This two-volume series was my inroduction to Paul Horgan who became one of my favorite authors. It is interesting to note he and Frank Waters ('the Man who Killed the Deer') died recently just two weeks apart. They were both 92, and among the greatest authors who dealt with the Rio Grande. Mr. Hogan's dedication to detail set him apart from Willa Cather whose fame rests upon her book 'Death comes to the Archbishop,' using Lamy as her subject. She rejected the aproach of Paul Horgan who at the time was writing his own history, 'Lamy of Santa Fe.' Willa Cather was a novelist; Paul Horgan an historian, and of the two I prefer the truth. Anyone interested in the history of the Rio Grande will be delighted with Paul Horgan's two-volume introduction to it.

One of the major materpieces of American historical writing. The two volumes are a continuing delight, far better than any historical novel. Scene succeds scene, filled with movement, passion and unbelievable heroism. Won the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prizes for History, and is considered the greatest history of the Rio Grande from pre-Columbian time to mid 20th century.

Set in 1971 in a small Minnesota town named Gudhemma or "God's Home", Gudhemma is a simple, thoughtful, and highly entertaining novel of a young woman's adolescence and adulthood. Self-searching, the struggle for finding balance and uncovering the truth about a parishioner suspected of ill deeds form the meat of this pleasant, solidly written narrative set in a central Minnesota community. Gudhemma documents author Christine Paul as an undeniably talented writer and will leave the reader looking forward to her next title.

I enjoyed this story very much, and it would be a great one to read aloud to a family while driving. The central character is first introduced as a bright and self-confident five year-old, and the book follows her into young adulthood. While she is admirable in all respects, a mischevious and stubborn streak keep her believable. Through the challenges and tempations she faces, the reader is led to ask questions about how we judge others. The story has a spiritual side to it, but never beats the reader over the head. Instead, the characters are portrayed very realistically, and the reader is allowed to draw their own conclusions about the issues.

This was an engaging tale that I can recommend to readers of all ages.

Ever heard the joke about the city planner who married his wife just so he wouldn't have to explain what city planning is on another first date again? Community development is often even harder for the general masses to comprehend, and yet we are a part of it all the time. CD is basically what happens when neighbors get together and decide they want a better neighborhood, where people can afford to live and still feel safe, still find economic opportunity and a sense of community. Over the last generation, a whole industry and profession has grown around this simple idea. CD is something you can now get a masters degree in. Most people in the CD field entered it through a back door. Today's CD professional is more than a person with good intentions. He/she has skills in real estate development, group facilitation and strategic planning, public policy analysis, and finance. This book is the first of its kind--an actual front door into the field--and it's a godsend for anyone considering a challenging and meaningful career in making neighborhoods better. The book gives great background on the industry, has real case studies with leaders--as well as everyday joes--in the field, lists common job titles and responsibilities, and even estimates pay scales. It's an ambitious, yet slim, readable book that delivers what it promises.

Excellent guide for anyone considering or already starting out working or volunteering in the field of community development (CD) human services, economic development, planning, banking, politics. Comprehensive, well written, reader friendly, up to date, with specific tips and examples. Features: Concise overview of broadly interpreted CD industry and movement in U.S. of community renewal, organizing, planning, construction, financing, managing in lower income or disinvested communities. Great profiles of those working in the field from many walks of life, levels of formal education. Numerous profiles of nonprofits, for-profits, congregations, and public agencies leaders in CD. Good section on figuring out if this field for you and listing of pros and cons. Best ever appendices featuring texts, web sites, job hunting resources, schools, and portals, and organizations. Read in one one hour what has taken many several years to figure out. Great for guidance counselors, career services departments at universities. Useful too to educate board members and interns or philanthropists.

Normally on the 26th of October, I view the 1957 movie
"Gunfight at the O. K. Corral" with Burt Lancaster and
Kirt Douglas. I know exactly what I am getting which is
entertainment.

This year I flipped through the Thom Ross book by the
same title and again I was entertained. The Preface said
History but my gut reaction said entertainment. The
history here is fast and loose. Like the movie this book
is FICTION and should be accepted as such.

Enjoy the exquisite paintings. but ignore the connection
between the paintings and the text. And between the text
and History because it isn't here. In fact ignore the text
altogether. Buy this book for the paintings.
and you have a bargain

I do not wish to list the many historical errors of the Ross
and Hutton book here. That might ruin your enjoyment of the
paintings. On this the 120th anniversary of the gunfight
between good and evil, stay focused on the main event.
Don't worry about desecration. Think consecration. History
can wait. this is the age of art and entertainment. If you
have to blame anyone, blame the proofreader. What does he
know?

