I enjoyed Pat Booth's other books, Miami, Palm Beach, Malibu and Beverly Hills. I would have liked this book much more had it not been for the ending. I liked the idea of Kate Haywood being a Martha Stewart type, with her rise to success stunning. I was disappointed in her final decision as to who she would spend the rest of her life with. Her husband is an egotistical jerk who wants to take all the credit for her success. I found the book a little confusing they way Ms. Booth spent so much time developing the story of the American sculptor and the English doctor. I kept wondering where this all was going in relation to the start of the book with the development of the Kate Haywood character. All in all I wasn't left with that 'book well read' feeling when I finished.

"American Icon" was not your typical Pat Booth book. I will say this much: I think I like her old books better. This book was good, Kate and Peter and Donna and Steven are interesting enough, but it lacks all the steamy scenes of her early books. Try it, you'll like it!!!

Kate, a glamorous New York City based fashion model falls in love with Peter, a successful literary agent. It's the late 1960s when they marry, move to the Hamptons, and have a daughter. Starting their own cottage-industry business, Kate becomes an enormous success as a best selling author, a magazine publisher, and then the head of a home-making empire. But success is not without its costs. Personal and business pressures drive Kate and Peter into the arms of other lovers. But when a tragedy befalls their daughter, both of them come to realize the truth of their commitment to each other and to their family. American Icon is a superbly written novel that is expertly narrated by Kate Harper in the complete and unabridged production from Chivers Audio Books. With excellent technical production values, this highly recommended addition to any community library audiobook collection has a playing time of 13 hours, 15 minutes.

Pretty bad novel about attorney Brooke Benton (yuck!) who flees the big city (she's being stalked by a maniac who's mad she got a killer off) and moves to Amish country. Not long after she's there, a big truck runs into a buggy full of Amish teens and then flees the scene. The teens all die and Brooke takes over the investigation. All the while, she's swooning over Daniel, a studly Amish guy, and crying a lot. Pretty badly written, not that entertaining, and a little bit patronizing about the Amish, but it takes a lot more than that to get me to put down a book once I've started it. Maybe it's a pride thing. I honestly can't explain why I bothered reading past page 35.

A far, far better mystery involving the Amish community is Jodi Picoult's "Plain Truth." Head on over there and buy that one instead!

Karen Harper seldom disappoints and this book was no exception. The story was interesting and the Amish connection was informative as well. Daniel and Brooke seemed like a "real" couple and Daniel's torment about his "Amishness" was realistically portrayed. I look forward to reading EMPTY CRADLE, which is waiting on my shelf.

A great story! Mystery, romance and adventure--in a quiet Amish community? Yes! Yes!

A lady lawyer leaves the big city seeking safety from a stalker for herself and her young niece. They come to Maplecreek to operate a friend's quilt shop. The peaceful community is disrupted when four young Amish are killed by a mysterious hit and run driver. The lawyer-in-hiding feels compelled to find the killer of her young friends.

Meanwhile an uneasy relationship is building between the worldly lawyer and a 'plain' man who has returned from life outside to commit himself to the Amish ways.

The author pieces together her story like a fine Amish quilt and keeps the reader guessing until the end. The characters are very well developed and believable and I look forward to reading more from Ms Harper

The story in this book was interesting, but I found the style of telling it to be choppy and hard to follow. The description of a difficult childbirth was mesmerizing and really well-done, but the romance was too sparse. Mostly I objected to ends not being tied up....we never found out what happened to several of the secondary characters, people we had either come to like or wanted to be sure they got what they deserved!

I have read almost all of Karen Harper's books. I think she is a great writer. She really pulls you into the story. Like all of her other stories, she has a gift for making you feel like you are the heroine/hero. You feel like you are actually living in Apalachia (sp?).

I liked the character of Emma - the midwife/heroine of the book. Griff was interesting too. I wish Karen Harper would include more romance in her books. I always feel like she is holding back in the romance dept. There were so many opportunities in this book. I do highly recommend this book. Romance or not the story was suspenseful and the secondary characters were first rate!

This book has a great plot and some wonderful twists. Having the heroine be a midwife and the hero be a doctor was a wonderful idea.

I would have rated it higher if there weren't so many plot coincidences. Also, a couple of scenes, though exciting, didn't ring true because they seemed a bit contrived.

Also, I would like to know why the front cover blurb gives away a major secret!

I gave this one a B- a All About Romance.

This audio cassette is a huge disappointment. Not only is the content unamusing, but Valerie reads the lines s-l-o-w-l-y ... perhaps to try to fill 90 minutes (yes - the whole thing, unabridged, fits on one 90 minute tape!) How many pages were in the book version I wonder ... 6? It is hard to fathom what Valerie is trying to achieve with this mis-mash of supposedly woman-empowering babble, but she has failed dismally - she isn't even funny or interesting when quoting the odd line from Rhoda. Valerie, if you read this - PLEASE sit down and write your autobiography. I am sure all your fans would much rather hear about your rise to TV superstardom than hear tired old rants along the lines of "wouldn't it be different if men got menopause", etc.

