A copy should be in every nonprofit library. It's an indispensable guide to fundraising!

In its last days, the Roman Republic was a wild and wooly place. Popular thugs like Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline) and Publius Clodius Pulcher saw in the shifting vacuums of power an opportunity to flout the law and win power and riches at the expense of their fellow countrymen. Standing squarely in their path was a Roman Senator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, who knew how to win men's minds with his powerful speeches and who had a fanatical dedication to maintaining the rule of law in the face of anarchy.

The art that Cicero practiced is not held in great repute today: We tend to distrust a man who can marshal cogent arguments and dazzling rhetoric in support of a cause. Consider, however, how remarkable it is that so many of Cicero's orations, letters, and other writings have survived today. Not only were his speeches eagerly read by his contemporaries, but early Christian monks saw in the great orator a basically moral, even if Pagan, writer whose work was worth saving in the scriptorium.

Among his own speeches, Cicero most highly rated his four blistering attacks on Catilina. My own personal favorite is "In Defence of Titus Annius Milo." In it, the wily orator shows he had a strong streak of Johnny Cochrane. The Tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher had been one of Cicero's most determined enemies and at one time had him banished for his advocacy of executing the leaders of Catiline's conspiracy. When Clodius is killed attempting to bushwhack a rival, Cicero jumped to defend the accused murderer.

In a letter, Cicero had bragged, "Let me tell you that it was I who produced the necessary darkness in the court to prevent your guilt from being visible to everyone." Where Cicero claims that Titus Annius Milo was attended at the time of the ambush with an "unwarlike retinue of maids and pages," he was actually accompanied by a large party of gladiators who were more than able to thwart the attack. While claiming that Milo had never threatened Clodius, Cicero wrote a letter to his lifelong correspondent Atticus stating the opposite, that Milo had openly threatened to kill Clodius.

Even when pulling the wool over his listeners' eyes, Cicero's political speeches in this volume provide a fascinating picture of a time and place which would otherwise be largely unknown to us.

Michael Grant's book, The Severans, covers a very short period of Roman history that, due to the lack of source materials, is usually left untouched. My only complaint about the writing style is that the work really needs to be read twice: once to get the general feel of the ideas presented, and a second time to follow all the references to chapters found later on in the book. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Ancient Roman history, even though I found the price a bit high for a 90-page work.

I found the book a great source for not only the home sewer to use for personal use but also for professional use. I can not wait for the second edition to come out!! Please let me know where I can be put on the receiver list of the second edition.

Being a doctor and a teen counselor, I found The Sex Book to be extremely helpful when educating young adults. The tone is measured without being preachy, and the topics exhaustive. Whether a teenager is already having sex, or only thinking about it, I recommend this book as a resource for complete, non-judgemental information about sex.

This book shows the long term effects of synthetic hormones leading to cancer and thrombosis etc. in women and side effects on men. Its well-researched and written by one of the Doctors who did the first trials on the pill in the 60's & 70's and shows the side effects. Also shows how the scientists distorted the results of the tests to give the impression that the Pill was good for you and ignored the fact that most of the women who started the trials of HRT and the pill gave up before the end of the trial because of severe side effects and only reported on the people left at the end of the trial saying they had no side effects. Explains about the dangers of high oestrogen from eating animals (given hormones to boost growth) and hormones given to pregnant women and underage teenagers. Its a must read.

This reference starts off by showing that an important unsolved problem in evolutionary biology is why sex should be necessary. Sex appears to be required by most higher lifeforms. Indeed, most asexual species which exist are recent derivations from sexual species, implying that without sex a species tends to go extinct. The mechanisms of sex at the cellular level are considered. The book then considers mating behaviors of various animals.

This is an interesting book. The reading level is low enough to captivate many different ability levels. The topic is interesting to teens.

It is a story about overcoming, about facing real feelings, about dealing with the difference between what you feel and what you say. As such, I think it is marvelous. diane, RSP teacher

I read this book a long time ago from my local library and I remember the stories being just fantastic! One sticks out in my mind I can't remember the title but it is about killer mushroom spores from outer space. Well worth the read if you can track it down!