This book weaves a passionate love story with real issues in today's headlines and a mystery! It is very well written, and truly hits home. It is a book for those that are wondering whether the Prince or the Princess to love took a detour. Read this book, it will renew your hope in love and maybe even move you to go get it!

I love suspenseful mysteries and I could not put this book down. The characters become real and wrap you in their lives.

Wonderfully written with multiple storylines that are beautifully woven together. Suspenseful with characters one grows to care about. The author clearly knows his subject and makes an impact. Fast-paced and moving. It's a psychological thriller. It will resonate with anyone who has dreamed of falling in love. I highly recommend it.

This novel involves many themes dear to me - family cohesion, trusting one's intuition, justice for victims, and falling in love. Lots of twists and turns in the plotlines. And, just when you think there's a happily-ever-after ending, another startling surprise comes out of nowhere. The characters are well fleshed-out; you get to understand these people, even the characters making brief appearances. A pure delight to read - I hope there's a part two on the horizon!

This book didn't add much. Most of the information and pictures have been seen elsewhere.

Georgina Howell clearly takes the Andrew Morton (read Diana) point of view on the Princess's persecution by the palace and casts her as a kind of saint in a fashion-conscious hagiography. The text was a little too hyperbolic in deifying Diana, yet perhaps that is appropriate, as few have done so much for fashion in our century.

But this book has redeeming qualities that make it worth the time. First, it does cite instances of Diana's fashion faux pas that are gossipy and interesting, for example her dressing-gown dress by David Sassoon and her slip-style dress by John Galiano for Dior. It is also quite meticulous about citing designers and recounting their memories of dressing Di. This humanizes a commercial name and gives the reader a sense of what her patronage meant to these fashion houses.

The best aspects of the book are the appendices listing the auction catalog by piece and the designer listing with short biographies. This is a wealth of specific information that couture-ophiles will love.

Having read various books on the fashion of the modern princess, I think that this is the best book so far that has been produced.

I am sure that readers would appreciate the time spent with providing detail information with the necessary large and colored photographs etc.

Apart from the great production, I think everyone has a special feeling knowing who Princess Diana was as a person! Today , July 1st., 2000 marks her birthday anniversary and I therefore take great pride in recommending this book to others by making a comment on such a date.

I do NOT find Kelly's voice soothing; in fact, these tapes might be a lot more effective if she'd hire a professional actress to do the voice over. Kelly's diction is amateurish and irritating. The script was unfocused and didn't help me relax at all. However, the music (alone on Side 2) is worth the price of admission... extremely peaceful, slowly shifting chords over a pedal tone, which, while it may or may not actually contain delta waves (as is claimed), never fails to lull me to sleep.

I found this tape very helpful in relaxing my whole body, which allowed me to reach a new level of relaxation. I fond her voice very helpful and soothing. I hope that this tape can allow many others to reach that same level of relaxation

I found this tape very helpful in allowing me to let go of much of hte tension that I hold through out my body. I found her voice to be very soothing. I was reccommended to buy this tape by my Psychiatrist to help me with my healing process. I hope that others can find this tape helpful to let go of stress and find a new state of relaxation :)

This book shows adopters who treat their new family in a humane way--unlike closed adoption, which is a system that's both outdated and cruel. I wouldn't recommend it as the first book prospective adoptive parents read on the topic, because the extreme openness of the Howells' adoption might make them think they had to achieve such closeness right away, but I do recommend it be read. I cannot fathom the comments of the reviewer above. Is she even a triad member?

In short, a good book on an important topic.

I completly disagree with the review that Kirkus Reviews has posted. This book changed my life after I read it. Like Nancy, I became pregnant in high school with the only reasonable alternative to be adoption. After speaking with a number of agencies, I decided that I wouldn't be able to place my child in the traditional, closed adoption. I loved the idea of open adoption because I could continue to see my son and keep in contact with him while continuing on with my own life. When he comes of age and understands what the situation is, I will be able to tell him why I made my decision and why I placed him. He won't question my love for him since I have played such an active role in his life. I understand that some people, birth parents as well as adoptive parents, may not agree or feel they could be a part of this type of relationship, but we think it works just fine for us.

