David Adam's pungent, freshly minted prayers in the tradition of the Celtic saints are strong medicine for overdoses of prayers composed in the theologically abstract mode. Adams artfully and ably demonstrates the possibility of full-orbed, life-encompassing communion with God. His uncanny resonance with the visions of St. Aiden and St. Cuthbert must certainly pay tribute to the ambiance of his post on Holy Island (Lindisfarne).

This is a comprehensive work covering all aspects of archery, especially as it relates to ethical hunting. Chuck Adams draws from a lifetime of experience to illuminate his technical and practical advice. The book covers the fundamentals of shooting form, selecting, maintaining and tuning equipment, ballistics, hunting, and more. I have read the book and enjoyed it very much. If I could consult only one book on any aspect of archery, this would be the one.

"The Bowl of Heaven" is an exceptional book on the subject of astrology. Author Evangeline Adams (1865 - 1932) was the most esteemed astrologer of her day and she even had her own radio spot in the early '30's. At the turn of the century she predicted that a hotel owner was in the worst possible danger after examining his chart; he scoffed and his hotel burned to the ground in a bizarre fire immediately afterwards (No, she didn't commit arson!) Adams convinced a judge in New York City in 1914 that Astrology was an "exact science" . She was handed an anonymous birthdate (it was the judge's sons') and proceeded to tell the judge, with amazing accuracy details of the man's character, talents and major events in his life! - her case was dropped after she was accused of "fortunetelling" (which was then against New York state law). This remarkable woman foresaw WWII and her very own death in 1932. Any book this woman wrote is invaluable concerning the subject of astrology because she wrote in a fresh, clear and easily understood manner. I wish someone would write a biography about this very interesting person who was ahead of her time in her thinking and actions.

This book is a detailed and highly readable roadmap to careers in the game software industry. Assuming only that you have an acute interest in becoming part of the game software phenomenon, Adams shows you step-by-step how to break into this field as a programmer, artist, animator, audio technician, musician, writer, designer, tester, marketer, customer service rep, or even mailroom clerk.

The book begins with a wealth of fundamental knowledge, giving a history of interactive entertainment and a taxonomy of game software venues, including PC, home console, arcade, online, handheld device, "location-based" entertainment, and gambling equipment. Chapters explaining how the game industry functions and how games are produced--from idea through manufacturing--round out the very thorough treatment of fundamentals.

With the fundamentals under your belt, Adams explains how to get from here to there, wherever "here" is for you, and with "there" being a career in the game software industry. There is separate advice for those still in high school, those in college, and those currently in careers other than game software. Every major job in the game software industry is explained, and there are "day-in-the-life" sidebars for each, written by people actually holding those jobs. There is also specific, detailed information on what education you will need (which could be formal or self-taught) in order to do each of these jobs.

Lastly, Adams leads you through the job hunt and hiring process itself, explaining how to package yourself, how to find opportunities, how to interview, and--once you're hired--what legal issues pertain to the ideas that you create for your employer.

Peppered throughout the text are "war stories" and insider anecdotes from Adams and other game software professionals. You're left with the sense that you've been in the trenches all along, working alongside the best in the industry.

I found this book to be well organized, well written, informative, and genuinely interesting. It's about 300 pages, which I consider to be the perfect length for most books. Reading this book is like having a personal mentor show you the ropes carefully, methodically, and with respect.

This is a must have for the discriminate taste.
Fast, constant, moving, gut-wrenching tale of a desperate mother's love that will not be denied.
The lose of her two sons led Josie Cross to use the desperate measure of becoming a mail-order bride in order to search for her lost ones.

Widower Adam Scofield, having lost the love of his life, has requested a Bostonian lady of some gentility and breeding to mother his two daughters and to share his comfortable life.
He is not looking for love so much as companionship and some one to share his bed.
Adam Scofield and Miles Carver are lawyers in the California town of Yreka in the Siskiyou Mountains.

Josephine Cross started with little lies and omissions that escalated into entangling webs that nearly tripped her up.
She worked hard at being a good mother to Adam's daughters but could not forget her driving need to find her sons.

Miles took a bullet for her [unintentionly] and Adam could not and would not give up his wife even knowing that he was in danger of falling in love with Josie.

I won't give away the whole gist of the story but tell you that it is time well spent reading this one.
Highly Recommended with a 5 plus rating [which I give to very few books] I leave it to you to find the enjoyment in the reading that I did and give your own rating.

My mom had this book when she was a teenager and used it to study for the SATs. So, she gave it to me to use when I was studying for them. It has a lot of excercises for the vocab words, but I didn't use them because they were already written in. This book has many good words, but I especially like it because those words aren't specifically for the SAT--they're just words you would come accross in general. Clearly studying from this book helped me, since I got an 800 verbal score when I took the test in October of my Junior year. Since then, people have been asking me to borrow it to study from. The person who has it now offered to buy the book from me because he thought it was so useful.

"Tradition is the voice of time, and time is the medium of selection; a cautious mind will respect their verdict, for only youth knows better than twenty centuries." - Will Durant.

Subtitled "A History of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D. 325", *Caesar and Christ* is the third volume in Will Durant's monumental *Story of Civilization*, published in 1944. According to the editor, this single tome was "the result of twenty-five years' preparation and five years' writing".

