My grandfather has made a stunning book and it truely lets the reader see his deep passion for bird watching and his religious meaning to this hobbie. He captures real passion and makes this book a must have for birdwatchers everywhere.

Jim Schley, South Strafford VT: Leonard Nathan is the author of nine fabulous collections of poems, and the book here reviewed is a hybrid, written in prose, neither fiction nor nonfiction precisely. I use the term "precisely" on purpose, because Nathan's work is replete with exact connections and combinations, images and phrases that defy passing quickly over.

In design and presentation, Nathan's new book is beautiful and compact. In plot, his meta-fictional [ital] Diary is oblique, left-handed in more ways than one, built up like a montage of ruminative passages such as those in a personal diary. One ostensible purpose of Nathan's "entries" is to record the excursions of Thursday's Children, an otherwise unaffiliated gang of aspiring naturalists who gather once a week to carpool to promising sites with their field guides and binoculars. The narrator - a version of Nathan himself, bookworm and unabashed amateur - insists upon the distinction between the serendipitous [ital] birdwatcher and the more zealous [ital] birder, who is "more hunter than looker-on, more passionate about having seen than seeing," and whose Life List is paramount. Nathan playfully interlaces in these pages accounts of hilarious field-trips (grown men and women piling into cars to hurry somewhere because someone has reported sighting), snatches of dreams, poems from various writers, and meditations upon the allure of finally seeing - really [ital] seeing - an elusive exemplar, the snow bunting, which he believes he's only glimpsed once from the edge of an eye. Running through the other diary entries is a series of conversations between poet and scientist, in this case an ornithologist who scornfully questions the idea that an artist could make any genuinely useful contribution to comprehension of the avian world. Our poet is bewildered by the scientist's rebuttals, and he repeatedly tries to reformulate a precept that the scientist will accept. This philosophical confrontation is fierce and grand, even as the genuine friendship of these two men of contrary sensibilities is insightfully dramatized.

I cannot recommend [ital] Diary of a Left-Handed Birdwatcher more delightedly. This is one of the most unusual and evocative books of prose I've read in a long while, as likely to please lovers of poetry as devotees of superb nature writing.

I'm impressed that my own group of friends in New England has become avid for birdwatching. Many of these are people who formerly lived seasonally in different houses, renting or house-sitting or even tenting, and who now have children and homes they've built. We've grown more alert to the other residents of our territory. The activities of the birds around us, arriving and nesting, mating and feeding and fledging then moving on in the fall, keep coming up in conversations as we pass on the sidewalk or in the aisles of a store - the first vireo heard, or last warbler; an unexpected glimpse of a scarlet tanager; the enormous gray goshawk on a maple bough.

In Genesis, Adam undertakes responsibility for assigning a name to each creature in existence, and ever since, poets have defended their task as comparably essential. In actual practice, even poets as skilled as Nathan are less likely to invent than refresh - using the shared vocabulary of our working-day language, to show all over again how bracingly words plunge us not [ital] out of but [ital] into what Denise Levertov calls the life around us. If the aim of scientific taxonomy is to be exhaustive, comprehensive, categorical, and discriminating, the aim of poetic rendering is to crisscross and blend. These are different but complementary modes of precision.

(3 elementary students: ...): It's a very interesting book. It tells about Flo Jo's one-legged suits and her unique personal style. It inspires people never to give up on something you love a lot. There were times when Flo Jo was worried she wouldn't be able to compete, but somehow she perservered through the difficult times. In this book you will find out that Flo Jo made many new world records in running. (We don't understand how she could sign autographs with her six-inch long fingernails!!) Flo Jo wasn't allowed to run in the hand off relay because her fingernails were too long. In the end, the the coaches let her keep them (the second time). We would recommend this book for people who are looking for a good biography and love running. We think the reading level for this book is appropriate for grades 3 and up, or as a Read Aloud for grades 2 and up.

This book is recognized as a classical worldwide. Indeed, it is the most comprehensive book on wave propagation, diffraction, and scattering to be found nowadays over 20 years after it was written. No wander it is referred to as "the bible" of electromagnetics. It is a must for any one in the business of electromagnetics, analytical or numerical and it is the only book I own that is frequently used both for research and as a graduate course textbook.

