Reviews Written By: A18GZEROTF6F6Nprovided by Amazon.com |
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 | CIRCULON 10 Piece Cookware Set 80087 | |
 | "Great value....good product!" | 2009-05-29 |
| Bought this set for a gift and the recipient was delighted with them. Very good quality at a reasonable price! | ||
 | The Tennis Partner | |
 | "A moving important story" | 2009-05-29 |
This book was not what I expected, but so much more! With the drug problem we are experiencing in the world today, this novel opened my eyes as to how pervasive and devasting addictions are and how far reaching the effects spread. Beautifully written and the characters were so well developed as to come alive and stay with me long after I finished reading it. Looking forward to reading his newest novel, CUTTING FOR STONE as this author is a master storyteller! | ||
 | Dancer: A Novel | |
| "Dancing, prancing..wanting..." | 2009-02-21 |
DANCER is a raw edged novel about the life of the legendary Russian ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev. It is a challenging, often restless, intricately entangled read. The book weaves together a series of vignettes that take the reader from the palpable horror of war, poverty, famine and bone chilling cold in rural Russia to the luxurious parlours and decadence of Paris, France in the booming 50's. Narrated in multiple voices, Nureyev comes to life, first as a starving, neurotic young boy... later through a stunning career on stage, and finally, caught in the clutches of the newly diagnosed disease, AIDS. (which would ultimately claim his life.) Obsessive and demanding of perfection in himself and from his partners, 'Rudi' candidly lays open the gritty world of artistic idealism and it's hidden quicksand. Powerful and heartbreaking... | ||
 | T-Fal T8080 Avante Elite Convection Toaster Oven | |
| "Toaster Oven Heaven!" | 2009-02-20 |
We purchased this toaster oven in 2004 and just can't say enough about how wonderfully it has performed! We've had several toaster ovens in the last 30 plus years...and this one is by far the best one we've ever had! There are so many dishes that can be prepared in the small oven (saving heating up a larger one) and they cook surprisingly well. Highly recommend | ||
 | The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat, ISBN 1569471266 | |
| "Breaking Bones....." | 2008-09-19 |
| Sad, but stunningly beautiful, FARMING OF THE BONES is a powerfully written evocative account of the horror of the genocide committed in 1937 against poor Haitian cane workers and others by the Dominican General Rafael Trujillo.br /br /Through the voice of a young orphaned Haitian woman, Amabelle Desir, we follow the lives of desperate Haitian exiles working the Dominican cane fields in deplorable conditions with paltry wages and sparse living conditions. br /br /Danticat is a master storyteller and her prose lifts and carries, even as the atrocities of what she is telling unfold on the page. She travels a very painful path with humbling grace. She allows the reader to witness grave injustices while keeping them safely wrapped in her beautiful and poignant prose.br /.br /Dreaming... remembering...and family are strong elements which serve to enrich the story and draw the reader in as the reality of the despair becomes readily br /apparent. Trujillo wants to 'whiten' his populace and thus begins the recounting of an unimaginable and shocking ethnic cleansing.br /br /Towards the end of the novel, a man says "Famous men never truly die... It is only those nameless and faceless who vanish like smoke in the early morning air." ...on the island which Haiti and The Dominican Republic share. Through the eyes of the narrator, Amabelle working as a maid in the Dominican Republic, we see scores of Haitians cruely massacred.br /None of those killed is anyone famous, nearly all the slaughtered are poor Haitians working as cheap labor in the neighboring country, but Amabelle's story serves to refute those words spoken about the nameless and faceless of the earth. br /br /In this book, they are remembered, and in her story they do have names and faces. | ||
 | The Farming of Bones: A Novel | |
| "Breaking Bones....." | 2008-09-19 |
