Though some people seem set on dividing the universe into arbitrary segments, the universe is not so tidy. This book supposedly is aimed at women working in universities. It is of value to a wider audience, however. It shows the "rules" by which women are expected to play, explains where the rules came from, and shows how female academics have engaged in counter-hegemonic discourse and action. The role of mentoring is emphasized. This is a good source for blue-collar women who assume university professors have it made, for students who intend to teach, for academics of both sexes, and for readers who are starting to suspect they have feminist tendencies.

The Starplace is an absolutely awesome book. It teaches the values and importance of people of other countries, nations, and colors. Not only is it set for reading of any ages, it is interesting to the older audience as well. I think Vicki Grove did a tremendous job on this book.

Frannie is an average white girl entering the 8th grade school year. She has friends and family that all care about her, and her life is running smoothly, until the day she sees young Celeste in a black car. Celeste is like no other in the city, she is African-American. At first, Frannie ignores Celeste in school, and doesn't care about her, but it's impossible to ignore her forever, in chorus she is the best singer around. They quickyl socialize a bit and become fast friends. The name "The Star Place" came from the place Frannie and Celeste practice every night, it soon becomes a second home, and a second life to the culture of the city Quiver.

This book is awesome and is a must read for people of all skin colors. There really isnt a special age you have to be to read this book. I first read it in 3rd grade, and have re-read it over the years. This book definetly deserves all the credit it gets.

Not much happens in Quiver, Oklahoma, where Frannie Driscoll lives. Then, one day in the summer of 1961, an African- American girl moves to town. The surprising part is, she starts going to Quiver Junior High School, which is an all-white school. The girl, Celeste Chisholm, soon befriends Frannie. Why is the book called the Starplace, you ask? There is a field behind Frannie's house that overlooks Route 66. There once was a playground there, and people built a lot of things there, and one was a slide that they built to look like a rocket. Because of the highway, the playground was moved to a safer location. But they couldn't move the rocket. So the rocket stayed there on Route 66. Anyway, Celeste and Frannie became "star sisters" and met in the rocket each night. This book teaches you about religion, freedom and segregation. I reccomend this book to anyone who loves reading about history.

Starplace is about a thirteen-year-old girl named Frannie Drscoll. She lives in a small town called Quiver in Oklahoma. On the first day of school she finds there is a new girl, Celeste. There is just one problem with it. Quiver Junior High is all white, and Celeste is black.
Starplace is a very good book. It is very exciting and keeps you reading till the end. It tells what life could have been like for people living in the time. The characters seem very realistic. It is easy to read but very exciting and if you like those kinds of books, you will like this book.

I loved the book, so far from the bamboo grove, it completely enriched and enlightened me about what was happening in 1945, and i hate history books, the text books you can't get into, it just facts... i don't learn that way but reading this book made me want to learn more about history and world war II, Yoko Kawashima had put her heart and soul into this book and it was amazing to feel so much for such a wonderful book. I was so sad half the time and then i was so proud as well, thinking of Yoko as myself or my little sister. It was a terrific read and i hope everyone enjoys it as much as i did. thank you.

This book, So Far from the Bamboo Grove, was a very touching and inspiring story. It really showed you a different perspective of life. Being a student at a good private school, I think that my life is much like what Yoko's life was before she fled Nanam. I can not imagine what it would be like to have my life torn away from me and suddenly be digging through garbage cans to survive. It also showed you a very different view towards World War II. Being an American, I have always believed that the Americans should win all wars, and the wartime stories I have read all have characters who want America and their allies to win. This story, about a Japanese girl, told of the struggles of being on the losing side of the war, something I had not read about before.

This emotional story tells the true story of Yoko Kawashima, an eleven-year-old Japanese girl living in Korea during the end of World War II. As danger creeps ever closer to her hometown of Nanam, she and her mother and honorable sister Ko must flee their home in the bamboo grove, without Yoko's father or honorable brother Hideyo. The story is a first-hand account of what it was like to escape the horrible war. The things that she had to survive through are so terrible, I thought there was death lurking around every corner. This story is true, and Yoko survives to this very day, making the story all the more inspirational. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to experience World War II from a young girl's eyes.

