All of the Nancy Drew books are exacly the same. Not one of them ever has a change in plot. I bet the author used the exact same format for all 56 books. Nancy Drew hears that there is a mystery, so she and her friends go to solve it. She finds some clues, gets into a tight situation with the "bad guys", and get out of it. Repeat about three times. Then...it doesn't change a bit...she solves the mystery and is about to turn in the criminals when they catch her and she is about to die. She escapes, the "bad guys" are put in jail, and she and her friends cheer. Every single book is exactly the same. Can't the author use any creativity to change the plot around? It is so unrealistic that she would get into "scary" situations, and get out so many times. In every story she solves the mystery and it always comes out good. There are almost no obstacles and what few there are are so lame, it is almost pointless to have them in the first place. There is absolutely no point in reading all 56 of them. I can understand reading one just to try something new, but after that why read more? They are all exact photocopies of the last one. Spend your money on something worthwhile.

It was great reading the first set of Nancy Drew books. I love how they were written such a long time ago and they used old words. Their great books to read!

The Starter Set is a great way to hook new readers on the adventures of everyone's favorite girl sleuth, Nancy Drew.
Contained herein are the first six mysteries in the series which are among the best in the canon.
There is plenty of adventure and mystery in these stories as you follow along with Nancy and her best friends, Bess and George.
...

When you first read, Boy, by Roald Daul you will notice that it is an autobiography. You will read about life history, persistence and risk taking.
Roald Daul was born in 1916 in Norway. He was brought up by his mother with 5 other brothers and sisters. Roald was a very persistent and risky person. He loves to have fun and is always stirring up trouble.
There were many incidents in Roalds life. There are just a few that were important. One mid-spring day Roald and a few friends found a loose board in their school classroom. They opened the board and found a dead mouse. They decided to play a wretched trick on the candy storeowner Mrs. Prattchett. So they brought the mouse in to the store and snuck it into a candy jar and left. The next day they walked passed and it was closed with the candy jar broken on the floor. After that they raced to school and were told to go outside. All of a sudden Mrs. Prattchett was on her way to find the boys who played the joke. She found them and they were brought to be smacked on the butt for doing that awful trick.
Another life event was when Roald almost lost his nose. His family had just gotten a new car and his sister had been practicing to drive. Now you have to know that back then, you didn't have to have your driver's license because not very many people had cars. So, his sister was driving the whole family out in the country when all of a sudden there was a sharp turn. Well, she had practiced turns so they went flying into the bushes. After they had stopped Roald sat up and his nose was half way off. Everyone started to panic. They finally turned around and rushed to the doctor's house. When they got there he told them to go home and he'd be there in and hour. When he got there the doctor put Roald under anesthesia and sewed him up.
Through Roalds life he was move to several public and private English schools. When he was about to go into college but decided not to go to college. So what did he do with his life, you'll have to read the book and find out. If you like funny life stories and autobiographies Boy, by Roald Daul This is the perfect book for you.

This book is about 18-year-old girl named Nancy Drew who likes to solve mysteries. She usually solves her mysteries with her two best friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne.

Nancy was taking a vacation to Pheonix, Arizona and found herself a new mystery for her to solve. It takes place on Shadow Ranch. People say that the ranch is haunted by a phantom horse and an unknown enemy that always appears sometimes at night. People think that the unknown enemy and the phantom horse is a curse of Dirk Valentine, a man who was killed many years ago at Shadow Ranch. Finally, Nancy finds out that it's not a curse. She also found out that a man was causing all the trouble. The man used a special kind of paint to paint the horse and himself, so people think he is a ghost. Now that Nancy had solve the problem, the man was never seen at Shadow Ranch again.

This book is great! The best book of the Nancy Drew Book. I think it has Romance because of the story of why is the ghostly horse that has been appearing. Well this book has Action at the end. And is very mysterious. The characters are awesome also. Well hope you readers like this book alot, because is the best.

When Hannah's cousin Bertha dies and leaves Hannah her farm in Oklahoma, the Drews rent an RV and drive to Medicine Bluff, Oklahoma. Just a few miles away from the farm, they are caught in a tornado and have to take cover in a ditch. After the tornado passes, they go to the farm and Nancy finds a duffel bag filled with what looks like are ransom notes. Mystery ensues.
This book was totally stereotypical of Oklahoma in general. The Drews stop at greasy roadside diners and eat chicken fried steak, the names in the book are hillbillyish, like "Bertha," "Jimmy Boyd" and others. These are only a few of the stereotypes.
What ever happened to credibility and research? When the Drews first arrive in Oklahoma, there is a tornado watch over the whole state and a quarter of a neighboring state. Get real!
Then, Nancy and someone else get swept up into a supposedly F-5 tornado inside a car. While being tossed about inside the vehicle, Nancy manages to open the door up and fall out of the car down to the ground -- and she's not injured.
Give me a break!

