Natsuki Ikezawa's short story collection is one of the best I've read, and my favorite book by a Japanese writer. The translation is excellent, and all the beauty of the language appears to come out clearly. Although it's not really mentioned, Ikezawa is writing science fiction or fantasy in most of his stories. But the most important part of this book is the way he conjures up the lives of ordinary people. He makes you see the beauty of being human.

I read this book in Japanese.The word that Mr.Ikezawa uses is very beautiful.Once you began reading this book I can say for sure that you can't stop.

My 9 yr old struggles with dyslexia and I read to her - the classic Nancy Drew stories, Harry Potter, of course, and the Pullman stories (Golden Compass, etc) but this is the first time she brought a book to me and ASKED TO READ TO ME. The reading level is perfect for her (3rd grade) and she is intigued with the relationships of the girls as they sort things out in school to solve this junior mystery. I will be selecting other "Notebook" stories for her to enjoy.

When Mari's new unicorn toy is stolen, Nancy is on the job! On the first day, she find's the comb and the stand! But that unicorn is nowhere to be seen! Will Nancy catch the theif before Brenda Carlton does?

This is the greatest book ever! Like all the Nancy Drew books, Nancy gets wrapped up in another mystery. Or should I say, snowed in? Nancy decides to take a vacation in Wisconsion and this terrible snow storm comes in. Inside the castle, many crimes take place and Nancy is lead to believe that this all has a connection to the Queen's tower. The tower once belonged to Marie Anntoinette. Can you guess who the culprit is? Well you will just have to read this book to find out!

thrilling and exciting
nancy,bess and george goes to winsconsin for vacation
they stay at wickford castle
this castle has some parts from france especially a round tower which was once used by mary antoinette the queen.
someone is after something precious that is said to be in the round tower
nancy and her friends start investigating and discovers some startling things

In this case, Nancy must fight to keep her father's (Carson Drew) innocence after he is accused of bribery to a judge. The thing is, the judge he supposedly has bribed has been a close friend of Carson's for years! Why would he wrongly accuse his friend? But all evidence is erased when the judge is murdered, and it's up to Nancy to rediscover it!

I really like this book. It's full of plots, action, and suspense, and different from the other Nancy Drew books that I've read. Nancy's father, Carson Drew, a famous lawyer, has been accused of a crime and it's up to Nancy to clear her father's name. Nancy ended up going undercover as a cabdriver. In her investigation, she found out most of her father's trusted clients and friends have turned against him. Why? Read it to find out for yourself!

This is one of the best books that I have ever read. I like the detective type stories so Carolyn Keene is one of my most read authors. In this book there is thrill and romance and it creates suspence so you can never put the book down until you finish it. The only part I don't like is when she finds the pen in the feed both it was unreal. People do not just leave pens around when they just planted a threatning tape. But over all it was a good book. The end is very suspenceful and you wonder how she is going to get out of the danger.

This still remains as one of my favorite Nancy Drew books! Sensational story and almost newsworthy! It also offers some insight on how reporting is being done on TV.

It's easy to get overwhelmed and lost in the complicated medical maze that we all face, especially when dealing with a medical crisis. This practical book is well worth the read. I left it feeling more confident about asserting myself and my needs with the physicians I deal with. Good Work! Thank you.

This immensely practical book not only tells you how to get the most out of your relationship with your doctor, but gives dozens of examples from patients and doctors alike. It's easy to read, too. It helps empower you to be an active participant in your own medical care.

ANTHOLOGY OF CHINESE LITERATURE : From early times to the fourteenth century. Compiled and edited by Cyril Birch. Associate editor Donald Keene. 492 pp. New York : Grove Press, 1965.

Birch's anthology has always been one of my favorite books. In contrast to the more recent mammoth compilations of Victor Mair (1335 pages) and John Minford (1176 pages), the Birch, at a mere 492 pages, is a far more modest and manageable proposition.

Unlike the Mair and Minford, it can be held easily in the hand while reading, and it is printed in a large clear font on spacious pages in which the lines have room to breathe. Modest in size it is also modest in presentation. Selections are preceded by only the briefest of introductions, and footnotes have been kept to a minimum.

The Birch is also unlike the former two anthologies in that it has restricted itself to contributions from just twenty-one translators, most of them well-known names such as A. C. Graham, Donald Keene, Ezra Pound, Arthur Waley, Gary Snyder, and Burton Watson. In other words, its complement of translators is not swelled by a substantial contingent of second-tier, relatively unknown, and sincere though not particularly inspired academic translators.

