G Books

This is an all-round excellent edition of the Greek New Testament.

The text font is large and highly readable; similar to what you would find in a Biblical Greek textbook. Overall, the external quality of the book is very high, especially taking into consideration the retail price.

Variant Byzantine readings are included in the margin where they have a significant amount of textual support (although no detail is provided in regards to specific manuscript support of each variant). ALL variations between this text and the NA27/UBS4 base text are also included in the footnotes, even when these are only very minor such as word order (I did a quick comparison of one chapter between this text and the NA27 and all variants were definitely noted).

Accents, Breathings, capitalization and punctuation have been added to the text to improve readability (although these were not included in the original manuscripts they are certainly helpful for those of us who are not experts in Koine Greek). Paragraph divisions and chapter/verse numbers have also been added. Subject headings are not included in the text.

This edition also contains a good introduction and appendix outlining some general introductory information about the various text types and presenting the editors reasons for their choice of texts. Even if you are a NA27 proponent these articles still contain valuable information, and alert the reader to the methodology utilized by the editors when choosing between competing manuscripts.

Conclusion: If you are after a well-priced and highly readable edition of the Greek New Testament, this is a highly viable option.

Setting aside for the moment the issue of the underlying text, this is a GREAT Greek NT to own. The other reviewers are absolutley correct; The font on this text is by far the best available, large and clear and dark, printed on nice white paper. It is almost as large as the large print Nestle Aland and larger than the UBS 4. Both of those books for some reason have yellow paper, the white paper is much nicer. The binding on this book is MUCH better than the NA or UBS stuff which is known to fall apart with any use at all. The cover on this book is a nice red/gold/black. Because there is more Greek text per page than anything else available, this book is thinner and more light weight than others which does make a difference. All this at an excellent price!

Now as far as the idea that the Byzantine text is closer to the original than the primarily Alexandrian text underlying NA27 and UBS 4, I would say that even if you don't beleive this to be true you should still buy this text because at the bottom of the page you have every reading from NA27 which differs from this text. Thus if you are an enthusiast for NA27 you can see all the places where it disagrees from what is more or less a modified version of the Textus Receptus. When you do this I think you will be struck with a few things. Number one, both texts agree most of the time, say 95%. Where they disagree a lot of the differences are very minor, DE for KAI, a different word order, maybe an article missing or added. More importantly, you will note that MANY of the readings in this text appear shorter and more difficult according to the traditonal criteria and therefore on the surface would appear more likely to be original. Robinson points out in an appendix that NA27 excludes these readings because they come from a "late" texts, but you can't have it both ways. If more difficult readings are likely to be original, how come Robinson's text has so many more difficult readings. What all this does I think is lower your confidence in textual criticism. You are left with the impression that this text for the most part is likley to be as close to the original as NA 27. Maybe it does make sense to read instead of a text which is a hodgepodge of speculations from modern scholars to read a text which at least represents readings that are found in a textual family that is earlier enough. Particularly when again you have all the readings of NA 27 in footnotes.

But even if you think this text is late and secondary, it still is nice to have as a resource. You can use it more closely with a KJV or a New KJV translation if that is your preference, and it is kind of nice to have a text which for example includes the doxology in the Lord's prayer right in the text. But above all, for pure joy of reading the external features of this text as so superior to UBS or NA that I would at least get it to supplement one of those, again considering the price is so cheap.

Excellent in it's simplicity. Robinson and Pierpont give you exactly what you want and nothing you don't. This book is just what it's title claims it to be, "The New Testament in the Original Greek". There are no Strong's numbers or any other kind of "helps" in the text; it's all Greek baby! So understand that you'll need to at least learn the Greek alphabet and a few basic words going in, but it is what it is. I give this book the highest rating.

I have long believed the Majority Text (MT) to be superior to the Critical Text (CT, i.e., the NA/ UBS text) and even to the Textus Receptus (TR). My first introduction to the MT was via the textual footnotes in the NKJV. These reference Hodges and Farstad's Majority Text.

Later I became aware of Robison & Pierpont's MT, and having studied their differing methodologies, I came to believe that R&P's was even more accurate. However, it should be noted that the differences between these two texts are minimal. This is even truer for the Second Edition of R&P's text as some of the changes between editions brought R&P's text into alignment with the H&F text. I discuss in detail my reasons for preferring the R&P's MT to the CT and TR and even to H&F's MT in my book Differences Between Bible Versions.

