P Books

I have used this cook book for years it is the best I have found for good Chinese cooking. Directions easy to follow.

This is a decent, if unspectacular book.

STRENGTHS:
* The authoress covers a fair amount of ground.
* Many of the recipes are very tasty, and well honed.

WEAKNESSES:
* The authoress glosses over many areas that are important for westerners ... such as how to evaluate, buy, season, and care for a high quality wok. The authoress just seems to assume you have one. The authoress also glosses over most of the finer details regarding the essential differences in regional styles of Chinese cooking. Disappointing for a book having a title that implies exhaustive depth that doesn't actually exist within.
* The authoress doesnt always remember to give enough of the aliases for various ingredients, leaving readers to rely upon educated guesses based on photos.
* The recipes and instructions are not always laid out in logical order, nor are they clearly and adequately explained in all cases. Her recipe for classic pork dumplings, for instance, takes a bit of re-reading, and a fair amount of trial and error (and cursing) in order to make the indicated amount of dough appear even remotely adequate for the amount of filling she calls for. This book could have benefitted from some much needed polishing by an independant chef/editor.
* The authors doesn't really give any insight into preferences and background, or her cooking philosophy ... she just plowed ahead and dumps a bunch of recipes into her book. Then again, this book was written some time ago, and cookbook styles have since been chaging and evolving - chefs are now allowed to inject themselves into their books. That wasn't always true.

In any case, the book appears a bit dated by today's standards. There are more exhaustive, more entertaining, better photographed, and better edited books available than this one. It's adequate, and it'll serve it's function if it's your only book on the cuisine, and that's about as much as I can say about it.

This is the best Chinese cookbook I've used. There are lots of delicious and pretty easy recipes. Once you buy a good set of the major ingredients (ginger, hoisin, rice wine, soy sauce) and get a decent wok/any big pan, you can make a lot of delicious meals that are as good as any Chinese restaurant, for very cheap. The Mongolian Beef is really good. It tells you the basics of Chinese cooking, like how to make tofu and how to cook really good white rice. Highly recommended from an amateur cook on a budget like myself who loves flavorful Chinese food.

My mother and I share this cookbook constantly. Now that there are some available used, I will be picking up my own copy. The recipes are amazing. Beginners and experts would enjoy them. My favorites are almond chicken and the sweet & sour sauce. The sauce is so good, it's the only kind my family eats. We never buy it. If you're looking for a good chinese cookbook with yummy recipes, easy to understand instructions, and obtainable ingredients--this is the one for you.

I bought this book when I was first learning to cook because I love Chinese food and wanted to do my own fried rice. While the other recipes are very good, this is the best fried rice you will ever eat. I no longer eat fried rice in restaurants because it cant match this.

To my mind, Course of Empire is the best book written by Bernard Devoto (1897-1955). With it, he won a National Book Award to add to his Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes. DeVoto's integration of American exploration with the political quarrels of Europe is exceptionally good, and his understanding of western geography is overwhelming even to the well-traveled.

Most important, this is the work of a novelist manqué who should have been a historian all along. The book is everywhere readable and sometimes sings. A couple of examples:

"The best hope of peace lay in the fact that for half a century Spain had been falling like Lucifer son of the morning and was now prostrate. Its possessions spread across Europe without logic of geography or nationality. If they could be satisfactorily distributed among the powers peace might follow like the well-being of a man who has dined well." (164)

"In 1744 [Arthur Dobbs] published An Account of the Countries Adjoining to Hudson's Bay, a vigorous, absorbing book which assembled everything that was known, rumored, guessed, logically deduced, and imagined about the Northwest. It is a visionary's argument and perhaps the most shining eighteenth-century example of what the imagination can do when it has a blank map to work on and is handicapped by no empirical knowledge whatever." (244)

Finally, in Course of Empire, Native Americans are treated knowledgeably and thoroughly yet without the stifling political correctness of our own day. DeVoto writes of "savages" who do savage things; and he is right. Of course, DeVoto had the advantage of writing at a time when Europeans could no longer get a pass for being white but before Native Americans got one for not being so. DeVoto could not have chosen his era, but he certainly made the best use of it.

This is a magisterial history of the exploration of the west by an icon of western histiography. DeVoto takes in the whole sweep of New World history, from the conquistadors up to Lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark are the clear apogee of the narrative, and the hundred or so pages on their expedition function as a hundred page mini book within a book.

I learned alot about the exploration of the west in this book, especially in the sections devoted to spanish (inept) and french (daring but lacking ambition) exploration. All forces eventually will yield to the english and later the americans.

Jefferson emerges as a far sighted hero of manifest destiny. This book gives great little known detail on the interaction between westerners and native americans without being biased or unduly sentimental to the existing native cultures.

I thought on the whole he was even handed about alot of controversial issues and his awesome prose and thorough research make this an enduring classic of american history and the "course of empire"

Although the various European powers moved sometimes disorganizedly, in fits and starts, DeVoto shows how the course of empire's path is laid out.

