It is a hard cover coffee table sized book so its not something you take to bed with you, quite slim but packed full of good material. It is divided into five chapters which cover everything from Jane Austen the person, to daily life in Regency England and the film adaptations. Each chapter is subdivided into smaller sections which are really just double page spreads on a particular subject. Don't expect an indepth analysis of any particular subject but do expect a very competent summary.

Lane includes an Austen chronology of Austen's life - useful and easy to read. The only real objection I have is that many of the pictures used in here are not titled and it is difficult to find out who drew them - the illustrations index in the back is quite small and cluttered.

For those of you who are thinking of buying this book second hand, watch out you don't confuse this book with Lane's earlier work on Austen's life. It is an smaller book and is more of an autobiography tracing her life and travels.

In short - a really enjoyable book.

This is the story of a small boy, suddenly orphaned and alone in
a small fishing village. He is cared for by a different family
each year and wanting to somehow show his appreciation, he uses
his skills as a woodcarver to create and leave small Christmas
gifts for the children in each home he has visited.

From this small beginning the person of Santa Claus slowly becomes a
reality. The Christmas Eve tradition of leaving gifts, how the sleigh
and reindeer became part of the task,and even how the name of Santa Claus
and his traditional red and white clothing were developed are all
explained in this delightful tale.

This is a long hardcover children's book, perfectly written to be
read aloud to young children in the weeks prior to Christmas. I first
read it to my children in the late 60s and then lost the book. I recently
rediscovered this newly published version which includes information
on who the author might really be (probably Hokie,the illustrator)
and a section for recording who read the story to whom and when.

I highly recommend this book if you are a true believer in the spirit
if not the person of Santa Claus, and last Christmas presented the
book to my 18 month old grandaughter. It is a story her mother remembers fondly.

The original was a large paperback, published in the late 60s by a
childrens' book club. If you find a copy, please let me know at
hansenb@usa.net.

Merry Christmas in July !

Interspersed throughout the text are a series of full-color reproductions of works of graphic art--Francois Boucher's "Diana at the Bath," Titian's "Venus with Cupid and Music," and others. Vargas Llosa accompanies each of the reproductions with a fictional interpretation that serves as a counterpoint to the primary narrative of the stepmother and her household. This device allows the author to take his reader across time and space, from fantasy to horror as the erotic odyssey unfolds.

In both the main narrative and the shorter embedded fictions, Vargas Llosa both shocks and seduces the reader with his sensuous detail and psychological insights. "In Praise of the Stepmother" is a multi-media tour-de-force. A delight for lovers of erotica, classic visual art, and great literature, this book confirms in my mind Mario Vargas Llosa's stature as one of the world's great writers.

Lucrecia, newly married to Lima resident, Don Rigoberto, an older, wealthy collector of erotic paintings, suddenly finds her position jeopardized by her husband's young son, Alfonso. She honestly wants the boy to love her, but at what cost? When Fonchito's hard won affection becomes hopelessly entangled with precocious--and dangerous--desire, the fun certainly begins, but the price, we see, may prove to be all too high.

As the relationship progresses into absurdity during Don Rigoberto's all-too-often absences, Vargas Llosa provides thematic commentary in the form of selections from the Don's art collection, included as full-color reproductions of famous paintings, from the Renaissance to the present day, each accompanied by a story to which the painting is to be an illustration. As the book progresses, so does the parade of paintings, twisting and expanding the concept of erotica.

For a small book, In Praise of the Stepmother has an enormous potential to enthrall and, yes, provoke. You might wonder how anyone could have written a book as good as this one. The only answer, of course, is that it is Vargas Llosa...at his best.

Strangely enough, in South America, it is Vargas Llosa's political novels that cause controversy; in North America, it is the sexual content. The cover of this little gem, Exposure of Luxury by Bronzino, was enough to make the censors want to go to work.

Anyone who loves wickedness, fun, wit or Vargas Llosa with fall in love with this book at the drop of a...stepmother.

Note to the Teacher: Good book for a mini-lesson to teach benchmark on Point of View.

Fun for kids, equally interesting to this adult.

After reading this, there was no doubt in my mind that the CIA had masterminded the killing of JFK, and then carried out the cover-up. They lied under oath, pressured the media, encouraged censorship, presented false evidence, threatened and killed witnesses and potential stool pigeons--it's all right here.

