Patti Trimble has done a nice job with sharing the feelings of a young person who thinks that they have been forgotten by friends. I, personally, found the title misleading. I was expecting to be able to use this book to teach the days of the week. I will say that it is quite a hook at the beginning and therefore you will not be disappointed, but you will want to keep looking.

This is a fine account of a man's journey to become a reform Rabbi. Good detail is provided on the purpose of Reform Judaism. The history of the movement is described as well. The personal experiences of Daniel as a little boy are described a little better than when he becomes an adult. You would think that the author would talk a little bit more about his wife's influences. Also, the author could have talked a bit more about his broher who committed suicide. Before the suicide, I do not recall if the author even mentions anything of significance about Michael. Did I miss something? None the less some good points are made which relate to how Reform Judaism deals closely with many modern issues. Worth a look.

Daniel N. Robinson's Wild Beasts and Idle Humours (The Insanity Defense from Antiquity to the Present) sounds and looks more fun than it actually will be for the average reader without a sure grounding in legal, philosophical and psychological theory and history. The author does indeed cover the period from antiquity to the present, as per the sub-title, and provides many interesting ideas along the way, taking a rather conservative approach, but there are also many cases and people just dropped into the book without any explanation on the assumption that the reader will be familiar with all of these legal cases and philosophers from the past two centuries. A grounding in classical and medieval history (with luck I did have that) will help the reader manage the first part of the book. For students of legal history, this book could prove quite interesting and, perhaps, invaluable as the author makes a clever attempt to bring ideas of insanity as far back as the writings of Homer and Hesiod. For this poor soul, the book was a struggle with a few rewards along the way.

After setting the stage in volume I, Roosevelt falls into a hero worship of the famous names of the frontier and a larger than life portrait of the average, rifle-slinging frontiersman and backwoodsman (words Roosevelt equates with superheroes). While it would be improper to say that Roosevelt strictly confined his second volume to the little details, every page seems to resound with the latest Indian skirmish, a gruesome tomahawking, a white foray or retaliation, and the daily peril of Indian attacks. The American Revolution finds frequent appearance as the guiding backdrop to this volume, with the result being the repeated treatments of the British encouraging the Indians (through payments and promises) to set upon the American settlers. Overall a more specific volume than the first, I left the book thinking the whole nothing but an endless series of Indian battles.

B.J. Daniels delivers a Christmas Intrigue in "A Woman With a Mystery," an entertaining, though flawed, romantic suspense. A year ago a mystery woman walked into Slade Rawlins's life, became his lover, then disappeared. Now she's back. Except Holly Barrows doesn't seem to remember him. She wants to hire him to find out what happened to her baby, a baby Slade knows must be his. The doctors claim the baby is dead. Holly says it was kidnapped by "monsters." Can Slade believe her and find his child?

"A Woman With a Mystery" is a compelling pageturner, though Daniels regular readers may find it far too similar to her other books. It's interesting that out of the 12 Intrigues she's written, 8 (8!) of them have involved a secret child or baby being passed off as someone else's as part of the plot. That's two thirds of them. It's not surprising that this book starts to feel old from the start. I had the entire story figured out far too early, mainly because the author has taken me down this same road too many times before. I have the feeling she could have come up with this story in her sleep. Like most of her books, it's overly convoluted and stretches credibility in ways that makes it hard to believe several plot points. That isn't to say it isn't well written. Daniels's prose is typically engaging and fast-paced. Despite the predictability of the plot, I was never bored or anxious to put it down. I was never completely engaged either.

Part of this has to do with another element of the book. Daniels makes it hard to completely empathize with her heroine because so little of the book is told from her perspective. The book is 250 pages long, and no more than twenty-five of those are in the heroine's point of view. This makes it really hard to get into her head and know what she's feeling. She never really came to life for me. The book is hero-driven and we do get to know Slade and his motivations very well. Readers who enjoy good heroes might like this one. But Holly is mainly a victim who gets shuffled from one event to the next, and the lack of insight into her head only makes her seem more passive.

"A Woman With a Mystery" is a pleasant way to spend a few hours. I suspect though the author's talent would be better served with a more original storyline. Something without a secret parentage? Her upcoming entry in the Trueblood Texas series doesn't sound promising. Hopefully her upcoming gothic in the Moriah's Landing series will be.

i mean it has superstars such as hulk hogan, roddy piper, ric flair and loads more. also the book includes a short look at womens wrestling.

I have mixed feelings about this book.

On the one hand, it is easy to read, with a strong sense of humour throughout and a crisp layout.

Yet, on the other, it falls short, I believe, of its presumed goal of being a practical and invaluable reference for Web developers wanting to enhance sites with back-end databases.

The book kicks off with a detailed overview and explanation of XML, moving on through discussions of project management, data modelling, XML design, XML stylesheets, and developing database schemas. These chapters are easily accessible, largely due to the author's humour.

Yet, two concluding chapters are where, I feel, the book falls down - integrating XML with SQL Server 2000, and integrating XML with Java.

The depth of these chapters is visibly lacking, especially when contrasted to the earlier coverage of just what XML is. Indeed, these chapters weigh in at 29 and 19 pages respectively - rather puny when one considers that the title of the book is "XML and SQL".

I wouldn't want to make any unfair assumptions, but it seems to me the author is far more of an "XML guy" than, say, a "database guy" or a "programming guy". Indeed, the back cover credits say he is active on the Advisory Committee of the W3C, and it is clear from the text that he is knowledgeable about XML down to the fine detail of its mandated implementation.

However, there is nothing to give confidence that he is equally a master of SQL and the book is definitely unbalanced in its coverage.

Ultimately, I believe "XML and SQL" holds value as a good-humoured guide to XML and its implementation. It would even serve well as an academic textbook, if supplemented with practical exercises.

Unfortunately, though, I do not believe it serves professional programmers well.

Closer to a novelette than a novel, this story is about encounter of rich decadent heir who fortunes run dry with a centuries old benign (though ruthless) vampire who poses as an occultist. It is psychologically interesting, developing the various characters fairly well and a climax with anunexpected ending which along with the subtext of the story makes its own message. I found the storyline pretty well written and made me wish to read more of his fiction. I would definitely recommend to readers of supernatural fiction.

This book is a paradoxical combination of quotes of famous writers and ramblings of the author. The goals are worthy but the delivery is analytical and dry. This book does not inspire, it does not sing. A better book along the same lines is The Universe Is a Green Dragon by Brian Swimme. That book is more a poem than this one but still carries scientific truths.

YOUNG MOZART by Rachel Isadora is an acceptable way to introduce young children to the child prodigy Mozart. The very basic facts of his life story are outlined clearly and precisely. There are a few interesting anecdotes to liven the text: his father's nightly duets with the very young Mozart, Mozart's introduction to Marie Antoinette, his own children's pet starling, and his friends gathering around his death bed to sing the unfinished requiem. But Mozart's life seems quite conventional and tranquil, which is far from the story we know to be true. The pictures in the book, however, are charming and beautiful. It was the illustrations, in fact, that turned my own seven year old son from an audience who insisted he was not going to pay any attention if we didn't read a book about animals into a little boy who wanted to know why Mozart could write music before he could write sentences, why he had to wear a wig, and why he died when he was so young. The basic facts are there, and combined with the pictures make the book more memorable for children.