New York Books

I have to admit, this may not be the most practical cookbook out there. It does feature some tough-to-find ingredients (such as "barberries," "Persian lime powder", etc.), and there are a lot of kebab type recipes that call for grilling - not the most practical for a busy weeknight cook. Some of the recipes here will require a commitment of time. However, that said, there are also many recipes here that are not too complicated, and a lot of very unique and exciting dishes: truly a culinary adventure. The "Khoresh" chapter is especially exciting to me - one pot meals that use exciting flavor combinations like dried or fresh fruits with meat and vegetables, reminiscent of the Moroccan tagine. If you're on a budget, there are also several ground-meat and egg dishes here, which are easy on the wallet. This book includes a huge number of recipes, all courses and with meat, poultry, fish, and protein-rich vegetarian options. The photographs are the most amazing I have ever seen in a cookbook. This is a very high quality book, and worth the bit more it may cost than other cookbooks. If you are interested in exotic flavor combinations and either willing to skip the ones with hard-to-find ingredients or track them down on the internet, this book will bring you much pleasure to both browse through and cook from.

If you can get the ingredients--and these days there are Arab/Persian food stores in most cities--you will not go wrong with this book. It's totally authentic food, cooked the way they cook at home in Iran. Persian food, if you happen not to have tried it, is unusual--pomegranates, compotes of greens, meat and fruits in same dish, pistachios, saffron and rose water --but always delicious and kind to the stomach. Beautifully set out, clear instructions, mouth-watering photos. Highly recommended both as cookbook and as guide to a vital part of Persian culture (they take their cuisine very seriously, and rightly so!)

Original recipes in this book are not only colorful but very tasty. Iranians sure know how to cook a meal. It's nice to see someone take such pride and effort in compiling a book as varied, complete, and beautiful as this one.

This book is written by the same author of "Persian Cooking for a Healthy Kitchen", and shares with this one the simple way in description of different recipes. This book has a more wide content of dishes, a chapter devoted to ceremonies and a lot of pictures, many with food and many devoted to Persian culture. It is not generally known that Persian Cooking was and is rather modern, previewing rules for a balanced diet, there are foods hot and cold and they cannot be mixed indifferently. It is a world to discover and this book gives a good help.

This is a wonderful book, not just as a cookbook but as a guide to some of the traditions of the Persian Culture. The pictures are beautiful and the recipes simple to follow. A must have for any household.

This book was in perfect condition when I received it. My only issue with my purchase was when I received it. The only option for shipping when I ordered was standard shipping, not sure why?? Anyway it took about two weeks to get to me. All in all, it was worth the wait.

If you want to hear the truth about the old days, here it is. This was a perfect example of what many people in El Barrio saw and/or did. Its so real that if you read certain passages slowly, and then close your eyes, you could actually see how it went down. This book can help you look deep and realize that we, in this day and age, have it 50 times better than our fathers and grandfathers. Lets thank our stars and our parents. Praise to you "Don" Piri.

Down These Mean Streets is the story of Piri Thomas' journey into adulthood. The book is set in Spanish Harlem in the 1940s. The author's writing style is refreshing and lyrical. He uses some Spanish words here and there(readers might find the glossary in the back of the book helpful), and kicks in a few slang words as well, which makes the dialogs that much more genuine.

Piri struggles through poverty, family troubles, and desperately wanting to belong. He fights with being a dark skinned Puerto Rican during a time when racism was strong, and trying to find his place as neither black nor white. Piri did some not-so-good things in his life, being in a gang, drug addiction, and armed robbery among other things, but throughout it all it is easy to tell that Piri is a good guy at heart.

Overall, this is a captivating story. You might find yourself wondering what you would have done faced with the same situations. I even found myself rooting for Piri at times. This book is still a very accurate depiction of "the hoods" of New York, despite being published for the first time about 40 years ago.

I was sad to have to finish the book, and in the end I felt like I knew Piri. I look forward to re-reading this book over the years. It is truly a classic. Everyone should read it. Anyone can find something in the story that they will be able to relate to.

