F Books

For parents looking for a guide to help them follow their hearts, this book will provide an abundant amount of encouragement. Dr. Palmer provides a comprehensive discussion of topics such as responsive parenting, breastfeeding, bonding and much more. New parents will learn what these topics mean and why they matter. Written in a warm and accessible style, parents will find many answers here.

I read an interview with the author in Mothering Magazine that I really enjoyed and decided to look for the book. I was especially hoping for some more information about starting solid foods and using formula until 18 months in children weaned before then that the author spoke about in the interview. However, I found this book to be more of an academic explanation of attachment parenting. It actually seemed more geared towards medical professionals (ironic considering the title, I know) than parents. Well written and from the attachment parenting perspective I sought--just a bit too hefty for me.

This book is great, I find it to be a very very useful addition to my baby "how-to-parent" library.

Before I ever had a baby, I wondered why the US has such an abysmal infant mortality rate. According to the CIA factbook, the US ranked 42 worldwide in 2008, with a rate three times higher than the lowest countries. The US also has some of the highest rates of adult psychological disorders like sleep problems, ADHD, depression and PTSD.

This book reviews the vast amount of research suggesting that much of the problem is attributable to "unnatural" infant care practices promoted by US pediatricians in the 20th century. These include formula feeding, scheduled feeding, placing the infant prone in a crib in a separate room at night, removing infants from their mothers shortly after birth, and many more.

I almost never recommend a book without any reservations, and in this case I have to say that I think she overstates the case slightly in a few places. That is to say, although I agree with 98% of her conclusions, only 90% of them are actually proved by the studies she discusses. Nevertheless, if read with a tiny grain of salt, there is no other book that gives the argument so well, so I am comfortable rating it five stars.

Despite the quote on the cover, this not a book about Attachment Parenting but rather (we might say) "Natural Parenting". There is a lot of overlap in the two philosophies, but attachment is just one aspect of Natural Parenting.

The practical message of the book is that it is almost always best for your baby (and you) to follow your instincts and thousands of years of history, and care for your baby the way nature intended.

This has become my parenting bible. When nothing worked to cure my baby of his colic and his reduced nursing, pulling at the breast and coming off constantly while screaming and crying, this book helped me get to the ROOT of the problem and not just cover up the symptoms. It CURED his colic! My doctor once told me if I gave her the cure for colic, she'd be a millionaire and if I had a million dollars, I would have given it up for the information contained in this book!

Not only did it contain information that I had never read in any of the other great AP books that I have, but it pointed me in the direction of other under-recognized topics and a glossary of AMAZING books that opened my eyes to the world.

I actually purchased a bunch of these books out of my own pocket, and I'm on social assistance, and gave them away to women whom I saw had children with colic and other symptoms of food allergies. I also gave some away to parents who were letting their newborns cry their poor little hearts out in strollers and car seats while shopping at the mall.

I know this book will help anyone who has enough sense to read it!

I'm a fan of these giant DK coffe table books. This was my first and is still my favorite. Tons of beautiful pictures of our planet. All sorts of exotic locales I didn't know existed. Especially nice to have if you're an artist of any kind looking for inspiration.

I saw a smaller version from a local bookstore, bought the large version from Amazon, the fonts are much more comfortable to read. I am using the book as a reference, feel very satisfied. The book is also good for random browsing, the paper and printing are both of very high quality.

THIS IS GREAT BOOK WITH A LOT OF INFO. MY TEENAGER LOVES IT AND SO DOES MY HUSBAND

A great book with a nice balance of pictures (including some full page) and informative text about, well...about nature!

This book was a Christmas request from my 6th grader who is very curious about earth sciences. He was genuinely excited to see it when he opened it. In some ways it is more like a coffee table picture book than a reference book. It is lavishly illustrated with detail-captioned photos and charts. This is not the kind of book you're going to sit down and read cover to cover, but instead are going to use like a good encyclopedia of earth science. My older child, who is interested in astronomy, received the companion book "Universe" and the two make a beautiful pair of additions to the reference library.

This is my second Jon F Merz book, and numbers 3 and 4 are on my nightstand, waiting their turn.

I like Merz's gritty, noir style, and Lawson is a very interesting character. This novel gives him more depth than The Fixer did, and shows he's more than a one-dimensional "rough cop" type. I also like Merz's fight descriptions, it is obvious he has some experience in martial arts.

