May Books

This book is clear, and direct. It tells you want you want to know.

Ones first exposure to algebraic topology should be a concrete and pictorial approach to gain a visual and combinatorial intuition for algebraic topology. It is really necessary to draw pictures of tori, see the holes, and then write down the chain complexes that compute them. Likewise, one should bang on the Serre Spectral Sequence with some concrete examples to learn the incredible computational powers of Algebraic Topology. There are many excellent and elementary introductions to Algebraic Topology of this type (I like Bott & Tu because of its quick introduction of spectral sequences and use of differential forms to bypass much homological algebra that is not instructive to the novice).

However, as Willard points out, mathematics is learned by successive approximation to the truth. As you becomes more mathematically sophisticated, you should relearn algebraic topology to understand it the way that working mathematicians do. Peter May's book is the only text that I know of that concisely presents the core concepts algebraic topology from a sophisticated abstract point of view. To make it even better, it is beautifully written and the pedagogy is excellent, as Peter May has been teaching and refining this course for decades. Every line has obviously been thought about carefully for correctness and clarity.

As an example, ones first exposure to singular homology should be concrete approach using singular chains, but this ultimately doesn't explain why many of the artificial-looking definitions of singular homology are the natural choices. In addition, this decidedly old-fashioned approach is hard to generalize to other combinatorial constructions.

Here is how the book does it: First, deduce the cellular homology of CW-complexes as an immediate consequence of the Eilenberg-Steenrod axioms. Considering how one can extend this to general topological spaces suggests that one approximate the space by a CW-complex. Realization of the total singular complex of the space as a CW-complex is a functorial CW-approximation of the space. As the total singular complex induces an equivalence of (weak) homotopy categories and homology is homotopy-invariant, it is natural to define the singular homology of the original space to be the homology of the total singular complex. Although sophisticated, this is a deeply instructive approach, because it shows that the natural combinatorial approximation to a space is its total singular complex in the category of simplicial sets, which lets you transport of combinatorial invariants such as homology of chain complexes. This approach is essential to modern homotopy theory.

One of the reasons that Algebraic Topology is difficult to learn is that often the more general constructions (which are algebraic) are difficult to motivate visually. In fact, I have often found that attempts at visuallizing lead to confusion. J. Peter May avoids confusing illistrations in this book. Constructions are motivated by the results they consort. Most importantly May employes a thoroughly modern point of view. For example: the language of cofibrations/fibrations is used throughout, the handy idea of fundamental groupoid is introduced early in the treatment of the fundamental groups, there are a couple of chapters dedecated to homological algebra intersperced, both homology and cohomology are developed from the axiomatic point of view. May concludes the text with introductions to several more advanced topics such as cobordism, K-theory, and characteristic classes. The list of books that May offers in the suggestions for further reading section at the end is fairily comprehensive.

this is not a bad book, but it isnt for real. the back of the book says: ...treatment is sophisticated, no prior knowledge of the subject is assumed.

i think not.

you better be armed with a few other books and be prepared to spend some hours if you want to "learn" from this book as a beginner.

This tiny textbook is well organized with an incredible amount of information. If you manage to read this, you will have much machinery of algebraic topology at hand. But, this book is not for you if you know practically nothing about the subject (hence four stars). I believe this work should be understood to have compiled "what topologists should know about algebraic topology" in a minimum number of pages.

Eden!!!!!!!!! The gravity of the situation will suck you in with such a vengeance, that your eyes will be glued to every word, while your hands try to keep up with the page turning!!!....then make you wonder what the hell..I feel your PAIN Daniel.....at the same time your left pondering if there is more to the story!! Its truly is a story that encompasses the circle of life, and reminds us just how much truth there is....if we open our eyes, minds, and hearts! Kev, I'm keeping on driving! GREAT JOB!!!! Can not wait to read your next work of art!

Daniel's journey begins in a fashion that would be familiar to any who love to travel. The rhythm of trains rolling through medieval landscapes is the soundtrack of anticipation of what lies ahead. But what lies ahead for Daniel is anything but familiar or ordinary.

Soon, his extraordinary encounters with interesting character after interesting character breed internal conflict and Daniel finds himself in a struggle between good and evil. His weekend getaway takes the reader on an ever accelerating rollercoaster right up until its thrilling end.

