Owens Books

Lori Mathews knows how cops breathe, bleed, talk and suffer--and how they die. You Don't Know Me throws the reader headfirst into a world of violence, crosscurrents, intrigue and betrayal. A great story that will keep you up all night.

Marc Lecard author of Vinnie's Head

This book is excellent! The words to the song are split so there is one line to a page which is beautifully illustrated. It is very fun to sing the whole song while turning the pages and looking at the drawings. You can't botch up the words or forget something. A good feeling, patriotic book.

This was such a good book. I did not want it to end so I read it very slowly. The movie was awful, however.

Owen Meany, small in size, but not in size, faith, intelligence, or especially, that one-of-a-kind VOICE.

I believe John Irving is the greatest raconteur of our times. He is not for those seeking a quick read to "ooh and aah" over at poolside. His writing is deep and rich. If you try to skip a paragraph, chances are you'll miss something you'll need later on. Chances are you're not the type of reader who will appreciate this perfect beauty, which only gets better as it goes on.

This book truly is absolute perfection in a novel. There's not much of that in the modern writing world. The first few chapters are slow going, but not to delay the miraculous end ... only to set the oh so important stage and plot. And oh, what a stage, what a cast of characters, what dialogue and New England settings.

Treat yourself to a true modern day masterpiece. By the end, you'll be sobbing, turning back pages saying, "Why? Why? This can't be," while knowing it HAD to be. I wish I could shake the hand that has written such an amazing tale.

All I can say is there are books you should check out from the library and there are those you have to own. Buy this one as it deserves a prominent place in your library.

Am I reading correctly in the other reviews that this book is now a popular assignment for high-school students? I couldn't think of a better way to turn kids off literature for life. This book reads like a literary TV-movie, made for the Hallmark channel and dragged out to mini-series length. What do we get in the 600 pages? Writing that seems to be aspiring to Dickens but is really just drawn out with windy lightweight philosophizing, and pointless self-conscious digressions that seem like showy displays of (unremarkable) writing technique. All infused with an empty-headed "spirituality" that's apparently supposed to be profound or uplifting. Spare me, please. (I should have known from the dreadful opening line, which is reproduced on the Amazon page for the book.)

The supposedly moving story is filled with implausible details that make it seem almost in poor taste -- the title character is a boy who apparently suffers from dwarfism and is so small that the other Sunday-school children can lift him over their heads and pass him around the classroom without leaving their seats (yeah, sure), and a key plot point is when this tiny boy hits a baseball so hard it kills the narrator's mother. (That's not a spoiler -- it's revealed very early in the book.) If it weren't for the book's impossibly serious, heavy tone, I'd think some of it was an attempt at sick humor. Two stars instead of one because there are a few interesting scenes that offer brief relief from the book's predictable progression. And the narrator's likeable, wise stepfather is a well-developed character.

Edit: I posted my review when i was two-thirds through. Having finished the book, I'd strongly recommend that readers who are not enjoying it and are trudging through just to finish should just drop it. The final hundred pages, where the numerous dangling theads get tied up, are downright awful. The "meaning" revealed for so many of the endlessly repeated motifs is nothing more than flashy plotting, and it's laughable. You won't believe the ridiculous significance of the basketball shot. And the "nonpracticing homosexual" angle that comes up late is just bizarre, as if Irving were afraid of offending his reader with an actual gay character. This is probably the worst novel I've ever read (for comparison's sake, my desert-island list would include Moby Dick, Huck Finn, Gatsby, USA, Confederacy of Dunces, and The Name of the Rose). But it's too late to change my rating to one star. Really, if you're thinking about reading this, read Great Expectations. If you've already read that, you'll recognize this as a third-rate wanna-be.

If you want a fairly comprehensive definition of "religion", I recommend these books and movies, and in any order:

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Donnie Darko, Director's Cut
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

All of these depict the concept of religion differently, except Donnie Darko and A Prayer for Owen Meany, which have similar definitions of religion. I threw Donnie Darko in there because it's a nice visual compliment to A Prayer for Owen Meany.

This was the assigned book for my book club. I was so entirely bored and unengaged with the characters that I could not get more than a third of the way through the book. Painfully SLOW. I simply didn't care what happened to any of the characters.

