The Circle of Magic: The High King's Daughter was a book which I read when I was younger. It introduced me to the world of magic, knights, elves, princess and wizards. I enjoy reading this book even though I bought it alone and thus lost some important part of the plot. I would recommend anyone who wish to read this series to read the first book and continue to through the rest of the series before reading the last book:The High King's Daughter. The Circle of Magic series follows the traditional path, we have good and bad wizards, knights,minsterals and a princess. However, it is well written and easy to read. The characters are memorable and for most part a good introduction to the world of fantasy. However, it might not deal well with fantasy readers of older age as its effect is lessen and it is frankly, not in the league of Harry Potter. In short, this series is good for young children who is hoping to try fantasy and I am sure they will find it a good read.

This is the sixth and final book to the Circle of Magic set, and a wonderful journey it is! We meet our 3 heros again, Randal, the wizard-in-training, his cousin Walter, a knight, and his friend, a thief turned minstral, who is a girl around his own age, named Lys. They meet friends and foes they encountered in the previous books and a new cast as well, with a plot that stands on its own. They must defeat a powerful and evil wizard and bring the rightful queen to her throne. The major strength of the story is Randal, because he is flawed, filled with doubts and fears, but determined to do the right thing anyway. His growth of both power and conviction become more evident as time goes by yet we never lose the idea that he is simply human and can always make mistakes. This character, set against a story of action and adventure, makes it all a lot of fun besides!

This book is a pilgrimage. Not a linear pilgrimage that sets off from a given point and progresses towards a distant goal, but a pilgrimage through a labyrinth or maze - a circular pilgrimage, if you will.

The writer, a naturalist with a home and garden in eastern Massachusetts, is at home also in the wilderness of the western United States as well as in thr historic gardens of Italy. He traces for the reader the influence that the great gardens of Italy, part cultivated, part bosky wilderness, have had on the development of both the gardens and the wilderness of the U.S. But the book is not so simple and direct. Through it runs the theme of the labyrinth, its symbolism of the complexities of nature, its paradoxes, twists and turns.

The true spirit of wildness is seldom to be found, the writer says, in our large "wilderness" parks polluted by ATV's, rangers and over-run camp sites. Human connection with the land is most strongly felt in our gardens - not the front yard with its neatly mowed lawn and well-pruned foundation planting but a truly creative garden with wild spaces and vistas that welcome wild creatures. We can save some land from developers, build small parks, add in gardens with their boskyness (lovely word, that) and create our own web of wilderness even in our most built up areas,

Did the nature god Pan die with the birth of Christianity and the idea of dominion over all the creatures of the earth? The writer is optimistic that he did not and that the true spirit of nature can be revived, one natural garden space at a time.

This is the work of a respected nature writer who is stringing together ideas about wilderness and gardens loosely and creatively. It is both evocative and provocative, a mental ramble for an open and enquiring mind.

Like a ramble through a garden, or through the twists and turns of a maze, Mitchell takes the reader on a casually structured walk through memory, opinion, and speculation. He jumps from topic to topic in an engaging manner without exploring in any great depth his subjects -- the history of gardening in Italy and America, a few favorite writers (Thoreau, Wharton), his own large garden, his personal history, encounters with interesting people, the American conception and use of wilderness, urban encroachment, mazes and monsters, some colorful myths and stories. Nor does he need to go deep. His attempt in these related essays seems to be to introduce the reader to a great variety of ways of thinking about gardens, to provide different pathways through the subject, different perspectives. And he succeeds. Despite his overly ambitious subtitle ("Italian Gardens and the Invention of the Wilderness"), which suggests a strong unifying theme that the book is not disciplined enough to provide, he continually evokes the beauty and mystery of gardens as places of internal as well as external discovery. Constantly on the lookout for an iconic, sexless Pan, Mitchell finds the demigod in humans, goats, decorative statues, the center of a maze, and, ultimately, in the enduring metaphor that survived the arrival of Christianity not just to exist on its own, but also to inform the imagery of Satan. There are several startling moments as he gently guides us on his personal journey, such as the fact that in the 1960s scientists discovered lead from auto exhaust embedded in Arctic ice, or his encounters with an unnerving hiker in one of our national parks. Throughout, Mitchell's abiding faith in the garden, in the importance of human contact with the earth, sustains the book's meditative and thoughtful tone.

John Hanson Mitchell has spent the past two decades prowling a square mile or so of suburban woods and fields in Eastern Massachusetts, searching for its past and speculating on its future, and in the process producing 4 books (Ceremonial Time, Living At the End of Time, Walking Toward Walden, and Trespassing) dealing with the nature of place and its affect on the people who live there. His latest book, The Wildest Place on Earth, may at first glance seem, if not exactly a detour, at least a stroll down a side street, away from his favorite square mile of land known as Scratch Flat, but read on and you will find that Mitchell is once again exploring in small spaces.

In The Wildest Place on Earth, Mitchell sets out to discover the nature of the American wilderness and the influence of Italy's tamed landscapes on the American experience. In a series of rambles that span decades and move effortlessly from the history of Renaissance gardens to American conservationists, and the Hudson River school of landscape painters to encounters in America's overcrowded and over-loved wilderness parks, Mitchell pokes and prods and writes of the past. This book is part travelogue, and part informed speculation as Mitchell comes to realize that wilderness is perhaps more a concept than a true reality for most of us, and that the wildest place on earth may be his own somewhat haphazardly planned backyard garden that has grown over the past decade into a lush and relaxing presence.

Mitchell writes much in this book about the Greek and Roman myths and how they influence, even to this day, what we see and feel as wilderness. The god Pan is always present, and the history of mazes and labyrinths makes for some fascinating side trips through Italy. If you are looking for a few good modern-day gardening stories, he supplies those as well.

The editor of the Massachusetts Audubon magazine Sanctuary and the winner of the 1994 John Burroughs essay award and the 2000 New England Bookseller's Award, Mitchell is a graceful stylist who will win you over as he rambles an speculates'much like a close friend who you may not always agree with, but you can't stop listening to those provocative opinions.

This book is fun to read, entertaining and light hearted. Unfortunately the authors, to entertain, look for off beat sources that are funny but simply false. For example, the portion on the 1940-41 campaign in the Balkans is based exclusively on the works of an aide de camp to the thoroughly incompetent British General who lost the campaign. This unworthy chooses to blame Britain's ally -- Greece -- for a disaster that he largely caused. This episode is typical of the book. Do not waste money on it.

This is a nicely written overview of World War II, that I learned alot from. I read this "Idiot's Guide" book to get a better understanding of the war, and I am satisfied with this book as being a good introduction to the major events of WWII. It's not as lighthearted or fun as most "Idiot's Guides" are, I suppose because of the subject matter. They writing is not too complicated, nor simpleminded; a good balance. But, they should have put more effort into the graphics that do appear in the book.

I just feel like this book could have been made much better, with a little more effort. More photos would have been nice! They seem to only have about one photo per chapter, and not a very interesting one, at that.

The half dozen lousy maps are the most irritating aspect of the book. They did not make new maps for this book, but rather, they used copies of old maps, from various sources, all of which are uniformative and of substandard appearance, (one even looks like a photo negative). The maps are usually placed many pages past the text where the locations on them are first discussed in the text. So you are not even aware that there is a map, until you start reading about a different locale, then there's the map that showed what was happening many pages earlier. What is shown on the maps is usually too small of a geographical area (so you can't picture the location on the European continent), and/or the locations are poorly labelled. It would have helped immensely to have a fresh, simple map, every few pages or so, showing the general borders of the territories and troop movements described in the text.

Overall, I'm glad that I read this book, and textwise I got what I was expecting. But now that I know more, I wonder if there is a better overview book available to the newly curious?

As a high school teacher of college-level material, I will not prepare a class lecture on World War II without this book. It is easy to read, explains things very well, and has so many interesting details that no one can read through it without learning something new on each page. This coming from someone whose favorite reading subject IS WW2.

This book will help anyone understand World War II, and is a lifesaver to those of us who need fast reference in clear English.

Jon Slavet, the CEO of Guru.com, gave me this book. Though the book was interested and spiritual, I did not find it particularly appealing. Even though the book is quite short, I could not finish it. This book is good for people who like books that accent the work/life balance (of which I admit that I have none).

I could see some that might dismiss it as just a collection of catchy phrases, trendy euphemisms, and anecdotal and unscientific blathering. But I felt that this book described the kind of management style I will try to emulate in my life. Instead of 'creating' the environment through sheer force of will and a desire for control and domination, it focuses on letting order create itself organically. I loved the detached but focused approach the book describes. Short little passages made this book something I picked up from time to time and really thought about the different passages. While the Taoism is not something I accept completely, learning to appreciate the gentle, detached, and innate wisdom of things was something I enjoyed thinking about. The many descriptions of how NOT to do things were the so close to experiences I have had in with bad management that I found myself totally engrossed in this book. The solutions given were so logically and eloquently presented that I could not help but take the words in with a deep sense of satisfaction. This book was a source of confirmation for me. For so long I have had so many bad managers, and seen so many bad practices in organizations, that I was wondering if I was just a complainer. But this book was right with my experiences. It described things so purely for me that I felt justified and inspired to continue in my path as I head off to business school and enter the world of management more on the other side of things. In any event, as I wrote above, this book captured the kind of management style I want to cultivate more than any of all the management books and articles I've read and I recommend it highly. I will keep this book on my desk for as long as it holds together.

I should be the eighth person who wrote a review for this book. The seven reviewers before me had really extreme opinion on it. Five 5 stars and two 1 star. You seldom find that on Amazon. Anyway, I read and found all of them honest and personal/subjective account of the reviewers' perception/experience.

As a Chinese, I assure you that Tao Te Ching would be voted as one of the ten greatest book of our culture. It touches every part of our daily life and so the application of its principles on business/life/love is popular in the eastern world (similar to Sun Tzu's Art of War). Mitchell's translation is the best I read so far (though so little). Autry's intrepretation of it matches those of the mainstream Chinese and Japanese scholars.

So, if you buy in TQM, Theory Y/Z and self actualization kind of stuff, read this book and you will gain something. Otherwise, spend your money and time elsewhere.

I just finished reading this to my 8-year-old son, and we both enjoyed it. We have read all of the Harry Potter series, which was an obvious point of comparison. First off, my son kept repeating, as we got further into the text, "This is so much better than Harry Potter." That is quite an endorsement, since he likes the Potter books a great deal.
While this book is filled with interesting characters and details, there are obviously some limitations to what you can develop in so few pages. However, in the end I thought the details that were included in this text left Harry Potter looking a bit cartoonish. We both enjoyed the descriptions of of inner workings of the spells as they were cast.
I think this book is great for reading aloud and would also work for slightly older kids reading to themselves. However, it is clearly no Lord of the Rings, nor does it pretend to be.

IF YOU'VE READ SOME OF THE STUPID THINGS SYNOPSIS HAS TO SAY ABOUT THIS BOOK'S SERIES, I ADVISE YOU NOT TO BELIEVE THEM.THIS BOOK IS CAPTIVATING.THE AUTHORS WERE SO GOOD AT WRITING THIS BOOK THAT IN THE FIRST FEW PAGES ONLY I FELT A DEEP-SEATED RESENTMENT TOWARDS ALL OF RANDAL'S FOSTER FAMILY.AND SYNOPSIS OBVIOUSLY DID NOT READ THIS BOOK VERY CAREFULLY.MOST OF THE BOOK IS ABOUT RANDAL AND HIS STRUGGLES WITH MAGE CRAFT, HIS FRIENDS, AND HIS ENEMIES.THE EVIL MAGE (WHO IS RANDAL'S CURRENT TEACHER,) ISN'T OBVIOUSLY EVIL UNTIL PAGE 116.THE EVIL WIZARD IS DEAD BY PAGE 123, AND THE BOOK ENDS, PAPERBACK VERSION, PAGE 139.124-139 IS RANDAL AGONIZING OVER KILLING AMAN WITH STEEL AND BEING THROWN OUT OF THE SCHOLA.

Everyone, I saw this online and HAD to write a review of this series...I am madly in love with this series, and have been ever since I was about 12 (i am 23 now). Debra Doyle & James D. McDonald are truly awesome writers, and they are always going to be my favorites!! Randal is everything that a main character should be, in that he is smart, headstrong, and has the valor of a knight. The series actually takes you through most of the life of Randal, and his journey to become a wizard. This series should appeal to old and young alike, and this is the only website (or place on earth) you can get it from, so buy it from here...because you won't find it ANYWHERE else!!! Ja ne, Zanikis :Þ

Unlike so many other cookbooks, this one is practical and gives the best possible combination -- convenience, speed, nutrition and variety while no skimping on flavor either.

In this book I learned Mitchell's philosophy that works well with mine. She professes that "cooking from scratch is a much better choice for health-conscious dining. It's a much better alternative than takeout food and low-fat frozen meals tend to be deceptively high in calories."

Mitchell says that one of the simple pleasures of cooking for one is never having to make something you don't like. You can eat breakfast for dinner or double a recipe and serve it at another meal.

This book works for me!

easily read in layman's terms to understand the basic principles of chaos mathematics.

Jenny Powers became my friend quickly. I cared about what happened to her. The people, events, and vocabulary are realistic enough to make one make at least a few emergency plans! The book has lots of action and covers a very scary subject, but it tells teens that whatever happens, there will be someone who knows what to do and their help will be needed to do it.

I own three different revisions of this book. All are very useful for amateur rock hounds. My sons and I have visited about a dozen of the listed sites and all have produced nice specimens.

We haven't lived in Oregon all that long and having a guide that will shorten our search is very helpful. Gem Trails is very accurate with easy to follow maps and many colorful pictures that help to enhance the experience. We checked out areas that are close to our residence and we were not disspointed. We are anxious to explore further.