~Sara Jeffries...themissingpage

I am a huge fan of Nancy Drew- I've read most of the books, and played 6 of the 7 PC games. This book was one of my favorites! Nancy goes to Medicine Bluff, Oklahoma, because her housekeeper Hannah Gruen has inherited a farm there. On the way, she encounters a tornado and a duffel bag stuck in a tree with ransom letters in it! Nancy has to solve the case of a planned kidnapping, but little does she know that the kidnapper plans to kidnap HER on the way!

this is one of the bests in the nancy drew series. nancy has to solve a case and ends up in the eye of a storm

This review concerns the original 1942 edition and the revised 1969 edition which is an edited version of the original. Nancy becomes involved in the search for the missing half of a treasure map and investigates the mysterious happenings at a cottage on an estate just outside of River Heights. This is a pretty good book; more deserving of 3 1/2 stars. The story is intriguing and well-written. One thing that I like about this story is that there are numerous dishonest people also searching for the missing half of the map and you don't know if they are working together against Nancy or if they are working seperately. This is an enjoyable adventure and is highly recommended.

I like this book a lot. I like it because of the people in the book and because of what happens in the book. Lots of people in this book are very nice, they try to help each other as much as possible. People that I like in this book are : Nancy , Hanna Gruen , Ellen ,Mrs Chatham , Mr Smith , Mrs Smith and Ned. This book is fun.

This book is about is about a treasure. Nancy and Mr and Mrs Smith want to find a treasure. They had two maps of the treasure. One day, a man stole one of the maps at Mr and Mrs Smith's house. Nancy and Ellen were trying to stop the man and they couldn't. Nancy had the other map, and one day someone stole the other one from Nancy when she was walking.
One day, they tried to make a map with their imaginations because they had to find the treasure. It took them a little while to make a map. But they found the treasure later.

In this story, Nancy again solves a treacherous mystery. nancy becomes friends with a girl named Elle, who is trying to get a job babysitting a small 7-year old. her only problem is she is scared of the city in which Trixie, the little girl, lives in. Then Ellen tells Nancy about a map that shows treasure left by Ellen's grandfather. Her father has only half the map. His long-lost twin brother has the remaining half. Nancy is anxious to find his brother and the lost map, and find where the treasure is hidden. She finds many clues before she concludes that the second half of the map was right under her nose. While she is trying to get the two maps together, another couple is also trying to steal the maps from Nancy to get to the treasure first. Once again, the wise Nancy Drew outsmarts the thieves and gets the two half maps together. They all go together on a trip to get the treasure. Everything turns out just fine at the end, with Nancy rewarded as a hero.
I enjoyed reading this book very much. It was the third Nancy Drew book that I ever read. I like to read mystery and suspense stories where you just can't figure out who the thief would be. It is fun to read the end of mystery stories and finding out who the culprit really was. I have read "The Boxcar Children" books before and also enjoyed them because of the mystery and suspense. My least favorite part is how in real life suspects are usually smart enough to escape, but in the nancy Drew books, the thief is never smart to get away. However, nancy always completes a mystery fairly making sure the right person is punished. When I first started it, I couldn't put it down. My favorite part in this story was when Nancy and her two best friends Bess and George go to a park to have a picnic. They borrowed a small ship model from a man named Mr. Trumbull in which they believed had the second half of the map. They were being followed by the mysterious couple. When Nancy, Bess, and George got to the park, they put the ship moel in the car, and left the door unlocked on the way to the picnic. That was the couple's chance to take the ship. So they sneaked to the car and stole it. When the three friends were done, they came back to the car only to find out the ship was gone. Nancy laughed at that and said, "I took the map with me when we left the car." This was my favorite part because at first I thought, why is Nancy keeping the map in the car when she knows there are thieves after her? nancy wouldn't do anything like that. I loved this book very much and hope you will too.

The Wedding Day Mystery is about a girl named Nancy Drew and her two friends Bess and George. It's summer time and Nancy and her friends have got jobs to help a wedding planner and her sister the cook. However, for every wedding their something that has been stolen or ruined. This makes Nancy very curious, but she knows she'll figure out who's up to all of this.
My favorite part in the book is when Rafe holds up a remote control saying there's a bomb in the chapel. He wants Patti and everyone else to cooperate with him or else. So Nancy has a plan to ambush Rafe. When Nancy gave the sign Bess and George jumped on Rafe checking his pokets, and of course took the remote away from him.
This book was given to me has a birthday gift. I enjoy Nancy Drew books and would recommend this book to others to read. However, a Nancy Drew book I would really recommend is The Riddle Of The Ruby Gazelle. It's an even more exciting book.

