Back Cover description: A SECOND CHANCE...When a beautiful stranger saved the life of Jack Dugan's daughter, Jack knew he had to find this mystery woman. He would do anything to repay her. But Grace Solarez turned out to be more than he expected, for her sad brown eyes told him she needed to be saved, too. AT LOVE? After losing the one thing most dear to her, Grace felt she had no hope. Until the night she saved Jack's little girl. Soon Grace began to care again about something--about this sexy single dad and his daughter. But would it all disappear when she found out the truth about Jack Dugan?

I agree with the reviewer from Florida. Great story and interesting plot. The author has done a remarkable job given the size of these types of books. You like and feel for both Grace and Jack. The plot description is slightly misleading in that Grace starts to care, but it's about finding the people who sold the guns that killed her daughter. As this part of the plot develops, she realizes that she has to live. The author's feel for the grief that this woman is going through is amazing. Hopefully, the author will write about Grace's partner, Beau Riley.

Grace Solarez's 11-year-old daughter Marissa was killed in a drive-by shooting exactly one year ago from this night. Desperate to end the pain, Grace finds herself contemplating the taking of her own life.

Before Grace attempts anything drastic, Fate intervenes and she finds herself pulling a kidnapped 5-year-old girl out of a car about to explode. She saves the girl's life, but leaves the scene before she can be asked any questions by the authorities.

A week later, Jack Dugan stops at nothing to find the woman who saved his daughter Emma's life. He isn't certain if Grace was on the scene because she was a part of the kidnapping plot or if she was simply a very brave, heroic woman who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Either way, he owed her for saving Emma's life.

This was an extremely well written category romance. In shorter books such as these, either the character development or the plot or the romance tends to suffer because of the constraining 250 pages given to the author to work with. Ms. Thayne worked well within the limits and none of the points of the book suffered.

The character development was beyond excellent, the plot was engaging and suspenseful, and the relationship between the hero and heroine was superbly written. "Saving Grace" is a definite winner.

Can you imagine anything worse than the loss of a child? Grace's daughter died a year ago. Then she saves the life of a small girl. Can the girls father help Grace want to live? Will she fight him off till the end? Who is trying to kidnap the little girl and why? Can Grace learn to live and function again? Does she want to? A book to keep you wanting to know what happens next. And who the bad guy is.

Searching for Grace is a highly literate examination of complex family dynamics. There are no cheap thrills in this challenging, three-dimensional novel. Author Kear captures the delicate search to restore emotional equilibrium after the loss of a loved one, the innate desire of every child to establish close bonds with its parents, and siblings' reclamation of one another. All of this emotional drama takes place in either the vibrant art world of New York City or desperately poor and AIDS-stricken Africa. Searching for Grace is a highly intelligent read, not for everyone.

This is a wonderfully told story of family relationships, expectations of parents of their children and children of their parents, and family communications. It's a very well written story about the disappointments of parents and children who do not meet each others expectations, but, are unable to talk about it. This is set against the backdrop of a poignant love story about the loss of a love from breast cancer, and beginning recovery from that loss. One of my criteria for liking a book is that I care about what happens to at least some of the characters. This book is about the evolution of three strong women of varied ages who I came to care about very much. I highly recommend this book.

Cynthia Kear has written a debut novel that will capture your imagination and leave you revisiting her characters in your mind. Her story ranges from the cold ambitious penthouses of NY to the dust and dispair of the ghettos of Nairobi. Take one sister who battles the world through intellect and science, and another who suffers and transforms life through her painting and you have a stage set for the masterful and unforgettable drama of Searching for Grace. Who needs grace? And why? What, finally, IS grace?

GRACE HALSELL WAS INTRIGUED BY THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HOW THE BLACK AMERICANS LIVED AND THE WHITE AMERICANS. AFTER A GREAT DEAL OF INDICISION SHE INGESTED A COMPOUND THAT WOULD TURN HER SKIN BLACK, THUS BEGAN HER ADVENTURES. A FEW THINGS WERE STRIKING: ONE WAS THE VULNERBILITY OF BLACK PEOPLE, THEY SEEM TO HAVE NO DEFENSE, AND HER CONCLUSION THAT PEOPLE BECOME BOUND TO EACH OTHER FROM THE PRACTICE OF HURTING EACH OTHER. IT IS NOT A BORING BOOK.

