This thin book is certainly very attractive with its many graphics and easygoing style and probably in the end does stimulate interest for younger readers to try to find out more. It would have been nice however if some controversial conclusions about Roman history were not presented as fact. For example, it is not universally agreed that Romulus was an historical person or that 753 BC is the actual date of the founding of the city. While I fully realize that the conceit of the book is that it is supposed to be a view of the world as the Romans themselves saw it, that does not excuse giving wrong information. Anyway, the Romans certainly did not use the term BC which is freely used here. And these are not the only cases. It would have been nice if the Colosseum were also given its proper name for example, the Flavian Amphitheater. It is surprising to see Diocletian criticized for dividing the empire as this is not universally considered harmful by historians. And so on. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the ordering of the book either. Initially it goes in chronological order and then this is totally abandoned as one skips ahead to Constantine, then back to Vespasian, forward to Hadrian, etc. Overall, the book is worth buying, but an annotated guide to go with it would be quite helpful.

This book imitates the typical newspaper format. An index indicates the various events that were pivotal for the development of Roman culture and government.

The events portion is set up chronologically, but the other sections cover societal topics such as sports, political life, women's pages, food pages.

The graphics are colorful and include illustrations, charts, and maps in imitation of modern newspapers and magazines.

It was interesting to us and it is our belief that the similarity to modern print media will intrigue students.

Of the three stories. My favorite was the tale written by Tori Phillips. She writes the Twelfth Knight, and the story involves Alyssa Cavendish. She must chose a husband among the suitors her parents invite to their castle. Alyssa is known as a hellcat, so her father must bribe the would-be suitors. Little does Alyssa know that there is a "knight" in disguise to woo her. A fun read and light. I finished in a day.

I have only read the Tori Phillips book in this series. She has never failed to take readers to a wonderful time in history where love prevailes!!

The cover of this book has a dynamic picture of the famous ancient Greek temple, the Parthenon, in Athens. The contents of this book are divided into two parts. Part one of the book focuses mostly on the history of ancient Greece from around 1600 B.C. in the late Bronze Age to about 100 B.C. when the Romans conquered the Greek civilization. Part two concentrates on Greek culture and society. Some of ancient Greece's most famous sites are reviewed as well as other aspects of Greek culture such as art, architecture, myths, everyday life, entertainment, and housing. A nice aspect of the book is the inclusion of two pages solely devoted to the world of Greek women, discussing their daily life, their roles in society, and influential Greek women. There are many beautiful photographs and illustrations (all with informative captions), a few diagrams, a table of dates, and numerous maps. And because Greece was divided into many small, independently ruled communities or city-states, the abundant use of maps is very important and helpful to readers. The atlas contains a lot of excellent information, but as a whole, the information did not flow from one topic to the next. It is best suited as a resource for studying special topics of interest rather than a book to read from cover to cover. It is also more appropriate for more advanced readers.

This book is one of the lesser known ones by Alois Carigiet, a Swiss artist and children's book author. It appeals to children for its ideal representation of life in the Alps. Carigiet's books are popular in Switzerland and in...Japan.

Checkov was a master of composing life's largest problems into beautiful language and ordinary situations which the entire world could understand. Granted he wrote them a long time ago but the underlying situation exists everywhere today. Here are three sisters completely unable to move on with their lives. They are unhappy, they are desperate for a change of scene, they are forced to give up anyone they love to someone else but yet they remain glued to the exact place where all of this occurs. Olga has passed her prime, Masha loves someone other than her husband, and Irina has no idea what could possibly make her happy and all they do is talk about change, but never do anything active. And in the end it all comes full circle and we as an audience, a reader, need to decide how to not fall into such a life rut, to learn by their actions as we do from Aesop's fables. This play is just written a great deal better, with a little more comedy and tugging at the heartstrings.

