A true classic. Action, suspense, and dog training! With many, many pictures of photo-man! Don't miss it!

Weiss & Tom Rose, his co-author, are American experts in the German dog sport, Schutzhund ("protection dog"). Explaining principles and methods they used in training champion protection dogs, the authors demonstrate how to select and train a dog that will not only protect your home, but also be a friendly compainion to your family and friends. Anyone can go out and find a mean, angry dog that will protect a house just as well as it will bite your guests. Likewise, anyone can find a dog so friendly that it will lick your child's face just as easily as asking an intruder to shake its paw. Finding and training a dog that will protect your home but also romp and play with your freinds and loved ones is far, far more difficult. Let these experts show you the way.

In The Threefold Garland, Hans Urs von Balthasar unveils the Rosary as a form of meditation on the central mysteries of the Christian faith through the mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ from the perspective of Mary, His mother. The great theme of this compact (146 page) volume is the salvation of the world: God the Father plans our salvation from all eternity; Jesus, God the Son, becomes flesh to accomplish the Father's will; God, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of mission who guarantees the conformity of the Son's response to the Father's will.

God did not will that humanity be saved without our consent, so He proposed the divine plan of salvation to Mary, as representative of the human race. In response, Mary speaks a pure, human, creaturely "fiat" or "yes" to God's will. In Mary, the Church is the pure and immaculate bride who always says yes to God's will. Mary carries the body of the Lord within her, a body that will later incorporate her. Similarly, the Church contains Jesus and is contained by Him.

These rather broad strokes hardly do justice to the richness of von Balthasar's reflections. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (translator) describes in his preface what he calls von Balthasar's "concentric vision": ". . . he never treats a subject in isolation from all those other subjects which are naturally bound to it, but sees them as interacting concentric circles, distinct yet inseparable and springing from a common center"-- the Paschal Mystery ( p. 9). For all this richness, this book should be quite accessible to college educated, non-specialists. One should, however, be prepared to alternate periods of reading with periods of prayer.

With Leiva-Merikakis, I agree that "this book, without diluting it, contains the essence of von Balthasar's weightier tomes," as he says because, "the style is so non-technical, at times poetic and always full of prayer" (9). I recommend this book as an excellent introduction to Hans Urs von Balthasar and even to the thought of the mystic, Adrienne von Speyr. I also recommend it for spiritual reading to deepen one's prayer life.

note: contains reflections on the Joyous, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries of the Rosary.

This is an enjoyable mystery in the classic mode with some deft turns. But it is completely unedited and riddled throughout with type-os and silly mistakes. Surely no person at the publishing house read this book before it was released; I'd go so far as to say no one bothered to use spell-check to detect ludicrous errors. In most cases, the correct spelling or usage is fairly easy to figure. In one, a "Mrs." should have been a "Mr." and that caused a bit of confusion. Readers appreciate these budget-priced editions, but couldn't someone at the publishing house give them a look after they've been scanned into the computer? Surely a summer intern in the editorial department might even have a good time reading this pleasant little mystery.

This is Mary Roberts Rinehart at her best. The author tells a haunting tale which is on a par with The Yellow Room. Rinehart is a master at setting the stage and draws the reader in with her unique stlye of mystery writting. She expertly developes the plot and her character descriptions are flawless. A real page turner and a great read.

For decades Mary Roberts Rinehart was the queen of mystery thrillers -- the American Agatha Christie. The Circular Staircase was Rinehart's first published novel (The Swimming Pool was her last), but it is a well-constructed work in ever way. Rinehart's special gift was in the evocation of an overlying and unremitting atmosphere of unease and potential danger and it is under such an atmosphere of apprehension that she spins her stories. For some time it has been fashionable to dismiss the novels of Mary Roberts Rinehart as old fashioned. This may apply to superficial details -- such as gas lighting -- but it definitely is not true of the novels themselves which are timeless in their ability to hold the reader in a grip of mystery and suspense. The Circular Stasircase is one of the finest mystery novels ever written.

With her distinct voice, M.F.K. Fisher discusses the medical, cultural, social, and emotional attributes of traditional folk remedies and medical treatments. This small, gentle book is a "must" read for those interested in new age, herbal, and alternative treatment for maladies, illnesses, and the physical and mental stresses of contemporary society. It could be effectively argued that this book is a classic in the way it discusses our reliance, and more effective usage, of plants, elixers, and other "cordial waters" to enhance our sense of wholeness.