Bradley Books

A collection of short stories written by fans of Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Darkover" series, edited by Ms. Bradley herself, this is a very enjoyable read. Like almost all anthologies, some of the stories are stronger than others; personally, I wasn't much taken with "Girls Will Be Girls", by Patricia Shaw-Mathews, but even that story was entertaining and well-written; I just didn't feel that it treated the Comhi-Letzii with the respect they were due. It was an enjoyable piece of fluff, but a piece of fluff nonetheless, and seemed to me out of place. But any anthology which can claim that the worst story in it is well-written but possibly a bit out of character for the subject is doing pretty well.

Of course, if you've read Darkover fiction before and didn't care for the stories of Free Amazons, you may want to give this one a pass, but I shouldn't need to tell you that; the title should be all the hint you need.

A foundation stone to understanding the Guild of Renunciates (Free Amazons). The characters have great depth, and the plot is compelling. They should reprint this book!

If you've grown tired (as I occasionally do) of fantasy and science fiction filled with either damsels in distress or "women warriors" who seem to spend most of their time half-dressed, give this collection a read. You'll feel much better.

The quality is uneven, of course, and there were some stories I didn't particularly care for (which kept this from being a five-star review). My two favorites were "Knives" and "A Different Kind of Courage," but your mileage may vary, as always.

There's something for almost everyone here, unless you WANT half-dressed warrior women and damsels in distress. :)

Armistead, Barbara: "On the Trail" features two of Kindra's band from THE SHATTERED CHAIN.

Bigelow, Jane M.H.: "Tactics" Neither Bronwyn or her cousin Danilys are Renunciates. Bronwyn's marriage is disintegrating, as her husband Donal cares only for warfare; when he isn't fighting, he talks tactics at the dinner table. When he's killed in battle, however, the tedium stands the cousins in good stead.

Boal, Nina: "The Meeting" A magician from another culture, with reversed male/female social roles, strays onto Darkover.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer: "The Legend of Lady Bruna" was cut from THENDARA HOUSE, where it would have been a story-within-a-story read to Margali and Jaelle.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer: "Knives" Marna, a contemporary of Gwennis of THENDARA HOUSE, has often ventured to the local Guildhouse on business - but this time, although she's a year underage, she seeks sanctuary from her stepfather's abuse and her mother's disbelief.

Breen, Walter and Jaida n'ha Sandra each present a version of the oath - Breen's analysis of *the* oath, Jaida's a version tailored to 20th century society. Breen was MZB's husband, incidentally.

Carter, Margaret: "Her Own Blood" Gwennis' putative father often called her six-fathered when he beat her for her 'seizures', but she didn't know it was true until her mother brought her to Dom Elric - the only man who could have given her flame-colored hair, let alone the untrained, unidentified laran that brings on the seizures. Gwennis' life as a junior servant is a vast improvement, but given that Elric's only son is like to die of haemophilia, her life may not remain peaceful for long.

Holtzer, Susan: "The Camel's Nose" Seven Domains society is notoriously technophobic, but there are anomalies in every society. Elinda's love of technology drew her into the Renunciates, and from thence to study Terran engineering. Upon seeing her first bicycle, she feels it's obviously superior to a horse, and Cholayna Ares is willing to let her try this unusual entering wedge for technology, which falls outside the ban on powered devices.

Kramer, Sherry: "The Banshee" Janet Rhodes, Terranan biologist, gets more than she bargained for when her hosts introduce her to the fine art of banshee-removal.

Lackey, Mercedes: "A Different Kind of Courage" Rafi's rejection from Keeper training drove her into the Guildhouse to escape being sold into marriage as a broodmare. Her oathsisters see her as a disastrous failure at everything she tries: she's almost supernaturally clumsy, and timid to boot. But when a courier team is to be sent to Caer Donn, her familiarity with Keeper protocol puts her on the team, despite her inability to defend herself. (Compare her with the more assertive Herald-Chronicler Myste in EXILE'S HONOR - neither lady can fight her way out of a henhouse. If you like this story, try Elizabeth Moon's 'Gut Feelings' in LUNAR ACTIVITY, where a similarly timid personality develops backbone under pressure.)

Paxson, Diana: "The Mother Quest" Caitrin raised her son to the age of four - but no male past five may live in a Guildhouse, so she finally gave him up to his father's custody. Four years later, word has come of his death - but Donal's half-sister follows hard on its heels to mount a rescue operation.

