Hart Books

I don't know when it was that I first came upon this calendar in a Barnes & Noble but it was many, many years ago and I have been buying it every year since. I get one for my cubicle at work and one for home. The compilation of images and the colors are very vibrant. It also has interesting descriptions of each image for each month at the back of the calendar; most come from advertisements of days gone by. Although it does seem that the last couple of years the paper quality isn't quite as heavy as when I first began buying it I still have to have it.

Beautiful, truly a collectors item. I buy it every year, it brings so much joy to my wall

I have been buying these calanders for many years now. I keep the calander in my sewing room where I spend much of my time. The calander always brighens the room and brings me much joy while I am sewing or working on craft items. I also enjoy using the beautiful cards and desk calader that come with it. I look forwad to each and every new calander. I have gone so far as to travel 500 miles to buy one.

Sincerely,
S. Thompson

I have been purchasing Cynthia Hart's Victorian calendar annually for ages, it seems. The images are always great. I try to keep myself from looking ahead to the following months till I get there, but that usually doesn't work. I love her images culled from 19th & early 20th Century trade cards, postcards, broadsides, catalogs and other ephemera.

A gorgeous Victoriana calendar has hung in my kitchen every year since 1988. Each month's "picture page" is loaded with "antique paper items" that extend on to the page with the calendar itself. A theme appropriate to the season is presented every month with moms and babies in May and Santa and all the trimmings featured in December and so on. This year (2008) I was a little disappointed they don't have a Halloween theme for October (children is the focus) but I do especially like November which features both fruit and dogs. The major Christian and Jewish holidays are all marked as well as secular celebrations in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia as well as the U.S. A date book, some greeting cards and a small desk calendar have been included the last few years and while nice some new choices for us annual buyers would be appreciated as these extra items have been the same for awhile. I also would enjoy seeing the phases of the moon marked on the calendar though I do have other sources for that. The Victoriana calendar is also very recyclable in crafts and activities. I'm a teacher and I just used some of my old ones with my students to make lovely Mother's Day cards.

It's been six years since Henrie O's life was shattered by the death of her husband, Richard, in a tragic accident on Kauai. While she has tried her best to move on, there is still a void in her life.

Which is why her world is shattered by a poster she receives in the mail that claims that Richard's death was murder. Unable to let that knowledge go uninvestigated, Henrie starts following his last few days through Dallas to Kauai.

On Kauai, she joins the family of Richard's close friend Belle Ericcson. It was on Belle's estate that Richard took his fatal plunge. And Henrie is beginning to suspect that his death had something to do with the kidnapping and murder of Belle's oldest daughter. Could a member of Belle's family be a killer?

I greatly enjoyed the last book in the series, so I was looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to those standards. It started strong, laying the ground work for the story with plenty of questions. But once the story moved to Kauai, the action stopped. Henrie spent pages analyzing every clue from every possible angle. The good news it is made it easier to keep the multiple to characters straight. Henrie herself came across as weak and over emotional here, not the strong woman we've seen in the previous three books. I realize it was probably more realistic, but it got tiring reading about Henrie's emotions coming to the surface and how she had to fight them to find the killer. We get it already! And the ending was very weak.

If you are new to the author or the series, don't start here. Carolyn Hart is a great mystery writer. She just wrote a clunker here.

I love Hawaii and enjoy reading mysteries taking place there. This had a good plot and the descriptions of Hawaii were wonderful!

Henrie O is dreading the date of her husbands death. The day he fell off a cliff at the mountain home of his dear friend Belle. Then she receives a strange card that causes her to think maybe her husband was murdered.

Henrie digs through her husbands notebooks and sets out to research his last days. She ends up at Belle's mountain retreat on the anniversary of the death of Belle's daughter. It looks like the same person who killed CeeCee also killed Henrie's husband Richard and may be trying to kill her. It's a race to identify the killer before more people are killed.

Henry O visits Hawaii to try to find the cause of her husband's death. There is a conglomeration of characters, way to many for me to keep track of. Too much description of Hawaii's flora and fauna. Too much repetition of facts and events that had already occured. I skipped over a lot of the last several pages just to get this one done.

doesn't mean you are dead - or worse, boring.

Carolyn Hart's series starring Henrietta O'Dwyer "Henrie O" Collins is an excellent and worthy read. Why?

This mystery series offer great characters with believeable dialogue, nice little plot twists, a kiss of humor, and a heroine - Henry O - who is NOT a gal in her 20's or 30's, with a fast mouth, a clumsy foot always determined to trip over one corpse after another, and a love interest that somehow always seems to elude the final stage of commitment - have any of you noticed just how many mystery novels seem to have this same type of heroine?!?

