This book is a collection of eight essays. The first seven are each written on the subject of one of the "deadly" sins of sloth, anger, lust, gluttony, pride, avarice and envy. The eight is on despair. Each of the famous authors ruminates on the sin, looking at it from his or her unique perspective.

Overall I found the essays well written, and the book to be easy to read. This book makes for some lightweight reading, short and simple, but without much substance. Overall, I don't recommend it.

Eight essays on Sloth, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, Pride, Avarice, Envy, and Despair (yes that's 8 sins). To be honest I bought it because of Pynchon, (whose essay -if you are even a slight fan- makes the buy worth it) but read on to the back cover. I quickly discovered that these authors compiled around the topic of sins is a great way to see inside these writers styles and appraoch to a similar idea. Some I'd read before, and others introduced themselves in this novel. All were unique and interesting in their own right, especially for someone -me- who isn't terribly interested in sins. Highly reccomended!

This book is short and simple - reads easily photos on every page to go with information; a good beginning book - if you plan on wanting to learn to ride - or even going to a stable to rent a horse for an hour or two for a trail ride this book gives basic valuable information

Reality Check: each of the skills profiled in this handy little manual takes practice and patience over the long-term to perfect. However, as a beginner/intermediate student returning to riding after a lengthy absence, I find myself referring to the excellent photo presentation format of this book quite frequently to reinforce what I'm learning in my weekly lessons. It is surprising just how much of the basics are actually covered. I would not recommend this for the intermediate/advanced rider, but for the price it is a worthy investment especially for the beginner.

Sometimes when I can't get into a book at first, I hang in there thinking that I'll get hooked in soon. Usually that happens, but unfortunately, it did not in this case. The book centers on an Irish family in the early - mid 1900's, three generations, their motivations, the love they did/didn't receive from their parents, their sagas. Yet, I could not connect with any of the characters, and could barely recall who was who and what had happened from one reading to the next. I loved Mary Gordon's book, Spending. When I read a book and enjoy it, I will read and study other books by the same author. I was very disappointed in this book.

The best test of a novel is does it stay with you or does it disappear like so much morning mist. It has been several years since I read this book, but I find myself thinking of it often. My wife and I have discussed the ending a number of times often in sharp disagreement. However, as we have grown older and gained more life experience, the story has become truer, if not less painful, and a favorite of both of ours. It is Mary Gordon's best work which is high praise.

The Rest of Life by Mary Gordon. This book is three novellas about three women each of whom tells the story of the lover who most altered her life. Gordon is a very introspective, insightful writer. However, she has chosen 3 of the most whining, neurotic, self-absorbed women, through whom to explore and express her thoughts, that I have ever encountered in a book. I would not last through lunch with any of the three and, while Gordon's talents are many, this is one bad book.

I read this collection of novellas on the eve of my 30th birthday, and I plan to return to them on the eve of my 35th, 40th, etc. Living at Home is a beautiful and thoughtful examination of an independent woman reconciling her heartfelt desires for domesticity, romance, connection, and freedom. All three novellas are substantial and memorable. Gordon's writing reads as if she were speaking to you, relating a story via long-distance phone call from an old friend late at night. Gordon understands that women are defined by their past, present and future, and she succeeds in presenting her female characters as complex women moving within the continuum of their lives.

I bought this book for my trip to Kenya Uganda and Tanzania. I thought that I might want to travel to Ethiopia or down to Zambia and Zimbabwe....this guide is much too condensed to be helpful, and most travelers I met hated this guide and would borrow or end up buying the LP East Africa guide. You would be much better off buying a regional guide rather then this monster. Just the weight of the book alone isn't worth carrying around with you. I actually ended up ripping this book to shreads and keeping only about ten pages of it then buying the more in depth East Africa Guide.

Don't get me wrong, I love the lonely planet guides. Just not this one. I can whole heartedly recomment the East Africa guide and the Trekking East Africa guide.

This book, "Africa on a Shoestring, 9th Ed" has a broad coverage; although its chapters are not as detailed as many tourists would expect them to be.
Again, this book would have been of better psychic value, had its authors showed confidence in the sections they dealt with. Its 'information' became a wet blanket for me. Many readers who intend to visit African countries are likey to be discouraged by its relentless pessimistic approach. Its outlook is more critical than 'touristical'. The general impression is this: "something good may not come out of Africa". That is shameful! The term "bush-taxi", which was used over and over again, in lieu of a more cordial 'local-taxi' sounds offensive.
I think that if written (or revised) without assumptive bias, this book would be of better quality and value to its users.

Africa is large, and it's hard or impossible to concentrate so much information and advice into one book. Yet, Lonely Planet - as always - managed to do this with great muster. Unless you have time and money to buy the many LP guides to single regions and countries of Africa, this is the book you want before you even plan of visiting the black continent !