From the day I started reading, I couldn't put this book down. The frame of the story will make you stop and think about your life, recognize the presence of every day good and evil, and hopefully reevaluate how you've been living. The canvas that's stretched within this frame will take you on an enlightening ride that stretches all the way from exotic European locations to the backcountry of Ohio and more. You are guaranteed to enjoy every page... and be left wanting more.

With the current climate in America & the World, this book makes you stop and think about our place in the world and the space between where we are going compared to where we want to be. I highly recommend this great read for anyone who is on a journey of self-discovery in a world of materialism and sensationalism. It gives pause and consideration, and a chance to get closer to what we seek in our own lives.

You will be driven to finish this once you have started reading. As Daniel weaves his way throught lifes's journey he discovers the complex trials that must be navigated by the human race. Good and evil being an ever-present battle makes for a gripping story. You will not be sorry that you have explored the intrigue waiting for you. Hope that Kev has another novel in the making.

This book is fabulous. I grew up watching these stories come to like on the Jim Henson Hour, and I love having these stories at my finger tips. The stories are very intersting and original. The art work in the book is also fabulous!! They match the television portrail of story exactly. I am so glad that I am able to read and share these stories with my friends and family!

The television series was one of the best things ever to be shown on TV, but it's more than worthwhile to pick up this book just to be able to focus on Anthony Minghella's (yep, he of "The English Patient") way with words. Minghella doesn't just write good narration, he writes good, old-fashioned *story-telling* Like, say, Kipling's "Just-So Stories," Minghella's "The Storyteller" captures the language of the very best tale tellers.

Many years ago my family sat around the television, wide eyed and filled with magic; we were watching the Jim Henson Storyteller series. We waited and waited for it to reappear one day- to no avail. But FINALLY, a book! To be able to relive the "hugs and snoodles" of Hans My Hedghog, the stone soup tale of a "Story Short"- all of it beautifully, and creatively written, with illustrations to match- will take you back to your childhood. I find it hard to believe this has yet to be discovered. Don't miss the videos that are now out, at long last!

Perfection is the TV series that preceded this book. Of course, I must gloat and say that I knew all those many years ago that Anthony Minghella was the most exquisite writer I had ever heard/read. His words coupled with the genius of Jim Henson and company made for the best (no exaggeration) thing ever to be broadcast on television. To be able to read the words from these shows and have them readily available on your bookshelf is heaven. I've been recommending the TV series and this book for years. I still recommend it today.

Just so you know, all 9 episodes of The Storyteller are now out on a single DVD - something many of us have been waiting for for years. This book is, I think, the original screenplay of Jim Henson's Storyteller series because it follows *very* closely to the stories and dialogue seen on TV. The illustrations are also taken from the show and are very nice. The written word is different from television, however, and these stories take on a different light often in one versus the other, and there are some expansions here that didn't make the final editing cuts.

My kid and I love "The Storyteller" series, and this book is a pleasant addition for bedtime reading.

Can a Scotsman living in France write about an American pathologist and a Chinese detective and make it real?

Without a doubt!

May has written six novels about his unusual pair of protagonists, but only three have been printed in the U.S. so far. The first two do a wonderful job of introducing the "real" China to his readers by giving insight and joy to the daily lives of people in Beijing. I found them to be a wonderful education as well as a delightful read.

In this novel, the action moves to Shanghai, and his insights into the differences between that city and Beijing are fascinating. He is the only westerner to be given honorary membership to the Chinese mystery writers Association, and when you read his novels, you'll understand why.

Oh yes, the mystery part is remarkably good as well. Well plotted, good characterization, and all three books catch you off gaurd at the end, as good mysteries should!

Peter May's China Thriller series of books continues with The Killing Room. All is not well with Margaret and Li's relationship as the location is mostly Shanghai in his third of the series.

Having visted Shanghai nine times in the past two years, I find the Chinese background and culture in this series and this mystery in particular are outstanding. Written in 2000 and just released in the USA, this highly charged mystery actually foretells some of Shanghai's modern 21st Century political history of local corruption. While other novelists may touch on the corruption in a lighter, more oblique way, May gets right to the point in demonstrating how the hierarchy works. He touches on the continuing power struggle between Beijing and Shanghai.

The other reviews cover the story line well. The setting of Shanghai is remarkably accurate, and the description of life and families is still quite relevant eight years after the book was authored. (Many things can change in Shanghai in eight years.) As I have Shanghai friends to explain many customs in modern China, I find that May captures them in very subtle ways. May distills the Chinese manners and details them into background throughout the novel.