Thom Ross knows his O.K. Corral history -- there's no doubt about that -- but it is the O.K. Corral myth that he really seeks to translate into the painting contained in this book. Whereas most Western American art is firmly realistic, often almost photographic in intent, Ross's art dares to venture into the realm of the abstract to better capture those elements of myth. In nearly fifty paintings, accompanied by his own text, Thom Ross tells the story of this most famous gunfight in history. I cannot think of another book which has ever sought to achieve such an end, so I believe that Ross deserves double praise for his creativity. If you don't know much about this event, then "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" is not at all a bad place to begin learning. But even if you have read a dozen books about that day in Tombstone, Ross's book will still have a powerful impact. And after you close the covers of this slender volume, those images remain in your vision, haunting and somehow very alive.

This is my fifth Goddard, and each maintains a freshly unique, suprising, suspensful character. The Spanish Civil War is an active character in the novel, and offers a valuable learning experience in itself. The theme of webs, connections and linkages continues from Goddard's other novels. All issues are finally resolved but not without unexpected twists and turns that make it difficult to put the book down.

The plot is well thought out. Unlike most of Goddard's books, half way through, I was sure that I fully understood what was going on and who had committed the murder. All the facts fitted my suppositions so I was a little disappointed at how easy it was to determine what was going on. Then the plot changed dramatically and all my suppositions were proved to be wrong. Red herrings galore! The final pages of the book reveal the most plausible of solutions to the scenario. As with most of RG's books, the final pages reveal a solution not thought of, but altogether too plausible. An Excellent read! Terry Hockenhull

This is a great book to have as a reference as you study the Bible or just to browse through when you have a few spare moments. This book has been put together by leaders in the study of religions. It is not biased toward any sect within Christianity. The information is backed up with references to the original documents.

A great companion to the Harper Collins Study Bible.

I became aware of this volume while leading a Disciple II Bible study group. This volume is an excellent source for familiarizing yourself with almost any topic of interest from the Bible. I have been checking other sources and have not yet found another to be as helpful and readable as the Harper Collins Bible Dictionary. We have made it a part of the resource library for our congregation's youth church school class.

This book ewas really good. It has some good charecters. It was also really exciting. Like when Nancy goes to investigate. That part is creepy. So, this is a good book, and totally worth buying!

i thought this book was great, and that it was really fun to read. it was very mysterious and creepy, and if you like those kind of mysteries, then surely you'll love this book. what i liked about it was that it had a lot of interesting parts in it, such as: nancy chasing a thief through a haunted house in a carnival, sneaking around in a building and trying to ward off bad guys, trying to figure out a REALLY puzzling note, etc. i think that if you love mysteries, you'll like this book.

Framed as a 1920s novel by an obscure French poet, based on the life of Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann, the ambitious mid-19th century Prefect of Paris, LaFarge's ("The Artist of the Missing") second book transports the reader to a cramped, unsanitary, venerable Paris in the midst of its transformation to a modern airy city of wide boulevards and functional sewers - as envisioned by Haussmann.

The narrative opens by questioning the story that on his deathbed Haussmann regretted his modernizing zeal. "Regret is a backward-turning emotion, and the Baron was famous for straightforwardness; he made the boulevards and razed the crooked lanes where tanners' sheds fronted cracked courtyards and sewer ditches spilled over into the bins of wire and paper petals of the artificial-flower makers for which the city, before his arrival on the scene, was famous."

This regret is the thread the all-but-omniscient narrator follows from the old Paris that spawned a great, clandestine love, to the ambition and modern rigidity that crushed it, leaving a bitter thirst for revenge in the ruins.

Haussmann's lover, Madeleine, was born in 1840 in the tumult and squalor of old Paris. "Born to a tanner's dying wife, she was dropped in the Bievre. There she was saved by pollution, for the river was already so laden with debris that nothing more could sink into it." Fished out by a lamplighter who encourages her to regard the mystery of her birth as a special emancipation, and later raised in a convent where the nuns suspect a noble lineage, Madeleine's discovery of her actual parentage drives her to flee into "the cool, criminal indifference of the street."