So when I felt God was leading me to produce my own translation of the NT back in 1999, I naturally used R&P's text. The First Edition of the text was available on my BibleWorks program, which I used extensively in my translation work. But I was also able to contact Maurice Robinson, and he graciously emailed me a digital copy of his text, with changes that had been made to it at that point in preparation for his Second Edition. So the First Edition of my Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament: Third Editionwas as up-to-date as possible.

In 2005 I began work on the Second Edition of my ALT, and Dr. Robinson once again helped me out by sending me a list of changes between his First and Second Editions, so ALT2 could be based on the new edition. He also sent me a list of all of the Byzantine alternative readings that would appear as footnotes in his new edition. These indicate places where the Byzantine Greek manuscripts are closely divided. But I wasn't able to include those in ALT2.

In 2007, I published a Third Edition of the ALT, along with an accompanying Companion Volume to the Analytical-Literal Translation: Third Edition. In this volume, I was able to include translations of the Byzantine alternative readings. In many cases, the difference between the main text and the alternate reading is so minor that it does not show up in translation. But my "Companion Volume" lists all of the alternate readings where the difference is translatable. But even then, most of the time, the difference between the main text and the alternate reading is very minor. So the reader can have full confidence in the integrity of R&P's Greek text.

So I have been working extensively with this Greek text for some time, even before it was published. But it good to see that Dr. Robinson was finally able to get his text published in a very readable and usable format.

This is an absolute joy to read!! Anyone interested in the Greek New Testament should definetly add this to their library. If your new to learning the Greek language, or are in the dark on the majorty text issue, this is a great resource. This book is also very easy to read. Also, the New Testament in this book is completely in Greek, no Engish in an interlinear format, or on oppsing pages!! The introduction, preface, ect. are in English though. I give this product an A+!!!

This book would be a fantastic story if it was written TODAY. It's even more incredible that it all happened in 1932-33.

There are so many levels to enjoy in this book ...

* The pure adventure of it all - setting out on a motorcycle (a 750 pound, 6-horsepower monster, no less!) to travel around the world in 1932. It simply is mind-boggling that he pulled it off.

* The observations he makes along the way and how relevant they are even today. His observations of Afghanistan, in particular give insights into what has always been a war-torn country. If Bush & Co. had read this book, maybe we'd have left well enough alone.

* His pure tenacity and luck to get in-and-out of the situations he stumbles into. Being in jail is just part of the gig, and he takes it all in stride.

* The writing itself ... clean, crisp, and engaging. I couldn't put this book down.

This book is fantastic whether or not you ride a motorcycle.

HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Overall, the book is interesting and informative. It gives some great detail about the middle east, India and Asia in general. From a people perspective, I liked the fact that Mr. Fulton goes into some detail about what the people were like and some personalites. I did find however, that in some spots he focused too much on what people thought and not enough on his thoughts and feelings about "where" he was. Toward the end of the book, he rushed. He spent 80% of the time on the Middle east and India, 10% in the rest of Asia, and no time at all anywhere else. Again, overall, it was interesting and informative, but it did not capture my attention like say Jupiters Travels (same genera, by Ted Simon)
rk

this book was a pleasure to read, since I have been to many of the places he has been. It is true and wonderful and I am glad that from now on it is mine.

I could not put this one down. The story is so fantastic that you almost can't believe it happened. To see the world a little as it was 70 years ago was truly a window into the past.

Robert Fulton is a suprizingly good author in that the book flows smoothly and he only talks about what he finds interesting.

I really enjoyed this book; it was too soon over.

I have ridden motorcycles for many years and would liked to have seen more comments on the practical aspects of the trip, even though it was many years ago. I suspect that Mr. Fulton did not keep daily notes but probably wrote down his memories at the conclusion of the trip, thus the detail is not always there.

The portrait of the middle East gives something for the people of today something to think about - basic beliefs and attitudes in that region may not have changed at all. Our expectations may need to be adjusted.

A long trip on a motorcycle is an unforgettable experience for anyone, even today. Four or five days from home, and the resources available there, projects the rider into a state of independence and freedom that I have not found any other way - imagine what it was like for Fulton to be riding across the desert, months from home, no road in some cases, towards the unknown, his life dependent upon his machine continuing to run, and totally on his own.

Every rider should get to read this book - a great treat for the imagination.

