The Green Bicycle Murder by C. Wendy East

This detailed and well-written account of a celebrated English murder case of 1919 is a quality addition to any crime-buff's bookshelf. On a summer's evening in rural Leicestershire, a young girl lay dead, shot to death on a quiet country road. She had last been seen with a stranger who rode a green bicycle. Months later, a green bicycle was found in the canal, and traced to its owner, Ronald Light, who soon found himself on trial for his life. Light was acquitted, and officially the case is unsolved. East comes up with fascinating new information, and allows us to reach our own conclusions as to the guilt or innocence of Ronald Light.

Musing on her life in the Salento, a rugged, isolated part of Puglia, Viana La Place ("Cucina Fresca," a classic and personal favorite) paints a romantic, convivial, earthy portrait of the simple life. The recipes, from little dishes through main courses and finishes, are enveloped in Italian ritual and custom and La Place's own experiences. She includes a chapter on wild foods and another brings together dishes for "when you are not feeling well." Ingredients are fresh and simple - though not always easy to obtain here; the leaves and stems of an Italian squash, for example.

But whether she's braising an artichoke, roasting an eggplant, or stewing beef, La Place explains how to choose the best and get it right. Rustic dishes include bread and wine-washed arugula, white bean and ditalini soup with wild fennel, dried fava bean puree with leeks and bitter greens. There are several tomato sauces, simple pasta dishes with wild herbs, or vegetables or seafood, risottos, fried squid, skewered lamb and roast pork.

This is a book for browsing and relaxing as much as cooking.

My 5 year old daughter has been read this book many, many, many times for her bedtime story. Prinecss Bella has a problem, she thinks she is not pretty. She wears the same red hat every day until the royal subjects think her hair must have fallen out! On the day she looses her hat, she finds out she is indeed very beautiful, and that her beauty comes from within. I would suggest it for young children who are developing their own sense of self. It shows how Bella overcomes shyness, and how she opens up and finally talkes to her father about her fears. The illustrations are very detailed and colorful. I am not precisely sure what holds my child's attention after so many readings, and that is precisely true.

This book is wonderful - full of details, names and places. Everyone from the area should own a copy. The author obviously did lots of research and it shows. I learned so much (and I was born in the neighbourhood!)

I loved the very colorful picutres, which really added to this cute tale. The author surprised me with the ending! I had expected something different but liked the book's ending better than what I was imagining!

Bella teaches the child about the value of friendship, which I found endearing. My second grader read this book to his class upon their completion of their dinosaur unit and read right through it without a problem.

A great book to help boost a child's confidence in reading without the help of an adult!

I found this book to be a fast and informative read. I am neither a lighthouse enthusiast nor a Stevenson literary junkie but still managed to enjoy my time spent reading the book.

I can see where this blend of biography, history, and engineering would be too thin to please serious lighthouse fans, literary historians, or marine engineers.

However, for the general reader, the book succeeds nicely in combining a selected history of the Stevenson family, their works for the Northern Lighthouse Board, and the family's impact on Robert Louis Stevenson.

It is an interesting account of the difficulties overcome in the creation of some of Scotland's most magnificent lighthouses. The author knows how to turn a fun phrase which adds to the reading a bit of an Easter egg hunt for bon mots.

The typographical errors previously mentioned have been corrected in the paperback edition.

I must disagree with the earlier reviewers. While the book would have benefited from a more thorough editing and proofreading process, I nonetheless greatly enjoyed reading it. It appeared to be well researched and the author obviously has a passion for the subject. I found the Stevenson family fascinating. The descriptions of the building of the lighthouses, particularly the great ones; Eddystone, Bell Rock, and Skerryvore, imparted a sense of both the excitement in attempting such daunting projects and the tremendous difficulties that were overcome to build the structures. I also enjoyed the illustrations, but wish that more had been included. I would recommend this book to anyone having an interest in the history of lighthouses or maritime engineering.

"Extraordinary" is certainly the appropriate term for Bathurst's excellent documentation of the incredible Stevenson family of lighthouse engineers. Up to this time, most of the attention toward this families accomplishments has focused on the author, Robert Louis Stevenson, and left others of his amazing family in the dust. Bathurst's research is impressive and her ability to tell this story is thorough, yet highly enjoyable(I missed my bus twice.). The most exciting part really is about patriarch Robert Stevenson's building of the lighthouse at Bell Rock. You can feel the sense of horror as Stevenson notices their ship has pulled away from it's moorings, and his realization that death may be near as the tide rises. If you don't have a summer book yet, and you like good non-fiction. Try this one!

Betty Broderick knew exactly what she was doing. This book just helps perpetuate her con. The author propagates Betty Broderick like a poster child for all vindictive spouses who whish to murder their partners. Martyrdom status and all that implies for Betty! No way I say!

