I have used this book in my Geometry classes for the past 2 years plus my student teaching. It gives a fairly thorough explaination of ideas and the resources that go with it along with the practice problems in the book give you enough problems to decide how in depth you want to get with each topic. My only complaint is that the way the book is set up, it encourages memorizing the theorems and ideas more by number than just by the idea, which is really important. Most of the topics are presented in a manner that is easy to follow when students go back to use the book as a resource. My school will continue using this book for a few more years.

I am using this book for the first time and I am loving it. No topics are left out. There is a logical flow from one chapter to the next. But, more importantly, I have not found a single mistake so far after having gone through chapters 1,2,3,4,5,&7 with a fine tooth comb.

I have been using Geometry as the primary text in both my Geometry and Honors Geometry classes for several years. The book is very well organized and has a logical flow of topics. I have been able to teach from this book without changing the topic order. Geometry is a very traditional book, giving a substantial amount of time to the art of writing a two column proof. To me that is one of the objectives of my course; to help students to think logically. If I were to cite any objection to the book it is that I have to work hard to integrate technology into the course since the book does not readily lend itself to that. All in all however, I highly recommend the book.

Tom Fazio is one of the best golf course designers of all time. Because I am from the Philadelphia area, I am not privileged to play as many of his courses as I would like. When you first pick up this book, you might falsely believe it is nothing more than a picture book. Don't be fooled though. Fazio provides some interesting insight into why he chose to sculpt his courses the way he did. Many golf enthusiasts might recognize Fazio's name from courses they've played, but he has also done some masterful redesigns as well including the recent improvements to Augusta National.
Yes, the pictures add another dimension to the book, but the fact that it is an easy read and one that provides great insight is what brings this book to another level.
I highly recommended this book not only for golfers but for those who enjoy the aesthetics of a golf course as well.

If you play golf, you must have this book. I am lucky enough to work at a Fazio course (Victoria National - Indiana) and so naturally this book was special to me.

It is enjoyable to look at as well as interesting to read.

Anyone who plays or wishes they could play will HAVE to have this book.

Unlike most books destined for the coffee table, Fazio transends the swing arc to a beautiful look at the vision of the the ulimate playing field- the golf course. With a wonderful perspective of design, the challange of the game starts with the challange of the course. The pictures are beautiful beyond description but the story, passion and the theory are even more great. Tom Fazio has taken his agressiveness from the tour and put it to the turf. This is a wonderful book for the golf enthusiast!

Perlin's book is an ambitious overview of the use of wood in world civilization. Therein lies the both the book's strengths and weaknesses. Like any work that attempts to do a global history, inevitably some regions and some eras get very short shrift. Still, A Forest Journey is interesting, and well worth reading by anyone with an interest in environmental or forest history.

This book is a study on the rise and fall of civilizations, as caused by their management of wood resources, or in other words energy resources. Perlin tells a convincing tale on what makes a civilization tick. This is a very good book to read for anybody who cares about what the world is coming to, and perhaps even for those who don't. It is filled with fascinating historical material.

The limitations of the book are that Perlin is not as great a storyteller as DC Peattie (many of the stories here would make a sweeping tale in the hands of a truly gifted writer) and that the choice of civilizations treated is very much oriented towards the US.

A Forest Journey first reminds us of the absolute importance of wood to human history: how much we have depended on wood for our very existence:

"Throughout the ages trees have provided the material to make fire, the heat of which has allowed our species to reshape the earth for its use. With heat from wood fires, relatively cold climates became habitable; inedible grains were changed into a major source of food; clay could be converted into pottery, serving as useful containers to store goods; people could extract metal from stone, revolutionizing the implements used in agriculture, crafts, and warfare; the builders could make durable construction materials such as brick, cement, lime, plaster, and tile for housing and storage facilities....

"Transportation would have been unthinkable without wood. Until the nineteenth century every ship, from Bronze Age coaster to the frigate, was built with timber. Every cart, chariot, and wagon was also made primarily of wood. Early steamboats and railroad locomotives in the United States used wood as their fuel...

"Wood was also used for the beams that propped up mine shafts and formed supports for every type of building. Water wheels and windmills ­ the major means of mechanical power before electricity was harnessed ­ were built of wood. The peasant could not farm without wooden tool handles or wood plows; the soldier could not throw his spear or shoot his arrows without their wooden shafts, or hold his gun without its wooden stock. What would the archer have done lacking wood for his bow; the brewer and vintner, without wood for their barrels and casks; or the woolen industry, without wood for its looms?"

Perlin then thoroughly documents how all past nations declined once their forests were depleted. Today, with the world's forests in jeopardy, A Forest Journey provides much needed information that can help us avoid another needless repetition of history.

