A knowledge of the Realms of Arkania universe will greatly help the reader. The world and its people can also be found in the computer games having the same name. On the story side, great details are given on the many characters and their feelings and thoughts. Great depth and story plot. Although the action seems slow, it is thouroughly presented.

What I found unusual about this book is that there seem to be very few existing titles which try to define the Road movie as this book does . Subsequently you want this book to go further than it does. You read it and wonder why so many movies have been ignored or passed over for debate. This however is not a critism as a comment on the difficulty of trying to define a film 'genre'. Steven Cohan does well to pull together a collection of diverse and engaging essays on everything from Easy rider to old Bob Hope movies. The essay on Easy Rider by Barbara Klinger is particularly interesting because it touches on the very crux of the Road Movie genre: the representation of the American phsyce. All these essays chronicle how Road movies have reflected recent American history from the Depression through the Second World War through to modern times. I am still suprised that this book is the first of its kind because movies like EASY RIDER, THELMA AND LOUISE, PARIS,TEXAS, et all touch so deeply into the American identity. Which begs the question why so little is included about the likes of American Grafitti, Dazed and Confused, Fandango etc. A fantastic read none the less. I think this book would appeal to American historians as much as Film buffs, film makers, artists or (like me) students of Architecture and landscape. Get in a car, hit the Road,read this book.

'Thorn lace: Mojmir ' A Migrant's Lot' is a melange of personal memoirs, reflections of pivotal historical thresholds that shape the soul of a nation and stories of persecution and migration. It is often said ' and rightly so ' that an individual is a mirror image of the family he or she stems from, has lived with and is identified by. And although of Croatian origin and breed, the book's hero ' Mojmir ' belongs to a more cosmopolitan family of people: migrants. The book gives a rare insight into the passion of Mojmir Damjanovic the migrant and the many friendships, psychological turmoils of the soul, bitter encounters, brushes with death due to political persecutions as well as adventures encountered in life when forced to flee poverty and persecution. Although the book is about a Croatian migrant its stories of survival ring familiar to the lives of every person whose fate in life steered him or her through the path of migrating into a new country, which is foreign both in language and culture. Hence, 'Thorn lace: Mojmir ' A Migrant's Lot' enriches the world's literature about the hard fate of migrants. And that hard fate, the 'lot', is personified in this book in the heart and soul of Mojmir who is catapulted into living a double, two parallel lives: the living of a life of relentless love and nostalgia for his First homeland in his heart and the living with his physical presence and participation of the daily life of his Second (New) homeland through which he struggles to forge a new life in a 'foreign' land. The two lives, although parallel, often clash, often create hardships and often create a painful vacuum between a parent and child, especially when the parent and the child cannot communicate fluently in the same language.

Memoirs? A Diary? A Dossier? A Novel? A witness for history? A lesson in survival in adversities? An odyssey through the human heart? Or all this and more combined in one book that is compelling and seizing. The author Ina Vukic has skilfully managed to combine personal memoirs of Mojmir Damjanovic, a Croatian migrant living in Australia, with excerpts from Croatian history into a cohesive and riveting flow, juxta positioning the psychological impacts of migration upon human souls. The book reads more like a fiction novel than non-fiction, and it's the rich dialogue and direct speech with which this book is written that makes it so uniquely appealing and lively.

'Thorn lace: Mojmir ' A Migrant's Lot' takes us on an incredible voyage of courage and determination. It's every chapter begins with quotations from well known personalities of 'Western' literature and politics, the quotations that guides the reader to the moral underflow, which will follow, evoking curiosity, gripping the reader to continue reading, nudging the reader to relive Mojmir's world.

