I think the Sweet Pickles series is a must for all kids. They are fun books that kids will pay attention too because of the stories and the illustrations. I read them as a child, then read them to my little brother when he was young, then to my little sister, and now I am trying to acquire the whole series for when I have chilodren of my own.

Richard Adams set the bar pretty high when he published his first novel, Watership Down, over 25 years ago. His novels since then (Shardik, Plague Dogs, Girl in the Swing, Maia, and Traveler) have not lived up to the promise of that first book, which ranks among the most beloved novels of the 20th century and will surely be among the handful of books to survive the century.

It is with great pleasure, therefore, to note that with The Outlandish Knight Adams has crafted a lyrical novel rich in historical detail. It follows the fortunes of 3 generations of "common" folk in England and their relationships with the Tudor aristocrats.

The novel opens in the year 1485, the action concentrating on the Battle of Bosworth Field, where Henry VII, the first of the Tudor dynasty, brought an end to the Wars of the Roses. The central narrative focuses on Henry VIII's divorce from Katherine of Aragon, while the third portion is concerned with the fate of those implicated in a plot in support of Mary, Queen of Scots, during Elizabeth's reign.

The overriding theme is one of unwavering loyalty and devotion in the face of intense pressure. While Adams is faithful to the historical detail the reader cannot help but get caught up in the events as if they were happening today. Most impressively, Adams' characters speak the English of their day, not 20th century vernacular, a device which other writers of historical fiction would do well to employ. The historical figures that appear as characters are believable, as well.

Adams' first foray into historical fiction came with his last novel, Traveler, but here he is on surer ground, writing about his native England. As a special bonus, the text is sprinkled liberally with excerpts of English folk song, including the actual musical notation.

Although lacking an animal protagonist, this is Adams' best novel since Watership Down. Readers should also check out his two collections of tales, The Unbroken Web and Tales from Watership Down. Also in a similar vein is a historical novel by Alan Garner, Strandloper, and various works of history of this period, such as Antonia Fraser's Faith and Treason.

The words "based on a true story" have become all too automatic in this visually-oriented age, but it is comforting to know that there are still instances when the phrase actually has meaning.

In general, the book is fairly well-written, although the fact that its authors are journalists is painfully obvious. I did not expect too much from this book, considering the reviews it received in the Wall St. Journal and NY Times, but gave it a try anyway. First, the story skips around too much. It is difficult at times to figure out what has happened and what temporal relation it has to what is going on in the text at that time. The authors were too busy trying to get across their points about Daley the political figure and neglected to really look at Daley the person. Granted, information about Daley was hard to get, but given the number and breadth of quotes from his son William and others, it should not have been that hard to flesh-out a better portrait of the man himself. Other biographies about figures just as large (if not larger) in importance are able to get their arms around their subject; these authors seemingly wanted to use the book just to get into print some comments about the failed CHA public housing program before Mayor Daley the Younger erases them from the face of the earth. I cannot recommend this book for anyone unfamiliar with Chicago politics or local issues; while this city is racially polarized and was even worse in the past, this is not the most important part of the story to why Richard J. Daley looms so large in the pantheon of American mayors. One cannot ignore the civil rights movement and what happened when it moved North; however, that is the fitting subject for a different book than one ostensibly about the life of Richard J. Daley. Overall, a C+.

I am a Chicago resident, but I have no ties to the authors or any members of the Daley family.

This book was extremely well researched. I learned a great deal about the city's history from 1920 to 1975. The authors do a good job in depicting the racial issues that confronted Chicago politicians during that period. They interviewed people on all sides of the debate, including Daley insiders and some people who protested against Daley. Their comments about the mayor's efforts to balance the power of various racial and ethnic voting blocks are right on the money.

Some reviewers have criticized this book for being too cynical about Daley. My experiences here suggest the authors are correct.

the authors also have a sense of humor about some of the machine's antics. The book has a sense of fun about it that is helpful.

