I read this book for the first time in Jr. High. I knew immediately if ever blessed with a son, his name would be Adam after the hero in the book. Blessed with three sons, my oldest is indeed Adam, named after Adam Tremain in The Black Swan. I have read and re-read it ever since and am now in my thirties. I always suggest it to anyone who ever asks, "Know of any good books?" It is timeless and the best I have ever read of any genre.

I wish I could give this book more stars. Gone With the Wind was always the standard that I measured every story in this genre up to, and The Black Swan measured up to my very high standard. I read this book for the first time about eleven years ago, and since that time have read it many times over. this is a compliment since I rarely if ever read a book more than once, with the exception of Gone With the Wind. My copy was so worn and well-read that I foolishly tossed it out! I did not realize I couldn't replace it! This book should be re-printed. This book now is in mypossession,and I will never be so silly as to toss it out again! I canrecommend this book to anyone who loves civil war love stories, but this book is so much more than that. It is quite an adventure, and if you can locate a copy never let it go!

I loved this book. I have read it at least 20 times. And every time I read it is as good as the first time I read it. It has to be the best book that was ever written based on civil war times. But it could never be considered boring because it is focused on so many of the real issues of that time.

I have tried many many books, but this one is the best yet. It is easily started so you can work up to the heavier exercises.

I've been doing a combination of this workout and The Bathing Suit Workout, and feel a difference already. I have more strength and energy than I ever felt doing aerobics only. Weight training seems to lift my spirits as well, despite the fact that I still have approximately thirty pounds to lose before I reach my most comfortable weight.

I am about six weeks into using this program and I can't say enough about it. I am 50 yrs old. I am not a beginner, I have used free weights off and on for about 5 years. However, I never completely understood when or how to increase the weight. I was never sure if I was doing the right thing. This book clearly explains how to do the exercise, which muscle you should be using and how to adjust the program to fit your needs. I'm already thrilled with my results. I'm enjoying this program and I plan to continue using free weights. Thank you Joyce Vedral.

A friend gave me this book as a gift in 1993. I have read a meditation almost every day since. I find it to be uplifting and thought provoking and at the same time centering on things that really matter. The meditations remind me that family and earth matter so much more than materialistics. My daughter also reads daily and has been searching for one as a gift.

Certainly one of the most elegant daily devotional books available today. Hifler is both poet and spiritual guide. This book is a real treat!

I have had this book and gave it to a friend and now I have to replace it. I depended on the daily mediations to give me a positive or clear thought to start my day. It parallels the daily mediations of christianity so closely it makes you realize there truely is only one "Great Spirit". This book has enhanced my life. Until I found this book I only had my christian beliefs of mediations. Now I have something that I can relate to through heritage. I have shared the passages in this book with many friends and it has touched their hearts as deeply as mine. Thank you Joyce Sequichie Hifler.

Why buy two copies?
One to have at your work place, to scan during your breaks; another for home.
This fact filled book is one you'll pick up every day, if you're a Civil War buff. I've book marked each year by the days in the book, and daily read the events, of those particular years.

Simply stated, the book records events during the Civil War on a daily basis. (Both major and minor events, plus political events and things on 'the home place'.)

The end of the book has regimental figures, ( wounded, killed, etc.) plus many other gems. [ yes, we know causality figures can vary]

This is a great book, you might even buy one to sit in the bathroom, for reading material at times ;-)

Every Civil War buff needs this book.

It certainly covers every day of the Civil War. If you wanted to know what happened on a certain day of a month during the war, it will tell you every newsworthy event that happened in a brief format. I can't think of a better book to answer to the question of "What happened on this day in the Civil War?".

This book has been used so many times at the battlefield information desk that the cover is ready to fall off and the pages to splay out across the desk.

The daily accounts are brief yet informative and go far in giving the reader background material for a more researched dig into the past. The index is well laid out and gives the reader an excellent time line to help locate material, and the bibliography is on par with the index!

Your Civil War book shelf would not be complete without it!