'My beginning, conception and birth belong to a certain part of this rotating Earth's ball that is most beautiful - to Croatia, the homeland of my ancestry, and the building of my home, my family and my personal wealth begin on the other side of the Earth's ball - 'Down Under', across the Equator, in the land of Aborigines, under the Southern Cross, on Terra Australis'. And so the story of Mojmir Damjanovic begins. From painful poverty of 1920's Croatia, to the despair of his father's untimely death, through the hardships of surviving World War II in Nazi occupied Austria, across the horror and suffering inflicted by Communists in post-War-Yugoslavia and the tragedy of the Croatian Holocaust, and the shrapnel of the Jewish Holocaust when he marries a German Jewess. With the driving urge to beat poverty and escape deadly persecution - came his migration to Australia in 1951. In Australia he will endure insufferable hardships, but his determination to rise above poverty and to conquer the scorching pain of persecution that had forced him to abandon life in his homeland witness his stepping stones to riches and success, even at the cost of fighting establishments and bureaucracy of the Australian 'Egg Board' ' which threatened his prosperity as a hard working man ' for over two decades. It was this fight against bureaucracy that made Mojmir Damjanovic into a publicly known figure during 1980's in Australia.

Indeed, Mojmir is a rebel! But - a rebel with a cause; a rebel who wins in the end. His cause is the truth. And there can ever be only one truth, about anything. Any other version is contrived, an opinion'In this book he bares his soul, he bares all ' the author lets him speak, the author does not stop him even when he recounts the most intimate moments of his life ' at the points in a story where most storytellers stop, Mojmir continues.

In my work as University lecturer I had rarely encountered a book that captures history of a nation through episodes of life experiences of one person. The easy and natural flow with which the author of 'Thorn lace: Mojmir ' A Migrant's Lot' manages to alternate between factual history of the Croatian nation and episodes of personal experiences of her hero, to mingle them in a logical mix, making history come alive, is the aspect which particularly seized my curiosity and admiration for this literary work.

ANA BRUNING, B.A., M.A.

Rafik Halabi has taken on one of the most difficult tasks in writing this book: giving an objective account on the difficulties between Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East since the founding of Israel. Of course, opinions may vary on Halabi's objectiveness, but I feel he had done an excellent job on portraying both sides of this conflict. As a Druse who has lived in Israel all his life, Halabi has experienced what it is like to live as an Arab in Jewish society. As he speaks both Hebrew and Arabic, the author was able to talk to many different people on both sides of this conflict, making friends and enemies along the way. Halabi is a career reporter and his book is full of details, so this is not a quick read. It can be difficult to keep up with the names and different groups, but I believe this is due more to the incredible complexity of this conflict rather than the fault of the author. This is a great book that can give the reader background on a conflict that may seem confusing to many.

ya era hora que esta adorable edicion de villancicos navideños fuera editada en la lengua española, muy buena traduccion

This book was extremely hard to read; language was a bit to convoluted. Examples were good but book could have been more "readable."

I really enjoyed this book. It simplified concepts and educational buzz words, gave me fodder for lesson plans, and challenged me to rethink my theorhetical perspectives. I hope to implement the suggestions and reap the benefits of current research findings in my classroom. I found the book to be user friendly and an easy read.

I was not impressed with this book. I was hoping to get some new and fresh ideas as to what to do with my 2 year old. Most of the ideas in this book were things most people think of on their own.

Ok if you're looking for a book that's going to turn your child into some toddler genius, this isn't it. What this book is good for are those awkward times when it's raining outside, or your child doesn't have anyone to play with, or you just wake up in the morning, look at your child, and say "what am I going to do with you all day?". There are lots of fun cheap/free activities and ideas that you just might not think of on your own. They might seem mundane to you, but your child will have lots of fun and maybe even be fascinated. When I knew I'd have a day with just me and my child, I'd go through the book and pick 4-6 activities to add to the day. A good accompaniment to this book is Susan Dahlman's "A Year of Fun Just for Twos". Armed with these two books, you should never have a pull your hair out day again. It's definitely worth the money!

Stories of really mean animals, who exploit others for their advantage. Almost all of them seem to be able to turn into humans and back at their own will.

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This is more of the culture of pity attempting to sanctify a woman deluded by her need for self-identity into a concept of differentness. There are no heroes here, only overblown symbols.