The book is about a family's misfortunes in a small fishermen's village in Sicily at the beginning of the XX century. The book opens with a tragedy that undermines the financial stability of this big family of poor people. It is about their struggle to cope with it, and their failure because of misfortune. The original title "I malavolgia" could be translated as "the indolent family"; the title is a pun because the family is not indolent at all (well, maybe except for one component), rather they work very hard to solve pay their debts, but when destiny is against you there is nothing to do. This moral of the story and the feeling of sorrow that pervades the book are the reasons why I did not like it and I give it only two stars. But the book received much praise as one of the highest examples of Italian realism.

I have a passion for Niagara Falls; this passion took me to purchasing this book....it captures probably all the fine art imaginable about Niagara. The problem is one of volume. To print the art with a decent size, it would have been too large of a book and too expensive. Hence, they have taken to shrinking a lot of it. Alas, you have the art, but a lot of it is hard to see. Still, a worthwhile purchase for SERIOUS NFalls fans; if you prefer photos SKIP this book!

Interested in anthropology and having never found good studies of the former Soviet Union, I bought this book in 1982, but didn't get around to reading it till 1997. By then, everything had changed, and access to knowledge about the countries that had made up the USSR was far wider than could ever have been imagined 15 years before. Also, I had begun working with immigrants from the Soviet Union and so my personal knowledge of life there had grown in the interim as well. I was disappointed by this book, yet I do not exactly fault the author. Her writing on ritual in industrial society is interesting and useful for any student of the subject. The information on Russia, however, was no doubt extremely limited by what the state permitted her to do or see, and by whom she was permitted to talk to. If you want to read what is usually called "an anthropological study" of ritual in Soviet Russian society, this is not it. I felt that the author's contacts with average people were totally or nearly totally limited. The book presents the views of many Soviet-approved authors on the subject of various rituals, no doubt gleaned from the libraries the author had access to in Moscow. Whether or not the actual ritual participants felt the same remains unknown. Sorry, but this is not anthropology in the usual sense. But I sympathise with the author and admire, in a way, the kind of determination to proceed with what must have been a most difficult task. I wonder if she will ever write a sequel in which she goes back and investigates the same material from the point of view of the actual participants ?

I'm beginning to notice a distinct trend with Allison Lane books: while the hero and heroine are (usually) reasonably well portrayed, the secondary and subsidiary characters are one-dimensional and in some cases unbelievable black-and-white caricatures. Lane writes villains with no redeeming features whatsoever - which is somewhat unrealistic - and with, in some cases, no credible motivation at all for their villainy.

In this case, Catherine is left alone when her brother is killed; her brother's best friend, who she'd expected would at least check that she was all right, completely ignored her. Her brother's heir (the eponymous uncle) arrives at the family estate and, telling Catherine that there is no money left for her dowry, turns her into an unpaid servant for the family. Of course, as we quickly discover, her unredeemably wicked uncle and his wife have been destroying letters, have told the brother's friend (Damon, Lord Devlin) that Catherine was engaged to be married, and have usurped all her money.

Not too incredible so far, I suppose, and this is after all a fairly common - even cliched - plot-line in some historical romances. But Lane builds upon this with embezzlement, murder attempts, misunderstanding upon misunderstanding and just about every cliched plot twist imaginable. By the time the book ended I was almost confidently expecting yet another kidnap or something.

Having now read three Regency romances by Lane, and having made the same criticisms of her secondary characters and cliched plot devices in each, I have now come to the conclusion that she should really be writing Gothic novels. At least in this genre caricatured villains are expected, and the more cliched the better.

This book attempts to explain some of the reasons people of different ethnic groups ,particularly black and white Americans, decide to start relationships, the pitfalls of this and how to avoid some of the problems endemic to interracial relationships. Unfortunatly, the author fails to fully explore any of the subjects he introduces. Each of the shockingly short chapters usually contains a list of some sort, many times seemingly drawn from whatever stereotypes the author has heard over his lifetime. Although he does make some effort to draw conclusions in this book, only the most easily intellectually satisfied reader will not be wanting for more substantiated evidence of the claims represented by this book.I cannot recommend this book to anyone seriously exploring an interracial relationships or looking for personal answers.

In short, this book has the information needed to start playing guitar, but lacks the necessary theory and backup to help a beginning player develop music writing abilities. Creativity is one thing this book does not emphasize, which is indeed an atrocity beyond belief. I would not recommend it to anybody, whether beginner or advanced...

For golf afficianados, this book will come up short. The author seems full of himself without a great grasp of golf.

My son and I were extremely disappointed to discover that this "paperback" is not a book, but a packet of religious, inspirational pamphlets. If you are looking for a book about Darrell Green, this is not the choice for you.

Flying with baby gives little to no good information beyond what to put in the diaper bag and what to pack for snacks which I feel most parent already know. There is no good safety information or information about how infants fair health wise on airlines. The pamphlet is very fluffy and I believe most parents already know all this information.