WE WERE GOING THROUGH AN OPEN ADOPTION THAT HAD IT'S MOMENTS. I HEARD OF THIS BOOK BECAUSE THE SUBJECTS WERE ON A TALK SHOW AND I THEN PURCHASED THE BOOK. IT KEPT ME GOING AND I WAS AMAZED AT HOW SIMILAR THE HOWELLS' CONCERNS WERE WITH OUR OWN. IT WAS NICE TO SEE HOW IT IS POSSIBLE FOR EVERYONE IN THE ADOPTION PROCESS TO WORK TOGETHER FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CHILD INVOLVED. FOR THE REST OF THE CHILD'S LIFE THEY WILL NEVER QUESTION WHO THE ARE OR WHERE THEY CAME FROM. I ONLY HOPE THAT OUR STORY TURNS OUT AS WONDERFULLY AS THIS ONE DID.

Even though I liked Tess, there was something not quite right about the story. It didn't focus enough on the love story. It was all about their hiding. It got much better when they stopped hiding and Tess was captured. Also, her family was hilarious!

I found this book to be only an "OK" book. I found myself skipping over a lot of it... never a good sign. There was not enough sexual tension between the two and the plot regarding the treason was never really very interesting to me. The hero, Revan, did not make me "sigh" like a good romantic hero should. I like a good story full of romance and adventure, but this one seemed to drag along a little too much for my taste.

When you read this book you will be transported back in time. The characters are so real you never want the book to end.

I have been a fan of the book _The Secret Garden_ since the first time I read it in grade school. I read the book a minimum of once a year - probably for 12 years. I was really disappointed in several versions of the movie I have seen. They either added weird scenes that were not true to the book or left out too many details for my liking. I know that I can't expect movies to stay entirely true to books - particularly when modern Hollywood makes a movie out of a children's literature classic... but this is absolutely the best version of the story I have ever seen as a movie.

I only gave it 4 out of 5 stars because they made a strange frame around the story - with Mary coming back to the Manor after the war and flashing back to the whole story. That in itself is fine -- but for some reason at the beginning a cat jumps out at her (and then instantly the flashback begins), why??? And at the end Colin comes and meets her in her garden and proposes... aren't they COUSINS?

Little spoiled Mary Lennox is orphaned in India and sent to live with a distant relative. Alone and scared she has to learn the English way of life. Martha her maid teaches her how to dress herself, and gives her a jump rope opening up a whole new world to Mary. The gardens of the 100 room mansion. Here she meets the head gardener and learns of the Secret Garden. Mary also finds that there are many other secrets in this house, her hunchback caretaker that seems so sad, and the crying at night.

The setting of Yorkshire England and the rich cast of characters including the maid Martha, Dicken, Martha's brother, and many others make this a wonderful book for all ages. I have read the secret garden hundreds of times and each time I get something new out of the book. It's a true classic.

This has to be one of my all time favorite Hallmark movies. I have seen other movie versions of "The Secret Garden," all of which seem much darker. I have to say, Hallmark has made the most enjoyable version of "The Secret Garden" to date. the childeren in this movie are wonderful.

Child characters: "Mary Lennox," spoiled, lonley, sad child. Taken from her home to live with a guardian in England after her parents death. "Dickon", Mesterious boy who communes with nature. "Colin," son of Mary's guardian, is hidden from society.

In the movie Mray sets out to find and unlock the secrets to the mesterious garden, making friends along the way.

The scenery in this movie is breath taking at times. One of Hallmarks best! A must have for any Hallmark Hall of Fame fan. Good to have in any movie collection!

For those who know any web based programming languages, this book is for you. It gives you the scoop on WAP and what makes it tick. It presents the basic syntax of WAP in a fairly easy to understand format (put it this way, if you know HTML you practically know WAP). It also has an awesome section on how to integrate it with what you already know (In particular the Cold Fusion section was awesome! I leave it to those who know ASP, JSP, and XML to judge the other pieces).

