I absolutly loved this book. Not only is it entertaining, it's informative as well. There were stories focusing on all aspects of being BLGT teen, or in situations with others who are. AIDS, religion, and growing up gay yourself. Some, like Am I Blue? were more lighthearted in their aproach. Others, like Micheal's Little Sister or Three Mondays in July concentrated on coming to grips and realising and accepting yourself. All of these stories in one way or another teach you something.
This is a wonderful book and wether you are homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual or just curious, this book is a wonderful way to teach yourself and enjoy yourself at the same time.

This book is a must read for everyone: gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, or questioning. It is an interesting and instightful anthology of short stories that will open your eyes and mind. It includes stories, from funny to serious and happy to sad, by world renound and timeless writers such as Jaqueline Woodson and M.E. Kerr.

This is a really good book for anyone and everyone to read. Adults, teens, gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight, or people confused about their sexual orientation could all benifit from reading this book. This book tackle important issues in a wonderful way, short fictional stories. I think through reading this book, stereotypes and perujuces can be broken down. I would recommend that everyone read this book at some point in their live. There are twelve short stories in this book, and I though ten of them were great, while the other two were okay.

Psychologist and author Jill Mellick offers much more than a dream interpretation book in The Art of Dreaming: Tools for Creative Dreamwork. Conventional interpretation relies on words to describe dream imagery, and often the words are terribly inadequate. Dr. Mellick says "we can express dreams in the art form the best suits them, in the art form whose structure is most akin to their innate structure."

She then fully describes more than 50 ways to explore dreams, including painting, dance, sculpture, drawing, poetry, music, or any combination of these. She explains several techniques for letting go of expectations and allowing the dream to guide the dreamer to the best form of expression.

Dr. Mellick also recognizes that many people don't have lots of time for working on their dreams. For those with little time for reflection, she provides a chapter titled "Expressive Dream Work in Five Minutes." A companion chapter offers techniques for those who have as much as ten minutes a day for dream work.

Not all dreams are pleasant. She offers help also to those haunted by nightmares, including how to make a healing mandala. She also discusses dreams in which a particular action or image is repeated.

Although most of us prefer to work alone with our dreams, some people find it beneficial to form a dream work group. Dr. Mellick provides guidelines for establishing a group and ensuring that it's beneficial to all participants.

One fascinating exercise asks people to imagine life events as a dream. The events can be ordinary activities. She says that doing this offers a new perspective that can be helpful in understanding our lives.

"The Art of Dreaming is an excellent resource and practical manual that inspires and amplifies self-discovery and understanding of the rich spiritual treasure and guidance that dreams provide."

This book is a jewel box. What a relief to find a book of dream work that encourages one to explore, expand, and appreciate the dream itself, rather than squeeze it down to fit one single theory or crummier yet,to interpret it. Mellick acknowledges while theories can be helpful, anyone else's opinion is secondary to your own. It's your dream and yours alone.
Mellick opens up dreams, as one might a box of paints, and presents a series of brief lessons, ways to work with inner material that are rich, fruitful and ultimately nourishing.
Her premise is that since dreams do not come to us in strings of words, why should we limit working with them to writing and talking. "We can express dreams in the art form that best suits them." (p. 13). The core of the book presents several dozen different art forms, taking from five to fifteen minutes (including a number that make use of words) that can take the most mundane seeming dream and uncover many layers of meaning within it.
By taking her suggestion to treat dreams as visits to another culture, one far more varied and flexible than our waking reality, she makes all dreams, even nightmares, worth exploring. Mellick says (and shows to be true) that "the dream is often the companion of the soul," (p. 18). She would have us settle for nothing less.
I highly recommend this book if you are open to merging your own creativity, no matter if it is embryonic or fully developed, with your nightly visits to the dream garden that grows inside your heart.

In this work, Jill Mellick takes us into the foreign culture of dreams, using as a guide map the exploratory power of the arts. In her introduction, Mellick compares exploring the world of dreams to exploring a culture different from our own. We proceed, she cautions, with a combination of respect, honor, curiosity, and many tools to guide us into the new territory.

These tools are the expressive arts and the variety of approaches that Mellick offers. With over sixty 5- to 15-minute exploration exercises, Mellick suggests ways to work with dreams, dream fragments, nightmares, dream figures and animals, and to explore dreams in groups. She organizes the book by ways of approaching dreams, with section titles such as "capture essence and hunches," "become the dream image," or "make a poem out of a challenging dream." She includes margin markers for the different types of expressive arts used, for easy access to specific techniques. The material is much the same as in her previous work, The Natural Artistry of Dreams (Mellick, 1996), but is presented in a more condensed and accessible form.