If you are travelling to Shanghai and want to get an inside look into the city's life, this is a must read. Only you will find that Shanghai is a much safer place than what happens in the vicinity of Margaret and Li.

I just started reading this book and I'm already hooked. I will definitely be reading any others that Mr. May has written or writes in the future. Definiately a must read!

First Sentence: The rain, like tears, streaks his view of the world from the back seat of his limousine.

Beijing detective Li Yan is working on a case where a woman's body has been found. It appears the victim had undergone an autopsy while alive, organs removed and her body cut into pieces.

Now Yan is sent to Shanghai to oversee the investigation instigated by a mass grave being found there with the similar remains of 18 women. Yan, oblivious by the attentions of his female counterpart in Shanghai, sends for American pathologist Margaret Campbell, with whom he has worked before and with whom he is lovers. While the nightmare of the case escalates, so do the problems with their relationship.

There was definitely more to like about this book than not. I really enjoy learning about China of today and seeing it through the eyes of both a resident, albeit of Beijing who, himself, doesn't feel comfortable in Shanghai, and an American make the story particularly interesting. Yan is a very good policeman who is classically clueless as a male at times, while Margaret is an excellent pathologist who is almost overwhelming insecure as a woman. Those aspects make the characters very believable and human.

I also learned about pathology and science, but in a way that was clinical; not horrific or ever boring. There is suspense that does build nicely. Although I suspected one villain, I didn't see the other one coming.

The first book of the series, "The Firemaker," is still my favorite, but I shall definitely continue on with Margaret and Li.

When the bodies of eighteen women are discovered in a mass grave at a construction site in Shanghai, Deputy Section Chief Li Yan is sent to establish if the corpses relate to an unsolved similar murder in Beijing. He requests that American pathologist Margaret Campbell be allowed to assist with the forensics. Their on again-off again relationship remains rocky, especially because of local Deputy Chief Nien Mei-Ling, who Margaret finds a formidable competitor for Li Yan's heart. While examining the bodies, Margaret discovers that all of them had organs removed while they were still alive.

I particularly like two aspects of May's books. One is the culture clashes between Li Yan and Margaret Campbell. Despite their strong feelings for each other, they are just very different people. I learn a lot about Chinese culture through Margaret's eyes and would probably make the same missteps she does.

The other is May's ability to explore social and cultural problems in Chinese society. He tries hard to portray both sides of a controversial subject without taking sides. In this book, and a bit of the previous book, The Fourth Sacrifice, that subject is the single-child policy enacted to reduce the population in China. Li Yan's sister previously dropped off her daughter with him when she found she was pregnant with a son. Li Yan remains the child's guardian in this book.

I found more humor in this book than the previous two in this series. The competitions between Margaret and Mei-Ling for the attentions of Li Yan were laugh-out-loud funny. I also find it interesting that these books are written by a Scottish man living in France, writing about an American woman living in China. And he does it very well.

Armchair Interviews says: Super read as a mystery with a lot of cultural learning thrown in.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is well written, has colorful characters and the plot is great. I couldn't put it down.

Muriel Spark's Loitering With Intent (1981) is a remarkable autobiographical novel based on the author's experiences on the intellectual and literary fringes of post-World War II London; the book may be Spark's greatest achievement following The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961).

Wise, poised, hilariously funny, and almost seamlessly written, the book is also wonderfully instructive: Spark was fairly impoverished in 1949, and Loitering With Intent reveals not only how an individual can successfully combat the banal evil of the everyday, but perfectly illustrates Camille Paglia's maxim that "hunger is no excuse for groveling." In fact, the voice of narrator Fleur Talbot, Spark's stand in, is not unlike the voice of Paglia at her determined, sharp-tongued, pretension-piercing best. Fleur, like Paglia, calls it as she sees it, and isn't afraid to acknowledge that some people are irredeemably and aggressively awful. But Fleur doesn't avoid such people as a matter of principal: she accepts them as inevitable and lives a life of creative "infiltration": "I was aware that I had a daemon inside me that rejoiced in seeing people as they were, and not only that, but more than ever as they were, and more, and more." Fleur reveals other unusual skills as the story develops: like many artists, she is a bit of a mystic, a bit of a shaman.

