I like Mary Higgins Clark and her book A Stranger Is Watching though not my favorite of her books is good and suspenseful and I recommend it to any fans of this author.

Four stars go to a wonderful author with several published books. A Stranger Is Watching was particularly intriguing. It keeps the reader interested and not wanting to stop. The short chapters make it an easy book to get hooked on. The mother of a family is killed and a local teen is found guilty of the murder. Ronald Thompson knows he did not kill Nina Peterson but he will be executed in just fifty-two hours. Steve Peterson, the husband of the victim and his new girlfriend, Sharon Martin have different points of view on capital punishment. Sharon and six year old Neil, son of Steve and Nina, get kidnapped by a man for ransom. Only Mary Higgins Clark could write a story this twisted and terrifying. With a good storyline to keep readers of all ages turning to read just "one more chapter," I would recommend this book to anybody that likes suspense. The only negative thing about this book is the way there are so many different groups of people and every chapter switches to tell about a different group each time. The first three chapters are kind of boring but once you get into the meat of the story and discover what is going on, there is no putting it down.

A stranger is watching by Mary Higgins Clark is a great book. It is about a little boy, whose mom was murdered a few years ago and his dad's new girl friend. They get kidnapped and are held for ransom. Now, I don't want to give the book away, but it is a great book with many twists and turns. Mary Higgins Clark, being the great author she is, does a great job of tying other people into the story.

A stranger is watching was a great book to me because of all of the suspense. The book even shows a little bit about working together and liking each other gets you a long way. If you like suspense and are a fan of Mary Higgins Clark books, this is a book you will definitly want to read!

Several years ago a dear friend recommended this book to me but I never pursued it. A couple of years later I started dating my now husband and he had a copy of it. I picked it up one day but didn't read very far just not wanting to take the time I guess. Then yesterday something inspired me to get this book and read it..it was still right there on the shelf in our office with the book mark still in it from where I had started reading it years earlier. Only this time I could not put it down. This book has moved me like nothing else ever has. I am a Christian and I go to Church every Sunday and try to be a good person but I've always had this fear deep down inside me of dying...doubt, I suppose. Betty Eadie's book changed that for me. It filled my heart and spirit with so much joy, love, and (finally!) understanding. I don't know why I never finished reading it before. Everyone needs to read this book! It answered so many questions that I have been struggling with my entire life. I believe every single word of it. I can't imagine how anyone couldn't! Please read it!

Being an openminded art student whose brother just passed suddenly, I was ready to look at the other side of life-with this book. I was scared to face the reality of his death and yet wanted so much to get closer to his spirit. Her descriptions of death and conversations with the spirit world only widened my imagination about the wonderfullness my brother must be experiencing. The book was truthfully real and simply read. Betty J. Eadie's story has inspired me to paint my feelings about my brother with halos of light surrounding the figures heads. I wanted to show the love I was sure he was sending me through our spiritual connection. Without a doubt, I wouldn't have felt as comfortable expressing- nor would be able to express as well, without reading her book. Thankyou Betty... For those of you who have read this book (you'll know what I'm talking about), I think this book is the reason she had to come back to earth....

I recieved this book four years ago as a gift. I tried reading it at that time, but could not seem to get through it. As of 1 week ago, I attempted it again, and I finished it in 2 days. I truly believe we are all at a different level of spiritual learning as the author states, and now that I have read this book, I am able to look at myself more closely and work on the person I want to and am able to become. As much as it pains me to have to let a loved one go, it feels my soul with peace to know that I will see them again. I know their mission is not over and that they graduate to another level where life does go on. Whether one wonders about the details of Ms. Eadie's experience, there is only one thing that one can really do to recieve confirmation on anything. I recomend this scripture from James Chapter 1, verse 5. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of god, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." I know that if you humbly pray about the goodness of any book, you will recieve a peaceful answer to your prayer. I know that god lives, and that Jesus Christ is not only his son, but our savior and brother. I am very grateful to Betty Eadie for her inspiration in writing of her experience and touching my life for the better.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't like this book. It was fantastic! I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed it! So anyways, it's about 12-year-old Patty Bergen. Her parents don't love her: in fact, they practically hate her! Well, one day, while working in her parent's shop, she meets a German POW, Fredrick Anton Reiker(Anton). So they become friends. Later, when Anton escapes from his prison camp, Patty shelters him in the secret room above her garage. The book is about Patty's summer, and how she gets through it with a German soldier in her hideout! There's a lot of news stuff, interviews, and stuff like that. Read this book, and you'll be living Patty's life: It'll be fun!

