This book was the first of a spate of peony books written over the last few years, and is generally considered to still be the best and most useful by most folks in the peony growing comunity. It is a comprehensive overview of history, hybridisers past and present, and current cultivars of interest. England is producing some attractive books, but the truth of the matter is that the United States is where the "action" has been for the last half century as far as peony growing and hybridising is concerned. There has been a spectacular increase in interest in these beautiful flowers over the last decade, and Al Rogers' book will surely be remembered as a classic part of this era of re-discovery in years to come.

Allen Rogers answers anything you would want to know about growing peonies. From the beginner to the experienced, you will find information that will help you succeed in your cultivation of these wonderful plants.

About 4 years ago I planted out a fairly close version of the largest peony garden recommended in Appendix III. It has been a joy! The peony plant itself changes character over the growing season, and this design reflects that character and the colors. Visually, it's a different garden every few weeks! The book itself contains a lot of good information, very carefully done, I believe.

Isaiah Berlin wrote a lot of essays, as the size of this book, THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND, absolutely demonstrates. Near the middle of the book is an essay, "The Originality of Machiavelli," which shows how well Berlin could categorize intellectual activities into various kinds of significance.

"His distrust of unworldly attitudes, absolute principles divorced from empirical observation, is fanatically strong - almost romantic in its violence; the vision of the great prince playing upon human beings like an instrument intoxicates him. He assumes that different societies must always be at war with each other, since they have differing purposes. He sees history as an endless process of cut-throat competition, . . ." (p. 318).

The index is great, and even has an entry for "Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich . . . conversation with Stalin." Pasternak wanted to talk to Stalin, but the question which Stalin put to Pasternak, "whether he was present when a lampoon about himself, Stalin, was recited by Mandel'shtam" (p. 533) was not what Pasternak wanted to talk about. Pasternak wanted to talk to Stalin "about ultimate issues, about life and death." (p. 534). After Stalin put down the receiver, "Pasternak tried to ring back but, not surprisingly, failed to get through to the leader." (p. 534). Stalin had been quick to decide where that conversation was going, and cut it short by observing, "If I were Mandel'shtam's friend, I should have known better how to defend him." (p. 534). It is not obvious that Stalin would have appreciated a defense which asserted that the poem about Stalin was more true than anything else that Pasternak had ever seen, read, or heard, and any decent country would have comedians that would constantly broadcast such ideas on the radio 24/7 until the invention of TV would allow people to watch movies like "Forrest Gump" in the comfort of their own homes. Stalin has been rightly condemned for being hopelessly authoritarian when judging humor that was aimed at his sorry self, and Isaiah Berlin sees the pattern as one that Russia was particularly prone to suffer indefinitely. "Whatever the differences between the old and the new Russia, suspicion and persecution of writers and artists were common to both." (p. 537).

Berlin's account of his conversations with Anna Akhmatova strive to reflect what culture means for people who actively create work like Heine's comment, "I may not deserve to be remembered as a poet, but surely as a soldier in the battle for human freedom." (p. 537). We are now such a comic society on a global level that pop mock rap on the internet can pick on the soldier's mentality in a hilarious way, but it is good to be able to read Isaiah Berlin to account for how much such humor matters.

Isaiah Berlin probably is one of the 20th century's most underrated thinkers. A truely learned man he brought his insight in the history of ideas, reflecting on the elightenment and freedom, the golden age of Russian literature, and rubbing shoulders with the high and the mighty. All of these facets are displayed here. Mr. Hardy has done an exceptional job at assembling these essays. My favorite being "The Hedgehog and the Fox." In this essay, Berlin explores the natures of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Dostoyevsky is the hedgehog who knows one thing really well. Tolstoy is the fox, reflecting his epic sweep and universal understanding of humanity. In a nutshell, Berlin's political philosophy is strongly lined up on the side of freedom and the dignity of the individual. Not exactly in favor in these days of extremist bland thinking. My one complaint is that there is so much more to Berlin than these exceptional essays. If 20th century philosophy is to be remembered as more than an unpleasant memory, it will be as the time of the age of Berlin.

