Very good story, profound writing with poetic precision, and lyrical quality. Those are some fragments I liked.

"But it was only after my mother ran off with the chairman of my fathers drama department that a force field up sprang up creating The House. It was precisely then that gravity increased ; the floor became hypermagnetized .From then on, objects fell and stuck to it -towels. books, dishes, newspapers, bottles cans, unopened mail, spoiled food...Most of our furniture also snapped, toppled , or sagged floorward.. For some weeks now, every day at 3.30 P.M. I lie face down on the kitchen floor, overwhelmed by the memory of my body growing heavier the moment I entered The House each day after my room , lock the door, and bulldoze through the piles of clothes, magazines, and hair curls to the bed, where I would lie still as a giant slug until evening."

" But back then, the only tidy place in The House was my brother's room. Within the first month after my mothers flight, he covered his walls with dozens of maps, all nearly Scotch taped or push-pinned in place, and dozens of clocks, all set to same correct time. On all the maps, my brother marked the location of "The House". Like me, he has always been ambitious : the maps varied in range from our township, to the United States, to the entire solar system. Sometimes my brother drew in The House as rectangle, with an isosceles triangle on top. Other times it was a red paper dot stuck on the planet Earth. On his desk , a chess game was perpetually in progress; my brother played both sides. He kept his room bathed in white light twenty four hours per day using ten or so lamps with bare light bulbs."

" My lover is a puzzle. My lover is an anesthetic. My lover is a religion - a vague, impersonal power , pleasant to surrender to "

" The TV glowed like an arctic sun, twenty- four hours"

" All haunted houses remind me of my mother, as do all points of no return. Mom took me to one on my eighth birthday. A conveyer belt carried us through the dark. We stood upright, moving forward without walking whirrrrrr, as in a dream. Each of us gripped one handrail ( the rails moved in tandem with the belt, as on as escalator ), and held the others hand in the middle. We passed two witches, some skeletons, one werewolf, one vampire, one Frankenstain Whoosh!! Cold win blew against us, the darkness grew absolute, and the conveyer belt dipped downward as if we were falling ; a voice said, " You have reached the point of no return . Bye-byeeeee" I screamed and lunged at my mother. We were propelled past two heavy vinyl flaps , into full daylight . The ride was over "

excellent... nothing like it. If you like updike, vonnegut and martin amis this book will make you jump. Best book I've read in years. This is an excellent effort at the highest level of serious fiction. The story is great, the pace and language wonderful.

A definite plus to any collection.

"Bye- Bye" has everything : live characters anddialogues, action, suspense, sex, general statements influenced bydifferent philosophical and psychological theories and some times lyricism .

The protagonist, changes her identity and she gets involved in three love affairs at the same time. And as she tries to escape her past ( her childhood, her mother - her father, her schizophrenic brother and her husband even her current affairs which become past so quickly ) , testing her limits moving forward, I can listen to the poetic motive, which accompanies this "voyage", this adventure : "Bye - Bye".

"Bye - Bye" is both a farewell to a life and an itching for an esoteric exploration, acceptance and catharsis.

In the very beginning, I liked that a woman writer dares to write about sexual fantasies fictionalizing them especially in a country where "people are scandalized by the same thing that they feel excited". But after that, I understood the most important : that the sex scenes are not only "fresh" but also true , tender, lively and essentially linked with the structure and the development of the characters , almost innocent, unapologetic and that's why poetically attractive.

Also, I would like to mention some fragments of the book that I liked very much because of its profundity, of its poetic precision , and because of its lyrical quality. See, for example, in one of them, how beautifully fictionalized are the scenes from the childhood of the protagonist :

"But it was only after my mother ran off with the chairman of my fathers drama department that a force field up sprang up creating The House. It was precisely then that gravity increased ; the floor became hypermagnetized .From then on, objects fell and stuck to it -towels. books, dishes, newspapers, bottles cans, unopened mail, spoiled food...Most of our furniture also snapped, toppled , or sagged floorward.. For some weeks now, every day at 3.30 P.M. I lie face down on the kitchen floor, overwhelmed by the memory of my body growing heavier the moment I entered The House each day after my room , lock the door, and bulldoze through the piles of clothes, magazines, and hair curls to the bed, where I would lie still as a giant slug until evening."

See also the description of the schizophrenic brother :

" But back then, the only tidy place in The House was my brother's room. Within the first month after my mothers flight, he covered his walls with dozens of maps, all nearly Scotch taped or push-pinned in place, and dozens of clocks, all set to same correct time. On all the maps, my brother marked the location of "The House". Like me, he has always been ambitious : the maps varied in range from our township, to the United States, to the entire solar system. Sometimes my brother drew in The House as rectangle, with an isosceles triangle on top. Other times it was a red paper dot stuck on the planet Earth. On his desk , a chess game was perpetually in progress; my brother played both sides. He kept his room bathed in white light twenty four hours per day using ten or so lamps with bare light bulbs."

