Thanks Edith for one of the best books I've ever read! I've borrowed Fishing With John at least a dozen times from the public library-in the mean time tried to find it in used book stores, flea markets, and garage sales for a couple of years! Finally got lucky in a book store in Vancouver B.C. A public park in Pender Harbour B.C. is named in honour of John Daly-which says it all! You have to read it folks!

"...it was fishing with John that I loved so much." "and he appeared to remain blissfully content to have me there and trying."

What Edith Iglauer doesn't describe is as important to the texture of this book as her detailed accounts of trolling for salmon with John Daly along the coast of British Columbia. The only intimacies she reveals are the everyday tasks required to keep a commercial fishing boat afloat, John's exuberance in the life, home and friends he has made; and his many choices. The restraint Iglauer exercises in chronicling her four years fishing with John invites the reader to consider the centrality of character in any voyage one may take.

Wonderful story! John Daly was my husband's uncle, and we used to go to Garden Bay, BC to visit him. We have wonderful memories of John and miss seeing him, even tho' it's been probably 20 years since John died. I'm sorry I never met Edith, altho' my husband Lionel and his aunt Leslie Joslin met her when she gave a reading from the book in Seattle in 1988 or 1989. Now made-for-TV movie on Lifetime Channel, they changed the name to "Navigating the Heart" with Jacqueline Smith and Tim Matheson. Watch if you get the chance (TV characters much younger than actual story, tho'). Would LOVE to get copy of movie to keep with the book.

A good book is capable of opening your eyes to a whole new reality, Ms. Durham does that here. An Italian historian once wrote that the Albanian territories were across the Adriatic Sea yet less known than darkest Africa, this is a valiant effort to remedy that. Ms. Durham ventures, illegaly, into northern "High" Albania with an intrepid curiosity and through Western eyes proceeds to open up the vast horizons of Albanian culture. Imagine a society so isolated by the Alps and suspiscion of outsiders that they still have a ready grasp on pre-Christian traditions and myth. Read this and learn of the highland clans, the "besa", the rights of blood and honour that decimated entire generations of males and oh so much more.

Ms. Durham managed to earn the love and respect of those that trusted no one and had been maltreated by all. She lobbied tirelessly, if vainly, for her adopted people for her entire life and in the end was embraced as the "Queen of the Mountain People." This truly is an exceptional book. Read it.

Edith Durham is the undisputed "Queen of the Northern Albanian Alps". She takes you along her tour in Victorian/British-English fashion through the Northern Albanian Alps just after the turn of the century and you feel as if you were just whisked away to ford the streams and climb the mountains with her.

Remarkable as it was to have traversed this landscape in 1909, it was nothing short of a miracle for a woman to have done it. She gained the respect of those she met, showing respect for the great traditional law of the Gheg Albanians--the Kanun of Leke Dukagjini. She was offered "bread and salt" at every table and never doubted the Albanian people's ability to show mikpritje (hospitality) towards an outsider as herself.

Furthermore, I loved the stories she relates about her visits to the specific tribes. She peppers them occasionally with Albanian parables that she was told along the way. For me, this book was amazing and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

The totally engaging travel diary of a woman who explored High Albania in the years before the constitution. It is illustrated, though sparsely, with her own charming sketches.

The book explains the complex tribal system of social relationship where strict rules on intermarriage inevitably spark off tribal blood feuds. It is another view of this worlds love affair with the gun. You will be intrigued by the tradition of the "Albanian virgin".

I came to understand better, through reading this book,the civilizing power of government. The author also deals with the development of the concept of individuation and personal responsibility. This is often accompanied by the original folk stories that Ms Durham recorded.

Edith Durham became for a time unofficial "Queen" in recognition of her contributions to social welfare. The daughter of an English surgeon, she never married, but fell in love on a holiday trip and gave her life to a people. I would like to read more by, or about this woman.

The stories in War Torn are riveting and capture the will and determination of women journalists to have equal access to cover the war. But they also bring Saigon and Vietnam in the 60s and 70 alive to anyone too young to remember. I applaud these women for making the Vietnam war accessible to a generation who grew up after the war.
War Torn leave the reader happy and sad but thoroughly enchanted. For anyone who is a history buff, a traveler planning to visit Vietnam or simply a lover of great tales, I highly recommend this book.

I don't know much about Vietnam, but I was drawn to the book by the sad and thoughtful face on the cover. My highest praise to these women. They brought the Vietnam war alive to someone who was not even born at its conclusion. The stories are beautiful, sad, funny and touching. My thanks to the authors for putting such a wonderful piece of writing and important part of history down on paper.

WAR TORN is a brilliant and riveting collection of essays by the handful of smart and courageous women who actually went to the battlefields in Asia to report on the Vietnamese War. For everyone who served in the war or had loved ones who did, for those of us who lived through these events at home, and for younger readers who have no sense of this history, this compelling book reveals these critical years from a perspective most of us never knew existed. The stories of these nine brave women will capture your minds and break your heart a bit. A thorougly uplifting and informative book with stories you've never heard before.