I first met Betty McDonald when I read The Egg and I, back in high school in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1960s, and I was completely enthralled. First of all: she writes extremely well. Her sentences are terse and well-formed, and she has a knack for shaping quips of all kinds: the quick laugh, the sudden surprise laugh line, and the careful set-up gag. Most of all, though, I find myself laughing aloud (she's one of the few authors who makes me laugh aloud while reading) at the perfection of a sentence which is at the same time witty, perfectly balanced, completely appropriate, and completely unexpected.

You will find all this - in spades - in Onions in the Stew. It is a mellower book than the others, for many reasons; she was older when she wrote it - and, I think, happier in her second marriage; also, her already considerable skill at writing had grown. Her descriptions of Vashon Island in the 1940s are utterly perfect: beautiful, clever, and bittersweet all at once. Her descriptions of her husband and daughters - and others in her family - are full of warmth, and are at the same time completely clear-eyed and unsentimental.

Frankly, comparing Betty to Erma Bombeck is like comparing Julia Child to Rachael Ray. They can both cook - but, oh boy, I know whose house I'd like to visit for lunch . . .

I first read Onions in the Stew almost thirty years ago, in a Reader's Digest Condensed Books version, and I never forgot it. What a JOY to receive the complete version as a gift years later, along with The Plague and I, and Anybody Can Do Anything, when they were reissued by The Common Reader. I absolutely devoured them, passed them around among my friends & loved ones (keeping track of who had them, very uncharacteristic but they're the kind of books you never want to lose!!!!) and agree with every five-star reviewer here, especially "pony-express," that Betty is the best friend you never met. Also enjoyed the comment about how much fun heaven will be, to drink strong coffee & yak with Betty MacDonald. She is still as witty today as when she wrote her books, utterly classic and fresh, laugh-out-loud and tremendously endearing without EVER being cloying. Such a cut above. Her other books are equally wonderful, and I just wish more people were exposed to her; she's a tonic for stress, an antidote to depression. So glad there are others out there who love her as I do!

I've just finished the fourth Betty MacDonald memoir. Thank you Amazon for the access to all these out of print books!
I now know what's going to be fun in Heaven - chatting with Betty over strong cups of coffee.
These books were like discovering a new best friend. I've never been so entertained by reading. What a gal!

Having finished my previous book and waiting for Amazon's free shipping promo to buy more, I picked up this book collecting dust in my book closet. I was pleasantly surprised.

It is smart and funny and so down-to-earth that you have to instantly like Betty as your best friend. Althouhg I am not a big fan of women titles (those seems to dominate the New York Times bestsellers list these days), I laughed out loud on a plane from Washington DC to Houston on a business trip. Who knew that everyday domestic issues can be so light and funny?

Anyway, just try it. You will find it more enjoyable than you want to admit.

"The Egg and I." As I said in my review of the earlier book, although I found parts of "Egg" charming, the chapter on Indians made my part-Cherokee blood boil, and that other parts seemed rather mean-spirited as well.

There is none of the mean-spiritedness in "Onions", probably because, in spite of the various toils and tribulations of life on the island, Betty was basically happy there, as opposed to "Egg" where she was mostly miserable.

I loved the part about the small woman who loved to curl up on soft, comfy places like sofas, armchairs, and other women's husbands' laps. I wondered, though, why Betty didn't just ask her to step out into the garden and then drop-kick her across the straight to Seattle? I'm sure she could have gotten some of the other women in their circle of friends to help.

Many of the events she tells of show us that teenage girls have always been a handful, whatever they say. However, in spite of all the complaining and whining, the girls were willing to pich in; how many girls their age nowadays would have something like stuffed pork chops waiting when their parents came home from work?

While "Egg" left me wondering why anyone in their right mind would want to run a chicken farm in the middle of a howling wilderness, "Onions" made me wonder if living on an island might not be fun.

I'm a budding short story writer, myself; and no course, no workshop, no amount of instruction can subsitute for the lessons one learns leafing through and ingesting these exquisite paragraphs of John Updike. I find myself, in this volume, more than other Updike works, reading and re-reading the prose, even emailing sections to friends. Like a fine restaurant I want to tell people about, like a band that plays exceptionally well live which you get to catch on a great night, Updike, here, is "on"; he is at the absolute peak of his craft. I only wish there were more collections of short stories written as well as these.

This is an incredible book, which features many of Updike's earlier stories. The title story is amazing in its meaning and moral complexity. FIVE STARS!!!

Good short stories from thr great Updike. Each one uniqely different.

There is little, if anything, one is able to say that can possibly capture the beauty or majesty of a great Updike story. The gentle yet exact measure of his sentences, the bewilderingly complex yet infinitely fluid (and eventually near-epiphanic) weaving of narratives, his control of internal characterization--few are masters in the manner that John Updike is a master.