Riggs, P. Alexandra: "To Open a Door" Buartha fled rape and betrayal in the Domains to a hermit's life in the Hellers with her daughter. But now her daughter's laran is beginning to flower

Shannon, Maureen: "Recruits" The narrator is the housemother of the Sisterhood of the Sword's new house in Caer Donn, left to the Sisterhood in gratitude by a man whose sister left a life of prostitution to join the Sisterhood. Since they're forbidden to actively recruit, Maellen worries over how anybody will find out they're here - needlessly, as it turns out. *Everybody's* heard of old Larren's will. There's an old saying that every Renuciate's story is a tragedy, but the motley crew of recruits who appear on the first day test that theory.

Shaw-Matthews, Patricia: "Girls Will Be Girls" My favorite. Catlyn, Dalise, and Ariane react to the standard 'your childhood has put chains on you' with laughter - 'well, they *tried*.' They're wild - a living challenge to sober Renunciate discipline, even without the practical jokes. :)

Shwartz, Susan: "Growing Pains" Like 'Girls Will Be Girls', this story makes the point that a misfit in the outside world may also be a misfit in the Guildhouse. After the fall of the Forbidden Tower, Catriona can't get laran training even at Neskaya. She plans to follow her foster-brother into the Empire, but her oath-sisters see Ann'dra's payback of old debts as a violation of the oath.

Silvestri, Margaret: "Cast Off Your Chains" Marissa Del Gado has hired Guild guides to take her into the desert - but her real goal is to rescue her sister Teri. Teri, it turns out, fell into the hands of Dry-Town slavers - and after escaping, has her own goal: establishing a new Underground Railroad.

Verba, Joan Marie: "This One Time" A childhood story of Lady Bruna Leynier, told from her mother's viewpoint. When Lord Alton leaves a skeleton force at home during a bandit-hunt, another band of raiders attack the estate.

Waters, Elisabeth: "Child of the Heart" As with Caitrin in 'The Mother Quest' (see above), Jamilla has given birth to a son - but she has chosen to give him up at birth.

Wheeler, Deborah: "Midwife" Trapped in a banshee's nest while travelling alone, Gavi helps the egg hatch - only to have the giant predator imprint on her. :)

This book is essential to anyone who wants to learn properly stellar astrophysiscs as a sort of "dictionary" related to this subject.

I have taught 2-3 classes in astrophysics at the undergraduate level and found this a useful textbook. The book is essentially the stellar parts of the larger one volume text by the authors and it is a lot easier to carry around than the "big orange book." The layout of the material is logical and gets the student through the material using basic calculus arguments so it is good for students who have finished their core calculus sequence and have had some exposure to differential equations and are just starting in their upper level courses. The text strikes a good balance between mathematical and descriptive arguments.

I think the discussion is thin sometimes as the authors go from one topic to the next with a sample calculation in between. Having looked at other texts though this is still one of the best at getting the student from Keplerian orbits to stellar interiors in a semester. I prefer it to Zeilik's book. The problems are not so cookbook as the one reviewer makes out and help the student confirm their understanding of the material and the longer problems make nice short projects for the student. I think they are well chosen and work out nicely _most_ of the time. I like the model Cepheid numerical exercise. One caveat below on the numerics in the text.

The authors have included a simple stellar structure fortran code they use for HW problems. As an example of using the formulas derived in the text surely this is a good thing to show the student how it all fits together... Right? However the code uses a simple integrate inward shooting method to "find" the solution that satisfies both the surface and core boundary conditions for a fixed mass parameter. This is ridiculously numerically unstable and requires the student to find that the correct solution is, say, between 0.9991 vs. 0.9992 by trial and error. It would have been trivial to provide a way loop through parameters and have the program try to find a root instead of having the student type in a parameter for a run and get a useless "try again" error message as the programs halts after each attempt. The second edition of the book does not fix this, but does add a graphical interface to create pretty graphs that show the program fail.... The students quickly learn there is no way to guess the answer and soon stop trying. Why not fix the underlying code? A better method would be to integrate in from one boundary and out from the other and match in-between, a standard trick and one not hard to code and explain. It would make a good code badly implemented really work the way it should!

