Bint Arab is an excellent study of the history and present of Arab American women dispelling much myth and presenting this wonderful minority in vivid color and 3d.

Shaker did an wonderful job presenting an accurate portrayal of the many faces of Arab women in US. The very considerable amount of research into the history of Arab migration in US makes the book a very valuable source on the subject. This coupled with the personal history of Shaker's own family helped bring the history to life.

Shakers extensive field work with modern day Arab American women from very diverse backgrounds with no attempt to force any specific viewpoint serves to make Bin Arab a fantastic window on diverse group of Americans

For a reader seeking to understand the experience of women of Arab heritage in the US, reading Evelyn Shakir's book makes an excellent first step. One's vague stereotypes about this group dissolve after reading a few pages. Starting at the beginning of the 20th century, she paints a vivid and colorful picture of these women and their families, ethnic communities, business enterprises, and interaction with Anglo-American society. I found the descriptions of the earlier 20th century to have the evocative quality of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime. Shakir does not gloss over the difficulties that these women had with their patriarchal-minded males; she also depicts their numerous victories in redefining their roles as women. (The author's own mother won such a victory, setting up a successful small clothing factory in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.)

Shakir's family was Christian, as were most of the earlier generations of Arab immigrants, and her account of their generation draws much from family memories. (She also did considerable research in books and periodicals by and about Arab Americans, enriching her account while never making it ponderous.) When dealing with today's largely Muslim immigrants, she takes a different approach. She gives the reader lengthy transcriptions of Arab women's accounts of their experiences, taken from interviews or, in one case, from a conversation among four sisters. I would guess that, feeling unfamiliar with their culture, she preferred to let the Muslim women speak for themselves. This drew me in as effectively as did the earlier part of the book. Taken as a whole, Bint Arab is a very readable and richly detailed portrayal of an ethnic group with whom other Americans would do well to become better acquainted.

This book is a personal yet highly informative ethnographic survey of three generations of Arab American women. The author introduces her grandmothers, who came to the US in the nineteenth century. She investigates their motivations for immigrating and how they and their cohorts adapted to the new country. A central figure in the book is the author's mother, a and successful businesswoman, who is presented as an example of the first American generation. Shakir describes how second generation Arab American women sought to find places for themselves between the Arab and American cultures, and how third generation women connected or reconnected with their heritage. In the last part of the book, Shakir turns her attention to more recent arrivals since 1948, mostly Palestinians, and the reasons why they have assimilated less to American culture.

The author does an exceptional job throughout explaining the traditions of her culture to those who may not be aware of them. Only at the beginning does she seem to idealize the homeland Lebanon somewhat, rather than consider it impartially; this was probably due to her elders' expressed attitudes as she was growing up. This book will be of interest to anyone studying the process of immigration and acculturation, as well as those of Arab American ancestry.

Abraham Rabinovich writes so well that I kept fearing the day I would finally finish reading his masterpiece of international intrigue. The story, for Israel, is not unlike the American "skunk works" ultra-secretive design of the "Stealth Fighter" & "Stealth Bomber" - in that, in near total secrecy Israel revolutionized naval warfare. However, the United States is expected to create technological breakthroughs with the amount of resources availbe to her. In the 1960's Israel's flagship was a destroyer named "Eliat." Like everything in the Israeli navy - the "Eliat" was a 'hand-me-down' from the French Navy. Israel could not afford to add another destroyer to its tiny navy and this created a dilemma. What the Israeli Navy needed was a 'force multiplier' - several fast multi-purpose ships that packed a serious punch. In fact, Israel needed enough boats to simultaneously mount an attack/defense against Syria and Egypt. A young Israeli engineer named Even-Tov became convinced that he could design a devastating sea-to-sea missile that used an altimeter and radar. Even-Tov convinced the Defense Minister - Yitzhak Rabin that he could deliver a sea-to-sea missile, code-named 'Gabriel', within a year. This promise of a "serious punch" was the catalyst for the most intensive weapons system design project the Israel people (let alone the Israeli Navy) had ever undertaken. Israel's future Navy would be centered entirely on a small fleet of "missile boats." Up until this time, only the Soviets had created missile boats. It was only a matter of time before the Soviets shared a few missile boats with Egypt. In fact, Egypt used a "Styx-class" missile boat to sink the "Eliat." The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) sent naval officers to Europe to look for this do-it-all boat on which to place 'Gabriel' along with the hopes of the future navy. They decided, in principal, on a German ship design called 'Jaguar.' The Israeli officer's report would explain that many of the European boats he reviewed were nice but the Jaguar was a "boat made for war." IDF engineers spent over 18 months redesigning the wooden boat to be a couple meters longer and steal-hulled. This book reveals the Israeli geniuses that revolutionized naval combat. If it were only as simple as having the right idea, the right people, in the right place, at the right time - a French embargo was instituted within months of the delivery of the last five boats. I won't reveal any more of the story. This is a wonderful book. I also strongly recommend "Six Days of War" by Michael B. Oren.

