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Book reviews for "Bjoerneboe,_Jens" sorted by average review score:

The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen
Published in School & Library Binding by E P Dutton (October, 1991)
Author: Lloyd Alexander
Amazon base price: $17.99
Average review score:

Master Hu, Fu, Wu, Shu and Chu, Who Are They?
Are you looking for a fantasy book that is set in history? The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen by Lloyd Alexander is it!
The main character is Jen, the young lord prince, he is persistent, sometimes brave, and generous and he likes Voyaging Moon who is valiant flute girl.This story took place in the Kingdom of Tang and it happened long time ago. Jen, the young lord prince, is traveling to Tien-Kuo to learn more about the kingdom. The prince went searching day and night for Voyaging Moon but he failed at finding her, instead, it got him troubles. He was locked and kept in the dark, creepy jail and was forced by Fat Choy to wear a cangue! Jen gave away his 6 gifts to a traveler that past by that needs presents for another purpose. Finally Jen's 6 valuable gifts (a pointy, sharp sword, a light, smooth saddle, a paint box, a well decorated bronze bowl, a wide, big, beautiful kite, and a wooden flute) for Yuan-Ming (the king of Tien-Kuo) were all given away. He was going empty handed to Tien-Kuo.However, something sad and unbelievable just stopped him to go. It made him return to Chang'an (his palace). From this, I learned that you must never give up doing something except when only some other important thing has to be assigned before that. Moreover, you must know nothing before you can learn something, and be empty before you can be filled. I will recommend this book because it has many descriptive sentences like: The reek of old battlefields choked his nostrils. Cries of the wounded and dying filled his ears. Some can grab your attention like: Robbed and terrorized by bandits, they are worse off than ever. What can they possibly do? To find out, read the next chapter. For me this book makes me nervous because at the end of every chapter, it stops at an exciting or interesting and unbelievable spot. It makes you want to read the next chapter. In addition, I hope that you will enjoy reading it as much as I do! To find out what is making Prince Jen going back to Chang'an read this book!

LLoyd Alexander is a god among storytellers!!!
If I was stuck on a desert island.. you've probably heard that one before.. However, The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen is one of my most absolute favorites of LA's books.. Although the chapters are short and set up like a chapter adventure.. you will be hard-pressed to set it down.

Prince Jen travels to a mythical kingdom with 6 gifts that he loses along the way to the people he meets on his journey. The lives he touches has a karmic effect and his gifts he 'loses' comes back to him in the end many times over.

I devoured each word, eagerly looking forward to finding out what happened next. Although it's geared toward the young adult age, this 30-something found it quite entertaining,and full of insights. Each time I read the book I get something else back.

I personally believe that Prince Jen is a book everyone should read and would be great for classroom work by all ages and set up easily for discussion into many areas such as relationship structures, mythic journeys, classic children's fiction, and of course Chinese or Asian History.. This story was based (although a fantasy) on Chinese Myths...

Bottom line: Lloyd Alexander is an amazing virtuoso of storytelling and The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen is another proof of that..

Journey to the North
I have read many books in my life, but my favorite one is The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen. It is a fantasy written by Lloyd Alexander.
The main character, Young Lord Prince Jen Shao Yeh, is very honest and is willing to help anyone. He does not act as a prince while outside the palace. Instead, he wears a yellow robe and a yellow hat. This book takes place in back in 7th century China, during the T'ang Dynasty. The celestial palace is in the capital, Chang'an where Jen Shao Yeh comes from.
In the beginning, when Jen departs from the celestial palace on a great journey, he brings his servant and army with him. He rides a carriage along the way, carrying a sack of gifts, heading to the kingdom of Tien'Kuo. On his journey, he meets many people, including a painter named Chen Cho, Natha Yellow Scarf, and Master Chu. He parts with some of his group and some of the gifts but finds them back. Jen is informed by his servant that his father, the king, died when they were on the journey and that he was now king of T'ang. He is immediately sent back to the palace. When he does, he finds that an enemy has already taken over the palace. Will Jen be able to recapture his kingdom and rule with his beloved lady?
I would recommend this novel because Lloyd Alexander has used very descriptive words and I can picture what is going on. I would give this book a 5 star rating because it is just one of my favorite books that I have read in my whole entire life! This book is confusing the first time you read it though not the second time. I would especially recommend this book to children in fourth grade and up because the vocabulary skills necessary are quite demanding. This book sure will be a joy to read.