In The Art of Dreaming, Mellick offers a variety of ways to explore dreams using all of the expressive media: visual arts, movement, music, mime, drama, writing, collage, mask-making, clay, and more. Mellick makes the media amenable by using simple explanations of the techniques, and making sure that each technique can be applied in 5 to 15 minutes. Brevity makes these approaches invaluable both in the therapy office, for clinicians to use, as well as for the typically busy lay person. At the same time, there is nothing "simple" about the creative suggestions that Mellick gives. Both the novice and the experienced art therapist will find new ideas and techniques in this work. For instance, each new dream example and each new method introduces nuances that were not present in other examples.

By making her writing simple and directly addressing the reader in the second person, Mellick makes this complex material easy to understand and to use. She uses lists to present ideas, gives concrete suggestions, gives specific examples, and uses accessible language. On the other hand, she does not reduce the material, but allows the complexity to come through, both in the spaciousness and subtlety of her sentences, and the variety of ways in which she approaches the material.

Mellick offers, as she says, not techniques for dream interpretation, but ways to ask questions of the dreams. Her goal, in this book, is to help us open up our ways of working with our dreams, to free ourselves of our traditional ways of looking at them. As Mellick writes:
We need to let our dreams paint themselves, dance themselves, sculpt themselves, begin at the end and end at the beginning, spiral in on themselves, meander without climax or major turning point. Perhaps, then, when we can treat content and structure as indivisible, we can truly begin to appreciate the elegant sagacity of the dream. (p. 14).
Mellick uses this approach, too, to the expressive arts themselves: we are given a plethora of methods, but no prescriptions. The result is nothing less than creativity itself.

The name Fannie Farmer is synonymous with good old-fashioned cooking and, in my opinion, "The Fannie Farmer Baking Book" is THE best baking cookbook available. I love to cook and tend to read cookbooks like novels, picking up tips and figuring out exactly which of the new recipes I'd like to try. When thumbing through "The Fannie Farmer Baking Book" I kept finding recipe after recipe that looked wonderful and learning all sorts of little hints that makes baking easier.

A lot of the recipes in this book are Fannie Farmer originals and have been appearing in various editions since the late 1800s. The reason these tried and true standards have stuck around so long is because they are truly wonderful.

"The Fannie Farmer Baking Book" is not only filled with great, old-fashioned cookie, cake and pie recipes it also features plenty of high-end desserts, all accompanied by step-by-step instructions on exactly how to make each and every item. It's easily the most complete and informative book on baking out there. Novice cooks and experienced bakers alike will gain a lot from this well-researched and informative tome!

I bought this book at Costco many years ago and have used it constantly ever since. The recipes are good and the directions easy to follow. The variety of recipes is excellent. I have had many folks rave over the things I have baked from this book. The doggie cookies, the very last recipe in the book, are especially good! You will not be disappointed if you buy and use the Fannie Farmer baking Book. I know that Fannie herself would use it if she were still around!!!

Every recipe I have made from this book (over 30) has worked perfectly. The directions are impeccable. I've made cakes, cookies, pies, quick breads, yeast breads, frostings and sauces from this book. Each one has worked every time. The hot fudge sauce is spectacular as are the gingersnap cookies. When I bought this book several years ago, I knew how to make chocolate chip cookies; I was not an experienced baker. I followed Ms. Cunningham's master recipes to learn how to bake, and now I have a reputation as a great baker. You can't go wrong baking with Marion Cunningham as your guide.

I just read all the other reviews of this book and want to add my two cents' worth. This book is truly wonderful. Anyone who loves to cook should own it as should anyone who wants to eat more vegetables. You can buy whatever produce looks great at your market and know you will find a simply delicious way to prepare it in this book. I have NEVER had a failure from this book and have eaten so many pureed parsnips and turnips since I got it that I'm afraid I'm going to turn into one of these vegetables. Order this book for yourself, one for your mother, and one for your best friend. Everyone will enjoy the results.

