If you have never experienced the loss of an immediate family member, then this is the book to read. It is an eye-opener to the suffering and pain that is related to such an incident. Myself, never losing a loved one so close, cannot fathom the tremendous grief that comes along with it. This book does just that. Marcia has successfully transferred those feelings from deep within herself to the pages of this book. It makes you realize that people go through these types of situations everyday and they've just got to try and maintain living a normal life. Some say that they could never live through such trajedy. Marcia is not only a great example of one who has lived through it, but through this book she proves to others that they can do the same. She continues to live strongly with her son through the remembrance of him and the blessed time they spent together. This book is a quick read, and one that is not easily put down. It will grip you with the stark reality of life and death and the feelings you have been forced to experience or ones that you may one day expect to be confronted with.

I didn't put this book down until I read the last page. You will cry but you will laugh, too. Like the author, I am a southerner, but you don't have to be from the south to appreciate these words of hope, humor and healing. Stephen's Moon is a medium for getting you onto the "life raft" described in the book.

Marcia Carter writes "My son was my hero". Well, I believe she will become a hero to anyone who reads her story. Living through a tragedy no one would ever want to go through, she writes of the true meaning of love, and how a loved one will always live on in your heart. I have lost loved ones, but never a child, so I can only relate in certain ways, but I know we can all learn about compassion, and the endurance of the human spirit through her words. When you get this book, be ready to read, I stood in my kitchen from the first page, and didn't move til I was finished.

My Father bought Up Front when it was released and I read the cartoons numerous times. Later, I read the text. This book does more to capture the human experience of war than any other of its time. It prefigures and anticipates the recent oral history books such as, "The Good War", "D-Day" and most recently, "Citizen Soldier". The last two, by the way, are well worth the read. Through Willy and Joe, Maulden protrayed the absurdity and the eternal human spirit in the everyday events that make up so much of the experience of war. The cartoons alone make this a book which even the most casual student of WWII should read. His text captures the experience on the ground, the mud and cold, the rain and heat, the boredem and fear and the workman like approach to war that made up the GI's life. Get it. Read it.

This book is, without a doubt, the greatest book on the World War II infantryman ever written. Why? Because it was written by and infantryman, for infantrymen. Sgt. Bill Mauldin claims on the first page that his business is drawing, not writing, and that his text is only there to back up the cartoons. However, the text is some of the most endearing, personal, and excellent works on WWII ever. Mauldin brings the war down from the lofty views of Generals and reporters to the personal level, to the point of giving you a basic narration of the average day in the life of an infantryman. The cartoons, naturally, are the main power behind the book, and they are, even to this day, still hilarious. Hilarious, but at the same time showing you the gripes and hardships of the average GI during the war. If you want to experience World War II from the GI's perspective, read this book!

I first read this book 20 years ago, as a senior in high school. My uncle, a Korean war-era Ranger, gave it to me. My Dad, a Vietnam infantryman, liked it too. Sadly, I lost that old, faded copy somewhere along the years.

Imagine my joy to find a reprint! The book means much more now that I can understand it. I've got 13 years in the Army myself, in Infantry and Special Forces. I'm a Major now, and I pay close attention to what Mauldin writes about officers. I want to be the kind of officer that he respects: always putting the welfare of my men first, respecting my men, and leading from the front. His narrative and comments are a constant reminder to me of the responsibility I hold for my soldiers.

If you are from the World War II era, you already know about Willie and Joe, and there's nothing new I can tell you. If you are an old soldier and you somehow have missed this book, then you are in for a treat. If you are a young soldier, or a prospective soldier, or the family of a soldier, then you NEED to read this book. For anyone else, it's a great window into a world that, thanks to some brave men 50 years ago, you will hopefully never have to see.

Into the Woods...How can you forget the name and all of its characters if you've seen it before, and if you have not, then it includes such timeless fairy tale names as: Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack (of Beanstalk fame), Little Red Riding Hood, and many others. James Lapine's brilliant script and Stephen Sondheim's astounding score are all in this book! Don't miss out on reading this fantastic book with your kids or for pleasure! This book is great for pleasure reading or if you are looking for an amazing musical to put on. Once you start reading this book, you won't be able to put it down! And if you liked the book...you won't hesitate to buy the video of the original Broadway cast and the CD or cassette! Having all 3 mentioned items and watching, listening, and reading over and over still isn't enough! You will love it too.