As the first volume of a trilogy, DeVoto foreshadows America's later claims of Manifest Destiny and "democratic-imperial" dreams in "Course of Empire," based on the expansionist energy he details in "Across the Broad Missouri."

All three volumes are worth a read.

This is a book about the exploration, not the settlement, of North America. As such, it traces the 278 year history of European and American efforts to penetrate and understand the North American continent.

The Course of Empire then is a compendium of various and sometimes quite different national interests. Utilizing a chronological, fill in the blank approach, DeVoto literally fills in the map of North America as viewed, rightly or wrongly, by each succeeding explorer. Chapter by chapter this story unfolds across the entire history of North American exploration. Thus, the reader meets everyone in chronological sequence, starting with Balboa and ending with Lewis and Clark.

Since subsequent explorers often had access to the records of those that preceded them, DeVoto is not only able to fill in the North American map with the contribution of each exploration, he is also able to link each exploration to its fundamental drivers: national intent and economic interest. As a result, he is able to underscore the ebb and flow of New World power as each country's global interests and economic situation changed over time.

For example, Spain's 16th century interest was mostly focused on conquest and plunder. As a result, Spain's more northern explorations, led by De Soto and Coronado, were limited by the lack exploitable civilizations. In contrast, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada and Spain's decline as a world power, England's subsequent 17th and 18th century efforts were more driven by land acquisition, sugar and the fur trade. It is easy to see why then that the French and Indian War was fought and why Britain's explorations are so much more consistent and focused on such dramatically different sections of North America.

Of critical interest is how the author weaves the unbelievable scope of this effort into a consistent whole, telling the story of how the geography of North America limited and encouraged continental expansion and ultimately defined the national borders of the United States. This is an excellent work and well worth your time.

Like many readers I was led to DeVoto by Stephen Ambrose, and I was not disappointed. This book combines meticulous historical scholarship with a real skill in storytelling, and it gave me a new understanding of how Europeans perceived and penetrated the continent. I began with the intention of reading the three volumes in historical order, and I'm eagerly continuing to "Across the Wide Missouri," which is all the review you should need.

My only complaint -- and the only reason to deny it a fifth star -- has nothing to do with DeVoto's work itself. The edition I read (purchased here, and as far as I can tell identical to the one for sale above) had black-on-white, pen-and-ink maps that appear to date from the original printing. They can be hard to read, which is a significant drawback in a narrative that relies so heavily on geographical references.

I would be very happy to see either a companion volume filled with modern maps (as has been done so admirably with the Aubrey-Maturin novels), or a new edition of the book that incorporates them directly.

I have no illusions about the sales volume of this title, or its power to induce such a new printing. Nor do I ignore the charm in presenting these maps with the same "period" style that DeVoto's first readers saw. But I found this book so instructive that I hope for others to derive the same benefit -- and that means using modern techniques to make it the most effective educational instrument it can be.

It's important to disclaim that I'm only talking about the illustrative maps. The ones used as chapter headers, that show the continent gradually "filling in" over the centuries, are priceless and should be left as-is in any future printing.

My professor used the 5th edition in the Digital Elec class many years ago. I write software but have been trying to make the transition to logic design ... picked up the latest edition for refresher

Great book

You can gain the basic digital logic design knowledge using this book in no time! that is not always sufficient for people who wants to get A grade rather you can just make it your introduction and so soon move to part two (that is up to your current course).
My advice is : get this book unless you have passed this level!

This is the best book to understand Digital Electronics with clear and simple explanations. The salient feature of this book is that it has lot of applications sprayed throughout which keeps the reader attentive and interested. A "Must Read" for graduate/undergraduate students in any university in the world.

I used this book for a course on Digital Electronics. Its great. The book has a great typeset, clear and crisp fonts that go easy on the eyes, well structured (such that you read what you need in order to understand the next chapter). The book is illustrated with apt diagrams. I would consider this book to be beginner-intermediate. This book is a good starting point for learn digital stuff, and a good reference after you learn digital stuff. Its hard to find a book as good as this one.

This is the best book to understand Digital Electronics with clear and simple explanations. The salient feature of this book is that it has lot of applications sprayed throughout which keeps the reader attentive and interested. A "Must Read" for graduate/undergraduate students in any university in the world.

I have just started to write plays and bought this book based on customer reviews. The reviews were right on, for this author gets his points across in a clear and concise manner. All of his suggestions are so valuable and useful not only for playwrining but fiction writing also. Mr. Catron has a passion that he realtes to the reader, giving them the incentive to start up and keep going to completion. Great book!

I only have one negative thing to say about Louis E. Catron's "The Elements of Playwriting," so I'll get it out of the way right off.

In various spots in the book, he makes critical remarks about both soap operas and the "Perry Mason" TV series that make me wonder if he's ever actually watched them. The writing cautions he connects with the remarks (respectively, always make sure your characters' emotions are motivated, and avoid a "deux ex machina" ending) are absolutely legitimate, but using these as illustrations are simply untrue.