This book was a quick read and good for deep hearted laughter. I say it is for those over 40 as you have to have lived some of life to see the realistic humor and feel it as well. Enjoy!

Valerie Harper's book will make you laugh out loud, and reach for the phone to share the lines with your friends "of a certain age." Universal humor shines with universal truths, and wisdom.
This book is for women who have lived and laughed and have the grey (or in my case, as a former redhead, white) hairs, and grin wrinkles, to prove it! Valerie Harper reminds us that life at any phase, is to be celebrated.

Jim Lowder is one of the best authors TSR has ever had. This is a good book, Artus is a cool character. The Ring is a great artifact, and while Chult may not be favorite setting I still enjoyed this book. Check it out.

Artus Cimber is the classic do gooder, followed by trusted friends who meet tragic ends. His supposed guardian is turned against him and all seems lost until he finds the ring of winter. Hello! this is the best relic i have read about in awhile. When all this was said and done I applaud Mr Lauder on a job well done. And for the guy who wrote about Kelemvor Lyonsbane... well this is Artus Cimber's story and we don't need a flash back to the God of the Dead all right. Now that Artus has the ring he is a god. metalcam says great book and read it with an open mind not closed.

A Victorian-style lost world saga with dinosaurs and talking wombat sidekicks pretty much says it all. (If you don't have a sense of humor, read something else.) The civilization in Chult was cool, with some interesting historical parallels. The adventurer's club in Cormyr was a good addition to the Realms, too.

By my definition, this book is not cruelty-free. Not even close. The recipes call for ingredients such as eggs, buttermilk, honey, lanolin, and vodka. A good majority of these recipes are not vegan, and I would not recommend that vegans order it.

Reading the delightful chapters of this book brings back so many treasured memories of my childhood summers in Somerset, England during the 1940's. My aunt often took me foraging in the hedgerows and fields for wild herbs and fruits, and made skin tonics, bubble baths, hair rinses, furniture polishes and luandry softners. Fresh produce was used for cooking, cleaning, and skin-care. Natural beauty ment taken from nature. No chemicals were addes for preserving or storage and therefore no testing on animals. The author authenticates natural as being free gifts from nature. She offers fresh foraging and used of wild herbs and fruit, infused oils, free range eggs, unpasterized milk, raw honey, and if there are recipies that require an alcoholic spirit as a preserative, it would have probably been (since most of her recipies are generations old) made from the humble potato, much like the gin my grandfather made called "moon shine". Obviously the reader should take into consideration that our American countryside is not as uncultivated, and farming methods are not as traditional as they were, and in some areas, still are, in the counties of England. The author has to the best of her ability offered alternative ingrediants accessible to readers and workable to her recipies. I would highly reccomend this book to anyone who loves all animals, and wants to naturally nourish and keep her skin ageless and beautiful at any age.

For centuries women have turned to nature for tips, rescue and guidance with a wide variety of health and skin conditions. Harper-Roth's open invitation into homemade whole-body care, contains everything you need to know to begin making and enjoying your own herbal detailed, accurate, fun and rewarding to anyone interested in enjoying a well nourished,soft textured and ageless looking body suit, while at the same time saving the envioment and preventing cruelty-testing on animals.

As a Crohn's disease patient, I must tell others that the information in this book is very different from what you will read elsewhere. The "Natural Way" diet/lifestyle is Macrobiotic. I suggest you research what that is before you purchase this book. I was very dissapointed in the content of this book.

This is a compelling personal story of the author's battle with Crohn's disease, near-death experiences, and her triumph in finding a solution in macrobiotic food and lifestyle. While most of the painful and embarrassing experiences Harper shares are common to people suffering from IBD, I think it takes a lot to share this kind of personal information with unknown readers, and she deserves credit.

Harper finds health and happiness in a macrobiotic diet and a lifestyle that is less stressful. Most traditional doctors and specialists will say that 'diet has nothing to do with Crohn's'. I agree with Harper's point that "most people who suffer from some form of IBD know in their heart [gut!] that food is a trigger and a likely cause of their illness". I also agree that beyond simply taking prescribed pills, the patient needs to take a greater role in one's own healing. Harper points out the power of positive visualization, and the joy she felt when the healthy image she envisioned years earlier was actually achieved. Beyond the macrobiotic diet she espouses, other key points include: the importance of chewing your food completely to aid in digestion, eating smaller meals (but more often), and the importance of a caring support structure. To anyone critical of the time commitment involved in any sort of natural self healing: it is an investment of time to feel well versus time spent seeing doctors and feeling poorly.