Wine: From Grape to Glass
Published in Hardcover by Abbeville Press, Inc. (November, 2002)
Author: Jens Priewe
Amazon base price: $31.50
List price: $45.00 (that's 30% off!)
Average review score:

An outstanding primer on grape growing and wine making
Attention holiday shoppers: This beautiful coffee table book from Abbeville Press would make an excellent gift to any wine lover. The ample photographs throughout are breathtaking. It will definitely inspire you to open a bottle of fine wine. It might even move you to make travel reservations to any one of the wine regions covered in the book.

Unlike many coffee table books, this one is chock-full of substantive information. There are separate and informative chapters on the wines of a host of countries -- France, Spain, the U.S., Australia, Argentina, and many others. The information is well organized and would easily serve as an excellent reference source for each. "Wine: From Grape to Glass" meets the challenge that so many other wine books fail: not too general, not too detailed. For each wine region, there is a history of the wine making in that region, along with enough information about each type of wine from the region to give the reader a firm handle on the wines without bombarding the reader with a list of specific labels and vintages.

Without question, though, the absolute best thing about this book is the extensive coverage of winegrowing, grape varieties, and the craft of winemaking. To his great credit, author Jens Priewe seamlessly integrates some pretty complicated information without cutting corners. Everything about the grape-to-wine process is here: choosing, planting, tending, harvesting, fermenting, and aging.

If you have ever taken "the tour" at any winery and have found yourself wishing you could hear more about the winemaking process - this is the book for you. Priewe includes so much excellent information, that you could probably buy your own vine and make your own wine using this book as your only reference. It's that good.

A Wine Authority and Stunning Images
I manage an online multimedia class on Wine Appreciation and this book is the benchmark. Comprehensive simplicity is achieved throughout, and the images are the best of any wine book on the market. For each region, there are ariel photos, where each winery site is identified for famous areas like Berdeuox, Napa, the Piedmont, etc. This is a perfect book for anyone who loves wine, regarless of prior knowledge.

Great content, beautiful photographs
What first stuck me about this book is its visual beauty. Every single page has illustrations, maps, or stunning photographs which cover every imaginable step in the wine-making process. This book manages to give a wide overview of the considerations that go into making a wine, from "grape to glass", but also provides a fascinating level of detail. This book would be perfect for a wine lover who wants to know more, or even as a reference book for a library.


JFK Conspiracy of Silence
Published in Paperback by Signet (April, 1992)
Authors: Charles A. Crenshaw, Jens Hansen, and J. Gray Shaw
Amazon base price: $4.99
Average review score:

Finally, a JFK assassination book by someone who knows.
Dr. Crenshaw was one a several doctors who were the first to examine JFK's wounds, just minutes after the shooting. This fact alone makes him a credible and trust worthy writer. Written by a very educated man who witnessed it first hand, this is a good book that anyone interested in knowing the facts about the JFK assassination should read.

well written and very informative.
crenshaw finally breaks the conspiracy and tells it with bravado...kudo's to him for doing it so well. i, from the day of the murder or shall we say "coup d etat", i never believed that oswald did it, not even remotely, he was a scape goat from the start... damn the warren commission for their insulting way of treating the american public...and me in particular...i believe that j.f.k. was had by as many as 4 rifles....how else could connelly have been hit from such a drastic angle....good on you, dr. crenshaw. read the book people!

