While I would've loved to LOVE this book...I just couldn't. Marina Warner has barely scraped the surface of all there is to be said about myth and legend in connection with societal thinking in this little book (originally six essays for BBC radio). Each chapter undertakes a different aspect of society from women, to cannibalism, to our idealization of childhood. In all honesty, each one could've been a book in itself if expanded and pondered over. Due to the fact that each essay was relatively short it felt as if Warner's points were rushed and ill-researched. While I would put this book above some others that connect modern examples with myth, I still think that Warner could've done a more in-depth job and added more focus to individual chapters. They each seem to skip around a bit and lack effective organization.

Don't get me wrong, there are a number of gems in the pages of this work. Warner draws interesting parallels between myth and folklore and how it continues to resurface in modern times whether it be film, writing, television, etc. She also cites numerous outside sources that sound fascinating and that inspired her work. In a way, this work is a jumping-off point into a throng of directions into cultural criticism.

I loved Marina Warner's _Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form_, so when I saw this book, I had to have it. I have to say that I'm a little bit disappointed after _Monuments and Maidens_. I expected a more in-depth study. Instead, these six essays barely seem to scratch the surface of the topics. These essays are basically transcripts of six lectures Warner gave for BBC radio, which explains their brevity, but it's a shame she didn't expand upon them when she decided to publish them in print.

Still, there are some very interesting things here. I would definitely recommend it if you're interested in folklore and are just starting your studies. For the advanced student, the book just leaves you wanting more.

I really love reading Warner's work. Her analyses are sometimes surprising and often brilliant, the writing beautiful. I use this book in teaching Gender Psychology and when I wrote The Secret Lives of Girls (Free Press, 2002).

The ISBN of the new version is 0886852056. You should buy that instead of this package.

This is the second best source of TOEFL practice questions now available. This set is a great resource for TOEFL practice. It has practice, answers, scoring tables, scripts for the listening sections, and a demo version of the computer TOEFL.

If you cannot find the 1998 Kit, this kit is also very good. However, just like all other TOEFL materials, this book does NOT include explanations.

The big problem, though, is that these questions are a little outdated. Most of my students can score higher on these tests than they can on the real TOEFL.

Why does TOEFL always do this? They change the cover, and they even change the ISBN, but inside, they're still the same tests as the previous edition, ISBN 0446396427.

Since this is the same material, here's my review of the previous edition:

The second best source of TOEFL practice questions now available. This set is a great resource for TOEFL practice. It has practice, answers, scoring tables, scripts for the listening sections, and a demo version of the computer TOEFL.

If you cannot find the 1998 Kit, this kit is also very good. However, just like all other TOEFL materials, this book does NOT include explanations.

The big problem, though, is that these questions are a little outdated. Most of my students can score higher on these tests than they can on the real TOEFL.

Yes, it's true! . This book could save a lot of money to all those who want to pratice for the TOEFL test and feel that they have to focus on some areasj of the english language, instead of paying for an expensive TOEFL PREP. COURSE. It has the best tips on grammar, listening and essay construction. It helped me a lot.

Immanuel Velikovsky is widely recognized among serious historians, pre-historians, geologists and cosmologists as one of the more arrant of charlatans. It is grossly misleading that this book should be included in any category other than myths, superstitions and hoaxes. It should certainly not be included with any list of books dealing with serious history or science. Only the most credulous sorts -- those who believe in extraterrestial visitations, spontaneous human combustion and such nonsense -- could conceivably take Velikovsky seriously. If Amazon allowed the rating I would give the book a minus 5 stars.

This special issue of KRONOS begins the demolition -- continued in "Scientists Confront Scientists Who Confront Velikovsky", which is still in print -- of the Cornell work (the title of which should be obvious).

These two issues of KRONOS were prepared in response to the published critiques, abuse, etcetera which were heaped on Velikovsky in what amounted to a public show trial -- conducted under the auspices of the AAAS -- familiar to those who have studied the Stalinist era.

This issue rebuts the hatchet jobs on Velikovsky which had been carried out by Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, and features three papers by Velikovsky himself. This is alas out of print, but should be available in used book search engines.

