I was preparing to camp out at the barn where I board my pregnant Morgan mare so I could keep an eye on her if she went into labor. Normally I would be fighting to stay awake, but I had brought this book along. Once I picked it up, I didn't put it down until it was finished. I absolutely loved it! The way it's written, it allows you to take the place of the teenager and feel everything she's feeling. You get mad, anxious, sad, and ecstatic! My mother started reading it after she heard me talking about it. I can't wait for more from this author!

Ellen Feld's captivating novel about a young girl and her passion for horses. This book has it all - the excitement of fulfilling one's dreams, and the reality of running into obstacles along the path to achievement. The author depicts an accurate account of the Morgan horse arena, while entertaining a wide audience with the story of a young girl's touching bond with a special horse. Recommended for young readers and adults, and is suitable for all levels and disciplines of horsemanship. A must-read novel for anyone with a passion for horses!

I bought this book for my daughter (age 12) and she really enjoyed it. In fact, she liked it so much that she asked me to read it. I admit that I put it off for a bit because I wasn't excited about reading a kid's book but I have to say that I really enjoyed it too. We have horses and both of us found ourselves saying "oh, that's just like our horse". A good book to learn about Morgan Horses, showing and riding.

This book is one of the best I have ever read. It will keep you hooked all the way through. The best part was taking truth and turning it into something very exciting. This is coming from someone who doesn't like to read. Brain Boru Fought his way from nothing to high king gathering loyal followers form all parts of Ireland. Quit wasting time reading this and find a copy of the book.

Another wonderful book by Morgan Llywellyn.

This is a historically accurate novel that keeps you glued until the very end. I found myself transported to a time of medieval towns and kings. Brian Boru had me rooting for the Irish from start to finish!

A real page burner, get away from those dusty tomes and read what a real writer has done with history. Take the skeleton from the archives of librarys with stuffy stated details add flesh, and personna with accurate research and voila, you have an outstanding, interesting, and highly readable piece of literature that should be required reading in the halls of Academia....

WOW! I was just given "The Center of Attention" as a holiday gift and was stunned as I opened each page. The cover did not do the contents justice. Some of his concepts seem simple enough for someone like me to replicate. The photograpahy and lighting was beautiful. This is a book to keep out for others to enjoy as well as a perfect gift for anyone with an eye for beauty.

Aside from a brief text forward, The Center Of Attention is a splendor-filled book that eschews mere words and devotes itself entirely to photographs of eye-catching and heart-stopping tablescapes using flowers, vegetables, and other plant themes as created by master floral designer Ron Morgan. Powerfully enhanced with a wealth of full-color photographs by Pamela J. (works of art in and of themselves), The Center Of Attention fully captures Morgan's beautiful floral design masterpieces ranging in a wide variety of moods from fresh spring morning to somber candlelight evening. The Center Of Attention is enthusiastically recommended for serious and dedicated students of floral design, as well as the non-specialist general reader with an appreciation of skilled and artistic flower arrangements.

This book is incomparable! The unbelievable arrangements, table settings, colors, photography and creative layout make this book "one of a kind". This book is for everyone from the novice to the professional floral designer. Every page is breathtaking and is truly instpirational......Ron Morgan is a genius!

Do you belong to the race of man? Then this book is about you. Resnick has brought all five billion of us along on this magnificent journey. You will feel joy and grief, burning shame and blazing pride. Birthright shows humanity's potential- for good, for evil, and for humanity. This book is very personal- for everyone.

I'm not sure why this book was out of print for so long. I hoarded copies of it, loaning it out to only my most trusted friends for years. It is certainly a book up there with Greg Bear's Eon, Frank Herbert's Jesus Incident and Dune and the Foundation series.

If you're a fan of sci-fi, Galactic strategy games or scathing social commentary, you will completely enjoy Birthright.

If this is as good as his collection, "Kirinyaga", expect excellent, thought-provoking, award-winnig level prose (He recently won yet another Hugo for Short Story).

"You think I am weak and must submit
Yet I but scratch you with this poisoned blade,
And you are dead as if I clove with it
That false fierce greedy heart.Betrayed!Betrayed!"

