J Books

I'm a new quilter and had been intimidated by the Log Cabin pattern. I took a class that taught this method at my local sewing machine center, and was able to complete a wall hanging (which at 68" x 68" is more like a throw) top in an 11 hour class including cutting and chattering time. I'm an Eleanor Burns fan for life now.

I am not an experienced quilter, but I have made several quilts. When I came across this book and thumbed through the pages, I was fascinated by her method. When I last made a king-sized quilt, it took me 3-4 years, mostly because I was discouraged by how long it was taking me to assemble it. I started with this pattern recently to make a king-sized quilt as a gift, and I am astounded with how fast I am progressing. With this method, you can work on it in short bursts if you want, but if you have an entire day, you can get a lot done! I highly recommend it! I look forward to using this method to make quick baby quilts in the future!

Great book with step by step instructions, this would be my pick for the first time quilter. It shows at least 100 different layouts for you log cabin blocks. It is wonderful.

No way one day!. But... in three days I made a 60x60 lap quilt over New Years. With an unfamiliar sewing machine on a dining room table. I think it could be done in two in my own studio.

What this did was give me confidence to go home and finish my QS Triple Irish Chain.

I recommend this book highly for beginner quilters. Sometimes you read instructions and wonder what the quilter was smoking. Not Ms. Burns.

If a guy like me can do it, anyone can.

t in san jose

If you are a quilter and you haven't made this quilt, what are you waiting for? You have to make this quilt pattern at least once in your life. If you are thinking about quilting and can sew a straight line, this is where you want to begin.

It's easy, simple, the results are beautiful. I've made many of these as gifts; I've given the book and fabric as the gift.

This book taught me to be a stripper over 20 years ago. (Read the book you'll understand "stripper".)

great book for those wanting to know more about alternatives to medications to help with depression symptoms.

One of the authors, Jon Zabat-Zinn, had been recommended to me. I found the book and included DVD gave me new perspective and truly helped me to handle things differently. Thank you!

Not only did I like the tape, it was so inspiring. The shipping was within alloted times.

This book is an excellent guide for anyone who wants to improve the quality of their life, anyone who has noticed that the mind does not only solve problems but also creates them because we reject the present moment. We may have noticed also that our thoughts judge and reject our feelings and emotions.

The authors offer basic and easy to implement techniques to help us live in the present moment. The present moment is a difficult and misunderstood concept that the book analyzes in a way that makes sense even to a westerner. It's not some weird metaphysical concept where you reject planning things ahead and sit around in a trance. Not at all. They clearly show how distorted deep rooted thinking and emotionally reactive patterns are constantly at work evaluating the moment, rejecting it and striving for another moment that will be better, and hopefully replace the one we reject now. But making friends with our bodies is the key because many of the signals that color our opinions about our current situations are streaming in from the body and sensory experiences.

Real change, they point out, can only happen if we overcome these habitual automatic responses to the present moment. When we spiral into a depression or simply a very negative mind state, "our habitual efforts to extricate ourselves, far from freeing us, actually keep us locked in the pain we're trying to escape". This is the major theme that resonates in the book which they present from many different angles. It's simple yet has many vicissitudes.

The difficult part is overcoming resistance and doing things on a regular basis. But they have broken down the practice of mindfulness in a such way that even a Wall street executive can make time for. The 3-minute breath-focused meditations are particularly helpful and can be used on the spot in any situation. Three minutes can be spared by anyone and the benefits are tremendous. Moreover, the rationale behind the technique creates a lasting shift in our perspectives about life and why we are creating problems where there may not be any, or simply adding more complexity to problems instead of working with what is really happening around us and internally.

The body scan has also been particularly beneficial. It can help you get out of bed on days when one feels a sense of "what's the point, life sucks" or "I don't have the strength to deal with this today". The techniques, taken together, help a person realize that the point is your body, and healthy body awareness will improve life. The body is how we receive input from the environment, which we then process as emotions and evaluative thoughts. In other words, it is how our minds relate to our bodies to keep us grounded so that we are not reacting habitually to circumstances.

So the body is a key player that we tend to completely ignore. The authors really make this point clear when they explain how our aversion responses, the "get me out of here!" reaction to things happening in our lives stems from an instinct ("avoidance system") of the brain that was designed by nature long ago to cope with immediate threats from our environment, such as a lion chasing us. This system now operates not only to external immediate dangers but to our own internal emotions. So as soon as we have an emotion that we've been conditioned to label 'bad', we try to flee--or fight it. We are in a fight or flight mode almost continually. But rather than running physically we run mentally with old thinking patterns that try to explain away the feelings. The mental immediately affects the physical, reinforcing its negative input. If you suffer from body aches--head aches, stomach pain, shoulder aches--due to anxiety, this is the book for you.