And this volume contains his greatest story--possibly what I feel to be the greatest piece of literature in all of latter-half 20th century American literature (and we're including it all here, not just short stories). The last story of the volume: Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A Dying Car, A Traded Car.

Enough with the theoretics and generalities here. This story can change your life. Or, at the very least, it can alter the way in which you interact with literature--what you can expect out of literature.

One piece of advice, though: read it in one sitting.
Seriously.
Don't get up, even just for a little while to fix something to eat. Don't read it bit by bit (it's long, so you may be tempted). And, whatever you do, don't look at the last page before it's time.

It may seem disjointed. It may seem an odd accumulation of narratives. Don't stop reading.

Two years, and a hundred readings later, I still haven't gotten over that first experience. What I wouldn't give to have it again...

If there is, you have my attention. Maybe Isaac Babel's Collected Stories or Fitzgerald's Selected Stories. I've been writing for 27 years; I may have written three sentences that compare with the average in an Updike story. In "Flight" he captures in several sentences more about family than I've discovered through an entire life. Sorry for being self-referential; it's a measure of my awe. Updike's magic is that he can tell a story in a single sentence. If you only know Updike through his novels, you're in for a treat. By my lights, this is the greatest living story writer and this is the book that made that clear.

Most of the RAC books focus only on RAC. This one covers ALL the aspects from network, server (CPU, memory, IO interface, NIC ...), storage, OS, Oracle and beyond. THE book you need for deploy Oracle and/or RAC.

Many books around Oracle's advanced topics simply parrot the manuals. Julian avoids that. Instead, he describes Real Application Cluster technology from the ground concepts up to full implementation, with practical notes and tips. He gets into topics that the manuals never touch, and much of what he writes can be useful in any RAC environment, not just Linux.

I whole-heartedly recommend this book and own both the paper and eBook version which I often reference.

This book delivers what it promises. It contains a great balance of technical detail,examples and theory. It encompasses all aspects of implementing/maintaing 10g RAC on Linux.

Very well written. No mater you are a Pro or a newbie, it will be helpful. A very well written book.


Highly recommended.

This book can easily be used as a college textbook on Oracle RAC. I am studying for the Oracle Certified Master exam and this is possibly the most high level book on Oracle I have read.

It has 3 major strengths which I found to be superior to any Oracle RAC books I have read (including the manual from Oracle).

1)Technical Depth
2)Comprehensive Overview and instructions
3)Quality of writing


1)Technical Depth
The authors write about Linux and Oracle and are high level experts in the subjects. For example, the authors have a very detailed description of how Oracle Cache Fusion handles locking across all the nodes in a RAC environment (probably the crown jewel of RAC technology). They also discuss, in detail, different types of CPU, memory, and storage and contains detailed description of each architecture. Lastly, it contains vast number of "how to" install, configure, change, analyze, backup/restore, and utilize Oracle RAC and Linux.

2)Comprehensive Coverage and Instructions
No small amount of detail has been skipped. The book contains every utility (there are many) provided by Oracle to implement RAC. It provides a good step-by-step coverage of Linux and Oracle RAC installation as well what each step is adding to the RAC environment. To top it off, it adds how to performance tune, administer, troubleshoot, backup/restore, and use Dataguard in a RAC environment. I can't think of a subject on RAC which the authors did not cover.

3)Quality of Writing
I was pleasantly surprised how well written this book is. Although far from a Pulitzer Prize material, it certainly belongs in that category amongst the Oracle books. Every praragraph has been well organized and written. The proofreader of this book deserves major praise for their work.

Browsing is a journey through life, times, places, cultures. Looking up often offers surprises. This book is a kick.

murdered by the media

These words are no longer in use, as we no longer converse truly and freely as a nation of English and slang speakers

This volume is little more than a nostaligic curio, like Dr. Johnson's dictionary, or the great Ambrose Bierce's better.

The only English slang currently in use is that receptive vocabulary emitted by our media, and not expressive nor creative as our one way media permits no conversation. We are made to listen, to hear, to receive, only. The internet alone allows literacy, and look at the level of written speech there. Yet even there the formerly great oral tongue is lost.

The most vibrant languages heard throbbing through our land are now those not dictated by our anglo media. There alone does the uniquely human aural ability live and breathe. And thus this massive dictionary properly fades away unfinished.

In any case, what anglo librarian would permit its presence in a library?