33 snapshots of stars from all over the world. Looks almost like paparazzi photos. After Star Trak this book couldn`t be anything else than a dissapointment for me but after studying the pictures more I have found qualities I have never seen in any picture ever before. And the more you look at them the more you get hypnotised by the atmosphere Anton creates in his pictures. He has done the job in 33 still lives too but it seems more like an experiment. If not anything else the pictures are unique. You have never seen anything else before. The photographs of Bjork, Kylie Minogue, Cameron Diaz and Ewan McGrgor are the pictures that inspires me mostly in my own work at this moment. The photographs are toned in baby blue and purple and this creates a spooky, almost claustofobic atmosphere. These pictures are not beautiful. They will maybe not be remembered as great photography, but they are UNIQUE. The thing really is that I have never seen anything like this ever before and as a photographer that is really hard in this world where everything looks like everything else.

Webern's music seems to me to be something of an acquired taste. This biography, however, is perfectly designed to encourage one to acquire a taste for the strange atonal wisps of sound that comprise a good part of this composer's ouevre.

Rather than getting bogged down in technical discussions of Webern's serial techniques, the author gives us the composer's life; stopping at crucial musical signposts to explain how his thought evolved. In each case, we're given an idea how to approach the given piece.

Webern's music often seems unearthly, and he comes across as a bit unearthly (or at least very impractical) himself. Still, we get a human portrait of him, which further encourages us to see the passion in his music.

As with all the books in this wonderful series, it contains copious quantities of drawings and photos, a complete list of compositions and a wonderful bibliography for further reading.

If you've always wondered what the big deal about Webern was (to the extent that he influenced 50 years of music, frequently by people who seem not to have understood his muse), this is a good place to start finding out.

At the age of seven Spartan boys were sent to military school.They did reading and writing,but most of the time they were taught about survival,and handeling weapons.Spartan girls were taught how to stay healthy,and stay strong.

Schindler met Beethoven in 1814, when Beethoven was 44 and the author was an impressionable 19 year old. Schindler became an almost constant companion of the composer, and was witness to a number of fascinating occurrences that no other biographer, such as Ries, had access to. Schindler gives us examples of Beethoven's strongly emotional nature, in such a way that I felt I could have recognized the composer should I have passed by him on abusy street. Inclusion of this information is what made this biography most appealing to me. One of my favourite sections is an appendix entitled "Beethoven's Daily Routine" which describes, among other things, how Beethoven would count out 60 beans for his cup of coffee.

However, Schindler is not a transparent witness. Rather, he feels compelled to "protect" Beethoven from "his many enemies", for whom there is no historical basis. A sense of Schindler acting as guardian comes through strongly in the writing. The most striking example of this attitude is Schindler's description of the meeting between Beethoven and Rossini, a meeting which historically never took place!

Fortunately, this excellent Dover edition is thoroughly annotated - there are as many editor's notes as there are pages in the text! I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading a contemporary account of the life of the great composer, and who would enjoy witnessing the profound effect that he had on at least one of his associates.

Being an ardent fan of the TV series, "Bill Nye the Science Guy", I was delighted to buy the book "Consider the Following". It covers many, but not all, the topics dealt with in the TV series. Each chapter begins by first posing a thought provoking question, which is then followed by an easily understood explanation of the topic, and lots of easy-to-do experiments. Bill Nye and Ian Saunders, the contributing author, understand their reading audience, and the language used and explanations given are appropriate to the age-level (also to the young at heart!). They give the phonetic pronunciation of new, potentially difficult, Scientific words, so that the words become fun to say, instead of being a hurdle. In its soft cover, the book has the feel of a magazine, and is packed full of useful information for anyone wishing to augment their viewing of his Educational videos, although it is not necessary to have seen the Videos to benefit from reading this book. As a teacher, I have found it useful to have all the experiments written out, using common items found in the kitchen of my home. There is a good index and glossary at the back of the book. The tone of the book is one you would expect from Bill Nye - fun, but full of good teaching. The only criticism that I have is that the illustrations are a bit disappointing. They are clear, but mediocre. I would also liked to have seen a chapter at the beginning of the book, devoted wholly to the explaination of electrons, molecules, and atoms, as although these terms are mentioned (and explained) several times in subsequent chapters, it would have been good to see them consolidated into a chapter of their own. I am glad I have the book, and I enjoyed reading it. I will find it a useful resource tool in planning my future Primary Science Lessons, in Physics, Chemistry, Life and Earth Science.