A great read!
Charles A. Crenshaw's book was a great read. We owe a debt of gratitude to those who were first hand witnesses with the courage to come forward and tell us what they know, despite the establishment's work to discredit them. How the American Medical Association's JAMA tried to discredit his book in 1992 was amazing. To think that this association of medical doctors would pull such a dirty trick, and tell such lies against a brave doctor is staggering. In the book Assassination Science one can read what happened then in 1992. It's obvious the conspiracy is still out there trying to lie to the American people. Thank you Dr. Crenshaw for your great book!

Skip Baker skipb@widomaker.com


Macromedia Flash MX Components Most Wanted
Published in Paperback by glasshaus (September, 2003)
Authors: Brandon Williams, Aral Balkan, Paul Prudence, Todd Coulson, and Jen deHaan
Amazon base price: $39.99
Average review score:

Nifty Components, Lacking in Real Technical Depth
"Flash MX Components Most Wanteed" is targeted towards designers and those that shy away from ActionScript. The book focuses on explanations of how to use each of the components -- not how they were created or the design choices made while building these sometimes extraordinarily complex components. Many of the components contained on the CD are quite useful, but I personally could have done without the "nifty graphics" and image manipulation components. It's nice to have detailed explanations of each of the available component parameters (kind of like a product manual), but the book left me wanting more about the hows and whys of creating solid, useful Flash MX components.

a darn good bargain
I still can't believe i only paid so little for this book, it's just awesome! I've been using Flash for a couple of years now, but only recently started getting into MX components - any designer (or even developer?) looking for efficient solutions should really look into using them. I'm at the point now where i'm having to reuse as much code/design elements as i can now because
work is just soooo busy, and with this book you get a cd containing 21 components (actually, there's even more than that if you count some of the neat experimental ones!). I'm not even gonna try and work out how much development time this cd will save me, but I can't advise it enough - i really hope these guys bring more of them out. To be honest i've only looked through about half of these components so far, but i'm still blown away -
check out tool tip, the dynamic text 'stringthing', and the XML/actionscript converter especially - i didn't even realize i needed these things until now! The chapter on the movie loader is just a killer too. And there are also more 'crazy-stoopid' ones, like pattern generators and image modulators. What can i say, buy it and hope these authors bring out a sequel! Tons of fully-documented components, tons of examples, i'm a happy
designer!

Great Book
Im coming from a unix/c background with over 10 years experience and I found this book to be really good introduction to Flash MX. Its written very clearly and concsicely and full of useful examples and great ideas. I got my project up and running very quickly with some very pleasing results. Keep up the good work boys!


On Different Shores
Published in School & Library Binding by Orchard Books (October, 1998)
Authors: Mc Veity Jen and Jen McVeity
Amazon base price: $17.99
Average review score:

Insightful family exploration, and a great main character!
To save beating around the bush - I loved this book! I come myself from a confused and complicated family arrangement (what with 'steps' and so forth!), and I think that Jen has a knack for capturing the exact feelings a child within this situation might feel. I've certainly felt many of the feelings that 'Tess' discussed. I disagree with the previous reviewer that associated 'Dreamcatcher' with only steroetypes. I think that, as far as any author really can, Jen managed to disregard the stereotypes that normally go with complicated family relationships (evil stepmother, jealous half sister, neurotic divorced woman). I really like the interesting twist of the two 'mothers' actually becoming friends. It was also refreshing to see strong girl and women characters within this work. The novel works as a great affirmation of the strength of women, and I am sure that it will inspire many young girls. Tess was particularly endearing to me, and i think an effective balance between her strength and vulnerability was reached here! The fact that both of the sisters had strong physical bodies, but were weak or scared within them, was an image that worked well throughout this novel. I would recommend this book to children and adults alike, with its relevance increasing as family situations complicate. It is also quick and fun to read - it's use of dialogue is particularly astute and funny!

It would also make a great film!

Great book!
I loved the book! I stayed up until after midnight to finish Dreamcatcher (that's what it's called in Australia), it was so good I couldn't put it down. Tess is exactly like one of my best friends, fabulous fun and not always right! I cried in the scene when her sister doesn't do the trampoline routine and you really hope the two mothers will be friends. The ending is incredibly exciting, it makes you think you really are there. The book is set for our Year 7 class and everyone thinks it's great.

