Blake Books

Mary Pilote's "House of Bone" is a well crafted mystery in the true British genre. With just the right characters to lead us in interesting (and devious) directions. The plot is finely woven and the characters are develoed well. A page turner that will leave you looking forward to Gemma Blake's next adventure.

The characters in House of Bone were so vivid--I felt as if they were in the room with me, or rather I was drawn into their dramatic and deftly drawn world. Mary Pilote's book is literary, intelligent, vibrant, and, most of all, engaging and entertaining. All the friends I've lent my copy to have given it glowing reviews, too. One widely read friend was so enthralled with its texture and characterizations that she called me at 11 p.m. to say, "I'm LOVING it!" I'm looking forward to the next volume to be once again captivated and charmed by the world of Gemma Blake. -Cynthia S.

"House of Bone" is a great read. Mary Pilote is a good writer, her characters are very real, and the plot moves swiftly.
It kept me glued to my seat. I finished it in two days!

The characters in House of Bone were so vivid--they seemed to be in the room with me, or rather I was drawn into their world. Mary Pilote's book is literary, sophisticated, absorbing, and entertaining. Everyone I've lent my copy to gave it glowing reviews, as well. One friend called at 11 p.m. to say, "I'm LOVING it!" I'm looking forward to the next book in the series and being drawn once more into the dramatic and deftly drawn world of Gemma Blake.

I'm just checking, in the top-left corner of the image for this book, it says "Intermediate Duet" and in the top-right it says "4 hands - 1 piano". Is this a/the duet book, or is that a faulty image?

The Quentin Blake illustrations are cool. The lyrics are very readable. (Quentin Blake illustrated many Roald Dahl books) A 4 year old friend of mine loves this book and sings along with it.

Joseph is one of the greatest musicals I have ever seen. As a 14-year-old participant in this production, I strongly recomend this music to anyone who loves Andrew Lloyd Webber. This is a great collection of ballads and up-beats.

Joseph is one of many brothers. He is his dad's favorite so the brothers don't like him much. Joseph is given a colorful coat by his dad wich gets the brothers very mad. They sell him into slavery. Potiphar is a rich man in Egypt and he buys Joseph. Joseph gets thrown into jail because Patiphar's wife is flirting with him. He becomes well known because he can interpert dreams. Will he get out of jail?

and it was very good. I have read so many bad romance novels recently and this one was well written and definitly in a league of its own. The book was very unpredictable too - I liked all the twists and turns. I highly recommend it.

I very much enjoyed this story. I liked the different approach of Cyrene seeking to get rid of her virginity and what that did to her. The relationshipe between Cyrene and Rene and the mystery as to who he really was and his purpose kept me reading. The authors way of telling the love/sex scenes was very poetic which was touching and moving. I highly recomend the reading of this book. It's one of the best I have read.

In this story, Jennifer Blake introduces us to French Louisianna in which French politics, smuggling, and betrayal come together in the New World. Two people from opposite sides of this spectrum come together, daring to fall in love. A lovely story for any Jennifer Blake fan.

Once again Jennifer Blake, one of Americans Best Historical Romance Writers brings the South to life in this "Hotter than a Summer night on the Bayous Of Louisiana.... Louisiana Dawn is a well written book on true romance with a passion for love without a lot of nonsense. I highly recommend this one to all of Jennifer Blake's fans new ones or for those who had been around while......

This is by far my favorite Marilyn book ever! There are so many photos, that you don't have to face that anxiety of looking at the last one! This is a several sitting book, even if you are just using it as a coffee table book..

I found this book to be a very special one on Marilyn Monroe and her "platonic" relationship with a special fan/friend. This book spans an eight year relationship with the author. You get a "back-seat" view of how Monroe's personality was, whether it was happy, gloomy, or sad during their "friendship" period. I truly enjoyed reading this book. It should be considered a "must read" and "must have" copy for for all Monroe's fans' and buffs' libraries alike. As the previous reader stated, this book was written from a perspective of someone being very close to Miss Monroe; somewhat placing this as a "unique" and interesting bit of MM reading. Lastly, the author gives the reader a "touching" bit of his own soul, when he describes his very last meeting with Miss Monroe before leaving for California.

