John you have out done yourself on this .For your first book i have to say this was absolutely wonderful.I look forward to reading a sequel in the near future i hope .My Hats off to you this is one of those books you just cant put down .I recommend anyone who likes to read to buy this book its well worth the money.

This is not your typical run-of-the-mill fantasy book. This book is one of those that you can hardly put down until you finish the last page. Truly a wondrous book! I've read it once already, I'm in the process of reading it a second time! A must buy.

I've never been a big fan of fantasy books (except of course for the works of JRR Tolkien) because the worlds and characters seems so slapped together, and, often, vehicles for a bunch of boring melodrama with a couple of dragons thrown in to keep the reader reading. John Lawson's Witch Ember is different though. The world is so well thought out, and full of rich complex characters, mythology, history, and magic that it feels like you are reading something that really happened and not just someone's weekend role playing game experiment, or a rehashed retelling of the same ol' junk. Esmeree's growth as a woman and a character really makes the book. She feels real, as do the other characters who populate this world, and the intrigues that come to surround her will not only keep you guessing, they'll keep you reading too.

This is an excellent book. It steers clear of simplistic solutions to human problems. It presents a succinct, tightly-argued analysis of many difficulties (e.g., stress, anxiety, narcissism, alienation, guilt) common in today's world. It makes reference to various schools of thought (e.g., Rolf, Feldenkrais, F.M. Alexander), but it always brings the discussion back to the functional principles of Wilhelm Reich, rooted in biological pulsation and energy dynamics. It follows Alexander Lowen in taking into account ego psychology.

"Brief Lives" has always been a delight, but it was Oliver Lawson Dick's scholarly editing that revealed Aubrey's genius. And Lawson Dick's Introduction, "The Life and Times of John Aubrey", is a miracle of synthesis and compression: certainly one of the finest biographical essays ever written. This Nonpareil Books edition is sumptuous - a joy to read in these days cheap, quickly produced paperbacks.

This book found a permanent place in my library. His insight on the first three chapters of Revelation was gripping and powerful. If you read only one other book than the Bible this year, let it be Final Call. I wasn't content to read it and leave it, however. I've used the material to teach three different classes. Lawson knows God's word and communicates it clearly.

Young John Lawson describes his adventure canoing and hiking through the Carolina Coastal Plain and Piedmont in the winter of 1700. Lawson's descriptions are detailed, especially of the many generous Native Americans who helped him on his way. His journey started in Charleston, continued through the Charlotte area, then east to Okeneechee Village on the Eno River (now Hillsborogh) and on to the coast near New Bern. This book is an unknown classic.

....This set of audio tapes was a disappointment to me. I had wanted a set of bird songs to accompany my new Peterson Eastern Birds field guide, 4th edition.( Previously, I had owned the 2nd edition and its excellent, page-coordinated, accompanying tapes and had used them for years.) I bought this new set of audio tapes blind, so to speak, because they were shrink-wrapped with no real description visible. No one in any of the retail stores I consulted knew anything about them nor was willing to break into the shrink-wrapping.
....Birding by Ear, Eastern/Central is actually a 3-tape short course in identifying bird calls. It is essentially useless for field identification. To make use of this set of tapes, one would have to sit down and listen and listen and listen to interminable commentary by a sonorous male voice introducing bird calls in clusters that are of minimal use because they are grouped by similarity, which often doesn't translate into geography or habitat. The second side of the third tape is a "review" that is actually a test.... one must listen to a series of unidentified songs and try to remember what they are, after having spent the hours required to listen to the other 5 sides of the tapes.
.... The up side of this set of tapes is that the bird song recordings are excellent. They include both the song and the call. (But they are useless in the field in this format.)

If you live in North America east of the Mississipi and want to identify birds by ear, read on...

This audio set is a very well thought out and produced tutorial for introducing beginning "ear" birders to the world of birding by ear. The audio quality is excellent with several renditions of each song and call. The pace is well suited to the target audience - only after repeated listening will you want to skip ahead through sections. The groupings of similar songs seem well designed, and reflect situations in the field that pose problems. Each song is described verbally, with an onomatopoetic description. I wish the CD were coded so that sub-tracks could be accessed directly without the introductory descriptions, but the design of this set isn't as encyclopedia of song, rather as short course in learning how to identify song.

Buy this and the "More birding by ear", listen to them for 10 - 30 minutes a day (great drive time listening), and master the art of birding by ear!

Great learning tool for the novice and a great reminder for the seasoned veteran.

John Okada's novel is one of the pioneering works of a growing field of American literature that shares the unique experiences of a group mostly neglected by mainstream America: Asian Americans. This category of literature, known as Asian American literature, seeks to expose the difficulty of finding identity that these Americans have faced because they don't fit in either the mainstream Caucasian American identity or the "model minority" (i.e. African American) identity that has been so prevalent in America, both past and present.
This story takes place during World War II: a terrible time for Japanese Americans, the subjects of this story. It shares the difficulty that a young Japanese American man named Ichiro faced when choosing not to fight for America, the country he always called his home. The two years in prison he spent for rejecting the draft was not nearly as painful as the difficulty of defining himself as an American. America is the country that, on one hand, is his home by birth and residence and, on the other hand, has punished his ethnic group via internment based solely on a distant place of origin. On his journey to find his identity he comes upon many characters, both Japanese Americans and others, that come to shape his perception of what it means to be an American. "No-No Boy" is a magnificent piece of Asian American literature.

