Gilbert Books

This is a fun book written in a very laid back style. It inspired me to track down a Sampras vs. Gilbert match so I could view his style of play. He definitely practiced most of what he preaches in this book. I've also read "I've Got Your Back" and the books have merged in to one in my mind though this one is clearly better. The best part of this book is the strategy section. He covers facing most styles of play including serve & volleyers, pushers, baseliners, and lefties. He's refreshingly direct and honest. He stresses to never to donate free points to your opponent, play within your skill level and step it up on "setup points". There's one point I do disagree with and have proof it doesn't work. I played a 3.5 match and my opponent had obviously just read this book as he was doing the Gilbert pre-match warm up --running circles backwards & forwards. He won the spin and elected that I should serve first. Well, I held and never looked back. Nowadays 3.5s can get their serves in and usually hold. Perhaps the book is designed more for 2.5s but I think it would be useful to anyone up to 4.0 USTA rating (actually James Blake would do well to read this several times). I don't play the pusher style but I ABSOLUTELY HATE DONATING POINTS and that alone allowed me to go undefeated and get a trophy in a weekend warrior league. Brad Gilbert took some nice athleticism and pretty ugly looking strokes to #4 in the world and a million dollar pay day in Germany because of strategy. Thumbs up.

Very helpful book.. Especially for younger players who probably never thought of the mental part of the game. My 14 year old was definately somebody who just "showed up" for the game. After reading your book he started winning again..Great!

Charles

Brad Gilbert fue uno de los jugadores más tácticos del ATP. Se mantuvo como "Top 10" por casi 1 decada. Este libro es una obra infaltable para el tenista, sea profesional o amateur. Entrega consejos fáciles de entender y sin rodeos ni teorizaciones.
IMPERDIBLE, por algo lo recomiendan Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi y Jim Courier. Si los más grandes lo promueven, es porque realmente es una pieza infaltable en tu biblioteca.

Brad Gilbert is truly a master when it comes to winning ugly! This book is helpful for beginners and advanced players, alike. Anyone looking to make the most of their skills by taking their mental game and tennis strategy to the next level should give this book a read. Just look what Brad's approach did for Andre Agassi! Enough said.

Although I no longer play tennis, this remains my favorite tennis book. After beating Becker to win Wimbledon, Brad explained how he had done it. He said: "I couldn't beat him at his level so I had to drag him down to my level." And anyone who saw that match knows that is exactly what he did.

That particular Wimbledon Finals was such a tactical masterpiece that anyone who knows anything about tennis knew that Gilbert was really on to something big. Against great odds, he "sliced and diced" Becker to the point of utter frustration -- the same as Ashe had done to Conners in the 1975 Wimbledon Finals.

Although Brad has been described condescendingly as a "journeyman tennis player," and as a "blue collar tennis player," since his ranking never rose above number 8, I still put him in a class of only a handful of the elite tennis strategists.

As this book so aptly demonstrates, his game is based on "playing the odds" to get and maintain a winner's edge. It begins with the idea that everyone in your rated-class is as good as you are, so the winning edge must lie other than just in talent alone: It must lie in preparation, both physical and mental; and then in knowing all of the fine points of the game and how and when to use and exploit them. In the book he de-constructs the games of the best players of his era, and somehow you know that everything he says is "dead on."

Gilbert's mental game is un-excelled and eclipses even the book called "Inner Tennis," which is devoted exclusively to the mental game of tennis. The fact that Brad went on to coach some of the greatest players of his era is testament to his vast tennis knowledge and skill as both a tactician and as a strategist.

There may be better tennis books out there in the market, but as player who retired as a 4.5 player at my best, I used this book to scare the hell out of more than a few 5.0 players, and that is no mean trick.

Touche to Brad, and five stars

I like Gilbert Morris - the Wakefield Dynasty and Spirit of Appalachia books were wonderful - but honestly I couldn't appreciate Cheney and Shiloh very much. Their interactions don't seem natural at all, Cheney is an annoyingly stiff character, and I can't help but feel like the story is strikingly reminiscent of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman...
Sometimes I get wrapped up in the plots, and other times it's hard for me to stay interested. Characters like Walker are endearing, but the main characters are less so. Rather indifferent.

