A must-buy for those who want challenging, clever and sometimes witty crossword puzzles. I'd rate the degree of difficulty as being just below that of The Washington Post. Lots of Hollywood references make it a bit more fun for those who love old movies. I also appreciated the fact that every LA Times puzzle book I've worked to date contains actual words, not misspellings or created ones.

I thought the book was very well written. Its down to earth and not one of these phoney suspence books. I highly recomend reading it . Its almost like you are there with the character. I had the pleasure of meeting the author. What a nice person to talk to. If you ever get a chance to go to her book signing do it. This book is a non stop reader, you wont be able to put it down.

This book nourishes the neighborly kindnesses of multicultural apartment tenents. Not only are Rob Roth's watercolors warm and inviting but the mention of the food made me wish I knew those people. Rosa-Casanova sprinkles Spanish words like, "en un dos por tres", which means "lickedy-split" makes me want to polish up my Spanish again. This book promotes acceptance in a subtle way and is very satisfying.

Mauprat is a novel about uncultured Bernard who rescues the beautiful Edmee de Mauprat. Bernard falls in love with Edmee, and Edmee's father thinks of Bernard as his son. He wants Bernard and Edmee to be together, but because Edmee feels superior to Bernard, she cannot allow herself to love him. She tries to educate Bernard and teach him manners. Once that is done, Edmee begins to love Bernard. This book has a very interesting theme of a women's superiority to a man. I highly recommend it! It was one of my favorite George Sand novels, and it is interesting because it is told my the perspective of eldery Bernard looking back on his life. Read this book!

I have read all the Mennym books but espeically liked this one. This is the last book in the series, so to understand what's going on you need to read the books from the begining (starting with The Mennyms) or atleast read the Mennyms Alone before this one.It's about what happens after the Mennyms die. The Mennyms are a family of living, life-sized, rag dolls. They are Sir Magnus, Grandfather, who has 100 pearls of wisdom, Tulip, the Grandmother and skillful buissnesswomen, Joshua, the quiet father, Vinetta, the loving mother, and their five children: Soobie the blue rag doll, his twin Pilbeam, Applebey the redheaded teenager, and the ten-year-old twins, Poopie and Wimpey. And there is also Miss Quigley, the nanny to Googles, Vinetta's baby. In the book before this, the Mennyms mysteriously die, (they mysteriously came alive forty some years ago after their maker, Kate Penshaw died) and this book tells what happens when they come alive again, finding themselves in the care of Daisy Maughan, an old lady who owns an antique shop. I think this book makes a wonderful conclusion to the series-it really leaves you wondering!

As one who regularly is asked to speak to organizations about crime and criminals, I have read extensively about the subject. This book is an excellent telling of the story of America's first and worst female serial killer, Belle Gunness.

The Author, a former newspaper writer, tells the story of serial murders in a small Indiana town that are discovered during an election year. Led by a Sheriff and Prosecutor who just might have been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the crimes committed right under their noses, Republican officials claimed that Gunness died in a fire set by her handyman, thereby laying the investigation of the extent of her killing spree to rest with the burned corpses found in the fire. Led by lawyers for the handyman, Democrats claim that Gunness set the fire herself to cover up her escape, perhaps because the brother of one of her victims was getting too close.

The author tells the story in a clean and unbiased manner, leaving the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about Mrs. Gunness and her victims. This book is factually accurate and good reading for anyone who is interested in mystery. It is not macabre or sensational despite the subject matter. It is a page-turner.

Music Theory and Arranging Techniques for Folk Harps by Sylvia Woods.

If you ever had to take a class in music theory in school maybe you are more fortunate than I in that and you can remember and apply some of what you learned. For the rest of you I highly recommend buying this book of Sylvia's titled; Music Theory and Arranging Techniques for Folk Harps. Written before the "..... for Dummies" series became so popular, this book takes you easily and with lots of examples and illustrations from major chords to transposing... and everywhere in between! In the introduction Sylvia urges the reader to " Have fun with this book. Just go at your own pace, and take it step by step." Presenting concepts and theory step-by-step is another thing Sylvia does best!!!

Sylvia Bashline, author of The New Cleaning & Cooking Fish, is just the right person to tell you how to clean and cook a fish that you've just caught. She's served as president of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writer's Association and also as a board member of Outdoor Writers Association of America.

Her book makes lavish, skilful use of color photography to tell you everything you need to know about preparing a fish to eat, once you've caught it. Plus, there are dozens and dozens of mouth-watering recipes for cooking fish by every method you can imagine.

In this true-life story about her life during the WWII years 1939-45, Sylvia Couturie reminds us of the often ignored fact that the horrors of war also engulfed children, many of whom were sent by their parents to far-off lands in order to be safe from the invading Germans.
No one knew, when Sylvia and her little sister Marguerite were taken by their Irish nanny back to Ireland for a month in August 1939, that the children would not see home again until February 1945.
Sylvia takes us from her idyllic childhood years, growing up in a wealthy French family in the Chateau le Mesnil located in Normandy, to the desperate poverty inforced by an overly strict and calculating nanny, in a wreck of a cottage by the stormy Atlantic. There they had "no electricity, no running water, no bathroom, and the lavatory was outside down three steps next to the kitchen door". The nanny refused opportunities for their education or better housing. Fiercely Catholic, she shunned opportunities for the children to be educated or to have playmates for fear that their minds might be poisoned by the Protestants. Wally, the nanny, claimed to have been given sole guardianship of the children "for the duration".
Ms. Couturie's writing is cleverly absorbing as, by leaving out the answers to questions which arise in the reader's mind, she exemplifies the wasteland that was her life during those most important years when only her body and instinct for survival grew from little girlhood to womanhood. Using this technique, she carries the reader along with the suspense of not knowing the answers to obvious questions, thereby creating in the reader's mind the very void that was her life during the years of WWII.
The fact that she writes this memoir more than 50 years after the fact is a testimony to the life-long effects of the tragedies of war.

Recommended for all ages, but especially for middle and junior high school libraries.

Selected by Brandon & Hill (Nursing Outlook, March-April, 1996) as one of the best books for small nursing and medical libraries.