It is difficult for me to think of any other biography that I have ever read which I have found to be more perfect, and I read a lot of biographies. I have to say that I'm not quite sure whether this book would be as appealing to someone who has never been or, preferably, lived in Chicago, because the authors evoke the geography of the city very, very often, and if I, who grew up in Chicago, can visualize all of the process, I'm not certain that others could. The book could certainly have used a map to show the various areas to which reference was being made. That's a minor quibble, though. The authors have done an astonishing amount of research in providing us with a portrait of a basically decent man who ruled with great authoritarianism over an immensely corrupt system. The Chicago political machine was unrivaled in its stranglehold over any municipal system in America, and the authors provide brilliant examples of the way in which it worked. I was born in 1960, when Richard Daley had already been mayor for five years, and I was 15 when he died, but I was well aware of the machine and its enormous clout. Now, 25 years on, this book not only helps me to remember, but it also tells me a vast amount of things that I did not know. Political science students will certainly benefit from this book, and fans of biographies will not find many that are better written and referenced. I can recommend this book with everything I've got.

As a user of Neurofeedback, I can't tell you how disappointed I am with this book. Reading it is like literary dumpster diving: there are nuggets of wisdom to be gleaned here, but at the sxpense of sorting through a lot of garbage.

Initially I was taken in by the subtitle, "Neurofeedback and the Process", and was expecting more detail of how Neurofeedback works and how it may be used to further improve our state of mind. Instead, the book continually harps on and hints at the authors' undisclosed methods of enhancement. At many points, the style remind me of someone on a soapbox in a public square harranguing the crowd. There is a lot of enticement, exciting brief examples of success, but not much substance.

I totally support the underlying premise, modern medicine has become too drug oriented and Neurofeedback holds an unerutilized potential, but there is little presented here to help people accept the alternative of EEG Feedback. The style of writing is a throwback to the "bad old days" when these techniques were seen as a shortcut to Nirvana and associated with Hippies discussing the "power of the high". The authors' work does a disservice to what is really a well founded and researched alternative approach to treating many serious disorers as well as a legitimate means of enhancing our mental processes.

I am giving it one and a half stars because of the message. Unless you are already familiar with the technique, however, no one will likely be positively influenced by the this book. I can't give it the one and a half stars it really deserves, so I'm rounding it up by giving the authors an extra half star for at least trying.

After reading the title, I expected a lot more about actual information on the technique of neurofeedback. That, I didn't find. However, I felt all along reading the book, that the information the autor shares, comes from years of working with neurofeedback on himself. The thinking process written there is a result of years of work of an introspective mind. For that content I would give 5 stars. For the misleading title it is now 4.

Revue of Book MINDFITNESS TRAINING: Neurofeedback and The Process by Adam Crane and Richard Soutar, Ph. D. Writers Club Press, 2000.

This fascinating book blends science, psychology, philosophy and mysticism into an inspirational and highly authoritative exploration of the mind. Seldom does a purportedly scientific book take what at first glance, judging by the title, appears to be dry, clinical research data and transform those brain wave analyses into an expansion of individual and collective consciousness. However, this is exactly what the authors attempt to do and, I would argue, in fact do. After reading this book, or should I say savoring this book, I felt a connection between the rhythms and patterns of my own brain and the rhythms and patterns of the Universe. It was probably a liminal moment to which the authors allude.

Adam Crane is an entrepreneur thoroughly credentialed in Biofeedback and Neurofeedback with 30 years experience in medical / educational biofeedback and applied psychophysiology. He is the President of American BioTec, Director of BioMonitoring International and BioTec Corporations, and Founder of Health Training Seminars. Richard Soutar, Ph. D. is a professor at Arizona State University and is Director of Biofeedback Services for the Neuro Performance Center in Phoenix. He lectures and gives workshops on social psychology and clinical neurofeedback. They are on a mission with Adam's MindFitness Training program to expand the consciousness of humanity so that our individual minds learn how to access Universal Mind. This is not the typical mission statement for a neurofeedback specialist, but through a program called The Process, it seems they are picking up where Carl Jung left off with his treatises on psychoanalysis. On a less grand scale, it seems possible to provide life and performance enhancement learning through these techniques.

