Susan was my neighbor growing up so that made this book especially exciting. It has great ideas for volunteers or workers as we call them. We've used almost every suggestion in there for all sorts of activities... Sunday school, Sunday evening discipleship, VBS.. and lots more. Kids love to get them as well! Highly recommend this book.

This clever book has 70 pages to reproduce, add a treat, and give to a teacher or volunteer to express appreciation. As an example, a message might be "You were MINT to be here", to be given to a volunteer along with an Andes mint, or "We can tell your students love learning about Jesus by their Snickers", to be given along with a Snickers bar. A very cute way to say "thank you"!

This clever book contains 70 pages to reproduce, add a treat, and give to volunteers or teachers to show your appreciation. The messages relate to a specific candy, such as "You were MINT to be here", to be given to a volunteer, along with an Andes Mint, or "We can tell how much your students enjoy learning about Jesus by their Snickers", to be given along with a Snickers candy bar. A very cute and inexpensive way to say "thank you"!

susan can make formica disquieting. Many photographers have been on the road, few have taken a picture and left it hanging, lighter than air and about to break and drop to the floor under the weight of a trip, like Ms Lipper has. And there is a book of these wonderful, thoughtful photographs.

Do not buy this book looking for familiar signs of travel or a destination. The "trip" you, the viewer, embark upon is not the sort which gets you "there". Rather it is an experience akin to the wakening one might have following a long, vacant stare and realizing that, despite your own logic or familiarity with the world, the most common object has the potential for revealing puzzling, but significant, meaning.

Through the use of her camera's frame and lens Lipper evokes/creates/invents realities that force unanswered questions and pose mystery. Frederick Barthelme's fiction hauntingly echoes the quality of dislocation permeated in the photographs. Together the text and photographs create an ambitious concept of contemporary existence.

"Trip" is a beautiful, smart, funny and disturbing book.

Susan Lipper has taken a bold leap in presenting a body of work which touches on the real, imagined, mundane and the bizarre. A lonely trip of images which are echoed by the strange and brilliant narrative by Frederick Barthelme. Trip is a provocative voyage, part fictional, part reality through a maze of back roads, bayous, motels and various unidentified locales. The resultant work is one which alternately confuses and enlightens. Is this work theater, documentary, fantasy, dream, nightmare or some sad reality? Probably a little of each. Trip is a huge departure from Lipper's previous book "Grapevine" and I applaud her courageous step towards the new and unknown. I recommend this unique book.

Previous: Carry On, Jeeves

The third and last short story collection, this volume contains some of the very best Jeeves and Bertie stories, again, stand-alone and unrelated. My favorite in this collection-and my favorite short story overall-is the brilliant Jeeves and the Impending Doom. Not only is the plot wonderfully eccentric, Jeeves manages to get in a very subtle jab at Bertie's intelligence which is particularly well-timed and memorable. Notable also is Jeeves and the Song of Songs, which is outright hilarious. And notable primarily for the irony of the story is The Love that Purifies, in which the kids vow to live upright lives, while the adults go out of their way to corrupt them into bad behavior. Memorable and hilarious stuff!

Next: Thank You, Jeeves

This collection of short stories from the Jeeves and Wooster series was first published in 1930. If the proof of classic status lies in how well a book stands the test of time, then this volume is indeed a classic. All eleven stories herein are excellently written and slyly humorous. Wodehouse once remarked that his stories were the opposite of "real world" stuff and in a way that is true, as his created world of Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves is in many ways a delightful fantasy. Having said that however, Wodehouse's comic situations and droll characterizations and observations reveal that he knew a lot about human nature. Like James Thurber his humorous fantasy is both an escape from and simultaneously an insight into human relationships and social situations.