This is a wonderful play to introduce students to music, theater, Sondheim, and fairy tales. In my class we read many of the original Grimm Fairy Tales (Dover Ed.) and the Perrault Fairy Tales (Dover) discussing the tales, but also color symbolism, different forms of magic, totems, threshold creatures, etc. Pretty heady stuff for sixth graders, but they LOVE it! Finally we read this wonderful interconnection of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Baker and His Wife, Little Red Riding Hood, and more while they are on a quest tale to get things to undo spells. Everyone takes parts and it is AWESOME!! The book is certainly not just for kids, there are very dark themes underlying all of the "fun". These can be discussed and its great to see kids find more to a story than its literal meaning. The VHS tape is then shown, which can be ordered here. This is a taping of the Broadway stage production and is mesmerising. Students think it's awesome. (I do suggest previewing, though. The wolf certainly is "untamed nature" and his coat stops just above what probably should be hidden in a mixed group of sixth graders. :) We just fast forward those three minutes.) This is a great unit. If you would like more info, please contact me via e-mail. This is wonderful stuff, though certainly not Disney!!

This book is great to have before seeing the show or listening to the soundtrack... you'll completely understand what's happening in the story. I should also say, just in general.... Into the Woods is back on Broadway now, and I just saw it yesterday on its opening day with front row seats in the orchestra. I was worried the new production might not surpass the original, and that I would be disappointed since I love love Bernadette Peters and all... but it really blew my mind! The set and costumes were so much more appropriate, more fairytale-esque. There were lyric and staging changes, a little more dancing around, and Milky-White was alive this time which made her like another character. The musical has a lot of catchy tunes but also a good storyline, and though there is a lot of symbolism that if seen literally might not be appropriate for kids, they usually are too young to notice or understand it at all. So anyone can see it, and everyone finds it funny, everyone likes it. And the current production is better than you could have dreamed.

I say once you read this book I would say you would want to read the story more and more. Well I was Walking in the libary (Cerritos) looking for a scary book to read then in a while I saw this book called Scary Stories.
First I thougth it was a lame book but then I went Throught the book and then I was like wow now that's freaky man.But then after I check it out I thouth hey this is one of the freakest book I ever read in my entire life, so then I went looking for more.
The only books I read is three of this scary Stories books. But then I wonder why it did'nt make more.Scary Stories is one of the scariest books I read. It was even scaryer than that guy R.l Stine.But R.L Stine is still a good writer,but his stories aint as scary as Alvin Schwartz book's.
This book is one of my favorite books in the world. I am a guy who likes to read scary stories. I am a guy who dosent like to read books that are borning and that make's me want to fall aSleep.I also like this book because it's really not borning or stupit but it is cool.
I also really like this book because of all the pictures. The pictures are so scary and they look like they were going to jump of the book or some thing. The pictures of this book lookes like just the picture of a movie I watch called THE RING. But it is not close to be as the same becuase the ring is ten times as scary but lets not get of mind.

I remember when I got the first book of the series. I was little and looking through some old books my brother wanted to give away. I found it and kept it, although I didn't read it for a long time, the cover scared the b'geezus out of me. When I did read it, around the third grade or so, I loved it. It frightened the heck out of me and gave me nightmares. The most fun I had out of the book was sharing it with people, friends, cousins, ect. When I bought the rest of the series, everyone wanted to read them at SRR and I lent them out at a quarter each (hey, 75cents back then could buy an ice cream bar and a nutty buddy!). My mother always looked at me weird when she saw the books, she was like "how could you read that stuff?" and her and my dad would sit me down and have talks with me on how they didn't want me too interested in the occult or reading "books like that". Although I just ignored them, after all, they were the ones who bought me the books in the first place and continued to let me buy things like that, even though they were the ones who paid and took it to the checkout! Aren't parents funny?