Cheney travels to Hawaii with her maid Nia and another doctor from San Francisco, Walker Baird, presumably to rescue Shiloh from Bain Winslow, who, at the end of book 6, convinced Shiloh to come to Hawaii to meet his mother, but while still on the ship, invaluable proof of Shiloh's parentage was stolen. Throughout the visit, they meet with hostility from Mrs. Winslow, and Bain isn't around much anyway, but his sister Brynn is very friendly and takes them on a tour of a Hawaiian crater, and when a volcano's eruption is eminent, Brynn and Cheney are both very good at keeping the people under control and getting them to safety, although Mrs. Winslow and one Chinese man keep causing trouble for everyone. The part of the book dealing with the volcano seems to take forever because of so many details, and I kept getting some of the Hawaiian and Chinese characters mixed up, but there are some wonderful moments too, such as when Nia teaches a Chinese lady about Jesus while the volcano is erupting around them.

I was delighted to have more focus on Shiloh and his life. Will he ever tire of living his life for Cheney? For a man so smart and intuitive about so many things, will he ever see what is Cheney's priority? Shiloh's strong character and values once again lead him into danger and suspense, putting others well being first.

I am not really sure if I need to write this review with all those other great reviews it got from everyone else!!! BUT! It dose really deserve them. I love all the extra infomation that you get about the past ect. Now Gil,Lynn where's book #8?!?!?! I need it!!! The only one drawback, you have to wait to read all of them!!! Oh well there well worth the wait. In the mean time I think that I will read some House of Winslow and Lynn's book, The Balcony. That will tied me over....I hope! :)

Along with the first book, I think this is my favorite! Lynn and Gilbert really outdid themselves this time. The dialogue is great (they crack me up sometimes) and the book is filled with suspense. About halfway through the book I got so engrossed I could barely put the book down to eat and sleep!!!! I immediately started reading book #8. Cheney and Shiloh are so sweet and funny together. I also liked learning some information about Hawaii. Great book! You will love it. I really enjoy the fact that Lynn and Gilbert create their characters to be very human. We see their faults, but it is pretty easy to love them anyway. If you have not read any books from this series... I highly recommend them... but start from the beginning!!!! (and when you get to this book you will be thrilled!)

From 1962 until now Martin Gilbert is officially the biographer of Winston S. Churchill.
His narrative is complete from Victoria England into his forays of World War I onto the offices he held in the 1920's, which included living at 11 Downing Street, when he held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Martin Gilbert goes into detail of Winston's wilderness years and explains the reasons of his inability to gain high office. His take of Winston during the fight for survival and his dealings with FDR are insightful.
Gilbert's take on the life and times of a very active and dynamic person as Winston Churchill shows no bias. Gilbert shows Churchill's entire work as a politician, orator, journalist, writer and historian not to mention artist and bricklayer.
Of all the biographies of Winston Churchill I must take as gospel that Martin Gilbert has covered most aspects dealing with this great behemoth of the 20th Century. I rate this work at 5 Stars. I, however do confess that the 2 books written by William Manchester were far more interesting and entertaining. The intellectual professional historian will disagree. But I am but a common man! Gilbert's work was a good read.

This book is a wonderful achievement, and paints a portrait of one of the 20th Century's most decisive political figures. List the top five and you would have Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, and perhaps Gandhi and Mao, but Churchill would have to be in the top five by almost any reckoning. By that token, almost anyone interested in the political and military history of the Century ought to have an interest in Winston.

There is more to Winston, however, than just the War, which in any case we should not mention for fear of upsetting the German guests. His life is an exciting enough story in its own right. Born to a great Parliamentarian, he was probably fated to be another significant figure whatever happened, but Churchill had a habit of making political enemies, as the book clearly documents. On the other hand, he was a genuinely larger-than-life character in his own right, and probably irrepressible. At any rate, this biography provides enough material to speculate either way. This is a man who left a comfortable seat in Parliament to join a unit in the trenches of France in the Great War, for instance, although he clearly did not find it that great and came away with impressions of modern technological warfare which he desperately tried to share in the following decade. These impressions began to form even earlier, when he joined the Boer War as a correspondent and simply could not keep himself from leading the troops he was meant to be reporting upon. When captured, Churchill alone escaped, stowed away in a railway wagon full of coal sacks and when he reached a British Consulate, practically his first act was to telegraph the camp commander to exonerate the Boer guards of responsibility for his flight. Clearly this is a many of rare qualities and needs to be read for his personal merits alone, let alone his place in history!

The book is perhaps a little heavy-going on account of its near 1,000 pages, but leavened with Churchill's familiar wit. Churchill is often abused by the right in justification of the latest proposed war, and by the left as an imperialist and gasser of Iraqis, but this account paints a picture of the Churchill the British grew up with - the lone and indefatigable hero steering the country through a shared destiny, indomitable in public but occasionally plagued with doubt in private. The great irony of his life may be that he was to lead a war that he felt to have been unnecessary and that, having passed on, his name is invoked again and again to justify more unnecessary wars of which he would undoubtedly have disapproved. The boom reveals this magnanimous and conciliatory side, as well; no petty bully of the weaker or the defeated was Winston.

