Yes, I agree, this is the best beginning genealogy book. I wanted to give my mother something practical, yet not overwhelming, so she could start researching our roots. I found this book in my local library and had trouble returning it! Reader's Digest is the publisher and there is no dispute to the quality of material within. It is easy to read, chapters are logical, and the indices are an added bonus. A great purchase, especially at the Amazon price.

This is the best Genealogy book available!!! If you only buy one book on tracing your family tree this is it!

Jasmine Nights & Monkey Pluck: Love, Discovery And Tea is an engaging celebration of the pleasure of savoring a steaming cup of tea. Lush, full-color photographs by Ellen Galford and Faith Morgan blend with brief narrative and poetry vignettes collaboratively collected by Marylu Downing, Faith Morgan, Ellen Galford to highlight the simple joys of tea. Jasmine Nights & Monkey Pluck is a gentle meditative book which is very highly recommended reading for tea lovers everywhere.

This collection of short prose pieces offers the reader quiet moments of private musings, such as occur over a cup of tea or while cutting back the blackberry bushes and meditating on the prickly business of love. The writers made me laugh, cry, and sigh over the sheer lucidity and wisdom being served in prose-poems alongside photo-collages of teacups. "Jasmine Nights & Monkey Pluck: Love Discovery and Tea" is a book to be treasured, read and re-read, passed on as a gift to special friends.

Ellen Galford's second novel is as rollicking, windswept and surprising as the island on which it is set, Cailleach of the Outer Hebrides. Fans of "The Dyke and the Dybbuk" will recoginize Galford's use of frame narratives, semi-reliable narrators and her re-envisioning of the underside of religious doctrine, all from an intelligently sexy lesbian perspective. Here, instead of mystical Judaism, Galford mines Gaelic folklore, Goddess inflected Christianity-- and satires self-serious Calvinism. The artistic outpourings of the central character Maria Milleney create a feast of visions which amplify both the mystical and humorous dimensions of the story (and the story within it). If you stick with Galford through the novel's sharp curves, you'll find a world you'll not want to leave.

After reading DeFoe's sensationalized drama of a poor hapless young girl being used and abused by men, this book about a swashbuckling lesbian petty thief by the same name is quite a relief--and a good chuckle!

Bridget is the daughter of an apothecary in the late 1500s in England. She meets the swashbuckling heroine Moll, and the two end up having a lifelong love affair, punctuated by Moll's many adventures. Somewhat based on the real life of Moll Cutpurse, a.k.a. Mary Frith, Galford's wonderful story is sure to appeal to those fans of Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Waters.

Ellen Galford's novel is not a rewrite of Defoe's Moll Flanders! Dekker and Middleton's play "The Roaring Girl" was based on a actual London personage-- Moll Cutpurse, who also inspired the pamphlet debate "Hic Mulier/Haec Vir" by her cross dressing in men's clothes. Galford brings to life the "Roaring Girl" in hopefully more of the spirit in which she actually lived. Read it! Read all her work! Ellen Galford is the funniest and most intelligent contemporary (lesbian) writer I've found.

I read this book excited by the idea of contemporary feminist Jewish folklore. I expected a kind of lesbian retake of the Jewish classic folktale "The Dybuk". Though the story is funny, it fails as modern folklore because the author has confused her folklore archtypes. A dybuk is the tormented spirit of person who died usually under strange circumstances. The souls of these dead posses a living person. Kokos, the "dybuk" in this story is really a demon, like her lover Lilith. Demons occupy a separate place in Jewish folklore. Too bad, the story would have been that much better if the author had gotten her folklore characters right.

considering this is my first delve into lesbian and jewish literature, i was quite impressed. the book gave a whole new outlook on evil spirits and demons and gave jewish lesbians an interesting perspective. the only reason the book didnt get 5/5 stars from me is that the ending could've been a little stronger. other than that, the book was wonderful!

I liked this book. I liked Rainbow, I liked Kokos, I liked this book. Parts of it tended to be a little over the top (I was disappointed by the ending, which didn't satisfy me), but the sheer idea of Hell being bought out by the Japanese was worth it. Read this just for the sheer joy of Hell as a beaurocracy.