I have seen and continue to see this type of behavior in marriages emanating from either spouse. I am not referring to the act of consummate violence such as this book chronicles but to circumstances that can lead up to it. They are happily married, have children, live comfortably and one day it is all over. It may be the husband or the wife but one spouse decides that it is time for a change. One spouse may be cheating or not. It really doesn't matter. It turns the world upside-down. What brings a person to make such a traumatic decision? I do not believe that any one person knows for sure. Who knows what goes on inside a household or behind closed bedroom doors? In a relationship does any one person know what is going on in the mind of the other? What it all comes down to is impressions. These impressions can be based on reality or imagination. It is all a matter of how well a person interprets the facts and what those facts mean to that person. It's sort of like a psychiatrist with a patient who comes in with an emergency. A broken nail can be an emergency to some patients. Author Stumbo is obviously biased to Betty's unique denouement to a relationship that Betty has envisioned through some delusion of reality. It seemed like Betty really needed this relationship and the children for her own stability. I believe she thrived and survived on a role of self-imposed pity because it filled some void in her psyche. This books made me wonder about the meaning of love. I don't believe that Betty really loved her children or her husband. She just went through the motions because she needed that void filled in her life. There were obviously things that Dan needed in his life. Dan was a smart guy. I think he eventually saw the physiological makeup of his wife. She was sick and she needed help. How many people in a relationship really understand when their partner needs professional help? Not many do. I think Dan just took the quickest and easiest and most accessible out there was - Linda Kolkena. Unfortunately it is the children that suffer the most. However, my main contention about this book is that Linda Kolkena was just as much a human being as Betty Broderick is. Dan Broderick was just as much a human being as Betty Broderick is. They both had a right to live their own lives. Now Linda and Dan are dead. Betty never manifested any symptoms of psychosis. If a person is truly psychotic I do not believe they are responsible for their actions. That's my personal belief. Betty knew perfectly well what she was doing. There are tens of thousands of male and female Betty Brodericks out there. My advice to this author is to go hang out in some singles bars from which you will hear horror story upon horror story. Like Tarzan said to Jane: It's a real jungle out there. People fall every day but they pick themselves up and grab hold of the next vine. And come to think of it Tarzan never did like guns in his jungle.

While I in no way defend what Betty did, the movie version had Dan and Linda as angels just picked on by Betty. In the book, it showed the way Dan really manipulated the system and got what he wanted. They knew she was crazy but I don't think she would have went over the deep end as much if Linda hadn't took over her house, kids, even the Notre Dame games, just stepped into her shoes. You see it all the time, women work so he can go to school, give up their career and when men go through their "menopause" they want a younger woman along with their corvette. This is definitely a tragedy and I just wonder now how the kids lives turned out.

Don't even think about trying to survive in Brasil on this book. While other LP language guides (I have used their guides to Latin American Spanish, Mongolian, and Russian) are thorough, and provide lots of conversational phrases to get you into and out of almost any key travel situation, this one is woefully lacking in any aspect. Not enough vocabularly, not enough questions, not enough areas. After three weeks in Brasil, I managed to successfully use this book twice. It's cheap but it's not worth the purchase price.

As the book title says it's a Brazilian phrasebook, and for those who said that most pages have multiple errors in spelling and grammatical errors, all I can say is that it's so not true. As a Brazilian born and native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, I can guarantee that. But you must remeber that Brazilian Portuguese and Portugal Portuguese are almost two different languages, so you can't use this book to survive in Portugal.

As one reader put it, this book has nothing to do with Portuguese. In fact it is on Brazilian language, which is becoming a distant dialect from the latter. So if you want to learn Portuguese, avoid this book, but if you want to learn Brazilian, that is your choice.

Cute story on an adorable cat. Having just adopted a Bella of my own I could relate to the antics in the story. Only complaint...it is far too short. Having waited 4 months for delivery to Australia I would have liked more than a 15 minute read. Hope there is a Bella Part 2.

I really can't understand why so many reviewers have complained about this sweet little book. Although I'm French, not Italian, I have traveled all over Italy and I found Bella Tuscany to be a sweet and interesting book that provides a few evenings of lighthearted and entertaining reading. In Bella Tuscany, Mayes travels to regions outside Tuscany, such as Sicily and Venice, as well as to the many castle towns, fishing villages and islands. Many reviewers have complained about the chapter on recipes, but I found them quite interesting and delicious! Although I don't think Mayes captures the essence of Tuscany with quite the wit and verve of Peter Mayle, writing about Provence, Bella Tuscany is still a sweet and lighthearted look at one of the world's most beautiful regions.

OK--Many of the customers who wrote previous reviews about Bella Tuscany have some valid complaints. It is several chapters too long and we do get tired of Mayes' whining. We have little pity for her trying to restore two houses at once and we don't need to hear about every meal and shopping excursion. It certainly does not surpass her first effort, "Under the Tuscan Sun." Still, as someone who has never been to Tuscany (or Italy for that matter), many of the descriptions in "Bella Tuscany" are little treasures. Who wouldn't want to live where you can go to one local farm for ricotta, another for pecorino romano and a third for wine? Or where Roman and Etruscan ruins are to be found in so many unsuspecting places? Or where fabulous meals can be made with only the simple ingredients you grow in your garden? Or where every small local church has a major work or art or two? I do have two recommendations that would have made this book more enjoyable; a map of Tuscany and Italy would have been helpful in identifying the many places Mayes visited. Also, I would have enjoyed more photographs other than those on the dust jacket. Maybe the few "teaser" pictures are to whet our appetite for her 3rd book, "In Tuscany." In any case, while this book has some character flaws, I think potential readers need to try to overlook these and to dig deeper for the jewel within.

This is a great book! It actually take you to a portal of Italy. Well written of Italian culture, Frances Mayes capture the bella of Italy. I love this book very much, I visited Italy before and I miss it so much. When I read this book, I feel that I am there again. I love the detail of it, I actually love when she talked about food, the market and the italian word with english beside it. I learned from the book.
If you love Italy, this is a must read.
One thing I agree with the other reader that if there's pictures and map included would make this book a plus. I really wants to see the pictures she mentioned and the map for my quick reference. I love the part she talked about mushroom and market with fresh food.