This book, like The Fixer, reads very fast and likes to tap you on the shoulder and say "Boo!" every now and then. Definitely worth reading.

As I was reading The Invoker, I couldn't help but wonder what Quentin Tarantino would make of this book. After all, without all of his work to bring back the pulp noir of the 40s and 50s, The Invoker probably wouldn't exist. This is a raw book filled with raw and unsympathetic characters. These vampires aren't searching for redemption, they're only trying to make it trough another day. They are full of irony, witty comebacks and they lust for action and blood.

Lawson is yet again our main character. A vampire who has seen it all (in Merz's novels, vampires do drink blood, but the supersitions about garlic and holy water and the sun is only a myth; they walk in daylight and the only way to kill them is by piercing their skin with wood), Lawson is a gritty narrator who hides nothing from the readers.

This time, he is hired to killed a man. Only, upon killing him, the man asks Lawson to protect his son. His son, a vampire with the ability to invoke spirits from the other side, is being hunted. Lawson quickly decides to do anything in his power to protect the child from harm.

The first half of the book is incredibly fast paced and a great joy for the reader. But when the kid is kidnapped and Lawson finds himself hiking through Tibet, the book becomes slow and repetitive, as if Merz just stretched everything out for as long as he could to give his book an acceptable length. Still, it all brings us to a satisfying if predictable finale.

The Vampire Lawson series isn't groundbreaking, but it's great fun to read. This is a little quickie that you can read for the sole purpose of entertainment and amusement. Merz's writing is tight and Lawson always has a witty comeback just waiting to erupt from his lips. Here's hoping that the series keeps being so much fun!

If this was a movie, I would call it a guy flick. A lot of blood and gore and of course the beautiful girl want's to jump the lead characters bones--only to get huffy when her needs are not met. The lead character is cast as not all that good looking, but buff and cool. I mean, do I really need to go on. Like I said guy flick, guy flick, and did I mention guy flick. It's doable as an easy read, but the editing mistakes could drive you batty.

Without question, the Invoker is the best of the four Lawson Vampire novels written by Jon Merz. The things I particularly liked about it were the attention to details, historical settings, and backstory. Tons of backstory, which for me, helps to flesh out the universe in which the characters interact.

Look, this series is just amazing. Never before have I seen a spin on vampires like this. Usually, the books are full of drippy ambiguously sexual idiots who hang around Goth bars and wax poetic about the glorious undead life. Yuk! Thank god Merz has come along to put some real punch into the vampire subgenre. What amazes me most is how unknown this series is still. These are incredible books and the action and pacing are top notch. Think Elmore Leonard dialog mixed with the relentless pacing of the best spy novels, combined with some of the wittiest dark humor I've ever read, and it's just skimming the surface of what you'll find reading Merz's work. I gave this 5 stars because it truly deserves it. I hope Merz is writing the Lawson books for years to come. He's one of the best new writers working today and more people need to read him.

This was the first deck I ever had and I learned on this deck when I was 16. I totally agree that the back of the deck is a bit mundane and drab, but that is not where the power of the cards lay. The Morgan-Greer cards are the most intuitive and informative deck I have used. I have several other decks, but this one will always be my favorite. The R/W is nice, but this one, I feel is superior in several ways as far as detail and symbolism. Even in the reverse, M/G deck is easier to read. Get it, try it. I think you will love it as I.
Merry met.

Wow, loooove how the pictures are so vivid and deep in color, and that there are no borders!

Since getting this deck, nearly EVERY reading I have given becomes VERY detailed and usually pleasantly surprises the person being Read.

These are now one of my 'standard' decks I grab when someone wants a Reading! (And I'm a beginner!).

I've been reading Tarot and teaching Tarot for 25 years and probably own a dozen different Tarot decks. The Morgan-Greer is my all-time favorite. No matter how many other decks I try to work with, this is the one I always return to. The colors are so vibrant and the artwork so beautiful, this deck truly speaks to me. The people illustrated on these cards are handsome, extremely appealing, and reflect each aspect of life clearly. If your intuitive or psychic abilities are stimulated by visuals, this is the perfect deck for you!

This deck was the one I learned to read with. The graphics on the cards are bold and tend to jump out to your eye. I went from this deck to the Thoth deck but end up using this one regularly as I have a rapport with it. I don't think the cards look dated at all.