In most other books such false reporting would seriously damage the writer's credibility in my view, and indeed it's the one thing that keeps me from awarding a full 5 stars. The one saving grace in Catron's case is that every other piece of advice is illustrated accurately, if not explicitly in the text. He shows quite well how to make your story appeal to directors, actors, and audiences, not only explaining what they look for but illustrating how to achieve it.

As with any book on writing, this is meant to be a book of ideas, suggestions, and recommendations to empower us as writers rather than restrain us. Where an accepted "rule" goes against the story we want to tell, we're expected to be true to the story rather than the rule. Every other book on this topic has taken this attitude, but Catron consistently takes the next step and cites plays that illustrate how nearly every rule has been broken by a successful play, and why that play succeeded in spite of breaking that rule.

Catron is a completist in other ways as well, taking the reader from the conception of a story all the way to a list of playwright's resources (such as directories of literary agents).

Whether your playwriting is a hobby, a sideline, or a prospective career - or even an established one - I highly recommend this book.

The Elements of Playwriting is a great book for anyone who wants to understand what it takes to write a play. Catron goes over everything a person needs to know including creating characters, building a plot, and constructing dialogue. I really liked the chapter on What Makes a Play.

Even if you are not a Playwright, but you are involved in the theatre in another capacity, such as an actor or stage manager - you would still benefit greatly by reading this book. It will give you a great understanding of what a Playwright must accomplish in order to get his play to the stage.

I completed the first draft of my play "American Brass" back in 1999. It was pretty awful. Then, I found this wonderful book by Prof. Catron. Following the guidelines and inspiration contained in his book I eventually transformed the draft into a stageworthy script.

Before reading his up front advice "Don't show anyone your first draft", I had given a reader a look at the play. The reader, an experienced theater person, tried to be helpful with constructive comments, which I came to understand after reading Catron's book meant - I had no plot, my characters were flat and I was writing narrratives rather than dialogue.

This book provides a clear understandable guide to the structure and dynamics of a successful play and how to write one. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.. and before each rewrite review Caron's book for insight and inspiration.

There's also practical advice - look to get your play on stage not necessarily on Broadway. So I had a high school do a reading and then a church group and now I have the area community theater interested in a full production.

Thank you Prof. Catron

I am a Midwestern physician by day and fledgling playwright by night. One year ago I decided to take an idea to paper and wrote my first play. The story was clear in my mind so the writing went easy. Within six weeks I had completed a rough first draft. At this point I ventured over to the local bookstore to see what books they had on playwriting. There were several, but Louis Catron's The Elements of Playwriting caught my immediate attention. Standing there, I skimmed the contents then read a few pages. The book was full of pearls gleaned obviously from a lifetime of experience in the theater. I bought the book and ordered a coffee to read more, (isn't that the way it always happens?)

Catron goads our left and right brains into action in ten chapters that range from how to get the play started, formatting the text and incorporating Aristotle's six elements of live theater into the work, to suggestions on getting your work published and performed. Various exercises to get the point across are used along the way. The book is a joy to read; a superb "nuts and bolts" treatise for the novice and veteran writer alike. I pick up something new each time I read it. I particularly enjoyed the discussion on how to be a playwright, involving as much with how one "thinks" as what ones "does."

In my opinion, Louis Catron's The Elements of Playwriting is the best book on the subject out there. It helped me complete my play and make it a more polished work. The book would be perfect as the main textbook in any college playwriting class. Louis Catron's "Elements" certainly "plays in the heartland!"

I got interested in buying the book after listening to her "Dear Jane" podcasts. Unfortunately, the book was much less useful than her casts would lead you to believe. The podcasts are more useful than the book, and FREE!

Look for David Burns and his 10 Days to Self Esteem book sets for some real help. There is also Break the Chains of Low Self Esteem (cannot remember author's name). These books have been immensely more helpful in dealing with my depression and related low self esteem.

I don't even think I'd recommend Enough is Enough for anyone who is further along in her/his recovery process. Just not helpful. Lots of platitudes, but no real skill building exercises.

Best of luck in whatever you choose on your road to recovery!

If you have thought to yourself or said out loud, "I just can't do this anymore" this engrossing, entertaining and practical approach to identifying the obstacles to living a vibrant and fufilling life is for you. Jane Straus provides tangible examples and exercises to help anyone who is really ready to address their 'endurance'. I have been acquainted with this author's work for many years and have seen impact in myself and others of her incisive and to-the-point remedies. She reveals her own inspiring story and those of many of her clients with compassion and humor, and invites the reader to undertake this exciting, and sometime painful path to a fuller, richer, more thriving life.

I have read around 100 self-help books and would, unhesitatingly, count it as one of the best (if not the best). It gave me lots of food for thought. I think Jane should get onto the Oprah show. It merits that kind of attention.
Paul Heller

A fun and easy read, yet powerful and filled with insight and inspiring stories. Jane Straus has compassionately offered her heart and soul in this book about truth, authenticity, non-judgement and forgiveness. "Enough is Enough" provides the reader with a sobering look at how our fears and self-judgements stands in the way of living the life we were meant to live, and how in the end, it is all about forgiveness. Jane gently guides us with practical tools and exercises to help us move forward in the direction of our dreams. Thank you Jane for your honesty, humor and humaness in revealing your own fears and vulnerabilities. I see so clearly now how I have been creating distractions in my own life and I am now ready to live my one precious and extraordinary life with no more excuses! Thank you for this wonderful gift you have given to all of us and to the planet.