Well...myself like pretty much every single reviewer on here are fans of this series from childhood. I read this trilogy sometime around 3rd grade. I remember sitting in my room with the lights off..with a flashlight and reading until I got frightened outta my jammies. The stories are so-so ,even as a kid the stories alone were just entertaining. The illustrations however..gave me NIGHTMARES!!..I mean c'mon just look at them..what 9 year old wouldn't get nightmares..they're extremely grusome and gross..I LOVE EM!!. I'm so glad I found this box set , when I was a kid my mother thought these stories were a bad influence on me because she found a collection of stories I had written that "disturbed" her , so she threw these books away. Reading these now at the age of 20 bring back the days when children's horror stories were actually scary instead of moronic (Goosebumps , ect)..where a illustration scared a kid to death rather than them just taking up space. I want my children to have these. Children need a good scare. Beyond the imagery of death and decay , alot of these stories can teach valuable warnings to children such as "don't talk to strangers" and "stay away from this" and ect,ect. It's sad i've read where these books are being banned for "warping the mind's of children"..ha the Nickelodean channel has been doing that for decades...allow your children to read these books. Horror literature for kid's doesn't get much better than this

Fr.Behrens has taken the events of everyday life in the Monastery and shows how they can relate to the everyday life of a lay person. With charm, and a keen sense of humor you follow the growth of a person as he lives the life of the Contemplative. This is a book that once you read it you will find yourself going back to it often.

Father Behrens has a wonderful way of looking at the world and finding God in all things. The book will make one stop and look at the world more closely and feel connected to God and to all His creation. It is a book of resting, pondering, and experiencing God's grace in one's own life.

James Behrens's Grace is Everywhere treats the reader to a delightful series of vignettes about real people and real events to convey powerful truths. Far from being a theological treatise or a philosophical discussion of ultimate concerns, the book's essence shows us simply and easily that God's love and grace are present at all times and in all places in our daily lives. What makes this book different from others with a similar theme or intent is Behrens's ability to relate concepts of such moment gently and clearly, at times even humorously, using his past and present as the backdrop for his insights. Behrens writes as if he were speaking with us; indeed, as if he's known us for years. Grace is Everywhere is a wonderful book. Read it and feel good.

For two years in college, I studied with Stephen B. Oates, who wrote the Foreword to this edition. An award-winning biographer of Lincoln, King, Nat Turner, John Brown, and others, Oates often told his classes that in his opinion, Mari Sandoz's Crazy Horse was the best biography ever written. His chief reason was Ms. Sandoz's ability to make the reader feel as though he or she is in the actual time and place where Crazy Horse lived, and the quality and style of her language, which has the feel of an oral history told by an Oglala elder at a ritual ceremony. I first read the book in Oates' class in 1985 then recently bought the newer edition with his contribution and read it again. Oates is a very wise man (and an extraordinary writer himself!).

In his foreword to the 50th anniversary edition, Stephen Oates, himself an historian and biographer of note, describes how Sandoz came to write the life of Crazy Horse and states,"Mari Sandoz and Crazy Horse may be the most potent pairing of author and subject in the history of modern biography." He praises Sandoz for writing "with a creative and lyrical brilliance that makes Crazy Horse a tour de force of language and style" and calls the book "...an almost perfect work of biographical art." I could not agree more with Oates. I have read the entire book two times and portions of it many more times.

Readers are often faced with the dilemma of deciding to read further after the first few chapters of a book in the hope they'll "get into it" or to close it and turn it into a dust-catcher. Not so with Sandoz's Crazy Horse. The reader is immediately drawn into it. I was hooked by the lyricism of the first few words of the book which told me that this was going to be no ordinary biography. They read as follows: "The drowsy heat of middle August lay heavy as a furred robe on the upper country of the Shell River, the North Platte of the white man. Almost every noon the thunders built themselves a dark cloud to ride the far crown of Laramie Peak. But down along the river no rain came to lay the dust of the emigrant road, and no cloud shaded the gleaming 'dobe walls and bastions of Fort Laramie, the soldier town that was only a little island of whites in a great sea of Indian country two thousand miles wide."

This story is told, not in the voice of a distant historian, but in the voice of an eyewitness. The vividness of her narrative would convince you, if you did not know otherwise, that Sandoz walked with Crazy Horse and his people. But even though she did not walk with them, she knew them well.

This is an extraordinary work of creative nonfiction that makes you love being a reader.

