The family in this books is deemed to be the national average. We are welcomed into their home and life through a series of pictures, quotes and well written simple text.

The family are posed for a photo with all their worldly possessions, then the book takes us through their average day and lifestyle.

It is a wonderful book that gives children an easy way to compare their lives with those of the children in the book. It is simple yet thorough.

An excellent introductory book to real life of families in Ethiopia.

This is a great book for young children. Excellent first book for teaching kids about another county. I enjoyed the book very much and I am an adult! It offers lots of nice color photographs and discusses everyday life of the typical Guatemala family.

We bought this book for our daughter, age 18 months and adopted in Vietnam, thinking she would appreciate it when she was older. I'm sure she will, but we're all enjoying it now also. Having visited and loved Vietnam, we've been disappointed in some other children's books about the country. Some focus on negative differences -- the relative standard of living and the results of the war -- so we found this book's very family-oriented description really refreshing. It's full of great detailed photos, which make it interesting for all ages.

It is such a relief to have an up-to-date book about diabetes that's readable and understandable. It answers so many questions that my doctors don't have time to answer, and it gives me so much information on issues I never even thought about! Thank you, Dr. Alterman

This crime anthology consists of nine tales, of which five star the wonderful female investigative partners C.J. Gunn and Jenny Gordon. The G&G quintet are all quite good and in some ways overwhelm the remaining four contributions though they are also entertaining tales. Still the key to this book is that the prime players in this anthology are all strong cast members for the most part performing reasonable sleuthing tasks. However it is the G&G duo that stands out but not because they are starring in over half the stories. They are the most developed of the characters and could easily be transferred into a novel as lead protagonists (not so subtle of a hint that hopefully the author hears through the grapevine). Each of the stories are creative and refreshingly plotted but they are not clones of one another. They are unique in their own right and even the non-G&G stories can be expanded into a good novel. Readers will find the G&G so unbelievably good that they will be enthralled by each story and wish that there were more of them to read in this surprisingly good anthology. FOUND DEAD IN TEXAS is a wonderful collection that showcases the talent of Jan Grape who relates appealing crime dramas to the mystery crowd.

Harriet Klausner

Valerie Austin provides an extensive amount of information on phobias, panic attacks, and anxiety disorders. She first describes each of these, then gives ideas on improving life with self-hypnosis. This book was very informative on the subject of self-hypnosis and relaxation. An excellent choice for anyone interested in improving and enjoying life.

Fr. Ralph Powell, O.P., a brilliant Dominican Friar from Chicago, has written a book filled with quotes from philosophers, historical sketches and brief outlines concerning the problem of epistemological relativism. "Freely Chosen Reality" delivers, point by point, pieces of evidence proving that most philosophers have agreed on one permanent claim. Powell, who admits to having relativist leanings, spent ten years studying and analyzing the "objectivity question," and the problem of historical and epistemological relativism. His findings-argued convincingly in Freely Chosen Reality-have laid to rest the vaguest credibility of relativist claims...

Powell shows two areas deeply affected by the problem of relativism: ethics and logic. Foundations supporting analytic ethics have been pulverized. The critique of Kant's universal moral imperative by Hegel, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche dismantled "the foundations both of analytic ethics and our contemporary liberal morality."

Powell's insight concerning the effect of relativism on ethics is, I feel, fundamentally sound. The collapse of contemporary ethics brought on by the easy critique of Kant has effects on today's college campuses. Once Kant's do-it-yourself Golden Rule has been proven to be silly, it becomes difficult to got back to common sense and accept the Old Testament commandments.

I also agree with Powell that relativism likewise affects the field of logic. Clearly, a denial of necessity would upset the art of thinking. Unfortunately, relativism denies logical necessity. Consequently, logic is discredited, held suspect and shunned by some philospohers and scholars. Powell says, "Epistemological relativism is...destructive of claims to the transcultural universality of logic."

Arguing that there is trans-cultural agreement among philosophers on the bedrock of sensual experience, Powell reveals the possibility of philosophical and intellectual unity and counters the divisive, violent movement of relativism with a fundamental truth. "There is trans-cultural agreement on an experiential basis for philosophy." His conclusion is capable of establishing a person's hope and trust in the conclusions of ethics and logic...That upon which the above philosophers agree is that a real-relation is the first object of experience and the extrinsic formal cause of sensation.

Generally when a book (especially movies) is first released, all is well with the world. Then there is a second, or sometimes a third, etc and the reader starts to feel like he is getting a well-watered down version of the original. Friction 6 is a real rule breaker, however. The stories in this collection are even fresher and more original that the book's five predecessors. The stories are vibrant and alive and sometimes downright nasty, but they are also thought-provoking and, most importantly, entertaining. Bob Vickery's School Queer will have every (gay) man re-thinking his high school past and his story, Escorts, rethinking the stigma of hiring an escort. Simon Sheppard's The Glorious Fourth makes every other gay man's Independence Day celebrations pale by comparison and T. Hitman's Clean Shorts will have you visiting the Laundromat once gain, even if you have a fine washer and dryer at home. With 39 stories in all, you're sure to find something in this book to quicken your pulse.

This book is one of my favorite histories of Medieval England- it is thorough and expansive but at the same time concise. It covers all the major issues of the time, from the rulers' personalities to the prevailing social issues. However, far from being a dry list of facts I found it very well-written, and surprisingly engaging! It is rare that I find myself captivated by a piece of thoroughly researched history. Nor can you doubt his accuracy, Poole's facts are obviously meticulously collected from both primary and secondary sources. I reccommend this book both to the casual learner and the more hardheaded scholar.

Austin Spare lived an extraordinary magical life. He invented his own system pretty much from scratch after his tutelage by an old witch who could trace her lineage back to the Burning Times. This is not some new age incense and Mozart approach to the Occult, but real Magic portrayed by deep linkage to the subconscious though the amazing drawing of Austin Osman Spare.

This is one of the most extraordinary books on Magic and Art ever published. I know of nothing else that comes close. Giger and Joe Coleman pale by comparison.

Spare once said when ill that he "...would not cure himself with a charm. If you remove one evil you induce another." That statement from most would seem like an excuse. But in Spare's case, he that had casually produced thunderstorms and Elementals (leading in short order to the deaths of the two woman who had repeatedly requested he do so, against his best advice), it is a sign of the depth of his knowledge and understanding.

There are rumors, generally regarded as fact, that he and Aleister Crowley were lovers for a time. Who Knows? Sex lay at the center of both their universes. Kia became manifest as matter according to Spare due to Cosmic Loneliness. Sounds plausible enough to me. Crowley once said of transcendence that the problem with it is that: "it becomes boring after awhile."

This book also includes many sigils (of which Spare was a Master) and pragmatic information on their construction and use.