the book is a little disappointing, but it's still well worth a read.

Fever 1793 is the latest book by the author of the well received Speak. Laurie Halse Anderson has written a historically accurate story about an outbreak of Yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793. The epidemic killed 10% of the poplution of Philadelphia, the United States' largest city at the time. The story is told through the eyes of Mattie, a teenage girl living with her grandfather and widowed mother who own and run a coffeehouse with the help of a freed slave, Eliza. Everyone is affected by the horrible disease, there is no escape and Mattie must come to terms with the devastating reality of the time. Fever 1793 is well written and well researched. In a section at the end of the book Anderson gives the reader the facts about the epidemic, the treatment, the social atmopsphere and various other issues touched upon in the novel. I really enjoyed reading this book. Mattie could be a teenager living today. She wants to sleep in, roam the town, hang out with her friends, anything but stay at the coffeehouse and have her mother order her around and criticize her. The characters where interesting and realistic and the suspense of the plot kept me wanting to read more.

I had read Laurie Halse Anderson's other book, Speak, so I decided to try Fever 1793. It was completely different from Speak, but just as good- even better.

Matilda Cook had a comfortable life for a 14 year old girl in 1793. She helped run her family's coffee house, and had a mother who was strict (but always wanted the best for her) and a fun-loving grandfather. All of a sudden, people begin to die. Rumor spreads that it's the dreaded Yellow Fever. Soon, that rumor is conformed, and people are evacuating Philedelphia in hopes to not catch the fever. When Mattie's mom catches the fever, she must be evacuated as well. Her journey begins there.

This is the wonderfully emotion filled tale of how Mattie grew up in almost 3 months. I loved the way the emotions were expressed, it had a amazing effect. Although this book is very sad (but I tend to cry a little too easily...) it is very realistic. Even though we don't know exactly what happened or how a 14 year old girl might have felt, I think this is as close as it's going to get. I love the raw emotion in this book, and I highly reccomend this book to anyone who loves characters having to rediscover herself in a time of crisis.

Having Our Say describes the lives of two women, Sadie and Bessie, who we can consider heroes. They are two sisters with different personalities. Their lives develop during more than one hundred years among many changes in the society, those changes affect their lives.

The two sisters relate some issues: The most important is racism. They suffer so much from the consequences of the Jim Crow law. Sexism has less consequences than racism. Poverty teaches them to work hard, to save and also to be in solidarity with the people who are poorer.

On the other hand they live and talk about some values: Their family is a model family, educated believers, with ten children. Sadie and Bassie love health and independece.

This book is well written, with plentiful anecdotes and very it is interesting; it is really fascinating, it is historic and dynamic. For these reasons it is recommended for all people. This oral history is beautiful history.

Having Our Say is a remarkable book written by Sadie and Bessie Delany that details their lives over a hundred year period.

Bessie and Sadie grew up in a large family on the campus of Saint Augustine's school in Raleigh, North Carolina during the 90s. They led sheltered lives; Sadie was quiet and well mannered whereas Bessie was very quick to anger and opinionated. They were also very intelligent women who were taught early on to aim high. In a time when most people did not go to school beyond high school, Bessie and Sadie received college degrees. Bessie became the second black woman to practice dentistry in New York.
Sadie became the first black home economics teacher in a New York high school. The Delany sisters spoke their minds, and what they give the reader is a story of pure American history.

This autobiography is filled with stories about racism and how it affected their lives. Sadie and Bessie lived together for over a hundred years. Although the sisters are deceased, their story and words of wisdom live on in the hearts and minds of readers.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in American History. This book is the best history book I've read and the pictures in the book make the story come alive.

Reviewed by Dorothy Cooperwood

These two women have literally seen it all. They were alive before women could vote, blacks could "breath in white air" and the car was invented. Somehow they went to one of the top ten institutions in the country (Columbia University) and became a doctor and an educator making history along the way. They've survived Jim Crow, The Civil Rights movement, the Black Power Movement, the Million Man and Woman marches, and their father was a former slave. They are indeed the best primary source of infomation about black history. They lived though the racist turmoil of five generations, fought through it, succeeded in spite of it and this book shows future generations how to change it. Well sisters, there is a little sister listening and ready to learn how to get to where you are and have been. This book enables me to carry the torch. Bessie we miss you, keep watch in heaven!