Intriguing for historical reasons alone. Not useful for comprehending the language one actually hears around oneself, as no living and present language is heard. Just dust off your old Lord Buckley collection instead, or the Mercury recording How To Speak Hip. Not even riding the city bus helps anymore.

Forty years ago our Amrican language was still richer, more diverse, more playful, more subtle. Now we have only whitely phosphorized talking heads bleating how we must speak and thus how we must think, and by limiting our vacabulary limiting our capacity for free thought. Our only hope is a healthy jolt of James Joyce and the trembling Twain.

Oxford University press is currently undertaking the massive editorial work required to finish this ground-breaking four-volume set that was started more than 25 years ago. The third volume, covering the alphabetic range of P through Sk, is due to appear in March 2007. Volume IV, covering Sk through Z and including a bibliography of tens of thousands of items, is planned for two years later.(...)

I must agree with settimio biondi from Italy. Having purchased the first two volumes, we've been waiting for 7 years for P~Z. This is an excellent, comprehensive work. Hopefully, Oxford...or someone with a sense of responsibility...will finish the final volume.

We have been waiting for this dictionary for a long time. Specifically, since 1975 when Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner issued their second supplemented edition of the "Dictionary of American Slang."
Editor J.E. Lighter, a researcher at the University of Tennessee, is somewhat disparaging of Wentworth and Flexner, the only previous lexicographers to take a healthy swing at American slang. (I don't count H.L. Mencken, who compiled many lists, but not in a format that a working writer can use.)
Lighter faults their "looseness of definition, unpredictable allocation of citations and a certain historical naivete." Maybe, but their book had, and still has, the most important merit a dictionary can have -- it is useful.
Also, theirs goes through Z, which is more than Lighter can say in 2006, 12 years after his Vol. 1 came out and many more years than that since he began.
Also, Wentworth and Flexner's volume is wieldy. Lighter's dictionary has many excellencies, but handiness is not one of them.
Wentworth and Flexner covered the whole of American English in a small volume of two pounds, six ounces. Lighter covers one-third the ground in a massive folio of six pounds, one ounce.
Lighter is often, but not always, more comprehensive. Take bum.
W&F give this useful word 26 definitions in a page. Lighter gives 29 in three pages, but three of his usages have earliest dates since W&F's last effort. It looks like a draw, but it's not, quite.
W&F give a nice little essay on the finer gradations of meaning of bum (in its sense of vagabond); Lighter is less preachy on usage, letting the extensive quotations do that work for him. This is the approved method for serious work, but although Lighter's citations often seem repetitive, their length does not always ensure completeness, as we shall see.
W&F derive bum from the German bummler, idler, but Lighter appears to think this an example of historical naivete, finding bum sprung full-blown in 1864, without any certain antecedents. (In its sense of fundament, it goes back in English to at least 1387.)
Turn now to cracker. Lighter gives it nearly half a page, in the sense of "a backwoods Southern white person regarded as ignorant, brutal, loutish, bigoted etc.," tracing it to 1766. W&F does not have it at all.
Lighter is clearly ahead here, but there are problems with this definition.
First, it is politically correct but lexically incorrect. A cracker is not a white person but a white man. Like its synonyms redneck and woolhatter, it is never used of a woman.
Second, not one of the 31 citations even hints at a usage that would explain how the Atlanta professional baseball team in the old Sally League (slang for South Atlantic League; I will be interested to see if this makes it into Lighter's Vol. 3, if I live long enough to see it) came to be called the Crackers. Or how Georgians' and north Floridians' own nickname for themselves came to be crackers, the way people from Indiana call themselves Hoosiers.
Lighter does also give five other definitions of cracker: beans, a remarkable individual, dollar, a poor skier who often loses control and a light-skinned Negro.
Taken in all, Lighter has lifted the compilation of American salng to a new, much higher level -- except for Hawaiian American slang.
Except for go for broke, which is listed as "apparently originally Nisei or Hawaiian English," I cannot find any slang words from the Hawaiian dialect of Standard American -- even though some words in Standard Hawaiian have migrated into Slang English, like kahuna.
There are many definitions in Lighter of grind, for example, but none for the ways we in Hawaii use it as noun and verb (for eating). Chance um is missing, too, and give um and blahlah.
The absence of Hawaiian American Slang (Alaskan, too) is a serious fault, but on the whole the book is a corker ("a person or thing of extraordinary size, effectiveness, quality etc.," originally English slang traced to 1882 but brought into American by Mark Twain in 1889).

