No book of the Bible so clearly calls for a women's commentary than the Book of Ruth. Not only are the two central characters both women, but their relationship is the engine which drives the plot and is what accounts for much of our affection for the book. Reading Ruth, edited by Judith Kates and Gail Twersky Reimer is so successful that no one wanting modern views of this book can ignore it.
It begins with the Hebrew text of Ruth, plus the JPS translation, followed by a commentary on selected verses by Ruth Sohn, which sometimes focuses on midrash or spiritual implications of the verse
Next is the heart of the book, 7 sections, each anchored to a single verse. Some are familiar ("For whereever you will go, I will go ....") And others puzzling ("A son is born to Naomi" --- when the son was actually born to Ruth). For each, there are 2-4 essays that deal, in some way, with that verse.
These vary widely; there is no set of controlling parameters for this book. Aviva Zornberg is quite traditional, delving into midrash in a wide ranging attempt to fundamentally characterize the actions of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz. Rebecca Albert is utterly radical, presenting lesbian readings on the relationship of Ruth and Naomi and uses of the story ("less plausible midrashim have been accepted throughout the ages" she notes). Vanessa Ochs expresses her disappointment that Ruth seems to be almost erased: "Is this the Book of Ruth or is it the Book of Naomi?" Looking at the end, she decides it's neither --- the genealogy seems to obliterate all the women. Nehama Aschkenasy has a careful look at how women use language to create a form of power. Marianne Hirsch focuses on this rarity in western literature, such a strong bond between a woman and her mother-in law, bringing in her own positive relationship with mother-in-law. Patricia Karlin-Neumann draws a similarity between Job and Naomi, in how their suffering produces isolation.
And if you were to sample just one essay, read Gail Twersky Reimer's "Her Mother's House". Working purely with the text --- no midrash --- she presents Ruth as establishing another model of "woman's relationship to motherhood" --- Ruth as a woman who doesn't particularly want children, but has one anyhow. Skillfully drawing both on things mentioned (Naomi becoming the foster mother) and things unsaid (there is no mention of Ruth suffering as a result of about 10 years of childless marriage), she makes a compelling case for this reading, contrasting Ruth with Naomi's intense preoccupation with children.
Also included is a short and fairly intense play, based on a women's discussion group focussing on the Book of Ruth, six "poetic movements" and some lovely woodcuts (complete with explanations!). Alas, no index.
This book sets an extraordinary standard for an anthology of commentary on a single book.

The Book of Ruth is familiar to most of us- we traditionally read it during Shavuot. On the surface Ruth is a pleasant story of a young woman who returns to Israel with her mother-in-law after the deaths of thier husbands. But the very simplicity of the story raises many questions. Until this collection of midrashim - interpertations and extentions of the story to fill in the gaps- that is where the matter lay. Now is it possible to read what contemporary well educated women think about this story and the questions raised. If you've never studied a Midrash, this is a good place to begin. If you have studied Midrashim, you will see how different the prespectives are in this book. Other writings on Ruth are both very old and written exclusively by men. This book is a must for anyone who enjoys studying and values a full perspective.

Have you ever read Jewish midrash? How about midrash written by women? Here is an exciting new style/genre of biblical interpretation, which has been developing over the last decade or so. Previously midrash had been written only by men, excluding women's voices. At last women have entered this world, as the introduction says, to "create a room of our own in the house of study." READING RUTH includes 30 wonderful, loving, powerful, essays, each by a different author with a different viewpoint, including women rabbis, teachers, poets and storytellers. Each midrash is a jewel providing a string of jewels for meditation, like a rosary. What makes midrash so unique is that it allows for a creative interpretion, including the development of new folklore, new imaginings of what is possible for the Ruth story. It fills in places in the text where the story suggests these possibilities. For instance the landscape on the road to Bethlehem, or the festivities at the threshing floor. It adds the thoughts, emotions and inner workings in the minds of the characters that hinted in their words. READING RUTH is a marvelous place to begin or expand the study of Ruth, of midrash, of women's biblical commentary, and is highly recommended.

This resource was a real find! As someone with no experience with Linux, this book was perfect as it allowed me to gain a real understanding in a short period of time. I highly recommend it.

I've used the SAMS teach yourself series to get started in many different fields, from web design to basic programming, and I've found them to vary widely in terms of quality. This one happens to be among the best I've ever read. The pacing is just right. It starts with a quick overview of some of the issues involved in making the jump from Windows to Linux, followed by a quick tour of each application in the suite. Thereafter, the book quickly proceeds to tackle each application one by one.

