If anyone is looking for a great recipe for potato latkes and other traditional dishes and can't find that perfect book to accomplish that end, look no further. I think that Ms. Levy has collected these recipes and tested them in her own kitchen. I have bought many other Jewish cookbooks but this is the only one that is staying in my kitchen library.

Faye Levy's cookbook is almost homage to the great "French Chef", Julia Child, who suggested that Levy write such a book. Faye Levy has sampled & studied worldwide Jewish cuisine, and fortunately for us compiled her work into this elegant, yet easy to follow cookbook with recipes from all parts of Europe and the Middle East. Not only did I become acquainted with new recipes and cooking techniques, but learned something of the Jewish tradition, as well.

Levy's culinary education is thoroughly wide ranging, running the gamut from formal studies in France & Israel, to learning various Sephardic & Ashkenazi cooking techniques from her friends & family in Israel & the United States.

Her simple instructions enabled me to produce a delicious and greatly praised French/Alsace raisin matzah kugel for our Passover seder. I plan to turn to Levy's book often for future holidays celebrations. This is a cookbook for anyone who wants to produce Jewish cuisine at its best.

This short book is a wonderful and simple introduction to a complex and exceptionally deep teacher. Although by no means an expert in St John's theology, I have been active in the prayer life for several years and am familiar with his work. Sad to say, nearly everything written about this marvelous saint is almost as difficult to penetrate as the original. John Kirvan's little book can change all that, by giving us short vignettes which illustrate the basic principles of St John's magnificent work, and by giving us exercises we can use to shape our day. I cannot help but think that St John would approve,and I can't think of anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading and using this book.

If you feel a yearning for deeper spirituality, but are disenchanted with religion, this little book may be for you.

John of the Cross continues to be the greatest Western spiritual master of this age. After 500 years, his popularity is only growing. His insightful writings appeal to persons of all faiths. In Kirvan's words, "he leads the seeking soul more deeply, more insistently, more uncompromisingly, and more sure-footedly into the mysteries of personal union with God than any other."

That may sound intimidating, but this book is accessible to anyone. I read it on the train each day on the way to work. Each day is a three-part process: read, reflect and pray. Kirvan provides a small excerpt of John's writing that can be read in about 2 minutes, but contains enough food for thought to nourish you for the whole day. Then there is a small "mantra" phrase (for instance, "Let go of what you know") that can easily be memorized, or written on a small card and carried around with you, to be reflected on during the day. Then, for the end of day, there is a prayer that incorporates the day's theme. (I read that on the train going home at night.) So in 30 days, without taking any significant time out of my schedule, I found a spiritual friend in John of the Cross who nurtured my soul. My thanks to John Kirvan for making this possible. I've just ordered another four books in the same series, and more of the writings of John of the Cross.

A Few Fair Days is about a girl named Lucy who lives in England. The book is about her adventures, some with her friends Mary Fell and Avice Mew, others by herself. This book is very good!

This story is about small town in North Yorkshire where high tea of "bits and buns" carefully prescribed ritual,and where the arrival of a mysterious stranger {who wore a wig}.Coused they greatest sensaton in years-is the setting for Lucy's fair day.

This book was wonderfully well-written and I am not just saying that because one of the authors, Jeff M. Elliot, is my Pol. Sci. professors!! In, response to the last review by "A Reader" - You need to get over yourself!! The use of "Persident" and "Republic" is NOT being used subversively - GET A LIFE!!! It was a wonderful look at Castro's Presidency!!!

I would like to inform the writers of this book that a "republic" according to the dictionary is a country where the "president" has been elected by voters, by the people, that is. There has not been a public vote in Cuba for 38 years. The people have not elected Fidel Castro as their president. He elected himself so I strongly suggest that you change the title of the book. You are maliciously and with felonious intent subverting the meaning of "republic" and "president" and I do resent calling Fidel what he is not.

This delightful book, "Field Days," perfectly fits its title. As author Roger B. Swaim writes in the introduction, field days means not only "the sense of there being explorations and scientific investigations carried on outdoors," but also that it carries connotations of "the sense of unfettered activity, extreme pleasure, delight, and enthusiasm." In this work Swaim explores a number of biology and natural history issues in his native New England - and often of the world at large - ranging with pleasure and enthusiam from one topic to another almost as a butterfly flitting about a sunny meadow. Much in the spirit of his book, I provide a small review sample of some of the chapters of his book.

