School Time Books

At first when I picked up this book, I wasn't sure if I would really enjoy it. But as soon as I started reading, I got intensely wrapped up in the predicament of Hannah Kincaid, a teenager who was sent to live with her great-aunt on Martha's Vineyard. While she is there, she starts seeing things...Not only does she think she sees someone at night, but she starts having visions and dreams of a past time. Her life in the present with her new surroundings and new friends intertwines interestingly with the exciting and suspenseful events befalling her. The books wraps up with a satisfying ending that will make you want to read it again (I know I did!). I believe that anyone in middle school or high school could easily find this book engrossing, for many reasons. You can really "connect" with the characters in this book, because they were written very realisticly. And it's a fun book in general too. It isn't a chore to read; it's a very good rainy day book, when you want something that isn't very hard to read yet has a lot of substence. I would recommend this book to anyone, and I'm definately going to be reading it many more times again.

In this volume we have a large collection of stories, some long, some short, of witches, and poems of withches. Actually, there are fifteen. The authors range from William Shakespear, to Charles Finger, Aileen Fisher, Rowena Bennet and many, many more. The collection is well ballanced and can best be described as just "fun." Perfect for reading during this season. Most of the stories have a great lesson to teach. I note that kids love them and all of the adults I know who have read this one, have enjoyed ever word, myself included. The illustrations by Vera Rosenberry are very well done and go with the story perfectly. For a wonderful, mischievious time infront of the fire with the kids or grand kids, I do recommend this one highly. It should be noted that most of these stories have become something of folk tales in our culture now, which means they need to be retold and remembered by the young ones. A further note: Some parents do have problems with stories about witches, etc. That is the reason kids have parents...to help make these choices for them...parents, if you have a hang-up with the subject, well...gosh, do your job.

This is a great book with lots of information and research done over a period of several years. This book has been in the making since my child was in 7th grade, now she's in 10th and her picture is in this book.

THIS IS A SOOOOOOOOOOO AWSOME BOOK! It helps with tons of things like Social Studies and is fun to just read around! I borowed one from my teacher and now I have one for myself!
RECOMENDED FOR ANY1! INCLUDING PEOPLE OVER 12!

I loved this book...was given the first 4 books in the series. I wasnt sure I would like them. Once I started though I couldnt put them down. Dont start these books if you want to get anything done because you will make any excuse to sit and read! Just finished book #6 and I feel lost....I miss Jamie and Claire. Cant wait till book 7 comes out! Can anyone recommend something good like these books till # 7 comes out?

This is the first book in a 6 part series. I was a little leary of it when recommended by my sister. A woman falling through a rock and landing 200 years in the past? I mean, come on!! But to my surprise it was really good. There is a lot of action and I became very attached to the characters. At the end of the book, I couldn't wait to get onto the next to see where the story would go. I'm currently on the 3rd "Voyager" and still loving it. I even ordered the rest of the series so I won't have to wait for the next one.

I've not read a book with an ending so satisfying and complete, yet incomplete at the same time. When I finished Outlander I immediately started Dragonfly in Amber. And I am very glad I did. I don't know that I'll be able to do all six books, but I may give it shot.

Life will have to go on without Jamie and Clair at some point though. They are by far the most endearing couple I've ever had the pleasure of discovering. I will miss them very much.

My best friend recommended this book, she handed it to me and said "Jamie" and that was all she said. When I tried to get her to tell me more, that is all she would say. But now that I have read the book, I loved it!! Loved it!! Read it and you will find that you love Jamie too!!

These novels are addictive. I have read this whole series several times, and eagerly await the release of the next every time I finish the last!

I purchased the audio of A Wrinkle In Time for my classroom - I use it for my special needs students and also for students who have missed class while we read together (it is a quick way to catch up). I was excited to hear Madeline L'Engle read the story, but my students found her voice a bit tedious. My colleague and I have used this story as a science fiction genre unit for several years - the students love it!

