Z Books

When I first picked up this book in a brick-and-mortar store, I thought it was perfect for my soon-to-be-married goddaughter, who is smart but a kitchen novice.

Before I wrapped it, I looked closely at the recipes and realized that, while easy, they are sophisticated. Just right for my own kitchen.

So I just ordered a copy for myself!

This is a great cookbook! Clear, helpful directions and delicious recipies. Very encouraging for beginners, challenging enough for more experienced cooks. Both a useful "how-to" reference and a source of enjoyable new recipes. Very glad I bought it.

This book was not only inspiring, but it was educational! Although very opinionated, it was interesting to view various women outlooks on such a large array of topics. This book was definitely an eye opener and Woman Empowering book that should encourage many women to stand firm on their beliefs, be strong, go after their dreams, love themselves no matter what, and to know that other women go through the same life situations!! Excellent choice!!!!

This book offered several perspectives on major topics that women have to deal with from day to day. It was inspiring to get a sneak peek into the personal journals of women from different backgrounds. With their voices I am smashing my own tomatoes and recommend readers to do the same! I believe they have started a revolution!

Finally, I can understand prostate cancer! This book explains in reader-friendly terms all the basics about prostate cancer, the various treatment options available to the patient, and lots of other information that is so useful. (e.g. risks of sexual side effects, incontinence, and treatments that minimize these risks!). Dr. Bodai talks at the reader's level. I can now go into appointments with my doctor and ask questions without being intimidated. This is a FANTASTIC book.

This book is a very straightforward and not as intimidating as other books on prostate cancer. Often we don't know what to say or do when we know someone diagnosed with cancer. I suggest that you pass along this book. It's a easy to read guide that helps men navigate through their discussions with medical experts.

Reminiscent of "Go Ask Alice," this book is a bible for teen-agers coping with drug or alcohol addiction. It doesn't preach; it's a tell-all story of one girl's triumph over her addictions. Although I couldn't relate to the author's problems with drugs and alcohol, I could relate to her problems as a teen-ager. Her brutal honesty went beyond the threshold! Two of the things that separate this diary from others are the author's illustrations and poems-very thought-provoking.

I was sixteen when I found a battered, old copy of this book in our local library. I pulled it out and started reading ... and could not stop. The girl who wrote this diary was fifteen, addicted to drugs and alcohol, and an artist able to speak the unspeakable, draw the undrawable. At the time when I read this diary, I was suicidal and could not stop the things in my head. In these pages I found someone I could identify with, someone who had felt my pain, and who had come out the other side. Someone who had called herself a witch, slept in her backyard once to get away from it all, fell in love with an older man, loved her horse more than anything, and was painfully, tormentedly, honest. This book changed my world forever. I wish every teenager could read it.

Except it has a much quieter voice.

This isn't your usual post-disaster novel. I wouldn't even call it science fiction. There's no enabling device or novum or whatever Darko Suvin calls it. I suppose it is what I would term 'speculative' fiction. What I would call it is beautiful.

Francie is a Japanese-American girl drifting pretty aimlessly in 2052. She lives in Los Angeles, quite frequently she goes out into the desert with her aunt's boyfriend on a semi-legit trading trip.

The government sounds like it's in trouble, there are rich parts of town where life is continuing pretty much as normal, but most people live in cramped apartments and make do with semi-legit work and collecting and selling whatever they can find: sliding doors, clothes, plants. Someone's going to want it. You are allocated water and gas chits, anyone can go to college, it's something that you do more to give you something to do than anything else, a community center of sorts.

Everyone feels aimless, like something's just happened or someone's just died and you're in shock and don't know what to do about it. The thing that makes this book so wonderful is the depth of Francies voice and the observations she makes. Francie's narrative is detached... but she and the reader both know that she's looking for something, that there must be something that means something, for her to find.

I devoured this book because I loved the simplicity and subjectivity of Francie's voice... such an quiet and individual view of the destination our century is taking us toward is rare. Most speculative fiction that deals with a post-distaster or post-government theme is fairly didactic. There are things to be said and points to be made and people to be convinced. Kadahota's not interested in any of that. She's just written a story about a young woman in the city and the desert who's trying to make sense of her life, but the subjectivity of the narrative reveals the political and social upheaval of Francie's world in such a subtle and believable way that this book convinced me of many things when other, more didactic fiction has failed me.

