For a number of years, Shirley MacGregor has been bringing us the beauties of the Far East rendered as quilts through her "Manhole Cover" books, which feature designs from the streets of Japan. In this volume she and her co-author (and a bevy of volunteer quilters) have provided a variation on the theme, borrowing floral designs from 16th century Korea and rendering them in appliqué. The book is a rich cultural mix - part history, part biography, part art - held together by the stories of the quilters and their quilts as they brought these lovely designs to life. Basic appliqué instructions and patterns are included for making some of these quilts. The most spectacular of the quilts is a rendering of the "two pumpkins" design by Madelaine Hutchin of Sussex, England, but all of the quilts are lovely, and as usual with the books from Carriage Trade Press, very different.

This artistic publication is a timeless journey celebrating the
expression of Sim and a tribute to the creativity of quilting.

The photos are delicious entries in an intimate story of people, hopes, actions, and outcomes. My style is to jump around in some types of books--so I did. I love how conversational the style is and how human the stsories.

I am not an avid reader, but I read the book in two days! It gave me a little more insight into daily life with my own mother. She does not have Alzheimer's but she has become more forgetful which I find frustrating-and sad. But the idea of meeting her where she is, not where I want her to be, has helped me already-although some days are better than others in handling the events! I thank Shirley Shaw for opening the Rakhma Homes. God bless her and all her helpers. P.S. My mother also read the book. She used to love to read and is again doing so. She's 87.

Having spent my life at sea on Tugs, Ships, Barges & every type of pleasure craft I can get hold of, I have been traveling the world in sweet innocence! To read about such an obviously honest & gentle couple, who would do anything to help anyone they met, who might like help, taken prisoner in this way, seems incredible. I am so glad they were able to gain their freedom & let us read about their ordeal & their friends, relatives & captors. A gripping read, that shows a couple that are so definitely made for one another. Therefore a read with everything:- Travel, Drama, Adventure, Gentleness, Love, Compassion......... What else can a good book have! I LOOK FORWARD TO THE NEXT ONE!

I have really enjoyed reading Red Sea Peril. I found I could imagine Shirley and Peter, so different, and so complementary at the same time.
I liked the style, the sentences are short, precise, with just enough humor. In fact it was very pleasant to read.
The chapters are just long enough and the flashbacks permitted the reader to set the situation of a sailor's life and the choices you have to make. BUT I would like to have followed with small charts at the beginning of each chapter (what my own editor has asked me to do) with points where you were and where you go. Sailors like to see this.
However, I appreciated very much all the photographs, very well situated. I like very much too the "introspectives" and would have liked even more of them. I enjoyed too the poetry, it rings so "true" and I felt that very much. Even in drama I was aware of Shirley's "joie to vivre".
Finally you hae given me a taste and I wish to read more of your adventures because this book merits it. Ihope to read the next book soon.
Dr. Marie-Andre Champagne MD. physician and writer (3 books published) of Sailboat 'Andante ma non troppo' - sailed from Montreal to Turkey during 10 years. crossing ATlantic in '95.

Dear Shirley,

I have just finished reading your wonderful book. I couldn't put it down. It was sensitively written in a easy to read style. You captured the psychology of women in relationships with husbands and other women and fit it to the culture and attitudes of everyday life in the 1800's.

The fact that it is a biography of uour great grandmother and carefully researched has made it valuable historically.

I can't think of a book I've enjoyed reading more. You should be on the Oprah Winfrey show to let other people know now good this book is. Congratulations on your achievement.