So the authors do a great job of showing how body-emotions-thoughts are linked creating and sustaining various negative feedback loops.
It's a must read for everyone who wants to improve the quality of life.

I read this book based off an amazon recommendation. I was excited to read it since I have heard great things about Jon Kabat-Zinn and there was a CD included, plus I love psychology with a bit of an Eastern influence.

I wanted so badly to love this book. The truth is, it was alright. The reader has to be very dedicated to doing the meditation excersises, while I was more interested in the self-talk and cognitive approaches mentioned.

I think this book would be of great help to some people. I recommend more highly Dr. Daniel Amen's "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life" and Dr. David Burns "Feeling Good."

This atlas has real cadaver photos for all areas of the body. The fact that the pictures are real will help when studying for a practical exam in anatomy. The only negative aspect is there are around 50 pins per page which could be annoying when searching for a part you want to find.

The Color Atlas of Anatomy was recommended to me as a reference for designing implantables and surgical instruments.

As a non-anatomist, I found the illustrations and cadaveric photographs to accurately reflect my cadaveric surgical trials in the wet-lab.

I often referred to this atlas while designing an Achilles Tendon repair instrument and other orthopedic surgical instruments.

There are not very many books of this type of presentation to begin with so I must be careful here as to how I may sway your opinion of high priced books. Color Atlas of Anatomy has been a staggering companion to my study of Human Anatomy. After careful study of Grey's Anatomy for Students along with Clinically Oriented Anatomy I don't believe I was ready for what was presented in the fifth edition of Color Atlas of Anatomy. Astounding revelation. I don't know there may be a few of you that have actual access to Anatomy Laboratories but I must say everything is in the right place as far as what I was told in the books mentioned above but this book is something else as far as what you see is what you get. Color photographs make short work of any pedantic ravings of the layman's terminology. I never did get to go to any medical school in North America but I'm sure that any student there would agree there is no trick photography here.

There are 1158 figures with 1035 in Color and CTs and MRIs as well. All in 8 chapters and over 400 pages. This is not a book to leave out for the hackers to scoff and judge so keep it under your bed or better still in your locker at your Medical School.

Most of the Medial Schools that I want into have this required or recommended as a text and unless you can say something's changed in the last hundred days since 2007 all is as it should be.

I consider this book to be a must for any anatomy student. The pictures are exactly what you will see when you enter the lab.

In case it isn't clear from the description or title, this is an anatomy atlas made up of photos of actual human bodies. I don't know why we didn't have this in A&P. Fascinating, and a nicely produced book as well.

This books covers pre 93 Korn shell.

However this actually makes learning the shell more simple. At work we have a pre-93 version so the instructions are sure to work.

The author's "93" version of the book is also good, but a bit harder to understand for a beginner.

I am programming with korn shell for 12 yr. already. And I started with this book. It is an excellent book for beginner and even intermediate programmer. It took me about 2 days to go through all book. i still looking inside once in a while. Few times i was loosing this book, bought another one and after short time i dumped it and bought this one again.
Examples and explanation in this book are so usefull, short and easy to understand, that you can't find better book. Your learning efficency really depends on it. Buy it, by all means you will be glad you did it.

This book is *the* way to begin working with the Korn shell. I needed to get up to speed with a shell scripting language in order to do Oracle DBA tasks. I bought this based on the strength of it's Amazon ratings and was completely delighted.

The author has a great style, easy to understand and very clear. I found the procession of topics to be very logical; a nice gradual build up from the simple to the more complex. There is plenty of 'depth' in each chapter and good highlighting of potential problem areas and difficult concepts. These have additional coverage to help steer clear of the hassles and come to a clear understanding of the more challenging ideas.

The examples are well thought out, they present each topic of interest clearly and in a meaningful way, without clutter. I have coded almost every single one and found only a few errors. Within a chapter the examples are presented with increasing complexity, but are never the page after page monsters that leave you lost. It is amazing how well the author illustrates the content with short (20 - 30 line) samples.

When I was puzzled with something I had read here, I turned to two of my friends who 'live' in shell scripting up to their necks. Both have learned useful techniques from this book through my questions.

My copy is literally starting to come apart from constant use for reference. It is that good.

I found this to be an excellent hands-on tutorial in KornShell. Wish there were a book-2 and book-3 with advanced training.