Emily's Quest seems often to be telling two stories at once, in two different styles. Emily's relationships with Teddy Kent and Dean Priest often play out like conventional magazine romance of the time. This can get frustrating, particularly in the latter half of the book. However, Emily's continuing adventures as a writer and her from-the-heart journal entries are pure gold, and have the feel of L.M. Montgomery's own experience.

This book does have a bittersweet flavor that is missing from the Anne series, but I appreciate the emotional truth that comes through. Montgomery's insight into her characters is clear but gentle, and rarely unforgiving. My only wish is that she would have trusted her characters to forward Emily's story to the end without resorting to plot devices. Overall, however, this is a worthwhile read that fans of Emily Climbs will not want to miss.

Emily's Quest is an excellent conclusion to the Emily trilogy. I have read the others, but they just don't have the power to move you as much as this book did. The previous books are more light and happy, but this is my favorite! It is not too sad, it is just right. I was surprised that I felt every feeling of Emily's as I read the book. When Emily was sad, I was sad and when Emily was happy, I was very happy!

This is an amazing book that you won't want to miss! Of course, I would suggest reading the first two books before this one to get the background and to understand Emily more. Anyone who liked the Anne series will like this book. I don't know, but maybe I liked this book more than any Anne book, just maybe. I recommmend this to people ages 13 and up (to 113). It is a very satisfying book that will lewave you feeling happy (At least that's what I thought). :)

Emily's Quest is the best book LM Montgomery ever wrote. I think that Emily books are better than the more popular Anne books, because Anne really didn't accomplish any ambitions, even though she got a BA degree. Emily did something in her life, unlike Anne, who just married and did nothing else. I can't believe that anyone gave Emily's Quest less than five stars! They must have not seen what I saw in the book. It is written for anyone older than 10, and no one can be possibly too old to read it. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend you do!

A book printed on glazed paper in a non-standard (10 in. x 8 in.) format normally incites me to be more careful before purchasing. A rather serious browsing made the book attractive. After reading from cover to cover, I can say that Web Redesign|Workflow that Works, is a good acquisition.
This book covers in details a Project Life Cycle, called Core Process, developed and extensively used by the authors in their Web Publishing consultancy business.
The Project Life Cycle contains 5 phases:
1.Defining the Project;
2.Developing Site Structure;
3.Visual Design and Testing;
4.Production and QA;
5.Launch and Beyond.

A separate chapter is dedicated to each phase and provides sufficient information for the reader to obtain a solid understanding of the various processes involved. The reader will also find numerous survey forms and checklists in the book as well as on the companion Web site ....P>This book is not a design manual and, as such, does not cover information architecture, graphics design or production tools like HTML, JavaScript, etc. Also, discussions on the technical infrastructure (hosting, hardware, database, connectivity, security, etc.) normally required to support Web Publishing are considered outside the scope of the book and are not covered. The very important subject of usability testing is covered in a chapter of its own, primarily from a project process point of view. The last chapter is dedicated to various techniques used in analyzing the competition. Rightly so, the book remains focused on project processes.

The suggested Project Life Cycle appears to be using a Waterfall methodology with some fast tracking. No mention is made of the existence of other more recent methodologies such as the Rational Unified Process or those at the origin of the Agile Alliance such as Extreme Programming (XP).

Surprisingly, examples of project schedules are presented in a Microsoft WORD format and no other project management software are covered.

The experience Project Manager familiar with the PMBOK Guide will sometimes be puzzled as no distinction is made between project management processes and product-oriented processes and both can be intermixed and covered in the same paragraph. Once realized, this situation had no further negative impact.

There is no mention or reference to the PMBOK Guide.

This book is best for the experience Project Manager who wants to become familiar with the Web Publishing environment. The novice should first acquire basic knowledge of project management to make good use of this book. The PMBOK Guide is a very good start.