His arguments have never been answered except by the use of straw men (i.e., by not actually answering the arguments, but misrepresenting those arguments in ways) and false statements. His decades long call for the careful use of scientific dating methods to confirm or disconfirm both his chronology and the conventional pseudochronology has been ignored.

At least one of those who have taken up the Glasgow Chronology has made some odd (and false) statements about Velikovsky, which makes me suspect they're not entirely familiar with his work. Nevertheless, these lesser lights are generally correct that the conventional pseudochronology isn't correct, and is off by centuries. Otherwise their alternative chronologies don't hold up except where they're in agreement with Velikovsky's.

For those who don't know and can't be bothered to find out -- Velikovsky has nothing to do with UFOs, Sasquatch, or extraterrestrial intelligence. He was not a charlatan. Various parties continue to use such ad hominem attacks against the polymath Velikovsky, who died over twenty years ago. Beware of such folk -- they're the kind who want to squash debate, eliminate dissent, and crush opposition, all the while professing to be protecting you.

For more details on Velikovsky, check out: http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/velikovsky.htm

This mystery kept us guessing. We were worried about the Alden's new friend Miguel.

I liked this book because I enjoyed the part when they found a sword from a war. Somebody kept messing up the books the children organized. The kids worked for hours and hours cleaning up. The book made me want to keep reading!

I dont know what you mean

This book offered many tips on many different themes in parties. Although, it seems that Diane is more oriented with weddings, she tends to have quite a few chapters on weddings in this book. She does, however, have good ideas for barbeques, post-prom parties and random special events.

I've had a few parties this past year, and I've used her organizers (checklists, etc.). I found them quite helpful. They were very simple. They helped me have everything right in front of me while working on other aspects of the party.

As a features writer for a local paper, I've seen lots of different party planning books. Warner's is certainly among the best, with a layout that makes info easy to find and lots of more creative ideas.

This is by far the best party book ever! I can't believe how many great ideas Diane has! I had a small part in the research done by Diane for this book, and I know she put many hard and long hours and days into finding the most detailed information possible about every kind of party you could think of. I know I will use this book over and over again!

I was really looking forward to this book--I thought, finally, a great method book. Unfortunately, I found his hand notation hard to read and his exercises excessively tedious. Of course, if you aspire to be a jazz musician and chase the chords of a pianist or some other character for hours on end, then this is for you. I've got CD's by Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and others, but frankly, they all bore the holy ...out of me. If you really want to swing in every key and in any style, take a hard look at what Carol Kaye has done. But to be fair, if you love jazz, this book might be excellent for you. Rent it from the library first, or be prepared to return it, like I did.

I came to bass playing in my late 30s after a lifetime of playing mainly guitar, banjo and mandolin, and I went through a lot of books looking for a clear and solid foundation for upright jazz playing.

Of all the methods out there, Reid's is the one that has really stood the test of time, and for good reason. He starts the reader off with basic scales and simple patterns for playing over changes. From there it's on through more complex scales and patterns and finally, soloing, illustrated with a number of transcribed classics.

Combine this book with the Simandl book for basic technique (and a good library of jazz albums), and you have just about everything needed to guide the beginning bass player through the intermediate stage. For a player who already had a basic classical technique, this book alone is just about all that's needed to learn to play jazz.

"The Evolving Bassist" has come to be the standard bass method book in the world of jazz. In it, Rufus Reid explains his "concept" of playing bass, moving beyond merely playing quarter notes to progressive and thoughtful bass lines.

As the title of the book indicates, this is a process. The book is designed for players of any level to develop a well-rounded approach to the bass.

The main portion of the method includes etudes, scales, and standard patterns for Latin bass lines, Rock bass lines, etc. Also included are many practical hints, answers to frequently asked questions, discography, and transcriptions of a number of Mr. Reid's compositions.

"The Evolving Bassist" is all around an excellent aid for the growing jazz bass player.

This book contains the partitures of the songs mentioned in Uppercase in the Editorial's review and the lyrics for all the other songs of this great rock-opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The partitures are written for piano, with chords for guitar and lyrics, and are quite faithful to the original songs. They aren't difficult, so you can play them without too much troubles and remember with pleasure the voices of Yvonne Elliman, Carl Anderson, Ted Neeley and the other artists. This book doesn't give you a complete satisfaction if you are instead looking for a more "seriously" thing, with all the partitures including the instrumental songs.