I love the Korn shell. This book is a fine intro to Korn Shell programming. For users who want more than just an intro, you may want to consider "Korn Shell: Essential Programs for Your Survival at Work" by Larry L. Smith. Examples in Randal K. Michael's "Mastering UNIX Shell Scripting" are also helpful.

Anytime I order from Amazon, I throw one of these in my cart for a last minute new baby, birthday or teacher gift. It is a wonderfully diverse selection of poems, often read by the poets themselves. How cool is it to hear Robert Frost in a scratchy rendition of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"?

My 4th grader was thrilled when his class read a Janet Wong poem, and he could tell them about how she came to write it, (track 29). I was thrilled that I could then give his teacher a gift she could use in class -- they were all thrilled to hear the poem read by the poet. With 95 poems from 73 poets, the book is a great value, but add the cd with the poets themselves and it is, well, priceless.

I am an amateur poet and love poetry so I'm a natural audience for this book and companion disc. My wife is not a lover of poetry and she loves this book. My eight year old daughter loves to read the poems and listen to them recited on the disc during road trips. My nineteen year old daughter LOVES this book - in fact she asked for it for Christmas last year and was delighted to recieve it!

I gave this book/CD to my daughter for her 6th birthday party. After the party while she played with the neighbors I was exhausted and just wanted to take a nap. Before I did though I put this 68 minute CD of poetry on and found it to be very entertaining and relaxing. 29 of the readers are the poets reading their own words.

Now my daughter has been listening to it every night before bed and often I play it early in the morning to gentle wake her before kindergarten.

There are some classic recorded poems here such as "The Raven" by Poe, "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll, "The Tyger" by William Blake and "Casey at the Bat" by Earnst L. Thayer.

There are also some very nice multicultural poems recorded such as "Eagle Poem" by Joy Harjo, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes, and perhaps my favorite poem in the collection "Okay, Brown Girl, Okay" by James Berry which is reassuring, touching, and can speak to everyone about what it's like to be different among other people.

Not all of the poems are included on the CD--some are just included in the book. Familiar poems and poets in the book only are "from Macbeth" by Shakespeare, "The Tale of Custard the Dragon" by Ogden Nash, "Frodo's Song in Bree" by J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Land of Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson, from "The Bed Book" by Sylvia Plath, "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" by Eugene Field, and "Letter to a Bee" by Emily Dickinson among many others.

In all there are 95 poems. Some of them recorded and/or published for the first time. The illustration are delightful and done by three different artist with different styles. They are Judy Love, Wendy Rasmussen, and Paula Zinngrabe Wendland.

This book/CD combo is a winner. It's very educational, fun, and will be enjoyed by the whole family.

My child is 3 1/2 and loves this book, as do I. While she's not into the CD YET, she loves sitting w/me and exploring the poems which are neither too complex or too simple. There are classics and more modern works and they've done a wonderful job finding an assortment that represent various ways that poetry is used in other literary works (ex. excerpts from Macbeth and "Lord of the Rings"). I'm not a poetry expert, so I love that there are poets and writers of whom I recognize such as Robert Frost, Nikki Giovanni, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe and that it introduces me and my child to others who I don't recognize. A great way to introduce poetry to your kids.

Elise Paschen (ed.), Poetry Speaks to Children (Sourcebooks Inc., 2005)

A collection of poems written to, or about, children with an accompanying fifty-track CD (most tracks are of the poems themselves, though a few are the poets talking about the inspiration for one piece or another). While a number of these fall into bona fide chestnut status, kids who are being exposed to poetry for the first time won't be aware of that, and that old black magic should work just fine on them. For older readers, it's fun to have a whole bunch of this sort of thing compiled into one volume (with its whimsical illustrations, sometimes almost as fun as the poems themselves). Recommended. ****

This book was a joy to read. My daughter read it to her 3 oldest daughter's, a chapter at a time. They could hardly wait for "reading time" and begged for more at the end of each chapter. The life lesson in this book is so valuable. I am pleased that I have my own personal copy.

I loved this book when I was a girl. Now, reading it to my four children, I get quite emotional when I realize how much I was impacted by this story. It really did partially make me into the mother and home-educator I am today. It amazes me how deeply the wisdom of this book sunk into me. Everyone who homeschools their children should read this - for themselves and for their children.

This is a wonderful story for girls. Read it aloud, savor it, laugh and even cry over it.Whatever you do, though, just get it! You'll be glad you did.