Despite the numerical caveat I like the book a lot and will use it again when I teach the course again (supplementing the stellar code with a lecture on numerical methods to the students so they can fix it themselves).

This is an excellent introduction to Stellar Astrophysics, covering from the very start the essential concepts needed to undertake the subject, and gradually building up untill a nice introductory level is achieved. The book is well organized: divided into two blocks, starts by setting a solid basis upon which later presents the subject. In the first and introductory part, the essential astronomical concepts are explained, and in the second part the author gets into the actual Astrophysics of Stars. The book is pleasant on several levels; conceptually, coherently and aesthetically, all this while making use of a clear, straightforward matheticall formalism which is simple enough to follow. It is well suited for an introductory course at the undergraduate level, and one of the few books which actually bridges the gap between the high-level available pieces and the general public oriented literature on the subject.

Modern Stellar Astrophysics was a nice book. It was organized very well and presented the material in an orderly fashion. I thought that it lacked depth though. It gave many concepts, but they lacked mathematical examples to go with those concepts. A good book for people who already understand modern physics, but for those without a deep understanding of modern physics it will leave many open questions. Lastly, the homework questions at the end of the chapters resembled those examples throughout the chapters themselves very closely and even identically, thus answering them takes absolutely no analytical skills just mere copying.

Update: given that I really enjoyed this book I am updating this review. This book is really excellent for people with advanced knowledge of modern physics. However, it is not a good book for people without at least an introductory course in modern physics and possibly a course in quantum mechanics. This book does not rigorously attempt to teach physics, rather it assumes prior knowledge. Given that said, this book is very enjoyable book to read for those with the background knowledge; it takes a history of astrophysics approach. Really great book and I am scoring this book a perfect 5.

I had mixed feelings about this book, but by the end I really liked it. It was a very interesting exploration of memory, loss, impermanence, and the fragmentary nature of life. It was a very atmospheric book, evocative and descriptive, not a driven by twists and turns of plot or dialogue, but it is thought provoking, and multi-layered. I am surprised by how long it has stayed with me, and how many times I find myself thinking about it and recommending it to others...

As always, Jane Uquhart is a master story teller. She writes like an angel. I don't want to give "too much of the plot away" but it's set in both modern day Toronto and in the 19th century. You will love it...

Jane Urquhart's new novel, A Map of Glass, is a richly rextured and complex work of genius. Magnificent descriptive passages illuminate and delight.
This novel is deeply insightful,exceptionally thought provoking and remarkably moving.
Intelligent readers eveywhere, will be delighted by this rare literary jewel.

The first chapter of this book is unusual and interesting, describing a photographer, Jerome, and the photos he takes on an island near Lake Ontario. Then the story switches to the other main character, Sylvia, an autistic woman in her 40s or 50s. Both characters' stories eventually become preposterous, told in a poetic language that got on my nerves.

Everyone speaks as if they were characters in a pretentious novel. What a surprise -- they are!

I also couldn't make sense of all the "meaningful" descriptions of scenery and all the metaphors about maps. And who is Sylvia's friend, Julia? Why does this character need to be blind? Must be another metaphor I missed. We never meet Julia. As far as I could tell, she's just an excuse for revealing things about Sylvia.

Then, in the middle of the book, I encountered a 140-page "novella" about people living in the same area in the 19th century. This cursorially told tale is full of cliches including the rich family's son who impregnates the maid, and the old maid sister who has a sudden, intense ridiculous love interest. This novella is like a sketch for a real book.

Then we're back to the future, so to speak, with Jerome and Sylvia, who continue to speak in either stilted or unnatural language. Plus Jerome's too-good-to-be-true girlfriend, Mira, and Sylvia's pompous not-believable-as-a-real-person husband, Malcolm.

Come on. What is this stuff? The author does everything possible to connect up all this baloney in some meaningful way. The reader is left to guess whether Sylvia's story is true, and to accept Jerome's sudden, cathartic realizations about his childhood.

The whole thing is far from believable which, for me, is a real problem.

The sexy solo pop singer Lovpro21 new dance single
(MAKE IT BOUNCE) expresses sexual content and revitting beats that has the ladies bouncing there rumps in every club nationwide.
Lovpro21 follow up single (FEEL SO GOOD)up tempo beat with a harmony sexually charged chorus expresses how he appreciate the sexual and creative ways a woman makes him feel good.
This hit single is sure crowd pleasure.
This disc catches alot of listeners attention because the music is very different to what we are use to hearing today. This disc tremendously stands out from all the rest.

