I found all of the plots too obvious. There was no mystery to any of the stories and none of the plots had any imagination. I was very displeased with the complete novel.

Once again, a collection of great authors creating works that are out of this world. All the stories were very well written. I really enjoyed all the authors' tales of the "Islands." Great work Ladies!

this was a good novel. ms. hailstock's story was the bomb she certainly know's the way to reader's heart. ms.mason story was a very compassionate one especially when it came down to regine and her friends helping their friend alicia in her time of trouble. my favorite story was from mrs.gamble raven and logan story was my absolute favorite thes to really put this book to good use.ms aler's story was also wonderful i loved the way she hooked up the senator with a woman who was just as delightful as himself.

Even as great a writer as Shirley Jackson has to have a worst book (worst being a relative term, of course), and The Sundial would seem to be Jackson's. The story never had a strong Jackson feel to it because the characters were fairly shallow and unworthy of this reader's sympathy. As an outcast myself, I expect to find at least one troubled soul with which to identify and commiserate when I read Jackson. I initially had trouble distinguishing between the different characters because none of them were very deeply developed. While the occasional gripe or maudlin sentiment caught my attention, I found that I did not care for or about any of the dozen or so individuals described here. The Sundial is basically a weird end-of-the-world novel; the young Mr. Halloran has just died, and his mother now assumes the coveted role of head of household (due to her own husband's infirmities). As she begins to assert her authority and basically throw a few people out of "her" house, old Aunt Fanny encounters the ghost of her father, who warns her that the world is about to end, but that he will protect everyone who stays in the house. As several people begin to believe the truth of the premonition (including Mrs. Halloran), everyone is allowed to remain there. The number is increased by an obnoxiously loud friend of the Mrs. Halloran's and her two daughters, a strange girl sent by her father for temporary housing, and a gentleman whose background escapes me. These people, as might be expected, do not get along with each other very well at all. Mrs. Halloran, born of a low station, increasingly annoys her companions by assuming a dictatorial air, eventually insisting on wearing a crown. The novel leads up to the fateful day when the prophecy is supposed to be fulfilled.

While there are elements of humor in the conversations and interactions of characters who dislike one another as much as these do, there is no deep psychological meaning to be gleaned from the story. No character strikes me as real or more than remotely human, and the general attitude expressed as to the imminent end of the world is a much different reaction than I would expect of anyone. I have been reluctant to see other Jackson novels end, but I had no trouble putting this book down once I turned the final page. For someone wondering what Shirley Jackson is all about, I would not suggest reading this novel as an introduction; this one really does not fit the mold of her other major works. A Jackson fan such as myself will want to read The Sundial, of course, simply because Shirley Jackson wrote it, and it is quite likely that some will get more out of this book than I did.

This is a really good novel. It's too bad it's out of print.

It's unlike most of Jackson's other novels -- it's more of a comedy among the upper class than her other work. Um, "comedy" might be misleading. I don't know how to describe Jackson's sense of humor. It's just shy of completely dark. People behave very badly. And yet you laugh.

Try it!!

This wasnt her best, but if your new to Shirley Jacksons writing style, this is one to read.

Further into the story of talking cats Joe and Dulcie, Cat to the Dogs is another fantasy story in which two cats try to solve a crime that happened in Hellhag Canyon. This all takes place in Molina Point, California. Joe and Dulcie are able to talk to each other and their respective owners, as well as reading the newspaper and using the phone. Dulcie is spying on the house next door. This is where Lucinda Greenlaw lives. Two weeks before, her husband Shamus was drowned. She is trying to fend off Greenlaw relatives who are waiting for the funeral in a nearby trailer park. This is all happening when Joe is hunting on Hellhag Conyon when a car came skidding off of the street down a cliff. Joe studied the car and found the driver to be dead, and a break line to be cut through. Joe always tries to keep the sheriff, Max Harper, alert to the murder. Joe discovers that the victim was part of Shamus's business operations. Later it is found out that his nephews Dirken and Newlon along with his cousin Sam were also part of the business. When Shamus's last mistress Cara Ray Crisp appears, complications escalate. It takes Joe and Dulcie, helped by a tiny nameless cat to bring the killer of Newlon to justice. Clyde, the owner of Dulcie locks both of the cats out of the house when officer Harper comes over to play a game of poker. He does this because he thinks that cats should stay out of police business. He is also afraid that they will give away their secrets. That these cats can talk, read, and even use the telephone. Joe will not give up until the killer of Hellhag hill is brought to justice. Feline worshipers will enjoy countless situations of cat adoration in Cat to the Dogs. It is a book of feline fantasy and will meet up to the cat lover's standards.