I have often heard people comment about how good this book is, but I've never taken the time to read it before now. I can't say that I was mislead. This is a highly imaginative tale of good vs. evil, told from the point of view of young Meg Murry. Meg is smart but rebellious, fiercely protective of her unusual family. She and her brother, Charles Wallace, are about to go on a journey through space and time to find their long absent father, and in the process, confront an evil so powerful that it threatens to engulf them all.

Written with vivid imagery, this story is a fantasy wrapped inside some of the conventional trappings of science-fiction. Along the way, we consider the nature of evil, how it robs people of their individuality and choice. In the end, discovering the one thing evil can't do will be the key to Meg's victory.

I re-read this book from my childhood and I'm very disappointed with particular messages Madeleine presents to children. I think enough has been said about stars (angels?) being conceived as witches to "play a joke" on everyone and the centaur appearance of the other "angels". No matter what the rest of the story conveys, I am completely revulsed by the notion she presents that Jesus was a fighter. He is not a fighter, but represents peace & love spreading the word of the Father on this earth for all to follow. Also, Jesus has already won the battle for us. All of these ignorant statements in this book by Madeleine need to be pulled before I will even think about looking at this book or sharing it with others.

A book for children, but not too bad for that. A bored girl, her brothers and others get mixed up in an adventure across the space-time continuum by way of some nifty tesseract tricks.

When a strange older woman comes visiting they set off to find the father of all these children, who is a prisoner of one of your standard supervillains, a giant disembodied telepathic brain.

This has been one of my all-time favorite books since I first read it as a girl. It is excellent reading for elementary school children, but also fun for adults. Highly recommended!

John Grisham has established himself as one of the premier American writers in the recent past. Almost everything he writes is gobbled up devoured by his fans and rightfully so. He has a great knack for drawing you in to the characters and then like a punch in the nose..he hits you with the hook. Time to kill already is a classic and will remain on the reading list for high schooler and collegiates for quite a while.

I find John Grissom to be an excelloent writter.

I find it hard to put down.

This book is author John Grisham's first novel. It is also, naturally enough, his personal favorite.

"A Time to Kill" had an indifferent reception from publishers. It was subsequently given a more prestigious release after the best selling success of "The Firm" and "The Pelican Brief."

I would probably rate "A Time to Kill" with three and a half stars, if that option were available to me on this web site. It is not a bad book, but it is awfully derivative. If you have previously read Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," much of the material in "A Time to Kill" is going to seem familiar to you. The time frame, the specific crime and the location have changed, but otherwise it is a short drive from a courtroom in segregated Alabama to a racist courtroom in Mississippi.

To put it another way, would you prefer watching the motion picture "In the Heat of the Night" with Rod Steiger or the weekly television series with Carroll O'Connor?

I read this book after others by Grisham and was pleasantly surprised.
It is different from his other books, but very enjoyable still. I
see that he has a sense of humor, which I did not detect in his
other books. I would say one of my favorites by this author.

Gwen Hailey calls her husband Carl Lee at work, tells him their daughter, ten-year-old Tonya is missing. Carl Lee isn't all that worried though, because his wife tends to be, well a little protective. However when he gets home he's met with the news that Tonya has been raped by a pair of redneck types named Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard. Tonya had been left for dead and Carl Lee is seeing red. He's African American and does not believe the rapists are going to get what they deserve. Though they're arrested, Carl Lee knows how it goes in the South, so he goes to the courthouse and blows away those young good old boys, then he gets himself a lawyer.

Attorney Jake Brigance takes the case, which gets plenty of media attention right from the get go. It also draws the attention of the Clan, who do their best to intimidate both Jake (they burn a cross on his yard) and the jurors. Carl Lee is looking at the gas chamber if he's convicted and many want it so, however, there are many who believe Carl Lee had been justified. Tension is running high in the Mississippi town of Clanton. Jake's wife is afraid for their daughter Hannah. His secretary is afraid, too. The town doesn't need this, but it's got it.

And you may not need the tension in this book, nor the graphic scene detailing what happened to Tonya, but you should read this book. This is John Grisham's best work, it's his first novel, too. Everything John Grisham writes tops the bestseller lists and they should, but this book, well they need a whole new list for this book. John Grisham puts you in the South at a tense time and paints a picture so true it'll make your eyes bleed as you pour through the pages. He's written a book about a time in the South that the South would love to forget about. We were a different people then, thank the Lord we're changing. We're not their yet, but we're getting there.