One reviewer once remarked of this book's stories that "everyone was the best," and I'm tempted to agree, as all are worth reading and remembering. Perhaps my own favorite is "Jeeves and the Old School Chum" in which Wooster's former school mate newlywed Bingo Little suffers unmercifully from the ideas foisted on his romance novelist wife Rosie M. Banks' way of thinking regarding the pleasures of the dinner table, due to a visit from her "old school chum" Laura Pyke. Pyke is a "food crank" who (horrors) forces the rest of the household to abstain from cigarettes, alcohol, and most nourishment this side of tofu and bean sprouts for a time. Visiting Bertie suffers along with his buddy Bingo until such time as Jeeves can put things right. Along the way Bertie learns a little about the realities of marriage (the husband is master in his own home, unless the wife has an opposing viewpoint), the proper tactics for a male when intervening in an argument between two ladies (don't!, imitate the opossum and play dead), and how to bargain with a surly homeowner who has just gotten the baby to sleep (you'll have to read the story to find this one out).

A simply worded plot summary such as this can't even begin to come close however to conveying Wodehouse's command of the English language and his gift for humorous understatement. He has to be read to be truly appreciated. My own wish to anyone reading this review is for you to certainly find this volume or another one of the novels or short story collections in the series and give them a try. You won't be disappointed.

Also, if you haven't seen the PBS videos of the series starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry then I would strongly suggest checking them out. Several of the first season's episodes were inspired by the stories in this volume, and the series did an excellent job of conveying the warmth and humor of the stories to the screen. Watching them can only add to the pleasure of reading the stories. Still, reading Wodehouse is the best. I highly recommend him.

Any book from the Jeeves-and-Wooster series is a treasure, and this volume from well into the series is no exception. Bertie Wooster's world is one of elegance and pith, of high society and low comedy, of fun and foibles, homicidal swans, leaky water bottles and near death from starvation at the hands of a food faddist. Bertie is--how should one say this?--not the brightest jewel ever to have emerged from the British educational system and he relies on his gentleman's gentleman Jeeves, a butler with more than enough wit and savvy to save Bertie from the many scrapes he gets into. Jeeves usually has a knack for doing the "wrong" thing that turns out to be the right thing.

When these stories were written in the period between World Wars I and II they were social satires; now they are period pieces and must be considered as such. The wit is cracker-dry, especially some of the rejoinders emanating from Jeeves that can be read on two levels, one straight-faced and one slyly derisive of Master Bertie. We don't have the kind of finicky class distinctions outlined in these books (or so we are told), so perhaps the charm of this type of humor lies in the long view. Suffice it to say that Bertie and Jeeves are already staking a claim on immortality, and their books are selling as well as ever. If you like wit, funny situations, or just things British, pick up this book and give it a try.

Flavio F. Lima - ( livifla@bol.com.br ) - The only thing that I don't liked was the little words of the Old Testament in it. However, this famous Dictionary is my guide when I need to understand the true meaning of the greek words. Yes every Bible student must have it in your personal library. It is an excellent reference work !

An Excellent work which is if Aid to all Bible Students. The Paper is not of as nice quality as I would like, but Durable non the less. However the content and description should make this book one of the top of the list for any serious student.

Vine's Expository Dictionary gives excellent word pictures and meanings of the original languages found in the Word of God. It is a resource book that every preacher should have for preparing sermons for their local body of believers. Nothing helps make the Scripture come alive for listeners like a clearer understanding of what the writers of the books of the Bible were trying to present through their choice of certain words in the Greek and Hebrew languages. This book opens the door of understanding of the original languages of the Bible.