This book is a must read. I have read it twice, loaned out my copy, it's falling apart and I will order another one. I think I like it a bit better than BLACK LIKE ME, but both will leave you shocked and shattered. Things have changed, but things haven't changed, too, and I as a Caucasian male do not doubt that this book is as relevant today as when it was written.

Ms. Halsell (sadly, she died in August 2000) sees that the issues she is confronting and dealing with can't be simply ascribed to "race" issues, but go deeper, to matters of the human heart and the isolation that each one of us must bear and deal with as individual human beings in a world of sin and suffering and pain. Hence, she doesn't come to the easy answer of "If only Blacks and Whites (or Jews and Gentiles or Hispanics or American Indians or Palestinians and Israelis, etc.) would understand each other better, these problems wouldn't exist." She won't be that simplistic, and for that reason, SOUL SISTER raises (or should raise) larger issues in the readers' minds than the subject matter might lead one to expect.

Read it. Read it now. Read it often.

A very interesting book. Halsell has a history of putting herself in untenable positions purely to find out what they are like ("She has lived on a fishing junk in Hong Kong with a Chinese family of twenty-eight, traveled 2,000 miles down the Amazon by tug, and has crossed the Andes by jeep."), and then writing about them (her newspaper journalism has been "datelined Russia, China, Korea, and Vietnam"). Inspired by Griffin's "Black Like Me", she undertook to change the color of her skin (the process and results of which are a story unto themselves at the beginning of the book), donned dark contact lenses, and embarked on a journey through Harlem and Jackson, Mississippi in skin that was not her own.

The extreme sides of bigotry and compassion that she encountered are an account worth reading for any American, white or black, who is curious about how we humans receive eachother. It must be pointed out however that as a rather privileged white American, Halsell was left still lacking the experience of being raised black in our still-strictured country. Still, for lacking this total viewpoint, her "discoveries" are remarkably compelling on a simply human level (a point at which perhaps all things should be judged).

Whether she was wrong or right to do what she did, she did it for her own reasons, and indeed resisted withholding the truth of her real person from many of her black companions, preferring honesty (and being treated with dislike in some cases) to deceit. Overall very worthwhile reading, if only to provoke oneself into thinking about things many of us would prefer to ignore and let lie in the back of our heads instead of openly and objectively considering. And please, don't try to make yourself feel better when reading by saying, "Oh, well, this happened thirty years ago," when we should all be aware that these invisible walls and boundaries still exist all around us even today.

To say I enjoyed the reading experience of "Starvinsky's Lunch" would be a gross disservice to the achievement of the writer. I felt that the artists' minds (both Stella Bowen¡¯s and Grace Cossington Smith¡¯s) were uniquely explored - not exposed with a terminal completion, but explored and searched with a satisfyingly partial understanding.

The majority of Modjeska's understanding of her two subjects comes from their art - and not from letters, diaries or interviews with contemporaries - although these also figure large in the total insight. By making the majority revolve on their art means that the two things can be said about the understandings offered - (1) they are highly personal and interpretive to the writer, and (2) force us to see and think of these women artists through their art rather than through any other window of our view of them.

On the first point - that the insights are personal to the biographist - this is a delight in the hands of such a gifted writer and observer, but it also leaves the reader with the privilege of sharing a more emotively insightful understanding of the subjects. It is like having a biography written by a lover/spouse/parent ¨C it leaves us with two impressions ¨C both an understanding of the person and the relationship between them and the biographer. Of course we achieve this at the expense of objectivity, but with the benefit of a more intimate, more contextual, more sympathetic view. For me Drusilla Modjeska¡¯s sharing of her interpretations and impressions of her two subjects - based mainly on looking at their art - has given me an unforgettably intimate insight into the hearts and minds of two fine artists. And her interpretations ¨C nearly always matched by illustrations of the art under discussion ¨C are convincing to me. I believe her interpretations.