I just read "Summer of My German Soldier", by Bette Greene. I thought that this was a really terrific book. It is the story of Patty Bergen, a Jewish girl in the South during WWII, who makes friends with a Nazi soldier. She makes friends with him because she her parents are mean to her and she wants companionship and love. This was a wonderful book with characters so real that I could feel what they were feeling and think what they were thinking. After reading "Summer of My German Soldier", I had tons of questions about the book and about the author. I wanted to know if any of it was based on a true story. I also wondered if Bette Greene's life influenced her to write the book in any way. So I did some research on the internet, and I found out that there's a webpage about the author and the book! It's at bettegreene.com and it has tons of useful and interesting information. Plus, you can email Bette Greene about her books! I recommend that you read this book and look at the website to get answers to the questions I know you'll have.

This book is very sad, but still excellent. The main character is twelve-year-old Patty Bergen, a Jewish girl growing up during World War II. She lives in a small Arkansas town, where her parents own a department store. The federal government has chosen her town as the location for a camp for Nazi prisoners of war. Although most Jewish Americans despise the Germans for what they have done to Jews in Europe, Patty regards the prisoners of war with more curiosity than hatred.

The Nazi soldiers are used to pick cotton in the fields of the rural South, and they are brought to Patty's father's store to pick out hats to protect their faces from the hot sun. Only one of them can speak English, and so he interprets for the entire group. The interpreter's name is Frederick Anton Reiker, known to his friends as Anton. Patty is present when the soldiers arrive at the store, and she waits on Anton, who wants to buy a pencil sharpener. They become friends in this short length of time.

Patty has many problems with her family. Her parents never show her any love or kindness. Her mother, who is very beautiful, is always finding faults with Patty's appearance, and her father outright hates her. She has to endure beatings and whippings from him several times. Patty has very few friends, and her closest friend is Ruth, an African-American woman hired to be the housekeeper and cook for the Bergens. Patty also loves her sister Sharon, even though Sharon receives a lot of love and attention from the girls' parents, and of course there is Anton. She isn't good friends with the other girls in their town because of the ever-present barrier of religion.

Anton manages to escape from the prisoners' camp and makes his way to Patty's home. She shelters him in a forgotten suite of rooms above the family's detached garage, and brings him food and clothing daily. During this time period, their friendship deepens. Anton witnesses one of the beatings that Patty's father was giving her, and tried to rush to her aid. When Patty is talking to him after this episode, she realizes that she has never loved her parents, particularly her father, and that they are cruel to her. However, her time with Anton can't last. He feels that he is threatening Patty's safety by staying with her, and so he leaves.

Over the next few months, Patty has to deal with many crushing losses, especially one concerning Anton. She draws strength from a ring he gave her before parting, which was his most treasured possession. She also learns to accept that her parents cannot and will never love her, but she realizes that it isn't because of her faults that her parents hate her--it is because of their pettiness and narrow-mindedness.

I recommend this book to anyone. It's really sad and will probably make you cry at some points, but the story is absorbing and very believable.

There are not many recipes in this book, but it has greatly increased the number of breads I can make. The recipes are easy to follow and work at high altitudes like Johannesburg with no adaptions. I have made the Rosemary Foccacia bread many times and it is an excellent recipe.

I can recommend buying this book

I have great results will nearly every recipe I've tried so far. The only failure to date may have been the result of lame yeast. The ranch dressing bread gathered rave reviews and the works well with most creamy style dressings ( Dill veg dip/dressing or blue cheese make wonderful loaves ). I like having versions for both small and large loaves as well as the roll, bread stick and other dough recipes. My current copy is getting kind of dog eared from use. I would have scored the book higher if it had a lay-flat binding. Lots of good recipes that are well proven.

Using a bread machine is inherently simple, and this cookbook doesn't complicate matters. A brief introduction includes a glossary of ingredients, helpful hints, and troubleshooting tips. Two main sections - "Classic and Savory Loaves" and "Special Grains and Sweet Loaves" - include dozens of recipes, all with instructions for 1-pound and 1 ½ pound loaves. A third section includes recipes that use the bread machine to knead the dough, which is then further processed by hand and baked conventionally. A final chapter includes interesting toppings. Every recipe I have tried has worked well. The use of dry milk in recipes requiring milk allows most recipes to be made with the bread machine on a timer. The book is illustrated with attractive photographs.