Ken Douglas, author of Dead Ringer, Desperation Moon & Running Scared

Stephen W. Hawking is a theoretical physicist who has held the post at Cambridge University once held by Isaac Newton. Hawking writes of attending a conference on cosmology at the Vatican in 1981. At the end of the conference the pope cautioned that scientists should not examine the moment of the creation of the universe because that was the work of God. In his book Stephen Hawking has not heeded the pope's advice. One of his conclusions is that we now have a picture of developments "to about one second after the Big Bang" (p. 118). For Hawking, scientific inquiry has moved from "what" questions right on through to "how" and is at the point of answering "why." As soon as theorists succeed in incorporating the law of gravity into a properly developed and tested grand unification theory (GUT) we will then "know the mind of God" (p. 175).

Hawking writes carefully for the non-specialist. He has taken the trouble to provide a glossary with page references. He has avoided mathematical formulas and has worked hard to find analogies for the abstractions of twentieth-century physics. The universe looks the same from all directions, "rather like a balloon with a number of spots painted on it, being steadily blown up. As the balloon expands, the distance between any two spots increases, but there is no spot that can be said to be the center of the expansion" (p. 42).

Any careful reader can use Hawking's little book (198 pages including introduction, glossary, index, and three excursi on Einstein, Galileo, and Newton) to participate in ongoing discussions about a number of questions that are asked these days primarily by children and physicists. What is nature, and where did it come from? What is time? Is it possible to move backward in time? Is there a beginning or a boundary to the universe? Will the universe come to an end, and what kind of end will it be? What did God do in the beginning, and what role does God play now in the physical world?

The answers to such questions, Hawking believes, are to be found in the inquiries of theoretical physicists. For Hawking, the core of modern physics is quantum mechanics, the development of theories having to do with the movement and the components of energy, as distinguished from classical physics, the study of the properties of matter. Hawking states that quantum physics underlies nearly all of modern science and development, including nuclear power and micro technology and asserts that quantum physics will eventually not only explain the origin of every thing but also predict the future.

A number of ideas compressed into this small book warrant further examination. Hawking writes of a "survival advantage" (p. 12) scientific discovery has conveyed to humankind that can be canceled by further discoveries that "may destroy us all" (p. 12). Life in our sector of the galaxies developed because of disorder in matter that disrupted the generally smooth character of the universe. Hawking suggests that intelligent beings can exist only in an expanding universe. The idea here is that scientific laws are predictable in only one direction through time and that a collapsing universe would cause a reversal of the "arrows of time" (pp. 143 f.) and would thus invalidate human comprehensibility. Hawking speculates about a notion called "the anthropic principle" (p. 124), which appears to mean that the universe is as it is because, if it were not, we would not be around to observe it. But if the anthropic principle is the bottom line then scientific cosmology has become anthropology, and why waste any more time with telescopes or particle accelerators? Hawking suggests that the universe (time and space taken together) is "finite yet without boundary" (p. 136). This is the most arresting and, as yet unprovable of Stephen Hawking's proposals, but he is willing to wait for further observations that may move this idea to a higher degree of probability.

In the midst of all this theorizing Hawking conveys something of the playfulness of many who are engaged in the quantum physics quest. There is mention of a now-discarded theory known as LGM 1-4, LGM standing for "little green men." The explosion that is supposed to have kicked off our expanding universe is commonly known as the Big Bang. The smallest known particles are called quarks and come in flavors; the uniform nature of collapsing stars goes by the maxim "black holes have no hair." (p. 92)

Because theoretical physics has turned very precisely toward the whys of life, theology and ethics will have to pay closer attention. I will give two examples. When did time begin? Hawking offers the idea of a "singularity," a unique event in time at which the laws of science break down and predictability disappears. The Big Bang, therefore, is a singularity, and it may be said that time began with creation itself. From this it follows that time will come to an end when the universe ceases its expansion, collapses into itself, and perhaps sets off another Big Bang. The singularity idea has many implications for the theological dimensions of eschatology as well as for cosmology.

