I happened to pick up a copy of "Court of Shadows" from my school library in grade nine and I found the plot, characters, and settings very interesting and enlightening even though it was a lengthy novel. Contrary to what Kirkus Reviews has written about the book being over researched, I find Morgan's descriptions of the scenery and lives of the characters quite realistic and informative to a reader who's fond of Elizabethan England. Of course, there probably are a number of novelists who have done better than Morgan in this department but she's done exceptionally well in interweaving various settings(e.g. Spain, England, France...) into one book. I've read this book at least a dozen times and I never get tired of it and the novel has successfully got me hooked on the subject of the Tudor Age...if one is hooked on the subject..it doesn't really matter if "The Court of Shadows" is really realistic or not...all it matters is that the novelist does a wonderful job at sparking one's interest in further researching and studying what really went on during that time! :) And for the record, Kirkus Reviews, Justin Lisle is "Lord HARWOOD" not "HARRINGTON" or whatever you've written in your review. I am not obsessed, just thorough. So go on, read the book yourself :) Enjoy!

I can't say enough good things about this book. It takes during Elizabeth's reign. Mary of Scots is already her prisoner, and the Catholics are plotting against Elizabeth. A beautiful woman named Kat forces her way on an adventure with her brother to spy for the queen's intelligence. Unfortunately she falls in love with the man, Justin, that she is spying on. Justin catches her spying, yet he doesn't know who she is working for. So he keeps her with him on his tratirous journey to Spain and the home of his Catholic cousin. This book is well researched, historically accurate, a great story! There are a couple of chapters that make you yawn, but for the most part you will be up all night. She is good in the way that Sharon Kay Penman is.

This is a really wonderful book. Full of romance, deceptions, friendships, love, all a book needs. Kat is a noble woman, who happens to overhear a conversation between her brother and a man from the Queen. She decides to help her brother, and dresses up like a man, to help spy. She is eventually caught, while her brother isn't. He though,is in a predictament of his own. This book is totally a no-put-down book. However, there are times when the author tells you a bunch of history, and that can get a little boring. I skipped over those parts, and understood the book fine. READ IT!

"New Moon" magazine is devoted to helping girls discover their hopes and dreams. It always has an editorial board of girls ages ten to fourteen from across the country (although it is put together here in Duluth), which certainly ensures that the perspective accurately reflects the target audience. "New Moon Sports" covers why sports are good for girls, the benefits of competition, a brief history of women in sports, and information about how to keep your body healthy. Some of the more interesting features are a look at sports myths (e.g., boys are better at sports than girls), interviews with famous athletes (Bonnie Blair and Cathy Rigby), helpful tips (e.g., Hot Soccer Tips), and lots of suggestions as to what girls can do in terms of sports. Consequently, this is a valuable introductory text. There is not a lot of depth to the information presented herein, but what is here is on valuable and on target. There are also numerous sources for additional information where girls can easily go to find out more about whatever topic interests them, whether it is body image, a particular sport, or a favorite athlete. Other equally worthwhile books from "New Moon" focus on friendship, money, and writing.

This book was written by girls just like you. It will make you laugh, smile and even cry. But most of all it will give you a wonderful sense of self confidence and help you reach out and make friends. I highly reccomend it, that is, if you want to be sure of yourself in friendships, self confident and happy with your friends. I give it a big smile and two thumbs up!

I'm a girl editor for this book. I feel that there is not enough writing out there by girls for girls. This book is just that:by girls and for girls. I feel that girls and sports mix wonderfully. They let you free to jump, kick and just be you. They let your spirit free. You don't have to worry about getting dirty(not that you have to worry anyway) and you can let passion fly. This should be known by all girls. All girls should know the adrenaline rush in jumping into a pool or surfing or kicking a ball to a teammate. This book shows you, you can go out there and get the rush of feeling strong and being part of something bigger than just you. This book shows you girls and women who are great athletes or just girls who enjoy sports. It gives you some advice on how to get started in a sport and helps you find your particular sport made just for you. I know that I have put my heart into this book for all girlkind and hope I have opened girls eyes to the wonderful opportunities they have in sports and how they can take hold of those opportunities and fly. This book is only one in a series of books written by me and seven other girls as a source for girls and their dreams. We want girls to know that they can pursue anything they want. If you have an opportunity, take it. If you have a passion, follow it. Please, disregard my rating and rate it for yourself.

