Linda Hamilton Books

If you like a book that will make you relax and think about life's small and big choices, this is the one for you.. A book written in an inovative and funny way. This is really a great book!

I think Druthering will for sure become part of popular culture.

We have really enjoyed druthering. My seven year old didn't want to quit! I like the fact that this book is appropriate for any age. I enjoy hearing why people choose the answers they do. I'm giving these out for Christmas presents. I'd much rather have a book like this than fruitcake! : )

I have really enjoyed this fun piece of literature. Iy really makes you think. Try it, you'll love it. A wonderful replacement for all the boring small-talk at parties. Great gift for the holidays.

If I had my druthers, I would not have been in a car with my least-favorite cousins on a two-hour road trip to a "must-do" family gathering. The only thing that saved civility in the car was that I had grabbed my copy of The Book of Druthers before leaving. Once on the interstate, I opened the book and read aloud the first druthers. It was an easy ride from then on. Indeed, by the time we had reached our destination, I liked and had great respect for my cousins. And I think they can now tolerate me. The Book of Druthers, then, is not only good for road trip entertainment, it can bring a family closer together. Now, I think I will sit and think through it in solitude.

There are no words adequate to convey the effect THE STONES CRY OUT had on me when I read it in 1986. It haunted me for years. I wanted everyone I knew to read it.

Just several years ago I met a woman whose entire family - her husband and all her children - died under the Khmer Rouge monsters.

Amazingly, after the stories Miss Szymusiak recounts: of the young girl who was killed for being too pretty, of those murdered for daring to exhibit signs of affection for one another, and of unspeakable tortures inflicted upon absolutely helpless and innocent people of all ages, the chapter which really drained my blood was the one detailing her witnessing the beginning of the purge. The author notes the young Communist cadres being themselves called in for interrogation and torture and disappearing one by one.

This is a chilling account of the darkest period in 20th Century history.

One of the earliest (1986) accounts from the survivors of the Pol Pot regime, "The Stones Cry Out" seems to have set the style and standard for another more recent child's-eye perspective on the same era, "When Broken Glass Floats". The minute details of everyday life, not abstract poltical assessments, form the basis for our childhood memories. The author's account carries an unvarnished realism which draws the reader into her film-like image of daily life under threat of starvation and execution. This is probably as close as a reader can come to the truth of events in Cambodia during 1975-79. Oral histories such as "The Stones Cry Out" are perhaps the best way for survivors of human rights abuses to indict the perpetrators. Sadly, tribunals driven by international politics are unlikely to have the same impact as the simple testimony of a victimized child. Highly recommended reading for all those with an interest in human rights, Cambodia, and Southeast Asian culture.

You need a strong stomach to read the grueling ordeal of a 12 year old girl in Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime.
The latter and his cronies turned a whole country into a concentration camp guided by the iron fist of a centrally planned economy which was based on rice production quotas.
Starvation and killing of whole families including babies were part of normal daily life. The author herself lost nearly all her family.
The slogan was 'be deaf and dump if you want to survive'.

Exceptionally, this book also relates the disturbing facts which happened in a Red Khmer camp in Thailand until one year after Pol Pot's defeat by the Vietnamese.

Molyda Szymusiak tells only the facts. She doesn't explain the overall picture of Pol Pot's regime, politically, socially, economically or internationally.
Therefore I highly recommend the eminent works of David Chandler as well as Philip Short's magisterial biography of Pol Pot (Saloth Sar).

This book shows painfully the disastrous consequences of a power grasp by ideological fanatics who created a one party state bureaucracy which wielded total uncontrolled power over the population.
This regime was a terrible shame for the left.

A very disturbing read.

My heart sank lower and lower with each successive chapter. This is certainly not a book one can read while couching comfortably on a sofa. If you are familiar with Cambodian history of the Khmer Rouge regime, this book is indeed a chilling read. But at the same time, one can't help feeling admiration for the author's fortitide in the face of unimaginable hardship and horror.

Actualy I would rate this 4 and 1/2 stars.