While it documents a whole life, when considering Churchill we will always come back to his wartime premiership, and rightly so. The lasting impression which this excellent biography leaves is that history itself knew this and was preparing him. No matter what scrapes and adventures he thrust himself into, he survived to meet his date with destiny, and this book makes you feel that he was being saved for it.

If you are new to Churchill - this is the book to buy - its in paperback which is a drawback, however the skill Sir Martin has put into this compliation and chronology of his works on Churchill make this one to read, have and use for study.

It has many quotes and not all from Churchill along with some amazing photos.

There are biographies and then there are biographies! This is one of those that belong on that lofty summit above those that try to ascend to such heights but fail miserably because they are either rather dull bios about rather dull people or the biographer is simply not up to the task. Martin Gilbert is most definitely up to the task and more.

This is an abridgment of the eight-volume edition written by Winston Churchill's official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert. I was rather reluctant to buy it because it looked rather daunting being 959 pages long but wanting to know more about Sir Winston Churchill my curiosity finally got the better of me. Not only did this book reveal things about Sir Winston that I did and did not know but also the author's prose and vocabulary made this an absolute pleasure to read. I was very reluctant to finish this book simply because I wanted more to read. If you don't know much about Winston Churchill then this is the book to get. Even if you do know quite a bit about Sir Winston Churchill I'm sure you'll find a few things in here that you may not have known. If you are looking for bios that are well written, or any book that is, then this is one for you. Buy it and enjoy!

Even the most historically illiterate students are familiar with the role Winston Churchill played in the victory over Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, many students of history remain uninformed of the true breadth and scope of his life. This work, a condensation of Martin Gilbert's earlier two volume history, is an excellent antidote for such ignorance.

It is no exaggeration to credit Winston Churchill for the survival of England in the years between the fall of France and the U.S. entry in the conflict with Germany and Japan. Such was the lingering horror of the events of World War I, that Churchill was virtually alone in fighting the appeasement policies of his own government which contributed to the early success of Nazi Germany.

But, it should be noted that Winston Churchill was in his mid-60s when he became Prime Minister of a coalition government formed to prosecute the war with the Axis powers. He already had 40 years of parliamentary service under his belt, stints as First Lord of the Admiralty during World War I (where he presided over the disastrous Gallipoli campaign) and Chancellor of the Exchequer, service in the trenches of World War I as well as the Boer War and the Sudan campaign, time as both a war correspondent and published author.

Despite this nearly unprecedented scope of accomplishments, were it not for the rise of Nazi Germany and Adolph Hitler, he would be virtually unknown outside the realm of British historians. For, as great protagonists and great events are required to bring out the greatness of our heroes (Grant needed Lee, Caesar, Pompeii), none is a better example of this than Winston Churchill.

Were it not for Adolph Hitler, Churchill would have likely served out his later parliamentary years as little more than a back bench Conservative crank, labeled as a warmonger and kept on the fringes of party politics. Even in the months preceding the invasion of Poland, Churchill was kept outside of the Cabinet of his own party's government. He was never neatly pigeonholed in the existing English party system. It was only the formation of a coalition government that allowed his ascension to the Prime Ministership. As it was, the perfect combination of personalities and events allowed Churchill to achieve greatness on a historical scale. It is no accident that almost immediately following successful conclusion of the war, Churchill and the Conservative party were bounced from power by the Labour Party, only to be returned to face the Soviet Union in the early stages of the Cold War. Churchill was a "crisis" manager and ill suited for periods of peace and tranquility.

As a man in his late 60s and early 70s, Churchill displayed an endurance and a level of accomplishments nearly unprecedented in human history. Consider that he likely logged more miles of travel (both in the air and on sea, during a time of great danger for each) and wrote and published more works of literature than nearly anyone else alive during a period when he was quite literally standing alone in what was almost a personal fight for the continued existence of the British Empire. The catalog of heart attacks and strokes suffered and recovered from are a source of absolute amazement

Now, it is a common failing of many biographers to enhance the accomplishments and gloss over he failings of their subjects, and I doubt not that Gilbert has done so here. However, the historical record is quite clear and Churchill's life and accomplishments are well documented. His love of the grog is rarely mentioned, though it was obviously a personal vice which he passed on to his children. His relationship with his wife seems quite unusual, though perhaps not so in the context of Victorian and early 20th century upper class English society.

