I got this from my public library and it looked so good on the surface. I read the whole thing but I am not at all sure who did what, when and why. What happened to David? Otto? Carrie? Phillip? And Alex????? It was a supernatural, ghost story, I think, but there were really no good answers on the last page. HEllo, Mother!!! I wish the reader from Australia would email me about this and other interesting books we like.

i recently readthe book and whilst i did enjoy the style of the authros writing i found the book very hard to get excited about.

it was a slow and unrealistic begining (the main character i also found very unrealistic). and it seemed to me to finish with untied strings... there were many questions raised and seemingly none answered.

i didnt like the book at all but it is up to everyone to have their own opinion of what they think.

This book just didn't do it for me. At least it didn't do what I was looking for it to do. And at the price [I paid] in the bookstore I bought it in, in Saudi Arabia, it ended up being...more than I would have been willing to pay for it.

I was hoping to get some insight into each and every Arabian peninsula country, learn something in-depth about the culture, maybe get a lay of the land, with a couple of in-depth descriptions of the sights, food, and sounds of those countries. Basically what any good travel book should do. With James Peters, "The Arab World Handbook" these things are only scratched at on the surface. It is more of a practical every day life, how to conduct business in the Arab world sort of book, instead of a cultural insight or travel discovery sort of book. It does give you a fair dose of the language and etiquette with a whole chapter devoted to advice for the business traveler. If you are heading to the Middle East to work, I would recommend this book. If you are going there to travel or want to learn extensively about life there, go elsewhere.

The book is probably due for an update as sadly and ironically within the last section for US support organizations Export assistance lists the New York organization at 6 World Trade Center. It's a complicated place, the Middle East; complicated to the Western traveler at least...it will take a more in-depth book than this to allow you to get a good feel for that complication.

Is this how the Double Diamond Triangle Saga functions? By lumbering noisily through every single plot point? This segment could be reduced to 20 pages, instead it's 96. Kern and Miltiades, so interesting in "Pool of Twilight", are here now reduced to squarejawed paladin stereotypes and are barely interesting. The way Piergeiron's illness is introduced is so amateurish that it seems like an afterthought. The tanar'ri subplot (since when does 96 pages allow suplots?) is incredibly dull, and our nominal hero is too klutzy for us to believe he would be sent on a rescue mission under any circumstances. And didn't anyone notice that a paladin dies solely because Kern's resistance to magic didn't allow Khelben to teleport him? Disappointing.

I agree with the other commentaries. The book is outdated. Trailheads and trails have changed too much to use this book.

It is good for finding Hikes - but take a hiking map with you (from Appalachian Mountain Club or elsewhere) and have a better day.

This book is currently out of print because it has become so outdated. I'm taking issue with Backcountry Publications and their parent firm, WW Norton, for allowing the book to appear, be sold, reviewed, rated, or in any way passed off as "reliable". This book was contracted in 1982, appeared in 1984, and has been very, very successful until the past few years. A new edition appeared in 1994, but this new edition was not accurately updated. I wrote the Catskill (northern) chapters to this book, while my coauthor(s) wrote the southern sections, which are the most outdated (for one reason or another). I would like to invite all of you to contact me personally if you have any problems with the Catskill chapters in this book (so far, nobody has mentioned any).

If you do purchase it, do so only for historical interest. This book is NO LONGER RELIABLE FOR FIELD USE. Thank you, Peter Kick peterwkick@aol.com

My friend and I have attempted five of the hikes described in Kick's book, and there have always been difficulties. Often, the trail continues accordingly, the scenery reflecting what Kick has described. Once you are deep into the wilderness, quite isolated from civilization, the descriptions in the book no longer match what you are seeing: yellow trails, red trails, blue trails, all disappear, and you find yourself thinking evil thoughts about Peter Kick. I will say this - Mr. Kick is quite the practical joker; lead people deep into the woods, and leave them hanging high and dry. My advice to those courageous enough to use this imaginary hiking guide: bring a week's worth of water and provisions, and a cell phone. Perhaps this book needs serious updating - or termination of publishing. Good luck and God bless.

