My high school did Love of the Nightingale my freshman year, and it's the most amazing play. I read it the first time and liked it, but when I read it again the play struck me as brilliant because I got lots of foreshadowing. Several years before they did Our Country's good, but I was littile (I went to see my sister), so I don't remember it. Amazing playwright alert here, people!

I also have never read this book but my college is staging love of a nightingale i think that timberlake wertenbaker writes with such poise this book cant be missed.
The play love of a nightingale is in a greek style but the plot is so intriging that anyone who previously thought greek tragedies boring will be proved wrong this one keeps you reading. i should know as a college production being forced to pick a greek play we werent pleased we must have got the best one possible brilliant to stage brilliant to read this book is a must if u are considering staging a greek production dont send ur audience to sleep liven them up with philomele's urging desire to know about sex and when she wishes she didnt. If the rest of this book is as good as love of a nightingale its worth it.

I do not own this book. And aside from "Our Country's Good," I have not read any of the other plays in this book.

But if "Our Country's Good" is any indication, this book is probably worth 10 times its price.

You see, my college will be staging "Our Country's Good" in a month, and I'm fortunate enough to be cast as Judge Collins (although I really wanted the role of Harry Brewer). And I have to say it's gonna be one awesome play. My fellow cast members and I simply can't stop being amazed by how well written the play is. Every dialogue is so richly written that there isn't a character not worth playing. Every character, no matter the amount of their stage appearance, is brimming with personality and history, making them joy to play.

And the fact that this play is based on historical facts makes it even more cool. The British penal colony in Sydney, Australia of 1788 never looked more appealing.

If you like plays about redemption and hidden virtues of men (and women, of course) with eloquently written dialogues, then you simply must check out "Our Country's Good." Top-notch stuff.

As for the other plays, well, I honestly don't know if they're good or not, but I bet they're top-notch stuff as well. And considering how "Our Country's Good" is extremely hard to locate by itself (even at Samuel French), your best bet is to get this book.

It may not seem fair to give this book a 5-star rating based on that one play alone, but honestly, that's how much I love that one play.

This is a very touching book of the life and work of a great woman of prayer. Written by a skeptic turned believer! See what doctors have to say when they find out that their patients are healed through prayer! Well done! Great review from the news media!

Grace is a woman who signs gospel music. While singing people felt that they were healed of sickness. The author conducted a very educated investigation and found doctors who were baffeled. Peopled really were healed through prayer. Grace's life is also interesting and fun to read about. The book has a smooth reading style.

Fun and interesting! Grace is a real, proven, woman of prayer and faith! Refreshing to read of someone like this! Stories of people healed are well done! Grace's life is interesting.A very good read for women who want to make a good case that women make good leaders!

This is a dear, concise, wise little book. It sits on our dining table. My husband and I take turns saying grace each evening, opening randomly and reading. It has prayers from many different spiritual sources and we find it refreshing and meaningful.

After realizing how rote saying grace had become for me, especially since I eat most of my meals alone, the glorious graces in this book helped me center and use this sacred time to make a heartfelt connection. Also, I began to praise things I'd never considered before (like the sacrifices made by individuals, animals, plants, etc.) that went into the making of the meal. It is an absolutely awesome collection of elegant blessings.

As the spiritual aims chair for a civic club, I'm the fella' who gives an invocation before each meal. Since it's important that our activities are non-denominational, I find this book to be a great resource. Need a meal-time invocation? Then get this book.

Spurgeon's All of Grace is one of the best Gospel presentations I've ever read. He presents salvation by grace with such compassion and love that I find it difficult to see how anyone could reject his plea to call upon the Name of Christ. Although I was a Christian for some time before reading Spurgeon's work and although I already held to salvation by grace alone, I still found his work to be incredibly moving, both intellectually and emotionally. Spurgeon is truly a champion of the faith and this may be his best work.

