Silverlock was first given to me by my brother and I enjoyed reading every word of it. I carelessly lost it and eventually found another copy after many years and have reread it several times now. Silverlock is casted away from the harried present to an island filled with intruiging characters of literatures past. The fun of figuring out these suggestive characters (ie. Robin Hood, the Mad Hatter, etc) along with the journey Silverlock takes will draw you into the book like no other. If you only read one book this year, be sure to make it this one!!!

I got my copy years ago and after having read it dozens of times it is badly worn. I found this site in my search for a new copy. This is simply the best work of fiction ever produced. Myers creates an entire world to challenge and capture the imagination, populated with both well known and obscure characters from all throughout literature. They are wonderful to recognize in this new context, and there is not a dull moment to be found in these adventures. This book will make you feel truly alive, and see the world around you with new awe and appreciation. Nothing compares to Silverlock. I urge you to demand as loud as possible that a new reprint is made- the world needs Silverlock!

Real rating should be 10 Plus! In answer to the age old question of what ten books on a desert island would you choose, Silverlock would be among them. It is that good. An exploration through literature and life. The narrator meets Circe, joins up with Robin Hood, meets the Hunchback, visits Job, sails Huck Finn's raft, and much, much more. If you love literature like I do, you owe it to yourself to read Silverlock

This book is about 3 people, Score, Helaine and Pixel. They have exiting adventures and it feels like the characters are real! I think everyone should get to read this fantastic book. I read about 50 pages and then got so interested in the book I read the whole book. This is the best book I've ever read,and the most exiting adventure story I ever read! I can't wait for the other book!

I read books 1-4 of DIADEM.I will buy 5 and 6. You should keep on writing. Think of making this book a television series, computer software(Windows 95), and a movie. You should make a book that they have to face an evil version of themselves. And Shanara has enough power to help them and give them each a unicorn horn and a familiar(bird,mammal,reptile). And each gets a griomore or book of spells. Helaine has Eremin's, Score has Traxis's, and Pixel has Nantor's.

If you want to no a little bit about Diadem's characters I'll tell you.Pixel is a boy from another planet.He's from another planet were everyone lived in cyberspace so he doesn't have a lot of expearence with the real world but that's Okay because he's really smart.Hellaine is an arrogant girl that is a really good swordsmen and is really brave.She's from a rich family that was really powerful so she thinks that she is better then everyone else.Score(my persenel favorite) is a cocky homless boy from earth that thinks having friends is bad because they will just let you down.Despite his wisemouth attitude he is actually very smart.I LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE THIS BOOK and would recemend it to anyone that likes magic and adventure.I hope John Peel writes 100000000000 more Diadem books.I have read all 6 Diadem books 4 times and I really love them.I think you should go out get#1 and start reading it.

Super book! Theophany is an emotional and spiritual adventure. After reading a few pages, I loved Sarah and Josh. I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. I couldn't stop reading, except to try to recover my emotions. The story is going along beautifully, and then Mr. Vines sends a jolt to your heart. He does this several times. The humor and evil he adds to the story complete the adventure. Sarah and Joshua will be with me forever. I'm reading it a second time, and finding even more in it. I'd recommend it to everyone. I am anxiously awaiting the next book.