Joe Grey and his "girl friend" Dulcie are after the ghost of Hellhag Hill, who has already done several murders. Joe's human, Clyde is doing all the interfering he can, and the two feline eyes meet the Kit, who will be a character in future stories. Kit is another lovable feline character who adds a lot to this story and later ones. Joe and Dulcie are at their best in this well plotted whodunit. They actually take an active part in the detection and murder solving, unlike most of the other fictional Cat PI's, who are somewhat incidental to the real happenings. These cats are special! They are a little bit of a different breed and are able to understand, speak and read human language. They are highly intelligent, and highly capable of functioning in a human world. How they manipulate things and give clues to the human police is most interesting. This book is required reading for those who like cats and mysteries.

Joe Grey is awesome! Taking advantage of his unique combination of human and feline traits, he does so many of the things we all wish we could do. A true cat's curiousity drives him to solve a murder that would have surely been chalked off as accident. You MUST follow him and his lady love Dulcie through this terrific mystery/adventure.

Riddled with errors. Towards the end of the book, the material becomes very thin. While Shirley does cover some advanced techniques, I found his explantions to be lacking. If you're going to buy this book, wait for the second edition. Glassner is a much better text on ray tracing.

I was initially excited about this book, as I have a somewhat silly notion that books produced by authors bold enough to condense a large subject into a compact little package are generally very tight, elegant works that are a joy to read. Wirth's Compiler Construction is an excellent example of this.
As I worked through this book, I found this to be anything but the case. Maybe this is my fault; after all I did say it was a somewhat silly notion.

I have found that the assumed knowledge varies widely as you work your way throughout the book, and not just in an easy-to-difficult progression from front to back. I have worked through approximately 3/4ths of this book, and have found it so riddled with errors that I often wonder if the author didn't just submit his first draft as camera-ready to the publisher. Every time I look at a pseudocode algorithm I check the errata page, and almost every time I find that there are errors. One algorithm was so incredibly wrong that rather than try and correct the code in my book with a pencil, I had to print the correct code, cut it out, and tape it over the existing one! After all of this you start to wonder how much you can trust what is being said, which is unfortunate.

The book does have some redeeming value, and if you keep in mind the large number of errors, you can actually learn quite a bit from it. It just annoys me to spend money on a "rough draft" book that could have benefited so much by a little more "proofing" by the author. I would also take with a grain of salt reviews here that are obviously written by people who read the back cover and the introduction with great zeal and formed their summary based on that. If you have not worked your way through a substantial portion of a book, you have no business writing a review of it.

I did like how the book was divided into a basic ray tracer, bells and whistles, and an advanced section. I got some nice results with just the first part. I also took some useful bits and pieces from the second part, and found the discussion about monte carlo methods and antialiasing interesting. I also did some soft shadow work, but supplemented it with a discussion from the Watt/Watt book (Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques). This would most likely be a decent book for a dabbler new to the field (but having a decent mathematical background), and those taking a ray tracing class.

The book is awesome. It dosent mislead you with all kinds of tips and hints. Its the hardcore "how to" book. If your not an idiot you will learn a lot from it.

How lucky, there are books for every taste. But some books are so overdone and pretentious, one must assume some of the more glowing reviews are sponsored by the friends of the writer or the publisher. Surely, without the motivation of a book club, most of us would put down this pinkie-in-the-air soap opera after the first chapter. It is not time well spent unless you are in jail and have read everything else six times.

