My qualifications: I used to live 4km from Hameln ("Hamelin", Anglicized), Germany! It's near Hanover, if you're looking on a map. Regardless, I was happy to find this treasure. This is the most vividly illustrated version I've seen.The illustrations are splendid, & the book is nice & large. After seeing ANATOLY IVANOV's illustrations, other versions just don't do the story justice. The text is printed in what i would decribe as "default" calligraphic italic, adding to its charm, if not its "authenticity". I give it a big 5 RATS!

This book would be a wonderful treasure for the pictures alone. Kate Greenaway, noted children's illustrator, has created a magical world of beautiful children, innocent faces, and romantic, nostalgic costumes. The colors on these pages are breathtaking, and the details (although Greenaway is always faulted for not drawing hands and feet well) are superb. This story is not for very young children, as it contains some troublesome themes. For the older child, perhaps 7+, the story might provoke some interesting post-read family discussions about honesty, trust, and the actual state of the children at the end of the tale. This is even a beautiful book to give to adults, as the messages about human nature can be appreciated on a deeper level.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a very different children's classic. Few other children's picture books tell a story in Victorian poetry. The book isn't just original; it is excellent. I have always enjoyed Robert Browning's poetry, and this is no exception. I was surprised at how easy it was to read this book compared to some of Browning's other verse, and it was pleasing to read, especially considering that this is focused toward children. I loved all of the poetic techniques used by Browning. His iambic tetrameter in couplets works very well for young readers, and I loved his use of anaphora and internal rhyme. The story is, of course, brilliant. It is the usual folk tale that every child has heard and needs to hear. It teaches its lesson, and Browning's version is even more entertaining than other versions. Also, the illustrations by Kate Greenway are fabulous. It is impossible to imagine this story in Browning's Victorian verse without Greenway's Victorian artistry. This is a true children's classic, it should definately last for years to come, and it makes and excellent buy for children or for libraries.

At the moment, educated consensus generally holds that a line of poetry seldom has one meaning. Denniston and Page's text plus commentary of Agamemnon apparently was written before this consensus formed. Denniston and Page are feisty, dogmatic, and insistent that they are right, and are largely reacting to Fraenkel's massive text plus commentary to the same play. They take issue with Fraenkel on a number of points while acknowledging his immense erudition. I have no reservations, however, recommending this edition. It was very useful and well-thought out. I give it a high rating.

There is a particular scene in "Agamemnon" that I always want to point to in order to show students the genius of Aeschylus as a tragic playwright. To really appreciate any of these ancient plays you really have to have an understanding the peculiar structure of the classic Greek drama. The better understanding you have of this structure, as well as the key elements of tragedy as delineated by Aristotle in his "Poetica," the more you can appreciate any of these plays, but "Agamemnon" in particular.

The play is the first drama of the Orestia trilogy, the only extant trilogy to survive from that period; of course, since Aeschylus was the only one of the three great tragic poets whose trilogies told basically a story in three-parts. Sophocles and Euripides would tell three different but thematically related stories in their own trilogies (the Theban trilogy of Sophocles is an artificial construct). In "Agamemnon" it has been ten years since he sailed away to Troy, having sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia in order to get fair winds (the tale is best told by Euripides in "Iphigenia at Aulis"). For ten years Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra, the half-sister of Helen, has been waiting for his return so she can kill him. In the interim she has taken Agamemnon's cousin Aegithus as a lover.

This brings into play the curse on the house of Atreus, which actually goes back to the horrid crime of Tantalus and the sins of Niobe as well. Atreus was the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, who a generation earlier had contended with his own brother Thyestes for the throne of Argos. Thyestes seduced his brother's wife and was driven out of Argos by Atreus, who then became king. Thyestes eventually returned to ask forgiveness, but Atreus, recalling the crime of Tantalus, got his revenge by killing the two sons of Thyestes and feeding them to their father at a banquet. That was when Thyestes cursed Atreus and all of his descendants and fled Argos with his remaining son, the infant Aegithus.

This becomes important because Aeschylus has two people in the palace at Argos, each of whom has a legitimate reason to take the life of Agamemnon. But in this version Aeschylus lays the crime at Clytemnestra's feet. When Agamemnon returns with his concubine Cassandra, daughter of Troy's King Priam, the insane prophetess symbolizes all sorts of reasons for Cassandra to renew her desire for vengeance. However, it is also important that Agamemnon reaffirm his guilt, and this he does by his act of hubris, walking on the scarlet carpet.

