I admit I found this kit initially attractive for its promise to teach conversational Russian minus the difficult grammar and other "messy bits", and was lured by the 45 minutes a day, six week claim. Such a program has its benefits, but after all was said and done, I was left wishing that I had taken the time to begin with the basics.
Apart from an unexplained alphabet chart in the introductory chapter and a very few flash cards, "Instant Russian" doesn't bother with Cyrillic letters, using instead a phonetically spelled equivalent of each word. The strategy is to allow a better mastery of tricky Russian pronunciations; I was left feeling ultimately hindered by the method. After completing the course, I was able to recite words and phrases but had absolutely no idea how to recognize the majority of my new vocabulary as it might appear on a store front sign or restaurant menu. I feel that I would have fared much better with at least a basic understanding of the Russian characters.
Also, I was unsure of the exact sounds of some of the letter groupings, as the female voice on the cassette has a British accent. Several of the english word examples given, especially those in the section pertaining to vowel sounds, contained words that are pronounced differently in Britain than in North America. This isn't a HUGE problem, but for those outside the UK, it's something to consider.
That said, I give "Instant Russian" three stars because it delivers what it claims - important words and phrases without the bother of difficult grammar. It is neither for those with a serious interest in studying the language nor for those that would prefer to learn Russian using the Cyrillic characters, something I highly recommend doing.
I understand how this program might be greatly appreciated by travellers wishing only to grasp the basics of conversational Russian, but wanting more, I have decided to invest the time and effort into exploring a more traditional approach to the language.

Although this book has extremely good photos and charts, its actual content is limited. Coverage of specific events and battles is conscice. This shortcoming is slightly made up for in the book's appendicies which include a nice atlas, portfolio projects, histrical documents, and glossary. However, I recomend this book only for a general review of world history. It is useful as a suplement to other world history texts.

I must say I do appreciate Miss Fairchild's novels but this one is really just dull...The dumb heroine is in love with the hero all the time and he doesn't notice her. There wasn't any tension at all and I was glad when the book was over. Highly NOT recommended. You better spend you money on another book.

The plot really was a good idea and the hero of the story was wonderful, BUT (you knew a but was coming) I really did not like the fact that Patience was totally obsessed with another man until the last few pages of the book. I would have loved to have seen Patience and Richard's relationship develop, but I was left with the feeling that the end of the book was only the barest of beginnings of their romance. Most of the time I was reading this book, I was longing to hit Patience over the head for ignoring the man who was so desperately in love with her.

The last straw for me was the scene (which was a tad much for a regency romance) where Patience came close to losing her virginity to her childhood crush, Pip. It was too detailed, if you get what I mean, and it was close to the end of the book, which made it worse some how.

This book gets one star for poor Richard. Elisabeth Fairchild has written much better...

Patience Ballard has been in love with Pip since she was a young child. Now she's an adult, ready for her season, but Pip is already engaged to another. She resolves to find some way to win Pip's attention, to give herself a chance before Pip is snatched from her forever. The adult Pip is beautiful, purely sexy, and attacks life with a joy that makes everything a game. Still, does Patience really want everything to be a game, especially love? Patience's other childhood friend, Richard, is everything that Pip is not--steady, dependable, and thoughtful. Yet, Patience learns that Richard is also secretly in love--apparently with a married woman. What is a girl to do?

Author Elisabeth Fairchild does a wonderful job depicting that odd moment in history known as the Regency Period. Aristocrats party while the masses go hungry and everyone is concerned about reputation and the risk of being ruined. Patience begins as a flighty aristocrat but gradually sees beneath the surface of society, becoming a more complete person--and a person capable of an adult relationship. Still, can she learn the difference between passion and love--before it is too late?

I must admit I was hoping for more from this book but was rather disappointed with it. There is a short section on the history of blackwork that makes some assumptions about historic pieces without explaining why the author believes it and in some cases seems to be contradicted by other writers on the topic. The author also makes a strange statement about it 'being wrong' to do the historic styles of blackwork as that society (Tudor through Stuart eras, I presume) no longer exists. There is a brief bibliography at the end of the chapter -- which seems a rather odd place for it.