What an enormously informational book! This book has pictures, descriptions and prices of a wide range of milk glass pieces. I particularly liked the original catalog pages from some of the Big Lines. They are useful so the collector can identify missing pieces from their collection and know what to look for.

Like many other collectors, I find that my tastes change over time. Since last summer I have been buying odd pieces of milk glass and was looking for some kind of reference book so that I would know what I was looking at and looking for. WOW! This book gave me exactly what I was looking for. I really like the use of actual old advertisements for the "Big Patterns". They show what different items true "names" are and how they were sold and marketed.

At first, I didn't like that the prices were in the back of the book. But upon further thought I've decided I prefer it that way, because then I'm not drawn to, or away from a piece just because of cost. For a dealer this might not hold true, but for a collector like me, it's not such a big deal.

The final thing I like is that it includes examples of colored milk glass as well. I will spend hours pouring over this book. And if another version comes out with different photos and updated prices...all the better for me!

This is a wonderful guide to the possibilities in milk glass collecting. I found much here that I never knew existed and the full color photos of each item are beautiful.

The book is arranged by subject matter. Data on each item includes manufacturer, size, dates of production & current market value range. Some of my favorites are the kitchen utensils, lamps & beautifully decorated plates.

There is a wealth of detailed information for collectors here. The introduction has some general collecting tips plus how to get a feel for old glass vs. new. Detailed histories of all the major producers follows.

Finally, the catalog pages of more common recent lines by Westmoreland, Fenton and Imperial are reproduced with a value guide. This book really helped me understand and appreciate what milk glass is all about.

The only thing better than Betty's books are her classes and video's. The whole subject of masturbation is a sensitive one here in the States. But the sad fact is there are still millions of women over the age of forty who have either only had a few or in some cases NO orgasms. Betty is out to change those statistics. And having seen friends who have read this book, seen her videos and even taken the Sex For One classes, break down in tears with total joy, happiness and awe having finally discovered what a REAL orgasm and multi-orgasmic means, I cannot recommend this book enough.

What Betty does is, is make the reader get comfortable with their body. Reminds me of the Broadway play "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" The same goes for sexual pleasure. Whose body is it? And don't we all deserve to experience the intense delight of feeling a full blown orgasm that takes place in our brains, on our skin and for we women, in our clitoris and vaginas?

This is a very liberating book and I have personally recommeneded it and given it to many women from teen to seventy. It is about time women listened to Betty and reclaimed their sexual lives. There is nothing shameful about self pleasure. She also discusses mutual masturbation which couples will find to be an added treat to their sex lives. And as they say, If you do not know what you like how can you ever tell your partner?

Thankfully my local library also carries her books.

From Joan Mazza, author of Dreaming Your Real Self and Dream Back Your Life: Betty Dodson's positive attitude and comfort with her body permeates every aspect of this book. With encouragement and clarity, she offers women the permission and direction so long overdue. It's about time an act so human and life-affirming has gotten the validation it deserves. I recommend it regularly to my psychotherapy clients, male and female. Thank you, Betty.

A very positive book. The author is giving you encouragement to be comfortable with your own body. If you love yourself and your body and are sexually confident then you don't seem to have trouble with physical or emotional issues of the content in this book. I think it seems to be more society and others who have trouble with masturbation. This was a very healthy and refreshing book and expresses permission to overcome any sexual inhibitions. A very interesting read.

I wasn't particularly looking forward to reading A Passage to India. Forster, in my mind, seemed to suggest implausible romance, pretty scenery, and Helena Bonham Carter, and I'd never actually bothered to read one of his books.
Now I can hardly wait to read another. I absolutely loved this book, without quite knowing why it was so magical. I do know that I found the first chapter absolutely perfect, as it allows the reader to go into a "descriptive section" daze, and then jerks are attention suddenly back to the Marabar caves. And with the exception of one or two patches that dragged a little but were soon over, I found the rest of the book equally magnetic.
I enjoyed Fortster's deftness in portraying all the characters, not so much as individuals, but in terms of how they felt about each other. In particular I loved the relationship between Fielding and Aziz, while understanding completely the dislike each had for aspects of the others character.
The ending is marvelous. So often books that hold your interest like this just peter out, but it's refreshing to find an author like Forster who understands that what makes for an ideal conclusion is to give the readers a taste of what they want, and then hold back the last little bit.

Forster writes about the ruling British and their tentative relationship with India in the early part of the 20th Century. While Kipling wrote of an India of intrigue and adventure, Forster's India is one of mistrust and racism between the British and the natives.