This book really told me what it was like to live in Harlem in the 40s. The discrimination and racism is real and raw (although Mr Thomas does get a little jaded and think all white people are bad). The way he describes coming off heroin is realistic, colorful, and explosive. This whole book is very alive, as a memoir. It was funny to see the slang they used back then!

I've read this book more than a few times and have taught it to different level readers a few extra times. There was one high school student who came to me after the book was done and told me, "This is the first book I ever finished." Even if it's not the first book you've read, you'll find writing that is fearless, honest, and powerful. You won't forget it, and if you're really lucky, you'll get to share it with someone else.

This book doesn't waste time. It picks up on the morning of the disaster when foolish decisions are made one after another, and ends at the very last trial of the villains. In between, the pace is quick and the disaster is described fully without being ghoulishly heavy on gore. The most memorable and heartbreaking parts of the book are in the descriptions of what happened AFTER the fire: the discovery that the children whose hands you were just holding had vanished; the hopeful trips through the hospitals, the inevitable multiple trips to the morgue, and the realization that most of the missing had vanished forever and would never be found. The impact of going to school and seeing that a third of the chairs were now empty. The people who went insane with grief after losing entire families. The couple who had to walk to the cemetery with their baby's coffin under their arm like a package for the post because the undertakers were overwhelmed and overbooked with hundreds of funerals taking place that week, and the next, and the next.

For all its excellence, though, I have two criticisms. One is that too many victims were singled out at the beginning of the book without being "refreshed" later on during the description of the disaster. Did the girl who sneaked onto the boat without telling her mother survive? How about the girl who received an extra ticket at the last moment from a shopkeeper? You have to go back and find it again, which isn't easy since there's no index and I'll bet you won't remember their names.

The second criticism is that the author inserts paragraphs of coolly-written modern psychology and science into dramatic descriptions of events, which is jarring because it tends to break up the narrative. The beginning of the fire is described up to the point where someone opens a door and lets in oxygen, at which point we're treated to a two page introduction to the scientific stages and nomenclatures of fire before we get back to the story. It happens again when the fire is first spotted on deck (two pages on the psychology of panic and mob mentality) and again when people first start jumping overboard into the water (Drowning 101). It's vaguely helpful in understanding why things happened as they did, but it's still annoying.

Prior to September 11, 2001, the burning of the General Slocum was New York City's worst disaster in terms of casualty rate. An estimated 1300 Lower East Side residents, most of them members of St. Mark's Lutheran parish, boarded the steamer on the morning of June 15, 1904 for the annual church picnic at Eatons Neck, Long Island. Barely two hours later, a blaze broke out in a storage compartment, possibly ignited by a carelessly thrown match or cigarette. The steamboat immediately became a floating death trap: although the Slocum had passed a recent safety inspection, the life preservers were rotted, the fire hoses were damaged, and wires immobilized the lifeboats. The captain, William Van Schaick, had also never put the crew through a fire drill. By the time the ship was beached on North Brother Island, over a thousand passengers had been burned to death or drowned. The public and the 321 survivors demanded justice, but never got it. The inspector who certified the Slocum as safe and the ship's owners, who had shied from the expense of maintaining the safety equipment, were not punished for their negligence. Only Captain Van Schaick received a prison term of ten years, but the federal parole board released him after three.

Edward T. O'Donnell has done a first-rate job in his coverage of this forgotten calamity. In addition to recounting the final moments of the doomed ship and its passengers, he explores the corruption of government officials, the callous arrogance of Gilded Age big business, and other factors that contributed to the tragedy and its aftermath. He also helps the reader understand why, considering the high death toll, the General Slocum disaster was forgotten so quickly. His research sources are impeccable: he interviewed elderly survivor Adella Wotherspoon and obtained access to a detailed scrapbook that her family maintained for years. In my opinion, O'Donnell's fast-paced writing style and attention to detail has rescued this story of devastating loss, incomparable heroism, and appalling institutional arrogance from its undeserved obscurity.

