This is a wonderful cook book for everyone to own. The recipes are appealing and clearly written. I have used many of them and each results in a delicious dish. The authors deliver exactly what they promise: a variety of buffet recipes that work! The writing style is both friendly and elegant. Sarah Greenberg's brief introduction offers a fascinating glimpse of her own background and family history--a story that would be even more interesting to read in an expanded version. (Can we hope for a second cookbook?) The book itself is spiral-bound, allowing it to lay flat on the counter--a plus, as every cook knows. This is not a huge book with an overflow of too-often published recipes. It is a small treasure for those of us who love to cook.

Nearly 40 years ago, as a 15 year old girl, I took this book from my parent's bookcase on a cold, Sunday in March. I held out little hope because it was my mother's book, but I was bored and had run out of library books. From the opening page I was enthralled. I read all afternoon and into the evening. The love story of Kathy and Mike appealed to my young, romantic heart. But as I moved into the middle of the book, I missed the romance and found it less exciting. Their married life was not as romantic as their courtship. I read it again twenty years later and saw a different book, one about a maturing marriage and the problems it faced. It seemed much more relevant as a 35 year old mother. I read it again a couple years ago and saw even more in the story; it became a much richer novel each time I read it.

This book was a wise purchase by my mother in 1947 for it has continued to live, and grow. As a girl it was a love story, 40 years later it is the portrait of a marriage. I found a copy in a used book, just like my mother's. I will read it again.

Mrs. Mike is a surprisingly contemporary story whose main character is a strong female. I think it was written about 40 years ago, so parts of it are a bit dated (and perhaps politically incorrect by today's standards). However, it is a wonderful, tender love story set against the background of the extreme and brutal climate and geography of the Canadian northwest. It is the story of a young Irish girl from Boston who falls in love with a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman. The young husband, a strong male character, adores his wife and treats her accordingly. The book also depicts Indians (now called First Nation people in Candada) in a wonderful fashion, as well as strong and deep friendships among the women. This book should be required reading for young people, especially in a time when bonds between people are easily shattered and hardship is looked on as something to be avoided at all cost. Our book group loved it and read it based upon the memory of one of our members who read it as a very young woman and always treasured it in her heart.

I read this book several times as a young teen over 20 years ago, and remembered it as one of the best books I had ever read. Recently I picked it up again to see if the story was as interesting to me as an adult as it was when I was a girl. I discovered that my own experiences as a grown woman gave the story much richer meaning for me. The book not only held up, it was even better.

Mrs. Mike is the story of a young innocent girl who falls in love with man and follows him to the remote Canadian wilderness . It is packed with scenes so vivid and real I could remember them perfectly for 20 years. The romance and adventure called to me as a teenager; the friendships, love and loss call to me as an adult.

I cannot reccomend this book highly enough.--Erin Smit

Had the priviledge of reading this book in the '70s and like others, loaned my copy out, never to see it again ! With recent 'events' with sheep, it makes you wonder IF this could happen ? Would LOVE to find a copy again to read !

I was given a copy of this book in a nonchalant manner, about 15 years ago. It looked small and quite unimpressive. I took it mostly to be polite. But the giver was a rare person, so I knew the book would be too - even if it were not something I would usually read for myself. Once I began reading it, however, I COULD NOT put it down! It was fast-moving, expertly presented, and the idea was TOTALLY unheard of then. Just as we now look at early science fiction about the moon, Mars, and robots and exclaim about how true it all became, so I now see this book taking its place as one of those "predictors of the future." For sure, cloning has been a science fiction dream for quite awhile. And "Joshua, Son of None" was the first book I've ever seen on the subject. Now, with the reality of cloning hitting the world over, this book is finding its own place just as "The Martian Chronicles" did........

I remember reading this book in the '70's and was just telling someone about it last weekend. I came here hoping against hope to be able to find a copy. What an experience! It really rocked me when I read this book. Some scenes from the book are still so vivid in my mind -- the shooting, the stealing of the cells. Wow... after all these years, I can still remember it. I hope the publisher will see fit to reissue this book. With all the pertinent stuff in the news these days, it would be a perfect fit. I for one would buy a copy in a heartbeat.