| Sad, but stunningly beautiful, FARMING OF THE BONES is a powerfully written evocative account of the horror of the genocide committed in 1937 against poor Haitian cane workers and others by the Dominican General Rafael Trujillo.br /br /Through the voice of a young orphaned Haitian woman, Amabelle Desir, we follow the lives of desperate Haitian exiles working the Dominican cane fields in deplorable conditions with paltry wages and sparse living conditions. br /br /Danticat is a master storyteller and her prose lifts and carries, even as the atrocities of what she is telling unfold on the page. She travels a very painful path with humbling grace. She allows the reader to witness grave injustices while keeping them safely wrapped in her beautiful and poignant prose.br /.br /Dreaming... remembering...and family are strong elements which serve to enrich the story and draw the reader in as the reality of the despair becomes readily br /apparent. Trujillo wants to 'whiten' his populace and thus begins the recounting of an unimaginable and shocking ethnic cleansing.br /br /Towards the end of the novel, a man says "Famous men never truly die... It is only those nameless and faceless who vanish like smoke in the early morning air." ...on the island which Haiti and The Dominican Republic share. Through the eyes of the narrator, Amabelle working as a maid in the Dominican Republic, we see scores of Haitians cruely massacred.br /None of those killed is anyone famous, nearly all the slaughtered are poor Haitians working as cheap labor in the neighboring country, but Amabelle's story serves to refute those words spoken about the nameless and faceless of the earth. br /br /In this book, they are remembered, and in her story they do have names and faces. | ||
 | The Diving Bell and the Butterfly : A Memoir of Life in Death | |
| "An inspiring life testament" | 2008-06-21 |
Bauby gives us a truly remarkable and inspirational story of his life trapped inside a body that no longer serves him. But his mind remains as sharp as ever. He transcends his immobility with grace and a remarkable gift of a rich, lucid imagination. He is free in his mind to enjoy all of life and it's lush sensory gifts and memories...to take flight as if a butterfly. A heartbreaking true story. | ||
 | Interpreter of Maladies | |
| "Mending and Blending Cultural Mores....." | 2008-06-18 |
| The beautifully crafted tales in the INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri are easily embraced and full of genuine empathy.. The collection of richly elegant stories all deal with the lives of Indian emigrants in the New World as they cope with their culture's strict traditional beliefs. Ms. Lahiri's writing is a soft suggestive prose style that speaks to the reader stirringly. The descriptions are so clear that the reader's senses awaken to the sounds, smells, and bright colors of rich eastern intrigue and heritage. | ||
 | The Dew Breaker | |
| "Agony and Atonement....." | 2008-06-12 |
| The Dew Breaker is my first taste of the gift of storytelling by Edwidge Danticat......but it won't be my last! As the novel opens, revealing shocking secrets of the past, it's clear that the reader will not be disappointed. The Dew Breaker's title comes from a Creole phrase referring to `Tontons Macoutes' (Haitian volunteer torturers) during the regime of the Duvaliers in Haiti. They would often come in the early dawn to take their victims away...thus the broke the serenity of the grass in the morning dew. These `Macoutes' tortured and killed thousands of civilians, many for trivial incidences. Beautifully written, the chapters overlap and wind back around each other as the novel slowly reveals the ghosts of the past within the culture's stories of miracles and spiritual beliefs. Now, living in New York, trying to erase a past that shadows him continually, we meet a good father and husband with a horrible scar on his face and an agonizing secret embedded deeply in his soul...and now...finally it must be unmasked! | ||
 | The Dew Breaker (Today Show Book Club #23) | |
| "Agony and Atonement....." | 2008-06-12 |
| The Dew Breaker is my first taste of the gift of storytelling by Edwidge Danticat......but it won't be my last! As the novel opens, revealing shocking secrets of the past, it's clear that the reader will not be disappointed. The Dew Breaker's title comes from a Creole phrase referring to `Tontons Macoutes' (Haitian volunteer torturers) during the regime of the Duvaliers in Haiti. They would often come in the early dawn to take their victims away...thus the broke the serenity of the grass in the morning dew. These `Macoutes' tortured and killed thousands of civilians, many for trivial incidences. Beautifully written, the chapters overlap and wind back around each other as the novel slowly reveals the ghosts of the past within the culture's stories of miracles and spiritual beliefs. Now, living in New York, trying to erase a past that shadows him continually, we meet a good father and husband with a horrible scar on his face and an agonizing secret embedded deeply in his soul...and now...finally it must be unmasked! | ||
 | The Dew Breaker | |
| "Agony and Atonement....." | 2008-06-12 |