The Boats of Cherbourg is a well written, exciting book about a well known but under-appreciated episode in Naval History. Rabinovich does an excellent job of putting the events in the book in historical context: the rise of anti-ship missiles, Israel's struggle for survival, the changes in Naval Warfare. The heart of the story, the dramatic plan to "liberate" the patrol boats, is told in a manner that makes you feel the suspense and the tension the Israelis manning the boats must have felt. A must on any Naval History buff's bookshelf.

If this book had had a press agent, it would have been a bestseller. It has the technical depth of a Clancy thriller -- but it is a true story, based on over a hundred interviews. The battle scenes are especially remarkable. Chess for keeps. The Israelis used a short range "smart" missile against a long range, not-so-smart missile. Each 14,000 hp missile boat had to charge its enemy at full speed to close the range gap, under fire, with many miles to put under the keel before it could realistically open fire itself. An Israeli boat was able to do this successfully by cloning itself electronically, so that the incoming Russian-made missiles "saw" multiple racing targets instead of one. The hair-raising aspect of this primitive countermeasure was that one of the alternative targets seen by the incoming missile was indeed the real, almost completely vulnerable oncoming Israeli missile boat. Put this one next to Hornblower. A classic.

This is a really great book. It explains way more then you would expect for a field guide. It goes in depth about each plant, animals that depend on them and other interesting tidbits that you wont find in any other guide. The awsome illustrations are done so beautifully and true to life no one should have any problems idtentifying plants on the trail. They also truly give this book a nice touch. It's like a book of old documenting new discoveries!

This is a must have book if you live in areas with swamps/bogs. Its so accurate I'm just amazed. It is also very easy to use. It has drawings and it talks not only about id of the plants but also their "lifestyle" (e.g. how they reproduce, various ideosyncasies of the plants, insects that are associated etc.) Each plant also has a short section on lore which adds a nice bit of history. I really like the book

For those people who already kind of know their way around the forest, and are more interested in what they are going to see ASSOCIATED with the plants they see than what an Audobon book says, this is a naturalist's dream come true!

Great b/w illustrations of not only leaves and fruits, but insects, diseases, toothmarks, clawmarks and nests that can be found on and around the trees and plants listed in the book...

Also highly recommended is the Forest and Thicket book by the same authors...

My son loves these Mary Kate and Ashley books. He is seven and wants to read the whole series.

This mystery kept us both guessing til the end.

Mary Kate and Ashley are on a vacation when a case just starts begging to be solved. One of the kid who is entering the contest gets a mysterious note then the Olsen twins. But that creepy just can't hurt them... or can it?

this is another cool book I have read and I think its pretty good there is a girl tiffany who goes for the first place in the surfing chapionship but then strange things happen... you can use the clues to figure it out yourself but beaware not everything seems what it look like

a book for everyone who likes mystery's :-)

Laura Johnston keeps it simple. I'm a former Chicagoan and this book has just the right mix of the 'can't-miss' Chicago combined with 'off the beaten track' fun. Doesn't overwhelm with densely-written pages and more choices than one could possibly sample in a few days. Highly Recommended to anyone headed to My Kinda Town for the first time. A winner!

Despite the title, this is actually an excellent guide. Written in the friendly tone of a Chicago inhabitant with an obvious love for the city, it offers the sites, restaurants and activities that you might come across were you visiting a friend. Highly recommended!

Just when you think you know Chicago, Laura Johnston (who, as it turns out, isn't even a native -- but it's hard to tell!) shows you more. I tried to highlight the "good parts" of this book, but now my entire book is marked up because it is just THAT good. From tremendously useful reviews of various sightseeing destinations and restaurants to helpful suggestions regarding bargains (i.e., a chart that shows you free admission days to various attractions), "Chicago for Dummies" is absolutely essential for the Chicago visitor who doesn't want to miss a thing.

I highly recommend this book! It is a wonderful Christian
romance novel. I'd give it ten stars if I could!

Chosen is a compelling book. I agree with the other ratings above. One comment I would like to see brought out is that Alexsana, the main female chararcter, often acts on her own instinct. Like most humans, she sometimes puts her decisions before the Lord...and at other times, just acts on her own judgement. She often ignores the counsel of Godly friends. She pays a price for this. Let's admire Alexsana, but look at her realistically. I highly recommend this book. It will stay on my shelf for years to come.

This is a great story all about chosing between the work you love, and the man you can't live without. It really gave me a good idea about what the people in Jerusalem are feeling. This book has got it all- romance, politics, and religion. And it's SO real! A must read!