Travis McGee gets a check for $25,000 (a lot of dough for 1969) and the dying wish of an old friend, to look after her suicidal daughter. So McGee goes to Fort Courtney to observe the daughter, her sister and her husband. What McGee encounters is a series of unusual circumstances, including dead bodies, cheating spouses, and the evidence that somebody is spying on him. Could all of these things be connected? Sure - but only McGee could figure out the complicated connection. True to most McGee novels, justice is served in the end, although in a form the reader does not expect.

This is my 11th McGee novel. Clearly MacDonald writes in a more sophisticated style than 98% of the mystery writers today. A new reader may find it annoying that one must suffer through a good 100 pages before the action really begins, but this is typical MacDonald style. Not only do you get a complex mystery, but you get a lot of philosophy along the way.

Well, I'll keep this short & sweet. I'm not much of a mystery reader but this series was recommended to me by several people. I picked this one randomly to start the series. I liked it...the story was quick-moving, had good character development, some humor, a lot of action, and tied up nicely at the end. At 250 pages it's a quick read, perfect for an airplane ride. If you like Dick Francis, Robert Parker, et al, then you'll like this series.

This was my second John D. MacDonald book and my first Travis McGee book. I had heard that MacDonald could flat-out write, and I was not disappointed by this book. What I enjoyed the most was MacDonald's insight into the human condition; he really understood what motivated people. This helped his plotting and dialogue seem fresh and real even after 30 years.

I'm hooked. If you haven't read MacDonald you're missing out.

A History of Israel is an in depth (and I mean DEPTH) journey back into time. Taking the reader back to the very edge of the mists of prehistory, John Bright then lays out, in a point by point fashion, the whole sweep of time in the near east up until the appearance of a certain Galilean who forever changed the world.

A History of Israel is very in depth, very packed with useful information. Bright has written a wonderful book. It did (as most history books are likely to) set off my anti-scholarship allergy a few times. However, it is very worthy of being read.

I give this book a very high recommendation. Bright's presentation is clear, at certain points even lively. It thoroughly deals with the developments in each time period. It delivers the reader to one heck of a destination-one of eternal significance-that beautiful moment in time where the Messiah asked a very pointed question that many are still in need of answering: "Who do you say that I am?"

For a long time I had been looking for a history of Israel in which the conclusions are based on the same kinds of evidence as any other history. Bright's wonderful book is almost it. I do not understand why he says things like "that Moses was an actual person can scarely be doubted" or something to that effect. He vacillates between an historian's examination of data and the same old deference to Scripture from which I've needed a relief for decades. He does say that sometimes the only source we have is the scripture, but he still seems to be influenced by what people have found sacred, such as the existence of Abraham as a real person or the event of the Exodus. All in all though, it is the best I've seen.

At sem this was required reading to achieve an accurate, full understanding of the historical context of the OT books.

Bright is intense, thorough and up-to-date with archaeological finds, coming out of the Albright school.

He updates his text with the Dead Sea scrolls as well as the Ebla tablets and other findings which provide additional insight into the historical setting.

Conflicting views are given attention along with excellent footnotes for further reading and a well stocked bibliography.

A crime has occurred, often (though not always) a murder. As authorities and observers attempt to solve the mystery, often arriving at a false solution, meekly in the background is a humble, unassuming priest. Using his knowledge of the criminal mind, and often bringing to bear theology (because unsound theology is the basis of moral failure), the unnoticed priest arrives at the solution. Each time one comes to the end of these short mysteries, the reader realizes that there is some small detail that he or she missed, which was not missed by Father Brown. Thus is displayed the power of quiet observation. These short stories make for some good bedtime reading, and even profound theological reflection. The only reason I gave this volume four stars instead of five is that mystery is not personally my favorite genre. Even non-mystery lovers can enjoy these stories much as I have.

In the genre of the finely crafted English detective story, Chesterton's "Father Brown" stories are wholesome and stimulating detective tales surpassed by few others, except perhaps Doyle's legendary Sherlock Holmes. In contrast to the arrogant Holmes, however, Chesterton's protagonist is rather quiet, unassuming and modest, and makes an unlikely hero - a catholic priest. Father Brown's simple manner makes you quick to underestimate him, but the startling flashes of brilliance that spill from beneath his humble exterior soon make you realize that he has a firm grasp on the truth of a situation when you are as yet frustratingly distant from it. His perceptive one-liners make it evident that he has a clear insight into something that you see only as an apparently insoluble paradox.

Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox", and the Father Brown stories are a clear testimony of his fondness for paradox. Ultimately it is not just crimes that Brown must solve, but the paradox underlying them. In fact, not all stories are crime stories - among them are mysterious situations that do not involve criminals, and it is the perceptive insight of Father Brown that is needed make apparent contradictions comprehensible by his ruthless logic. Father Brown is not so much concerned with preserving life or bringing a criminal to justice as he is with unravelling the strands of an impossible paradox. In fact, Chesterton's conception of Father Brown is itself a paradox - both a cleric and a crime-fighter, a priest and a policeman, a representative of God's mercy and an instrument of God's justice, a proclaimer of forgiveness and a seeker of guilt, a listener in the confessional and a questioner in the interrogation.