In short, don't buy this if you're just starting web development, I would recommend you learn HTML and one server side language (ASP, ColdFusion, etc.). If you do that, then you're ready to learn WAP with this book and build some truly awesome stuff for the ever blooming wireless world!

This is a great book in this topic. If you are a beginning WAP programer and you want to understand: .the WAP's architecture .what means the terms WAP GATEWAYS, WAP SERVER, WML, XML .what the difference between WAP SERVER and WAP GATEWAY .what are the relations between HTML and WML (or XML)

this book was made for you.

Very good!

This is my first book on Plain WAP and I found it very easy to use and to read! - I also bought the XML for Professionals by wrox which gave me a very good WML Background.

The writing style is absolutely excellent and gives clear tips on code optimization and performance. I have read literally dozens of different books on WAP, and none has been so specific. Although this book is not for total beginners, it is, in my opinion, good for anyone who wants to advance their career on the web or become an WML developer. This is definitely a book you will want to read from cover to cover, and use as a reference!

As a fundamentalist, straight Christian, you might be surprised that I would recommend this book. But the medium for our witness for Christ is the relationships which we have with others and this book has important lessons about relationships with those we should care the most about. I identified much more with Mr. Miller's father than with Mr. Miller but I appreciate the author showing how hurtful such well-intentioned actions can be. The book reveals a son who believes he cannot help being gay and a father who rejects his son because he "refuses" to change. But there's also the father who believes he cannot help being diametrically opposed to the gay lifestyle and a son who rejects his father because he "refuses" to change. Neither seems to be able to accept the true nature of the other's "compulsion" to act in accordance with his beliefs. I believe in the power of prayer, but that prayer should be "Thy will be done," and we Christians sometimes act as if we are the ones who define God's will. The Prayer Warriors should also be praying for themselves. Read Prayer Warriors and see how similar father and son really are and pray that in similar situations parents and children will find the basis for understanding and growth.

Prayer Warriors is a tragic story, to be sure. Stuart's story of coming out as gay to his fundamentalist family and their pained, seemingly heartless response is hard to read. The conflict between Stuart and his family is easy to understand and frustrating to witness; it lays bare the problem that so many people have with fundamentalism - that it so often forces its followers to decide between what they believe and who they love. Stuart has my sympathy (and indeed, my empathy) for having to deal with this at all in the first place.

Despite my heart going out to him, however, my head had a hard time understanding exactly where he was coming from. It seems that many of Stuart's negative experiences were a result of either expecting the worst in a given situation or reacting as negatively as possible. Although certainly he is treated appallingly by his family and former church, Stuart rarely takes any personal responsibility for his own reactions to how others treat him. I felt conflicted when reading: although it was obvious that what his family was doing to him was atrocious, it was just as obvious that Stuart did not exercise the self-control necessary to come away from the experience with anything other than self-indulgent pity.

I was not disappointed by the book's "lack of a resolution" as another reviewer was; in real life, we oftentimes lack true resolutions to true problems such as the ones found here in the Miller family. However, I do have a problem that Stuart chose to share his story when it is obvious he is still deeply disturbed by it; that he seeks to teach an audience about what he learned when it is so clear he has not yet learned everything he should have from his experience.

And who am I to know what Stuart should or should not have learned from this? Just a reader, like any other, drawing my own conclusions from what was presented to me in the pages of this book. That, I think, is this book's final failure: although it is heartwrenching and brutally honest about his personal feelings and experiences, it does not convince its readers of Stuart's ultimate rightness. Stuart, then, comes off as eminently human, but hardly as somebody we should have spent 192 learning from. His honesty is appreciated and his story is truly tragic, but his authority feels hollow.

I loved this book. It was a very touching story.