This book is amazing! It really does have it all. Murder, mystery, and damn funny as well! The story is very original and keeps you guessing throughout the entire book. It also has an amazing cast of characters. One of which is probably the craziest, and funniest character in any book i have ever read. This book is completely great, and everyone should read it!

Let's face it: If you're from Cleveland, you don't get no respect. No respect at all. And it mostly stems from the Cuyahoga (pronounced "Cuya-HOG-uh" you out-of-towner) River catching fire. (Well, *that* and our...sports teams.) It's the ultimate absurdity--a body of water catching fire--and therefore a good jumping off point for a stridently absurdist novel.

Gandal's novel delivers. It's the great absurdist Cleveland novel that I've been waiting to read for more years than I can count.

The best moment in the novel, for me anyway, takes place in New York. One of the Cleveland Anonymous members has been discovered with a one-way ticket back to Cleveland in his possession. The Clockwork Orange-esque method used to keep him from going back is an absolute scream.

...

Keith Gandal is a teacher,and a friend, but most importantly, a fresh, new, and exciting contemporary voice that has emerged from the events of the tail-end of the 20th century. The natural disasters, the unfinished, seemingly unconnected, human tendencies that we all share, and the need to communicate with someone, anyone: these are all themes that one will find in Keith's novel, Cleveland Anonymous.

When I finished reading this novel I thought it was great, but I knew there was more to it; there was a substance below the surface that hadn't hit me yet, which is why I waited a couple weeks to write this review. I wanted it to be from a non-biased POV; and it is. I don't really know what to say, so I will try my best. I thought that by denying a genre, by concentrating on story, not a literary mindframe, which there is way too much of in contemporary fiction, that Gandal approached real life as closely as one can possibly achieve in fiction. The characters were amazing; the dialogue was real; the scenes were perfectly drawn out, perfectly realized, completely truthful; and the prose was dream-like, even magical. The atmosphere that Gandal's has created in this novel is fantastic. When I read a novel I look for something different, something real. I look at a book as an experience; I look at it as a piece of culture that can not and should not be detached from it's place in the world. And when I finished reading Cleveland Anonymous I had a sense of closeness and sense of story and literary attachment to the characters that I have not experienced in any other contemporary novel that I have ever read.

This novel is a wonderful accomplishment, an amazing piece of art, or literary achievement. If a good novel is supposed to give the reader an experience that utilizes all the senses and makes them care about the characters, then Gandal has written one heck of a good book! His fictive world is original and inspiring from not only a writers perspective, but from a human perspective.

I don't want to tell you anything about the plot (I think reviews should deal more with other, more 'inputish' type things, you'll know the plot when you read it!), but I can say that this book moves!! It moves with speed, with grace, with purpose, so fear not. It is a concise piece of fiction, a collection of people that all seem to exist in this modern world of ours without the slightest hint or notion that the bigger things that they experience shape them and make them who they are. But this is special. Too often an author will tell you what you need to know, but Gandal lets you figure it out; he writes a book filled with people, realistic people who think, act, and react like you and I do. If nothing else, read this book for a good, fast story, but if you, like me, like to see a writer experiment with the lives we take for granted everyday, then there is something here for you too.

The list of people who may have inspired this book must be immense, but here are some ideas: Thomas Pynchon (same sense of magical realism [though that is more Gabriel Garcia], the same witty sense of humor), Flannery O'Conner (short, sweet, but emotion filled sentences), Cormac McCarthy (the use of imagery), amongst many others.

Please read this novel. It is a magnificent story, and I hope that this review has inspired someone to pick up Keith Gandal's first (but hopefully not only) novel, but if you don't read it, at least I can say (when this thing hits big) that I told you so!!! Happy reading!

Eric Ambler always relied on the contemporary political tensions to build his international espionage thrillers. The Care of Time is no exception except that it has stood the test of time for 22 years amazingly well. If you leave out occasional references to the Cold War, the rest of the book could easily have been set in January 2003. If you are interested in the question of how to control access to weapons of mass destruction, you will find The Care of Time provides you will chilling issues to keep you up late at night!

The Care of Time is Mr. Ambler's last novel, and is unfortunately out of print. Hopefully, the events in the Middle East over the last 12 years will increase interest enough in the novel to bring it back into print.

The key players in the book are an Arab ruler of a small Middle Eastern state, an American ghostwriter with a CIA background, and an international wheeler dealer in shadowy offerings. Amid them are sprinkled terrorists, generals, and reporters. The resulting stew builds around a thrilling, suspenseful plot in which the safety of all of us is put into question. To give you a flavor, here's how the book opens. "The warning mesage arrived on Monday, the bomb itself on Wednesday."

