If I was only allowed to take one book to Tibet it would definitely be the Lonely Planet. It has very useful information about the country, the religion, do's and don'ts, etc. I used this book to prepare for my trip and used it in Tibet to get more information on the city I was in or the tempel or monastery I was visiting. Very detailed information about the tempels, the history and what rooms and statues are what. Very useful information about Lhasa and great maps showing not only interesting sites but also the hotels (so you can find your way back).

This guidebook is certainly among Lonely Planet's best. It is at the same time an excellent travel guide, and also a fantastic yet concise source of insights into the life of this wonderful land. Anyone traveling to Tibet will inevitably encounter a number of restrictions on her/his travel, and will have to stick to the Chinese government's directives and itineraries. It is indeed hard to leave Tibet without a feeling that one was not really able to 'go deep' into its culture. This book might not compensate for the frustrating limitations posed to travelers by the Chinese government, but it certainly goes a good way towards that direction. It contains tips on how to make the most out of your trip, especially in terms of getting to know 'real' Tibet. Its sections on culture, religion and history are excellently written and captivating. All in all, a fantastic endeavour.

This book should be very useful for those who want to visit The Land of Snows as well as for those who just want to learn more from the Tibetan Culture. It has a lot of useful information for travelers, e.g. the best ways to arrive to Tibet (depending of how do you want to do it), and the importance of having a tour guide during your trip (because of political reasons). Inside this book you will find some interesting facts and illustrations about TibetÂ's religion: Buddhism (the spirit of the country), and a few beautiful pictures.

Writer Cleo Grayson McCarthy is having trouble finding her muse on her latest work. Her friend Grace offers her cottage on Cameo Lake in New Hampshire to recharge her creative batteries. Now she is away from her husband and children and other distractions of everyday life. The lake is beautiful, and soon she is making progress on her book. Her neighbor across the lake catches her interest as well. His name is Ben Turner, and soon he and Cleo become friendly. Cleo's family comes to the lake for the weekend. She notices her husband Sean has pulled away from her, especially when he goes back home and leaves her with the kids. He has been getting more and more involved in work--or so he says. Eight years before, she experienced the pain of his infidelity, and she fears it is happening again. She sends her children to day camp, and in this time her friendship with Ben deepens. Secretive, wounded Ben slowly begins to open up.... The protagonists' professions are used beautifully in the narrative with ingenious references to prose and music composition. The lively first-person narrative eloquently tells the story of a woman slowly realizing that her life needs to change, and finding the courage to face grief, guilt, and pain in the change.

I'm a guy who up until now has always read nonfiction. However, I've recently discovered that if I'm going to read "make-believe" once in a while, how much I might enjoy reading novels by female authors. I'm finding out how much I can learn from them. . . especially the nuances of the authors' thought process, especially when falling in love. I would therefore like to recommend Cameo Lake, by Susan Wilson, mostly for men, who will learn just how a woman allows the budding romance to unfold. Most valuable, as I've said, are all the shades of gray that most men probably don't pick up on; for example, her understanding of shy people, pg 24. . . being excited initially with just being friends with Ben, pg 32. . . more of the same excitement on pg 68. . . her disappointment on pg 106 that he was too polite under special circumstances. . . admitting enjoying his nearness on pg 114. . . a white lie on pg 118. . . finding him increasingly attractive, pg 120. . . further, a different sort of man, pg 125. . . lots of nuanced revelations on pg 144, as her feelings for him begin to increase (lucky guy). . . resisting emotional urges, pg 191. . . agonizing over her feelings to the point of being sick, pg 196. . . "smitten with memory", pg 222. . . her own shyness revealed on pg 237. . . hey, it all adds up to a sweet and loving account of how a woman falls in love with a man. This is not a fluff book, although it is an easy read. And finally, a glance at the author's portrait on the back of the book shows all these nuances on her face, with soft eyes that penetrate deep.

This book definately threw me for a loop, but it was very worthwhile. I wasn't used to 3rd person perspective, and it was hard to adapt too. The first chapter was a bit slow, but once I started to get into it, I couldn't put the book down. I absolutely love romances, and this had it. It's just a wonderful novel, taking place at a wonderful place that you can fully image in your mind. You will never forget this book after you're done reading!

Not all book reviews have to be nice. Nor do they have to be exciting. I do feel that I should share my personal feelings about this particular book.

Fern Michaels did a wonderful job in the Texas saga. I truly enjoyed those books. I would have liked to believe that the rest of her books would be half as good. I was truly disappointed with Seasons of Her life.

I didnt like it much. The book was generally good to begin with and then it died in the middle. Fern seems to have tried giving it life support, but when the book had been braindead for that long.... it became a vegetable.