Also like much of Paglia's work, Loitering With Intent is something of a blistering attack on high WASP hypocritical good manners and social decorum. While Fleur clearly believes in human decency, fair play, and politeness, she also believes in determined counterattack when duly provoked ("I was not any sort of a victim; I was simply not constituted for the role"); and her responses can be volcanic ("I was glad of my strong hips and sound cage of ribs to save me from flying apart, so explosive were my thoughts"). Fleur uninhibitably recognizes her eventual adversaries as "swine," "stupid," "awful," "hysterical," "insolent," and "self-indulgent fools." The Baronne Clotilde du Loiret is "so stunned by privilege that she didn't know how to discern and reject a maniac," homosexual poet Gray Mauser is "small, slight, and wispy, about twenty, with arms and legs not quite uncoordinated enough to qualify him for any sort of medical treatment, and yet definitely he was not put together right," and a friend has "the ugliest grandchild I have ever seen but she loves it."

Loitering With Intent is partially a transposition of Spark's experience as General Secretary of The Poetry Society in the late Forties. In her autobiography, Curriculum Vitae (1993), Spark stated that she was "employed, or embroiled, in that then riotous establishment." In the present novel, Fleur becomes workaday secretary to the Autobiographical Association, a crank operation run by social snob and blackmailer Quentin Oliver, who also suffers from a messianic complex of vast proportions. Ever perceptive, Fleur is confident that what she is witnessing around her is pure collective madness.

In Spark's first novel, The Comforters (1957), protagonist Caroline Rose slowly awakens to the fact that she, everyone she knows, and indeed her entire perceived universe are actually only the fictional creations of an unknowable author composing Caroline's history on some unrealizable, presumably higher plane. In Loitering With Intent, almost the opposite is true: as Fleur nears the end of completing her first novel, she becomes aware that the members of the Autobiographical Association are genuine human doppelgangers of the characters she has created, enacting an identical drama to the one she has constructed from her imagination. Thus, Fleur has foreseen the future unaware, and hazily anticipates the unavoidable disasters to come to those who are manipulative, vain, foolish, arrogant, petty, and power crazed.

One of the book's most fascinating elements is the chronically antagonistic relationship between Fleur and the aptly named Dottie, the maudlin wife of Fleur's bisexual lover, Leslie. Dottie is 49% friend and 51% enemy, and thus their oddly symbiotic relationship is of a kind most readers will recognize as having experienced at some point in their own lives. "I don't know why I thought of Dottie as my friend but I did. I believe she thought the same way about me although she didn't really like me. In those days, among the people I mixed with, one had friends almost by predestination. There they were, like your winter coat and your meager luggage. You didn't think of discarding them just because you didn't altogether like them."

Loitering With Intent is also one of the most acute examinations of the artistic temperament ever committed to paper. "When people say that nothing happens in their lives I believe them. But you must understand that everything happens to the artist; time is always redeemed, nothing is lost, and wonders never cease." And: "I have never known an artist who at some in his life has not come into conflict with pure evil, realized as it may have been under the form of disease, injustice, fear, oppression or any other ill element that can afflict living creatures. The reverse doesn't hold true: that is to say, it isn't only the artist who suffers, or who perceives evil. But I think it is true that no artist has ever lived who has not experienced and then recognized something at first too incredibly evil to be real, then so undoubtedly real as to be undoubtedly true."

The novel is also a celebration of applied self knowledge and the self confidence that evolves from it: Fleur repeatedly realizes "what a wonderful thing it was to be a woman and an artist in the twentieth century," and, regardless of the formidable enemies positioned against her, continually "goes on her way rejoicing."

In keeping with the era in which it is set, Loitering With Intent also includes a brief portrait of Osbert, Edith, and Sacheverell Sitwell as Leopold, Cynthia, and Claude Somerville, owners of The Triad Press, the publishers who eventually accept Fleur's prescient first fictional work.

It's hard to believe this book is out of print (as it appears to be in many editions). Spark is the finest living English writer (as of early 2000, she's still with us) and this is one of her best novels. It folds back in on itself. It's obviously autobiographical even with the kind of foreshadowing and self-reflection of the author, who doubles back the flashback, first seeing herself, then seeing herself remember herself.

The plot is fascinating and a constant undertow back into the same themes of the true reality of a book. Is this memoir (fictional) told by an unreliable narrator? I think so. It's hard to know. Some events seem Kafkaesque in their bizarreness, but then turn out to have plain explanations.

Ultimately, evil bizarrely destroys itself; good triumphs with sacrifices. All is never as it appears with Ms. Spark.