Those who like thrillers will find this one to be very satisfying unless they require the deaths of vast numbers of people in the story.

For Eric Ambler fans, I think this is the best of his work in his last decade.

In other words, don't miss this book! You may have to buy a used copy or find it in the library until it is back in print.

Be vigilant in seeking out the right solutions for all of us.

Donald Mitchell
Co-Author of The 2,000 Percent Solution, The Irresistible Growth Enteprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage

This novel, by the author of thrillers admired as the classics of the genre by Graham Greene and Alfred Hitchcock, concerns a journalist's encounter with an anonymous international shaker& mover who has fallen from favor with the probably insane Arab ruler he is presently serving. If you would like to read a novel which has all that you need to understand international terrorism, this is it. If you would like to read another which makes clear Arab-Palestinian terrorism especially, read Ambler's earlier novel, The Levanter.

...seems to enjoy living in a fully furnished cave,with all the modern conveniences... It's hard to believe this novel,Mr. Ambler's last,is out of print. Suffice it to say that the similarities between this 1981 novel, and today's world, are interesting. I was fortunate to have met and spoken with Mr. Ambler at the time. In fact, he was a leading author and screenwriter for over forty years before this was written. If you can get hold of a copy, don't miss it!

Great book with alot of info. VA is great. Keep exploring

I started mountain biking in the last couple of years and I have to say that my horizons were definitely broadened with this book. i've been to about one fifth of the featured trails and looking to get about halfway through by the end of the year.

This book has simply changed my life. After reading it, I now eat better, sleep better and make more money. I have also heard that I'm now more attractive, but that remains to be seen. Strazz is a master with the written word, his tales will titilate for hours on end.

After reading the 60 pages of "Chronicles of the State of Israel", I looked again At the front cover of Gurewich's book. There was a picture of Jabotinsky over a Background of a Star of David and a map of Eretz-Israel on both sides of the Jordan River. I said to myself: "Alas to this orphaned nation that lost such a great leader and visionary like Ze'ev Jabotinsky."

I opened the book, and on the first page read, "The State of Israel was established on the broken necks of the Twelve who were sent to the gallows by the British hangman." So said Professor Joseph Klausner in 1947.

I turned the book over and read Jabotinsky's famous declaration many years before the Holocaust: "We are standing at the edge of an abyss, I see an avalanche on the Horizon rolling toward us. We are facing an elemental cataclysmic calamity of immeasurable consequences and proportions. Either you liquidate the Diaspora or the Diaspora will liquidate you."

I turned the pages of the book, I read in bold letters the words of Moshe Sharett, The second prime minister of Israel and a member of the Labor Party: " I said that I utterly reject Peres and see in his ascendance the most malignant form of political corruption, ... it will be a cause for national mourning and the State of Israel should render Kriah (rendering garments over the dead) if Peres becomes a minister in the government of Israel."

Ester (Cohen) Bar-Natan July 1998, Charlottesville, Virginia

One may derive incredible factual information from Chronicles of the State of Israel" (See Reviews and Commentary). In his fascinating prologue, "For Israel's 50th Anniversary," (which I would consider a wishful prophesy) Gurewich writes:..."The Arab mentality, which has led to enormous massacres among the Arab themselves, will never change, and the cycle of their hatred of Jews, of the State of Israel, and of Christians, will never be broken..."

At a private dinner gathering in Wasington DC, before the 1996 elections in Israel, a few Congressmen, columnists, and members of Knesset listened to a warning from Jacob Gurewich, author of the recent book Chronicles of the State of Israel: "If an Israeli government will not obliterate the overture of dispensing any part of the Land of Israel-dispensing any part of the Land of Israel will obliterate such a government, and there is no doubt in my mind that there will be another war." To many, this echoed the warning of another visionary, the great Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who 77 years ago-well before the Holocaust-proclaimed to the Jews of Europe: "We are standing at the edge of an abyss. I see an avalanche on the horizon rolling toward us. We are facing an elemental cataclysmic calamity of immeasurable consequences and proportion. Either you liquidate the Diaspora or the Diaspora will liquidate you." At this same Washington gathering, Gurewich recited two poems he wrote in 1993 after the signing of the Oslo Accords. The first was "Life of Freedom or Annihilation," calling on the children of Israel to hold on to their hard-won homeland, or face destruction. The second was "They Should Be Put to Trial while They Still Live," demanding that the traitorous architects of the Oslo Accords, Peres and his ilk, be held to account for placing Israel in mortal danger by ceding territory in the heart of Israel to the terrorists who would wipe out the Jewish state altogether. "The Oslo Accords are not the road to peace," Gurewich stated then, they are the highway to terror death and destruction." Unfortunately, five years later, his vision has proven brutally true.