On the second point, I have been left with an action plan out of reading this biography ¨C I want to look at the paintings. I think that is a very positive outcome after reading biography of artists!! Yesterday I saw Grace Cossington Smith¡¯s ¡°Harbour Bridge¡± at NGV in Melbourne. Stella Bowen¡¯s work is harder to see ¨C but there is a traveling exhibition in Australia at the moment. It¡¯s not so unique for a biography of an artist to send us to look at the paintings ¨C but in this case my thirst is to find the two women in their paintings ¨C not paintings that illustrate events in their lives.

To return to my original observation. Stravinsky¡¯s Lunch is a marvelous reading experience. It communicates an incomplete understanding of its subjects and therein lies one great strength. It is intriguing, up-lifting but not didactically complete. But it sets us off the want to know the subjects better ¨C by looking at what they must have seen as the heritage they wanted to leave ¨C their art.

"For somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work. Help me, in saying it, to understand it." Rilke.

Stravinsky's lunch, and that of his wife and children, was taken in silence when he was composing. The slightest sound, it seems, "could destroy his concentration and ruin an entire work". Is family life, then, incompatible with great art? Is compromise impossible? Could Stravinsky not have taken his lunch on a tray in his room and left his wife and children free from such restraint?

And what about women artists? Can they possibly juggle family, love and art?

Questions of compromise lie behind all the lives in this book, including Modjeska's, but this does not make it a dry book of philosophy or polemic.

On the contrary, it is a rich and engrossing book about the lives of two Australian women artists, Stella Bowen (1893-19470) and Grace Cossington Smith (1892-1984) whose lives and art were very different and who dealt with this problem in very different ways. It is also a book which is richly illustrated. And Modjeska has a superb ability to describe paintings in such a way that the viewer/reader sees them anew with her, noticing subtle details and sharing the empathy she has developed with the artist through exploring that artist's life.

Unusually for a modern biographer, Modjeska is careful to distinguish between speculation and fact. Occasionally she does weave imaginary lives for her subjects but she makes it clear that these are her own fantasies and that myth is a dangerous indulgence. This is especially so in the case of Grace Cossington Smith, who "left little trace of herself. Her private personal self. There are few interviews, few letters, few photos, no diaries". All there is to work on is her art, which, in its directness and modernism is tantalizingly at odds with the description of Grace given at her memorial service as "a sweet Christian lady". "Sweet", Modjeska notes, "is never the word for an artist; or if it is, you can be sure it's not a compliment". Such pithy comment is typical of Modjeska's style.

Neither Stella Bowen nor Grace Cossington Smith are well known outside Australia, although Stella Bowen shared a decade of her life with Ford Maddox Ford, worked with him to establish and fund _transatlantic review_ in 1924 (Tristan Tzara, e.e.cummings and Havelock Ellis featured in it), and brought up their daughter Julie. At the same time, her own art was exhibited in Paris, she wrote a weekly column ('Round the Galleries' ) for the London News Chronicle and, after leaving Ford, took portrait commissions in America and, during World War II, was commissioned as a war artist by the War Memorial in Canberra. Altogether, she led a very full and independent life in which she successfully managed to juggle mundane work, love and family with her commitment to fine art.

The life of Grace Cossington Smith took quite a different course. Apart from two years spent with family in England and Germany as a young girl, and a later visit to Europe in 1949-50, Grace spent all her life in Australia. She was supported by her family. Even domestic duties did not impinge on her time: a younger sister took on this role for the family and Grace "managed never to master" the kitchen arts (the position of that 'never' is subtle and telling).

Grace was artistic and talented. She won art prizes at school; and her father built a studio for her in their suburban garden and paid for her to attend the Sydney art school run by Italian artist Dattilo-Rubbo. Unlike Stella Bowen, she had "No husband. No babies. No affairs. No scandals. No cafes in Paris.". Yet Grace Cossington Smith was one of the first and best modernist artists in Australia, and she achieved this in spite of the critical antagonism of the powerful male art-establishment: "the buggers' union" as Naomi Mitchison, an Australian friend of Stella Bowen, called them. She achieved it, too, in spite of the fact that the work of artists like Picasso, Cezanne, Gaugin, Matisse, Van Gogh and Watteau (all of whose work seems to have influenced her own) was unavailable to her in Australia, except as reproductions. This was true, too, of the work of masters like Fra Angelica, whose work she first saw and loved on her visit to Italy when she was fifty-seven.

