I've never read poetry this honest, this heart-wrenching, this intense, this passionate, this realistic, this humorous, this painful... I could go on for ages, but it would turn into drooling dribble. Olds is amazingly talented. Her work is graphic, as real life is, and not to be taken lightly. Buy it, commit to reading it, appreciate her world view.

Emily Dickinson once said something to the extent of, that when she felt that the top of her head had been taken off, she knew that was true poetry. That's how I felt while reading The Gold Cell, and I assure you, that's a great thing. This is an incredibly powerful read and well worth your time.

Sharon Olds delves deeply into the heart of what it means to be human in her collection of poems, "The Gold Cell." I am continually amazed as to how she deals with taboo subjects, such as sex, religion, and morality, with direct and shockingly vivid language. In this particular collection of poems, Olds uses the image of blood to represent various motifs; the blood between family ties, its relation to sex and the body, and even the patriotic sense and the "Americaness" of blood. Using this single word, Olds is able to create an infinite number of images and meanings that go far beyond the common notion that blood is what supplies the body with life. This is by far one of the most influential books of poetry that I have encountered in my career. I do not recommend it to those who are squimish or who are prone to heart-failure at the mention of the word "sex" or "penis." While most of her poems are alluring and evocative, many will shock you with their unabashed treatment of sensitive subjects. For those of you who wish to divulge into the mind of what it means to be human, I whole-heartedly recommend this collection of poetry. Olds' poems not only examine what it means to be human but what it means to be moral beings. Prepare for a journey that will reveal the emotional and raw psychology of the human mind.

This is the best outdoor writing I've ever read. Awesome storie

This trilogy is probably the best rendition of hunting fishing adventures that I have ever read. These stories contain no grandiose panoramic gushing descriptions of landscape or sunsets, just simple, clarity. A great read.

Most outdoor writing is a bit boring: ". . . and then he hit my Royal Coachman like a freight train,[etc.]. . . ." Not these stories! MacQuarrie puts you right in the stream or field with him, without effort and with great, subtle humor. Only when he mentions an automobile do you realize these were written in the 20's and 30's. He wrote with the parsimonious beauty of Hemmingway. Read only one story per night, lest you get through the three volumns too fast.

GAMEKIDS, international natural play webmagazine and club highly recommends this book to our members. The book features some of the best games for children of all ages to play. The book contains some of the classics - many of which children today perhaps have never heard of (i.e. kick the can, run sheep run, horse, etc.)

There are over 200 games: outside games, car games, card games, singing games and campfire songs, and some of the best party games we've seen!

This is truely a classic which every family, school, and library should have!

What a precious book. From the day I read about it in the paper, I was interested. Several of my friends look for ways to entertain our kids at their birthday parties. This book itself is a birthday parthday theme. I ordered two just from reading the review in the paper. I just received them today. I have read it and are now at the computer ordering more for several kids birthday's. Kids spend to much time watching games on TV and not enough time playing them. The book encourages family time, too. You can tell it was written from her heart with the true love for children and their happiness. Thank you for writing this book!

I personally know Sharon O'Bryan and have read her book. This is a great, back to the basics, approach to FUN!!! Its educational, fair and most of all FUN!!! I would suggest this book to anyone involved with children, whether it be ina school, daycare, or camp type setting.

"Satan Says" is the first collection of Olds' poetry which I have read (although I've come across her poems once or twice in anthologies). I found the poems in "Satan Says" to be not only startling and brutally honest, but beautifully crafted as well. Her work reminded me greatly of Marie Howe, another female poet writing on (among other things) the body's oft-ignored sensuality even in the face of an abusive world (or family). Her poems seem to fuse the simple craftsmanship and obersational talents of haiku with the frankness of Anne Sexton, giving us a treatise as much related to the body, childbirth, sexuality, dying, and agression as to metaphysics. Genuine and powerful, highly recommended!

This collection handles even the most disturbing personal matters in ways which are both accessible and enlightening to the reader. As human and inspired as her later books.