Here are a few suggestions for the second edition of Web Redesign | Workflow that Works:

1.A new chapter on Information Architecture with emphasis on project processes;
2.Summary review of Content Management Systems;
3.Integration with the PMBOK Guide;
4.Discussions on the latest project development methodologies;

Jean C. Ducharme, PMP

For a few years I have been studying web design on my own while pursuing a CIS degree. In my studies, I have aquired many books on various aspects of web design some better than others. An opportunity came along for me at a time least expected and I thought, great! Now I finally have a chance to design my first professional website. I was flying by the seat of my pants, and the client was asking for all kinds of documentation, and I needed an answer. This book was a life saver! I was at a web conference several years ago and Kelly Goto was a speaker, I didn't pay much attention to her then, but this book got my attention and helped me through my first web design project. The downloads are terrific time savers and the diagrams are great visual supports. The authors take an approach that is similar to systems design and analysis, but for the web. I highly recommend this to anyone who is lost, needs a little documentation help, or just wants to be better organized when designing websites.

First of all, this book is probably one of the most current ones (at the time of this writing) to dive into the waters of Web Design from a Project Management perspective. It has to be noted that its focus is heavily on design, but always tying things to dealing with the client, timelines, cost, etc. I thought the title didn't do the book much of a favor: in fact, if you're expecting to find content focused exclusively on re-designing your Web site, you're probably bound for dissapointment, since there's only one chapter (the first one) that touches on this topic that has turned into a very commonplace nightmare situation for Web people to be caught in these days.

However the book IS packed with a wealth of content about WEB DESIGN at large, following what the authors call the "Core Process" which consists of 5 phases, all the way from defining the project to launching it an beyond. Two things that I found the book incredible about were: the space devoted to the first two phases of their methodology (planning and developing site structure) clearly overwhelms the rest of the book, which we all (should) know to be in line with the way things should be done -"measure twice, cut once." Also I loved the fact that the book is packed with illustrations in full color, as opposed to other publications out there, which limit those to "centerfolds" or B&W graphics. So, like I told you some time ago to go get the book on "Web Project Management" by Ashley Friedlein (published in 2000), I now advise you to get a copy of this book. As a Web designer, Webmaster or Web Project Manager, you will thank me for it.

A book this outstanding is rare, as I can see from the customer reviews many have perceived. Paglia's book, which I read when I was 17, crystallized my thoughts on art, sexuality, and human nature: like her I was a freakish female fan of Oscar Wilde, the gay male sensibility, and decadence. I had truly been searching for this book since I was 13 years old and got my first adult public library card, and thereby discovered the endlessly fascinating world of literature and art--the existence of which I'd never suspected. I'll never forget sitting down with this book during Grade 12 Spring Break; my mother and little sisters were away visiting relatives, so I had the house to myself during the day and I sat in the dining room from the time my step-father left for work at about 7 am to the time he returned about 5 pm, reading. It was by far the longest and most difficult book I had ever read, and I took time over it because as other customer reviewers have pointed out, Paglia addresses such profound, disturbing ideas in such original, provocative ways that I did no less than go over my whole life in my head from my earliest memories to test Paglia's ideas. Needless to say, Paglia won more often than not: the myth of original sin is a better explanation of art and human nature than the myth of social constructionism.

If you are truly open to ideas and you love art, don't read this book unless you want your life completely changed for better or worse. Almost ten years later I find myself completely intellectually alienated from both peers and most professors in my university English program because I continue to fight UNCOMPROMISINGLY for art and independent thought (not to mention intellectual rigour and standards and good prose!), thanks to Paglia's inspiration. But it makes it worthwhile when I come on amazon.com and see that others have felt the same way I do. For you others, if you're looking for other *special* works of criticism (neither the run-of-the-mill merely accurate kind nor postmodern drivel), I recommend George Toles's A House Made of Light: Essays in the Art of Film and Stanley Cavell's Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. If you read them after Paglia you'll have some balance, too, since Toles and Cavell emphasize the link between art and morality, while treating the subject with the complexity it deserves.

I read this book almost by accident back in 91 or 92 - and once I got past the first chapter or so - where Paglia has to set up the whole male/female light/dark thing - I was hypnotized by the words and intelligence and clarity of a writer that I now consider among the most erudite humans in the English-speaking world!

Paglia is a magnificent writer, with an almost inexhaustible supply of references and history and personal anecdotes and a brilliant way to make the boring:interesting.

WOW! Anyone who can turn medieval English poetry into a saucy chapter is not only a skilled writer but a brilliant one! Paglia married the old with the new and shows us the true power of women - and by the way - the reason that many femNazis hate Paglia is because Camille employs her sexuality like a weapon!