My son read this book at his high school and just had to have it! He loves the author's way of writing and reading about another culture.

Let me start off by saying this is the best book I have read. It is a very exciting book that keeps your attention throughout. It starts off by the Emperer allowing Toyo's Uncle to commit seppuku (suicide) instead of being killed by the government. Samurai Shortstop has a great mix of baseball and culture. You get to read a baseball story but at the sametime learn about their culture and beliefs. Toyo attends Ichiko which is a very big school that consists of only boys.

Ichiko's baseball team is run by the players themselves and when Toyo and a couple other first years want to join the team the have to prove that they are worthy. Toyo's friend Futoshi makes the team as the right fielder but Toyo has a little trouble making the team because Ichiko already has a shortstop. But when their shortstop gets thrown off the team Toyo found himself starting at shortstop. Toyo's father teaches trys to teach him bushido which is code by which Samurai lived but Toyo has trouble understanding it. Not until the end of the book when he has to help with his father's seppuku does he fully understand bushido. This is a wonderful book because it keeps you off balance and never knowing what is going to happen!

Kyle Walmer
Mrs. Bains 3rd block

It's 1890 and you're in Tokyo, Japan. Between classes in the most prestigious high school in town and baseball practice, you learn the old ways--the ways of the samurai. That's Toyo Shimada's life and we get the pleasure of going along for the ride thanks to Alan Gratz's brilliant story telling.


Toyo suffers from familiar teen angst: a parent who doesn't understand him and friends who try to understand him, but often fail. It's the core of most teen stories, but Toyo's world is changing. Old Japan is dying and a new Japan is rising.


His father represents the old Japan. When the emperor reforms their ancient military system and requires all samurai to hang up their swords, Toyo's family is caught in the middle. The opening scene, where Toyo and his father assist Toyo's uncle in seppuku, ritual suicide, is so intense that you'll wonder if Toyo's just having a bad dream.


Even though Toyo's father isn't samurai in the traditional sense, he too decides he can't live in the new Japan. He expects Toyo to assist him in seppuku, when the time comes. First, he must teach Toyo the ways of bushido, the warrior's code.


Between lessons and baseball practice, Toyo learns to meditate and use a sword--and worries about his father. When the time comes, will he have the courage to do what has to be done? Baseball is his passion, and as applies bushido to baseball, he comes to terms with the changing world around him and begins his journey into manhood.


Samurai Shortstop is the story of Toyo's search for his own path in a time of social change and family turmoil. Toyo's personal struggle is one all teens can appreciate. He struggles with peer pressure, studies, and parental control and expectations. Nineteenth century Japan comes alive and provides the color and unexpected tension that every good story needs.

Samurai Shortstop is a wonderful, but underappreciated tale about a boy and his love for baseball. Toyo, a 14 year-old boy is faced to grow up faster than he ever wanted to when his uncle committed seppuku, legal suicide in Japan. Everything has changed since the French Revolution, and now there are no more samurais, but now there is baseball, Toyo's favorite sport.
He has just now started the most prestigious school in Tokyo, which means new friends, bullies, and many more problems. He tries out for baseball and starts learning the way of samurai from his father. Toyo and his father never really understood each other, and now that his uncle has died, Toyo only has his friends to help him.

Toyo is a very smart person, and becomes a very good leader. Throughout the book everything that happens helps him, although it doesn't look like it all the time. Toyo starts to put his skill in the art of bushido, samurai fighting style, into baseball. My favorite part of the book is when he fights the older kid instead of letting them beat him up. I would recommend this book to students from 7th grade and up.
--Malik McKenzie

This is a story of a boy named Toyo Shimada. The time is set in Tokyo, 1890. Toyo is sent to a boarding school of a very high caliber, but after he arrives he sees how the upperclassmen treat the first years. To fit in, he joins the baseball team, a sport he loves. He wants to be shortstop, but until he becomes a "man" to the upperclassmen he is stuck in the outfield. He is enraged, but nevertheless he pushes through the tormenting and refuses to quit the baseball team. The only problem is his father, who is still using the ways of the samurai, or worrier. Toyo's father does not want him to play, unless Toyo can convince him otherwise. Other than that, his father has decided to teach him the ways of the warrior, or bushido. At first Toyo does not understand any of his bushido lessons, or why he has to do them, but over the course of the book he learns to use his bushido skills.
This book reminds me of a book called Dairy Queen. The story was about a girl, and football, not baseball, but in the end she overcomes many obstacles just like Toyo. In both books, the main focus is overcoming anything that comes your way. They are both also about standing up to important figures in there lives. It happens to be that in both books that person is their dad. Alan Gratz has written an enthralling tale.
I enjoyed the book, although it does have some pretty gruesome scenes. I liked reading it because you always want to see what Toyo will do next, what the other characters are going to say, or do. It also tells you a lot about what school was like back then, in Japan. It is a lot different from Americans school, and the year it takes place in really makes a difference. Overall, this is a great book and you should pick it up sometimes if you are looking for a great read.