My disappointments with the book stem from the broad title and where the book leaves off. The title suggests the possibility of the discussion or comparison of more than one natural solution to dealing with IBD. For example, I follow the SCDiet, and would consider that to be natural as well (albeit quite different from the macrobiotic diet). Also, I was left wondering if Harper would be able to sustain her diet and lifestyle changes, as she deviated off the regimen, which resulted in a few flares.

This is a must read for anyone with Crohn's disease. Virginia Haper tells her personal story of living with Crohn's Disease for most of her life. Her experiences will be familiar to anyone who has dealth with this illness. Through her story the reader will find out how she was able to overcome the disease and live virtually symptom free for over twenty years. Her story proves a change in eating and living habits can help this disease. Her story and triumph are truly inspirational and bring hope to all those who suffer with Crohn's Disease.

This book is very hard to read - it needs a good editor to clean it up. The grammar is horrible - many sentences have words missing or words used incorrectly making it a hard read for anybody. Since this is a computer book and literary expectations are usually low enough I should instead focus on the content. There are many better books on configuring Linux. I'm sure the author has competent Linux skills but like the poor writing, the presentation of those skills is lacking. This book is a blackeye for any publisher that would allow something like this to escape editing.

The book offers some moderate help for Linux admins, but really fails to do either of the following well: 1) Explain terms and commands in an easy to understand method 2) Take advanced routines and make them work--the ip proxy example doesn't work with my version of RH.

This book is great - answers many questions on setting up a Linux internal (home) network. Its up-to-date and includes the authors own network example. A definite plus!

I cannot figure out why this book has such
a good reputation. As a beginning French
student I want to be able to easly find
the corresponding French/English-English/French
word, and the phonetic pronounciation.

I can't do either with this book.

When I find the word there are paragraphs
of text to wade through to find the many meanings.
Yes I know. There probably are many nuances and
meanings depending on context, but it's just too
much for my purposes.

Too many words; too little useful information.
This book is utterly worthless.

I am finding the English translations predominantly British and scores of American English words and expressions missing. I thought this was because I bought mine in France but my LaRousse pocket dictionary doesn't have the same problem. I am writing a series of books and use this constantly, hours and hours every day, and so I am further able to see a disturbing trend: the things females talk about, the words and expressions they use tend to be the shortest entries in the book! This is making my research very rough going since half my audience is female! This may be a function of the American vs. British thing; maybe British females aren't as fluent with psychology, for example, as American women... but I doubt it. Talking about emotions and relationships is a pretty globally female trend, yet many of the words describing these things are labelled "Psych", as though they are used only by professionals when in fact in the US they are part of the vernacular. This is forcing me to cross-reference three or four times to be sure I'm using the correct form of the word.

My next complaint is that the meanings are sometimes inaccurate. For example: the second connotation of the word "appreciation" is "gratefulness" and the onlyFrench word they supply is "reconnaissance." The sense "like, admire" is not addressed at all. There are many examples like this and I am not really sure to what it can be attributed but I can't imagine it would be a good resource for college students if it doesn't work for a writer.

This is my experience and I would love to hear an American provide some tips because I bought 2 versions of this brand!

"Harper Collins Robert French College Dictionary" has a rather long name, but that is the only big blame I have for it. It quickly opens the door at the request of any French enthusiast.
This well-compiled lexicon covers almost all the contemporary words that French natives use in daily conversations. It has a good structure, and its double-spaced outlay makes it easy to locate words. However, intending (American) buyers should bear in mind that this edition paid more attention to the Queen's English than it did to the American one.

Moon guides are in general well researched, balanced, informative and truly valuable travel companions. Northern California, for example is quite excellent.

This "new" edition of the Philippines Handbook, published in late 1999, is, however, a sharp contrast to Moon's normal standards.

Sloppily edited and badly out of date its errors are too numerous to mention, the accomodation sections being especially unreliable. I checked out accomodation comments for several cities which I personally know well including Manila and Cebu and the data in this book are either very out of date, very incomplete, or just plain wrong. Information on shopping in both Manila and Cebu is similarly outdated or just plain absent.

No travel guide, unfortunately, takes this interesting, challenging and rapidly developing country seriously. The "new" (1977) Lonely Planet guide is little better than the Moon guide

In summary, if you have an older edition of either guide, use it. These "new" editions are a sham.

Unlike the great South Pacific handbooks by Moon this book lacks detail. It mentions areas you can go to, but not how to to get there or where to stay. It has general information but is not worth it. Would rather like to depend on Lonely Planet, am going to check out Jens Peters book as well. I'll pass on this guide.

This was our guide to our last trip to the Philippines, and was priceless. Was enjoyed just as much by our relatives there. Would never have enjoyed the 'Hobbit House' so much if it hadn't been mentioned. This is a must have guide for anyone travelling there.