As a private pilot, I have purchased video tapes etc. from one of the more popular pilot supply houses where Mr. Collins hosts the many video titles under the vendor's name. In them he shares his long experience on the different phases of flight such as Descent and Landing, Takeoff and Initial Climb, Enroute Climb and Cruise, Other titles and topics, Multi Engine, Emergencies, High Performance Singles, Night Flying and more. This book covers the same richness of experience shared on those videos for alot less expense. The videos sell for over twenty dollars each. This book covers the same (sometimes the same verbage) material for less than the cost of one of those videos. For those who want to save a bundle of cash, benefit from the wisdom of Mr. Collins; buy this book.

This was the first great book I've read concerning aviation. With only moderate knowledge of aviation previous to reading this book, I was very pleased with the enormous amount I had learned. Though it is very informative and intended for adult readers, this is not at all a complex, hard-to-understand book. I read it a few years ago when I was about ten or eleven years old.

In recent years Christians have become increasingly polarized around the question of what and how women should serve in the church and in the world, with rival organizations, conferences, books and articles all catching the public eye. Competing explanations of scripture, of history, and of human nature all vie for attention, while on the ground, churches and Christian ministries find themselves in tension between members who not only disagree, but question the fidelity of those with whom they differ. Linda Belleville has served us well with a book that moves sure-footedly through the issues: she gathers and concisely presents evidence for the actual roles women played in New Testament times, sets well the context for understanding Biblical statements, and judiciously presents and weighs differing interpretations of crucial texts about women and about leadership in the church. This is a book to move the discussion forward, eliminating some points of contention, and clarifying what's at issue in others.

"Everybody on the Truck!" is an unabashed valentine to the unfairly unsung Dillards, who were bluegrass when bluegrass wasn't cool and country rock when there wasn't such a thing. As breezily told by Lee Grant, The Dillards' story is refreshingly devoid of raging egos, self-destruction and bitter ends. You'll come away from this compelling biography knowing, perhaps identifying with, and most assuredly liking The Dillards.

Grant sketches the original Dillards - brothers Douglas and Rodney Dillard, Dean Webb and Mitch Jayne - as proud sons of Missouri who longed to set the world afire with their hell-for-leather approach to bluegrass music. Grant's account of the band's misadventures during their go-for-broke journey from the Show Me state to California in late 1962 is funnier and more unbelievable than anything Hollywood could concoct. Against all odds, The Dillards enjoyed nearly instant but well-deserved success soon after reaching Los Angeles, landing a major recording contract and what would become a recurring role on "The Andy Griffith Show".

Grant devotes a good chunk of his book to his subject's indelible association with the Darlings, the eerily deadpan but musically gifted hillbilly clan The Dillards played on six episodes of "TAGS." Interestingly, The Darlings are the source of lingering ambivalence for Rodney Dillard, the group's integrity-conscious musical heart, who wasn't wild, at first, about playing a hayseed stereotype.

Between 1963 and 1970, The Dillards produced five critically-acclaimed albums, rubbed shoulders with the likes of Perry Como, Judy Garland, the Byrds and Bob Dylan and seldom rested from public appearances. "Truck" lets The Dillards themselves analyze the music and their somewhat anachronistic place in the swingin' Sixties. The insights and anecdotes of Mitch Jayne, who played bass and dispensed folksy humor in the role of group spokesman, are particularly entertaining.

To paraphrase Jayne, this "Truck" will run. Hitch a ride and hold on.

This book is an excellent reference for one of bluegrass music's legendary bands, the Dillards. Anyone interested in learning about Rodney, Doug, Dean and Mitch need to get a copy of this book, and fast. Lee Grant has provided us Dillards junkies with a veritable "bible" on the lives and careers of the boys. It is an engaging read. When I bought my copy, I read it straight through in one sitting! For me, that is a rarity. :-)

Suggestion: put on a copy of their CD, "There Is A Time", while reading this book. See why Briscoe Darling once said, "they's all keyed up"!

They were, and you'll be, too.

Lee Grant's fresh southern (but not too southern) writing style lights up the page. This book is a real joy to read. I highly recommend it. I am eagerly awaiting another Lee Grant book. I have heard rumors of a novel in the works. I am waiting anxiously to see if this is a rumor or plain old fact.

GG

A lovely lovely book. Richard Grant has upped the ante on Peter S. Beagle's talking raven and dead folk from "A Fine and Private Place" like a writer on a dare and morphed and mutated and created a book so original and wild and funny that it bears re-reading and re-reading. This book impressed the hell out of me. And besides, Tex and Molly listen to some of my fave 60s tunes.

This is a great book if you're looking for something out of the ordinary. It's a great story about some nature lovers and friends fighting to save their local forest, but it has many interesting twists. Great pagan-celebrating, tree-hugging, funny, full of surprises, and afterlife-stuff read.

Tex & Molly is simply one of the best books I've read in ages. My boredom with what usually passes for fiction crumbled before the majesty of Richard Grant's zany genius. I am all admiration for how he can draw characters so well, sharply observing their foibles, and yet still loving them all so tenderly. Dickens also was such a writer.