In my AP English Literature class, I had a choice of reading any novel of "literary merit" I wanted, and to complete a 25 page analysis of the novel. Of the four books I analyzed in this way this year, No-No Boy was by far my favorite. I am caucasian, yet have always been interested in the dark side of America's role in World War II - the Japanese internment camps. This book is a vivid portrayal of one young man's suffering due to his decision not to swear loyalty to a country that had foresaken his rights as a citizen, and the consequences that result from this decision. Okada deals with a very touchy subject in this novel, for both the white and Japanese-American communities. Ichiro's self-inflicted punishment helps the reader to realize just how awful this experience was for the real No-no boys. This realistic portrayal is rather ironic, since Okada himself chose to serve the United States loyally in the army during World War II. Perhaps this novel was written from the side of him that related more to his Japanese roots than to his newfound American identity, and the guilt he himself must have carried when serving in the Pacific, telling Japanese to surrender in their own language. Okada also deals with a seemingly untouchable issue - that of the discrimination the Japanese-Americans themselves practiced toward other U.S. citizens, although they faced discrimination themselves. This adds to the truthfulness of the novel. Perhaps the only disappointing aspect to the novel is the all-American, happy ending that seems a little too contrived, although it must have been necessary for Okada to write the novel this way in order to gain any readers, because the novel's subject was so controversial at the time it was written. This novel should be taught in high schools and universities across the country, in American literature courses, and not just Asian-American literature courses. Now, multicultural education movements have succeeded in gaining the teaching of more women and African-American writers' novel, but Asian-American literature has still been neglected. The tolerance and understanding that students will gain from reading this novel should be evident immediately after one has read No-No Boy, even though the novel is enjoyable and is hardly preachy-sounding.

It is sad that John Okada wrote only one novel in his life, but it gives me great joy just to mention this book to anyone. _No-No Boy_ is a novel that deals with the high emotions of those felt by Japanese Americans during the tumulous times of the second world war. It is a time when American citizens are incarcerated into "relocation centers" without any wrong doing except that their last names were Okada, Sone, and Ikeda. However, as John Okada traces the story of Kenji, a nisei who refused to answer yes to the loyalty questionaire, we do not feel any strong bitterness about the whole situation that could be all too common in such a text. This touching novel is ultimately about one's search for a home, for loyalty, and for acceptance into society. These themes, while prevalent in many Japanese American texts written about this time period, are universal and can be shared by anyone who has ever felt the pangs of loneliness associated with being an outcast. If anyone is interested in reading more about fiction, good fiction on these issues, there is no book I could recommend more highly than this one. John Okada's book is the ultimate in Asian American literature and should be required reading for all those who want to read more about American history and American literature

This book is to Foxe's original work as a pocket dictionary is to a full size, complete Webster's (the kind that requires a stand).

Foxe's original work is nearly 7.000 pages in eight volumes! But the really sad thing is that this particular edition has been so carelessly edited, rewritten, and corrupted. There is even a chapter about John Calvin, whom FOXE NEVER WROTE ABOUT!

All the Catholic/Protestant quibbling about Foxe's book is pathetically stupid, especially between people who've never even laid eyes upon the complete work. Besides, the REAL church was started over two hundred fifty years before Rome laid claim to Christianity -- and the first Christian church building was erected in England within three years of the crucifixion. So true Christianity is neither Catholic (never was) NOR Protestant (having never been Catholic, there was nothing for REAL Christians to protest except the way they were treated by both groups).

The truth is that Foxe accurately chronicled Roman Catholic atrocities of his time, but he also wrote in support of the Reformed (Protestant) church which used very similar tactics. He also reached some incorrect conclusions, for which he can easily be forgiven, since they are not central to his work and he did not have the research tools we have available today.

But the real point is that THIS BOOK IS NOT FOXE'S WORK and bears almost no resemblance to it. If you are interested in obtaining a a reprint of the REAL Foxe work, contact swrb(dot)com on the world wide web -- select "Rare Bound Photocopies" then look under "F" for Foxe's work. I am not necessarily endorsing any of the other works they sell, but they are the only current source I know for the complete Foxe work.

Any Christian foolish enough to think they've read "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" after reading the Thomas Nelson edition (or most other "modern" versions) is probably unlearned enough to call himself Catholic or Protestant.

Some historians have pointed out that Foxe was biased against Catholics. Although his personal conflict against Catholicism likely drove his effort to put this book together, one has to recognize that the very abuses described in this book are a large part of WHY he was set against Catholicism in his own day in the first place. So far as I know, most or all of the stories of burning heretics, which Foxe describes, are true. All of which is a part of what Pope John Paul II has begun apologizing for at the change of the millennium.

But Foxe also spends an equal amount of time retelling the stories of Christians who were killed for their faith during the days of ancient Rome. As a result, I don't think the book builds Roman Catholic resentment in most readers. Instead, it reveals the real fabric of Christian faith. Those who like only a rosey picture of the Church are no different than those who like only a rosey picture of the real world we live in. This book describes the dark times in Christian history, but the light is never lost in that darkness. And that is what this book is really about--the inability of the darkness to snuff out the light of true faith--whether it is an internal darkness within the Church or an external darkness that tries to engulf the Church.

This book should be read by everyone who calls themselves "Christian."Anytime I get to feeling life is too tough,and I start feeling like God isn't close,this book and the book of Job are the books to get me back to reality.When you read the book of martyrs and you read the horrible ways these Christians were tortured and killed you realize you have no reason to complain and every reason to be thankful.Thankful not only to Jesus Christ and the apostles, but to the Christians all over the world who are being killed every day for the Gospel.If you have ever wondered how the apostles died, this book tells you.Incidentally, John was the only apostle who died of old age.Humbling and educational