The Transit of Venus is the only novel I return to again and again through the years. When Shirley Hazzard writes the line, "Although the dissolution of love creates no heroes, the process itself requires heroism," it speaks not to the mind trying to follow a plot line, but to the depths of the heart and soul. Early on in the book there is a scene, that serves no essential purpose for advancing the plot. The two would-be lovers are on a bus. The bus doesn't lurch and they are not thrown together in an embrace. Not moved by fate, their orbits take them in different directions. It's a very subtle interaction, one that will surely be lost on the Harlequin crowd. This novel took seven years to write. It is one of the finest, most delicately constructed works of art, you will ever read.

At first, your club's poor opinion of TRANSIT shocked me. Then I recalled that I'd recommended it to a friend who also ran a book club in NYC; her friends were not quite as dismissive as yours about the book, but they too found it difficult to understand. Without meaning in any way to deride your taste or that of your circle, I can only speculate that TRANSIT disappoints because modern eyes are less than eager to embrace its very different style. You call it 'affected'; yet I assure you that I can usually spot affectation before the cover opens, and Hazzard is in no way guilty of such. There is to me a beautiful and rare RHYTHM in her writing. It is musical and poetic in the best senses of those words, and readers largely accustomed to the fourth-grade syntax and tone of most modern popular novels will, I suppose, feel lost. As for its being 'unintelligible': my turn to be lost. The lives of two sisters are followed, and that's all. They're followed with exquisite attention and fatalistic power, but followed plainly.

let down by unrealistic behaviour
...
I enjoyed "the selfless sister" a great deal, but must complain about the ending! As a mother myself, I can never imagine that the outrageousness of Edgerton lying about Mariannes wherabouts would be so little examined! Basically, he killed her because at any point that day the next or the next, he could have saved her life by telling someone where she was.

Also, when a life was involved, surely everyone would have been involved in a search party, and as a mother! I would have been searching the attic myself not relying upon the servants to do it! I can't believe that they would just accept as easily as that, when everyone would have been anxious and frantic and surely checking over twice what they had checked before!

That, to me, is the worst and most letting down feature of the book. I hated that it ended like that.

It was also not made much of, when it came to light.

Lucinda has stepped back and let her younger sisters marry before her...several times. Now she and her youngest sister are the only two left unmarried, but their parents have been left almost penniless because of the generous doweries they gave their other daughters. They can scrape up enough for one more dowry and they are determined that Lucinda should take it and marry, being the second eldest. But Lucinda knows that her sister, Henrietta, is in love, so she convinces her parents to let Henrietta marry while Lucinda goes in her place as companion to their aunt.

Lucinda finds her welcome a little cold to say the least. The family itself is subdued and a little odd. They all seem to live in horror of a tragedy that they constantly refer to that happened twenty-five years before. They blame their neighbors entirely for the incident and harbor a deep hate for all the Belingtons.

Lucinda escapes the dreary household and her cousin, Edgerton's, iron rule by visiting the beautiful forest at the edge of her cousin's property. There, she sketches birds and takes time to think. But everything is turned topsy turvy when she meets an intriguing and handsome stranger in the woods one day...one Douglas, Lord Belington...

They begin to meet "accidently" on a regular basis and love is beginning to bloom. As Lucinda begins to know Douglas better and know more of the mystery that destroyed two families, she determines to find out what really happened. But she did not count on her cousin's black rage and pure hate. If he should ever learn of her forbidden romance, the consequences would be dire...

This was a lovely romance and the mystery had a surprising conclusion. If you liked this book, check out Shirley Kennedy's other regency romances. She's a great author.

Miss Lucinda Linley has once again been faced with the question of is she going to finally marry now, and make her younger sister (Henrietta) who is in love wait a few more years until her parents can afford another dowry, or is Lucinda going to step aside and allow her sister to use the dowry and marry the man she loves, as Lucinda has so done from her other 5 sisters? Being the age of 26 Lucinda realizes that her chances of finding a good match are comeing close to nothing but she doesn't care because she refuses to wed a man she doesn't love. However when a letter comes from a distant aunt, she sees it as a perfect answer to her problem for her aunt has offered her father (who doesn't want to send either of his daughters to his sister-in-laws) to provide Lucinda with a "more-than-adequate dowry" as long as she stays and entire year. What could be so bad about that? She loves to read and draw birds, and according to her father there are thick woods beside the mansion surely to hold more than enough birds to keep her busy. Of course this statement comes right before a warning of "Be careful. You have never met the likes of Edgerton Linley." her cousin.

