Any newcomer to sf looking for a place to start could do no better than 'The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume I.' The collection includes some of the very best sf stories from 1929 to 1964, as nominated by members of SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) and chosen by editor Robert Silverberg. They include such classics as:

"Nightfall" Isaac Asimov (perhaps the most famous sf story ever)
"Scanners Live in Vain" Cordwainer Smith
"The Nine Billion Names of God" Arthur C. Clarke

"Flowers for Algernon" Daniel Keyes
"A Rose for Ecclesiastes" Roger Zelazny
just to name a handful

So many other powerhouse writers are also represented: Ray Bradbury, John W. Campbell, Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, James Blish, Alfred Bester, Damon Knight...the list goes on and on and on.

If I could only have one book of sf stories, this would be the one. A classic.

672 pages

Any newcomer to sf looking for a place to start could do no better than 'The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume I.' The collection includes some of the very best sf stories from 1929 to 1964, as nominated by members of SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) and chosen by editor Robert Silverberg. They include such classics as:

"Nightfall" Isaac Asimov (perhaps the most famous sf story ever)
"Scanners Live in Vain" Cordwainer Smith
"The Nine Billion Names of God" Arthur C. Clarke

"Flowers for Algernon" Daniel Keyes
"A Rose for Ecclesiastes" Roger Zelazny
just to name a handful

So many other powerhouse writers are also represented: Ray Bradbury, John W. Campbell, Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, James Blish, Alfred Bester, Damon Knight...the list goes on and on and on.

If I could only have one book of sf stories, this would be the one. A classic.

672 pages

If you ever had an interest in science fiction, you simply must go out and find these books. Classic, defining stories from the days of science fiction when giants walked the earth and there were no special effects, just ideas and the need to tell a story in less then 5000 words.

Read classics like "Flowers for Algernon" and "The Cold Equations" and see what visionaries some of these authors were. Read "Nightfall" and see Isaac Asimov in his prime, or "Mimsy Were The Borogroves" and muse on the time when sci-fi wasn't written to fit on a Taco Bell cup.

Any one of these stories is worth the price of the book. Nothing else to say. Find it, buy it, read it, keep it.

Captain Ted Lawson is a good writer in addition to being a heroic man. Just two years after piloting one of the B-25 Mitchells in a bombing raid over Tokyo -- a mission that wreaked some damage and served as a rallying point for America -- he has crafted a fine book.

I had read this book many years ago when I as 12. I was motivated to reread this book after seeing the blockbuster movie "Pearl Harbor" which goes on from that day of infamy to also include this counterstrike. And I am glad I did reread the book. The book covers the training and the mission in great detail, as well as his escape from China which covers about half the book. The book was written and published between 1942-1943 and there is a great deal of heart-felt emotion in the book about the war and the Japanese.

Also significant I thought is the context in which Lawson places this mission and the amputation of his leg -- they are events, albeit very significant events, that are stepping stones to his true purposes of family life and career.

The mission was great, and had a great effect of America at the time. There is probably no better account of this part of history than this book by Lawson.

As a junior high school student and avaition/WWII buff, 33yrs ago, this was just the kind of book for me. I used this book for numberous book reports through out my school career. I recommend this book for all young people to read and remind them what their grandparents went through to help keep this country free of tyrannny I will always remember, April 18,1942, the "Ruptured Duck" and "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo".

This is one of the best books I have ever read and should be a must read for all history students. In addition to the historical importance of the Doolittle Raid, this book brings the reader a personal narrative of the event. If you are a fan of aviation or WWII history, then this is book is for you. I enjoyed it so much that I read it cover-to-cover, back-to-back! I haven't done that with a book in a long time.

apart from the magnificent photographs and compelling text,this book is powerful because it forces a reader to think about the shameful issue of america's prisons. at a time when most citizens would rather look at the latest celebrity du jour on the cover of every magazine, a work of art that presents real people -- most often old, a no-no in this society -- in grim situations should be applauded. "prisoners of age" peers into the abyss with courage and the result is the antithesis of fantasyland.

I found the book Prisoners of Age to be a very powerful and revealing collection of portraits and photo essays. The images were on par with the photography of Richard Avedon and Mary Ellen Mark. This book forces you to slow down and think about our aging prison population not just as a number but as real people with hopes and dreams. This book does not attempt to pass judgment about the incarceration of the aged but lets the viewer draw his or her own conclusions. The overall quality of the book is outstanding with first rate printing and cutting edge design and layout that showcases the photography.