This is probably the most comprehensive biography of an Indian leader that I have ever read. The research is painstaking. The book was written in novel form and makes for an excellent read. Although there are no pictures of Crazy Horse, Ms Sandoz' first hand information from people who knew him creates an indelible snapshot of the man. He was a mystic, a visionary, a defender of his people, a modest man, who wore no fancy regalia, who never bragged after he had accomplished something great. His own people were ambivalent about him, and called him the Strange One or the Silent One. Moreover, he had fair complexion with light hair and brown eyes. He wanted desperately for his people to speak with one mind and with one heart. But the divisions within the Lakota people were simply too strong. What is most interesting is the tension between Crazy Horse and Red Cloud. Red Cloud is not painted in a positive light in this book. He is shown as petty, jealous and desperate to show up Crazy Horse. Wherein Crazy Horse was a 'natural' at everything he did, it was not so with Red Cloud who was forced to live under the specter of Crazy Horse's natural aptitude, particularly in matters of war. As a matter of fact he was one of the Lakota that held Crazy Horse down when he was fatally stabbed in 1877 by a white guard at Fort Robinson (Crazy Horse's vision as a young boy had prophesized his murder at the hands of his own people). Red Cloud is much lauded for being the only Native American to beat the cavalry soundly (Fetterman fight). In fact, it was the brilliant strategist Crazy Horse that won that fight. He had learned the ways of the white man in terms of war tactics and applied them brilliantly. Crazy Horse was certainly not without his faults, the matter of running away with another man's wife springs to mind. The Author is scrupulously fair in her assessment of him and of the time in which they lived. In the end Crazy Horse was not able to unify his people - he had his followers, and Red Cloud had his. The book is elegrantly written, paints a thorough picture of a tragic time in American history as natives ultimately fell into poverty, starvation and despair. The buffalo was gone. As noted in the preamble to the book, Natives of Turtle Island, were the victims of 'historical inevitability'. Ho.

Writing networked applications using modern operating
systems and languages looks like it should be easy, but it
is emphatically not. The na‹ve designer of networked
applications will encounter a thicket of problems including
lack of portability, distributed performance bottlenecks,
maintaining correctness during shutdown, and managing
recovery from partial failures.

"C++ Network Programming, Volume 2, Systematic Reuse with
ACE and Frameworks" by Douglas Schmidt and Stephen Huston

provides some powerful help in the design and implementation
of networked applications. This help comes in the form of
several frameworks.

A few words about the definition of "framework." The first
step up from writing applications that interface directly
with operating systems is to insert object-oriented wrappers
between the application and lower level services. These
wrappers are classes that encapsulate the low level,
functionally specified, services such as operating systems

and protocol stacks. This first step was taken in the
predecessor volume to the present book, "C++ Network
Programming, Volume 1: Mastering Complexity with ACE and
Patterns", by the same authors, where a collection of
wrappers, called the ACE wrappers, is provided that not only
raises the level of the application interface from
functional to object-oriented, but also provides portability
at the same time.

For example, consider an application that directly uses
sockets. This application would depend on the syntax and
functional details of that operating system's s operating
system's socket implementation. By inserting the ACE
wrappers, the application acquires an object interface to
socket capabilities, and in addition becomes portable across
a large number of compilers, operating systems, and
communication protocols.

But a set of wrapper classes does not solve the networked
application designer's problems, any more than a pile of
bricks is a house.

Frameworks, which are the subject of the present book, are
the next step up in power from wrappers. A framework is an
integrated set of classes into which application designers
plug code that is unique to their applications. The
frameworks described in the present book handle a large part
of the difficulty inherent in network programming, leaving
application designers to deal primary with their
applications' local functionality.

For example, one of the frameworks described in the book is
the Acceptor-Connector Framework. This framework relieves
the user of dealing with the numerous tricky details
inherent in the conceptually simple process of connecting
clients with servers, such as address formats, protocols,
initialization, and message queue locking.

Readers should be aware that the present book is not a
general-purpose text on network programming using C++; this
book is a focused exposition of the ACE frameworks. Readers
will be most comfortable reading this book if they are
already familiar with software design and architecture
patterns, including those described in "Pattern-Oriented
Software Architecture: Patterns for Concurrent and Networked
Objects, Volume 2" by Douglas Schmidt et al, and in the
famous Gang of Four book: "Design Patterns: Elements of
Reusable Object-Oriented Software" by Eric Gamma et al.