It is difficult to find truly good mysteries where the main character is actually a woman who is over 50, intelligent, clever, sometimes humorous, and even a little grouchy; yet if you are a true fan of mysteries you will know exactly how terrific it is to stumble across heroines like: Henri O, an Amelia Peabody, Mrs. Jeffries, Agatha Raisin, OR a Mrs. Polifax!!

A very well done companion guide to the show. It's packed with all the material that made the BtVS guides so welcome, but takes the form of an actual PI's casefile. Nice back scenes peeks fill out the storyline info.

While AtS fans in general will enjoy "Casefiles" , it is a simply indispensible tool for fanfiction writers. No more fastforwarding through DVDs of S1 or bugging fellow ficwriters in search of a particular fact. I can't wait for the next volume.

I have to admit that I was a late bloomer when it came to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (didn't get into the show until the last couple of seasons), but I didn't make that same mistake when Buffy's vampire boyfriend Angel got his own series. I personally love the first two seasons. "Angel: The Case Files volume 1" pretty much covers the first two seasons. Nancy Holden, Maryelizabeth Hart, and Jeff Mariotte does an excellent job of providing general synopsis of each episode in seasons 1 and 2 as well as giving the reader behind the scenes details. I especially loved reading comments from the actors themselves, especially my two favorite guest stars Juliet Landau (Druscilla) and Julie Benz (Darla). I also love the color and black&white photos of the actors getting ready for the show. As an "Angel" fan, I thought this book was a great companion piece. Very informative and entertaining.

For any true Angel fan you will find this book a great addition to your collection. It is a must have. It's filled with lots of information about the charactors and the actors or actresses that portray them. It is really hard to find any good information in regards to the episodes and what they entale. I was please that I puchased this book.

I had a really good time going through this book. Lots of interesting tidbits and behind the scenes info. Loved all the pictures. If you're a fan of the show, you'll more than likely enjoy this.

Everyone knows Angel didn't hit its creative stride until season three (enter Amy Acker, rev up the Cordy/Angel romantic subplot, and begin the engaging multi episode baby arc), but this book does a great job of detailing the first two seasons. Get it. Great pictures, tons of facts. A must have for any Angel fan.

This is the eighth book in the Betsy-Tacy series, which follows Betsy Ray from kindergarten to marriage at the turn of the 20th century. Betsy, now in her early twenties with two years of college behind her, finally realizes her dream of traveling through Europe. The story unfolds in four main acts/settings: the voyage across the Atlantic, study and friendship in Munich, romance in Venice, and the inauguration of war in London. Artfully and intimately told, the story is also rich with cultural details that I appreciate more now than I did reading this book as a child: Betsy's excitement about gaining weight, her careful circumspection with regard to proper ladylike behavior, her sweet and chaste romances - all of this combined with a zest for life and an indefatigably adventuresome spirit.

Wonderful way for children and teens to learn about the life of children and teens in the early 1900s. I fully recommend it!

I was a bit disappointed when I opened this book up, and read the first sentence. I didn't think it was right of Mrs. Lovelace to just skip college, to think we missed it! So, I had to imagine college and Bob, and the relationship between Betsy and Joe.
Not only do you miss out on what happens in college, but it's somewhat odd to be going from high-school Betsy, to grown woman. I kept on wondering why there wasn't at least one book made about Betsy going to college.
Although I said this, I would still suggest reading this book, it's a great book, and Betsy doesn't change too much. But through the whole book I felt weird. It didn't matter how many friends and 'crowds' Betsy made, or how many admirers she gained. The original crowd just wasn't there.
But don't worry, Betsy is still pretty much the same, she makes friends, and there is quite a bit of romance in the book.

I'm kinda getting too old for this series, but I can't stay away from it. I'm a sucker for history.

I have read "Betsy and the Great World" so often that I know much of it by heart. When I travelled to Italy this spring, and stepped into St. Mark's Square, I could hear the Harvard Man yelling at Betsy's "tourist trick" with the pigeons. And when I went on a gondola ride, Betsy and her Marco were in the gondola that floated by on the other side of the Grand Canal. Any author who can make her characters live so completely deserves to be read. It takes a very special young woman to understand the pleasures of a simple life well-lived, but for her, this series will provide richness and memories to last a lifetime.

I bought a book in the Mecha Mania series on how to draw warrior Robots and spaceships for a grandchild for Christmas.This book is wonderful for either an adult or a child who wants to draw the new anamie cartoons. The step by step drawings showing how to use basic shapes to make incredible robots and spaceships allow anyone to explore their creativity.

I BOUGHT SEVERAL OF THESE TYPES OF SKETCH BOOKS FOR MY SON. HE IS TAKING ART IN SCHOOL AND HE LOVES THE HELP THE BOOKS GIVE HIM IN HIS DRAWINGS. HE HAS LEARNED ALOT FROM THE BOOKS ALONE. WE ARE VERY PLEASED!!

I liked it pretty well. But I think it falls into the category "this is how you draw something. period." books. I think it should show you different kinds of guns for mecha, different joint types, head types, torso types, armor types, leg types, weapons in general types, shield types, jet pack/wing types and stuff. I don't think that there is enough things to inspire the mind for drawing original mecha. Instead, it tells you how to draw some limited robot examples.
So why did I give it a 4 if I'm being so negative?! Because as soon as I had merely READ it, without drawing any of the examples, was a ton better at drawing mecha. It also has some things to think about while drawing mecha that will help your drawings quit a bit. It has a little about special effects, which was nice. It tells you how to draw female cyborgs, which I thought most of which was garbage. It did have an interview with some guy from the creators of MechWarrior, which was pretty good. The book is worth the money, I think.

What is the point of this book? Each of the drawings gives just three steps, and the beginning step is very complex--there is no help in figuring out what basic shapes go into it, and it seems like the only thing you can do is copy exactly what the author has done. I wanted something that would teach me to draw this type of character, and instead I just got a book showing off the author's drawings. If it is supposed to be just a showcase, it should be called that--don't try to fool people into thinking it is a way to learn anything.

There are lots of "how-to-draw" robots/mecha books. IMHO this book simply follows the formula of breaking down the title subject into component simple shapes and embellishing with more detail. This is the formula of most how-to-draw books. It's fine to include this if your "mecha how-to" book has more about drawing aspects unique to mecha.

An astute earlier reviewer pointed out that Hart drew none of the examples in the book. How can he discuss a thought and design process that he didn't even contribute to in his own book?!? The art in the book is rarely inspired and in many cases rendered by artists who don't appear particularly interested in mecha.

To its credit, it's fun to read some of the text. Younger readers may enjoy the book as it may be helpful to beginning artists. The best pictures are from the Fasa interview in the back.

For those who want something more advanced, I'd recommend the excellent books by Sherard Jackson of Antarctic Press. He briefly covers the beginning steps of drawing mecha, but gives a meatier discussion on the unique aspects of drawing anime machines. The art definitely has a higher "coolness" quotient and he drew his own pictures!

Lawrence Christopher does an excellent job of taking his reader into his created world of "All About Mary." This story begins with Perry Rogers being arrested and charged with murdering Mary Jenkins his fiance.

Although Mary is deceased, this story tells the history of how the career minded and responsible Perry, met "street smart" Mary and her two young children Sapphire and Gerald. What starts out with Perry casually "kickin' it" with Mary, eventually grows into a loving, passionate, yet turbulent relationship.

The vivid display of imagery Lawrence Christopher has mastered, will leave his reader wanting to read far beyond the 87 pages of this novella. I was completely shocked to learn who actually did kill Mary Jenkins. This is a must read mystery that will have you turning page after page in anticipation of discovering... All About Mary!

'All About Mary' tells a story of a woman of misfortune from the time of her childhood up until her death. Rape, drugs, and sex for favors are functional parts of Mary's life cycle. Mary, who is described as a cheeseburger away from 200 pounds seems to have touched the lives of many of her male aquaintances, including Perry Rogers, her knight in shining armor. With him, she is given the opportunity to improve her standard of living and possibly change the dysfunctional cycle that is awaiting the true victims, her young children. Mary and her children may have a chance at happiness in the care of Perry, the one man who truly loves her. After the sudden, untimely violent death of Mary, Perry becomes the number one suspect. This case falls into the hands of Detective Mick Hart, who has seventy-two hours to clear Perry Roger's name. Was her death an act of love or mere unwarranted violence? These questions will continue to invade your thoughts as you take a short journey to learn 'All About Mary'.

Although one member of the book club considers the character Mary as a 'reformed call-girl on the rebound' and felt the story lacked character, the rest felt it was a short entertaining read, written in 'real-life' prose.

We, the members of Friends and Readers (FAR) book club, enjoyed discussing this novella in the present of Lawrence Christopher and we are looking forward to the sequel.

This book tells a woman's story from a man's point of view.

Mary, who has been victimized most of her life, has issues on top of issues. She meets a man who starts out with greedy intentions, but ends up opening his heart and life to her.

He becomes enthralled by her physical presence and sexual prowess, but later learns as much from her as she learns from him.

He actually listens to her and gives her an opportunity to view life and people in a different way than she has in the past.

This is a fantastic new work.

The murder mystery is woven through alternate points of view: Perry, the accused, is rambling towards a confession that just doesn't seem to make sense. Mick, the detective, is searching for the truth. Mary, the deceased, looms larger than life in the background - a woman whose reality transcends her death, and even the pages of the book.

It blends several universal themes:
- The pain of unrequited love
- The trouble of addiction
- The power of divine love
- The struggle in urban society

The story will ring a chord with anyone struggling to make their way in society, anyone on the wrong side of a 1 way relationship, and anyone struggling with the gap between a conviction and reality that don't mesh.

The novel displays outstanding depth in a mere 100some pages. You will read it in one sitting, and immediately crave the next from masterful new author Lawrence Christopher.

All About Mary was a different, but well written story. Mr. Christopher's fresh approach to the storyline kept my interest and I was entertained from beginning to end. The characters came to life and I can honestly say I know some folks like the ones in the story! Mr. Christopher created a story that has a "flava" not seen often, but it never takes away from the awesome plot and shocking ending. Kudos, Mr. Christopher, and I look forward to the stories that follow!

An excellent novel that gives deep insights into dfficulties experienced by a young girl who escaped Vietnam in the final days of the war. She enters a California university and faces many things that are new and different from what her life had been. One of her professors ,who was a Veteran of that same war,goes through great mental difficulties in dealing with the university establishment in his efforts to really help his students and get his own life back to normal.
The structure of the book is unlike any I have ever come across.There are no chapters at all.All the prose is in the form of journal entries of the student and her professor . There is no necessity to show which person's journal is being quoted.Tina,the student's journal entries are dated by day,month and date (Sunday,November 24) while the professor's are given numerials (11/26/85). This is very inovative and works surprisingly well.
The story is so well constructed and written that it is surprisingly easily understood and flows so well it is difficult to put down. That is not to suggest that the topics and emotions are simple;they are anything but. What the author has done so well is to put it all into a novel in a way that the reader has no difficulty in understanding the thoughts and emotions that these two people experienced.
This may be William Hart's first novel,but with the skills he has shown us with this one;I suspect and hope for many more from him in the future.
There are many little things that I found different in this story. Tina's dealings with other people,particularly roomates,present her as a very mature person for her age.No matter what difficultu she comes up against;she never falls for the "poor me" victim,syndome.She just takes a breather and pushes forward.Another little item is Tina's use of the word "wander".One never is in doubt of what she means.
If you were to read this book with a plain cover;it would be interesting to think what sort of picture would be appropriate.The picture on the cover is supurb and I just love looking at it .It will get a prominent spot on my bookshelf.
Aside from the story itself;I couldn't help but think of some of my own experiences in university.At the time it seemed that the professors just "appeared" at the lectern,gave their lecture,and then we all filed out. We were all more interested in the subject and our interests in passing the course and didn't give a whole lot of thought to the professor and his interests and problems. This book will make you think that "professors are people to".
There is another little thing that intrigued me on page 174.A method to numerically evaluate the quality of writing.I don't know if it is really used;but many years ago in a "Better Writing" course I learned about "The Fog Index" It was a way to evaluate numerically how easy a piece of prose was to understand. It worked and is given for many of the books listed on Amazon.The method of calculating it can be found on the net by searching "Fog Index"

This is a superb novel about Vietnam War veteran John Goddard and his ESL pupil, Vietnamese refugee Tien Le, as each confront past war traumas and current problems with the English Department's grading policies at a fictional California State University.

Hart presents a dual-first person narrative in the protagonists' journals, and this is where his mastery shows. Unlike other first-person novels (or dialogue in 3rd person), Hart gives John and Tina (her chosen Anglicized name) authentic voices true to their strengths and, most importantly, limitations. The bounds on their perceptions and emotional responses ring true: Goddard's cynical and sometimes sweeping moralizing tone, for example, seems appropriate for a man tuned into the "black and white" rather than the gray shades: "Then there's Memorial Day...here the underlying theme is human sacrifice by auto crash, as thundering engines and screaming gears are echoed a millionfold on the nation's highways." Though the book effectively attacks the ESL practices and the self-righteous administrators who impose them, Hart restrains from using his characters' voices as a proxy for his own; they do not suddenly become eloquent or insightful so that Hart can make a point.

The book's pace, character development, and alternating narratives show great balance. Hart is patient with his characters, letting them reveal explosive bits of the past in wider and wider circles as they approach their Vietnam experiences. Mr. Goddard initially confronts the past indirectly, seeking answers in the lives of other war survivors: Ulysses, the prototypical soldier and war refugee, humorist/Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce, and in his own farcical but somewhat detached Vietnam novel. However, this intellectualizing does not abate his continuing symptoms strongly indicative of PTSD (e.g., nightmares, flashbacks, isolation, anger). Goddard (as well as Tina Le) gradually faces the past through his journal entries (and ultimately through some briefly mentioned therapy at a VA Medical Center and a Vet Center.)

Hart doesn't stereotype the hurting vet, he shows us Goddard's intelligence, compassion, and a cynical idealism that serve him well in his battles against the discrimination of the English Department. Similarly, Tien "Tina" Le is a well-rounded character, showing doubt, strength, and maturity. The writing, with very few exceptions, is excellent: "...the polyglot students of CSUM are quiet but tough...a leatherlike durability cured to absorb 10,000 blows without a flinch or whisper." Goddard also injects a somewhat mordant levity to the book:" Once our squad did a body count after a wall-to-wall carpet [bombing] our leader called...We confirmed 32 kills, although all the pieces could have come from-And I believe did come from-one unlucky water buffalo." Excellent. However, I did think that Rayneece, Tina Le's roommate, sometimes seems a bit "pasted" onto the story. But no matter, this is a great book.

What could have been a confining format becomes instead an insightful and exciting scope in to the protagonists' inner and outer lives. I can't help but compare "Never Fade Away" to Alice Walker's great "The Color Purple," though Walker's work covers deeper ground. Hart, like Walker, allows the characters to tell the story, and the overlapping perspectives give us a whole greater than its parts. He has found a true voice for each narrator. I recommend this book very highly, and look forward to more work from this outstanding writer.

NEVER FADE AWAY should be required reading for teachers at any level, especially those (which is now nearly all teachers) with students for whom English is a second language. It shows poignantly the frustrations and downright heroism of an immigrant student and of a teacher who risks his job to help her in defiance of a college administration that uses absurd standardized tests for academic cleansing.
Furthermore, this is a fine novel. Using a double epistolary form, alternating narratives by teacher and student, it evokes brilliantly the complementary perspectives of its two main characters. It keeps us intimately involved in their thoughts and feelings while it presents the social and political tangles in which they are wound. I literally did not put it down, reading it in a single sitting, something I have not done since reading Nabokov's PNIN many years ago.
I recommend it most highly.

This story hit, "Close to Home", for I am a Vietnam Vet and a member of a minority. It is for these reasons that I was very sympathetic, understanding, and emotionally drawn to the people in this story. William Hart has written a short, but powerful story that packs quite a punch.

It's a solid and touching story of the relationship between a teacher and his student, that could become romantic but does not quite reach that point. It's 1985, and a Vietnamese student, Tina Le, has signed up for an English Secondary Language (ESL) course at a Los Angeles college. John Goddard is her writing teacher and a Vietnam Vet, who is still experiencing flashbacks of the war. The story is told in alternating journal entries, so that we are exposed to the views of both characters daily lives. This creates a very personal and intimate method of telling the story. I think it brings us closer to the characters real feelings. The story unfolds as the English Department decides to flunk out the many Asian Students. Tina Le, a math major, has a talent for writing stories. She writes a heartfelt story on the suffering of her family back in Vietnam during the war. Goddard recognizes her literary talent and tries to reward her by having the story published. Soon Goddard finds out the university administrator plans to fail the overabundance of ethnic minority students, including Tina Le. Once Goddard finds out Tina Le has failed the course unfairly he strongly brings his objections to the university administrator, and soon finds himself fired from his job. After filing a grievance, they are given a hearing, and what follows is a courtroom like drama, where both Tina Le, who testifies for Goddard, and Goddard fight to save his job. During this time, Tina Le's and Goddard's relationship deepens, to the point where it could become romantic. Of course, this creates even more problems for both of them.

This is a short and easy read, and an impressive debut by a writer that is a force to be followed in the future. I especially enjoyed and related to his Vietnam experiences and the emotional and caring feelings he had for his ethnic and Vietnamese students. This is a book that's hard to put down, and a story that should touch almost any heart. Highly Recommended!

Joe Hanssen

"Never Fade Away", is William Hart's first novel. Dr. Hart has been a teacher of basic writing and (ESL) English As A Second Language at Los Angeles Universities, so how close this novel is to his experiences makes the moniker of novel less than absolute. His own experience clearly adds a great deal of credibility to the work, and this makes a strong message even more disturbing. The message that he shares is one that has gained in importance as events last fall have brought this country's immigration policies in to question. There are fine lines between prudent immigration law, xenophobia, and racism. As congress is getting itself prepared to crucify various governmental agencies hoping to score points for this November's elections the theme of this book only increases in relevance.

There have been disturbing books recently, and one specifically that spent a good deal of time on the bestseller list. They are opportunistic cheap self-promotion screeds that play on fear and ignorance and offer nothing of value. The people who read these books and those that write them are hardly Native Americans. Unless one is a full-blooded Native American, all of us have immigrated here or are the descendents of immigrants. For those who thought the Witch Hunts of McCarthy were a thing of the past, wait for these hearings. They have already been carefully scheduled so that the initial hearings are closed to the public, congress will adjourn to craft their campaign speeches laced with accusations that are indefensible, and then return for public hearings in September, and we all will be the worse for it.

The book takes the form of journal entries of a teacher and one of his students. This student and all others like her must pass a certain proficiency level in written English to stay in school regardless of their performance overall. It is reasonable to expect people that wish to make their home in The United States to have the abilities to write and speak competently. It is not appropriate to use these educational hurdles as institutional racism. And this is the environment that the book's teacher and his students struggle against. If the tests in reality are as described in the book a substantial number of us who have been hear for generations would fail.

Many may ridicule that last sentence, but I offer this. Recently national testing for history was done in our schools and when given the list of the primary combatants in WWII less than half of High School students provided the correct multiple-choice answer. The winner and third place occupant of the recent National Geographic Geography competition were both home-schooled.

"Never Fade Away", has other elements that were hard for me to justify. I don't know if I am being fair, or if the primary issue is just so volatile. For me some of the flashbacks and personal history seemed a bit awkward, but others may find these facets appropriate.

I enjoy the work of new authors, as there are so many names that seem to have a production line for their work. Small publishers have brought to readers new writers that may not be as polished as familiar names, and for that I thank them. Too much of contemporary fiction is occupied by different takes on tired themes, so make the leap occasionally to writers you know nothing of, and you will often be rewarded.

I found this book to be a little to wordy from a psychological standpoint for me. The personal stories were interesting, but about half way through the book I had lost interest. I much prefered Sylvia Brown's Psychic Kids or anything by Doreen Virtue. For me, the reason I read a book like Hart's is for the personal stories not the scientific explanations for the events.

Every parent should own a copy... needs to own a copy of the Secret Spiritual World of Children. It is an insightful, uplifting glimpse into the connection between children and the Divine.

I read this book a few of years ago, before my son was even walking. Looking back on it, I realize that I've incorporated many if the author's suggestions in working with my son, and I think that has helped him feel comfortable in talking to me about his experiences. He told me I was going to have a baby before I even knew I was pregnant; this prompted me to take a pregnancy test. He told me the baby was a girl when I was about two months pregnant. And, later, when I was very pregnant (about 8 mos or so), he told me that he was playing with his sister in his bedroom at night. He also tried to get me to 'see' her, by pointing out what he called 'balloons with light in them' that would appear in the bedroom. He said this light was Sofia and her friends. Later, a nurse at the Dr's office told me that she often hears about children his age (3 at the time) predicting pregnancies, etc.

It's just amazing that when you're aware, you can see children's spirituality unfolding naturally before your eyes. This awareness helps parents to nurture and acknowledge this spirituality, which in turn, I believe creates a well-balanced child.

One of my favorite childhood dreams, a recurrent one that I had when I was around seven or eight, is that I am conducting a symphony orchestra. That would be a special experience in itself. What makes this dream more interesting is that I am making up the music, note by note, as we go. Almost like the wand that Mickey Mouse borrows from the Sorcerer, as I wave my baton, the music comes into being. In the dream, that is a thrilling experience. What is even more interesting is that in the dream I am noticing that the orchestra seems to know what notes to play even though there are no notes until I wave them into being at that very moment. In the dream I am puzzling over how the orchestra can play the notes at the very instant that I create them.
Years later I can see in this dream many of the themes I've meditated upon in trying to come to a better understanding of a spiritual path that is natural to me, one that involves allowing improvisation to connect with a transpersonal source of creativity. While my adult self can both appreciate and understand the dream, my childhood self experienced the wonder and awe of the dream, but did not have any understanding of its meaning or source. Not all children, however, display the same lack the understanding of such experiences, according to Tobin Hart in his book The secret spiritual world of children (Inner Ocean Publishing). He shares many stories of children seeming wise beyond their years, children who experience cosmic consciousness and understand its significance and use the experience to guide them throughout their lives.
The idea that children are close to God certainly comes through loud and clear in Hart's stories. The children in his book have mystical experiences, visits by angels and other beings, they spontaneously offer healing words or touch to other children and adults, and they have psychic experiences of many varieties. An account of these experiences comprises only the first half of the book. He devotes the second half of his book to providing guidance to parents. There he skillfully weaves together insights for both parent and child as they attempt to respond to such experiences.
Spirituality is a mixed blessing, for while it may open the child to the secrets of the universe, such knowledge can also be a burden on the child. Adults face similar challenges and the parents may find their own spiritual issues mirrored in the struggles of the child. A vision of one's mission in life may also create pressure to succeed. Being given extraordinary insights, visits from angels, and other non-ordinary encounters may make the child feel "special" and disinclined to make the mortal efforts in life required of the rest of us. Awareness of invisible worlds that no one else can see can make a person, child or adult, feel alienated from others. Balancing heaven and earth is difficult, regardless of a person's age.
Psychic experiences offer their own special challenges and they are quite similar for both children and adults. Precognitive experiences, for example, especially about unfortunate events, can make the experiencer feel somehow guilty, as if knowledge of an event creates responsibility for it. Telepathic sensitivity can confuse a person's sense of self, requiring effort to discern one's own feelings from those of others. Balancing individuality with inter-connectedness is a lifelong riddle that requires the development of a stable ego, content enough to remain calmly in the background. The child's experience becomes a teacher for the parents as they endeavor to respond appropriately to the child.
Tobin's advice to parents seems to revolve around two key principles. The first is that the parent should endeavor to respond matter of factly to the child's reports. While it might seem inconceivable to us that we might deny the child's reality, making too big a deal of it can be equally harmful. The second, and more challenging, principle is for parents to cultivate a good relationship with their own spirituality and not vicariously live through their children. Although he allows for the probability that our species is evolving, he expresses some reserve about such concepts as "Indigo children." He argues, alternatively, that children have always had a secret spiritual life. It is the parents, he suggests, that are now highly interested in spirituality and have become aware of its existence in their children. The children may seem "special" in the parents' eyes, but this perception may be a compensating projection of the parents' own sad alienation from their own spiritual inner child. The child's spirituality often needs some help with incarnating into the workaday world. Parents who can embrace this need and provide a family atmosphere in which all parties are collaborating to bring heaven into earth seems to create the best classroom for the lessons spiritual experiences bring to the home. www.henryreed.com/publications/bookreviews

This book has inspired me to listen more closely to the children in my life as well to my own inner knowing. As adults we can forget this source within us with all the external distractions in our lives. The stories Tobin Hart shares reminds us we all have the ability to listen from within.
There is so much wisdom in this book, from children and sages from the past, I cannot wait to re-read it to glean more. This work is not something to be measured or quantified from a cognitive perspective, but to be experienced,felt, and lived.

Very well written tributes to some very interesting people in the sports entertainment business. Honest and forthright; this is an excellent collector's item.

For Chris Benoit (1967-2007)

Young & strong beautiful one
One that we embraced so close
Is gone
Was torn away

With candles with flowers
He was one of ours
One of ours

Why don't you let him be?
He's gone
We know
Give his mother & father peace
Your vulture's candor
Your casual slander
Will murder his memory
He's gone
We know
And it's nothing but a tragedy

Lay to rest your soul and body
Lay beside your name
Lay to rest your rage
Your hunger and amazing grace

With candles, with flowers
You were one of ours
One of ours

I saw cameras expose your life
I heard rumors explode with lies
I saw children with tears
Cry and crowd around the sight
Of where you had collapsed that day
Where your last breath & word
Had been sighed
Where your heart had burst
Where you had died

I saw how they were lost in grieving
All half-believing you were gone
The loss and pain of it
Crime and the shame of it
You were gone
It was such a nightmare raving,
"how could we save him
From himself?"

(Natalie Merchant - River)

A solid, well written work for those interested in the real people behind the characters of wrestling. A well considered foreword from Bret Hart showing how far things have come from the "kay fabe" days.
Mr. Meltzer's book puts a very human perspective on the individuals who punish themselves physically and mentally and the unfortunate toll that befalls some of these athletes/entertainers. A very good read for those with even a casual interest in wrestling.

I have read Tributes II once in Barnes and Nobles and it was a great read. Professional Wrestling has always lost wrestlers in their prime. This is a perfect example of those we lost to heart failure, overdoses and living the hard life. The exception was Owen Hart, who died very tragically in the ring due to a faulty harness, basically doing what he did best, WRESTLING. As I read the book, and the beautiful tributes by Mr. Meltzer, I shed a few tears and remembered these men we lost as wrestling fans. Two more names can be added to those tributes, as we lost the Big Boss Man in 2004, and Eddie Guerrero in 2005. Although all these men are all in a better place, they never left us, and neither do the memories.

Dave Meltzer - through his Wrestling Observer Newsletter - has brought to fans the true business of professional wrestling as seen through the eyes of sources in the corporate boardrooms and the trust he has obtained over the years with wrestlers worldwide.

But pro wrestling has a rich tradition that is oftentimes overlooked or quickly forgotten after a star from yesterday passes away. Some of Meltzer's most powerful writing has been remembering the greats who have passed, as his candid accounts of their lives inside the squared-circle and outside the arena truly brings the legends to life, perhaps for the first and/or last time.

In Tributes II, his second book of profiles from the newsletter, Meltzer includes his articles on Lou Thesz, The Sheik, Johnny Valentine, Wahoo McDaniel, Rick Rude and Curt "Mr. Perfect" Hennig, along with an expanded tribute to Andre the Giant.

The forward is written by Bret Hart and the book touches his family in such a tragic way. The lives of his father - Stu Hart - and brother-in-law, Davey Boy Smith, are chronicled by Meltzer, along with a new profile on Bret's brother, Owen Hart, who tragically fell to his death before a sold-out arena and cable TV pay-per-view audience in a risky stunt that went so terribly wrong.

Included in the book is a one-hour DVD where Meltzer provides additional information on the wrestlers. The DVD alone is worth the purchase price.

Each profile is a touching tribute that celebrates the lives of those who entertained with style and class.

Windows System Programming is a great resource for programming using the core Windows API. It is the only resource I found that gives practical and complete examples on real-world programming tasks, such as Named Pipes using IO Completion ports. It will be a permanent fixture on my work desk, as it should be on any C++ Window's developers desk.

Nice book that touches on in depth issues of win32 programming such as file handling, registry, memory issues, etc.

What impressed me most about this book was the subject range. It doesn't cover GUI stuff, but does cover UNICODE, threading, file handling, sockets, writing services, structured exception handling etc, and is pretty much up to date at time of writing this review (it doesn't cover Vista but does touch on 64-bit issues). There are books that cover some of these subjects more deeply, but I cannot think of a book that currently attempts to cover all of these subjects to the level that this book does or with such a consistent usage of Windows techniques.

Although this book does cover bits of the C run-time library, it concentrates more on what the Windows API can do for you that the C run-time cannot. This particularly showed through in the section on file handling. For someone like me who started working with the C and the C run-time library 20+ years ago, has worked with Windows APIs since the very first version of MS Windows appeared, worked with C++ for more than 10 years and worked on numerous UNIX projects too (often with code portable between Windows and UNIX), this book provides numerous reminders of why I should consider Windows APIs instead of C run-time libraries on projects where I don't need my code to be portable to UNIX. That's the key thing though - for an experienced developer this book largely acts as a reminder or as a trigger to go investigate certain things further, for rarely did it feel like an authoritative guide to the topics included. It is good, but not authoritative enough to be worthy of 5 stars. For example, my speciality is high-performance, multi-threaded servers handling protocols such as TCP/IP. Although this book covers multi-threading fairly well (although not brilliantly), I was particularly disappointed by the Sockets coverage - I could be wrong but I got the impression that the author prefers other interfaces to the Sockets API. Similarly, structured exception handling was covered very well, and file handling and memory handling pretty well, but the section on services felt a bit lightweight.

Example code in the book appears to be pretty good, although I have spotted a few minor issues. I haven't checked the errata on the author's web-site, but would hope that corrections do appear there.

So to conclude - yes, I think any serious Windows developer (particularly if writing server apps) should have a copy of this alongside books such as Jeffrey Richter's Programming Applications for Microsoft Windows, but having said that, I suspect that most people will think of Jeffrey Richter as the more authoritative even if in need of an update (which is planned to be happening later this year under a new title).

The best thing about this book, in my opinion, is numerous comparisons that Mr. Hart makes between UNIX and Windows. As a recent Computer Science graduate, all of my system programming experience was in a UNIX environment. (My university used that OS for programming assignment exclusively.) After graduating, however, I found myself in a job that uses Windows. From school, I was familiar with the things I needed to do - parallel programming, sockets, services, but I had no idea how to actually implement such things in Windows. Mr. Hart's direct comparisons to UNIX gave me a frame of reference that made it easier for me to learn the subject matter quicker.

Also, the book's four chapters on multithreaded programming have been extremely insightful and indispensable. Mr. Hart writes "when defects do occur [in a multithreaded application], as they will, code inspection ... often is the most effective in finding and fixing the defects' root causes" (pg. 309). If you don't have the necessary knowledge, staring at the code all day won't do you a bit of good. Mr. Hart's fantastic coverage of this subject has helped me understand the fundamentals of this difficult programming paradigm.

In addition, the information on Structured Exception Handling (SEH) and Unicode was very helpful and informative.

Lastly, I found this book to be very useful because it is very up-to-date.

I would highly recommend this book.

I'm an old system's programmer, and I loved this book. It provides the exact information you need if your an experienced system's coder, and just need the specifics of how to accomplish the operations on windows. Multithreading, memory mapped file i/o, process & thread management, networking, you name it, and it's in here.

I use this text hand and glove with "Windows Internals" by Russinovich. Winternals explains what needs to be done, and Hart's book describes how. This is really an excellant text.

I particularly liked Appendix "C". Sprinkled throughout the text are example programs. Then Appendix "C" compares the real world performance of running the programs. The author does an excellant job of explaining why one approach is suprior to the other, than backs it up with timing examples (on difference versions of windows, using different hardware, and even the differences between FAT & NTFS).

About the only imrpovement to the text I could suggest, is less reference to Unix/POSIX. Most systems programmers are familiar with Unix, and it helps to have previous understanding from another platform, but I think people who buy this text are looking to learn the "Windows Way". Also, the text would benefit from a deeper treatment of the Windows Security model. As it stands, a demonstration of Unix-Style permissions for NTFS is not terribly useful in the real world.