This book is a rare type of work which you do not find often. Usually a book is about a Korean family who tries to escape from the North, but this is a Japanese family who had to go through the same type of hardship to escape the escalating power of the Korean Communists. Watkins did an incredible job of portraying the situation of that time through the eyes of a young person.

I read "A la recherche du temps perdu" in its original language and I took about one year to finish it. It's a very difficult book ( 8 volumes) to read. It is not a autobiography nor a representation of reality, nor a interpretation of the world, but it's a book about us, human beings, about our innerselves, about time and space and the relationship we all have with those two realities. And all this in the most beautifull and perfect literary form. Proust writes about life like a microscope looks at reality: tiny little details we all experience but are not realy aware.This book is a masterpiece about us.

This book is unlike anything I have ever read. Proust's basic premise is that we do not fully appreciate an experience when it happens because we are hampered and distracted at the time by the experience itself. It is only when we remember and relive an event that we are truly able to extract the most from it and thus, in remembrance, experience it more vividly than we ever could at the time it happened. So Proust, a sickly asthmatic ex-socialite locked in a cork lined room, remembers and relives his entire life, and the seven volumes of Remembrance are the result. And his remembered and relived life is rich indeed, perhaps unsurprisingly, even more so than his actual life was. This is total recall with enhancement.

But the book is much more than that. It is paragraph after paragraph and page after page of the most perfect prose and Proust the perfectionist is also the funniest and wickedest writer that ever lived. His characters: the pompous bores, self righteous clergymen, overrated diplomats and talentless but currently fashionable artists, the dandies, hypocrites, proud servants and relentless social climbers are all stripped bare by his subtle observations and unbelievably brilliant dialogue. And then there are his justifiably famous descriptions; of landscape, flowers, gardens, and of course, insomnia. All drawn so beautifully that you can almost see and taste and smell and feel everything he writes about. Indeed it's enough to make you want to curl up in a cork lined room and spend the rest of your life living vicariously through Proust's remembrances.

Good writing alters your perceptions and the better the writing the more lasting the affect. Proust, with his incredibly detailed analyses of love and desire, self delusion and human emotion will change the way you think for ever. Remembrance of Things Past is better than therapy. There's just one small problem: the sheer volume of writing and the weight of the thing. But do not despair, even if you never finish all seven volumes, and few ! have, you will at least have some idea of the monumental scale of this masterpiece, and if you are very determined there is, supposedly, a support group to give you any encouragement you might need to complete the task. Once you have completed the books of course, you can impress others forever. And if you need even further challenges you can read the entire thing in French and that should keep you busy for a while. So while you may never climb Mount Everest, and might not even make the summit of this book, I would still urge everybody to try to read at least a little of Remembrance of Things Past.

I'm afraid I cannot really quantify "A la recherche dutemps perdu" in terms of a star rating, although I have had togive it 5 stars because I couldn't submit my review otherwise! It took me the best part of two years to read Proust's magnum opus and the question I find myself asking is: was it time well spent? I'm really not sure, even two years later.

The first and most important thing I will say is that the novel is unlike anything you will ever read, and Proust is totally unique among authors. If you thought Tolstoy or Eliot were insightful, Proust digs beneath another ten layers of motive and counter-motive to reveal his truths: there has never been a writer prepared to go to such exhaustive lengths. I'm still not sure exactly what the book is about, either. Nominally it is an exploration of the perception of time and its effects on the mind. Proust shines this light on his protagonist's early years and the high social circles he finds himself moving in. Some of the characters are memorably bizarre - principally the Baron de Charlus, whose incredible arrogance and self-deception will certainly provide the reader with a few surprises.

... Proust's other fascinations with lineage and place names may not be to every reader's tastes but are revealing insights into his incredible pedantry and appetite for minutiae.

