While packing away all of my Anne of Green Gables books for a trip to Prince Edward Island, I could not find my paperback copies of the first novel. Since I was not about to take my original 6th edition hardcover copy I went to the library to pick up "Anne of Green Gables," and I stumbled upon the Annotated Anne. I lucked out big time. This volume footnotes almost every literary reference and allusion (there are a few that have stilled escaped detection), along with all the people and places. Appendixes present songs mentioned in the book, along with the music, as well as stories and poems, the geography of the story, and lots of other fascinating details. These books is ideal for not only those who want an additional level of understanding to this beloved classic as they reread it (again), but is extremely useful if you happen to be coming out to PEI to visit the "actual" locations. This book will tell you where to find the real Lovers Lane, Lake of Shinning Waters, and other places from the novel as well as places important in the life of L. M. Montgomery. I realize that if you are looking this book over there is a very good chance you already have a copy of "Anne of Green Gables." But you are going to want to have this one as well. I bought my own copy at the Cavendish site, where, as I learned from this book, is where Montgomery wrote the first two Anne books. This is a special edition of a very special story.

I just received this book for Christmas. I have been an "Anne" fan since I was 10 years old, and my love of all things L.M. Montgomery has only increased as I grew older. This new edition simply amazed me with all its informative footnotes. The best part for me was the inclusion at the back of the book of many of the poems and songs mentioned in the novel but not written out. Three cheers to the editors of this book! You've outdone yourselves!

This is one of the most outstanding annotated editions of a book I have ever seen. It is packed with interesting, relevant annotations about the world of Anne of Green Gables, as well as LM Montgomery's own life and Prince Edward Island itself.

Due to the nature of the writing in Anne of Green Gables, an annotated edition is especially welcome to fill in the blanks on Canadian politics (What is a "grit?") and social conventions at the time. Reading the annotations increases the pleasure of entering the Anne's world, and that is incredibly important.

Also, of special note and appreciation, many of Anne's favorite obscure poems and readers are included in the back. Finally, you are able to get the whole version of the many quotes that she drops, and see just where she picked up her big words.

The best gift you could get for a true fan of Anne of Green Gables.

HI. I am writing this review because I absolutely love this book. I got it after taking a non profit groups volunteer phone counseling class for breastfeeding counselors, and it was awesome to have to look at. I used this for myself as well as moms that I counseled with breastfeeding. This book is an amazing source of information from problems with breastfeeding, to the jaundiced baby breaking down & explaining bilirubin levels to you, as well as proper positioning, thrush, sore nipples, relactation, adoptive lactation! Tons and Tons of information that any breastfeeding mother, volunteer breastfeeding counselor, IBCLC, or DR/Nurse would find as honest practical advice! I have used this with now 2 breastfed children and countless new moms!

This book is designed to educate and easily provide specific facts and information to the health professional and lay person who is interested in breastfeeding and finding their way through the process. The Breastfeeding Answer Book really answers all the questions and directs you to the appropriate resources for back up and more information. This is a permanent fixture in my library. The pages are already dog eared.

I have read other books and this by far is the BEST one I have come across. It answers ANY question or concern I may have. I have found the answers I need in a matter of minutes and even when health professionals haven't a clue what to tell me. It has great information about pumping and storing breastmilk, what medications affect/don't affect your breastmilk, and so many other things that have helped me. This book is written like a textbook and instead of saying "you", it refers to you as "the mother." It is very easy reading, and I recommend this to a first time breastfeeder or a mom like myself who has breastfed before but didn't have all the information I needed. The book was very encouraging and interesting!

An absolute must for anyone studying Cuba or communism in general. This book provides a fascinating account of the unknown secret struggles within Cuba's political élites. Thanks to classified documents he was able to obtain, this author - a young and promising Oxford and Cambridge graduate - puts us into the picture of the delicate and intricate power games at the regime's peaks. Thrilling throughout all its pages, and very easy to read.

In this book, Maurizio Giuliano has been able to collect material which may otherwise have been destroyed, on the secret tensions and divergencies among Cuba's political élites. It is the first time that this type of documents are published, enabling scholars and others to know more on this delicate issue. The stories of repression against Cuba's dissidents are no news, but the repression and internal purges within the élites are something very different, which can indeed tell us a lot about the prospects for change in Cuba 'from within'. This book therefore does a marvelous job. It constitutes an extremely valuable source, as well as fascinating reading with extremely astute intepretations and observations.