This book is excellent and one that I heartily recommend. In fact I have 3 on my bookshelf at the moment so I can share the truths in this book with others. It's given me understanding of how God uses suffering in our lives.

I know of one person who wrote a newsletter before her death of how this book brought purpose to her life in the midst of her dying from cancer.

If you are struggling for answers about suffering, this book will help bring about understanding.

A great book for helping to understand affliction. Very helpful for learning to use affliction for personal growth and for experiencing increased intimacy with God. I recommend it to anyone who has lost a loved one, lost a leg, lost a job and/or suffered any pain or loss during their life's journey.

I would like to encourage all Christians and non-Christians alike who have an opportunity to read this book to do so, and then use the lessons/encouragements/exhortations of Edith Schaeffer to be salt and light in the world we live in. If I could recommend only 1 book to someone to read to prepare them for the life we face on this earth(other than the Bible, of course)and to help equip others to deal with the problems/adversities we will face,and a sound, bible-based christianity, this would be the book. I found it readable 1 chapter at a time, it is not necessary to sit down and read the entire book at once, at so many places I found myself thinking of someone who needed to hear this, read this, understand this, gain a measure of understanding to get through what they were facing, or wanted to help someone else get through their trial with a christian way of seeing that I had to stop my reading and find/call that person at once. As you can tell, I am a big Edith Schaeffer fan, you can never go wrong in recommending one of her books to someone, if someone is not a christian, they will be exposed to real, authentic answers that the Bible and a relationship with Jesus Christ provide to those who do believe, and that is rare today, I feel. Again, please get a copy of this, read it, then pass it on, there is a hurting world that needs to be prepared to face "Affliction", and this book and author are the best I've found in my christian travels.

This book may not have the deep poignancy of Anne Frank's diary, as its author tells her story from an adult vantage point. But it does offer a vivid picture of day-to-day life as a jew in hiding in Nazi-occupied Holland. I readily felt Edith's anxiety, as she attempted to pass for a gentile, far from friends and family, and not knowing what had become of those she loved. The story also has a deep honesty -- it is clear, for example, that she often found the family who saved her difficult, and that she felt resentments as well as gratitude. I'm sure that this is, in fact, how it felt, and am grateful to Edith Velmans for the straightforward telling of her story.

This book is an absolute treasure. It is a very moving account of an adolescent Jewish girl's life in Holland as the Nazi regime moved in and took over. The book contains some of her actual diary entries written as a teenager along with her present-day adult comments to help put the entries into perspective. I would highly recommend this book to everyone, but most especially to young people. It's a gripping story of a girl from the past with great courage and love of life.

I've read a number of accounts by Jews who were hidden by heroic friends and strangers during the Holocaust. But Edith Velmans' story stands out. I found myself totally drawn into her idyllic teenage life in the Hague as war slowly began to overshadow the sunshine of her youthful pusuits. She lovingly paints a warm but realistic picture of her community and family. I was especially touched by the letters she shares from her parents. Velmans also relates her psychological adjustment of going into hiding and taking on another identity, something other accounts have rarely mentioned. Yet through it all, Velmans captures the fact that despite the agony of going through such a painful experience, she emerged with her courage intact. I highly recommend this book, especially for teachers in search of good reading material for high school students studying the Holocaust. But anyone would enjoy this book. I read it one evening, unable to stop.

Please note that the Ingram description shown above is for a different book. The Carnal Prayer Mat is about a lecherous Chinese scholar, not the memoirs of some Viennese schoolteacher.

This is a bona fide world classic in literature. It stands as a classic both in erotica and pure (if such a thing exists) literature. This fable follows the sexual exploits of Scholar Vesperus who learns to find wisdom on the Carnal Prayer Mat so to speak. He refuses to learn spiritual wisdom through earnest prayer and hence learns his lessons the hard way. (pun not intended) He has his many affairs and shamelessly cheats on his wife. He even becomes a bigamist with a second wife in another town. The trickery involved is hysterical. It is reminiscent of The DeCameron of Boccaccio in the sneakiness of the characters. The humor is also a fabulous trait. Honest Quan gaining revenge is the moralistic turn. The Golden Rule was never so funny. Vesperus steals Honest Quans wife so Honest Quan debauches Vesperus wife. Li Yu strikes a moralistic posture in telling this tale but one can not help but feel that he had a smashing good time writing this book. Each chapter ends with a moral to the action. It merely adds to the humor. One can not help but feel that Li Yu is yanking the readers chain. The names for sexual positions and the numerous jokes on penis size are exquisite. He is having too much fun with the story. The reader also is having too much fun to be preoccuppied with the morals of each chapter. Of course, Vesperus does ultimately come to wisdom in the end. We should be grateful that he did learn the hard way. It was a lot more entertaining for us. This book will really dispell a lot of Western prejudices that hold the Chinese to be demure and asexual. (Well, there are over a billion people in China so they must know something about sex, but I wont go there.) I suggest this book to anyone interested in erotica and to anyone smallminded enough to doubt the wonderful sensuality and sexuality of classic Chinese literature.