I received the book in a short amount of time and it was in perfect condition.

...It was OK. I found the novel slow to start, difficult to deliver its theme, and a bit pale in the spectrum of existentialist literature. I have a feeling that I may have enjoyed it more at age 17 but it held no new revelations for me nor did I find the style particularly captivating. That said, I was intrigued by one particular passage:

"Always, you must think of these things in evolutionary, in historical terms! When the upheavals of the earth's surface flung the creatures of the sea onto the land and the land creatures into the sea, the specimens of the various orders that were ready to follow their destiny were the ones that accomplished the new and unprecedented; by making new biological adjustments they were able to save their species from destruction. We do not know whether these were the same speciments that had previously distinguished themselves among their fellows as conservative, upholders of the status quo, or rather as eccentrics, revolutionaries; but we do know they were ready, and could therefore lead their species into new phases of evolution. That is why we want to be ready."

...Hesse as a pre-Kurzweillian proto-Singularity transhumanist? Or Hesse attempting to appeal to us that we are otherwise base, animal creatures that seem capable only of destruction?

As a little boy Emile Sinclair feels that life is divided into a world of light and a world of dark. Emile meets Max Demian, an older self-assured boy who seems to know much about life. While Demian does not dominate Sinclair, the younger boy falls increasingly under the influence of the older youth. The novel follows Sinclair's development through through childhood to adolescent rebellion to young adulthood. It plots Sinclair's evolving thought from unorthodox religion to philosophical mysticism and on towards self-awareness.

This book was published in 1919, just after World War 1. It shows the influence of the great ferment of thought that occurred at turn of the twentieth century and which resulted in various mystical movements such as theosophy and Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy. Most of all, the book seems to show the influence of the then new psychology of Carl Jung, including Jung's interest in psychic phenomena. The novel is increasingly didactic as Sinclair delves deeper into mysticism, philosophy and psychology and as a result will be of less interest to those interested in stories of human interaction and events. This is not to say that 'nothing happens' in the novel, even in the second half, but long 'teaching' speeches occupy much of this second half of the book. As someone interested in Jungian psychology I found this book fascinating, but almost 100 years on I am left wondering did the 'grand new man' really emerge or are we still clinging to the "heard instinct" so accurately described in ?

Hermann Hesse's Demian (1919) is the coming-of-age story of Emil Sinclair, an initially innocent, introverted boy who, over the course of a decade, falls under the spell of the intellectually seductive and physically charismatic Max Demian in pre-World War I Germany. Finding himself blackmailed by lower-class bully Franz Kromer after foolishly telling a lie in public, Emil is mysteriously freed from his plight through the intervention of Demian, a romantic figure who is also a fellow student at Emil's school. Demian takes up and drops Emil socially over the course of a year, before inexplicably targeting him for friendship at the time of their confirmation.

Physically mature for his age, poised, well-dressed, and handsome, Demian challenges Emil's bland acceptance of the scriptures, outlines his own personalized Nietzschean philosophy, and shares his Gnostic beliefs ("God and Satan are one"). In the process, he slowly reveals himself to be something more than merely human. For Demian is capable of uncanny paranormal powers: by carefully studying his subjects and concentrating his will, Demian can read the minds and bend the will of others "like puppets on a string." Transfixed, Emil learns that Demian is suspected of being "a heathen" and rumored to be involved in an incestuous relationship with his own mother. Emil perceives Demian in numinous and archetypal terms, as "animal, tree, planet"--as "somehow timeless, bearing the scars of an entirely different history than we knew."

Both internally and externally, Demian becomes an idol and unwieldy obsession for Emil, simultaneously exerting a hold on him from a distance and occupying the still center of his private universe. Emil eventually becomes enamored of a young woman whom he calls 'Beatrice,' who is "boyish" and slightly built. He paints her portrait, but realizes it doesn't resemble her. He studies the painting day after day before he realizes what the reader has already effortlessly guessed: that the painting does not resemble 'Beatrice,' but Demian, who is "an angel and Satan, man and woman in one flesh, man and beast, the highest good and the worst evil." Taken a step further, Emil equates the face in the painting with his "fate or daemon," which further literalizes the book's title and title character.

