This novel is very deppressing. But, it is a great read. You really get attached to Erendira and feel for her through what her grandmother does to her. I recommend it to anyone. It makes you feel thankful for the life you have.

Este es uno de los mejores libros q he leido. Felicitaciones Gabo! En este libro se cuenta la historia de la Candida Erendira- una muchacha muy bella a la q se la ha jugado el destino al ser la unica compañia de su abuela. Al cabo de el tiempo, la abuela empieza a usar a la muchacha para obtener cosas para su beneficio. Pobre Erendira....como terminara este cuento? Como puede ella vivir esa vida? La respuesta esta en el espiritu de la muchacha, en las enormes ganas de vivir y la fe en un mejor futuro q nadie, ni su abuela podran arrancarle de su corazon.

Este libro fue hecho en pelicula hace ya unos años pero yo les recomiendo el libro. Leyendo el libro, pude ser parte del cuento cuando yo quisiera y habia veces en q no. Mucho de los detalles del libro son perdido en la pelicula.

This book is really special. It covers so many things about auras. Even the auras of plants and animals and learning to see spirit guides. It has some great experiments to explore. It never occured to me that we hear and smell auras too.

Informative little book filled with lessons on focusing your eyes to see auras. I have been seeing auras for 20 years and this book is wonderful. Wish I had read it when I was learning about auras. Told in a simple way the novice can have results with these lessons. reviewed by: Diane Dudle

Wow. The photos of this book are really great. As the wife of a Mexican, we had to have a book of photos from Mexico - to reminisce and to see places that we haven't yet visited. We searched for the perfect book - and this is it. All color photos, artistically captured, exclusively of the countryside are in this book. All of the major regions of Mexico are featured. If you haven't been to Mexico, this is a preview to the wonders that await you, and if you are missing Mexico, then this will bring a smile to your face.

Mexico: A higher vision, is a book for all people. Whether or not you have been to Mexico the photographs alone are astonishing. The book portrays a beautiful country giving writen details about different sections of the country along with some historical facts and myths. For those who have been there it is a sweet reminder of the culture. From the past to the present. It gives photos of the old and the new and how they mix together. Definately a must have.

I enjoyed the common thread that tied these two tales together. It's important to read them in order, as certain events and characters are in both books.

Two brothers are challenged by their eccentric grandfather to complete a certain task (hold down a unique "career" for a month). Whoever does the best gets the family business.

In the first tale, "Operation Babe-Magnet", Dexter is the super-achiever geek bookworm. He must take on the "career" as a male escort--certainly the last job this uptight, shy fellow wanted to undertake! He ends up being hired to impersonate a popular self-help love author. In order to play the role, he is transformed into a super-fabulous hunk ("babe magnet"). He learns a lot along the way, and falls in love with the book's publicist.

In "Operation Beauty" Dex's brother Sam has to go "undercover" in a lingerie company. Sam's job requires that he go in drag, however, which mortifies this super macho babe magnet greatly. And things get more complicated when a beautiful coworker asks Sam's "female counterpart" to share an apartment with her, and talk about "girly" things!

Sam hides behind a charming facade--he is a happy-go-lucky high school drop-out who has a "love 'em and leave 'em" attitude about women. The most charming part of this tale is when we discover why Sam is the way he is, and how he isn't really a superficial playboy, but rather a guy who is fervently trying to prevent anyone else from discovering his "secret".

I especially liked the way the author told both Sam and Dexter's story-- each brother has their own set of insecurities and world views. Each brother thinks the other has some special "advantage". In reality, both brothers are special and unique. Their tales are different and both equally charming. (I must confess, though -- I found Sam's story--and his deep dark "secret"--to make him particularly endearing.)

The two stories are wrapped up masterfully with a short little epilogue. Author Kristin Gabriel has written two sweet and funny tales, and has tied them together in an exceedingly charming way.