After a short introduction on Rome's Etruscan origins, about which even less was known more than fifty years ago, the book surveys "all aspects of Roman life -politics, economics, literature, art, morals", philosophy and the sciences in five chronologically overlapping books: The Republic 508-30 B.C.; The Revolution 145-30 BC; The Principate 30 B.C. - A.D. 192; The Empire 146 B.C. - A.D. 192 (a hundred pages on the provinces, with Chapter XXV on "Rome and Judea 132 B.C. - A.D. 135" framing the last book); and The Youth of Christianity 4 B.C. - A.D. 325, dealing with the life of Jesus, the Apostles, the growth of the Church and its gradual conquest of the Roman State.

For anyone not familiar with 19th century scholarship, to which Durant was the proud heir, it is difficult to imagine the scope, depth and outright majesty of this *Story of Civilization*. It was written at a time when historians still dared to produce what Durant calls "synthetic history, which studies all the major phases of a people's life, work and culture in their simultaneous operation". (For an overview of academic history today, and vague pointers to the authors who are trying to revive it, I recommend Keith Winschuttle's 1996 book, *The Killing of History*.)

Of course, you will not find here references to the latest hot PhD paper on the construction of gender among the labouring classes in the late Principate A.D. 189-192; nor will you be treated to stunning colour photographies of the latest pieces of mosaic dug up at Zeugma or similar places. But Durant more than compensates for the latter by his intimacy with the writings of the period and the literarily great historians who preceded him, such as Mommsen, the author of a five-volume history of Rome, or Edward Gibbon, whom he considered "the greatest of historians".

As in all the first five volumes of the series (but, unfortunately, not the last six), about two dozen books are singled out with asterisks in the eight-page bibliography, as recommendations for further study. Quite tellingly, most of them are included in such collections as Britannica's *Great Books of the Western World* - such as Aristotle's *Politics*, Herodotus's *History*or Virgil's *Poems*. Strangely though, a few of the works on which Durant lavishes the most praise in the body of the book fail to get the accolade: Caesar's *De Bello Gallico*, which deserves "a high place in Latin literature"; Livy's *History of Rome*, "a masterpiece in prose"; Plutarch's *Lives*, of which he says that "Greece has not left us a more precious work"; or even Gibbon's *Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire* itself.

I am not too fond of Roman history: what really matters to me the Romans had very little of, with their stagnating or degenerating science, their distrust of freedom and their monumental, state-sponsored and state-glorifying art. Large portions of the book feel too much like the eight-o'clock news in togas, with their stories of corruption, vice, murder, political intrigue, demagoguery, warfare, bread and circuses. The Romans were the ultimate welfare statists, creating classes of dependents with their distributions of free corn and destroying the productive basis of their civilization with the taxes needed to pay for them.

But Durant has much more to offer than such sad adumbrations of our own times, as he acquaints us with the great figures that managed to emerge in this implacable, statist civilization, many of them Stoic philosophers, like Cicero, Seneca and Epictetus; and others historians, jurists, dramatists, and even Emperors.

As for Jesus, to whom a masterfully concise twenty-page chapter is devoted, he is treated with a Jeffersonian reverence, but as a man who worked miracles that "were in most cases the result of suggestion", who "could forgive any fault but unbelief", "cursed the men and cities that would not receive his gospel" and taught Jews (and Jews only) a way that provided "none but the vaguest warrants" for the theology that Paul built around it.

In addition to being a wonderful reading experience, *Caesar and Rome* has given me much more respect for the civilization that offered the world the Pax Romana, latin, Stoic rulers and a fund of political and legal experience that would form an important part of the intellectual equipment of the Founding Fathers.

(Note: I do not know whether the maps in the latest edition are any better, but those in mine - the sixteenth printing from the 1960s - are a disgrace. For instance, the map of Italy shows the Arno, but not the Po, probably because the valley already had too many names in it. A good historical atlas is a recommended companion for the series.)

Keep organized with a sense of humor. See a week at a glance with plenty of laughs and oh yeah room to write in important stuff.

I was living in Monterey, California when I first picked up this book. Monterey is one of the more beautiful and 'unaffected' areas of California, but no part of this state is fully immune to the problems listed in this book. Among them: crime, high taxes, over-population, illegal aliens, earthquakes, and the ever-pressing problem of the lack of water. While California is still a wonderful place to visit, I was already thinking that I no longer wanted to live there. The book was greatly influential in my final decision to move - back East.

Unfortunately, there are probably very few who will try to track down a copy..... "When I stopped studying the Bible in order to support what I believed, and started studying it in order to learn what to believe, I realized how wrong I was". (Mike Bardon, Former Oneness Pentecostal) If you can relate in any way to this quote, regardless of which particular "christian craziness" you've repented from, this book is also for you! Mr.Adams once again presents an insightful view of the real state of today's "professing" church, and it's woeful lack of biblical discernment with regards to many of the unbiblical practices and teachings currently found within the "Christian" church. He clearly describes not only the problems and how they became so prevalent, but he also provides real solutions to those individuals who may ask "what difference can I make?" Geared towards those who honestly wish to be part of the solution rather than add to the problems, "A Call to Discernment" is a trumpet call which perhaps will only be heeded by the seeming minority - those folks who are dissatisfied with the current flavour of "Experiential-Touchy-Feely-Don't-Think-Just-Receive" Christianity. Many will be offended by this piece, but those who seek the truths of God Himself as revealed in His Word will be refreshed and almost relieved by Mr.Adams' book (Like Elijah, it's always good to know you're not alone!). It's a must read for anyone who has ever found themselves involved in beliefs and/or practices that originate way,way outside of scripture, and may be useful in the healing process if you've ever asked yourself the question "How on earth could I have fallen for that one or strayed so far from Truth?" This book is not just a call to be more Discerning, but gives practical relevant help on how to actually BE more discerning!