Virgil, with more justification than any Greek, could be hailed as the father of Western Literature. His work has set a benchmark for excellence. Dante referred to Virgil as his Òmaster,Ó Dryden hailed VirgilÕs 'GeorgicsÕ as the perfect poem by the perfect poet. With the Aeneid, Virgil had set out to write another perfect poem, and almost succeeded. Its poetry communicates across the cultural barrier from a period which had made a science of oratory and banked its entire stock in learning and political persuasion on the fine art of oral delivery. I feel it still has an edge over our snazzy sound bites designed to titillate the 30 second attention span of hypnotized telly-junkies. Sustained arguments donÕt come as an ambush on your solar plexus. Nabokov called VirgilÕs poetry Òinsipid,Ó a curious verdict, coming from an admirer of Marcel Proust. But even Proust would have had a hard time had he tried to match VirgilÕs subtle art of low key effects. Virgil was an extremely shy person, afflicted by tuberculosis, a sly smirk under a peasantÕs heavy brow; he spoke with a rustic accent. Modern critics sometimes express disdain for passages in VirgilÕs work, that look like the adulations of a servile courtier. But the AeneidÕs eulogies on the Imperial regime never exceed the noncommittal deference of a peasant, who gives Caesar what is CaesarÕs, in order to be left unmolested, when he minds his own business. There are indications that after the upheavals in 23 BC. which had led to the downfall of VirgilÕs patron and friend, the poet felt increasingly under pressure. It speaks for enormous talent that his best work was written on commission and not merely a product of gratuitous choice. Virgil could accepted limitations and expanded his talent from within proscribed boundaries Ð how many artists, even of the very greatest, can actually do this? I have a profound respect for Dryden. His translation of VirgilÕs 'Georgics' has added to our language one of its great revelations. Dryden was a devoted admirer of Virgil, and a great scholar, but of a very different temperament. His era has been called the age of the baroque, a period of ornate exuberance and redundant rhetorics. Science was still little understood but it became fashionable to mention NewtonÕs laws and publicly to express a not entirely sincere snobbery in regard to superstition and pagan religions. So DrydenÕs most difficult task as a translator was not just to be faithful to the original, but to ferry VirgilÕs Aeneid across the cultural divide. There was little appreciation for the polish and subtlety of VirgilÕs style, and Dryden wouldnÕt lose his sleep over unashamed padding: ÒMeantime imperial Neptune heard the sound / Of raging billows breaking on the ground. / Displeas'd, and fearing for his wat'ry reign, / He rear'd his awful head above the main, // (and now the truly majestic touch:) // Serene in majesty; then roll'd his eyes / Around the space of earth, and seas, and skies.Ó One almost regrets that Virgil hadnÕt thought of it. He only wrote :ÒInterea magno misceri murmure pontum, / emissamque hiemem sensit Neptunus, et imis / stagna refusa vadis, graviter commotus; et alto / prospiciens, summa placidum caput extulit unda.Ó (Òmeantime great noise disturbed the sea, tossed forth a storm, stirred Neptune on the lowest floor, who, displacing waters of the deep, calmly raised his head above the highest waveÓ) which creates a powerful enough image, though not quite of DrydenÕs grandeur. But for his padding, Dryden more than compensates with his absolutely ingenious use of transpositions. Look how Virgil puts his thoughts in sequence: ÒThere was an ancient city, inhabited by Tyrian husbandmen, Carthage, that faces from afar Ostia at the TiberÕs mouth, of great wealth and most warlike in its enterprise and being dear, itÕs said, more than all the land to Juno, who even Samos held in less esteem. Here they kept her arms, here her chariot, and the goddess hatched designs and hopes for a capital of nations, should destiny permit. Yet surely she had heard that a race of Trojan issue was hereafter to overturn the Tyrian towers, a people born to rule and of warlike pride would lay waste her Lybia, according to destinies decree.Ó And now compare how Dryden inverted this sequence to squeeze into his rhyming couplets the same amount of information and even throw in an additional explanatory note: ÒAgainst the Tiber's mouth, but far away, / An ancient town was seated on the sea; / A Tyrian colony; the people made / Stout for the war, and studious of their trade: / Carthage the name; belov'd by Juno more / Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore. / Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav'n were kind, / The seat of awful empire she design'd. / Yet she had heard an ancient rumor fly, / (Long cited by the people of the sky,) / That times to come should see the Trojan race / Her Carthage ruin, and her tow'rs deface; / Nor thus confin'd, the yoke of sov'reign sway / Should on the necks of all the nations lay.Ó This is a piece of sure-footed vigor and a rousing good read, but misses on VirgilÕs slightly subdued and more reflective consideration of circumstances. VirgilÕs Aeneid is a great work of art. Neither HumphriesÕ nor MandelbaumÕs and especially not FitzgeraldÕs translation do it justice. If English is the only option, then Dryden is still a very agreeable compromise, even so it is a Virgil in disguise.

