I recently bought several kid-oriented versions of the tale of Robin Hood, looking for one that would be right for my 2nd grader. I haven't found one that's right for him to read yet, but this version is excellent for me to read to him. The first one edition I read was the Bullseye "Step into Classics" edition, and this edition is the second children's edition I've read.

The chapters are short (as is the whole book), but the author takes the time to include the elements of feasting and fighting that mark the older, more adult versions of the tale. The language is more complex than the Bullseye edition, but not by too much, and the language has a bit more of the "Olde England" feel I'm used to without going so far as to use archaic words. There's no smiting of pates here, I'm afraid. I'm torn between missing the archaic style and being glad I don't have to explain every other word to my son.

Robin Hood comes off as having a nasty temper, which I suppose he always did, but other versions usually have a bit more build-up before he goes wild. In order to keep the pace fast, the author omits some of the process of Robin getting mad, so he often seems a bit mean.

This book does a bit better than the Bullseye edition as far as telling how the men joined the band, giving better detail on the origin of Robin Hood himself and how Friar Tuck joined the band. It also tells the story of Alan a' Dale with more detail, and gives much better background on Maid Marian and her father. The other members of the band are explained as having been there from the beginning (in this story, an existing band saves Robin from the Sheriff, and Robin comes to lead them.)

The biggest weakness in this edition is that Prince John is virtually absent from the story, and King Richard never comes back to pardon everyone. There are several bits where the sherrif goes to see "the king," and the king he talks to seems a decent sort of fellow. Without a properly evil ruler, it's harder to understand why the people love Robin Hood so much.

Overall, I'd say this edition is a good compromise between being comprehensive and remaining accessible to children. I'd estimate it's at about a 3rd-4th grade reading level, but should be fine for reading to children as young as 6.

A good overview of US law. There are issues which are matters of opinion and not explained well enough (ex. ethics), and perhaps needn't be addressed at all in a law book. The examples and the references make it a worthy purchase overall.

If you thought they just build the Hubble Space Telescope and launched it, you're wrong. This book let you see what all such projects got to go through from the first bright idea and to the actual launch of an earth orbiting space vehicle. Sander Elvik, aerospace engineering student

This is a unique collection on an interesting subject. As in any edited volume, some chapters are better than others. I was surprised by the low paternity assurance of some studies, and the insights into human evolution and anatomy are fascinating. For example, why are human penises so much larger than in other apes? And why are human females menstrual rather than estrual? I wish the copy I read was mine and not in a library.

This is a wonderful book although it was stiched together by Smith almost 50 years after Wiswell created the raw material in her journal notes--because it simply has no competition. Ella Wiswell was John Embree's wife and co-ethnographer in Suye Mura in 1935-36. She returned to her original calling as a Professor of European languages after his death in 1951, just filing her notes and journals away until Smith came along and talked her into opening them up. This volume reveals a pre-war rural Japan of gossipy, lusty, and surprisinglyly independent women; flexible families, gobs of divorce and remarriage (initiated by women as well as men), independent and defiant youths of both sexes. It goes a good deal further than Embree's original monograph to make the ability of Japan to industrialize as early as it did understandable. These are not strong Confucian or samurai families extending from the past above to the future below, but horizontal families with sometimes comically permeable boundaries--weak families in the demands that can effectively be made on members, weak in their ability to retain even central members (like wives or husbands). And where family is weak, individuals are able to shine--and these people do.

Carl Jung's character has taken quite a shellacking of late in new biographies by Richard Noll. In contrast, Smith's book is sympathetic both to Jung's cause--the healing journey toward wholeness he termed "individuation"--and to the deeply disturbed, dissociated psyche that relentlessly drove Jung, both personally and professionally, toward the fulfillment of his destiny: his "daimon." Smith focuses on Jung's relationships with his parents, arguing that it was mainly Jung's ambivalent feelings toward his mother--not his father, as most biographers believe--that most powerfully influenced his peculiar psychic development. Smith also emphasizes the famous Freud-Jung friendship, and its daimonic character, noting that both men had enormous stores of repressed anger or rage which both drove their prodigious creativity and caused serious interpersonal difficulties. Smith's brief biography, despite its limitations, perceptively illuminates in ways others have not the darker side of C.G. Jung--his repressed rage--and in so doing, deepens our understanding of and compassion for the daimonic Dr. Jung, and, hopefully, our own daimonic qualities.