This book has been in my cookbook library for fifteen years. In all that time I have never been disapointed in any recipe. It's the first place I look when I need information on cooking methods (both conventional and microwave) or for quick and simple ways to prepare a vegetable. We have lots of favorites and are still finding new ones to try. The tomato recipes are excellent and can help use up the bounty from the garden. The Marinara Sauce is especially good and there is always some in my freezer.Because we know we can rely on good results and a tasty dish, we have tried some recipes which we would have avoided if in another book; in every case, we've enjoyed the delicious results. Who would have thought that shredded raw butternut squash could be the start of a great salad or a "creamy" broccoli soup had no cream in it? You can't go wrong with this one!

Everyone should have a copy of this book on their bookshelves. I'm on my second copy - the first one fell apart due to daily use. It's a terrific resource for vegetable recipes - some of them beautifully photographed. If you're lucky enough to have a vegetable garden, this book is full of information about growing vegetables, as well as cooking them. Marian knows her vegetables and has wonderful ideas for new and unusual ways to cook them.

A perfect book for one either wanting to learn more about Spain or its cooking. The recipes are often simple, always marvelous and take into account the true spirit of the country. If you want to understand Spain and Spanish cooking in all its glory then here it is- there is no better.

This book is a bargain. From recipes to historical anecdotes this book is a blessing. Everything you wanted to know and see about Spain's gastronomical heritage. The pictures are beautiful and large. The perfect coffee and kitchen table book. It makes any other country jealous. There's ham, wine, brandy, cigars, fruit, seafood, etc. This is a great book to give anyone interested in Spain. As a fellow proud Spaniard I certainly enjoyed it and it is one of the best reference visual books in my collection.

I just received this book as a gift from my best friend. I had visited Spain this past February and now am planning to retire and move to Spain sometime later this year. This book is wonderful - the pictures, recipes, industry and the people. It seems to be very authentic and captures the beauty of Spain's many cultures.

This was my first taste of Bradley's "Darkover" series, and you can bet I'll be back for more! This book tells the tale of rebellious young Regis Hastur, young heir to a legacy he doesn't feel prepared to deal with; also troubled by having to deal with his wakening "laran" (telepathy) power. It also concerns the older boy Lew Alton, who soon discovers the power and destructive force of "laran" if not controlled. The use of telepathy is no mere gimmick. Through "laran", Bradley shows the danger pent-up emotions can cause with regard to real people. I found it impossible to put this book down. Highly recommended!

Everyone goes through an identity crisis as an adolescent or young adult. Compound that with political intrigue, emerging psychic powers, sexual confusion, love, hate, parental power struggles . . . . and even this is a fairly limited description of this wonderful book. I have rarely seen the internal turmoil of a character treated with such compassion - and that applies to both Regis Hastur and Lew Alton. I could not help crying at various key points in the book. This was a magnificent story, well-told and sensitively written.

From: Marjorie Scott The Heritage of Hastur is on of my all time favorites! It's about betrayal to the Comyn, hate,war, power, and love. The Terran Empire is trying to take over Darkover and make it a Terran Colony. But the seven Domains and the Comyn don't want that. So they send Lew Alton to Aldaran to find out what the sneaky Aldarans are up to. He finds out more than he ever wanted to know. Danilo Syrtis gets captured by some people from Aldaran because of his telepathic abilities. Danilo was captured so he could run a very powerful matrix, rarely used since the Age of Chaos. Danilo is Regis Hastur's sworn paxman and when he hears of Danilo;s mysterious disapearence he goes to seek the truth. When he finds that Lew is involved he is greatly disturbed. Now the rest is for you to read and find out if they can survive the strain of the matrix and also of the evil Aldarans!

Can you imagine being torn from all you know in just one moment? well that is exactly what happened to Marion Blumethal and her family, which included her father, Walter, her mother named Ruth, and her brother Albert. This story of loses and triumph is told by Marion herself. She explains what she and all of the millions of jews in Europe had to go through each and everyday. Marion and her family lived in a nice comfortable town in Germany called Hoya. Her father had a small shop where he sold shoes and men's and boy's clothing and her mother was a secretary and did bookkeeping. The Blumethal's were happy and very content with their lives until a man entered their lives that would change then forever. He would not only affect them but but millions of families across the world. He was known as Hitler. He started to become more noticed in the 1930's when he became known as the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' party, also known as the Nazi. They were against Jews, Communists, Gypsies, Slavic peoples, and deformed or crippled people. This hatred led to the death of millions of people and the Blumethal's were there for it all After Ruth and Walter found out about Hitler's plan, they decided to move to Holland and try to get papers to the U.S. But unfortunatly they did not get them in time and were taken away by the Nazi. For the next six and a half years, the Blumenthal's would go through a lot. When they were first taken away, they were taken to Westerbork which was in Holland, and then were taken to Bergen-Belsen which was in Germany. But through all their hardships, the Blumethal's survived. Finally in 1945, they were released. They were taken to eastern Germany and let free. But one thing would change, Walter, their father would no longer be with them anymore. He got a bad case of typhus just after the liberation and wasn't strong enough to survive. Now that mother, Marion, and Albert were free, they still wanted to go to the United States for a new life. It took three years until they got the necessary papers to get into the U.S. It was a very tough and tragic road but they had survived, and that was the most important thing.