There is a sense of the autobiographical in this novel which in fact is quite appropriate when one considers the actual pivot around which the whole plot revolves. As a note of caution however I must add that I make this statement without having any knowledge at all of Muriel Spark's actual life. As the author spins out the plot she manages to capture the essence of the main character's experience as a secretary for a group of people organized by an individual with the sole aim of writing their biographies so that they may be put away in a safe place for seventy years and their contents not actually revealed until all the people mentioned in these sets of memoirs are actually no longer alive. The idea is that this will be of interest to the historian of the future. Not that the novel itself concentrates unduly on the efforts of this group but rather on the intellectual and emotional reactions of the novel's main character, a young writer whose main concurrent aim in life is to get her first novel published. She is quite a likeable and attractive character and in fact she seems to be the only normal person amongst the rest of the characters portrayed in the novel, even though this impression may in fact be subconsciously and gradually formed in the reader's mind by the first-person point of view of the novel since everything is seen and judged through the eyes of the novel's main character. Even though this is a rather short book it is rather rich with experience and latent meaning well beyond the mere surface of the mostly humorous type of entertainment that pervades it from beginning to end.

An aspiring writer striving to complete her first novel, young Fleur Talbot finds herself loitering in post WWII London with the intent of gathering material for her literary debut. When she is offered a job as secretary to an eccentric troupe of autobiographers, it seems like just the thing. And it is, but in stranger ways than she could have foreseen. And what an eye has Fleur for the foibles of her employers, who, being Very Important People, lead Very Ordinary Lives. As Fleur incorporates what she is learning into the fabric of her novel, some of the VIPs begin to sense that art is imitating life - or, is it the other way around? Perhaps her book is a little too good, and it's nearly lost before this serious but amusing literary tour de force draws to a close. But Fleur is no English Rose, she's one smart cookie who, after a series of mis-steps, beats her nemesis at his own game.

I first read Rollo May's _Love and Will_ about 30 years ago and the wisdom of his writing has stayed with me since. May wrote before the time that "self help" became a heading on the shelves of a bookstore, in a time when analytical psychotherapy was still popular. Bearing that in mind, the reader will find that what May had to say then is all too true today. Whereas in the past love and will solved the problems of relationship to others, they have now become the problem. In our schizoid world real communication is rare. (The reader might think that May wrote after the advent of the personal computer.)

Now, there are a couple of reasons why I do not offer May's final analysis of the problem. One is that with the advent of "self help" we have shifted from an analytical to a behavioral form of psychotherapy. More than one writer says just do these ten things and you will be happy. The second reason is that the reader might miss May's concept of the daimonic. In it's simplest terms, it means that a person has to have something going on in his/her life.

Read the book. Learn the lesson. Set your own course of actions.

Find out here why love and will are so psychologically intertwined....and why a dearth in one means a dearth of the other. In a culture in which deterministic explanations and excuse-making have largely replaced a recognition of personal responsibility and the power of the will, it's no wonder love itself is impoverished. May also offers alternatives to this state of affairs. An excellent book.

This text captapults the understanding of certain spiritual experiences into awareness. It discovers, uncovers a rationality to consciuosness without imposing one. And an intellectual depth that gently and elegantly surrounds one in the rich fabric of western culture and its Greek heritage.

Examples are care as the source of will, charity as the biblical translation of agape, rebirth of experience as Eros: the king of the daimonics.

LOVE AND WILL is probably Rollo May's best book, his magnum opus. It was published in 1969, when May--by then one of the most prominent psychologists on the American scene--was sixty-years old. And, despite its intelligence and psychological sophistication, it became a best-seller. Central to this praiseworthy work are chapters 5 & 6, in which Dr. May introduces (presaging James Hillman) his radical concept of "the daimonic." Any person concerned with the so-called senseless violence so prevalent at the close of the millennium would do well to have a look at these stunning, seminal chapters. Also of interest, especially to psychotherapists, is May's erudite discussion of "intentionality" a little later on. Though May's treatment of some subjects might be slightly dated, there is much here to be strongly recommended, especially for students and other readers who appreciate substantial books such as Ernest Becker's THE DENIAL OF DEATH.

I read this book in graduate school in 1973 and then again 30 years later. When I was a young man I had not had enough experience with Eros to understand the book. I knew I wished to do great deeds but I did not know the source from which these thoughts emerged. Now, in the second reading, I recognize the forces of Eros in my past and present and recognize the need to integrate the daemonic or shadow to fully harness these forces.