I found this book very easy to read and, as strange as this might sound, I felt better immediately after reading it--like I really could change specific aspects of my life NOW if I was willing to see myself truthfully. The author uses personal experience, and the experiences of people she has coached in her professional life, to demonstrate how to stop enduring people, things, etc., in your life and start choosing to live a life that is aligned with your higher truth. While some books require extensive exercises and cumbersome companion workbooks, this book is much less threatening and provides thoughtful questions (she titles these "Time In") for your own consideration after she provides important "food for thought". One thing in particular that I appreciated about the author's approach is that living your life to the fullest is a process that can be started today, no matter what your situation. For example, one of her chapters is titled, "Daily Tonic for an Extraordinary Life" and she offers the following, "Living our truth cannot be for some future goal or noble end; our commitment to releasing judgment and limiting beliefs, practicing positive affirmation, honoring our emotions, and striving for win-win is the daily tonic for breaking free of our endurance." Wonderful stuff that I highly recommend to any reader!

I don't know about you, but I'd love for my marriage to last a lifetime. Growing old and having a companion to share it all with -- good and bad -- is a wonderful thought. However, anyone that has ever been married will tell you that marriage is hard work. And making a marriage last? Well, I think the 50% success rate in the US speaks for itself.

In her book, Everlasting Matrimony, Sheryl Kurland shares wisdom and advice from 75 couples married 50 years or more. The book contains stories from couples across the nation. These couples come from various faiths, backgrounds and ethnicities and provide a sampling from many different viewpoints.

The couples featured in the book were interviewed separately. I thought this was particularly interesting when I noticed quite a few couples who answered similarly - I guess maybe that's why they've been married so long. One such couple is Leon and Irma Horowitz, whose answers are featured on pages 78 and 79. They both comment that what has made their marriage successful is working as a team in all they do.

Everlasting Matrimony is a beautiful coffee table book and yet is also useful. The practical advice given by the couples included is invaluable. I truly enjoyed this book. It made me laugh out loud in places and yet it also made me think more deeply about how certain things affect my marriage.

I gave this book as a gift to an engaged couple, and a couple celebrating their 52nd wedding anniversary. Both LOVED it! In fact, one of the couples asked me where I bought the book so that they could give the book to some of their friends.

Expertly compiled and organized by Sheryl P. Kurland, Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More is an elegantly published keepsake volume of keys to marital longevity as related by couples whose own marriages have endured for half a century or more. Touching upon every aspect and facet of marriage ranging from communication, sex, and money, to children, religion, hardships, and more, this coffee-table volume is enhanced with "then and now" photos of each couple making Everlasting Matrimony a highly prized and unique self-help compendium of seasoned advice, as well as a confidently recommended engagement, wedding, or anniversary gift filed from cover to cover with "lifetimes of wisdom, experience, and love".

This book is amazing and interesting as it has pictures from 50 years ago and today. Each couple explains in his and her own words how they stayed married for more than 50 years. This is not some stuffy book about marriage counseling theory. These couples lived it! I also found very funny and intriguing the stories of how these couples met. This book is a MUST read for any currently married couples or couples about to get married. What a great gift for anniversaries, engagements and weddings! I could not find a gift for my wife of 15 years, since she had everything, so I bought her this book and she just loved it!!

Marriage is a lifetime commitment. In this day and age, people aren't staying married for long periods of time, and the divorce rate is increasing year after year. Instead of remaining together through the good and bad times, couples are throwing in the towel at the first sign of trouble. Essential factors such as communication, compromise and commitment are all lacking in marriages today.

EVERLASTING MATRIMONY by Sheryl P. Kurland is a book depicting the lives of couples who have been married for fifty years or more. Hailing from various backgrounds and ethnicities, couples tell what has held their marriages together. Each story has a picture of the couple in their early years, a brief summary of how they met, a picture of how they look now and their advice on what has kept their marriage together for a lifetime.

A lot of the advice given may seem common sense, but they are things that we tend to take for granted such as: saying I love you, not going to bed angry, communicating and listening to one another. Other key factors given in having a lasting marriage are: spending time together before having children, spending time apart, trust, honesty, no secrets and sharing the housework. A very essential key to a successful marriage is having God as the center and praying together; without these key factors, a marriage is sure to fail or be full of problems.

EVERLASTING MATRIMONY is a vital resource for couples already married, those engaged and those hoping to one day tie the knot. I enjoyed how each of the couples shared a part of themselves and their love with the reader. To see that there are couples who have been married for five decades or more who are still happy is truly inspirational and encouraging to me. I have been married almost twelve years, and I am in my early thirties. I am proud of this accomplishment, especially in this day and age when you rarely find couples within my age group who have been married over five years. This book and the tips provided will assist me and my husband making it to that fifty year mark. I encourage all couples to add this book to their personal library; by doing so, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Reviewed by Eraina B. Tinnin
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

I agree with jt from New Jersey. I picked up "Far Cry" based on its review in the NY Time Book Review in 1986 (front page coverage). If you simply accept Mrs. Hawkins at face value you will fall in love with the setting, the time and Mrs. Hawkins approach to life.