As I think of those bone chilling lines they ring ripples of fright and despair through my still salivating soul, because there's a part of me that longs for more. I remember the first time I encounted Mr. Thomson's masterpiece. It was only a few lines, but it left me starving for more. It soon became a small obsession. I had to have it! I read Thomson's "The City of Dreadful Night" and he became an instant favorite for me as far as poets are concerned. I have read Dickinson and Whitman and Poe, but none of them compare in my opinion to Thomson's morbid metaphors and detrimental descriptions of pain and suffering. I could almost feel the words literally penetrate the deepest recesses of my darkest heart of hearts. Emotions are impossible to put into words exactly, but I believe Thomson damn near succeeded in his "melancholia" as he would put it. You almost have to take breaks in the middle of reading in order to gather your now shattered positive emotions and regain a stronger than steel composure to take in just a little bit more. I feel like Thomson is one of my best friends now because I can relate to everything that he's feeling through his darkest times. He totally discouraged me as a poet myself and crushed whatever confidence I had in my own writing abilities. But it's okay, I'll recover and resume my own confidences denial about actually having skills...I think. For all of you who haven't read this masterpiece to mankind, I strongly suggest that you sink your teeth in and experience first hand how words can be daggers in your consciousness by the absolute best there is. For everyone with insomnia, scream loudly with me the words that should be echoed to the edges of the universe...

"A NIGHT SEEMS TERMLESS HELL!"

This late-nineteenth century long poem falls somewhere between "Paradise Lost" & "The Waste Land." It contains enough beauties to be a rewarding read, yet its flaws are hard to ignore. Chief among these flaws is Thomson's readiness to insert archaic words like "doth" and "feign" to fill out his meter & rhyme. In praising the poem I enlist the support of Melville, who admired it, & Eliot, whose "The Waste Land" appears to echo it. Eventually, after taking time to search for the least-flawed section or canto of the poem, I decided that section XIII seemed the least-flawed. Then I wondered if Thomson had arranged it that way intentionally, perversely saving his best work, his im-mutabilitie canto, for unlucky thirteen.

James "B.V" (stands for Bysshe Vanolis, a pseudonym he sometimes adopted) Thomson composed this long poem while wandering the streets of London, tormented by insomnia and what he called "melencholia," what we would probably call clinical depression.

His portrait of his mental state also became a portrait of an industrial society, and the vanity and pointlessness of its various sorts of activity and effort. His City of Dreadful Night, a true city of despair, held up a dark mirror to the urban England of his day, filled with faithless churches, empty and ultimately unrewarding activity, and the despair of grinding poverty.

In an age so filled with self-improvement twaddle and the cult of positive thinking, such a poem actually seems like a breath of fresh air. It ends with a splendid portrait of Dürer's Melencolia.

I collected Morgan Silver Dollars for years before I got this. I wish I had bought it a long time ago. A good basic reference for the collector.

This is the only book of its kind! There is no other reference like it for the different die varieties of these popular dollars. If you buy this book, also purchase "The VAM Keys", a list of the top 100 Morgan Dollar varieties.

This book is a must have for serious silver dollar collectors -- VAM collecting is not as popular as it will someday be, and now is the time to get at it! -- This book has the complete refernce list for VAMS but is only a companion to the newer and updated "Top 100 VAMS" booklet available now. The only drawback to this book is the authors have (once again) changed their rarity and popularity format and this huge volume does not correspond correctly with the Top 100 reference.... Untill they pblish a newer version of this book, it's a must have and will probably pay for itself with the discovery of scarce varietys you already have and will find should you decide to seek them out.

Jim Morgan gets most (but not all) of his facts straight, approaching his subjects with an affecting blend of humor, compassion, and both human and architectural insights. IF THESE WALLS HAD EARS: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A HOUSE offers up eight families' worth of bittersweet reminiscences, ruminations and recriminations comingled with the author's own personal reflections on this whale of a house. Portions of the book are uneven and a bit awkward as Morgan transitions between the families' and his own perceptions and his narration. But overall, it's an interesting and enjoyable read which should resonate truly with anyone who has ever experienced the mixed blessings of home ownership -- or found themselves haplessly ensnared by a four-walled moneypit.

Ed and Sheri Kramer: Chapter Ten

A house is an aggregate relic of all the people who have lived there, recording their improvements or their neglect. The author writes an interesting chronicle of the house's former inhabitants. It's disconcerting to reflect upon the fact that others owned our home before us, and we will leave it to others when we're gone. It's a reminder of how temporary our lives are, in our few hours upon the stage. Each generation, with all its hubris, is only a chapter, or a few pages, within the book of life.