If you can get this book, get it. Mr. Haspiel was a teenager when he met Marilyn and he stuck with her. His information is first hand, as opposed to authors who cash in on researched material. James Haspiel is the source writers went to for their magazine articles and such, and his book is wonderful. He even has pictures of Marilyn, proudly displayed, without make-up on.

This book is a revealing account of Mr. Haspiels friendship/relationship with Marilyn Monroe ("Mazzie" as he affectionately calls her) during the last 8 years of her life. Not just another historical perspective of Miss Monroe's life, the book is written from the viewpoint of someone who was obviously quite close to Miss Monroe as the many photo's and documents substantiate. The candid revelations and thoughts concerning the author's and Miss Monroe's friendship is what makes this book unique. A highly recommended book especially for those interested in a more personal account of the life of Marilyn Monroe.

This is a book I needed for a college Humanities class. Amazon and the book sellers on this site are GREAT resources for school books! The service is always so quick, you have the options for paperback editions which are way easier to carry around, and the prices are unbeatable. Thank you for offering so many options and for great pricing and service.

The transaction was great. Everything was as it was supposed to be.

One of Blake's fantastic works, with all of the artwork right there with it. This is the first copy of a William Blake book I ever owned and I still love it to death, as small as it is, and read it again and again.

It's great to read Blake is his own typeset. And the book is essential Blake.

At the time of this review, there has been a paltry 3, yes three, a mere trio, of reviews on Matilda. How? Is this not deservingly one of the all-time classics? Crazy stuff. For my money, I'm pinning this odd occurrence on global warming. Anyway...the book! If you read the opening page, you're in. How can anyone resist that stuff about parents thinking their truly hideous children are so gorgeous and gifted? And it's all good from there on out. C'mon, Trunchbull is hilarious with her quick talking, exclamation point-driven dialogue and barbarian attitude toward everyone. And that little Matilda... The book does differ somewhat from the movie, so even if you've seen the flick, the book is still a great time.

As an aside, and to anyone considering a career in writing, I understand that Roald's first draft had Matilda being kind of bratty and evilish in the first half of the first draft. Roald's editor (maybe agent) told Roald to rewrite it to make Matilda sweeter, or at least more understandably evil, in the book's first 100 pages or so. As this was Roald's final book, I believe, this fact is heartening to any would-be writer--a skilled veteran like Dahl still making errors! It gives us all hope. Further, and only when you know the above info, when you read Matilda, you can almost see where Roald went to the trouble of rationalizing Matilda's somewhat dastardly actions toward her parents. Fascinating!

Wonderfully written of a child, Matilda, who is a ferocious reader with special ability and great human perceptions. It may inspire children to read more, imagine and discover the treasures of what books can offer. Happens to be a favourite of my 3 and 5 year old daughters.

This is a really cute book (that I see has recently been made into a movie). Matilda is a smart girl that likes to read, who has a car salesman father that sells cars he illegally fixes up (like putting on a fender with glue). Her parents would prefer her to watch tv than read. Then the adventures start when she goes to school. Its a quick read and very entertaining.

One of the last novels written before Roald Dahl's death, "Matilda" reads almost like a goodbye, with a thank-you to all the authors that have touched Dahl during his lifetime - the text even includes a reading list of books recommended to Matilda - and through her, to the reader. And Matilda herself, despite being female, could very well be a reflection of Dahl himself as a child: a precocious bookworm with a fascination with words, people and places. As such, "Matilda" holds a special place in the canon of Dahl's literature for children, and Matilda herself is one of those shining characters that you simply wish was a real person and your friend. It is a rare thing indeed for an author to not only create a character who has practically no faults, and yet never becomes a goody-two-shoes or implausibly perfect, but to give her a remarkable gift (in this case, her hyper-intelligence) and make it seem less important than her goodness, her loyalty, her sense of justice and her love of learning.

Matilda Wormwood is born to two rather awful parents who have no interest whatsoever in their young daughter, instead pouring all their attention into their work, (for Mr Woodworm) bingo, (for Mrs Wormwood) and occasionally their first-born son Michael. However, they are mean-spirited enough to take umbridge at the sight of Matilda indulging her great love for reading. To get back at them (and to keep her own sanity) Matilda engages in a series of practical jokes every time her parents are beastly or dishonest - which happens on a rather regular basis.

