I'm glad I ignored the Kurkis Review or I would never have experienced the enjoyable true story of the life of an American pioneer; James Wells of Montana. This book is a great read for those who want a snapshot of life in the early west without wading though the details that could bough down the telling of the story. Of course a book with only 256 pages will miss some details or information especially since it spans such a long period. However, recognizing that, the author entertains us with some dialog that brings the story to life and made it quite enjoyable. Wells and his adventures, which were true (including marrying the princess of a Gros Ventre tribe), fascinated me. As his life unfolded, I had the same impressions that I enjoyed in "Dance with the Wolves" and "Jeremiah Johnson". It's unbelievable what our forefathers did to pave the way for us in the 20th Century. You don't need me to quote the story line or talk about the people and places. The best I can do is say that as a reader of almost any type of book including, autobiographies, science fiction, mysteries, adventure, and fiction, this book goes on my recommendation list. Just read and enjoy the short narrative about one person's true story and the world around him in the early west. There's even a gunfight for those that loved "Gunsmoke". After reading this story, I'm looking forward to reading James Frank's next book "Mary Wells".

I really enjoyed reading James Wells of Montana, an excellent, first-hand look at early American history. This true tale also provides many interesting facts of the native-American Gros Ventre culture -- very educational and my favorite aspect of the book. As you read, you become enveloped in the life of James Wells, and feel his and his family's struggles and joys. There are even some humorous anecdotes that round out the story. If you like learning about other cultures, history, or the Old West, or just enjoy accounts on the life of a family, then this book is for you.

I read this book in one afternoon. I applied the ideas and have had a far more productive garden in less space with far less effort than before. Ball's book presents specific information, complete with shopping lists for materials and sources of hard-to-find products. He also includes information on companion planting, scheduling and organic approaches. I wouldn't be without it!

This is the book to have if you want a beautiful and productive garden, especially if you don't have a lot of room. I've been carrying this book around with me for years, just waiting until I finally owned my own house so that I could build the raised beds and the interlocking system that he describes in this book.

My neighbors were a little bemused when they saw us out in the back yard, building our garden: "Oh, those are those raised beds, eh? I've heard of those" I'll tell you, when we had a cold spring and I turned my beds into little greenhouses (by covering pvc arches with clear plastic) I got a few more odd looks, but when it finally warmed up I took off the plastic and my tomatoes were three times the size of everyone else! With that head start, they were soon over six feet tall, and producing more wonderful tomatoes than I could handle.

Oh, and not needing to weed the garden (thanks to using his system of plastic mulch) and being able to water the whole garden by just turning a knob (thanks to setting up a drip irrigation system under the mulch, as he explains in the book) made taking care of my garden much easier than the traditional row gardens my neighbors have. As time passes, and my soil gets better and better, the advantages of this system will continue to accrue.

It's sad that this book is out of print, but it's definitely worth some effort to find a copy!

Fans of the Pretty Woman will find this modern day fairy tale very inspiring: the small town girl has become Hollywood's most durable superstar, the one and only superstar of the nineties...This book provides great info and behind the scenes looks at Julia Roberts...It's like a huge article that covers everything from Julia's birth to the making of Erin Brockovich.

Hard to put down. Very informative about Julia Roberts life and movie career. If there is anything you want to know about her, this is the book for you. It is also current and up to date on this superstar.

This guide is a great book. It offers off the beaten track places, and always includes places for the budget traveler. Seemingly geared toward the student traveler, I found it great for the young-at-heart as well.

In my travels around eastern U.S. over the last year I have been amazed at the unusual, off the beaten path things Let's Go USA consistently includes. Unlike other travel guides I've seen, this guide bypasses the ordinary tourist traps in favor of the spots only longtime residents of the area would seemingly be aware of. Also, using the guide for months, rarely did I spend more than $10-15 a day. This guide caters to the low-budget traveler, offering such suggestions as getting a college dorm for $15/night, eating huge $2 BBQ dinners and seeing impressive, but free (or dirt-cheap) sights. I was also very impressed with the accuracy of the guide. Very rarely did I find misinformation, which meant I did not have to make endless calls shopping around for the cheapest place to stay or ask around for a good place to eat--it was all right there in the guide. Within all of this, the guide is enjoyable to read. I would often find myself reading sections in the guide that I had no intention of going to, just for a fun read. For anyone traveling in the US on a tight budget or not, young or old, as a rambling backpacker or with the family, Let's Go is an invaluable companion.

His characters are hilarious and not uncommon in my experience in the bond business in the 70's and 80's. There is a lot of color in the bond side which is lacking on the equity sude and the author did a good job of bring this out. Good job.