Having read "First they killed my father" by Loung Ung It would be difficult for me to review this book with out comparing it to Loung Ung's memoir.

Both are essentially the same story, a young upper middle class girl living in Phnom Phen in april of 1975 when thier life, family and happiness are torn from them by the khmer rouge.

Many of thier experinces are similar as you might expect (long hours in forced labor, family deaths, witnessing murder ect..) but each has a unique story of thier own.

The writing styles also vary greatly and this is where Loung's "First they killed my Father is the better" book. Molyda tells her story in a very straight foward manner. Her discriptions of murder, torture and rotting corpses are alomost clinical in tone as if she is afaid to visit or express her real feelings at the time (and who could realy blame her) we are giving only hints about her family and life before April 17th 1975 (to be fair this may be in part to spare distant family members still in Cambodia from retalation)

In Loung's book however we are treated to two light hearted chapters discribing her life in Phnom Pehn before April 17th 1975 this gives the reader a chance to feel they realy know her, her brother's, sisters and parents thier strengths and weakness'.

Loung's memoir is far more emotional in tone and feeling leaving the reader almost gasping for air at points.

For those overly squimish that makes "The Stones Cry Out" the better of the two books. It is also the better of the two books if your sole interest is the surrounding history of the killing fields.

But for those just wishing to read a great emotional book "first They killed My father" is the better choice but I would highly recomend both to all.

This book is loads of fun! I bought it for my third grader, who is taking a field trip to see "Romeo and Juliet." I wanted him to have some familiarity with the storyline so he wouldn't be yawning cluelessly by the end of Act I. He loved it so much he wanted to discuss it! Even my husband who hates to read the stuff enjoyed it.
In short, the book is well done. It shortens the plays into a very long story-summary without the dramatic language that can be somewhat of a distraction. We're not talking Cliff's Notes here folks. This is just a handful of pages per play written on a level anyone can understand and enjoy. The book is not long so it's not intimidating. (Have you seen any books containing Shakespeare's complete works, lately? Mine could be used for a doorstop! It's huge!)
We paired this book with the comedy of "The Reduced Shakespeare Company's" version of Romeo and Juliet. My son is actually looking forward to the trip!

Romeo and Juliet

Felipe Gravier and Lorenzo Schiavo review:

We think that Romeo and Juliet tells the story of two star-crossed lovers whose families are in a terrible fight which prevents them from coming together. How far the couple will go to be together becomes the focus of the story. Of his richest poetry. The opening and closing choruses are some of his most outstanding work. Romeo's It is a brilliant love story but not much more. It still possesses however some wooing of Juliet is fabulously written. The Friar gets the best lines. Mercutio is one the best friends of Romeo. It is not as good as Shakespeare has written but it's still a fabulous book and up there with his best work. One part of the play we didn't like was that for the tow families get arrange there two kids had to die.
The English language wasn't finally finished so Shakespeare had the liberty to create words and play with the language, as he liked. That's why It was so difficult to understand what each character wanted to express so the teacher had to explain us each of that words and teach us all the words in that age and told us which were the words in the English of today.

Shakespeare is for kids and adults in E. Nesbit's creative mind. I always liked fairy tales, but I couldn't read Shakespeare very well. In Children's Shakespeare E. Nesbit turned his work into fairy tales without changing the story and morals. This book is not much like Nesbit's other books because it was written by Shakespeare, but I bet there are some simularities.

This book was a overall well writen book and I beleive E. Nesbit put a lot of hard work into her books in her life-time. I'm sure if she were alive now she would still be writing good books to this day.

This book provides lots of Shakespeare's Storys like "A Midsummer's Night Dream" and "Hamlet" with a children's fairy tale twist. The storys are the same as Shakespeare's, but easier for children to understand. My favorite story was Hamlet because I had just seen the play. A while after we read Children's Shakespeare and it helped me to understand Hamlet better.

I read and reread this book as a youth. The stories read much like classic fairy tales with tragedy, irony, and moral lessons. The writing is very accessible and encouraged me to seek out the full length "stories" in their original (play script) form once I was old enough (6th/7th grade) to really read them.