An example of the importance of quantum physics for ethics might be the "uncertainty principle" of Werner Heisenberg (1926), which Hawking refers to as "a fundamental, inescapable property of the world" (p. 55). Briefly, the uncertainty principle asserts that the position and velocity of particles cannot be precisely predicted. Rather, particles exist in a quantum state, which is a combination of position and velocity and which suggests a range of possible locations where particles are likely to be found. This means that we do not live in a deterministic universe where definite results can be expected. This also suggests there is a limit to our capacity to know what is going on.

If results in science are subject to randomness, ought not this principle of uncertainty be recognized when we speak of "good" and "bad" behavior? Isn't it less pretentious and more helpful to think in terms of quantum ethics, which would allow for a range of appropriate actions? I think this kind of approach is in harmony with Jesus' comments about ethical behavior. When asked about the greatest of God's commands he cited the Shemah (Deut. 6:4) and added that "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:29-30). This admonition finds parallels in many traditions and leaves much room for intelligent, responsible reflection-action.

Theoretical physics awaits and accepts the judgment of the future, whose discoveries and experiments either prove, or dismiss earlier claims. The author cites many instances of this: even the supernovas of physics, Newton and Einstein, admitted earlier mistakes or had their ideas corrected by others. Most theological reflection, on the other hand, lacks any sort of empirical reference. In other words, theological speculations, disconnected as they are from a close reading of "secular" history, normally make predictions that do not have to agree with observation.

In the last ten years or so theoretical physics has turned cosmology into a subject for scientific discussion and discovery. Can theological speculation accept the challenge of quantum physics and adapt to the conceptual limits that are laid down? Are seminaries prepared to train pastors and teachers to pay attention to the quanta discussions? How might theocentric statements be tested and then sustained or discarded? These are a few of the questions that quantum physics has placed on the theological agenda.

This review was first published in 1989 and has been republished in a collection of reviews and articles, That's What I'm Talking About (Nativa 2008). THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT

just a great book, explain in a fun and easy way. I just love it

Recommend it to all those who want to have a better understanding of science especially physics and astro-physics.

book that sold millions of copies and one wonders how many people read it and of those, how many actually understood it all. I have a scientific education (chemistry), but I frankly admit I did not get it all. It is difficult to explain what is in the book, but is in essence about where we came from and what we are heading to with regard to the universe, time, space and matter. The book is very well written, with a sense of humor and trying to explain the nearly inexplicable to the layman; I could follow large chunks of the text, but sometimes it is just too difficult to comprehend. This made me think: is Stephen Hawking's disadvantage (being locked up in his own body) also his disadvantage? He probably has more time than most people to turn into himself and contemplate on such extremely complex items as black holes, wormholes and the (in)finity of the universe. A book that leaves you in awe.

Hawking does a commendable job presenting some very detailed and complicated topics while simultaneously exhibiting them in a manner permitting the layman to fully comprehend the material. He accomplished both the simplification of complicated content as well as the presentation of subject matters that might normally be tedious yet are found to be quite appealing as a result of his demeanor and writing style.

Hawking's use of analogies only makes the visualization of space and time all the more accessible to simpler minds such as myself. Frequently taking subjects that require intense imagination and focus and explaining them with everyday analogies perhaps speaks to Hawking's brilliance as much as his research. Never before have I been so easily able to comprehend the expansion of the universe until it was so eloquently equated with the spots on a balloon. This only represents a sampling of the useful correlations one will find in this work, as he scatters them throughout each chapter.

For those seeking to explore the mindset of the most prominent men of science and to discover the questions they are asking in their quest for answers, this book will not disappoint. If you have even a basic interest in astronomy or physics, this book should be an essential part of your library.

Many of the characters improve in Book 2, after the rather silly last 200 pages of book 1. It starts with a very edgy prologue, and then is essentially a story of the hunt for the horn. The story starts to get more interesting in the second half as Nynaeve develops as an interesting character. Moiraine plots as always. Rand grapples with his problems. The Seanchan introduction in the last half really improves the book, which is falling into the same sleepy inn / road / town pattern of the first book in the first half.