As you probably know, Harlequin Duets consist of two books in one. In this case, the two books are by the same wonderful author, Kristin Gabriel, and they are linked by a strong, common thread. The crazily control-freak uncle of two brothers has decided that he will pick one of them to succeed him in running the family business by this means: each is assigned a weird scenario to act out, and the one who sticks to the script best is the winner. The two competitors begin the contest by parachuting from a plane into the outskirts of the city where the action is to take place--and the stories are off and running!

Operation Babe-Magnet

From the back cover: "From geek to gorgeous....Dexter D. Kane will do anything to take over the family business--even if it means masquerading as a gigolo! But when publicist Kylie Timberlake offers him a job, Dexter happily jumps into his new role. Kylie desperately needs a man to impersonate Harry Hanover, the reclusive author of numerous sexual self-help books. She wants to make everybody wild about Harry. But Dex would settle for Kylie being wild about him...."

Dex and Kylie make quite a pair in this fun Pygmalion story. By the time Kylie makes over Dex into a sensuous Babe-Magnet, he's haunting her wildest dreams more than any man ever has! This is a hot read as well as a fun one!

Operation Beauty

From the back cover: "He had to get in touch with his feminine side....Sam T. Kane loves women-but he doesn't want to be one! Unfortunately, Sam's mission is to infiltrate Ladybug Lingerie and steal their newest, top-secret bra design. So Sam reluctantly dons a wig and panty hose--and ends up falling for Lauren McBride, his new boss. But how can he convince Lauren he's the man of her dreams--when she considers him 'just one of the girls'?"

If you love comedies with men in drag (I don't know about you, but Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire are two of my favorite movies!), you'll really have a ball with this book. Really well done!

Books that portray an objective, fair and unbiased assessment of Israel's 'Operation Peace For Galilee' are very difficult to find..

In my experience most books on this subject appear to have a hidden agenda of vilifying Israeli military involvement in Lebanon whilst casting aside the wholesale, indiscriminate cross-border terrorism of Palestinian terrorist entities that caused such an involvement in the first place. Other books appear to be dedicated to the de-humanisation of then Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon, for an alleged connection to the horrific massacres of Palestinians at the Sabra/Shatila refugee camps by Lebanese 'Christian' Phalange militia.

This book is refreshing and perhaps unique in that it seeks to provide as balanced an analysis as is possible.

Richard Gabriel, Professor of Politics, only proceeded with this book on the understanding that he was able to avoid any involvement with the Israeli censors and that he was permitted to obtain a neutral publisher. The final results of Professor Gabriel's study only being seen upon publication by any interested parties at the very same time as everyone else.

Professor Gabriel was able to draw upon interviews with many journalists - Lebanese, European, British, American and Israeli. The author was also able to spend unsupervised time with 'PLO suspects' detained in Israeli and Lebanon to gather the personal impressions and opinions of these prisoners in relation to their treatment and the conflict itself.

Access was also provided to numerous Palestinian Doctors and Nurses in Lebanese camps and also to many high officials in the Lebanese Government and combatants/members of the 'Christian' militias, the Druse militia and the Amal Moslem milita, thus providing some 'enlightening' information on the nature of the ethnic and religious hatreds prevalent within Beirut and Lebanon.

Similar access was provided to the Israeli side which also included interviews with the battalion & company commanders in the field together with the 'common' soldiers who bore the brunt of the combat.

The author was provided with his own transport and able to travel throughout the Lebanese battle zones, retracing by car or on foot, all the major routes of advance taken by the major Israeli units. This included the Bekaa Valley, Damour, the outskirts of Beirut itself and the region overlooking Damascus.

The author, having access to the actual terrain of the battle sites and with some eighteen years as a former Army & Intelligence officer, was able to comment in knowledgeable context about the operations at first hand.

One is left in no doubt about the horrors of this conflict and the traumas of having to frequently fight against an enemy hiding in civilian areas, with the harrowing experience which unavoidably ensued, of seeing civilians die as a result of military actions.

The author analyses the Sabra & Shatila massacres in some detail and credits the Israeli Government for not following the path of the debatable US Government reactions in relation to the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and instead proceeding to condemn the action outright, whilst also convening an immediate tribunal of investigation.