Even now, almost five years after the tragic purge of 1996 against the academics of the CEA (Centro de Estudios sobre América), the relevance of this book is paramount. To this day, this collection of highly sensitive documents, together with the author's able reconstruction of facts and his analysis, remains one of the best sources to understand intra-élite conflicts in contemporary Cuba. Which is, in turn, the most likely basis for future change towards democracy in the communist island. Every single document and piece of information in this book should be carefully scrutinized, in any attempt to forecast possible 'openings' towards a democratic transition 'from within' the apparatus.

Even though this book is nearly 30 years old, everything it says about the drug problem is still relevant today.

This publication outlined a clear-cut set of recommendations that if adhered to, today's drug problems would have become a long forgotten memory.

This book is a must for the collection.

Brecher's work is a masterpiece, documenting and objectively analyzing the impact of different drugs on physical and psychological health, the history of drug use, and the repeated (futile) attempts over the centuries to use legal prohibitions to curb consumption of drugs ranging from coffee to heroin. It might well be subtitled "Drugs, Prohibition, and the Law of Unintended Consequences."

This book deserves to be put back into print.

As a psychologist working in the field of drug addiction I am constantly dealing with misinformation and propaganda about the dangers (both relative and absolute) of various drugs. Parents who are concerned that their teenage children might be using "dangerous drugs" rather than just getting drunk on the weekends and smoking cigarettes, etc. This book is an outstanding source for historical information about the development of our attitudes towards drugs, the role they play in our society, a straightforward, non-technical presentation of the psychological and biological actions of various drugs, and the effects of our current drug policies. Coupled with "From Chocolate to Morphine" (another must read book) a reader will have a great fund a basic information about drugs and our relationship to them. I only wish this book would be updated and reprinted - though, unfortunately, not nearly enough has changed since this book was first published.

Despite the criticisms levelled at Trollope for his "authorial intrusions" (see Henry James for example) this novel is always a pleasure to read. The characters take precedence over the plot, as in any Trollopian fiction and this is what makes a novel like BARCHESTER more palatable to the modern reader, as compared to any of Dickens's. Some readers may find the ecclesiastical terms confusing at first but with a little help (see the Penguin introduction for example), all becomes clear. What is important, however, is the interaction between the all-too-human characters and in this novel there are plenty of situations to keep you, the reader, amused.

Do yourself a favour and take a trip back into Nineteenth century where technology is just a blink in everyone's eye. What you will discover, however, is that human beings have not really changed, just the conventions have.

I rushed home every day after work to read a little more of this Trollope comedy. The book starts out with the death of a bishop during a change in political power. The new bishop is a puppet to his wife Mrs. Proudie and her protégé Mr. Slope. Along the way we meet outrageous clergymen, a seductive invalid from Italy, and a whole host of delightfully ridiculous characters. Trollope has designed most of these characters to be "over the top". I kept wondering what a film version starring the Monty Python characters would look like. He wrote an equivalent of a soap opera, only it doesn't take place at the "hospital", it takes place with the bishops. Some of the characters you love, some of the characters you hate, and then there are those you love to hate. Trollope speaks to the reader throughout the novel using the mimetic voice, so we feel like we are at a cocktail party and these 19th century characters are our friends (or at least the people we're avoiding at the party!). The themes and characters are timeless. The book deals with power, especially power struggles between the sexes. We encounter greed, love, desperation, seductive sirens, and generosity. Like many books of this time period however, the modern reader has to give it a chance. No one is murdered on the first page, and it takes quite a few chapters for the action to pick up. But pick up it does by page 70, and accelerates into a raucously funny novel from there. Although I didn't read the Warden, I didn't feel lost and I'm curious to read the rest of this series after finishing this book. Enjoy!

This is the second of the six Barsetshire novels, and the first great novel in that series. THE WARDEN, while pleasant, primarily serves as a prequel to this novel. To be honest, if Trollope had not gone on to write BARCHESTER TOWERS, there would not be any real reason to read THE WARDEN. But because it introduces us to characters and situations that are crucial to BARCHESTER TOWERS, one really ought to have read THE WARDEN before reading this novel.