As in Steppenwolf (1927), and to a more pronounced degree in Narcissus and Goldmund (1930), the novel has a muted but unmistakable homosexual subtext: Demian and Emil speak specifically of the "vice" of youthful sexuality, an unnamed "drive" that "the Greeks and many other peoples" elevated to the "divine and celebrated it in great feasts." Shortly after their initial meeting, Emil dreams that the larger, older Demian kneels on his chest like a medieval succubus, a dream that Demian correctly guesses Emil has experienced. Later, Emil finds the scent of "fresh soap emanating from his nape" intoxicating. Emil calls Demian "my fate and my beloved."

In fact, the entire novel reads like the protracted end product of the author's repressed and sublimated homosexuality, which, unrealized and driven inward, has taken on a variety of archetypal and magical connotations in his creative psyche.

Hesse attempts to resolve this conflict by allowing Emil to meet and fall in love with Demian's mother, the banally named "Eva." Eva is essentially Demian in a dress and with longer hair, though Emil finds everything about her "riper, warmer, more self-evident," and before long, Emil is hilariously kissing "the rain out of her hair."

Whereas Demian has long predicted a coming cataclysm that will first destroy and then transform Western civilization, Eva spouts a kind of woozy, proto-New Age mysticism that would have made Anais Nin blush: "Yes, you must find your dream, then the way becomes easy. But there is no dream that lasts forever, each dream is followed by another, and one should not cling to any particular one...as long as the dream is your fate you should remain faithful to it."

Now enthusiastically invited to share their home life, Emil soon finds himself surrounded by "astrologers and cabalists...devotees of Indian asceticism, vegetarians, and Buddhists" as the novel further devolves into unintentional parody.

The book concludes with Emil and Demian literally entrenched in the war that Demian has foreseen. Laying side by side, "his lips very close to mine," Emil finally gets the dramatic kiss he has been longing for, though it is a kiss, Demian explains, which has been ordered by and sanctioned by Frau Eva. When Emil awakes, Demian is gone, but he understands he will always remember him as "my brother, my master."

Murky, nearly useless mysticism, not wisdom, defines the text. Once Emil's early isolation and emotional suffering comes to an end, at the novel's midpoint, the book falls apart spectacularly, a fate also suffered by Steppenwolf in that novel's closing pages.

I was never quite sure how to describe or catergorize this odd and beautiful masterpiece, but over the years, I have remained grateful that I even had a high school teacher who included this in a Senior lit. class so many years in my past.

Over the years, I have glanced through this rather slim novel from time to time, puzzled at what it was that made such a huge impact on my spirit, all of 17 years old at the time. But there was something here that Hesse capitivated and I don't know exactly what it was but I sat up and read each word with utter fascination along with an eerie kind of knowing.

It's that kind of book.

If you are looking for a straight narrative that has a predictable or pat ending, you might be dissapointed. This is definitely not for the WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, EAT PRAY LOVE set. It's strange. It's fascinating and it's a classic one of a kinder. There will be those who swear it has the power to change your life and those who will shrug their shoulders with indifference. I have no idea why this read impacted my 17 year old self so. It has not done the same to me as a 38 year old as it had with my adolescent self. But I will say it is so worth reading, as all of Hesse's strange and beautiful works. There just isn't a lot out there today that captures spirituality the way this author does.

One exception, however, is the remarkable SIM0N LAZARUS--of course, the Eckhart Tolle endorsement inspired me!

Good Read. There's a part in the book which talks vaguely about a man and woman doing something adults do in private which I wouldn't allow my children to read. Maybe late teens and older.

I encourage everyone to read this superb book. A Corner of the Universe was one of the few books I enjoyed. The book left me on my tiptoes to know what happened next, I could not put it down. This book has a very big surprise that I was shocked about. I didn't think that Adam would hang himself. I can relate this book to my life because I have been to a carnival and been scared to go on a Ferris wheel just like Adam. I loved this book and hope to read more books by Ann M. Martin.

A CORNER OF MY OWN

The name of my book is A Corner of the Universe by Ann M. Martin. The fantastic 189 page book takes place at Hattie Owen's house and the fairgrouds.

A RETARDED UNCLE, AN AWESOME BOOK!