(Might I respectfully direct those interested in Ariel Sharon & the Sabra/Shatila incident to the excellent work by Uri Dan entitled "Blood Libel". This book covers in depth the trial/court-case against Time Magazine for it's allegations against Sharon in relation to the episode. Oft ignored information is aplenty in this particular work.)

As is the nature of this book by Professor Gabriel, the main features involve the immediate context surrounding Israeli operations in Lebanon. Of necessity therefore, I suppose many aspects of the Lebanese conflict are unable to be included in any detail.

For example, the massacres at Tel az-Zataar and the Lebanese Christian towns of Damour, Aishiye, Beit Mallat and Tall Abbas. Massacres committed at these places by Palestinian militia under the control of Yasser Arafat, where it is estimated that about 100,000 Lebanese civilians were killed. I was disappointed that attention could not have been paid to important issues such as these, and also indeed to the Syrian massacre of civilians at Hama where some estimate that 30,000 or more Lebanese civilians were killed. These innocent victims still needing a voice to speak out for their plight.

All in all this is a splendid book which portrays a human aspect to both sides of the conflict sadly lacking in other books on the Lebanese conflict.

If you are looking for a politically-skewed analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict or an overly biased account of the war, this is not your book. I say overly biased because all author have an opinion that is expressed overtly or covertly in their writing.

Richard A. Gabriel, a well-respected professor of politics at St. Anselm College, former US Army intelligence officer, and consultant to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees as well as the Pentagon, has written what is probable the most objective and well-written account of the 1982 War in Lebanon between Israeli, Syrian, Lebanese, PLO, and other forces. He has written numerous books about military actions including several books that constructively criticized the American actions in Vietnam. Several of his books have since become requred reading for courses at military academies.

Prof. Gabriel went out of his way to write an objective analysis of the combat, going so far as to interview PLO officials, IDF soldiers, and others. He also toured the battefields as they occurred as a guest of the IDF. Even more to his credit, he made a stipulation of his touring the front with the IDF that IDF miltary censors not be able to review his transcripts at all until after publishing. This means that he was able to effectively write whatever he wanted.

The book itself is brilliant. Within its' 242 pages are numerous analyses of various tactical and strategic conflicts of the 1982 War. He lists grievances and events of all sides into the war and yet hesitates to make value judgements about any of them short of miltary stance. While avoidings making the book a massive judgement of the political stance of any of the fighters, he doesn't hesitate to list political factors that the combatants considered at the time of the war.

One of the greatest treasures of having toured Lebanon and the conditions there is that he was able to disprove many of the false accounts that the media of the time forwarded to the public. Being a meticulous researcher also means that he always quotes sources and provides appropriate background. For instance, the PLO (through the Lebanese newspaper "An Nahar")claimed that Israeli forces killed 17,825 civilian noncombatants killed and wounded 30,103 civilians. Mr. Gabriel analyzed all of the data available from various sources (including interviews with village mayors and other on-the-site witnesses) and came up with a more likely figure of 4,000 to 5,000 killed and 12,000 to 14,000 wounded.

If you are looking for an account of the 1982 war that objectively evaluates military actions of the combatants then Prof. Richard A. Gabriel's "Operation Peace for Galilee - The Israeli-PLO War in Lebanon" is unparallelled. I highly recommend reading this book whether you are looking for more background on the Arab-Israeli conflict, are a military historian, a wargamer, or just someone interested in knowing more about the Middle-East.

If you ever read one book on quantum theory, then this is the book you should read. Especially if you want to understand Bell's Inequality and how the experiments done by Alain Aspect in the 1980's verified that the inequality is violated.

I first heard of Bell's inequality and the EPR Paradox while reading an article by David Mermin in "Science News" and did not understand it at all. Then I read Robert Adair's account of it in "The Great Design" (a good book to have) and I began to gain a rudimentary appreciation of what was going on. But it wasn't until I read Ruhla's "Physics of Chance" that I learned how to derive the predictions of quantum theory - the predictions which show that two distant objects can exert influence on one another, "faster than the speed of light."