| The Dew Breaker is my first taste of the gift of storytelling by Edwidge Danticat......but it won't be my last! As the novel opens, revealing shocking secrets of the past, it's clear that the reader will not be disappointed. The Dew Breaker's title comes from a Creole phrase referring to `Tontons Macoutes' (Haitian volunteer torturers) during the regime of the Duvaliers in Haiti. They would often come in the early dawn to take their victims away...thus the broke the serenity of the grass in the morning dew. These `Macoutes' tortured and killed thousands of civilians, many for trivial incidences. Beautifully written, the chapters overlap and wind back around each other as the novel slowly reveals the ghosts of the past within the culture's stories of miracles and spiritual beliefs. Now, living in New York, trying to erase a past that shadows him continually, we meet a good father and husband with a horrible scar on his face and an agonizing secret embedded deeply in his soul...and now...finally it must be unmasked! | ||
 | FLAUBERT'S PARROT | |
| "Words, colors, images....and deceptions" | 2008-06-03 |
| I had a hard time getting into this book. I have not read anything by Flaubert before and thought it might prove to be a hindrance, but found that it was not. Julian Barnes sets the stage very well, even while flitting around with the narration and once engaged, I enjoyed the novel and the quirky style more than anticipated. The novel stands on it's own quite well. The book centers around a retired physician haunted by scholarly questions and minutiae from the novels and real life of the author, Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), especially in trying to determine which of two different parrots he visits once graced the author's desk? The scholarly obsession with Flaubert by the good Dr. Braithwaite doesn't make much sense until the last few chapters when betrayals of love and literature slowly surface. A favorite quote .... "Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity." That poetry wraps around this novel so nicely. It's all about words! .....And words deceive much as people deceive. Why does Flaubert keep changing the color of M. Bovary's eyes? And why is Dr. Braithwaite so haunted by this revelation and other minor mysteries? We discover that Flaubert viewed his work much differently by literal definitions and feels his entire position to have been misunderstood..... "The artistic world has become irritatingly full of schools and -isms: Realism, Naturalism, Impressionism ("A bunch of jokers who have convinced themselves, and want to convince us, that they've discovered the Mediterranean!")" Ironically, he finds himself to be hailed as one of the founding fathers of Realism.... after having said that it was because he hated Realism so much that he wrote Madame Bovary in the first place! He also said that success, when it came, always struck for the wrong reason. This novel definitely has you guessing at many of the references and reasons for them. But it slowly reveals them in a wonderful prose that is keenly sharp and often quite funny. The attempts to find the real Flaubert cleverly mirror the attempts to find the real parrot he kept on his desk while writing and in the end....both prove seemingly futile. | ||
 | Before Night Falls | |
| "Fighting for Freedom" | 2008-06-03 |
| Powerful screenplay based on the autobiography of the exiled Cuban author, Reinaldo Arenas. Arenas was a gay Cuban author and poet who was persecuted by the Castro regime and fled Cuba in 1980 (the Mariel Boat-lift) and ended up in New York City, where he continued to write and rail against the Communists. In 1990, stricken with AIDS and without health insurance, he committed suicide with drugs and alcohol. It's a painful and heart-wrenching story, but the acting is superb and there are moments of true mirth along with those of care and tenderness. Javier Bardem is fabulous playing Arenas in this movie! Recommended! | ||
 | Before Night Falls | |
| "Fighting for Freedom" | 2008-06-03 |
| Powerful screenplay based on the autobiography of the exiled Cuban author, Reinaldo Arenas. Arenas was a gay Cuban author and poet who was persecuted by the Castro regime and fled Cuba in 1980 (the Mariel Boat-lift) and ended up in New York City, where he continued to write and rail against the Communists. In 1990, stricken with AIDS and without health insurance, he committed suicide with drugs and alcohol. It's a painful and heart-wrenching story, but the acting is superb and there are moments of true mirth along with those of care and tenderness. Javier Bardem is fabulous playing Arenas in this movie! Recommended! | ||
 | Before Night Falls | |
| "Fighting for Freedom" | 2008-06-03 |