The best thing about THE CARNAL PRAYER MAT is not just that it's sexually adventurous -- it's that it's one of the FUNNIEST, craziest works of its kind. There are moments that are strikingly sophisticated and "modern", followed up by sexual antics that are as outrageous as anything in a Franz von Bayros print. Hong Kong's movie industry took the hint and has put out a series of (very) loose film adaptations (SEX AND ZEN, I-III), but the book remains forever tongue-in-cheekishly brilliant. A great choice for people who are getting fed up with acres of drippingly solemn Anne Rice-derived nonsense.

The impact of these stories may hit you long after you've read them. These are stories you don't forget, yet you're compelled to reread them. Edith Wharton has given us one of the most delightful ghost story collections I've ever read. It is the characters that make an impression. Long after you've put the book down, they come back to you...

Edith Wharton was a master of the ghost story, and these stories linger in the mind long after the book is over. Above all, the stories are incredibly rich in atmosphere: Wharton is not writing to give thrills but rather chills, and the subtle, nuanced dread evoked in so many of these stories testifies to her immense talent as a writer. These are supernatural tales of the highest quality, and the book is absolutely essential for anyone who loves the classic ghost story.

These are ghost stories the way they should be, though the dense style of the period might put off Y2k readers expecting a quick, effortless read. Don't confuse these traditional ghost stories with the kind of campfire tales gathered in regional collections. These stories are fully plotted and provide the quiet "authentic shudder" most readers of "literary" ghost stories expect. For the thoughtful sensitive reader who wants to linger in the dusk awhile, THE GHOST STORIES OF EDITH WHARTON and ROALD DAHL'S BOOK OF GHOST STORIES are the best collections to have.

This is a fine starter book for the first time home owner. In the first few pages, I had the answers to the three major problems I had been dealing with! Nice and straightforward catch-all book on working over existing stuff or putting in new.

I picked up this book in Home Depot back in 1997. At a glance I found out how to take out a load bearing wall, something I needed to do. I bought the book, and with it I had the confidence to take on a major remodel of my house. The book has everything, from framing an addition to fixing a leaky faucet. I consult it often. Right now (03/2002) I'm using it to build a shed. The language is clear and concise and the book doesn't waste words. I recommend it highly.

I, recently, purchased this boook (my brother said he had one, and it was great). I flipped through most of the book -- it isn't the kind of book you sit down and read straight through. I've done a fair amount of handyman stuff around the house (I just replaced the motor in my dryer - which wasn't too difficult once I had the right parts). Well, as I flipped through the book, I would stop and read sections which interested me. There are well-written sections on, basically, everything about a house and what is in it. After spending about an hour scanning the book, I said to my wife: "You could build a house with the information that is in here!" It is one of those "I'm glad I bought this book" books. A great book to have if you're looking for stuff to do around the house; it is a real "Home Improvement Encyclopedia."

Sceptical about astrology, I was surprised and interested to follow Ms Thayer's tour through the subject. I found myself entertained and educated. This book is well worth a second and slower read; I may not believe strongly in astrology as a result, but I do believe that Ms. Thayer has done a great service to we sceptics in a readable and amusing way. Well worth having.

I have always found astrology interesting, but never settled down to learn it before. Ms. Thayer's books uses examples from lives that we are familiar with, such as Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey. This makes the discussion concrete, and easy both to follow and to remember. I would recommend the book highly to someone who wants get a sense of how astrology works.

For those of us who thought it preposterous for the President of the United States to consult an astrologer before making a move, "Stars over America" is the book to read and be humbled. A lawyer and a skeptic, I was totally taken aback by author Edith Thayer and her engaging and documented walk through the art and science of astrology. How clever to examine the astrological chart of America and interface it with the fascinating and revealing charts of American icons Oprah Winnfrey, Bill Gates, and O.J. Simpson. You're spellbound by the stories and learning while you go. It galls me to think that major contours of our destiny were scripted by the time and date of our birth, but "Stars over America" makes and entertaining and convincing case to that effect. Had she been a trial attorney, Thayer would have won. Reagan did. This book is a great read.

I really had a wonderful time reading through "TV Mania", but I realized there were several shows which made an impact on America that were not listed in the timeline: what about "Mr. Peepers"?

PERHAPS THE GREATEST BOOK THAT I HAVE SEEN WITH REFERENCE TO THE TV SHOWS THAT INFLUENCED MY LIFE. THE NOSTALGIA AND PICTORIAL DISPLAY OFFERED MANY WARM MEMORIES AND HUMORISTIC REFERENCES. WELL DONE, NOT OVERDONE.... BRAVO

What a wonderful and loving book that chronicles tv from the beginning. The book is a treasure to hold. If you love tv you must not miss this.