Hattie Owen`s uncle Adam is retarded. Not physically, but mentally. Adam can be feeling great, then burst into tears. Adam has perfectly normal characteristics such as his massive crush on Hattie's families' boarder, Angel Valentine. Meanwhile, Hattie finds a friend at Fred's Fun time Carnival that has just come to town, so Hattie takes her Uncle Adam. After they had gone a lot, Adam decides to do something with Hattie on her birthday... ride the Ferris wheel. Once they get to the top, something drastic happens. Where did Adam go?

I'M FEELING IT!

In this book, Ann M. Martin really makes you feel like you are there seeing everything. She gave me the perfect image. I can feel Hattie's happiness, and I can also feel Adam's anger at being called a freak.

A SPECIAL PIECE OF THE UNIVERSE

My favorite part in this book is when Hattie describes the buzzer that her nana pushes on with her foot to get her maid. Ann M. Martin described it like the temptation was killing her! books I have ever read. I loved it, because it seemed so real. This is great for everyone!

Hattie is a twelve year old girl who lives in Millerton with her mom and dad. Her mom and dad run a boarding house. Her grandparents live nearby. Hattie learns that she has an uncle she never knew about. Her uncle is mentally ill and has been away at a special school. The school is closing so he is coming back home to live with Hattie's grandma and grandpa. Hattie has never really had many friends and she enjoys spending time with her uncle, Adam.
The carnival is coming to town and Hattie goes to it with her family. She keeps seeing the same the girl, Leila, in the ticket booth, running rides and helping with other things. Hattie learns that Leila's mom is a side show, she is the pretzel women. Leila's family travels around with the carnival. Hattie becomes good friends with Leila, and Leila lets her ride the rides for free and have free food. Hattie finally gets Adam to go to the carnival with her.
One night Hattie's grandparents are having a party and Hattie doesn't want Adam sitting in his room alone. She decides she is going to sneak him out and take him to the carnival with her. They go on the Ferris wheel and it gets stuck. Adam gets very nervous and breaks the bar and tries to climb down. They call the police and take him to the hospital. Hattie gets in big trouble for sneaking him out of the house.
Hattie is not allowed to leave the house or see Adam. Adam is also not allowed to leave. When his curfew is over he goes to Hattie's parents' house to visit one of the boarders he likes. Her name is Miss Valentine and she works at a bank. When he shows up at the house, he has flowers for Miss Valentine. He takes the flowers to her room and finds her in bed with her friend, Henry. He runs out of the house.
When Hattie is able to leave the house, she goes to the carnival to see Leila. She finds out the carnival has left town and so has Leila. Hattie decides she will write a letter to Leila. When she gets back home, her parents and grandparents wonder if she has seen Adam. They can not find Adam anywhere.
You will need to read this book to find out what happened to Adam. It was an excellent book that I would recommend to any junior high girl.

When Hattie's mentally challenged uncle Adam, who she never knew existed, comes back from his closed down school, she sees so much more in the world than ever before. Hattie now realizes that her nana and papa aren't the most perfect happiest rich people. She sees people living in her own boarding house lying to her parents. Most importantly she finds those you truly think are happy always hide something inside. This is how it is with Adam and when no one but Hattie starts to realize this something major may happen that Hattie doesn't know about until it happens.
I feel bad for Adam because no one can comprehend how he feels and what its like. When Hattie starts to understand a little she can feel some of his pain. I believe Hattie appreciates the summer she spent with her uncle Adam. I feel this way because it opened her eyes and let her see the world in a new way. Adam made Hattie appreciate and love the world far more than she ever did before.

This is the exact reason why I must say that I'm proud to be an american, this literary classic totally de-bunks what is "expressed" in what we call the 'holy' bible. Thomas Paine had the courage to write this essay at A time when he most likely would've been imprisoned or executed for heresy. Thomas Paine, the man responsible for entitling this great country of ours the "United States Of America", he is A great american hero.

Thomas Paine was probably one of the most brilliant people to ever walk the face of the earth, he was extremely logical with a very scientific and mathmatical mind. His take on the Bible was done with care and due dilligence. Worth the read if you have an open mind and not afraid of facts.

