This book is a good source of history about the Kentucky River but is very difficult to read. The writing is awful, as Mr Ellis often changes topics in the middle of a paragraph and punctuates erratically. This book is heavy on recollections of old-timers on the river, but light on photos, maps, and illustrations that would help to make the book a lot clearer.

Only buy this book if you have a deep interest in the history of Kentucky or America's rivers. If you don't have a driving interest in one of those subjects this book will put you to sleep.

So far I think this is a good book. The book is about a girl by the name of Lori Randall. Lori has a relashionship with a boy named Nick Hobart. one day he Shows how much he loves her and gives her a family heirloom, it was a pendant. Lori goes around showing it to all her friends and when she goes to put it on she can't find it. If you want to find out if she finds it before Nick does, read the book, "Merivale Mall Lost and Found." I would recimmend this book to ages 10-16.

This is a useful book for special librarians to learn about the operations of other special collections.

This contempory novel set in Colorado answers a question: "Is it possible to have romance, intrique, murder, mystery, and a soccer team of 6 year old girls all in one story?" Bill Ellis says yes because he did it & did it well. The plot and sub-plots mix well as he tells of a Secret Service Agent coping with his job while recovering from the tragic death of his wife. The action & romance blends well.

the book gets into different things that could explain the old testament supernatural happenings and possible mistakes in the translations of egyptian writings.that the hebrews were at first invaders of upper egypt and had their own short lived dynasty which led to civil war,then agreed to move out of the land.and that at the same time the volcano- mt.thera,in the greek islands area exploded causing darkness,famine,freak storms and alot of ash fallout.the author's research is good and he finds alot of new science studies that back the volcano, and archeology proofs that the hebrews were not as they appeared in the traditional old testament.if your into this stuff it's worth getting.i say this from some knowledge on the issue.i have read many books on the history of the bible,including some very controversial fringe stuff.enjoy!!!

This selection of experiments demands a lot of "building." Admittedly you do build cool things-a machine for measuring insect heart beats, a home electrophoresis set-up, a high altitude chamber, a device for measuring metabolism in small animals, a video microscope system, etc. You spend a lot of time doing device construction. If you like bulding machines, they you will enjoy this book.

Very few of the experiments involve little or no construction--a couple of exceptions being a neat way to extract dna from stuff and a growth inhibitor-plant experimnet. Plus fun slime mold stuff.

I say, where are the fun things to do with bacteria? Or things you can do to your friends or pets without hurting them? There isn't nearly enough variety here.

Great experiments and great machines, but this selection may prove a bit daunting to the beginner or the younger child. Could be useful for some science fair experiments, though.

Although this book has extremely good photos and charts, its actual content is limited. Coverage of specific events and battles is conscice. This shortcoming is slightly made up for in the book's appendicies which include a nice atlas, portfolio projects, histrical documents, and glossary. However, I recomend this book only for a general review of world history. It is useful as a suplement to other world history texts.

This book basically stinks. I'm older now but some goosebumps books were actually scary. He didn't put enough detail in this book to make it scary.Although this book is for little kids the way R.L. Stine wrote it was very juvenille. Why can't he come up with something gory?blood?guts? anything other than some snarling beast? He needs to put vicious murders in his stories even if them little guys be kids. More detail on the scary parts R.L.! Come up with something original please

Such a cool book. What an achievement for R.L. Stine. It was such an interesting story!!! It didn't blabber about nothing it stuck to the story. Just go and read it. "Baaaa." Translated that means "Cool!"

Great book! I totally freaked out because of the horrible comments some people wrote about this book! I loved this book, it's probably the best Goosebumps book I read so far. I love the cover, I thought it looked like my bunny I have at home. I wish I could turn into a bunny like Tim's sister! I recommend this book to everyone! I give it a zillion stars!

The title says it all: "Imagining Atlantis," because the author has done next to no actual research on the topic and only expresses his own opinions. This book is repetitive and poorly written, follows a sloppy outline for a book, and spends more time denigrating the characters of past researchers of Atlantis than dealing with their actual research. The worst part is that, having written this book, Ellis now tries to pass himself as an expert on Atlantis and now appears on several documentaries dealing with the subject.

Ellis presents a very forthright book. It is a good overview, thorough enough to encapsulate the history of Atlantis lore, theories, and studies, yet easy enough to remain readable without being a boring list of facts and references. Ellis does a fine job of refuting most theories and pointing out other reserachers factual and logical errors. I was especially pleased to see a refutation of the current craze, that Atlantis is merely the Minoan Thera. I believe this book presents the most grounded work I have seen on the Atlantis myth. There are no UFOs or aliens, no prophecies or psychics, no Biblical and mythical allusions, and no global catastrophes or conspiracies. This is a good thing, and a breath of fresh air in the Atlantis mythos.