The main charcter is a Moslem Indian, Dr. Aziz,who is abused by his British superior and learns to mistrust all British. Aziz meets Mrs. Moore , a new arrival, by chance at a mosque. After first ridiculing her, Aziz develops a deep respect for Mrs. Moore who he believes possesses more Oriental qualities than European qualities. Through Mrs. Moore, Aziz develops a frienship with Fielding, an educator, very interested in discovering what India is all about.

Mrs. Moore's is accompanied to India by her future daughter-in-law, Adela Quested. Although extremely naive, Adela has the same inquisitiveness as does Fielding. Aziz desperately wants to impress his new British friends and he invites Adela, Mrs. Moore, and Fielding to be his guest as he shows them the Marbar caves, a local landmark.

On the fateful day all parties realize that the tour is not a good idea but each is reluctant to cancel the event. The mystery of what occurred within the caves and the aftermath is the crux of the story.

The incident at the cave does irrevocable harm to each of the main characters but particularly Mrs. Moore whose spirit totally disintegrates and Adeala who is rediculed and villified by the British.

Finally at the end, Aziz and Fielding repair their friendship as best they can, each realizing that Indians and Brits will enjoy a suspicious friendship at best.

What makes A Passage to India so different from other Orientalist works (and Orientalist it is) is that Forster, being a homosexual, understood the oppression that the colonized Indians had to live with. This understanding permeates throughout the book. From his piercing insights into the nature of Anglo-Indian women (why were they more racist? They were threatened to be replaced by Indian men in the minds of the colonizers). The relationship between Fielding and Aziz is startlingly sharp; people from the time must have been delusional not to see the homoerotic message that Forster was trying to portray. It's such a shame that the politics of the book (which Forster really wanted to downplay -- notice that neither Aziz nor Fielding care about them) so often overshadow the message of male-male relationships that Forster cared so much about. It's sad though that he still fell into the trap of thinking that no Englishman or woman could completely remove themselves from the racism that dominated the culture. What does he do the one's who try? Adela has an nervous breakdown, Mrs. Moore dies after realizes the futlity of love, and Fielding is not only a repressed homosexual, and therefore a social outcast, but sacrifices his ideals in the end to marry an English country woman. The ending perfectly sums up how Forster himself must have felt -- remember that when you want to cry at the unfairness of it all.

I don't think it's really necessary for me to comment on the brilliance of the prose, or the entertaining primary narrative since I'm sure that's been done to the upteenth time. However, the book holds so much that I couldn't not share some of my thoughts. Please read A Passage to India as soon as you can.

Joseph Jaworski was a practicing litigator when he learned about the concept of the "servant leader." Inspired, he left his legal practice and created the American Leadership Forum (ALF), which trains corporate leaders in using the servant-leader model. Synchronicty, which recounts Jaworski's journey, aspires to novelistic drama, and in fact, Jaworski describes the tale in terms of the traditional literary hero's quest. While not exactly the labors of Hercules, anecdotes in which Jaworski talks his way out of a mugging and meets his wife by passing her in an airport are entertaining, but less informative than the author might hope. The book contains a lot of New-Age jargon and collective-consciousness sermonizing. Nevertheless, for managers who want to be something more - leaders - we [...] recommend Synchronicity not as a useful how-to, but rather as a business leader's inspirational biography.

Joseph Jaworski has written "the" book on leadership for the 1990's. Not unlike Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Jaworski's Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership serves up a tale of personal discovery of such magnitude as to speak to the very heart and soul of the reader. Drawing heavily from Robert Greenleaf's Servant Leadership, Jaworski describes in compelling form the essential character of leadership founded on servant as leader. Reading Jaworski is like reading a modern-day Paul: his message that we can control our future by allowing life to unfold through us -- not despite us -- is comforting in this era when we all seem to be cascading toward a destiny over which we have little or no control. Read this book. Accept its invitation to initiate your own journey of self-discovery and enlightenment.

Many books about leadership view the subject as being akin to mechanical engineering. How do you get all those people (like cogs in a machine) to act in just the ways you want them to? Mostly written by leaders to describe their own experiences or by writers to explain what leaders told them, these books are unsatisfying in the extreme. Take a look at Flawed Advice and the Management Trap by Chris Argyris to get a further perspective on this problem. This book is totally different, and quite appealing.

Jaworski (son of Leon Jaworski, the famous special prosecutor of the Watergate scandal) tells of his personal journey from being a successful corporate lawyer to becoming someone who works on making leadership better for all of us. Like most personal journeys, this one has low points (his wife falling in love with another man and telling Jaworski to move out that day, his father not telling him that he loved him, and the deaths of a child of each of his two sisters) and some high points (breakthrough meetings with great thinkers and stimulating helpful change). You could read the book for this, and you would have the rewards of a nicely done biography of someone who is working towards living an exemplary life.