In the Bible, some statements are literal, others are figures of speech. Therefore the various interpretations.
Mr. Paine takes almost every statement in the Bible literally and then comes up with his criticisms. This has caused some to consider him an atheist. The book is primarily a critique of the Bible, but where he states his own views, he says that he believes in God and he hopes for happiness beyond this life. So he is not an atheist.
His previous writings were of a political nature. When he decided to take on the Bible, he was moving out of his usual field, therefore his authority here is questionable.

Very instructive book allowing to peer into the minds of one of the famed deits of the American Revolution. Very far from the worldview of the average christian believers of the times of Georges W. Bush but also distinctly different from modern atheism, scientific or otherwise.

Given the vitriol with which Christians have denounced Thomas Paine for more than 200 years, one may be under the impression, as I was, that he was an atheist. He was generally denounced as such, and Theodore Roosevelt's reference to him as a "filthy little atheist" was not atypical. But upon actually reading this famous tome of his, I discovered he was in fact a devout man of God. It was only Christianity and other organized religions he had a problem with, and he explains why.

Paine was a creationist who believed nature is God's primary revelation of himself to humankind. In this revelation are all the tools we need, to understand, to behave, to treat others with respect and kindness, to stand in awe of the creator and worship him. Thomas Paine did not appreciate anyone belittling God by suggesting he behaved as "revealed" in those old writings of men who did dastardly things and then justified their behaviors by claiming God told them to do it! Paine could see that the biblical God was created by men the same way they created all the other pagan gods of the day. (Christianity was not the first to have a virgin birth, resurrections and blood sacrifices.)

With no written description of God, and only the creation to go on, Paine was in the uncommon position of actually having to think for himself about what God must be like, what he expects of us, how we should behave. Thinking is work, but like most work, it can be invigorating and rewarding--written descriptions are severely limited, confined to the words used, while one's imagination is limitless. (Similarly, the more literally one takes something, the more limited its application.) Paine loved observing and imagining what God must be like; he wasn't limited to the feeble, misguided words of ancients.

Those of us conditioned to getting our description of God through written material might at first think Paine to be at a great disadvantage. How silly, we are tempted to think, to imagine our understanding of God could be complete merely by looking around us. How could we possibly figure out that God wants us to have slaves, keep the Ten Commandments, offer sacrifices, flatter him more on Sunday (or is it Saturday?) and burn witches--all merely by observing nature? Then it dawns on us, and wow! If we believe God is good, then without these writings our imagination about his goodness is limitless. Throughout our lives, no matter how much we mature and grow in understanding, at any given moment we push the limits of God's goodness to the extremes of our imagination--never fully comprehending it, only approaching it. We are filled with awe and we are drawn to emulate that goodness. How silly all this stuff about a touchy biblical god who throws his weight around killing people at the drop of a hat if they don't offer the right sacrifice begins to look!

Thus Thomas Paine was offended by the pettiness and absurdities of man-made religion. By observing God directly, he did not find himself in the awkward position of having to create excuses for God's supposed evil behaviors, his weird pagan-like fascination with blood sacrifices, his horrible temper or his morbid fascination with punishment--like stoning unruly kids to death, striking people dead for small infractions and imposing the death the penalty for every human being's mistakes, misdeeds or mere failure to flatter him (to say nothing of torturing them to death by endless fire). Paine wasn't saddled with the burden of explaining why the deity he worships doesn't want women in pulpits or gays in love. He's not stuck with having to defend fantastic promises that are honestly never kept, and prophecies never honestly fulfilled. Ironically, the only thing he ever had to defend was God's reputation--which Bible writers had dragged through the mud by attributing their own wicked pursuits to God.

Paine's respect and adoration for God was pure, unadulterated by human contamination. In other words, he worshipped God without all the baggage. And all the while, Christians called him an atheist for not helping them carry theirs.

It's worth noting that Thomas Paine's contemplation of God was not some kind of nebulous feel-good meditation. He was moved to action. In addition to defending God's reputation, Paine personally worked to end slavery, particularly with his 1775 essay, "African Slavery in America." That makes Paine a better person than the biblical God, and not by a little; I mean, God isn't even neutral on slavery, he encourages it (emphatically and repeatedly, according to the Bible). And, of course, while Paine worked to end slavery, his biggest obstacle was Christians who defended the practice on clear biblical grounds. They got their understanding of God through a written description, while Paine got an entirely different understanding of God merely by contemplating God's real revelation, the creation.