Jacqueline Rose has done some serious scholarship in literary criticism, but this work is dubious, at best. I'm not sure why she misses the mark so poorly in this extended essay on the link between children's fiction and the publishing industry. But the work is very un-focused and rather trite. The approach is a bit dated, and I can imagine that perhaps the book is more an extended discourse on the theoretical apparatus that she seems to be enamored with rather than a solid interpretation of Peter Pan. The book is really an odd one, and it left me feeling so disgusted that I did not wish to finish the tome. Although, the other reviewers are a bit too vituperative in their critique, this book really strikes me as somewhat immature.

Rose's analysis is dubious. She attempts to make the claim that Barrie created a new genre of fantasy with the publication of Peter Pan. The problem is that Barrie's books about Peter Pan are actually components of a genre well-studied and documented for hundreds of years. Even a cursory read of scholarship in folklore would have clearly demonstrated to Rose that Peter Pan is a Marchen, a genre of folklore in which a poor, obscure hero is called to complete acts of bravery in a land of fantasy and magic. There are numerous other problems with her analysis. Even reading this study as an essay on contemporary social issues is a confusing exercise, at best, because Rose's style tends to obfuscate rather than to provide any semblance of clarity. Sorry to be so critical of literary criticism, but incoherence and bad writing simply do not belong in scholarly discourse.

I am a high school student and I am not ashamed to say that i have an affinity for children's literature, particularly english, such as Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter (all of them), and especially PETER PAN. This literature contains a magic that this author proceeds to bash at every chance she gets. I mean, are children supposed to read about oil spills and war? Preserve the magic of childhood people!

Rawlings introduction to the short fiction of Henry James diplays little more than plot summary. I was expecting to see a sophisticated discussion of themes and ideas in the books but found little more than I would expect in an undergraduate overview. Rawlings' oversimplifications offer nothing to the serious reader of Henry James. Definitely not for the scholar or dedicated reader of James. There is no indication here of any current critical theory--the ideas have all been rehashed a thousand times.

The Introduction to this book offers nothing new or interesting for the reader of Henry James. The ideas have all been stated many times. The introduction was very disappointing.

To those who want a good and scholary commentary on James from a traditional Protestant perspective should definitely look elsewhere. Davids' comments on James 2:14-26 should make any good Protestant have the shivers. Davids' (contrary to Calvin and other good Protestant exegetes) argues that James promotes justification before God by our works. He also promotes the heresy of the New Perspective advocated by the likes of E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright. Davids (and all other New Perspectivists) have no problems with the idea of works being a means of obtaining future justification (since Paul was combating Jewish exclusivism not legalism). Let's be honest with ourselves. Any soteriological system that advocates works as a means of obtaining an eschatological justification is outside the boundaries of historic Protestantism.

Essentially...Well...Uhhh...This book is what we in academic circles like to....uhhh....call -- crap. You see, what he is trying to do here is....uhhh....well....essentially trying to stroke his own prodigious, shall we say, ego. In Mr. Stowell's, well, shall we say, essentially happily fascistic world, James and Chekhov, are, well, essentially, uhhh....well, not worth more than the value of a good screening of Blue Chips (a fine film he seems to uhhh, well....well he seems to essentially say is, uhh, well....essentially better than, well....Schindler's List -- a highly stylized film, that uhh, well, he seems to essentially say never appraches the cultural essence (before existence), of uhhh....well....say John Ford.)

Nevertheless! It is Mr. Stowell's esteemed reputation as one of the country's foremost film educators (of those film educators that never actually created, conceived, worked, or did anything with any film other than a cheapie biker film some 30 years ago)that suffers from his wholly uncharacteristic ego, bluster, and ignorance of the subject he intends to educate others of (wholly uncharacteristic!) that bog this poor piece of work down to the ground. Such misfortune!