This play is a very special play to me. I did a monologue of Jenny's for a class project and it really made me feel something. This is the first and only Neil Simon play that I've read and I can't wait to read more of his works. This is an emotional play that speaks from the heart and makes you realize that life is worth living. For anyone who is a big Neil Simon fan, read this book and I guarantee you will enjoy it.

The Book is Worth reading !!

Campbell and Reece are best known as the authors of the hefty and excellent "Biology", now in it's 6th edition used by undegraduate biology majors and AP Biology students.

"Essential Biology" uses a different approach. The authors have packed a great deal into this amazingly small textbook. I recently reviewed a huge number of introductory biology texts for adoption in our school district. We use Campbell and Reece's Biology, 6th edition for our AP biology course but were looking for a textbook to use with our 9th grade honors biology students.

After a lengthy comparison of textbooks we picked "Essential Biology" based on several things. First we found the book to be accurate, readable, and concise. We felt that it would give the students a depth of understanding in the core biological principles so that they would be ready when they moved on to AP biology later in their high school career.

Instead of trying to "cover" everything under the biological sun, "Essential Biology" focuses on four core biological topics: cells, genetics, evolution, and ecology. It's 20 chapters are broken up into these 4 units and does a wonderful job of pulling it all together.

Other textbooks certainly cover more material but with less depth. What is the use of having a huge textbook that the students either never finish or rush through with no real understanding? This is a textbook that the students can dig into and throughly understand during one course.

It is supported by CD-ROM's and on-line material. The website provides activities, on-line labs, quizes, and other practice. Students can print out results or e-mail them to their teachers.

I would recommend this text as one for use in a non-majors biology course or as an advanced high school biology introductory course.

I very much liked Neil Simon's three-act play 'Last of the Red-Hot Lovers' because this tragicomic play is also a psychological analysis of the middle class people in search of love, sex, security and happiness. The plot is Barney's attempts at extramarital affair. When he is 47, after 23 years of married life with three kids, he begins to look for someone new. Why ? because for the first time in his life he begins to think about dying. The thought of death becomes a part of his life. The only way out for him is new excitements and new hopes that will make his life more colorful. This play is certainly worth reading. Don't miss it !

This book is an amazing collection of monologues, for every type of reader. I personally used it for an audition and it went great. This book has every type of monologues from sad to hilarious. Get this book if you are an actor, director, writer, or just a reader.

Lost in Yonkers is a play by Neil Simon. I gave it four stars because it's and easy to read, easy to understand, interesting book. It's a story about two young boys, Artie and Jay and their father Eddie. The boys mother dies of cancer and the family is left without any money and very much in debt. Eddie had spent all of their money trying to keep their mother alive. He owed money and didn't have a job. He only had one option. To leave his children with their strict, and non-affectionate grandmother, and their challenged aunt, while he leaves in search for a job. The children beg their father not to leave them, but he feels he has no other choice. So Eddie leaves for 10 months and the children struggle to get along with their grandmother. They think of running away with their uncle who is trying to escape from the mob. The only way they have contact with their father is through letters. Some of their obstacles include having to work in their grandmothers store so that they can eat dinner. Having to get up and eat bad soup when they're sick. To help their uncle in not letting the mob know where he is. They have to deal with two very strange aunts. They also have to suffer when they make mistakes. They are not allowed to cry. These children hardly get a normal childhood. Throughout the many challenges in this story, you are bound to get hooked.
I am very interested in seeing this as a play. I was very impressed with the liveliness of each of the characters. They were so easy to visualize, I almost felt as if I was them while I was reading this story. I think that seeing this as a play would be interesting because I have my idea on how the characters look and act, I wonder what they will look like in a play. And for the animation this story holds I give it four out of five stars. Go find out for yourself.

One of Neil Simon's classic dramas, Lost In Yonkers is set in 1942 Yonkers, New York and centers on Jay and Arty, two boys (ages 13 and 16) who must spend one year with their rather austere and quite demanding grandmother while war rages in Europe. Here is a family of memorable and eccentric characters that can be identified within most families and assortments of kinfolk. The Los Angles Theatre Works cast under the direction of John Rubinstein does full justice in this radio play adaptation of Neil Simon's Pultizer Prize and Tony Award-winning play. This superbly recorded audiobook edition of Lost In Yonkers is very highly recommended to the legions of Neil Simon enthusiasts and fans.

I was pleasantly surprised by Lost in Yonkers. The story touched my heart without being pretentious. Neil Simon is one of the best modern playwrights who has the heart of Miller and the inventiveness of Mamet.

I laughed so hard and was touched by all the wonderful performances of these characters.

Neil Simon has a knack for making the characters believable and real, and I thought that some of the works ended too soon. I want to know more about the characters' lives and what happened before and after the play situations. I wish he could go back and do a George Lucas thing and write the prequels and sequels to these fine masterpieces.

I love these plays and so do all my friends. My High School even performed Rumors my senior year, I was so thrilled to be a part of it. I got to play Glenn Cooper. It was so much fun.

I bought this book from Amazon.com the second I found it and you should, too. (mainly because you wont find it anywhere else, I checked).