If you think you have read all of the "angel lit" (surely a whole genre by now!) that you can handle, I beseech you to try one more. Michael Vines' THEOPHANY deserves to be read as the unique story it is, rather than as just one more take on angelic intervention into mortals' lives. THEOPHANY begins with a "one two" punch in the first paragraph that lets us glimpse that this story will deal in the unexpected and in wholly new ways. The story opens with a description of a beautiful, tranquil scene in the Rocky Mountains. . . a scene that the young heroine, Sarah, contemplates as being "a wonderfully perfect place to die." The tone of the book reads mostly as a sweet fable...belying the tragedies and acts of pure evil that unfold in its pages. Sarah, seemingly a most-typical American girl, has an imaginary playmate. . .except he's not. Imaginary, that is. Of course, this companion, Joshua, is the angel in question. But this tale is not an an ordinary tale of God's assistance to a human being through angels. THIS human has been chosen for something special; born to it, if you will. . .but, and here is where Vines' message begins to take shape, so have we all. Vines traces Sarah's mission from her childhood and early adolescence, through first love and its horrible consequences, through numerous miracles, and lessons learned and taught. As Sarah says, "I cannot teach what I do not know." Vines style eases us into situations, and then lets the situation itself do the teaching. He rarely pontificates, with or or two permissible exceptions. His three main characters--Sarah, Joshua and The Stranger--are each compelling in specific ways. Leading us into a decidedly NOT typical mystery/thriller involving collusion, conspiracy and corruption at levels only we in the late twentieth century could begin to find plausible, Vines weaves in the lessons which Sarah takes to the world. "Moderation even applies to those things spiritual." "Sometimes the answer is . . .no answer, and sometimes the answer is simply . . .no." Sarah learns these lessons and becomes the most loved and hated person in the world as she goes about trying to impart them to a world in need of them. This book is one of those in which the reader must, of necessity, become a character in the book and interpret its message through the perception of his or her own "character." I am fairly certain a great many people will focus on the feminist aspect of Sarah, a female, being chosen as the vessel through which God reveals Himself. And on the message of love which permeates the book. However, for myslef, the primary message is one which Sarah articulates quite clearly, leaving no room for doubt: "But the real essence of hell will be knowing what your potential was and never being able to achieve it." Michael Vines has, perhaps, not fully achieved his potential as a novelist; but with this first effort he is obviously well on his way.

Theophany is a charming and touching novel, with a lovable main character that we quickly grow to care about a great deal. The story is so engrossing, that its not especially apparent that you are being challenged to think. Its message of spirituality, love and sacrifice, seem very apt in the manic, sometimes rather cold seeming world we live in. As Sarah makes her journey, we journey with her and see the light in humanity that Michael Vines obviously does. Its universality and hope will appeal to anyone of faith, or indeed to anyone who has faith in the human heart. I recommend Theophany highly

Desolation Angels was the second Kerouac book I purchased, and it became my favorite book. In the first half of the book, the "Desolation" chapters explain Jack's feelings and mind more than in any other book and during an important period of his life. Some people say the book is schitzophrenic, having been started in Mexico City in 1956 and completed around 1962. However, I believe the result is not two books but half of the book being thoughts and feelings and the other half being a thoughtful man reflecting. In any case, the book is wonderful, and reading the entire novel does take some work but well worth the effort!

There are usually two types of Kerouac readers. There are the "On the Roaders", as I call them. The ones that enjoy his style, his way of placing his friend's lives into the context of their own troubles, their loneliness their love-- all the while with a literary pace likened to a old pickup speeding across the straightaways of the vacant Montana backroads. And then there are the others, who like the former, enjoy the style-- but they also look for the sadness in Kerouac's writing. His ability to deconstruct people with one look (in Des. Angels he watches a waitress in a bar and tells her entire life story in snapshot events that underlie the sad look in her eyes), to find the hidden sentiments in people's actions- whether he's right or wrong we really don't care.

Desolation Angels is the book for the second group of people. It is tortuous at times- like his solitude atop the mountain staring Hozomeen in the face every morning which reveals Kerouac's own struggle to deal with himself and his past. But I believe among all of his novels it is the most rewarding. The book takes us to all of his major haunts- London, New York, San Fran, Paris, the Mediterranean- with many of his closest friends - Neal, Allen, Williams S. Burroughs, Joyce. There's even a small part where Kerouac is face to face with Salvidore Dali.