This book is fantastic! Everything you need to know about MP3s, music promotion and doing it the right way. I love it!

John Hedtke and Sandy Bradley's MP3 For Musicians is packed with details on how a musician might present music on the web, from communicating with fans and deciding how to feature one's music to locating additional resources on the web and understanding and using basic MP3 resources. Highly recommended: the specific information tailored to musicians is unparalleled.

i recently read two books on promoting MP3s and after some consideration, I think this was the lesser of the two, mainly because of the high cost. You basically pay a lot of money for a glossy cover and some nice pictures. You get the same information, and some better examples, in BUZZ YOUR MP3, an electronic book I discovered here at Amazon. I'm not saying this is a bad book -- it is very well written and the tips are fine -- but why pay so much for this book when you can get something else that is just as good in every way for a lot, lot less? Both books are about using MP3s to further your career. Both are well written. But this one just costs too much. Sorry.

Excellent. I'd recommend this over the introductory books for anyone who has had some piano lessons in the past. I love this way of playing--so enjoyable. Scott makes everything very clear and puts the creativity and fun back into being a piano player--two things that are often left out of traditional piano instruction. Recommended.

I am a beginning piano player. At the ripe old age of 59, I do not want to spend a lot of time learning the "classical" approach to piano. I just want to play tunes on my own! Scott Houston's got the right idea! This is the second one of his books that I have purchased and it is PERFECT for my needs. One of my many personality flaws is that I am terribly impatient, but once I forced myself to slow down and really make sure I absorbed what Scott and his co-writer were saying, I learned VOLUMES on how to use both the left and right hand in playing piano. The exercises are great too. Maybe another character flaw of mine is that I get overly excited about books? By the way, if you're just starting out, I would recommend that you first buy Scott's "Play Piano In A Flash" paperback...it's an easy read but very helpful too.

This book gives the basics of improvisation when playing from a fake book. It is a good tool for a continuation of the learning process. The use of a varied base line, improvisation within a chord and the pentatonic scale are worthwhile skills.

This book is an excellent primer for the advanced-beginner pianist who wants to leave sheet music behind, or for the by-ear or lead-sheet player who has attempted at least a couple of songs using the "right-hand melody, left-hand chords" arrangement presented in many methods, including of course, "The Piano Guy's" (Scott Houston), "Play Piano in a Flash" series.
Scott Houston and Bradley Sowash propose to take the reader to...well, the next step beyond the barebones arrangement described above and to introduce him/her to more sophisticated harmonies and options for creating bass lines and thus fuller, more satisfying arrangements of lead sheet melodies.

They have succeeded.

Using a songlist of the usual suspects including "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain", Sowash and Houston guide us, in a casual, conversational style through some elementary ideas of chord construction, including inversions, minor and dominant 7th chords and then they explore some options available for LH parts. The authors then gently introduce some exercises demonstrating construction of simple bass lines, melodic ornamentations, improvisation and then move into slightly more complex re-harmonizations and a brief introduction to chord substitutions and more complex LH patterns like pseudo-stride.

Overall, the presentation is practical, friendly and emphasizes exploration by the reader (who is admonished not just to read, but to play, play, play through all the examples).

My only quibble with the presentation (and it is a small one) is the lack of a discussion on practisng the chords and their inversions for each lead sheet before trying to create arrangements, which may result in less experienced beginners becoming frustrated and attributing their difficulties to the method. More experienced players will be able to run through the exercises quite rapidly, and will gain confidence in the steps required to go from melody line to fuller arrangment.

All in all, this book offers a user-friendly, technically accessible and surprisingly comprehensive foundation for lead-sheet and by-ear pianists to start creating full-sounding arrangements on their own. In fact, by extending the ideas in this book by yourself with regular practise, you will be able to go quite far as your technical skills improve. You should be able to read simple music in both clefs and be able to play very basic arrangements hands together to benefit from "The Next Step".

I've never bought a book from the Sams "Teach Yourself" series. Although I've browsed a few of them in the local bookstore, I've never really found one that worked for me. This book is different.