The writing itself is often astonishing - Proust's ideas about love, betrayal and jealousy are sometimes diametrically opposed to received wisdom, but when he concentrates his unmistakable genius on these themes it is hard not to agree with his reasoning, however cynical it may be.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend "A la recherche du temps perdu" lightly. Many people won't get past the opening ruminations over the effects of Marcel missing his mother's goodnight kiss. However, for serious literary buffs it is a must. END

The tale of Patty Columbo and Frank DeLuca and the terrible murder of the Columbo family was totally gripping and engrossing - one of the best true crime books I have ever read, and I've read a lot of them. The author asked a basic question "What makes this 19-year-old girl go out and kill her parents and younger brother? " and then unravels the sordid tale. At the end of the book, I was definitely questioning everything about the case - especially Patty's involvement. The book tells the story from Patty's side and really delves into her subconscious and her memories. The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars was it did drag on for a while -- all the conversations and meetings with the "hit men" was a little overdone -- and there were some sections that were pretty sexually explicit. All I can say is, Frank DeLuca is a complete pervert and a total wacko and what a shame that Patty ever got involved with him -- it cost the lives of three people. A great true crime book, not up there with the likes of "Helter Skelter" or "Stranger Beside Me" . . . but a good read nonethless!

I read a lot of true crime books, and I bought this book thinking I would read just another true story of a murderess and her wrath. I started reading the book convinced of Patricia Columbo's guilt, but by the time I finished it, Clark Howard left me completely baffled with nagging questions. Did she do it? The book held my attention from start to finish -- the sexual abuse she suffered as a young girl, her disastrous relationship with the much older Frank DeLuca, the tragic murders of her family, and her life in prison up to the time the book was written. This is the first time I have actually felt, as another reader noted, a twinge of sorrow for someone convicted of a crime of this nature. The seriousness of the crimes were not lost on me, but I can't help but thinking where would she be if she had not met Frank DeLuca.

I truly enjoyed this book. I was pretty much convinced of Patricia Columbo's guilt until the very end -- now I'm not sure what to believe. But this much I know... it was one of the better true crime books I've read, and I've read hundreds!

In recent times the genre of the psychological thriller has gained immense popularity. But it's a hardly a new art, as anyone familiar with Stevenson's famous Dr. Jekyll and Hyde will be aware. James Hogg's work does not enjoy the same legendary status as Stevenson's classic, but it is a worthy predecessor of its famous counterpart, anticipating it in many ways. In short it's very theological and psychological portrait of a man who is misled by the devil, evolving into a supernatural thriller. Published in 1824, it is widely regarded as the best work of the Scottish poet James Hogg (1770-1834).

It's a great script. The three-fold structure leaves open many questions about the interpretation of the novel, since the first and last part of the novel are supposed objective rational accounts of Wringhim's life by an unnamed editor, and yet the real truth of the murder mystery has to be elicited from Robert Wringhim's own irrational and subjective record of the same events (the middle section of the book). The structure of the narrative itself lends to the elusiveness of identifying the exact role of Gil-Martin as a doppelganger, an allegorical figure, a multiple personality, or an embodiment of Satan (this last being the most satisfying conclusion in my mind). In the end, it is still not clear who has really perpetuated the murders, and part of the brilliance of the novel is that it itself eludes a clear answer to the question "What happened?"

But it is not so much a murder mystery as it is a tale of the supernatural, and a deeply religious and psychological portrait of a madman. Some have regarded it as a satire on Calvinism, although it seems to me that shoe fits antinomianism rather better than Calvinism, because Calvinism maintains that assurance of election comes not through secret revelation, but through the fruits of election, which are a godly life. It could also be construed as a warning against intellectual arrogance, self-righteousness and hypocritical religious rationalism/fanaticism as embodied in Robert and his father. Certainly it is a deeply religious study in the deception of the evil one and the depravity of mankind, and chronicles a journey of human destruction.

But although one having a theological interest in these matters will gain greater enjoyment of the story, in the end it is just as much a psychological tale as it is a theological one. The occasional use of Scottish idiom by commoners in dialogue sometimes makes reading difficult, but on the whole this is a story accessible to anyone with an appreciation for a fine literary creation with a theological and psychological twist. It's a chilling classic that deserves more exposure than it has received.