Would Paine still believe in God today? Who knows? When he died, Charles Darwin was but a four-month-old baby. In that day, there simply was no plausible explanation for the origin of species.* Nearly everyone, including Paine, chalked it all up to God--the source of all things existing. Things of mystery have always been affairs of the gods.

*(It is a common misconception among Christians that evolution attempts to explain the origin of life, but it does not.)

But for the fact that Paine was not an atheist, one might consider The Age of Reason a foreshadowing of today's popular works by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and others. They and Paine all easily demonstrate how the writings that eventually got voted into the canon that is our present-day Bible could not possibly be a revelation from God. But unlike the others, Paine's purpose was to defend God, not doubt his existence.

This book affords an additional plus. We get a fascinating glimpse of Paine's life and times in the 18th century, 200+ years ago. I was especially interested in his arrest over the nature of his writings. And while this review is an overview, Paine's meticulous tribute to "the age of reason" is a thing of real substance--you'll find detailed arguments not routinely employed by today's writers. You'll also get a more balanced view of deism than we usually get from Christians, who typically misrepresent it as a message of gloom and doom (God created us and then just "abandoned" us.) The founding fathers of the United States were more deist than anything else, and thus not Christian, contrary to popular belief.

This is a great book that talks about the History of Apple Computer. I couldn't put it down and it was fun walk down memory lane of Apple computers and tech history.

This book contains all the informations a mac lover like me need to know to understand how the Apple has born. This is a very nice reading for me, I've readed it in few days. Very good also the notes at the sides.
A must for all mac fanatics in the world. Thanks Owen. Luca.

This is the most thorough book on Apple's history that I've ever seen, can't wait for Apple Confidential 3.0

Don't just buy the book because you love Apple or the review is good. Go to local book store and see the book yourself first before buy one.

After reading the insufferable iWoz, I wanted a book about the early days of Apple that didn't suck. A friend gave me Apple Confidential 2.0 for my birthday, and it was just what the doctor ordered. It emphatically didn't suck.

This is a well-written account of Apple, from the early pre-Apple blue box days through the book's 2004 publication. Instead of taking a traditional day-by-day walk through the company's history, Linzmayer arranges his chapters by topic. This makes following the individual threads of Apple much easier. Extra quotes and notes are included in the margins, which add colour and depth to the story. Jef Raskin, who unabashedly called himself the father of the Macintosh, said that this book was the most accurate depiction of how the original Mac was created.

Each chapter mostly stands alone. Since each chapter covers only one topic (say, the development of the Newton), some of the chapters in the tumultuous 90s are a bit hard to follow if you're not already aware of certain pieces of Apple history. Many topics are referenced without a word of explanation, just an occasional pointer to the later chapter. The most glaring examples of this are the references to Be, the Star Trek project, and Copland.

The chapter about the Star Trek project is a great example of another problem of the book. It's too early to talk about more recent developments. Star Trek was the project started in 1992 to bring the Mac OS to Intel. According to this book, the project was shelved in 1993. Typing on a MacTel today, it's obvious that the project was resurrected. I know that I'm not alone in wondering how this actually came about.

Even with those complaints, I recommend the book. The early days of Apple are interesting indeed, and understanding them is critical to understanding Apple today.

A must read for anyone interested in first hand accounts of the Civil Rights movement in the United States.

This is by far one of the best books I have ever read. "Of Coming Age In Mississippi" shows segregation and Civil Rights hardships like it has never been shown before. You feel Anne Moody's heart break and understand segregation how it really was in the deep south. HIGHLY recommended to anyone who wants to open their eyes to another cultural period and understand it for what it really was. It is real, heartbreaking, and impossible to put down.

Though I read this book many years ago, I had to strongly disagree with part of the editor's initial characterization of this book as being "angry". Powerful, painful and anxiety producing, yes. Angry, no.