This is a great deck. The cards are vivd and the people are memorable in the cards. The lack of a border gives the cards expansiveness and the bright, deep, and rich colors pop out at you. The cards also give great readings.

This is classic sci-fi in its space opera format. I read this when I was a teenager because I'd read Lord Kalvan (Paratime series) serialized in Analog. It's quintessential escapist fiction--one of the most popular sub-genres in sci-fi. Taken as part of Piper's grand Future History saga, this is one of the best.

If you ever played Traveller, or GURPS or anything else like that, you will love this story. Very well written and entertaining. Piper's death was a loss that the SCIFI community will never recover from, especially with books he wrote like this one.

This novel reads like an adolescent fantasy. What would I do if my new bride were murdered? Become a space viking of course! And start an empire, and then everyone would respect me!

I found the messages disturbing as well. A couple that come across include the idea that stealing from and killing those weaker than you is OK, and the concept that those in power shouldn't tolerate lower classes working toward equality.

For the price of the Kindle edition, it wasn't awful, but I'll take an early Heinlein any day.

_Space Viking_ (1963) was a four-part serial in _Analog_ in 1962-63 and was accompanied by some marvelous John Schoenherr illustrations. It was reprinted by Ace shortly thereafter to modest attention. Since Piper's death by suicide in 1964, a number of his admirers have tried to make a case that the novel is a classic. Well, it isn't. It is a well-crafted space adventure that has some intelligent things to say about politics and warfare. But there is nothing highly original about the novel in plot, style, or content. It doesn't have the sparkle of his own Little Fuzzy novels.

Briefly, the story is this: The Galactic Federation has collapsed, and planets are now at the mercy of marauding Space Vikings. The hero is a nobleman named Lucas Trask whose bride is murdered on their wedding day by a madman. To catch the killer, Trask becomes a Space Viking and begins a series of conquests across the galaxy. But gradually, he finds that he is also rebuilding...

One of the characters in _Space Viking_ is an admiral named Otto Harkaman, who becomes a right hand man to Trask. The name sparked an echo in my mind when I reread Piper's novel. And then it clicked. It reminded me of the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Frank Herbert's _Dune_ (1965), another _Analog_ novel. One man is essentially heroic, while the other is essentially villainous. But both are politically savy. Orson Scott Card once complained that most science fiction writers knew little about politics. They would have politicians in their stories say things that politicians would never say in real life and do things that real politicians would never do. This is not true of Piper and Herbert. You sense that their depictions of political meetings are authentic and that the policies that they make are realistic. Granted, their politics are somewhat on the medieval and Machiavellian side, but they are realistic nonetheless.

In any event, I heartily recommend _Space Viking_. Classic it may not be, but it deserves more attention than it has received in the past.

I picked this book up the other day at a used bookstore. I decided to do this when I saw that the book was in better shape than the one I have in the basement and the price was great (only $3.00, not bad at all for a book that I love). Having picked it up, I immediately started to read Space Viking (again for the upteenth time). As with many of Mr. Piper's books, Space Viking is as much a look at society and political systems as it is a space opera. In this case a futuristic feudalism is examined while remnants of the Old Federation raid their poorer neighbors.



For me this is a five star book. The story telling is descriptive, the plot; while simple it does have a style that enables the space opera to move forward nicely while Mr. Piper explores space feudalism (and other forms of government) and the impact when people leave one country/planet to seek their fame and fortune. While this book was written in 1963, Mr. Piper does a great job making this a timeless classic. More science fiction writers would be better if they'd emulate Mr. Piper's works.

This review is more about the product return service than the book itself, though it is excellent. The book was first shipped to me damaged, but amazon had a very easy to use and straightforward return policy, and they replaced the book with no charge. Other than the wait, there was very little inconvenence. Well done Amazon.

ON STRIKE UNTIL AMAZON STOPS DELETING FAVORABLE VOTES FROM FANS AND COUNTING NEGATIVE VOTES FROM THOSE WHO HATE THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE BOOK BEING REVIEWED MORE THAN THEY CARE ABOUT THE REVIEW.

The publisher should load the table of contents and nominate this important book for "Inside the Book" digitization.

Since the publisher has failed to do that, for now (pending my substantive summative review) I will just list the top level table of contents.