Amanda

Effective portrayal of Teen relationships
One of the strengths of the author's writing is her realistic portrayal of adolescent feelings and relationships. The setting is effective portrayed and I'd recommend this book as a 'good read'for male and females. I hope there will be a sequel.


Durable Goods
Published in Audio Cassette by Chivers Sound Library (May, 2001)
Authors: Elizabeth Berg and Jen Taylor
Amazon base price: $39.95
Average review score:

Finding Oneself
Throughout the novel Durable Goods by Elizabeth Berg, Katie, a typical twelve year old girl, tries to find herself in the great big world in which she lives. She struggles during her developmental years without the help of her mother who has died of cancer. She dreams of falling in love, having a father who is not abusive, and for something exciting to happen on the boring Texas army base in which she lives. In her relationships with her older sister Diane, her dearest friend Cherylanne and her father, Katie discovers the qualities she likes and dislikes about these people. As she grows more mature, she realizes the kind of person she would like to become as an adult. This is when Katie creates a new person, herself. From this point on, Katie becomes more confident in herself and handles life calmly and better than ever! I would highly recommend this well written novel for anyone who strives for comfort and support during his or her teenage years. I feel that I have captured all the special moments of Katie's life and will savor the advice given to Katie during her difficult times. Durable Goods is an unforgettable tale of a girl just like all of us.

Sweet
Elizabeth Berg is one of my favorite authors. I have read many other books by her and loved each one of them; this one was neither an exception nor a disappointment. This story is twelve-year-old Katie's, and Elizabeth's voice is so convincing that it is hard to believe it was written by an adult. Katie lives in a rural Texas army base with her older sister Diane and their abusive father. I wanted to cry when Katie talked about her mother's death, due to cancer, and I laughed out loud at her confused attempts to keep up with her fourteen-year-old best friend Cheryl. The book brought back memories of myself at almost-teenhood, and it is a very convincing portrait of a young girl's life. Every small but important aspect is covered: Katie's infatuation with her sister's boyfriend, her daydreams of having her own boyfriend, her first period, her curious peekings at the will-be-breasts that are first starting to appear.

Katie's voice is so real and her thoughts so explained that I would become totally lost in the story and come out it a while later to realize that I really wasn't in her world.

Elizabeth Berg's Joy School is the sequel to Durable Goods, and I read that one first. However, Durable Goods was still a great book and I recommend it even for those who have already read Joy School. Pick up Durable Goods and join Katie in her fresh, exciting world.

Very Intriguing
Durable Goods is a story of a young girl named Katie who is anxious to grow up and at the same time is dealing with problems that the average teenager should not have to go through. She's just lost her mother to cancer, her father beats both her and her sister Diane, and she often feels lost and alone. She misses her mother very much and often envisions seeing and talking to her under her bed.

I thought the author created a very likeable character in Katie. The first half of the book builds the character and introduces her relationships with her father, who is abusive; her sister-who is kind to her sometimes and mean other times; and her best friend CherylAnne-who is two years older and is very wise and womanly for her age.

atie is a strong person for being so young, and that is what makes her so likeable. Dealing with the death of her mother and her father's abusive actions show how strong she really is. Whereas Dianne tries to escape from her problems by running away to Mexico with her boyfriend, Katie confronts them.

Since the book was written from Katie's point of view, I got a more personal perspective. Of Elizabeth Berg's books, this is the first one that I have read. I think it was an excellent book. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading short yet intriguing books.


Don't Sleep With Your Drummer
Published in Digital by MTV ()
Author: Jen Sincero
Amazon base price: $9.99
Average review score:

Hilarious and brilliant!
It's about time someone exposed the music industry for the hell hole it is and band life for the soap opera it is! This book was laugh out loud funny, insightful, touching, and romantic! Oh yeah, and really well written. I've been in bands for years and this is the first time I've read anything that does all the craziness justice. I loved all the characters too. I miss them now that I'm done with the book! Bravo.