Sheehy claims that her writing of this book was the breaking of silence on a taboo subject. Her aim is to provide information which will help woman better understand what they have been going through. She claims that traditionally women have been poorly informed on the subject. She claims reliance on friends, on mothers does not bring the kind of full knowledge of the subject required.
She provides many stories and examples, and gives a real sense of how varied this 'silent passage' is. A minority of women go through it seemingly without problems, but for some it is wholly unbearable. One question which is central to the book and really unanswered regards Hormone Replacement Theory , and its advisability. Recent studies have pointed to increased levels of cancer of those who have taken the hormones.
Sheehy repeats herself often, beats her own drum, but is a clear writer whose work no doubt has been of real service to many women who have suffered without understanding what exactly they were going through, and why this is not something to feel guilty or be stigmatized about. Sheehy's strong believe that knowledge and understanding can be of great help seems to me correct and fair.

This book is an excellent overview of menopause but needs further updating in light of the current controversy over Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). The author is still all aglow over HRT, and it is heralded within the pages of this book as if it were the end all, be all for menopausal women. While this was the general prevailing medical view, it seems that further research has put its value in question somewhat, and HRT is now at the heart of some heated medical controversy.

Still, if the reader is aware already of this budding medical controversy over HRT, the book does offer some insights into menopause in an informative and fairly concise fashion. This should prove to be especially helpful to the hordes of baby boomer women who are entering this phase of their lives. The book also provides information into holistic, alternative ways of addressing some of the issues attendant in menopausal women. It appears that nature may provide some palliatives that some women may find preferable to the drug-infused approach of some medical practitioners.

Overall, this is an excellent, well-researched book and one that a lay person can read with ease. It provides interesting insights into the emotional, psychological, and medical concerns of peri-menopausal and menopausal women and discusses some of the remedies that are available, if necessary, to ease women through this major life passage. The book has clearly been a labor of love for the author, and she has endeavored, with success, to remove the mystery that has enshrouded menopause for so long.

Chapters are short and easy to read. This book deals not only with the technical aspects that most books do, but primarily with particular women's experiences with those various aspects--especially their feelings. This is what is left out of most of the other books. I recommend this book together with a more techinical book. But if you can only buy one book, buy this one instead. The main thing this book left me with was a feeling that instead of menopause being something that will just happen to me, there are a lot of things I can do, in a proactive sense, to manage the menopause. This is the most positive book I have seen on the subject, and helps me decide about all the questions to discuss with my doctor. Without reading this book, instead of being ready with a list of questions for my doctor, I would have passively listened to whatever he said, and thought that was it.

but I feel better now, and I attribute my new outlook to having read The Silent Passage.

Those of us approaching or in the midst of our passage into menopause owe a great debt to the pioneering women who lifted menopause out of the dark ages and brought it into the broad light of day. One of these early pioneers was Gail Sheehy. With the exception of her views on Hormone Replacement Therapy (as other reviewers have pointed out) this book offers a lively, energizing, well-researched overview of menopause. I read the original edition about ten years ago and have considered the deeper meaning of the title of this groundbreaking book. "Silent Passage" carries echoes of another revolutionary work, Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. Silent Spring foresaw a day when pollution would destoy the reproductive cycle of birds, and they would no longer sing their songs. The Silent Passage echoes that notion. It not only implies that in menopause women suffer in silence but also that the clear, vibrant voice of women at midlife and older had been silenced. Now, thanks to pioneers like Gail Sheehy, we are demanding that our collective voices be heard!

--Suza Francina, author, Yoga and the Wisdom of Menopause and The New Yoga for People Over 50.

I loved this story. A story of what happens when you don't forgive is given with such humor and wonderful, leap-off-the page characters. This story is longer than the other debut effort but equally as witty and innovative.

