When I was 9 years old I read this book. I didn't remember much about the story, but when I saw it in a book store all the warm feelings came flooding back, and I bought it to read to my daughters.

They have so enjoyed it! Our oldest is 8, and our youngest is 5, and we've had a difficult time getting the 5-year-old to sit through "chapter books". But she was enthralled from the start, especially because of the cat and the kittens!

It's a gentle story that depicts the love of Jesus in a simple way, without forcing it. It's just part of life, exactly as it's supposed to be.

A beautiful story that I'm sure my daughters will carry with them, too!

This is a very good book. The author is obviously indebted to Johanna Spyri's Heidi, but in a good way. This book can be read aloud to children as young as 5, but young teenagers will also enjoy it. Be aware, though, that St. John's original text is out of print. What Moody and Scripture Union currently publish is an "updated" version--good if your child struggles with reading; but if your child is literate, get a used copy!

Treasures of the Snow is a great book. I sat down and read it to our kids (11,8 & 5). They loved it and kept asking for "just one more chapter".

It reminds me of the movie Heidi as far as the setting. The love and wisdom of the grandmother is what I pray I will attain one day. It is a touching story of sin, anger, bad choices and redemption. God used a bad situation and turned it around for great good. Gpd can and will forgive every sin, no matter how bad, if we open the door to give Him a place in our heart.

I highly recommend this book!

We live in an age when "art" has become horrifically bloated. Every major movie is three hours long, even the insipid Summer blockbusters. Authors from Don DeLillo to Tom Clancy crank out enormous doorstop-like novels of 700 to 1,000 pages. The artist Cristo doesn't just paint pictures, he wraps entire islands in pink cellophane. It is as if artists had lost confidence in their capacity to say anything meaningful and so they opt instead to try to bury us in pure volume. Heck, Bill Clinton's State of the Union message this year--a message which until modern times President's were content to simply write out and send up to the Hill--resembled a Fidel Castro harangue, lasting over an hour and a half. Apparently, if you're not sure about the quality, make up for it with quantity.

The results have been predictably uneven--on the one hand, the perfectly adequate 1934 comedy Death Takes a Holiday, which ran under 80 minutes, was recently turned into the interminable vanity project, Meet Joe Black. But on the other hand, Tom Wolfe's terrific A Man in Full (see Orrin's review) actually had one of the best set pieces he's ever written, Ambush at Fort Bragg (see Orrin's review), excised from the final novel. It seem that, just as we would expect, the sheer size of these projects bears no relation to the quality of the finished product. It is still the case that great writers and directors can produce outstanding longer works, but mediocre artists can not salvage their's, no matter how they inflate them.

All of which brings us to Bridge on the River Kwai. I'm sure that everyone is familiar with the story from David Lean's 1957 masterpiece, starring Alec Guiness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa. Lean was the undisputed master of the movie epic--with films like River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, Passage to India and Lawrence of Arabia to his credit--and his film version of Boulle's novel is a mammoth, 2 1/2 hour, panorama. It is unquestionably one of the greatest movies ever made.

Boulle's original, while every bit as great, is a spare, economical novel, which compacts vexing moral questions and ethical confrontations into a small but powerful package. It stands as sort of a demonstration that artists who actually have something to say need not resort to gigantism. The only major element that differs from the movie is that Lean needed an American actor for promotional purposes, so the whole scenario with William Holden escaping the camp and then returning with the demolition crew was added. All of the moral quandaries that make the story so memorable and timeless remain, despite the brevity of the book.

In fact, some of the themes emerge more forcefully. Pierre Boulle was himself captured, imprisoned, set to forced labor and then escaped from such a camp in Malaysia and one of the strongest undercurrents in the book is the author's obvious contempt for the Japanese. This is in many ways one of the most racist (I mean that in a non pejorative sense, if such a thing is possible any longer) stories ever told. The underlying assumption is that the two colonial powers find these places in a state of primitive savagery. The Japanese merely seek to exploit them for their own purposes and do so in an accordingly slipshod way. The British, meanwhile, attempt to bring the highest standards of civilization to bear and try to reengineer the wilderness so that it will stand as an eternal monument to British values. Boulle uses the construction of the bridge to demonstrate that the Japanese are brutal incompetents and that the British, while they are the world's master builders (both of engineering marvels and of civilizations), are so warped by their own rigid codes of duty and honor that they are blinded to ultimate issues of the propriety of their actions.