When she surfaces again, she has found refuge in the home (and arms) of M. de Fonce, the "demolition man" who has grown rich on the clean sweep of Haussmann's modernizing broom. De Fonce has schooled himself in the value and appreciation of "the overlooked" and rich Parisians flock to his door for souvenirs of Paris' vanished buildings. And there, Haussmann meets Madeleine.

LaFarge's style is exuberantly Dickensian - full of painterly detail and droll quirks. The rounds of the lamplighter in old Paris are as vivid as the well-organized domicile of the Prefect or the subterranean warrens of the Paris library. Good natured ridicule is heaped equally high on the "celebrated decorum" of the court of the nervous Emperor Louis Napoleon and the flamboyantly artificial balls of the demi-monde. Much is made of hypocrisy, venality, greed and ambition. The serpentine plot winds through political and amorous intrigue, building to a frenzied crisis over Haussmann's grand plan to move the Paris cemeteries outside of the city and build a Railroad of the Dead.

His characters are richly and lovingly imagined, their foibles and fancies turned out with affectionate humor. Madeleine as a young convent girl fond of cats: "And Madeleine loved most of all that which was catlike in herself, in other words, that which achieved freedom without struggle and independence without loneliness, and for all that never had to go long without food."

And De Fonce's approach to people: "Just as a building becomes rich in artifacts right before it is demolished, so de Fonce found that he was best able to exploit his connoisseurship of human character by imagining those he met as near their ends. The demolition man addressed himself to a banker as he would to a dying patriarch, and to a civil servant as to a soldier polishing his boots the night before a battle with the Turk...."

And Haussmann, so much the visionary civil servant, hastening to consult de Fonce on the question of multiple personalities upon reading of an ordinary shepherd who committed a grisly murder, then had no recollection of it: "The question, yes, of what Sorgel was, really? A shepherd? Or a foot chopper? Which is the main current and which the tributary? ...What would de Fonce think? Would the next century bring a science that could answer such questions, a sort of hydraulics of the mind?"

Impressively researched, beautifully written, humorous and wise, LaFarge's novel captivates the reader with love and loss and lingers over the mixed virtues of prudence, impulse, heritage and progress.

Having recently returned from a visit in Paris and being familiar with the city's history, it was exciting to read this historical fiction concerning Haussmann. The book flows beautifully and I found it hard to put down. The author has an enjoyable way with words and you'll find yourself quickly caught up in this triangle. (I admit to having been fooled that this was supposedly a translation of a French book written in 1922. Until I read the Amazon review, I was admiring this "older" style of writing and wishing more people wrote like this today. I'm sure the author would get a grin out of that!)

This book is a definate conversation starter for otherwise uncomfortable or dull company. We got it out one night when family came for dinner. We learned a lot of things about our family and ourselves that we would have never known. Great ice-breaker and party book! I ordered this book used and was surprised to recieve a book in new condition in less than 3 days!

This book is a GREAT conversation-starter. It is a book of about 450 questions, all of which start with "Have you ever..." My husband and I thought we knew just about everything about each other, but this book brings up subjects we had never thought to discuss and stories of our lives we had never thought to tell each other. It could be fun at parties or with a good friend, or as we have used it--to deepen an already-great relationship.

Recently, I came across Paul Newham's book and though I haven't finished reading it yet, I am very excited about it. Being interested in expressive arts and vibrational/energy modalities "The Healing Voice" and Voice Movement Therapy speak to me. To express oneself through sound/song is such an essential part and key for our well-being. This book, it's information, examples and exercises will be helpful for many people. Freeing and finding one's true voice, spirit and potential to live authentically and joyful.

essentially derived from his many workshops attracting professionals in numerous fields this book is an fabulous work on the Human Voice in a myriad of glorious aspects. What is revealed amounts to a "How To" manual of the an incredibly overlooked power tool. Although it may sound like a book for New Age Choir Boys what blew me away was it's across the board attraction being both poetic and academic. Incorporating movement, mind, song, physics, the voice in battle and in prayer, speech therapy, liguistics, obviously lots on the healing potentials of sound and voice this work is often intriuging, humorous, and delightful. I can't think of a person under 12 who I would not recommend it to. Great stories, diagrams and examples. A definite for anyone intoe meditation, yoga, deep-breathing, Tai Chi, movement therapy, Jungian analysis, Recovery Counseling, and yes singers. This book is right up there with another favorite "The Music of Life" by Hazrat Inayat Khan