Language Arts Books

One of the most valuable features of Carol Baldwin's outstanding book is its adaptability to a wide range of teaching circumstances. Many classroom teachers will treasure it as a complete fiction-writing curriculum. Others will select and adapt ideas and lessons to meet their students' special needs. As a writer who visits and leads workshops in a variety of classrooms, I find it a wonderfully adaptable resource to enhance whatever aspect of writing the workshop emphasizes. I look forward to Carol Baldwin's next book.

Carol Baldwin's book is a great resource for any educator! As a homeschooling parent, I have found this book to be one of the best writing curriculums around. Clear and easy to use, both my child and I have enjoyed going through the lessons -- a big change from the struggle I used to have with my son who once claimed, "I don't like to write."

I am so thankful that Ms. Baldwin suggested that I use her materials in my high school sophomore English class! I was having a difficult time knowing what creative writing to teach and how to teach it. This book is easy to follow, easy to use, and easy to modify for older students. Now my unit is organized, and the students have the tools they need to guide them on the sometimes bumpy but always scenic road to writing a story! Their final products now show a cohesiveness and a depth that were missing before. Thank you!

"Teaching The Story: Fiction Writing In Middle School" was developed from materials that freelance writer Carol Baldwin developed when she taught creative writing in several different middle-school classrooms over the years. "Teaching The Story" is a thoroughly 'student friendly' curriculum supplement that will enable classroom teachers to prepare their students for standardizing testing, as well as for their academic writing assignments. Baldwin's flexible approach to teaching creative writing skills to children are especially appropriate for students seeking to write coherent and readable sports, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical stories. Enhanced with more than seventy customizable transparencies and reproducibles included on an accompanying CD, "Teaching The Story" is strongly recommended for use with grades 5 through 8.

Carol Baldwin has a way to teach creative writing.
She taught fiction writing to my son in middle school and helped release a love for writing. We as parents are very grateful to her and her book is a great tool for it.

I read this book as part of a guided study for professional development. What a wonderful and practical guide for writer's workshop. The models in the book were easy to implement and modify to help my students feel more successful in writing.

This was a great book to help give teachers ideas on how to run writing workshops in the classroom. As a pre-service teacher this book really helped calm my nerves about teaching writing because does give so many helpful suggestions. It is truly a practical guide to writing workshops.

This is the best one of the best instructional models for teaching writing to the youngest of writers. It includes practical teaching strategies supported by sound teaching philospy. I wish it had been available when I began teaching 20+ years ago. I purchased it for a colleague who is a beginning teacher because I didn't want to part with my copy.

This has been a great resource for implementing Writer's Workshop in my first grade classroom. The guide is easy to read with many tips to use thouroughout the school year. This guide is packed with information on teaching writing and how to use techniques to help your classroom run smoothly.

This book was very informative. Writing is a hard subject to teach and this is a book that can help you get started after reading it. I learned about target skills that are appropriate for K-2 students. There are not a lot of good books that focus on writing in the early grades. I can't wait to use what I learned in my classroom next year.

The only negative is that I wish there were more assessment and set up suggestions.

For anyone that tells you that you can't so solid code and script development on a Mac, they haven't been introduced to the application TextMate. There are several good options for doing power editing on the Macintosh and TextMate is one of those POWER options.

'TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac' by James Gray is a perfect companion manual for all TextMate users that want to lift the hood off of this power app and get to the nuts and bolts. If you develop on a Macintosh on a daily basis for work or fun and want to learn more about what you can do to make your life easier, pick up this book and you won't be disappointed. Written well and coming in at ~200 pages, there are 12 chapters which will teach you goodies in TextMate like how to create and use Macros, using Find & Replace to quickly edit text, and much, much more!!

The Mac is a great tool for developing code and TextMate is a great app for writing it, make yourself a more efficient coder today!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Visuals:
The font size in the Pragmatic Programmers books is a little larger than say the O'Reilly books, which I personally like. Easy on the eyes. Screenshots are clearly printed.

Readability:
I found the reading style conversational and easy to follow. Of course, with this type of book which includes many keyboard short-cuts you really need to be at your computer and using them to commit them to memory. Even a reading of the book will give you insights into the power available at your finger tips with Textmate.

Practicality:
If you spend any amount of time in Textmate, this is really a no-brainer. This book will help you be more productive and get more out of your chosen text editing tool.

Audience:
The book does not list an intended target audience, but if you use Textmate at all I would say you have a bulls-eye right on you.