The large amount of code that implements the wrappers of
volume 1 and the frameworks of volume 2 is available for
download for free. This code is in wide use today.

Designers of networked applications, when offered a large
pile of code that purports to do a lot of what needs to be
done, must trade off the anticipated saving in design and
implementation time against the anticipated time to
understand what the offered code is intended to do and what
it actually does. This tradeoff can lead a reasonable
designer to ignore existing code in favor of hand-writing an
entire application. In the case of the ACE wrappers and
frameworks, as documented and explained by the two books
mentioned here, combined with the open-source nature of the
implementing code and its widespread employment in real
applications, make the result of this tradeoff pretty clear:
read the books, use the code.

This book is loaded with practical no-nonsense real-world design philosophies and pattern techniques. As an experienced designer and developer of networking applications, I really appreciate the powerful paradigms available in ACE, and this text does a great job of describing how they work and how to effectively use them while building on the foundations presented in Volume 1.

This book has definitely helped me in getting my head around the Reactor, Acceptor/Connector and Task patterns, since these are the patterns that I most actively use in ACE. It has also exposed me to several other patterns that I haven't had a chance to use yet.

If you're doing network programming in C++, and aren't using ACE, it's well worth looking into. The reoccurring patterns used in designing and implementing networked applications are all contained in the ACE framework -- and as a huge bonus -- platform independence (support for most popular operating systems) is built in with ACE's wrapper facades. Also, the ACE open-source community is actively enhancing and improving the framework, so it just keeps getting better and better.

The challenge with any good framework, is learning how to harness what's provided in it. C++ Network Programming Volume 2 goes a long way towards that end and both it and Volume 1 are essential for any developer serious about using the ACE framework.

As in the ACE toolkit itself, C++NPv2 builds on the work described in volume 1 with a focus on the more powerful and (in my opinion) more interesting aspects of ACE...the frameworks that make developing network applications a pleasure.

Although the book recommends that you be familiar with the underlying patterns before delving into the details, I think that anybody who has experience developing network applications will be able to fully grasp the power of these frameworks without necessarily having knowledge of the patterns.

The areas of the book I found most useful were the description of the ACE Reactor framework (Ch 3), Reactor implementations (Ch 4), the description of the ACE Task framework (Ch 6) and the description of the ACE Streams framework (Ch 9).

Use of UML sequence diagrams made it easier to understand the interaction between application and framework code. However, I think more space could have been devoted to the class diagrams to give a clearer picture of the relationship between application and framework classes.

I also found the highlighting of common techniques in sidebars to be very informative.

The only complaint I have is that this book wasn't available in January 2001 ;-(

In this somewhat puzzling novel the sun rises and it sets, six people grow together from infant children to old age, and the waves crash endlessly upon the shore. That is about as close as you will get to a plot in this book. Everything else that happens, school, marriage, even death, seem to be nothing more than passing intensities amid the overbearing silence that is the roar of existence.

I picked up this book after reading Mrs Dalloway. I loved Dalloway. It was the first Woolf book I had read and it blew me away. In comparison, reading The Waves was like taking a sandblaster to my eyeballs. She uses stream of consciousness as a medium to delve as deep as she possibly can into the intricacy of existence. Not much happens on a specific and literal level outside of the rising of the sun, but the endless poetry pouring forth from the perceptive cores (I'd say "minds" but I think it goes a bit beyond even that) of these six characters speaks volumes on the fearsome intensity of beauty, the vast complexity of sadness, and the endless endless isolation of the human soul.

It is at times so deep and so personal that I felt more than a bit uncomfortable reading it. The effort is well worth it however. Woolf more than any other author I have read, struggles to communicate the hidden message contained in all stories and books... A message forever clouded in meanings and phrases... Lost in its own words.

I was introduced to Virginia Woolf in college when I took an entire class devoted to her work. Although I had never read any of her work before, I quickly became a fan. My professor saved the best for last - The Waves. This book is the most poetic, most profound, most intimate book I have ever read.