Perhaps the book has a special place in my heart because I read it in a hotel bar overlooking the Arno in Florence while my pregnant wife was resting upstairs. I still reread the book and remember the bar. Funny.

I enjoyed "A Far Cry from Kensington" and recommend it. It's an entertaining story about an overweight young editor who matures in many ways (weight loss, new romance) over the course of the novel and exhibits strength of character in overcoming various tribulations. When she puts down a toadying literary hanger-on, this unpleasant person becomes something like a stalker. A good yarn; the last chapterlet is bang-up. It's one of those novels, which I think are pretty rare, where the last two pages are the best part.

I am a big Muriel Spark fan -- I mourned her passing earlier this year -- and was very interested in a book that is generally accepted as a companion novel to the brilliant "Loitering with Intent", one of my favorites. I was particularly intrigued given the reviews on amazon. So I want to caution prospective readers that there's no way that this is up to Spark's best work. It simply doesn't have the resonance or mysterious allusiveness that some of Spark's other books have. It's kind of a throwaway, in fact. So I think some of the reviewers below are getting carried away and overpraising the novel. Open it with reasonable expectations and you have an entertaining, intriguing tale ahead of you.

This is one of those books that cannot described in a nutshell. If you had to hazard a guess at a description, you'd have to place it firmly in the comedy/ tragedy/ drama/ mystery/ romance section, or simply file it under Spark: Muriel in the Classics section.

Narrated by the once round and central character, Agnes Hawkins (a.k.a. Mrs. Hawkins or Nancy), the story revolves around her experiences as a young widow living in furnished rooms in a semi-detached building in South Kensington. She colorfully describes her neighbors and acquaintances, and gives us tantalizing glimpses into their little secret worlds, in which she is a trustee and confidante.

Despite the mysterious black boxes and the lurking threat of enemies, known and unknown, our heroine manages to keep her head above water, remains a pillar of strength and finds true love among the rubble. Thanks to her diet plan (freely given to the reader as a bonus for purchasing the book), she gains new self-respect, and reinvents herself in a new country, a far cry from her humble beginnings.

A simple classic by an inspired writer.

Amanda Richards

I picked up a copy of Muriel Sparks, "A Far Cry from Kensington" on a friend's recommendation, and I loved it. Mrs. Nancy. Hawkins, the main character is a woman that everyone depends upon and needs to talk with. She has that certain way about her that summons trust and understanding. The fact that her figure is zaftig and that she is a widow lends credence she believes to her trust factor.

Mrs. Hawkins tells her story from a 30 year distance. It is 1954, post World War II, and she is living in a furnished room near Kensington. She has several neighbors of interest and Milly the landlady, was one of the more interesting. She was also a widow and was
Known as an organizer, She was able to organize everyone and everything. Basil and Eva Carlin were a quiet couple and lived on the first floor. Wanda Podolak lived next to them. She was a Polish dressmaker. Kate Parker lived at the end of the hall. She was a district nurse and suffered no germs at all- she was constantly cleaning. On the attic floor, lived a medical student William Todd.

Mrs. Hawkins was an editor at a publishing house and in due time she lost her job and went on to several others. She was excellent at her job, and, of course, everyone confided in her. She knew everything that was going on with everyone. Like the rooming house she lived in, Mrs. Hawkins spent her days and evenings giving advice. The rooming house becomes involved with Wanda and her anonymous letters that turn into blackmail and eventually into big trouble. Along the way, we meet Hector Bartlett, a charlatan who turns many lives upside down.

Mrs. Hawkins gives advice to many and one day she looks in the mirror and discovers that she is too obese. She resolves to lose weight, and by eating only half portions and then quarter portions, she does just that. Her fine bone structure is revealed, and her new body structure also attracts many men. She finds herself in a relationship with William Todd the medical student, which eventually turns into a marriage. Thirty years later,
Mrs. Hawkins, so wonderfully happy with her life in Italy, "a far cry from Kensington",
looks back at her life and continues to offer us advice.

Muriel Sparks has been called "Britain's greatest living novelist", and she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993 and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 1996. She lives in Tuscany, Italy. An outstanding story, told by a wonderful novelist. prisrob

Muriel Spark's A Far Cry From Kensington (1988) is the bookend companion to her 1981 classic, Loitering With Intent. Both novels share a common theme, and like the earlier novel, A Far Cry From Kensington is largely autobiographical and takes place in virtually the same setting and time period: the literary world of early Fifties London. Both are explorations, via reminiscence, of the banality of everyday evil, taking place among the workaday, routine lives of the lower middle class. Less scathing if no less hilarious than many of its predecessors, the relatively unsung A Far Cry From Kensington is the most realistic and humane novel among the twenty-odd Spark has written. It is also exceptional in that it is the single Spark fiction in which a love affair blossoms into a successful relationship of duration.