Scathingly Brilliant
My stars and garters.... Miss Sincero held me in her relentless
grip to the very end. It was JAWS meets IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

On the first page she dedicates this book to her "excellent mom"
and then spends the next 30 pages dissing her... I am in love!!!

It's a splendid trot through the hot spots that pepper this
glorious globe of ours! An incandifferous attempt at turning
chicken caca into chicken salad! ...P>I LOVED this book. I can't wait for the next one.
I haven't laughed this hard since "Lust in the Dust"

"Don't sleep with your drummer" is spectacular... a hilarious
look at the music industry, secret love, overbearing parents,
and the staggering throb of best friends....

Santa Claus is coming to town....

It's great
I could hardly put the book down. This book is a very detailed insight into the mind of a young girl trying to start a rock band. It is written as a journal depicting all of the tourmoils, triumphs and adventure that she goes through to take her life from boring to exciting. I reccommend this book to anyone who ever wished they were in a rock band, tried to start a rock band or has an intrest in music


Massachusetts, California, Timbuktu
Published in Audio Cassette by Sound Library (May, 2003)
Authors: Stephanie Rosenfeld and Jen Taylor
Amazon base price: $69.95
Average review score:

Completely Satisfying
Readers fortunate enough to have stumbled upon Rosenfeld's previous collection of shorts (What about the Love Part?), will find even more good fortune in just one run-through of Massachusetts California, Timbuktu, a completely satisfying debut novel which spotlights the life and times (and travails) of the talented author's 12-year-old main character, Justine Hanley.

Rosenfeld's cross-country year with Justine includes an unforgettable conjoin with six-year-old sister Rona and a middle-of-the-vortex experience with the girls' mother Colleen, who drags her offspring from one city to the next in search of adventure and the next new love.

Thrust into an earlier-than-necessary role as caretaker, Justine attempts to work through her insubordinate angst by journeling everything she sees and feels.

Rosenfeld's tale glimmers with an appreciative passion for life's subtle and ordinary moments, a funny, poignant nod to the inherent treachery of adolescence and the amazing resilience of the human will to victor over every single hurdle along the path to the race's reward at destination's end.

Powerful and Poignant
In this wonderful novel, this gifted author gives readers a powerful and poignant mother-daughter story-one with the appeal of Mona Simpson's Anywhere But Here and the heartbreak of Judith Guest's Ordinary People. I didn't want this book to end!

Intimate and Intense
I just finished reading this for my book group. Massachusetts, California, Timbuktu is sad, funny, demanding and rewarding. Hard to put down - harder to forget.


Echoes: Contemporary Art at the Age of Endless Conclusions
Published in Paperback by Monacelli Pr (March, 1997)
Authors: Francesco Bonami, Jen Budney, and Keith Seward
Amazon base price: $24.50
List price: $35.00 (that's 30% off!)
Average review score:

Having it All. Art at the end of the line
In Echoes, the New York based, but firmly European - Bonami is nothing less than a Romantic Italian pluralist - critic argues convincingly for the end of art.

Bonami does not seek its true closure, of course. He looks instead to reveal what lies beneath "art". While he is a critic and curator, Bonami makes his money and travels the world through buying for rich collectors; so too in the grander scheme, just as art finds its truest manifestation these days in publically funded festivals or Bienales it is still the collectors' money that talks in the end.

Bonami is clearly uncomfortable with the paradoxes of his chosen career. He has written previously in the magazine, Flash Art, that there is something rotten, dead, about institutional art, yet he himself works within this space (his next project, which he has researched extensively, is a study of sexuality and travel that will show at the Walker in the year 2000.

Bonami's is a simple thesis: in a sense he - and art - wants it all. There is not pleasure in discovering a new artist in Soweto, if it is not balanced by deluxe hotels in Venice or Berlin; there is not pleasure in familial life if there is not excitements outside it. There is not pleasure in the profundity of art, in the end, unless there is an Other, a Shock of the Superficial.