So many people told us that having an outdoor wedding was just asking for trouble, and we're glad we listened to this book instead of them!! Sharon Naylor eased all of our concerns about bad weather and finding a location, decorating and all the rest, and her really creative ideas on how to make an outdoor site really beautiful were just what we needed! I loved the part about choosing the right kind of gown and shoes and tuxes for any weather condition, and my fiance got into the 'how to plan your menu' part that talks about warnings and smarter choices we never considered before. If you're dreaming of an outdoor wedding, this book is going to make you very, very happy.

Have reviewed this book and given it as gifts. Ms. Naylor is a truly gifted writer, and has a talent for expressing her ideas in an easy-to-follow manner!!

Don't miss this book if you are planning (or know someone planning) a wedding!

My fiance and I LOVED this book. We did all the worksheets, completed the questionnaire of what we really, really wanted for our wedding, and planned out our entire dream wedding. The best part was all of the budget tips that helped us figure out how we're going to pay for the whole thing, and we are so excited to have learned all of the details that most couples forget. Before we got this book, we didn't know if we could pull off an outdoor wedding. We thought it might be too much, or that it would be too hard to plan....but now that we have this book, we have no doubts. Sharon Naylor really made everything easy to follow and easy to use, and she made it fun for BOTH of us with her sense of humor and her warnings about common mistakes to avoid. We highly recommend this book to any couple planning a beach or yard wedding -- it has advice you're not going to find in the magazines or other books.

First off, it's a Boynton book so that says it mostly right there. But this is also a very sweet and simple book perfect for your special someone. A very romantic little gift - no special occasion needed! I've read it over and over and so will you!!!

"Consider Love" - subtitled "Its Moods and Many Ways" - is a sweet valentine filled with wisdom and heart. Though intended as a gift item for consenting adults, this is truly a novelty book for all ages. It was created by the prolific Sandra Boynton, a greeting card designer-turned-children's book author/illustrator who has previously created such clever board books as "But Not The Hippopotamus," "Blue Hat, Green Hat" (about the foibles of getting dressed), and "Horns to Toes" (about body parts). More than ever before, her greeting card past is apparent in this 32-page card. Combining semi-serious verse with cartoonish characters, she extols the virtues of love. "Consider love / Observe a while / It comes in every shape, and style...There's love that's shallow / Love that's deep / Love extravagant / Love...well, cheap." For the latter two instances, Boynton draws corresponding images of an elephant gifting his love with an entire, uprooted apple tree (extravagant love), and a gorilla presenting his bemused mate with an empty banana peel (cheap). A turtle pops out of his shell to express "bold love," a pair of porcupines ponder "love problematic," and a moose gazes admiringly at his own reflection to express "love unfounded." The conclusion is savvy enough to warm even the coolest heart, as it calmly requests that the reader "consider one love in the midst of the crowd - an affectionate love, neither timid nor loud...A love that is steady, devoted and true - Consider my love for incredible you."

"Consider love./Observe awhile./It comes in every shape, and style."

In this little book of verse Sandra Boynton considers all kinds of love with coquettish rhymes and charming illustrations. There's "bold love" (displayed by a turtle climbing out of his shell to meet his mate), "love over-zealous" (two beavers who've gnawed heart shapes into tree trunks), or, my personal favorite, "love problematic"... two porcupines anticipating an embrace.

This book would make a perfect Valentines gift. The opening title page has a "To;" and "From:" slot in a red heart and the lines of the poem read like a greeting card. Even though it's classified as a children's book, I think it'd be very cute to give this as a gift to a sweetheart of any age.

I found a lot of infomation in this book useful. Some of the infomation in the book is hard for me to understand. I do recommend this book to anyone who want to learn the different Catholic Prayers

As the Disabilities Host on BellaOnline, I believe you would like this book. I have many prayer books,but this book has everything for every occassion. It's a comforting book with lots of power.

