In this new picture book, a little boy fantasizes travelling to the moon with his grandfather, a former astronaut who walked on the moon. When Grandfather visits, Grandson insists he tell him of his journey, and the boy creates of the telling his own trip, beginning with the launchpad in Florida. A basic amount of scientific observation is worked into the tale, and a cross-generational sweetness pervades it all. A good choice for introducing the ideas of space travel and other worlds to preschool and primary students and children. As a children's librarian I have read Grandpa Takes Me to the Moon to several classes, with positive results.

Gaffney has great idea in his book. Write perhaps the only work on one of the most salient Islamic practices throughout history in a contemporary, quickly changing Muslim Society. Gaffney builds a basic typology of three types of preachers: the traditional scholar and ethical teacher, the sufi priest-magician, and the militant holy warrior. He analyzes sermons from all three and the religious aura and authority they carry with them in society. Gaffney demonstrates the authority that the preacher embodies in the larger society are closely connected with mundane institutions and organization of the society. He argues this both in the context of Cairo and Minya [which much more rural than Cairo]. Many of the sermons discussed were given during the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and through them Gaffney traces the development of this militant movement and compares it with official Islam. Overall, this analysis cover ~2 decades of field experience, in the 70s and 80s. Finally, Gaffney presents and analyzes three actual sermons in their entirety, transcribed from recordings made in the mosques. Some of his insights are profound but I found myself annoyed by common debunking of the preachers' sermons. The author is a catholic minister [though also a professor at Notre Dame], and there are moments where there was a bit of unnecessary digression into Christian apology. This was frustrating insofar as I was more interested in an analysis of the symbolic appeal containned in the preachers' sermon rather than a correction of the factual errors contained therein. Nonetheless, it was an interesting approach and the first of its kind. I believe it would be fortuitous to do more studies of its kind.

I started reading my twin girls this book when they were only a few months old. Thinking they haven't understood what I was reading, imagine my surprise when they started laughing with me at all the appropriate times! As a matter of fact, whenever I took another book out, they started smiling in anticipation of laughing along with the book.

This book is fun, easy to read, with great pictures. It quickly became my daughters favorite book, so much that I have to buy another one.

This is a very well written historically accurate book reflecting the Civil War through the eyes of several characters, including the daughter of a slave owner, a plantation owner, a slave, and others. It provides a very thought-provoking look at the prejudices of that time period.

Having read The Saving Graces which I just loved, I couldn't wait to read another Gaffney novel. I like this author's style of storytelling. Both books exhibited a similarity in this area and I enjoyed that, though at times in Circle of Three I wasn't totally sure who was speaking for several paragraphs. There was a relatinship of friends in the first book and a relationship of woman family members in Circle of Three, both appealing to women readers. The concept of honoring a dying man's wishes was a treat to follow to completion. However, I found this book to be very depressing until almost the concluding chapters. Death, grief, domineering interference, depression, rebeliousness, recklessness etc. were the underlying themes and how Carrie, Ruth, and Dana exhibited them and worked through them. I am sure many many families experience these states every day, but I wanted something uplifting to read. When her next novel comes out I won't be rushing to buy it until I read more reviews.

Many romance readers were sorry to see Patricia Gaffney move from historical romance into hardcover women's fiction last year. I for one am glad she made the move if that means more readers will read her books. In Circle of Three, author Gaffney does what she does best - creates complex characters who might not always be likable, but who are true to themselves. They don't act according to the plot written for them; they drive the plot by the force of their personalities.

The three women whose voices narrate this book are bound by blood and gender in a manner only women can be. Grandmother, mother, and daughter, Dana, Carrie, and Ruth are connected through their actions and the men in their lives in an honest and emotional story. The plotting is inventive (the ark subplot is funny at times and poignant at others) and the writing is intimate. The reunion and developing romance between Carrie and her first love, Jess, is quite lovely, although her choices do not always have the impact she'd hoped for.

This can be a difficult book to read, however, precisely for the same reasons it is worthwhile. I'm going to get Gaffney's The Saving Graces out of my TBR pile and try it next!

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

Publisher, All About Romance

Patricia Gaffney cleverly leads the reader through a story to which most women can relate: the continuing struggle of self-identity as we age. No longer a child, how do you act as a teenager? No longer a teenager, how do stop from acting like your mother? How do you accept growing old?

I especially enjoyed the method by which the tale was woven by each of the three characters, one voice and one chapter at a time. Each chapter is written from the perspective of either the grandmother, the mother, or the daughter.

I found the start of the book somewhat depressing. The mother's remorse at the death of her husband coupled with her long time unhappiness in that marrage helped to set the stage but was too long. Then, once she gets over the death, it seems to be almost forgotten. Additionally, it did not touch on the daughter's loss very much at all. Once I read past this part, I couldn't put the book down.