Want to know what sex and power really mean? - Read this book!

First Off: There's no way I'm going to cram into a thousand words everything I feel I need to say about this book. Thus, I'll stick to what I regard as the bare bones of its import. The first thing you have to realize is just how much Paglia owes to her mentor, Harold Bloom. I would strongly advise any potential readers of this book to read both The Visionary Company and The Western Canon before embarking into this scintillating morass, however unrealistic an expectation that may be.
This book, despite all the lip service given to the "Appolonian," is deluged with the Chthonian, and the reader will come away from this tome besplattered with the mud and slime of the swampy Chtonian Nature of the world than anything else. Mind you, there's nothing contradictory in this result. It is indeed just what the much-praised Appolinian artist does, according to Paglia: Reveal the Chthonian with a voyeuristic, Spencerian eye. This Paglia does with an elan and flair unmatched in critical writing.

But beware! Paglia, like Bloom, is reductionist. Bloom's ultimate take on more or less the same subject matter with which Paglia treats is Gnosticism, thus ultimately spiritual. Bloom sees a sort of warfare going on between the earthly and chthonian and the spiritual. He resolves this in Gnosticism, an heretical sect that flourished in the early centuries A.D. and maintained that this world is evil, created by a "demiurge" and that the visions of poets like Shelley are nothing less than emanations from another realm. For Paglia, all this is sexual, and Bloom would not deny a sexual element in all of it, but he goes a bit further in explaining it. Prime example: Paglia's "womb/tomb" of the Chthonian is simply a given. In Bloom, it is the prison of our Fall fom the Gnostic other realm. It fits into a cosmology.

There's a very weird realization that comes over the reader (at least this reader) when we come to the Coleridge section on his poem "Christabel" and the vampire Geraldine and continues creeping over him or her until the final chapter on Emily Dickinson. I know no other way of saying this than that Paglia BECOMES Geraldine to the reader. - I agree with her that Emily Dickinson is an extremely powerful and misunderstood poet and, indeed, have spent several ultimately worthwhile hours poring over her short poems to discover the sexual/spiritual depths. But, sorry Camille, Dickinson is just not another Sade altogether. But in the way Paglia presents her, with Sadean snippets of her poetry, the reader who is unfamiliar with the rest of Dickinson's work cannot fail to come away with this conviction. - For the record: I think part of Dickinson's persona is sadomachistic, but it is only a piece of a complex puzzle.

What we are witnessing and in danger of becoming engulfed in (It happened to me.) is Paglia' own mythopoecism. At some point between Christabel and Dickinson, Paglia becomes the subject of her work. We fall in love with her (I did.); but in the way that Christabel does with Geraldine. She lures us into her own imaginative fixation on the Chthonian womb/tomb of the female, and we identify HER with IT.

In conclusion, READ THIS BOOK, if only for the transformative effect it will have on you. In the last page of the book, Paglia says of Emily Dickinson that "She is frightening!" Yes, Camille,.....YOU ARE!

If you've ever heard someone tell a story, get no response, then say "I guess you just had to be there" then you'll know what it's like to read this book.

At best, I'd call this a collection of "nice" friendship stories and bonding moments. But as far as the "wild" side of women's friendships, this book was a let-down. Perhaps the stories got better in the last half, because I could only read the first half before I gave up.

I think this book is definitely a title catcher! I loved it and gave it to all my "chicks" young and old. I don't believe that you have to be a certain age to understand the concept of being a "chick" But I do believe that you have to have a certain Personna, and I don't necessarily mean outwardly wild..its that inner wild. Some women just will not "get" this book. But that's okay it's just for the true "chicks" Although many of the stories were different I recognized myself and my friends in it...and my friends are varied from young to old and wild to conservative. If you believe you are a CHICK read it. If just being called a chick set your teeth on edge forget it or else GET A LIFE! For myself, it sits by my bedside for chuckles every now and again.

A refreshing and fun view of women's relationships! I thoroughly enjoyed each story, especially that some were written by famous, some by younger and some by older women! The book made me laugh out loud and it inspired me pick up the phone to call friends that I have not spoken to in a while to rekindle old laughs and set the stage for new adventures. There is nothing like a good group of girlfriends to have fun with! I recommend this book as a gift to all your "Chick Friends"! It will add spark back into your life!

