This is another in the American Girls Short Stories series about Kirsten Larson, a nine-year-old girl from Sweden, whose family has moved to frontier Minnesota of 1854. It is winter, and the men of the Larson household are off earning extra money logging. When a group of Chippewa (Ojibwa) warriors arrive, wearing war paint, Kirsten is deeply afraid. However, working with these new strangers, Kirsten learns that they are not as fierce as they look.

The final chapter of this book really makes it something special, covering the Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indians, and then giving directions for making a delicious Birds' Nest Pudding. This is a good story, with Renee Graef's usual excellent illustrations. My favorite part, though, was when my daughter insisted on making the Birds' Nest Pudding.

This is another in the American Girls Short Stories series about Molly McIntire, a ten-year-old girl living on the home front during World War 2. When Molly is paired up with her friend Susan to do a report on George Washington, she believes that this will be the best report ever. However, when Susan starts moving the project in new directions, Molly begins to fear that the project will end in disaster. Molly believes that doing things in a different way is always bad, but perhaps different can be better!

My eleven-year-old daughter and I love these American Girls books, and this one is just as good as the others. The author succeeds in driving home her point with a gentleness that makes the story a joy to read, even while you are learning something. The final chapter has directions for making Cherry-Nut Cupcakes, which have little to do with the story, but my daughter enjoyed making them, and I enjoyed eating them. (Actually, as a father, I do hope that they keep up with putting recipes in their new books!)

If you're a fan of Philip Jose Farmer's brainchild, Riverworld, you've probably already read this. If you're not, it would probably be best to start with the original materal.
However, you certainly don't need to be familiar with his five-novel series to understand or appreciate this diverse collection of well-written and intriguing SF stories. In a nutshell, Riverworld is a vast, constructed planet where everyone who's ever lived on Earth since the dawn of history to 1983 is resurrected. This leads, naturally, to an infinite variety of character meetings and confrontations through amusing and ingenious historical "what-ifs".
Like what? Like what if Shakespeare came face to face with Richard III - who is not amused at the Bard's characterization of him (as in Jody Lynn Nye's excellent contribution). Or if Admundsen and Peary attempted to fly, on one of Riverworld's primitive planes, to that planet's South Pole. Why? "Because It's There," by Jerry Oltion. How about Patton fighting it out in Roman-style gladiator games (brought to you by a powerhouse in the SF field, Lawrence Watt-Evans)? Or for even more jingoistic John Wayne-style indulgence, what if American icons Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett tussled with some Nazis?
Philip Jose Farmer contributes two stories here as bookends, and they are both superb; in addition to being engaging and thought-provoking, he uses only his own ancestors as characters!
Fun and imaginative historical speculation by a lot of great talents in the field. Warmly recommended

It's been years since I've read this, but the title story still sticks in my mind. I can't tell you too much about it, since that would give away the powerful ending. The balance of the stories are also good, especially the hysterical "Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod" (what if William Burroughs instead of Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote Tarzan?). Definitely worth hunting for this collection.

Very Impressive work. This is better than so many other anthologies I have seen of late that miss the boat when it comes to capturing the integral and exciting contemporary. You won't think poetry is boring any more! Well Done. And the CD is awesome. Nicole Blackman's voice is enough to make you become a lover of spoken word.

Since this includes interviews with some of my favorite writers, I was eager to devour it. I totally love the tidbits, as well as the interviews. Now, the biggest problem with this book is the excessive amount of editorial errors. Just in my first reading of this book, I found over a dozen! And this is published by a university press! If you can overcome the distractions of these mistakes, then you can enjoy what this book is meant to be: a fascinating collection of interviews of some of the biggest names in gay men's publishing.

Included in this volume is a short story by Michel Tremblay (The Hanged Man) that rivals Poe's Tell-Tale Heart for scariness. Much better than Stephen King ... and much shorter! The story is told in the first person by the guard who stands sentry through the night over the body of a hanged man. He tells of his experiences that evening ...

If you try & cannot locate a copy of this book, email me. I'll call you collect and read you this story ... late at night, in the dark.

This is a spectacular collection of really interesting stories with great depth. My favourite is Trevor's Going Home, because it is so easy to relate it with real life. The portrayal of the two characters is simply marvelous.

This book was put together with minimal effort, as the pictures are the publicity shots which the airlines receive when they take delivery of a new aircraft. The pictures are fine but not nearly as interesting as the photos in similar books by authors who do their own photography. They are invariably air to air photos with no pictures of aircraft landing or taking off.

