this book gives you a full list of characters, an in depth look at their lives and lifestyle in grovers corners, the facts that are needed to analize this book with attention to great detail and all the information that is needed when doing research or just to give you a taste of his writing and to get you interested in the book itself.

This publication is a helpful tool to understanding Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town". Written during the Great Depression, "Our Town" tells the story of people in a small New England town at the end of the 19th century. Taking a look inside the minds and hearts of the "young ones" as well as the "oldtimers", gives the reader a good feeling of how simple, yet wonderful life in "the good old days" was. -- The play is very dated, full of references long lost in American vocabulary. "Barron's Book Notes" explains (or should I say TRANSLATES) such unfamiliar terms, along with customs and other traditions no longer known to us. This book is an excellent source of information about the play. Unfortunately I am not a big fan of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town". I find it boring and rather unsuited for today's theatres. Foolishly I agreed to play "Howie Newsome" the milk man in a local production years ago. Six weeks of my life I'll never get back! My advise to you: read "Barron's Book Notes" for research if you are studying "Our Town" (for an English grade), but if you are interested in the play itself, let me assure you that there are MANY, MANY better ones out there!

Chief is gay. Oh yea horrible book notes because it did not mention details in the plot of the good earth.

From the moment you open this book and begin chapter one you are hooked. The way Pearl Buck describes the characters and setting you can perfectly picture them in your mind. When meeting the farmer Wang Lung, you see his love for the land from the beginning of the book. When Wang Lung goes to meet his chosen bride O-lan, Pearl Buck shows the thought process of men and what they feel is beautiful in a woman. From describing the binding of the feet and how Wang Lung is greatly disopointed with O-lan and her seemingly large feet. Pearl Buck shows how faithful O-lan is, being alone during birth and getting back in the feilds the same day to help Wang, even on her death bed O-lan is faithful to Wang. Pearl aslo disscusses the value of men and women children and how Wang took pride in his boys and shame in his girls.When there is a great famine in the village, you can feel how poor these people were and how they struggled to survive, even leaving thier land to go find food. The protagonist and antagonist are clearly dipicted, with Wang Lung struggling with himself and society. The most disturbing part of the book is when Wang Lung meets Lotus Blossm and she becomes his mistress. The luxeries he gives her over O-lan because she has small feet and hands is discusting. The way Pearl Buck shows how men felt about women and how they were just property and nothing else, and the way he breaks O-lan down and treats her like trash because of her feet. The way Pearl shows how he comes and fluants the affair in O-lan's face is absolutly heart wrenching. The way Wang Lung climbs the social ladder and eventually moves away from his land, shows how money changes everything but can never change the persons soul. Throughout the book Wang always returns to his land, even on his death bed he returns to the Good Earth, the land where he built his foundation, the land where he built himself. The ending isn't as satisfying as the rest of the book but, it gives good meaning to the title of the book. This is a extrodianary book, that dipicts social status in China, a woman's value in life, beauty and ugliness, money, religion, love and friendship. I don't know what more you could ask from a book.

This book was not a good study guide for the middle grade content test 0146. It was very misleading and I ended up studying things I did not need. The information I needed for the test was not in this book!!!

This book has a couple different subjects for you to read on. For each of the subjects it has reviews and practice tests. It explains everything very clearly and gives you a great idea of how to prepare.

I don't own this book but my friend does, and it's wonderful to have all the practice regents. Usually the questions on past regents are very similar to the one you're going to take. The only thing about this book is that the past regents can also be found on the internet site [...]. So you have a lot of the same things on that site, for free. Though the worthwhile thing about the Barron's book is that it has the "answers explained" section. So I would probably recommend buying it. I'm taking the Earth Science Regents in four days and I'm pretty confident about it, thanks to my wonderful teacher and the practice I had taking past regents.