But there is more. Jaworski has accumulated some important insights into leadership that are well worth knowing. He makes an appealing case for servant leadership (the leader looks out for the group, rather than his self-interest). He also tells a fascinating tale of running the scenario development work at Royal Dutch Shell for 4 years. From this, he develops what seemed to me to be a profound insight: Scenarios can be used both to prepare for the future by helping us think through it in advance, and to create the future. That last thought provided me with a nice epiphany. Although I was very familiar with the Shell planning technique from the business literature and from talking to Arie de Geus about it, this implication had never dawned on me. I deeply appreciate learning this.

Beyond that, the book is a living testament to the importance of finding your true self and listening to the wee small voice of intuition that can steer you in the right direction. Jaworski to his credit has been quite willing to do both, and it has made all the difference.

Many books on leadership talk about the role as a state of being. That usually leaves me confused. Jaworski makes the same point, but through his personal history I was able to understand what he meant.

At another level, I found the book to be quite astonishing because it paralleled my own personal journal. I started out as a lawyer, heeded my inner voice to become a management consultant, and then heeded my inner voice again to become an author to spread important ideas about how people can become more effective in working with one another. He was fascinated by how to use scenarios to help the political transition in South Africa. I founded a company in the early 80s to find ethical ways for companies to leave South Africa while strenthening the position of nonwhite employees. I have read the works of everyone Jaworski cites in the book. At first, this seemed like a big coincidence. Then I realized that Arie de Geus is someone we both know, and he probably suggested more then a few of the authors to both of us. In fact, Arie de Geus played a pivotal role in the development of our new book, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise. Six degrees of separation is occuring all over again!

If you read this book, and read the works of those who Jaworski cites, you will have given yourself a valuable trip towards becoming the kind of signficant leader you have the potential to be. With the help of you wee, small inner voice, this should be an irresitible call to action!

Love it or hate it, Backlash is bar none the most comprehensive, interesting, and thorough treatment of the problems the women's movement has faced in the wake of the 70's. Faludi adroitly takes on the "trends" began and promulgated in the media, the mostly male fashion industry's promotion of child-like girl's dresses over business attire, and TV & cinema's exaltation of the stay-at-home mom.

Sometimes poorly documented and allusive in its interpretations of the messages in media and at other times unsettling in the clarity and truth of its arguments, Backlash is reads like a journalist's review of society's recent responses to feminism. People who pronounce the view that a woman's place is in the home are shown to be hyporites in their private lives. Faludi points out the irony of strong-willed conservative female activists who give their all to keeping women in the home while their own are in day care.

While I may have found some points where I disagreed with her interpretation of media phenomena, Faludi showed me quite effectively where the backlash against feminism is and how it has worked and still works to try to place discriminatory expectations on women. If you're reading Faludi, I'd definitely appreciate a revision for the new century, as some of the references to late 80's TV & film are a little dated.

After finishing this dense 460-page book, I am amazed that this was my first excursion into the area of Woman's Studies, but I could not be happier with my choice. Backlash is a thought provoking comprehensive look at women and America in the 1980's. While the information and examples are dated, the underlying themes still resonate in today's society.

I take issue with those who label Faludi a "man-hater." She made a point to identify women who were part of the anti-feminist trends, which lends more weight to her theory of a backlash. When men were used as examples, it was for a good cause. I never thought Faludi was blaming or targeting men as the reason for the backlash, rather she focused on society as a whole.

A previous reviewer mentioned Faludi's use of specific examples weakened her argument, bringing her to the level of those she criticizes. While Faludi does use specific examples, she also stresses on having viable statistics to back her claims. Partial evidence of this can be found in the over 400 citations she utilized.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is curious to know more about the status of women in America. Speaking from personal experience, this is one of the few books that have made me view my world differently. I cannot think of higher praise.

This compelling book systematically lays out the case for a post-80s backlash against feminism (firstly setting the scene in a wider historical context). This backlash is all the more insidious because (as in the past) it is not uprfront in its attacks, disguising its intentions by pretending to have women's interests at heart. It manipulates the media and uses many forms of subtle propaganda to get its message across: that feminism has failed, the women are better off when they are "free" to remain in the home, the career woman are burnt out and can't get husbands... and many other such widespread myths.