If there are three things I'm interested in they are: People's responses to their landscapes, coming of age stories and post-disaster fiction. This book fulfullied all those needs as if I'd written it myself, or willed it into existence upon the shelf of my local library. The book is tied together well with a more central purpose for Francie than just finding 'meaning'. Her uncle goes missing in the desert, perhaps he has been arrested maybe he just disappeared, and Francie's narrative and coming of age experience seem to have been sparked by this event, it becomes a central concern.

The thing that made me laugh and cry the most in this book was how superstitious Francie is, she thinks plants have feelings, she carries a twig and stone around in her pocket to represent her dead parents, she writes her name on pieces of paper and throws them into the wind on the side of the highway. Just to let the world know she's there.

We all find ways of coping. But few are as telling and touching as Francie's in In the Heart Of the Valley of Love. I've only just found it and already, it's out of print.

Most sci-fi books seem to re-hash the same stuff that's been around since the 30s: robots, colonizing other planets, alien invaders, etc. Sometimes that can still make for a good book-- I liked most of Isaac Asimov's robot books for instance-- but usually they just end up resembling mediocre Star Trek episodes. William Gibson injected a little newness with his focus on computers, but there's only so much cyber-slang I can take before it too dissolves into standard sci-fi fare; concerned more with the gadgets and psuedo-science than with any of the characters or storyline.

"In the Heart of the Valley of Love" falls into none of these traps. It's really much more of a regular novel than anything you'd find sitting in the Science Fiction/Fantasy rack. It's set in LA in the second half of the 21st century-- a "dystopian" LA if you really want-- but even though this may sound a lot like Blade Runner and it's many clones, the author avoids stocking her LA with flying cars, androids, or spaceships. The technology isn't really any further along than it is today actually, and because of this Cynthia Kadohata earns my eternal respect. I don't know why it's so hard for sci-fi authors to restrain themselves when they try to imagine what we'll all be using in the future, but I guess that's what the customers pay for. Everyone wants the flying cars and warp travel, but here we are in 2001 and I still drive to work.

Maybe it's closer to the Mad Max movies than anything else, but instead of a world blasted back into the Stone Age, it's more of a portrait of a society that's going downhill. Her understated style of prose brings far more of a sense of dread and paranoia than anything Stephen King tries to shock you with. It really feels like the main character is a product of her decaying society, that she keeps her sentences short and to the point so as not to make any trouble, to keep a low profile. Most of the characters talk and act like they have a protective wall around them, that they've been dulled to the misery around them, too scared to show any true feelings. One of the best parts of the book are these people sarcastically referred to as "chirps" who try to compensate by trying to be sunshine happy all the time.

I highly recommend giving "In the Heart of the Valley of Love" a look.

As a rule, short fiction doesn't interest me much. I prefer novels - there's more time for the detailed development of plot, character, theme, etc. I also enjoy genre-bending fiction. So when I read the fly leaf of this book, I wasn't too thrilled about it being a collection of short stories, but I was willing to give it a try. And I'm very glad that I did.
The writing is concise and lyrical. The stories are gems that still resonate. And the author is a master at setting the mood for each of her stories. I look forward to this author's first novel.

With this masterful collection, Holly Phillips has given us a genre-defying set of stories about magic, family, and finding your place in the world. She writes about places that are only slightly removed from our own, places we recognize but find are subtly different.

The title story, about an ancient king whose release may (or may not) cause great chaos in the world, is told matter-of-factly by one of his last remaining guardians. The ending is as sensible as it is surprising. The rest of the stories unfold similarly with delicacy, but never aimlessness. Take your time with this collection -- there is such a richness of characterization and, yes, magic, that you'll want to slow down and enjoy it.

This book wonderfully explains the ins and outs of being a nurse. It answers the question, "What does a nurse do?" and provides many anecdotes from real nurses on their experiences. I love all of the charts, which include "Health Problems Throughout the Lifespan," "Patient's Bill of Rights," "Barriers to Effective Communication" and many others. There are a lot of pictures, which makes a textbook less boring, in my opinion.

Chapters include Basic Needs of a Person; The Nursing Process Defined; Achieving Effective Communication; Values; Ethical Conflicts; Challenges, and many others.