Upon reading the first two chapters of this book I began to think that it was merely an introduction to Christianity with a simple gospel message, but as I read further it became apparent that this book is a wonderful wellspring of encouragement and truth for any believer, regardless of their walk with the Lord. Ch. 5 is especially powerful with the Grace of Jesus Christ giving us the power over all sin through faith that God can actually give us a new heart and a new spirit. Though this is impossible of our own devices, it is entirely possible through God, and through Him alone. It brings to light that though the Gospel message is not so complicated no person can understand its importance or meaning (else Christ's work on the cross would be for naught), the Gospel goes beyond the simple lay-person preaching that is so common today which is done in the name of supposedly "reaching everyone". Such preaching does not bring the lost to God, but rather gives them a false impression of what salvation is, and can lead to a desire for Christ for selfish gain rather than a desire to repent an pursue true Holiness. I highly recommend this book on the basis of the life-changing message which it promotes, and the resulting power of God from which such a change is instigated.

To learn of the grace of God as it is in Christ Jesus, here is the book to read. Spurgeon, one of the greatest of Gospel preachers, explains the nature of Grace and the provision God has made for all mankind. Don't pass this one up, you will not be sorry.

This novel is inspiring as is all Grace Livingston Hill novels. It makes you realize how God touches everyone and how he is so amazing.

I've read this book time and time again, and every time, I like it more. The main character is a girl by the name of Dale whose grandmother has just died. Right in the middle of her grief, several of her relatives arrive. Rather than caring about her, these rude, obnoxious and unfeeling people have no reason for being there except to get money that was supposedly left to them. At this same time, Dale's beloved leaves to go to war, and this is one of the things that carries her through the trying times ahead. No matter what her family says or does to her, she has the memory of her beloved across the sea, who is waiting patiently to be allowed to return to her. And through it all, her Savior carries her through all of her trials, so that she never returns hurt for hurt, even when her heart seems to be breaking. Maybe, when its all through, her selfish family will actually see something in her that they don't have, and maybe they'll change because of it.

I have read this book several times, and I enjoy it more every time. The story is about a girl whose grandmother has just died, and in the midst of her grief, unwelcome relatives arrive. As unfeeling, rude, and obnoxious as they act, the girl does not return wrong for wrong. Through it all, she has the memory of her Savior who will bring her through every trial that comes along, and also, that there is a young man somewhere who loves her. Knowing that her beloved is across the ocean, at war, and waiting to return to her, and that her Savior loves and cares for her is just what she needs to carry her through it all. And just maybe, her relatives will see something in her, that they've never seen in anyone else, and maybe they can change, too.

Buechner has a way of bringing the tough questions we all ponder to the surface in this great book. Using a poetic, narrative style, he allows the reader to walk through one day of his life and to enter his brain as he questions the meaning of life and the purpose of our existence. It's not an easy read, and I think Buechner intended it to be this way. If is was too easy, we'd be content to whiz through it and move on with things, just as we often do in our lives...he's teaching us to live a little differently.

This is a tough little book--beautiful, but demanding of the reader. Like great poetry, everything about the book, including its structure and multiple levels of meaning, work together to reinforce its theme--which is fundamentally "why are we here?" That's maybe the most basic question each of us faces. This book provides a thoughtful, nuanced response, and holds up a mirror for us to respond ourselves. After a couple of false starts, I got through it and it changed my life. Really.

I thought this book was very insightful. Buechner has a way with words that rival many a poet. He crafts his thoughts into images that stirred my heart and challenged my soul. A good read for anyone searching for meaning in this crazy life.

Amazing Grace received the 2003 Western Heritage Award (Poetry Category) from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Amazing Grace received the prestigious 2003 Western Heritage Award (poetry category) from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The sixty-four poems in this collection, the second book from up-and-coming Texas poet Larry D. Thomas, probe the complex interrelations between the land and the creatures that inhabit it. The book won the 2001 Texas Review Poetry Prize and it is easy to see why these lean, sharp-edged poems were selected by the judges. Geographically and thematically, Amazing Grace encompasses all that is integral to Texas and Texans, while at the same time transcending the merely regional to explore universal human truths.

