This book by Jane Stewart Smith and Betty Carlson was a bit disappointing. I've been exposed to Smith's critical review of Dickens in the past (in audio form) and was reasonably impressed.
I really expected more than I got in this book. The authors introduce the various women, but leave out some important information. For example, no mention is made of Louisa May Alcott's "pot boiler books" which are now available to modern readers. While they may not be of the quality of some of her other work, they certainly reveal a lot about Miss Alcott that Smith and Carlson don't bother to mention.

I was perplexed at their inclusion of Gertrude Stein in the book, particularly since they are recommending Stein's work. I suspect that the audience most apt to read Great Women Authors would be relatively unimpressed with Stein's work and would not really want their adolescent daughters reading her. Since this work is best suited as an introduction to women authors for younger readers (or perhaps older readers with little literary education) it would seem appropriate for them to tailor their list just a bit for that audience. This certainly is not a book for more sophisticated readers.

I will admit to using the Jane Austen chapter with a class of homeschooled girls with whom I was doing Pride and Prejudice. I had to go far beyond what Smith and Carlson included in order to cover Austen in what I considered an appropriate fashion, but their chapter was a good lead-in.

If you are looking for high quality scholarship you should look further. If you are looking for a simple introduction to some classic women authors this may fit the bill, but be advised that evangelical parents may not want their teenagers reading all the books they recommend.

This book is light, easy reading, but really boring. Betty tells the story of her remarkable career but the book is lacking. Where is the dish? Where are the juicy parts? Betty writes as if it is one big happy press release. She likes everything and everybody. Everything is hunky-dorey. She never minded getting fired from jobs, she never minded being uprooted, she never minded long, tedious work hours. Betty drops names of some of the most famous people in the world and barely comments on them. She gives her meeting with the Queen Mother one sentence in the whole book! She was married to Allen Ludden for 18 years, but until she mentions this toward the end of the book, the reader doesn't even realize that all of their experiences took place over that length of time. She was best friends with Mary Tyler Moore and her husband Grant Tinker and although she tells of many anicdotes, nothing delves very deeply. Betty was on two classic TV shows of all times, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Golden Girls", yet she glosses over these experiences and doesn't go into any details about any of it. Apparently Betty's life experience is not able to fit into one book and trying to fit it in one book makes it all seem like an outline rather than a story. Readers will look for some juicy "Mary Tyler Moore Show" stories and some backstage gossip about "The Golden Girls", but they will not find that. They will get Betty's ramblings and squeeky clean attitude about not saying anything if you dont have anything nice to say.... apparently she had nothing nice to say so she glossed over much of her life. I really would have loved to know how she truly felt about her coworkers and how they interacted on and off stage. Some funny "blooper" moments would have been great and some real life gossip would make her seem more human. I love Betty White, I just didn't get all I thought I would from this book. But Betty truly is a Golden Girl, she has done it all

As a young family therapy student, I was very taken with this book because it clearly and consistently applies family therapy approaches (although mostly the structural, modernist kinds) through a feminist lens. The case studies were very helpful, especially the transcripts which helped me to envision what therapeutic dialogue might sound like.

However, some years have now passed, and a re-read of this book left me frustrated and irritated. The authors seem to have a very limited perspective on family gender roles, centered around a white, middle-class, heterosexist perspective. Many times authors speak in generalities about what "mothers and daughters" or "fathers and daughters" do in their relationships with one another, and I find myself writing notes in the margin: "says who?" "Not in my family!" etc.

This book is helpful for students if taken with a grain of salt and presented by an instructor versed in more postmodern techniques and multicultural critiques.

Betty Levin, who raises and trains sheepdogs, clearly had a specific agenda in mind when she wrote this book--to defend the use of sheepdogs, and smear animal rights activists. Her expertise on sheepdogs allows her to create a rich and complex character in Moss, the sheepdog of the title. However, the "animal rights" characters are poorly developed, inconsistent, and unbelieveable. Her contempt for animal rights activists is obvious: in this book, they are uniformly stupid, impulsive, hypocritical (most of them eat meat!), and unethical (compelling a child to engage in illegal activities). At one point, Levin suggests that Jody's mother was "brainwashed" by the other activists.