| Powerful screenplay based on the autobiography of the exiled Cuban author, Reinaldo Arenas. Arenas was a gay Cuban author and poet who was persecuted by the Castro regime and fled Cuba in 1980 (the Mariel Boat-lift) and ended up in New York City, where he continued to write and rail against the Communists. In 1990, stricken with AIDS and without health insurance, he committed suicide with drugs and alcohol. It's a painful and heart-wrenching story, but the acting is superb and there are moments of true mirth along with those of care and tenderness. Javier Bardem is fabulous playing Arenas in this movie! Recommended! | ||
 | The Woman in the Dunes | |
 | "Existential Angst Etched in Sand......" | 2008-05-23 |
Niki Jumpei Leaves the city for an adventure and to pursue his hobby of collecting rare insects near the ocean sand dunes. He never returns. Jumpei is engulfed in a captive nightmare from which he plots his escape from a place where no-one has ever yet escaped. The setting is Japan where conformity is perhaps the ultimate value in Japanese society and the individual is expected to work toward the good of the group. Although suffocatingly bizarre, the writing is amazingly lucid and communicates the despair, frustration, angst and finally the ultimate defeat (or acceptance?) amid the "sands" of the life of the male protagonist, Niki Jumpi and the unamed female. A dark and depressing existential tale of alienation sprinkled with a little humor; at times with a mean spirited cruelty toward the woman. The woman does not complain or fight against fate. She works hard to conform to what is expected of her and keeps her moral compass in the depths of despair. I am still trying to make sense of the message in this novel...... The Metaphor is encased in so much grit and darkness. As far as being a highly enjoyable read, I struggled through much of this book. The first part was good, then the middle droned on and was difficult to keep reading. The twists at the end were complex and unsettling. Darkly disturbing; it reduced the man to a caged animal in his actions with little or no regard for others. The man treats the woman roughly and she never attains the basic respect of having a given name. She was the only character I could feel any sympathy for as she displayed virtuous characteristics and worked without complaint. Swirling sticky sands of survival that get under the skin and irritate.... without applying the needed balm. | ||
 | Ubik | |
| "Safe if taken as directed....." | 2008-04-03 |
Not my usual reading fare, thus I was a bit lost for the first few chapters. Then the pace changed and the novel morphed and emerged with humor, wit, and surprises that were quite brilliant. Sci-Fi aficionados will be highly entertained! Take only as directed.... Susanne | ||
 | Suttree | |
| "Dusty clockless hours of penetrating prose......" | 2008-04-03 |
Knoxville, Tennessee is the setting of this masterfully mesmerizing novel of life at the edge and inside the cesspools of dozens of outcasts and derelicts. Cornelius Suttree, as the story's main protagonist, takes the reader unhurriedly into the very heart of Knoxville as it existed in the 1950's. Murky waters, strife, poverty, perversion, and crime all mingle within the bowels of the city. McCarthy deftly captures the pulse of people's lives and spins stories with such a leathery, tenacious grace, that the reader is gently pulled into a stark and unordered life.... and down into the bare rawness of life with powerful prose. When I first finished SUTTREE, I grabbed a pen before my mind had a chance to roam away somewhere else; I wrote the following....mimicking what I had just unraveled for the last few days and 471 pages.... 'Hardswaggering through Suttree til my rheumy peepholes drank in the cloacal riverbottoms. Fareyed half naked cockerels nodded in a constant blue dawn. Leprous waters churned bobbing maimed melons. Dragged up rawlooking tawed treponema on trotlines in the crepuscular dawn and almost drowned in the miasmic mierda and upflung penumbra.' I dare not disremember this journey and Knoxville for a very long time! Susanne | ||
 | Silk | |
| "Silk spins a soft cocoon of sensual surreptitiousness." | 2008-03-22 |
This little novella magically flows with beautifully poetic imagery woven into a stunning love story that seduces you from the beginning. The year is 1861 and the booming silk trade in Europe has hit a wall.... disease has spread in the eggs of the silkworms throughout the continent and continues it's reach into the Middle East and beyond. Japan remains unaffected by the silkworm epidemic and is rumored to possess the finest silk available. Hervé Joncour is a buyer and seller of silk worm eggs for the silk mills in the France. His travels previously took him to Egypt and other African ports. With the silkworm epidemic, he is forced to travel a very dangerous and uncharted route over half the known world to Japan. Travel takes months and the Japan's ports are hostile and closed to foreigners. He manages to be smuggled in and makes the right connections. But the stakes are high, for if he is caught taking silk worm eggs out of Japan, death will be swift. Unrequited love paves the novel's complex and tempestuous end; an end that will beg examination. The last sentence of the book is "Once in a while, on windy days, he walked down to the lake and looked at it for hours. There he had the idea that he saw, sketched on the surface of the water, the inexplicable and luminous spectacle that his life had been". Erotic, sensual, and poetic; a fascinating tale! | ||