"Trackside" explores an unusual topic, railroad flora. He writes that trains are often excellent dispersers of seeds, often resulting in many exotic and unusual plants being found along railroads. From alianthus to onions, sesame to cucumbers, snapdragons to petunias, castor bean from Africa to Dallis grass from South America, pears to apricots, all have been found along railroads, places traditionally thought of of as waste places. Swaim explores how these plants arrive in such an odd location, how they survive, and just marvels at the wonder of it, of how nature always finds a way.

"Gypsy Moths" explores one of the most hated denizens of the eastern United States, insect invaders that spread like a plague ever year to the chagrin of local residents, "horrified by the thousands of dark, hairy caterpillars with their blue and red warts, horrified by the incessant leaf chewing, and revolted by the steady drizzle of caterpillar droppings from the branches overhead." Swaim explores the biology of these insects, their history in the United States, their effects on the local ecology, and of humanity's war against them. Even with these much maligned organisms Swaim finds interesting and enlightened things to say.

"Guests at Work" explores one of those uniquely New England pasttimes; making maple syrup. If you never knew how it was made and wanted to know this chapter is a treat, showing how even small residential plots have yielded rich syrup, from light amber Grade A syrup to molasses-dark Grade C.

Showing his enthusiasm for the natural world world knows no bounds, in "The Ungracious Host" Swaim explores a subject I don't see often discussed at least in my readings in popular natural history writings; lice. Exploring their biology, the different types of lice that afflict people, their interaction with humans, and how people combat them, Swaim provided me with information I never knew!

There are of course many other subjects discussed in "Field Days," from fungus to growing and harvesting cranberries to evergreens to pollen (and hay fever) to how animals and plants deal with the arrival of spring to issues of lake water quality...so many topics are discussed with humor, authority, and enthusiasm that there is something for everyone.

Roger Swain not only writes of the garden: how and when to "let nature take its course;" photosynthesis and evergreen leaves; future, scientific uses for cranberry juice beyond asking a bartender for a more sophisticated drink than ginger ale; bee venom as a treatment for arthritis---he also makes all of his extaordinary thoughts interesting and entertaining.

This is a book for people who realize that our actions have effects on our world. and, perhaps more importantly, it should be read by those people, including politicians, who do not.

Swain is the science editor of "Horticulture" magazine. He writes gracefully (i.e. in his "Fair Days For Vegetables" he tells us that "For many, just the subject of tomatoes is enough to leave a good taste in their mouths.") and his essays can be read and re-read. My personal favorite, which I've read three different times, is about the declining quality of our water: "A Drink You Can Swim In." Swain writes of the popularity of bottled waters and cleverly quotes Samuel Clemens: "To increase something's popularity you have only to increase the price...." RECOMMENDED

Often we believe we must keep on waiting until we accumulate a large amount of coin before we can invest. However, Chuck dispells that notion and shows you can start with as little as $5 a day (or 150 dollars a month) and he emphasizes small consistent starts. Remember most successful people had to start somewhere, most people didn't inherit their wealth, you must earn it; Chuck shows you the tools. I suggest you read the book more than once, have work book and plan things. Perhaps, you should open a separate bank account so you can put the 150 per month that won't be touched, but make sure you have an emergency fund somewhere so you won't be tempted to dip into that investment fund.

I have read Financial Freedom and the Wealthy Barber in the last few weeks. Financial Freedom was great, straightforward, and focussed. Meant for the small investor, he assumes you are starting with no savings or knowledge of investing. The message is: for $5 a day and an hour per month you can retire very well.

I was excited about saving when I finished this book. He explains why mutual funds are the vehicles of choice, gives detailed information on which funds to investigate further, including telephone numbers and addresses for companies in both the US and Canada.

He also offers a few strategies to use with mutual funds to maximize returns in up and down markets. It was so good I have convinced my book club to read it for our next book.

By the way, I am saving $5 a day. You will too.

"This poetry has a bold honesty which has great power when the poems are read together. Man Ray's photo, 'The Spectre of Isadore Ducasse,' showed a burlap bundle tied with rope. We don't see what is inside the bundle, but if we know the reference, we would believe that it contained a sewing machine and an umbrella! Her orange bags are like that, enigmatic and provocative." -- Benjamin Saltman, author of "The Sun Takes Us Away"

"Pearson's poetry astonishes -- her range is wide and profound. She explores the loss, the mundane, and quirkiness of life with passionate joy. Her skillful images and wry tone linger, encouraging you to reread her poems -- to put yourself inside her poems, inside the very essence of what it means to be woman, to be human. A stunning and highly enjoyable collection!" -- Jewell Rhodes, author of "Voodoo Dreams"

"Marlene Pearson is a domestic fabulist of the first order, spinning poems out of the beautiful damage of our lives. Let us welcome these vibrant cadences, this music unafraid of what hurts and haunts us, what lifts our bodies to the light." -- Dorothy Barresi, author of "The Post-Rapture Diner"

Marlene Joyce Pearson's work is wonderful! Her ability to translate pain and her experiences into artistic expression is incredible. I dare anyone to read "Divorce" and not be greatly moved. When is her next book coming out? Soon, I hope!