This lovely volume of eight Neil Simon plays will assume an immediate place of honour on your bookshelf. Well laid out with easy-to-read type, it takes up where volume 1 leaves off. Even those folks not connected with the world of acting can have fun with these scripts. Reading/acting the plays aloud with your family, each person assigned a different role, can be a great activity for quality time -and will hone your comedy timing. Special nuggets include 'Prisoner of second avenue' and 'Chapter Two'. Reading Simon's work reveals greater depth beneath the priceless one-liners that he supplies. That, in fact, is his genius; like Woody Allen and Joseph Heller, Simon first draws you in with laughter only to move you with great humanity. These plays are among his deeper works, as life-experience go into the mix. The stories on these pages are our own, and youll have a ball!

I especially enjoy this collection of plays because it contains so many different genres, each evoking a strong emotion from the reader. For instance, Rumors is an incredibly funny farce that contains both slap-stick and witty humour, while Lost in Yonkers is a powerful drama about the coming of age of two boys forced to live with their grandmother in the middle of Yonkers. The other three plays, London Suite, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, and Jake's Women are also strong pieces and were very enjoyable to read as well. Of all Neil Simon's collections, I would have to say that Vol. 4 contains the most variety and the plays featured consist of some of his best works.

As someone who has worked with the public to do bird conservation, I have found this book to be helpful in helping to explain the techniques & issues that scientists face when doing ecological censusing.

Other than the fact that most of the species that are mentioned are Old World species (a moot point since the topics & techniques are universal), this is a good book. One thing I would like to see, is a North American version that uses examples based on New World species, & how these censuses & projects relate to our conservation laws in the U.S. The authors make mention of several British or European laws dealing with habitat conservation and restoration. It would be interesting to see U.S. examples based on our laws.

Overall, a good read for anyone getting into citizen-based bird science & conservation, or introductory-level college ecology students.

this is really the best. no doubt.

Before the movie, before the television series, before all the spin offs, there was just the play. The story is a classic spin on the buddy plot. Oscar Madison is a successful sports writer who happens to be best friends with Felix Unger, a newswriter for CBS. Each week Oscar has five of his buddies over for a Friday night game of poker. However, on one fateful night Felix fails to appear in time for the game. It turns out Felix has just been thrown out by his wife and has no place to go. Feeling sorry for his old friend, Oscar invites Felix to stay with him and be his roommate. What ensues is a classic Neil Simon look at friendship that will endure for ages.

When you pair David Paymer and Nathan Lane as Felix and Oscar in the Odd Couple, you are in for a comic tour de force that over stretches its material. With a supporting cast which includes Dan Castellaneta and Yeardley Smith (both from The Simpsons) and Linda Purl, the cast is almost perfect. This production is a little too visual in a few of its jokes. However, on the whole, it unscrupulously grabs the audio listener by his ears and shakes him with laughter.

Nathan Lane is delightful as Oscar Madison. I also enjoyed hearing Dan Castellanata ("Homer Simpson") as Murray, and Yeardley Smith ("Lisa Simpson") as Cecily Pigeon.

This book is very good and funny!.. i used a monologue from the play for and audition. It went well. i recomend this book to anybody.

Star-Spangled Girl is one of my favorite modern-era plays. The primary reason for this is the delightful monologue given by the Southern character Sophie, which I used both to audition for the theater department at my school, and later as a performance peice. It provides endless entertainment for the reader, and is certainly a worthwhile example of a play that is equally good to read as it is to watch (or help produce).

The best part about watching (or reading) Neil Simon's comedies is being able to laugh out loud. In this comic masterpiece, he accentuates the presence of an overbearing small-town all-American hick in the presence of Sophie Rauschmeyer "Ah'm pleased to make your ackwaintance..." (even the wording sounds funny) in the lives of two riotous, semi-anti-American magazine wirters, Andy and Norman. The ruckus begins when Norman falls for the gorgeous athlete "with a strong shampoo", and demonstrates his love by stalking her garbage can, waxing her floor while she's out, tying bottles of perfume to her cat's tail, sending her pygmy canned goods...and smelling her endlessly ("Stop smellin' me!"). Also, the presence of the wild middle-aged landlady who's madly in love with Andy adds flavor to the comic cooking pot. Although we never see her, Andy's stories about the dangerous escapades he goes through just to skip paying rent never fail to keep me amused. And that's just for eye-openers. At the end of the first act, it gets even better as a chaotic confusion ensues as Sophie loses her job at the "Y" on account of Norman, and ends up working for them instead. It's an intricate bit of writing woven together to prove many points about the REAL all-American society, and have a few sniggers to boot. A friend of mine played Sophie in a small production, and after seeing it on opening night, I went back for the next show, and the next, and the next. Actually, I watched all six shows, and I always found something new to laugh about and appreciate. When it was over, I hunted down for the script. I still have it. It's a bit tattered and torn now, but it seems like it still gets funnier all the time. After the Star-Spangled Girl, I am now a follower in the trend of Neil Simon, as long as he keeps writing, and as long as his plays are performed.