Overall:
If you use Textmate get this book.

Books on editors are tricky things... I'm (still) a big fan and user of vi, but textmate is my tool of choice for more project level work for its capabilties. This book has brought me closer to to the keyboard level of productivity that vi allows for with its two modes.

"TextMate is actually a thin shell over a personalized team of robot ninjas ready to do your bidding."

The funny thing is, to people who have never used TextMate for more than a few minutes the above phrase sounds like an exaggeration. It's not. (As long as you can accept the analogy of "really awesome code running on a Mac" = "robot ninjas"...)

Anyway, this book targets a pretty specific market: 1) Humans, 2) who own Macs, 3) and use TextMate. I'm here to tell you that, if you're human you should have a Mac; and if you have a Mac you should buy TextMate; and if you have TextMate you should buy this book. So there, now it covers everyone.

As with all of the Pragmatic Programmer books, I found this book to be concise without missing anything important. You may be thinking, "200 pages about a text editor!? That's crazy talk!" But you would be wrong, my friend. The amount of functionality built into TextMate is incredible, but I didn't even know the half of it until I started reading this book!

I don't want to give away the ending, but:

Three of my favorite simple features I didn't know about until I read this book:
- Pressing [ESC] to complete the word you're typing.
- The built in TODO list functionality (so crucial!!)
- [Cmd-Enter] to add a new line below this one and go to the beginning of it.

Things I wouldn't have been able to do without TextMate and this book:
- Edit some of my Bundles to make TextMate work even more how *I* like
- Complete an after-hours Web Site project *way* under time and budget

Seriously. TextMate is the One True Editor for Mac (it makes me loath using any other editor on any platform) and this is a great book for learning how to *really* take hold of its power.

This book is the perfect primer for what I have found to be one of the most indispensible Mac OS X applications - TextMate. If you are a software developer or web designer or anyone else that edits text on a frequent basis and you have not already discovered TextMate, stop right now and visit http://www.macromates.com.

The Pragmatic Programmers' book, TextMate Power Editing for the Mac is a thorough introduction to TextMate. Edward Gray II has written a very accessible book, that covers the product very well.

The first third of the book is devoted to the basics - things you do every day in your text editor. The second third of the book dives into the details of some really sweet features of TextMate that you'll find yourself using all the time: bundles, snippets, macros and UNIX shell commands.

TextMate ships with over thirty 'bundles'. Each bundle is a directory of related files that provide additional functionality to TextMate. Let's say you're working on an HTML file. The HTML bundle will help you with loads of things related to your document: validate the syntax of the document, open the document in the default browser, refresh the document in the current browser session, insert open/close tags for the current word, strip all HTML tags from the document - just to name a few. Each bundle provides functionality that applies not only to the syntax of the language you're currently working with, but repetitive tasks that would apply as well.

As I mentioned, a couple dozen bundles ship with TextMate and many more are available for free download from various websites. You can even create your own bundles to extend the product in ways that only you can imagine. Here are a few of the bundles that ship with TextMate: Blogging, CSS, HTML, Java, Markdown, Objective-C, Python, Rails, Ruby, SQL, Subversion, Text, Textile, Xcode and XML. Bundles provide you with lots of help editing files and performing related tasks.

Snippets are a smart completion mechanism that go way beyond the simple concept of 'finish this word'. For example, if you are editing a Ruby file and you type array_object.ea followed by the TAB key (where 'array_object' is an arbitrary Array object), the snippet feature will automatically fill in the skeleton of the 'each' iterator, including the opening and closing curly braces, the text '|e|' with the letter 'e' highlighted. You simply type the name of the variable you want to represent the next element (or simply leave it as it is), hit the TAB key again and the cursor will be placed between the closing '|' character and the closing '}' character, ready for you to type in an expression. Very cool. This same trick works for dozens of different scenarios in your Ruby code. And that's just the snippets that apply to Ruby code. There are snippets that apply to a large number of file types.

You've probably seen macros in other editors and TextMate's macro facility works as you might expect: you start recording a macro, perform some actions and save the macro. TextMate saves the macros as XML files, so it's a snap to edit a macro after recording if you need to tweak it a bit.

The ability to fire off UNIX shell commands from within TextMate gives you another powerful tool to use while editing files. You can fire off one-liner shell commands by simply pressing the ^R key on a line containing a shell command. You can also use shell commands to act on all or part of the current document.