Nine-year-old Meg has finally been reunited with her family in Kansas Territory and life finally seems to be settling down after the pro-slavery Ruffians finally were forced to leave. Meg and her family move to the town of Lawrence where her father opens a store. Meg comes to face the daily realites of life in Kansas and finally is able to start school and make some friends. Through it all Meg will also have to face the sometimes dangerous Kansas winters as a blizzard blows throw and tornados abound, but through it all Meg creates more life experiences and her third diary is another triumph. This is a great book for younger kids, whose older siblings like Dear America and The Royal Diaries. Definitely a must read. Meg comes out to be a very courageous character.

Nine-year-old Meg Wells begins her third diary in December of 1856. There is peace for now in Kansas Territory, with the pro-slavery soldiers having been forced to return to their home states, but Meg's father is still injured, and the bitter cold of winter has settled upon the prairie. When he is unable to regain the use of one of his arms, the family moves to the town of Lawrence, where he starts a store. Meg describes happy events, as she is finally able to go to school again and makes new friends, and also the dangers of life on the prairie including blizzards and a tornado. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the My America series.

Lucille Lang Day has earned the five stars not so much with this one title, as with her larger body of work, of which "Fire in the Garden" is but a snapshot. Eclectic and electric, Day's poetry is a feast for the brain. Her delicious, evocative imagery will excite readers of contemporary poetry and sustain hope that it is not about to be suffocated by the dry and abstruse theoretician/practitioners who have spread across so many of the arts over the last few generations. May all take notice how feasible it is for poetry to be at once accessible and intellectually commanding.
Day takes inspiration from a wide variety of sources, including "Fire in the Garden"'s first entire section based on the paintings and sculpture of such artists as O'Keefe, Dali, Diebenkorn. and Manuel Neri, whose sculpture exhibit prompted her to create a poetic dialog between two opposing voices from within, the one weary and negative, and the other challenging the first with its vibrant call to poetic awakeness: "Spiders in my skull spin fiery webs / and wild birds beat against my bones. / They want out. I, too, want out. / I want to walk where dusk spreads/gold dust on the earth, the mountains / humming, and jays and juncos land / on pine branches shaped like lightning."
Readers in whom Day's work resonates should appeal to her to engineer a republication of her first book,
"Self-Portrait with Hand Microscope," which contains in its first quarter what I'm convinced must be some of the finest biology-oriented poetry ever written. Investing years of her life in science (in which she earned a doctorate from UC Berkeley) paid double dividends giving inspiration to such resplendent poetic expression. In some small way, human culture is cheated every year that goes by without the opportunity for people to enjoy that bright outlook on the natural world so brilliantly depicted in language.

In the tradition of the best surrealism, Lucille Day's poems display unusual combinations of images that cohere to present a personal, and at the same time universal, vision of everyday struggles--a vision probing the consoling powers of imagination, "the cool blue flight/of stars, flowing/through the endless black." Her powerful, sharp-edged, declarative poems speak to all of us.

Robert Allen has produced an amazing work on the oft-reported saga of the Marine Corps and Iwo Jima, that terrible island. As an amateur military historian (and former Marine who has attempted to reconstruct certain campaigns), I found myself asking over and over again: where and how did he get this information? how long did it take to accurately compile, for instance, the daily "muster rolls" of an entire battalion in the field? The picture that emerges of the Iwo Jima assault is even more horrifying from this perspective of dry military "diaries" and the daily recounting of casualties and replacements. This was island warfare against Japan at its worst, and Allen's microscopic treatment helps to bring it all into focus at the fighting man's level. With the United States Government itself doing little to advance in-depth WWII analysis, writers like Allen are doing a great service for those who do care.

Bob Allen's work represents the best kind of historical narrative-a first hand narrative from the perspective of one who was in motion on Iwo Jima's bloodied sands, and the thoughtful and detailed analysis provided by his focus on the overall picture of the events. Bob's devotion is to telling the story and painting as much of the canvas as he can, while there is time to do so. The memories are 50+ years out there, but they are as clear as though they were this morning. You must read this, and treasure it as a family heirloom of American history. Bob Allen, and his fellow Marines and Sailors, put it all on the line for us, and this is the story of what that really means. Thanks, Bob. Semper fi.