I am an avid reader. I am never without a book to read and this one was just wonderful. I hated it it end. It was a long book but I loved every minute of it. When people ask me some of my favorite books, this one continues to top my list. I have read other Fern Michaels books and some were good and some not so good, but this was by far, in my opinion, her best.

I love to read and this has got to be the best book I have ever read. I hated to put it down. Ruby becomes your best friend. Eveything is just brought to life for you with this author. If you are thinking about buying this one, do it quick.

Theo tries to save Stoneridge Manor and poor Sylvester, the hero, has to choose which of the sisters to marry in order to get the inheritance. Even at that it was a good story and great characters. I know it sounds familiar but it is a fun story and the sisters, especially Rosie are great. Try it, you may like it. I love the insert art too, as so many of her books are done by Pino Dangelico, his art work is so wonderful. He is one of my favorites next to Jon Paul.

First of all, the HEROINE's name is Theo, one of 4 sisters. The HERO's name is Sylvester, once accused of cowardice during the Napoleonic Wars! He is 15 years older, darker, brooding, etc. She is called a "hoyden, wild, and impulsive". The story concerns their love and the problems they solve together.
I wish reviewers could SPELL correctly! A typical Jane Feather- great plot, dialogue, etc. All of her books enthrall me.

This, quite plainly, is the best romance novel I've ever had the pleasure of engrossing myself into. It was the 1ST romance novel I read & I realized that I continue to read everyone I come across to see if it will equal up to Valentine, Unfortunately, they never do. The use of language is exquisite, the characters are sensual yet quirky and the plot easily followed but hard to guess at. Gabrielle is funny, innocent, stubborn, and hopelessly in love while her sensual counterpart, Slyvester is strong, cumbersome, forceful, and in charge of every situation. Buy it, Read it, Love it, Dream it. Valentine. & if you liked Valentine, Vice, also Jane Feather, and Master of Midnight, by Penelope Neri will also capture your heart.

Undertaker Hitchcock Sewell runs into an old flame--a woman with a story. The woman's missing nanny turns up dead and Hitchcock dragoons his private investigator buddy Pete into helping him. The trail of the dead girl gets turns messy, with political corruption, questionable religious organizations, and stories of child abuse coming into the picture. Still, between embalming the occasional customer and chasing after a multitude of attractive females, Hitchcock sticks to his investigation.

Author Tim Cockey uses Hitchcock's introspection to inject a sardonic humor into a serious mystery. Be careful. Picking up a novel with a title like MURDER IN THE HEARSE DEGREE might lead you to expect belly laughs. Instead, Cockey deals up an assortment of wry grins. Inclusion of ex-wife Julia, 12 year-old Darryl, and aging aunt Billie add a touch of humor but seem sometimes slightly forced.

The novel is set in Baltimore and Anapolis, Maryland, and Cockey, a Baltimore native, delivers the real feel for the place, down to the corruption that has never quite been eliminated from the Free State.

Smooth writing and an intriguing story compell the reader through this fast-paced murder mystery.

When a former lover Libby Gellman asks, Baltimore undertaker Hitchcock Sewell agrees to look for a missing nanny, the innocent and sweet Sophie Pitts. Hitch quickly learns that Sophie took a swan dive off the Naval Academy Bridge in Annapolis. The local police department declared that a pregnant Sophie committed suicide, but the victim's mother claims otherwise.

Hitch decides to investigate starting with Sophie's final employer, Libby and her estranged husband, he abusive Michael. Looking for clues leads Hitch to The Alliance for Reason and Kindness where other dead don't line up for final resting at Sewell and Sons Family Funeral Home, but Hitch interferes into their lives anyway.

With all the deaths in MURDER IN THE HEARSE DEGREE, one would think the funeral business would be too busy for Hitch to spend most of his time investigating. The story line is amusing at times as Hitch tosses puns throughout the novel. The support cast, especially the preadolescent who, when she grows up plans to be a mortician, are fun to observe. This is a humorous series and the fourth tale has many funny moments for readers who like a lighthearted dark comedic romp.

This was a book I tried really hard not to like. Protagonist Hitchcock Sewell, part time detective and full time ladies' man, also happens to be an undertaker. Preposterous! Bizarre! But, as it turns out, downright entertaining!

Set in Baltimore and Annapolis, Maryland, our hero sets out to help a former flame (Hitchcock apparently has many) get to the bottom of the death of the family's nanny. While written off by the local police as a classic suicide, the family suspects a much more sinister explanation, in which 'Hitch' is happy to oblige. From there author Tim Cockey succeeds in spinning a good-old-fashioned mystery as undertaker-sleuth Sewell keeps turning up the leads while annoying the authorities and exerting his irrepressible charms on various lady folk. What makes it all work is the cast of zany and off-beat characters, cast with quick pace and a lively and witty, if incredulous, dialogue. The style is more Lawrence Sander's Archie McNally-series than the darker, grittier works of Robert Crais or Dennis Lehane. But Cockey's tongue-in-cheek approach, falling just short of parodying the well-traveled hardboiled PI genre, is refreshing and effective.