John Dryden's 1697 translation of Virgil's Ancient Roman epic "The Aeneid" is, after 300 years, still entertaining and edifying. For students of Restoration/18th Century literature, it is a shining example of the major poetic tradition of the age, Neoclassicism. Dryden, trying with his measured heroic couplets to recapture the high forms of the age of Augustus in Rome, appropriately translates the famous epic of Aeneas, founder of Rome.

"The Aeneid" takes up the Homeric tradition, beginning in the aftermath of "The Iliad" and the Trojan War. Aeneas, protected by his mother, the goddess Venus, is advised to flee Troy with the remaining Trojans. He has been fated to found a greater empire in Italy. Juno, queen of the gods, who supported Greece in the Trojan War, has recently heard that the descendants of Troy will destroy her new favourites in Carthage. All of this raises Juno's ire, and she manipulates men and nature in an effort to end the Trojan line. Through Juno's efforts, and in a manner similar to Homer's "Odyssey," the three day journey from Troy to Rome ends up taking many years.

Aeneas as a hero is a problematic figure. Though he is a skilled warrior and committed leader, his relationships with women are thoroughly troubled in "The Aeneid." In particular, his treatment of Carthage's Queen Dido and later the Trojan women is questionable. In addition, Aeneas has a tendency to let his introspection and attachment to ceremony draw him away from his people when they need his leadership the most. Often, though, these desperate situations allow the next generation, represented by Aeneas's son Ascanius, to shine in action scenes.

Aeneas's foes throughout the poem (Juno, Turnus) offer intense opposition to the wandering Trojans, emphasizing the amount of toil and suffering the Trojans had to endure to establish themselves in a new home and found a new empire. The great thing about Dryden's translation specifically is the way that Dryden dramatizes and references recent problems in England in the context of a Roman epic. In this context, look for references to fires, which are usually described as spreading like "contagion" or "plague." Dryden's personal knowledge of the plague and fire that tore London apart in 1665-6 are important subtexts in the translation. Aeneas and his "exiled" court also fit in with Dryden's concern as a Catholic with the Protestant Succession in the years after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. That Dryden's own historical period finds its way in these and other ways into his translation of the Roman epic are impressive and interesting.

Though the heroic couplet/triplet poetic style Dryden uses throughout his translation of "The Aeneid" can be initially difficult, it gradually becomes easier to read and follow. However, in the books dealing with battles, you will want to read slowly, to figure out just who is killing who. Frederick Keener's introduction to this Penguin Classics edition is very helpful, providing detailed explanations of Dryden's style and context. This edition also includes a glossary of names and a map of Aeneas's voyage, so that names that are introduced only briefly can be better understood. Overall, an excellent edition for reading or study.

The power and majesty of the English language is in all her glory in Dryden's incredible translation of Virgil's Aeneid. All the other translations seem pale beside it.

I picked this book up remembering my childhood vacations on Nantucket and was really glad I did. I can recall as a child learning something about whaling and wondering what life was really like on one of the ships, and now here's a story to answer that question. I'm planning to share this book with all the 10-year-old girls I know.

Patience captured my interest as an adult, and I enjoyed it because of the accuracy of the whaling and sailing history and technology, and the easy flow of descriptive writing. This is the kind of book which children from 8 to 13 can get lost in and not want to put down. The plot is exciting and after all is said and done, one wonders where Patience will go next?

This author made a whole world come alive, and even though I wasn't sure I would like a story that had whaling in it, it was really fun to read. I couldn't put the book down until Patience was safe again.

World War I, the event that changed everything in European and American history, left Japan little touched -- or so it had long been thought. Frederick Dickinson's book stands many accepted truths on their heads. But it is not a book of wooly revisionist speculation. All of his arguments and interpretations are carefully drawn and meticulously documented. All are thought-provoking and plausible, and most seem to me entirely convincing.

