Sheridan Books

Emily Sheridan does an excellent job here, profiling the Sugababes - the most successful all female act in Britain so far this century.

This is a well researched, easy to read history and overview of the Sugababes. It includes profiles of all five current and former members of the group (Keisha Buchanan, Mutya Buena, Heidi Range, Siobhan Donaghy, and Amelle Berrabah) as well as a detailed history of the groups career up to the beginning of 2007.

Emily Sheridan utilizes various newspaper accounts in her story, including magazine and newspaper reviews of albums, reviews of various singles and videos. The book doesn't feel like a fan made pro-Sugababes piece of fluff (like a lot of official books can feel like) nor does it read like a scandal-ridden, gossip fueled book either (like many unauthorized books can be like; think Christopher Anderson's biography of Madonna, 1991.)

The groups story is laid out as it happened, with some insights on their writing process and how their albums were made. There is a small peek into the private lives of the girls, but for the most part, I think Emily Sheridan just tried to lay out the story of the group and its music, and she does a good job.

When I like a music group, actor or famous person, I try and learn everything I can about them. This book was quite informative to me, and definitely entertaining to read. I wish there had been a little bit more information about the songs on the last Sugababes album that Mutya Buena recorded, "Taller In More Ways," but other than that I can't find any faults with the book.

There is no bibliography included, so you can't follow up the sources and articles that Emily Sheridan used, but there is a limited Album disography and UK singles chronology included at the end, as well as two sets of colour photo inserts totalling 15 pages.

I think this book was a truley great and wonderful book. i love how it enhances the 1800's. I hope you will find the time to read it soon.

Having lost her Choctaw husband five years ago, Lucy Willis is ready to begin her life anew. She doesn't want another man, however, so she moves to the town of Sweet Medicine, to teach at the Indian school. Once there, she enjoys teaching the Cheyenne children, despite the disdain of the Cheyenne Chief. Then her uncle arranges to have a doctor sent to the reservation, and Lucy's life is turned upside down.

Trevor Lynbrook, Viscount Ashford, is furious when he finds out his grandfather is sending him to America. He's caused too much scandal, and his grandfather owes a debt to a doctor in the United States. At first, he thinks Sweet Medicine is a horrible, backwater type of place, but after he meets the Widow Willis, he begins to change his mind. Slowly, Trevor begins to rediscover the joy of practicing medicine. He also discovers the joy of loving Lucy. Will these two people from different worlds be able to maintain their love in the face of the many obstacles they'll face?

Sweet Medicine is an emotional historical novel. I liked tough, self-sufficient Lucy, and Trevor's transformation from dissatisfied aristocrat to happy and productive man was quite entertaining. The love scenes between them are sweet and well written. The conflict Lucy feels about Trevor's difference in social status seemed realistic, as did the depiction of prejudice against Native Americans. There were a great many secondary characters in the town that added a lot to the story. Once the action moved to England, however, I felt it lost a bit of momentum. I could easily sympathize with Lucy's fish-out-of-water feelings, as well as her anger about the prejudice Trevor's peers felt toward her half-Choctaw son. What bothered me was a side plot involving Trevor's former fiancée. I don't want to spoil it here, but the additional conflict felt unnecessary. The "evil ex-fiancée" angle has been done before, and in this case there was plenty of other, more interesting, conflict going on. At any rate, despite my annoyance with that particular part of the novel, Sweet Medicine was an emotional read with likeable protagonists.

Cassie
reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

This book was recommended to me by a friend who knew Vladimir Volkoff when he was living in the USA. An additional selling point was knowing that the book had won the 1980 French prize for literature. That said -- I'm not sure I would recommend this book to someone unfamiliar with either Russian or Russian-Orthodox culture. The translation is stiff, and doesn't help the "flow" of the book at all. So why four stars? Because once you get over the awkward translation, the plot is fascinating. Told in the first person by a member of the French intelligence community -- a thoroughly French son of Russian emigres parents -- it details an intelligence operation designed to entrap a highly-placed KGB spy into turning counter-intelligence for the French. To do this, French intelligence enlists the help of a struggling actress, also a Frenchwoman of Russian descent. Her instructions are to get the KGB operative to fall in love with her, then compromise him in such a way that he cannot refuse to work for the French. The plot twists in a way completely unforeseen by either the narrator or the reader, and leaves the reader pondering questions that don't come up in one's head through the ordinary Cold-War genre. To me, that alone makes slogging through the translation a worthwhile endeavor.

The story "The Murdered Cousin" originally appeared under the title "Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" in The Dublin University Magazine in 1838. The plot of this short story was later recycled for Le Fanu's novel UNCLE SILAS in 1864. The novel is better.

"A Chapter in the History of the Tyrone Family" originally appeared in the Dublin University Magazine in 1839. He later expanded this story into the novel THE WYVERN MYSTERY and Charlotte Bronte may, or may not, have used it as the foundation for JANE EYRE (1848).

I bought this book in preparation for an advanced mariner's meteorology course, and could not have made this comment without having first gained that higher level of knowledge.