But all of that changes when she starts school and Matilda meets the two most important women in her life: the lovely Miss Honey and the terrible Miss Trunchball. The gentle and timid Miss Jennifer Honey is Matilda's adored teacher, whereas Miss Trunchball is the Headmistress of Crunchem Hall Primary who terrifies student and teacher alike. Miss Trunchball may be a rather unfortunate stereotype of a butch, unattractive, athletic woman, but as an incarnation of psychotic feminine rage, she comes second only to Lewis Carroll's Queen of Hearts. More a force of nature than an actual person, she's sure to send a shudder down any child's spine - however bad your teacher is, you can be sure she's not *this* bad!

It soon becomes clear that the students of the school are waging a war against Miss Trunchball, one that Matilda is all-too-keen to become a part of when she realizes that there is a mysterious link between her beloved Miss Honey and the tyrannical Trunchball. And it just so happens that around this time, Matilda finds that she has a remarkable ability: to move things with her mind. Being a moralistic girl as well as an intelligent one, she soon realizes that she now has the perfect tool with which to restore Miss Honey to her former fortune and deliver Miss Trunchball her just desserts.

The text is full of allusions to other books and stories, making it a remarkably rich read for a children's book (and will hopefully get young readers interested in other books - as I'm sure was Dahl's intention) and of course includes plenty of Dahl's trademark love for the grotesque and macabre, components that have always made him controversial in the adult community, and beloved in the child's world. But even more in "Matilda", there is a sense of the spiritual and the sublime - Matilda's emerging powers seem to not only stem from her intelligence, but from her great spirit as well, particularly when she describes her powers as feeling like: "flying past the stars on silver wings." With justice served in the guise of a tiny five year old (captured perfectly in the illustrations by long-time Dahl collaborator Quentin Blake), and an ending that manages to be both happy and bittersweet, "Matilda" is a must for any children's bookshelf.

A sword-wielding milkman, a reporter, bikers and some aliens.. suspend your belief and enjoy the fast paced story about saving the world!

The style of the book reminds me of some books written Alan Dean Foster. Sci-fi in the sense that it has to do with aliens and some advanced technology which isn't explained in any detail. The characters are all cliche but likable. The story is straightforward but has some new enjoyable twists and some campy humor that made me chuckle to myself.

The book was well written -- The prose was straightforward and the story flowed between chapters which left me wanting to read more.

My only complaint is the book was expensive for the small amount of pages -- especially since it was a Kindle download. But I guess everyone has to make a living.

If you enjoyed Army of Darkness, Buckaroo Banzai, or anything in the ouvre known as "Python", you will thoroughly enjoy this book. On the other hand, if you like your plots bulletproof, your characters serious, and your prose...well, prosaic, then this is not the book for you.

Otherwise, hop in, buckle up, and get ready for more gun-totin', alien huntin', trailer trash fun than you can shake a stick at.

The late Bill Hicks would have loved this book that so aptly extends the plotline of his Flying Saucer Tour. Bill always wondered why it was that aliens abducted only yahoo morons from Nowhere, Alabama. Ian Healy explains it all in a manner that would make the writers of Saturday Night Live proud. The Monty Python troupe would applaud, and The A-Team would give a heads up. The Milkman is a little like the work of all these legendary clowns. The story would be silly and frivolous to the max and gag-me-with-a-spoon bad if the author was not such a helluva writer. The jokes break wind like Spinal Tap going to eleven, and the many clever similes will make you giggle with anticipation of the next one. The author uses pop cultural references similar to those in my own first book, Plastic Ozone Daydream. Mr. Healy has a firm grasp of what entertains hip Americans. If you can't handle a few gaseous emissions, look elsewhere, but if you thought Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle was the cat's meow, you may really enjoy The Milkman.

If you're looking for a great read this summer, pick this one up. It's funny and fast paced. The length makes it perfect to take along on a weekend trip.