Ms. Walker gives us the story of the Church Mother, Mother Pray Onn who thinks she knows God better than anyone and just-arrived-on-the-church-steps, Sister Connie Fuse; a woman who has been involved in numerous religions trying to find God. The premise is that Mother Pray Onn asks Sister Connie Fuse to take her grave layaway payment to the They All Dyin To Git Here Cemetery and Sister Connie Fuse (con-fused) mistakenly places it in the mail slot of the We'll Haul Your Ashes crematorium. That little mistake sets off a series of hilarious attempts at payback by Mother Pray Onn. All she needed to do was accept Sister Connie Fuse's apology, but no, Mother Pray Onn decides to get back at her.

I love the character Ma Cile, Deacon Laid Handz and Rev. Knott Enuff Money characters. I also love the idea that the children bring about an understanding that the spiritally-challenged members of the Ain't Nobody Else Right But Us-All Others Goin' To hell church couldn't begin to understand.

Like her other story, Sister Betty....I would love to see this story on the stage or in any visual setting.

I read where Ms. Walker has been signed by a major publisher. I'm sure this will be just the beginning for this very talented writer. July 03 cannot come fast enough for me.

We had a Sister Connie in our church growing up. All of the teenagers would just watch her in her struggle to please the Mothers of the Church. We could also hear them just tear her apart while she did this. Ms. Walker took me back to a time that I so lovingly remember, i.e. being seen and not heard. I highly recommend this one for a journey back to the Youth Choir rehearsals and BYPU meetings, you know what I'm talking about! Kudos to her!

I read the first book about Sister Betty and thought I would cry from laughing so hard. But Sister Connie Fuse had me doubling over. What a great way to give a message about forgiveness. First of all I'd like to know how the author came up with the idea of someone accidentally taking a grave layaway payment to a crematorium instead of a cemetery and then have a story where the church members got together like they were going to a boxing match between Mother Pray Onn and poor Sister Connie Fuse.

I love the way the author took the innocence of children and made the adults re-examine their behaviour of bickering and unforgiveness.

I must see this on the screen. Miss Walker's writing is so vivid and her dialogue unforgettable. I particularly loved the character of Ma Cile who's favorite food is a pigfoot fajita and only has one eye. All the characters from Rev. Knott Enuff Money to Deacon Laid Handz were written with such individuality that the author never had to say who was saying what. That kind of writing takes skills and this author has them.

I thought I was a fan when I saw her perform, I'm definitely one after reading these two books.

The author, Pat G'Orge Walker, has created some of the funniest characters I've read about and placed them in some hilarious situations. In between laughter so hard it makes your face hurt, you get a powerful message. Make no mistake, the author is biblically sound in her writings and even more, there are people who really act this way. I think Sister Betty and Connie Fuse would make great movies.

If you are looking for side-splitting humor, Sister Connie Fuse Makes A Grave Mistake, is a short stress-relieving read. Not only are the characters memorable, you may know the real-life versions in your local church. Pat G'Orge Walker does a wonderful job of tickling the funny bone and revealing the true essence of what it means to be a Christian.

Don't miss, Sister Betty! God is Calling You, the first short story in this collection of adventures of the "Ain't Nobody Else Right But Us - All Others Goin to Hell" congregation. Sister Betty makes an appearance in this story along with some others.

It is a terrific book.... My four girls have all enjoyed it... It's been taped over and over... Other books I wouldn't have gone to the trouble, but this one is just too precious to get rid of!!

I really enjoyed this book considering that it's extremely short. The best part about it is the pop-up. It's a great beggining reading book. This book also teaches numbers and counting. It's all put woderfully together inside this book. Ideally I would get this book for a first grader who was just learning how to read, and count. The last thing about the book that is good is that they try to hide some things to try and make you find them.

I have a three month old daughter and her eyes light up when she sees the pictures of the animals and the bugs! The pictures are so bright and capture her attention! Hope to see more books, perhaps with sea creatures, birds, rain forest animals....! Great job!

As always, this Snappy book is adorable and loved by our 2 year old! This book is the greates number book I've ever seen (as a preschool teacher, I've seen many), because it really encourages kids to count, in a fun manner. Each page coordinates with the number, for example, the page with the number seven has a lion with seven whiskers, but all the other creatures on the page, are pictured in sevens. The book also shows the written out and the numerical form for each number. It was an instant hit in our household!

My daughter received this book when she was a couple months old and she is now 6. She still loves it! The pictures are wonderfully colorful and the pop-ups are amazing. The book is not thick, but big, which lets for big, colorful pictures. Also, the pop-ups do a cute action as you open the page up. This book is vivid and entertaining enough to even capture an adult's attention. A definite buy!