I would say a its a very good book,I recommend it to anyone. I read this at my local library and then had to go out and buy it to add to my collection, if that tells you anything! Although one of the newer books it is one of the best I've read yet.

Nancy Drew and the Wedding Day Mystery was very good thirrler and your blood runs cold when you read it. It did that to me when the Gabzzo fell on the bride groom the rip dress and taking the gifts Nancy fell two figths of stairs and land on her back and the gost this book is a real Case

This review concerns the original 1933 edition and the revised 1966 edition which has a story similar to the original version. Nancy finds a carrier pigeon which contains a strange coded message. Later, the family's doctor tells Nancy of how he was kidnapped and taken to a large home to treat an elderly lady, whom he believed was being held against her will. Armed with a bracelet the doctor managed to slip off of the old lady's wrist as her only clue, Nancy sets off determined to find the house and free the old woman. The revised edition has an added mystery concerning a spooky, blue circle of fire which has been appearing recently in the woods outside of the new home of Nancy's friend Helen's grandparents. Personally, I liked the original edition much better than the revised edition. The writing was better and the book flowed along a lot better than the revised edition did. The extra mystery in the revised edition seemed out of place and really didn't make the book more interesting. The main mystery of the book, Nancy trying to find the elderly woman, was good and is typical Nancy Drew, with Nancy risking her life attempting to help someone else. Both editions were fairly suspenceful and had exciting endings; although again, I prefered the ending in the original story. Either edition is worth reading, but I give the original 3 1/2 stars, while I give the revised 3 stars.

"Password" and "Larkspur Lane" -- these terms echo each other as much as "Lenore" and "Nevermore" do in Poe's "The Raven." It is fitting, then, that this is one of the better Keene books in the Nancy canon. I am reviewing my childhood reading, made possible by Applewood reissues and the continued availability of the Grosset & Dunlap revised titles. It is a truism that the early books (despite their out-of-fashion references and language, and their social stereotypes) are always better than the revisions, and it's often true that the originals are more satisfying, stylish stories. I enjoy the mysteries screeching to a halt while the girls indulge in their noon "luncheon." However, in this title I have to go with the revision. It's a masterful rewrite, condensing and reorganizing the early story while cutting out a lot of leisurely pacing that slows the story down. Perhaps Nancy's greatest strength as a detective is her unwillingness to give up; when she has no clues or prospects of any in this novel, she drives the roads outside of her midwest town until she finds one (a crude sign on a tree with "L. L." posted on it). Can't get into a prison-like old folks' home? Impersonate an elderly lady. Get thrown into a deep cistern? Use the pieces of a ladder thrown in after you to claw your way up the wall. The criminals are getting away in a small plane? Let the gas out of it before they can take off. Meanwhile she still has time to win first prize in a flower arranging competition. Nancy is simply too much, and knowing her has been one of the delights of my life.

As I lay in bed sniffling this weekend I read Password to Larkspur Lane. Carson gives Nancy a new black and green roadster for her birthday (she gets it early as she needs to evade some thugs who have been spying on the house and they would have recognized her old maroon roadster.) Then she speeds off to Sylvan Lake to join Helen Corning and her parents at the much larger cottage they have taken this summer. Ned Nickerson is also there and Nancy is the belle of the Yacht Club dance, in addition to beating the pants off the snooty "amateur swim champion" who instigated a diving competition because she resented Nancy getting all the male attention on the swim platform. She also wins the adulation of everyone at the lake when she rescues a tot who falls in the water in front of a speedboat, but is duely modest about it, considering that the little girl fell in as a result of Nancy's having questioned her after hearing her name. Nancy and Helen enjoy a few luxurious rides in the splendid new machine as they search for a remote estate surrounded by larkspurs/delphiniums to solve the mystery Nancy stumbled upon as she happened to drive by a car that mysteriously had the windows up even though the weather was clear (actually, the book said the curtains were drawn--did cars come with window curtains in 1933?) Nancy actually falls into dire straits but, fortunately, had the foresight to call Ned beforehand so he could fly in with some burly pals (and Carson, who just happened to be at the local airport as they were about to take off in their just-the-right-size-to-land-in-the-back-yard plane) in the nick of time to thwart the evildoers who were bilking wealthy older women.

Oh, Nancy also won 1st place for her flower arrangement of larkspurs at the Blenheim Flower Show. Of course.

I desperately want this cold to go away so I can drive around in my splendid machine and stumble upon adventures. I will need some new sport frocks though.