Chapter 1. Insurgency & Counterinsurgency
Chapter 2. Unity of Effort: Integrating Civilian and Military Activities
[This is fine for a military cursory glance, but what we really need are two other volumes: a civilian counterpart to this military manual; and a strategic planning mannual that includes both resources we control and resources we can influence with unclassified multinational decision support]
Chapter 3. Intelligence in Counterinsurgency
[This chapter is deep and broad--someone tried very hard to get it right and at first glance, it appears vastly superior to the tripe that has been published before.]
Chapter 4. Designing Counterinsurgency Campaigns and Operations
[This is new thinking and demands careful reading]
Chapter 5. Executing Counterinsurgency Operations
Chapter 6. Developing Host-Nation Security Forces
[This will need development, perhaps in the strategic manual. Apart from the obvious that the professionals knew but the political lightweights refused: go in strong enough to keep the peace, do not disband the armed forces and police, pay them first, it seems to me we need to do much much more with Ambassador Bob Oakley's original thinking on Policing the New World Disorder, and invest heavily in REGIONAL stability forces and REGIONAL gendarme reserve forces.]
Chapter 7. Leadership and Ethics for Counterinsurgency
[Important, but I continue to be shocked at the way we vacuum people into confinement, and by the reality that stupid kids with camaras not-withstanding, we cannot overcome an unethical White House or Secretary of Defense in the field--this section could use discussion of what constitutes an illegal order and what each level of operations can do to refuse an illegal order.]
Chapter 8. Sustainment
[Good start but already out of date. Army is doing some extraordinary things in "eating the tail" by implementing renewable power solutions at the outposts so that ground-based heavy logistics are dramatically reduced. Very positive focus on logistics preparation of the battlefield but misses the larger issue: secret intelligence could care less about logisticians, who have a legitimate need for bridge weights, tunnel clearance, ferry times, pierside outlet specifications, cross-country trafficability, line of sight distances along the supply line, and so on. The fact is that intelligence support to both acquisition and to logistics STINKS, and this needs draconian scorched earth management.]
Appendix A. A Guide for Action
Appendix B. Social Network Analysis and Other Analytical Tools
Appendix C. Linguist Support
Appendix D. Legal Considerations
Appendic E. Airpower in Counterinsurgency

I like this book, very much. It's is a really good first step, but it is only a UNILATERAL MILITARY first step.

The U.S. Government is still not serious--in the White House or in Congress--about deep sustained interagency and coalition operations.

They have no idea how to create a Global Range of Gifts Table down to the household level, how to call in Peace from the Sea and Peace from Above, how to use decision support to influence $500 billion a year in investments by others, how to encourage call centers in China and India (each of which have 1.5 billion for a total of 3 billion of the 5 billion poor) that can both provide instant translation support to operators and free education to the poor, in their own language, "one cell call at a time."

Bottom line: General Al Gray nailed it in 1989, in his article "Global Intelligence Challenges in the 1990's." Key words: "peaceful preventive measures, non-state actors, and open source intelligence." No one wanted to listen then, and most are still conceptually-challenged now.

See also:
Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
Uncomfortable Wars Revisited
Modern irregular warfare: In defense policy and as a military phenomenon
Guerrilla Warfare: Irregular Warfare in the Twentieth Century (Stackpole Military History Series)
Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror: Military Culture and Irregular War (Stanford Security Studies)
Asymmetric Warfare: Threat and Response in the 21st Century
Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People

This US Army / Marine Corps manual reads far more like a book than a dry piece of doctrine. This recent manual draws heavily on US experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as lessons from US and British experience in the Philippines, Malaya, El Salvador and Vietnam. I have read several other COIN manuals and papers before (Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife and Resisting Rebelion) and this manual contains a good summary of these books and other papers. It would be a good place for anyone looking to study insurgencies and counterinsurgencies to begin their study.

The book begins by cover basic aspects of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. The book then goes in to integrating military and civilian agencies, the role of intelligence, designing and executing campaigns and training host nation forces.

One area that the book does not focus on is in depth case studies. Numerous examples are cited to illustrate points, but to really look at a conflict one will need to go to one of the numerous books listed in reading lists provided at the end.

The Counterinsurgency Field Manual is a surprisingly well considered text on the nature of insurgency and the points where the course of an insurgency can be influenced.