This book defies contradictory expectations: it is not the high-minded work I expected, nor is it the descent into pornography I expected once I found out the nature of the valuable work of art our heroine comes across. What it really is, I think, is a coming of age story where a young woman who belongs no where, gradually finds out just who she is and where she fits in and learns her own mind.

The main problem is that the book doesn't have a consistent tone and its parts fight with each other--its a literary hodge-podge. Part of it is a primer on methodology for saving art, part an appreciation of classical books, part coming of age, part love story, part travelogue, and part literary thriller. However, there are delights to be found: the growing identity of the main character, the atmospherics of Florence, and the fascinating information on art and culture. It's easy to read and is worthwhile.

My take on the book:

The shifts from first person to third person were slightly jarring.

Nothing in the book really seemed to ground the story in 1966, especially not the language. The catch phrases Margot used seem very contemporary.

I'm not certain that the male author has really captured the female psyche, particularly in the beginning train scenes that seem rather gratuitous in the discription of naked women. Also, I found the following passage to be condescending and thoroughly annoying:

"Yolanda bent over to remove her nylons and I inhaled, along with the gentle aroma of expensive perfumes, a powerful damp-dog smell. Someone was having her period."

Uhhh..."damp-dog smell"???? Maybe I've missed something in the course of my life, but I've never smelled another woman having her period.

All this aside, I did enjoy the convent scenes and the information about book binding. The book touches on a number of themes (the meaning of "home," coming to terms with death, etc.) but never really delves deeply. Thus, I found the book to be mostly pleasant, but hardly life-altering reading.

It is not often I find a book that I can not put down. From the opening pages of The Sixteen Pleasures to its end, I found myself enchanted with the story Robert Hellenga has to tell. The story regards a young woman's adventure that begins with an innocent attempt to offer her book binding restorative skills to save book treasures in Florence Italy during the mid 60's. She was called a mud angel because she was among the other volunteers who had come to assist the Italian government to salvage works of art damaged be the floods resulting from the rains in Florence. Although this in itself is a worthy act, the reader is guided through her adventures and at the same time see this naive woman develop into a women of culture and knowledge, not only of art but also of herself. All of this results from her association with the restoration of an erotic book from the Renaissance period. If this is not enough for the reader, you learn little tidbits along the way like how a fresco is removed from the ceiling of a chapel. This book is meant to be read again and again

I admire the author's thoughtful words, but by ignoring the Reorganized LDS church, which the Prophet's son Joseph Smith III founded in 1860 with Emma Smith's assistance, a huge part of church history goes unmentioned. The RLDS (now called Community of Christ) has in it's headquarters in Independence MO, two portraits, one of Joseph Smith Jr, and one of his wife Emma Smith. I believe these were painted during Joseph's lifetime, thereby making the statement in the back of this book's jacket that the cover portrait is the only one painted during Joseph's lifetime inaccurate.

This short biography of the man now considered "My Joseph" by author Robert Remini, covering the life and death of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, is a well-researched, even-handed and concise examination of the life of a unique and great American. Drawing from sources as far apart as Joseph Smith's Personal Writings and John C. Bennett's Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism, from scholars across the spectrum such as Fawn Brodie, Richard Bushman and Donna Hill, Remini has synthesized the important historical, biographical and often controversial information to be found about the life of Joseph Smith. The work is brief, as necessitated by the series, and can easily be read in one sitting.
Divided into nine chapters, Remini first introduces the reader to the American political and cultural context of the early 19th century, as the extent, fanaticism and individual, similar occurences to those of Smith during the Second Great Awakening are not a well-known part of his story. Indeed, Mormon readers well versed in the subject matter may find these interjections scattered throughout the book some of the most interesting and challenging material. Here and throughout the rest of the work Remini casually implies that Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and much of what has become the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a product of timing, a product of the unique American environment during the nation's infancy. Tracing and lightly touching Smith's ancestry, the author mentions episodes from Smith's adolescence he believes helped shape the character and disposition of later years. Smith's angelic and divine visitations are covered, along with the origins of the Book of Mormon and the beginnings of the Church. The reader is present during the fantastic events of the Church in Kirtland and its near subsequent collapse, for the wars with the old settlers of Missouri and during the flourishing, while controversial, period of Nauvoo and polygamy. The biography closes examining and ultimately denouncing the assassination of Joseph Smith, not as a slain prophet, consistent with the author's non-partisan stance, but as a great American, a victim of a society that bordered on the fringe of lawlessness.