The fillwork patterns are not charted and look to be be hand-drawn. Not very well either! Uneven and since this is counted thread work, they'd be difficult to use. There is no documentation for the sources of the patterns either.

The thing that I find the biggest waste in the book is the author's nearly twenty pages of 'rough sketches' of designs for pieces that may or may not be included and even if they are, it's certainly nothing I'd want to do.

Geddes writes a consise overview of the history of Blackwork that is easy to read and digest. She references many authors, paintings, and such; but there is NO bibliography. patterns are included, but are NOT referenced, so they cannot be used as documentation on a reproduction. Excellent B&W reproductions of famous 16c. paintings.

My Aussie husband (before he was my husband) planned to return to Australia for a year to finish his degree. I had planned to go as well so I purchased this and other books to help me get an Australian work permit, etc. Six months before I was due to leave I sent away over 30 letters requesting LEGAL work in Australia. After I read the book I was confident I would be able to obtain a work permit; six months later I was confident I'd wasted my money. Unless you are Bill Gates or the like, overseas companies just don't want the hassle of hiring an American. You would probably be better off looking for cash-in-hand jobs once you get there.

The book has a lot of pertinent information and covers a lot of issues, from relocating (including pets) to finding work to finding housing. As it was written specifically for residents of the UK migrating to Australia or NZ, some of the information is not relevant to US-based readers, which was disappointing for me. Also, the edition I read in early 1998 had house prices from 1994, and the prices I've noted while doing some of my own research recently are much higher. All in all, however, quite detailed and descriptive of all the things one needs to think about if migrating "down under."

A historical novel which is pretty flat and unimpressive throughout. It is set in Carthage, c. 219 BC as a young Hannibal is making his march on Rome. The title and copy made me think it would be more of a thriller, rather than the weak soap-opera it turned out to be. There is a bit to be learned about the customs and manners of Carthage, but the plot is so silly I don't advise spending your time on this book. It relies on one unbelievable coincidence after another--much like Melrose Place, only without the verve. Steer clear.

I thought this book was pretty good. The book takes a while to get to the main part of the story though. It offers a glimpse of what life was like in ancient Rome and Carthage. It also fits information about Hannibal into the story without seeming like a bland history book. I think it is worth reading.

if you want to waste youre time bay this book.

I found this book to a lot of hype and not much delivery. In Chapter 6, the authors spend two whole pages on how to add graphics to Microsoft Word. This is one of the main reasons one would choose Visio. They list the options one may select, but never actually tell you how to accomplish the act!! The index in the back is also difficult to use, hard to find the topics one is looking for - or this may actually be a reflection of the book being incomplete. I have learned more about Visio on my own than by reading, using, or attempting to look up a reference in Hedtke & Knottingham's "Official" guide.

This book is OK for beginners who have little to no experience with other graphics programes (i.e. Publisher, Illustrator), but it simply glosses the more advanced features. For example, the books states, almost like an ad, that you can link to Access and Project, but gives useless explanations as to how these tasks are done and no examples or explanation on why you would do it. These advanced features are the very reason you would use Visio in the first place.

The first reviewer of Born to Sing admirably summed up this work with one star. I did get a few useful tips out of the book/cassettes but as a self-tution book it is seriously flawed. The first weakness is the quality of the singing on the tapes. Maybe it's my ear or the technology of the cassettes but at times the two authors sound like donkeys braying at each other from separate fields.
I could get over that if the structure was better. There is no attempt to teach the beginner a song, merely various bits of technique. Even simple things like numbering the tapes is missing, so that once you remove them from the case, you have no idea which order they're in!
I could live with all this except one of the authors will rattle off an impossible piece of singing and then, deadpan, say "Now you try it"!
There are some better books w/cassette/CD available. by Susan Sutherland, pub by Teach Yourself (NTC Publishing Group), for instance, is cheaper and better, though you'll have to put up with her archly Brit accent! Nothing's perfect.
M