I have never heard of any animal rights activists being concerned about the plight of sheepdogs, but after reading this book, I wonder if maybe there is cause for concern. Why is Levin so hostile and defensive? Her unrealistic depiction of animal activists leads me to wonder if Moss's yearning to return to his work as a sheepdog is pure invention as well.

Back Cover description: MARRIAGE ON HIS MIND? Kate Crosby was determined to be independent. Her dreams were of owning her own catering business, not of marriage and babies! For now, she was happy enough putting her skills into practice as a housekeeper. She certainly wasn't looking for a husband...Until Mr. James Tait-Bouverie came to visit. He was irresistibly charming and firmly believed that love couldn't wait! James challenged all Kate's plans for the future. He challenged her to love him, to marry him. What if Kate said yes?

Ok, who writes these plot descriptions? As a long time reader of Ms. Neels, I almost didn't read this book because of this description. Don't worry, this book is like all the rest, Kate is stuck in a nasty job (she is not happy) and instead of dragging animals around, in this book it's her mother. And James is like all the rest of Ms. Neels' heroes, silent and not saying much about marriage to the heroine. Enjoy

The problem with this book becomes regrettably clear if one also reads Matthew Kennedy's biography of the wonderful Marie Dressler. Lee, despite her obvious effort, is not as assiduous a researcher as one would desire. Films she has not seen in fact exist for viewing; aspects of Dressler's personal life Lee implies are lost to history are in fact recoverable; Lee cannot ascertain what became of Dressler's faithful maid while Kennedy tracks her neatly to the end of her life; etc. Furthermore, Lee makes a welcome attempt to situate Dressler within theatrical history -- which was most of her career -- but appears to have essentially boned up on the subject before writing the book. Bringing turn-of-the-century theatre to life is challenging given that virtually all we have left are photographs, reviews, and sketchy comments, but people immersed in the subject by nature have accomplished this in varous books in a way that Lee cannot quite match. The main value of Lee's book is her access to the diary of Dressler's longtime companion and her thorough coverage of Dressler's battle with cancer. Otherwise, however, Kennedy's book is much more thorough and gives more of a sense of what made Dressler such a phenomenon.

The book is ok, mostly two line entries. The title is misleading. It only has entries for south of clinton and Mostly Natchez and the surrounding counties. No central or North Mississippi counties.

Melanie Bluelakes Dream is about a cree girl moveing from Elk Crossing, A native reserve, to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. This is a good book in teaching aboriginal rights. This book i have to admit is shallow, but it gets the point across very nicely.... One other interesting thing is ... why didn't Melanie encounter racism? all and all i think that this is a good book that many pre-teen girls can relate to.

If you are looking for another "Andreason Affair" type investigation, be warned; this is a work of fiction. I purchased this book thinking it was an investigation into UFO's, and was a bit upset to find that it isn't. Fowler gets his ideas from his UFO investigation work and spins them together to tell this tale of part UFO/ part Second Coming. If you find these ideas interesting, then this book will be just enough to hold your attention. Unfortunately it isn't very well written. Fowler obviously doesn't write prose very often. His dialogue was especially poor. Overall it was... fine.

A young woman half-American and half-French, spending the summer in the palace in Bangkok, Thailand with her photographer father didn't waste any time finding a mystery. Lisette Paul came upon the disappearance of the Emerald Buddha very suddenly. With the help of a few new found friends and bustling city, Lisette figures out the Buddha's puzzling disappearance. I liked this book a lot. It was very descriptive. I felt like I was there and could feel and see everything. It also included a lot of truth and real facts about the palace. It combined facts, fiction and mystery all together. Just when you think it's all over, it gets even more intense.
Compared to other books, I like this one a lot more than even science fiction, which few books I've read even close to being like this were. On a scale of 1-10 stars, I give this book 8 stars.