The idea that we can modify our perceptions and our states of consciousness is an ancient idea and has been suggested by cultures throughout time. All have given great importance to Attention as the method by which this is done. In the MindFitness program , with the technology of neurofeedback, the authors discuss a method to help clients attain Profound Attention which is defined as the ability to see with brain and heart. The MindFitness Training program includes The Process with its nine stages. In raw form, The Process sounds like the ancient teachings of Raja Yoga, the study of the mind through the yogic tradition. The authors allude to this connection and define Raja Yoga as the royal road to 'union' and the maximization of one's unique potential. The Process includes nine two hour modules for how to develop Profound Attention to what is.

The Process is part of a lifetime of learning as a human being which is a continual work in progress in order to be the best 'artist of living' possible. In brief, the content of the nine sessions includes the following concepts and sound like training to be a Yogi or Yogini: (1) Extraordinary life enhancing changes are possible through the use of these techniques, (2) Each 'artist of living' must bring a sense of mission to the journey, (3) The 'artist of living' must include learning about the mind through learning about and fully experiencing the body, (4) The 'artist of living' will bring Attention to his/her thinking to bring about higher orders of intelligence, (5) Attention to Attention brings about flexibility of thought and dimensionality to the thinking processes, (6) Improving the quality of sleep improves the quality of awake time, (7)Economic order and well-being provides the freedom to self-actualize as an 'artist of living,' (8) Eliminating negativity and the unnecessary frees artist's energy for focus on fully living, (9) Awakening to the ability to love provides the creative, healing energy so necessary for the fully awakened life of a true 'artist of living.'

Although the book focuses on the expansion of consciousness, it does cover a learned discussion of the more common uses of neurofeedback, including the treatment of addition, alcoholism, anxiety, ADHD/ADD, chronic pain, conduct disorders, depression, epilepsy, learning disabilities, and sleep disorders. Research data is quoted to substantiate treatment protocol effects. However the primary focus and majority of the book deals with The Process.

Even though the book is dedicated to the mother and wives who nurtured and encouraged these authors / seekers on their journeys, it could as easily have been dedicated to The Hero with a Thousand Faces as Joseph Campbell described the thousand heroes on the journey within.

In conclusion, I think that if Neurofeedback as presented in The Process were simply a new drug being touted by pharmaceutical companies with a promotional campaign behind it, this treatment would be catapulted into the mainstream and could supplant many of the drugs of which we are currently enamored. The beauty of this treatment is that it does not involve medication, but rather the training of the mind, which is what good therapy is supposed to be, but seldom is.

DeAnsin Goodson Parker, Ph. D., Director of the Goodson Parker Wellness Center, developer and author of Yogababy tm, and Director of the Foundation for the Development of Human Resources.

Adams autobiography plots along at a snail's pace as Adams describes in nauseatingly long detail about the plants and birds that lived in the area where he grew up. I suppose that this is exciting for people who enjoy nature walks and such.

I labored through the book because I am a dedicated Adams fan. I have read every novel that he has ever written, and enjoyed them thoroughly. The Day Gone By is helpful if you want to get inside of Adams' head and figure out how he thinks. After reading the work, I think that Hazel, a character from Watership Down, may actually be a model for his father, to whom Adams was very close.

Other observations about Adams' works can be gleaned by reading The Day Gone By.

Actually, Adams goes right out and says that Hazel was based on a man he met durung his army service, so read closer next time, buddy.

WARNING: Since these stories take place after Watership Down, you should read the novel first. The background information in some of these stories might spoil the book for you otherwise. Let me be the first to say that I will not be surprised if it is eventually discovered that Mr. Adams did not write these stories himself. I have read Watership Down and a few of his short stories, and all I can say is, he is better than this. El-ahrairah goes from being a trickster to a beggar. The stories either lack subtlety or they lack purpose. I would like to say, however, that it would be difficult to be confused over the timing of the stories. In the Introduction, it states quite clearly that the stories are set after the main action of Watership Down, but before the Epilogue of that book. The second line of the first story clearly states the time relative to the end of Watership Down. I don't regret having read "Tales..."; I had to know for myself.! But I cannot recommend it. Having read it, I now feel compelled to read some of Richard Adams' other books, in order to restore my confidence in him.