 | My Name Is Red | |
| "East and West....Will the twain eventually ever meet?" | 2008-01-17 |
|
Set in Istanbul, Turkey, (1574-95) during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, the novel opens with a master miniaturist, Elegant Effendi, freshly murdered and his soul lingering in the after-life as he openly reflects on this ethereal after-life. Meanwhile, Enishte Effendi, who, under the Sultan's decree, has assigned a highly secret and dangerous job to a few of his most talented artists, is reading Book of the Soul. Book of the Soul deals with the subject of the Islamic understanding of life after death according to the Koran, the Sunna, and the doctrine of the Salaf and the Four Imams. It holds that the dead can hear the living and know of them. Pamuk uses this to cleverly move the narration forward, speaking from the grave and even sometimes as inanimate objects. This part pedantic, part uniquely ingenious novel has to be read slowly and with close attention, as Pamuk packs a wallop in his dense narrative style....think textures and intricate patterns of rare Persian carpets with the blinding rich palettes of bright lush colors! MNIR tells us that the Renaissance introduced a way of seeing art that challenged the miniaturists and illuminators that served Allah. The Turkish portraits of Sultans following the Renaissance were inferior and flimsy copies, poor imitations of the European Frankish style. The miniaturists in this novel gradually come to realize that they are the last of their kind. Black, the maternal nephew of Enishte Effendi, converses with the murderer of another miniaturist and muses: "'Everybody secretly desires to have a style,..... 'Everybody also desires to have his portrait made, just as Our Sultan did.... 'Is this affliction impossible to resist?...... As this plague spreads, none of us will able to stand against the methods of the Europeans." Thus, with the Renaissance, the seeds of change, began to tug away from the established, traditional Eastern art; an art form that gave no freedom to the artist to impose his own will. His recognition came from the ability to exactly copy or re-create the images of the great masters who painted before him. Butterfly..... the most worldly, in the end wisely replies: "An artist should never succumb to hubris of any kind, he should simply paint the way he sees fit rather than troubling over East or West." And here we are, East and West, at war once again.... "To God belongs the East and the West," the book quotes the Koran. And that tenet helps in understanding the threat that the West poses to the East in the cultural clash echoing yet today. Only this time change threatens in a new way..... a pizza franchise, a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, a McDonald's, and others are already now in Mecca where infidels are considered the work of Satan. Western music, customs, and literature spill over borders and new ideas continue to resonate in the staunch fabric of folklore of the traditional beliefs of many Muslims. And the famous words of Rudyard Kipling resound their timeless wisdom.... "OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great judgement Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!"....... Highly recommended! | ||
 | My Name Is Red | |
| "East and West....Will the twain eventually ever meet?" | 2008-01-17 |
|
Set in Istanbul, Turkey, (1574-95) during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, the novel opens with a master miniaturist, Elegant Effendi, freshly murdered and his soul lingering in the after-life as he openly reflects on this ethereal after-life. Meanwhile, Enishte Effendi, who, under the Sultan's decree, has assigned a highly secret and dangerous job to a few of his most talented artists, is reading Book of the Soul. Book of the Soul deals with the subject of the Islamic understanding of life after death according to the Koran, the Sunna, and the doctrine of the Salaf and the Four Imams. It holds that the dead can hear the living and know of them. Pamuk uses this to cleverly move the narration forward, speaking from the grave and even sometimes as inanimate