I absolutely love the books in the Emily series, and though I love all of them, EMily Clmibs is my favorite!! I think it the funniest, with Emily having to go and live with Aunt Ruth, and put up with snobby classmates, and rumors about her and her friends. I like the touch of romance in it, with Teddy saving her from Mad Mr. Harrison. The ending leaves the reader wondering what Teddy's feelings are for EMily, and it makes one want to read the next book. I only wish LMM wrote more Emily books! And why doesn't someone make an EMily movie?? I would love to be her....

I've re-read this book so many times. It's like visiting an old friend.Wonderful to recognize.Loving every word.

Emily is one of the very few persons, in books that I can say that I really know. She's like noone else.
And I agree with one of the other reviewers, this isn't a book for just little girls. I belive that everyone could read them, no matter which age they are in.

If you have read some of Montgomerys books this is surelly one you don't forget. Emily will allways be with me, just like Captain Jim in "Anne's house of dreams" and Walter in "Rilla of Ingleside". That is two books I also recommends,with all my heart.<...I'm glad that I have to other ones. They are so precious to me. So I would like to end this review as one of the other reviewers - I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT

I read these books when I was about eleven and I liked them so I decided to read them again at fourteen I had no recollection of these books being so wonderful! To me as an aspiring writer, they were very inspirational. The language that Miss Montgomery uses is so beautiful that I often got lost in the words of the book, drowned in a sea of beatiful phrases and thoughts. Through all three books you journey with Emily on her quest for happiness, love, and the ability to write and get published. They are at times dark, sentimental, and above all else lovely. I cannot recommend this book enough. I cried at the end of Emily's Quest (the third book) the only books that have made me cry are Little Women, Gone With the Wind, and A Walk to Remember (yes it is a book as well as a movie) Finishing the series was kind of like losing a friend, but it is comforting to know that I can look in on dreamy Emily, bouyant Perry, wild Ilse, and enigmatic Teddy whenever I feel the need. These books add a savour to life, you notice things you've never noticed before. I found myself enjoying nature and all the wonderful things it brings after I finished this book. I started comparing the wind to a woman after I read the books, have you ever noticed that the wind caresses your cheek when it whispers by, just like a woman. She can be gentle and calm and at the same time vicious. After you read this story you will notice simple things like that, life will have a new savour. I love this series. Anyone who reads these will enter the realm of Emily. You will laugh with her, cry with her, anguish over her losses, and above all else, rejoice over her victories.

This is my favourite novel by Dickens and one of my all time favourites.Some of his best known characters are here:the ever optimistic Mr Micawber,the stout hearted Aunt Betsy,the slimy toad Uriah Heep,the troubled Steerforth,faithful Pegotty, honest Ham,the nasty Murdstones, and so on.Even Jip the dog is brought to life with real character.No one has created such characters as Dickens.They are a sheer delight.Dickens has a wonderful sense of humour, which shines in this book.He also has a very readable style of writing.He can be overly sentimental, but this was expected by 19th century readers.Agnes, David Copperfield's second wife and true love is just too good to be believed.We can forgive Dickens these irritations, because he gives us the most memorable characters in literature.Also, there is a great deal of sympathy and affection for ordinary human beings and their foibles in his work.This is a novel which can be read over and over again during a whole lifetime, giving much pleasure with each reading.

Charles Dickens is synonymous with literary masterpieces... And rereading this book again since high school has given me a new appreciation for this author's work. He brings us humanity at every angle... the goodness and evil, love and hate, life and death is displayed in his writing. It's about a young boy who overcomes being orphaned and child labor to become a man of his "own account" and finding true love. Although, even after all the trials and tribulations that he goes through, he still remains pure and consistent. The good in him, since a young boy, remains in him as an adult. David Copperfield is amazing. He brings us many memorable characters and even more memorable scenes. Who could forget Mr. Micawber, Miss Betsy Trotwood and Uriah Heep? And the scenes from his early childhood to all that takes place in the Yarmouth seashore is unforgettable. More like a memoir than a fiction, this pseudo autobiography must have been close to the author's heart. Dickens himself said in his later years that David Copperfield is his "favorite child".