For the advanced TextMate user, the tail end of the book shows you how to create your own language syntax for use in TextMate, including how to describe the grammar of the language in terms TextMate will understand. So, if you program in some far out funky language that TextMate doesn't support out of the box, you can add the language grammar to TextMate and program away!

Overall, I found this book extremely useful and easy to read. TextMate ships with an excellent help system that will answer many of your questions. The TextMate Power Editing for the Mac book will take you beyond the built-in help and give you an in-depth guide for this great Mac application.

This surprisingly neutral book compares the enormous variety of religious beliefs throughout history, with particular attention paid to Christianity. While not an in-depth text, it will serve as an introduction to critically examining the development and spread of religion.

Christians should definitely read his chapter on Christianity; Mencken considers the 1611 King James Version to be one of the most beautiful books ever written.

While his chapter hypothesizing the origins of religion is rather speculative, any such hypothesis is bound to be - at the very least it will pique your interest in the subject. The chapter on the variety of religions is particularly interesting, as it attempts to show how the same general ideas were molded into vastly different beliefs; in particular, the section on the various conceptions of heaven(s) and hell(s) will definitely be engrossing to anyone.

Pleasant, easy to read, and thorough overview of religion from the beginning of humanity, with an emphasis on Christianity, from the position of an atheist.

From the preface: "My book is mainly factual. Its purpose is simply to get together, in handy and I hope readable form, the material data about the embryology, anatomy, and physiology of theology, with an occasional glance at its pathology....Religion was invented by man just as agriculture and the wheel were invented by man, and there is absolutely nothing in it to justify the belief that its inventors had the aid of higher powers, whether on this earth or elsewhere....There is no purpose here to shake the faithful, for I am completely free of the messianic itch..."

Chapter I "Its Nature and Origin" - Mencken describes his view of how early priests came into being in prehistoric society: "One Spring there came great rains in the valley and on their heels a flood of melting snow...One night the flood rolled into the lowermost cave, cut off the occupants, and drowned a mother and her child...The rising water to them seemed like a living thing...One fellow steps boldly forth...He goes close to the edge and bombards his enemy with stones...Growing bolder, he stalks into the water and belabors it with his club...the next morning the flood begins to recede...This first priest could accomplish something that other men were incapable of...What more natural than to give thanks?...True religion was born at that moment...He took on the aloof, philosophical air of a dermatologist contemplating a rash: he learned how to avoid making promises and yet hold the confidence of his customers... He gave some thought to the form and content of his first incantations, and thereby invented the first ritual...The gift of blarney went with the sacerdotal office, in the early days as now...the new trade of priesthood had attractions that were plainly visible to any bright and ambitious young man...When he let it be known that there were certain things, done by the people, that would gratify the gods and insure their aid, these things began to be regarded as virtuous, upright, moral. When he announced that other things were frowned upon, they straightaway became sins...The priest found himself a law-giver...Did the fires rage and the sky remain dry? Then it was because the faithful had forgotten their plain duties...It was not the priest's fault...calamities were plentiful in those days, as they are now. They remain the most potent weapons in the armamentarium of the priest...Theologians, as a class, are practical men. Immortality, as they preach it in the modern world, is but little more than a handy device for giving force and effect to their system of transcendental jurisprudence: what it amounts to is simply a threat that the contumacious will not be able to escape them by dying...I am myself a theologian of considerable gifts, and yet I can no more imagine immortality than I can imagine the Void which existed before matter took form. Neither, I suspect, can the Pope."

Chapter II "Its Evolution," continues as an academic treatise, but sprinkled liberally with condescending and clever phraseology: About creation myths: "In no department of theology is there a vaster accumulation of amusing rubbish." About afterlife: "Even in India, the very gonad of theology..." About contradictions in the Bible: "The collection of tracts called the New Testament is so full of inconsistencies and other absurdities that even children in Sunday School notice them."

Chapter III "Its Varieties" is a study of comparative religions. This is a well-done academic piece with fewer "Mencke-isms."

Chapter IV "Its Christian Form" is a beautifully written history of Christianity, highly complimentary of the Old Testament as poetry and Literature, and is the best chapter in the book. He reviews the well-accepted J, E, D, & P authorship of the Torah, with brief mention of how it was compiled. (for more info on this, read "Who Wrote the Bible," by Friedman). This chapter alone is worth the price of the book. According to the bibliography, he gets much of his factual material from James Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.