"Ship Ablaze" helps fill in gaps of history that for one reason or other our parents, grand-parents, uncles and aunts. I grew up in that neighborhood and attended the LCMS (Trinity) Lutheran Church on 9th St. and Ave. B., yet I had to wait until late in life to learn of this disaster and the long term impact it had on the area. While the congregation I belonged to was not in worship fellowship with St. Mark's, I am certain that one would find a history of humanitarian fellowship at the time. But, these would be in the old records of that congregation written in German script. We need not only researchers, but multilingual researchers, in this incident as although there were those born in America, they lived a German life. My generation was the first not to speak German from birth. When I went to Germany to live for a while, I find myself very much at home despite the fact that this was post WWII Germany. If there are researchers interested out there who are fluent in German, a place they might want to look at is the resources of the NY Public Library and Concordia Historical Institute, St. Louis (records of the original Trinity on microfilm).

An excellent book about the General Slocum disaster, a 1904 steamboat fire that killed more than 1,000 people, mostly women and children on a church outing. Absolutely mesmerizing from start to finish.

This disaster has been hidden from historical references better than anything I've ever come across. Over 1,000 people die horribly, mostly women and children, and the following has occurred:

The 2004 Microsoft Encarta DVD Encyclopedia makes absolutely no reference to this event.

The book "New York Times Page One" does not show this as one of it's important front page dates.

The book "Chronicles of the 20th Century" (1300+ pages) only makes mention of the ship's owners being found negligent, not the event itself.

The largest loss of life from a single disaster from 1904 until 2001 and they can't mention it! Thankfully, this book does it justice and brings the hidden truth to light.

I first read this book when I was 12. I next read it... probably when I was still 12. I'm not one to read and re-read books, but this one will always be an exception. If Jon Stewart's "America" uses humor to expose the dysfunctional state of our country in the 21st century, Barry uses laughter to show how we got to this pitiful point. Buy it and read, then re-read it every other year or so. It only takes a couple of hours, and it never gets old.

I just recently finished a college-level history class, so I was well brushed up on my US history. That's half of why this book is so hilarious - I know what really happened, and Dave Barry makes very funny spins on it. He has the capacity to make the bleakest parts of history look absolutely histerical and silly, and for that, I give it my highest recommendation.

According to Dave Barry, hundreds of thousands of years ago, America was very different. For one thing, there were no car commercials which had broadcast toward Earth from another planet far away. Twenty thousand years ago the Land Bridge was constructed and completed on October 8th. Centuries later Mayans down in Mexico constructed a calendar that it can still be used to tell the location of celestial
bodies... they're out in space.

In a takeoff of where George Washington slept, there were stories that arose. Likewise where Dave Barry slept, there were (different) stories that arose. Have a few laughs on U.S.

I've read all of Dave Barry's stuff, novels too, and this is, hands down the funniest thing you'll ever sink your eyeballs into. It stays on my bedside table where I can get a little twisted history fix now and then. Read it, re-read it and read it again.

Dave Barry's "Dave Barry Slept Here" is a hilarious pseudo/satire-history of the United States. Anyone familiar with Dave Barry's wit from his columns will immediately recognize the same wit unleashed on so much of our history that we have heard, if not necessarily really learned, throughout our lives.

Dave Barry writes like a high-school student - intentionally, of course. He attributes great advances to "technology," isn't interested in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff so he skips it because it sounds boring, and decides that every important event in American history happened on October 8th so that he doesn't have to remember any more dates (even the Fourth of July happened on October 8th, 1776). And he ends every chapter with hilarious "discussion questions" that are just as funny as the text.

I've read and re-read this hilarious book, and it's great to just pick up and start reading in the middle whenever you need a good chuckle. Anyone who likes Dave Barry, enjoys American history, or is interested in what three-word sentence you can rearrange the letters in "Spiro Agnew" to spell (hint: the first word is "grow") should read this book and enjoy!

I started reading this book on a monday morning and finished it that night. I couldnt stop reading and Darcy Frey kept me at the edge of my seat. I couldnt wait to see what would happen to the three other players featured in this book besides Stephon Marbury. I recommend this book to ANY basketball fan or anyone intrested in the struggles of lower income neighborhoods.

This book was set in the early 90's in one of New York City's worst neighborhoods. The story is of the struggle that 3 friends (plus one genuine jerk) under go in their individual pursuits of college scholarships. The things that they see and experience are still the same type of challenges that face today's urban learners. I give Darvy Frey credit for bringing us in to their world in a way that very few authors can pull off. If you are considering buying this book do so you will not be dissapointed.