Such theories are proved to be not only misguided or biased but actually statistically untrue. Faludi is using FACTS, not just rhetoric. Opinions are not just stated, they are backed up with example after example, interviews and meticulous research. Of course Susan Faludi has an agenda... but so does any journalist, writer or documentary maker when they take a subject, it is not possible (nor desirable) to write without idealogy.

Everyone should read this book because we all need to understand how very much in the power of the media we are! Do we really imagine that the media is an independent entity? It's not, it's controlled by a handful of powerful individuals who pick and choose what they want to tell us, according to their own interests. This is not raving conspiracy theory, it's reality. Every citizen of a democracy has a responsibility to try to find out the truth of things, not just accept what they're spoonfed.

Of particular note are the comments on various films ("Fatal Attraction", "Three Men and a Baby"). We so often view movies as just entertainment, the fact is that they are as political and potentially didactic as any talk back radio host! We should always be questioning what a piece of "entertainment" is trying to tell us and why. I watch a lot of films and sometimes feel that a lot of my knowledge of life comes subconciously from this source... This is scary when I remember that films are merely one person's opinion, they are not reality and generally have little to do with the real world!

But even more important to me, is the message of this "Backlash" that feminism is (still) under attack. Feminism has become something of a dirty word. Some women are unwilling to admit to such a label saying "I agree with it in principal, but..." Women (and men) need to wake up and realise that feminists come in all sorts of guises and that feminism is at base simply the belief that women should have equal rights to men!

The most important myth that this book dispels is that feminism is over, or outlived its usefulness. There are some (Right-wing largely) who would argue that feminism has been a dismal failure for both men and women and society in general (leading to divorce, disharmony, gang warfare, earthquakes, whatever). There are others (some times even so-called feminists) who would say quite complacently that feminism had its day (back in the seventies presumably) and now we women can live as we like and it's all worked out well.

Particualarly when you look at the struggle for women's rights in an historical perspective (as in this book) it is easy to see how ridiculous both these attitudes are. Feminism has not 'failed' because it is not completed! It has not yet achieved it's goals. And after all it's scarcely a hundred years since the struggle was begun. Would you say that the civil rights movement is finished? Of course not because the evidence is all around you. As it is with Feminism.

Read this book if you are a thinking individual with an open mind! It was published some time ago now, but it's message is no less relavent now...

I am using Azar's Basic English Grammar in my ESL instruction, and find it to be a solid text with plenty of useful examples and student drills and assignments. The subject matter is useful and practical, designed for the mature 'teen or adult. Azar also includes many "real-world" usages that give ESL students -- and even native speakers, in many cases -- lots of trouble. Rules are often presented in an arbitrary fashion, leaving clarification up to the instructor. I don't mind this, though. Azar provides the "what" and I provide the "how" and "why."

I have been using Betty Azar's book Basic English Grammar for many years. I find it a perfect supplementary text for other series books that focus on themes and the functional aspect of the language, but do not offer much in the way of drill practice. The fill in the blanks exercises are perfect for homework assignments, especially in the initial stages where practice with the form of the grammar structure needs to be mastered in order to create a foundation for freer expression. The writing assignments are well developed and provide students with a chance to apply on a more personal level the grammar structures they have learned. I also have found that the ORAL:BOOKS CLOSED activities have saved me hours of inventing cues on my own because they allow me to interact with the class as a whole and require that the students process the structures from listening, not the written word. If delivered in a manner that the students don't know who will be responding next, you can engage everyone in using the targeted structures to make a response, even though you call on only a selected number each time. Because drills are necessary, but can become repetitive, I further challenge the students to give their responses to their partners by asking them to "look into their partners eyes" when they respond, instead of speaking while they are reading off the page. I call this "thinking and speaking" because they must use their short term memory instead of their eyes. Hopefully this endeavor will help to move the structures that they are practicing into their long term memory, where it will be available to them outside the classroom. I am especially grateful for all the thought that has been put into the development of this beginning level book in the Azar series, as it has provided me with a strong foundation for teaching the basic structures of grammar. If it were more thematic, however, I would possibly not use it only as a supplementary text.

Azar (as the author and text are called) is very good at explaining fundamentals of English grammar, and it is very thourough in the amount of examples and exercises it provides: fill-in-the-blank and oral exercises fill the book. The one complaint I have with this text as an ESL application is its lack of thematic units, which are very important to comprehension of subject matter. Being able to apply skills in a one-theme context keeps learning easier and less confusing. Use this text until something better comes this way (such as the forthcoming text by Karen Russikoff et al).