Something is (or should be) rather confusing about the U.S. military. Since the inception of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, the U.S. military has been involved with counterinsurgency operations almost constantly, at home and abroad. (Put this way, Americans were waging counterinsurgency since before there was a United States; the French and Indian War...) What is confusing is 'why isn't the U.S. better at it?'

Setting this underlying question to one side, this text sets forth a framework for understanding the causes of insurgencies, and for dealing with them. The full scope of cultural, economic, social, political, and other factors are addressed in considerable detail, along with approaches to influencing these factors to address the root causes of insurgency. It is a robust, comprehensive work that can provide an adaptable conceptual structure for anyone involved in counterinsurgency or issues relating to counterinsurgency.

The big question in my mind; Why did the Army have to manage developing this process, when more than half the work required to respond to an insurgency should be done or overseen by the State Department? Why do soldiers have to arrange economic reconstruction and infrastructure development? Aren't those folks at the State Department competent to do all this stuff?

E.M. Van Court

I've long nutured a private grievance against FM 3-24, which suddenly broke surface when I read this delicious comment by Steve Cole in The New Yorker this week: "Its reception reflected ... the appeal of counter-insurgency among sections of the country's liberal-minded intelligentsia. This was warfare for northeastern graduate students--complex, blended with politics, designed to build countries rather than destroy them, and fashioned to minimize violence. It was a doctrine with particular appeal to people who would never own a gun."

A more scholarly analysis of FM 3-24's failings, by Andrew Salamone, appears in the August edition of the online Small Wars Journal. He thinks that the historical examples in the manual are too selective, and warns: "While the current application of the new doctrine appears to be showing signs of success in Iraq, at least in terms of metrics measuring levels of violence and U.S. casualties, our enemy's well documented strategic, operational, and tactical adaptability all but guarantees that current doctrine will be out of date for the next conflict and result in the well known axiom of trying to 'fight the last war again'."

Around the Horn was excellent. I especially like the trade logic in finding set ups off the daily charts to find day trades for the next day. It makes sense. In essence, the author teaches readers how to find buying or selling pressure from the prior day's session when the stock is otherwise pulling back or doing something else that indicates it's ready to resume its trend and then put on a day trade to profit from the follow-through the next few days. Different from most trading books out there because everything is practical and easy to implement and profit from immediately.

The book is full of robust patterns. Each is geared toward a certain market condition and each works well when applied as per the chapters in the book. Highly recommended.

To further incorporate the author's baseball jargon, Around the Horn is lean and mean, yet jammed with vital stats. Nearly every paragraph gives you a tangible idea that's easily understandable as well as theoretically palatable. There's no razzle-dazzle or wasted passages. It's the kind of book a systems' fanatic like me can't resist, and I look forward to converting Dr. Manz' setups into mechanical strategies.
Art Collins, author of
Beating the Financial Futures Market

I have been watching and using the setups in this book for about four months now and can say that when they present themselves in the "real world," they provide solid trading ideas. Dr. Manz posts a free list of the potential trades and how they relate to the patterns in the book on his traderinsight service, and that serves to clarify the ideas in the book and to point out which setups are working at a particular time and why. The author has answered my email quetions and provided links to free information that clarified any questions I have had. A great book, full of solid ideas and an author who is willing to support his work by interacting with his readers. Highly recommended.

Dr. Manz has put together a conservative trading methodology for those who are disciplined to follow it consistently every trading day. The book lays out step by step each of the patterns off the price bars on the charts. The methodology is based on the most basic market principles: Price and Time. A group of Price Bars not only represent the price action of the security, but also the psyche of the trader crowd at a particular time. An astute and experienced trader such as Dr. Manz recognizes these patterns that setup low risk, high probability trades for the next morning. Risk is managed by selection of near-by natural price action support and resistance. As one reads on and studies the charts and trading guidelines, one notices the absence of typical computer generated indicators.

The methodologies are fully revealed and explained with no secret "trading tool" withheld. The TraderInsight web site publishes every day a "Stocks to Watch" list and a very thorough review of the preceding day's performance. This review covers the potential entry and exit points, as every trader's real time execution would be different. For further learning, one can visit the trading chat room and observe how various traders successfully execute these setups.