In the final analysis, 'Murder in the Hearst Degree' is engaging and engrossing ' before I remembered how much I wasn't going to like it I was sucked-in and addicted. With four Hitchcock Sewell stories in the series preceding this one, I expect there will be more of Tim Cockey I'll be trying not to like.

Edna Buchanan has captured the essence of Miami with her protagonist, reporter Brit Montero. This book was especially great fun. A brash young reporter tries to upstage Brit at the newspaper. She is quite successful. Brit is there with Lottie her friend and Kendall MacDonald. This is a great fun series by Edna Buchanan.

This book was fantastic - you did NOT know what to expect! It really got you into the storyline- I didn't want to put the book down - really great!

I found this book to be better written than most of the similiar books on the market. Her story line progressed well, the multiple plots tied together excently and the crime was believable. I admire Buchanan's style.

This is another great book by Jasmine Cresswell. Keeps you wondering until the end. Definitely try and read her other books, they are also very good.

This was the first of Cresswell's books that I actually liked. The plot is interesting especially in light of today's terrorist activities and it's well crafted and rolls at a good pace. However, the main characters fall in love without much pretext. Yes, they've known each other for a long time and yes, they've kissed and noticed an attraction, but they go from finally getting together after three years of avoidance to a hastily crafted sex scene. I didn't feel much of a connection to Verity once she became sober. Michael had about as much emotion as a stick. The use of a ghost works when he first appears, but then it becomes obvious that he's just there to shove the book along. You read his words and think - oh, please, give me a break. At times the dialogue was stilted and strained and there was a great deal of 'telling' and narration that slowed it down. But all in all, thanks to the interesting plot, it was a good read.

This is the first book I've read by Cresswell and I will definately be looking her up again. This political thriller with a subplot of romance had me interested from the beginning.

Verity, who has been binge drinking since the dead of her husband, is shocked out of her self-piting self-destruction when she sees the ghost of her dead husband on New Year's Eve. When her boss appears on her doorstep announcing an emergency has arisen and she needs to return to her job with the State Department immediately, its a good thing she's been sober for several days.

As an expert on Kashmir, Verity is called off her personal leave of absense to try to difuse a tense situation between India and Kashmiri freedom fighters. As the sitution develops, Verity must also uncover the traitor in the US government who's instigating the current strife.

Overall, this was a good read and I'd recommend it to anyone.

After and inauspicious beginning, Crombie's Kincaid/James series improves with every book. 'Mourn Not Your Dead', 4th in the series, is as good a police procedural you're likely to find.

Crombie uses her characters and plot in some unexpected and interesting ways. This installment's victim is a senior police officer. Crombie uses this instance to shed light on the inner workings of the Met. The case is set in an English country village and Crombie uses the setting to give us a new look into English country life. The intersecting lives and loss of life in this village are presented in fresh, never predictable and, one senses, quite accurate ways.

Sometimes, mystery/crime series can be a bit like watching 'Touched by an Angel'. The formula never varies, the pace never varies, characters are predictable and two-dimensional at best. You will feel mad, glad, sad and afraid at all the usual points. This is NOT SO with Crombie's Kincaid/James series, especially installments 3 and 4.

I'm on to #5 in the series "Dreaming of the Bones" which was a NY Times Notable Book of the year when it was published -- a rare acheivement by a crime series novel. If Crombie stays on track -- and the Times's opinion indicates she has -- this should be a winner.

This is a fine series. It took quite a while to get the clues which are there, but they aren't! Gemma begins to come around too. Reading these fine mysteries in order is helpful especially waiting on long lines at the airport. The British feeling is so there! The characters are interesting. Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James are very human and its fun to watch their progress.

If you like well-plotted, well-written police procedurals served up with a healthy dollop of character-driven writing, pick up this and all the other books is this engaging series. You'll find yourself equally interested in the solving the crime and in the personal relationship between crime-fighting partners Gemma James and Duncan Kinkaid.