The central thesis of the book is that Eros, the life force, directs our Will toward our highest potential. Rollo May asserts that hate is not the opposite of love, apathy and disinterest is. The opposite of will is not indecision - but rather May sees it as detachment. May's central thesis is that Eros (Love) is the fundamental energy behind Will. Eros is the force that drives men to seek God. Eros is the spirit of life and is not to be confused with the sex drive. Rollo May points out that the sex drive seeks satisfaction and release of tension whereas Eros drives us outward. Much of the first half of the book carefully explains the similarities and differences between the sex drive and Eros, the life force. Primarily May sees sexuality as a drive reduction process, similar to the learning theorists Clark Hull and James B Watson. Eros, however, is the creator, forever reaching out, seeking to expand. As Paul Tillich says "A movement from the potential to the actual" and "vitality is the power of creating beyond oneself without losing oneself." Eros is the power from which we do not want release but rather to be prolonged, to form the world. Eros drives us to go beyond ourselves, to transcend ourselves, to reach ethical goodness, to seek truth and beauty. May connects his theories to St. Augustine, Freud, Maslow, Joseph Campbell, and Plato; all of whom belived that love is the fundamental human experience; pervades all our actions, and is the deepest motivating force. Freud further believed that all civilizations are created by the disciplining and re-direction of the forces of Eros. Rollo May, the therapist, points out that the task is not only to recognize our own power but to recognize the self aggrandizement that accompanies all human endeavor in this realm of power and love. May is similar to Jung in the concept of recognition of the shadow or daemonic as a guide to the self as well as a path toward integration and concentrated power and life force. Referring back to Harry Stack Sullivan, May points out that we can only love others to the extent that we can love ourselves. What is it like to be someone who has harnessed the power of Eros? May quotes Hegel: "Socrates, like all heroes who cause new worlds to rise and inescapably the old one to disintegrate was experienced as a threat; what he fought for is a new form which breaks through and undermines the exisiting world."

I think the reader may find that the works of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung further inform May's thesis. I strongly recommend the book to those who study mythology, philosophy, and psychology.

May Bird and Somber Kitty's adventures continue in this worthy successor to May Bird and the Ever After. The story is genuinely suspenseful and continues to display as much depth and originality as the first. Be advised that some younger readers may find the content too disturbing.

A strength of the story is the depiction of May. May is an ordinary child who finds herself in very extraordinary circumstances. Although May is suitably scared as she tries to find a way to escape the Ever After, she also demonstrates amazing courage and heart as she is faced with increasing touch choices.

I think it can be empowering for young readers to see a character in a story who shares their insecurities and self-doubts but ultimately finds inner strength that isn't born of magic or superhuman abilities.

As another character notes, May is small but she is also so much more.

During my first year of teaching 4th grade, I had incidentally bought this book at a "Scholastic Book Fair" at our school. Having read the "teaser" on the back of the book, I began reading this book as a daily "read-a-loud" to my students. We absolutely loved it and they couldn't wait to read each new chapter. My students, both boys and girls related to the colorful characters. My girls especially loved the slow but sure transformation the shy May Bird underwent as she unwittingly explores the "Ever After."
A few of my students transferred to another school during this school year, and I made sure to send them off with their very own (signed by all) copy of May Bird, books one and two.
Word spread around about this book in our small school and soon siblings and friends in other classes were asking about this book. This year my new class of 4th grade students are already familiar with the story and are begging me to start reading it as a daily read-a-loud.
This is truly a well written and creative story that children will enjoy and remember for a long time!

May Bird Among the Stars just might be the best book in the trilogy! With Beatrice finding her mother,Somber Kitty dancing,fighting Evil Bo Cleevil,and going through a portal in the Bogey's closet,there was never a dull moment!! I give this book 2 thumbs up!

I am extremely satisfied with my purchase of this book . My daughter loves this series and its quick arrival has been a wonderful experience!

May Bird-Among the Stars


May Bird- Among the Stars, by Jodi Lynn Anderson, is a fun fantasy fiction. It is also a sequel to the first book, May Bird and the Ever After.
May Bird- Among the Stars is about May Bird, and her journey through the world of ghosts. She is traveling with her friends, Pumpkin, a house ghost, Beatrice, who is looking for her mother, Captain Fabbio, who is looking for his lost crew, and Somber Kitty, May's hairless cat from home. As you might know from the first book, May and Kitty aren't dead, and soon find that they are not alone. There's a secret colony of "un-dead" underground.
I loved this book, because it's filled with adventure. If you liked the first book, you'll love this. Will May save everyone? Will Beatrice be reunited with her mother? Will May and Kitty get back home? Find out here!