It is shocking to be reminded that Australian artists were so cut off from the art of Europe for so long. In 1936 the director of the National Gallery of Victoria still spoke of "modernist filth"; and the first exhibition of 'French and British Contemporary Art' was seen in Australia in 1939 - although none of it was bought by Australian public galleries, two of which refused even to host the show.

Grace Cossington Smith succeeded by dedication as much as by talent. Many other artists felt the need to leave Australia in order to succeed: this, too, is a question Modjeska ponders.

Other artists, literary and figurative, appear in this book. Rilke and Paula Modersohn-Becker set the scene. Ford Maddox Ford, Edith Sitwell, Virginia Wolf, Vanessa Bell, Sinclair Lewis and (in Australia) Dattilo-Rubbo, Ethel Anderson, Julian Ashton, Margaret Preston and others become part of Modjeska's investigation of the relationship between art and life. She is erudite and intelligent but she wears her knowledge lightly. Above all she brings her two main subjects to life and shows their importance as artists and, particularly, as women artists who succeeded in the male-dominated art world in which they lived and worked. Their stories are inspiring, fascinating and thought-provoking and Modjeska tells them wonderfully well. ...

Women artists were leaders in the Modernist movement in Australia between the two World Wars. This books looks at two, whose lives are like a mirror image of each other, Stella Bowen and Grace Cossington Smith. More than a straightforward biography, it addresses the dilemma of love and art. Do women have to sacrifice one for the other?

Modjeska's motif is a story she first heard from a friend. She says: "It isn't much of a story, simply that when Stravinsky was in mid-composition, he insisted that his family ate lunch in silence. The slightest sound, a murmur, even a whisper, could ruin his concentration and destroy an entire work."

"It's not a particularly unusual story - great male artists have demanded more than that in the name of Art - and yet it has worked on me, and in me, in ways that it has taken me a long time to understand. What began, for me, as an argument has become taken into my life as a kind of meditation."

At the time Bowen and Smith were developing as artists, Virginia Woolf was writing that in order for a woman to succeed as an artist she needed A Room Of One's Own and 500 pounds a year - ie an income sufficient for self-support.

Stella Bowen was born in 1893, Grace Cossington Smith in 1892. They led extremely different lives. Bowen went to europe, met and fell in love with a writer, Ford Madox Ford, spent a decade keeping house for him, and raising their child (which she continued to do after they separated). She lived in England and France from the evee of WW1, and never returned to Australia. Smith, on the other hand, lived for most of her life in a (then) semi-rural, outer suburb of Sydeny, bucolicly middle-class. She had the financial support of her encouraging family, who facilitated her art. One sister remained unmarried, and for most of the time kept house.

Modjeska said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald:

"It is very tough to be a woman and an artist. It has always been tough to be a woman and an artist. I have had a pretty good run as a writer, but even I have tasted enough of it to know what it has been like for women before. Life intrudes. Love intrudes. Women don't seem to be able to separate the two, women don't seem to be permitted to separate the two, like the blokes are able to do. And what is interesting, the more I explored this, the more I realised that women are complicit in the whole thing, too. The whole question became very complex."

The book is beautifully illustrated, with colour plates that are a pleasurable enhancement to the text. It is an engrossing and highly engaging read.

If you buy this book expecting to introduce your children to Arthurian myth, you will probably be disappointed. This book keeps only young Arthur, Merlin, and the barest outline of the beginning of the story of King Arthur.

If, however, you are looking for a reasonably fun, short story for a child who is past "Hop on Pop" but not ready to read anything much more complex, you will be very well pleased. The story is simple, but reasonably engaging, the vocabulary is also simple, and the illustrations are decent. This is the first "Hello Reader!" book I have bought for my 2nd grader for use in home schooling, but it will definitely not be the last.

The other review on this page mistakenly refers to this edition as the novel by T. H. White. Its not. This edition is a short adapation for young children of how King Arthur became king. Maccrone's Arthur is a young boy, and he is "tricked" by Merlin into freeing the sword from the stone. Boddy's illustrations are great.