Sometimes, I just don't get British humor. My English relatives love the jokes of their countryman -- sometimes I simply don't get it. But, the jokes here are universal. There are many scenes which are made up of very embarrassing, but very funny, everyday scenarios. The story is about Travel bookstore ownder William Thacker, played by Hugh Grant, who lives in London, England's posh, expensive, and very high class Notting Hill district. One day, he meets and falls in love with lovely American actress Anna Scott, in one of the best scenes of the film. (It involves a cup of orange juice, apricots soaked in honey, and "raisins" -- remember that word for one of the film's BEST lines!

And Richard Curtis knows how to write dialogue -- this man can think up some really funny one-liners! Some of the supporting characters were off-the-wall (but not written spaztically -- a good thing). If you enjoyed the movie, check it out. It's worth the cash.

I enjoyed the movie greatly, but it was reading the script which really made me appreciate the sheer genius behind it all. Kudos to Richard Curtis! It is amazing how much he manages to get into a scene - everything WORKS, to tug at the heart strings or strike the funny bone.

The script reveals a few of the artistic choices that had to be made in the process of creating the script and the movie; however, this is a very polished end product - definately a last draft (with a few choice bits of scenes that did not make the cut at the end) and perfectly co-ordinated with film stills and photographs, all on luxurious glossy paper.

However, it is amazing how, having watched the film and knowing the charactrers, it is possible to visualise scenes in your head while reading the script - an especial plus for the left out scenes. I am now dying to compare my imagination with the director's cut, which I have been told might be available on the DVD version.

This is one of my favorite movies, and incidentally, my favorite screenplay! It's an excellent representation of the movie--many full-color pictures of the best scenes in the movie. It even includes story boards, cast and unit lists, and an afterword by Hugh Grant. The photographs were taken by Clive Coote, one of Great Britain's most famous photographers.

Almost everything I'd seen before I bought the book only included pictures of Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant--this book is different! It doesn't leave out Spike or any of the other small but memorable characters.

Anyone who's a fan of the movie will love this exquisite book. It gets an A+ from me!

I have found that with Richard Grant's books--including RUMORS OF SPRING, THROUGH THE HEART, and SARABAND OF LOST TIME--it works best if I read the first couple of chapters, set the book aside for a few months, then start again at the beginning. By then the mythos has had time to infiltrate my mind then I can go back and have fun exploring the world. The near-yet-far future settings are lovely, the character interplay delightful.

I just reread RUMORS OF SPRING after originally reading it in college about 10 years ago. I enjoyed it as much if not more so than the first time. The world is intricate enough that I can focus on a character I didn't pay attention to before.

Richard Grant can be read as a postmodern writer who just happens to negotiate within science fiction. Rumours of Spring is a postmodern science fiction tale that hints at the exploration of a postmodern environmental ethic. While slow to get started, for the dedicated reader who is willing to engage the delightful prose on its own terms, ultimately Grant's tale is a rewarding experience. In the end you to will want to be in love with Vesica and escape to the Grand Bank Forest.

When the world's last surviving forest begins to fight back against its exterminators, a motley band of Crusaders sets out to find out why...but that's just the beginning.

Although set in the future, Rumors of Spring is more fairy tale than science fiction. Richard Grant has woven the elements of fantasy, satire and mythology into a beautiful dreamscape populated by characters as complex and true-to-life as our closest friends--that is, if our friends lived in a world where owls could talk and little boys lived five hundred years.

By the time you've finished this book, you'll want to live there, too.

I found that this book has some positives and negatives: Positives: 1. the authors have compiled a wealth of information about volcanoes all over the world: Mt. St. Helens catastrophe, planes flying over eruption clouds, eruption accounts from Krakatua, etc, etc. 2. For a geologist like me, when we study about volcanoes, we tend to forget the human factor, not only hazards, but also how it affects agriculture, tourism, etc. Which I think this book pinpoints very well. Negatives: 1. The book doesn't flow: lots of information, but in my opinion disorganized. Except for the chapter about Mt. St. Helens, I didn't understand the point that the authors were trying to make (or probably there was no point, and it was just a plain description). 2. Any time you touch a scientific subject, you are immersed in having to use scientific terms. Since this book is trying to reach a general audience (I think), it will benefit a lot by having a glossary. 3. Some chapters are really weak, like the one that talks about plate tectonics. Plate tectonics is the driving force of volcanoes (mostly) and should have more emphasis on the book, and be explained in more simple terms. 4. The decimal metric system is used throughout the book. This is good when you are writing a paper to publish on a specialized journal, but not for a book aimed at general audiences. The equivalence in the English system should probably go in parentheses.

Neither too little or too much, Volcanoes: Crucibles of Change is the best volume I have ever read on Volcanology. Written for the intelligent layperson, the book never talks down to its reader or loses them in mult-semicolon sentances of unintelligble jargon as so many other books by scientists do. If you want the latest theories on volcanoes, this is th book for you. I was especially surprised by how many dormant/active volcanoes there are in the lower 48. And as one who has flown from the U.S. to Japan, the chapter on planes and volcanoes was both fascinating and scary.