I don't even know where to start in describing how bad these "lessons" are. Do yourself a favor and look elswhere.

i think the book and tapes were great they really helped me and i think this is one of the best voice lesson books i have read

Why another biography of Elisabeth of Austria, dozens having been previously written (some the size of a Mitchner opus), if the author has nothing new to add or not even a better way of telling what's been told many times before. This book has neither, and the author has created an inferior work to all those far more excellent ones at your local library. His only fresh approach is a dubious and tasteless tie-in to Diana-mania. It is just too contrived and amateurish. The fact that Kirkus, a highly political organ, has given it a good review is due to the author having a prominent place in the elite and liberal literary community it is comprised of and promotes.

It's a good book, but there's something wrong in the pictures! There is a picture in the middle of the book that shows the Empress Elizabeth of Austria with two of her dogs... but... THAT'S NOT THE EMPRESS! It's her youngest sister "Sophie".

This book has a beautiful dustjacket. Inside, however, it's primarily a rehash of secondary sources with little new information and few fresh insights about the puzzling character of Elisabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. The Princess Diana comparison seems like a hasty add-on after her death, not original and not well-developed or thoughtful. It seems like a last-minute pre-publication shameless capitalization on a tragedy for the sake of garnering some book sales through sensationalization. I wish I could have read the version that went to the publishers prior to the accident in the tunnel in Paris, I'm sure it would have been much less annoying.

I really liked the idea of the two main characters being childhood friends, and then falling in love as a adults, being brought together by their mutual love of art. But, the story turned out to be boring, and even ridiculous in parts. The idea of bronze sculptures being commissioned by the hero and accidentally having the heroine's head put on these sensual figurines was just unbelievable, and didn't add to the plot(the hero supposedly gave the person who cast the figures a paper with a drawing of the heroine's head on the back and that was how the goof-up was made?) The book plodded along, and it was not very romantic at all, since it took the hero forever to recognize that he loved the heroine, even though she knew she loved him from the beginning. The "big misunderstanding" at the end where the hero accidentally sells a picture that the heroine painted for him was an annoying incident. The worst thing I can remember about the book was when the hero is pretty much attacked by a over-sexed female out to get him, and she bites his tongue. It bleeds all over, and he is lisping in pain. He acts really naive and stupid. This part made no sense to me at all, made me almost give up on the book, and added nothing to the story. I have read several of Elisabeth Fairchild's books that I have liked and have rated very highly, but this book is very forgettable. Don't waste your time on this one. I would suggest Sugar Plum Surprises, The Holly and the Ivy, and The Silent Suitor, if you want to try three I can think of off-hand.

This book had to be one of the most boring books I have read in a long time. I'm sorry to say Miss Fairchild but this wasn't the best book you've written. I normally love the books you've written but this isn't one of them. The whole book seemed to lack excitment. There really wasn't any. Both the hero and heroine of this book love to paint. It's part of what makes them such friends. Not to mention that they grew up together. The hero leaves to go travel the world for a year and when he comes home he can't wait to share everything that has happened and see how everything is the same. But nothing is the same. Especially not his life long friend. She has changed into a true woman with curves and all! Throughout the book we see that the heroine is in love with the hero but the hero isn't sure about what he feels for the heroine. Now normally nothing would be wrong with that because that is how most regency's are. However it takes forever for him to realize how he feels and during that time NOTHING happens! Totally boredom! I am sorry to say that a book could be this bad but it was. Better luck next time!

This was the first Regency I ever read, so it probably holds a soft spot in my heart. But believe me, I am a critical reader and would not have loved it for that reason alone. The characters in this book are unique and realistic. I was able to see how their thoughts and feelings affected them as well as their lives and the situations they found themselves in. They are likable and understandably conflicted, and you want them to get together.

The scene at the waterfall when the lovers first kiss gave me shivers when I read it--not because it's overtly sexy, but because Fairchild does such a good job with words describing everything, I felt like I was there. The whole book is like that--very sensual in the sense that you can almost see and hear and touch the surroundings.