As a junior high reading teacher and being extremely interested in survivors of the Holocaust, I was thrilled to read this book. Students will readily relate to this book. The author was 5 year younger than Anne Frank, her family moved to Amsterdam from Germany when she was a small child, she went to Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen. The similarities are remarkable. Marion Lazan is an exceptional writer and speaker. After reading her book, we were fortunate enough to have her as a speaker. She is marvelous. This book is a must. Pamela Blevins

Though this story is told as Marion saw it as a young child, it nevertheless remains a powerful and moving documentary of the most devastating war our planet has ever known.

This book is also a very good WWII primer. It would be required reading for a class entitled "WWII 101".

Marion Blumenthal spent her early childhood in Hoya, Germany with her brother and parents. They were a happy, prosperous Jewish family who owned a successful shoe retail business. But Marion's safe, secure world was shattered by the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. The Nazis, the dominant political party of the Third Reich, implemented their radical racial attacks against Jews, Gypsies, Slavics, Homosexuals, Communists, and whomever else was seen as a threat to Aryan purity. This meant the end of life as Marion knew it. Each passing day was a struggle to stay alive and out of the Nazis' clutches.

Despite their best efforts, the Blumenthal family fell prey to the Nazis. They eventually landed in Westerbork, a camp from which the prisoners where shipped to their deaths in places such as Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. The Blumenthals were transferred to Belsen, and despite their bleak future, Marion clung tenaciously to the hope that better times would come for her and her family. To bolster her and their spirits, she set about collecting four perfectly-shaped pebbles from the grounds of the camp. This was her metaphor for her family which, hopefully, would remain as one till the end of the war.

As the war dwindled to a close and Germany suffered one defeat after another, camp prisoners were shuttled along the remains of the Germain railways as the Nazis tried to desperately conceal the evils they had commited in the abandoned camps. Just when it seemed the war would drag on forever, Marion, her family, and their fellow prisoners were intercepted and liberated by Russian troops.

A beautiful story of inspiration, courage, and keeping a positive attitude even in the most dire of circumstances.

A truly good book evokes cozy images and sensations from the past. And this is a very good book, one that teaches us to stop and consider how wisely we spend on this earth.

Among my personal favorites was Nona's Garden by Paul Silici. I could almost smell the delectably heavy garlic, beef and tomatoes slowly steaming in my grandmother's kitchen, and felt a tug on my heartstrings when she shared the story of her grandmother's lessions in life. Planting Day filled me with hope for the younger generation when I saw that sixteen-year-old Beth Pollack had written such an insightful essay. It was good to learn in Pat Stone's A Bedside Story that I'm not the only person who talks to their plants.

There's something for everyone in CS for the Gardener's Soul.

Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul is a collection of 101 short stories and vignettes. Each piece is about three pages long, a format that is convenient for those of us who's free-time comes in little snippets. The stories share a common theme: Despair + a Garden + God's Grace = Wisdom and Peace.

Chicken Soup books seem to really polarize readers. A reader either really likes them and buy copies for all their friends, or dislikes them and would not buy one on a bet.

Let me assure the first type of reader that Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul is just as good the other Chicken Soup books. One of my concerns was that the quality of the writing would be inferior to the earlier books, that all the good material had already been skimmed. That concern was baseless. Evil is newsworthy because it is rare. Dignity, humanity, honesty and sacrifice ARE the human condition. There is no shortage of inspirational stories, just a shortage of publishers who think they are worthy of the readers' attention. Chicken Soup is still skimming the cream.

Book reviews are supposed to help the reader decide "Do I buy this book?" That is not much of an issue with this book. Chicken Soup addicts will buy this book. The question on the table is: "Do I buy this book for the cynical friend who thinks they are 'sappy', or 'maudlin'?" I think the answer is a qualified "Yes."