If you have serious mold allergies, and are motivated to create a relatively mold-free haven in your home, this is a great book. By using this book to track down some minor mold issues, I have been able to noticeably improve my health. Engaging and readable, but detailed enough to address specific situations.

I am a Certified Microbial Consultant (mold inspector) and a board member of the American Indoor Air Quality Council. I have this book in my library as a reference. It's quite comprehensive.

Jeffrey has done a god job. It's written for the lay person but also contains a lot of technical information (and technically correct information). The publisher is John Hopkins University. So it's a good read for the academics.

A good, comprehensive book for those who need to know about mold.

Despite the name "survival guide" I found this a calm and informative guide to environmental mold issues. It explained in an understandable way the scientific issues around mold such as what mold is, how it can be a health hazard, and more importantly how mold is not some sort of invisible killer, but something that requires certain conditions to become a problem.

Mold growth is a wide-ranging problem only recently receiving recognition in the process: turn to the The Mold Survival Guide For Your Home And For Your Health for significantly more depth and advice than any ordinary newspaper article could offer. Indoor air quality professional teams join a writing specialist to describe different types of molds and how to eradicate them while maintaining health. Tips on prevention are particularly well done.

This book written by long time professional home inspector Jeff May and his writer spouse Connie is a good introduction to mold problems in buildings, particularly homes. It combines an excellent narrative writing style, and unusual for a book that should appeal to many lay readers, a strong scientific understanding of mold, its growth requirements, its effects on human health, its detection in indoor spaces and ultimately its control. Jeff who I have known for over 20 years brings to this book many years (and of course many investigated buildings) of real-world experience with the scientific understanding to match. That is a rare combination. The book is a good read for the lay individual concerned about mold, the parent with a child with asthma, chronic sinusitis, or chronic non-seasonal allergy. It is also a good read for mold professionals of limited experience and those planning to enter the profession.
Thad Godish, Ph.D., C.I.H., Professor of Natural Resources/Environmental Management, Ball State University, Muncie, In. 47304 http://www.bsu.edu/IEN

"Paradise means different things to different folks, but I believe May Lattanzio has created a unique view from the heart, of what many free-winging souls might envision Paradise to be. She has captured a vision of Alice and Rogue Rouge in a beautiful story told from the depths of the mind and soul that will leave you scanning the skies wondering."

David de London, Amazon shorts author: "Chibi Chan Can and other Stories", "Iosev's Workshop", "The Silver Locket".

In 1965, Truman Capote changed the course of journalism when his book, "In Cold Blood" was published. He'd taken a true event, the murder of a Kansas family by Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, and reported the story using novelistic techniques. This is to say, Capote brought us into the point of view of each of these men as well as others so that the reader sensed their thinking. Capote called his book a "nonfiction novel," and the writer Tom Wolfe called it "New Journalism." While it can be said that earlier writers, such as Daniel Dafoe, Mark Twain, Hemingway, and Lillian Ross played with such technique, it was Capote who brought attention to it. It allowed the reader to be "in" the story.

Writer May Lattanzio uses this technique to fabulous effect to eulogize her friend Alice, who was known as "The Bird Lady of the Antelope Valley." In this story, "Paradise," we're with Alice in her last days living alone with her dog and some of the wild ravens and hawks of the valley. She's disturbed by a recurring dream of a lost Red-tail Hawk. In her waking hours, she truly wishes this hawk would come back, but he's most likely dead, shot by a game warden. As Alice's health declines, her dreams of the bird come more often until the line between dream and reality is blurry.

What Lattanzio does with this story becomes quiet poetry--paradise.

Flesh and bone are transitory. What endures are the memories we have of the ones we loved and admired. In "Paradise", May Lattanzio bears witness to her friend Alice's life by sharing it with us.

Paradise is not only the place where Alice lives in California. It is also her life's quest. Alice dedicated her life to educating the young in the wonders of nature and in caring for the animals she loved. In her entire life, she had only one true love, a magnificent male hawk, Rogue Rouge whom she thinks of as her soul mate.