The editors of this great work recognize its difficulties and that it is usually only the domain of specialists. They have filled to volume it commentary, notes, and helps to try and help the general reader to penetrate aspects of this extended poem / lyric / myth. The style is so personal to Blake and so unlike any other writer's style that it is hard for most of us to make sense of what each character means in any instance. A further difficulty is that there really isn't a narrative path or plot or much to help the reader move from one moment to the next. Blake had a view of reality has so multi-layered with each being having simultaneous multiple identities and manifestations that our normal way of viewing reality is quite useless.

The plates are beautifully reproduced with wonderful coloring and great images. It is a poem you can tackle as you wish, but plan on spending a lot of time thinking about it before it yields much to you.

For those readers who love Blake this is a great volume to add to your collection.

Princeton University Press has thoroughly impressed me with this series. Using higher quality paper than I've ever seen in publishing, along with an unheard-of *six* color printing process, they have reproduced the colors like never before. In addition to the color plates, a full reprint of the text is included in typescript, as well as informed and thoughtful commentary. Well done! Too bad the hardback is out of print (or was at the time of this review).

I hate Blake. He and his Zoas and Los can go suck the ample breasts of Albion's emanation Jerusalem. At least Joyce (the only other person I know with this personal mythology splattered out for everyone) had a sense of humor. This guy, though.
Nevertheless, the illustrations are something, and there is something in the poem, I don't know exactly what it is (nor does anyone else, regardless of how convoluted and esoteric their arguments), but I'm convinced that in order to understand the least bit of these poems, you must read them all. Study them, in fact. The notes in this version are very good, and the extra illustrations are great, particularly the painting of Adam and Eve discovering Abel with Cain running off covering his newly marked forehead. Also, there is a large Lacoon, undoubtedly Blake's best thing. (I don't want to call it a poem, painting, or even "work" for some reason).

Try as I might, I haven't come up with the blend of radical individualism thwarted by universal awareness which would make this kind of book an intellectual treat for most people. I have read the poems by William Blake (just a few thousand lines, really) that are in this book before, and I even compared the abridged copy of his poems which I've had for years with a complete text from the library to discover what I could about the process of selection. Most of this is still a big mystery to a lot of people, and buying this book was my first attempt to get the whole picture of what a lot of professors might think about a single work, which is printed on plates numbered 1, then 1 to 8, 8*, 9 to 32, 32*, 33 to 46, then a Preface, copy B, plate 2, and even a plate f, followed by variations of the pictures which were on plate 13 and other Supplementary Illustrations. I had some trouble making out words on the colored plates, so the most educational part of the book for me is the printed text with notes from pages 111 to 217.

Milton is a great figure in English literature, and the great poems which place Satan and God in a struggle that makes Adam and Eve seem like minor characters are the intellectual context for Blake's effort to write a poem using Milton to write about things that minor characters wouldn't even want to talk about. Things don't really start happening for me until plate 12, "According to the inspiration of the Poetic Genius/Who is the eternal all-protecting Divine Humanity" that Milton actually rose up and said, "I go to Eternal Death!" Don't expect to meet anyone saying such things on our streets. This attempt to be instructive in the art of self-annihilation produces one of the great intellectual puzzles of eternal questions, which attempt not to apply to a particular place and time. My appreciation of John Milton and William Blake is more concerned with their ideas than with artistic techniques. The importance of Blake was suggested, more than it was demonstrated, by Theodore Roszak in THE MAKING OF A COUNTER CULTURE, Chapter VIII, "Eyes of Flesh, Eyes of Fire," which observes that a "perfectly sensible interpretation . . . would tell us, for example, that the poet Blake, under the influence of Swedenborgian mysticism, developed a style based on esoteric visionary correspondences . . . Etc. Etc. Footnote." (Roszak, p. 239). What really impressed me was the intellectual context established in the Bibliographical Notes, at the end of THE MAKING OF A COUNTER CULTURE, which states, "Anything Blake ever wrote seems supremely relevant to the search for alternative realities." (p. 302). The radical element of that thought needs to be understood in a way that affirms the religious significance of what Blake was trying to accomplish, and other scholars might overlook how this search in Blake's work might oppose their own assumptions about our cultural inheritance. Harold Bloom, in BLAKE'S APOCALYPSE, (1963, shortly before the radical part of the sixties) said "The dark Satanic Mills have nothing to do with industrialism, but" poetically pick the most common example for why those who are bored might want to complain of "The same dull round, even of a universe, would soon become a mill with complicated wheels." (Bloom, p. 305). There are a lot of names to explain, as Bloom does in his book, and the scholars employed by Tate Gallery Publications for the production of this book display an extraordinary amount of work on this project for that purpose, and the intellectual puzzles are what remains mysterious even after learning what knowledge is available.