This is a suberb book. It provides superb information about the weather fax, including an excellent and easily portable manual for the various symbols. It has two areas for improvement:

1) It sticks to the two-dimensional depiction of weather that is common to the average person. Although there are a couple of illustrations showing altitude, the author could easily have put in a few pages on the rotation of the earth, the 500 mb level, and how weather on the surface cannot be understood without underestanding what is happening at the 18,000 level. As my instructor put it, the high-level troughs are the chicken that hatches the surface level (scrambled) egg.

2) It does not make the connection, at least that I could see, between the vital importance of making your own observations at 00 and 12 Zulu, so that when you finally receive the weather fax six or seven hours later, you can compare reality with what was provided. This also applies to forecasts--you can keep them, compare your own observations as the time passes, and get a sense of the difference.

Add the above, and read "Mariner's Guide to the 500-Millibar Chart" by Joe Stenkiewicz and Lee Chesneau, and Google for to find his web site, and you'll have all you need to move to the better three-dimensional interactive viewing of weather and weather charts.

I also recommend The Weather Wizard's Cloud Book: A Unique Way to Predict the Weather Accurately and Easily by Reading the Clouds

In “The Unwilling Celibates,” Jean Sheridan explores how to make peace with the reality of being single, when singlehood occurs not by choice but rather by circumstance. She shares how she has learned to live life as an intentionally focused individual, offering Jesus’ own life as an example of reflective living. Sheridan invites single adults to take a “bold step” and embrace a lifestyle she calls “focused living,” a way of living that encourages and develops spiritual depth, personal effectiveness, and social consciousness. The practices and values she encourages include self-reflection, a commitment to deep prayer, participation in intentional community, friendship with silence and solitude, proper balance in work, the study of sacred and spiritual resources, a preferential option for the poor, reverence for one’s body, home as a sacred place, hospitality as a way of life, stability in relationships, and disciplines in daily living, all of which culminate in the creation of a personal “rule.”

According to Sheridan, our institutions and our culture reinforce the idea that singlehood is a “limbo” state in between or on the path toward the “legitimate” state of marriage. The church typically addresses the genuine need of single people for meaningful community merely by providing social settings for singles in which to gather. “For the unwilling celibate, community is often missing. Sadly, it is what we need most. Standing at the margins of the ‘official’ church, the single adult envies those who appear to have community: the married, the ordained, the professed religious—and he or she wonders how to get there.”

“Our church does not offer us a hand,” Sheridan writes. “Sure, we can get involved in all sorts of committee and ministry work, which many of us do. But no one ministers to us; we are left to our own devices. The antidote for isolation and all of its many entrapments, of course, is community, but only community of a special kind. Families, friendships, and workplace relationships all constitute community and they support us in their unique ways, but what the single person needs is a community that promotes growth to wholeness by developing a heightened awareness of the spiritual aspect of everyday life.....

Most beneficial in Sheridan’s exploration of the spiritual single life is her suggestion for participating in what she refers to as “intentional community,” as opposed to the larger “accidental” communities to which we already belong: our workplaces, civic and political organizations, educational institutions, and even the church itself. According to Sheridan, an intentional community is “one in which I and other like-minded people overtly expressed our mutual commitment to one another in a conscious and deliberate way.” An intentional Christian community is consistently committed to a high degree of mutuality in their relationships; pursues an informed critical awareness of and an active engagement within the cultural, political, and economic megasystems of their society; cultivates and sustains a network of lively connections with other persons, communities, and movements of similar purpose; and attends faithfully to the Christian character of their community’s life. Sheridan insists that a central focus of intentional community must be social justice.

In addition, Sheridan offers a rich bibliography of resources. She suggests Albert Nolan’s “Jesus Before Christianity” as an example of living with and among, not apart from, human society, particularly the poor. Dick Westley’s “Redemptive Intimacy: A New Perspective for the Journey to Adult Faith” is a valuable resource in participating in intentional community. Parker Palmer’s “To Know As We Are Known: A Spirituality of Education” also proved to be another insightful discovery, as well as the writings of Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen. Sheridan also draws on the writings of other single Catholics struggling with their spirituality, including Dag Hammarskjold’s “Markings” and Dorothy Day’s “The Long Loneliness,” the source for the title of Sheridan’s book. To this list I would add Mary Beth Rogers’ “Cold Anger,” another excellent resource for intentional community and public relationship-building.

Entry level, non-technical guide on how to install and use marine RADAR. Good information on how to use RADAR features. Slightly dated on information of RADAR products available.

Before we began barging, I read all of the Cooper's books, as did my husband. I admit, a few of their adventures - their Mini pushed over the bank by pranksters, their brave trip at sea in their flat-bottomed boat and the trip through Eastern Europe - made me think twice about what we were doing. In the end I realized they had the same dream we did, and adventures and all, it is a wonderful way to see the world.

Educational and straightforward. Superb knowledge base for the would be sailor, adventurer or umbrella salesman.