Gilbert's writing style consists almost entirely of reference to and quotation from letters, diary entries and other correspondence to, from and about Churchill. While this would seem to create a work both choppy and halting, it is quite the opposite. Gilbert does a masterful job splicing these observations into historical events and produces a smoothly flowing and captivating narrative which should be required reading for any serious student of modern history.

That there's a sucker born every minute? Include anyone who shells out money for this book (or anyone who gives any credence to it).

I can not put this book down. It is amazing what you can do for your children by just your gut feeling whats wrong with them.(and of course lots of research) My son is doing so much better after the treatment like changeing his diet, B-12 shots and some supplements he was lacking. His Dr never even mentioned them or new about them. His exzema is gone he is happy and in school all day! I thank Jenny for being so bold and fighting against opposition. Thank you! Susanne

The sheer ignorance of science and medicine that is CELEBRATED in this book is extremely frightening and dangerous for the health of America. To all of you who refuse to vaccinate your children -- your arrogance and ignorance is putting all of our children at risk! Just witness the recent rise in measles and mumps.

Folks, we are living in the middle ages. "Mommy knowledge" does not trump science and medicine. Jenny has done a tremendous disservice to the country, and too her child, by supporting the quacks who mouth the anti-vaccination line.

Please, do not support her ignorance by buying this book.

I continue to be sickened by the fact that the monsters who make these vaccines and the doctors who administer them can sleep at night. They know what they are doing. We know what they are doing to our babies.....they are living with it and we are living with it. It's torture for them and yet it all continues........day after day after day, baby after baby after baby. My baby. I am sick that heads are turned so easily. Movies show people making millions of dollars in lawsuits from contaminated drinking water in Hinkley....but noone will take responsibility for maming our babies when we have the living proof in thousands of children. Thank you Jenny for writing yet another amazing book. You are eloquent in recognizing and communicating vaccines are needed, yet you are telling it like it is. You are inspiring once again for me and my family. I hope you continue the challenge and you don't grow too weary over the years. This is a tough and rigorous journey you are paving. We will stand behind you when asked to. We need you, the babies need you and your voice for us all who have never been heard. For those of you wondering if you should read this book or not....do yourself a favor and purchase it. You will read it in a day and you will forever be changed. If you happen to have a child in your life with Autism, that child just may be forever changed as well... for the better. You will be inspired and blown away.

Forever Mother Warrior for David,
Lynn L.

This was a good read and I would recommend it to anyone who is a part of the autism community. The book begins with a brief description of Evan's descent into autism. This is followed by a description of Jenny's experiences during her book tour. She has a wonderful interview with Oprah, a horrible interaction with Barbra Walters prior to her interview, and has a phone conversation with someone from the American Academy of Pediatrics where they agree to come to a think tank meeting.

The best part of the book is the stories told by parents whose children have recovered. There are several and it gives you hope that more children can be saved. It also repeatedly shows that mainstream doctors and pediatricians know absolutely nothing about biomedical intervention. The focus of the recovery stories is biomedical intervention such as the GF/CF diet, hyperbaric oxygen, methyl B12 and the DAN! protocol. She was right that the chapter about Stan Kurtz requires a highlighter, as he is quite the researcher and has many interesting things to share. She includes the stories of a couple of high profile people like the founder of TACA, and the daughter of the founders of the controversial Autism Speaks that spends all of its money on genetics research.

I have read more autism books than I can remember, but this is one I will keep on my shelf, and refer back to.

By now, most anyone who doesn't live under a rock has likely seen the film based on this book. The cast was great, the performances wonderful, (DiCaprio should have won the Oscar for this. Who didn't think, even briefly, how the director "got that boy to do those things?" Admit it!) and ultimately, we feel good about the ending in an uneasy Euro-flick sort of way. If you grew up in a small town, Endora is Your Town and Gilbert Grape is Someone You Knew. Do yourself a favor and read the book, but don't expect a feel-good read. Expect a window into the mind of an understandably jaded young man trying to make it through.

What the film can't deal with, really, is the broad scope and study of the characters. The book is darker than the movie, a sort of comedy bouncing along with discordant background music. It's funny and it's not, much like growing up in the dying Endora that Hedges describes. Anyone with a similar experience of Smalltown, USA will just nod, smile, and keep right on reading because the matter-of-fact narrative hits home page after page. The characters get peeled open for us, especially Gilbert, as he is the narrator. Mama Grape is less a tragic feel-so-sorry-for-her figure and more the self-absorbed, pitious shadow that looms over this family. Gilbert also has more darkness in him than Johnny Depp was given room to convey in the film, although he did a fantastic job piquing our interest.