The story of the universally respected though immensely overweight Mrs. Hawkins, A Far Cry From Kensington follows two divergent threads in her daily life: the mounting sufferings of a rooming house neighbor who is being anonymously threatened, and the problems that stem from her own continuous encounters with Hector Bartlett, a manipulative sycophant who hopes to use her footholds in the publishing world to advance his nonexistent literary career.

While Loitering With Intent can be read as something of a tactical combat manual, A Far Cry From Kensington is instructive in the art of deduction: caught up in a spiraling series of mysterious and increasingly serious coincidences, Mrs. Hawkins, short of both hard facts and physical evidence, actively unravels the odd events that are taking a toll on both the lives of her friends and her editorial career. Fully realizing she is as prone to misjudgment as anyone, Mrs. Hawkins, utilizing her intelligence, intuition, and instinct, nonetheless proceeds confidently and assertively to pierce the veil of secrecy and quiet conspiracy engulfing her. Spark is at a creative peak as she reveals the subtle turns, nuances, and moment to moment impressions in Mrs. Hawkins' mind as she forms her cautious conclusions.

Unlike Spark's finest novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), in which a significant portion of the mystery of human existence is shown to exist on a partially transcendent level, A Far Cry From Kensington eventually grounds that mystery in the knowable everyday. Though the author was to return to something of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie's vision in Symposium (1990), here she seems to be expressing that at least the mundane truths of human life can be ascertained by diligence of method, applied intelligence, and a fundamental willingness to be believe that some people are unabashedly predatory, unscrupulous, and ethically coarse at best. Another message of the novel is that the weak, the foolish, and the vacuous are among the most potentially dangerous individuals one can become involved with.

Upon its release, a number of critics publicly objected with pointed distaste to some of Mrs. Hawkin's behavior, she who enjoys "a puritanical and moralistic nature; it is my happy element to judge between right and wrong, regardless of what I might actually do." For exhausted with Hector Bartlett's elaborate attempts at manipulation, unhypocritical Mrs. Hawkins calls him a "Pissseur de copie" to his face when she encounters him in a public park, and continues to do so, to the detriment of her publishing career, throughout the novel. "It seemed to me," she says, that he "vomited literary matter, he urinated and sweated, he excreted it." Far from keeping this observation to herself, Mrs. Hawkins loudly shares it with authors, editors, and publishers, and since Hector is protected by best-selling author Emma Loy, finds herself fired from one job after another. But Mrs. Hawkins is without regret: "I can't help it. Sometimes the words just come out and I can't stop it. It feels like preaching the gospel." Thus in this and other passages, A Far Cry From Kensington supports speaking one's perception of truth under certain circumstances, regardless of consequence, even if that truth represents an enormous breach of upper class WASP manners and social decorum.

In Spark's vision as expressed here, building relationships of any kind solely for personal gain, manipulating others through callous, self-interested `networking,' and general toadyism are high crimes, all of which Hector Bartlett is guilty of in the extreme. In fact, Hector is one of Camille Paglia's "court hermaphrodites": "red hair en brosse, brown corduroy trousers, tweed coat with leather patches on the sleeves, a yellow tie and a green shirt: this was gaudy in those days, and Hector Bartlett was always dressed in bright colors. He was tall, with a pronounced stoop of the shoulders, which made him seem older than he was - I imagine at the time, he would be in his mid-thirties. His face was round with a second fat chin. He had a small but full baby-mouth as if forever asking to suck a dummy teat." Though many critics have felt otherwise, no amount condescending liberal piety can excuse Hector's routine aggressive subterfuge, moral mediocrity, and parasitic nature. It's unlikely that Spark chose this character's name randomly: "hectoring" is exactly what this he often does to those he encounters, and `Bartlett' suggests his "pudgy," pear-shaped physique.

Written in the plainest language possible but poetically conceived and executed, A Far Cry From Kensington belongs, with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Girls of Slender Means (1963), The Driver's Seat (1970), The Takeover (1976), and Loitering With Intent, among others, with the very best of Spark's work.

Very well done. Will make a great movie too.

Very enjoyable. I agree with other reviewers about its
contents. My vote to play Phil Cresta in a movie is
Robert Di Nero. Looking forward to the movie.

I read until I finished (3am), because I couldn't put it down. It is a very well written, interesting, and entertaining story of an lifestyle that is often contrived or overdone by others in the genre. The no-nonsense, unapologetic tone is definitely fitting of the central figure, Phil Cresta. I give my highest recommendation, which doesn't show itself very often. I can't wait for the movie, and you shouldn't either. Get a copy, block some time (I doubt you'll be able to put it down either), and enjoy.

A lot of fun to read. You can't help but laugh at a lot of these true-crime stories. You just can't make this stuff up. This book would make a great movie.