Why might an Ohio housewife and mother circa 1850 dispense disparaging cliches to her daughters such as "better the devil you know than the devil you don't", or encourage loveless, albeit, financially secure marriages for those daughters? Why might she find herself unable to credit her daughters with the innate intelligence to
realize their aspirations, despite her firsthand knowledge of their abilities? Why, moreover, might she express the rigid perspective that her daughters could interpret as their true inheritance; the belief that flawed judgment is a universally female characteristic?
Shirley Allen's biographical novel, based on the life of her great grandmother Roxanna Britton, provides the historical context to, if not answer, at least ask such questions. In a social and political climate that does not allow women to vote, to have money, property or identity outside of marriage, we experience the consequences for one exceptionally gifted, resilient daughter who has the good fortune to find male partners who see beyond the gender role assumptions of the time. Roxanna realizes and develops abilities including teaching, farming, homemaking, motherhood, single parenting, dressmaking, enterpeneurship, homesteading and property ownership. Whether selling eggs to establishing financial independence or designing dresses for a shopkeeper's marketing, Roxanna is freshly creative, adapting herself to utilize and maximize the circumstances of the moment.
Married at nineteen, widowed and at age twenty two, mother of two baby girls,
she moves from her own home in Cleveland to her parents home in Avon. Due to hardship, the extended family then moves to Brimfield, Indiana to join Roxanna's maternal grandparents. There she witnesses the critical tongue of her grandmother towards her mother. This multi generational pattern of nonsupportive female
relationships is captured by Allen via the three generation household, clearly a reflection of the broader cultural attitude toward women. Although this is sufficiently convincing proof of the lack of status of women, Roxanna must reside with her new husband, Amos, in his parent's home, where her mother-in-law competes to retain her
role as Amos's primary resource.
Finally, in 1865, a move to Chicago brings a change of status for Roxanna; she may and does purchase her own property. But Chicago brings other difficulties; oldest daughter Sylvia has left home, only to be found one year later, eight months pregnant, murdered by her husband. Chicago 's great fire is depicted vividly, the dangers of city life, the harshness of a mushrooming commercialism without laborer restrictions is made specific. In Chicago, Roxanna meets her first husband's sister, Lizzie. An active suffragette, it is Lizzie who begins to stir Roxanna's awareness of the political and social disparity between men and women.

Roxanna moves once again with her family, this time to Nebraska for homesteading. Daughter Martha has married an abusive, alcoholic husband who uses her for target practice. It is Roxanna's ingenuity and adaptation that confronts the injustice.
Paralleling the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, women's plight is poignantly illustrated. Death of children is a common occurrence. The exorbitant work day hours devoted to manual labor and child care precludes us from consulting
women writers of the time. However, through this reconstruction of Allen's foremothers, coupled with a rapidly industrializing America, we are permitted a glimpse of the grace and courage of our founding mothers.

I first read this book in Junior High School and recently checked out a copy for a young cousin of mine who has studied ballet. As an artist, I was able to share my memories of having recreated the scene from "Giselle" featured on the back cover for a class project. This book, after all, introduced me to that ballet.I could share video taped scenes of "Coppelia" as I showed her the illustrations in the book, and she seemed impressed. I hadn't really paid much attention to either "Petrushka" or the plot of "Swan Lake" until now, but in the nearly 20 years since I first read it, I've been struck by the sadness of those stories, and I've never forgotten how beautiful this book is.

I first read this book while in grade school and was instantly captivated, and it's had me under its spell ever since. The book contains stories of the great ballet classics--including "Swan Lake," "Giselle" and "The Nutcracker," as well as lesser known works like "Petrushka"--and accompanies them with a wealth of the most beautiful illustrations (by Maraja) I have ever seen. The writing is interesting to audiences of any age, and the illustrations are enchanting. This is probably my most treasured book. I recently purchased a copy for my nieces, because as much as I love them, they're not touching mine.

This book is definately a must in the kitchen! It has everything from basic recipes to those handed down from generation to generation! Absolutely fantastic and be sure to try the Peanut Butter Cups! So Simple!

This is a fantastic book - either for your own use, or as a gift! Very easy to follow - interesting and exciting receipes that don't need super special ingredients!

Fantastic! 2 thumbs up!

The SBL Handbook of style is designed for those who are writing papers or dissertations in the field of ancient Near Eastern, Biblical and early Christian Studies. Most matters of style are comprehensively addressed, and where they are not, the editors refer the reader to the Chicago Manual of Style. The book is extremely useful for those who want to standardise their abbreviations and references. Nonetheless, several issues will have to be resolved in the next edition. First, although the book is nicely printed, the binding is extremely poor, and fell apart only after I had used the book a few times. Second, several essential abbreviations are missing from the list of Greek and Latin works. Third, not all abbreviations are located in the same part of the book, and so one has to keep going backwards and forwards to find the appropriate reference. Fourth, the editors sometimes display a dogmatic approach to style and appear at least to this reader to be a inflexible. For example they insist that writers ought to use Miriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for their spelling. This dictionary however is only one alongside many other excellent dictionaries such as, the American Heritage, and the Random House. These criticisms should not detract from the importance and usefulness of this volume, which I recommend wholeheartedly.

This easy-to-use, inexpensive volume is a must-own for all who write in the fields of biblical and ancient near eastern studies. College and seminary students, graduate students, teachers, and researchers will find this book a fine substitute for Turabian and/or the CMOS for all but the most obscure situations. The discipline-specific nature of the work also allows greater depth of coverage without making it overlong. Get it today, or be behind the standard tomorrow.