As realist theory would predict, there were few prominent leaders who failed to support Japanese expansion in the favorable circumstances offered by the European conflict. But there was a very crucial divide between those who looked to British-model expansionism of a primarily economic sort and those seeking military-led territorial expansion on the model of Wilhelmine Germany. The struggle for power among (and within) these camps is one major theme of the book. The other is the response of Japanese elites to the wholesale change in the structure of international relations brought by the War, and its domestic correlates. As it shifted from a European power struggle to a world crusade against totalitarianism and the use of force to change the international order, World War I attacked the very foundations of the Meiji state.

I hope that those who (like me) have only slight knowledge of Japanese history will not be put off this book. It is inevitably somewhat dense, but Dickinson avoids academic obscurity, introduces his characters carefully, and pauses frequently for reflection and summary. His concluding chapter ties all his strands together and places the story in a larger context. His contention that it is a vital key to understanding everything in modern Japanese history rings true to me. The book does not require great effort to read, and what effort there is will be well repaid.

There is a wonderful bonus in the book's rich trove of Japanese political cartoons from the period. These speak in a mordant voice that was, tragically, to fall silent as democracy was smothered in the 1930s. They add a great deal to the book.

No doubt many will look at the subtitle, "Japan in the Great War," and conclude that this is too specialized a topic to engage them. In doing so, however, they will miss an important book whose interest extends far beyond the specifics of its subject.

In a field where hardly anyone seems to bring the threads together, this is perhaps the building block to better and more thorough understanding of japanese history during the war. A sound well researched piece which never forgets to be reaable to the average postgraduate and with plenty of resources noted in bibiography for further study.

Politics and international relations of japan pre-1945 require a thoroughgoing understanding of the period before 1931. thisbook offers a great portion of this for the serious scholar beginning or reviewing that quest.

This is a wonderful book that offers many insights into the development of Japanese politics in the first half of this century. Dickenson carefully and convincingly shoots down much of the conventional wisdom about who were supposed to be the cautious elder statesmen in the early 20th century. This debate has important implications for properly understanding Japans expansionist policies in the 1930s. Many people who have been hailed as supposed cautionary leaders are shown to be (soemtimes extraordinary) expansionist. As Dickenson shows, these foreign policies can all clearly be traced back to domestic politics and a clash over the direction the state between the genro and the Kato Takaaki, where the latter aimed for parliamentary overnment. The book is alo very well written with many fascinating quotes and clever and funny illustrations from the Tokyo and Osaka Puck. Political scientists who have read Jack Snyder's "Myths of Empire," should find this a particularly fascinating and elucidating book.

The third and final installment in Buechner's lexicon-style expositions, Whistling in the Dark looks at words that might not be considered "religious" but that deal with the topic nonetheless. Hitting topics such as abortion, this book hits a bit more into politics than the previous two. Be forewarned that some of the entries are somewhat darker and even a little depressing. Although not as good as "Wishful Thinking", it is on par with "Peculiar Treasures" and superior to most "religious" books available today. This is another one to read and ponder again and again.

A great starting place if you want to explore Buechner's non-fiction. He has a way of making the deep attainable and the mundane deep. His way with words is remarkable and moving.

In this and other writings, Buechner shares with us his own fallibility in a way that is both touching and disarming and in doing so helps us to deal with our own foibles in a remarkable new way. He never condescends or assumes the spiritual state of the reader.

Start with this wonderful volume, go on to read some of his fiction like 'Godric' or 'On The Road WIth The Archangel', move on to the Bebb Quadrology (?) and then come back to his autobiogrphical books.... heck, then get everything else you've missed.

Buechner is quoted in John Irving's 'A Prayer For Owen Meany' as saying 'Not the least of my problems is that I can hardly even imagine what kind of an experience a genuine, self-authenticating religious experience would be. Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me." Indeed. This Frederick Buechner is a man who gets us as close to that religious experience as possible without being destroyed.