I must have read this book or seen the movie dozens of times since I was a kid. One of the really remarkable things about the story is how different facets stand out each time, or is it just that at different ages or in different social circumstances certain themes seem more important than at others. When you're a callow youth, the whole thing is just a bang up military adventure. In the late 60's and early 70's the point of the story seemed to many to be simply anti-war--"Madness! Madness!" as Clipton says. Today, I read it and see a Frenchman dissing the Japanese and the British. That Boulle achieves this kaleidoscopic effect with such brevity is a remarkable accomplishment and should serve as a reminder to all that increased size is no substitute for substantial ideas.

GRADE: A+

I think this is one of the best books you can ever read. It is decriptive and exciting. A sure prize if you can get one. The story being set in Thailand (formerly Siam) is wonderful because it sets the scene for many of the dramatic events. It is my absolute favorite book, and anyone who gets the chance should read it.

Havent seen the movie for awhile, but have a question about it? Was the movie taken place in Africa and if so, where was the river Kwai? Is it in Kenya? Thanks for the help.

This a comprehensive and well-written reference work with more than 1200 articles and 1346 pages. For the parish minister or pastor who needs guidance, this book should definitely be on the shelf as a mandatory reference work. For seminarians, it might be overwhelming, but would be a wonderful book to own. For more experienced religious leaders, pastoral counselors and pastoral psychotherapists, however, there is much here that can be gotten more easily and in more sophisticated form from smaller, more specialized books on theology and especially aspects of psychology/psychiatry. Still, it is an admirable piece of scholarship and one that most caregivers will want and use. (Non-religious mental health workers could also use it for working more effectively with religious populations.)

The Dictionary is useful for readers across a wide spectrum, not only for pastoral carers. Contains concise and practical information. The theological import of each entry is spelled out. Each entry has a bibliography for further reading or cross reference. I found myself browsing at leisure!

Brand Blanshard, twentieth-century philosophy's greatest exponent of rationalism, here turns his pen to an examination of reasonableness in action, as exemplified in the lives of Marcus Aurelius, John Stuart Mill, Ernest Renan, and (Blanshard's own favorite exemplar of the "rational temper") Henry Sidgwick. Though himself a rationalist, Blanshard was not under the illusion that only avowed rationalists could be reasonable, as his selection of examples clearly shows. In each essay, he presents a lucid and sympathetic account of his subject's life and thought in a seamless combination that deserves to be called "philosophical biography."

While this volume is of course highly informative about each of its four subjects, it also of interest as regards Blanshard's own thought. He was ninety-two years old when he wrote this delightful and highly readable work, and his examinations of these four men distill a lifetime of his own reflections on the role of reason in the ordering of human affairs. A final chapter -- "The enemy: Prejudice" -- summarizes his mature views on the nature and importance of the rational temper.

The entry under Blanshard's name in the _Oxford Companion to Philosophy_ closes on an uncharacteristically personal note: "Blanshard's personal demeanour," writes the entry's author Prof. Peter H. Hare, "was one of extraordinary graciousness." That graciousness, evident throughout his work, is especially so here, where Blanshard deals less directly with philosophical questions and more directly with reasonableness as instantiated in actual human lives; his generosity and sympathy (much neglected rational virtues!) are almost palpable. If the rest of us could absorb something of his rational temper and spirit, our lives and the life of the world would undoubtedly be transformed for the better. And there is no better place to begin than this volume by a great man whose religion was the service of reason.

Wow! Who'd have thought that an author could approach such a topic as "reasonableness" and render it so well-defined, so palatable and so attractive. By using four historical examples, with focus not primarily upon their philosophies, but more upon their lives, Blanshard is masterful. As a noted philosophical and social commentator in his own right, the author does an excellent job of inserting his own interpretation on the four subject persons, and upon their historical & intellectual significance. Last, and maybe most important, is Mr. Blanshard's ability to communicate clearly. As far-fetched as it may sound, this book is truly a page-turner! I'd recommend this to anyone who feels the need for a book that makes you go, "Hmmmm." At the very least, it will leave any reader with an increased appetite for more reasonableness in his/her own life.

I have just spent the last month revising for my medical exams and have found Bray et al an indespensible component of my study regime.The book presents complex topics in a simple understandable format. I would not hesitate to recommend it to any of my fellow students.It gets a double thumbs up from me!!

Bray et.al is the best physiology text avaliable today. This text clearly presents a range of physiological topics and is well written by the learned staff of the Otago University Physiology Dept. Prof. Bray is to be commended for his concise and accurate editorial style. I found the figures particularly understandable and loved thier minimalistic style. A MUST for every med student and those interested in how the body functions. I look forward to the next edition.

My courseload every semester invariably includes an introductory logic course. When I prepare discussion material and examinations in the "informal logic" portion of the course, I like to discuss my ideas with other colleagues. A colleague, an ethicist, asked me if I had read Alican's "Mill's Principle of Utility," as we were discussing examples of logical fallacies committed by prominent philosophers in texts that have come to be regarded as classics. After reading Alican's book, I started to use its relevant chapters as a guide to the topic of fallacies. The response of students was much better to this approach than to the standard practice of identifying fallacies in dozens of short passages. I believe that the book would be useful supplementary/recommended reading material in any introductory logic course.

I came across Alican's "Mill's Principle of Utility" in the library during my preliminary research toward a master's thesis on utilitarianism. The topic I chose covered more than John Stuart Mill's "Utilitarianism," but I found Alican's book immensely useful in developing my understanding of Mill's brand of utilitarianism. Despite its exclusive focus on a narrow albeit important issue, the book also shed light on more general and still controversial topics with respect to utilitarianism. I strongly recommend it to every academician and student interested in ethical theory.

"Mills knows how to tell a story . . . Readers who consider Grisham and Turow to be the standard bearers of the legal thriller should find Mills's work enjoyable and worthwhile." Happenings magazine. "an exceptional talent. . . move the plot along swiftly with a refreshingly wry humor." Island Sun News "a fast-paced and lively novel that touches a lot of hot button issues without being preachy." Lehigh Star

I truly enjoyed this book. I have recommended it to all my friends

I've been a John Mills fan for at least 30 of my 43 years and own a copy of his autobiography, but this book takes you deep into the heart of his life and family. You'll feel as if you've been taken into the inner sanctum of the Mills family, almost as if you were sitting on Sir John's couch and invited to peruse the family photo album! Liberal anecdotes give you a guided tour of each page and each lovingly placed picture, so the sense of intimacy is incredible and touching.

Sir John's love for his children and his wife, Mary, shine through in a way that is hard to describe. You'll just have to buy the book and see for yourself!

Thank you, Sir John, for the gift of sharing a glimpse of your life, as well as your talents, with all of us!

When I heard that Still Memories was going to be released in the US, I was ecstatic. This wonderful picture biography is absolutely adorable. Jonathan,the youngest of the Mills clan was cleaning out the attic of his parents home and found these wonderful photographs. This is the whose who of the cinema. It has wonderful pictures of the Mills children:.Juliet, Jonathan, and Hayley. I can't urge you enough to buy it. You won't be sorry! We must urge the Mills family to publish the VHS tape Moving Memories in the US. It would be another great seller.

I was given a copy of The Tanglewoods' Secret when I was probably 10 or 12. I read it and loved it then. I'm now nearly 29. I just picked it up again tonight, and read it cover to cover. The struggles of the main character, a nine-year-old girl, to learn to overcome her fiery temper and selfish spirit, and her discovery of the Shepherd who can and does teach her (and others) how to be good, can speak to anyone who ever wanted their own way over another's. If you are looking for a good, pastoral story with a truly uplifting message (so hard to find today!), then order this book.

I have never read a more meaningful and thought provoking allegory of the Saviors parable of the lost sheep. In addition the story contains very beautiful and uplifing examples of what can happen when we let ourselves be found by Him. I am very grateful that I found this book.

John Mills, author of the excellent 'Europe's economic dilemma', has written a fascinating book about America's economy, which has many lessons for us in Britain. Particularly important, he shows how vital manufacturing industry is to a flourishing economy.

He shows that productivity increases are much easier to achieve in manufacturing than in services: for example, output per head in US manufacturing has recently been growing by 4% a year, while in services it has fallen by 14%. But since manufacturing now accounts for only 17% of US GDP, it does not have enough weight to pull the whole economy forward. Consequently, most American workers' living standards have stagnated or declined over the last 30 years. The rundown of industry has caused a consistent fall in real US earnings per hour.

The domination of finance capital has imposed literally counterproductive policies both in the USA and in Britain. It has kept the currency overvalued, so exports wither, manufacturing, investment and living standards all fall.

The EU embraces the same policies. The European Central Bank puts price stability above all else. Mills shows that this is the wrong goal, because lower inflation does not cause greater growth. For instance, between 1953 and 1969, Britain's cumulative inflation rate was 3.4%; Japan's was 4%. Yet Japan's annual growth rate was 10% while Britain's was only 2.8%. Japan grew faster because the prices of its exports rose by only 33%; Britain's export prices rose by 380%! This was because the pound was grossly overvalued; the yen was not.

What should we do? We have to make the Government do the job it was elected to do. So when Gordon Brown talks about full employment, or Tony Blair calls for a technological revolution, we must say yes, and insist that they put our money where their mouth is, and invest in manufacturing industry.