What really is eating Gilbert Grape? Read this book and find out how the future doesn't immediately occur to someone whose present appears to be a prison.

The characters in What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges are gritty and flawed and repulsive and totally engaging as well as entirely believable. It's a great study of a young man seeking meaning for his life and trying to decide when he can put his own needs before the needs of a very dysfunctional family.

Gilbert's day-to-day life in small-town Iowa is mind-numbingly realistic, and you can understand both his frustrations at the life he's living and the limitations that keep him living it. As long as he doesn't think too much about his situation or analyze his prospects for the future, life can go on as before.

But when a girl who is very different from anyone else Gilbert knows arrives on the scene, he begins to question everything. This is a great book to read in a mother-daughter book club of girls in 11th grade up or an adult book club and then to watch the movie. Comparing and contrasting the two is very interesting, particularly since author Peter Hedges also wrote the screenplay.

and the ending was so amazing that I don't know why they changed it in the movie. One of my favorite fiction books of all time! The book is sooooooooo much better than the movie.

"What's Eating Gilbert Grape" by Peter Hedges has long been popular with my peers while we were attending high school in the late 1990's. For some inexplicable reason, this book slipped by me in those years. Recently, though, a number of parents in the community of Carroll, Iowa (pop. ~10,000) declared the book 'inappropiate' mostly due to the sexual references in the book. With all the sudden publicity, my natural reaction was to read it for myself (many persons around me followed suit.)

Upon reading the novel, I finally discovered why this book connected with the rural youth that I grew up with. The characters in the book are easy to relate to: there are devout Christians with makeup caked on their faces, adulterers, handicapped persons that garner the sympathy of everyone, underage women that the men fantasize over, small business owners facing encroachment by corporate America, and the native who got out of town and thus became a smashing success. The hero, Gilbert Grape, desperately wants to leave his seemingly boring small town of Endora, Iowa, just as so many small-town kids dream of doing. Overall, it is funny and dark but a great coming of age story.

The passages that caused the great controversy in my own hometown were over-exaggerated. There are references to oral sex, masturbation, adultery, and promiscuity in the book; but these make the character seem more tangible and pale in the overall plot and message of the book. Many parents that deemed the book unfit for their teens admitted that they read only select lines. However, those who have read the whole book tend to look beyond those few lines and agree that Hedges' novel is a work of literature with a valuable message, and I could not agree more.

I read this book years ago -- it literally jumped off the book shelf at the library and landed on my foot and I thought, WOW! THIS LOOKS LIKE A GOOD BOOK ~~~~~~~~~ !!!!!!!!

GOOD is not a GOOD enough word for this book. Having read this epic wonder in 1992, here I am, 14 years later, still thinking of it. That, in itself, should speak for itself!!! READ THIS BOOK.

This is a wonderful story line, plot, cast of characters. They tear your heart out. Have kleenex handy as you will need them. Be prepared to laugh out loud also. Mr. Hedges is a superb author with insight into the human soul.

As most of you know, this was made into a movie starring Johnny Depp and Leonardo C. Leonardo was nominated for the OSCAR for his role. The movie follows the book to a tee. I would suggest reading the book first if you have not by chance seen the movie. However -- even if you have seen the movie and LOVED it, treat yourself and read the book. Books are ALWAYS better.

I have recommended this book to all of my friends and family over the last 14 years. The more people who read this, the better. There is no age limit, this can be enjoyed by nearly every age group and gender. It is just soooooooooooo good!!!!

READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!! You will not be sorry.

Thanks -- Pam

I like to think myself a very well-rounded reader (I have my degree in English), but I don't know if the genius of Virginia Woolf was just beyond me in Orlando. I enjoyed the story and the various historical characters that made appearances throughout, but something about it went a bit over my head. It was a strange tale of adventure and romance, with Orlando seeking the beauties of life and poetry throughout the centuries.

I read Orlando because someone told me that a central theme was Knole, the massive great house of the Sackvilles in Sevenoaks, in Kent south west of London. (I also liked Mrs Dalloway--See my Amazon review.) When we lived in London my family and I spent a day at Knole. It is supposedly the largest private house in England. Much of it now belongs to the National Trust. Knole beggars description--it is a vast mansion, brooding, and dark, but also eminent; it is a castle, a factory, mills, breweries, a village, and menagerie. I remember the deer as being especially numerous and friendly. Orlando the novel is dedicated to Vita Sackville-West who sadly was unable to inherit Knole although she grew up there. Only males could inherit.