The setups look nice and simple to apply when you read the book, but it does not give the same results when it was used in the real world of trading. It did not hold water when it was back tested. It is lacking lots of stuff to be useable or profitable. The book is big in size and empty of good reliable trading ideas. I personally recommend Dr.Elder or Tony Oz or Ed Ponsi Trading books and methods, for whoever wants good ideas for trading which will give good results in the markets; These authors offer way better alternatives to this elementary book of trading (that has few selected poor trading examples every one in more than one big page.)
Who needs this big size empty papers? Even this inflated appearance of the book does not off set the lack of substance. I am not convinced with the five star reviews because they do not specifically say why they like the book even if it does not give a single strategy that can give good results with mechanical or discretionary trading. Stay away from this book, or at least open your eyes wide when you review it, before you decide to buy it or not. Good luck any way.

I use this book often to help with open-ended art activities in the preschool classroom. There are lots of great ideas!

I'm not very imaginative when it comes to "projects" for my kids (who are currently 3 and 1) so I love this book. I am thankful that there are people in the world with great ideas who share them in books. :P

All the reviews written on this Amazon site for FIRST ART explain why this book is exceptionally good for toddlers, twos and other little guys. But what I like is that it also gives the adult in charge some clear hints for success as well as suggestions for easy prep and collection or selection of materials. This is the key to making things work for the little guys...if we are ready as adults with a clear idea of what's happening, we can make sure it is smooth and fun for the kids too. I also like how materials are very flexible: If you don't have cardboard, then use an old poster. If you don't have paint, use food coloring. If you don't have paper, use the evening newspaper. Many people whose kids are grown already know some of this (some, not all!!!), but if you're new to art with little ones, this is a life-saver. EXCELLENT!!

I wanted to thank all of the folks who have taken the time to review "First Art", a book of art projects and experiences for toddlers and two's. I've read every single review! How happy I am that this book is bringing great experiences to kids, and to their moms too. Thank you so very much to each of you for your wonderful reviews that remind me I am doing the right thing with my life!!!!
~ MaryAnn
w w w dot brightring dot com

I purchased this book so I could have more fun with my daughter, about a year and a half at the time of this review, and teach her a thing or two about creativity along the way. When I first got the book and read it, I LOVED it. There were tons of homemade recipes for saving money, ideas seemed relatively simple, yet fun, directions thorough... However, when I started implementing the ideas with my toddler, I slowly changed my mind.
I see a number of problems with this book:
Homemade recipes sound wonderful. You save money, you use ingredients you already have in your pantry, and you feel like such a handy supermom, what's not to love, right? Well, wrong...
First, the recipes often call for things I definitely don't have in my pantry, I was not even sure what some things were. For instance, cream of tartar. I wrote down a list of things I needed for a project and asked 3 employees at the store for it and all of them pointed me to tartar sauce. So, I had to go home empty-handed and do research online to find out what it was and why I needed it and where I could buy it, what I can substitute it for, etc. Most of the sources online seemed to indicate that it is something that used to be big in baking, but hardly ever needed now that we have baking powder. It'd be nice if the author provided some substitutions. I ended up using baking powder and it seemed to work alright. I later accidentally found cream of tartar in the spices section of my grocery store - and I looked in baking to no avail.
Another things is that a lot of recipes (80%, I'd say) call for tempera paint... If I'm going to buy paint, why buy tempera paint and mix it with stuff to make finger paints, might just as well buy finger paints - will probably end up cheaper. Same goes for, for example, a home-made blackboard. You need to buy the tape that has that chalkboard surface or chalkboard spray paint. Well, both are rather pricey, so it is almost as cheap to buy a ready-made chalkboard easel (not to mention much less trouble). Also, some recipes call for things like "an old grater you no longer use" (because you're going to be grating a bar of soap, for example) or "a big appliance box". I don't know if it's just me, but I think my Mom still uses the same grater she had when I was a year and a half and I don't buy big-screen TVs on a monthly basis... So, I don't really have all these lying around the house, nor is it always easy/cheap to find/buy one just when you want to try a project - often it really is easier and maybe even cheaper to just buy whatever it is you were going to make (case in point - beads).
Also, many recipes call for huge amounts of flour, salt, cornstarch, and food coloring. While those aren't that expensive in and of themselves (and food coloring CAN be), they add up! 4 cups of flour here, 4 cups of flour there, with a lot of these recipes not having the same shelf life as the store-bought equivalents. So, once again, the savings are questionable, even if we don't factor in the time we have to spend preparing stuff versus buying it ready-made.
The quality of projects.
My daughter is a pretty determined and focused toddler when she wants to be, but a lot of those projects are too contemplative to really keep her attention for more than 10 seconds. For instance, exploring the sounds and textures of a piece of foil or the much-favored by many feeley goop. My daughter was done exploring the sounds and textures of foil in 5 seconds and she did not want to explore the feeley goop at all after the initial try, so how was I supposed to make her realize that it has some unique qualities? The same goes for quite a number of projects that are meant to just "explore", but I realize that it is highly individual and there might be children out there who love those projects, just be aware that it is not automatic. Perhaps some of these activities would work well in a group, where children can feed off of each other's ideas and where interaction is already exciting enough, but for one child they can be a tad on a boring side and are over too quickly to be called an "activity".
Another thing in the projects I often have issues with is their messiness. The author does do a good job of outlining how to prep the working space, but with some projects, the colors will get splashed all over the place - it's toddlers we're talking about! I can cover a relatively large portion of the floor and the whole table, but I can't cover the walls and the ceiling... Not to mention that toddlers are known to run away in the middle of a project. So, unless you have a whole room you don't mind getting dirty and where you can contain your child (porch, sunroom, child-proof play room?), some of those projects will be just too much of a risky business to attempt in a nicer room. We live in a fully-carpeted apartment, and there is no way I'll be able to clean it up nicely if my child decides to have too much fun with one of the messier projects.
Finally, I find some "cooking" directions a little too sketchy. I have never made this thing before, I don't know what it should look and feel like, I actually ruined a couple of projects because I did something too soon or too late, even though I thought I was following the instructions religiously - there went 4 cups of flour and 2 cups of salt :-). Just so you don't think I'm a complete idiot, I do bake regularly and cook quite a bit too, and while sometimes my pizza dough made from scratch does turn out a little drier than I like, it is always edible, never a complete failure.
Overall, I'd say it's a good book with good ideas. If I were a kindergarten teacher, or had 2 or more kids of different ages, I'd probably rate this book better. But as a parent of only 1 child, I'd probably ever use only 1/3 of all the ideas of the book, with 2/3 being eliminated for one or several of the reasons mentioned above, which I find rather disappointing, since I am not paying only for the ideas I'm using...
Our favorite project so far? The bread. It did not taste spectacular (although was edible), but my daughter loved messing with the flour, watching it turn to dough, playing with the dough, etc.