Coney Island the basketball playground of America is the setting for the Last Shot: City Streets and Basketball Dreams. 4 stories of H.S. basketball players who goto Abraham Lincoln H.S. and play for the might basketball team the Railsplitters (What a cool name). I mainly bought this book because Stephon Marbury is featured as one of the four people in it. I myself grew up in Brighton Beach one town away from Coney Island so I know how life is... This book is true and real and I recommend this book to any sports fan or anyone who is looking for a real treat.

A classic piece of sports writing, but for everyone. The author is a writer for the New York Times Magazine. In this book he writes about the lives of some high school basketball players/high school students (in that order).

Like the other posters have noted, it's not just for basketball freaks. It's a well written story about some kids in the 90's who live in the projects in Brooklyn, Coney Island for the most part, and how much basketball means to them. In the book it seems like basketball is their only path to success. But they are up against the recruiters, hustlers and the SATS (which they need to get a 700 on but that's just out of reach for most).

You get to meet the student athletes, Russell, Corey, Tchak, and Stephon, their parents, coaches, recruiters, local prophets, etc, and the author treats them all with a level of respect the New York Times Magazine accords the suit wearing sharks.

If you get this book, you won't have to read long before you're committed to reading the whole thing. It's a very rare book indeed that leaves me wanting more. I would have loved to read a sequel. Alas, we only get an afterward, but the story had to end somewhere and the afterward was, well, quite the shock.

If you like hoops you would love this story. Darcey frey the author who's also a sports writter follows the life of three young men who's dream is to become professional basketball players.Living in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn these three men are faced with durgs violence, and everything you see on the streets of Brooklyn. A very inspirational story, and a indepth look on the career of Stephon Marbury.This is a book you would want to share with a friend.

This story centers on Tamara, a young woman living in rural Mayville, NY in the 1950's. By the age of 15, she's moved more times than she can count. Well, she can count them, but she's not happy about the loose ends she always feels upon relocation. Once she realizes that the other kids in school have histories with their classmates and roots, she feels cheated and wants to settle down.

Her family is somewhat dysfunctional but very loving - her father, a landscape artist and the traveling nature of his job is the reason behind their frequent relocations. Her mother is beautiful and a little wild, but she has a strong bond with Tamara's father and allows his lifestyle to effect their family. Tamara has a younger brother and sister who have their own difficulties leading such a nomadic life and at times, Tamara takes out her frustrations on them and even on herself.

Sarah Willis adds the concept of atheism to the story, as both Tamara's parents practice it. The neighbors across the street are devout Christians and manage to get their permission to take Tamara & her siblings to church, which opens up a whole new world for Tamara and she starts to question her beliefs and make bargains with God to keep her in one place.

Tamara's life gets even more stressful when she learns that her mother has an illness that takes her away from the family, perhaps permanently and Tamara is forced to fill her shoes around the house. This is where Tamara begins to rely more heavily on God and asks him to help heal her mother. She also discovers that her complex feelings for her mother are a foil for the love she feels in her heart and through letters, they grow to understand each other better.

Tamara also finds the stirrings of her first love when she connects with Rusty who also lives next door. Sarah Willis portrays the feelings of wonder, fear and joy that we all feel when we find what we think is love and the other person feels it too. Willis does a fine job of providing excellent, solid characterization, and precisely detailing their neurosis so precisely that we can relate to them and their shifting, complicated connections to each other.

I loved the way she uses words to create pictures in the mind of the reader. I enjoyed the section where she uses colors to stress the importance of the situation comparing them to the colors her father uses in his artwork - a unique way to show the similarities between father and daughter when neither feels they have anything to share - masterful! I thought about this book and its characters for a while after I finished reading it and that is always a sign of an excellent story - I have found a new favorite author in Sarah Willis and look forward to reading more of her novels.

I bought this book because of the price and it looked interesting but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved it. It was one of those cannot put down type of books and I actually finished it in one day. It was a captivating coming-of-age story and Sarah Willis did a beautiful job of bringing her characters to life. This would be an excellent book club book as there is so much meaty stuff to discuss. I loaned my copy to a friend just so we could talk about it. I highly recommend this book!