It is not the book to purchase if you want to build stadium jumps (brush box, coops, panels) - there is some information on building cross country jumps, but there is a lack of detail and no step-by-step instructions.

It was a super book. For people who don't want to spend outreageos ammounts of money on jumps this is the book for you! With so many pictures and diagrams it was hard not to understand it. I reccomend it to people who ride English and have there own farm!

I believe that this book could be classified as one of those stories that you are glad you took the time to read after you finish it, but getting to that final stage of completion is more of a task than it may seem.

Surprisingly, this is one of the few short stories (90 some pages) that I have ever read, that seemed to droan on for a good half of the time. Never the less, there were some profound moments in the story in which I felt I had been given some truly great moments in literature. My only qualm was that it needed to be about half (or cut it down by a fair 20 pgs) so the reader would not loose so much interest. Do remember though, it is only 90 pages long, so it is not one of the more monotonous scripts out there.

Spiritual Quests offers some terrific pearls of wisdom from various writers whose works contain religious themes. If you want to learn about writing inspirational literature, this may not be the best choice for you, but if you are interested in hearing a variety of perspeictives from people of different faiths and backgrounds, you may enjoy this book.

I particularly enjoyed that each writer shared specific instances from his or her writing. Fredrick Buechner's essay was my personal favorite with David Bradley's a close second. The book may be more enjoyable for those who have read something by these writers, but I found food for thought even though I haven't read their works.

Spiritual Quests is not a quick read, and some parts do drag. At other times, the "spiritual" aspect of writing was not clear, and some authors seemd to be more interested in sharing the spiritual dimensions of writing (ie. letting your characters guide you) rather than how spirituality can affect a writers' work. But it was still interesting, even if not what I expected.

The heroes were superficially ideal. Alexander, the prince, is handsome, dark-haired, muscular yet slender, and his lack of intelligence is made up for by his talent with the sword. Alice, the pilgrim, is pretty, slender, and adventurous yet feminine. There are many confusing legends included in this book, taking up pages with content irrevelent to the plot. Despite the superficiality of the plot and the too-good-to-be-true characters, the book reads surprisingly fast, though the complete lack of depth is often irritating

Although not quite as interesting as the Merlin series, Prince and the Pilgram was entertaining and a worthwhile read.

I thought this was a very sweet book and I enjoyed it a lot. Am I missing something? This is the first and only book of Mary Stewart's I've read. It was very entertaining and the characters were likable and understandable. Maybe this is not a masterpiece, but I very highly recommend it as a feel-good, fun-to-read book. Especially if you don't know much about the Arthurian legends, it's pretty self-explanatory. Definitely, read it.

I've read (and loved) everything Mary Gordon has written. And I like biographies of historical figures, so I figured this book was a sure-fire winner. But as Joan herself would have said, non.

It's not a bad book. I learned a lot, and was surprised by a few things (for example, Joan's successful military career spanned only 5 months). But the writing is uninspired, a recitation of facts with only a little meat on the bones to make it interesting. It read like an over-long term paper.

Overall this book was interesting enough to make me want to read a *real* biography of Joan of Arc. But it also made me swear off any more non-fiction by Mary Gordon, or perhaps any of the other books in the Penguin Lives series.

This is an excellent book in an excellent series.

The Penguin Lives series offers well-written short biographies on some of history's most facinating people. What is amazing is how much information are contained in these small books--and how well matched the authors are to their subjects.

Who better to write about Joan of Arc than Mary Gordon?

She gives Joan a thorough treatment--exploring religous, historical & feminist ideas about Joan.

This would be a good book to begin learning about Joan of Arc, but it also would be of interest to someone who is an expert on the subject...Gordon's ideas about Joan are worth taking a literary look at.

I have also read the books on Mozart & Andy Warhol in this series...again, this is one of the best. If you love biographies, look no further.

Although this is my first Mary Gordon book, I am fairly impressed by both her narrative skills and fairly in-depth analysis on the life of Joan of Arc. After reading all the readers' poor reviews on this book, I feel responsibile to defend Gordon and voice out some objections towards the readers' harsh comments on Gordon. Although her book is not an excellent source for Joan of Arc as an biography, Gordon did a good job in informing the readers some rare (instead of popular) historical background during the time as well as Joan's personal motives which contribute to her uprising. It's true that Gordon did not tell a straight forward story about Joan, it does not mean that she is a bad writer who intends to omit important details. In the book she gave a detail chart of dates and events of Joan to compensate the biographical account for Joan (if she did not expose it enough in her book). I am impressed to find that in a short work, Gordon's intensive research on Joan gave vivid, clear, historical and sometimes critical analysis about Joan herself and her actions. Gordon's style is both narrative and analytical. Gordon's book may not an important biography for Joan but it's definitely a wonderful and exciting read for those who wants to know the Joan behind the scenes.