Hey everyone out there! READ THIS BOOK! it is boring in some parts, but still good! This shows that T.H. White was an excellent author! He can spin magic with his fingers as well as J.K. Rawling and Brian Jacques! (Although they came after him!)

This book does a great job of helping us keep our perspective where it should be. It helps us understand how God sees us. It also helps us understand our flawed, culturally influenced view, of ourselves. I thought the Piano Teacher story was an awesome glimpse at how a loving God desires to relate to us.

This is a great book to read if you're thinking of backsliding due to criticism by the "spirit-filled" members of your church. I read this book in Spanish and it is just as powerful. The book deals with many aspects of daily christian life and how we get caught up with trying to meet with other's expectations. It brings you back to the basics of being a child of God, that feeling you had when you first believed. If you're struggling, like I was because of other people's opinion as to what you should be, then this is the book for you. The first chapter alone will convince you to keep God, and not man, in the right place.

This is one of those rare books that is able to touch people where they are really hurting, heal their wounds, and restore to them a vision of God's grace in their lives. It is designed for Christians who are particularly weary of all the burdensome rule-keeping they encounter in so many churches, and who have been spiritually injured by other Christians. My wife and I read it during a period when we were trying to recover from severe spiritual abuse in a small, cult-like group of Bible-believing Christians. Soon afterward we were priviledged to meet the author, and to share our sad experience with him. Steve Brown is a delightful writer -- but he is even more delightful in person! Now, as my wife and I go back to this book every once in a while for spiritual refreshment, we can hear the voice of the author (it doesn't hurt that we also listen to his "Key Life" radio program), and we know it's the voice of experience, sincerity, and grace. Steve Brown is a thoroughly orthodox, committed Christian who doesn't let that stop him from being gracious and loving, as so many these days seem to do.

This is another in the American Girls series about Samantha Parkington, a nine-year-old orphan girl living with her grandmother in the America of 1904. In this book, Samantha is all excited, preparing for the coming Christmas. But, when the family finds out that Samantha's Uncle Gard is bringing his girlfriend Cornelia to visit (a serious matter back then), the whole household is turned upside down, along with Samantha's plans. Samantha begins to resent Cornelia, but before Christmas Day arrives, she might just learn a lesson.

The final chapter of this book is a highly informative look at Christmas in 1904 America. Also, I must say that I did enjoy the wonderful illustrations provided by Nancy Niles and R. Grace.

This is another very good American Girls book. Unlike the other Samantha books that my daughter and I have read, this one does not set out to show any of the less savory details of life in 1904 America, but it is nonetheless and enjoyable book with a nice lesson. My daughter and I both enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to you.

Not the best of all the Samantha books, but really great. Samantha is so excited about Christmas and preparing for the holidays. Her plans are foiled when her Uncle Gard announces he is bringing his girlfriend Cornelia home for Christmas. Samantha wants to be nothing but hostile towards her, but as she gets to know her she likes her more and more. A great story about family, people, and the Christmas spirit.

Samantha's Surprise is the third book in a series of books about Samantha. Samantha is invited to A Christmas party put on by her good friend Ida Dean. At the same time she plans to make a large gingerbread house with Mrs. Hawkins, and decorate the house herself. But Samantha's Christmas plans start to fall when her Uncle Gard announces that he plans on bringing his friend Cornelia along for this Christmas. Now, it seems that all of Samantha's plans are destroyed--and Samantha blames Cornelia for ruining everthing. But there's more than one surprise in store for Samantha on Christmas day!
While Samantha's Christmas story isn't neccessarily the best in the series, her story has it's good points, and Samantha learns to accept change as a result. The book is a recommended read to those who are big fans of the American Girls Collection series. The Peek into the Past section at the end of the book tells about Victorian Era Christmas, and how it differed for the rich and the poor.

Craig Childs' writng is lyrical, personal, dramatic. He lives a life I wish I'd known I wanted to live when I was able to do so. Every one of his books is in my library. Last year I gave at least a half-dozen copies of 'The Secret Knowledge of Water' to friends and family. I look forward with keen anticipation to vicariously participating in his next set of adventures.