I am one of like the 60% who failed the Earth Science Regents exam in New York City in June of 1998. While the test and my teacher were impossible, I do believe that the 53% of what I got right came from the power pack. And when I didn't follow a teacher's method of using the books and thoroughly studied them properly, it helped me pass the exam in January of 1999. The Earth Science regents has gone from one of the easiest to THE hardest of the NY Regents Exams and this pack has helped me and many of my friends pass the exam. The blue book particularly is very helpful. So pick this up if you're having trouble or want to improve your skills.

When I first found this book, I was so glad, because as far as I know, it's the only grammar-intensive self-study Japanese textbook on the market. Every other textbook on learning Japanese is either for total beginners with lots of "fun" tourist-oriented sidebars, or is designed for classroom use. Here, finally, I thought, was a book that simply laid out the basic rules of Japanese grammar in a compact and concise manner. Perfect.

Now having worked my way through much of the book, however, my enthusiasm has waned. I still love the concept, and it HAS been helpful, but it's got a lot of mistakes. From mistranslating the Japanese particle "o" as "wo" through the entire book, to incorrect answer keys, to numerous typos. They also use the annoying "double" method for writing long vowels, as in "paati" and "shoojiki", instead of the more logical and accurate Hepburn system with lines over the vowels to show that they're long. All the errors make me wonder sometimes if they got the grammar wrong anywhere as well. So I still recommend the book, but just, um, nervously.

I bought this book a few months ago as it seemed to explain most of the essential points of Japanese grammar as well as provide exercises to test your understanding. At my local foreign language book shop, there was a plethora of Japanese language books to choose from but some only skimmed the surface where as others were great slab-like enclyclopaedias which should have come with a warning "contents under extreme pressure".
The book is divided into fifteen chapters and covers subjects such as adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, particles, conjunctions, verbs, conditional clauses, interrogative words, nominalization, honorific expresssions etc etc. The last chapter is particularly good because it illustrates several commonly used japanese expressions. There are nicely varied examples (written in english, romaji and kanji/kana) in every chapter with corresponding exercises and answers(great!).
Sure there were a few typos and dubious answers but i'm sure they will be edited when the next edition comes out. To tell you the truth, they didn't bother me much at all.
I would have given this book another half star if particles were explained in greater depth but that probably would have doubled the book's thickness.
Overall, a good buy

The book gave suggestions of how to become a more assertive person without a drastic personality change. A good book for learning beginning methods of setting objectives, communicating more honestly, and working through uncomfortable and akward situations. I would recommend for business students who are without practical experience.

This book is exactly what I needed to sort out a bad situation at work. Although I thought I was experienced and could speak up for myself, a new boss began to make my life at work a misery. Nothing I did was right and I just didn't know how to deal with this kind of person.

Then my sister gave me this book and I was able to follow the steps each day, but the first time through went over the book on a long weekend. As a result when I went to work I felt as if i could handle whatever the boss threw at me. He was really shocked at how I answered him -- very calm and in charge of myself.

Great! I recomend this book to anyone who needs a boost of confidence and some ideas about how to stand up to people who are really difficult.

Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" was boring in some parts, and rather confusing at times, because sometimes I had to read ahead to comprehend what was going on early in the book. However, it seems to be full of symbolism and morals, yet I can't figure out what they are. I enjoyed the book, as I did Conrad's style and diction, but if anyone could help me out with the analysis of it I would appreciate it! I have an essay to write about it, various topics accepted by my professor, but I really need help understanding it. If anyone could help me out, email me at RyanKlesko@aol.com. I would love to hear from anyone who even thinks they might possibly have a clue about this book. Thanks!

