News and Media Books

These books are so cute - they are really helpful when it comes to teaching the food guide pyramid to children.

A wonderful story that captures the time and truth of the era. The best part is - it was entertaining to the end.

"Blue's Clues" provides another tale to help ease childhood fears in "Green Puppy Goes to the Dentist," The power of roleplay is again demonstrated in this book when Blue becomes "Dr. Blue" -- a certified pretend dentist who shows Green Puppy just what going to the dentist will be like.

Another fine entry in the series. It introduces pretty much every aspect of such a checkup that one would expect -- rinsing, having an X-ray, a general cleaning, etc. In the end, Green Puppy is more than prepared for her checkup, and is able to help her other friends see that it's not so scary as well.

I can't do a good Michael Buffer. I got this at Borders Today. Someday,I'll see the Pain King VS Cleopatra episode I love Wrestling,and I admire Kim Possible. I do Wish Kim was there to help wrestlers in the WWE,when things don't go right,like when that idiot,J.B.L. had John Cena arrested.I wish K.P. had that J.R. Ewing of the WWE arrested.

This is a wonderful book. Very simple and to the point. Preceise. Case studies help put things in better perspective.

What a joy to have a book not designed for tourists, but just for we who live, work and play in New York. It has all the info we need to access those neighborhoods we don't know as well as our own. I have used it every day since receiving it and don't leave home without it. It will be an annual purchase like Zagats from here on.

Spongebob is now the Hall Monitor. He is like a guard. So when a maniac is in Bikini Bottom, he helps out with Patrick, Unfortunately he is the maniac!

William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is arguably the most famous play ever written in the English language; presenting the world with questions and characters that have been the subject of thespian and scholarly debate ever since the Prince of Denmark's first appearance on the stage of London's Globe Theatre. Probably written and first performed in 1601 (estimates vary between 1600 and 1602), the play draws on Saxo Grammaticus's late 12th/early 13th century chronicle "Gesta Danorum," which includes a popular legend with a similar plot centering around a prince named Amleth; as well as several more contemporaneous sources, primarily Francois de Belleforest's "Histoires Tragiques, Extraicts des Oeuvres Italiennes de Bandel" (1559-1580), which expands on the story told in the "Gesta Danorum," and a lost play known as the "Ur-Hamlet" (i.e., original "Hamlet"), sometimes also attributed to Shakespeare, but equally likely written by a different author a few decades earlier. Another work frequently cited in this context is 16th century playwright Thomas Kyd's "Spanish Tragedie."

Pursuant to Shakespeare's wishes and like all of his works, "Hamlet" was not immediately published, and the original manuscript did not survive. However, in the absence of copyright laws or other forms of protection of what today would be called the playwright's intellectual property rights, first bootleg copies (so-called quartos) based on transcripts made during or after performances began to appear in 1603. Yet, it would not be until 1623 - seven years after Shakespeare's 1616 death - that his former fellow actors John Hemmings and Henry Condell published 36 of his plays (including this one) in a collection known as the First Folio.

As no print version of any of Shakespeare's plays has a bona fide claim to its author's first-hand blessings, ever since the Bard's death the world is left with numerous questions about his characters' motivations and psychological makeup; first and foremost, in this particular case: who is this Prince of Denmark anyway, and what's driving him - is he a reluctant suicide or reluctant avenger? A Renaissance man? Wrecked by Freudian guilt? Genuinely mad, or merely putting on a clever act of deception? Or is he someone else entirely? - Indeed, we're even left in doubt as to what exactly it was that Shakespeare meant his characters to say, with all attendant interpretative consequences: Does the Prince wish for his "too too sullied" or his "too too solid" flesh to "melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew" in his first major soliloquy (Act I, Scene 2)? Does he really contemplate "the stamp of [that] one defect" which may fatally taint the perception of a man's other virtues, "be they as pure as grace," before meeting his father's ghost (I, 4)? Does Polonius, when sending Reynaldo on a spying mission after Laertes, refer to his scheme as "a fetch of wit" or "a fetch of warrant" (II, 1)? Do Hamlet's musings in "To be, or not to be" (III, 1) concern "enterprises of great pith and moment" or "of great pitch and moment," whose "currents turn awry and lose the name of action" by his doubts? Does or doesn't the sight of the Norwegian army while Hamlet is on his way to England (IV, 4) prompt him, who has so far failed to carry out his purpose, to reflect "How all occasions do inform against me," and conclude his soliloquy with the vow "from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth"?

How you answer any of these questions, and how you consequently view the play's characters, depends in no small part on the text you read. Like all Folger Shakespeare editions, this one is based on what the editors have deemed the "best early printed version," while allowing the reader a unique direct comparison of the available (reliable) versions by including a text essentially combining these versions, with unobtrusive markers characterizing those passages appearing only in one particular version. For "Hamlet," the editors eschewed the play's very first (1603) quarto, which was possibly compiled by a journeyman actor and whose inconsistencies with all subsequent versions (textually as well as plot-wise and even regarding character names) have caused it to be generally considered a "bad" quarto, in favor of the 1604 Second Quarto, which some even believe to be based on Shakespeare's own first draft of the play and which, in any event, while more extensive than the 1623 First Folio (in turn, thought by some to be closest to the version(s) actually produced on the Globe Theatre stage), boasts about as secure a claim of authenticity as the latter. In some instances, the text follows the Second Quarto (Q2) without visually alerting the reader to the differences vis-a-vis the First Folio (F1), thus compelling those more used to the latter version to seek out the extensive end notes to reassure themselves that (in the examples given above) it might indeed be "solid flesh," "warrant," and "pith and moment" (F1) instead of "sullied flesh," "wit," and "pitch and moment" (Q2). In other instances, however, the First Folio's language is given preference over that of the Second Quarto; while crucially, the text also includes all those passages *only* contained in the latter, including the "stamp of one defect" and "bloody thoughts" monologues, whose interpretation has such a direct bearing on many a reader's understanding of Hamlet's character.

The text is amplified by illustrations and annotations for those unfamiliar with 16th century English, scene-by-scene plot summaries, a short biography of Shakespeare, and introductory and concluding essays on this and the Bard's other plays and on Shakespearean theatre, as well as extensive suggestions for further reading, and a key to the play's most famous lines. While it is unlikely that after 400 years of debate any one version, be it in print, on stage or on screen, will be able to generate unanimous acceptance as the "definitive" rendition of this complex play, this is an excellent starting point for an in-depth excursion into the Prince of Denmark's world.

Also recommended:
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
BBC Shakespeare Tragedies DVD Giftbox
Olivier's Shakespeare - Criterion Collection (Hamlet / Henry V / Richard III)
William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet
Hamlet
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Peter Brook's King Lear
Richard III
Julius Caesar

I got this for a gift for my great niece. She loves it so I bought more of the series.

It seems every hand tells the story of one's life; emotional experiences, accidents, health conditions and the list goes on. Being able to read the numerous unique lines in one's hand is a science called Handology. It's not like fortune telling or daily horoscopes (they're a waste of time) but an actual science based on the fact the brain closely communicates with the predominant hand (the hand having more nerve endings than any other part of the body). A couple of quick checks with the book and it identified an ongoing health problem I have, a profound emotional experience when I was growing up, and that I had a good back ;) I should warn some readings may be of a personal nature, so it's always a good idea for the one having his/her palm read to consult the book first, so that nothing too intensely personal will be shared inadvertently.

Handology is a neat book to have around and I recommend it.