I went to Columbia, with the most prominent 'great books' curriculum still in existence. 25 years later, I'm finding myself re-reading and discussing many of the titles. The Penn Greek Drama series is a handsome library of new translations that give fresh takes on the classics. It's useful to have Euripides on the shelf when you return home from the recent bravura performance by Fiona Shaw as Medea--it settled an argument too on how it 'originally' ended.

Groner's book is a painstakingly detailed, but highly readable account of the history of the custody dispute which riveted America in the late eighties and early nineties. The principals were a successful DC area plastic surgeon--Elizabeth Morgan--and an almost equally successful dental surgeon--Eric Foretich. Almost as important as the principals in the case were the army of lawyers and experts each enlisted to support their cause.

Groner does not conceal his conclusions about where the truth lay in the dispute. I think if one had to rely on what the parents or their experts said it would be nearly impossible to decide what was true. Both sets of grandparents were actively involved with Hilary and with the dispute, however. The contrast between the role, character and testimony of Eric's parents and Elizabeth's was persuasive for me.

I'm sorry to see this book is now remaindered or available only used. I think it would be worth reprinting.

this book encouraged me to participate in more sports, gave me more ideas and information about sports, and helped me to try new and different sports. everyone should read this book :)

GBS wrote play with "approaching audiences as citizens capable of thought and prompting them to think imaginatively to some purpose" in mind, as Margery Morgan says. And there are plenty for one to think seriously about in Major Barbara.

The most interesting is his conviction that no money is untainted. That's interesting because it means the donations and public fundings the environmentalists take in come from no less than the evil polluters themselves, perhaps feeling, which GBS rightly agreed, as the Salvation Army would that they "...will take money from the Devil himself sooner than abandon the work of Salvation." But GBS also wrote in the preface that while he is okay to accept tainted money, "He must either share the world's guilt or go to another planet." From what I can gather from the preface and play, GBS believed money is the key to solve all the problems we have, hence his mentioning of Samuel Butler and his "constant sense of the importance of money," and his low opinion of Ruskin and Kroptokin, for whom, "law is consequence of the tendency of human beings to oppress fellow humans; it is reinforced by violence." Kropotkin also "provides evidence from the animal kingdom to prove that species which practices mutual aid multiply faster than others. Opposing all State power, he advocates the abolition of states, and of private property, and the transforming of humankind into a federation of mutual aid communities. According to him, capitalism cannot achieve full productivity, for it amis at maximum profits instead of production for human needs. All persons, including intellectuals, should practice manual labor. Goods should be distributed according to individual needs." (Guy de Mallac, The Widsom of Humankind by Leo Tolstoy.)

If GBS wasn't joking, then the following should be one of the most controversial ideas he raised in the preface to the play. I quote: "It would be far more sensible to put up with their vices...until they give more trouble than they are worth, at which point we should, with many apologies and expressions of sympathy and some generosity in complying with their last wishes, place them in the lethal chamber and get rid of them." Did he really mean that if you are a rapist once, you can be free and "put up with," but if you keep getting drunk (a vice), or slightly more seriously, stealing, you should be beheaded?

Shaw can be absolutely captivating even when he is being an evangelist for political philosophies that the twentieth century has proven to be nothing but vehicles for repression and mass murder (Communism - Shaw approved of Lenin even when the evidence showed him to be pure evil). This play-among his best (if you can see the movie with Rex Harrison, do not miss it)- has such brilliant dialogue and sparkling humor that it is easy to forget that one is being preached to. Shaw thinks human evil is due to socially deprived environments. Ergo, pour money into poor neighborhoods and social evils will vanish. Unfortunately for Shaw's argument, poverty and human evil are two different things entirely and only intersect occasionally and coincidently. The poor can be poor due to lack of opportunity or due to a culture of self-destructiveness (illegitmacy, drug/alcohol use, disdain for values that lead to achievement, disdain for skills that lead to steady employability). It is difficult to sustain an argument that the poor in the USA are so due to a lack of opportunity when recent immigrants have pretty much taken the available opportunities and ran with them, rapidly entering the middle classes within a generation of arriving here. Shaw simply cannot believe that anyone would choose to remain poor. Well, they can and do, when getting ahead means putting in 40+ hours a week, and not loafing all day on a street corner in an inebriated/stoned condition. Accepting that fact would have saved millions of lives that were sacrificed in the last century in the attempt to build a perfect "worker's paradise".
Leaving the silly premise behind the play aside, Shaw has crafted a startling piece of theatre and uses his magisterial command of the English language to amuse, provoke, and amaze the audience.

The playwright uncovers the debate about war and pacifism. Shaw also illuminates the poverty industry, and shows that all money is tainted. The play is a vehicle for a debate on philosophies, the burning issues of the day. Shaw shows that the audience can laugh and think, in the same play. Probably Britain's best known playwright, after Shakespeare, Shaw shines in Major Barbara

Wallace is better known as "the other man" in the history of the discovery of the natural selection concept, and for his early studies on biogeography and tropical nature. But--and this is one of the things that makes him a fascinating figure for study--he was also an avid supporter of spiritualism. This book collects five of his essays on spiritualism (the three that went into the original edition of 1875, plus two added to a new edition published twenty years later). Wallace was a thoughtful and excellent writer, and the three main essays, at least, provide some very interesting fodder for thought--especially the one on David Hume and miracles. Unfortunately, nowhere in this collection can one find any indication of why and how Wallace's adoption of spiritualism fit into his overall worldview, natural selection and all, and why this over 100 year old work is still relevant to today's concerns.... Instead, one ends up scratching one's head and wondering, "Can any of this be true...?" Still, this is just about as good a treatment of why one should be interested in the subject as can be obtained, even now.

We had some great laughs reading this book with our 7 year old son Joël. He immediately identified with Julia and as parents we saw quite a bit of Julia in him. We have a baby as well so Joël laughed out loud as we read Julia's attempts at bossing her baby brother around. This is a fun, well written and illustrated book that is sure to bring warm chuckles to parents and great laughs to children. Although it does so in a 'fun' way, this delightful book nurtures mutual understanding between parent and child and sheds a playful light on the frustration little children feel with "being bossed around by everyone." It's as much a 'parenting' book as it is a fun child's story.

I read this book for a book report and really got into the plot line. It is a fantastic story about a young women's struggle in a man's world. It was fascinating and enthralling. A great book for people of all ages.

Philosophers should enjoy this one. The story is about coming to grips about who you are, expectations and perceptions. This book can be insightful for some, but for me, a little dry. Forster did not foster a logical basis for Rickie to fall in love - or a hopeless romantic one for that matter. From there, the story lost steam.

I find Forster an engaging and compelling writer. His novels often become absorbing despite flat passages and parts that, for me at least, are bordering on the unacceptable - the actions and thoughts of characters sometimes seem contrary to behaviour that seems at all natural to me.

I missed the sense of the exotic in this novel that I got from 'A Passage to India' and 'Where Angels Fear to Tread' - and yet the world of the priveleged in the UK and the cloisters of Cambridge University are exotic for me. It's just that they are so gloomy in this novel - gloomy and troubled. Even the countryside is blighted by the freight trains that repeatedly claim lives as they tramp the landscape.

This novel also has melodramatic elements that stretched my sense of credibility, however revelations of surprises are wonderfully managed. While my thoughts were heading in the right direction with the major revelation, when it did come it brought a true 'aha!' feeling - it made so much sense and yet I, like the characters in the story, had not seen it coming.

But, perhaps for me, the most disappointing aspect of this novel is its attitude towards the 'disadvantaged'. As in the movie 'Edward Scissorhand' the 'distorted' person, while capable of receiving small 'gifts of love' (as Morike put it - see Hugo Wolf's song 'Verborgenheit') it seems from these views of life that the realistic approach to the 'distorted' is that they are incapable of true happiness or fulfilment. This is a view I certainly don't subscribe to.

The Longest Journey's suspicious form and strange conclusions were quite accurately detected by Lionel Trilling who declared this novel in comparison to Forster's others to be his least perfect, least compact, least precisely formed and, simultaneously, his most brilliant, most dramatic, and most passionate. Such a multi-faceted existence is an exact indication of the risky and unfamiliar lines upon which modernists walked. One can assume that Trilling considered A Passage to India to be the wiser and more perfect of Forster's novels in comparison. Where A Passage to India is socio-political, The Longest Journey is personal. The philosophical issues portrayed can be interpreted as being in dialogue with Forster's fellow scholars, pontificating upon the arguments of his academic circles. Scholars who engaged with these same philosophical arguments will no doubt warm to the affable and ironical gestures Forster uses to argue his case.

The structure in which Forster composes The Longest Journey sometimes borders on an obsessive control of the novel's plot and particularly the characters. As the events of the story unfold, we see the frame leading us to a central statement about the human condition. The overemphasis of these points crowded with immense symbolism leads us to question the effectiveness of Forster's statements. Particular points in the story, such as Rickie's realisation that Stephen is his half brother and the reintroduction of Ansell teamed with Stephen, leave us in a troublesome position asking whether this highly personal story was sacrificed to the musically fluent style Forster was working. The Longest Journey's most difficult problem is that it introduces itself as a modernist novel whose commitment is to style, yet its story is obviously Forster's personal account of a series of emotions and events in his own life.

The narrator's voice and Rickie's are essentially interchangeable. The only difference between the two is that the narrator is consciously aware of what Rickie's subconscious knows, but can't admit. If Rickie were so closely intertwined with the authorial voice, then it would seem that there is no room for intimacy with the reader. Yet, the story redeems itself through Rickie's struggle because it is so personal in its metaphysical complications. It is only later in the story, as it drifts farther away from Rickie's consciousness that the emotional impact lets go and we are left wandering through labyrinths of overt symbolic designs. The design in which Rickie is brought to his end is ultimately unfulfilling because the tragedy of the human condition makes itself so poignantly clear when the story is brought full circle to the ending ominously predicted from the outset. Instead, we are asked to accept that no life is tragic because of the enduring factor a human's spiritual hope. If Stephen were created as a character more complicated than a pastoral hero, then this resolution might be effective. However, in the troublesome structure it exists in, it falls short of an enlightening resolution.

Within the complex faults that unfold from an authorial voice inseparable from a central character's consciousness, there is a meaning that resounds through. Apart from stylistic concerns, the modernists were intensely concerned about the human's existential crisis that results from an awareness of the bleak resistance to have faith in either scientific or theological assertions. Rickie is the only vehicle with which we can understand and interpret the complicity of an early twentieth century man's reality. The other characters exist as mere paper figures that serve stilted plot functions. It is through Rickie alone that we understand this particular metaphysical crisis. These sentiments are what make The Longest Journey an important work of modernist fiction in the historical sense. Its theoretical importance lies in the fact of its mismatched structural and sentimental tale's existence.

There is an odd coincidence between symbols he and other modernist writers use. For example, Rickie hangs a towel over a painted harp in the room he is sleeping in at Ansell's house just as Woolf wrote about Mrs. Ramsay hanging her shawl over the skull hanging in the children's bedroom. The symbolic meaning of this can be interpreted in various ways. Yet, in Woolf's writing the meaning makes itself abundantly more clear because the style with which she works supersedes the story in To the Lighthouse. This is why To the Lighthouse is a more successful modernist experiment. A writer that does not work within the laws of the form in which they are working will inevitably fail in their efforts. Forster does not seem to be ignorant of these laws, but he is so enthusiastic about the application of them that his obsessive use of the stylistics becomes rather inappropriate.

Forster often declaimed himself as "not a great novelist". The reason he felt this was probably because he was not able to abide by the standards that he himself set as the qualifications for great novels. This is, at least, the primary objection to be made toward The Longest Journey. In Aspects of the Novel Forster writes, "The novelist who betrays too much interest in his own method can never be more than interesting; he has given up the creation of character and summoned us to help analyse his own mind, and a heavy drop in the emotional thermometer results". The obsessive control of style as an opposition to the driving story he wanted to tell in The Longest Journey proves to be a fatal merging of a novelist who wants to keep with the artistic innovations of his time. Forster is too aware of his use of stylistic method to make the novel a wholly satisfactory piece of literature. Yet, because there is so much of Forster in the novel, it remains a very interesting book to serious and passionate readers.