A Decent book, very interesting read. The style in which the story is told is very engrossing as it is told from the first person. The one drawback to the book is that it is based on one persons recollections and biases. With the exception of the Plymouth mail truck robbery most of these crimes were standard criminal enterprises, hardly crime of the century material. Of the crime he boasts the most of, a Brinks hold up, Cresta ended up going to prison. This is the story of a man who thought he was smarter then he was and in the end, was too smart for his own good.

I believe this is Asimov's best fiction.

A story of the far future of our galaxy where a galactic empire is beginning to disintegrate. A man named Hari Seldon discovers the science of "psychohistory" (scientific 'prophecy' using mathematics and the law of large numbers as it relates to human behavior), and finds a way to minimize the decline. This plan requires the formation of a Foundation near the edge of the galaxy. The plot takes off from there.

Once you start this work, you will have a hard time putting it down. I really believe George Lucas got some of his ideas for STAR WARS from this trilogy.

--George Stancliffe

Foundation owes its genesis to young Asimov reading Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. As the author explains, he started thinking, what would happen if he described the fall of a GALACTIC Empire? Armed with a "science" of history known as psychohistory, Asimov and his editor John W. Campbell set about trying to describe the fall and rebirth of that mythic Empire. While the trilogy (and even the subsequent sequels) did not finish the 1,000-year cycle, enough was described to bring about some rather intriguing fiction.

Asimov, of course, is fond of puzzles involving logic. While logic is rather hazy regarding human behavior (the "Laws of Psychohistory" are deliberately kept off-stage), the characters are nevertheless able to make guesses that fall within the expectations of said logic.

The prime element in the resurrection of the Empire is, of course, Hari Seldon, the greatest psychohistorian in history. Seeing through his equations that the galaxy is about to fall into ruin, Seldon strives to create a "Foundation" which will preserve the wisdom of the old empire when the collapse comes. This Foundation will ensure that, instead of thousands of years of barbarism following the collapse, only 1,000 years will ensue. The Foundation begins harmlessly enough, as a scientific organization, designed to write the "Encyclopedia Galactica," a repository for all the galaxy's knowledge. However, as the Empire falls and the scientists of the Foundation are isolated by the barbarism on the galactic periphery (in a series of "Seldon Crises"), it becomes much more. That is the basic context of the first book in the series.

Seldon also creates a "Second Foundation." The purpose of this organization, located at "Star's End," is to monitor the Seldon plan and make sure the First Foundation comes to no harm in its slow quest to restore the Empire.

If some of this sounds vaguely like Star Wars, you wouldn't be far wrong. Much of that trilogy owes its existence to Asimov's work. The most blatant example is the planet Coruscant, which echoes Asimov's Trantor, the capital world of the Empire, which is an entire world-city.

My favorite book in the Foundation series is Foundation and Empire, because they offer the most opportunity for action and challenge for the Foundation. As the series originally appeared as a series of short stories and novellas in Campbell's Astounding, the "novel" is really two stories. In the first story, the Foundation finds itself facing its first real threat--a strong Empire at the galactic core, with a strong general capable of defeating the Foundation. In the next contest, the Foundation comes up against a telepathic enemy known as "The Mule," who starts mucking about with the Foundation's path toward eventual Empire.

The third book, Second Foundation, describes a search for the "Second Foundation." This search comes in earnest, after the setbacks the First Foundation faced in the second book. Asimov manages to end the stories well, and Asimov manages to keep the reader guessing.

I really enjoyed the series when I read it in high school. The stories were great exercises in logic and managed to provide some sense of adventure. Looking back, I can see some "primitive" technological aspects of Asimov's "Future History," but that takes little away from the story. One innovation for this series was the invention of the pocket calculator (the stories appeared in the early '40s). Asimov took reluctant credit for the invention since, like Heinlein's water bed, he never thought of patenting it.

This is actually an excellent, kid-friendly introduction to science fiction, as it presents a lot of mental puzzles and very little violence. Given the time it was written and Asimov's own literary tastes, it is rather free from violence, sex, or other "adult situations." There have been grander epics, but this is one of the first to appear in science fiction form. Read from the master, and learn.

Twenty Stars ********************

Long before the notion of using a vision of the future to help shape the future, there was Foundation by Isaac Asimov. This popular book and series have undoubtedly played a role in developing the importance of vision in our society in the 50 years since these stories were first written.

The book is also prescient in another way. The current best thinking about problem solving is that scenario-based exercises are the best way to prepare to influence the future. Sure enough, that is what Asimov was talking about with Seldon's forecasting techniques.

If that was all that Asimov accomplished, this would be one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time. But he did even more. He conceptualized the significance of finding offsets to the kind of bureaucratic stalls that can delay progress. While Joseph Heller was inventing Catch 22 to identify the problem, Asimov was already onto the cure. Asimov's solution: a secret second foundation that works behind the scenes without bureaucracy to do the real work of making a difference. In my own research on how change happens in organizations, it is always the stealth activities that work best.

In a sense, any view of history would lead to the same conclusion -- that progress and regression will usually succeed one another in that order. That was the point of Toynbee's work on history. Asimov has made that point very elegantly here.