While Lane's work is without question some of the best detective work in the 20th century, he was personally involved with much of the cover-up and experienced persecution as a result of his views. Unlike in his "Rush to Judgment", he has a tendancy to take much of this personal, and it shows. Throughout the book, Lane blows his own horn and vehemently attacks Earl Warren, Howard Hunt, and the like. The evidence might speak for itself, but I can see people being put off by Lane's unproffessional attacks.

Perhaps the most chilling conclusion one gets out of "Plausible Denile" and "Rush to Judgment" are not that the CIA conspired to kill a President, but that they conspired to frame and innocent, unsuspecting citizen for the crime.

What makes this book special is that Mark Lane uses federal trial transcripts and deposition testimony to prove his point. That point is: the Central Intellligence Agency was complicit in the murder of President Kennedy.

I was unaware that Mark Lane is an experienced litigator who had criminal trial experience prior to JFK's murder in November 1963. In December 1963 he wrote an article which set forth a lawyer's defense for Lee Harvey Oswald. By that time Oswald was dead, having been murdered in the Dallas jailhouse two days after Kennedy was murdered. Lane pointed out one month after the assassination that a jury most likely would not have found Oswald guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Warren Commission and its 26 volumes went to greath length to show that Oswald was the lone assassin. Mark Lane's 1966 'Rush to Judgment' became the seminal work in disputing the lone assassin finding.

Perhaps 'Plausible Denial', coming almost 30 years after JFK's murder was old news. Whatever the reason this work has been sadly ignored. Mark Lane was defending a publication which had been sued by E. Howard Hunt for defamation. The publication maintained that E. Howard Hunt, veteran CIA operative and convicted Watergate burglar, was in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Lane's book lays the groundwork to show that Hunt's contention he was in Washington, DC that is unprovable. Instead, Lane uses E. Howard Hunt's contradictory testimony under oath to show that nobody can say he was there.

Instead, Lane brings forth witnesses who cannot say he was in Washington DC and a witness who says she met him in Dallas just prior to Kennedy's murder.

Natually, there is much more to all this than E. Howard Hunt. What Lane shows the reader is that the whole matter of President Kennedy's murder is an issue which will never be truly resolved.

Read this book I believe you will enjoy it if you are interested in Japanese literature, but for those unuse to Kawabata, I believe you should read Thousand Cranes or Snow Country first.

The book's information is thorough and useful if one is in a classroom setting.

This book, however, is one of the most thorough primers available. You cannot learn stage fighting from this book, but you can use this book to prepare yourself for what's coming when you study with an SAFD coach. This book gives you instruction on postures, motions, workouts, acting attitudes, and more to get you started and get you in the right way of thinking and moving, preparatory to studying with a certified coach.

One attractive quality of this book is the amount of space it dedicates to unarmed combat. I have encountered many coaching texts that place all the emphasis in their material on fighting with weapons, especially swords. Unarmed combat, when mentioned, is primarily a sidelight. This isn't wholly unfair, since sword fighting is very difficult and involves many integrated skills; sword fighting without wounding or risking a wound to your opponent or yourself is all the more difficult. However, unarmed combat-fistfights, barroom brawls, catfights, and even physical gags in low comedy-require more skill than many people seem to realize. If you throw a punch or kick a foot at random, somebody's going to get hurt, possibly very badly. This book begins to teach readers how to brawl or tangle with somebody unarmed, make it look like it hurts, and walk away unscratched.

All in all, this is a superior book on the skills of staged combat. To repeat, this book will not teach you how to choreograph or participate in a stage fight. No book can do that. If you try to stage a fight without either SAFD-certified participants or an SAFD-certified trainer, injury is all too likely. However, as a side to more strenuous coaching, Richard Lane's "Swashbuckling" is one of the better primers available to you.

The Time Warp Trio books contain amazing pictures by Lane Smith and humorous stories by Jon Scieszka (of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales fame). Time Warp Trio books are entertaining and easy to read and were probably written to encourage kids who don't usually read much to read more.

In Tut-Tut, the boys find themselves in the pharaohs' personal treasure room and are discovered by a angry high priest, who turns them in. Once again, The Book disappears, but this time Joe's little sister is also sucked in the warp, so not only do they have to get The Book back, they have to retrieve her, too.

Enjoy this "quick" summer read!