One criticism with this and the first book is "the ways". I don't really approve a deux au machina which enables characters to reach a certain place in record time, as it seems to be just a substitute for good writing. I understand if others dont share my contempt of this.

A great extension from the begining book, I highly recommend this book and series!!

Read/Listened to book one, and was hooked. Love this type of story line with an unsuspecting hero and a crazy changing adventure.

I'm now about 2/3's of the way thru Book two, great the way it picked up right where one left off. If you want to get lost in another world covered in mystics, strange creatures, and dark friends, this series is for you.

This is pure excapist reading with all types of plot twists and turns. If you can keep up with the switching scenes and players, maybe you'll like it as much as I do! Then again, the Wheel weaves as the Wheel will...

'The Great Hunt' is the second book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. It follows our heroes from the first book, as they try and find the fabled Horn of Valere. It is very enjoyable, Jordan can tell a good story. It does however have one very large flaw that results in a sequel weaker than 'The Eye of the World'. Some of the character's are way too naive. Specifically I am speaking of Rand trusting Selene who obviously has way too much knowledge to be who she claims, and Nynaeve and Egwene blindly following Liandrin whom they had never trusted before. This level of naivete might be plausible in the first book, but not after all the adventures they have had. It weakens what otherwise is a good sequel.

The 2nd book in the Wheel of Time series, I give this book 4.5 stars. This book picks up about a few weeks later from the ending of the 1st book, The Eye of the World. If you haven't read the first book in this series, I'm warning you now there will be spoilers throughout this review. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read on.

At the end of the Eye of the World, one of the young men, Rand, realizes he can channel saidin, the male half of the True Source. After using the Eye, a secret chamber was found beneath the Eye that holds several very important objects: the banner of Lews Therin, called the Dragon, the male Aes Sedai that led the forces of Light against the Shadow during the Age of Legends, an object made of cuendillar (or heartstone) one of the 7 seals of the Dark One's prison created by the Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends during the War of the Shadow, and the Horn of Valere, a horn that will bring back the dead heroes tied to the Wheel of Time to fight for whomever blows the horn.

All very important objects, and all signs that lead Moiraine (the female Aes Sedai that led the Two Rivers villagers in the 1st book) to believe that Tarmon Gaidon, the Last Battle with the Dragon Reborn and the Dark One, is fast approaching.

The book starts to pick up the pace when the minions of the Dark One (Trollocs, Fades, and Darkfriends) attack Fal Dara and steal the Horn of Valere and free a very interesting Darkfriend named Padin Fain (he was introduced in the first book and he was the one that caused the villagers to first flee their home in that book). Rand and his friends Mat and Perrin, with escort, ride to hunt for the Horn of Valere (hence, the title of the book) and retrieve it.

In The Great Hunt, the main character Rand struggles with who and what he is throughout this entire book. He also becomes less naive, more wary and suspicious of the motives of the Aes Sedai, and more aware of the heavy duty that lays on his shoulders ("Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain"). Having read the other books in the series, and knowing how his personality changes, it was interesting to read the first seeds of this personality change occur. While he did harbor these suspicions in the 1st book, they really don't start to take root until this book. It is something that doesn't ever go away, it only grows with time throughout the series to the point where it actually hinders Rand and what he has to do (which is save the world!).

You also learn more about Padin Fain, and I won't spoil it, but he becomes an important character later on so you'll see more of him. Rand also encounters a mysterious woman who goes by the name "Selene" and I'll just say she is also a character of importance and Rand doesn't meet her by accident.

Mat and Perrin, important secondary characters, don't get as much page time as Rand. What I mean is, you don't get "inside" their head as much as Rand in this book. There are also some snippets from the viewpoints of Nynaeve, Egwene, Moiraine, and Padin Fain but most of the book is Rand's perspective. The other characters I mentioned have significance as well, they play big roles in the series.