Chapter V "Its State Today," resumes "Menckeisms," such as, "The church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions."

I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining and informative book and highly recommend it. For a different approach to the same subject, I recommend Atran's book, "In Gods We Trust."

H. L. Mencken was a rare man indeed. He was a hard headed skeptic of the theological arts, but took an intense, scholarly interest in it, and it was a boon to the universe of thoughtful men when he decided to report back to them on what he found there. The book he wrote will stand for a long while as the best of its kind--at once dispassionate and informative, with more than a little of his trademark wit thrown about with an undisguised glee. His enthusiasm for his subject bubbles out all over the place.

The book begins with an imaginary story of how religion must have gotten started among the first primitive men. It is a story well told, and reveals what Mencken imagines is at the root of men's heart much of the time--a fear of the unknown, and an understandable aspiration to master that fear by some means. Then, very early on, the con men step in to utilize the fear for their own ends--power and cash. To successfully create a job for himself, he proceeds to invent embellishments unintelligible to the poor saps, and rituals that only the initiated, such as himself, can perform.

The book continues with some comparative religion, basing most of it on what the Romans sneered at, that the Greeks made dramas about, what the Jews borrowed from the Babylonians, and what the Asiatics actually first dreamed up. He finds in all of this the roots of Christianity, and especially the stuff that Christ had never thought of, which the theologians later added for the most practical of reasons.

His account of the early church and the evolution of the bibles is gratifying in its scholarship and clarity of description. He makes the ancient theological quarrels come to life, imparting an understanding that is a valuable addition to any freethinker's equipment. Occasionally, the real Mencken peeks through, enlivening and enlightening as he goes.

The best part of the book, though, is when he shows how religion is inadequate for the job, and is in a full retreat before the onslaught of science and rational methods, leaving the truly civilized man with " a way of facing the impenetrable dark that must engulf him in the end, as it engulfs the birds of the air and the protozoa in the sea ooze....not perhaps with complete serenity, but at least with dignity, calm, a gallant spirit."

If you're used to the snappy quotables we've (all?) come to expect from Mencken and love, you may be somewhat disappointed. "Treatise..." contains more carefully fleshed out analysis and argument than his sociocultural criticism.

In this mode, without so much of the caustic wit, his writing style actually doesn't impress quite as much. But, to make up for it, his quality of argument and inventiveness is surprisingly rich. I'd always considered Mencken to be quite a philosopher, as well as a snappy come-backer. Here, he proves it: coming up with some quite brilliant hypotheticals about the origin of religion in early man, especially. And his re-telling of the concise history of Religion shows that he has a knowledge of considerable breadth. There are a few very dramatic turns of phrase here (the fun stuff), some awkward delivery, but a lot of interesting subject matter.

In this sardonic, blasphemous and sometimes ferociously cynical pamphlet, H.L. Mencken castigates the irrationality and incredibility of all religions, e.g. there are 175.000 discrepancies in the manuscripts of the Christian New Testament.
But he considers religion rightly as one of ( for him) the greatest inventions of all times, giving the clergy enormous economical (all the temples became extremely rich) and political power. For Mencken, their power comes from the fear of Hell. The God of love that they preach invariably turns out to be a God of harsh and arbitrary penalties and brutalities. Religion is not only cruel (human sacrifices), but also a source of enormous human misery: 'Is a Catholic bishop a good citizen, when he commands, on penalty of Hell, that poor and miserable women convert themselves into mere brood sows?'(p. 270)
'The priest is the most immoral of men.' (p. 271)
His major targets are Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
'Calvin was the true father of Puritanism, which is to say, of the worst obscenity of Western Civilization.' (p. 245) His God is an 'appalling monster'. (p. 272)
The Churches are well aware that science is their natural enemy. Therefore, they try to control education. They are always on the defensive (Galileo, Darwin) and they are opposed to all attempts of rational thinking. For Mencken, religious education is the same as organized ignorance.
He lambasts those who defend religion for 'practical' reasons: 'the fact that threats of Hell have their social uses is ... simply an argument against the human race!' (p. 268)
However, H.L. Mencken has a dark side: 'the democratic pestilence'. Like Plato, he was disgusted with the masses which were a source of a cancerous proliferation of demagogy. More, 'the reigning theologians heated up the mob against the enlightened minority.' (p. 255)
It shows his deep pessimism: the masses could not be educated and the mighty priests kept them in an irrational darkness.
This is an important flaw in his reasoning and it turned out to be a false prophesy. In many democratic countries, the religious right is on the defensive and is losing (lost) important battles.
This treatise is one of the most violent pamphlets I ever read: a Homerian battle of the enlightened one against the powerful caste of the priests.
A must read.