What I love about this book are the many brilliant philosophical perspectives woven into the story. I wish my philosophy classes had been this interesting!

The drawback of the book is that Asimov is not one to overly polish his writing. So it works, but lacks the beauty we normally associate with great books. Don't let that hold you back.

These ideas and concepts for dealing with them are among the most irresitible ever conceived of for thinking about our futures. As you read and enjoy this wonderful novel, be sure to consider what its lessons are for existing organizations, like the one your work for, the schools your children or grandchildren attend, the government, and volunteer organizations like the Red Cross. You'll be amazed how much more you will get from this book if you do. For this is really a management book, as well as a science fiction book.

This book has constantly inspired me. I hope it will do the same for you!

I still remember being intimidated by this book when I was in grade school. You see, Asimov was what "smart people" read. I also remember the summer that I read the entire trilogy, it was the first time that I was completely immersed in a satisfying, intelligent, alternate reality.

Epic, is the only way to describe this opus. Starting in a Galactic Empire that is starting to slip into decline, then on to the monastic settlement of the Foundation and it's mission to preserve the best of the old civilization, then on to the recivilization of the ruins of the old Empire. If I recall correctly, it takes around 1000 years, but without the foundation it would have meant 10 times more chaos and darkness. It is the sense of mission and purpose that holds the whole thing together. And if you like mysteries and surprises, there is the matter of the Second Foundation....

Asimov wrote this when he was pretty young. He still had an unshakable faith that science could accomplish anything. Indeed, he saw a traditional clockwork universe that a sufficiently great mind, like Hari Seldon, could mathematically unlock. Later on in his writing Asimov matured- until he saw the galaxy itself as a living, evolving organism- a grand Gaia hypothesis.

One other thing, having grown up in New York, I think young Asimov saw himself as Hari Seldon in seeing a decadent and declining civilisation before anyone else. You know, he may just have been right....

First of all up until I read the Foundation Trilogy back in 1986 I was not one for reading fiction, never mind Sci Fi. I bought the book, used, from a friend and one quiet weekend started to read it, I could not put it down, I was smitten by the Asimov bug. Read what ever reviews you wish but remember it is fiction,...Science Fiction and at the time of writing it was Isaac Asimov's, one persons, vision/opinion/thoughts of the future of mankind. As of a result of reading the Trilogy edition I now have most of his books and as to date have not been able to find another comparable author, although Arthur C Clarke has come close with his Rama series.

Read it and I am sure the vast majority of you will thoroughly enjoy it.

Where can I get the rest of her books????

See her website!!!

Wow. We've all read books we can hardly put down, but I've got to say this was the hardest to put down I've ever read. From the first the book had me hooked. The very beginning is gripping to put it mildly. And then, all the academic intrigues and teacher/student relationships that were involved in the mystery conspired to make it impossible for me to escape.

If I could I would give this book 10 stars!!!!

I was intrigued by the storyline of this book; someone trying to undermind the teachers and students of this elite school. This novel was much more than that. I loved how the author roped you into this story with her beautiful words. I compared this book to The Talented Mr. Ripley on how someone becomes another person just to undermind those around them and succeed in life. All of the characters I came to care for and was sad when I turned the last page to finish this great book.

I could see this book becoming a movie with Ian McKellan in the title role.

I loved Joanne's earlier novel Chocolate, so I decided to pick this one up. It was good book with lots of fascinating twists and turns (especially in the last seventy pages or so), but it gets just four stars because it drags at times. Despite my impatience with some parts of the book, I still think it's worth reading.

If I could have I would have given it a 3.5 stars-- but I've erred on the liberal side for several reasons:

The writing is clever, entertaining and does keep you turning the pages. However, I found the "great twists" others mentioned - predictable this time.(If you are surprised at the end --- then you'll be more inclined to rate it more highly).

At the same time, because the characters and even their unique way of reaching a predictable twist were so fascinating - I didn't mind as much that I was pretty sure I knew where I was being led.

I do think it's a good read - and it's worth noting a few things I wished I'd discovered sooner to help enjoy it even more:
1) The school is in Britain and written in good old English (not American-English).If you don't spend time hanging with Brits, you may indeed find yourself "a bit" caught up with unfamiliar words and terms for everyday items like school courses, teachers, periods and classes.(In fact, I didn't know that the title Gentlemen and Players referred to British cricket - until after I'd read the book).

2) In this edition, there is a nice handy guide at the back that translates Latin and historical references(which is not translated in the actual text of the book.) You know a great reference has been been made- just not to what exactly. I strongly recommend checking the back of the book for the translation as you go along unless your a Latin and Greek History buff - or you'll miss much of the humor and references.

3) The book is written from a couple of different characters perspective- but they're all written in first person "I" language. It's confusing; but well done. After the first few chapters I realized that the little chess symbol at the start of each chapter indicated which character was speaking (e.g. a White King for Straitley, a black pawn for a mischief maker, etc.).

It's a different type of thriller - and if you're tired of the old same type thriller, or enjoy entertainment with a different sort of twist (like Shutter Island: A Novel) you'll enjoy this one.