No one speaks in this book. You follow the characters' lives from childhood to adulthood by entering their minds and listening to their thoughts. At first it is difficult to figure out what is going on. There is no narration except short poetic passages about the sea and the sun's placement over it preceding each section of the book (and each period of the characters' lives). By the middle of the book, you know who is speaking without reading the name of the character. You know how they think.

I strongly encourage anyone who is even slightly curious to buy this book. This small investment can change how you view the world. The Waves takes much longer to get through than some whodunit, but that's the beauty of it. My husband and I read a passage at night before going to bed. It's best when read slowly, with time to reflect after a small amount of pages. You'll be highlighting sentences that make great quotes as you go. What a glorious book!

You have never read a book like this. But don't let that intimidate. This is her most experimental work, but it is still much more accesible than many other modernists. Her sentences and paragraphs are intelligible; it's more the accumulation of pages that might begin to baffle some readers. Woolf obviously requires a good deal of concentration, but her best works are rewarding in a way that many difficult writers are not. (You won't need a professor nearby or a mess of annotations to guide you through dense thickets of allusion-filled, abstract prose.)

I consider this to be Woolf's greatest work. Mrs. Dalloway may be a more pleasurable read and more consistently a "masterpiece", but the Waves is often so intense and beautiful that it's devastating. In fact, there are times that one is a bit overwhelmed by the surfeit of emotion, poetic words, unremitting interiority.

My Woolf pix in order: 1. Waves 2. Dalloway 3. Jacob's Room 4. A Room of One's Own 5. Orlando

I personally feel that To the Lighthouse is more of a work to be appreciated than liked--it's simply too refined. And I couldn't make it through Between the Acts--too many upper class English people sitting around a table in the country sipping tea and performing their subtle, boring manners.

Wait, I can't end on a sour note: Woolf is a bloody delight!

As a professional who works and plays with people who are blind and deaf, I was curious to read this book. It is truly amazing from the perspective of writing that is at once powerful and lyrical, exquisitely beautiful and touching.

In addition the process that the author has gone through is at first tragic and then uplifting, not so much because he found his dog guide, but much more so because the author found himself as a blind man.

I grieve for his parents who could never say the word 'blind'. I have seen this so often. Mr. K's message is strong and clear. "coming out" is better and empowering and in his case enobling as well.

A beautifully written and powerful book.

As a legally blind person, who had totally blind parents, this vividly written book went a long way in helping me come to terms with my own situation. Like Stephen, for years I was in denial about my own limited vision and tried, successfully for a time, to "pass" as fully sighted. This is no longer possible and I have to face my own limitations head on, as Stephen finally does.

I recommend this book to anyone who would like to understand what living on the "Planet of the Blind" is really like, and for anyone who enjoys beautiful writing.

As a graduate student, who is being forced to look beyond the comfortable world of deaf to an unknown planet of blind, this was a book of frightening similarities. The road of denial, surreptious coping, and ultimate empowerment through acceptance are parallel on both planets.

A definite must read for baby boomers entering on the macular degeneration road to the Planet of the Blind!

"Winnie the Pooh" and "House on Pooh Corner" were two of my favorite books growing up. When I came across this 75th boxed anniversary edition, I just had the get it. Keep in mind, this is just the same great stories in new packages. "Winnie the Pooh" has gold trimmed pages and "House on Pooh Corner" is trimmed with silver. I recommend this to anyone who hopes to pass on the love of the original Winnie the Pooh characters to any young ones in their lives. I know I definitely will.

I think this book suitable for everyone not only for child but adult also can read it. My friend and I love this book and try to collect the whole of Pooh's series. But I think .. The house at the Pooh corner also lovely while The Tao of Pooh was very difficult to understand for child. However, I love it!!

I recieved this book (and its companion, the color edition of "The House At Pooh Corner") as a gift. I cannot speak more highly of them both. Unlike the editor at Horn, who found that the colorization detracted from the illustrations, I find exactly the opposite -- that the color lends depth and detail to the drawings, which are completely untouched otherwise.

The paper is crisp, semi-glossy, and brilliant white; the cover and page edges are guilded; the typeface is sharp and crystal-clear; and the full-color endpapers are truly magnificent.

In all and every way this is a truly magnificent and sumptuous edition -- with perhaps the single exception of price. And even then, with such a marvelous work, that is to be expected!