The novel is one of the best that I have read in quite sometime. McConnell's Gsrnish speaks with a clarity that I have actually seen in some alcoholics. I'm not trying to be funny, but this novel does use a lot of adjectives but somehow it works. Ray Carver once wrote that once he saw Gimmicks he would run for cover, but it just somw how works; similarly to a Charles Bukowski story. Keep on writing Brother because this novel rules!

My daughter (6 years old)has always loved dogs and this book (as I hope the rest in the series will continue) has helped keep her interest in books and reading. We took turns reading each paragraph and she had the confidence to read her very first chapter book without the "I can read" title. Although she has always loved reading, this book gave her the interest and confidence to try on her own with out the aid of pictures. A little drama (will Lilly find her way home?) and alot of fun escapades keep this a great book for begining readers who love dogs.

My daughter got this book for her 6th birthday. She would not put it down. And then she had to read it several times. She is asking for the other books too. This book is actually for ages 6-8.

A beautiful story, beautifully written, Little Horse, by Frank Minogue, is aimed at children but, like all the best children's stories, can be read with pleasure by people of all ages. It is a tale of triumph over adversity, of faith and conflict, resting on strong ethical foundations.
The main character, the Little Horse of the title, does not possess the strength of others in the herd, but he has something else: he has a vision. This vision leads him and the other horses on a quest for a new life. The story is simple, but moving, and exquisite descriptive passages bring the horses' world alive as they travel towards their destination.
Beth Lee Cripe's evocative illustrations provide a vivid counterpoint to the text.
This book is a perfect present for any child who reads, but make sure you read it yourself, too.

Little Horse is a wonderful children's book about using ones own talents for the good of the community. With a handicap, Little Horse is able to use his strengths to save the herd from the encroachment of humans. It is a great story about focusing on our strengths. Filled with adventure, this book keeps you wondering what is going to happen around the next bend.

This book, while well-written and organized, can be slightly frustrating. Those readers looking for a straight-forward, purely factual explanation of quantum physics should go elsewhere. This text, which I read for a 100-level physics class, flips between flowing metaphors and Feynman diagrams, while trying to explain the concepts behind quantum physics. In other words, there is thankfully no math. The authors do tend to get slightly overconfident in their theories at times, putting more authority behind their pet ideas than may be warranted. Still, overall it's a good overview of quantum physics for those who want to understand it conceptually.

_Longing for the Harmonies_ presents the highlights of physics in a way that is accessible to most readers. It is a graceful book that pleases as it informs. One of the authors, Frank Wilczek, is a leading physicist.

Publisher Reilly & Lee Co. consistently had great luck in discovering new authors to carry on the Oz chronicle after L. Frank Baum's passing. Ruth Plumly Thompson, who followed Baum, wrote 19 smoothly written, strong, and inventive titles. Longtime Oz illustrator John R. Neill subsequently authored three, one of which, The Wonder City Of Oz (1940), is a genuine classic in the series.

The Magical Mimics In Oz (1946), the first of two books by Jack Snow, was yet another success. While its story is derivative of several past Oz tales, Snow confidently took the driver's seat when he took up his pen; his vision of Oz is spirited, playful, and precise. Most noticeably, Snow gave Dame Nature a prominent role in his conception of the Oz utopia. Princess Ozana's Story Blossom Garden, for example, is extensively and lovingly described: "Flowers of every variety grew in profusion. Save for the mossy paths that wound through the garden, there was not a spot on the ground that was without blossoming plants. As for the pond, it was like a small sea of lovely blossoming water plants. At the edge of the pond, Dorothy noted three graceful white swans, sleeping in the shade of a large flowering bush that grew at the edge of the pond and trailed its blossoms into the water. The air was sweet with the perfume of thousands and thousands of flowers." For the fairy Ozana, lonely for the companionship of living things on her mountaintop home were she stands perpetual guard over the evil Mimics, has created a garden of vocal, story-telling flowers. The perfumes of the flowers, Ozana tells Dorothy and the Little Wizard, are the essence of their souls. Snow lovingly spends an entire chapter on the Story Blossom Garden, and, though the plants have been awakened to a new degree of life by Ozana's magic, Snow makes it clear that nature, in and of itself, is majestic and miraculous.

In a later chapter, Toto, Betsy Bobbins, and Hank the Mule take a stroll into the meadows surrounding the Emerald City to pick flowers and enjoy a picnic. Snow writes, "there were few things Toto liked better than to get out in the country and frolic in the fields." Jack Kramer's illustrations of their outing, and of Toto basking in the sun, underscore Snow's Eden-like conception of the simple outdoors. Unlike the depictions of nature in the Baum and Neill books, which characterize Ozian nature as a somewhat brittle facsimile of nature as readers know it, Snow's natural world, like Thompson's, breathes, sings, and emits an intrinsic magic which has nothing to do with sorcery. Thus Oz, in the Thompson and Snow titles, is a kind of Arcadia, where nature in its pure state is a powerful, fundamental source of joy and inspiration.