If you are looking for Kerouac-the-humanist at his best- this is the novel for you. Where the novel lacks in adventure (On the Road) and joyous affirmation (dharma bums) it makes up in sheer descriptive character study and sad observation, of a man trying to grapple with what he sees as the emptiness of all things, and the sad reality of his own personal struggles with live, love, and death.

generation in Desolation Angels. Kerouacs frank accounts and vivid style draw you into the heart of a man both idealistic and cinical, naive and experienced, proud and downtrodden, as well as buddist and Catholic, living the life of a "Dharma Bum" as he travels to Mexico. From the fire lookout high on Desolaion Peak, to the junk steets of Mexico, Kerouac shares with his readers every experience and emotion, carring the reader deep into the lifestyle of the Beats as few authors ever accomplished. Its no wonder Kerouac became the symbol of the Beat generation for millions of kats in the 50's, for even today his writing is hep, and inciteful. He could very easily be an icon for generations to come.

By far the greatest book ever written on the art of hitting a baseball . Iused when i played in hs and it was phenom.how it helped me .I preached it at the hs level and now as i college coach i endorse it as well. MR.Williams in the best hitter since Babe Ruth so he knows what hes talking about .I own 3 of these books this paper back edition as well as the 1st print and 2nd print.The first edition is a collecters item which is going to be priceless at somepoint.I am currently seeking MR. Williams to sign my 1st edition book but not having much luck.If you are seroius about hitting look no further than this book,it talks of the most important things you must do to hit a baseball.1.)get a good pitch to hit2.)make sure you use a bat your comfortable with3.)make sure you have done your homework on a pitcher ,proper thinking at the plate,whats he gonna throw in a certain situation.I have only 2 words buy it!

This book and Robert Adair's _The_Physics_of_Baseball_ are essential to being the best player, executive, or fan possible. This book is timeless, and focuses on the 'real playing field' of baseball -- the strike zone where the hitter and pitcher battle it out. This book covers technique well, but more importantly, it teaches approach, and the earlier in your life you can learn that, the better you will be.

Williams' emphasis on plate discipline and mental approach, combined with his teaching of how to analyze your own swing gives you the basic tools you need to be an excellent offensive player. For pitchers, this book is a must to understand the weapons available to the batter.

For fans, this book will help you understand what's important and what's just filler by the broadcast team. If you're under 14 years old, buy this book, or go get from your local library, and study it on a field with a tee and a bag of balls. Then read it every day before you do your hitting reps.

This book turns bad hitters fair, and good hitters great. You just need to put in the work.

This is the greatest book anyone an possibly buy on hitting. It is written by one of the top 3 hitters in baseball history, Ted Williams, and he definitely knows what he's talking about. Take it from me, I know. Im a 15 year old baseball player, whenever I get into a slump I can read this book and it will automatically get me out of it. If you read this at the beggining of a season it's possible your batting average could at least increase by .200, depending on how good you are. He explains the importance of having a good swing, stride, and everything essential to being a good hitter. This is a must have for every little leaguer.

The author's retelling of what he and his fellow teammates wentthrough during U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team training is anexcellent account of determination and teamwork. This book is not a typical special warfare, shoot-em-up, Rambo-type story. It's just the real deal, no BS description of what it takes, and what kind of person has what it takes, to make it through the world's hardest training program. Alot of what John Roat describes about what he and his fellow teammates had to do, has parallels with many other aspects of everyday life; not just military training. Having the motivation, ingenuity, and just plain guts to tough it out when the going seems impossible, and you could just as easily quit. A great read!

I was given this book as a gift as I was healing from cancer. I wasn't sure I was going to get much out of it but once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. This book had me laughing out loud when I wasn't in awe of the seriousness of the training involved in becoming a U.S. Navy Seal. Even though John Carl Roat is a friend of mine and I could hear him telling this story as I read, I would highly recommend this book to anyone, man or woman, service connected or not who wants to see how these proud and dedicated men are created.

John is an excellent story teller and his description of the pain and cold of UDT Training leaves little to the imagination. His colorful explanations of some of the evolutions of training are blended with personal anecdotes from other trainees. This book is an excellent read. If your interests lie in the history of Naval Special Warfare, The Making of U.S. Navy SEALs should be part of your library.