First off is the all-star writing staff: Siddharta Rao leads the lineup, as a Microsoft MVP (C++) and expert programmer who contributes to community development sites like CodeGuru. Contributing authors Bradley Jones (also a Microsoft MVP) and Jesse Liberty round out the team, contributing their real-world development skill and writing experience to this book.

These writers have put together a solid book that will help a new C++ programmer get off to a stellar running start in the field. As for myself, being an old hand at C++ programming but having neglected my unmanaged C++ development skills for a few years, this book worked well as a wonderful refresher.

The book advertises that it will teach the reader C++ programming in "one hour a day". I think this might be slightly ambitious for many readers, especially those that want to test sample code along the way. But the fact of the matter is once you start a lesson, the authors' writing style will pull you in. The time literally flies by as you work your way through the lessons. Several times I found myself reading 3 or 4 lessons back to back, with no regrets.

A lot of people might judge a C++ book by its discussion of object-oriented concepts: inheritance, polymorphism, etc. The authors discuss these concepts in great detail, devoting several lessons to a thorough discussion of object-oriented concepts.

The authors use a very entertaining writing style, which expresses complex concepts in a very plain-spoken manner. Consider their comparison of passing parameters to a function by value versus passing parameters by reference:

"Passing (a parameter) by value is like giving a museum a photograph of your masterpiece instead of the real thing. If the vandals mark it up, there is no damage done to the original. Passing by reference is like sending your home address to the museum and inviting guests to come over and look at the real thing." (p. 249)

If I could have but one wish, it would be that in the next edition the authors add an introduction to .NET-style managed C++. The authors do, however, provide several lessons explaining the STL (Standard Template Library), a powerful standardized unmanaged code library that provides implementations of data structures, iterators, and many of the other niceties that programmers tend to take for granted in lesser programming languages.

This book is highly entertaining, expertly written, and intelligently organized. "Teach Yourself C++ In One Hour A Day" is an excellent resource for the newbie learning unmanaged C++, or the old hand (like myself) looking for a quick refresher course.

I'm not a big fan of "Teach yourself X in Y amount of time" books. There, I've said it. Most of these books have their timing wrong anyway, you can't learn to be a world class polo player in 24 hours, you can't build your own ocean liner in 21 days and you can't be a professional hula champion in six easy lessons. And you won't be able to teach yourself C++, at least not enough to be of any use, in an hour a day.

But this book works. Forgetting the one hour a day promise, the book works very well. Learning C++, or just C, or any programming language from scratch is hard. Even harder if you have to learn the concepts of programming, loops, branches, pre and post tests and the whole object oriented thing. This book doesn't make it simple, but it does make the process more logical. And it breaks the process into small steps, most easily learned in an hour.

I'm not a C++ guru. I've used Visual Basic for just about ever and only written a few minor projects in C. I can print my name to the screen in C++, but that's about it. Or at least it was until I started this book. Walking through the first section, aptly titled "The Basics," I was able to get moderately familiar with C++ in such a way that I'll retain the knowledge pretty well. Quite obviously I'll get rusty if I don't use the new skills on a routine basis, but learning them was straight forward and well presented. The tutorials are backed by example code that worked fine in several different compilers and the analysis of what the code is doing is very effective at teaching the concepts as well as the specifics.

I do have a few minor complaints about the book. For one, it almost seems like two books. The first two thirds teaches C++ fundamentals and Object Oriented Programming quite effectively. But then the book almost changes direction and dives into the Standard Template Library. To me it's almost as if the book went a few hundred pages long. I suppose with the trend to produce forest-leveling technical books rather than specific shorter, more to the topic books, that this is to be expected. But I'd rather pay $50 for a 120 page book with only the information I needed than $20 for a thousand page book that scattered that same 120 pages across hundreds of pages of irrelevant, at least to me, material.

On the plus side, this book's 800 or so pages aren't padded with repetitive material or fluff just to meet a page count. The contents may not all be relevant to me, but they are likely relevant to someone else who might buy the book. I tend to see quizzes and exercises in a book like this as extra paper I didn't need, but a student with this book as a course text would find the material appropriate. Even for me the exercises provoked a thinking process not contained in the lesson itself. And in the end, you can't truly learn anything, whether it takes an hour a day or ten, unless you use the knowledge outside of the written example. If you want to learn C++, at your own pace, this is an excellent book to have.