At the heart of the poem, "Milton," is the question of what such a character might mean to William Blake, and how, long after Milton's death, he might be of some use. A lot of works have been written to give an author the opportunity to say something that he wouldn't have otherwise had a chance to say, and this book seems to be one of the unique cases of a work which tries to say something that no one else is saying. Instead of treating Milton like anyone who had been dead for more than a hundred years, the treatment of Milton's thought also supposes that it exists through an "Emanation, Sixfold presumably because he had three wives and three daughters." (Bloom, p. 308). Bloom thinks this book is a result of "a complex relation of responsibility to what he has made, though his creation is in torment because scattered through the creation." (p. 308). After John Milton had become blind, his wives and daughters represented a tremendous portion of his remaining contact with the world.

Walter Kaufmann, in LIFE AT THE LIMITS, considered a sonnet by the blind Milton about a dream in which one of his wives, who had died, was seen by him "Brought back to me like Alcestis from the grave." The reality expressed in the final line of that poem, "I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night," seemed to Kaufmann to be "the most powerful last line of any English short poem." (LIFE AT THE LIMITS, p. 75). Blake approached this situation, in which picturing another person might be considered the strongest link with any reality, with what modern readers might consider an unctiously religious picture on plate 15, with the caption (explained on p. 139 with, "The giving up of selfhood to achieve a more inclusive sense of self is essential for the artist to create" which isn't so scary if it is only applied to artists and monks): "To annihilate the Self-[there is a foot here in the picture]-hood of Deceit & False Forgiveness." Then plate 16 starts with "In those three females whom his Wives, & those three whom his Daughters/Had represented and containd. that they might be resume'd / By giving up of Selfhood:" This poetic division of a single poet into six male-female relationships is the most surprising thing in the poem, for me. Trying to apply it to religion states a much more radical understanding of what religion has to offer than most people expect if they merely go to church, which seems to be one of Roszak's points about how our culture accepts religion by making it strictly mainstream, totally "God Bless America" as the most popular current phrase goes. Much of the scholarship on the creation of Blake's large works notes how uncommercial it was in Blake's day, as "Hayley discouraged him from anything other than `the meer drudgery of business' (p. 14)" and this book tries to make that picture perfectly clear.

In one of the few small works at the end of this book, Blake complained:

The Classics, it is the Classics! / & not Goths nor Monks, that / Desolate Europe with Wars. (p. 264)

I feel the same way, complaining about some books, but Blake assumed a society in which people were actually being taught things like a Platonic belief in forms, and the Classics were a large element of what seemed bad to him. He might have felt differently if he ever had a chance to observe our formless void, where any claim to wisdom is highly suspect. We can only look the other way.

Nation under Siege is a mandatory read. It should be mandatory at the Army War College or at Command and General Staff College. M. Blake's eye-opening work is the finest description of the current conditions in Iran that I have seen. The detail, personal knowledge, and new information contained in the work pulls back the curtian of ignorance that prevails in the national media. Also, the book flows well and I could not put it down. This will be a national bestseller!

Critical and fresh, forthright writing for today's political world. While Blake paints a bit more gentle picture of the last Shah of Iran than others, the cut-to-the-bone analysis of the nuclear question in Iran is original, honest, and on the mark. All leaders of countries concerned with what happens in Iran during the next decade should read this book - a brilliant insight into the Iranian Political Psyche. Many people may not want to agree with a Nuclear Iran, but after reading this book they should understand the Iranian reasoning for having nuclear power.

'A Nation Under Siege' is simultaneously a personal memoir, a breathless sprint through the religion and history of Persia/Iran, a detailed account of the abuses and incompetence of the mullahs, and a call to action on the part of the Western World.