The Magical Mimics In Oz has been called 'dark' by some, largely because its story sees the Emerald City conquered and its royal family enchanted, imprisoned, and threatened with unpleasant fates. Werewolf-like Queen Ra, the evil leader of the protean Mimics, taunts her bound captives with her plans for their immediate futures: Scraps the Patchwork Girl is to be converted into a pin cushion, the Glass Cat melted down and rolled into marbles, Billina the Yellow Hen roasted for dinner, the Woozy chopped into building blocks, and Tik Tok eternally disassembled and reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle for Ra's amusement. The Scarecrow, who vocally leads the opposition, is simply to be burned to a cinder. But these threats are clearly paper tigers and bullying threats, more amusing and startling than cause for genuine alarm, as the Magical Mimics In Oz, like the Thompson and Neill chronicles, is a fun and entertaining book without a genuinely darker subtext.

In fact, Baum's own The Tin Woodman Of Oz (1918), with its lengthy focus on actual human dismemberment, is by leaps and bounds the more unsettling story. In that book's color cover illustration, there is red blood on the edge of the Woodman's axe; and the Scarecrow, larking about, sings, "to cut me don't hurt, for I've no blood to squirt." Fans of the Baum titles have historically failed to acknowledge that Baum's continual use of the adjective "meat" (rather than 'flesh') to describe his human and animal characters might be unsettling to small children, for whom consumption of meat is likely a part of their everyday lives.

Snow's characterizations of the Oz royal family are beautifully realized throughout. The Magical Mimics In Oz, more than any other Oz title, regardless of author, is vastly inclusive: Ozma, Glinda, Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, and the Little Wizard are actively present, but so are Professor Wooglebug, the Sawhorse, the Tin Woodman, Tik Tok, the Hungry Tiger, gate keeper Omby Amby, Billina, Aunt Em, Cap'n Bill, Ojo, the Woozy, Button Bright, Uncle Henry, Betsy Bobbin, Hank the Mule, the Cowardly Lion, the Glass Cat, Trot, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Pink Kitten, and Scraps the Patchwork Girl. Even the Frog Man, Dr. Pipt, and Cayke the Cookie Cook get a mention. Sadly, recent Neill creations Number Nine, Jenny Jump, Lucky Bucky, and the Scalawagons are nowhere in evidence. Classic Thompson character Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant is also conspicuously absent.

Snow's evil Mimics of Mount Illuso, literal first cousins to the Phanfasms, while not remarkably original, nonetheless make effective villains; happily, Snow allows the Mimics to accomplish some genuine dirty work instead of merely planning and threatening to. New Snow creations Princess Ozana and living pine puppets Mr. and Mrs. Hi-Lo are cheerful additions to the Oz chronicle. Illustrator Jack Kramer's interesting depiction of Mimic King Umb as a horned, cloven-hoofed man-monster may have put some parental noses out of point in 1946; it's interesting that Snow and Kramer avoid a direct depiction of the historical Devil of Christianity by allowing King Umb only one horn, which juts from his forehead like a unicorn's. Elsewhere, Kramer's illustrations are clearly a loving tribute to Neill. Recommended.

Soem Oz Fans consider this dark, but I personally LOVED it and enjoyed reading it very much. Its based on how Dorothy and the Wizard are taking care of Oz while Ozma and Glinda are away, but the evil Mimic Rulers want to conquer Oz since tehy want revenge on Queen Lurline, who turned Oz into a fairy country ages ago. They trap Dorothy and teh Wizard in a wicked spell, and turn themselves into Dorothy and the Wizard themselves, and try to find Ozma's magic items which could help their tribe to invade Oz and destroy all the people. However, Ozana, the Guardian Fairy of Oz helps Dorothy and the Wizard......but can she help them BEFORE the Mimics find Ozma's spells and before Ozma and Glinda return to Oz? I think it was a thrilling Oz adventure with a wonderful ending. If you like the Oz Books, I recommend this....and infact, I liked the way it was 'dark' for a change......Jack Snow shows us his brilliant imagination and writing skills ion this BRILLIANT Oz Story.....

Frank Miller has always been skeptical about paternalistic ideologies of left and right and shows it again in this graphic novel. Martha Washington is forced to confront a virtually human super computer which simply wants to perfect what it perceives to be a flaw humanity. Its utopia would,of course, reduce people into soulless robots who have no free will and Martha, long an independently minded sort, leads the fight. It is quality entertainment from Miller and Gibbons.

Mr Miller at his best, this is one of the best comics i ever read. Ok, get a copy, and you would think just like me.