I had never heard of this book until it was listed in the AmblesideOnline curriculum. We checked it out and my girls fell in love with it. I finally bought them their own copy and they treasure it. We read it again, and now they argue over who owns it, and who gets to keep it for their own children.
Great read!

Understood Betsy" was one of my favorite books from childhood and I was happy to see that it was available from Amazon. Even though it was first published in 1917, it is very contemporary in it's message about the importance of gaining self-esteem through accomplishment. In this day and age when parents tend to hover and worry over every small concern, this book show how Betsy, when sent to a farm to live, became a very confident and happy child due to the adults in her life who let her stretch her wings. Many of the ways in which these adults gave her a new life are very subtle but moving. Highly recommended for mid-elementary girls.

This is an unimaginative handbook of facts about the Korean War. It is not a history of the war.

This book is full of facts of the Korean War. It would be a good first book for someone interested in the Korean War. A plus for the book (in my opinion) was that one of the co-authors was an infantry officer that fought there during the conflict.

I really enjoyed this book. Well researched.

I realize I'm not in agreement with all the other reviews here, but I just wanted to throw my $0.02 in. The impression I got from reading the other reviews was that this book would read something like Churchill's "Second World War" series: sort of a narrative or story covering the war. Instead, for the most part, this book is a reference book. It's got tons of information in it, but it's organized into battles within time periods. It's hard to explain. I was looking for something that said we did x because of y which resulted in these battles. Then, we did x' which led to some other battles. Instead it said something like in year x we fought battles a, b, and c. In year y, we fought battles d, e, and f. All the information is there, but the "story" part of the "history" feels lacking.

If you're studying the Korean War, I do agree that this is an excellent book. But, for a more "entertaining" study, I'd try something else (what that would be, I don't know).

Being familiar with some of the author's other works, I tracked this one down as well. As expected, the level of detail and obvious meticulous research were as I expected. Another successful and vivid portrait of a very gripping historical period from an author who clearly knows his history. The wealth of little details interspersed throughout the mandatory historical details make this a true pleasure to read.

I liked the Singapore Grip, but the Siege of Krishnapur stunned me. It was wry, light and devastatingly apt at developing each character. He took no prisoners as the clueless denizens of the Raj came to realize, or not, the depth of their ignorance and folly. Loved it.

The Indian mutiny of 1857 sees the cantoment of Krishnapur besieged by sepoys. For three months Mr Hopkins (the collector) galvanises the British community in resisting the onslaught...
This book is superbly written and often reminds one of the style of George Elliot. It is both witty and profound and wonderfully researched and charactorized.Like the best of Elliot,Farrell uses his narrative to inform on other topics-the great cholera debate;the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace- and questions the basis of what culture actually lends to civilisation.
Books like this just don't get written these days.

This 1973 Booker Prize winner explores British India through a microcosm: colonials and their loyal natives under assault by bombardment, starvation, cholera during the 1857 mutiny. It has both an old-fashioned flavor in its editorial asides by the omniscient and urbane narrator, and a modern wryness in its detached observations about the Anglo-Indian attitudes towards what they perceived as their civilizing mission. Less famous than E. M. Forster's "A Passage to India," nevertheless it may-- for its rousing battle scenes full of a "carnal barricade;" carrion dogs; ingenious uses for electro-metal plated heads of Keats, the Bard, and Voltaire; and more artillery-fueled mayhem-- excite readers more. If you've been wanting a philosophical reflection on Victorian progress, secularism vs. faith, imperial expansion vs. native resistance, and how medicine gradually advances over superstition: all these topics integrate entertainingly and instructively into a novel that also recalls a near-contemporary, John Fowles' "The French Lieutenant's Woman."

Farrell's distinction in delineating the Age of Doubt from Forster before him, Fowles next to him, and Michel Faber's fine novel "The Crimson Petal and the White" after him? While all these are favorite novels of mine, the Anglo-Irish Farrell manages to offer a sympathetic first-person indirect narration that reflects his near-countryman, Joyce. Farrell plays the reactions of the Collector, the main character here, against the atheistic and bitter (if often mordantly funny) Magistrate, the dueling doctors Dunstaple and McNab, a woefully earnest Padre, and the poetaster aesthete, Fleury. All these, as in more somnolent novels of ideas, speak their set-pieces intelligently. The difference: Farrell enlivens their thoughts. It's as if Thomas Love Peacock moved his Romantic-era figures into the colonial dust of faraway India and left dreamers, lovesick swains, practical company men, and an array of capable and hapless womenfolk to survive amidst plagues and grapeshot.