A brilliant book for any volcanoholic. I am a geology student hoping to proceed to volcanology, and thoroughly enjoyed this book just for the sake of a good read on a great subject.

Ignore the moron from Kirkus reviews,who has obviously read from a simulated Cliff's Notes about this fine,poetically written tome. I became a Pagan myself because of this book. The lifting writing style drifts one into a modern faery tale,filled with darkness and cold,good and evil,struggle and truth,poetry and politics,real Witches and real villains,all too real and ever-present in this society,me thinks! For those Pagans looking for a good read,or any intelligent person,dreamers,poets,WHOEVER.
This book is for you. Read it if you have just taken a self-confidence test and failed. Read it if you are a crusader for the Right Things. Read it if you are hopelessly oppressed. But by all means,read it! And a pox(of ignorance,obviously already cast by a more adept magi than I) on that closed-minded bozo from Kirkus reviews,who hasn't the foggiest idea what this valuable tale of enlightenment is about. A fantastic read that will stay with you and plant it's prose in your mind long after the last page.

Unfortunately, the people who most need to read this playing-out of popular delusion and the madness of crowds aren't likely to do so. I live in a rather conservative community, and my dominant thought throughout reading the book ran along the lines of, "Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here." Grant is a wonderfully vivid writer, almost snapping his fingers and putting you into a setting. Logic and happenstance mingle believably in this book. I did not find the characters stereotypical. I feel that I have met nearly all of them (and even been several myself). Strongly recommend this novel.

I first read _Tex and Molly in the Afterlife_ (also by Grant). I really liked that book and decided to try another. _In the Land of Winter_ is a shorter, but more intimate book. (of note, Pippa is a character from _Tex and Molly_)

Grant does a fabulous job of making Pippa (the main character) a three-dimensional character. She is fleshed out emotionally and physically throughout the book, and reading it, one can become quite attached to her and her plight.

His writing is veritably magical. He illustrates beautiful scenery, horrific and endearing characters, and plotlines of great imagination.

He has truly become one of my favorite authors. I have and will continue to recommend this book to all my friends.

Everyone knows the name "Dracula," but the majority have only seen the legendary Transylvanian Count on the silver screen or through pop culture; few indeed have actually read the work that started it all.

One cannot claim to be a fan of vampire literature or of Dracula himself without having read Bram Stoker's tremendous work of gothic horror. Think that Dracula and other vampires can't be out in daylight? Wrong--they simply have no powers during the day, which you'd know if you read this extraordinary book.

Written in epistolary form (that is, as a series of letters and diary entries), the story is presented from the viewpoints of the main characters, from Jonathan Harker to his wife Mina to Dr. van Helsing. Rather than detracting from the story, this format breaks up what would otherwise be a rather long manuscript into manageable chunks and adds to the historical character of the novel.

Modern film interpretations have presented Stoker's story through the eyes of each producer, director, and screenwriter, with nearly all making wholesale changes--Mina Harker, for instance, is NOT the reborn lost love of Count Dracula as Francis Ford Coppola would have us believe. Many others who have "read" Dracula have done so through abridged texts that distort the story through omission. Pick up and read the story that started it all in its intended format... Bram Stoker's Dracula. You won't regret it.

Although this book was originally published many years ago it is still one of the most frightening horror stories ever published. Written in diary form it introduces the reader to the young English Lawyer Jonathan Harker, his wife to be Mina, the enigmatic Professor Van Helsing and various other colorful characters that make this story so deliciously scary.
At the heart of the story is the Vampire,Count Dracula of Transylvania who has decided to take residence in England and in doing so seals the fate of several people. One of the Count's first victim's is Mina's best friend Lucy who becomes a Vampire herself and suffers the fate of a stake through the heart and having her head cut off. Soon it is a race against time to stop Dracula getting his fangs into Mina as well, and only the brave Van Helsing and his trusty companions can save the day. Bram Stoker has written a very sexy and scary book for his time, and it is no wonder that Count Dracula's appeal in this form has not diminished over the years.

After having seen numerous treatments of the Dracula story, I wrongly assumed I new it pretty well. After stumbling through the first few chapters, I got the swing of its style. Mr. Stoker used a rather novel approach in creating this novel. The perspective of the story changes with each chapter. You read narrative from many different characters. Awkward at first, later it gives the impression of a balanced account of the events. It seems to make the events more believable. A note now forgotten by many is this was a "current" story when written. It was not a piece of colorful historical fiction.

The reader is not biased by the narrator's point of view. Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire" is told from Louis' perspective. That very story is given a different spin from Lestat in "The Vampire Lestat". With Dracula, all players are backing up everyone elses story. The chilling effect, is that it seems true. I was very pleased that a hundred year old story could hold such a grip on me. Actually, it was I that had the grip, a tight fisted one, on the book until I finished.