i have not read this or any n the adversary cycle yet. I have read a few RJ novels and they r great. My question is about the continuity of the novels. the research i been doing is nothing but more confusing. can anyone explain?

This is a great great book. If you are familiar with the authors' adversary cycle you will know this was the last book of the six. Let me say that he saved the best for last. This book is a horrific page turner from start to finish. Trust me when I say you will enjoy.

Wilson wrapped up his entire pantheon of characters from his horror novels in this one. I first read this without having read The Touch, Reborn, or Reprisal. Although I couldn't understand all the subplots, I got enough of it to sense the enormity of Wilson's undertaking -- he was essentially plunging into Hell the world he had created and included in all his novels. Now, years later (after having read the mentioned novels), I find the story even MORE enjoyable. I gave this 5 stars even when I was a little lost -- now I wish I could give it more.

Rarely do you come across a horror novel that truly chills you to the bone. This is one of those books. The days get shorter and creepy crawlies come out of holes that pop up all around the world. The monsters and their need for flesh make this a difficult job for REPAIRMAN JACK. Will he make it out alive. You'll just have to read it for yourself. My only critisism of this book is I thought it was rushed at the end, and the loose ends were'nt tied-up.

I just finished the Adversary Cycle with Nightworld and have read all of the Repairman Jack novels that lead up to this final novel. Unfortunately I have to say that Nightwold was a disappointing end to Repairman Jack's world as created by F. Paul Wilson. I loved all of his previous books, even "The Touch", which at the time seemed completely unrelated to any of the rest. My main gripe with this book was the final confrontation, which seemed way too easy and was clumsily written. I found it difficult to understand the scene and exactly what was happening. It also seems silly that the antagonist, while powerful enough to remake the planet to his own liking could be so easily vanquished. And finally the antagonist seemed incredibly out of character in the end. I don't want to spoil it, so let's just say that he didn't go out the way he was written through out the Adversary cycle. Worst of all, the "support" the protagonist needed from the crowd of New Yorkers in order to defeat his enemy was worse than cheesy it was plain ridiculous.

