Laurel Robertson sounds like a wise, nurturing grandmother as she encourages the cook/caregiver, provides special suggestions for children's food and queasy eaters, and offers practical ideas for dealing with odd schedules and restricted diets. The use of some herbal remedies and teas is discussed, as well as hints for keeping the caregiver healthy during this often stressful time. Many of the recipes are followed by a list of variations whereby you customize for the patient by adding (flavor/protein/calories) or subtracting (dairy/fat). Brian Ruppenthal is a registered dietician and provides guidelines for keeping food hot enough or cold enough to be safe as well as nutritional information throughout. It makes me feel good just to have this book on the shelf so the ideas and inspiration are at hand for those inevitable times when good, simple food is important but hard to think about.

as a long time fan of laurel's kitchen, i bought laurel's kitchen caring just to add to my library, never dreaming how helpful i would find it. since i bought it, i have nursed my daughter through a frightening bout of mononcleosis and my son through pneumonia - at 16 and 14, this is really the first time either of them has been sick, for which i give credit to their healthy vegetarian diet. this book also was a support for my next-door neighbor in this past year as she nursed her husband of fifty-eight years at home as he was dying of cancer and to my girlfriend, who is trying valiently to keep her mother nourished as she dies at home of cancer. the broths, soups, custards and teas have been thoroughly appreciated by all, as have the caregiver's brownies, which i have shared with numerous friends donning the temporary mantle of home-nurse. the lasagna al forno is like an old friend, but enchiladas petaluma, a new offering, has been tremendously popular with those with whom i have shared the recipe, even a couple of seemingly implacable carnivores. the commentary that goes with the recipes serves, at least for me, as an excellent substitute for a care-giver's support group. if you enjoy cooking, and even use it as therapy, this is a wonderful book to keep at your fingertips, ready for the day you are called to assume the role of caregiver on either a short or long-term basis, which, with the way insurance companies work these days, may be sooner than you think! laurel, carol et al. have done it again!

A dear friend lent me this book. I was very pleased when I read it. Good ideas and pleasant relaxing style made it a book I want for my permanent library. I would recommend this book to caregivers who need some ideas...it seems we all have someone who, at some time, needs our help.

The Beginner's French Dictionary is designed for the true novice. If you are just starting out or getting a refresher course, then this book is excellent tool to increase your knowledge. It is the perfect size to carry on the bus or read at your desk at work (so you'll have no excuses for using it). Primarily it is a dictionary for reference, but it also serves as a great vocabulary builder. The use of whimsical illustrations add humour ensuring you'll memorise the correct language in the correct context. Overall I recommend this as a great resource for teaching yourself the basics of French.

I've had this book for three years now and it is one of the cookbooks I depend upon most for healthy, tasty meals my family would actually eat. If you are looking for a way to incorporate vegetables, grains and legumes into your diet (and your family's) but think there aren't too many options--you've got to use this book.

Brian Robertson's way of telling stories about the men and women of the earliest blues is an insight into what it must have been like to be a black woman in the 20's expressing herself through music sans the riches and fame of today's stars. Since reading some of the lines of old blues songs, I have HAD to buy several re-released recordings from people like Ida Cox and Bessie Smith. Before I read this Little Blues Book I thought you had to be some kind of connosieur to understand the blues. I've always liked the blues, just didn't know what to look for or where to start. Having learned a few of the "secrets" about the blues, I've begun a new obsession. Besides being informative, this Little Blues Book is always cool to flip through and find gems like "she's a tailor-made woman, she ain't no hand-me-down" from Blind Lemon Jefferson - whose name I thought was first the name of a newer group, Blind Lemon. Uh. Gee. I grew up listening to rockers like Edgar & Johnny Winter, the Allman Brothers. Imagine my surprise when I read the lyrics to some of my favorite rock songs credited to some guy who lived 50 or 70 years ago. This book is highly recommended for anyone who needs a gift to give a teenager (specially one who is really into rock & alternative music). Or just for yourself because you always wanted to know, but didn't want to read volumes about a particular blues man or woman. This book will give you an idea of the individuals who made up the first wave of true American music. Thank you Brian Robertson.

I've never even come close to understanding even one of Newton's laws. I only made it through Physics in college because my brother-in-law is a science whiz, and I took the course over the internet. I am so happy to have come across this book though. For the first time in my life, I think I get it! Robertson's explanations address all of my (to what some people may believe) silly questions respectfully - as if I am the one who is logical for questioning and not grasping it! He explains the rationale behind the concepts in a humorous (sometimes laugh out loud) way - and I walked away wishing I could take a stab at that college physics class once more.

Ably edited by Brian K. Robertson, Things Grew Beautifully Worse: The Wartime Experiences Of Captain John O'Brien, 30th Arkansas Infantry, C.S.A. is the personal civil war diary of a Confederate officer who had a first-hand perspective of the battles, bloodshed, and gangrene of the Civil War, and who came to languish in Union Prisons with nothing to do save write down his experiences. Heavily annotated for the modern reader's benefit, this slim volume adds a very personal touch to a divisive era in America's history. Things Grew Beautifully Worse is a highly recommended and much appreciated addition to the growing library of Civil War memoirs and eye-witness accounts.

I'm a 20 year-old highly motivated student at a prestigious university. My entire life I've worked diligently so I could have a successful career. However, after I began reading this book, my thinking has been turned on its head. Now I can see that I've been motivated by all the wrong things: ego, self-aggrandizement, money, and status. This book has helped me understand all that motherhood used to be and could be. It is not a banal existence; there are beautiful possibilites open to the imaginitive mind. Our country was founded on the Protestant ethic that the most noble thing one could do is to be selfless, to give everything you have to your children and your family. My words are like gravel in the mouth compared to Robertson's eloquence. I wish I could capture the beauty of his words here. Please, read this book. It changes everything.

Robertson shows how the best care is maternal care and why society is in denial of this fact. I found this book very informative and enlightening, and has forever changed the way I look at alternative child care and the media, whose refusal to tell the truth about parenting is causing the millions of children to be neglected.

The West is struggling with the related issues of women in the workforce, childcare, maternity leave, and family breakdown. The usual wisdom is to say that we just need to try harder to balance work commitments with family responsibilities. But Brian Robertson, a writer living in Washington DC, believes the answers lie elsewhere.

Indeed, from a historical perspective, the current crisis is really an anomaly. The modern feminist movement of the 60s taught that the only good woman is a career woman, and that homemaking and motherhood were to be despised and fled from. But interestingly, the women's movement prior to that fought for the right of a mother to stay at home with her young children, and not be conscripted into the paid workplace.

Thus the struggle for those in the earlier years of the women's movement was to protect women from the encroachment of market forces, and to prevent them from being forced into career at the expense of their families. Motherhood and homemaking, in other words, were seen as honorable and valuable ends in themselves.

But with the late 60s and onwards, the new wave of feminists took a totally different line: only in the paid workforce can a woman find meaning, freedom and dignity. Thus the vitriolic attack on mothers and the family. Betty Friedan therefore could call the home a "comfortable concentration camp" while Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown could label a mother and housewife as "a parasite, a dependent, a scrounger, a sponger ' a bum".

A woman's freedom, said these feminists, meant that a woman should and could be independent both in the economic and the reproductive realms. Women just do not need men, and are better off without them. Establishing a career and gaining financial independence is the first goal of the modern woman. And millions of Western women bought this line of thought.

Of course now the inherent contradictions are coming all too clear. Women who were told that they could have it all are now fining that they have very little. They may have a good job, but they have no husband or boyfriend, no children and no family. And many today are deeply regretful of this fact.

But it is not just women who have suffered at the hands of feminist orthodoxy. Children have been the big losers. Millions of children today are being raised by strangers. Yet all the social science research shows that children desperately need their mums and dads. No day care system can ever compete with the love and attention of a mother and a father.

Yet as Robertson documents, while the social research on all this is quite clear, very few are willing to promote the findings, for fear of incurring the wrath of feminists and of making working mums feel guilty. So although the research is clear, that attachment is important for infants and mother-child bonding is crucial, millions of mothers are ignoring the evidence, and their maternal instincts, and are abandoning their children in droves.

The harmful effects of extended periods of time for young children in day care are well documented in this book. Even child care workers admit that they would not dare to leave their own children in day care. Yet many mothers have been so indoctrinated into believing that their needs and desires must come first, that they are offering their children second best.

And seeking to alleviate the problems by better day care, more workplace flexibility, or seeking to obtain an unobtainable balance between work and family just is not sufficient. And it is not just short-sighted governments offering these inadequate solutions. The corporate world in effect has bought the feminist myth as well that women can have it all. But the truth is, they can't have it all, at least not at the same time. Thus more corporate day care centres will not solve the bigger problems.

Indeed, the corporations are shooting themselves in the foot here. The really productive worker is the worker who has a happy and satisfying home life. But the corporate world, even with generous paid maternity leave policies, cannot stop the hemorrhaging of the family. Maternal deprivation is harmful to children, and unhappy children make for unhappy families, and unhappy families result in poor workers.

Governments also lose, as they seek to press women into the paid workplace, and do not deal with the root causes as to why so many families are forced to have two incomes. By bribing mums into the paid work place, whether by child care subsidies or other financial incentives, the growing problem of falling fertility rates, for example, will only increase. Less people mean less taxable income, and the inability to pay for expensive social welfare programs.

Thus both governments and businesses need to radically rethink what family-friendly workplaces actually mean. Robertson concludes by proposing some radical measures to put the interests of families first. These are predicated on the principle that human societies need the traditional family structure with a mother as the principal caregiver. Marriage and family are non-negotiable first principles. If that is accepted, then the following steps can be explored:

-Treat families as a unit in the tax code
-End "no-fault" divorce
-Replace the current welfare system with one that does not encourage illegitimacy and undermine intact families
-Pare back affirmative action legislation and programs
-Give all parents, not just those in the paid work place, child care credits or tax breaks.

These and other proposals, will help to ensure that real family-friendly policies are pursued. Yet Robertson knows that legal and economic change alone is not enough. The much harder cultural element needs to be addressed. But we have to start somewhere. And this volume is a good beginning point.

The authors web page is very helpful - be sure to check it out. http://www.shore.net/~pi/vr.html

Finally, a guide to internet technology written for the non-technical reader. Virtual Realty takes real estate agents step-by-step through the process of getting their business set up on the Web, from choosing the best equipment and most effective service providers, to creating support materials that provide easier client access to their on-line listings and other services. The book teaches realtors in clear, comprehensive terms how to tap into the staggering sales potential of the web by presenting their listings and services to a global market. Profuse illustrations and an upbeat, user-friendly style enable even novices to understand and implement this information.

I first learned of Laurel's Kitchen in the mid-1970s when my parents gave my sister Laurel a copy for Christmas. Being an artist, I really admired the woodcut illustrations. However, I didn't start to use the book religiously until 1978, when I and all my grad-school friends decided to pursue a vegetarian life style. My copy, which I bought at the food coop where I volunteered is now in pieces, but I still use it regularly. I can count on the book to contain information about vegetables I'm not familiar with, and how best to prepare them, plus providing clear instructions for making such things as yogurt and sushi nori. Though no longer a strict vegetarian, having a husband and two children who like meat far too much to give it up just yet,I eat meatless meals at least several times a week. The recipe for Sultana's Spanakopita (a real winner!) has inspired a family favorite: broccoli pie, in which we've substituted broccoli for spinach.

It has really supplemented our low meat diet! My husband was a vegetarian for about 8 years, even through the army, till we got married. For various reasons, in a natural compromise, we do not eat meat every night and very little red, what ever friends serve us as guests and go almost to completely vegetarian come spring and summer. This book was introduced to us while at a vegetarian friend's (also named Laurel) house for dinner where we had the yummy Winter Stew -- which has become a favorite with various variations of our own, ever since buying the book. There are lots of other great simple yummy vegetarian recipes that really refresh the diet and appetite. I found the nutritional information incredibly interesting and helpful to know in order to understand the practical reasons and ways to eat vegetarian. It is also valuable to read & understand about the debunked myths around eating vegetarian. It has helped me to understand how to eat a sensable balanced vegetarian diet AND also see the bonus of weighing less. I feel better morally and physically by eating fewer of my animal friends.

This book really has in-depth information on nutrition that's good for any family. In the nutrition section, vegetables and fruits are listed along with the vitamins they contain. This way, you can plan better on getting vitamins in your meals. Laurel talks about how by eating less meat protein, we absorb vitamins in our fruits and vegetables easier. This makes it easier for the vegan and vegetarian can meet al their health needs. The bread recipes are easy as (forgive me!) rice crispies, but the results are often artisan breads because of their fine, simple ingredients. Try the english muffins, pumpernickel bread, whole wheat french, the black bread and my favorite, oatmeal. My husband loves the tamale pie. The vegetarian shepherd's pie is another staple. I also love the minestrone soup, the baked eggplant parmesan ( you can use any crumbs, not just crackers!) and stuffed peppers. I like the way the menus are layed out. It makes it easy when you first start out. It's also a good book for introducing yourself to the concept of whole foods and getting away from packaged foods if you haven't already. They are very strict about sugar when they talk about nutrition in this book, which makes alot of the recipes great for diabetics. However, it's a little too strict at times, if you're not a diabetic since as the main author states her belief is that, "sugar is sugar is sugar." There are too many important enzymes in fruit to worry so much about the sugar! So much of the information is in depth, and that's what makes this book a standby for me. There are instructions on how to make yogurt at home, also soybean milk. There is eomthing really wholesome about the book, which I find appealing as well. Well-put together and organized I definitley suggest this book for your cookbook and nutrition library.

As my other reviews will indicate, I'm normally a big fan of the Blue Guide series. Alas, this volume isn't up to the standards of many of the others in the series. It needs revising and retooling.

The problems with this guide aren't necessarily the fault of the current author. Brian Lalor, an artist and archaeologist with some significant accomplishments to his credit, appears to be potentially well-qualified to take over the stewardship of this volume, which is now in its 8th edition. But a lot of the current text dates back to earlier editions and other authors, and thus it is hard to know who was originally responsible for some of the mistakes I noticed. Other mistakes reflect a failure to update this volume adequately. Given the sheer amount of data a Blue Guide includes, I'm sure that updating a volume is an incredibly daunting task. But some of the problems here are nevertheless hard to excuse.

For example, if you're interested in touring the Waterford Crystal factory, the text advises you (p. 202) of the following: that you have to apply at the main tourist office on the quay in Waterford (you don't); that tours are offered only on weekdays (this is wrong); that children are not admitted (they are); that photography is not allowed (it is, except in certain areas where the craftsmen are actually cutting the glass and don't need to be distracted by camera flashes); and that glass is not sold at the factory itself, but only in shops in town (actually, the company energetically hawks its crystal on the factory premises, and good buys are to be had there).

Even when I first read all this before arriving in Waterford, I found these assertions hard to believe. Yes, there was a time in Britain and Ireland when they would have been capable of being obtuse enough about commercial matters not to sell Waterford Crystal at its own factory, but I found it difficult to imagine that had been the case since, say, about 1985. And, indeed, this particular block (blot?) of blatantly erroneous text dates back to at least the mid 1980's - I found it in the 1988 edition of this Guide at the local library after returning from our trip. But it is a major embarrassment that it had not been corrected by the time this edition came out in 1998.

Another big complaint I had about this volume was the dearth of town maps. There are only 9 in this volume - Derry, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Armagh, Belfast, Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford. In contrast, the Blue Guide to Greece has more than 70. At a minimum, this volume should also include maps of towns like Cashel, Tralee, Kilarney (and its environs), and Ennis, among others. There are some good maps of old priories, but there could stand to be even more. It is partly because of its abundance of useful town maps that I would recommend getting the Lonely Planet Guide in addition to, or even in place of, this one. (The Lonely Planet Guide is also very detailed and often more accurate about historical matters, locations of archaeological sites, etc. It definitely isn't just for the young backpacking set.)

Other illustrative errors and complaints:

(1) I passed on seeing the celtic crosses at Kilkieran because this Guide said they were mere "remains." Later I saw photographs of these crosses, and they appeared substantially intact.

(2) The Guide indicates it takes 30 minutes to reach Skellig Michael by boat from the mainland. Actually, it takes more like 90 minutes.

(3) The Index is incomplete and error-ridden. Skellig Michael isn't listed at all; Craggaunowen is on page 281, not 294; and some key people who have a number of references in the Guide (e.g., St. Brendan) are completely omitted.

(3) One of the easiest ways to reach the monastery island of Inchagoill in Lough Corrib is by boat from Ashford Castle in Cong, but the Guide indicates that boats are only available from Oughterard.

(4) There is often an absence of adequately specific directions to help you reach referenced sites: for example, how to reach Ross Erilly friary from the main road, or the ring fort where the Clare gold hoard was found on the grounds of Drumoland Castle.

That said, this volume still has a wealth of information. I did use it with profit on our trip, and I found Brian Lalor's pen-and-ink sketches throughout quite charming. If I could give this book 3.5 stars rather than 3 stars, I would. But if a book is part of the Blue Guide series, it has very high standards to live up to. And I'm afraid that the current edition of this Guide doesn't entirely measure up.

Brian Lalor has written a charming, witty guide to Ireland. Lalor, trained as an architect, and a marvelous artist, shares his intelligent insights on his home country in this up-to-date Blue Book. Included are the well-known as well as unusual places. This is an indispensible guide for a novice or experienced traveller to Ireland. Brian Lalor is a fine writer and a grand observer.