One happy consequence of this is that the Birch, although in terms of quantity it holds perhaps only a third as much material or less than the Mair or Minford, has a higher relative proportion of quality translations. In other words, most of its selections actually read, not so much as 'translations' but as good literature - the tone, feelings, imagery, rhythms, and control of sound are what we expect to find in original works. Anything less than such excellence is, of course, hardly worth bothering with, and there is a lot of such excellence in the Birch.

As for Birch's selections, he seems to have struck a nice balance between prose and poetry of different kinds. We are given, for example, thirty-three poems from the 'Book of Songs,' some rendered by Waley and others by Pound. We also find such things as 'The Songs of Ch'u;' the Taoist Chuang Tzu; Burton Watson's 'Grand Historian' SSu-ma Ch'ien; Rhyme Prose; Letters; Satires; the Poetry of the Recluse; the great T'ang poets Wang Wei, Li Po, and Tu Fu; Prose Essays; T'ang Short Stories; other great poets such as Li Ho and Li Shang-yin, as well as many other fine but lesser known writers.

The book also includes a substantial selection from the Sung Dynasty, and is rounded out with two Yuan Dynasty plays, an extract from the Yuan novel, 'The Men of the Marshes,' and a modest but useful Bibliography which offers a number of suggestions for further reading.

There is an enormous amount of pleasure to be had from this book, and instruction too. For in reading it we learn a great deal about the sensibility of a people who have been described by Pierre Ryckmans, not without some justice, as "the most intelligent people in the world" ('Chinese Shadows,' Viking, 1977). One of my great favorites in the Birch anthology has always been the brilliant 'Essay on Literature' ('Wen fu') by Lu Chi (+ 754-805). Here is a line from Shih-hsiang Chen's admirable translation (p.208) :

"The argument (shuo) with glowing words and cunning parables persuades."

What Lu Chi seems to be saying is that "theses are convincing, but deceptive." As such the line becomes a caution against trusting too much in theses and 'rational' argument, a caution against lending ourselves too readily to what Lin Yutang has called an excessive, as opposed to a more reasonable, use of reason. Lu Chi's are words that a Cartesian and ever more Frenchified West, with its slick and deodorized armies of specialists, analysts, and technicians, would do well to take to heart if the relentless Juggernaut of Reason now underway isn't to end up crushing everything beneath its wheels.

For anyone who would like to get a good idea of what Chinese Literature is all about, and to actually enjoy the experience of finding out, there could be no better book than Cyril Birch's anthology. The Mair and Minford are all very well in their way and serve as useful references, but they are hardly books that one can sit down and read with pleasure from beginning to end.

The Birch, however, is just such a book, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who would like to begin exploring one of the richest and most interesting literatures in the world.

Here, for those who may want to know, are details of the Mair and Minford anthologies :

THE COLUMBIA ANTHOLOGY OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE LITERATURE. Edited by Victor H. Mair. 1335 pp. New York : Columbia University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-231-07428-X (hbk.)

CLASSICAL CHINESE LITERATURE : An Anthology of Translations, Volume I : From Antiquity to the Tang Dynasty. Edited by John Minford and Joseph S. M. Lau. 1176 pp. New York and Hong Kong : Columbia University Press and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. ISBN 0-231-09676-3 (hbk.)

This book is up to date, relevant, and "rings true" when it provides opinions. It's of most help to people in SF, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, or Marin Counties. We picked it up at about 6 months pregnant, and were impressed at how closely the advice and listings matched what we had experienced ourselves or heard from others. The listings and descriptions of baby stores, for example, along with phone numbers, was worth the price. This book is about where to find products and services; couple it with Baby Bargains to help decide what you need.

Any Chess Player wants to get a strong background and improve his/her openings repertoire should buy this book. Anyhow its a nice companion for the tournament player. Recommended

In "Between the Lines", Nikki Masters and her boyfriend, Tim Cooper, are preparing for their upcoming high school play, "Our Town", in which they play opposite each other as Emily Webb and George Gibbs, the two leading roles. While Tim is very excited about opening night, Nikki can barely hide her stage fright. Brittany Tate, a reporter for the "Record" (their high school newspaper), picks up on their different reactions to the play and exaggerates on Tim's friendship with a fellow drama student, Lara Bennett, in the hopes that Tim and Nikki will break up and he'll then fall for Britanny.

When she's not destroying other people's relationships, Brittany is secretly working as a waitress in a disgusting restaurant so she can earn enough money to pay her dues at the country club. Surprisingly, another classmate is also working at the same place: Jeremy Pratt, a rich snob who's gone into debt because of his new high-maintenance girlfriend Kim Bishop, Brittany's close friend.

Although River Heights is written under Carolyn Keene's name, don't expect much suspense in this series. All it shares with Nancy Drew is her next-door neighbor, Nikki Masters, and her hometown locale, River Heights. These books are better suited for fans of Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley High series than fans of Nancy Drew.