OK, I've tried to read "Quo Vadis" several times and... man, I just couldn't dig it!! The descriptions are nice enough, if you don't mind the wordy style of Victorian times, but what rubbed me wrong was how the Christians vs. pagans battle was portrayed. The Christians are dull and pretty stupid- almost intolerably goody goody, and *insipid*! The pagans are bad, but they're bad in an interesting way. Sure, they're going to hell in the end, but in the meantime, they're so dynamic and fun- and Nero can sure plan good orgies. Read the New Testament and you'll see the early Christians in there are almost anything but stupid, and certainly not dull! (I imagine St Pete himself was a pretty exciting cat to know.) I get the feeling old Henryk knew that he had to write in the 'Christians' as the heroes, but his heart wasn't really into it. He really knows how to describe a party, and all the superficiality it entails. But the Christians in this book- they're NOTHING like the truly spiritual people of my acquaintance. They come across like Victorian stage characters, posing in the accepted holy poses, having visions in the accepted style of visionaries. (Angels come out and lights abound; all the acceptable props, you know.) So, read "Quo Vadis" for the gorgeous detail and ornate dialogue, because I can't say it's not technically well done. But if you want something that gets into the heart of soul of a spiritual/religious quest, than you'd better go elsewhere.

This book reads a bit like a trashy romance novel. That is to say, it is a very easy read, the vocabulary is relatively simple, and the story gets you hooked from chapter to chapter. Not to mention it kind of _is_ a trashy romance novel. But on the other hand it does give one a nice picture of the first Christians and Rome in Nero's time. The characterization of Nero is especially funny. Not to mention it has a nice/happy ending so you feel all warm and fuzzy at the end in spite of all the nasty things that happen in between. (Hope that was not too much of a spoiler) All in all, an entertaining read, but don't expect big revelations.

There are some foreign language books, like the Odyssey, or the Three Musketeers, or perhaps Ibsen, that endure lingual translations, despite the incompetency of the translator. Quo Vadis is not one of those books. Some translations are terrible and flat, while others ring true with the lucidity of brilliant writing. The W.S. Kuniczak edition is probably the finest rendition currently available in English. However, if one is looking for a biblical work of fiction that truly inspires in English- try Ben-Hur, by Lew Wallace.

I am a big fan of Krentz in all of her psuedonyms and this book was no exception. I especially appreciated that throughout the book Mattie sticks up for herself. Even though she loves Hugh he must prove himself worhy of that love. Also Mattie wont let him intimidate her into forgiving him or doing whatever he wants her to do. I love a character with a mind of her own.

I would start this review by saying this is one of the top three of my favourite JAKs...but then I stopped and realised I have 12 to 15 top three JAKS! Yes, she is a formula writer. If you don't care for the formula, then don't buy her. Simply enough. For those that appreciate her deft wit, her sharp repartee, there is no one like her. I adore her writings and think this is a one of her better ones.

Mattie Sharp stared down at the man dressed all in white, watching him die, and when he uttered to tell him "reign in hell", she knew she had stepped off in the middle of something very bad. The "him" was Hugh Abbott, a man she has been trying to avoid for a year, a man she once offered to follow to the ends of the earth - or in this case to St. Gabriel's Island.

Hugh Abbott was her aunt's 'pet wolf'. He was a security expert and troubleshooter for the large multinational business her aunt inherited. Since her aunt adores Hugh's genes, she fixed him up with her niece, Ariel. Maddie watched the miss-match romance go down in flames, knowing from the first time she saw him her sister was all wrong for Hugh. Maddie had stood by and waited, knowing she was falling in love with him. When the breakup came, Maddie made her pitch. A candlelight dinner, a good bottle of wine and a night of lovemaking were the formula to Hugh's heart - she thought. Only when the morning came for Hugh to leave for St. Gabriel's Isle, he refused to take Maddie. He tried to tell her it was bad timing. He was angry over the break up his engagement, but it came out all wrong, with him saying Maddie was 'just not his type'.

So hurt by the rejection, Maddie made sure she stayed away from Hugh. This was not easy, since her Aunt is determined to get Hugh in to the family and is most willing to help play matchmaker. Hugh, once he got over the breakup, saw he wanted Maddie, but she would not accept any letters or calls from him. Worse, four times during the year, he conspired with her aunt to bring Maddie and him together. All four times, Maddie left town rather than see him.

So her Aunt sent her to pick up a medieval sword from the Island of Purgatory from the man who was at her feet dying, an excuse to get Hugh and Maddie together. Hugh Abbott is there, and she is very glad for the comfort of his arms. But it begins an adventure with them running for their lives through the jungles. Despite their predicament, Hugh sees this as a chance to win Maddie back. But Maddie is feed up with being second place to her sister and is determined not to be hurt by Hugh again.

Maddie is charming, funny and warm; Hugh is a wonderfully droll 'throw-back'. They will win your heart.

A delightful story that is among her best. If you're a fan, don't miss this book. If you're not, start with this one, you'll soon understand the reason Krentz is one of the more popular romance/adventure writers.