This is a really touching coming of age story in the 50's. The mother has to go to a sanitarium with Tuburculosis. The father is stuck in his own world of painting. There are 2 siblings, Robert and Megan, that are coping in their own ways with the abandoment issues that arise from not only the mother's illness, but the father's inability to handle the situation. Tamara is left basically in charge of everyone. Besides the obvious issues that are going on, there is the storyline of the number of moves the family has endured and how much they are wanting a permanent home.

I enjoyed reading this book very much, but it didn't touch me as much as some of the other coming of age stories like, Whistling in the Dark, The Book of Bright Ideas and Cold Rock River. Those stayed with me after I was done and while I really enjoyed this coming of age story, it's not one that will stay with me like some other ones.

Still it is well worth reading and I highly recommend it.

This is a story you were waiting to read, full of life-size characters... the type of book you don't want to finish.

And a first novel? ... wow. I can't wait to read her next one!!!!

I just love Sarah Willis' writing style and felt this book was equally as wonderful as her book: THE SOUND OF US. It didn't take too long for me to be totally drawn into this story of Tamara and I felt myself rather sad at where the story ended. I just wanted to keep knowing about her and her family and how their lives turned out. I highly recommend this book and hope anyone who reads it becomes a Sarah Willis fan. If you haven't yet read THE SOUND OF US, do yourself a favor and read it! It's real good reading. There isn't a single downside to SOME THINGS THAT STAY. I loved Tamara and her view of her world. The characters seemed utterly real and engrossing. The last sentence of the book was the perfect uplifting end to Tamara's story.

This book does not only tell the history of art, at the same time, the history of architecture, since the two are so much interrelated. Therefore, as an architecture student, I recommend you guys to read this book to gain the knowledge of how art and architecture evolve throughout history.

This is a beautiful book with comprehensive text. It is written in common English that anyone should understand. I already have a copy I received as a gift and bought this copy for my grandaughter who will enter college this year to study Art History.

That may sound a bit strange, but this is a great book to take on the plane or train with you -- or even to the beach.

It is a compact volume (though about 1 1/2 inches thick). Because of this compact format the text is in front (thin paper) with the plates in back. Phaidon provides two ribbon bookmarks. That also means that it is easiest to read using both hands.

That said, Gombrich leads the reader along with a style somewhere between a conversation and a lecture -- more like what you might expect from a learned uncle or family friend. Pleasant delivery, but leaving you no doubts about the value of the information that is to be passed along.

There may even be an advantage to having the plates in the back. I found myself dwelling on them perhaps a little longer than if they had been in with the text -- and the text calling for my attention.

You can read this book in long sessions, or in little bits. It doesn't matter, because the information is always there, and in the case of this book, the journey itself is important.

Enjoy.

For somebody interested in art, a book with many pictures is easy to read and enjoy.

An excellent book in an easy to read formatt. My professor used it for my art history class. Beautirul illistrations. Highly recommended. Great reference book as well.

I have to admit, the 5 stars for this one is a sentimental choice. In fact, I've read this book so many times that I'm not even sure I really know what I think about it anymore. Granted, that's true of the preceding 5 books, too, but Vengeance is the most intensely emotional, and I'm all about intensely emotional books these days (as long as they don't have depressing endings, that is!), so I can't look at it objectively.

Or rather, I can, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I can, for example, question how Eve can so calmly accept Roarke's past that's so vividly shoved in her face here. Or I can question how the killer latched on to those particular victims. And I can certainly read the part where Roarke gets all pissy about Eve locking a door on him and remember a later book in the series where he does the same thing and want to smack him upside the head. And yes, I can see the headhopping--Nora does it all the time.

But in the end, it doesn't matter. It's a 5-star read.

The book was used, but in very good shape. I bought it for my ex-mother inlaw, I didn't tell her it was a used book and she never knew otherwise. :)

In this book, a brilliant and sadistic serial killer is targeting Irish immigrants in New York. His methods are sickeningly brutal, and each death is different. With the very first death the killer draws Eve into the mix, calling her to boast about the murder and to give her a riddle to lead her to it.