Plato, Complete Works is a must for the bookshelf of anyone interested in philosophy. Cooper's and Hutchinson's edition contains all Plato's known works and even some that might not be his, but are associated with him in some way. The translations are generally well-written and their style more up-to-date and readable than some older translations. As reviewers said before, this book is necessary if you want to understand philosophy and its history.

Except for some of the shorter works, (Euthyphro, Apology, Symposium), Plato's works are not easy to read. Some works are so dense and difficult that you can't see the point of his argument (e.g., Parmenides). If you need some help interpreting Plato, a good introduction to his work is G.M. Grube's Plato's Thought. It provides clear exposition on a number of subjects, including the theory of ideas, the nature of the soul, education, and statecraft.

One needs to decide whether Plato's thought is vital today or just historically important. Those who treat Plato as important today fall into one of two groups. There are those who think he is the source of that evil called Western Civilization. Post-modernists see modern philosophy as a series of rhetorical tropes started by Plato. They hold him responsible for the metaphysical nonsense espoused in philosophy today about reality, objectivity, and knowledge. If you think Plato is total nonsense and think his characters Protagoras (man is the measure of things) and Thrasymachus (might makes right) are largely correct, you might want to compare his work to Derrida or Nietzsche.

Then there are the Hellenists. They think that Plato said it all and nothing (or not much) more needs to be said. You usually get Alfred North Whitehead's quote here about philosophy being a series of footnotes to Plato. If you are so enthralled, you might want to try Allen Bloom, Stanley Rosen, or Leo Strauss.

Personally, I think both readings are wrongheaded for the same reason. In the 19th and 20th centuries especially, philosophy has made conceptual advances on Plato. Frege's logic, Kuhn's history of science, Peirce's communitarian pragmatism, and Wittgenstein's later language theory step beyond Plato.

If Plato is important today, it is for what he started, not what he says. He began the philosophical fields that are still popular areas today, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. And he invented the character of Socrates, through which he developed the notions of dialectic and definition. For these reasons alone, Plato's works should be read carefully and often. The fact that you get all of them here in one relatively inexpensive book (at least in terms of price per work) should be incentive enough to buy it.

In ancient times, Plato was regarded as one who writes most beautifully, and even in translation his mastery comes forward.

Reading this book, you are at the beginning of philosophy. There are beautiful dialogs concerning the most profound questions anyone can ask.

An advantage of this particular book is that for a reasonable price you can own Plato's complete works in modern scholarly translations. The volume is skillfully edited and there are handy notes.

Plato is one of the few philosophers who can be read for pleasure. His influence on Western thought is immense. As Whitehead says, subsequent Western philosophy is just footnotes to Plato.

Here are some of the works collected in this volume -

Apology - Socrates defense of his life

Phaedo - a defense of the immortality of the soul

Euthyrpo - a criticism of the Divine Command theory of ethics

Republic - the ideal commonwealth, what is justice, theory of ideas

Meno - the recollection theory of knowledge

Timaeus - Plato's story of the creation of the universe, his cosmology

I have not read every narration and account in this huge book yet but so far I am extremely happy with it. First, Plato's works are wonderful and somehow maintain a freshness even after reading through several in a row. The threads of logic woven through these works are a delight and I have found myself laughing aloud occasionally at the near sarcasm I feel I'm reading - Socrates often comes across as a quick-tongued smart-A**.

The translation is free-flowing and up-to-date. If you can read English, buy this book. If not, learn to and then buy this or have someone read it to you. It is that good and that important.