What a wonderful book. I've cried and laughed, even though, I didn't think I would enjoy this book. I was thoroughly absorbed from the very beginning and couldn't put this book down. One of those books you should read once in your lifetime...if not twice.

Julianne

Charles Dickens is a master at re-creating the world. Throughout most of his books, Dicken's own life is recreated time and again, always with a different plot but with the same basic truths. In "David Copperfield", we go along the protagonist through his troubled and orphane childhood, his sufferings in terrible public schools, his trip to the beach to visit his nanny, his life with the stern yet loving aunt Miss Betsie Trotwood, the intrigues of the despicable yet fearsome Uriah Heep, his marriage to the childish and immature Dora, the betrayal by a trusted friend, success without happiness, and finally the encounter with true love, in the form of a friend from youthness.

The characters are all people you find during your own lifetime: your friends, your aunt, your sweetheart, that woman you love but you can't stand, etc. Copperfield is the story of a good man in his learning through difficulties and setbacks.

No wonder it is still read and probably will stay alive through the decades: Copperfield has something to tell us all.

If you want some easy, truly enjoyable reading, this book is something for you.

The heroine, Rebecca Bloomwood is a shopaholic, and her main problem in life is how to pay her cradit card bill. Or, no, may be this is not actually a problem; letters from the bank can easily get lost, phonecalls from the bank can be denied because you are too ill to speak to them, and of course next month you will be able to pay, when you win the top prize in the national lottery.

Rebecca is another female, single Londongirl, following in the line of so many others, starting with Bridget Jones. And the story about Rebecca is so funny written, once you start the book you want to read non stop untill the end. Will she be able to pay her debt, will she CB (Cut Back) or will she MMM (Make More Money) The most enjoyable side of the book is that it spotlights so many of today's shopping habits, where the only comfort is to buy oneself a little something. And of course shopping is the meaning of life, well, at least looking at prizetags is. What's the point in visiting a museum, even the famous V&A, where the displayed items have no prizetags?

Britt Arnhild Lindland

Writing a truly humorous novel is, I have to believe, very difficult to pull off. Heaven knows, I've been disappointed often enough. CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC, by Sophie Kinsella, is a rare gem.

Rebecca Bloomwood is a single, twenty-something English lass with a serious problem. She shops beyond her means with a vengeance, blithely ignoring, sometimes discarding unread, the concerned letters from credit card issuers requesting payment. (The demands are very genteel, of course. Her creditors are British, after all.) Yet, she'll go into a panic at the prospect of losing the opportunity to buy a $540 designer scarf at two-thirds off. Ironically, Becky is also a financial journalist for the magazine "Successful Saving" - she advises readers on strategies for increasing their personal nest eggs.

Becky has every good intention of paying her debts, though spending an additional $300 in a single day on Stuff is not extraordinary. The fun of this book is watching her escape from impossible situations, or hemorrhage money, despite every scheme she devises to either save or earn more income. Between chuckles, you just want to slap her out of exasperation - for her own good. Two examples ...

Determined not to spend a Saturday on frivolous shopping, she decides to visit London's Victoria and Albert Museum, admission for which she thinks is free. (Save money and absorb culture, all in one go.) Unexpectedly faced with an $8 entrance fee, she purchases the $24 season ticket. Then, after trudging between exhibits, which, disappointingly, have no price tags attached, she discovers ... the Museum Gift Shop.

Hoping to land a banking position in the City, she sends off a suitably embellished CV to a high-powered head-hunting firm. So impressed is the agency with her professed abilities, including a totally fictional fluency in Finnish, that its representative, unbeknownst to Becky, arranges an on-the-spot and surprise meeting between her and the recruitment director for the Bank of Helsinki. ("I can't wait to hear the two of you talking away in Finnish," chirps the rep.)

This book is particularly delightful because Becky is so endearing. OK, so she rationalizes away reality, and is shallow, immature and irresponsible. However, she's not a bad, malicious person, nor is she hard-core dishonest. She's actually quite pleasant - a most agreeable person with whom to spend the day ... well, shopping. For these reasons, I rooted for her all the way to the end, at which time my faith in her essential goodness was justified. You go, girl!

I started it last night and stayed up till 3 a.m. to finish this book! I really enjoyed this book ~~ it was funny, lighthearted and cute! I laughed out loud in some places and found myself shaking my head in other places.