And listen to the rhythm in this wonderful fragment about the Lover :

" My lover is a puzzle. My lover is an anesthetic. My lover is a religion - a vague, impersonal power , pleasant to surrender to "

And, see, the rare lyrical quality in this sentence from the narration of her mother's death.

" The TV glowed like an arctic sun, twenty- four hours"

"The point of no return" : how strange, how poetically necessary, and poetically charged, how profoundly equivocal and evocative and at the same time perfectly linked with the purity of the memories of her childhood.

" All haunted houses remind me of my mother, as do all points of no return. Mom took me to one on my eighth birthday. A conveyer belt carried us through the dark. We stood upright, moving forward without walking whirrrrrr, as in a dream. Each of us gripped one handrail ( the rails moved in tandem with the belt, as on as escalator ), and held the others hand in the middle. We passed two witches, some skeletons, one werewolf, one vampire, one Frankenstain Whoosh!! Cold win blew against us, the darkness grew absolute, and the conveyer belt dipped downward as if we were falling ; a voice said, " You have reached the point of no return . Bye-byeeeee" I screamed and lunged at my mother. We were propelled past two heavy vinyl flaps , into full daylight . The ride was over.

Whenever we set out to seduce someone or to be seduced, it is always the point of no return to which we aspire After that point there is not going backward , it is going forward ,no matter what , there is no more doubt. ".

Jane Ransom, gifted with poetic profundity, sensibility, and discernment proves to be a real writer who deserves the best compliment : She made us to eagerly want to wait for her next novel.

This book has brought the knowledge of our past history into the present time. Before reading this book, the phrase "Initiation Path" seemed very mysterious. Now it is very clear just what an "Initiation Path" consists of. The Crone also explains in a very simple and easy to understand way what her life in Greece was like from childhood until adult--very interesting to read about her many challenges. I highly recommend this book to everyone trying to bring their masculine and feminine parts into harmony!

However has decide to read this book, man or a woman in life, pretty soon you'll find out how beautiful insights your heart have. For blessed with both polarities indeed it is balancing the life you live for your very best results. Then one day when your reading are almost done a quite light coming from Goddess heart will stop by for a close look into the eyes. In radiance of her presence she will touch your lips and in a single smile with blissfulness in tears of your eyes she will open the heart. And if you are lucky in mind to apprehend these feminine Goddess's insights, the heart will wait not but start blossom with unconditional love healing any wounds of the past. And the Goddess still being aside will evaluate this new state of love achieved by your heart. Then she will smile and look back into your eyes for blessed forever is now thou heart with conscious mind for new awareness of love. And then one day when finishing this book you come to your very own decision that it is time to take a leap and have a look at outside world with this new feminine heart, it will not wait for a second chance but burst again with more love coming from inside. Then witnessing your new born heart you will smile to the world with words in mind: 'Don't be apart from my light but take a piece of my heart for your's is Crone's Oracle awarenes of love!'... ...and let it be!

The Crone Oracles is a modern translation of the Eleusinian Mysteries, transferring ancient universal laws that are embodied in the Tao, Buddhism, the "feminine", given to us by a 3000 year old sage/spirit/priestess called "Grandmother", and translated by a brilliant writer and metaphysician, Victoria Ransom. Anyone suffering from the spiritual starvation in our society - alienation, competition, aggression, mechanization, and fear, can find a riveting explanation for the crisis in this book. Not only is the evolutionary malady defined, but solutions for this "Karmic challenge" are offered to correct the imbalance - to provide the inner transformation to "open the heart". Male/Female issues are addressed with this heart-wrenching insight. All of your past life knowledge and divinity will be elevated and charged by these lectures. ACCELERATE YOUR SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION - READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!

Amber Cantrell was excited about starting third grade. She thought she would be the most popular girl with the prettiest name and the longest hair. Then she meets a new girl named Delight Walkfield. I liked this book because it showed you could have more than one friend. It also taught you that you should get to know new people before you judge people.

One of my 4th grade students loved this book because there is a lot of action, likeable characters, and it reminded her of her own experiences.

I like the book Who Needs Third Grade because a girl named Amber quits third grade and at the end someone gets another best friend. Two girls named Amber and Mindy get in a fight because Amber is jealous about a new girl in their class with whom Mindy wants to be best friends. Than Amber cuts off the new girls hair. Find out if Amber and Mindy become friend again by reading the book Who Needs Third Grade. The moral is to apologize to even people you hate.