James Hogg's masterpiece, this strange and evocative study of the effects of Calvinist doctrine on the Scottish mind, has slowly edged its way into the canon in the last twenty years largely because it is first and foremost a rattling good read. Like all the great Scottish novelists from Walter Scott to Robert Louis Stevenson to Muriel Spark, Hogg was haunted by the dual promise of Edinburgh both as the refined cosmopolitan Renaissance home of Boswell as well as the fanatically religious city of John Knox. THE PRIVATE MEMOIRS is a response to that dual inheritance, and the novel is filled with doubles and dual structures: two brothers (born on two floors of the same house) vie for filial recognition; one brother duplicates himself when he is visited by a devil figure, Gil-Martin, in his exact semblance; and the story is told in two parts, and one of those is itself doubled. Although the Scots dialect in sections is a real chore to get through, the book is a marvelous frightening read nonetheless, and NYRB has wrapped it all up in a glorious cover featuring a famous Blake illustration. This isn't an easy ghost read, but it is tremendously repaying.

Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified sinner is the story of the illigitamate son of a Scottish laird who is convinced by the devil to act on his own spite and rage and commit murder -- but Hogg adds a clever twist (I don't want to spoil anything by saying what it is) that leaves the reader wondering...

One of the great things about this book is that its serious subject matter is balanced by a dose of humor -- I was surprised to find myself giggling through the first fifty pages which tell of the laird's marriage to a reluctantly religious woman.

This is a must-read for anyone interested in nineteenth-century fantasy, but its detailing of the making of a fanatic is still hauntingly relevent today...

This book gives you a insight into the working of a multinational company like Intel. Through the nine chapters you will learn how the Grove felt the changes, recognised them and reigned them for the benefit of Intel. It shows the foresightedness of the company executives, how they changed from memory business to microprocessor and become leader in the new field too.
With the help of Strategic Inflection Points, Grove has clearly described, how a problem can be solved.

Handling the Floating Point problem of microprocesser chip, speaks well of the quality conciousness of Intel.

This book is an enjoyable read that is written by the CEO of Intel, this book is noteworthy in that it describes in detail a rare event: the successful change in business models of an already large and successful company. Grove describes the influences of the overall business environment (and in particular addresses the concept of a "strategic inflection point"), the political dynamics and drama within Intel, and a candid view of what went on in his own head as Intel faced a crisis that could well have ended in disaster rather than triumph. Grove does a great service to other executives by reflecting on what he learned from this and related events at Intel. There is much to learn from here.

Written by theformer president and CEO of Intel Corporation, located here in Santa Clara, California. I could not put this book down. The 10X power concept and Strategic Inflection Points apply to all of us in business. Well-written, fascinating, easy to understand; a reflection of the company. Also very thought provoking. If you are an executive or entrepreneur or in a decision making position, I strongly recommend you read this book. You will not forget what you read here.

...Intel Chairman Andrew Grove Reminds Us of Our Roots

It is a rare book by a corporate CEO that isn't either a trumpet blasting his visionary insight and strategic brilliance or a dramatic and mawkish retelling of his climb to the top from unimaginably humble origins. Swimming Across: A Memoir - Andrew Grove's simple, elegant recounting of the first 20 years of his life - is that rare exception.

Grove, one of the founders of Intel and still its chairman, was born Andras Grof in Hungary in 1936, the only child of parents who were in the dairy business. We tend to forget that prior to 1945 there was no Iron Curtain, and countries we think of now as post-Communist had vital histories of their own before the Soviet Union stitched together its empire following World War II.

Grove recounts a happy childhood in Budapest, the country's largest and most cosmopolitan city. The specter of war loomed large in Europe in the late 1930s, but Grove was too young to be aware of its darker aspects. His family was Jewish and even as a young child he knew that many Jews were forced to live separately in ghettos. But to the young Grove and his playmates, this reality was simply material for another schoolyard game, much to the horror of their kindergarten teacher.