This book is one of the best-selling sports books of all time for a simple reason-it is one of the best sports books ever written. For one year, Bob Knight allowed John Feinstein unbelievable access to his practices, games, locker room talks, private meals, and all other facets of his life, and the author did a wonderful job putting all of his evidence together to describe the maniacal coach and the world of top-level college basketball. Coach Knight is a character who could not be imagined by a novelist because he is too complex. Throughout the book he proves to be one of the most loving, hating, bullying, charming, objectionable, and compassionate men you have ever encountered. His personality alone is a fascinating story and Feinstein does an excellent job of presenting all sides of the story to readers, but the story also includes the players, coaches, university officials, friends, and enemies who live within Knight's sphere, and each of them adds their unique and interesting perspective to the book. By focusing on the ups and downs of the 1985-86 Indiana University basketball season, Feinstein is able to put all of these people into context and makes an excellent drama out of what is on the surface little more than a sports biography. This is a great book about a brilliant coach and no true college basketball fan should miss the chance to read it.

In reading this book, two things jumped out at me. The first was that, to my surprise, the book made me like Bob Knight. After all he's been through and all the disapproval I felt for some of the things he did, I just didn't think I could like him. But, after reading this book, I think I understand him better and can see his good side as a coach and as a man much better. He's made some big mistakes, but he does a lot of good work and a lot of great coaching.

The second thing that jumped out at me was what an ordinary job of writing John Feinstein did in this book. Yes, he reported what happened, and he used language I understood, but he just didn't write in an interesting style. Instead of developing characters on the team or among the staff to report around, he just basically ground out what happened. I had to push myself to finish the book even though I'm a big basketball fan and was highly interested in the story. This dullness surprised me because I hear Feinstein on the radio and see him on the tube frequently and almost always find him very entertaining and funny. Maybe he hadn't really developed as an author when he churned this one out.

If you like basketball and have any interest in Bob Knight or Indiana, I'd say read this for sure. Just don't expect to be captivated by the writing.

As a huge sports fan, I couldn't wait to read this book and get an inside look into a college basketball season with Bob Knight and his Indiana Hoosiers. John Feinstein pulled off a minor miracle by convincing Knight to allow him to follow the whole team, players and coaches alike with his notepad and tape recorder throughout the 1985-86 season.

What you'll see is an inside look at the trials and tribulations of a big-time college basketball team and the sometime circus atmosphere created by their tempermental coach. The book starts off with a quick recap of the 1984-85 season which included the now famous chair throwing incident. Then you are lead through the offseason, training camp and regular season of 1985-86. Feinstein does a good job of keeping up the pace despite giving detailed recaps of every season's game. He ends the book with a brief summary of the national championship season of 1986-87.

There's no doubt who the center point of the whole book is: That of course is Bob Knight. I'm not an Indiana hoosier fan but I certainly was well aware of all the incidents Knight's been involved in over the years including the chair throwing, head butting, and choking. I can't say that my opinion of him changed at all after reading this book. The best word I can use to describe him is: complex.

In this book, you'll read how he verbally abuses players, especially Daryl Thomas. He'll play mind games like he did with Steve Alford, the team captain and best player. He'll be upbeat about the performance of the team one minute, and then the next he'll say how the team is horrible and will never win with these players. Warning: there is some profanity, but the f-words are "blanked" out.

But at the same time, this coach is extremely loyal to his players after they graduate. He'll do favors such as help get them jobs, etc. One of the most touching moments in the book is when he meets a family where the father and son are deaf-mute. Is his good side good enough to put up with his other nonsense? You be the judge!

Supposedly, BK was NOT very happy with the book. I don't know what he expected, but Feinstein clearly didn't take sides or had some kind of adgenda to [thrash] Knight. This is must read for all sports fans, Indiana Hoosiers or not.

Any book defined as a true classic is likely to be thought of as stultifying and incomprehensible...at best. Yet, there are dozens and dozens of books that are true classics and still manage to speak to today's modern audience. Boccaccio's Decameron is one such book.

The Decameron was written around 1350 during an outbreak of plague in Florence. It is the fictional account of ten young people who flee the city to a country manor house and, in an effort to keep themselves occupied and diverted, begin telling stories.