As a fifth grader I thought that this was a wonderful book. Yet it was also a challenge to read with many confusing parts. Even though it was challenging. I loved every minute of it, and recommend it to a more advanced audience. In the story there is a group of rabbits who live on a down, and have a lot of adventures but none compare to their big fight with General Woundwart (you can read about that in Watership Down another novel by Richard Adams.) One adventure is when Hyzenthlay (one of the rabbits) goes out to stay with an injured rabbit and then brings her back. My least favorite adventure is when a rabbit named Sandwort who is rebellious and disrespectful falls in a well and two rabbits save him. I think this book is a great book but like all books it has its flaws such as: they have more stories then adventures. The book is not long enough and it needs a little bit more details. But still I gave gave the book 4 stars because it was good. The way it held my interest was by leaving you in suspense. I thought Tales From Watership Down was a great book you will to.

I was really surprised that the edition I had bought was published three years ago, and I did'nt know!But I have read it and its almost as good as the original, even though its written in a different style. This book contains short stories that tell us the of the adventures of El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle. There are more stories that tell us wahat sort of stories they tell each other{Speedweels story}and what happened in the year after they had defeated General Woundwort.You meet a host of new characters, and even though they are in them for only one story, they are incredibly well written and very realistic to read. I was really sad that one of my favourite characters from the original dies{I'm not telling who it is}but it makes a story seem more dramatic and exciting! It really is a book that everyone should own!

The play "Educating Rita" is quite a good one. It's interesting to follow Rita's change and her new experiences educated by Frank.

At the beginning Rita doubt herself and is absolutely not satisfied with her life. Till she meets Frank.She becomes more and more independent and self-confident. And so she finally leaves her husband and starts her life new. At the end she also leaves Frank because she doesn't need him any longer. Frank is lonely now; he has lost a good friend and his job too, because of his alcool- problem.

She has changed her life, but she isn't happier with her new life, because she can't go back and she doesn't arrive to manage her new life.

( two Swiss students

Willy Russell wrote a play about a woman who tries to find herself by being educated.Her name is Rita. She reads a lot of books and with the help of her professor Frank she is also able to understand them. She becomes independent, she leaves her husband and changes her life completely. At the end she doesn't need her teacher any longer and they go separate ways. The tragic point of the play is that Rita can't really improve her life inspite of all education. She can't go back to her former life, but she hasn't a new one yet. Frank is going to Australia, after loosing his job, because he is an alcoholic.

The play is interesting, but there are a lot of authors mentioned who make the whole text a bit difficult to read. It has been written in dialogues and threw the whole play there are only Rita and Frank talking to each other. We can recommend the book.

(two students) Aarau, Switzerland

This is yet another play written by Russel criticising the british classing system. This book tells the story of a young women, tired of her own class, who wants to change her way of life. This makes her an outcast in both her society and the one she is trying to become a member of....it is gripping and moving, but unfortunately very true..

I bought this book with the intention of learning more in depth use of actionscript with all of its wonders...Instead, I was bombarded with too much game design stuff. The table of contents was misleading and the focus of the book was useless for true web design.

There are many books out there for actionscript, I suggest any of the others.

Friends of Ed has been publishing great books on Macromedia Flash consistently in the recent months, and this one actually has some fundamental coverage like concept design and project structure then moved on to advance topics such as XML integration, Generator, etc. Basically a little bit of everything starting from the intermediate level Flash developers can use. My only complaints is the black and white printing, and no CD-Roms, but all the source files can be download from Friends of Ed's web site. Keep up the good work FOE!

This book is, along with Moock's Actionscript book for O'Reilly, the first really solid book covering programming in Flash 5. That includes good stuff on planning projects, code structuring, OOP, design, and XML much more in depth than any other Flash book I've seen. It is definately advanced, perhaps not to the point of some of the hardcore OOP coders on the Flash lists, but quite complex and more than enough to challenge most readers, which is good.