Grove's early years, before the full force of the war descended upon Europe, were comfortably middle class. Budapest was actually two distinct communities, the wealthier Buda on one side of the Danube River and the more commercial Pest on the other side. Grove's family moved to Pest in 1938 when his father expanded the dairy business.

In 1942, Grove's father was drafted into the Hungarian army. He and other Jewish conscripts were sent to the Russian front not as regular soldiers, but rather as part of a support team sent ahead to clear roadways and build camps, fortifications and other facilities. In 1943, Grove and his mother learned that his father "had disappeared at the front." The Hungarian army was unable to provide the family with any additional information regarding his father for the balance of the war. While his mother never gave up hope, Grove, who had been six at the time of the draft, had a more difficult time holding onto memories of his absent parent.

In one of the book's most moving moments, Grove tells us of the doorbell ringing in their apartment one day in the fall of 1945. His mother opened the door and found "an emaciated man, filthy and in a ragged soldier's uniform standing at the open door." As his mother embraced the man, Grove thought, "this must be my father."

Scenes like this, however poignant, are the book's chief disappointment. The writing is bland and devoid of emotion. Grove describes everyday life in the middle of a war zone and under the tightening noose of communism and even tells of his mother's rape by Russian soldiers, but all in prose that is more redolent of a corporate brief than an evocative memoir.

The meatiest part of the book can be found in Grove's recounting of life in Hungary in the middle 1950s. We see a country that was being slowly strangled by the politburo in Moscow. In 1956, Grove, who had found his passion for chemistry, was looking forward to starting his second year at the university. He was already part of a small class of individuals destined for leadership within Hungary. But in October 1956, Russian troops and tanks rolled into Budapest and clamped down on what had been an incipient, but weak, effort to throw off the Soviet chains.

We can imagine the agony Grove felt at watching his country being overrun by soldiers intent on enforcing a police state. He knew that many of his friends were in fact fleeing Hungary; Grove's parents urged him to get out before the borders were sealed. He and two friends made the difficult decision to leave, undertaking a journey to Austria and eventually to America that is the stuff of movies.

Grove found his way to this country through the combined efforts of numerous relief and charitable organizations. Relatives in New York City took him in and helped him adapt to his new life. Grove entered City College of New York and graduated in 1960 with an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering followed in 1963 by a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. The rest, as they say, is history. Grove ends this memoir with his move to California.

In an interview in Esquire magazine in 2000, Grove spoke about his life as an immigrant in this country. In an era when many would have the U.S. close its borders and eject every "foreigner," Grove's presence and success is a reminder that the U.S. has been the place for those seeking a better life for almost 400 years. "It is a very important truism that immigrants and immigration are what made America what it is," Grove writes. "We must be vigilant as a nation to have a tolerance for differences, a tolerance for new people."...

Andy Grove writes a poignant account of the first 20 years of his life from an endearing boyhood perspective. Different from Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes (floridly written and unbearably sad), Swimming Across, in a beautifully spare way, recounts in matter of fact detail the story of a mother and son who escaped the Nazis and then later the Communists in Budapest, Hungary. There are several signature memories described by the young boy (abandoned or so he felt in a hospital room due to near fatal brush with scarlet fever or lost in the woods for a terrifying moment during the war)that fill out the picture of the adult man that we have only known until now as a corporate legend in the Silicon Valley. Andy's memoirs provide the rich internal and emotional story that was missing from his books on management and Intel. I am making holiday gifts of this book to family and friends because it is yet another powerful reminder of how lucky we are to live in America.

Consider this book your antidote for all the recent tales of CEO excess and duplicity. Andy Grove's story of his first 20 years in Hungary and New York City tells us how the events of World War II and the Hungarian Revolution shaped the integrity and inner drive of one man.

The story is compelling in its own right. But to read the story of Andras Grof and realize that this boy and his distant childhood turned into Andrew S. Grove...well, it's a journey of unfathomable proportions.

To his credit, Grove never oversells the story. He is quite forthright about his role in the Revolution - he was simply a bystander. Fellow Hungarians have read his story and lauded him for his accuracy and honesty.