Now, one of the key conventions of Greek tragedy was that acts of violence happened off stage, in the skene, which in "Agamemnon" serves as the place at Argos. Consequently, the Athenian audience not only knows that Agamemnon is going to be murdered, they know that once he goes into the "palace" he is not coming out alive and at some point a tableau of his murder will be wheeled out of the skene. However, despite this absolute knowledge Aeschylus manages to surprise his audience with the murder. This is because of the formal structure of a Greek tragedy.

Basically the tragedy alternates between dramatic episodes, in which actors (up to two for Aeschylus, three for Sophocles and Euripides) interact with each other and/or the chorus, and choral odes called stasimons. These odes are divided into match pairs of strophes and antistrophes, reflecting the audience moving across the stage right to left and left to right respectively.

After Agamemnon goes into the palace and the chorus does an ode, the next episode has Clytemnestra coaxing the doomed Cassandra into the palace as well. With both of the intended victims inside, the chorus begins the next ode. Once the first strophe is finished the corresponding antistrophe is required, but it is at that point, while the audience is anticipating the formal completion of the first pair, that Agamemnon's cry is heard from within the palace. The antistrophe is the disjointed cries of the individual members of the chorus, in contrast to the choral unity of the strophe.

This is how Aeschylus surprises his audience with the murder of Agamemnon, but using the psychology of the play's structure to his advantage. Because we do not have any examples of tragedy that predate Aeschylus, it may well be more difficult to really appreciate his innovation as a playwright. But while the Orestia as a whole is clearly his greatest accomplishment, it is perhaps this one scene that best illustrates his genius. While the fatal confrontation between Clytemnestra and Orestes in "Choeophori" has the most pathos of any of his scenes, there is nothing in either it or "Eumenides" that is as brilliantly conceived and executed as the murder of Agamemnon.

Literary criticism, especially Classical, may someday get better than this, but it has not happened yet. This work and the accompanying volumes provide us with a model of literary criticism without equal.

Oh, let's not forget the play iteslf. This is Aeschylus' finest surviving work, and is excelled only by Sophocles Theban trilogy. The translation, should you need it, is first rate. I especially love the opening scene describing the network of lights across the Aegean announcing the fall of Tray, and setting into motion the mechanisms of destruction for the house of Atreides.

While perfectly interesting for the serious gemstone fancier, this book is equally approachable and usable for those just getting started. The sumptuous cover photograph is slightly misleading, in that it seems to promise jewelry within the book's pages. Although jewelry is covered--as are crowns, religious reliquaries, carved gemstone figurines and more--the main thrust of this book is the nuts and bolts basics of gemstones. You can find out which gemstones appear most frequently in which geographic locations; discern the subtle differences among the particolored members of the corundum family; find out what refractive indices mean; pore over all the different gemstone cuts (including unusual cuts like the shield and olive shapes) and much, much more. This book is really a tool and a sourcebook for those interested in the miracle of gemstones.

Any with an interest in gemstones will find this involving: a coffee table book which goes into depth and detail on individual gems and their geologic origins. From jewelry making and myths to science, collecting and lore, Gemstones provides a lavish display suitable for gift-giving and library acquisition alike.

This is a stunningly beautiful book full of color pictures and explanations of gemstones. It will appeal to all ages and readers who are interested in this side of "applied geology." One can simultaneously appreciate the art and science of gemstones while browsing or reading in depth. Originally published in Europe as a production of EMB-Service in Lucerne, Switzerland, this American English language edition is from the Geoscience Press, Inc. of Tuscon, Arizona and is printed in Italy. Reading this book is like having a museum right in your hands!

If you are considering a career in gems and Gemology this book is a MUST HAVE. It shows you what the text-books describe in words. The images are so incredible. A reference, Interesting to read (even cover to cover) and a wonderful addition to a professional's library.

I need an italian translation of this book Where can I find it

I purchased this book shortly after graduating from the Gemological Institute of America. As a professional Gemologist and apprasier, I can't afford to make mistakes. This book is a priceless reference. I highly reccomend it to all gemolgy students and professionals.

Hey,what can I say... The author just genius... Can only suggest spend the money and enjoy!

That was the most honest book I have read in the last ten years.

It shows much realizm of life in America even twenty years after it was first written.