This was not a great book. The only reason I'm rating it three stars is that it was light and fluffy enough to keep me entertained on a rainy Sunday -- otherwise I would say its a 1.5 to 2 stars, tops.

My main problem with Nathan's book is that it lacks any originality. Its one thing to update a classic like Pride and Prejudice -- but Helen Fielding just updated this story in her wickedly funny Bridget Jones Diary. And Fielding did a much better job, creating modern new characters within the classic story arc. Nathan doesn't bother to do this -- EVERY character in her book acts exactly as the original characters in P & P did -- and her whole book comes off as an underdone retread. Noble and Field (Nathan's Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett) even talk much as the original characters from Austen's P & P did -- making the dialogue stiff and anachronistic. By far the worst part of the book is the implausible contrivance that puts the herione, Jasmin, playing the lead of a major London play. Nathan tries to explain this by saying that "ordinary" people are acting, and actors would make up the audience . . . but almost everyone other than Jasmin is an actor. And why would anyone want to see a play of non-actors anyway? It makes no sense.

Even more disturbing, not only is Nathan ripping off Fielding's idea (to update P & P), she tends to use BJD lingo -- "f**kwit," "stick insect." This only adds to the flat, unoriginal tone of the book.

Like I said, this is a fairly mindless, mildly entertaining read, but there are better, similar books out there. Try BJD or the original P & P before you waste your time . . . or money . . . on this book. The original P & P is by far a more entertaining, exciting read, which original, life-like characters.

I don't know why I'm reviewing, after reading the others. We are all saying the same things, feeling the same things. This is a good read---its a complete, modern copy of the classic Pride and Prejudice. Its almost disappointing for the lack of originality. But it is humorous and well written. I was saddened that she thanked so many people but forgot to thank the women who put her on the market: Jane Austen herself. The story is about Mr Darcy and Lizzy Bennett enacted in a theatrical play for breast cancer that plays one night only. But the characters are played by modern versions of themselves---got it? Lizzy doesn't have quite so many sisters this go around and as you can tell, shes a journalist. I must say this story was all very cleverly thought out for all that it is "used" material. What would the writer write next? A "Wuthering Heights" rewrite? Or something entirely original?
But all in all--I was put off by all the reviews here of all the P&P sequels. But I just kept coming across this one. It didn't look bad and I was desperate for a read the other night! And, thank goodness, it wasn't bad at all. Disappointing in its unoriginality, yet refreshing British humor and insight into my fave book and characters. Neat storyline. Interesting how the family can be scandalised in this century...Better written than Brigit Jones, in my opinion.

I love Jane Austen, but I'm not the type of fan that automatically looks upon the authors of the sequels and adaptations as automatically evil. This book makes no pretense about trying to be anything other than what it is, which isn't deep earth shattering literature. But it's good. If you like Pride and Prejudice, and the BBC miniseries, and you look on this type of adaptation thing as a testament to the universiality of the book, rather than with immediate disdain, then go for it. I thought it was very well updated for the times, and I could very easily see Jazz being exactly a modern day Lizzie. I read it rather quickly, and though he's not Darcy, I found the Harry Noble character very appealing. So if you're a Austen fan with an open mind, I would definitely say go for it.

Jesse Owens' autobiography was written as something of a self-advertisement. Sadly, some of the more difficult aspects of his life were covered over or revised to make a happier life than he probably experienced. I tried to get to the bottom of some of the confusion around dates and events, which forced me to disagree with what Mr. Owens had written in some instances.

Having read Jesse Owens autobiography, Jesse, I am less impressed with this book than I was with the autobiography. His autobiography differs in the details--such as whether or not he got married before or after his first child was born, and also speculates about his opinions. It is opinionated in itself and doesn't give as objective a viewpoint as I would desire in a biography. However, the photographs are great, and let the viewer become acquainted with what the real Jesse Owens looked like, for those who were not acquainted with him while he lived. Not bad, but I don't recommend it too highly.