Douglas Wyndham, Earl of Belington, is very much a man that keeps to himself. After "The Tragedy" 25 years ago, in which his family member was accused of horrible things and then the family was cut in every home, he has grown with bitterness towards the Linleys but mostly towards Edgerton Linley.

Even though it is forbidden to be close to a Belington, much less secretly meet with one in the woods, Lucinda can not seem to help herself. She is attracted to this oh-so-hansome man is ways she can't understand, whereas Douglas can't understand why he can't stop himself from seeing the only woman he could never have.

Overall this was a great story, very well thought out. The characters were great, the excitment was there, everything was there. Except even though our author showed all strings being tied for our happy couple, she didn't do so with our secondary characters as well. Now don't get me wrong, she doesn't leave us wondering what happened to them, I just thought she was going to show the reunited loves being reunited. Oh well. Like I said it was a great story with all of the characters completly thought out! I greatly recommend this book!

Don't buy this book if you want a good traditional/evangelical/orthodox theology. Guthrie is a moderate neo-orthodox theologian who believes in panenthiesm (a view of God that is a mix between panthiesm and traditional theism). His focus is more on how to use the Gospel for social transformation rather than eternal salvation. The idea that God is this "Santa Claus" in heaven is deplorable. The problem with anti-traditional/critical theology today is that it does not focus on eternal matters, but temporal and social matters. Heaven will only be realized in the life after, not now on earth through social and political transformation.

I used the older edition of Shirley Guthrie's Christian Doctrine while an undergraduate. I was seeking answers and appreciated Guthrie's humble, probing guidance. Even then I disagreed with his mildly Barthian take on things, but I did enjoy much of his approach. He posed lots of very good questions, though he offered hesitant, sometimes almost weak, answers. (In areas where Barth did NOT). This could be frustrating at times, and he was clearly even a little less classically orthodox than Barth, but I did get much out of this book.

Unfortunately, the new addition moves further along on the trajectory of the more disappointing aspects of the original work. To be honest, Guthrie comes off as somewhat more hesitant to make truth claims, even less orthodox, and even more "politically correct." I hate to give low scores, but I really should have given this edition two stars (I'd give the older edition three and a half).

I think that this book is wonderful and insightful. We used it as a textbook in one of my college classes. It was both easy to understand and still presented the issues distinctly. I recommend it for anyone trying to explore their faith and beliefs.

These are absolutely the worse tapes I have ever used. Nothing, absolutely nothing is useful in these lessons! They also talk about changing British Pounds. Of course, they now must be updated to teach you how to convert Euros not Lire.
I have studied Italian tapes for years and this is the first time I have ever encountered " Molto Lieto" for "How do you do?" I have been going to Italy for 30 years and I have, ever heard that expression.
Save your money! dont' buy this mish mash mess!!!
If I could I would give this no stars.

If you already know some basic Italian, perhaps this would be a helpful refresher. For a beginner, it's difficult to coordinate the tape with the text, they don't track one another directly. One would suspect that their respective preparers didn't talk much once they got started on this project. I regret buying this material.

This book isn't worth the price you pay. It comes with a cassette tape, and I was hoping the tape would teach me the language. In fact, you have to learn every word in the book before you can work with the tape. Also, the book lists no translation for the conversations...it's all in Italian. Don't waste your time or your money on this one.

I bought this version of the popular fairy tale as a gift for my niece. After I received it, I was horrified to read in detail about how the huntsman cut open the wolf's stomach to look for the grandmother. It then goes on to read, ". . . after a few more slashes a little girl jumped out.." This was not at all what I had envisioned as a gift for a young girl. I wish I had been warned to buy the story from a different author.

this book was very scary and ummmm... i-i didn't like it, it scared me!

The illustrations in this book are very similar to those of Jan Brett but darker tones used. There is always something hidden w/in the pictures for children to look for and the illustrations help enhance the tale.

I also recommend Lon Po Po.