I just finished chapter 4 managing arrays and strings. The book is well written the examples are error free and best of all the book follows a great structure that's something like;

-lesson,
-example code,
-analysis of code,
-at the end of each chapter there's a summary,
-Q/A for the main points of the chapter.
-workshop section with quiz questions and exercises.

The exercises send you out to write your own code from scratch and think outside of the books examples, some of the exercises are labeled BUG BUSTERS which show code snippets with errors for you to solve. Appendix D has quiz answers and possible solutions to the exercises.

So all that gets your mind into the language not just memorizing it, and gives you multiple opportunities to understand each point.

The book includes a free 45day pass to read the book online via "Safari online".

I highly recommend this book!

I never read the 5th edition of this book, so I can't really remark on the differences with this 6th edition. But considering just this edition...

The book fits well into the style of the series of "Teach Yourself ... in One Hour a Day". Each chapter, which the authors term a lesson, is bite-sized. I can readily envisage a typical neophyte to programming (of any language) being able to assimilate its contents in roughly an hour. Keep in mind that if you have never encountered this series before, then don't take too literally the one hour limit, as far as understanding the text in each chapter. Some chapters will naturally be more important and cover more complex concepts than others. If you need extra time, take it. The shoehorning into an hour is only an approximation.

What might be the simpler chapters? One could be that on controlling program flow, using while, do-while and for loops. The most important item in this chapter is that you should use these constructs whenever possible, in place of goto. Yes, you can use goto in C++. But the book warns that this leads to spaghetti code. Tangled and difficult to debug and extend. Goto is a tempting shortcut to beginners that must be resisted.

A more complicated chapter is on pointers. Describing the some of the myriad ways that they can be used and misused. There is ample warning about pointer errors. The book does not do a comparative analysis with other languages. But you should know that the designers of Java thought pointer bugs in C/C++ were so numerous and miserable that pointer arithmetic has been essentially banned in Java. Yeah, you want to be a C++ programmer; why else would you be considering this book? That's fair enough. But it doesn't hurt to know some of the key differences between C++ and its major alternative, which seems to be Java. If nothing else, this particular difference can keep you focused on very carefully writing pointer code.

I started reading the Darkover series when I was in college many moons ago. I have kept every single book from the series and re-read them all every few years. Bradley is the type of writer where the stories become so real that you can step right in and live along with the characters. If you want pure entertainment with a hint of social commentary as part and parcel of the story then read every last one and be educated

I liked the Darkover shorts in this book and particulary liked a very short one called A Matter of Perception by Lena Gore.. I have never seen this author before but I very much liked her style.. I would like to see more... I think she has a good grasp of the vagaries of Darkover... I like the way she sort of yanked you back and forth until the very end... Good style..I wish Ms. Bradley had prompted her for more.

This anthology contains stories that are mostly good, if not great, writing. But there is one of them that I must point out is decidedly NOT a canonical Darkover story; Ms. Bradley has always said that she doesn't necessarily consider stories in these anthologies to be canonical, but "Cradle of Lies", by Deborah Wheeler, is several orders of magnitude less canonical than most; in it, Ashara Alton is the chosen successor of Varzil the Good, and still a young and unproven keeper when he dies. This is distinctly NOT what we saw in Bradley's own novel, "Shadow Matrix", and although the story was well-written and interesting, I found the inconsistency distracting.

The rest of the stories are all interesting, of varying quality, but ranging from so-so to excellent; none of them were bad. Also, in her introduction to "Poetic License" by Mercedes Lackey, Bradley indicates that Lackey is her chosen heir to the Darkover series, a relevant and interesting fact now that Bradley is dead. I wonder if this also applies to the "Sword and Sorceress" series? I suppose we'll find out eventually.

The book was good, though, as with most anthologies, a bit uneven in talent. The stories seemed from different periods of Darkover's history, which could make it difficult to understand if you're not familiar with the world itself. Still it gave multifaceted views on some familiar characters and introduced well-rounded new ones. I can honestly say that there was no bad or boring story in the book, though this would not be a choice place to begin the series.

Marion Winik is one of the best authors I personally have ever read. I've read (consumed might be a better word..lol) all of her books now and each one only furthers my belief in her writing. She even took the time to personally answer a letter I had written her, which only made me like her more. She's a great author and I will continue to read her works over and over again..

