If you are an outdoors-person, then this is a must read. Anyone involved in any outdoor groups should read this and have members read this! Newcomers and old pros alike may love this literature, for its leasons are timeless! Thank you, Laura and Guy Waterman!

This title and "Wilderness Ethics" are pioneering works forming 'a code that we can live by'. Guy chose to climg the high ridge one last time, on a trail, 'beyond the ranges'. His true farewell will be publication of his collected works forthcoming.See also books by the late Scott Nearing & his wife.

This book was one of the originals in this subject, not to mention one of the best. What is great about this book is that not only is it a how-to manual for leave no trace camping, but it also explores the multi-faceted issue of "what are we trying to preserve" with our remaining wild lands. As someone who works in the field of backcountry land management, I couldn't recommend this book more highly to both hikers and land managers alike. Check out the companion book, Wilderness Ethics as well. Pete Ketcham, Green Mountain Club, Vermont.

i found the book, beginning to heal to be a definite winner....especially when a friend of mine asked for more information about child sexual abuse....and i knew that the larger book...the courage to heal...would be extremely overwhelming.....

it gave my friend enough information to realize that she had been doing all the right things for me....believing...listening....supporting...and the section for friends/family, etc....helped her out too...to know when to take time for herself...and how to do it without jepordizing our friendship.....i recommend this book to anyone who wants to know just a little about child sexual abuse.....but isn't prepared to read a huge book....*though courage to heal is a faboulus book...just can be intimdidating unless you are ready to confront it....*

This title is small but packs alot of support and positive words toward the abuse victim. Chapter topics include HEALING IS POSSIBLE, THE DECISION TO HEAL, UNDERSTANDING THAT IT WASN"T YOUR FAULT, THE CHILD WITHIN and more. All written with an under tone of support. There are also several stories of abuse told from the surviving victims view. The title is filled with insight and support and is best described as an excellent beginning point for those looking to heal. A very sensitive and difficult subject that is well addressed.

As a therapist working with a population of young adults, I frequently see young people who are just beginning to deal with the impact of childhood sexual abuse on their lives. I have been looking for something to help introduce and give some preparation to clients who are needing to begin this difficult work. I love the book the Courage to Heal, but have at times felt it's very size was a bit overwhelming for individuals who were asking for just some glimpse of what it might mean to start to confront their history of abuse. This book fits the bill and I am so grateful for having found it. The book is compact and thus, not so intimidating. It distills out some of the most important information found in the original Courage to Heal. Especially valuable are the sections on identifying sexually abusive behaviors, managing feelings of panic and dealing with the process of remembering.

What a delight to read! Though the stories are from "everyday" parents, the book is professionally edited and produced. I appreciated and could relate to many of the stories. There is a good mix of humor, from rolling-on-the-floor-laughing to smiling-and-nodding-my-head. The stories have a nice variety of themes and are about many ages of children, not just the little ones. I bought one for myself and several more to give as gifts to parents, grandparents and parents-to-be!

This book should be in every family library! The stories are short and funny -- so parents can get a quick fix of laughter while they go about their busy day. I've given copies to friends and family as gifts.

These stories were all funny, believable and entertaining. They helped take my mind off the world situaion and focus a little more on enjoying my kids. It was a relief to read a parenting book that doesn't make me feel guilty for whatever I'm not doing in a certain way or lectures me or repeats conversations that no real child and adult would ever have. These were real kids and real parents, in real situations, and I laughed out loud.

I'm a big Britney Spears fan, so two years ago I got this book. I enjoyed it and read it in one day. I still read it now! It is a fantastic book, though it might have some wrong info. Parts that I liked best were the chapter on Britney's style, and it even had some fashion tips, the mini encyclopedia about Brit, the chapter that proves Britney is only human, (with embarrasing moments, weird things she's done, blunders, etc.) and of course, the sixteen page color photo insert. Overall, this is a great book for anyone who wants to learn about Britney or who is a fan of her.

This Britney book tells you about the information about the MMC club, the fashion ideas, pop queen quotient, the discography, the music videos, her favorites, and her new album "Oops...I Did It Again" and "...Baby One More Time". It also has Melissa Joan Hart in the Britney Spears pictures. If you are a huge big Britney Spears fan. Then this book is a must. Get the book...

If you raelly want to learn adout Britney Spears this is the book to have! I liked this book because I learnd about Britney!