Morgan has done here what every old house owner has dreamed of doing: answering the question "what history occurred here before we arrived?" In telling the rich stories of the people who preceded him as owners of this particular Craftsman bungalow in one old neighborhood of a single city, he spins a wonderful tale of our nations's history as well.

when you're in the mood for some short whistful escapist romantic stories in a celtic setting, pick up this one. good for a rainy sunday afternoon.

Wonderful stories of magic, romance, and irish lore. If you like to curl up at night with a short story, this is a great book for you. I was delighted with this book and with Irish Magic II.

This book will not appeal to everyone and is reviewed in the context of the intended audience. It is a collection of four novelettes by master storytellers. The first story, "Galway Bay" by Morgan Llywelan, is a change of pace for readers familiar with her full length historical novels. It is set in modern times, and concerns a part-Irish woman on vacation in Galway, Ireland, who encounters the underlying realities of Irish folklore and discovers romance in an unexpected place. The second story, "The Harpers's Daughter" by Barbara Samuel, is set in ancient Ireland and concerns Deirdre, destined to be the bride of a king, but she loves another. Expressed in Deirdre's thoughts (about other women in the king's court), "One of them, one day, would have the warrior who'd snared her heart, while she would lie with the fat, old king. It wasn't fair." Deirdre is cursed with extraordinary beauty that creates uncontrolled lust in the minds of any men who see her. Can she find a refuge with the man she loves, and will magic protect them? The third and fourth stories deal with connections to the spirit world in an ancient Irish setting. The third, "The Trysting Hour" by Susan Wiggs, is about a spirit that can assume a mortal man's shape, and who desires a woman meant to be a king's wife. Can he win her hand while he prevents the king from consumating the marriage? And is she really an ordinary mortal woman? The fourth, "Rarer than a White Crow" by Roberta Gellis, has a man placed under a spell by a shape-changing witch with her own agenda (which can only be guessed at). People are at an interface between the spirit world and the mortal world. Angus must win the hand of Caer and love her til the end of her days in order to be free from the spell, but that is easier said than done. Can they thwart the real agenda of the witch? The book contains explicit sex and violence. It is an excellent set of stories for those interested in this type of fantasy romance.

Comprehensive with great photographs, this is a good place to start learning about Morgan's career.

I have always been interested in Julia Morgan's work but I have never been able to find enough solid and valuable information about her and her work. I own all of the Julia Morgan books, that is every book written about Julia Morgan. This, by far, is the best composition of the true character of Julia Morgan. Not only do you get an entire biography with incredible detail but you also get insight from hundreds of pictures, scans of actual plans Julia Morgan drafted and entires from other important persons. This book is a must have if you are looking for "the" book covering everything in Julia Morgan's life. This book stands alone among all the other Julia Morgan reads. I suggest that if you are looking for a book about Ms. Morgan, this is the best book, brings the greatest attention to detail that you will ever find about Julia Morgan.

A wonderful survey of a truly great Architect. Great photos. Original drawings. A detailed career history & biography. Most of the better known masters haven't gotten this kind of treatment; Ms. Morgan deserves it. GREAT book.

If you are interested in Waldorf/Steiner Education then the price of this book is made up in the inroductory chapters alone. As well as providing an overview of Jewish Folklore, there is another overview - the value and nature of folklore use from Kindergarten through the 6th Grade as applied by Waldorf Teachers. The explanations are applicable to choosing age- appropriate folklore (based on inner development) for your children from any genre or regional origin.

The stories themselves are divided by age. They include both tales used to explore sacred belief as well as those from the Torah (part of the Old Testament to those of you more familiar with Christian literature). My son enjoyed all the tales through his age level. They are told in simple, straight forward language. While the stories are perhaps not the greatest literary retellings, the simplicity makes it easy for a parent or teacher to retain them and give their own oral retellings. This is the method used in the Waldorf Schools and which they suggest to parents. It allows the stories to be used at impromtu times, and for children to participate in creating their own images, taking part in a lost facet of human culture which is now too often replaced with television - and even books.

