Whether you are visiting Los Angeles or live here, this book is filled with things to do that you never would have thought of or even knew existed. Tons of fun!

As an LA native, I must say that this book is right on the money. Although I'd have to disagree when the author refers to "the city" as consisting only of Downtown (any true native knows that "the city" is Mulholland to the 10, and Downtown to the beach!), everything else is just perfect. I learned things that even my 26 years of exploring never showed me. It's a great book for travellers, especially those who have never been and don't have friends here (it is truly difficult to navigate the SIZE of Los Angeles without a guide!) . But it's also a great book for those of us who have lived here all of our lives!

This is not your typical travel guide. In fact, it's more like a mini sociological study of LA with great tips on where to watch the natives in their local habitat. LA isn't so much a city as it is a collection of neighborhoods, and author Jeff Spurrier does a great job of describing how this all works. The book is a handy size for carrying along, so you can take advantage of the manuy great maps as you tour the area. Spurrier warns you again and again that the only way to really get around LA is by car, but he does offer alternatives for those intimidated by the freeways and/or parking dilemma. His selection of hotels and restaurants is broad - everything from Beverly Hills luxury to places with lots of attitude but not much polish. In many ways, the rest of the book is an ideal primer for anyone moving to LA or planning to spend lots of time there. Not only will you find a carefully selected list of recreational options, but you will also get helpful hints on when to go and how to get there. There is a great section on what to do - and not to do - with children, but there is no mention of Disneyland. Indicative, I think, of how this book is a true insider's guide to the city, not just a promotion for tourisim.

Some of the stories here are great. One of my favorites is the one on Yawgmoth's rise and reign of power. Some of the stories are incredibly gory and 'graphic', at least for a book. An interesting Anthology that I enjoyed even more than Colors of Magic.

Jess Lebow's second MTG anthology edit, this book is better than the year's previous, Colors of Magic. In addition to the exciting tells of the folklore of Dominaria, there is also a preview chapter of J. Robert King's novel Invasion (October 2000) where Phyrexia let's it's thousands of ships and armies fight for Yawgmoth's homeland (to true MTG storyline fans, the book is worth it just for the chapter alone).

It was a pleasure reading the book with such a good array of writers. I hope you all enjoy it too.

I wanted ten stars but they wouldn't give it to me. So I had to make due with 5. That should tell you most of what you need to know about this book. But I'll give you a little more info to help you decide to get this book. For one thing, it has many of the great authors of the Magic: The Gathering novels. But with it's interesting stories this book is a one of a kind, great for all M:TG players and readers. One book this summer, Myths of Magic is it. Read this book!

Jess Stearn writes in a very understandable form for people who know little about yoga. I bought this book twenty some years ago and I was inspired but was not in bad enough condition to follow through. Now it is more important than ever to get in shape and stay there. This book has many drawings of the exercises that I have not found in other books on yoga. Plus it has written descriptions with the drawings. All very helpful for beginners who don't want to start a class all stiff and rigid. I will take a class next to learn how to do these exercises even better. Yoga is the way to go.

I also read this book in 1969 and still use it today. It is a wonderful story that should be read by every teen-ager. They would never need drugs. I read this book, started taking yoga classes, and have been healthier, happier and drug free.

Jess Stearn takes us through his exploration of yoga using a middle-aged, somewhat skeptical, Western writer's approach to this ageless Eastern discipline. This is not a theoretical discussion or scholarly dissertation. Stearn actually spent 3 months living with Marcia Moore and her husband at their ashram in Concord as a resident student. During this time, with infinite patience and good humour, Moore taught him the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits of yoga, and Stearn despite his initial doubts became a loyal convert. Stearn is an excellent and interesting writer. The book includes 3 sets of exercises for beginner, middle, and advanced stages, and the exercise positions are well illustrated. I only wish it was still available in hard-copy. I only have one of my original 4 Bantam paper-backs left. The other 3 were lent out and never returned

I ABSOLUTY loved the story, very engaging and powerful. I however didn't like how she wrote in a few spots, and I felt the begining was weak, but the powerful story line mostly made up for that.