The songs included in this book are Heaven on Their Minds, Everything's Alright, Hosanna, Pilate's Dream, Last Supper, Gethsemane, King Herod's Song, and Superstar. A few things should be noted: Firstly, Heaven on their Minds does not include the "all gone sour" last four verses that are used in live productions of jcs. Instead the song is written to fade away. That might present a problem to people performing or using that song for an audition. The last supper only includes the chorus that the apostles sing. Superstar is tuned to a C instead of the original E that is on all of the recordings and live productions. Other than that, all the other keys are the same as you might hear them on cd recordings, 1973 movie, and live productions. Chords are also included for guitar players.

I bought this book when it first came out and love all the nice vocal selections in them. Now that it is the Lenten Season... Great time to go back and play and listen to them again on my old LPs! Have a nice day! BUY THE BOOK!

This book contains good ideas for all ages. You can use ideas from one type of party and just change the theme. Also good ideas for school parties, etc.

The Kid's Pick-a-Party Book has loads of ideas for children's parties. The party age ranges are from toddler to teenager, and are identified in the table of contents for easy reference. We have used a number of ideas for different theme parties. The book focuses on a wide variety of party ideas, but doesn't address the typical party themes, like Valentine's Day, holidays, etc. It does have a ghosts and goblins party and we used some of those ideas for a Halloween party. It is well organized and has ideas for invitations, costumes, decorations, games, food, favors and more.

If you have younger or older children, this is the book for you! If you have no ideas where to start or need great ideas. This book is wonderful! I needed some different and neat ideas and I found them in this book. I just can't say enough about this book.

When the Alden's go to the Morgan's farm, there is a mysterious horse, and a fire, and some mysterious people. Will the Alden's get to the bottom of this mystery?

While spending their vacation on a farm learning how to milk cows, drive a tractor, and groom the horses, the Boxcar Children learn that someone is trying to steal a prized racehorse. When they find this horse locked up by itself. They wonder who this horse belongs to and why is it hidden.

The Box Car Children Mystery Horse was one of the best favorite stories I ever read. It inspired me to try to build my own box car. I went to my libary to see if I could learn more about The Box Car Children. The book was so good I read it 3 times. So, I tought The Box Car Children was a cool book.

I was very skeptical of this book because my own spiritual views are quite a bit more conservative than the ones promoted in the text. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book held my attention very nicely. In future endeavors, these authors should probably spend more of their prose on character development. However, the story had plenty of twists and turns which created enough suspense for me that I couldn't put the book down. I read the entire thing in a Saturday morning, and I learned a few things about Australia in the process of reading it. For my rating, I couldn't decide between 3 stars and 4, so I opted for the generous side of the range, simply on the basis of the enjoyment I got from reading this work.

Seeking the White Root is more than simply an entertaining tale of two cultures clashing through time, culminating in the challenging life of a young modern Australian woman. Much more importantly, this book communicates a vital message for our entire species in the here and now: We must remember and live by the essential wisdom of the ages (here represented by the earth-based spirituality of Australian Aborigines). The world view and behavioral patterns of the Industrial Revolution and subsequent cultural mindsets, which inflate egos and promote both personal and corporate greed, cannot sustain us spiritually, emotionally, or even physically any longer. We--and consequently our world--are dangerously out of balance.

Woven throughout the story of Jane Lawton and her ancestors are lessons on how to connect with our spiritual selves, how to maintain and focus life energy, how to determine the purpose of our lives, and how we--as a species--can become reconnected to the wisdom of the ages that can be found in nature as well as within ourselves.

If you are interested in a story about how connecting with your spiritual side will assist you to move forward in life, this book is for you. The story takes place in Australia and documents the experiences of two groups, western European immigrants and the Aborigines, who have lived on the land since ancient times. As the main character of the book seeks to uncover her secret past, you will be exposed to the injustices that white men wrought on a native people. A healing occurs for both groups and hopefully for a country that must pay for all the ravaging that modern man has wreaked on the earth. In the end, the reader is reminded that what we do with the events of our life is ultimatley up to ourselves.