The collection is divided into four sections, each of which anatomizes a particular region of the state. The first quarter of the book, Their Heaven of Bleakness, is set in West Texas. It is the most tightly-knit of the four sections. Opening with a poem entitled "'Of Dust Thou Art'" and closing with "'And to Dust Thou Shalt Return,'" these twenty pieces are linked by interwoven themes of living and dying-the springing from the soil of life, death's return to the land, the miracle of rebirth from earth's dark womb-and by the ever-present tie between the dry West Texas country and its drought-resistant denizens. The imagery of these powerful lyric poems is as rugged as the Guadalupe Mountains and their language cuts like a blue norther, bone-deep. Here be turkey vultures, rattlesnakes, claret cup cactus, cattle, and above all an unconquerable people who "take to their gritty beds, / ease the quilts of grandmas / over their leathery bodies / like slabs of red earth, and they pray."

The setting for the second quarter of the collection, Near the Big Thicket, moves east across the Balcones Escarpment into the shadow of the Piney Woods. The dark shadows of the pines are echoed in these twenty pieces by a deeper darkness that underlies so much of the human experience. In "The Slough," Thomas interweaves concrete natural imagery of death's rank decay with the figurative putrefaction of original sin so that the poem becomes an extended metaphor whose vehicle is the dark bayou and whose tenor is the human condition. The viewpoint character of the piece "can hear / the muffled steady engine of its rot" as the slough "works its timeless wonders / under still, dark waters. Its film / has already claimed his pale, blue eyes."

In the third quarter of the collection, At the Jetty's End, Thomas revisits the Gulf coast that he portrayed with such poignancy in his debut collection, The Lighthouse Keeper (Timberline Press 2001). The ten pieces in this section are filled with a tone of longing that contrasts nicely with the dark tone of the poems in section two. The land-dwelling speakers and viewpoint characters of these bittersweet lyrics seek with varying degrees of success to merge themselves with the sea. "Mooring Line," a piece reprinted from Thomas's debut collection, addresses the difficulty of making this connection-and its tenuousness once the connection is achieved. The controlling image of the poem, the mooring line of the title, lies half-buried in sand, "sponging the screams and fleeting / shadows of the gulls, / tethering uselessness / to the slow, consuming pull / of ruin."

The fourth quarter of the book, A Short Distance from the Border, circles back to far West Texas like one of the hawks Thomas uses so effectively in these high desert poems. The fourteen pieces in this final section celebrate the diversity of the West Texas and Northern Mexico country and its people with subjects ranging from bikers and tattoo artists to young boxers to the "chocolate eyes of young mothers / so comfortable with death / they candy its skulls / for the tongues of bronze children." In "El Camino del Rio," Thomas employs the Rio Grande as a metaphor for the geography the river has carved and the cultures and peoples it has nourished. Some, like the Apaches, have gone to "the places of no return" so that "Only / the screams of hawks, bouncing / ad infinitum off the canyon walls, / sound as if they belong."

As promised in the title, the poems of Amazing Grace are rendered with a poise that almost belies the strength of the language and images from which they are made. Thomas has captured the spirit that underlies the physical geography of the land and the hearts of the people who have helped to shape it. In the dust from which his characters spring, and the "rich / red fields / of deep lineage" that so patiently await their return, lie the beginning and end of us all.

This book shows How suffering can bring you closer to God. It is the story of ten people who experience tragedies in their lives,and how they made through with the help of Gods grace. Some of the people knew God before their experiences and they turned to God for strength, others didn't but came to know God through their suffering. This is a powerful book that will touch your heart.

This book is riveting and pierces right to one's heart. In this collection of 10 true stories, written by the very people who suffered severe heartache of one kind or another, everyone should be able to find a situation they can relate to. And they can be greatly helped in finding God in all things, including pain and suffering. It's a long, difficult road from the time a heartache or trauma occurs until our spirits heal. This book would be a great help in sustaining and "walking with" anyone who is making such a journey. I can't recommend it highly enough!

In the wake of September 11, 2001 and the recent sniper shootings, this book offers an answer to the question of why God allows suffering.

The 10 real life stories contained in the book do not make for easy reading. I guarantee that they will have you in tears.

They include:

- The story of Janet Moylan who lost her husband and 10-year-old daughter to a freak drowning accident.