But Bell's Inequality is not the only subject in here. The text begins with rather simple treatments of probability, applied to coin tosses and telephone queues, on to Boltzmann Statistics, and then finally to quantum theory. So as your reading through the chapters in the book, you pick up the "tools" you need as you go along, in order to understand the more difficult material later on.

Ruhla's writing style is engaging, although silly at times. ...

This book is extraordinarily well written and illustrated. It introduces the major themes of statistical physics at a level that shold be readily accessible to senior undergraduates or scientists and engineers who are non-specialists. Highly recommended; a gem!

Lady Mcbeth said it well: " Nor even all the parfumes of arabia, can clean this little hands..."

in other words,

Buy this wonderfull book. Be drunk with royal blood.

It was a wonderful retelling of a medieval tale. The illustrations were quite detailed, though some would find the blood and gore a bit disturbing.

While the armour is not correct for the period, it does not detract from the overall atmosphere.

written fluidly with the understanding and true intent of shiatsu. explains underlying principles well, and then takes the reader to the deeper understanding of meridians, points, and diagnosis. describes the energies of the meridians and points, telling what stimulation or sedation of them does for the patient/client. excellent pictures showing how to properly stretch meridians and press points for the desired effects. shows much more than the typical "point and press" methods of other systems of shiatsu. the techniques have a similarity to thai massage and breema. after giving a basic understanding of how to give a shiatsu treatment on the surface level, chris jarmey then takes the reader into the more esoteric and deeper aspects of shiatsu, to its core understanding where true healing takes place. i find this book so helpful in that it presents both the mechanics and the more spiritual aspects of shaitsu, and does not speak only to one or the other, but both equally.

This book is the clearest and most inspiring book on Shiatsu that I have read; and I have read lots of books on the subject. As a practitioner, it has helped me enormously.

I am also amazed at how little reviewed (and read?-I hope not!) this book has been. As a Spaniard with close knowledge of the events, I can say Jackson has done the best job to date of tracing the political and social developments that led to the conflict, and of describing the uprising itself and the conduct of the military and propaganda operations. Infinitely better than Hugh Thomas' and every other account. By the way, if you'd rather read a first-hand narrative, Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" is much better than Hemingway's.

I am astounded that no one has yet reviewed this book. Originally published in 1965, it remains the classic center-left interpretation of the Republic and Civil War. It is balanced, well researched and comprehensive. For those looking for a more conservative treatment of this period, see Stanley Payne's "Spain's First Democracy."

There are few novels that capture the breadth of New York City in the late 70s quite like this one - from the anarchic artists and squatters in Soho to the blue-collar neighborhoods of the Bronx. And I can think of few novels that are able to encompass and express the inner lives of such a diverse group of people. There's an exquisite ability at work here that manages to give voice to the unspoken dynamics of family life. As I read this book I felt like these were people I knew, people I grew up with. And for all the reality of the people, there's a poetry to the writing that managed to lift these daily, desperate lives to the heroic - and the tragicomic. Narrated by three different voices, three characters in the novel, (four if you count entries in a stolen journal that's essential to the plot) the reader has a fully three dimensional view of all the characters. But this view progresses in stages, so that it has all the mystery and beauty of a deepening relationship. Sometimes you learn things you don't like, but you're hooked. These people pull you into their story of love sought and confused sexuality, of social climbing and marital infidelity. This is a rich reading experience I would recommend to anyone who looks both depth of feeling and a good story.

Summer's House is a wonderful novel that engages the reader from the first mysterious page. The three leading characters are all intriguing and complex people that you care about and understand. The language is poetic and evocative, with many monents that stop you in your tracks to let the richness and vividness sink in. There are several mysteries that unfold throughout the book and the clues are woven into a plot that pulls you along. The intensity of the character's plights at times becomes almost palpable through the writer's style and pacing. All through the novel there is a thread of sexuality which is tenderly and convincingly portrayed-whether it is a young man's stumbling forays into the world of adult sex or the sad attempt of an older man to find love and redemption in an affair. If you like multli-generational family stories (with a Jewish backdrop) movingly told, with beautiful prose, you'll love Summer's House.