However, the book suffers in two ways. One, it dismisses the Atlantis tale out-of-hand, as a moral myth, without allowing for the factual kernels of Plato's tale to remain standing. There is no potentiality for future possibilities, if it is simply dismissed, and the whole subject is closed. Secondly, Ellis' book suffers from a few structural flaws, such as an odd repetition of certain phrases and thoughts, as if the book received no final editing and remained a rough draft. Three, his research lacked depth in certain areas, such as in history and archaeology, though I am aware and he states that these are not his specialties.

Overall, it is a valuable addition to the study of Atlantis.

"Imagining Atlantis" is a well-researched, highly detailed, and fascinating book about how generations following Plato's have conceived of the fabled island.

Although Ellis outlines his book chronologically, starting with what Plato actually said, and continues from there, most of the book covers 18th- to 20th-century dealings with the legend, from Atlantis in fiction, mysticism, archeology/geology, and even films.

Ellis presents each story vivdly and objectively, though of course objectivity may be hard to maintain when future archeologists and "Atlantologists" decide that when Plato says Atlantis existed "nine thousand years ago", he *really* meant nine hundred years.

Ellis' critical wit surfaces most in the Fiction and Film section when describing the cheesy Atlantis movies made in the early 20th century, replete with bad props, unexplained plots, cheap costumes, and poor effects. Yet even here his descriptions lean more towards a humorous look back on, rather than a disdainful criticism of, how human creativity has retold the Atlantis tale.

I give it four stars instead of five mostly because of the style in which it was written. Though the language was lucid and engaging, Ellis *really* loves parentheses. Almost every page contains at least three parenthetical remarks, where simple commas might have sufficed - and sometimes even entire quotes are enclosed in parentheses... right in the middle of a sentence (cf. p. 95, 3rd full paragraph)! Nevertheless, as distracting as the style might be, the message nonetheless was communicated.

Another reason I give it four stars instead of five is because the middle part of the book concentrates more on the "Crete-as-possibly-Atlantis/Thera-volcano" saga. Examining Crete, with its supporting archeological evidence, as a possible candidate for Atlantis, as well as the nearby volcano on Thera, as the destroyer of the flourishing civilization on Crete is necessary - actually, I found it quite intriguing, as it reads like a detective story - but I recognize the focus on Atlantis is sacrificed in this part of the book. More attention is given to how cataclysmic the eruption was, how high the tsumanis were; for comparison, more recent accounts of volcanic eruptions and tidal waves are offered, further distancing the reader from the original focus on Atlantis.

Reviewers who have rated this book low, I believe, have very obviously missed the point of the book. It is intended to study how different people have treated the Atlantis story through the centuries, not to actually locate the island.

To the reviewer who said that Ellis "has done next to no actual research on the topic and only expresses his own opinions", Ellis does make his own position clear... in his conclusion! Elsewhere, he is very much objective and criticizes conceivers of Atlantis only when, for example, they completely twist the original account in Plato to suit their own needs; make up faulty maps showing Atlantis quite visible in the middle of the Altantic; jump to conclusions and declare Atlantis has at last been found; make the destruction of Atlantis responsible for everything from the biblical flood to the exodus from Egypt; or are actually proven false (like Cayce and his "prediction" of Atlantis' "re-surfacing" in 1968). And as for not "dealing with [the] actual research [of "past researchers of Atlantis]", what of the detailed findings at Crete, the results of which led several contemporary researchers like Platon and Frost to equate it with Atlantis?

To the reviewer who exalts Plato as a "seeker of truth", who asks us to believe "the Atlantis story is true" just because Plato *said* so - I find it hard for me (or Ellis) to take seriously the word of a man who posited the ridiculous Theory of the Forms, or the Argument from Recollection, to prove the existence of the soul, which he (or Socrates) assumes already exists. In the Phaedo, Plato/Socrates admits to his interlocutors: "I assume the existence of a Beautiful... a Good and a Great and all the rest. If you grant me these and agree that they exist, I hope to show you the cause as a result, and to find the soul to be immortal." (Plato, Five Dialogues, p. 138) Yeah, it's really easy to do that once your audience has already agreed with you on the eternal existence of abstract concepts. Therefore, when Plato says he heard from a friend who heard from an Egyptian priest about an advanced civilization that flourished 9,000 years before *him*, I'm not exactly going to take him at face value.

All in all, this is a fantastic book that describes people's theories about Atlantis throughout history, leaving the author's own, and more probable, theory for the end.