How a priest could possibly play the role of a detective is explained in the first story, "The Blue Cross". Brown apprehends the confounded criminal Flambeau and explains that his knowledge of the criminal mind is due in part to what he's heard at the confessional booth "We can't help being priests. People come and tell us these things." When Flambeau retorts "How in blazes do you know all these horrors?" Chesterton allows his humble priest to attribute his insight into human depravity to his experience as a priest: "Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose, he said. Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil."

But both Chesterton and Father Brown have insight into much more than just human depravity - they are both champions of Catholic orthodoxy. This gives the Father Brown stories a depth not found in Brown's compatriot Holmes. In the course of Chesterton's stories, we are treated to philosophical discussions about catholic theology, such as the relationship between faith and reason. We do not merely meet an assortment of cobblers, blacksmiths, magistrates and generals, but atheists, legalists, secularists, pagans, Presbyterians, Puritans, Protestants and Catholics, all with varying and vying affections for superstition, naturalism, rationalism, scepticism, agnosticism, materialism, anarchism, nihilism, or cynicism. Along with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton was one of the few writers in the twentieth century that made an important contribution to English literature that was stamped by Christian principles instead of the prevailing secularism of the day.

Readers who do not share Chesterton's theological convictions will not concur with all his insights, but they must concede that they are enjoyable, profound and stimulating. Somewhat surprising is the occasional use of blasphemous expletives such as "O my God", although generally from the mouths of others than Father Brown himself. And Brown does seem to degenerate more and more into a mouthpiece for Chesterton, with a sermonizing tone not present in the first stories.

But on the whole these are exemplary models of the English crime short story. The Penguin edition contains all the stories from all five of Chesterton's published Father Brown collections. Among my favorites are "The Blue Cross", where Father Brown follows a mysterious trail of clues and engages in some bizarre behaviour and fascinating theological discourse to apprehend Flambeau. "The Hammer of God" is also an outstanding whodunnit, as Brown solves the murder of a man who has been crushed by a huge hammer outside a church, seemingly the recipient of a divine thunderbolt of judgment from heaven. In the process Chesterton shares some thought-provoking insights, such as the memorable: "Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak." Also unforgettable is "The Blast of the Book", which recounts the mysterious disappearance of five men whose only crime was to open a seemingly magical book. Father Brown is quick to unravel the paradox by explaining it as the work of an ingenious prankster.

Father Brown's tongue never fails to produce profound paradoxical gems such as "The point of the pin was that it was pointless." And: "I never should have thought he would be so illogical as to die in order to avoid death." It is Brown's unique perspective that allows him to see what others do not see. When his compatriots are awed at the eloquence of a magistrate's thundering sermon in "the Mirror of the Magistrate", Father Brown remarks: "I think the thing that struck me most was how different men look in their wigs. You talk about the prosecuting barrister being so tremendous. But I happened to see him take his wig off for a minute, and he really looks quite a different man. He's quite bald, for one thing."

With the finely crafted prose, depth of theological insight, and brilliant combination of perception and paradox, Chesterton has created in Father Brown a noble and enduring character, a worthy successor to Sherlock Holmes and in some respects his equal and superior. The Father Brown stories are unquestionably worthy of their designation as classics.

Father Brown is an intriguing and refreshing fictional detective. In addition to providing short glimpses into criminal puzzles, this book includes fascinating looks at the time period in which it was written (Father Brown meets the Futurists). Much more intelligent than many of the other entries into this genre, it also wasn't as dogmatically religious as I'd been lead to believe. I really enjoyed this book.

John Webster's play "The Duchess of Malfi" is a violent play that presents a dark, disturbing portrait of the human condition. According to the introductory note in the Dover edition, the play was first presented in 1613 or 1614.

The title character is a widow with two brothers: Ferdinand and the Cardinal. In the play's opening act, the brothers try to persuade their sister not to seek a new husband. Her resistance to their wishes sets in motion a chain of secrecy, plotting, and violence.

The relationship between Ferdinand and the Duchess is probably one of the most unsettling brother-sister relationships in literature. The play is full of both onstage killings and great lines. The title character is one of stage history's intriguing female characters; she is a woman whose desires lead her to defy familial pressure. Another fascinating and complex character is Bosola, who early in the play is enlisted to act as a spy. Overall, a compelling and well-written tragedy.