Trollope presents a dilemma for most readers. On the one hand, he wrote an enormous number of very good novels. On the other hand, he wrote no masterpieces. None of Trollope's books can stand comparison with the best work of Jane Austen, Flaubert, Dickens, George Eliot, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky. On the other hand, none of those writers wrote anywhere near as many excellent as Trollope did. He may not have been a very great writer, but he was a very good one, and perhaps the most prolific good novelist who ever lived. Conservatively assessing his output, Trollope wrote at least 20 good novels. Trollope may not have been a genius, but he did possess a genius for consistency.

So, what to read? Trollope's wrote two very good series, two other novels that could be considered minor classics, and several other first rate novels. I recommend to friends that they try the Barsetshire novels, and then, if they find themselves hooked, to go on to read the Political series of novels (sometimes called the Palliser novels, which I feel uncomfortable with, since it exaggerates the role of that family in most of the novels). The two "minor classics" are THE WAY WE LIVE NOW and HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT. The former is a marvelous portrait of Victorian social life, and the latter is perhaps the finest study of human jealousy since Shakespeare's OTHELLO. BARSETSHIRE TOWERS is, therefore, coupled with THE WARDEN, a magnificent place, and perhaps the best place to enter Trollope's world.

There are many, many reasons to read Trollope. He probably is the great spokesperson for the Victorian Mind. Like most Victorians, he is a bit parochial, with no interest in Europe, and very little interest in the rest of the world. Despite THE AMERICAN SENATOR, he has few American's or colonials in his novels, and close to no foreigners of any type. He is politically liberal in a conservative way, and is focussed almost exclusively on the upper middle class and gentry. He writes a good deal about young men and women needing and hoping to marry, but with a far more complex approach than we find in Jane Austen. His characters are often compelling, with very human problems, subject to morally complex situations that we would not find unfamiliar. Trollope is especially good with female characters, and in his sympathy for and liking of very independent, strong females he is somewhat an exception of the Victorian stereotype.

Anyone wanting to read Trollope, and I heartily believe that anyone who loves Dickens, Austen, Eliot, Hardy, and Thackery will want to, could find no better place to start than with reading the first two books in the Barsetshire Chronicles, beginning first with the rather short THE WARDEN and then progressing to this very, very fun and enjoyable novel.

I think that as time goes by, Porter Alexander's personal memoirs, written for his family and thus very candid, will come to be seen as an outstanding work both of historical reminiscence and of 19th century writing. The Introduction, in which Alexander tells of some incidents from his boyhood, is worth the entire book. But, there is more. Alexander worked either as signals officer, ordnance officer or artillery commander for virtually everybody in the Army of Northern Virginia, including Beauregard, J.E. Johnston, Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet, and Lee. He participated in virtually every major battle. He has the rare ability to desribe events in a fresh and modern manner, so that the reader is there with him in the thick of things. I can only imagine the thrill that the editor must have had when he found these papers at UNC in 1989. Alexander apparently wrote a more formal history of the Civil War published in 1907 with which I am not familiar. Although the frontispiece shows an unremarkable face, the writing shows the glowing intelligence and enthusiasm that must have impressed his superiors and led to his being given one responsible assignment after another. By being present, but a generation younger than the ANV leaders, he is able to give both intimate, but also critical pictures of them. This book is indispensible to anyone with an interest in the Civil War in the Eastern Theater. A true classic.

One of the most enjoyable memoirs I've ever read. I disagree with the reviewer who said Alexander tended to bragg about his accomplishments. If anything, I thought this book rather modest. However, Alexander is not shy about sharing his opinions, but this did not impress me as bragging. His vignettes of the leaders he had personnal dealings with are priceless and add a dimension to my impressions of men such as Lee and Longstreet. The book left me wanting to know about Alexander the man. No good biography of him exists to my knowledge. I read one account a number of years ago in 'Civil War Times Illustrated' that stated he had a rather nasty temper. I was unable to form a mental picture of the man from reading his book because the narrative is that of a good-natured fellow teling the openly honest story of his war service. I was left wanting to get to know this person a little better. This is a must read.