I picked up "telling" only yesterday from Barnes n nobles bargin stacks. (I was only searching non-fiction in my quest to learn more about the history of why). Even though I am already operating on sleep deprivation from my one year old and working all night and day lifestyle I could not put "telling" down (a RARE RARE, so RARE i can't even remember when I plowed through a book with such joy and amazement). I'm endlessly searching for those voices of comradioure (sp?), and have sifted through zillions of books looking for it, for that voice that speaks as if it were my own. Marion winik is this voice, but she's not, she appears to be 'just like me', but it's really just the seductiveness of her writing style, the ease at which she tells it, the way she's managed to take all of the hopeless fiascos we make of our lives and laugh them into o.k. now-ness. There is tradgedy, which she doesn't hide from, and small bits of philosophizing, but most of all its just a back and forth journey through the times of her life (which is so similar to our lives-from the fat and awkward childhood, to the artsy drug-rebelling adolescent, to the station-wagon driving mom in a condominium with a microwave). The real stuff is here, the events of life, unfolding through the ages, just like us. Even though my father is still alive, I'm not jewish and i've never been to new orleans, I'm still just like Marion Winik.

This book could have been written by Irma Bombeck . . . except that Irma Bomback would never have written about having an abortion, shooting heroin, or oral sex in the front seat of a car. Essentially, Winik writes about what happens when the generation who never trusted anyone over thirty now finds itself trapped at forty-something. Her reflections and insights are remarkable for their transparancy. Winik neither takes us on a nostalgic romp through "Gee, wasn't it great back then!", nor does she moralize from hindsight with "Here's what I did; here's what I learned; maybe you can benefit from my experience." Instead she just describes what is: what it's like to be forty-something and come to grips with one's history. I laughed, I cried, and I couldn't put the book down.

I picked up "telling" only yesterday from Barnes n nobles bargin stacks. (I was only searching non-fiction in my quest to learn more about the history of why). Even though I am already operating on sleep deprivation from my one year old and working all night and day lifestyle I could not put "telling" down (a RARE RARE, so RARE i can't even remember when I plowed through a book with such joy and amazement). I'm endlessly searching for those voices of comradioure (sp?), and have sifted through zillions of books looking for it, for that voice that speaks as if it were my own. Marion winik is this voice, but she's not, she appears to be 'just like me', but it's really just the seductiveness of her writing style, the ease at which she tells it, the way she's managed to take all of the hopeless fiascos we make of our lives and laugh them into o.k. now-ness. There is tradgedy, which she doesn't hide from, and small bits of philosophizing, but most of all its just a back and forth journey through the times of her life (which is so similar to our lives-from the fat and awkward childhood, to the artsy drug-rebelling adolescent, to the station-wagon driving mom in a condominium with a microwave). The real stuff is here, the events of life, unfolding through the ages, just like us. Even though my father is still alive, I'm not jewish and i've never been to new orleans, I'm still just like Marion Winik.

This is a good short introductory biography about two wealthy spinsterish Victorian women, an aunt and her niece, who were lovers and lived together writing poetry *together* under a single pseudonym. Their poetry was highly acclaimed in their day and published under the masculine pseudonym "Michael Field". Unfortunately, this eccentric pair and their writings are no longer remembered today and little has been known about them until this book was published, bringing to light rare information culled from unpublished journals and letters. This is the story of two unusual and extraordinary artists who did everything together, including write with each other by day and sleep with each other by night. They had likeable and unlikeable sides to their perosnality and not all of their views and attitudes would be acceptable in today's more liberal times. But they proved, above all, that they were human, and their talent deserves a second glance, a second chance.

David Rehak
author of "Poems From My Bleeding Heart"

Michael Field was a successful, well-regarded poet and playright in Victorian England... until critics discovered that "Michael Field" was a pseudonym used by not one, but TWO women writing collaboratively. What even the suddenly-lukewarm critics didn't appreciate - not only were "the Michaels" (as they were known to friends) aunt and niece, but they were also lovers and partners in an extraordinay personal and artistic life. They wrote eleven volumes of poetry and thirty historical tragedies, but perhaps their most fascinating work was the diary that the two women shared for a quarter of a century. Novelist Emma Donaghue has done a marvelous bit of literary biographical research in this revealing look at the lives, loves, and eccentricities of Katherine Bradley (1846-1914) and her niece Edith Cooper (1862-1913).