I personally came away with the lasting impression of a very honest and heart-felt description of the events and struggles that shaped Ann Moody's life, and her active participation in the Civil Rights Movement. She describes beautifully the fears and pains felt by communities during tragic events such as the murder of the young Emmett Till, and injects the intensity felt by the leaders of the Movement, including MLK Jr., as they constantly tried to dodge authorities.

I strongly believe, and echo other reviewer's opinions, that every High School and young college student should be required to read this book.

Thus a civil rights advocate was born.

I read this book seven years ago, on a whim, because I was wanting to understand why Southerners were especially proud of their heritage when there was so much suffering among its own people, especially its blacks.

Ann Moddy lived a life that most whites would be ashamed of, but that many blacks endured. This is a part of American history that mainstreem history books seldom cover in any detail and leave to the "Black Studies" department.

Moody lived her life struggling for identity, struggling for change, struggling for advancement. She made something of herself and has never looked back. (I read somewhere that she doesn't like to talk about her growing-up years and has lived a life of seclusion.). She can only be admired for what she has made of herself.

Moody never once expresses hurt. All she wanted was justice for all. She left Mississippi with more than a tinge of anger.

This book should be required reading for all social studies classes. It is engrossing without being sentimental or overly emotional (and it certainly is not "girly" at all.) For anyone, regardless of color, gender or legal status, this should be a must-read.

I quit early on and here's why.
Anne's mother leaves her 6 month old infant and Anne (who is "almost 4") in the hands of her (anne's mother) 8 y/o brother, then later her 12y/o brother, for 12+ hours every day. According to Anne they never took care of them and in fact took off as soon as her parents were out of sight.
Who's feeding the 6 month old for those 12+ hours? They were living on a farm with lots of other black families. Surely the women had some kind of communal child care system going. Where's the wet nurse? I don't believe it.

Same happens with the next infant. Mom's never home. All male babysitters. One male adult would take all three kids (ages 5, 2.5 and a little over a year old) HUNTING with him in the swamps! I don't believe it. I don't believe Anne Moody.

How is it that Anne goes to school at age 5 but her mom's 8 y/o and 12y/o brothers don't?
In Anne Moody's story the boys and some men stayed home and babysat while the girls go to school/work. Now I always thought it was just the opposite. Girls usually stayed home and tended to their younger siblings, cleaned, cooked etc., while the boys if they didn't go to school, worked along side the men.

How is it that little 5 y/o Anne walks 2 miles up and 2 miles back to school everyday all by herself. Just try and picture that in your mind. A tiny little threadbare 5 y/o girl all alone walking 4 miles a day in the rain, humid heat or cold. Then hiding in the schools outhouse for as long as she can because she doesn't like school or the teacher! I don't see it. I don't believe it. Four miles is nothing for a healthy adult/teen/kid but a 5 y/o "baby"? I don't think they'd have the mind to do it nor the legs.

How is it that when Anne is 6 and back at school, her mom just leaves the 3.5 y/o and 1.5 y/o all by themselves, all day at the house, no babysitter? I don't believe it. Was Anne's mother mentally retarded? They're living in town at this time. What about the neighbors, friends or church? Women have always gotten together to help care for the children?

The story just wasn't adding up so I quit. Sorry.

I also don't believe the memoirs of Augusten Burroughs "Running with Scissors" etc. and Mary Karr "The Liars' Club".

I could sum this Bible up in one word. Wow!

This Bible is beautifully bound in genuine Capri leather with a sewn binding, is of the highest quality, and will last for years. This is what I have come to expect from Kirkbride Bibles.

The Thompson Chain Reference Bible was once referred to as the Queen of Reference Bibles. Owning a Thompson is like holding a Bible School in your hand. This is an immense Bible Study tool without a denominational or doctrinal bias.

This handy size edition has one flaw. The print is on the small size, and for those of us in the over-fifty club it may be a little difficult to read.

This is the best bible I have purchased in years. The details of the item are correct. If you are looking for a great study bible, this is it. Look no further.

This was supposed to be a large print edition. Their definition of large certainly is different than mine. I would call it a small to tiny print. I would never have bought it if I had seen the print size.This is a very large bible with much blank space on both sides of the page which makes it much larger than it needs to be.

Easily, the best bible I've ever owned. The resources in the back are perfect for both the new Christian and the seasoned believer. Worth every penny and then some. I plan to get a Thompson Chain Bible for my wife, too.