The novel Orlando is a tour through English history from the mid-15 hundreds to 1928 always from odd perspectives. It is also a subtle and searching exploration of gender roles, social roles, and artistic and creative efforts. Themes interweave with lightning speed. It's crazy, funny, satirical, wild, and moody. I found parts to be incoherent, post-modern stream-of-consciousness, but most is entertaining and illuminating.

But this novel always comes back to Knole just as Orlando does. He/she (there is a sex change mid-novel) tours her house, thinks about it, ponders it, worries about it, and is always focused on it. Orlando lives for hundreds of years, but somehow I think he/she is a metaphor for the great house. Knole is not mentioned by name in the novel, but that's it. Knole is also the setting for The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West. Knole is very worth a visit if you get to London or Kent. On the web at the National Trust website.

A visit in person however would help bring the novel Orlando to life. The novel is titled Orlando: A Biography. I think it is the biography of Knole.

One other odd feature: My edition (Signet Classics) has in index. This is the first novel I've read with an index. This suggests to me that Orlando is more than a novel, it is also a history of sorts.

This `roman à clés' is very original. The hero continues to live in different historical periods and undergoes a sex change.
However, it is written in an emotional, sentimental, superlative style: `society in the reign of Queen Anne was of unparalleled brilliance. The graces were supreme.'
Except for the first period, there are no conflicts, only rather superficial descriptions of the mood and spirits of the times. For V. Woolf, `to give a truthful account of society ... only those who have little need of the truth, and no respect for it - the poets and novelists - can be trusted to do it, for this is one of the causes where the truth does not exist.'
`Orlando' is a perfect flight from reality: `But let other pens treat of sex and sexuality; we quit such odious subjects as soon as we can.' `Whigs and Tories, Liberal party and Labour party ... should be left to the historian.'

This book is a clean, introvert, aristocratic, long ode to pure Beauty.
Only for Virginia Woolf fans.

The story begins with Orlando as a passionate young nobleman in Queen Elizabeth's court. By the end, Orlando is a 36-year-old woman three centuries later. Orlando witnesses the making of history from its edge. A close examination of the nature of sexuality and the changing climate of the passing centuries. Very novel and engaging if a bit loose-ended at times.

Written in 1928, this book clearly sought to shock the reading public. For every repression delivered by Victorian authorities which surely hampered Woolf's freedoms, this book delivers a defiant rebuke to the same.

Orlando - it states in the beginning - is a man for whom "there can be no doubt of his sex." He is rich, handsome and lives a life even Hugh Hefner may be jealous of. But, scandals lead him to isolation, to public ridicule or upbraiding, which led him to sequester himself to his 200-bedroom hermitage-castle. In his hermit's existence, he does not pass time philandering, but instead pulls books off the library's shelves and romanticizes with fiction.

Eventually tedium compels Orlando to ask his friendly king to deliver him overseas where he can perform the duties of ambassador. He ends up in then Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey. While living there, he ends one exhaustingly long night of debauchery and partying with a seven day sleep - and awakes a woman.

This was a "good thing." As a man, he could not appreciate Tennyson, Shakespeare, Byron and the like. As a woman, their written word touched her greatly. She could be red eyed, she could be lachrymose. As a man, he never loved. Wollf says, ". . . love - as the male novelists define it . . . has nothing whatever to do with kindness, fidelity, generosity or poetry. . ." Orlando the man had no love? Maybe, with Sasha (a Russian seductress) - but maybe Sasha ruined him so that he could never love again.

As a woman, Orlando knows love. Wolff explains, "Love is slipping off one's petticoat and - "
Can you imagine the Victorians reading that?!

Orlando's life continues not for decades, but centuries. And, some other characters do as well. "The true length of a person's life . . . is always a matter of dispute. Indeed, it is a difficult business - this time-keeping thing. . . " Indeed, it was for Wolff who quite intentionally delivers this novel as a time-challenged writer.

More obscurities arise - androgynous lovers, angels' visits, children born from or for Orlando - and splendor with these very biologically-defying events.

This is not written in the weaving masterful language which Woolf delivers in "To the Lighthouse" or "Mrs.Dalloway." Instead, here the schizophrenia lies with the main character, not the writing style. Probably, a better story than "Lighthouse" or "Dalloway", but I am partial to the writing style of those masterpieces.

In any event, anyone wondering just how throttled Woolf felt in the stifling moral norms of her country, read this book. If anyone wants a bizarre tale about a bizarre man/woman, this is a must read.