I think my favorite scene out of this book is the ending scene. A lot of tension and action, a battle scene, and finally Rand realizing his fate and being resigned to his destiny. The Great Hunt is a worthy sequel to the Eye of the World, and it only gets better! =)

I finally read the classic 1974 sci-fi novel by Joe Haldeman called The Forever War which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1975 and 1976, respectively. These are pretty significant achievements and it would be difficult for a book to live up to them.

This one does.

The central premise is about a war between humans and aliens that is occurring way out in space so that even though faster-than-light is possible via wormholes, the trips ends up taking decades of Earth-time. The author uses this relativistic effect as a time-machine that allows the characters to experience huge time shifts and allows the author to speculate on Earth's future in exciting, engrossing and particularly amusing ways.

The protagonist of the book is an Everyman: William Mandella, a (presumably) straight white American male who is conscripted to fight the aliens despite a 50% casualty rate and somehow manages to survive multiple missions in what becomes known as "The Forever War."

GRADE: A.

Upon finishing Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War", the author's text stayed with me for quite a while, but perhaps not in the way he had intended. While I was impressed by the story's insights into the pointlessness of war, what stayed with me the most was it pervasive homophobia. Rather than coming away from the book thinking about the nature of humanity and admiration for Mr. Haldeman for writing such a wise and compelling story, I simply came away feeling sad. Sad for Mr. Haldeman for detracting this reader from the wisdom of his insights into the Vietnam war by his inability to see beyond his own prejudice and sad that friends and reviews would recommend such a homophobic book. With all of its insights, the book's greatest irony is how it could so movingly point out one form of human stupidity while pervasively supporting another.

I feel much the same after reading Forever War as I did when I finished reading Haldeman's companion book, Forever Peace, but worse. I liked Forever Peace better. I was underwhelmed by the ending of Forever War, hoping for something a little more exciting. The ending to Forever Peace stayed with me for a while and I grew to like it better as time went by. That definitely won't be the case here. I did like the ending in Forever War, especially the way things turned out with Mandella's girlfriend Marygay, but I felt it needed a little more of a twist. Earths's population morphing into a cloned master race was interesting and unexpected but I would have enjoyed learning more about how that development came about. I assume Haldeman fleshes out that transformation more in the sequel to Forever War, Forever Free. Additionally, I really liked tracking how the human race socially evolved from one century to the next as well as the evolution of the tools of war, but I wasn't so crazy about the portrayal of earth during the short period of Mandella's return. I thought Heinlein's Earth in Starship Troopers was more compelling. Still, I enjoyed the book. I think my expectations were set too high due to the fact that it was a Hugo and Nebula award winning novel, just as they were set too high when I finished reading Forever Peace for the same reason. That tells me that both books must have made more of an impact when they first came out than they do many years later. Forever War seemed a little dated in some areas and Forever Peace isn't as cutting edge after the release of the Matrix movies with whom it shares some key concepts.

It's a good thing Forever War was not a long book. I think Joe Halderman's writing style is much more appropriate to a short book rather than a 500+ page novel or an epic trilogy, as opposed to someone like Walter John Williams who can pull off military science fiction in a much longer format as illustrated in his excellent Dread Empire's Fall saga. Had Forever War gone on much longer it would have quickly become boring and repetitive, something it barely avoided as it is. Overall, the book was well worth reading and would be enjoyed by any fan of military science fiction.

This novel tells a story that sends the message: "Until you turn into communists, you won't understand that the enemy isn't your enemy." Or, stated in more conventional language: To those who understand, no explanation is necessary; to those who don't, none is possible.

It projects a "failed pacifist" as its hero and the plot is driven by a colossal and willful misjudgment made by war-loving men.

I suppose the story holds some small value inasmuch as it creatively presents FTL travel and the effects of time-dilation. But that is scant redemption.

Don't read this novel. Instead, try Heinlein's _Starship Troopers_.

Beyond a great story ,this novel is a true inspiration and a thoroughly captivating. An innovative , unpretentious, masterful work of art. The author convincingly predicts how a future of advanced technologies combined with mankind's still primitive basic self serving and self indulgent instincts could look. A vision of our future which 30 years later still looks all too possible. Anyone who gives this work a rating of less than 5 stars is a complete idiot totally ignorant of visionary and creative writing.