I could not stand reading or watching anything about Vietnam for about 10 years. I eventually watched the movie " Apocalypse Now" I found it interesting but it did not relate to anything in the central highlands. Later I saw "Pork Lips Now" and could relate this to the movie. Finally someone told me that the whole thing was based on "Heart of Darkness " ISBN: 0486264645. So I decided to read the book. I found it fascinating and much better than the movie. However I could not see the forest of the trees and needed some help in showing me what I was looking at. Because I was not in some school class, I turned to the "Cliffs Notes" Of course my views don't match the notes exactly but they gave me some questions to ask and showed me the forest. The notes include:

· Life of the Author

· Introductions to the Novel

· Lists of Characters

· Brief Plot Synopses

· Summaries & Critical Commentaries

· Critical Essay

· Suggested Essay Topics

· Selected Bibliography

Later I found a movie that was much closer to the original story,

"Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" (1988)

I had to read Heart of Darkness and write a research paper on it, and you know when a teacher assigns you and book to read you never enjoy it unless you read it on your own. While writing the research paper I hated it and everything about it, then about two years later I read it again, and this time found out everything I missed with my bad attitude. The depths that Conrad explores are unbelievable! This is were the evil nature of man egsists. After reading it a second time, I realized that the research paper that I wrote SUCKED big time.

This book has some definite issues. I was forced to read this book during my sophomore year. The beginning of this book was really slow getting started. When reading this book I was really lost. Towards the end of the book it got a LITTLE better. I would highly recommend have your friends rent the video and all watch it together.

I found this book a little hard to understand at first, but once you think about it, you really get the message, and it's a good one. We're reading this book for our 9th grade English/Lit class and it really does have a very powerful and inflicting message. I highly suggest reading this book if you enjoy hidden messages and sybolism.

ok i loved the story. at first i thought well its just gonna be one of those boring stories about boys getting trapped on an island. but as the story progressed, i really just could not put the book down. i loved the way golding uses the boys in the story in comparison with the real world. all of the boys' characteristics each symbolized characteristics of a human being. the book was amazing i recommend that if you get the chance to read it then you should. the island at the beginning of the story is in a state of perfection symbolizing "Eden" and by the end of the book it is an image of hell. this shows the transition of good to evil without civilization.

This book was, for the most part, a waste of time and money. The computer software contained errors and did not look like the actual test (fractions, for example, were written on this software in a difficult-to-decipher format). The test-taking strategies in this are not useful, and the instructional sections are more time consuming and less helpful than in GRE for Dummies. The only things this book is useful for are additional practice tests and lists of word roots.

Barron's GRE book is the best. In addition to Barron's, I used different books suc as Kaplan and Princeton review. I found that if you study this Barron's book diligently, you can do very well on your GRE test. The 3500 word list is very very very helpful.

The quantative questions may be harder than the actual exam. However, if you can master these questions, you should do well on the actual test.

All in all, it's an excellent book. Please give yourself two months as there are a lot of material to be learned and studied.

Use this book in addition to the official Big Book and PowerPrep software. Read the strategies and hints and learn the 3500-word list, but disregard the model tests and software: they have almost nothing in common with real tests.
I started learning English only after high school, but this book helped me score 2320 on GRE. I must say that most of your preparation time should be spent with the Big Book and also familiarize yourself with the CAT GRE several days before the test date. However keep in mind that GRE tests your life and language experience of many years as well as overall educational background. So the sooner you start preparing, the better.

Hawthorne uses a lot of symbolism and themes, most of which he over-uses. His sentences last for paragraphs, and his style is so sophisticated it gave me headaches to read it. If you want something to put you to sleep, this is it. Ow. I personally disliked the book and I would rather eat my gym socks than read it over again. Booorrring!!!!!!

I am a junior in college. I had to read this book once before for a lit. class my junior year in high school. I admit it was a bit difficult to read the first time, but I understood and enjoyed it this time. I recommend looking into what was going on during the Romantic Period and gaining an understanding of what Romantic writers focused on. It will help you understand the story line. And if you get a chance, check out some other works by Hawthorne, like The Birthmark or Young Goodman Brown. That will help you understand Hawthorne's style of writing.

This rich, beautiful tale of forbidden love is possibly the best book I have ever read. It is filled with rich detail and fascinating symbolism. It left me in tears and in awe.