Well, I can not say that W.D. Howells was another Nathaniel Hawthorne. But what I can say is that his "The Rise of Silas Lapham" is A LOT better than some books that were made famous (probably for political reasons). Do not expect the superb images and construction of Hawthorne. But what we CAN expect is a timeless message about society. At first Silas is a rich money grubbing monster. (Just think of Dickens' Scrooge.) He finds ways to cut his friends out of deals, alienates his family with the want of more money, and even gets his wife upset. Ah, but later things go bad, and he starts losing money. This is when the human side of him begins to show and he becomes a very sympathetic character. In my opinion, to enjoy this even more, you must assume that before the book opens, he WAS a good and decent man. Once he ran into immense wealth, he grew detestable. So while, this is not exactly a masterpiece, the degeneration of Silas and his return to humanity is ample material to carry this book and place it in the American Museum of Literature.

These days Howells is usually overlooked in favor of the more overtly urbane Henry James or the grittier Stephen Crane or Theodore Dreiser. That's a shame, since Howells at his best is a more varied and thought-provoking author than any of them. The Rise of Silas Lapham is Howells at his best. The title is quite ironic, of course, but ultimately spot-on, as Howells' nouveau-riche bumpkin is redeemed only in losing it all. Lapham is keenly drawn, alternately frustrating in his bluster and affected pompousness and endearing in his genuine (if sometimes poorly expressed) love for his family. Other characters are not so fortunate; one of his daughters remains mostly a cipher, and both Mrs. Lapham and Bromfield Corey, the rich scion of society whose favor Lapham so earnestly covets, are dangerously close to stock characters. Howells excels at elaborate descriptive prose focused on intricate detail, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Some elements of the plot may seem quaint to modern readers, but Howells does not treat them with condescension. The Rise of Silas Lapham is definitely a book of its time. Perhaps it is so rewarding because his time and ours are not necessarily so different as we think.

This is a must read book and provides a glimpse of business morals in the nineteenth century. Read first, Mark Twain's "The Gilded Age" and Charles Dickens' "Martin Chuzzlewit". Silas' 'rise' is not ironic unless accumulation of wealth is your only value. While his monetary assets may shrink, his family 'prospers' in many ways. Clearly, Howells makes the point that honest work can bridge the gap of old rich and new. Commerce is not inherently bad, but it does ask the question, how far should one go in disclosure and protecting others from their potential investment folly.

...depending on how Net-savvy you already are.

For those who aren't techies, Cyndi gives a very good overview of how to use the Internet to do research and conduct correspondence. That much it does very well.

For those who know how to use the Internet well, and were hoping to find lots of information and leads you couldn't get from search engines or major genealogy sites (such as her own fabulous site), you could be disappointed. Most of the information will be basic, refresher-level stuff that you probably already know.

I'd highly recommend it for people who aren't savvy with computers or the Internet -- for those folks, I'd give this 5 stars out of 5. For those who already know how to use the Internet's resources for research and information-gathering, I can only give it 2 stars. I'm guessing the book is geared toward the former, so my overall ranking of 4 stars is skewed toward a focus on the less tech-savvy among us.

In short -- very good book for those new to this information...but the information is at a very introductory level, and if you understand and accept that before diving in, you won't be disappointed.

I received a copy of this book with my purchase of the Generations family tree software programme.

Being new to the Internet but not to family history, I found this book to be well written in easy-to-understand text.

It was particularly helpful in explaining genealogy mailing lists and how best to participate.

I recommend this book to all of my friends now.

I recieved this book with my purchase of "Generations" family tree software.

As I had not spent much time on the Internet before this, I found the book to be very handy in explaining how to use the Internet effectively for my family tree research. I now keep the book next to my PC for easy reference.

The thing that stands out about this book is its emphasis on the less visible but more powerful parts of the Internet when working on your family tree. It does cover world wide web sites for genealogy but doesn't stop just with these. The effective use of e-mail and genealogy mailing lists are covered in great detail from a family tree researcher's perspective.

If you want to have your e-mail posts about your family tree get the right kind of response, this book tells you how to do it.