I read this about six years ago and what stuck in my mind was the torment Megan was going through to find here lost son. She would do ANYTHING to get him back. I highly recommend this book to any readers of Fantasy.

Shadow's Son gives people who have read previous Fifth Milennium novels a long-awaited look at Megan and Shkai'ra's family--not their separate childhood families, but the family they have forged for themselves as adults. The character of Sova particularly appealed to me, probably because her "outsider's perspective" on Shkai'ra is refreshingly honest. Definitely worth a read for the populace at large, *highly* recommended to 5th Mil fans.

This 104-page six-chapter book is perfect for both children and adults wanting to learn about steam power, railroads and the women who worked on them during the two World Wars. We picked up our copy on a visit a few years ago to the U.S. steam railroad national park in Scranton, Pennsylvania. There a woman curator acted the part of Rosie, providing riveting details from the life of a World War II female railroad worker. The children loved it and insisted on getting this volume.

The steam railroads began to take hold of the U.S. travel market in the 1930s, when people called them Iron Horses. The first three-page chapter describes the process by which trains replaced the horse and stagecoach and began to haul laws, raw materials and farm produce across the U.S. The railroads employed engineers, conductors, brakemen, firemen, station agents, dispatchers and many others to keep them running, not to mention the legions who worked to build thousands of miles of track.

Most were men, but beginning in 1838, a handful of Native American and black women (the latter, freed slaves) began to work in domestic service jobs for the railroads. They also served water and sold fruit to women traveling in the ladies' cars. In 1855, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad hired Bridget Doheny, Catherine Shirley and Susan Morningstar as charwomen to clean the Camden, N.J. depot. In 1870, the Hartford & New Haven line hired a Mrs. T. Hatch to care for the Newington station for 75 cents a day.

In the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s, women began working as telegraphers, known in the business as brass pounders. Women like Ella Campbell communicated by Morse code with brass telegraph keys, determining which trains had rights of way, often preventing accidents. Boiler explosions, blizzards, coupling cars and runaway trains caused accidents and deaths. But hundreds more would have occurred annually without the women who worked in train traffic control. Women also served as ticket sellers and train dispatchers. By 1900 they worked as clerks.

Sarah Clark Kidder became the first woman president of a railroad in 1900 and Mary Pennington designed an improved refrigeration car and worked several years to convince railroad executives to use them. Mary Colter was an architect, who designed the Harvey chain of restaurants for the length of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa & Fe. Still others manned the chain as Harvey's girls.

But the largest influx of women into the railroad workforces occurred during the two World Wars. With men recruited to fight in Europe, the U.S. labor market turned to women to fill their jobs. Thousands of women flooded key railroad jobs--as towermen, yardmasters, drawbridge tenders, steam-hammer and turntable operators, welders, brakemen, freight handlers--and riveters.

During World War I, women worked a 48-hour week for as much as $95 a month, although they were often paid something less as "helpers." But they experienced strong patriotism and pride in their work, laboring both in their work and against discrimination and harassment, which was particularly strong against women of color. Finally there were so many women in the railroading industry that the U.S. Railroad Administration created a Women's Service Section to promote safe, comfortable working conditions for them. But when the men returned from war in late 1918, women were laid off in droves for "using bad language," "drunkeness," and "distracting men at work."

The pattern repeated in World War II. Once again the women made the U.S. victory trains run.

The last chapter of this fine read discusses the past, the present and the future for American railroading women. Alyssa A. Lappen

I have experience in a lot of the fields mentioned in this book. The photographs and history behind them by Shirley Burman makes the women of yesteryear come alive again in my mind!! I thououghly enjoyed this book, and encourage others to read it. After 27 years on the railroad, there was a lot I learned from this book... Thanks, Shirley and Nancy.....!!!

I have read this book cover to cover several times and take something different from it each time. This book is an incredible and fascinating combination of humor and tragedy -- and even humor IN tragedy, showing all of us that even those who may appear to have perfect lives of the television or silver screen face real-life problems when the cameras are shut off. What makes this book fantastic is seeing the real people behind the personas and the ability to benefit from the important lessons learned in this unique relationship.

The amazing story of two people who make each other happy although they are totally opposite. America's sweetheart and the often misunderstood, agoraphoic comedian who won her heart. Told from both sides of the relationship - frenzy and flowers. The writing style is engaging and you'll see people you know - you'll feel like part of the family.