The coverage of the applications is where the book really shines. The material progresses from rudimentary tasks to very advanced topics with respect to each application. The hours dedicated to WordPerfect 9 and Quattro Pro 9 were particularly helpful. The Quattro Pro material is simply the best spreadsheet application tutorial I've ever had the pleasure of reading. The hours build on each other very nicely, and everything is carefully explained and presented in the screenshots. There's also quite a bit of good humor here, too, which keeps the material from getting too dry.

Sometimes you've got to take the "24 Hours" reference in the title with a grain of salt. Not this time. I managed to work my way through each chapter in about an hour, usually including the exercises that appear at the end of each hour. Although I've had to go back to certain material to refresh my memory, the index is well-done, making the book very useful even after you've read it cover-to-cover.

All in all, an excellent, and relatively concise, introduction to using the most powerful office suite on the Linux platform. The authors' enthusiasm, knowledge, and teaching ability really shines through, making this a great tutorial for users of all levels.

Making the transition from the windows environment to Linux was not as smooth as I thought it would be. Particularly in using applications for word processing. Alan Golub's book on Wordperfect 2000 was a pleasure and made the entire process fun and exciting.

I bought this book in Albuquerque after I heard the author speak at a conference. My only regret is that I didn't have it 10 years ago--it's terrific, covers an incredible variety of issues. I really appreciated the section on how to talk to my kids about money.

Smart Money Moves for Kids won first place for Parenting and Self-Improvement from CIPA--the Colorado Independent Publishers Association.

I heard the author speak at a conference in CA--everything she said was highly practical and useable in today's parenting demands. I wish I had had it when I was raising my own kids. I bought the book for my daughter.

This book has it all. History, relationships, danger, excitement, and a murder thrown in for good measure. I rarely find a book that engages me on so many levels, but this was one of them. A fine melding of the past and the present through the eyes of the biographer, it was a wonderful way to read the story. I enjoyed drifting back and forth between the past and the present. I bought the book on Friday afternoon and finished it by Sunday at noon, and wished there were more to the story. This is a great read!

I found this book to be so engrossing. Ms. Lennox has enriched my life in some small way. When I was done reading "Some Old Lover's Ghost" I felt as if the characters were standing in the room with me sharing their joys and tragedies. So compelling and so detailed is this book that one walks away from it wishing it were not done. Definitely a great book.

I was thrilled with this book. I started the book thinking it was one of those "light reads" that would be mildly entertaining. I was surprised at the depth of the characters and plot. I had to finish it in one setting! A great read for a cold Sunday afternoon in front of the fire! There was just enough suspense to keep the reader on edge, but the suspense was blended in with a great love story! Highly recommended.

My copy of this book has so many dog-eared pages and so much highlighter on it that I need to buy a new one so I can read it for the umptheenth time. If you want to understand yourself, your spouse, the dynamics of your relationship, what went wrong, and why you are behaving like you are, this is the only book to read. As other reviewers have noted, it is not a self-help book, just factual, but you can not read it without gaining eye opening insight. You will understand what happened and why, and that in itself is "self-help". I bought dozens of books on relationships and divorce, and then I found this one and didn't need any of the others.

I really swallowed hard, paying the $$ to buy this book. But if you are a thoughtful person striving to "figure out" why you got dumped in a significant relationship, this is I think a potentially life altering book. My pile of self-help books has literally broken the bank this last few months and some of the books have been helpful -- especially just about anything by Carter and Sokol (the He's Scared, She's Scared and Men Who Can't Love people). But the real advantage of Splitting Up is that it is NOT a self-help book but rather an academic approach. As explained in one of the preceding reviews, the authors describe a standard "bad relationship" dynamic of polarization of the pair into a "distancer/countersymbiant" and a "pursuer/symbiant." The distancer develops alienation and dissatisfaction with relationship that ends up with development of a public self and a secret real self and then ultimately -- surprise!!! -- dumping the devastated symbiant to pursue the secret life (often with a new partner). It truly is like reading your own life story, if you are trying to recover from something like this yourself. Most people who would come to this book for understanding of a real life experience would be the symbiant of course. And the thing is that for me, symbiant in a recent classic reenactment of the scenario, the hardest thing has been trying to "figure out why he did it." This book has helped me understand "what happened." I can see all my behavior as "acting out according to script." And so now, though I still cry and rage a lot, I have A CHOICE to write my own script rather than acting this one out blindly. At least that is my fervent hope. If you are trying your darndest to understand what happened, this is the book for you!