I am a serious health nut, and after trying out the recipes in this book, I shortened the time it takes to cook meals for my family by half. Laura Karr's recipes taught me to replace high-caloric mixes and hard-to-find seasonal produce with, of all things, jazzed-up baby food! For those of us who enjoy delicious, seasonal dishes but have a hard time finding ingredients or aren't willing to pay $4 for an artichoke when canned hearts costs a dollar, this book is a lifesaver!
My grandmother LOVES the book- I gave her a copy for her birthday and she swears by it- she doesn't have to go to the grocery store as often and she ends up saving lots of money.
Next time you are at the grocery store- go to the canned food section- you will be amazed at what foods come canned- and the have NO PRESERVATIVES. I even learned that there is very little pesticide residue in canned foods!

I've been tricked and couldn't be happier. My wife served me several recipes from The Can Opener Gourmet and I never knew the difference. Good eating is good eating. After dinner when my wife confessed the truth about the recipes, I told her they should have subtitled this book, "a busy wife's kitchen secret." As much as I enjoy eating the recipes, I know my wife enjoys the ease of cooking them even more.

Cookbook people fall into three categories: Those who buy them as gifts for others, those who buy them for themselves to use, and those who buy them strictly to read. With the exception of the latter, home cooks will be well-pleased with Laura Karr's unique and quirky Can-Opener Gourmet, which I recently received as a gift.

I think the Publisher's Weekly review, above, misses the point of Karr's book, which is written strictly for the use of canned and packaged foods. It is a time-saver for busy people designed to enhance their quick-cooked meals, not to suggest that canned ingredients are inherently better than fresh. Further, it must have been written by someone with little experience in an actual kitchen, or else they wouldn't have asked such a question as "how hard is it to slice a piece of chicken?" Hello? It's not the slicing-you also have to go to the market and buy the chicken, clean it, and cook it before the slicing occurs. That is Karr's point in saying canned chicken is less time- and labor-intensive than fresh (and indistinguishable in many recipes-I use it all the time).

I found TCOG's premise both interesting and fun. The recipes are simple and easy to follow, and the three I've tried so far turned out great. The only problem I found was that there are more basic recipes included than there need to be. Like many recipe books, this one feels padded toward the end. I think the cookbook reading crowd would have appreciated fewer recipes and more informative chat. But that's a minor quibble.

The thing most casual cooks will have the hardest time with is the use of baby food in several recipes. Logically this makes no sense, as baby food is, as Karr points out, about the safest, most pure food product available. Logic has little to do with the palette, however, so users might be tempted to make their own purées if they can't get past the idea of using Gerber's-but again, that kind of defeats the purpose of the book. As for myself, the fewer times I have to whip out the food processor, the better-after all, strained carrots is strained carrots.

Overall, I'd give The Can-Opener Gourmet 4.5 stars, and recommend it as an excellent holiday gift for adventurous friends and family members who cook.

No one in the world (and I state that with full confidence) knows more about Chartres Cathedral than Malcolm Miller. What more needs to be said?

No visit to Chartres is complete without taking the tour of the Cathedral's walking encyclopedia Malcolm Miller. Miller's books are fantastic and give a tremendous insight into the history of Chartres and its Cathedral.

Malcolm Miller is the foremost English authority on the cathedral of Chartres. He divides his time between the town of Chartres, where he personally conducts tours, and the rest of the world where he lectures and makes films and videos of the subject. He opens his tours and lectures by commenting that the cathedral is like a library--and we don't just say, "We're going to go to the library today and read all the books". Each tour or lecture consists of a general introduction and focuses on a small part of the stained glass and statuary. The core of the book is a review of the iconography of a selection of the windows and sculpture. In this manner, you learn how to "read the books" in the cathedral, and gain an understanding of the world that produced them. Once you have toured Chartres, either in person or through that other medieval miracle, printing, you will want to return again and again.

Any diehard chocoholic should have this book! Laura has read my mind and wrote a book for me! Delicious!

Whomever said chocolate wasn't for breakfast is wrong! This fabulous book contains recipes for delightful creations that any chocolate fan would appreciate. The sidebars relating info. about the inn from which the recipe hails is a nice touch. It also gives a chocoholic a good excuse to serve something chocolately at the one meal you never see it--breakfast!

If you are intimidated by other chocolate books, this is the one for you - easy recipes using chocolate products found in any grocery and common kitchen equipment. Entrees, muffins, coffeecakes, cookies - we liked them all. Tested by innkeepers, good color photos, interesting information on the inns. We bought several for gifts for chocoholic friends, who also rave about it!