My next gripe was with continuity and was more of an annoyance than a problem. If you haven't read any on the Repairman Jack novels, particularly the newest ones, this won't be an issue for you. In Nightworld, Jack learns a great many things that he has long since known about, and as a result needs to be convinced of what is happening to the world around him. My final issue is, unlike Reborn and Reprisal, Nightworld isn't very edgy, it just doesn't have that suspenseful feeling that wouldn't let me put down either of its two most recent predecessors. Sure there plenty of disgusting scenes such as a man being gouged by a 10-foot millipede which lays eggs in his abdomen that hatch and eat him alive. But that was more gross than scary, which is true of most of the book.

I would have liked to see more scares thrown at the population of Nightworld like the antagonists ability to control the dead, not just scary insects and killer winged beasts. What I was really hoping for was a greater explanation of the to eternal opposing forces, which are fighting for the planet. No luck there.

That said, I still enjoyed the book, as it brought back characters from all of the previous adversary cycle books and my favorite, Repairman Jack. And while it wasn't the best ending to an otherwise excellent series, it still was a somewhat satisfying ending to the story arc. I just think it could have been better, and wish Wilson had waited to write Nightworld after he decides (hopefully not soon) to end the RJ Series, that way the two story arcs could have merged and ended at the same time. But if you've read the previous books in the adversary cycle you'll of course have to read Nightworld and I would recommend doing so, albeit with low expectations so that you won't be too disappointed or if you completely disagree with my review you're pleasantly surprised.

My high school religion teacher just finished reading this book to us yesterday. He read a chapter everyday for worship. It was absolutely amazing. It held the attention of every student until the last page. It really drove home the fact that as Americans we are fairly sheltered from the persecution many Chrisitians in the world face. we forget that Christians are the number one group of people that are persecuted in the world today.

Sergei tells his story in a way that puts you in his shoes. It doesn't come accross as something out of a history book. It really strikes deep into the heart. I would recommend this book to anyone who is old enough to understand the hardship and brutality many Christians are sometimes faced with.

My teacher only yesterday finished readin it to us and now I am going to go out and buy it so that everyone in my family can read it as well. I, myself can not wait to read it again!

I read this book many years ago when it first was published. The thing that really stood out to me was that my husband was born just about a week later than Sergei Kourdakov and I kept thinking how different our lives were here at the same time Sergei was living in Russia. The girl, Natasha, that was beaten so much and then would be at the next meeting when Sergei would raid it was so brave. I kept thinking that she probably didn't realize what an impact her life had on this man and will only know the extent of her faith and how she was the reason for Sergei to come to know Jesus when she finally reaches her heavenly reward..what a courageous lady she was! This book is one that I have read over and over and recommend it to everyone!

Sergei Kourdakov was a Russian naval officer who grew up an atheist in a Soviet orphanage, and recruited by the KGB in the late 60s to be a member (and later, a leader) of one of a number of anti-Christian hit squads in the Soviet Far East. During one of his squad's raids he met Natasha, a believer whose persistence in worshiping God eventually led Sergei to Christ.

Sergei wrote this wonderful book before he was (as some believe) assasinated in Canada by the KGB in 1973. It was published by a protestant evangelical group.

What is NOT stated, is that the Christian tradition that Sergei converted to was, yes, dear Protestant sheep, Eastern Orthodoxy! A ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) priest at the national ROCOR cathedral in Washington DC confirmed that the Sergei Kourdakov, who is recorded as having been buried with an Orthodox funeral (not the case unless you're an Orthodox Christian) was indeed the same Sergei Kourdakov who wrote "The Persecutor."

I could not put this amazing book down from the first page to the last it is a thriller, only with a heady spiritual twist! This Kourdakov was truly a survivor, but also a witness to the power of God's amazing redemption in the life of every sinner who repents. What a glorious testimony to the power of faith and prayer! A truly unforgettable story that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Definitely a 'must-read' on your list. A nice, sound, real-life story of a russian secret police with a brilliant future career infront of him. But Sergei seems to find the truth in him, and gets to know God in a way that any person would be delighted to read. He finds the necessary strenght, courage and conviction to fullfill his goals and becomes a catholic, after escaping to Canada. This excellent book is not only a true-story dramatic and interesting novel. It is a great way of understanding and realizing everything we have: health, family, a job, happiness, and God of course.