This review concerns the original 1939 edition and the revised 1969 edition. Both books tell the story of a woman who owns many cats, of her long-lost love and of spooky tapping noises which she hears inside her house. However, each book tells the mystery in a different way so that they are basically two different stories. These were average books, not particularly exciting, but not boring either. The mystery isn't bad and there is a moderate amount of action. Personally, I thought that the revised edition was a little more interesting, but either one is worth reading. I'd give them both 3 stars.

This book is bone-chilling, did you here me? I said REALLY bone-chilling! Not just bone-chilling! I mean really, really bone-chilling! I mean read this book. THanks!

PS Did I tell you this book is bone-chilling?

PSS Well if I didn't it is! Read it!

Nancy and her friends Bess and George get involved in a mystery that involves an invalid woman, her prizewinning Persian cats, a long-lost neighbor, tapdancing and Nancy's starring role in a play in River Heights. Nancy wows everyone with her mystery-solving prowess, George gets exasperated a lot and Bess spoils her diet (again). Long live Nancy Drew!

Nancy receives a moonstone as a gift from an anonymous person. Mr. Drew enlists Nancy to help him with his latest case. The Bowens, a missionary couple, have recently returned from Africa and have been looking for their granddaughter without success. The girl went to live with her other grandmother in the town of Deep River after the deaths of her parents when she was a baby. However, the grandmother died shortly after that and all trace of the girl has been lost. When the girls arrive in Deep River they see Moonstone Castle in the distance and decide to explore it. This was a very boring book with a dull mystery and almost zero action. The summary in the book suggests that the castle is haunted, but that is never really mentioned in the book itself. ...

I have read 15 Nancy Drew books so far and my favorite was: The Clue In The Broken Locket. I'd just thought I'd say that! I was really excited to read this one because of a castle and stuff and in the summary it said it was a little bit spooky. Well it was really boring and there was too much happening at the same time. The castle parts were really boring and so0o0 not exciting. And all they did was eat at that stinkin brass kettle.
But some parts were good?

I love all Nancy Drew books but this was my favorite! It was so interesting I couldn't put it down! I read it when I was little and I could read it over and over!

I read this book and it was preatty good, but, I like some of the other Nancy Drew books better than this one. There aren't many parts that have to do with skiing so the title should have been something like "Mystery of the Forest Fur Company". Another thing is that you knew who the bad people were, start to finish. A good book, but I reccomend some of the other Nancy Drew books more than this. (I reccomend all of them :-D)

I thought this book was really good! It is a book for all ages to read. I think that all Nancy Drew books are good!

This book is so great! This book is about Nancy Drew solving a mink mistery. It involves a lady named Mrs. Channing who is selling fake stock and mink stoles.

Many modern Japanese novels are written from a personal stance, oft times becoming very revealing about the author. This book, it is clear, tells the story of Dazai's own life and feelings from his point of view.

It should also be kept in mind that this was a novel of the times. The relentless bombings of Japan during World War Two and the long years of reform during the Allied occupation created a very new society filled with people just trying to get back to a normal life... if they could remember what that was.

No Longer Human is not a "clash between new and old, east and west" so much as it is a view outwards at a world filled with people heading for "something", with the main character more or less just doing the moves, and being painfully aware of it.

Before reading this it might help to review post-War Japanese history, especially in regards to the Communist Party of Japan and other "red" movements, otherwise a great deal of the more subtle points will be missed.

No Longer Human is regarded as a work of autobiographical fiction that reflects the struggle for the Japanese people to adjust to post World War II realities. Well, I'm not so sure about that. As Donald Keene states in the introduction, it is probably a mistake to do so. The events are clearly based upon his life experiences, but the story is too well crafted to be a mere recounting of the years when his life was surrendered to drugs and alcohol. And what relation does the book have to the post-war years, aside from the fact that this is when it was published? Whatever the case, No Longer Human is a fabulous book, a true work of World Literature. For all of us who appreciate literature, we are all very unfortunate that Dazai took his life at a relatively young age and before his best works were created. Suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness.

This is one of the most powerful book I have ever read.

This novel (inspired by Dazai's autobiography and written in the first person) tells the story of one person who feels since childhood utterly alien from his fellow human beings but learn to put a face to hide his deep sense of alienation and his despise for the hypocrisy of society. He feels incapable to belong to a human society (hence the title). Follows a descent into alcohol, drugs, suicide as the main character enters into aldulthood.

The story did remind me a little of Camus' The stranger (l'etranger) in so far as both are a tale of a person alienated from the society at large. But Dazai also explore the sense of self-loathing and self-destruction and is therefore much darker (Camus sounds cheerful in comparison).

Dazai is known as a dark post-war writer and indeed this is a dark novel.