In her seventy-sixth year, Alice can feel her body slowing down, and she yearns to be reunited with Rogue Rouge who comes to her now only in her dreams. She knows that soul mates can never really be parted; and when he returns to her, she will have the power to soar.

This is an enchanting mix of reality and fantasy which lets us believe that we all have wings to take off and explore the heavens.

It has been said that Amazon's Short program is an ideal way to foster emerging authors as well as a way to feature the work of established authors who find it perfect for letting their short works be seen by large numbers of people.

I suddenly see the exquisite value in the former. May Lattanzio is a new voice that deserves Amazon's spotlight.

"Paradise" is a story imagined, but it is still a story based on actual experience. The protagonist is delicately drawn, the themes and motivations well-chosen.

Lattanzio has a little work to do to perfect the short story form -- a little foreshadowing of some events and the setting of scenes, as an example. But she has a strong sense of story, a perfect instinct for words. Her experience as a writer of nonfiction shows. The way she handles nature and events. She shows great promise as a teller of fictional tales. Hooray for May Lattanzio. Hooray for Amazon.
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The reviewer is an instructor for UCLA's renowned Writers' Program, facilitates critique groups and edits fiction and poetry.

A dedication to lead off the Short, tells the Reader that May Lattanzio based her work of fiction on the life and service of a woman dedicated to helping animals despite limited resources. Knowing this made her well-written essay much more powerful. May, thank you for writing a beautiful tribute sotry about the Bird Lady of the Antelope Valley. I highly recommend this short.

Also, I love the cover!

This was the first May Sarton book I read. I admit I had never heard of her and am not sure where I picked the book up. I now own a few of her works and will be buying more. This is a wonderful look at the life of a writer, a woman, who buys an older home in an isolated area, and starts a new chapter in her life. She immerses herself in the solitude in order to write, and to bring together different aspects of her life. The title is very appropriate as she talks a lot about gardening and plants AND dreams and hopes. I have passed this on to a friend to enjoy.

This book is about the author's first home purchase in Nelson, N.H. May Sarton does an excellent job telling about her first home purchase by herself, living alone in a small town, the joys and therapies of gardening. If you have never read May Sarton and you are a lover of reading, writing and solitude, you must read this author.

I don't know who reads May Sarton nowadays (hopefully at least students are still imbibing) for hers is a chosen art beholden to stillness and its plenitude, and we know the short shrift given to reflection in an oversized disposable culture. I do know that everything she's written holds magical lessons for every writer - her poems and journals are steeped in subtle lessons of patience, fearlessness and conscience. Plant Dreaming Deep (a title intended both as admonition and hopeful reflection) is a masterpiece. Part memoir, journal, survival guide, it's a kind of holy book for seekers searching the scrub of rocks and weeds. Sarton's intrepid gift has always been to secure for us the infinite contained in the small and unnoticed, to plant within the careful reader a kind of loving understanding to bloom unexpectedly farther on down the road, easing the load even as it deepens the search. Above all else, hers is an enlightening art that cannot lead astray. Quietly artful black and white photographs (of house and garden and friends - most by Lotte Jacobi and Eleanor Blair) are among the treasure found in the 1983 Norton paperback edition I own. Sarton's voice never fails; it's always rich and reasonable and true. It's easy to surmise that she's a overlooked writer, but if you really want what you're looking for, read May Sarton. Once born inside you, she's faithful to the end.

When you need to take a deep breath and destress, pick up this book. Sarton has a rich understanding of the rhythm of nature and lives often in harmony with it...and she will inspire you to do the same.

This is the first May Sarton book I ever read.

In this journal Sarton describes buying and moving into an 18th century broken-down house on thirty-six acres in a small New Hampshire village.

She chronicles for us the many varied emotions and pressures involved with getting the house repaired and renovated to her liking.

She describes moving in and then adapting (both as a writer and as a human being) to the solitude of living there alone.

She describes her relationships with many of the people (some of whom are unusual characters) that she comes to know living in Nelson.

She does very well in communicating all the sensory impressions that she experienced living right in the heart of nature and the outdoors.

I read it a chapter a day so that I could allow it to sink in slowly.

All chapters seemed well-paced (and not too long nor too short) and I didn't get bored anywhere along the way.

As a writer Sarton seems to have a nice gentle natural writing style.

I liked this (my first Sarton book) so much that I intend to read much more of her work.

I recommend this journal to you.