I've used this GREAT book before my last trip to the USA. It's amazing the difference it made to my english. I had several business meetings with Americans and I understood everything, I mean everything they said. That didn't happen to me before using "Waddaya say?". I also learned to use reduced forms to improve my speed. But the most important thing is the almost magical change in my understanding. A suggestion is to follow carefully the instructions, then listen each conversation an repeat it many times. The book is also great source of expressions and uses, not just reduced forms. A must have ! Thank you Nina !!!!!

My students told me that they can finally understand spoken English. This is the best listening book for that. One student said, "It's like magic. I couldn't understand people speaking English last year, and now I can."

This is an excellent book - tape for those who want to learn how to understand American/Canadian "everyday" language.
It is very clear in the way pronunciation is explained and the practice material is fun!

It is a good book for those who never learned how to say "what do you want to do?" in a natural way. This book shows you 20 and only 20 most common short forms. The content is well organized. But it is pricey for a book that has only 68 papges. For the most part, you may do a search and find them somewhere in the internet. But then again it is a good deal for those who do not care about the price.

I've used the First Edition of Whaddaya Say for almost twenty years. Nothing I've used to teach students to understand spoken English has ever been better. I was very pleasantly surprised to use the Second Edition, which was published in 2001, and find that all of the lessons that made listening comprehension easier for my students were included along with an additional ten lessons. The fun conversations are even better, and the tapes are really great. I didn't know tests could be useful as well as funny, but there's a wonderful test at the end of the book that was a lot of fun. I want my students to know how English is really pronounced (*wanna for "want to", *hafta for "have to", *gonna for "going to + verb", etc.). When they don't know the real pronunciations, they have a really hard time understanding spoken English.

I'm amazed by one thing in particular -- although the Second Edition of Whaddaya Say has 30% more pages and there are three cassettes now instead of two, the price hasn't gone up. I don't know why the price hasn't increased, but it seems like a great bargain to get a beautifully updated bestselling listening book for the same price as the prior version!

I don't see how anyone can really learn listening comprehension without this book.

Rosemary Daniell is on a mission, and part of her mission is to make sure that women in particular, but men as well fight and slay their "demons/issues" and get on with the life they were meant to have. Her dedication has led her to a 24-year love affair with Zona Rosa and to the brave souls who seek to break past their pasts, their fears, their excuses and live a full and authentic life. This book may claim to be "about" writing, but it's a lot more than a how-to book. The exorcises alone are worth the price. And by all means, if you can get to a Zona Rosa meeting--go! You're in for a treat.

Rosemary Daniell is a woman who has listened intently and found her passion and her voice. She shares both in this book so that others may know what the experience is like.

My favorite part is where she is working with students and the class is working on the poem "Eggs" and students ponder what is it really like to sit in a bathtub of eggs. The words are so strong they don't just invite visualization, they demand it.

Having sat in on a Zona Rosa meeting, I can say that working with Rosemary Daniell is just as electrifying.

This book is more memoir than "beginner writer" exercise book (though there are some exercises), but this is precisely why I liked it. And, of course, the "read-like-a-novel" style of writing sets it apart from ordinary "how to write" books.

Like another reviewer, I wish Rosemary and her Zona Rosa group were in my town!! Failing that, though, this book is a keeper!

I was a little skeptical about a new-age-y writing book--another writer urging us wannabes to spill words. But Rosemary Daniell won me over. First of all, she's really practicing what she preaches--and not for the money. The first chapter, from which the title was taken, describes her experiences teaching writing in schools and prisons. It's the intersection of her greatest love and the greatest need--and both admirable and daring. I've had the pleasure of using her discussion starters with children ages 5-8 and it works!

In her chapter on self-sabotage I recognized people I know as well as myself. I will pull this chapter out on occasion to remind myself what NOT to do.

I was most taken, though, with the "Further Notes" chapter. In it she described things I've had to learn the hard way myself. (She calls it demystification--thank you, Rosemary, I wish I'd met you years ago.) For example, how to paraphrase everything first. I'm halfway finished with an MFA and have studied writing with many famous writers. NO ONE has ever mentioned this before. But it works.