I purchased a nice leather, wide-margin Thompson Chain Ref. Bible that I could use to transfer all of my notes into from all my other Bibles. It was bulky but worth using only one Bible. I have used the Thompson Chain Bibles for years. It has been my favorite style Bible of all Bibles. This new wide-margin Thompson Chain broke my heart. The pages are so cheap and thin that no matter what type of pen you use, it shows on the opposite side, as if it was written on that very page. This has never happened on my older editions. I have certain quality and brand name pens that I use and have used for years on my Bibles so this would not happen. They even work on "cheapo" award paper bibles. It would seem that a $100.00+ Thompson would hold up better, but it doesn't.

I must be honest and admit that I have not contacted the company for a refund or exchange, but I am contemplating it. The fact that a long-time buyer and believer in Thompson Chain products would have to put up with this hassle caused me to caution future buyers - not of the layout or notes, because these have not changed and are awesome tools for the true Bible student - but definitely of the quality of the leather and paper used for the pages today. If you take notes in your Bible, beware!!!

The Cd begins with the powerful witches scene-great music-definitely causing my students to sit-up and listen.

The Dover Thrift Edition is a good choice for a reading text because it presents the entire, unabridged play, and has enough notes to be helpful to inexperienced readers without overwhelming or distracting them. The omition of a scholarly apparatus makes the Dover Edition more flexible and keeps it from becoming outdated.

This product was great. It helped my students and I read and comprehend Macbeth so much better than us trying to read it and comprehend it. The actors voices are great! I think they do a great job being the characters on tape!

Virtually all editions of Macbeth will have at least some annotations. Rummaging through five different editions, I preferred the Yale University Press version, edited by Burton Raffel, as having the most comprehensive and comprehensible notes, as well as an excellent introduction to Shakespeare's play. Raffel not only explains the meanings of obscure words, but also gives brief notes pertaining to relevant history, geography, stage directions, etc, that are rarely addressed as fully by other editors. In addition, Raffel frequently gives the proper way to stress the syllables in a line when reading it aloud, which can be extremely helpful. (However, in most places these stresses need to be very subtle, so that you don't sound like "taDUM taDUM taDUM".) And Yale's page layout is among the clearest that I've seen.

(To find this edition: at Avanced Search, enter ISBN 0300106548; or, enter Macbeth as title, and either Raffel as author or Yale as publisher.)

As a bonus, this edition includes at the back a long essay on the play by Harold Bloom. This is not an uninteresting commentary, but Bloom desperately needs a good editor. His essay is not only at least three times longer than it should be, but is startlingly repetitious. Yale would have been wise to have asked Bloom for a rewrite.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a dramatist whose genius is universally acknowledged, with a reputation as an actor, playwright and poet. He lived in an age of vast and significant changes characterised by the rise of the middle class and of a centralised government and the disappearance of medieval religious beliefs. England was transforming into a modern state. This was a time when self-realisation, self-respect and boldness of thought and action was idealised. Shakespeare's drama merely reflected the dramatic times of the age.

Shakespeare's genius can be reflected by the variety of his productions, where out of the 36 plays he has left, no two are alike and he managed to articulate the diverse subjects with exceptional expertise, handling both tragedies and comedies with ease.

Macbeth is a tragedy, intended to teach us a lesson about the human condition. The play is a tragedy about a wealthy Scottish noble called Macbeth who kills his king to gain the throne. During Shakespeare's time, this was a terrible thing to do, and from then on, Macbeth was doomed to die a tragic death.

The play starts with three witches confronting the great Scottish general Macbeth on his victorious return from a war between Scotland and Norway. The witches predict that he will one day become king. They also predict that another General called Banquo will be the father of kings, although he will not ascend the throne himself. The Scottish king, Duncan, decides that he will confer the title of the traitorous Cawdor on the heroic Macbeth. Macbeth, with the urging of his evil and ambitious wife murder King Duncan and ascends to the throne of Scotland.

Macbeth and his evil wife begin to do strange things, partly because of what they have done and also because they never get a whole night's sleep. Macbeth thinks he has to kill two of his former friends because he believes that they threaten his new throne. His efforts fail and he is eventually killed.