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

The great strength of this book is in highlighting the ethos of Southern gentlemen like Willy Pegram. Carmichael demonstrates that men like Pegram were engaged in a holy war and as such, performed heroic feats on the battlefield. So if you're one of those people who are still facinated by "the cause" of this war, then this is a book for you. If you're looking for a book on Confederate artillery tactics, techniques, and procedures, however, you'll have to look elsewhere.

I found this book a very interesting read. In it, Peter Carmichael describes the military career of the young Confederate officer, William Pegram. The books gives a nice overview of his successful role in the Army of Northern Virginia as an artillery officer. Most of the text chronicles Pegram's swift rise through the ranks as he boldly leads his men, cannons, horses and caissons on the battlefield. Mr. Carmichael uses many of Pegram's letters home to tell his story. More importantly, Pegram's view of the war, slavery, and the Confederate Cause, come through as well.

Mr. Carmichael does a fantastic job of revealing how some of the young Confederate officers like Pegram viewed the Civil War. Since most Civil War books focus more on the Generals than the junior officers who actually fought the battles, I felt that this book really brought a new perspective to my understanding of the conflict.

I do not recommend this book for those who do not already possess a good understanding of the Civil War. Instead, I highly recommend this book to anyone who has gained an appreciation for the war, and is looking to find out more about its participants. This book really opened my eyes about "the Southern Cause", and how it meant different things to different people.

More than just a blood-and-guts biography of a incredibly brave young officer, this book provides really very interesting insight into the minds and motives of educated Southern twentysomethings before and during the war. This is a fine offering from one of the better young historians working today.

Kobie, a ten-year old unique artist, seems to be having a good life. Her teacher treats her like she's a grownup, she is a talented artist, and she spends a lot of time with her best friend Gretchen. One day her mother announces that she is going into a hospital for back treatments. Kobie is depressed, even though she was previously mad at her mother. Her dad hires Mrs. Blevins, a very nice housekeeper. Kobie instantly starts taking advantage of Mrs. Blevins' good will. Watch as Kobie misses Halloween, gets in and out of scrapes, and gets the ultimate present.

Kobie Roberts is almost ten and half. Things are looking well. She's building roller-coaster with her friend. But suddenly her mom have to go to hospital for a long time and her dad hires a housekeeper. She's very cool lady, and she lets Kobie to do whatever she wants. I read this a long time ago, so I don't remember everything from this book.

This was great book, but it was too much "fairytale-alike". I love this and this is great book but I still enjoy more of the author's books "My sister the Meanie" etc.

I'll rate this with 4 stars!

I'd more accurately give the book 3 1/2 stars. A magician's convention is being held in Bayport and Frank and Joe are asked to help ensure that everything runs smoothly. Also, the old opera house, which is under renovation, is plagued by a series of accidents which are apparently caused by a ghost. I thought that the book was better written than most of the paperbacks that I have read (the lower ones) and the plot more interesting and not as predictable as others I have read. It's not the best book ever, but certainly worth reading.

This book is one of the best in the whole series. Someone kidnapped the President of our country for one billion dallars. If you're a fan of the Hardy Boys you must read this book.

Ok, so the best part of King's Ransom is the handsome, rugged cowboy, King McCandless. He is the reason I gave this book 3 stars. The book starts with someone breaking into Jesse LeBeau's house and trying to kill her. Jesse and King were raised together by King's father, after Jesse's dad died. So King comes to rescue Jesse and bring her back home to the Double M Ranch, so he can protect and take care of her. What King doesn't realize is that when Jesse ran away three years before, it was because she was in love with King, but he only saw her as a sister. Now that Jesse is back she wants to make King love her, and NOT as a sister!! The story line could have actually made a good book, but it was obvious from the beginning who was behind the murder (which was actually suppossed to be a kidnapping). And something else that turned me off was the way anything Jesse did was portrayed as "life threatning". It just made Jesse seem like she was a push over. About the only thing King's Ransom had going for it was the King himself!!

Though this is the fifth book in a five-book re-release from Silhouette Books. I thoroughly enjoyed books 1 through 4 and I can tell you that King's Ransom is a fitting end to this special re-release!

DON'T miss this golden opportunity to put your hands on a winner! I've always been a fan of stories featuring rough and rugged ranchers and King McCandless fits the bill! When King's love interest, young and innocent Jesse LeBeau is ruthlessly attacked in her home in St. Louis one night, King gets the news and comes to the rescue in all his glory (and he's even got a white horse!). King brings Jesse home where she can mend her tortured spirit surrounded by friends and family who will keep her safe....or will they? It's fairly easy to figure out whose the bad guy half-way through the story, but this by no means takes away a minute of your reading pleasure. There are plenty of twists and turns and questions to be answered by the end of the book. After reading this book, who wouldn't wish they had their very own "King"?

If you're looking for a KING of a man, and a heck of a great story, get your hands on a copy of King's Ransom and you'll be happy you did! Happy reading!