As already mentioned, the book is even-handed and mostly accurate, the occasional detail, a misquotation from the Book of Mormon, for example, excusable for a reputable scholar undertaking this kind of endeavor. Mormons will disagree with some observations while non-Mormons will others. Not uncommon verbage found throughout the book often reads, "Mormons support or agree...while critics point out..." and vice-versa. All readers will find an entreating and page-turning presentation of Joseph Smith the man, innovator, prophet, politician, leader, family man, military leader and American.

"Smith admitted that some accused him of 'pretending to be a Savior, a worker of miracles, etc. All this is false...He is but a man, he said; a plain, untutored man, seeking what he should do to be saved.'"

To readers interested in a similarly unbiased, scholarly appraisal of the Book of Mormon, I would suggest the recent book By the Hand of Mormon by Terryl Givens, a professor of English at the University of Virginia. While Joseph Smith reads like an artistic biography, By the Hand of Mormon scrutinizes the possible origins of the Book of Mormon, internal and external evidences of its veracity, arguments on both sides of the divide and other topics.

I found this book pretty interesting because I was never really exposed to Mormonism and its prophet before. Most people have a very superficial view of the Mormons. If you asked the common man what they knew about Mormons, the first thing they would say is probably "polygamy". Of course, the truth is much more intriguing than that. This book is a good place to start, for it concerns the man whose "visions" sparked one of the most fascinating entries in American religious history.

Author Robert Remini does a great job of importing his wealth of knowledge concerning Jacksonian era America and using it to really explain the social context of Mormonism. His brief but interesting description of the Second Great Awakening really sets the stage for Joseph Smith's transition from failed farmer to holy prophet. At the time, especially in upstate New York, many Americans were swept up in religious fervor that involved fiery preachers and large-scale public rituals that seem to resemble mass exorcisms. Smith's family was very intoned with this sense of religious longing, and it no doubt influenced his future pursuits.

Remini is fair when he tackles some of Smith's religious "visions". This is hard because, frankly, if you look at the situation in a purely rational view, Smith is only a few degrees below a David Koresh figure. In fact, as I read the book, I could not help but to draw parallels between the two American messiahs. But that's my opinion, and Remini holds his own as an impartial historian. I felt, however, he sometimes looked too sympathetically on Joseph Smith. Although Smith does not seem to be a bad man, he did makes some "revelations" that could easily be identified as self serving, such as the amount of money he would take in, his unpaid debts, and his legalization of polygamy. Remini also treads too lightly on some of the Mormon's historical views, which are blatantly false.

Remini had a very hard job though, and these minor complaints I have do not take away from the books overall quality. I am sure Mormons will probably complain that Remini was too hard on Smith, so he really is stuck between a rock and a hard place. In summation, if you want a good starting place to study Mormonism and its early history, this is as best place to start as any.

'Hades Factor' is the first Ludlum book I have read in a very long time. I greatly enjoyed his early books but stopped reading the late Mr Ludlum's novels after his stories became too incredulous to believe. 'Hades Factor' has many of the fine characteristics of an early Ludlum but seems to have been hastily written. After I was half way through the book, I had to look back to find where the story lost me as a reader; where I started to back away from the story and no longer believed any of the characters. It was around page 70.
Sophia, Jon Smith's love of his life, dies in his arms after being injected with a virus, and in his grief, Jon ... performs an autopsy on his beloved, removes tissue samples and travels the next day to California? Huh? Wait a minute. From this incredibly unbelievable response to death onward, I read this novel from a critical distance, noting the inconsistancies in plot and lack of logic of character motivations. Yet still, I recommend this book for a quick read. Not a great Ludlum, not even a very good one, but some of the good stuff that made a Ludlum novel so appealing still manages to peek through every now and then.

Three people in different parts of the U.S. die suddenly and dramatically of a bizarre, unknown virus. What connection could there be between them? And how can this virus be stopped before it claims more victims?

That's the set-up for this collaboration between thriller-meister Robert Ludlum and relative newcomer Gayle Lynds. This is something new for Ludlum, a series written in conjunction with other authors (ala Tom Clancy's Op-Center books). This is to be the first in a series of adventure-thrillers about a government action squad called "Covert One." I'm withholding judgment on the concept until more books come out, but for now I'm cautiously optimistic.