Grove's writing style is sparse and direct. He recalls events with clarity and without extensive interpretation. He gives credit to a couple of editors who helped shape the story, most notably Norman Pearlstine of Time. But this is no ghost-written CEO treatise. These are obviously his words.

Some will read "Swimming Across" and conclude that it is a statement about the triumph of the American system. Grove notes near the end of the book "I've continued to be amazed by the fact that as I progressed through school and my career, no one has ever resented my success on account of my being an immigrant."

While there's an element of that, I think you'll see it more as a simple but brilliant testament to the Power of One Man.

Long live Andy Grove.

Carly is a 6th grade student and pulls Dustin Groat's name for an important interview. Dustin has been really mean ever since 3rd grade and he was meanest to Carly. When they start to interview she asks Dustin his name, he says, " Superman ", she writes down Dustin Groat. She asks more questions and one of his answers really surprises her. She tells her little brother, Luke, stories and he gets hurt. Suddenly Dustin drops out of school after a terrible accident involving Carly's friend, Alicia or Ali for short, and he doesn't come back. can she get him to come back to school? Read the book to find out.

I thought that Reaching Dustin was an excellent book. Not only was it exciting and dramatic it had lots of detail and desciption. The author made an excellent role of Dustin. He is a shy character with lots of secrets. Carly is a well written character too. Vicki chooses an incident that happened in third grade as a reason for the way Dustin is. Things happen to both Dustin and Carly that even Vicki didn't know were going to happen. I'd tell you to read the book but it's up to you.

Carly, a young girl that lives in rural Missouri, is involved in many problems at the setting of this book. her friendship with long time best friends Alicia and Randi is falling apart and she is assigned to interview Dustin Groat, of the Groat family that has been known to the town for starting trouble.

She starts interviewing with very little success. then with a little research and eavesdropping, she learns about Dustin's past and understands why his life is so hard. This is one of the best young adult novels that I have read. It is obvious that Vicki Grove is very talented writer and I'd love to see a sequel to this fabulous novel. Everybody can compare to these realistic characters, and that will make your reading even more enjoyable. A definite must read.

Happy Reading!

I just love Wizard of the Grove, and although I've never read any of Tanya Huff's other novels before, this book has made me a complete fan of hers. From the first time I read the book, I couldn't put it down, and after I finished it I found myself rereading it. Each of the characters in this book are unique, and wonderful. This book actually gets you connected to them. For example I just adored the character of Lord Death. He is by far the best element to this book, and the reason I kept on reading after the first section (child of the grove) ended. And I don't remember ever feeling this strongly about any fictional book characters before, but the love Lord Death had for Crystal was very inspiring. He will always be (if not first) amoung my favorite book characters. And throughout the whole book, I found myself hoping that they would get together. Unfortunately I felt that Tanya Huff could've done more to develop the love they held for each other. The ending also was a bit dissapointing as it was very vague. A more clear happy ending would have been better. Say for example...Lord Death marries Crystal and they both live happily ever after? Corny I know, but just a thought.

Tanya Huff did a really good job with this book. The thickness was a double aspect because I'm a really fast reader. I read it in almost 4 days. (last week) Crystal was very real and when Bryon died I didn't want to go on but I'm glad I did. To this day I'm still in love with Lord death. He's so realistic. I picture him as really hot too!. If you love mythical beings, feel free to e-mail me. Mystic402@hotmail.com

This book was absolutely amazing to read. I went through it very quickly and enjoyed every bit of it. The characters had great development and were well created. Lord Death was a great character though I fell in love with Crystal. She showed little emotion but that was her character. She was alone in the world. When you are a loner you tend to bring all emotions inward. The scenery was beautiful and elegant in its visualization. The Mother's Cabin which was a shrine to the Mother Creator that magically replenished its food and had magical barriers on it was very creative. Overall I believe this to be a magical tale worthy of any bookshelf. If this novel is not placed near Tolkien, Anthony, or Bradley then I would be highly disappointed. Tanya Huff, thank you for a wonderful novel.