I did not enjoy this story because I could hardly remember it when I put it down. The characters could have been cardboard figures, the plot is dry, there just is not enough "oomph" to get the story off of the ground. The character Anna Catalano is called "home" temporarily to help out in the family restaurant. For Anna, home is not a safe haven, but a place of bad memories and disappointments better left buried and sorrows best not come to light. Patricia Gafney, the author, does make an attempt to trhow in some romance, but there just isn't enough there and the story fizzles. There are no "flight lessons" unless the author is trying to describe Anna Catalano's flight to and from home, and herself. If you must read this one, get it from the library. To me, it was not worth time, effort, or money.

While the plot of FLIGHT LESSONS may not be either particularly involved or original -- a woman returns home to help salvage the family's dying business, which in turn forces her to confront issues from the past -- Pat Gaffney's rich characterizations, as well as the emotional depth behind her deceptively simple prose, certainly made this story a winner for me.

These are people with both strengths and weaknesses, whose actions and attitudes we might not always agree with but whose motivations are always made clear. Gaffney really nails the complexity of human relationships, that true-to-life mixture of tart and sweet that can make the reader both want to root for a character and knock some sense into him or her at the same time. The relationship between the sixty-year-old Rose and her dying lover Theo is a particular treasure, but the quiet, scarred Mason stole my heart (even though I agree with another reviewer that perhaps his emails were too long -- but at least he apologized for that!). A lesser man would have given up on the hard-headed Anna by halfway through the book: that he didn't makes him a real hero in my eyes.

But perhaps what most impressed me was the way in which Gaffney seamlessly braids so many threads. I never felt I was reading about several separate subplots, since each character's situation so tightly intersected with the others'. Very difficult to pull off, but Gaffney makes it seem effortless.

While I've read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Ms. Gaffney's previous contemporary novels, for some reason (Mason, would be my guess) this one's edged out the others as my new favorite. These were people I wouldn't mind checking up on in a few years to see how they're doing.

And I can't ask more of a book than that.

The Oscar Wilde quote, "After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations" that Patrica Gaffney prefaces her book with, is an accurate description of the issues she explores in Flight Lessons. In a twist to the biblical prodigal son, Anna returns to her hometown on the Chesapeake bay at the age of 36 and after a disasterous end to a romantic relationship. Anna is a complex, and often quite exasperating character. She is balanced in the book by her aunt Rose, now 60 and the owner of a faltering Italian restaurant. Anna is welcomed home and agrees to manage the restaurant for the summer but is not ready to forgive and forget the family issues that caused her to leave. Rose is a more appealing character, particularly in regard to her relationship with Theo, a crusty Bay waterman, now sidelined with a degenerative disease. All of the characters are finely drawn, Frankie, the talented but troubled new chef at the restaurant, Eddie, the handsome but unreliable bartender and Carmen,the unmarried, overweight long time chef who is resentful of the new chef and the changes Anna wants to make to save the restaurant.The close up look at running a small family restaurant was particularly interesting and the bits of information about birds and bird photography, the avocation of Mason, another character were engrossing. (I will now try to catch a bird yawnings, soemthing I never knew they did) More than a love story, the book is honest and insightful as it explore the complicated dynamics of family and the ways individuals address their own family history. Anna's apparent dysfunction and inabilty to sustain relationships seems as much due to her own unforgiving nature as the tough issues she dealt with as a child and young woman. Our desire to paint family members as either black or white, good or bad is illuminated as Anna addresses her memories of her mother and father as well as Rose. More than a good summer read, the book has enough interest to make your reading list in any season.

This book is not for the beginner, in fact you wonder whom it's aimed towards. His Holiness The Dalai Lama did a wonderful job with this book and many of the things are well thought and well explained, but it's hard to understand. The book does not have a beginner's touch at all. I wouldn't recommend this one unless you have had some basic Dzogchen education. Again, who is this book aimed towards? beginner? or expert?