Examples abound of the verve of much of this intricate, yet direct fictional exposure of ideals as they blunder under fire. "But the Collector admired pretty women and could not feel hostile to them for very long. If they were pretty he swiftly found other virtues in them which he would not have noticed had they been ugly." (27) Fleury finds by mid-century that the sensitive type of male's out of style with the young ladies: "The effect, or lack of it, that you have on the opposite sex is important because it tells you whether or not you are in touch with the spirit of the times, of which the opposite sex is invariably the custodian." (33)

An amazing episode recounts how Fleury and a young native scion, Hari, clash over the advantages of inventions. Hari speaks in a fluent Indian English, struggling to articulate his love of the wares of such emporia as the Great Exhibition of 1851 at London's Crystal Palace, a theme that underlies the conversations of many of the British men in the novel. Fleury insists that the railroad will only bring to India what it brought to Britain: soulless bustle. Hari counters that easing labor, manufacturing food, or taking a daguerrotype is progress, and as worthy of praise as Plato. A flustered Fleury must tell Hari that he's not been able to find a bride yet: "Hari's brow puckered at this, for it was evident that Fleury was impeded from choosing a bride by being unable to find one suited to some special requirements of his own, beyond the usual ones of birth and dowry ...but what these might possibly be he had not the faintest idea; in this matter Hari's incomprehension was shared by Fleury's own relations in Norfolk and Devon." (78)

Mutual incomprehension dominates. As the novel goes on, the native revolt spreads. The local treasury's looted by traitorous sepoys: "They wore 'dhotis' instead of uniforms and carried heavy, oddly-shaped burdens on their shoulders and around their necks; they had broached a cart-load of silver rupees and filled the legs of their breeches. Now it seemed that they were staggering away with heavy, trunkless men on their shoulders." (127) As this excerpt illustrates, Farrell favors the point-of-view of the besieged as they peer out upon an unrecognizable realm they no longer rule. For, soon the British and their retinue must retreat to first the Residency and then the redoubt of the Banqueting Hall. What had graced their plush exile as stuffed owls, divans, leather books, busts of intellectuals, and heaps of correspondence bound in red tape all serve as sandbags and barricades and improvised canisters to stuff cannons against the enemy.

Most of the book takes place within the makeshift fortress. The attack comes memorably: "the rim of darkness beneath the horizon began to sparkle like a firework and immediately the air about them began to sing and howl with flying metal and chips of masonry ... then in a wave came the sound. Daubs of orange hopped at regular intervals from one end of the darkness to the other. Suddenly, a shrapnel shell landed on the corner of the verandah and all was chaos." (144)

The remainder of the story needs to be encountered directly. The tone darkens as inexorably the inhabitants of the Residency find themselves diminished by hunger, disease, and death by many kinds of assailants. I think that the register of the prose alters, and there may be too much anonymity given the cast of supporting characters; the central cast already introduced seem to live and talk in a vacuum as the plot continues, although Farrell may deliberately dampen the mood to reflect the bitter or desperate reactions of those under constant terror of sudden or lingering death. I do think Hari deserved more follow-through, and the novel does suffer slightly from an uneven focus on characters who are introduced and then forgotten about for long stretches as the siege grinds on. Also, the closing pages seem to depart with a whimper more than a bang, after the long march to the climax.

Still, despite uneven stretches, it towers above most any fiction these recent decades. It's quite an achievement, this submersion into the mental and physical despair of those about to die. When you emerge along with those who endure to find the approach of the Gilbert & Sullivanish "Relief of Krishnapur," you may hardly recognize the bedraggled survivors as those who started the novel a few months before, some who had then arrived in India so lightheartedly and naively.

P.S.: I agree with other reviewers: Lucy and the cockchafer infestation stands out as one of the most remarkable scenes I've ever found. It's Ch. 22. "The Hill Station" follows two characters here, Dr. McNab and Miriam, after they marry; this sequel was incomplete at the author's early death by drowning off the Irish coast in 1979.

Paul Scott wrote in his RAJ QUARTET that it was in India during the last days of the Raj that the British came to the end of themselves as they were. In this superb Booker Prize-winning novel written concurrently with the QUARTET (and which casts a similar cold eye towards the British imperial ambitions in India), J. G. Farrell shows how the Raj itself was formed and how it already carried within it in embryo the seeds of the destruction for the entire Empire. The novel takes place in a city in Northeastern India during 1857, the year of the Great Sepoy Rebellion: the British stationed in Krishnapur hear vague rumors of what they will call "The Mutiny" from faraway towns but are mostly unwilling to take them seriously. The ensuing siege they endure carries on for months as they wait for help to relieve them; though slowly forced to an absolute subsistence level--and then to even less--, they refuse to relinquish the habits of social conditioning that have made them already who they are. Social snobbery, physical modesty, gender segregation: all remain firmly ensconced even as their physical conditions start deteriorating so greatly they start dying in large numbers.