This is truly an all-in-one "What is nursing about?" book. I am a pre-nursing student and purchased this to get a feel for what I will be doing as a nurse. I highly recommend it to pre-nursing and nursing majors.

Selected by Brandon & Hill (Nursing Outlook, March-April, 1996) as one of the best books for nursing and medical libraries.

This book is a good learning tool for future astronauts. It teaches the alphabet as well as important space terms. We read it quite often.Child is 3.

As an adult, I generally don't like kids' picturebooks. They're big, expensive, hardbacks with almost no pages, almost no reading and a lot of pictures. Kids are wild about them for the same reason. I notice one of the "official" reviews slams this book for the thinly veiled worst reason: it's not educational enough. This book only has about one sentence for each letter of the alphabet, but forget that. It's visually dazzling.

It's not about learning the alphabet (Richard Scarry's books are better for that). It's also not about learning little definitions of complex tech things (DK robot and other books are better for that). What it is about is firing the imagination with wonderful sounding words married to amazing pictures. This book does what President Kennedy in the early '60s hoped to do when he tried to excite American youth to explore science and math, and bring America into the space program.

What does excite youth? Star Wars, Transformers, Lost in Space, Star Trek, E.T., The Jetsons. In short, imaginative portrayls that broaden the mind and feed kids' natural curiosity. What doesn't excite kids? Little models of the Challenger, which fall so short of The Jetsons, dull, "educational" science kits which leave off everything fun and appeal to no one except possibly "official" adult reviewers. A is for Astronaut manages to somehow keep the kick in Cape Kennedy (or Cape Canaveral) while opening young minds to the dazzling wonders of creation. I dare say any space- minded kid will find it amazing.

Wow, what a fantastic book!
I'm one of those people who, when doing research, hates to be surrounded by tons of different books searching through pages of useless info to find that 1 page that holds the information I'm looking for.
David and Sorita have done all the hard work for you here, a book that contains information on the Gods and Goddesses that were worshiped in Britain. Over 240 entries, this is a fantastic reference book.
Highly recommended.

David Rankine and Sorita D'Este did a great researching job for this A to Z index of the many Gods and Goddesses that have been part of the culture and spirituality of the British Isles.

I have to give them big kudos for the quality of research and documentation that is included in this book. The bibliography is probably the largest I've ever seen in association with a pagan book, and it is not mostly referencing other pagan authors. Rather, this is a scholarly work, and if you have ever done any historical research on the British Isles, you will recognize some of these names.

Secondly, the explanation of the work is one of the best introductions I've ever read. Not only do we find out what the book is about, but Rankine and D'Este explain what they did, why they chose the Gods/Goddesses they chose, historical reference for their choices and a some background material that is a must have for the use of this book.

I like the layout of the book, from the front Table of Contents, to the well thought out Index, to the layout of the information on each of the Gods and Goddesses. This makes this a great reference book for anyone looking at the God and Goddesses of the British Isles.

I keep using the "British Isles" reference, because the book does not confine itself to any particular culture or island in that area. The Gods and Goddesses were introduced and evolved based on the cross cultures in that area over a period of time. The book covers all the Deities of the area, and while I did notice some obscure Deities that I did not expect, there were some I didn't recognize and reading through all the material was an education.

If your pantheon includes any of the Gods or Goddesses associated with the geographic area, this book will shed light on origins, lines of progression and some basic information on some of the lesser known Deities. The bibliography alone is worth the price of the book for further reference. Serious followers of the Ancient British traditions will find this book priceless and beginners will find the information will cover just about anything they want to know or research further.

And excellent reference book, a solid scholarly text and a marvelous research job by two people who took the time and effort to make a book worth having. Boudica

This book comes with a CD. The songs are very inspirational and sung by Crystal Lewis and a few children. Very well done. Also, the A to Z portion is read like a book on CD so you and your child can listen and read along - a wonderful bonding opportunity, not to mention helping children step into reading using God's Word.

This is an excellent book where a child can learn not only the ABC's but also learn the names of Jesus. The book also is very eye appealing. I like the idea of the leopard being throughout the book as well as pictures of children. The read-along cd is okay but I think parents need to take time to help read this book to their children instead of letting a stranger read it to them. Get this book and they will have a better understanding of who Jesus is through reading about His names. The authors took a lot of time in getting all the facts right and made it a fun book.