In her last novel, Gaskell avoided her usual urban milieu to concentrate instead on the wonderful parochial doings of a country village in the mid-Victorian period. Although she left the novel without its very last chapter before she died, this should not dissuade you from reading the novel: you'll know by the end exactly where Gaskell was going to finish the book and what would've happened to all the characters.

WIVES AND DAUGHTERS is frequently compared to Austen, but it is very different; the comedy and social observation is marvelous, but there's a greater sense of despair here more akin to MIDDLEMARCH. Hyacinth is without question the single most complex and engrossing character Gaskell ever created, and despite her menadacity and her manipulativeness you can't help but feel fond of her in spite of her less attractive qualities. Her daughter Cynthia is nearly as fine a character, and the others are also topnotch. A delightful read.

I relished reading every single page of this book. Austen elements? Yes, but it did seem a lot more socially aware as well as more personable. Molly, predictably, was my favorite character, and she is the young woman I desire to be. Caring compassionate beautiful and intelligent. Roger, you and Molly deserve each other forever. The characters were complex and it will be a book I read again and again and again.

'Wives and Daughters' was this month's choice for our book club. We all commented that it took us a long time to read but everyone appreciated the fine writing and skilful characterisation. We found Molly a delight and Hyacinth one of the most delicious 'love to hate' characters. The men in our group thought this was a 'woman's book', well written but too slow and without enough action to interest them. We wanted to know why we call the author 'Mrs Gaskell', when we don't refer to 'Miss Austen', or 'Miss Bronte' We would recommend this as a good read.

This new American dictionary from Oxford is fantastic. I have the American Hertitage that came out a few years ago and I was pleased with it--it was an up-to-date version of the dictionaries I've always had. But when I received this dictionary I was astounded. For the first time I'm using my dictionary for more than a simple spell check.

First of all, it lists the most common use of the word as the first definition. This seems so logical it's bizarre that other dictionaries don't do it. I no longer have to browse through archaic or niche uses of a word simply because they predate the most common. It creates a whole new level of clarity. On top of this, the pronunciation system is extremely easy to use and the layout is clean and straight forward. It has the feel of a classic (illustrations and drawings only when it informs a word, none of those do-dads, distractions, and unnecessary photos that make other dictionaries look cheap but the makers think will make it look more expensive.) The usage notes are excellent, and there are more new words in it than I've found anywhere else--must be the resources of the OED and Oxford's other power dictionaries that the American lexicographers have drawn on. I actually find myself opening this dictionary and simply browzing.

It's also great with American words. I was afraid that it would be a British dictionary with an American cover wrapped around it, but that's not the case. Look up words like "trunk" and "roundabout" and see what you get.

I do have one criticism, and it's about thumb indexing. I'm not sure other dictionaries have this problem, but the thumb indexing is way off in places because they make the notches equidistant from each other and some letters are larger than others. What's the point of providing a quick finder tool when it's not helpfull

Still, this dictionary is grand. The first American dictionary that has met my needs and made me realize that a good dictionary is the most amazing resource I've ever encountered.

This is absolutely the best dictionary of American English currently on the market. I researched American Heritage, Websters etc. The Oxford is clearly a level above them all.

First, this dictionary has the unprecendated level of clarity in its entries. It's not just the idea that the most common senses of the word should go first (unlike Marian-Webster's, where they are presented chronologically), it's the idea that among all the senses of the word, some are the "core" meanings, while the others are the sub-meanings, sub-senses, and can be grouped accordingly. You don't need to go through 15 senses of the word "belt", for example, to find the meaning you were looking for. All the meanings are grouped by their "core" meaning, with other subsenses attached to them. As a result, it's so much easier to grasp all the meanings of the word, because, think about it, this is exactly how your mind works. The Oxford editors believe (based on the extensive phychological research) that this is how the dictionaries of the future should be written, and this stem structure of senses and subsenses makes a lot of sense.

I was surprised to read other reviews of this dictionary where reviewers were critisizing the New Oxford American Dictionary in favor of Mariam-Webster's and others because some obscure words were present there, but not here. Don't kid yourself, unless you have 70 other dictionaries at home and lots of spare time to compare the entries in each of them, you'll find the Oxford dictionary excellent, definately better than anything else on the market, and sufficient for most of your needs and more.

Highly recommended.

I'm going to give it 5 stars, even though I have my doubts about some of it.

A new, current dictionary is a wonderful thing. I've never liked American Heritage as they've never seemed thorough or complete enough for my taste, but I think the NOAD editors have done well. If you need a current dictionary immediately it's a decent alternative to the yet-to-be-seen new Websters or next OED. (And if for some weird reason you need a definition for `doh', it's in here.)

It's not a substitute for technical dictionaries, but they have a surprising number of definitions for current technical terminology. That's probably a feature, but... that's where I start to have my doubts. For example, one of their entries is for `JPEG'. Their definition is of questionable usefulness if you don't already know what they're referring to.

Worse, it's going to severely date the dictionary. We've all seen some of the amusing and dated "technical terms" in older dictionaries (like Webster's 3rd), and I often have wondered why the compilers ever bothered to include them in the first place. I believe a lot of terms in NOAD like `JPEG' are going to be goofily dated, if not in 5 years then certainly in 10.

Other questionable features include photographs and definitions for people like the Clintons and Bob Dole (who?). I don't want to appear curmudgeonly, but photos and brief bios of currently famous but soon-to-be-forgotten people don't add any value whatsoever... especially when you consider that a new release will likely take longer than anyone would like. And this isn't a cheap dictionary. I'd rather they dropped the photos and added more obscure words; there are much better sources for current biographical information.

I'm also not thrilled with the font. It isn't horrible, but it isn't high on my list of "most readable fonts" either.

In summary: it's a great choice for a current dictionary. Just be warned that some of the advertised features are going to be obsolete long before the next release.

I have not read the whole book yet, but I was anxious to let people know that IF you read *real* books (not just novelizations of movies like this) be FOREWARNED! The writing is sub-par, complete with sentence fragments, weird diction, and hackneyed descriptive passages. Like Grisham novels, though, the story itself -- leaving the writing out if the discussion -- is interesting. A page-turner. This book is helpful if you had trouble figuring out what was going on. Don't expect Norman Mailer or Maya Angelou though.

I went and saw the movie, and it was great, then I ordered the book. I read it in about 1 1/2 hours. It was exactly like the movie, and all the facts were the same. It was good, but Chris Carter, just didn't add more to the mind. And the book took the humour away too.But 4 stars because I am a devoted X-files fan.

This book is a bit more detailed than the movie. The action scenes from the movie does not translate as well into the book, but for the true fans of the x-files this is definitely worth reading. For more involved story lines, fans should read the novels from Charles Grant and Kevin J. Anderson. The only disappointment from the book is that it was very short and you can easily finish it in one night.

Ever had one of those days where everything went wrong? For Larry Munro, a day to pick up his pal, Concrete, blew up (literally!) at the gas station. An innocent flirt with a girl leads to trouble as the girl's boyfriend just happened to rob the gas station and ready to runaway. Guest who the gotta be the driver? Will this change his life forever?

This collection is one of the best comicbook that takes on real life situations without letting the superheroes element disturb your attention. A nicely executed story and the ending will ask you a provoking question about the event in the book. What would you do if it actually happen to you?

I think this was a pretty good book, plain and simple.