Recently His Holiness the Dalai Lama published highly edited transcripts of four empowerments he gave into the traditional Nyingma teaching of Dzogchen or Great Perfection. Both Dzogchen and Mahamudra represent important indigenous developments of Tantric teachings in Tibet. Like all wisdom traditions, Buddhism rests upon the transmission of heart-essence realization and dharma from one generation to the next. Dzogchen, literally "great perfection," is the primary teaching of the Nyingmapa school of Tibetan Buddhism, having been carried to Tibet in the eighth century by Padmasambhava, who is recognized as a "second Buddha." This actualization of what Dzogchen is is sent out through this collection of empowerments given from 1982-1989 by the 14th Dalai Lama. Sogyal Rinpoche (The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying) requested these teachings, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama obliged with emphasis on the 5th Dalai Lama's visionary receipt of Dzogchen teaching, which is summarized simply by the verse: "Ema! Phenomena are, without exception, Perfect within the continuum of self-arising rigpa." Ema is an expression of wonder and astonishment. Whereas rigpa is a technical term for root single awareness that illuminates all; whereas ordinary awareness is that but as refracted into various experiences of subject and object, so that the unity becomes a secret, except for those who are aware of the nature of the root awareness then everything is the root awareness. To attempt to understand enough so that one can cut through the veils of separations that is usually the habit mind. Of course the development of habitual indwelling in non-divisive bliss might be more fun than reading hundreds of books. But as the verse say there is no difference at the root or in the stem and branch or such preferences seeming important. Empowerments are a principle way the Tibetans are bringing Buddha dharma to the west. An empowerment is the oral recitation of the teaching with impromptu commentary for the audience. It is done with a ritual format so that there can be prayers, chants and other meditation aids going on but the most important aspect of the empowerment is that the teacher and his assistants as well as the whole audience is speaking at the time from within the nondual realization of what is being taught. In other words the Dalai Lama and his retinue are all within a state of actualization of the reality to which the teaching refers. As the audience is also so attuned the psychic contagion can be intense and experiences can quickly and deeply cut through the fog of our surface consciousness. Now this volume is likely to be popular among students of Buddhism, but, except for the Appendix: Compassion, the Heart of Enlightenment; the texts would confuse the novice. Because of this I recommend several other texts that provide more systematic accounts of the Dzogchen traditions and how they fit in with the wider traditions of Buddhist practice. The Golden Letters: The Three Statements of Garab Dorje, the First Teacher of Dzogchen, Together With a Commentary by Garab Dorje, edited and translated with a commentary by John Myrdhin Reynolds (Snow Lion Press) In many ways the best guide to Dzogchen teachings. Includes explanations that were previously thought too secret to publish. Mipham's Beacon of Certainty: Illuminating the View of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection by Mi-Pham-Rgya-Mtsho Nes Ses Rin Po Chei Sgron Me edited and translated with commentary by John W. Pettit (Wisdom Publications) offers the necessary links between Madhyamika and Dzogchen. And as a relatively easy introduction the The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, edited by John Shane (Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy: Snow Lion Press) provides a useful introduction.

I was thrilled to buy this book, as it was John Glenn's flight back in 1962 that first got me interested in spaceflight history - an interest which endures to this day. I also flew all the way from Australia to attend the STS-95 launch, and consider it one of the greatest occasions of my life. This book is very well written, as it should have been with two professionals at the helm, and obviously a lot of background work was done on the text prior to the launch. It reads very well and easily, and the photo choice (although the reproduction of some is quite poor) is excellent. For such a well researched book, however, the authors should have paid a little more attention to what actually occurs in the final ten seconds of a shuttle launch, as they got that wrong and - hey guys! - the teacher who died in the Challenger explosion was Christa McAuliffe, not McCauliffe as you state on several occasions. But they are mild irritations in an otherwise worthwhile, and certainly timely, book.

After visiting the National Musuem of Natural History, I wondered about many of the claims that the museum made. So I decided to read a book about the "terrible lizards" and found out what I had guessed -- the study of dinosaurs and their fossils is not an exact science and many of the fundamental questions we have about them cannot be answered, including:

How old are they? How fast were they? How big were they? What did they look like? What color were they? What is their relation to birds? How are fossils aged? Do we have any dinosaur DNA?

The authors of this book do a good job at trying to answer many of these questions about dinosaurs, but in the end their explanations merely lay out the science of guesswork. The first part of this book is fifty questions about dinosaurs, and I would recommend this section to anyone interested in the subject. The next two sections are about dinosaurs digs and specific dinosaur species, and is a little bit extensive for the "casual dino reader."

This book started out great, the first half does a good job of setting up the story. The interaction between the two main characters is funny and romantic, and then it takes a turn for the terrible. At every opportunity for the characters to grow and develop along with a premise that could have been very interesting, the author plunges the characters into more hateful acts. Instead of exploring a developing relationship between two people at cross purposes, this becomes a story of a sick psychotic love obsession.

In a romance novel the lovers have to be someone worth winning, not someone that you are sorry they got stuck with. In true Jane Eyre style, by the end of the book you can't stand the selfish, stuck-up, "heroine" who knows whats right but can't do it, and you feel so disgustingly sorry for and disappointed in the ruined "hero" that you put the book down feeling sick. Worse, you feel as though you wasted your time.

I am a huge Patricia Gaffney fan and I must concur with other reviewers here who give this book a tepid review. This book starts out just swell - energetic and fun and sassy...and this it all just...goes away.

Disappointing and not up to her usual good work.

this book wasn't horrible - the first part was actually pretty entertaining, but it got a bit tedious after a while. She lies, he discovers, she lies, he discovers...if you really want a great romantic adventure with a fabulous Scotsman and a great, strong English woman, read Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER