Hoffman Books

This book combined with the other book out by Hoffman has been a favorite of the children I work with for years. This book was recently borrowed and the children I see annually are begging me to get another copy as they love the brief myths available, especially regarding the zodiac. The kids would definitely give these books five stars while I would like to see just a little more detail or a bibliography for those interested in learning more. Thanks for making such a successful book.

I saw Sun, Moon and Stars on the shelf at a bookstore and went to it just because the cover was so beautiful. Jane Ray's artwork is fantastic and I wish there were wallpaper made out of the artistry in this book. Mary Hoffman has written a fascinating text that informs us about how many different peoples have viewed these heavenly bodies. You will not be dissapointed.

If you're looking for a fun time, look no further than Duets #31. Sandra Paul is always a fabulous read and while Kate Hoffman was new to this reviewer I was not disappointed in her work either. Fast-paced, rib-tickling, you'll love this book if you love romantic comedies. Highly recommended.

In Hoffman's Three Babies and a Bargain, Professor Jillian Marshall convinces her sister, Roxane, that she can take care of her triplet toddlers while Roxane and her husband are on their second honeymoon. She is completely convinced that she could do better than Roxane because she understands that organization is the key to giving the children a structured existence. Nick Callahan is building shelves for Roxane and her husband as a favor for lending him their guest house for the summer. He comes to Jillian's rescue and basically spends the rest of the story bailing her out of disasters created by her own misguided devotion to organization.

Hoffman does a great job setting up a rapport between Nick and the triplets but she might have been better served developing a stronger one between him and Jillian. Nick's quick wit and generous sense of humor save the day as well as this story. The reader is never given the chance to warm up to Jillian because of her inflexibility as well as her calculated models on what disaster would strike next because of her ineptitude. Rather than truly learning from Nick how to care for the children, much of the story is spent witnessing her relying on him instead. Hoffman spends so much time focusing on Nick and Jillian creating a temporary family with the triplets that the story weakens when it comes to their own relationship.

In the story by Sandra Paul, Jessica Kendall is the operations officer of a Los Angeles bank who has been frequently targeted as being easy to rob due to the fact that five of their tellers are pregnant. Security adviser, Mitch Flaherty, takes action to prevent another robbery by implementing a number of new procedures and policies which irritates Jessica because she has to be the one to soothe and comfort the tellers who are trying to acclimate to the new rules. Though Jessica feels Mitch has usurped her authority, she tries to help for the sake of the bank and its tellers. Her innate tendency to nurture eventually extends to Mitch who wants to act on the attraction they feel for each other.

Paul's story is clearly the stronger of the two in terms of characterization. Both Mitch and Jessica are clearly defined by their actions as well as the secondary characters who rely on her and get to know him. Their relationship is clearly the focus of this story and though babies do play a role in this story, they only enhance their relationship rather than playing an integral role in the story.

Michael Chekhov was considered by many to be the greatest actor of the 20th century. Famous for his ability to create fantastic, and even grotesque, characterization with immense inner life. He left audiences stunned. Many well established Actors, directors and teachers have commented on the influence the Chekhov technique has had on them. Including Stella Adler, Lee Strassberg, Sanford Meisner, Gregory Peck, Harold Clurman, Anthony Quinn, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nickolson, Anthony Hopkins, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Bryner, Elia Kazan, and the list goes on. Many of these individuals where even taught by him. Stanislavsky himself called Michael Chekhov his greatest pupil. The Chekhov Technique is founded on each actors own creative individuality. Looking beyond the limitations of using your own experiences to call forth truth. He moves into the realm of the Imagination. From psycho-physical movement based work to expressing universal ideas in emotionally truthfull behavior. This book covers it all in a free, creative and nurturing way. It covers the use of atmospheres, quality of movement, objectives (aka: actions, intentions, verbs), calling forth emotion with ease, imaginary center and imaginary body, images, behavior, psychological gesture (as applied to the overall character, individual scenes, objectives, atmospheres, and moments), radiating and receiving, working off your partner, working off the audience, working with the director, improvisation, ensemble, styles from clown to tragedy, and much more. Everything in this book is both practical and fun to apply to the art of acting. Finally to the actor is available in it's entirety. If your an actor, director or teacher, it should be required reading. If your just someone interested in what's involved in the actor's craft, this book will show you the point of view of one of the greatest actor's in history. Highly Recommended.

Some of the techniques I learned from "Respect for Acting" by Uta Hagen were causing me serious problems in my acting. I was trying to balance too many notions in my head at once, and it was compounding anxiety and tension, and hampering my awareness on stage.

This book gave me a lot of useful replacements for those cumbersome method techniques. Imagination is ultra-important and this book teaches you how to develop it. Chekhov will teach you how to find true honesty from your imagination, and how to connect your physical body with your imaginative powers.

This is a brilliant man, who devoted his life to finding and sharing a hopeful approach to acting. Stanislavsky openly regarded his great talent, and told him he had a great responsibility to try to share what he knew with future generations. He took that to heart and now we have this book.

I only give it 4 stars, because I believe that a quest for an acting technique is personal, and this can't be the solution for everyone, nor was it the complete boxed-up solution for me. If you have had problems with "The Method" give this a shot, though.

Check out his other book, "On the Technique of Acting." It provides some useful complimentary information.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and its predecessor organizations have been home to the discovery of more elements with atomic number greater than 92 than anyplace else in the world, beginning in 1940 with the discovery of element 93, neptunium, by Edwin McMillan and Philip Abelson at the University of California's Radiation Laboratory.

Not all these achievements were undisputed, and the arguments are far from settled. Although many of the issues are not matters a nonspecialist can judge, a lively sense of history still unfolding is one of this book's fascinations. In addition to the volume's official page count, there are an extra 93 pages of front matter -- most of it a long preface titled "Intimate glimpses of the authors' early lives," which is an intriguing minivolume in itself.

Of Darleane Hoffman, winner of the American Chemical Society's Joseph Priestley medal, we learn that in 1952 the personnel department at Los Alamos ruined her chance to participate in the discovery of elements 99 and 100 (einsteinium and fermium). Arriving from Oak Ridge to take up a job in the short-handed radiochemistry group there, Hoffman was told that "we don't hire women in that Division." What's more, her security clearance had somehow been "lost." Meanwhile, in November, new elements had been produced in the world's first thermonuclear explosion, and in December and January they were separated from coral debris from the test site. The personnel-department snafu wasn't cleared up until March.

In 1941 Albert Ghiorso, who worked in the San Francisco Bay Area during the Depression for a supplier of ham radio equipment, was sent to the U.C. Rad Lab to hook up an intercom for the secretaries and to build some Geiger counters. "I was not told that it would be necessary to build hundreds of these devices for Prof. Glenn T. Seaborg's group." By way of consolation, he married one of the secretaries, Wilma Belt.

When Seaborg went to Chicago to join the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory, he asked Ghiorso to come along. Although Ghiorso barely knew Seaborg, he agreed on condition "that I not be asked to build any more G-M [Geiger-Mueller] circuits." Later he learned that Wilma and Helen Griggs, Ernest Lawrence's secretary (soon to be Mrs. Seaborg), had decided between them that Ghiorso belonged in Chicago. There he was to play a crucial role.

Seaborg's life is more familiar than those of his coauthors, but it is interesting to see events usually viewed through the lens of a sometimes grim history -- his discovery of plutonium, his work on the Manhattan Project, later his Nobel Prize, and his chairmanship of the Atomic Energy Commission during the Kennedy years -- from the fresh perspective of a chemist's fascination with unexplored scientific terrain.

Much of The Transuranium People is grouped into chapters describing the quest for new elements which often came in pairs -- neptunium and plutonium, americium and curium, berkelium and californium, and so on -- for reasons having to do with particular experimental methods or available energies.

Competition, controversy, and compromise were part of the quest from the beginning. In an intriguing chapter called "Naming controversies and the Transfermium Working Group," the authors recount a quarter-century of unsuccessful attempts to end the "dissent and confusion" surrounding credit for discoveries of elements 101 through 109. Element 105 occasioned the worst clash. The authors contend that researchers at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna in Russia could not, as they claimed, have isolated element 105 in 1967 by the means described; a different isotope of 105 was made in 1970 at Lawrence Berkeley Lab's HILAC by Ghiorso and four colleagues, who named it hahnium.

Not until 1997 was a compromise reached by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, naming 105 dubnium and at the same time accepting the name seaborgium for element 106 -- "in the interest of international harmony," as the American Chemical Society's Committee on Nomenclature put it. In this book 105 is called hahnium, the name by which it was best known for a quarter century.

The Transuranium People also includes an illuminating discussion of the excitement behind the search for "superheavy elements," those whose stability should increase with increasing atomic weight, notably the possibility that elements in "a 'Magic Island' or 'Island of Stability' with half-lives as long as a billion years might exist."

If so, they might be found in nature. But looking for an element "whose atomic number and chemistry I could only guess at seemed nearly impossible," Hoffman states, although in 1971 she had succeeded in separating minute amounts of plutonium from natural ores. Indeed all such searches have failed.

Instead, superheavies have been produced in accelerators. In 1999 Victor Ninov, Kenneth Gregorich, and their colleagues, working at Berkeley Lab's 88-Inch Cyclotron, created elements 118 and 116. A few months earlier, researchers working at Dubna had reported finding element 114; no one has yet laid claim to 113, 115, or 117. The quest continues -- especially for those with the right number of neutrons and protons to form "magically" stable atoms.

Despite the often heavy technical going, there are enough personal revelations, anecdotes, opinions, gripes, brokered deals, and generous sharings of credit in The Transuranium People to entertain anyone with an interest in the history and promise of the "artificial" elements heavier than uranium.

This is truly a facinating book about real people, not 2-dimensional facts on paper. The people leading the work to create and then discover man-made atoms, written by the people themselves.

A wonderful insight into the lives, trials, and tribulations -- as well as the joys, excitement, and successes of these people.

Having known Glenn Seaborg, and knowing Darleane Hoffman, I can hear their personality and excitement for their work bubble through the pages of this book.

Recommended for anyone with an interest in the history of science, regardless of whether you are professionally engaged in the field, or just an interested reader.

It has been many years since I read - "Way of Splendor" by Dr. Hoffman. As far as I am concerned it still holds up as one of the clearest explanations of Jewish Mysticism among the many other books on the subject.
However, what I think distinguishes this book from others is that it is a comparative approach to Kabbalah vis-à-vis eastern philosophy and yoga. Interestingly it does not do this in an overt manner- but in such way that it helps the readers, who are familiar and comfortable with yoga and eastern thought, easily relate to the subject. Dr. Hoffman provides some history on the subject along with clear explanation of its theory and includes techniques of meditation. I think that the title may be a bit misleading to those who may be considering the purchase of The Way of Splendor, as the book really does not focus on psychology as it relates to Kabbalah, although it does refer to it. But in the end, The Way of Splendor is a wonderful introduction to the Kabbalah and therefore, a very good place to start

The poetic imagery and spiritual insights of the Kabbalah, the mystical offshoot of Judaism, have excited the imagination for centuries. One of the distinguishing features of Jewish mysticism is its emphasis on the day-to-day relevance of the visionary experience. Dr. Hoffman elucidates how Kabbalistic ideas as well as Kabbalistic thinkers themselves have exerted a profound influence on the establishment and growth of Western psychological thought.

Beginning with a historical evolution and presentation of Kabbalistic metaphysics and cosmology, the main thrust here is on the applicability of its teachings. Such topics as the Kabbalah's views on dreams, meditation, sexuality, community life, diet and health, and the role of human emotions in daily life are explored in detail.

I just received my copy of Williams Gynecology and have been very happy with it thus far. I find the illustrations to be much better than other surgical texts. Yes, blasphemous (TeLinde's). While I have yet to finish perusing my copy, I know I will continually refer to it throughout my career. I find it much easier to read than other Gyn texts and am pleased with the color plates. I recommend this text, and share this sentiment with several collagues.

I just received my Williams' Gynecology text 1st edition 2008 and must say that it's stunning in breadth, detail, illustrative creativity, and organization. The most important aspect is the constant attention the authors at Dallas Southwestern have paid to maintaining a contemporary evidence-based medicine approach throughout each chapter which is devoted to the field of gynecology. I'm not surprised in the least that such a perfect masterpiece has been written by the folks at Southwestern, the same group devoted for over a century to the world-renowned and authoritative text, Williams' Obstetrics. This companion book provides the medical student considering a career in gynecology and the resident in-training or practicing OB/GYN physician all they require to become well-versed and exemplary in the classroom, clinic, and OR. It is an impressive example of perfection in writing style and illustrative genius. Congratulations to the many physicians and specialists who made this book a reality. You've clearly shown yet again, that the Dept. of OB/GYN in Dallas, Texas is the pinnacle source of research, education and training in our great field of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Obviously, I would strongly recommend this text to accompany TeLinde's Operative Gynecology for anyone in an OB/GYN residency program.

This book accurately depicts the lifestyle and thoughts and feelings of Americans during the time slavery was legal. This book incorporates many concepts from other books such as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet when the Grangerfords and Sheperdsons feuded against each other over a marriage. I recommend this book.

How can one critically review what is arguably the greatest American novel? Very carefully! Twain, who briefly served the Confederacy was a river boat pilot, miner, reporter, lecturer, acerbic wit, devoted family man, was the premier writer of 19th century America.

In "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" Twain thoughtfully and compassionately weaved a tapestry of mid-stream American life and culture which probably did more to positively change white America's view of its black minority than any legislation ever could. He achieved all that while creating a timeless world of youthful adventure to where countless generations can escape.

This wonderful volume is a replica edition that contains almost 200 original illustrations by E. W. Kemble, which conveys the raw excitement of life on the Mississippi. It should be given as a present along with "The Complete Tom Saywer," so the reader can have access to the the entire mythos that Twain recorded.

I have read and enjoyed "Huckleberry Finn" many times; but this recording enhances the text and makes it that much more enjoyable. The narrator, Tom Parker, does a superb job of bringing this odd assortment of strange and humorous characters to life. He does an especially fine job of pronouncing the numerous dialects that Twain put down for posterity. Hearing Mr. Parker's pronunciations and articulations brings these characters to life in all of their mid-nineteenth century motley. If you close your eyes you can picture Huck and Jim conversing as they travel on the Mississippi, lazily wasting their days and outwitting the numbskulls they encounter along the way. Parker does an especially fine portrayal of Pap Finn when he rants about the Guv'ment in a drunken stupor. His Duke and King are also delightfully portrayed in all their vainglorious pomposity.
I was really impressed by how much value I received for so little cost. I laughed many times while following along with my text of the story. After all, Twain was primarily a humorist, and what's the point of reading a story like "Huckleberry Finn" if you refuse to see the humor in it? And Tom Parker's dramatic skills embellish this humor by bringing the text to life. Aside from the humor, Mr. Parker elicits the heart and soul of both Huck and Jim and shows how their views of each change as they both realize just how human and decent the other is. This is a story of some very human people from a time and a world that no longer exist. It's like reading a dream of a foreign world.
This CD set is worth the money. It's a delightful and heartfelt reading of a most wonderfully compassionate and funny story about the common sense and innate humanity of an "uneducated" boy from the back woods of Missouri who discovers his own sense of morality and humanity while living by his wits and travelling up and down the Mississippi while meeting an assortment of colorful characters along the way. And, yes, it is unabridged.

First off, I love this book and I was very mad to hear stuff like "All people who like it are stupid" I read one review where the person said "It shows how stupid Anericans can be" You misspelled Americans buddy! People did talk like that. I know because they still talk like that. I loved the language, and snobs who just turn their noses up and say "that's not proper English!" are obnoxious and pitiful! How is it hard to read? The bad reviewers called lovers of this book stupid when they couldn't even understand the book. Twain uses the N word so much because that's how people talked back then! Americans who insult this book are uncultured, know nothing about history and are complete snobs. I find Jim to be a kind, patient, fatherly figure, Huck to be an interesting main character and Tom to be lovable and funny. People say it's childish and that Jim is childish, but that's because the book is written through the eyes of Huck, a 13 year-old boy. You would have to be racist to call this book racist. MARK TWAIN WAS VERY ANTI SLAVERY! I'm really mad that people can be so ignorant as to want to ban this book. People say that Huck's adventure were boring, but they were not. He is a 13 year-old helping to free a slave and then there's all the stuff in between. How many 13 year-olds do you know who have ever travelled down the mississippi river constantly being hunted for, without any parents? I love this book, the characterization is flawless and all Americans should read this and enjoy it. Mark Twain was a brilliant writer and all you people who hate on this book and are mean to people who like it, I feel kind of sorry for you that you are such stupid snobs who can't even understand a dialect which is still used today. This book takes place at America's most shameful time in history and yet I am still proud that this is a book that represents america.

Twain's Huckleberry Finn has derived much controversy from its use of the "n" word in the dialogue as well as what some believe are stereotyped characters within the novel. As some have noted in defense of Twain, Twain's main object was to portray and depict the typical Southern dialect of this time period, and so his use of the word was to mainly show that this was a common expression used. This "overuse" of the word is most obviously an attempt at debunking the idea that people should speak this way. What some forget while reading Huckleberry Finn is that it is a satire aimed at breaking down and making fun of many of the conventions of not only the South, but other aspects of social life. Perhaps the biggest indicator of Twain's intent of facetiousness is in his "Explanatory" and "Notice" in the book's preface, where it is inferred that we are not to take everything so seriously in the book. There are many other things going on in the novel, and it is a shame that often we overlook that a classic like this has so much more going for it.

For one thing, the novel is as much about growing up and striving to do good as anything else. Huckleberry Finn has this battle throughout the book, and mostly after he meets up with Jim on Jackson's Island and must do some serious soul searching to figure out what is right and what is wrong. An abolitionist wasn't thought of lightly in this setting, and so Huck is not easy to let go of society's laws. However, through much of Jim's guidance, Huck does learn morals and principles of life. Jim represents the father-figure in Huck's life, mainly because Huck's "real" Pap is an alcoholic, abusive, neglectful and mean-spirited to his son. If there ever were a case for a character breaking the stereotype idea, it would be Jim. After all, isn't it Jim who questions what Huck believes about him running away from slavery? When Huck examines ironically to himself is, and will always be, a "no good abolitionist", this admission and growth of character can be chalked up to Jim, who has already influenced Huck by then. Jim helps Huck grow up and be a more thought-provoking character. Huck gains a better picture as the novel progresses; for instance, he comes to understand that the duke and the king are not only frauds, but that they are lower than low because of their greed and callousness to the Wilks family.

On another level, the novel is a lot about light-hearted fun, satire, poking fun of society and just Huck's imagination. Huck is a child who is not easy to civilize; he wants to be out in the world and living an adventure, being in a band of robbers with Tom Sawyer or adding "style" to a given situation. Huck often lives life by the moment, and has to use his "street smarts" to get out of predicaments, which might mean making up a story, faking his own death, dressing up like a girl to get information or using quick wit to escape a sticky situation. He seeks freedom and adventure, and the Mississippi River, where Jim and he spend much of their time on the raft, is a symbol for this escape.

Over all, I found this to be a difficult review because Huckleberry Finn is probably one of my favorite books and Twain is one of my favorite authors. But, I think if you read Huckleberry Finn in the right light, it is an amazing read about adventure and growing up. Definitely recommended!

I enjoyed watching the movie that was based on the book. I wanted to see what the differnce between the two.

I liked the movie better. And this is something I never say. The book focuses less on Sally and more on her daughters and her sister,Gillian. The aunts, so colorful in the movie, have little to do until the very end of the book. Gary is not a very well developed character either. In the book, Sally's daughters are teenagers, going through all those things teenagers go through. I guess I just like the emphasis on Sally that the movie presented. There were many scenes in the movie which were not in the book. I really liked the scene where the women of the town overcame their fears and went to the aunts' house to help the Owens women get rid of Jimmy for good. This is not in the book. This is the first Alice Hoffman book I have read. I'm not sure I would invest in another one. I'll probably just borrow one from a friend or the library.

When two young girls, Sally and Gillian, are orphaned it is Sally (who is wise beyond her years) that calls her aunts (white witches) and says that she and her sister are coming to live with them. The girls spend their childhood as targets for taunts and pranks of the other townschildren simply because no one understands them and associates them with the Owens women who have been rumored to be witches. Indeed they are witches, of the benevolent kind. The girls get a view of hypocrasy when every evening the women of the town come to the back door of the aunts' house and beg and plead for a spell to bring them true love. But as Aunt Bridget cautions, "Be careful what you wish for". In an effort to save herself from heartbreak young Sally vows never to fall in love; Gillian, however, "can't wait to fall in love".

As they grow both girls can't wait to be free from the aunts. Gillian runs off with a young man and works her way through three husbands. Sally finds herself deeply in love with a local man. They marry and have two lovely daughters but alas, Sally's husband meets with an untimely death. She moves herself and her daughters back to the aunts house and suffers a year-long bout of depression. She vows yet again to take keep her daughters from harm and herself from love. To that end she moves her small family to Long Island, a place where she feels they can be normal.

One night Gillian arrives at the Long Island house with the body of her dead boyfriend in the car. In an effort to cover up the deed (an overdose of a potent natural drug), Sally helps Gillian bury the body in her yard. That's when strange and potentially evil things start to happen. It takes a visit by the aunts along with some strong magic to dispell the strange happenings and bring true love to both Gillian and Sally.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Tightly woven story, lyrical prose, a bit of humor, lots of magic, and charismatic characters. Like other reviewers I wanted to finish this book in one sitting. It is definitely a page-turner. Hoffman has a definite winner in this book.

Also recommended: The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman

On the surface this is enjoyable enough-- a great, fun romance story full of all the the right classic ingredients. Then add a smidgen of mystery and a ghost. Finish it off with the all-powerful themes of love, sisterhood, and family, all written with Hoffman's dreamy prose.

Simply, this book is an addiction, gorgeous and well-plotted with fantastic characters and development.

If you're a hopeless romantic looking for a very real story with just a touch of magic, this is it.

For someone with AH's writing style, this is how I feel about this book. It really could've been better, although it was not painfully difficult to read. I will agree with the reviews that said that they "don't understand how the movie ever came from this book apart from Gillian, and Sally, and the two aunts." I think that seeing the movie frist gave me unfair expectations for how the plot should've been in the book. Not only was the plot out of order, but most parts were so unreccognizable that this book should really be set completely apart from the movie altogether.

Now After I got over the fact that the book is different from the movie, even character-wise, I couldn't get over the writing style. It is just not something I'm used to. AH is excellent for her comparative descriptions, and painting a pretty "still" picture, but she is not good with following through in this story. I have never read another one of her books so I do not know if this is common for her. Also her writing style is described by others as light and easy to read. For me her pen was so light within this story that at some points it barely touched the paper. This is essentially a love story with many twists and turns. I am definately NOT a fan of romance novels, although I guess this one is alright. The fact that it is a romance novel is cleverly almost hidden.

If there are those of you who haven't seen the movie as of yet and wish to get this book, I say read the book first and then see the movie. Although I can bet that whichever one is examined first will leave you hating the other. Either the book or the movie since the plot-lines are barely reccognizable. Still, I'm not sorry to have purchased this book as I am a sort of collector of these things.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a page turner if there has ever been on. One positive complaint, too many law enforcement acronyms. Other than that I can only say good things about the book. It's really good!

It's a great book, the story is written very well and you can't stop reading once you start. A must read!!!

I thought the first half of this book was great, especially the part set in New York. Hoffman did an excellent job with the emotions associated with being raped and how it turns your life upside down. A little over half way through the book, however, I found that it degenerated. It was still better than many suspense thrillers, but I had hoped for a better ending. Having said that, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes graphic thrillers.

One more thing, I get bored by the constant turf wars between police departments and the FBI that seem to make their way into every thriller. It's such a tired story, almost as tired as the relentless media and the obnoxious reporter. To me, it's just wasted space - the testosterone filled men who fight for jurisdiction - and I usually skip those parts of the story, because they are so predictable.

I'm not going to write a huge synopsis of the book and spoil it for those of you who haven't read it yet. I say buy it. It's this gal's first book and it's very good. I'm very funny about what I read, but this book is very good....it has a great story and is very descriptive without being completely gory. I think she did a great job on it. I'll read whatever she writes next.

It is hard to imagine a serial killer more sadistic than Hannibal Lector. Florida State Prosecutor C.J. Townsend, however, is not only brutally raped by such a monster, but is assigned some ten years later to prosecute him for the highly publicized "valentine" murders (named such due to the removal of the victims' hearts). Embroiled in not only a viscous crime drama, but one of moral compromises, C.J. struggles to maintain her legal ethics while investigating the crimes of her former assailant.

First time author Jilliane Hoffman is a former Attorney and Legal Advisor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Her attention to forensic and investigative detail makes her story a compelling one. However, her attention to details of sexual violence makes this compulsion much like gawking at the scene of a car wreck - leaving the listener intrigued, and at the same time slightly sick in the stomach. Hoffman describes in excruciating detail not one, but many rapes - so violent that they leave their victims sterile due to uterus damage caused by penetration with knives and other sharp objects. That being said, the reader becomes easily invested in the psychological journey of protagonist C.J. Townsend who struggles to overcome her symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, especially when finding herself face to face with her former assailant. The effect of the rape on C.J.'s personal and professional relationships is clinically accurate, and much of the novel's appeal stems from the listener's true desire to see C.J. heal psychologically. The listener is equally intrigued by whether or not C.J. will succeed in putting this serial rapist and killer behind bars when legal technicalities and botched police procedures threaten her case. When discrepancies begin to arise in the case, C.J. races against the clock to recover the missing victims' hearts, and the further evidence she needs, before the trial date.

Being familiar with reader Martha Plimpton's screen work (Parenthood, I Shot Andy Warhol, Mosquito Coast) I was a bit worried about her nasal voice with a heavy valley-girl lilt. However, she does an excellent and balanced job, switching naturally between genders and accents in a way that distinguishes the characters from one another without distracting the listener with over delineations between voices.

The plot is enhanced by the burgeoning romance between Townsend and the police detective assigned to the case. Their relationship develops naturally and as a believable sideline to the crime drama, and isn't forced, or tagged on as in so many popular suspense novels [read as every Girsham or Crighton novel]. If you enjoy suspenseful court-room novels, and spine tingling detective stories, check out Retribution - a skillful combination of both genres featuring an appealing and believable female heroine.

I am one of the former students who long ago was forced to read this rot for a HS english class. I can not think of a book that would be of less interest to a teen age american boy than this one. All the reviewers who praise this book make me wonder about what else they read. It was beyond boring and had no possible points of reference to me. There are literally thousands of British novels that would be better choices. If you are going to assign students a British Novel pick one that at least they would enjoy reading. Thank god I liked to read or after this experience I would probably not read anything for years. I hope to god that this is no longer assigned or rather forced reading for HS. When there are books like 1984 or Brave New World available why use one that has so little possible interest to students.

George Eliot is the best woman author I've ever read. She had God-given talent that you or I, no matter how much we read, no matter how much we write, could not consciously replicate. She had something which can't be taught, a kernel of genius hidden somewhere in the brain, which was allowed to express itself...to our collective benefit.

Silas Marner, while not perfect, is something recognizably special--a book with lingering phrases, a book with extraordinary insight, a book that instates the reader with the feeling that the author knows what the hell she is doing. It's a book that matters.

I know what you are afraid of: you are afraid this book will be a bloated succession of tea parties and persiflage with mutton-chopped vicars. No fear: the plot is credibly organic, and moves along briskly, wrapping itself up in just over two-hundred pages. It should hold your interest so that you can discover the ten or so gem-sentences dispersed throughout. Sentences that are not just airtight, but that meld with your mind, and cause an "Aha!" reaction. You know what I'm talking about.

Perhaps the most convincing signal I can offer of my sincere regard for her abilities is the fact that I'll now seek out her other works...something I can't say about Virginia Woolf, for instance, whose literary inferiority to Eliot I would take as axiomatic. (Ironic, isn't it--or maybe not--that feminists seem to esteem Woolf more highly than Eliot?)

Like some of the other reviewers, I found this a heartwarming story about Silas Marner, a solitary hermit who discovers things about himself he has forgotten, or may never have known. When his solitary existence is turned upside down by the departure of his treasure and the arrival of an unexpected guest, Silas takes the opportunity to examine his life and make the best of what life has given him. I felt this was an uplifting story telling how much the choices we make define who we are, and that it's never too late to decide to be something more.

George Eliot's SILAS MARNER is a literary classic. What does that mean? A classic is a book that has passed the test of time. A book taken out of its historical milieu and placed in a contemporary one, e.g. our 2008 society, and still reads fresh is a classic.

SILAS MARNER still reads fresh, if you are a sophisticated reader or have a teacher to guide you through the ground mines of vocabulary and complex writing. However, wrapped inside those is a great story, even a soap opera that students recognize as soon as the Cass brothers are introduced.

Two story lines run parallel until they intersect with the theft of Silas's gold. Silas Marner has been in this village for seventeen years, living a life of isolation, while he makes a living as a weaver. Even if he had chosen to live amongst people, he possesses two things that would always hinder acceptance: he is a herbalist and a victim of catatonic seizures. He discontinues his use of herbs early on, but he cannot stop catatonia, which of course becomes a metaphor for his life with others before Eppy appears.

It is these quiet seizures that result in blackouts that--bottom line--cause his banishment from a religious community where he was highly respected. In the seventeen years near Raveloe, nothing has happened to change his life with a dead heart. His great love in this time is his growing stacks of gold. He loves it! He idolizes it!

Enter Godfrey and Dunstan Cass, two landed gentry, both dissolute in differing ways, both catalysts in the change in Silas Marner's dull life. The younger brother, Dunstan, is a n'er-do-well, a gambler in debt and subject to embarrassment by a man to whom Dunstan owes a great deal of money. He finds gold in Silas's house. On the other hand, Godfrey leads a superficial respectable life, because he too has indulged himself and has a child born out of wedlock.

One cold, dark, stormy night two stories intersect: Dunstan steals Silas's gold, then disappears forever, and Silas is devastated by the loss of his gold. However, this loss brings Silas into community. The night the golden-haired child appears magically on Silas's hearth clinches Silas's total acceptance into village life. Silas adopts this child and Dolly Winthrop becomes his guiding angel in helping to raise the child.

When the two secrets are revealed concerning Dunstan and Godfrey, the reader cheers Silas on, directs hisses at Godfrey, and stands amazed at Dunstan's revelation.

Inside this "soap opera" is a fabulous story of love and redemption. Without love one man lives a life of solace in gold with a heart dried and shriveled. With love his heart beats passionately and lovingly and makes him live fully with family and friends. No greater lesson can come from a story as one of redemption. From the still-point of one golden-haired girl radiates a life that redeems a man.

George Eliot, or Mary Ann Evans, is a genius in depicting the lives of men and women and their influence on others for good or evil. Eppy is the source of good out of sinful circumstances and selfishness on Godfrey's part. Godfrey continues his static life force by not claiming his child at one point and trying to claim her when it is too late. The contrast between one man who has little and the other who has everything is instructive in explaining the ways of the heart.

If I were marooned on a deserted island and could take ten books with me, SILAS MARNER would definitely be on the list. It is a great book to teach and listen to students respond to it (and NO, I won't be stranded with students). Watching their faces in class discussion concerning Dunstan's re-appearance in Raveloe is absolutely priceless. Even though the foreshadowing is huge, students never figure out what happens.

Just think of all the choices we make in our lives, some irrevocable as to cause and effect. SILAS MARNER is a caution and a beacon to making the right choices. Making wrong choices to hide one's actions, more often than not, results in dire consequences. Silas shows us that right actions produce right results. I love this book!

About halfway through when the little bundle of joy shows up in Silas's house I couldn't help thinking Dickens would have done a much better job with this story. As it is, the second part (which is actually the last third of this slim novel) is awkward and sloppy and doesn't make a lot of logical sense. Why does the father confess after he finds out he's going to get away with it scot-free? In "The Telltale Heart" Poe established the kind of guilt that made the eventual confession make sense, but there's nothing like that here to prod the father into doing anything--especially when he's waited so long as it is. By the time he does come forward and want to take responsibility there's really no point in doing so anymore as Silas has done the work for him.

Anyway, I could see why kids would hate reading this. I'd recommend they watch the old "Wishbone" episode from PBS instead. That got to the point and trimmed out a lot of the useless fat and would be far more entertaining for your kids--who doesn't like to see a dog wearing clothes?

That is all.