This is an account of Limonov's adolescence in Kharkov, a provincial Soviet city, in the years after Stalin's death. But Limonov's hero Eddie-Baby is nothing at all like the Russian heroes English-speaking readers have come to expect and his Kharkov is nothing at all like the tightly-policed USSR we usually encounte in emigre novels. In Eddie Baby's Kharkov, there is no law. Police are goons, and the quickest way to become a legend in the housing projects of Saltovka is to beat up a cop. Eddie-Baby is a nearsighted brain who decides, at the age of eleven, to become a hooligan--and does so with the same quiet, scary determination which once led him to fill notebooks with data on the fauna of the tropics. He devotes himself to learning the rules of his punk/proletarian world with a slightly crazed pedantry, and takes the reader along with him through one holiday weekend in this astounding, completely unknown habitat: the steel jungles of the Soviet nine-floor housing projects.

But the book is by no means gritty or grimy, or any of those silly words reviewers use to describe urban descriptions. In Eddie-Baby's mind, his world is a forest, full of ogres and prey--and all of it is worthy of caressing, precise description. He makes you love this world. There are paragraphs in this book I've read something like ten thousand times, they are so perfect. A middleaged lecher pouring a glass of vodka; a gang beating a pedestrian to death; a precise account of the sort of glue and paper you need to break a window quietly for a burglary; Limonov invests every one of these moments from a vanished, outlandish world with a calm and uncanny beauty. Get this book at any cost. There is nothing like it in the world.

This is a classic piece of Russian fiction that shows a darker side of Kruschev's Russia than is generally available. This is a definitive timepiece; what's most striking in it's depiction of Russian life are the parrallels with society in modern America.

This beautifully illustrated, colorful, hardback book opens with the Slovak anthem ("Nad Tatrou") and closes with a "Prayer for Slovakia;" all points inbetween sing a beautiful paen to Slovakia. If you're looking for a Christmas gift for a Slovak relative, look no further. Published (separately) in both English and Slovak editions by Bolchazy-Carducci publishers, this picture/fact book provides a general overview of the country with its rich cultural traditions. Probably originally intended for juvenile and young adult readers, this book is a treasure trove for everyone, though, with its high-quality illustrations of all things Slovak. Places like Bratislava and Kosice...Slovak forefathers (including a nice mix of politicians, writers, musicians). There is a 2-page simplified map of "places of interest in Slovakia" that features places like castles, famous cathedrals and the Tatra mountains. Devin Castle gets 3-pages devoted to it (perhaps a bit excessive), followed by a brightly illustrated 2-page map of the High Tatras--"our miniature Alps." Next comes a section of "Slovak superlatives" (or little-known facts) pointed out with bullets. Facts like the biggest fish in Slovakia (the sheat-fish), the smallest mammal (the lesser shrew)...There is a colorful tribute to Janosik and his band of outlaws and then much space is devoted to depictions of various Slovak artwork--leatherwork, embroidery, wooden products...old Easter and Christmas customs are covered in delightful detail and if you've been puzzled by the values of Slovak currency, perplex-no-more because its' thorough lesson on Slovak money should take care of that once and for all. A 3-page spread which recants Slovakia's historical journey to independence is a valuable, concise recap and a good refresher for everyone. The book fittingly closes with Milan Rufus' "Prayer for Slovakia."

Olga Drobna and company do a masterful of displaying the beauty and tragedy of Slovakian histroy. The heartfelt writing and graceful illustrations entice the reader to empathize with the beleagured little country. The translation from Slavic to English only marginally disrupts the serene nature of the book.

It is a book stays in your memories, it is a book that you need to read again and again; even at your old ages, when you need the warm, comfortable, soothing childhood days. It is a book you read again when you need peace, love, trust, endless dreams. I cordially recommend it to all children and parents, everybody must read.

It is interesting that this book is rated by two Turkish people, is it not as popular elsewhere as it is in Turkey?

I have only read the Turkish translation (Fedor Amca) as a child, and it was one of my two favourite books (the other was Peter Pan). I will recommend it to every parent. Let your child know that there exist other beautiful things than computers in this world.

In the Green Mile Serial Thriller I love how Stephen King takes so many little stories about love and friendships and adds a twist of evilness and darkness with in each of the characters. From how he builds up the plot not just for the main characters but for everyone of the characters in the novel from the talented Mr. Jingles to the most focused character John Coffey. King kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time while he was building up to the final part, is Coffey gonna live or die and I really loved that but didn't like the outcome. But because of the time period it was set in I can understand reasons for the ending King gave The Green Mile. The book was really great and to any Stephen King fan if I were you I would read it.

