I began reading this book while watching a movie and didn't stop for a few days. I was hooked after the first chapter. I enjoyed Tampa Boy from cover to cover and found myself to be very amused with the teenage boys' adventures in Florida in the early 1900's. The author did a wonderful job of keeping the reader intrested while throwing all sorts of events at you to absorb and relate to. I would reccomend this book to anyone who likes adventures with a dose of reality.

It must have been wonderful growing up in the Tampa Bay area 80 years ago! (I've only been here since 1955, when I was 7, and we moved to Clearwater from Detroit.) This is GREAT book for all ages. The escapades of the author were so believable and so funny. I read it to my kids a few years ago, much of the time through tears of laughter! Too bad this isn't still in print so more folks could enjoy a good read.

I am a 30yr old Tampa Bay native of 5 generations. I read Tampa Boy at the age of 12. Out of sheer bordom I pulled it off of the shelf in my grandmother's library. Of all of the books I have read about the history of growing up in the Tampa Bay area, this is the one book that has stayed up front in my memories and captured my heart. I tell everyone I know about this book and I feel that in the Florida school system this book should be included. It is both realistic and extremely, enduringly entertaining. I am currently trying to find a copy of this book for my son and my daughter to have when they are old enough to enjoy it.

This is another good selection of Beetle Bailey strips that is sure to please any fan.

This book had me cracking up laughing. Beetle Bailey is truly one of the FUNNIEST comic strips in creation! I love the Sarge baiting, work dodging jokemonger! The assorted characters at Camp Swampy will certainly leave you laughing. Even though you already KNOW our favorite private will get the best of Sarge, you still can't help rooting for that lovable, crusty officer who has his challenges in trying to rein in the enlisted men at Camp Swampy! Sarge and his ubiquitous bull dog Otto really run that place. Lt. Fuzz is a lovable toady, Gen. Half-Track a figurehead, Lt. Flap a suave and serious officer, Zero, the bumbling rube aptly named for his I.Q., Rocky, the resident rebel, Plato, the intellectual, Cookie, the army cook and of course Chaplain Stateglass to name a few!

Beetle Bailey is sure to crack up his readers laughing. I have loved this strip since I was a child. It is VERY funny!

because I'm laughing so hard it HURTS! "Beetle Bailey" is truly the FUNNIEST strip to hit the funny papers! I love that indolent private who has set new standards in sarge baiting and work dodging. Mort Walker has certainly brought many smiles to many faces with his cast of HILARIOUS characters at Camp Swampy!

It's time to report to work, SARGE!

I love this book. We see a snake in the woods, and take note of as many characteristics as we can, then look it up later to learn more about it. Same with frogs, toads, lizards, skinks! The actual information provided for each reptile is slim but very interesting. This is a great book to have if you spend any time in the wild in Virginia.

I've had and used this book since it came out in 1980. I always recommend it to all of the classes and seminars I give on reptiles and amphibians and to all of the people who ask for a good field guide because, for the size and cost, there are none better for this part of the country. Well worth the money if a handy, accurate, well-done field guide with great photos and range maps is what you want.

about Beetle Bailey. Having read the comic strip for decades it is like revisiting an old friend. A newer generation will enjoy it too!

This book is truly a work of brilliant satire. The world's laziest comic private has one laughing yet again. As funny as this work is, the "Taps for Sarge" section is moving. "Beetle Bailey" without Sarge is like computers without the Internet or TV without cable. A vital element is missing.

This book takes you through a full range of emotions, from bittersweet sadness for the irate, yet lovable Sarge to rolling with laughter at the irrepressible private.

It's time to report to work, Sarge!

This is an excellent collection of Beetle Bailey cartoons that ought to satitisfy any fan of the strip.

I laughed. I cried. I wiped tears of laughter from my eyes. I doubled over laughing. This delightful collections of Beetle Bailey strips is calculated to please any fans of the laziest soldier in comic history. The irate, yet lovable Sarge, his look-alike soulmate, Cookie, (Cookie knows the way to Sarge's heart is through Sarge's stomach), General Half-Track of the roving eye, the aptly named Ms. Buxley, Gen. Half-Track's secretary, rabbit-toothed Zero, the no-nonsense, unflappable Lt. Flapp, and of course the wise Plato, not to mention an assortment of hilarious characters.

I laughed. I cried. I wiped tears of laughter from my eyes. This book will have you reaching for the band-aids because you will laugh until it HURTS!

I LOVE IT!

These Cliffsnotes have definitely helped me as a student to understand the book. It can get hard to read if you're a younger person who doesn't know much about the language Charles Dickens used.

I thought this was a great book. It was a really good summery on great expectations. I know how some people get really confused when reading books like this because it is sometimes hard to understand the language. So I highy reccomend this book.