These stories do not strike a quick resonance with cynics. It is not because cynics have never felt despair. Rather, it is because cynics are afraid of the pain of revisiting those times. Cynics need to ease into these stories the way you might ease into a hot-tub. So buy them a copy and highlight a few stories like:

*A Veteran's Garden, page 25 "The Marines sent me overseas. But it took gardening to bring me home."

*Girls like Roses, page 109, "...twenty-four bucks! That's a lot of money. Even for a girl named Michelle."

*Brian, page 192, "Brian is seven. He's a dreamer and drives his teacher crazy. She is as stiff as taffy in December."

If your heartstrings don't stretch a bit in response to some story in Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul, you need to check your pulse. Then you need to go plant something...

This is Nietzsche's first, and in some ways the best, philosophy book. Prior to Human All-Too Human, he penned The Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Meditations. But it is only in this book that Nietzsche comes into his own as a philosopher. The book was written soon after his retirement from teaching, due to ill health, and Nietzsche suffered a lot from physical pain, while writing the book, having to take hashish to relieve it. The book contains opinions on almost everything under the Sun. Although it is clearly broken down into distinct chapters, the thoughts within chapters are not arranged systematically. This is intentional and represents Nietzsche mistrust of grand theorizing and excessively systematic thinking. He retained this aphoristic writing style till the last days of his productive life. Thus in his approach, Nietzsche anticipates both existentialism and post-modernism. He views life personally, passionately, and with distrust to grand system(narrative) building. Thoughts slither through the labyrinth of human life, revealing strartling insights and forcing us to reconsider received opinions and conventional wisdoms.

By Nietzsche's standards, the perspectives presented in the book are fairly measured, and the author's voice is not nearly as shrill as it would become ten years later, in his last books. Because Nietzsche settles at a high level of generalization, some opinions do sound narrow-minded and prejudiced. In this, Nietzsche was also a victim of his time and culture: his comments on women and "the youthful Jew of the stock exchange" are not intellectuals gems, to put it very mildly. Some of his other opinions, on marriage, for example, also strike me as strange. Overall, this is a book by an all-too-human philosopher, yet it is a path-breaking work, a precursor to existentialism and post-modernism, written in a style that can appeal to the reader sheerly as good literature.

In this book, actually an anthology of three books, Nietzsche anticipates and comments upon social, cultural, political and psychological issues most of which are still current and troubling. A central theme is the human tendency to look for comfort, stability, and easy answers. He seemed to foresee that this tendency would become even more maladaptive as the pace of change increased, than it was in his own time. He offers an analysis of its causes, and a treatment, in the form of a relentless series of verbal shock-treatments, delivered in one-half to one page essays. The reader is constantly stimulated to take another look at issues that he thought he had settled.

Another issue for Nietzsche is the examination of the appropriate roles for science and art in human development. Anticipating contemporary thinking,he proposes that the brain has two competing/complementary functions. One, whose main product is science, brings an immediate sense of power to be able to understand what was not understood before, and what is not understood by many others. As an after-effect, however, it brings a sense of despair and depression, that previously-held illusions have been destroyed. The other half of the brain, the artistic sense, which he also calls the will to falsehood (not in a negative sense)presents possibilities, creative syntheses, or holistic images.

For Nietszche,human evolution proceeds by each individual maximizing the potential of each part of his brain, constantly generating new creative ideas, and then subjecting them to relentless analysis and criticism. This is the method Nietszche himself uses. He warns, however, that it requires incredible energy and strength to constantly be aware of and examine one's basic assumptions. Many who try will fall, (as Nietszche himself did) but, anticipating Darwin, he describes a process whereby the strongest, those most capable of enduring physical and psychological adversity, are the ones who survive and pass on the benefits of their growth.

Read this book if you are feeling depressed, read it if you are feeling strong, read it if you are feeling bored, read it if you are feeling overstressed, read it if you want a really good time, read it one page per day, read it all at once, read it in your own way, but my recommendation is READ IT.

In order to give form to his Overman, Nietzsche had to call to account many human failings and weaknesses, and then reveal their baseness to the world. Nietzsche identified so much that had to be rejected in human life and affairs, (and so much that constituted greatness), which is the reason for the sheer scope of "Human, All Too Human". In 638 short aphorisms it covers politics, warfare, ascetics, morals, art, poetry, marriage, crime & punishment, the soul, and the gamut of human feeling, emotion, motive, instinct, will to power, habit and need.