There's no handbook for divorce. You just have to muddle through for the most part. Just get the best lawyer money can buy, hunker down for the battle, and wait for the smoke to clear. And get a copy of "Splitting Up." It's not a book for those who need hand holding. It arms you with an awareness of the stark mental realities you face regarding yourself, your former spouse, your kids, jealousy, rage, etc. Even if your happy with your decision, walking out of the door ain't the end of things, it's just the beginning.

The fascinating and true case of Judith Coplon, who was arrested and charged with spying for the Russians against the US right after World War II, is a story which continued to unfold over a long period of time. For 18 years, the case was on hold, then dropped by Ramsey Clark, but interesting revelations have come forth quite recently. The Mitchells have done a masterful job of detailing this saga of love and betrayal, of guilt and innocence--some of the facts of this case still have powerful implications for today. This dramatic tale would make a wonderful film.

Great story! Even more surprising that it is all true. A surprise ending for those of us who didn't live through the era. A good read for anyone who finds interest in U.S. history, good and bad actions by the government, or just good story-telling.

This is an amazing story, well told. The fact that Judith Coplon managed to maintain her innocence through two trials (which were as much theater of the absurd as anything), remained out on bail for 17 years after the verdicts in both cases were thrown out, and then through the ensuing 33 years is simply amazing, when in truth, she WAS a spy for the Soviet Union. Perhaps not one of their big ones, and perhaps a spy who never passed along much information or even particularly secret or damaging information, but a spy nonetheless. Despite despicable behavior on the part of the U.S. gov't (arrest without a warrant, illegal wiretapping, practically double-indemnity, and a vicious prosecutor who displayed Judith's sex-life in public, etc.), they were right, but they couldn't prove it without revealing the most damning secret of all--that the U.S. had cracked the Soviet code. Not until the secret files of the Venona Project were opened up in the last couple of years could the truth be known, long after most participants in the case were dead. But Judith Coplon is still alive, and her husband, who all along believed in her innocence (and was the attorney who launched her successful appeals) was shocked upon hearing the information. It IS like a Hitchcock thriller. Highly recommended for anyone interested in spies, the Cold War, or the FBI. And strangely relevant to readers today, as well.

This is a story about a little girl named Stacy and her family. Stacy is excited for the birth of her new baby sister Ashley. However she has mixed feelings when the baby starts getting more attention from Stacy's parents then she is. Soon Stacy realizes that she wants to be a good sister and she cannot wait until little Ashley gets old enough to really play with. Sadly one morning Stacy wakes up to a crying. When Stacy goes into her parents' room she is told that Ashley had died that night from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Her parents try to comfort her when she thinks that she may have been responsible for her little sisters death or that SIDS is contagious.
I believe that the author did such a wonderful job in telling a story of a common occurrence with babies, as well as helping children to understand SIDS with a little description in the back of the book. The pictures and the story are just so touching that it would be so easily explained to a young child what Sudden Infant Death Syndrome actually is. If any child has ever lost a brother or a sister to SIDS the author does a great job of explaining that it is not their fault no matter how they felt about the baby.
I loved this book mainly because of the story. I was so sad when I read this book and then I thought of all the little kids and parents could really appreciate this book if they had lost a sibling to SIDS. I have never experienced a loss like Stacy and her family but after reading this book I have a little bit more of an understanding and sympathy.

This is a book about a family and it is based on the little girl of the family, Stacy. Her mom has a new baby and Stacy is jealous of her little sister. She wants all the attention from her parent's back. Eventually she decides that she wants to be a good big sister and wants to start playing with her baby sister. She realizes that her parents haven't forgotten all about her after all. One morning she wakes up to crying and she knows it's not her sister crying. She going into her parents room to see them crying. Her baby sitter had died during the night of sudden infant death syndrome. Everyone missed the baby so much including Stacy.
I liked this book cause it really told how little kids act like when they do get a new sibling. They do tend to be jealous and feel left out because the baby gets all the attention. I also like this story because it has a different twist to it. It is tragic the baby dies but it does happen and I think that it is good to have books to explain to little kids about things like this. It had great, very realistic pictures that really followed a long with the story.
I think the author was trying to get across the point that things like this happen but in a way children can understand it. I don't think children should be blocked off from bad things that could happen to anyone and this story really seems to get that point across. It also seems to say something about cherishing the time you have with someone because you never know when he or she might not just be there.

I bought this book for my son after his sister died of SIDS. He is only 2 1/2, and still doesn't grasp the concept of death, but I think it's a good book, and am glad that I will have it to show him, when he does begin to understand.