I spent hours browsing the sobering and, at times, shocking stories of these aged and infirm inmates in the prison system of the southern U.S. The portraiture, stunning design and layout of this book made it a thoroughly engaging read. I only hope the "Prisoners of Age" exhibition itself comes to the east coast so that I can have a chance to see it in person.

Don't think Rubber Neckers is just for kids during family vacations. I own a business and a job required us to send four employees to a customer's site, 3 hours away. I left Rubber Neckers on the dashboard. I can't tell you the laughs and fun my employees had on this trip. It built comradery amongst them and they arrived at the job site eager to work efficiently so they could hurry back to the car. Now they want their children to play. It's addicting.

Where was this game when I was a kid? I bought this for a recent long car trip with the kids and we all had a great time playing it. Now even if we are driving thru town someone will call out items that they have found. It is entertaining for the whole family!

This is a great game to have for car trips (especially the long ones)! Plus, I've found that my kids (ages 4 & 6) are even learning new items... things they didn't know before, now they do. To make it simpler though, we just made it team game, instead of indiviually. And we don't keep score (so there are no hard feelings). We just have a great time finding things together!

For family fun in the car... buy this game! It's great!!

I used this book from about pg 200 of Ulysses onward, and I think it's just about indispensable. There should not be any embarrassment in this: unless you know Latin, German, French, Hebrew (together with a good cross-section of literature from all these languages), Catholic & Jewish culture, English literature more or less entire, and (hardest of all) Dublin slang, culture, politics, and all the knick-knacks of daily life from 1904, Ulysses presents many baffling passages. This book helps out with all these things, plus plenty of other stuff: myths, songs, internal reference cross-indexing (for those of us who can't remember that Stephen Daedalus thought of the same Latin quotation 600 pages earlier), Joyce's basic scheme for each section, and more.

There are two failings, and they are minor: (1) there are still plenty of obscure words and phrases that aren't annotated (the introduction acknowledges this) and conversely (2) there are a number of things that don't need annotations that get them (particularly galling are the annotations that simply tell you that they don't know what Joyce is talking about either).

Still, an essential reference, and pretty entertaining in its own right (like flipping through an encyclopedia or Brewer's Phrase & Fable).

"Ulysses Annotated" is an essential Book for reading, and understanding Ulysses, and the previous four reviewers are right on the mark. It is impossible, even for a well read reader to understand Joyce's allusions without this extremely well presented, and well priced, Reference book.

Introduction, prefaces and notes explain how to use this book, and how it was compiled. Each episode is preceeded by a map of where the action takes place helping the reader to visualize the movements of Bloom and Stephen. Each entry is preceeded by the Chapter Number and Line Number according to the Gabler edition of "Ulysses". In addition, a fairly comprehensive index cross-references all entries. If the reader wants to find all allusions pertaining, for example, to the Book of Luke, these can be easily found. I found this Index quite useful.

Personally, I found the following method best for using the book. First, to skim through the allusions, marking those of particular interest, and then laying the book side by side with the Novel and reading the Episode.

As for realiability, I took Gifford and Seidman up on their offered Short Title List, and was able to find almost every reference, including "Thom's Official Directory of the United Kingdom and Great Britain and Ireland for the Year 1904", and have found them to be reliable in their entries.

This Book should suffice for reading, and understanding Ulysses, though many a reader may get caught up by Joyce, as I did, so that the following may be useful: Weldon Thornton: "Allusions in Ulysses", Richard Ellman: "James Joyce", Harry Blamires: "The New Bloomsday Book", Stuart Gilbert: "James Joyce's Ulysses", and of course "The Riverside Shakespeare", "The Oddyssey", and the Bible.

All the surface details, references to mythology, history, politics, music, literature, etc, can be found in this book (Joyce's novel is not included within, just the annotations, but it still clocks in at 700 pages!). If you want to know exactly what Joyce was referring to--this is the place. However, it won't necessarily tell you what he MEANT (aheheh, some things must be left to the reader).

Of course, if you've never read Ulysses you don't need to know every obscure reference. Just pick up REJOYCE or THE NEW BLOOMSDAY BOOK, which have generalized overviews of the novel. This is for the deep scholars. But as Joyce said, all he expects of his readers is that they study his works for the rest of their lives.

This will keep you busy.

Bob Ray and Jack Remick must have very clean offices. Mine was a disaster zone until I read THE WEEKEND NOVELIST WRITES A MYSTERY.

I was laughing to myself reading WEEKEND NOVELIST. Ray and Remick have nice little flow charts. I had piles of gum wrappers and old envelopes with a few words scribbled on them ("where's the dog in chapter 10?" or "top boat speed 40 mph - police boats 60 mph from Emerald Point -- do math"). You won't find a chapter here for "waking up in the middle of the night with your brain taken over by your story, padding through a freezing house in your bahtrobe (knocking into coffee table with shin bone), and staring bleary-eyed at the computer till dawn." Which is how most of my book got written. My shins were bruised for a year and a half.

My shins are still bruised, I confess. I should move that coffee table. But I can thank Bob Ray and Jack Remick for helping me organize my thoughts and my time for my second novel. My office is cleaner for it. And my writing is cleaner too. Read the book. It will help you clean up your act as a mystery writer.

'The Weekend Novelist Writes A Mystery' is not just for mystery writers. Ray/Remick instruct with hard fast tools for scene, plot and character development. There's a backstory checklist and advice on sub plots; ideas for setting that utilize place, time, lighting and season to identify character behavior.

If dialog is your demon Ray/Remick break it into manageable portions; the one-two rhythm, linking to setting, echo words and hooking to the past or future. If you have a tendency to explain dialog, this book makes you aware of authorial intrusion.

As a creative writing teacher and proponent of Natalie Goldberg's creative writing technique, I have used 'The Weekend Novelist' in my creative writing classes. I look forward to utilizing this new book to enhance my own novel writing and to help my students develop their personal writing techniques.

Bob and Jack have the keys to hot writing! Image, action, body parts! Behind the scenes of Weekend Novelist Writes A Mystery are two dynamic men who lead writing practice several times a week, teach writers at the University of Washington and never stop giving encouragement and wisdom to other writers. This book is the result of how they live and write and it is five star! Look no farther if you are a pro or novice. Herein are the steps and the hands to pull you up the stairs of your own creative mind.

Book and Author: "Parisian Home Cooking: Conversations, Recipes, and Tips from the Cooks and Food Merchants of Paris," by Michael Roberts. Roberts pioneered California cuisine at his Los Angeles restaurant, Trumps, and is the author of "Secret Ingredients," "Make-Ahead Gourmet" and "What's for Dinner." Details: William Morrow, $25; 352 pages, 175 recipes, black-and-white photographs of Parisian markets and habitues throughout.

Description: Roberts starts off with advice on how to shop Parisian style in your hometown (frequent small markets; develop relationships with purveyors), then launches into recipes for every course, which are appended with kitchen tips and trenchant tales of marketing and cooking in Paris. Assessment: During this vogue for all things Italian, Roberts clearly wants to rescue French food from its current reputation as fussy and outdated. He absolutely succeeds with this well-written collection of vigorous, straightforward recipes. The book also paints a vivid picture of Roberts' Parisian crowd, urbane professionals who happen to whip up fabulous meals in their tiny kitchens. -Erica Marcus .

NEW YOUR TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW JUNE 6, 1999

The new rush-to-the-stoves book is Parisian Home Cooking: Conversations, Recipes and Tips From the Cooks and Food Merchants of Paris......a collection of recipes lovingly and cannily collected from Parisians young and old-- a concierge, a hip friend and his mother, a fellow American in Paris, the butcher at the street market and many other garrulous vendors. Roberts, a longtime Los Angeles restaurant chef and (with Barbara Kafka) one of the country's few truly original thinkers about cooking, returned to Paris 20 years after receiving his culinary schooling there, armed with a student's enthusiasm, an anthropologist's curiosity, a born schmoozer's way of eliciting cooking secrets and a sensational sense of taste. He rediscovers techniques born of Parisian practicality in the face of minimal burners and unreliable ovens: duck cooked and defatted in a pressure cooker before being finished in the oven, chicken roasted in a closely covered casserole, steak seared in a cast-iron skillet over high heat. Techniques and recipes like this will make cooks who cut their teeth on Julia Child and then moved on to Italy fall in love with French cooking all over again.

...everything I make from this book is truly delicious and , may I add, nutritious. Parisian Home Cooking teaches us that the value of fresh and diverse ingredients, simply prepared is the core of true health; dishes that yearn to be enjoyed amoung friends and actually leave you energy to enjoy their company! I just love the woman who refuses to spend more than fifteen minutes at her stove yet serves up divine dinners; the butcher's timeless admonition that for the body to work it must have some fat - how avant; the tips that coax real flavor from simple foods - to "sweeten" the vinegar for the perfect vinaigrette by adding a splash of wine (just one tip of many). As the diet gurus duke it out for your dollars, look at the slim, healthy Parisians in the photographs, read what they eat at home, and you will toss out the crazed American diet fads with relief. This book will feed you. It's also a good read. Move over Dr. Ornish and Monsieur Pepin - the secret is out!

Robert Fisk(Beirut correspondent for "The Independent) was recently the target of death threats and vicious emails for his honest and unbiased reporting from the Middle East.
"Pity the Nation" is a readable and riveting account of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and the consequences of the same for the Palestinians, Lebanese and the rest of the Middle East. This is essential reading for understanding the current situation in the Middle East, and all the more timely considering the current US posture towards Iraq.

The work stands above anything written by any contemprorary historian or journalist covering the Middle East. The questions, eye witness accounts, insights, and volume of information is overwhelming. Whereas Robert Fisk paints a dark portrait of the Israelis, he doesn't pull any punches describing the Palestinians either. Heroes and victims all using words and deeds to muddy the water in their favor. Nobody leaves this book without a profound sense of the depth of differences and issues necessary to address before any peace can really be achieved in the Middle East.

Robert Fisk is a journalist but also a historian and an extremely talented writer. He has lived in Lebanon for 23 years now, not just to cover the stories there and throughout the Middle East, but because it is home to him and because he cares deeply for the Lebanese people. This is apparent in his book. Unlike just about all other books on the subject, Pity The Nation covers the war from a far more personal perspective. Mr. Fisk lets you know exactly what all the bombs and artillery shells did to normal people when they fell on their neighborhoods. He also gives an unprecedented view of the every day life of a war correspondent; the hardships, the horror, the fear, and even the boredom.

If you're a blind supporter of Israel, the PLO, any of the Lebanese factions, Syria, or even the US government, be prepared for some unpleasant truth!

But whatever the case, do read this book. You won't find this level of detail in ANY of the other popular books on the subject.

I was given this book when my daughter was born in January 2000. I read it right away and I am now reading it again. THe practical wisdom in this book is perfect for dads of girls. I heard a radio interview with Robert and his daughters and they are very well-rounded young women so Robert did something right.
We all make mistakes but if you take the advice in this book and put it to work, with love, your daughter will have an advantage in life.

I am the proud father of the first girl born into my family in over two hundred years. With 13 males alive in my immediate family I had ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE on how to raise a daughter. What do I do with someone I can't wrestle with, or take to football games, or teach how to use power tools? This book was wonderful to me because it gave me the insight and confidence to become a great "Daddy" to my little girl. It highlights the differences and similarities between sons and daughters and gave me the knowledge to raise a wonderful and trusting girl. Thank You Robert! For giving all us first time Fathers of little girls not only a clue, but a workable plan as well.

When I read the introduction to this book, my first thought was, "I want with my daughter what he has with his daughters." By focusing on seven areas for "building a complete daughter," the author gives practical advice and terrific anecdotes to guide a father in the unique aspects of raising a girl.

I especially liked the chapter on communication. This seems like the key to building a great father-daughter relationship and helping your girl communicate well with others.

From discipline to faith to laughter, the author covers the most important aspects of nurturing the early life of your daughter.

A great, useful, and easy read.

This book is so comforting for brides who have either called off their wedding or thinking about it. I am a bride who has called off her wedding and this book has helped me through a lot of hard times, just reading that others have gone through the same thing that you are going through just makes you feel a lot better.

Truly an amazing book!! I recommend that anyone who has gone through a break-up, divorce or broken engagment read this book! It is extremely responsible in it's attention to detail and the many stages of trauma one goes through in a situation like this. Rachel also gives many examples of what other almost-brides wrote in their surveys to her and it is so helpful to hear such a varied opinion of others' experiences. Please, if you are going through any type of break-up or relationship trauma - READ THIS BOOK!

There Goes the Bride is a great book for anyone having relationship issues. Whether or not you have cold feet or something more serious, this book is for you. The stories from the Almost Brides are great and really give the feeling that broken engagements and relationship troubles aren't a rare phenomenon.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. It's an easy read that's full of information, humor, and resources.