In many senses, Echoes is the project and product of middle-aged exile; like a character in Nabokov, Bonami spreads his waning European potency ever more thinly when confronted with the virility of the global art market - its cheque-books and hotel bills; its cool rhetoric and lofty ideals. This is manifest in Echoes where he allows many artists to put their point, creating a melange of ideas, rather than attempting anything close to an Idea. There is no such idea as an Idea, he seems to say, only pleasure.

Bonami's vision of the art world perhaps reflects a reflexive self-questioning, and doubt. A questioning that we should all undertake at least once in our lives. But no more than once.

Good pictures, good essay by K. Seward
Most of this book is a bunch of bologna, art-world hubaloo that means nothing to anyone but the people who wrote it. However, the book does have great illustrations.

Also the essay by Seward is pretty good. What he writes about Martin Heidegger is ignorant (obviously he hasn't read Being & Time), but the section titled "Analytic of the Shocking" is a must-read. The essay has a good title, too: "Atomic Bicycle." Apparently Seward is the only author in the book with a sense of humor.

Overall, I would counsel not to buy the book, but to get a copy from the library, xerox two pages of Seward's essay, and maybe scan your favorite pictures to keep on your hard drive. (Like those by that Lamsweerde woman.)

Borges couldn't have done a better job
Consider the words of Italian writer Umberto Eco, the contemporary of New York based curator, Francesco Bonami:

"I think of the post-modern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, "I love you madly", because he knows that she knows (and that she knows he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution.

He can say, "As Barbara Cartland would put it, 'I love you madly". At this point, having avoided false innocence, having said clearly that it is no longer possible to speak innocently, he will nevertheless have said what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her, but he loves her in an age of lost innocence. If the woman goes along with this, she will have received a declaration of love all the same.

These are the same post-modern paradoxes which the globe-trotting Bonami attempts to reconcile in a fascinating parody of - as it were - Flash Art. Like Foucault ("Do you know why one writes?... To be loved.") Bonami illustrates the subtle otherness of creation, through collaborations with an international band of artists - and curators - to ask the same question as Foucault: What's going on just now? What's happening to us? What is this world, this period, this precise moment in which we are living? (Foucault 1982a p.216)

All in all an extraordinary house of cards, the author balances like Harry Lime on the Ferris wheel in Carol Reed's much loved peaen to the free market, The Third Man.

Bonami/The Third Man explore the very biggest questions of modern art and culture, paralleling the restless rhythmical nature of the author with the endless conclusions and closures of conceptual art. As Foucault said: "How does one introduce desire into thought, into discourse, into action? How can and must desire deploy its forces within the political domain and grow more intense in the process of overturning the established order?"

Exaclty.


Great Photos With The Advanced Photo System
Published in Paperback by Sterling Publications (June, 1998)
Author: Jen Bidner
Amazon base price: $9.95
Average review score:

A nice little book for improving your pictures.
This little paperback book provides a good introduction not only to the Advanced Photo System (APS), but also to general photography technique. It helps you to learn about your APS camera and to make decisions on how and when to use the various photo modes and sizes. It also talks about composing your photographs to obtain the best shot possible, and it covers specific issues such as indoor versus outdoor photography, holiday and vacation shots, children, etc. This would be a great book for anyone beginning to have a serious interest in taking pictures, and it would be appropriate for an older child/teenager.

A decent beginner's book
This book is perfect for the beginner. It briefly explains what APS is, how it differs from 35mm. Then the book descibes the basics of photo composition: rule of thirds, flash vs. natural light, shadows, etc. Plus it also suggest how/when to use C/H/P settings on the APS when composing your shot.

Your Questions about APS Answered
Jenni Bidner does an excellent job of explaining the features of the Advanced Photo System. The book is much more than an introduction to APS photography; as it covers composition, photo techniques, and tips for taking great pictures. If you are a user of an APS camera, or plan to purchase one, you should read this book.


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