Many may disagree with the conclusions of the book - which simultaneously argues that Iran can be converted to a peaceful democracy and also retain its nuclear program - but it's an engrossing book nonetheless. Considering the constant coverage on the news about the spread of democracy in the Middle East, the plans of the mullahs and the neo-cons in the government, it is topical and timely. Well illustrated with color photos and maps, it's a must-have for readers of geopolitics.

This is only book i ever picked up and just reading the opening dedication brought unexpected and instantaneous tears from my soul to my eyes.
This book really details with amazing knowledge and facts what Iran is from its early past rulers and conquerers to the present.
A real EYE OPENER. This book CUTS to the QUICK and DESTROYS the BIASED MEDIA'S VIEWS.
Move over C RICE., M BLAKE should be the PRESIDENTS ADVISOR.

Ms. Blake took me into the classroom and gave me a sense of what really goes on between students, teachers and the administration. Real life, real situations and real emotions make this book a great read. I highly recommend it.

Mrs. Blake walks you through the obstacles she had to face as being a teacher to at-risk teenagers.

The book is disturbing, because of the fact that passionate and talented teachers who care about their students have no support from other teachers and administrators.

Maybe, this book will ignite a flame in teachers as well as administrators to care and have compassion again for students.

No child left behind? The true story of a teacher's quest is unpredictable and is very structured in writing style.

By the third paragraph I was already hooked. Elizabeth Blake (by the way no relation) had my attention. I needed to read her story, "No Child Left Behind: The True Story of a Teacher's Quest."

Well into her twentieth year as a Medical Technologist in chemistry and hematology Elizabeth Blake felt a strong desire for a change, for a new career path. With a deep-seated sense of calling Elizabeth pursued the necessary education courses and passed the required State Department of Education tests and was ready for a provisional license for teaching.

Helping teen age at-risk kids "pulled her like a magnet." She applied for a position as Science teacher at a small alternative school for at-risk and homeless kids, students that couldn't make it in regular school.

An idealist, Elizabeth was not ready for what faced her on her first day of classroom experience. Her carefully laid plans exploded. Chaos ruled. Beth soon learned that many of her students had a probation officer. Others attended school by a court order. A few wore electronic tracking bracelets on their ankles. Many had to drop out of regular school or didn't fit in and needed alternative options.

Special students like Conejo, Javier, Bobby, Nakisha, Erica and others like them were filled with promise and showed marks of maturity and learning during their classes with Mrs. Blake. This was the motivation that inspired her to renew her contract each year, in spite of duties over and above her classroom teaching, assignments in three different schools. Administrators and district office personnel made a teaching-learning situation an even more difficult challenge in a school where poverty, shooting, and the influence of gangs became a way of life. She only received the support of administration in one of these assignments. The administration and school board gave lip service only to the ministry statement of the district: "Our teachers deal with problem students. Every child deserves and education."

As a Christian Educator, myself, and having worked with a Faith Based Ministry serving the needs of incarcerated juveniles, I can identify with Beth's dilemma. She had a strong love for her students. She was proud to see them learn, mature and grow under her tutelage. The undermining of the administration and. the trauma, riots, chaos became a burden hard to face. She was left heartbroken each time another of her students injured, hospitalized or killed. In desperation she cried out to God for direction and inner strength.

I found Blake's writing style compelling, often heartbreaking, yet positive in attitude and approach. I especially enjoyed the follow up on some of her students who have moved on to enroll in various college programs or to pursue professional training for promising careers.

"No Child Left Behind? The True Story of a Teacher's Quest" is a book that should be read by every school administrator. It should be required reading for educators, teachers and administrators within any inner city school district.

Author note: Some vendors are offering discounted prices. A couple people I know have purchased discounted books and got their money refunded. If you purchase a book at a discounted price and get your money refunded to you, please order directly from Amazon. You will be fine if you order from Amazon itself.
Happy reading!

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This compelling book evoked the entire spectrum of feelings and emotions from inspiration, admiration and joy to anger, fear and grief. You made my already high opinion of teachers, even higher. You taught me and you made me think....always signs of a great book!