This is a brilliant, sad and utterly endearing first collection of poetry by one of North America's most amazing and blistering narrative poets. Michael Ondaatje says, "Sharon Olds's poems are pure fire in the hands--risky, on the verge of falling, and in the end leaping up. I love the roughness and humor and brag and tenderness and completion in her work as she carries the reader through rooms of passion and loss." --look also at Gary Short's "Flying Over Sonny Liston"--wonderful boyhood poems set against a flat Nevada landscape--

You'll laugh out loud, you'll cry, you'll bite your nails!!

Not only does Terran Moffat easily draws you right into her richly detailed and somewhat alien world of the planet Nyorfias, she also writes her characters with such vivid intensity you can't help but get caught up in this truly enjoyable book.

Sgt. Rett Teno and her squadron of hot-shot special forces commandos are the key players in a war against an evil alien coalition bent on enslaving and exploiting their beautiful planet. Fighting against nearly impossible odds with relatively inferior weapons, Rett's team uses every advantage it has to defeat their enemies. By far, the strongest of these is the Nyorfian people's fierce love for their planet. If you're like me, you'll love the closeness, comradery, and undying sense of humor this team shows in the face of terror and near-certain death!

Pam, Rett's "ego-merge" companion from planet Earth, is along for the ride (most of the time) from right inside Rett's head, giving us not only a dual perspective but also plently of comic relief. Somehow, a benevolent alien "entity" has pulled off this trick as he fights the war on an entirely different plane of existance.

Book one of Journey to Nyorfias is the most enjoyable fantasy science-fiction book I've read since this genre was at it's peak 15-20 years ago. I've waited for a story like this for a LONG TIME! Not only does it have all the elements necessary to make a truly great fantasy/sci-fi classic, but has almost non-stop action and adventure that keeps you turning the pages and makes you greedy for more. I was NOT able to put this one down, and am really looking forward to the next installment. Highly recommended to all fans of fantasy and science fiction!

This is a charming book by a skilled Southern storyteller. Darrow takes what could be a lightweight folk tale and adds a sophisticated moral that doesn't underestimate its (young) readers. The illustrations nicely compliment the book, adding just the right amount of whimsy.

This was an wonderful story. My child loved the illustrations and the "fiddle-dee" and other repeated phrases throughout the book. It was a long story but flowed very well keeping my child's interest to the very end of the book. She loves the horse named Old Thunder and the tale about how the biscuits were made. We also plan to bake the biscuits from the recipe on the back cover. I recommend this book to anyone with small children with a love of horses and horse stories.

I'm a friend of the author and wanted to share some reviews of the book:

"There has never been a poetry quite like this before, so passionately and understandably barbaric...and, withal, stormily beautiful, at the border where beauty tolerates the sublime." --- Calvin Bedient, Parnassus

"Magnificently intricate...Tory Dent's book of poems is about much more than AIDS. This is a complex, bold work not afraid to be cerebral (makes your brain sweat)... that challenges the way this disease -- born of, surrounded and perpetuated by silence -- is represented" -- Gabrielle Glancy, Poetry Flash

"Some of the most exciting new verse anyone's written in a very long time. We are reading the construction of a life force in all its glory...the bigness of her imagery is matched by an emotional gigantism throughout that sustains the immensity of the threat she's experiencing." -- Eileen Myles, Denver Quarterly

"Verbosity and passion mark Dent's collection of poems. The poems roll out of their language and rhythms, and what seems to matter is that rolling force...it's a language machine. These poems follow the criss-crossing path over the line dividing life and death. Dante may be the closest analogue since he, like this speaker, had a guide and spoke of a personal crisis...yet this guide knows no more than the poet...this guide offers no consolation." -- Nora Mitchell and Emily Skoler, New England Review

This is one of the most important volumes of poetry in our time. I have been dazzled by the bravery and the intimacy of this great poetry. Like a contemporary Dostoevsky stood up against a wall for execution and even more excruciatingly pardoned, for a time, this young woman has created a poetry pof survival and p[ersistence and pluck that puts her elders to shame. A true shame. Who has written, iun the last decade, any poem as powerful as her Jade or as Poem for a Poem? She has taken the hedonism and whimsy of the New York Schpool and strangled it severely. Though shre has suffered, she has created, like Ginsberg, a poetry of comradely love and blistering vision. She has given us a book of this era, fresh as a snapshot, elongated as a dirge. We all look forward to her continued courage; we look forward to her next book, like a letter that we hardly deserve. This is a poet who has dealt with an infinite burden, with the virogorous wit of a revolutionary.

It isn't very often that I get time to read fiction anymore, but when I read a good book I feel a certain responsibility to let people know about it. I'm James Drury, and I've played in plenty of Western shows myself. For those of you who don't know me I portrayed The Virginian on NBC television for many years. So I hope that qualifies me to leave a review on a Western book. Of course I could say the same thing about any Elmore Leonard book I've had the pleasure of reading, but the Bounty Hunters was great. It was short and to the point, but Leonard has this way of giving you such a great feel for the country and old West settings it just makes the book pleasant. He excels at making us see what he does in very few words. I have read all of the Western novels of Kirby Jonas on audio, and while I of course think he is my favorite author of Westerns, I have to say I have never read a bad Elmore Leonard book, and The Bounty Hunters is no exception. I don't know Leonard's history as far as how he does his research. I know Kirby Jonas lived in southeast Arizona when he was working on his first books, however, and it seems to me that Leonard has done a large amount of work in getting the facts about the Arizona and Mexico country down pat. I guess I've gotten into the habit of comparing every Western author not to Louis L'Amour but to Kirby Jonas, and although I would never put Leonard above Jonas I would sure say his books would "do to ride the river," with Jonas', so to speak. Give the Bounty Hunters a try. Right now I'm starting into Escape from Five Shadows, and it already holds great promise!

Since I was given three of Elmore Leonards westerns by a good friend of mine I have been buying and reading them often. As yet I have not read a bad one. So far they are ALL GOOD.

Forty Lashes Less One is a great story. Two prisoners, Chiricahua Raymond San Carlos and a black man Harold Jackson are in Yuma prison for murder. At first they are bitter enemies but the warden puts them in an experiment to see if a training routine of long distance running can be used for rehabilatation. And then the warden sends them after 5 mean dangerous men. The trail is rough and bloody but they are sucessfull. As soon as they bring these men in they tell the warden to kiss !!! . A great story, you'll love it.

The words of Olds' poems in this book encompass such daring, personal subjects that I was left stunned. Who else but Sharon Olds could make a beautiful poem about watching menstrual blood flow into the toilet by comparing it to ballet dancers? Who else would push the enevelope of public disgust enough to compare vaginal secretion and diamonds? She speaks and glorifies the unmentionable and ugly. In this way, she truly remakes the female body as she writes of it. The experience of reading Olds is not just intellectual; it is a visceral enlightenment.

Sharon is a relative of mine, but before I knew that I knew her poetry. Again and again she has inspired me with the power she puts into her poetry--this collection is purely that, a collection, and claims to be nothing more, which is perhaps the most powerful aspect of her work. I look at my work and hers, and no one could deny that we think on the same wavelength...but yet....there is something unexplainable in her poems that I can never grasp, and that she rules.

to every poem and thus, the reader. Old's newest book of poems has given me the light to transcend the hoi poloi of ordinary verse. Long live a true vates!

The Old Woman's Cat is a delightful collection of 12 short stories, some wickedly funny, some full of dark revenge and tasty justice. "Spectre", a romance, was one of my favorites but "Demise of a Vampire" had me laughing and wanting more. "Mother Mouse", "Skeleton Key" and "Images" could be about the family next door (oh, you hope it isn't!), and "Identity" comes from our deepest fears of losing our own identity.
These are delicious stories of ordinary folk just like you and me--with a twist from a good author. These stories will keep you shivering and looking at familiar things with new aprehension.
It's also a must-have book for campfire nights!

Sharon King-Booker's, THE OLD WOMAN'S CAT, AND OTHER STORIES is an intriguing collection of short stories on a variety of themes. The stories are of varied length as well as subject matter, but all are fast-paced, with twists and surprises interwoven. Ms. King-Booker has created believeable characters who do seemingly ordinary things--however-- For good light reading, THE OLD WOMAN'S CAT is a delightful choice.

This book was difficult to put down once I began reading. Ms King-Booker has the ability to build suspense and hold your attention without a doubt. I will be waiting for her next book to come out.