This book was a very pleasant addition to my art library. I never saw it in a bookstore, so I was hesitant to buy it when I saw how little it cost and how small it was. But, I didn't know anything about Durer and wanted to learn and I figured I'd take a chance on this book. Good decision! This book is well put together and a tremendous bargain to boot. The book starts off with about a 25 page, obviously brief, biography by Mr. Bailey of Durer. Then there are 48 full page color plates with descriptions and explanations of the paintings on the opposing pages. The reproductions are of good quality and the descriptions are well written and informative. Any of you out there who own a lot of art books know what 48 color plates usually does to the price of an art book, so "Durer" is really a steal. After you see this book you will realize what a great all-around artist Durer was. He wasn't only a painter of religious scenes but an equally talented landscape and portrait painter. (Some of the portraits are just fantastic!) He also did some beautiful nature studies. Included are 2 paintings he did of a hare and of the wings of a bird that will just knock your socks off (assuming you wear socks!). He worked well in all mediums. The watercolors are as beautiful as the oils. Phaidon has a whole series of these books in their "colour library" and this book makes me want to check out some of the other titles concerning other artists I haven't learned about yet. Definitely worth purchasing as an introduction to an extremely gifted artist!

This Phaidon Durer book is probably, for the price, by far the best comprehensive introduction to the life and works of Durer. It is also one of the best books on Durer in absolute terms. The photographic reproductions vividly bring out the color and sharpness of the dozens of key Durer paintings illustrated in the volume. The photographs show that there is simply no substitute for an up-to-date book utilizing modern photographic reproduction/printing techniques to reproduce paintings. I have looked at several older books in librarys with color reproductions of Durer works, and this newer Phaidon book has much better quality color reproductions. It also has examples of key Durer drawings, such as "Praying Hands," and "Architect," as well as good-quality reproductions of the three classic Durer engravings ("Melancolia I," "Knight, Death and the Devil," and "St. Germone in his Study") and beautiful, crisp and brilliantly colored reproductions of several key Durer watercolors, including the classics "Hare" and "Great Turf," as well as key landscape watercolors. Of particular interest are the reproductions of the 3 classic self-portraits, of which the one Durer did at age 28 was so fascinating that it alone made me buy this book and is alone worth the price of the book. Another fascinating painting is the one that Durer made of Wolgemut, who was his mentor and who taught him how to paint. It is startlingly brilliantly colored, and has amazing color depth for a photographic reproduction of a painting. This book shows how Durer may well have been the greatest graphical artist of the Western World, and one gets a sense of his amazingly modern personality from the selections in this book and the quality of their detail. It is hard to believe that a man as modern-thinking and scientific as Durer lived 500 years ago.

I don't find Ruth Rendell's Wexford mysteries as engrossing as her psychological novels, but anything by Rendell is nevertheless entertaining and well worth reading. This one finds Wexford and his partner, Mike Burden, investigating the death of an older woman found strangled in a parking garage at a shopping mall. Numerous suspects abound in the woman's neighborhood but Wexford is soon incapacitated, however, by a car bomb (meant for someone else). Burden takes the lead by pursuing a withdrawn young man who lives with his domineering mother. Burden's intuition fails him though and it is Wexford who eventually identifies the killer by subtly noting the habits and motivations of the suspects and even the items they purchased in the shopping mall. The book is a little overlong for a Wexford mystery and gets sluggish a little in the middle but picks back up toward the end. Every character seems like a likely culprit (the victim was a blackmailer) and it is hard to see what is coming until close to the last chapter. If you are just beginning with Ruth Rendell, don't let this one detract you from her - she is one of the best writers in the world today.

I wish some of the many Ruth Rendell fans would have reviewed this one so I could have a jumping off place. Since I discovered Ms. Ruth in September 2001, I have worked my way through 21 of her 50 or more, aka Barbara Vine. Inspector Wexford's stories are not as interesting to me as some of the non Wexford works but this was a neat one and I never dreamed the killer would be the killer. This was the most convoluted, mixed up mystery I think I have ever reaad. The victim really got what she deserved, hope that is not a spoiler. The last 20 pages seemed to go rather fast, compared to the first 2/3 of the book. But oh, well, It was good.

The Veiled One was the first Ruth Rendell novel and I am delighted to report that I was thoroughly captivated and entertained. Rendell writes fluid prose with interesting characters and acute observations about human nature and behavior. I particularly liked the main character Wexford and his naturally dry and mostly sarcastic wit. The mystery is well plotted and wraps up neatly. To be honest, the ending did occur to me, but by the time I got to the end I was impressed enough by the whole effort that I didn't care about that at all. The ending is quite satisfying... the type that makes sense while still surprising enough. I look forward to many more enjoyable evenings with Ruth Rendell and Chief Inspector Wexford.