The illusion of true knowledge, the illusion of true freedom, people not living in the only true reality: the present moment.

WOW! This book is packed with words that blow your mind and also ring true at the same time. I'm still trying to organize all the information in my head so I can start to apply everything practically.

I KNEW there was something wrong with the world. The Matrix has most people!

Do you want to Awaken? If you want to experience genuine reality, and not the dance of delusion that many mistake for 'reality', this book holds the key.

In plain language, and without the usual New Age claptrap, Mr. Baines outlines the matter and method of Hermetic awakening and becoming a Stellar Man. It is both simple and profound, and with depths of insight that many writers wish they had.

If you feel a restlessness and urge to become more than what common society wants you to be, you will find this book, and its introductory companion "The Secret Science", a very helpful guide.

This book discusses the laws of nature in ways we can apply them to our own lives. If you want to take control of your life and not be a victim of the society's collective, this book is for you!

Part of the donor egg cycle for many donor egg recipients includes being on the medication Lupron. Being on Lupron for a number of weeks is like being in a twilight zone. With supressed natural hormones, one's normal functions are slowed and supressed until one is barely able to function. The hot flashes and headaches can be debilitating. Dr. Paulson does not address the issues of 1) what physical symptoms to expect when one's natural hormones are supressed and 2) how to deal with the physical symptoms. Although the book is generally informative, there is doubt left in my mind with respect to what other critical information may have been left out of the book. Dr. Paulson should have addressed the downside of Lupron therapy. I bought this book because I was searching for answers while undergoing a donor egg cycle. After the failure of my first fresh embryo transfer, I am currently undergoing downregulation for a frozen embryo transfer.

This isn't so much a book about "Motherhood Late In Life" as it is about conception using donor eggs. As a 40+ woman pregnant for the first time (through traditional methods), I picked up this book after my first OB visit, thinking it would provide a good overview of some of the issues I might face. At the time, I didn't realize that the book was specifically about ART (assisted reproductive technology) and pregnancies through donated eggs; I assumed it was just about being an older mom. Nonetheless, once I started reading, I couldn't put the book down. It provides much more detail about the biology of conception than do any of the traditional pregnancy books. Juxtaposed with the detailed biology lessons are installments in the story of Sarah & Joe, an older (Sarah is 48; Joe is younger) couple that opts for donor egg use after years of more traditional fertility treaments. In telling the story of Sarah & Joe, the authors address the ethical issues of pregnancy in post-menopausal women in what struck me as a balanced, compassionate, and very thoughtul manner. In the Sarah/Joe story, they discuss the response Sarah & Joe elicit from family members, friends, Sarah's sister, Sarah's adult daughter from a previous relationship. Let's face it -- not everyone is going to be congratulatory & rushing to hold a baby shower for a 50 year old pregnant woman -- or a lesbian or single woman for that matter; nor do all folks embrace the idea of creating an embryo in a test tube rather than accepting whatever God apparently had in mind. And I think it would make a typical adult women a little put off to learn her mother (and her children's grandmother) was using a donor egg to become prenant again. Paulson & Sachs deal with the questions and challenges that women choosing egg donation (or even pregnancy later in life or under other non-traditional circumstances) may face, and their treatment is even-handed -- realistic, not pedantic or preachy, not utopian. I think this would be essential reading for anyone considering assistance in reproduction, especially egg donation. It would also be helpful for the friends and families of women who have elected to use donor eggs.

An instructive book about assisted reproduction in the postmenoupausal years, written with great compassion and respect for the couples contemplating such a decision. Paulson and Sachs are obviously attuned to all of the emotional and ethical, as well as practical issues, that enter into such a decision. As a clinical discourse on post-menopausal pregnancy issues it is first rate. As the journey of a fictious woman who must deal with all of the complexities of making such a decision it is an emotional and compelling story.

As a camp counselor, we use this book all of the time to show the importance a friendship can have in the lives of children. The book is super-humorous, and keeps your attention, while also able to carry on the important message, that through everything, your friends will always be there

As a college student, my professor introduced me to this wonderful author and book. This is a exciting book to give away to the best of friends! It is a story of a most true friendship that people of all backgrounds can relate to. Rosie and Michael take us through the rollercoasters of young friendship and allow us to reminisce as well as find gratitude for all true companions.

My best friend and I have adopted this book as "our book." We read it when we miss each other and it brings back all the memories of a great childhood friendship. This is a book that shouldn't be passed over. This is truly one of my favorites and is perfect for any occasion!