This is a review of the New Mermaids edition of The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. Elisabeth M. Brennan edits this edition (ISBN: 0393900665.) I mention this incase it is cross-posted under some other editor's edition.

I bought this after reading snippets of it in other books. I do not recall having to learn this in school. Only now do I intend to read "The White Devil" in anticipation of it being encountered in other works.

Well what do you know? This animal is based on a true story of the Duchess of Amalfi. Evidentially there were several books written on this and he picked one for the outline of the play.

This edition is almost as good as taking a class in its self. The introduction gives you a back ground and the basic story that the play was based on. You get some information on John Webster and some of his other plays. There is even a further Reading List. There are even notes on the text and how to read the notes for the different versions of the play its self. By the time you get to the play you are well prepared to read it.

The play its self has stanzas, line numbers and notes to help you through the difficulty of understanding what the words mean in context. It is almost like reading a bible. You soon pickup speed and then actually get intrigued in the writing and story.

Now I desperately want some local theater to present "The duchess of Malfi"

Of the "popular" editions of this play that by John Russell Brown (Revels Student Editions) and Elizabeth Brennan (New Mermaids) are both useful, though it must be said that no edition as yet does adequate justice to Webster's compexity - notably his presentation of Ferdinand. The play is both a tour de force and profoundly searching. It is perhaps the first major feminist play in England, with the Duchess presented as an outstandingly noble even if fallible character, the victim of her two evil "partriarchal" brothers. Of these, her twin brother Ferdinand is among the most intelligently conceived characters to appear on the Jacobean stage. Unknowingly (i.e. in his "unconscious") he is incestuously in love with his sister. Unable to cope with this "taboo" feeling, he tries to "repress" it unsuccessfully, and finally his ... "libido" comes to express itself in a violent wish to destroy her if he cannot ... own her, and he ends up believing himself to be a wolf, attempting to dig up her grave after he has had her killed. Obviously, then, this is a very Freudian work - anticipating Freud's insights brilliantly by some four centuries, and without lapsing into Freud's extravagantly improbable claims about such matters as the Oedipus complex. It is the working of the unconcious, as a reservoir of what we do not understand and cannot control, which is quite central in this play, and Ferdinand's ... confusion is potently contrasted with his sister's openminded, acknowledged and generous ... health. An outstanding play, recommended as among the best of its time (comparable in quality and interest to e.g. *Othello* or *The Changeling*). - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University, South Australia

We picked this book for my daughter's book report based on reviews we had read. She is a strong 4th grade reader, but found this book difficult to follow. I read portions of the book with my daughter in mind. I found it contained long descriptive sentences, and did not flow well. I would not recommend this book for report purposes for the younger readers in this age group. We will try to read it for pleasure after the report is completed.

I have read several books about Juliette Low, founder of the Girl Scouts. My daughter, who at the time was a Junior Girl Scout in 4th grade, chose Juliette Low as the subject for her school boigraphy assignment. I was SO lucky to find this book for her to read! It is very interesting, written for the older child - not babyish like some other books are. It is long enough to qualify as an acceptable book to use for a report - approximately 100 pages. It tells about Daisy's entire life, not just about when she formed the Girl Scouts. It's a terrific book for children 3rd grade and up (but I enjoyed reading it, too!)

I read this book for my biography book report because I am a Brownie. It was very interesting to read about Juliette Low's life.

A brilliantly written, beautifully evocative story that tries much too hard to be profound. The author has a lived-in knowledge of human nature as well as descriptive genuis...but his pretentious tone and feeble epiphanies weigh the story down. The title is very apt: the atmosphere of the book bogs down into a fancy Gothicism that seems largely decorative. The emotions of the story remain mild and vaporous. A frustrating waste of the author's gifts.

Being an avid fan of books placed in New Orleans, I picked up this book and was very pleasantly surprised! That a man can write a book so well from a woman's perspective is amazing to me. I thought the characters were very well written and the interplay of the races in the South was excellent.

I also don't agree with the Kirkus review, I am enjoying this book enormously. The author does a great job of giving the different narrators of the story unique voices. He also has rare insight into the heart of a woman. I am looking forward to other books by this author.

I note with amusement that one reviewer states that this book took "slight liberties". I don't think the liberties could have gotten any bigger. Brown does not write as an unbiased author stating facts, he clearly has an agenda and it is conspiracy. The book makes fun reading, but for facts, forget it. For a good book see Posners Case Closed.

This book was compellig. I once had Dr. Brown as a teacher in a American Histoy Class I attended and I was stunned on his great knowledge on the Kenedy Murders. It shows in this book in what I like to call, a "what if" situation.

Assumptions are made and some slight liberties are taken. However, Walt Brown examines the evidence and allows the reader to see how it was not only impossible to have convited Oswald, but also how it would have been impossible for virtually anyone to have committed the crime with that weapon. READ IT.