I read MRS. MIKE for the very first time recently and it has quickly joined my top "5 best books ever" list. Therefore, no matter what, I don't think this book could have ever equaled it in any way. There was a lot of good writing here and a good story, but it got bogged down. Personally, I would have liked some parts to have been shortened and others expanded upon. I would have loved to have heard more about Kathy's growing up with Mrs. Mike and Sgt. Mike and the twins and more about what happened with Crazy Dancer and the daughter. Overall, it was an enjoyable read.

I found this book by accident in a [local store]and immediately snatched it up...I usually would wait and order from Amazon, but seeing the book I really wanted to read it now.

I read "Mrs. Mike" a very long time ago (I was eight). I read it as a great adventure...my sister read it as a romance. I could never understand that aspect until I read the book again in my twenties. The wonderful thing about this (The Search for Joyful) book is that, yes, there are the elements of romance but again the heroine goes on an adventure that imparts information about history from an unique perspective. Anytime a book can teach, entertain and be subtle about it is a plus.

I enjoyed the book almost as much as I had "Mrs. Mike" years ago. It was a pleasant read, made me laugh, made me cry in places and made me hope there wasn't going to be another 50-year wait for more stories about Mrs. Mike and her family.

If you are looking for another book "just like MRS. MIKE," I'm afraid that THE SEARCH FOR JOYFUL will disappoint you. It's about a different young woman's journey out of girlhood, set in an entirely different era even though it begins just one generation after the classic tale of a Canadian Mountie's bride. While Katherine Mary Flannigan is among its characters, this is her adopted daughter's story. I'm glad I was able to put aside my preconceptions and let Kathy Forquet take me along on her own unique journey, because I found it a very rewarding trip.

This Kathy, as readers of MRS. MIKE will remember, came into the lives of Mike and Kathy Flannigan after their one-time household helper - the Cree girl Oh-Be-Joyful, who ran away to marry a half-breed trapper named Jonathan Forquet - died and left a baby daughter behind. Jonathan brought the child to the woman his young wife had called her "more than sister," and the Flannigans added the little girl to their adopted twins. Who, with their French ancestry, fit in among the northern Alberta village's white youngsters; while small copper-skinned Kathy, a First Nation child growing up in a white family, fit in nowhere except at home. "Kathy is to be included," Mrs. Mike consistently told Connie and Georges. But as her story opens, Kathy Forquet is striking out on her own for the first time - to answer her country's World War II call for young women to study nursing - and merely being "included" is no longer enough.

In the cosmopolitan city of Montreal, she find a profession to excel at and to love. She also finds prejudice among her fellow nursing students, and even - eventually - in the family of the young man she marries. But there is another young man, a fellow "Indian" also serving in the Canadian Army; and there are friends like Kathy's roommate Mandy, her old schoolmate Elk Girl, and "Sister Egg."

Through study and hard work, through coming under enemy fire in a front-line medical unit, through loving and losing and learning to love again, young Kathy journeys just as far in this book as her adoptive mother did in MRS. MIKE. It is written with more frankness because it was, after all, published 50 years later. If you're planning to hand it to your child, be warned about that! But I personally thought it well done, and well worth reading.

Freedman's novel reads like non-fiction. 99% of her extensive research appears to have found it's way onto the pages. Within the first 20 pages, Freedman offers a child abuse excuse for The Poetesses later fascination with her own gender. And, in these same 20 pages, Sappho is seen drooling over a collection of muscles and external genitalia with little brains who will eventually exile her from her home. To make matters worse, Freedman ends with the apocraphal story of Sappho and Phaeon (a fiction fabricated by Ovid for the amusement of Rome) For those of us who love The Lesbian, this novel will bring pain, sorrow and little enjoyment. This is not a book I would recommend to lesbians or feminists.

Since I've always been fascinated with Sappho, I was excited when I came across this book. What a disappointment. The writing is sketchy and unfleshed. The plot seems like little more than an excuse to show Sappho lusting after everyone she comes into contact with. I never thought I'd say this, but I actually got tired of lesbian sex scenes. Worst of all, the character of Sappho herself never becomes real or sympathetic. I had high hopes for this book, and it didn't come close to fulfilling them. There are good points (interweaving of poetry into the text, details of ancient Greek culture, some intriguing insights) but they are far outweighed by bad ones.