I own quite a good collection of Catholic prayer books for the last ten years, but none of them has ever been compiled the way this is done. Imagine you have a comprehensive liturgy of the hours which is formal prayers found in the same volume with other classic and yet, contemporary prayers from the heart. The rosary devotion prayer is what I like best. I contemplated the Glorious Mysteries just last week while I was in church with thism prayer book. I experienced a sense of deep peace that I rarely felt before as I contemplated on the msyteries. It has all to do with the fine writing of Father Finnegan. Thank you Father, for giving us such a beautiful collection of prayers. I intend to lug it wherever I go, in fact I am lugging it along to my office already. The hardcover version is a bit bulky anyway, the publisher should consider publishing softcover versions.

This book is a wonderful book about a golden retriever who know's it will not be a regular day! More and More boxes appear in the house,and less and less things appear in the house and are put in moving vans! Will Boomer like his new home? This is a great book to read to kids who are moving and don't wanna leave!

Although we were not moving very far, I wanted to prepare my 3 year old with a book to which she could relate. Because we are animal lovers with a dog like Boomer, this book helped my child understand what was going on in her life. The book is told through a narrator in the dog's point of view. The illustrations are also at "dog-eye level." I looked at other books, but this one met my needs the most, because it tells the tale in a vantage point similar to my child's. My daughter is too young to really resist moving, but she didnt' "get" the idea that everything she owned would be coming with us and that the new house would be just as good if not better than the old. Boomer tells the story from a confused beginning to a happy ending once he discovers his new house has wonderful things for him to do and new friends to make. I highly recommend this book to help your little one's moving day transition.

This is a wonderful book for those who love dogs and children. The illustrations are clear and detailed showing many household items. My 1 year old son has this book with him at EVERY meal, and spends several minutes on each page, identifying each item. It is a wonderful learning tool.

Let's face it. Most books claiming to comment on the state of television and popular culture are elitist, supercilious diatribes against the medium, a la Newton Minnow. Not so this book, though the author is a self-described "cultural elitist." I did not have the advantage of having read the original 1967 book which inspired this "experiment", but no matter. The book stands up on its own merits.

As the author shows us, television and the world have indeed changed, in ways that are surprising. There's the usual expected condemnation of WWF Wrestling and Jerry Springer, but the most poignant statement the author makes about the changes of the last thirty-odd years is the death of Saturday morning, a smorgasbord of classic cartoons when the author (and this reviewer) were kids. Thanks in large part to overzealous parents' groups and "niche marketing", Saturday morning as late baby boomer/Gen X kids knew it is no more. Why have one day set aside for cartoons, after all, when one channel shows them 24 hours a day?

The very objective of this book, to see how television viewing has changed in our multichannel world, is ultimately what mars it, however. Because there is just so much to watch, it is impossible for the author to devote sufficient time to an analysis of any one program.(Particularly my favorite, Star Trek: Voyager, which he didn't see at all). What we get, therefore, is the literary equivalent of channel surfing. The humor of the book (and the byplay between the author, his wife, and friends) save it from superficiality.

I have the feeling he might have come out with this book a year or so too soon. What might he say about "Survivor" and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" Maybe we'll know in another thirty years.

I was glued to the book much more than I ever am to a television show. Mr. Lechner takes a potentially dull subject (endless hours of television) and takes the reader on a journey through modern society. His observations on what he sees during his "experiment" are not only entertaining and funny, but are quite poignant. Mr. Lechner leaves the reader with new feelings about America's favorite passive-pastime in his keen, humorous style which includes many personal insights. Highly recommended!

I can't believe another person thinks the same way about television as I do. I laughed myself silly reading this book, and I hope to read more of Mr. Lechner's work in the future.

And having a pug didn't hurt. ;)

In depth recovery of personal papers provides a real look into the lives of the men and women who lived the war

This is with out a doubt the best overview of the Civil War and the events leading into and through the war. The views from troops on both sides as well as the leaders of both the military and political make this an abslute must read for all interested.

This book is the absolute best day by day history of the Civil War that I have ever encountered. It makes you feel as though you are there and able to relive the actual day's with the soldiers and commanding officers. Every care has been taken to cover detail and events as they took place. I would love to see another published dealing with the Civil War Hospitals by the same author.Mr Denney excels in his field. Thank You for a GREAT book and information contained therein.