The novel's subject would seem to suggest that the novel would make for almost unbearable reading. Oddly, it does not, because the characters of the novel (who are almost entirely British) maintain such a droll and uncomprehending attitude towards their conditions, no matter how desperate things seem. Thus, since Farrell focalizes his narrative mostly through their thoughts, everything seems unreal throughout the entire siege and not quite so nightmarish as it might have been had he used a more distanced third-person narrator. The work is in part a parody of old-fashioned "Mutiny novels," so you should know that the ending is very much in keeping with those kinds of novels (which proliferated throughout the Empire during the latter half of the nineteenth century); characteristically, however, Farrell puts his own intelligent spin on things, so even if the ending you had been expecting does occur it doesn't in the way you had expected. This is the second, and perhaps most famous, of the three superb works of Farrell's "Empire" trilogy which beautifully illustrates the conditions of Empire described in another nearly coeval work, Jan Morris's famous PAX BRITTANICA trilogy. It's exciting, amusing, intelligent, and greatly worth reading.

This is an excellent novel about the Sepoy Mutiny in India in 1857. The focus of the story is the siege of the British Civil Service enclave at Krishanpur (historically this was the siege of Lucknow). A group of Sepoy soldiers was given new rifle cartridges that were wrapped in greased paper, and the paper was removed by biting it off with one's teeth. The word spread was that this grease was animal grease, which was an insult to religion. The sepoys mutinied, killed their superior British officers, and started marauding across India.

Hearing about the mutiny the (tax) Collector in Krishnapur had ramparts built around the British buildings in Krishnapur. Shortly afterwards the Sepoys attacked in waver after wave for a period of several months. Surprisingly author Farrell describes the sufferings of those besieged with a good deal of humor, humor that pricks holes in the pompous beliefs and attitudes of 19th century British colonizers. We bring them progress, a superior civilization, yet they turn on us marvels the Collector. The condescension doesn't stop with the Indians. At one point the Collector speaks to the British women in the enclave, and silently thinks that in reality women are really useless creatures. It is the men of the world that shoulder the responsibility of getting things done. The padre runs around telling everyone that God is punishing them for their sinful behavior. A new school and an old school doctor constantly disagree over medical treatment. In perhaps the funniest scene of the book the old doctor contracts cholera, and instructs his aides to cover him with mustard plasters. The young doctor, who is aware that cholera victims die from dehydration, initiates a saline IV every time the old doc sinks into a coma. The IV brings him around, and he immediately pulls out the IV and insists on getting his mustard plasters, following which he soon sinks back into a coma. Back goes the IV and the doc becomes conscious again. This cycle goes on and on and becomes hysterically funny.

The British thought they were doing wonderful things for the Indians, but the harsh reality of it is they were creating harsh lives for their colonial subjects. The sepoys, for example, were paid near starvation wages. This is an important novel about the misguided philosophy behind imperialism. Perhaps there is a lesson here for us Americans. Should we really be focused on bringing our way of life to other countries?

This has to be one of the most enchanting romances published for YA literature--ever. I fell in love with it in jr. high and even as an adult I find it oddly appealing. It's labeled a "supernatural romance" and I can think of nothing better by which to call it. It's odd, it's beautiful, and it manages to care for other aspects outside the initial gothic romance.

In fact, what pulled me in was how simple was the idea. A little boy is cursed by a witch--always a good fantasy route--and his big sister wants to help him. And she happens to do this by becoming a witch. However, she is not just a witch. She is a teenage girl in a very real world (not that the reader won't love the supernatural area) who is going through the traditional fight of growing up and finding one's place.

The writing is rich and flowing, the characters are all three-dimenionsonal and engaging, and who doesn't love a bit o fo the psychological? And yet it still maintains a simple fairy tale feeling.

Laura is a normal girl with a sweet younger brother and a frazzled single mother. Her life is ordinary until the day her brother is stamped with the image of a horrible man. Laura turns to Sorry, an older, intriguing boy who she believes to be a witch. Will he be able to help her?

This story is entrancing to read. I first read it as a 13 year old, and I still find it fascinating. It is a great read, especially for those interested in witchcraft stories.