There are also many provocative female ideas embedded in this book, like the use of irony in good women's fiction. I'd like to sit in on that discussion. This is a book I will buy and keep and read when I need to hear the voice of someone experienced and wise.

Daniell's book is like a banquet; she has cooked up something for everyone, beginning writers, those in the middle and old hands. This is a book I buy frequently now and give away to people I like, both writers and nonwriters. As a desert, there are a whole lot of things you can do with young people to stimulate the creative process in The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself. Super good book.

A great resource for the starting writer and an even better way to know what publishers and literary agents are out there. This along with the novel and short story market book are sure to help you get published.

These books are my annual present for loving to write. Each is filled to brimming with articles and publishers that real people need. Always a wonderful buy, always worth every cent.

I first saw THE WRITER'S HANDBOOK sometime in the mid-1970s. I was already aware of (and owned) WRITER'S MARKET, but as always and still, I craved more market information. I found it in THE WRITER'S HANDBOOK.

What's the difference between the two? Oh, where to begin ... THE WRITER'S HANDBOOK has the nice feature of listing items in multiple categories when appropriate. THE WRITER'S HANDBOOK and WRITER'S MARKET each contain listings the other doesn't. Some listings are more informational in one than the other. And of course the articles are different in each.

And, if nothing else, when I cannot turn up a listing that turns me on, or info I need in one market book, there's always the other.

The bottom line: I recommend THE WRITER'S HANDBOOK equally and concurrently with WM. Buy or borrow both!

If you were to use only two of the best writer's resources I would say that "The Writer's Market" and this book along with it as your main tools of marketing and refining your work. Why this book? This book contains about 60 articles of advice by the most successful writers in the business. Even for a beginner this may be the only book they'll use.

It's packed with useful information. It's gives the writer techniques, inspiration and advice. Some of these techniques are discussed how to find more time to write, creating memorable characters and revising your writing. It evens tells you specific wways to market your work, designing your website and writing for niche markets. As an added plus there are over 3000 listings of markets and resources including 2000 magazines in 45 categories ranging from performing arts and religion to adult literary to juvenile. Each one with descriptions and contact information. There's 600 book publishers, plus organizations and a glossary. This is one source that will be referred to many times over. I know I have. This is one of the best writer's resource book you can get. I'm sure this is to be updated in 2003.

This is a veeeery long book, but it's most definitely worth it for any writer, and I recommend purchasing it on an annual basis. Before I decided on a market guide for the writing craft, I compared this book to "Writer's Market", by the editors of Writer's Digest magazine; and I must say that I love their bookclub, but "The Writer's Handbook 2003" is the guide that I picked up for me. Nowadays, competitiveness is everywhere, and in a market so vast and varied as the one for the writing craft, one needs a guide that feels also like a close friend. Thank God I found it in this big book (my copy is full of colored flags sticking out of it, marking my choices for submission, conferences I'd like to attend, etc).

The first part includes selected articles that at some point or another have been previously published throughout the year in "The Writer" magazine. Everything from inspirational ideas, to legal advice on copyright and selling your material through the different magazines and agents, advice for poets, etc. There is also an article on how to better set up your website, something that is no longer an option but a "must" as a promotional tool; plus conversations with famous authors. The different listings include non-fiction and fiction magazines, with as much information as possible on requirements, website, editor's name, etc.; book publishers, agents, arts councils and syndicates, writer's colonies and conferences, prizes and awards, drama and theater, TV and film producers; even greeting card publishers.

I recommend purchasing this guide on an annual basis or, at least bi-annually; if the price comes to be a bit too stiff for you. All the same, it can become your best friend.

101 Words You'll Probably Never Need to Know But Can Use to Impress People is a great book to own. Borrowing it from the library or skimming it in the bookstore (you cheapskates!!) is not enough. You must own it to, as my high school English teacher used to say, "Chew, Digest and Assimilate" every savory bite!

I write and do public speaking, and I can tell you it's LOTS of fun to toss in one of these words without missing a beat, while studying group reactions on the sly!

I do love this book!

As a long time subscriber to the author's "Word of the Day" website, I looked forward to the publication of this book. I was not disappointed. The book contains the definitions of a diverse array of interesting-although often little used-words, together with very clever illustrations to illuminate each definition. I found the book to be highly imaginative and a fun read. I would recommend it to any reader age 10 and above who is looking for a fun vocabulary building tool.