Ruth Rendell is a talented writer, but I often have problems with elements of her plots being a little bit predictable-- this is definitely not the case with _Wolf to the Slaughter_. The book constantly suprises and manages to do so without any deus ex machina tricks that might make it unconvincing.

A mysterious note that claims someone was murdered, a stain on a carpet that may or may not be blood, and a gold lighter with a leading inscription-- these are the only clues that Wexford and his crew have to what might not even be a crime. Mix in a slightly mad painter, three women who gave their hearts unwisely, and a young policeman in love for the first time and you've got a compelling mystery novel which is one of the best Rendells I've read to date.

Fans of Ruth Rendell who await each new Chief Inspector Wexford mystery from Ruth Rendell may wish to go back to her early works. Wolf to the Slaughter was her second Wexford mystery, written 33 years ago but with no loss of appeal for today's readers. Unworldly artist Rupert Margolis goes to the Kingsmarkham police, not to report that his younger sister Ann is missing, but to seek help finding someone to manage his household since Ann hasn't come home for several days. At the same time, Wexford receives an anonymous note reporting that a young woman named Ann was murdered by a small dark young man named Geoff Smith.

The book has the elements we have come to appreciate in Ruth Rendell mysteries, including the slow steady unraveling of the mystery by Wexford and his chief assistant Mike Burden, methodically tracking down the few leads, when they don't even have the victim's body; and an array of real human characters, such as the aging Ruby Branch, who supports the man she loves, Monkey Matthews, an ex-con well known to the Kingsmarkham police, by renting out a room for the evening no questions asked; Noreen Anstey, abandoned by her second husband, now regretting the wrong she did to her first, living alone and having to sell off her remaining valuables; and Mark Drayton, the young police officer who never lets himself get seriously involved with any young women while he works hard to advance in the police force. It's Wexford's and Burden's keen understanding of human nature that helps put the pieces of this mystery together and leads them to the victim and the killer. The two play off each other well: Burden coming up with an important insight into the identity of the predator in the case, and Wexford pulling the sequence of events all together in a surprise finish.

Ruth Rendell's Chief Inspector Wexford mysteries are important entries to the police procedural genre. This, the second of the series, is probably the book that cemented Rendell's decision to continue. The daughter of local artist Rupert Margolis hasn't been home in a few days, but her father isn't reporting her disappearance. No, instead, he is filling out inquirings for someone to help him manage his household in his daughter's stead! And then Wexford receives a note that says daughter Ann has been murdered, and the suspects name given. With his ever-present second in command Mike Burden, Wexford begins his investigation, characterized by methodical thinking and well-paced moving! The plot becomes ever so convoluted--but don't give up. Rendell is in complete charge (it's one of her longer Wexfords) and by the conclusion her logial thinking, clever plot execution, and expert character development have won the day.

"Wolf to the Slaughter" is also perhaps one of Rendell's most suspense-filled books (of the Wexford series). A local hotel has been letting one of its rooms as a love nest, but when a man with a knife one evening gets through with it, it is a room of blood, violence, and death. But whose? There's no corpse to be found! Wexford and Burden take over and the pages turn automatically after this, as Rendell's heros leave no stone unturned--nor sheet unfurled! Rendell has published many other books that are not in the series (she also writes under the name of Barbara Vine) and, with each, she clearly knows what she's writing about--she's a master here. And the surprise ending is handled masterly, too! (Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)

I really enjoyed the content of this book.

This is an outstanding book for couples who want to succeed in their marriage and financial affairs. Not too many books out there that deal with relationship and finance, many couples today deal with the financial issues presented to them but never see the other issues in their relationships that also affect their financial situation. This is a must read book!!!!!

I was surprised to find this book not only an accessible read but also a highly informative volume. There are very few books on the market that deal with financial issues in relationships and how to deal with them. Strange, since money issues are one of the top problems people encounter in their relationships. This book is focused on turning finances into a solvable problem rather than an interminable argument in a relationship.

The book is set up in four parts. The first part walks you through all of the things that can affect a relationship: from hidden issues, to expectations, to gender differences. The second presents ideas and techniques to use in discussing difficult or emotional issues. The third part is the real financial section. It takes you step by step through the basics of financial planning: saving, spending, buying a house, investing, insurance, estate planning, taxes... The fourth part brings relationship tips and financial guidance together, showing you how this can form the groundwork of a strong and lasting partnership.

Most people do not receive an education in financial planning let alone how to work with that in a relationship. This book provides an easy way to deal with those issues. Not only does it provide you with the skills to discuss these matters, but it also gives you a good, basic understanding of how to deal with finances. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone in a relationship - you will get something out of this.