I read this book awhile ago, and loved it. Being an animal lover, I appreciated the care with which the author described the horses, and how much personality they had; they were an actual part of the story, rather than just beasts of burden (this is true to one extent or another of all her writing). I also appreciated the fact that while she included a romance, sex wasn't particularly present. I get tired of some fantasy authors who seem to think that if they throw enough sex in, it compensates for lacks such as plot, character development, or action; also authors that just plain write it in all the time. Finally, she had a somewhat original and creative idea; others have written about animals becoming people or vice versa, but none that I've ever read had as much realism in that description, or as much consideration of what that would actually mean for the individual involved (especially if it is an animal becoming human). All in all, I loved this book and would highly recommend it.

This is the first novel by Durgin and is unusually well written for a first work. It is also the first in a series about a horse, Dun Lady's Jess, who becomes a human. Her owner is Arlen of Anfeald, a senior wizard of Camolen, but her master is Carey, head rider of the Anfeald couriers.

Arlen has discovered a spell for crossing over to other dimensions and needs help developing a checkspell to prevent unscrupulous exploition of other continua. He sends Carey to Sherra, a member of the Wizards Council, with a full report on the new spell. Warning Carey that other wizards know of the new spell, Arlen provides a stone carrying the spell and orders Carey to use it if danger appears.

Carey and Lady are ambushed and Carey is shot with an arrow, pulling Lady hard to the right. As they plunge over a cliff, Carey invokes the spellstone and they go elsewhere.

Lady, transformed to a human, lands in a meadow in Ohio with her tack lying atop and around her. She is found by Eric and Dayna, who take her home with them. Since Jess is new to the human business, she is a strange, possibly crazy, woman. At first she seems to be mute -- after all, horses don't talk -- but soon learns how to make the funny sounds that she has heard all her life. She calls Dayna and Eric by name, and tells them her own, and then goes on a orgy of word learning. When Eric brings in the tack, Jess says the saddlebags belong to Carey. When she identifies herself as a horse, also belonging to Carey whom she has lost and wants to find, they take her to Jaime at the Dancing Equine Dressage Center, where Jess meets Mark, Jaime's brother.

While Eric tries to find Carey by calling nearby hospitals, Jaime questions Jess and then puts her to work in the stables. A stranger shows up looking for a dun mare with black points and identifies himself as Derrick, living at the LK hotel. Jaime notices that the description would match Jess if she was a horse. Moreover, Jess displays an unusual ability in reading horse body language. Jaime is beginning to suspect the unthinkable.

Jaime tells the others about Derrick at the LK hotel, where Dayna and Mark work. Using her passkey, Dayna finds Carey, drugged and helpless, in Derrick's room as well as a bow and quiver of arrows. She is almost caught by Derrick, but escapes and returns to The Dancing to tell of her discovery. They return to the hotel while Mark is on duty and rescue Carey. Then things start to get interesting.

Eventually, Jess, Dayna, Eric, Jaime and Carey cross over to Camolen. They are accidently accompanied by Ernie, a gunman hired by Derrick, and land in the middle of a siege.

While the novel is fantasy, there are a few points that strain even that loose standard. The spell itself provides the ability to speak English, yet the rapidity with which Jess learns to speak and read is truly fantastic. However, Durgin provides an explanation at the very beginning: the intercontinual transients are connected to their home dimension by a thread of magic that powers any spells invoked in the other continuum. Apparently that also powers magical talents -- such as language learning -- possessed by the travellers.

This is truly a horse lover's fantasy. While very ignorant of horse affairs, I feel that the horsey thinking underlying Jess's personality rings true with my experiences. Durgin really knows her horses.

Being someone who devours anything written regarding Haiti, I was excited to read "Bones Become Flowers", but was soon skipping entire passages as the author became mired in description that did nothing to further the story. Also there are times when an author can believably write from the other gender's perspective and get it right, unfortunately this was not the case here. It was pretty obvious that the author was a male, not in tune with what a 30+ female thinks, feels, admires etc.

The most disappointing thing was the ending. In all honesty, "Bones Become Flowers" was a waste of money.

This is the kind of book where the author takes the reader on a journey to Haiti along with the American woman, Tracy, who has in mind to give aid to children in an orphanage. But Tracy is cautious, and sees strange things on the island, at the time inexplicable to her. She keeps her own counsel and begins to allow herself an awareness of the mythic culture surrounding her. She hears of wild boys upon a ship, eventually meets these boys, and becomes fascinated with their lives. All is wrapped in rich jungle fauna, the steaming earth, and Vodoo. Tracy opens herself to unfamiliar concepts and eventually decides upon a course that will change her whole life in unforseen ways. The images are so vivid and rich, I felt myself there on the journey and ever curious for what would come next. The only thing that bothered me was the author's description of Tracy's thoughts, as they seemed not quite on target, as a man writing a woman. This was a minor flaw overall, considering the lush content and fullness of the prose.

I can certainly understand why a few women, as well as (possibly) a few men, might not like the protagonist, Tracy, in this wonderful novel of Voodu, adventure and love. After all, she is brave, resourceful, intelligent, well-read and traveled, speaks several languages, and is quite open-minded. And not so very frightened of spiders and things with "too many legs". Of course these qualities are completely unbelievable for a woman to possess, especially when combined with logic and reasoning, and therefore the entire book should be dismissed as "a waste of money". However, my only regrets in buying this book are that it isn't available in hardcover or in French.

The begining was great Guy walks into police station to confess but plot warps out Leaving a gap.where the only thing worth remebering was a set-up Cant see this one getting great reviews

Clark Mason arrives in the Spokane police department one Friday night, looking like any other homeless person. Only he isn't. Behind his disheveled appearance, his mysterious eye patch and his quirky behavior, he holds information to a murder.

Not believing him at first, Detective Caroline Mabry discards him as a lunatic, a nuisance, a bother. Clark soon convinces her, however, that there is more to his story than meets the eye. Under her consent, he proceeds to write his self-proclaimed confession for the next nineteen hours.

While Clark is busy penning his confession, Caroline is busy tracking down the tiny pieces of information she gleans from him. Slowly, she pieces together the story he is writing, his confession of how everything went wrong with his world.

But is he really a murderer? And if he is, whom did he murder?

Despite protests that usually an investigation starts with a body, not a killer, Clark is determined to convey his story to her in the best way he knows how: through the telling of his life story, and all the events leading up to the day he met Caroline.

Land of the Blind is an intriguing novel from start to finish, right down to its unusual chapter titles. Written unlike any other crime novel, its vivid descriptions and unusual twists keep the reader guessing. At times humorous and at times horrifying, this novel moves fluidly between the past and the present to tell a story unlike any other.

Jess Walter's second novel, LAND OF THE BLIND, transcends the form and formulae of the police procedural mystery. The central character who has confessed to a homicide says, "There aren't even names for some of the crimes we commit". While ostensibly about murder, it is those unnamed crimes which most interest Walter and, through him, the reader. LAND OF THE BLIND reminds me of John Irving's SAVING PIGGY SNEED.

Caroline Mabry is a police detective in Spokane Washington who has been relegated to swing shift because she is burned out. Patrol officers bring in an apparent derelict caught breaking into the long-vacant Davenport Hotel who has told them he committed a murder. The one-eyed "loon" refuses to give either his name or the name of his victim, but says he will write out a confession for Caroline. Ensconced in an interview room, he starts filling page after page of a legal pad. We read segments of this confession (which begins in fifth grade) as it is written. Caroline has agreed to wait until it is finished, but cajoles from the confessee the name of one of the people who figure in the confession. Armed with that, she starts to unravel the story backwards from the present as the confession gradually unveils the past. Despite its static form, Walter keeps the story's suspense building right to the final page.

He does a marevlous job of showing the cruelties of childhood and adolescence played out in the poor Empire Road district, which is "pinched like an ant farm" against the Spokane River. The social landscape of Spokane and the cultural divide between it and Seattle are thoroughly explored. Even though a central character says "Spokane is Kmart and Seattle is Nordstrom", Walter's heart clearly belongs to Spokane. He jibes contemporary Seattle with, "We turned every gas station into a coffee shop, and by the time I left Seattle you could get four hundred flavors of coffee, but you couldn't find a decent gallon of gas".

In LAND OF THE BLIND the one-eyed man leads us over moral terrain where sins of commission and omission perpetrated by Jess Walter's characters may remind us uncomfortably of our own.

Well, Magic keeps rolling down the highway of good books with its first "Anthology Anthology" (unlike the pitiful "Rath and Storm"), known as "The Colors of Magic." My perticular favorite story was Jeff Grubb's "Loran's Smile", and Feldon's quest to get Loran back by any means possible. He gives everything, but he gains much more. The clunker was the story of Black Magic, which I read three times and still did not understand. It made me want to rip those pages out of the book, so poor was the short story. Overall: Read Red, White, and Gold. Do not read: Black. Everything else is vanilla.

This book was amazing! Every story was great! Some were very ironic and full of satire. Others were sad and even others were full of action. This book helps to explain what the colors of magic are all about. Awesome job authors!

This is an awesome book if you enjoy reading Magic: The Gathering. This book is composed of a number of short stories seperated into different color sections. Each section has 1-3 enchanting tales that relate to that M:TG color. All in all, it is a great book for M:TG readers.

One of the best books on personality theories. I found mostly fascinating the sections concerning the current findings in personality research. Very serious, detailed and juicy material. A great book to buy and own.

I had this book in a class during my undergrad studies , and I absolutely loved it. This book accomplishes the great goal of explaining complez psychological terms and conditions in way that the reader does not have to be a genius to comprehend it.

This is a great book. It covers many different theories on how personality works from different psychological perspectives. Each section helps the reader understand the different views of each theory of personality and how it functions within the mind. One comes away from this book understanding a little bit more about the hows and whys of personality. A great introduction to psychology in general for anybody ranging from student to non-student, specialist to non-specialist. I highly recommend it.

I too thought the book was funny, although not known to be a comedy book. I liked the stories Dave's mom had to tell. The pie crust failed miserably though. What's with [modern] women these days? Have we forgotten how to cook?

Here is a book that has all of the recipes of foods enjoyed throughout a babyboomer's lifetime. The chicken casserole is my favorite and it is a standard of mine now. There are a lot of photographs of the finished product and nothing is too esoteric.

This is a great cookbook for all cooks. Most of the recipes are very simple. You have to try the fried bologna sandwiches!

Power of alpha-thinking, what is that? That is why I read the book and also because it didnt seem that big. It is written in a very nice and easy language and it keeps you interrested most of the time. But it leaves something behind, a new idea and makes you think in general about your unexploited potencials. I have after I read the book done a litle bit of the practices described in the book and yes I feel differences, I really do, though not at all as dramatic as the book describes. A good read for the open minded! Regards, Arni

If you liked the Celestine Prophecy, then you will enjoy this book. It dives more into the science behind altered states of awareness with such things as biofeedback, but is not written like a technical manual or text book. I had no problem keeping my interest peaked througout. I chuckled to myself when I found that the author seemed intent on making the reader aware that he always found himself next to the prettiest woman in the room on several occasions. Regardless, it was very informative and an easy read.

If you can get your hands on this book I strongly recommend it. The author goes into many different areas of mind exploration including healing yourself and others with your mind. All aspects of your life can be improved by "going within." This is a fantastic book that should be in print. This book has nothing in common whatsoever with the Celestine Prophecies which I did not care for.