Michael Field was the psuedyonm used by two women to write poetry, plays, prose, and keep a detailed journal of their lives. It is a remarkable story by all accounts. Their poetry has recently, in the past 10 years or so, been re-discovered and places them in the same category as many of the Great Victorian Poets, i.e., Wilde, Swinburne, Rossetti, and others. To label them simply by the title of lesbian literature limits 2 women whose works are some of the best produced during their time period. What Emma Donoghue does is tell Elizabeth Bradley and Edith Cooper's story simply and easily. After reading her book, I was so interested in these 2 women I spent days, weeks and even months searching down more information on them. Donoghue brings them to us in a moving and unexpected way. This book is a joy to read whether you are interested in Victorian literature, Lesbian literature, or simply human interest stories. I highly recommend this book as an introduction to 2 wonderful and creative writers.

This is an excellent introductory biography of Michael Field. There is not much written about these two remarkable women writing under a pseudonym in the late-Victorian period, but this book broadly covers all of the bases. The major negative from a scholarly point of view is that nothing is foot or endnoted, making discovering exactly where Donoghue came up with certain information something of a guessing game. Still, this book is an excellent, easy, interesting, and detailed read.

Gladys Mitchell is known as one of the "Big Three" English women mystery writers, along with Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Her output was prestigious, with 67 books featuring Mrs. Bradley, some of which have been converted to television with Diana Riggs starring as Mrs. Bradley. WHEN LAST I DIED was inspired by the Borley Rectory, which was rumored to be one of the most haunted houses in England.

Considered one of the most educated women in England, Mrs. Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley boasts a medical degree; is a psychiatrist; works with the Home Office; and is a private sleuth with a chauffeur named George. Her looks are somewhat alarming, even repulsive, but she has a sweet voice and is so persuasive as to exact the answers from the mouths of murderers.

When a diary is found in a house of a woman tried for the murder of a professional ghost hunter, Mrs. Bradley decides to investigate. Did Bella Foxley murder her aunt to receive an inheritance, followed by the murder of her cousin and finally herself? She is found innocent of her cousin's murder and there is not enough evidence to warrant an arrest for her aunt's death. But is there more than meets the eye? And is the house she rented really haunted?

"Mrs. Bradley was silent for about a minute. Then she said: 'It seems to me that Bella Foxley was arrested on insufficient evidence.' 'Not if you read what the wife said at the inquest. She practically accused Bella Foxley of the murder, and the coroner's jury brought in a verdict accordingly. She let out--only, of course, it had to be suppressed--that she believed the real motive was that Tom knew Bella had murdered the ancient aunt. He was murdered to shut his mouth and to put an end to the blackmail.'"

Gladys Mitchell, as part of England's Detection Club, vowed to play fair with clues; never to use a sinister Chinaman; not to 'borrow' other writer's plots; and to keep their feet off the table during dinner. WHEN LAST I DIED is considered her best book.

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

Both Philip Larkin and Patricia Craig considered this to be one of the best Gladys Mitchells, dealing as it does with old newspaper reports and a haunted house.

The supernatural elements come in from the beginning, when the reptilian psychologist (and witch?) Mrs. Bradley finds the diary of an acquitted murderess who later committed suicide in a pond - accused of pushing her cousin from the window of a haunted house.

The plot is one of Mitchell's best, involving one of the best uses of a haunted house in detective fiction (Mitchell uses the M. R. James approach), missing juvenile delinquents, an old woman choked to death on grated carrot. Mrs. Bradley untangles a convoluted maze of impersonation and insanity in her own inimicable fashion - "Mrs. Bradley is a far better detective than some who have achieved world-wide fame," said the Times Literary Supplement.

In short, one of Mitchell's best books, with a first-class setting, one of her best plots, and probably the nastiest murderer in the canon.

This is one of Mitchell's best, I think, combining what appear to be two of her favourite themes, children and weirdness. I'm only sorry she didn't throw in a few nuns, too, which would have enhanced the weirdness factor almost to the point it reached in _St. Peter's Finger_. This novel never ceased to intrigue and fascinate me, and it has one of her ghastlier and more surprising denouments, as well. Well worth an evening's read.

Fictional account trying to explain the mysteries behind Borley Rectory, the most haunted house in England. Originally published in 1941, two years after the rectory burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances.