In all my research for my comedy, "A Visit From Voltaire," (amazon.co.uk) this was the obvious first source, BUT I have to add that I only understood it best after knowing what role it played in the political mayhem of his life fighting "infame," and only after I knew more about his social/irreligious context, did I really "get" what he was doing in Candide in order to incorporate it into my fantasy of his 21st century return. I'd send light readers to "Voltaire in Love," and wannabe scholars to the Portable Voltaire and whatever basic biographic texts they can find--my shelf is full of out-of-print biographies and eventually I lived at the Musee Voltaire in Geneva to really befriend him--the result was a book and great happiness in knowing this brilliant, mercurial mind!
Dinah Lee Küng

In a list of my six favorite books for "The Week" magazine, I wrote: "Whenever all seems lost, I pick up this 1759 tale of eternally optimistic yet misfortune-prone Candide's efforts to reunite with his true love. His ability to persevere in the face of mind-numbing self-delusion is awesome."

Where else can one read the narration of an optimist who looses his friends to death, escapes the European mainland, discovers utopia, returns to the mainland, and reunites with friends who were believed to be dead, while infused with the philosophical and political wit of Voltaire? Fabulous example of satire and genius.

If you are a southern by birth, this book will delight you with memories of the old days. You will rejoice at the memories that surface while reading this conversational style presentation.
If you are new to the South, prepare yourself to encounter a friend and expert in the pleasures of gardening.

If more writing could be done by people like Marie, who have had their hands in the soil, we could more easily enjoy our flora and fauna. What a style!!!!

I have this book because I know this lady's passion for gardening! Even though I live outside the Zone 8, I find this book to be extremely useful for my Zone 7 garden. In building a new home, her book is a "book of choice" in giving information that will help me garden more successfully.

I loved Marie Harrison's story-telling style. I enjoyed the tales of her family and how these experiences influenced her outlook on gardening and life in general.

I give it a thumbs up!

This book is perfect for both the novice gardener and the experienced . . . even non-gardeners love it! Helpful information on choosing the correct plants for the coastal areas, along with descriptions of the appropriate plants and the author's personal experiences in gardening, make this a book you will turn to often.

Ms Harrison's love of flowers and plants is contagious; you will want to make a quick trip to the garden store or nursery and then dig right in! Better still, she gives you the information you need to be successful. And best of all, the reading is entertaining as well as informative.

For the reader who has encountered tragic loss, Rose Marie Curteman in MY RENAISSANCE: A WIDOW'S HEALING PILGRAMAGE TO TUSCANY presents a genuine alternative to the talking cure of psychoanalysis or the silence of the Zen monastery. We follow her mid-life journey into Tuscany and are awakened to the transforming power of the beautiful to be found, for instance, in the painting, sculpture and architecture of the Florentine Renaissance, or in the lush and haunting autumn landscapes of Chianti, or in the exuberant celebration of life in Florentine kitchens and dining rooms, or in the expressive tunings and turnings of the Italian language. In a style which is remarably lucid and engaging, Rose Marie Curteman charts a path through memory and mourning into wonder and joy. In this incisive work it is death which comes to stand impotently before life, and not the other way around. The vibrant, playful, refreshing and healing energies of the beautiful as portrayed in Rose Marie Curteman's journey exert their transforming effect also on the reader. This book does not belong in the inflated genre of popular literature on visits to Italy. It is in a class of its own, marking a profound mid-life search for self after the tragic loss of a beloved spouse.

Rose Marie Curteman's My Renaissance: A Widow's Healing Pilgrimage to Tuscany is as beautiful as the journey on which beauty was her guide. I haven't read many books all the way through lately and I did hers. Even when one knows the outcome, one wants to keep reading. She told the story with such gentle depth with just the right touch of humor. We know as we read that even in grief, we will laugh again. Great characterization and wonderful pacing. Well done, well done. I hope it sells tons. I mean to buy a few copies as gifts.

"Brevity is the soul of wit." And this book is a marvel of compressed wisdom and optimism. A unique read.

If you are looking for an explanation of what Christians believe stated in language that anyone can understand, and clearly supported by biblical texts, then this is very likely the book you are looking for. Little writes especially for college students who are seeking to understand the Christian faith; not for professional theologians. His goal is to explain what is central to Christian teaching, that which unites all Christians, not that which divides Christians into different confessions. His gift is clarity and precision. I have used this book ever since it came out over twenty five years ago in teaching basic Christian doctrine in both a local church and college class setting. It is still my preference as an initiation to Christian Doctrine.

Paul Little's book, KNOW WHAT YOU BELIEVE, provides an apologetic of the Christian faith in simple, yet elegant terms. Little provided a straight forward approach to understanding the faith. It is an excellent resource for learning about the Christian faith and can be used as an evangelism tool - either through a pre-Christian reading it, or by providing a Chrsitian the skills to share the faith.

This book will enable the reader to draw near to God, as he or she learns about our Father, the glorious Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. A wonderful experience!

If you are just beginning as a Christian, this book will help you to get a firm foundation for your faith. It helps you with your Biblical study of your new life. If you are a more mature Christian, this book helps you keep the simplicity of the Christian faith in mind. When you speak with people about our Lord, have this book readily available. It will not do the speaking for you, but will help you to express what the Bible says if you happen to need some help. And I have needed this type of help from time to time. If you are wanting to know what Christianity is about and don't want to go through the Bible yet or talk with a Christian, this book will help you to see what it is that we believe.

I had a hard time putting this book down. I keep saying that I would put it down after I finish "just this one part". It helped me to get back to the basics of my belief. I was able to read the Bible with fresh eyes again. A wonderful book to read and great resource to have. I expect that I will need to buy several copies between giving them out and wearing mine out.

I would recommend this book to anyone.

Madame Curie is a touching and honest biography. It tells the perserving story of Marie Curie, a native Pole who would seem out of place in France and--being a woman in a more prejudice timeframe--in the scientific community in general. Although this was the case, it did not stop her from becoming one of the most prolific and important scientists in the realm of physics and chemistry.

Within this book is held the tale of a woman who worked almost every single minute of her life in either the laboratory, the classroom, or her own home. But she never faltered under pressure and endured inhospitable laboratory conditions (she was originally working in a shed to help discover radium, the element that created the field of radiation cancer treatment and spurred the field of nuclear science.

As a biographer, Eve Curie remains factual in content, allowing the reader to form an unbiased opinion of her mother. She buttresses the book with personally letters to and from Marie Curie, which add a first hand account of certain aspects of her mother's life.

A must read for anyone looking for a heartwarming story.

The book is a reprint of the biography written by Marie Curie's daughter, Eve Curie in 1937. It is a book which should be read by all - especially aspiring scientists. Marie Curie was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in France, the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize and the first person to receive two Nobel prizes. The work she accomplished under the most difficult situations for a scientist is truly inspiring. When asked why she and her husband, Pierre Curie did not patent the procedure for extraction and purification of radium, something which would have made them very wealthy, she said "No, It would be contrary to the scientific spirit." How refreshing, since in today's world the first thought of scientists is patenting their discoveries.

My mother gave me this book when I was about twelve years old. And, still now this book serves as a constant inspiration ...

Portraying Marie Antoinette as an "average woman," as the title of Zweig's work provocatively suggests, is a debatable proposition. On the one hand, as Zweig shows throughout this study, Marie Antoinette was no prodigy: she was flawed, egotistic, intellectually limited and ... indiscreet. Her greatest passions were for clothes, vast flowery gardens, [fancy] jewelry and good looking Swedish men; she was a compulsive spendthrift; her political self-awareness was zero and her policy meddling was uniformly disastrous. Her indiscipline at court was flagrantly exploited by her political enemies - notably her jealous and ambitious brothers-in-law Louis and Charles (the later Bourbon Restoration kings) - who portrayed her as a modern day Jezebel. In all of these respects, her life was far from "average". But the "ordinariness" within, argues Zweig, left her ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of an extraordinary life.

Once the Revolution happens, however, Zweig's "averageness" argument makes a dog-leg turn. Under the extreme pressures of her imprisonment, her husband's guillotining, her separation from her beloved children and her state trial for treason, she rose above the "average," drawing on her Habsburg dignity and treating her Committee inquisitors with the contempt they deserved. In death, if not in life, she proved herself to be a true daughter of Maria Theresa. Even ordinary people can be martyrs, Zweig seems to be saying.

Zweig is a natural storyteller, and the fact that he, like Marie Antoinette, was Viennese gives him insights into her sensibilities and predilections. Another Viennese voice can be heard in this narrative: the psychological narrative owes much to Dr. Freud - particularly when we come to her early womanhood. Can it be, as Zweig dares to suggest, that Louis XVI's early impotence, and young Marie Antoinette's consequent frustration, fueled her shallow materialism? Was her scandalously profligate lifestyle an outlet for ... frustration? Did one man's "shortcomings" thus cause the revolution? And what of the bizarre Strasbourg ceremony whereby the newlywed Marie Antoinette was forced to [unclothe] at the frontier, lest the new Dauphine of France cross the border wearing foreign clothes? Surely an emotionally scarring experience? Her tale is a gift for the Freudian, and Zweig milks it for all it's worth.

Marie Antoinette... many things go through one's mind when thinking of that name. Many say she was cruel, pampered, and spoiled, and that she was the main couse of the French Revolution, yet, she was just a woman, a woman born a princess in the Austrian court, married to a French boy whom she had never met by the age of 15, crowned by 19, and beheaded by 35.

Life went by so fast by Marie Antoinette!!, and never gave her a chance to choose what she wanted out of it.

Stefan Zweig is a marvelous writer, and manages to gives us an intimate portrait of at times very hated, at others very loved and admired woman, an ordinary person who only wished for a normal life with her family, a little place of her own, where she didn't have to adjust and adapt to the many different rules impossed on her.

He describes the life of the French court as only he could, and you feel like you are part of the story, hearing about Versailles, Louvre, the revolution and the people involved, which makes this an excellent book to learn about history, about life in the French court, and about France's last great queen.

So, was she cruel, spoiled, and ignorant? read and decide for yourself....

Zweig's biography is so fascinating, I can't believe it's been allowed to go out of print. He does a remarkable job of delineating a light-headed, pleasureseeking woman who was thrust into circumstances she couldn't have anticipated or coped with. Marie Antoinette becomes a real woman, not a figurehead or a scapegoat. No one could ask for anything less.

I sent this book to my nephew after his little brother was born. He was so excited to fill in the pages. He is so proud to be a big brother. A great gift to send along to the older sibling when you're also sending a new baby gift. New babies tend to get all the attention and the older kid get lost in the excitement.

I bought this book for my daughter before our son was born. It was a great way to get her involved and excited about the arrival of her new brother. It also gave me and my daughter an opportunity to do something together as some of the activities necessitate parental supervision. I'd recommend it to anyone expecting a new addition to the family. -Norma Rems

I bought this book for my seven year old daughter. It is such a wonderful little book for her to work on. She loves her baby brother and has had a ball working on this kid-friendly book. I also liked how it has sections that she fills out about herself, so she feels special too. This book would also work for a younger child with an adult helping them. If you have an older child and a new baby I highly recommend buying this book for your older child. It will be a wonderful family keepsake for both older child and baby!!!!!

This is everything a bilingual dictionary should be. Simply the best French/English dictionary out there. I'm really impressed.

This is the only French dictionary you will ever need. It is so thorough, it's unbelievable. I found words that I couldn't even find in my English Random House or Merriam Webster dictionary - amazing! Including a plethora of slang expressions, as well.

The OXFORD HACHETTE bilingual dicttioary is a superlative work. I am using the 1997 edition and it serves me well as a language enthusiast and a translator. It provides many, many different examples of translations, always easy to find and in the idiomatic language. In the French-English section for instance, the development given under the word TEMPS is just oustanding. One learns new ways of saying things: "Ils sont cruels, témoin le massacre de tout un village." - "They are cruel, as evidenced by the massacre of an entire village." This was interesting: "They have been badly serviced by their advisors" -"Les conseillers ne leur ont pas été très utiles." The various encyclopedic features such as the subject and grammar boxes are very useful. One would have liked a more North American approach, or even Canadian, but that does not distract from the overall quality. It is interesting to find a word such as DÉPANNEUR (convenience store), while one cannot find GUIGNOLÉE or BANC DE NEIGE. It is a modern dictionary, with equivalents given for email (one slight mistake there... MESSAGE PRÉCÉDENT given as NEXT) and such things. Verbs, model letters, etc. One would have liked the use of colour, but the dictionary is still well presented. I have used the Harrap's Shorter and I have the Collins Robert on CD-ROM. This is equal to any of them, it is perhaps even superior. Do not hesitate to buy it.

This book is about man's freedom: freedom of thought,freedom of worship, freedom of the mental encroachments that make a man think he has the right to despise, oppress, kill a fellow human being because he is different. This book is about the power of Reason,about the absurdity of racism, war, greed and violence. Voltaire was the father of modern man. His errors were the errors of his age: his wisdom is the wisdom of the better part of man.

I'm not your typical philosophe reader, being a high school girl who usually prefers rap music to any sort of book, but there is something about voltaire's writings that appeals to me. NOt also are there some great statements made in this book, but clues to what life was like back in his day(such as in "love" the pox he is talking about is syphilis, which back then was associated with being immoral and in "astrology" he refers to his son dying in his cradle which was common then). His writing is witty, yet rational and even though sometimes difficult to interperet in modern language, if you read in serveral times and refer to a dictionary often you will understand what he is saying. Although some of the ariticles are irrelevent for today's world they are useful in historical context and there are many articles that are and always will be revelvent. Don't pass this book off as old fashioned, Voltaire never goes out of style.

While many claim that Candide is Voltaire's masterpiece, I prefer this collection of essays that are arranged as a dictionary. Reading this book is like sitting in an elegant 18th century salon and listening to one of the great minds of the age declaim on a variety of subjects, both ancient and modern. While Voltaire will occasionally bend scholarship to make a point, he does it so well and with such wit and style that the things that he gets wrong really don't matter. If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, this would probably be one of the books that you should have packed before leaving.