In Human, All Too Human", Nietzsche outlines the basis of his later, more focused works. It is distinguished from these by its lack of arrogance, lack of aggression and its lack of real direction. Chapters are harnessed together by titles such as "A Look At The State", "Man Alone With Himself", "Signs Of Higher And Lower Culture", Man In Society", and "Woman And Child".

The book was written just after Nietzsche gave up his professors chair at Basel in Switzerland, and around the time of his break from his erstwhile father-figure, Richard Wagner. Nietzsche had now lost the shackles of youth and employment and was at his most free-spirited and this book is testimony to that fact: "Human, All Too Human" is dedicated to deliciously-malicious free-spirits everywhere.

Less intense than some of his later work, this book evokes a walk in the mountains enjoying pleasant conversation with one of the most penetrating and enlightened minds in history. Less intense perhaps, but no less compelling or unsettling.

I was given this book several years ago and was extremely skeptical. I don't usually like love stories and I'm not a big science fiction fan so when I saw that it was a love story by a science fiction writer I was sure I would hate it. I didn't. In fact I started reading it one Saturday afternoon and didn't put it down until I finished it that evening. The relationship between these two men (Tommy Zane and Matt "Mario" Santelli) was so moving and so real. All of the characters in this book are so multi-dimensional that you think you know each of them intimately and you start to feel like one of the family. Set in the circus world of the 40's, this book takes you on a fantastic ride through the lives of two young men who risk everything to be together. I've probably read this book over two dozen times and I love it just as much each time. In fact, my copy is so worn out that I had to order a new one. Read it! You won't be sorry.

Marion Zimmer Bradley breathes vivid life into the circus world of the 1940's and 50's with this unforgettable love story, a timeless classic about the triumph of love in the face of all odds. Bradley did her homework on the circus world of the 1940's, as well as on the gay sub-culture of that era. The book is so detailed, so nuanced, that you will end the book feeling as if you know all the characters --- the passionate and angst-filled Mario, his seemingly frail sister-in-law Stella who grows stronger and more sure as the years pass, Mario's Uncle --- the solid-as-a-rock but bigoted Angelo. And, of course, Mario's love Tommy Zane, the anchor of this panoramic novel. The tale of Tommy's coming into adulthood is mesmerizing, as is Mario and Tommy's fight to keep their love together, while struggling to keep it hidden in a prejudiced world.

This book is so amazing that I'm almost at a loss for words. I just finished reading it for the third time. The first time I read it was 10 years ago. I was in college and I remember reading it between classes, during classes, and at red lights on the way to class. It was so incredible that I couldn't put it down. And now, 10 years later, reading it for a third time, the book lost none of its power - I still found layers in it that I hadn't discovered before. I found myself reading and re-reading passages and paragraphs because the book is so rich that I wanted to keep savoring it.

Whether you're gay or straight or whatever, you should be able to relate to the characters and understand them. You are in for an intense, page-turning read with The Catch Trap. The book is almost a bit overwhelming --- I recommend that you start it when you have some time to get immersed in it, as you won't be able to put it down once you pass the first 100 pages or so. (It does start a bit slowly but once it gets started, hold onto your hats!)

Another strength about this book is that it's a lot more than a love story. It has many themes---what is artistic integrity?, how do we stay close to our families while asserting our own personalities?, and how do you stay true to your soulmate while growing into your own independance?

In a way, I would have loved a sequel, but Bradley ties everything together so perfectly, that a sequel isn't necessary.

I would give my right-arm to join a book discussion group about this book. If anyone wants to discuss it over email with me, please drop me a note at stormkpr@usa.net I think it's a shame that the book is, apparently, out of print. Marion Zimmer Bradley's hidden treasure!

A friend lent me a copy of "The Catch Trap" and the prospect of reading a book about the circus in the 40s and 50s seemed like pure torture. Still, for some strange reason I picked it up and started reading (about a month after it was lent to me). Over the course of the next week, I found it increasingly difficult to put the book down. I stayed up literally all night one night because I just couldn't put it down. Though I'm usually not a big fan of long novels full of lots of detail, this book is riveting. The characters are full, rich, complicated people with complex, endlessly fascinating relationships. When I finished the book, I was genuinely sad to leave these people I had grown to love. The Santelli family had become real to me, almost as if I belonged to them in some way, and Tommy and Mario were my friends. And I felt like I knew so intimately what the life of traveling circus performers had been like. In addition to great characters and a great story, Bradley does a superior job of