E.P. Alexander, Longstreet and Lee's Chief of Artillery, wrote two books. This book, his first, was written while Alexander was in Central America, without access to the Official Records, etc. Thus, he wrote primarily from memory. Alexander started the work at the urgings of his children and did not intend the work to be published. It was meant for his family only. As a result, it is a very personal account of his life during the Civil War. He does go into detail regarding battles in which he participated and freely offers his opinions about various strategies, tactics and leaders. (If no one but his family was to read it, then there was no one to offend.) In his opinions Alexander comes across as scrupulously honest and straight-forward, not to mention intelligent. Later Alexander decided to write a 2nd book; and at first he used these recollections as the basis for that book (whose title I forget). He then gave up this tactic and wrote his 2nd book from "scratch". So now, Gary Gallagher has once again come to the rescue and pieced together Alexander's first writings - which is this particular book......Overall, I found this to be one of the most interesting and enjoyable books I have read. It is very funny at times; then often sad. It contains much information about battles; and also insights into the leaders of those battles. But while his 2nd book is a strict military tract about the Civil War, this 1st book also gives the reader a "feel" for the people involved. It was a joy to read - one great book!

"Had some nasty cleaning issues all this week, and the Handbook has come in handy."

"....a major effort to go beyond the typical manufacturer's hype....in unbiased terms, the good, the bad, and the ugly of virtually every contending technology available on the market today...a fabulous, 636 page overview of cleaning technology which should be on the desk of anybody who is doing anything in the world of precision cleaning...The scope of this book is breathtaking... it is fair to say that the Kanegsbergs are probably the only two individuals we know in this industry -- so involved, so unbiased, so well-informed, so trusted by so many vendors -- who could have had the balance, the perspective, to assemble this Handbook. If you are cleaning, you MUST get this book."

"I find this Handbook to be a truly comprehensive manual and a valuable aid for both the experienced and beginning practitioner involved this subject matter. The handbook gives the reader an intelligent and in-depth treatment of the various types of cleaning agents and associated cleaning equipment without providing too much of an exhaustive treatise on any material. I particularly liked that I can find information on all of the recommended cleaners and processes in one book. I would refer to this Handbook as a 'cleaner's companion.'"

"Not Always So" is exactly as great as "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind." Edward Espe Brown has lovingly edited these talks by Shunryu Suzuki, Roshi. The talks are at the same time completely simple, and amazingly complex. Now we just need Peter Coyote to narrate the book on tape.

This is another series of talks given by Shunryu Suzuki who died
in 1971. He seems to have been the greatest Zen Master in the
occidental world to date. The first series of talks is in "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" which came out in 1970. This seems to be the most inspirational book in Zen of our time. Please buy both
of these treasures. Please don't buy these two books (or one if
you already have "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) if you believe that
this book will teach you zen formally. The author makes it clear
that you need a teacher. But once you have one, these two books are the most inspirational books that you can have. I guess that
the most practical is still "The Three Pillars of Zen" by Roshi Kapleau. This second book of talks seems just as good as the first. I don't know why Zen Center waited 32 years to print it.
Nevertheless, it is a real treasure. Please don't treat this great man's teaching as basic. He implys in this book that just sitting can lead you to seeing the source of all phenomena. So
this is not a "cute" book. It's quite deep. Thank you.

I just want to clarify something written in a previous review, that seems to suggest some sort of consistency between Suzuki roshi's teaching and Kapleau's. I personally think it is pretty important to bear in mind the vast ... in teaching style and in stated purpose between these two schools. When, a few years ago, I read Kapleau's book I was startled and disturbed by it. As a practitioner in a lineage similar to Suzuki's I felt Three Pillars of Zen was antithetical to what I had experienced in my zen practice. Just a word of warning for those who might think Kapleau's book is a complementary text to Suzuki's.

Had I not seen Waterdance first, this book would have been a number 1 for photography of dancers. I'm a fan of the human body, and this book shows it beautifully. While excellent, it leaves me wishing for that something more, that something that exists in Waterdance. I'm thrilled to see that Schatz has continued the water photography in Pool of Light - can't wait for it to be delivered. - Sam Hunter

This book is a wonderful rareity; a collection of breathtaking photographs that doens't sink to the level of objectification or predictability. The work is a celebration! The pictures are full of life and vitality, and it's obvious that Mr. Schatz has a profound respect for the dancers. He brings out the beauty of each of his models in a unique and interesting way. I will definately look for more his work!

Passion and Line is one of my very favorite books and I have thousands of books. It inspires me. It motivates me. It is the zenith of what the human body can be. I get chills each time I view this thrilling book. The hard work, the incredible discipline of the dancers is exquisitly captured by Howard Schultz. Bravo to the Artist Schultz and bravo to his subject dancers.