objects. This part pedantic, part uniquely ingenious novel has to be read slowly and with close attention, as Pamuk packs a wallop in his dense narrative style....think textures and intricate patterns of rare Persian carpets with the blinding rich palettes of bright lush colors! MNIR tells us that the Renaissance introduced a way of seeing art that challenged the miniaturists and illuminators that served Allah. The Turkish portraits of Sultans following the Renaissance were inferior and flimsy copies, poor imitations of the European Frankish style. The miniaturists in this novel gradually come to realize that they are the last of their kind. Black, the maternal nephew of Enishte Effendi, converses with the murderer of another miniaturist and muses: "'Everybody secretly desires to have a style,..... 'Everybody also desires to have his portrait made, just as Our Sultan did.... 'Is this affliction impossible to resist?...... As this plague spreads, none of us will able to stand against the methods of the Europeans." Thus, with the Renaissance, the seeds of change, began to tug away from the established, traditional Eastern art; an art form that gave no freedom to the artist to impose his own will. His recognition came from the ability to exactly copy or re-create the images of the great masters who painted before him. Butterfly..... the most worldly, in the end wisely replies: "An artist should never succumb to hubris of any kind, he should simply paint the way he sees fit rather than troubling over East or West." And here we are, East and West, at war once again.... "To God belongs the East and the West," the book quotes the Koran. And that tenet helps in understanding the threat that the West poses to the East in the cultural clash echoing yet today. Only this time change threatens in a new way..... a pizza franchise, a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, a McDonald's, and others are already now in Mecca where infidels are considered the work of Satan. Western music, customs, and literature spill over borders and new ideas continue to resonate in the staunch fabric of folklore of the traditional beliefs of many Muslims. And the famous words of Rudyard Kipling resound their timeless wisdom.... "OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great judgement Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!"....... Highly recommended! | ||
 | The Puttermesser Papers : A Novel | |
| "A smart & witty entangled tale!" | 2007-10-17 |
| This book will delight some and frustrate others. It is a very witty, often sharply satirical novel partly pointed at modern urban life and partly a re-telling of an ancient and mystical legend of the Jewish "GOLEM." Cynthia Ozick takes the reader into a veritable maze of myth and knowledge interwoven in a fantasy of the supernatural which spins the reader into questioning what this tale is really about. Is it more a modern tale of contemporary urban decay or more a redemptive fabled Jewish legend? In turn, it is both and those parts scuffle and compete to engage the reader while pulling her/him into an uncanny den of literary allegory. Ruth Puttermesser's life is both humorous and tragic. Puttermesser, however, doesn't dwell in self pity or regret. She handles her unlucky disappointments with wit and resignation, never sentimentality. As she repeatedly fails to achieve the happiness or the life that she aspires to....for whenever it's within her reach, it eludes her grasp, she moves on, without remorse, to other pastures. In the end, Ruth Puttermesser has 'lost her edge' and in her solitude of old-fashioned ways, become that "butter knife" who cannot ultimately carve out a safe passage in a big and often violent city. An imaginative, complex and rewarding journey into some impossible ideals and fantasy landscapes that come alive to enhance this smart and witty entangled tale. | ||
 | Handwriting : Poems | |
| "Lovely, Lyrical, and Lusty" | 2007-10-02 |
|
Michael Ondaaatje walks with you into his Sri Lanka where the richness there inspires the lush lingering prose that issues from his pen. In "THE SIYABASLAKARA" he begins.... "In the 10th century, the young princess entered a rock pool like the moon with a blue cloud Her sisters who dove, lit by flares, were lightning Water and erotics The path from king to rainmaking"...... It is indeed a rich and luminous landscape that he portrays. Follow him there! This captivating, powerful little book will both delight and seduce at the same time! | ||
 | The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time | |
| "Great CD.....full of wonderful historical info!" | 2007-07-03 |
| Will Durant and his wife Ariel devoted over 50 years to the study of history and philosophy; creating 11 sage volumes of "The Story of Civilization."
His dedication and hard work ultimately earned him a Pulitzer Prize in literature, followed by the highest award granted by the United States government to civilians, the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ford in 1977. Durant endeavored to make history more than just dates committed to memory and to bring our human heritage richly alive in the men and women who've walked before us and influenced our lives. Often called THE GENTLE PHILOSOPHER, his words are laced with warmth and humor as he brings these great thinkers to life! His lists include the best books for an education, the ten greatest thinkers, the ten greatest poets, twelve vital dates in human history, and the ten peaks of human progress. I have listened to this in the car and have learned that I have many books and authors with which I have yet to acquaint myself! It's read with wit, warmth, and wisdom. Highly recommended! "The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers." Will Durant | ||
 | The Dress Lodger (Ballantine Reader's Circle) | |
| "Gritty, heart-breaking historical thriller.........." | 2007-07-01 |
| In this well drawn historical novel, we find a young lady with raw courage, resolve and cunning amid filthy, horrible, dire conditions. A mere 14 year girl when she first takes to the street life of prostitution to survive, her character is almost impossible not to care about and feel genuine empathy for...the situation is so painfully bleak. The novel takes place in Sunderland, England in 1831 and it is here that cholera is about to first strike in Britain in an alarming and deadly epidemic. Once it 'jumps ship', Gustine becomes an unwitting vehicle of the transmission of the infection. She turns her tricks at night `lodged' in a beautiful blue dress that a fine lady would wear, thus charming her clients into believing her to be of a higher social stature. She is wise beyond her years, possessing all the skills of surviving the mean back streets and evil that surround her. The narration is captivating and surprisingly elegant given the bleakness of the scene. It is reminiscent of a modern Greek tragedy infused with body-snatching , Gothic puzzles and psychological dramas! It is also a love story; the love of a desperate mother nurturing a fragile infant. She will do anything to help and protect her baby. Enter a physician anatomist, Dr Henry Chiver, aged 32 and greedy for freshly dead bodies on which he may teach his students the art of surgery and dissection. As secrets unravel and deceptions prevail, surprises surface and this novel stuns! If you like historical thrillers......you'll probably really enjoy this book! | ||
 | Ficciones (English Translation) | |
| "An ingenious labyrinthine narrative...." | 2007-06-20 |
| Borges never fails to please, to challenge, to entertain, and more importantly make one's brain shift into high gear!
If you are looking for an easy read, don't expect to find it in Ficciones. However, if you are looking for a little cerebral cortex arousal; grab this book and find a cozy spot...you won't be disappointed! Reading with his head instead of his heart, Borges looks to fill his mind with all the minutia and information he can possibly hold and release it back in his works with finely crafted and fascinatingly playful philosophical stories. The sparse, objective writing of Ficciones is a far cry from his earlier lyrical style, of which he says: "In those days, I sought dusk, the outskirts, and unhappiness; now, mornings, the center, and serenity." Thankfully in the newer center, we are treated to 17 extraordinary stories that are teasingly succinct, yet brimming with imaginative and aesthetic prose! The scarcity of words requires that the reader pay attention to them all or miss much of the wisdom and subtleness that define the delicate and ingenious style that is this fine master of fiction...Jorge Luis Borges! | ||
 | KitchenAid Pasta Scoop Colander, Red | |
| "I had been looking for this pasta strainer!" | 2007-06-11 |
I had seen this type of strainer used while in Italy and also on the Food Network shows a few times. I searched all of the local kitchen shops to no avail. Then I did a web search and found it through the Amazon site. I was so pleased! It's a great kitchen tool that works well for many foods in addition to pasta and is easy to clean. Every kitchen should have one of these strainer/scoops! | ||
 | Perky Pet Colibri Collection Preserve Bird Feeder | |
| "Finally....out-foxed the sly squirrel!" | 2007-06-11 |
| It's been up in the garden for 1 week and I haven't seen any squirrels attempting to 'break the code' on this bird feeder! The last "squirrel proof" one we had purchased was finally assaulted from hanging up side down to circumvent the doors to the birdseed from closing shut from his weight....sagacious little creature, The only drawback is that the larger birds cannot get inside to sit on the perches where the seed is stored, but we are mainly attracting the small finches and they love the feeder! And some seed falls to the bottom where the larger birds can get at it. It's definitely a 'better mouse-trap' in the squirrel fighting battle of the bird feeders! | ||
 | Black & Decker SZ360 3.6-Volt Ni-Cad Cordless Power Scissors | |
| "A fabulous solution to opening almost everything!" | 2007-06-11 |
| I can't believe that someone didn't invent these earlier! These powerful little scissors are a god-send to most of today's packaging nightmares! No more broken fingernails, plastic cuts, and swear words are ever again involved in the task of opening all of those hard plastic containers. And there exists a myriad of other uses for them! They are definitely worth the price! I even bought a second pair to keep in the workroom! | ||
 | 1000 Most Important Words | |
| "A formidable farrago with a full, feisty fusillade!" | 2007-06-11 |
| Great little addition to the family's collection of reference and word books! You'll easily enrich and enliven your vocabulary while learning a little background and history of the origin of the word! This is not a collection of 'pedantic pundit or parlance'.....all of the words can be used in everyday communication. They are good, strong words with clear meanings which can help you to express yourself with elegance! Would you prefer to be wiser or wizened? | ||
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