This book is amazing. The writing is so simple and so beautiful that the images stay in your head for days after you've finished it. The story is about change and transformation, seen through the eyes of the two very different main characters. Both of them is different at the end, and has a different place in their lives and their families. The romance between Laura and Sorry really moves you, because they learn to love themselves as they fall in love with each other. Also, the magic and danger feels so real and not stupid or made up at all. The best thing about this book is that when you finish it, you feel transformed too. I love this book.

GENERAL COMMENTS: "The Changeover" strikes the tone of a precocious adolescent with verve. Fourteen-year-old Laura sometimes communicates with an open frankness that gets ignored, sometimes through sarcasm, which she uses as a screen when she must tell the truth but doesn't necessarily want to be understood. Her sensitivity to the nature of others grants her an awareness of her own growing body even as she delves into her gift to protect her brother. This book does a good job of showing the selfishness of teenagers, AND the selfishness of the parents that love them imperfectly, even as they compare to the sinister greed of Carmody Braque, the villain. The resolution(clue: quasi-spoiler appears in the rest of this sentence) aptly makes use of this comparison, by depending upon Laura's understanding of Carmdoy's needs, and her ability to exploit them as he exploits the children's desires.

MORE SPECIFIC DETAILS: Her sensitivity to others allows fourteen-year-old Laura to recognize danger, but she remains helpless in deflecting it, as when her parents get divorced. At fourteen, she is faced yet again with her gift of sensing the nature of things, and this time, it's her baby brother who will suffer. Mahy intertwines Laura's current dilemma with her family issues. She lives in a single-parent family in which the mother is no angel (although awfully close) and the absent father is no demon (although most noticeably absent). Laura is aware that her parents have needs that don't always include her best interest, but this doesn't mean that she doesn't seethe with resentment. At times, her mature assessment of the situation only frustrates her desire to react as a child.

ABOUT SORENSEN, LAURA'S CO-STAR: The flip side of her family is Sorensen Carlisle's two-parent family in which both parents are women (his mother and grandmother). His guardians, who are both witches, were sorely disappointed in Sorensen when they found a boy instead of the girl who might complete their circle of magic, and deserted him, albeit with a generous allowance, to an adopted family. One day he shows up at their door, with obvious marks of abuse on him, and in spite of his gender, the mark of magic as well. This late in the game, they are forced to repair their mistake as best they can-- only they can't take away his alienation from himself. It is these two teenagers that must fight Carmody, without further estranging themselves from their families in the bargain.

I read this book as a teenager when it originally came out in 1984. The greatest compliment that I can give The Changeover is that twenty+ years later, I still reread it sometimes--and I still enjoy it. I can't say that about too many of my childhood books.

The Changeover was a rare bird back in mid-eighties--there weren't too many well-written books about magic and the supernatural with teenage girls as the protagonists in those days. This was a genre that I adored and could never get enough of back then. So this novel was an instant favorite.

There are certain books that you read when you are young that shape the kind of person that you become--not necessarily in a large way, but in subtle way. The Changeover was one of these books for me. I didn't realize it when I read the book at fourteen, but The Changeover is a metaphor for changing from childhood to adulthood--from becoming a girl to becoming a woman. And this book really captures that--all the insecurity and the fear, and even the pleasure that you feel as a girl in your own new-found, womanly power. I guess this book appealed to me so much because it made me feel better about a lot of the things I was going through at fourteen; it gave me a certain confidence in myself: I wasn't just getting older--I was becoming a different being.

I have read other comments about this book and I agree with the reviewers that say they want a sequel. I still think about Laura from time to time--she and I were the same age when the book came out--and I often wonder what became of her and what type of woman she became.

A necessary part of life is assessing what are the most important things to us.Whether we reflect on this much or not,what is central in our thoughts and how we live,will make evident what is truly most important to us.
What is most important to God's people?What should be uppermost in the minds(and therefore will be most reflected in their actions)of Christians? C.J.Mahaney exhorts believers to have the cross of Christ as the priority of their lives and his assertion is Biblically sound.He writes on p.54"We make time for what we truly value.We build habits and routines around the things that really matter to us." That is so true.
As Christians it promotes God's glory and does us much good if we live with the cross of the saviour as the center of our lives.'The Cross Centered Life's' message is simple but profound and powerful.
Here is an example of how profound and, what a significant impact this book can have on ,the lives of those who embrace the emphasis of it "Reminding ourselves of the gospel is the most important daily habit we can establish."
There are five excellent suggestions in chapter six on how to center every day around the cross.One of them is to sing the gospel.There are some old hymns that are so cross centered.A couple of examples would be:Issac Watts' 'When I Survey The Wondrous Cross' and Fanny Crosby's 'Near The Cross'(one of my favorite hymns).
The author notes on p.11 "The cross was the centerpiece of Paul's theology.It wasn't merely one of Paul's messages;it was the message."
Similarly,the cross should not be just one of the central things in our lives,it should be 'the central thing in our thoughts and lives'.
Are your priorities a little misplaced? Are you uncertain if they are?'The Cross Centered Life can help to get your priorities focused but don't be surprised if it helps to transform your life.