Steven Fantina is the webmaster and editor of "Word of the Day" online website (www.wordofthedaywebsite.com) which is devoted to expanding the vocabulary of its visitors. Now he has gleaned 101 of the most audacious attempts to help the non-specialist general reader to build and employ a truly sophisticated vocabulary. The cartoon illustrations of Joel Barbee wonderfully showcase Fantina's word choice selections making learning these new (and very unusual) words quite "student friendly". From Pneumatology (the study, theories, and/or doctrine of the spiritual world or theologically the study of the Holy Spirit); to Griffonage (illegible handwriting); to Vaticinate (predict or prophesy), 101 Words You'll Probably Never Need To Know But Can Use To Impress People will easily prove to be as fun as it is informative.

I am the author of this work and just wish to clarify the comments of one reviewer below. His reference to "the F word" included in my book corresponds to the word "floccinaucinihilipilification" (not a typo or misspelling). which means "the estimation of having no value." Rest assured that 101 Words You'll Probably Never Need To Know But Can Use To Impress People is a family friendly work.

Every entry is accompanied by a cartoon-style drawing that accentuates its definition and helps readers to retain its meaning.

After the first reading I found some highly useable words for use in e-mail and have been amusing myself by using some rather tasty words. Not only did this book assist in my own amusement, I also had some conversations in which a few words were quite useful.

The humorous cartoons throughout the book really do help you remember the words. Then, each word has been used in a sentence. The word is in bold and is followed by a description.

For Example:

10) DIPTEROUS (dip ter es) - having two wings

....claimed that their dipterous contraption would actually become airborne.

Picture: Dragon flying across opposite page with a smile on his face and the word "DIPTEROUS" beneath the picture.

Now if someone is going on and on about something, you could always tell them that they are only presenting a psittacism to you and then you should absquatulate before they find a dictionary. There are all sorts of ways to amuse yourself with this book. I'm going to try to remember one word a week and in that way increase my vocabulary. Whether you impress people or confuse them silly might depend on how much they love words.

If you are like me, you will be reading the back cover of this book and want to look up a few words. Of course the index makes no sense "at first" because the listings don't correspond to the page numbers. Well, I guess this is a chronological index (When looking up DIPTERIOUS you will be sent to listing 10, not page 10) and you might not read the sentence at the start of the Index if you are looking up "Stultiloquence" instead of "Aquiline." If the author wants to make the index more usable, he might want to put that "warning sentence" on every index page.

After figuring out how to use the index, I did go through a bit of a tergiversation myself and realized that the book is easy to use when you can look up the words in chronological order. Still, I would like to see page numbers too. Maybe the author could put two headings, "Chronological Listing and Page Number" and make everyone happy.

If you love words, this will be highly entertained and personally (not to be a philodox or anything), I loved the picture of the Bandersnatch and Dragon the best and all the pictures add a does of humor to a list of seriously difficult words. I hope this will not be the last book because I could see an entire series of these books for word hungry readers.

This book is dedicated to all the Word of the Day subscribers.

~The Rebecca Review

Novel and Short Story Writer's Market is an excellent resource for writers looking to expand their sales. Not only does it contain hundreds of markets, it also provides suggestions and writings from contemporary authors. It is a handy book for the new and experienced writers.
Anne Jones

You've created the perfect cast of characters. The most-compelling plot. Your novel or short story is absolutely solid.

Now what?

The "2002 Novel and Short Story Writer's Market" to the rescue.

This gateway to seeing your work in print identifies everything you need to know before you submit your manuscript - what editors are looking for, pay rates, how long you'll have to wait for a response, who to contact, even tips directly from the publisher. They're all covered in this 100 percent updated, annual guide to getting your fiction published.

But you could easily invest in this reference for the articles alone. Building believable worlds for science fiction writers, the business behind fiction writing and dissecting the short story are just some of the numerous articles included. And authors like John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates and Sue Grafton also share their experience on the writing life.

If you'd rather pursue an agent, flip to the literary agent section or search by genre represented. Choosing the electronic publishing route? Find out if it's right for you and learn how to evaluate your E-book options.

Achieving your publishing dreams begins here. Every opportunity imaginable is listed:

* Literary Magazines
* Small Circulation Magazines
* Zines
* Online Markets
* Consumer Magazines
* Publishing Houses
* Conferences
* Organizations

First-time novelists to prevously published authors rely on the Novel & Short Story Writer's Market year after year. If you're serious about getting published, the "2002 Novel and Short Story Writer's Market" is a vital tool for your writing career.