Ten days pass in the pages of the Decameron (hence its name), and each person tells one story per day, making a total of one hundred stories. These are stories that explore a surprisingly wide range of moral, social and political issues whose wit and candor will probably surprise most modern readers. The topics explored include: problems of corruption in high political office, sexual jealousy and the class differences between the rich and the poor.

The titles themselves are both imaginative and fun. One story is titled, "Masetto da Lamporecchio Pretends to be Deaf and Dumb in Order to Become a Gardener to a Convent of Nuns, Where All the Women Eagerly Lie With Him." And, although the title, itself, is a pretty good summary of the story, even a title such as this cannot adequately convey Boccaccio's humor and wit.

Another story that seems surprisingly modern is, "Two Men are Close Friends, and One Lies With the Other's Wife. The Husband Finds it Out and Makes the Wife Shut Her Lover in a Chest, and While He is Inside, the Husband Lies With the Lover's Own Wife on the Chest." A bit long for today's modern world, perhaps, where popular books are dominated by titles such as John Grisham's The Firm, but the outcome of this story is as socially-relevant today as anything that happened in fourteenth-century Florence.

The Decameron, however, goes far beyond plain, bawdy fun and takes a close look at a society that is unraveling due to the devastating effects of the plague. The people in Boccaccio's time suffered terribly and the book's opening pages show this. The clergy was, at best, inept and, more often than not, corrupt. Those who had the misfortune to fall ill (and this includes just about everyone) were summarily abandoned by both their friends and family.

Those looking for something representative of the social ills of Boccaccio's day will find more than enough interesting tidbits and asides in these stories. Serious students of literature will find the ancestors of several great works of fiction in these pages and readers in general cannot fail to be entertained by the one hundred stories spun by these ten refugees on their ten lonely nights.

Giovanni Boccaccio THE DECAMERON. Second Edition. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by G. H. McWilliam. cli + 909 pages. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin Books, 1995. ISBN 0-14-044629-X (Pbk).

Second-hand opinions can do a lot of harm. Most of us have been given the impression that The Decameron is a lightweight collection of bawdy tales which, though it may appeal to the salacious, sober readers would do well to avoid. The more literate will probably be aware that the book is made up of one hundred stories told on ten consecutive days in 1348 by ten charming young Florentines who have fled to an amply stocked country villa to take refuge from the plague which is ravaging Florence.

Idle tales of love and adventure, then, told merely to pass the time by a group of pampered aristocrats, and written by an author who was quite without the technical equipment of a modern story-teller such as Flannery O'Connor. But how, one wonders, could it have survived for over six hundred years if that's all there were to it? And why has it so often been censored? Why have there always been those who don't want us to read it?

A puritan has been described as someone who has an awful feeling that somebody somewhere may be enjoying themselves, and since The Decameron offers the reader many pleasures it becomes automatically suspect to such minds. In the first place it is a comic masterpiece, a collection of entertaining tales many of which are as genuinely funny as Chaucer's, and it offers us the pleasure of savoring the witty, ironic, and highly refined sensibility of a writer who was also a bit of a rogue. It also provides us with an engaging portrait of the Middle Ages, and one in which we are pleasantly surprised to find that the people of those days were every bit as human as we are, and in some ways considerably more delicate.

We are also given an ongoing hilarious and devastating portrayal of the corruption and hypocrisy of the medieval Church. Another target of Boccaccio's satire is human gullibility in matters religious, since, then as now, most folks could be trusted to believe whatever they were told by authority figures. And for those who have always found Dante to be a crushing bore, the sheer good fun of The Decameron, as Human Comedy, becomes, by implication (since Boccaccio was a personal friend of Dante), a powerful and compassionate counterblast to the solemn and cruel anti-life nonsense of The Divine Comedy.

There is a pagan exuberance to Boccaccio, a frank and wholesome celebration of the flesh; in contrast to medieval Christianity's loathing of woman we find in him what David Denby beautifully describes as "a tribute to the deep-down lovableness of women" (Denby, p.249). And today, when so many women are being taught by anti-sex radical feminists to deny their own bodies and feelings, Boccaccio's celebration of the sexual avidity of the natural woman should come as a very welcome antidote. For Denby, who has written a superb essay on The Decameron that can be strongly recommended, Boccaccio's is a scandalous book, a book that liberates, a book that returns us to "the paradise from which, long ago, we had been expelled" (Denby, p.248).