Inspirational discussion of the Cross, based on reformed theology that Dr. Sproll so masterfully explores.

This brief book from CJ Mahaney brings Christians back to the main thing, the cross of Christ. It is worth reading again and again. It would not be a bad idea to read it several times a year, so valuable is this book for helping Christians stay focused on what matters most.

I found the sections on how the cross defeats legalism, condemnation and subjectivism to be especially helpful.

This book is short, simple and profound. Highly recommended.

The first chapter of "The Cross Centered Life" is titled "Restating the Obvious". At first glance, that would seem to be a fitting description for the whole book, and a mature believer might be tempted to write it off as Christianity 101. The subtitle for the first chapter, though, is "the most important truth is the easiest to forget". Although Pastor C.J. Mahaney does not go into a great deal of depth in this short work, EVERY believer can truly benefit from his passionate encouragement to constantly maintain the cross as the focal point of our Christian lives.

Mahaney reminds us that the cross is the centerpiece of the believer's existence, and illustrates how keeping our focus on our justification through Jesus' death and resurrection keeps us from trying to earn His approval (through legalism). If we try to evaluate our Christian lives by our feelings and continue to feel condemned even after we have confessed and forsaken our sin, he writes, these are symptoms that show we have taken our eyes off the cross and have failed to remember what Christ's work means to us.

The book includes several practical suggestions on how to be constantly mindful of the cross each day. It also contains a good basic summary of the practical difference between justification and sanctification, which makes it a helpful resource for new believers.

What prevents me from giving the book five stars is the failure to point out that the cross means far more than simply the forgiveness of sin. It's a place of surrender and a place to die -- death to self, death to the old life, death to sin. It's also only half of the gospel, the other half being the Resurrection. Romans 6:4 (NKJV)tells us "that just as Christ was raised from the dead...even so we also should walk in newness of life."

Despite this omission, "The Cross Centered Life" is an excellent work, and deserves to be read by every Christian.

This book offers a challenge to all Christians that we should keep our minds constantly reflecting on the reality of Christ's sacrifice on the cross and the implications of this greatest of all gifts for not only ourselves but all of humanity. There is much to be gained from this corrective to our natural tendencies to spend our energies focusing on so many less important things and forgetting the most important thing.

As others have suggested, "The Cross Centered Life" is not meant to be a major theological treatise. It is short and digestible, though I would not call it an easy read. While Mahaney does include some interesting stories, he is careful not to waste space. Instead, he keeps coming back to his main point, the cross.

My gripe about this book centers around Chapter 5, in which he is critical that our emotions get in the way of what should be our focus on the cross. I was glad that on page 48, he was careful to acknowledge that our emotions are a gift from God. But the rest of the chapter seems to contradict this suggestion, as he goes on to illustrate how untrustworthy our emotions are.

A few months ago, I would have fully supported Mahaney's critique of human emotion. Ultimately, it sounds very spiritual to suggest that we need to allow our brains to always trump our emotions. But I recently read Peter Scazzero's "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality," and he suggests with great clarity and conviction that it is to our profound spiritual detriment if we discard or try to ignore our emotions. Instead, our emotions are one set of data that God has given us to help us navigate through life. The trick is not to abolish feeling but to figure out what to do with our feelings. And this is where I think Mahaney is missing something.

He offers a story in which he screamed and banged his chair on the floor in frustration after accidentally destroying his computer. He then calls this sin. Really? I would suggest that it is not sinful to react in verbal and moderate physical frustration when something terrible happens to us. I think it is just part of how we were created. To stay there is problematic, but I think we do a disservice to who we are as humans if we try to live essentially emotion-free.

Ultimately, my quibble is relatively minor, though the book is so short that this one issue left my impression of the entire book as less favorable. It's a good book worth reading, but it could have been much better had Mahaney approached Chapter 5 from a different perspective.