While some makes and models of airliners have been covered redundantly in these types of books, this one is dedicated to smaller aircraft which makes it a unique and worthwhile purchase. What's missing here is adequate text documenting the history of the aircraft. For instance, there's an elaborate spread for the Fokker 100, with pictures of it in the livery of about a dozen airlines. However, all there is to read about it are brief captions for each picture which say little more than how many each airline has in its fleet. I realize that the primary appeal of these books are the pictures, but with other airliner books in my collection, I have also learned.

An excellent photographic journey into the subject of commuter aircraft, the workhorse of today's aviation industry. Philip Handelman has captured on film, the various types of aircraft in service today.His photography includes some static photos of aircraft on the ground as well as incredible air to air shots.

Hard Times feels like a book that Dickens did not polish nearly as much as the many classics associated with his name. It's the story of the unhappy lives of two children of a father who raised them to speak and appreciate only "facts." Imagination, fantasy, passion, and the like were all forbidden in their household.

Their lives are unhappy, as you'd expect. But they also lack much narrative interest. The usual twists and turns of fate that Dickens invests into his characters' lives are mostly absent. As a result the book drags on. Hard Times also lacks the humor found in other Dickens books, his pithy observations of different persona of his time. So, in reading the uninspiring narrative, you find yourself wishing for something, anything of the old Dickensian magic. Alas, it does not show up.

If you have other Dickens titles you're set on reading, read them first. You're likely to enjoy them more.

If you read Hard Times for the sole purpose of being entertained you will probably be highly disappointed. However, if you understand what was happening during this time period, you will realize that Hard Times is in reality, a long commentary. The Industrial Revolution was starting to show its down side. There was rampant poverty and disease, from the overcrowding of the cities. Children of the poor had to work long hours in unsafe factories rather than go to school. The gulf between the haves and the have-nots was very wide. The middle class was only beginning to be a distinct group.
This then was the backdrop of Hard Times. Dickens is making a social and political statement. This is a statement against the mechanizing of society. It starts with Dickens repeated use of the word fact. It is facts that have meaning. Human conventions like feeling, compassion or passion have no meaning or looked down upon as an inconvienent waste of time. If a situation cannot be put down on paper as in an accounting ledger it should not be considered.
This is where the conflict of the book comes in. Which helps humanity more compassion or fact. Is Bounderby a better person than Blackpool? Bounderby, who by his own admission was a self-made man. Untrue as this was he said it enough to make it his own reality. Or Blackpool, a weaver with an alcoholic wife, who was in love with another woman. Facts made Bounderby rich, compassion made Blackpool human.
Louisa presents another conflict. Louisa was educated only by fact. No wonder or inquisitiveness was ever allowed. She was the perfect robot. Doing what she was told when she was told. Just another piece of the machine, however, the piece broke, emotions came out, and they broke down the wall of fact that Mr. Gradgrind had so carefully constructed. Because the feelings have finally been acknowledged things really break down. She finds that not only has she married the wrong man but also the man she did marry is a buffoon whom she cannot respect nor live with.
The reader is left wondering if there is no one who will not be ruined by all the worship to fact. The whelp has certainly been ruined to the point he feels no responsibility to anyone but himself. If a situation can not be used to his advantage then he has no use for it, as a matter of course, he will run when he believes he will have to take responsibility for his own actions.
The gypsies have not been ruined by fact. But only because they live outside of society, they do not conform to the rules of society. These are the people who value character over social status. The gypsies do not value Bounderby and Bitzer with all their pomp and egomania. Rather they value Stephen Blackpool and Cecilia whom can show compassion and kindness no matter a person's station in life.
Hard Times can be used to look at today's society. Are we, as a society more worried about our computers, cell phones, faxes, and other gadgets than our neighbor's well being? Do we only get involved to help others when there is a personal benefit? Or, are we like the gypsies who can look into the character of the person and not worry about the socio-economic status? While Dickens' wrote Hard Times about 19th century England the moral can easily fit into 21st century America

I always had a revulsion when I was forced to read Dickens in high school, and I was never able to get past the first chapter of any of his books, including this one. Now that I'm in my mid-30's, I want to re-visit a lot of the works that I had no patience for as a teenager, so I read Hard Times. Although there are many flaws to this book, I felt proud to have finally cleared the Dickens hurdle. Dickens is excellent at creating sympathetic (and evil) characters, even though they may be slightly cliche or wooden. The fact is, Dickens is able to hook you in with his plots and create a profound concern on behalf of the reader that the good guy (or girl) wins and the bad guy suffers. A lot of the twists in this book were a little "too convenient" and implausible to make it a crowining work of literature, but nevertheless it has motivated me to move on to Dickens' larger, more daunting works. If you are having any trepidation about tackling Dickens, Hard Times is a good place to start.