The present Penguin Classics edition, besides containing Boccaccio's complete text, also includes a 122-page Introduction, a Select Bibliography, 67 pages of Notes, four excellent Maps and two Indexes. McWilliam, who is a Boccaccio scholar, writes in a supple, refined, elegant and truly impressive English which successfully captures the highly sophisticated sensibility of Boccaccio himself. His translation reads not so much as a translation as an original work, though his Introduction (which seems to cover everything except what is most important) should definitely be supplemented by Denby's wonderfully insightful and stimulating essay, details of which follow:

Chapter 17 - 'Boccaccio,' in 'GREAT BOOKS - My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World'
by David Denby. pp.241-249. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. ISBN 0-684-83533-9 (Pbk).

It seems almost redundant that I bother to rate this with yet another 5-star review (especially since I didn't buy it from Amazon-- Sshhhh, don't tell anyone), but this is one of the books that changed my life.

As a mind struggling to repair the damage caused by the American education system, I set out to follow other curriculums from times when learning was actually valued. Since many of the so-called "classics" American students today are forced to read in school are thinly-disguised socialist propaganda, I chose to look to much earlier times. I picked up The Decameron by chance, having remembered it from an off-hand statement a high school history teacher had made once. The book had everything, exalting adventure, romance, heroism, virtue, and other things I had been taught were subjective and dangerous. I found it the most refined and tastefully deviant book I had ever read and I have never been able to understand why students are not exposed to it as the basis for the study of literature.

Boccaccio's stories (told one per day, by each of the ten characters over ten days) give great insight into the midieval paradigm while poking fun at its obvious problems. The tales cover the whole of Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor, which was very unique for their time. The rolls of heroes involve characters of every culture, race, religion, and background in the known world-- something unheard of before this book. Boccaccio's great love and understanding of women also shines through, the expression of which tops the list of reasons as to why he was exiled from Florence! Most of the stories are based on actual people and events, though the author takes a great deal of artistic license in some cases. A great many little-known facts can be learned by reading the historical notes (one reason why I chose the Penguin Classic version). Boccaccio surpasses every other man of letters (before him or since) in ability and creativity and will no doubt do so for centuries to come.

John Boal's Be a Global Force of One! takes up where Dean Ornish's new ``Love and Survival'' book leaves off. How so? Ornish tells us ``When you help others you also help yourself.'' He's making a point in his new tome about volunteering as one way to improve health. By volunteering, we stay connected, and Ornish says that these connections are crucial. Staying connected with others is as important as paying attention to diet, working out and all that other stuff we know we should do, says Ornish. Boal's book tells us HOW to help others--whether on an individual basis or part of a group--and provides phones, locations, and lots of motivation. A nice birthday present for anyone who wants to live to be 100.

John Boal's "Be a Global Force of One!" is very inspirational, yet practical. Just in browsing the many projects he reviews one gets a feeling that YOU can make a difference in people's lives, no matter your situation.

This book is also a very important reference tool, with great contact information.

As the photographer who DONATED the use of the cover photograph, I feel honored to be a part of John's effort to inform our world of the many ways we can continue to improve it.

Hopefully people will jump for joy (as in the cover photo) because someone read about and initiated an idea in this book within their community!

John Boal's Be a Global Force of One! provides practical info on how we can volunteer both as groups and individuals. And volunteering doesn't just help the recipients, as a growing body of research and clinical observations is proving. By volunteering--and maintaining the crucial link to others--readers may improve their health and even longevity. This theory is presented in Dean Ornish's new book, Love and Survival. Boal's book takes up where Ornish's leaves off, telling readers who want to maintain that crucial human connection how to get started.