I love the installment idea! You simply couldn't wait until the next month to read more. This comes from a stay at home mother of 2 boys and a husband(hehe), that has NO time to read! Still, once starting the series-out of curiosity. Finally,I found a way of reading a novel my way. Plus, I think this way of writing forced and challenged King to once again write from his heart and soul---not his bank account.He was once again writing with a sense of passion, as in his earlier books(The Shining, The Stand,etc...). I had become disenamored with the books he has churned out a a fast rate the past few years. You can certainly tell a difference in his earlier works when compared to his more rescent works(disappointing). I could since a "selling of his soul to the devil" with his more rescent works. It appeared that the almighty dollar had become his reading audience. Once again he has enticed me into giving him another chance, thanks to his venture with "The Green Mile" series I have a renewed since of faith in Stephen King.

I must say " the green mile " series was a nice change from Stephen Kings other books. It made me laugh and it made me cry, none of his other books have ever affected me like that!!! I'm really glad I bought the whole series at one time, if I would've bought them one at a time I would've been crazy by the time the last one got here!! I couldn't put them down, I read one after another!!!!My heart will always be with his HORROR stories though.....because I like the "things that go bump in the night". Thank you Stephen King for giving me a chance to see another side of your writing ability.I'll be waiting and looking forward to getting my next book in the mail.

Lukas, mi hijo, tiene 1 año y un mes y hace 4 días que comenzamos con esta técnica, antes de eso el siempre durmió en nuestra pieza (en su cuna) y despertaba varias veces en la noche (generalmente había que tomarlo en brazos para que siguiera durmiendo). Ciertamente ya hemos notados varios avances en término de que ya no llora tanto antes de quedarse dormido y que ya solo despierta una vez en la noche (tipo 6:00 am) pero hay algunas cosas que nos preocupan y que el libro no hace mención, basicamente son las siguientes:
- Es normal que comienze a tener miedo de entrar a su pieza..??
- Desde que comienza el ritual (baño) el ya se da cuenta de todo y se pone muy asustadizo, solo quiere estar en brazos y de preferencia de la mamá (ambos hemos participado, aunque yo he tomado una rol mas activo).
- El acostumbraba a obrar dos o tres veces al día, estos dos últimos días han sido 7 y 5 respectivamente, pero con la misma consistencia de siempre y sin presentar otros problemas del estómago.
En resumen, pese a que estamos contentos por los avances presentados, lo notamos muy temeroso y no sabemos si es normal y va a pasar con el tiempo.
Agradeceré inmensamente sus comentarios, de ante mano, gracias.

Atte, WR.

My husband and I thought we lost our nights together after our son was born. We indulged in every " crime " most pediatricians and experimented parents warned us against. The baby slept with us, in our bed and was a perpetual nurser. He was eight months old and still waking up every three hours to feed; He would go to sleep as late as 1:00 in the morning, sometimes earlier, but for us it was the same, since we knew he'd be up again in no time.

When he turned eight months we decided to get our relationship back. We had " duermete nino" resting in a book shelf.

It took a lot of courage to go thru with the recommended method. Did we suffer in the progress? oh yeah we did! but in no time, ( for us two nights) our son was sleeping thru the night, from 8:00pm to 8:00am.

We have romantic dinners now. We watch a movie on t.v peacefully and our relashionship is back to before our son was born, with the plus of having a beautiful boy to play with: DURING THE DAY.

Was it worth it? a hundred percent! Not only for us, but for our son as well. He adores his new routine, and now we put him in his crib and leave the room in total darkness, and though he remains awake for a little bit, he does not cry. He smiles at us when we said good night, and when I go check on him five minutes later, he is sound asleep.

If this sounds ideal for you, give it a try. According to statistics is 96% effective. How about a good night sleep?

My son was 18 months, and he was still needing to have someone in his room until he fell asleep (rubbing his back, singing, etc.), otherwise he would cry, and cry, and cry... One of my sisters and some friends in Spain recommended it to me but I could not find it in the US. Finally, this summer I visited Spain , and I bought it there. What an investment! In less than a week he was falling asleep by himself. It worked wonders, believe it or not. It provides easy to follow steps that will make your night time an enjoyable experience for the whole family.