Buechner is one of the great theological minds of our time, but his writing is accessible without being condescending. In this classic lexicon, he captures the dichotomy of faith and doubt in God. If you enjoy C.S. Lewis' work but have a sometimes irreverent sense of humor, you are sure to want your own copy of Whistling in the Dark!

Among the educated of the half of the planet that lives in China and India, the name of Xuan-Zang is very well known. The records of his journey from China through India and back provide a great deal of insight into the culture along his route at the time, as well as the state of Buddhism. The texts he brought back had a strong influence on the development of Buddhism in China. This is an excellent book. I visited many of the Buddhist sites in India and found Xuan-Zang's descriptions to still be of use to the pilgrim today. If you're interested in the history of the silk road and central asia, this book will be of use to you also.

Since the destruction of the famous Buddhas at Bamiyan, Afghanistan in March 2001, the importance of this book has rocketted from its original publication.

Xuanzang wrote some eyewitness accounts of these gigantic statues around 630AD, and this book is an important starting point to finding out more about these monuments and what they originally looked like.

This is not an academic book but more a detailed compilation of events connected with a personage with whom the author has obviously felt a close connection. The text is well sectioned with good maps and useful information, notes and an extensive bibliography that makes the work substantive (e.g., it highlights the wider territory of ostriches in the past). Xuanzang becomes a portal through which we view the art and history of a predominantly Buddhist India before she entered a chaotic phase to re-emerge as a Mughal and Hindu civilisation later.

There is staggering insight into the mentality of the Chinese and Kings at the time and the art they bestowed on the world. The importance of the Chinese civilisation is highlighted at a time when Europe was in the grip of the dark ages.

The book contains minor errors, could have been more critical and Xuanzang's feet on the cover need alteration. Leaving this aside, there is a stunning picture from Bamiyan and we can see what was lost as well as related paintings and statues which are quite exquisite (at least one of them lost from the Kabul museum since the destructive episode recently).

A book worth treasuring as written by a professional, well travelled and strong minded author (and she found the time).

XuanZang's story has got to be one of humanity's most amazing adventures of discovery. I had heard brief references to him in various books about Buddhism, but when I read this book I was just amazed at what a prodigy he was. The amazing synchronicities that helped him on his travels really bespeak a divine providence.

I just wish there were longer direct quotes from his original book, so you could get a feel for his own writing. Also wish there was more discussion of his own spiritual journey or experience with the abbot of the Nalanda university, and the Yogacara/Vasubandhu philosophy.

Great pictures of Nalanda ruins. The story of Nalanda is really interesting in itself and the book gives you a good feel for what was happening there at its height.

All in all makes you want to read XuanZang's original book.

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Frederick Noad has done an excellent job of reviewing the studies/exercises available for classical guitarists and selecting this set of 100 from the studies published by Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani, and Matteo Carcassi. The studies are arranged in a progressively more difficult order, and Noad includes his comments on each as to what skills it seeks to develop, etc.

While I feel that the book deserves five stars, it is not without problems, specifically:

1. It is extraordinarily difficult to keep the book
open to the desired pages when it is on a music
stand; spiral-binding would have solved this. This
may seem like nit-picking, but it's an important
shortcoming given the purpose of the book.

2. Right-hand fingerings are given for only a few of
the pieces; in many cases, choice of the proper
right-hand pattern can make a huge difference in
the ease of performing a piece.

3. While Noad gives full left-hand fingerings, he
does not give diagrams of hand-positions to adopt
for a passage, with fingers in place for the next
few notes.

Even taking these into account, however, it remains, in my opinion, the best book of exercises available to any but the most advanced classical guitarist.

If you are going to have one classical guitar book, this may be it. The studies in this book are the "classics" that countless guitarist trained on (incluiding Segovia). After a few relatively easy studies, the book shifts into intermediate to advanced level work very quickly. Not a viable alternative for the first or even second year guitarist, but for the advancing guitarist, this book alone would provide years of developmental skill building as well as great music for the performance repertoire. It is sequential (graded). Contains all of Carcassi's and Sor's great studies, plus a sampling of Guiliani's-- graded from simple to advanced with 75% at the high intermediate level.