So what happened this time? Craig finds and reveals to his readers what it is that he searches for out there in the desert wilderness. Maybe I didn't like so much introspection. I know more about his friends and their private lives than I want to know. And (I don't want to sound prudish...everything has its place) I really don't want to know the color of his wife Regan Choi's various body parts.

That said, I must also say that I think it would be impossible to read anything by this author that does not inspire and impress. He is a gifted, very gifted, writer. And he is a crazy-man explorer of the wild places that are left in this world.

I read a lot of outdoor books, and I have to say this is one of the best that I have read in ages. Craig Childs lives, breaths, eats "wild." He writes with a clarity that makes me feel like I am alongside him -- and with a passion that is contagious. I am already planning a trip to visit some of the places he writes about. In the meantime, I'll nurse my desires by trying some of his other books.

I heard about this book on NPR and living in the area decided to read it. I have read several books about this area and the desert, in general and this is one of the best. Up there with Edward Abbey's books, but nowhere near as acidic. I have not yet read Child's other books, but he gives a great insight into the vastness of this area, both phyiscally and mentally. From someone who came to this area from back east, I recommend this book to anyone who would wonder why people would want to come to this area to live and work.

Like a real pro, Paul Dickson has produced, actually concocted, a rich compendium of examples and answers to any query and questions about toasting and hosting. Getting a copy even helped me articulate my sincere attestations when I entertain a few close friends and acquaintances in my modest home; though frequently with coffee or irish cream or shandy, seldom with wine.

Dickson does not preach, he guides and suggests. As your reading progresses, you easily learn, comprehend and take heart what is appropriate if perfect, and then sense what to avoid or perceive what is uncalled for when giving someone or something a toast.

This book is not only amusing. It's a deliciously entertaining and concrete fount of infos and references for fledgling hosts and party impresarios. I read my copy cover to cover and felt like popping the champagne and making the wine glasses clink! For Amazon --- I've changed my e-mail address from wsimple@yahoo to w_waif@yahoo

I bartended (part time) for years and heard a lot of toasts, but no one could explain the origin of toasting. A customer bought me this book and all my questions were answered.

The text is simple and easy to follow. If you are looking for a toast for a particular situation, just go to the category index in the front pages and thumb your way through.

You will laugh, you will learn, you may even get a little grossed out. But all in all, if you love history and you entertain or like to be the life of the party, this is a great buy. I recommend it highly.

This is a fantastic resource, the best single source on toasting which I have ever come across. The introduction and "Brief History of Raised Glasses" provides a brief, gentle, and highly useful education so that you can oh so suavely back up immediately any question or challenge to the quote you've chosen from this cornucopia of highly organized toasts for just about any occasion imaginable.

The illustrations are superfluous, but the footnotes are very, very useful. At first glance a bit pedantic, they allow the user of the toast to speak (and understand) the traditional language, such as "stook," "murphies," and "banns." The different subject areas, plainly intuitive, and listed alphabetically in the table of contents include such further instructive chapters as "Hints for Effective Toasting," "Odd Customs," a "Selected Toast and Tipple Glossary," and "Skoaling." The different subject areas are also modestly cross-referenced to each other, such as the entry "see also 'friendship;' 'general;' 'guests'" concluding the "Hosts and Hostesses" section. There is also a useful bibliography.

What is missing and would have completed the book would be an index. This is my only complaint with this superb, and in my case oft-used little reference.

I thought this book had some very insightful looks into grace, and its role in Chrisianity. The problem I had with this book is that pretty much all the insights could have been fit into a 20 page paper. I ended up having to really force myself to finish the book because about half way through the book, I got really bored with the rehashing of the same ideas. Worth reading, but I would probably just stop halfway through, you will have gotten everything the book will offer you.

I read this book over a long Christmas break and it was the perfect book for the season. Grace is an amazing thing and Mr. Yancey captures it so well in his words. Mr. Yancey's writing style is very comforting like a good conversation. I recommend this both as something to read and something to give as a gift to someone that needs a reminder of the good in this world.

There are books that come along that make a difference in our lives, but this "takes the cake"! I feel my life will never be the same after reading his insights into Grace and the challenge we have before us as Christians. I am grateful to Mr. Yancey and feel I am blessed to be sharing this time in history with him. He has such a gift to offer. Mary Sue Reutebuch