As a source book for the short story writer, this one is hard to beat. The advice, given by numerous authors, editors, publishers, etc. may be of value in encouraging the beginning writer, but doesn't mean much for those of us who have already suffered through the initial stages of the process.

This book has an extensive listing of magazines (general, specialized, and little), book publishers and agents. As a comprehensive listing of where to send your writing and what the markets are looking for, it is unparalled and for novice writers indespensible. Much of the rest of the content is just filler with a lot of personal stories about publishing or basic tips about writing and revising. I wish it had more about the 'business' of writing: how to format manuscripts, how to write cover letters, how to approach markets. For self-taught writers, I think this is more important than five page lessons on how to write. We'll have to make it on our own with our writing but we have no one to pass on the little 'do's and 'don't's of publishing.

An excellent tool for locating possible markets for your short stories, plus many extra helps such as how to write a cover letter, or query, how to present your manuscript, etc.
This book will not replace formal instruction, or hands on help from someone who knows the business, but if you are looking to break into print, you've already taken pains to learn the craft, and just don't know where to go next, this is a must have addition to your writer's "tool box".

This is going to be short because english is not my first language.

This is an excellent study on the action genre. I never thought somebody could analize action movies like this.

Lichtenfeld has worked both in making films and as a film critic and commentator, including doing extra features for DVDs of several action films. He sees this popular film genre as "derived from the Western, film noir, and the police procedural (with special guest appearances made by the disaster film and others [with an evolution] quite analogous to the horror film." Though many films depict violence and mayhem, the action film is distinguished in that it ushered in a "new violence [which] would be deployed more to pleasure audiences than to jar them." This "new violence" came about from a shift in standards marking a "New Hollywood" and related changes in structures and pacing of films and cinematographic techniques such as lingering on the violence by slow-motion and close-ups. It is these and other elements, not merely the violence and plotting, which account for the new genre of the action film. The cluster of elements reflected changes in the culture's psychic relationship with violence and what it looked for in entertainment. Bonnie and Clyde is pointed to as a seminal action film, with the films Billy Jack, Shaft, and The French Connection closely related to it in paving the way for the action film by demonstrating its popularity and giving guidance for filmmakers. Advertising, publicity, and marketing of action films has as much a part in the author's multifaceted study of this major contemporary film genre as film history, film editing, and cinematography. References to numerous action films over the past couple of decades make for enjoyable as well as engaging and stimulating reading.

Useful because it shows there is a deeper level of impact than just the shoot 'em up bang-bang to the typical action picture.

Lichtenfeld's book is required reading for anyone interested in the contemporary action film. Beyond its obvious merit as the best book available on the genre, I can recommend it as a model of genre criticism. I've used this as a text in my course on action cinema at Wesleyan where I teach it as an exemplar of genre studies. Lichtenfeld offers a compelling thesis about the genre's popular/cultural appeal without losing sight of industrial imperatives. This book does much to balance to often overly theoretical writing on the subject by offering a grounded, historically-minded account. Moreover, Lichtenfeld's critical observations are spot on, and his descriptions of scenes and sequences will send you back to the films again and again. The additions to the new edition further shore up his argument and expand the scope of films. It is also a fun read!

Being both a lover of film and a student of history, you can imagine my interest in this book. Who can deny the impact movies have had on the 20th (and now 21st) century? And what type of film most exemplifies what movies are capable of? Action, brother. Action.

I was introduced to this book and this author through a radio talk show I heard recently. Mr. Lichtenfeld came across as extremely intelligent, likeable and very knowledgeable about his subject matter. I immediately ordered the book from Amazon.

I read it through in one weekend (it's so accessible to even non-film students) and I couldn't believe how much I learned about movies that I had watched over and over again all my life. Mr. Lichtenfeld treats the topic with reverence without once losing the joy of what makes these movies great: the characters, the chases, the explosions and, of course, the lines. His breakdowns of each landmark film and his separation of them into specific categories makes it so easy to follow the development of the action genre over the last half century.

Even the bad films (my apologies, Mr. Seagal), of which there are many, are used as examples of the importance and social influence this genre has had on recent generations. They're all in here: science fiction, superhero actioners and even westerns, of which I have a particular fondness, are discussed.

I will pass this book on to my other film-loving friends with my highest recommendation. And now I'm off to watch 'Lethal Weapon' for the 56th time, albeit with a new outlook.

Finally action movies get their due! It's about time.