- Debbie Harding, a former cheerleader for the New England Patriots that survived breast cancer and her marriage to a drug addict.

- Peggy Stoks, who was molested by her grandfather.

- Mike and Kathie Clarey, parents whose 11-year-old daughter was murdered while on her newspaper route.

- Grace MacKinnon, who faced and overcame her congenital disability.

- Thomas Howard, a teacher and author that suffered from disabling migraines.

- Dr. Kim Hardey, who suffered the death of his 9-year-old son.

- Debbie, a mother that has suffered eight miscarriages.

- Joan Ulicny, whose life was dramatically altered by an accident with a semi-truck.

- Carl Cleveland, a New Orleans lawyer that faced 10 years in prison for unfounded legal charges.

Even more compelling than the stories, however, are how each individual responds to the cross that they were given. Their responses of healing and hope show how good can come of evil.

"Christ had to suffer and die," says co-editor Jeff Cavins. "Salvation isn't just about Jesus' dying: otherwise he could have been sacrificed as a baby. Suffering - even Christ's own suffering - was part of the Father's plan, and we are called to cooperate with that plan."

Most readers of the book will realize how good their lives currently are. Not only does the book offer insight into suffering, but it prepares readers for potential future suffering, and helps them to know how to respond to others that are suffering.

I wholeheartedly recommend this first book in the Amazing Grace series - a kind of Catholic "Chicken Soup for the Soul". It's unlike anything I've ever seen or read before.

What a great book! It's so comforting to know, from the Bible, that no matter what we've done, where we've been, God does not give up on us. This book focuses on the life of the Apostle Peter, who actually denied Christ, and how God still used him. Through use of Scripture, Dr. Scudder explains how to get up, get moving, and get back on track after failing our Lord. What a blessing! Thanks, Dr. Scudder, for this vital encouragement that every Christian needs!

There is not a person in the world who hasn't fallens short of what they feel they should have become. Parents, siblings, teachers and spouses hold us up to expectations of which we fall very short.

Dr. Scudder delivers a delightfully refreshing look at success and failure--in real terms. Closely examining the life of the Apostle Peter, Beyond Failure discovers the true secret of the Christian life. It's not about what we do or what we achieve. It's what Christ can do through us.

At first glance Peter was a failure--and so are we. Yet, at the end of his life, we was martyred for the Lord--the ultimate Christian success story. He also wrote two New Testament books, which inspire and motivate Christians to this day. This embattled, impatient, impulsive apostle realized that true failure is not in the falling down, but in the staying down. We all make mistakes, put our feet in our mouths, and make poor decisions. The questions is will we use them as stepping stones to success?

Dr. James Scudder's Beyond Failure will inspire you to keep going--to finish the race. Filled with personal anedotes and real-world illustrations, this book is a much-needed oasis in a dessert of disappointment. Pick it up today and be refreshed.

This is a great book. Extremely well written and easy to understand. It should provide many with encouragement through the difficult times in their lives, and help to bring them through it. This book is a must read.

This book provides non-profit executives with a very practical approach to making their organizations more successful financially and more relevant to their audiences. I have advised many non-profits on a range of issues, and I am envious of Grace's admonition to "put away the tin cup." That's one of the truest, most important things that today's non-profit leaders could hear.

Many fundraising books show you the mechanics of fundraising. Ms. Sprinkel does that, but more importantly, she shows the reader how to approach fundraising with the proper mindset. Gone is the "tin cup" mentality. Instead, she advocates that we approach fundraising with an investment mindset.

Having set the stage with her philosophical approach to fundraising, Ms. Grace proceeds to walk the reader through the different stages of fundraising, including annual and capital campaigns.

I used the information in this book to assist the development team at my children's school with a capital campaign. We trained a number of people in the art of fundraising and went on to raise the money needed for a new building. While I won't give Ms. Grace all the credit, I can say with confidence that the advice she dispenses is clearly written and very effective.

Defining the difference between fund-raising and donor development was an eye-opener. In a non-profit world that is increasingly competitive for the donor dollar, Ms. Grace offers a powerfully different approach. Of particular interest was reference to values-based mission statements. Something from which every fund-raising organization can learn