The projects are good and varied, and it seems like Friends of Ed has at last gotten someone to insure that coding styles are reasonably consistant throughout the book--other of their Flash books have been essentially collections of inconsistant and often incompatible articles. The usual suspects do show up (spaceship games and rotating 3D cubes), but presented with a level of detail and thoroughness totally absent in other books (short tutorial in matrix math anyone?)

The great chapters on Sound and XML are almost worth the price alone, but the standout chapter is called "Creativity in Practice" and covers invaluable stuff like: working in teams, interaction planning, prototyping, information architecture, even some usability. In other words, the stuff that professional designers do the 80% of the time they're not messing around with software. It's exciting to see these topics appear in what could have been just another coding book.

I won't dock it a star, but one qualm is that it doesn't come with a CD (again contrary to Kevin's review below). You have to download about 80Megs of files from the publishers site. Come on guys, if there's no CD at least knock a few bucks off the price. And even at high-speeds, that 80Meg download is kind of a pain.

For years, Patterson has written courtroom dramas that are like Grisham but just a bit deeper and not as region-bound. With Dymo-tape cover designs to boot. He apparently run out of Dymo tape for his dispenser one book back, and maybe he's sensing that the lawyer-book market has peaked. So he's going for political drama, and I have to say he's as good as any of them, and BETTER than Tom Clancy was in "Executive Orders" (which was a bit of a hybrid). What we have here is not an election campaign story, it's a nomination campaign story, so we don't get to see who gets elected. Our hero is Kerry Kilcannon, kid brother of "Private Screening's" James Kilcannon, following in his big brother's footsteps twelve years later. It's too much of a temptation to compare the two brothers to the Kennedys, so please try to resist, okay? You'll deprive yourself of a pretty decent story. There's a bit of lawyer stuff in flashbacks to Kerry's earlier career as a prosecutor crusading for abused children and their mothers. You see, he hadn't originally planned to be a politician, but he's successfully pressured into it by friends. He loses his wife in the process (maybe she's thinking of what happened to her brother-in-law), draws the ire of the far right on gun control, gains the attention of an assassin over the abortion issue, rekindles an old flame with a newscaster whose inability to be objective about him handicaps her reporting (neither of them have totally faced the fact that they still hold feelings for each other). And what's worse, he's got the current Vice President to run against--a guy he'd campaign FOR if it weren't for the fact that the Veep's a bit too politically elastic to be much of a statesman. So not only has Patterson apparently decided to switch genres, he's chosen to write about a different stage of the electoral process--the party nominations. Interesting.

I am mystified by the folks who found No Safe Place dull or slow! I found it a very well-told tale (with a great twist I didn't guess) and a page-turner from the first scene. The characters are multilayered and the protagonist, Kilcannon, has a fascinating backstory, which Patterson skillfully laces into the main storyline. My only complaint, and the reason I didn't give this book five stars, is that the characters occasionally make speeches about their lives. Those monologues don't ring true, and in fact are jarring given how well Patterson usually handles dialogue. But absolutely, I recommend this book, and No Safe Place has made me a Richard North Patterson fan and admirer.

My first RNP. The book made that made me a fan of Richard N Patterson. After No Safe Place, Silent Witness,Escape the Night and Degree of Guilt Richard North Patterson proved to be my most favourite author, even over John Grisham and Steve Martini.The campaign trail is amazing, the romance touching and the way RNP takes us to the past of the protagonist Kerry Kilcannon is just great. His feelings and character are well written. Kerry Kilcannon is a lawyer mostly dealing with cases of domestic violence. He then enters politics and runs for president. His brother James was assasinated in a campaign. Past memories,his love and emotions make a great read; u gotcha read this book, you'll surely get hooked.

Brookhiser's book about the Adams family takes a look at four generations of the Adamses and discusses their contributions to American history. While this book does offer some minor insights, it is flawed in a number of ways.