Rebecca is a girl who overdraws her bank account and maxes out her Visa card. I am not a big shopper (unless you call shopping for books a shopping spree ~~ then I am!) of clothes but it was funny just to hear her describe her clothes like she is posing for Vogue or Cosmo or even 17. Her justification for buying things are hilarious and the scene where she was trying to make curry made me laugh so hard! (I'm a cook and that scene just cracks me up because I've done the same thing she did!) Sophie took a character riddled with anxieties and insecurities and made her so likeable ~~ you can't help but laugh at some of her excuses. She has a vivid imagination which really carries the book through.

I can see why some of the critics didn't care for this book ~~ it does sound like something from a fashion magazine, but Sophie is a good, clean writer. I really enjoyed this book and would like to read more of hers. Her sense of humor is a lot like mine and it is a refreshing read! I recommend it for a light, easy reading and if you're looking for humor, this book has it all.

This is a stunning masterpiece of American literature. Wharton reaches the heights achieved by England's George Eliot in Middlemarch. Age of Innnocence is considered one of the top 100 novels in the English language and I heartily agree. The novel is set in the Golden Age of New York high society in the 1870's. Like Middlemarch, manners and rigid conformity assure success. Love is an anomaly.

Newland Archer, rich and well-connected, is poised to marry May Welland. She is beautiful, suitable and pure. In fact she is compared to a Diana, goddess of the hunt. This is the virgin archetype, untouchable, pure and only desirable from a distance. Archer meets her scandalous cousin, the Countess Olenska. Olenska has committed the unforgivable and left her husband for another man. She is taboo. She is also older, wiser and sexual (more taboos.) Archer is irrestibly drawn to her and thus forms the conflict for the rest of the novel.

No one of her era writes of toxic marriages better than Wharton; she had her own tragic marriage to a man who used her fortune to set up a house for his mistress. And don't forget Wharton's equally famous novel Ethan Frome, about another toxic marriage that ends in grief.

Good news,by the way; Wharton's home in Lennox, MA, the Mount, is being restored. It's home to a resident theater that does some brilliant Shakespeare. If you have a chance to go, do so. It's a wonderful experience.

Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence takes the reader into the fantastic world of New York in the late 1800s. Wharton shows an adept handling of her figurative language as she tells of the elite society in that great city. But more importantly, she draws the reader into the burning love triangle between Newland Archer, his fiancee, May Welland and her cousin, Countess Olenska. These characters each display a certain piece of society; with beautiful, innocent May the ideal society-girl, following all the conventions she had been moulded to follow; with Countess Olenska, the foreign, freedom loving, and sensuous member of one of the highest-ranking families of New York, who broke all the rules and never noticed they had been broken; with Newland Archer, the man who had been raised under the strict hand of society, yet longed to break free, torn between his fiancee and the woman he loved. This novel seduces the reader with its tale of betrayal and forbidden love, and astounds them with the outright hypocrisy that this old New York society displays. If you are someone who loves literary structure, hidden symbolism, and outstanding use of figurative language, this is a must-read novel.

This beautifully written book is definitely one of the best books of twentieth century as well as Edith Wharton's masterpiece. It is engrossing and exciting. The story is in Old New York, where life is so much different from our present life. The main charachter, Newland Archer, is engaged to marry his beautiful cousin May Welland. Then ,Countess Olenska , May's Europeanized cousin, steps into their life and stirs the educated sensivity of Newland Archer. Newland finds out his passion for the Countess, however it is too late now : the wedding is only a month off. The charachters are very interesting just like the plot!. May is identified with "Lilies -of -the-valley" , whereas Ellen Olenska is identified with more exotic flowers:Yellow Roses. Lilies of the valley symbolize May's innocence and purity while yellow roses symbolize Ellen's infidelity. As you travel through the pages of the book ,you'll visit another world: A world where women are wearing corsets, order their dresses from Paris and live in a world of velvet ,silk ,satin and finest cashmere. Where people go to Operas in carriages and watch them with their jewelled opera glasses.A world filled with balls and dinner parties.A world where people are unbelievably afraid of the smallest disgrace... Where society has rules as rigid as womens' corsets... The age of innocence will teach you that there is no age of innoscence.