The book also contains sidebar commentaries to explain aspects of Jewish culture - from the alphabet to common Jewish foods. Such information can draw one closer to the story, as well as inspiring activities you might engage your children in while telling the tales or exploring Jewish festivals. There is a small note for each as to the source (both time and place).

For Jewish families who send their children to Waldorf Schools or who create a form of Waldorf homeschooling for themselves, the book is a useful inspiration on how to explore their faith with their own children within the context of Waldorf pedagogy. It is a source of encouragement for Waldorf Teachers who have Jewish children in their classrooms. For families of any faith, it is a gentle introduction to the beauty of another path, kindling appreciation for Jewish culture and perhaps helping to ward off some of the world's remaining anti-semitism - for where do humans share more in common than in their enjoyment of a good story that holds up human truths that we all recognize?

This is a fine collection of Jewish children's stories, intended to bring a greater level of multiculturalism into the Waldorf educational system. In recent years, the Waldorf schools have been accused of racism, primarily because some of their older curriculum is rather Eurocentric. (The system originated in Central Europe.) This book, the first in an upcoming series, helps correct that problem, by drawing upon the rich treasury of Jewish folktales. Future volumes will include collections from African, Chinese, and Native American folklore, providing Waldorf teachers (and others) with materials that are inclusive of the vast diversity of cultures on our planet. For this noble effort, I say "Yashar koach!" (the Jewish equivalent of "Bravo!")

The book also includes a nice overview of Waldorf theory on how different types of stories appeal to different age groups, and how fantasy in general helps a child to internalize moral, ethical, and spiritual values. Athough I'm not a Waldorf teacher, I found this section to be very helpful. The stories themselves are arranged according to this system, making it very easy to choose age-appropriate material for different groups. I was especially pleased to see some animal stories included, because these are often overlooked in other Jewish anthologies.

My only complaint is that some of the illustrations are not Jewishly authentic, drawing more on the conventions of Christian Sunday school art. The bare-headed Moses is a case in point. Charlton Heston may have played him that way, but Jewish illustrators do not show our prophets with bare heads, because covering the head is a sign of respect and humility before God. Ditto for the bare-headed men in "The Witches of Ashkelon." (Tell me, dear reader -- would Hasidim volunteer to accompany their saintly rabbi on a dangerous mission to confront evil with heads uncovered?) Plus, the Jewish image of Heaven is not angels on clouds, as portrayed on page 174. It's the Great Banquet under the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, where the saints feast, sing, and learn Torah together in round-table discussions, not by reading books alone! (BTW, the very word "Paradise" is derived from Hebrew "Pardes" which means "garden.") Last but not least, none of the Jewish males in this book are wearing ritual fringes, and the robes are not belted (both required by Jewish law.)

Most Jews will probably forgive these oversights, although I, for one, would prefer that children (and their teachers) who read these stories should be exposed to more authentic images of us, because such imagery, acquired in childhood, is often carried for life. So, for the bloopers, I'm docking it a star. Still, the illustrations are beautiful artwork, and they do evoke a sense of fairytale fantasy. However, if the series is to succeed as a mulicultural tool, then the illustrator(s) need to research the various cultures more carefully, because members of those cultures will check the accuracy of details. (Native Americans, for example, have specific costumes, styles of housing, beadwork patterns, clothes, hair, types of feathers worn, etc. for each different tribe. Generic teepees and headresses simply will not do!) Still, this book is a definite step in the right direction. Hopefully, it will help bring a greater appreciation of Jewish culture into many types of educational environments.

This fine resource is divided into three sections by grade levels: kindergarten, first to third grades, and fourth to sixth grades. Thirty pages of prefatory material discuss folk literature and its age appropriateness at different stages of development. The source of each tale is provided in the margin along with other tidbits of information. The 38 stories are drawn from ancient Talmudic and Midrash tales and have been altered as little as possible. Among the titles and values shared are "Alef is Chosen" (humility), "The Rosebush and the Apple Tree" (generosity), "The Bear's Bellyache" (cleverness), "The First Tear" ( compassion), and "The Old Crone and the Little Girl" ( obedience). Watercolor illustrations appear on the first few pages; the rest of the images are rendered in ink. Fanciful borders adorn each section. - Marcia W. Posner, Holocaust Memorial and Educational Center of Nassau County, Glen Cove, NY