The story is solid, although familiar. It's obviously reminiscent of Richard Preston's "The Hot Zone," along with dozens of thrillers. That's not to say it's bad, though. I enjoyed the swiftly-moving plot, and found the characters to be interesting. The protagonist is Lt. Col. Jon Smith, a medical doctor, expert on killer viruses, and all-around man-of-action. He's a fairly typical lead character for a book of this sort. Smith is interesting enough, though, and smarter than the norm, which was a nice change.

Even better was the character of Smith's sidekick, Martin Zellerbach, a computer genius with a rare form of autism. I hope he returns in subsequent books because I found him fascinating.

This reads like Ludlum-lite, featuring his brand of paranoid action and suspense, but without the depth of plotting and sophistication that characterizes his best work. It's noticeably different from the rest of his output, although maybe that's a plus given the quality of his last few books.

"The Hades Factor" is recommended for thriller lovers and anyone looking for an exciting summer read.

I'm a big fan of thrillers and medical thrillers. For straight out political thrillers, I don't think you can do better than Tom Clancy. For medical thrillers, Robin Cook is unparalleled. This book seems to be a great combination of the two authors. I have never read a Robert Ludlum book before, and had no real intention to until I was browsing a bookstore, saw this title, and picked it up. I have always been a fan of fiction dealing with microbes, and especially as biological weapons. This book did not disappoint me. It is fast paced, highly addictive (WARNING - don't being reading late at night - you'll lose a lot of sleep staying up to finish it) and informative without being too hard to understand.

So why didn't I give it 5 stars? Well, I think that the ending plot twist was somewhat predictable, and some of the characters weren't quite realistic enough. Another large disappointment is that the back cover of the book reveals the death of one of the major characters. People don't want to see that - people (or at least I do) want to be surprised by things like that. Overall, those are just minor things, but keep the book from perfection. On the plus side, some of the characters are so intriguing, they just beg for a sequel to continue fleshing out their characters (Marty comes to mind, for those who have read this already).

This is a great read for anyone, but just shy of a perfect biological weapon novel (In my opinion, Executive Orders is unapproachable in that category). It is a worthy beginning to a proposed series, and well worth your time and money.

With all due respect to Mr. Smith as a lifelong devotee of the martial arts, this books sounds like it is written by a dilettante. His quotes of literary figures seem forced or out of context at many places in the narrative. The book's literary allusions read as if Mr. Smith is trying to demonstrate how erudite he is. He does the same thing with his martial arts experience. I found myself wondering if Mr. Smith spent any quality time mastering any one system outside of Judo. I expected the book to be something more than just a name dropping of who's who in the martial arts world. This is the problem with the charlatans he detracts who, upon having met someone of note or taken a few classes with them, think they can list it on their resumes. Mr. Smith rightfully gives respect where it is due, however, he does not provide much insight into the personalities of the twentieth-century's great masters, which I would have utlimately found more interesting than his opinions or complements of them.

Mr. Smith has with his latest book written an honest and clear view of some of the martial arts he has been involved in and several of the personalities he has met over the many years of experience in them. It is a very good read, thoroughly interesting as well as written in a very pleasant writing style, and it has been hard for me to put it down once having started reading it, as I believe many if not every reviewer before me and anyone who has read the book will agree. Having said this, however, it is also important to mention that not every opinion Mr. Smith shares with us in his book can remain free of scrutiny. The no-nonsense way of describing events that have taken place in his martial arts career is to Mr. Smith's credit and clearly shows his strong character, but in some parts I couldn't help but tilt my head a little and wonder why he should have done or said a thing like that. This probably being caused by lack of life-experience on my part, for I am many years junior to Mr. Smith, I won't go into any details here, but leave it up to the readers of the future to decide whether they feel the same upon stumbling on those parts of the book. However these last sentences may have sounded, 'Martial Musings' is most certainly a must read for every martial arts enthousiast. Do you consider yourself one of them? Then why not show some character and order your copy, NOW!

Martial Musings is indeed a good book. It has lots of interesting information on Smith's involvement with Judo, Taijiquan, and martial arts and life in general. I like it because he was there and most all of us (and his detractors) weren't. For him to personally try out many skilled martial artists and then to conclude that Zheng Manqing was the best of them, is significant. I enjoyed his chapter on Bruce Lee and Hollywood martial arts in general, and his comments on "boxers of the mouth corners" and ineffective martial arts systems. -We all should try harder to realize what is good, what is bad, what is fake, and what is real, and to criticize our own martial art. Anyways, a purely enjoyable book.