Evidence points straight to Summerset, Roarke's devoted 'servant' and friend and the bane of Eve's domestic existence. While it quickly becomes obvious he's being set up, proving that in an official capacity is another matter.

While there's a familiar theme here of Eve's cases bringing her into conflict with and causing her to investigate the very people she cares about, it's carried off far better in this volume than in some of the others. Summerset's reasons for distrusting police are extremely well-founded and far too deep-set for him to shake off. The reasons why Eve can figure out that he's innocent but can't easily keep him out of jail are clever and believable.

A new and highly entertaining series character puts in an appearance (McNab, a flamboyant electronics expert with the police force). Eve and Summerset are forced to stretch (and break) their veneer of civility. And Eve and Roarke have to face, and embrace, more of his past than she's even been aware of up until now. There are no easy answers, and their only chance lies in being able to manipulate and outwit a killer who believes he's the instrument of God's vengeance.

The character development is beautiful, the pacing and tension are gripping, and the mystery is fascinating. I highly recommend this volume of Robb/Roberts's in death series.

The J D Robb series has me hooked. I was very happy that Amazon has back copies on had at a reasonable price.

I love this series... you must read it to understand. It's all about a homicide detective named Lt. Eve Dallas and how she goes about solving a case which always seems imposibble to solve at first.

The story is really epic and introduces you to a new world. However I felt that some of the characters were more symbols than characters.

As an ardent reader of history, I was familar with the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin. But it took Grossman's "Life and Fate" to bring them to life. I almost hate to say it for fear of scaring readers off, but Grossman puts you there under the crushing weight of a society crafted by Stalinism, he puts you there in a Nazi death camp. As terriable as that sounds (and it is indeed), this book is simply too good not to be read. Its sweep and scope and rush of characters is pure Tolstoy. But Grossman combines this with an eye for detail that comes from his years as a reporter (he was a popular war correspondent in WWII) to make a thoroughly modern novel. Grossman shows how humans are capable of unspeakable cruelty and (almost as bad) indifference to each other, but also contain the ability to be caring and kind even to strangers they might have every reason to hate. If I had to recommend a handful of books as my top pics, this would definitely make the list.

With the exception of Bulgakov I don't care much for Soviet literature. I could never finish Dr. Zhivago or Quiet Flows the Don. This book I did enjoy. Particularly the parts that dealt with the jewish physicist (I forgot his name) and his family. The letter he receives from his mother before she's deported is probably the most memorable part of the novel. Some people compare it to War and Peace. I wouldn't go that far but it is good enough that you might want to read it again as I plan to some day.

One of the most relevant, startling and magnificent novels never read. Awe-inspiring from start to finish: for the characters themselves, their historical counterparts, the author's world and the world at large. Evokes the Greek idea of "necessity;" no understanding, truth without any value, no solid principles, no foundation. You don't read the story: you tumble through it, terrified, grasping blindly for something to stabilize the free fall.