This book is a wonderful confirmation of my 77 years on earth. I have given three copies to my psychology compatriates. The basis for happiness is located inside and as with humor, wonder and curiosity fed by our contained energy part. So watch the drains (also in others). Thanks to the author I have freed myself even more from the jealousy of others.
Pieter G. Kuipers,
Sneek, The Netherlands

This book certainly introduces some central concepts which I found illuminating and useful. There are quite a few exercises ("time-ins") which everyone should do at some point in their life, if not regularily. I found some of these to be better than others whilst a few appeared to be there just for the sake of filling up space.

The writing itself is a little self-helpy which is something I couldn't quite get over. I would've liked to have more hard data and information to challenge me in my thinking around the topic. Much of the book is also repetative and I felt it was at times patronising.

It took a bit of concentration to get over the writing but once I focused on the topic at hand, I found the information quite illuminating.

All in all however, if you can get over the writing and into the crux of the topic, I think it's a very useful book and definitely worthy of a good read. Some of the exercises and meditations are useful and are things I would encourage any person to at least try.

I bought this set of 4 cds to listen to on a long road trip, thinking to catch up on the latest popular course at Harvard. We really couldn't listen to them all--it was just too platitudinous and uninteresting. Sometimes people work hard for a goal and then discover that when they attain it they aren't joyous. Pure hedonism can't make you happy, though there are times when a little hedonism is a good thing. Think about the times when you were happy. What were they like? How about meditating a little every day? We were too bored to go on. Probably the point of the book could have been made in one lecture-length cd, but stretching it out to 4 didn't help, so if there is a 'secret' revealed in #4 we missed it.

I bought this book hoping for a primer on positive psychology. Instead, I got a self-help book which told me pretty much nothing new. A couple of the meditations in the last section were interesting, but overall this book was fairly disappointing.

Also, that whole bit about referring to happiness as the "ultimate currency?" The first time the author mentioned it, it was so stupid and corny I wanted to cry. The fact that it was mentioned again on practically every page from that point on really didn't help.

One good thing though - the author does spend a decent amount of time talking about Czikzhentmihalyi's concept of "flow," which everyone really should get familiar with at some point. It's nice to see it there, but it still doesn't justify buying this book.

I read "Happier" over the Christmas holidays. It is an easy read, maybe even a bit simplistic in its day glo presentation. It is rooted in the "positive psychology" movement, based on a popular course at Harvard. The findings are hardly groundbreaking: happiness, the author contends, is a mixture of small pleasures in the moment and a sense of meaning in life overall. There are practical exercises ("time ins") in each chapter that should help you center your life around things you enjoy.

A few months after reading this book (I did most of the exercises), I am more focused on small pleasures and am feeling happier than I was. I have also maintained a 25 lb weight loss since the holidays, a first for me. I'm not giving all the credit to this book, but I think it's fair to say it might be one of the things that has helped me this year. This isn't the be all, end all pop psych book, but it's worth a read.

The Pill Book was very useful for my drug listing I had to do for school.
It provided me with concise, useful information on the drugs that I was researching.
I recommend other people to use the Pill Book.

Anyone that has bought a previous edition, will want to update as this edition has many newer drugs that were not previously available. Only complaint is that it would be good to have pictures of the generics as so many people can no longer afford the brand name, and the generic pill can look very different.

handy guide for people who work in the nursing, mental health field or if you're just intersted in knowing about diffenet types of medications.
One that I highly recommend is Worst Pills Best Pills, which comes out with a new edition every few years. Excellent!

It is so important for those of us who take meds to have a copy of a book telling us the side effects of those meds, and listing the various meds which fall into the same family, mostly, but not limited to being able to watch and guard against being mistakenly prescribed something to which we are allergic, even when our doctors and pharmacies know to what we are allergic. We are that last line of defense against such things happening. Then last, but certainly not the least, to know the possible side effects of such meds, and other information such as warnings for each med. I like this particular book finding it more informative than others I've bought, and buy an updated copy at least every couple of years, but more preferably every year.

It is has a very extensive picture guide but appears to be incomplete. I found pills the other day that couldn't be identified with the book.

Lajos Egri's book 'The Art of Dramatic Writing' is poignantly subtitled 'It Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives' and this is what lies at the heart of Egri's book.

Egri argues that all action is conditioned by a fundamental principle, which he terms the "premise", whether or not the premise is a known or an unknown subconscious motivation: and just as in real life, which adheres to this basic principle, so must it be in dramatic life. Without this "premise" no writing, no matter how stylistically good, can be a fully developed and emotionally rewarding script, story, play, or novel.

Egri draws the premise of his own book from the Marxist principle of Dialectics, in particular the law regarding Unity of Opposites. He applies the principle that all things in existence, including the dramatic creations of an author, are affected by this dialectical principle of inherent conflict and resolution, which is the very motivating force of both the universe and the stage. He draws on material from the ages such as the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles, the works of Shakespeare and Molière, Chekhov and Ibsen, thru to several motion pictures contemporaneous with his book all the while applying his critical principle of "premise" and dialectics to demonstrate the inadequacies and successes in each work.

There is no doubting that that Egri is a well-read man with discriminating tastes, which adds a greater cogency to his argument. Even if one does not wholly subscribe to the tenets of Marxist-Leninism, there is no doubting that after reading this book, the principles of dialectics will have embedded themselves in the readers' critical faculties. So much so, that after completing the reading of Egri's work one might even find themselves reading thru selected chapters of Engels' `Dialectics of Nature' as this reviewer did.

If one had to choose only one `How To...' book, of which this is an early yet superlative example, then one could do no better than `The Art of Dramatic Writing.'

This is a classic from 1945 that still rings true today. I have recommended this to my writing friends and they love it also.

One thing this book does not intend to do is tell you how to write. It tells you what needs to be there, so you can judge whether a play is any good or not. A lot of people seem to ignore this basic fact.

What this book does not give is a method, or any other way of writing. Lajos Egri acknowledges that if you have a method that produces all the right ingredients, that's okay. But what are those ingredients?

If you're one of those writers that:
1. is tired of discussions on what industry word means what, and
2. you just want a bunch of rules to judge your writing by...

This is definitely the book for you. No matter whether you adhere to a method, write off the bat from story function, or are such an experienced secretary that you have a "feel" of good writing, this book will help you understand what you write.

This book to me bridges the gap between all the different theories out there. If you want to communicate to yourself or others what you write, and you find you're in trouble with any of the other books out there, try this one. It will help.

What the hell... Try it anyway, no matter what. It's a great book.

The book is exceptional in offering the reader, what works and what doesn't in great writing and play writing. Though written a long time ago, there is no other book like it.

Got book for Stepson, he hasn't complained about it, so I guess it was good.

A your-not-so-typical teenage girl named DJ, tends to her family's farm while her dad is recovering from a hip injury. All is well- well, as well as it used to be anyways- until a QB , Brian Nelson, of a rival high school is sent to help DJ out with the farm. What DJ wasn't expecting from this particular jock was to start encouraging her to talk; about her dreams, her flunking in English class and her strikingly odd family.

I somewhat knew that this book would be good, because I've read encouraging reviews before purchasing it. What struck me the most about this particular books was its authenticity. I wouldn't wonder at it if I learned that DJ was somewhere in Wisconsin painting the barn with Brian Nelson. That's how real the characters were. I also loved the writing style, DJ has flunked English, and that fact is strongly established in "her" writing style. A refreshing read, as refreshing as a glass of cold fresh milk.

I found this book to be a quick and easy read as well as enjoyable. D.J. is a likable girl who deals with her troubles in a very honest way. She comes across as "what you see is what you get" and seems to be comfortable with herself. And you really appreciate her sense of humor. I really enjoyed the message regarding character.

I seem to be working my way through the YA section of the bookstore of late and this one stood apart from the pack. I started page one and didn't look around me until I'd finished. Then, missing the book, I picked it back up and started reading it again. I loved it. I am here to poke around in the hopes she's written more books.

This book series is my new obsession. Picking up Dairy Queen at the library on a passing recommendation, I began the first chapter right before bed. After literally howling with laughter, I had to sneak out to the other room to finish (so I wouldn't bother my husband), and ended up staying up until 2:00 am. Then, I spent most of the rest of the night thinking about it. The next morning, I woke up exhausted, but managed to read it again. Since then, I've read it two more times. WHY? WHY? WHY? What is the power this book has on me?

I adore D.J. even though she is nothing like me. Her situation is so compelling. All the crazy things that happen to her, all the hardships, all the life-learning...her voice makes going through them with her incredibly moving and satisfying, not to mention she's hilarious.

This is a beautiful story written with a very skilled hand. I recommend it to everyone as an entertaining and quality book.

I loooooved this modern day tale of a not so obviouse couple falling in love!! I've suggested this charming book to all of my friends and at the moment is being borrowed by one of them and a few others are on hold waiting for it! If you read this then you MUST read the sequal "The Off Season"!!!