For a child who has a love of literature, these retellings of the great plays may start a life-long interest in Shakespeare's art (as they did for me).

QtA helps young readers become thinking readers. By posing queries before, during and after reading, the teacher guides her students to become independent, thoughtful readers who can make sense out of oftentimes poorly-written or hard-to-understand texts. This strategy appears applicable to all age-levels. The book is written in an easy to understand style and includes sample lessons.Questioning the Author is a MUST READ for all teachers and should be included in teacher preparation curriculums.

How does one teach comprehension? With the current obsession on phonics and code emphasis, I find QtA a refreshing read. Tried, tested and proven in classrooms, QtA is based on the idea that reading is about constructing meaning, more so than just breaking the code. To use this approach, the teacher has to really read the text well first, grasp its main ideas as intended by the author, and plan to guide the students to arrive at those ideas. She also has to anticipate the difficulties encountered by her students as they read the text, and consider the fallibility of the author in fleshing out his ideas. These elements make QtA a teaching approach different from the traditional ways of teaching comprehension. One can even combine it with other strategies, such as KWL.

I was thoroughly delighted with Ms. Hamilton's LINDA. It was much more than expected and quite a pleasant read.

This is a good basic bio of Scott Hamilton and I think it's a must read for Scott Hamilton fans of all age. There really is nothing new here, however you have to cull this information from various sources and it's nice to be able to read about the basics of this extraordinary athlete in one this one well written book. It's brief--as a book for youth should be and yet it covers the details of Scott's life very well.

There are a couple of inaccuracies I found - Scott debuted his new costume design in 1983, not 84--and he never landed a triple lutz/triple toe combination as stated-but nothing major.

The writing style is appropriate for youth without being overly simple. There are lots of good quality colorful pictures of Hamilton both as a child and as an amateur and pro.

This is a good book for young people, even if they aren't big fans of skating because Scott Hamilton is a wonderful role model for young people and this book well details the adversities he overcame in a positive way, w

This was one of my favorite films growing up. And now that I am older not only do I still like the action and the suspense of the piece but I understand more of the science behind it. Basically this is a must for DVD collectors and Arnold lovers. In my opinion it is one of the best films of the eighties and helped define Hollywood!!

Although I purchased the Lenticular edition, I received the regular DVD.

The PROOF OF PURCHASE code on the case is 1001182, which is for the regular DVD.

The UPC sticker that is taped to the plastic wrap has the Lenticular edition code, but the case itself has the UPC code for the regular DVD of 00027616854735.

I'm asking Amazon for a refund of the price difference of $5.50.

Good condition and would use the seller again if ever given the opportunity to do so.

I have been waiting for a decent film transfer of this movie since the original DVD which was non-letterbox stereo. Boy did that one suck. I am sure the 2001 DVD release re-mastered from HD and 5.1 audio was much better. But I waited for this one and it's 100x better. The menu is cool but would have been even better with a faster interface response like HD-DVD provided. Let's hope Java-BD offers better menu speed/quality/consistency that all of us were used to on HD-DVD.

In my mind when you are just slapping dvd auality on to a Blu-ray disk you are false advertising and ripping the public off. No one needs or wants a blu-ray film simply for the disk itself but they want a better movie. Sure they have the uncompressed audio but the picture quality sucks. If you have the DVD keep it and foget this.

Great movie poor Blu-ray port

I have been waiting for a decent film transfer of this movie since the original DVD which was non-letterbox stereo. Boy did that one suck. I am sure the 2001 DVD release re-mastered from HD and 5.1 audio was much better. But I waited for this one and it's 100x better. The menu is cool but would have been even better with a faster interface response like HD-DVD provided. Let's hope Java-BD offers better menu speed/quality/consistency that all of us were used to on HD-DVD.

If you are a fan of the second movie and do not own this buy this now

The Good Things
*Good amount of action and special effects. There's not as much as the sequels, but there is enough to make it edgy and exciting.
*Lots of memorable parts. The scenes of the future war are stark and frightening. The finale is great.
*Excellent filming style. It's very fresh, original, and memorable.
*Good story. It's very simple but also very original.
*Good characters. The actors are excellent.
*Good music theme.

The Bad Things
*A little slow in the middle.

This is still one of the most quintessential sci-fi movies ever made. Its simple premise is executed effectively, leaving lots of room for strong characters, gripping action, and some good emotional moments. It is also well-filmed, and contains some good special effects for its time. The only downside is that the drama becomes a little intense towards the middle, slowing down the momentum. Still, it really is one of the best.

In my mind when you are just slapping dvd auality on to a Blu-ray disk you are false advertising and ripping the public off. No one needs or wants a blu-ray film simply for the disk itself but they want a better movie. Sure they have the uncompressed audio but the picture quality sucks. If you have the DVD keep it and foget this.

Great movie poor Blu-ray port

I've always enjoyed this movie. I won't bother reviewing the movie itself aside from the 4 stars I gave it since there are so many other reviews that already touched on what I would say.

Too bad the Lenticular Edition doesn't seem to exist anywhere, though. I ordered it twice from Amazon directly and both times received the original movie without the Lenticular Edition cover. I tried to return it both times and Amazon immediately credited my account without even providing me a return label (I asked for it twice, never received a response). Then I ordered it new from an Amazon marketplace seller, and got exactly the same DVD. On all three DVD's I received, the UPC bar code for the Lenticular Edition DVD is taped over the original printed UPC bar code on the original DVD case.

The 1956 version of 'The Ten Commandments' is easily one of the most popular films in Hollywood history, eclipsing even Ben-Hur. (Let the protests begin!) Charlton Heston won his only Oscar for his performance in Ben-Hur, but it is in his role as Moses where he clearly had the most defining and remarkable performance of his distinguished career. I've seen the film countless times and couldn't recommend it more enthusiastically. Interestingly, Demille's first go at this story during the silent era is a tremendous curiosity and quite a puzzling oddity. The first half of the film presents a fairly generic although competent survey of the Moses/Exodus story, but only when the film abruptly segues into a modern day morality play involving two brothers, does the actual head scratching begin. Unfortunately, this part of the film was meant to be the heart and soul of Demille's picture, but it amounts to some kind of strange ham fisted unintentional parody of such odious transparency and bludgeoning obviousness that I found myself chuckling and shrugging throughout. It's actually difficult to review this film objectively because I still appreciate Demille's attempt here to really say something, however much a failure it may have been. Fortunately, he quite thouroughly redeemed himself with the '56 remake.

We watched this movie around Easter and decided to get it. We are very happy with the versions that are included. A good movie to have on hand when you want to watch it.

I bought this to add to my collection of Charlton Heston movies. I had seen it many times on television. An outstanding performance!

Product is excellent as all items I have purchase from Amazon. I shop around for the best value and Amazon is still Tops.

For many people Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 remake of his own THE TEN COMMANDMENTS is so iconic it practically defines the Hollywood movie as much as any picture (with the possible exception of GONE WITH THE WIND). Even more than fifty years later it's capable of giving tremendous pleasure despite its incredible length (three hours and thirty-nine minutes) and its style which was extremely anachronistic even for the time. DeMille, who had forever made his name as one of the most important and powerful directors of the silent era, directs his actors as if they still were in the silents, so their gestures and poses are big and their emotions even bigger. Probably the most fun for contemporary audiences is Anne Baxter as the Throne Princess Nefretiri, who gets to deliver all kinds of howlers to Charlton Heston as Moses ("You will be king of Egypt and I will be your footstool!"), but pretty much everyone involved seems to be having a grand old time. Particularly fun are Yul Brynner as a haughty Pharaoh Ramses, Nina Foch as the kindly Princess Bithia, Edward G. Robinson in his bizarre role as Dathan the evil Hebrew governor, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke as the old pharaoh Seti.

And then there's the spectacle, which every DeMille movie promises and on which he did not skimp in this film. One of DeMille's specialties was the presentation of the more salacious aspects of sinfulness, and so we have no less than two extended sequences with dancing girls, not to mention Baxter's diaphanous gowns and Brynner and Heston and John Derek (as a Douglas Fairbanks-like Joshua) wearing practically nothing on their chests for large periods of the film. There's also the killing of the firstborn of Egypt, the staining of the Nile, and pillar of fire, the Golden Calf and a very impressive parting of the Red Sea (the most famous of the film's sequences). Heston seems stranger and stranger as the film progresses, with even wilder wigs, but all this seems in keeping with the entire tone of the thing. Even when you laugh at it you can't help but be impressed.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition adds DeMille's long missing introduction to his own film plus long musical sequences for the overture and the entr'acte; it also comes with his original 1923 version (which is extremely different, with sections set in the contemporary period for the time much like Griffith's INTOLERANCE).

Men in Black - one of our favorite all-time Will Smith movies along with the sequel. I sent a few movies to a disabled child and this was one of them. Laughter makes the heart glad - this is a movie that makes you laugh and makes you glad.

I love will smith he is a great actor he can do serious rolls as well as comedies. Tommy Lee Jones does a perfect agent always in control I also own MIB 2.

Say What? Hey, I'm serious here! Kay has a love interest from the very beginning of this bug fest. The pretty lady in the garden whom Kay sneaks periodic views of on his computer; the one who never got his bouquet of flowers.

But what happens at the end of this film? "Junior" zaps him and he is now with her. The love of his life! And that folks, will be the only thing he will ever remember after his awakening from a so-called "coma."

So what does all this bug chasing, inter-galactic "keggers", assassinated Arkelian princes and other worries ultimately amount to? Nothing! 'Cause no one involved ever remembers! "The only reason no one is afraid is because they don't know about it!" Kay exclaims to Will Smith (aka Junior). Us, nor anyone else for that matter.

Nevertheless this is an extremely entertaining and fast paced film that belies its maybe unintentional love interest. The action and comedy is non stop and both Smith and D'Onofrio (The Bug) are outstanding in their rolls. You won't want to stop to get some popcorn.

Don't miss this one. But just remember, it's only a love story.

People go through life oblivious to the reality around them. As pointed out in this movie, at one time everyone knew the world was flat; and now everyone knows we are alone in the universe. But what if we are wrong? Who will protect us? "Men in black used to be the term for the bad guys. This movie shows they are our last line of defense. This is a fun movie and there are many great actors to add to the fun.

Every one is so busy watching Tommy Lee Jones make his stoic looks and Will making one-liners that they miss the person that hold it all together. In addition, that person has to do act throughout the movie in an Edgar suit. Have you ever tried one on? Vincent D'Onofrio has to look unnatural and act natural. This was one movie where I felt sorry for the bug. He even drops his snack (Linda Fiorentino) near the end. It just shows that bugs lead a hard life.

If you are into recent bug movies, look for "Out There" where they mention bugs in a rug

Men in Black II (Widescreen Special Edition)

I first saw this one in the hospital after having my appendix removed, and I have to say, it was a fun ride.

It's well cast, Tommy Lee Jones does great in his role as Agent Kay, and Will Smith does a very good job as the funny Agent Jay. This comedy does not fail to disappoint, however, I must complain about the rating.

The way many people die in this film is simply put, disgusting. I mean the gruesome deaths are the following:

a man is killed by an alien, then it climbs into his skin and pretends to be human (the result is gruesome, hideous and disturbing all at the same time).

another man is killed by having a large needle like boject filled with exterminator poison shoved down his throat, the death is instant, but nasty.

Impalement through the neck.

One man dies (through unknown means) and is plastered to the ceiling with saliva like goo (this may have been a reference to the film "Aliens")

An alien is shot and explodes into goo

An alien explodes


This content is enough to convince me of an R rating.

My only complaint about the movies quality is it was way to short, it felt a little cut off at the ending.

All in all, entertaining, recommended, funny, viewer discretion advised.

8/10 stars