Christabel, from the prolific Karin Kallmaker's Laura Adams persona, is a gothic romance, a tale of the supernatural and how an evil entity torments one woman's soul through generations. There are two stories told: first, how the evil found and took a young woman, Christabel, for his own in colonial New York. The second story is of the modern la Christabel, supermodel, spinning out yet another life to provide the suffering that the evil thrives on.

In Coleridge's version of this tale, even nature itself is evil (so green, so female), as is the witch Geraldine, who bewitches young Christabel with veiled references to lesbianism. Christabel is just a victim and the rescuer is Sir Leoline, who must fight both the witch and nature for Christabel's soul.

Laura Adams turns this story upside down. Geraldine represents the peaceful, natural world of the native Manhattans, and when the young Christabel meets the native woman, passion soon follows. Their joyous happiness is discovered and fouled by a demon Puritan preacher, who contrives Geraldine's downfall. Easy to do when Halley's Comet has appeared overhead -- blame it on the nearest nonconformist female and call her a witch. As the preacher takes possession of Christabel in the past, the modern day Christa has adopted desperate measures to try to break the cycle. An investment banker, Dina has renounced the part of her heritage that has passed down over time, but one touch of Christa's hand brings the power -- and the passion -- surging back. Defeated in the past, she arms herself for another battle in this lifetime.

The story weaves back and forth in time with perfect clarity. Minor characters from the past have their roles to play in the present. Even an ancient tree contributes -- significantly -- to the link between the two stories.

The plot makes for a good read, and the writing is pure Kallmaker/Adams -- prose matching time period and, of course, unbelievably erotic tension between her characters. The reality of life on the island of Manhattan in the late 1600s is well researched. The resolution is electric and quite, quite satisfactory. Once you start, you won't put it down until the last page.

Love can conquer anything, even time and always evil. That's the message of this book, which I could not put down. Two timelines are intertwined to tell a story of two women who must defeat a powerful evil that has captured and tormented one of them through centuries. I was completely captured by the concept and fervently pulling for these women, right to the very last page.

I enjoyed Night Vision so much that I ordered this book as soon as it was available. It is so different from Night Vision in subject, but the belief in lesbian magic that reaches beyond space and time is as pervasive here, as healing and as vastly enjoyable! I recommend this book to anyone who believes that love can trescend any pain and any evil.

The March girls all await to see who Aunt March will give the cameo brooch to. Meg longs to give her father a special gift for Christmas, but will she ever have the money to buy it? Jo has a heated duel with Aunt March. Will a jurney with a few unexpected visitors show her a thing or two? Beth feels she will amount to nothing. But will St. Nicholas will give her a change of mind? Amy attends Aunt March on a dazziling trip to New York, but will Amy overcome her selfish streak and be kind to those less fortunate? Who shall own the brooch? What will happen to it? These and other questions will be answerd in this edition of: Portaits of Little women, a truly fun book for the young reader.

I love the book Little Women so when I saw this book at the library I checked it out.Let's just say I wasn't disappointed.I liked reading how they dealt with Aunt March.It was so touching what Amy did with her gift.Read this book to find out!!

This special holiday Portraits of Little Women book features four stories, each one about a different March sister's Christmas dream. Meg wants to buy her father a special gift, but she has no way to afford it. Jo must learn the true spirit of Christmas. Beth, who believes her family does not appreciate her, realizes just how much she means to them. And Amy, who is always wants presents, surprises everyone when she gives a gift to a poor, starving little girl on Christmas day. At the center of these stories is a family heirloom, an old cameo brooch, that teaches each girl the lessons she must learn about the holidays. I highly reccomend this book, especially if you liked previous Portraits of Little Women books.

Wow -- a great book from a great new Desire author. I picked this up not knowing what to expect, but Desire has found a fantastic author to add to their stable. The story is sweet and emotional and funny ... I'd love to be a Cinderella surrounded by chocolate, too!

I gobbled this story up...it was amusing, entertaining, funny... and most of all, ROMANTIC!

Wonderful...be ready to laugh, to have your heartstrings tugged, and have a fan ready to cool off the heat! The chemistry between down-to-earth Abby and incredibly sexy CK Tanner is real (and tender) and exactly what a romance should be! This new and fantastic writer will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish and leave you satisfied that 'happily ever after' can happen in today's day and age. Cinderella lives on!

All the characters are three dimensional and well developed (not just the heroine, the hero is wonderful, too.) I got that "lump in the throat" feeling when I came to the last page, which tells me that Ms. Wright really knows how to tell a story. I recommend this book.