This masterpiece published by New York Review of Books Classics enters my Top 5 among novels by James Joyce (Ulysses), Proust (La Recherche du Temps Perdu), Tolstoy (War and Peace) and Gaddis (JR): it is pure genius in its epic scope. Inspired by Tolstoy's War and Peace and the siege of Russia by Napoleon, Grossman depicts the siege of Stalingrad by Hitler. Grossman narrates the epic from the perspectives of diverse players into whose lives the reader becomes immersed. The cast is vast and the Russian names are daunting to track but Grossman enables us to understand what it was like to experience the fate of Russians in World War II. The catastrophe was overwhelming as millions of people's lives were adversely impacted by the power of two great warring states on the front lines of Stalingrad. Yet somehow the resourcefulness, courage, strength, faith and every virtue of her people, tested under the worst human conditions, Russia was able to withstand the siege of Hitler only to suffer subsequently the immense cruelty of Stalin. The writing in this novel is nothing short of magnificent: it is great literature and profound philosophy by a novelist who knew his subject thoroughly. It's no wonder that Stalin wanted not only the manuscript but its carbon copies because the truth evident in this novel was certainly starkly and baldly critical of the State. At the end of the novel an old woman, Alexandra Vladmirovna, who to me symbolized Mother Russia, returns to the ruins of her home in Stalingrad and admires the spring sky wondering: "why the future of those she loved was so obscure and the past so full of mistakes, not realizing that this very obscurity and unhappiness concealed a strange hope and clarity, not realizing that in the depths of her soul she already knew the meaning of both her life and the lives of her nearest and dearest, not realizing that even though neither she herself nor any of them could tell what was in store, even though they all knew too well that at times like these no man can forge his own happiness and that fate alone has the power to pardon and chastise, to raise up to glory and to plunge into need, to reduce a man to labour camp dust, nevertheless neither fate, nor history, nor the anger of the State, nor the glory or infamy of battle has any power to affect those who call themselves human beings. No, whatever life holds in store -- hard won glory, poverty and despair, or death in a labour camp --they live as human beings and die as human beings, the same as those who have already perished: and in this alone lies man's eternal and bitter victory over all the grandiose and inhuman forces that ever have been or ever will be..." The translation by Robert Chandler was as masterful as the original writing itself: Chandler was articulate, true to the text and humble in bringing to light without affectation or coyness or ego the profundity of this master work. I wish there had been maps of the front lines, which I found on the Internet to help me gain my bearings with unfamiliar geography at http://users.pandora.be/stalingrad/maps/stanlingrad map 7.htm. Having read War and Peace, Grossman gives the master, Tolstoy, a real run for his money in this epic: don't let this masterpiece pass you by! It's a novel fated to change your life.

Having listened to the first two books on audio and loved them, I continued with the third book "curse of the warmbloods" On CD. I love it when a childrens series continues to grow, in both content , character maturity and overall plot wise. I have read books before that seem to go nowhere with ever installment and I quickly tire of those.

This book, is my favorite out of the three so far. The first one "Gregor the Overlander" correctly laid out the mythos and introduced the characters in a nonconfusing way (there are so many and types!) It made you want to read more. The second book "Prophecy of the Bane" continued where the first left off but wasnt as exciting or compelling. This third book launches Gregor back into the underland for another adventure and its all about true realities, growth, family and way darker than the first two, much like Prisoner of Azkaban is to the Harry Potter series.

Gregors family isnt just chilling in the overland allowing him to sew his wild oats underground, they are struggling with mental illness (because his father was tortured by the rats) Money issues (his mom has to be the sole breadwinner) His sister is scared to death of losing her family wouldnt you be if three of them just dissappeared underground and came back talking of giant rats, squids, roaches, and bats? The underlanders of course eventually need Gregor, but his Mother puts her foot down and says NO! Not even to help them out with a Plague that is killing them and Gregor is the "one" to find the cure according to another prophecy.

What takes place after that is truly scary, and exciting and heartwarming. More characters are introduced, and we lose more along the way. I rushed out and got the fourth Audio CD's as soon as I could!

I am a K-5 school librarian and am always looking for good books to recommend to my students. This series is truly excellent!

This second book of the "Underland Chronicles" continues the journey of Gregor and his baby sister Boots. Meeting new characters and encountering more tests for all involved. The author weaves a wonderful tale and my son absolutely adores all the characters. I also enjoy reading this series to him, we both become very caught up within the stories and with all the characters...it's hard to put down!

For the third time, Gregor and his little sister Boots descend to the Underland to fulfill an ancient prophecy. In this story the Curse of the Warm-bloods is a terrible plague that threatens every mammal in the Underland. On their journey to find cure, the heroes encounter Luxa, her bat Aurora and Hamnet, Luxa`s long-lost uncle. Although I enjoyed it, the story jumps around far too often and also fails to answer questions from previous books. As one and two were okay but not great and this one is only so-so I don't think I'll read any others.

I've read the last two Gregors and when I finished them i couldn't wait until the third. Collins is a genius. The last two have been about the usual stuff you read in these kind of books today but this took it to a whole new level. Theres plenty of violence for those of you who don't like sissy books and plenty of action that will keep you on the edge of your seat through the whole book. This in my opinion and out of all the books I've read this could be the book of the year.