First of all, thematically, this book is weak. While John Adams and John Quincy Adams are important figures in history, Charles and Henry are really much more footnotes. Nonetheless, Brookhiser gives each figure equal weight, while it is clear that - like most dynasties - the glory rarely lasts beyond the second generation. And with all the discussion he gives to the later Adamses, he only peripherally discusses John's important cousin, Samuel Adams.

Not as glaring but more problematic is Brookhiser's occasional distortion of history and his imperfect objectivity. A couple examples: he refers to James Buchanan as a definite homosexual, while the evidence is far from clear on that subject. He also incorrectly states the chronology of the 1824 election: John Quincy Adams did not offer Clay the Secretary of State position until after he was elected.

At best, this book is half good, primarily as an introduction to John and John Quincy, both of whom have much better biographies available. Otherwise, this book is skippable.

Richard Brookhiser doesn't write 'biographies' in the conventional sense -- and certainly not in the modern sense, in which writers seem determined to prove that once-admired historical figures are just as messed up as the rest of us, and probably even worse. No, what Brookhiser attempts to do (as I believe he noted in 'Founding Father,' his book about George Washington) is reclaim the ancient idea of biography as a means of understanding and exploring ideas about civic virtue, citizenship, and (dare we say?) morals.

This isn't to say that Brookhiser whitewashes his subjects. Far from it: his subjects come through in this book both as sharply defined individuals and as members of a family with a very clear sense of itself and its place in history. That he chooses not to bog himself down in domestic minutia doesn't detract from the quality of the biography, and enhances the points he's trying to make.

If this book were a novel, cover blurbs would breathlessly proclaim it 'the sweeping saga of an American family across four tempestuous generations.' And the description wouldn't be far wrong. From the time of the Founding until the First World War, the Adams family was (to varying degrees at various times, but always to some extent) among the most prominent, influential, respected, and reviled families in America. Brookhiser does a fine job showing how four individual members of this family bore that inheritance, and shaped, and were shaped by, what it meant to be an Adams. If 'the contract of the [American] founding ... was a contract with their family' (p. 199), the family had contractual obligations in return. Many Adamses chose not to fulfill those 'obligations.' But the four who most notably did, did so with one eye on their times and the other on their patrimony.

The four biographies are fascinating in their own rights. But the section of the book I most enjoyed was the final four chapters, in which Brookhiser weighs one Adams against another and against some of the perennial questions of American civic life -- most notably the question of Republic versus Empire. It's here, especially, that Brookhiser shows how the lessons of the Adams dynasty apply to our own times as well as theirs.

The most obvious appeal of 'America's First Dynasty' is to students of political history. But it also bears reading for the light it shines on current political, constitutional, and cultural questions, and for the recurring dilemma of the family in American political life. For if the supermarket tabloids still label a certain other political/media clan as 'America's royal family,' it's worth remembering that they're not the first nor, by any stretch, the most important. This book is definitely worth a read.

When reading "America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918" one reads the sweep of 150 years of American history through the eyes of America's first dynastic family.

The Adamses, their quarrels, their prejudices, and their crazy ideas, (John Adams thought the new nation would soon turn to a hereditary monarchy), are put into the context of the times for the modern reader to absorb. The result is a remarkably readable book sized for today's attention span.

In the section on Henry Adams, the writer, historian and great grandson of John Adams, our second President, we get a glimpse of the perspective that being an heir to history can bestow on someone willing to accept it when Richard Brookhiser writes about Adams' book "History of the United States in the Administration of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison." The following excerpt includes portions of "History..." as well as Brookhiser's own synopsis of the book.

"America invited men to partake of a national wealth that was as yet mostly uncreated; the openness of the offer tapped reservoirs of energy and devotion. 'The poor came, and from them were seldom heard complaints of deception or delusion. Within a moment, by the mere contact of a moral atmosphere, they saw... the summer cornfields and the glowing continent.' America's natural resources were not gold or coal, but opportunity and the people the opportunity attracted."

Brookhiser has written a fine book. I am now compelled to read his other works.