The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows one big thing -Archilochus, 8th century BC

Never have the readers of the New York Times been more humbled and mystified than the November day in 1997 when the paper ran a front page obituary for the Latvian-born British philosopher Isaiah Berlin. You could hear the collective gasp and feel the pull of the intake of breath as thousands of folks who pride themselves on being "in the know" turned to one another and asked, across a table laid with grapefruit halves and bran cereal,, "Was I supposed to know who Isaiah Berlin was? I've never heard of him." The answer is that there was no real reason most of us would have heard of him, though we'd likely read a couple of his book reviews. He was after all a philosopher who never produced a magnum opus summarizing his worldview. His reputation really rested on a couple of amusing anecdotes, one oft-cited essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox, and on his talents as a conversationalist, which would obviously only have been known to an elite few. Oddly enough, he has experienced a significant revival of interest since his death, but he is basically still just known for this essay.

If, like me, you finally forced yourself to read War and Peace and were simply mystified by several of the historic and battle scenes, this essay is a godsend. Though many critics, and would would assume almost all readers, have tended to just ignore these sections of the book, Berlin examines them in light of Tolstoy's philosophy of history and makes a compelling case that Tolstoy intended the action of these scenes to be confusing. As Berlin uses the fox and hedgehog analogy, a hedgehog is an author who has a unified vision which he follows in his writing ("...a single, universal, organising principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance...") , a fox has no central vision nor organizing principle; his writings are varied, even contradictory. Berlin argues that Tolstoy was a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog, that he longed for a central idea to organize around, but so distrusted the capacity of human reason to discern such an idea, that he ended up knocking down what he saw as faulty ideas, without ever settling on one of his own.

According to Berlin, in War and Peace, Tolstoy used the chaotic swirl of events to dispel a "great illusion" : "that individuals can, by the use of their own resources, understand and control the course of events." Or as he puts it later, Tolstoy perceived a "central tragedy" of human life :

...if only men would learn how little the cleverest and most gifted among them can control, how little they can know of all the multitude of factors the orderly movement of which is the history of the world...

This idea is strikingly similar to the argument that F. A. Hayek made almost a century later in his great book The Road to Serfdom, though Hayek made it in opposition to centralized government planning. Tolstoy's earlier development of this theme makes him a pivotal figure in the critique of reason and a much more significant figure than I'd ever realized in the history of conservative thought.

I'd liked War and Peace more than I expected to when I first read it--despite not grasping what he was about in these sections of the book--and I'm quite anxious to reread it now in light of Berlin's really enlightening analysis. I've no idea how to judge the rest of Berlin's work or how he ranks as a philosopher, but you can't ask more of literary criticism than that it explain murky bits, that it engender or rekindle interest in an otherwise musty-seeming work, and that it take a potentially dated book and make us realize that it is still relevant. This essay succeeds on all those levels. In this instance at least, Isaiah Berlin warrants his hefty reputation.

GRADE : A+

I can only agree with the other reviewers. I bought this book new in a local bookstore after picking it up and reading the introduction and a few paragraphs. I've never read another book quite like it. This book really stands on its own and unlike many others I believe that the sobriquet 'classic' truly applies to this novel. Buy it!!!

A classic, in medias res mystery, in which no one is innocent until the end; scene after terrific scene leads you to an end that will knock your socks off. If you've ever lived in CT (as I have) you will recognize and respond to this book. The smell of roses and fresh earth -- !!!!!

This is one of the truly great ones, a crime novel that you will remember ten years after you read it . I know -- it's been ten years since I last read it, and it just floored me again.

The writing is a bit affected and takes some getting used to, but it's worth it. When you get to the climax and the secret is revealed, you'll sit slackjawed and start paging back through the book, desperate to see how you missed it. A brilliant puzzle, brilliantly constructed and brilliantly unfolded.

If you like mysteries, do not -- I repeat, do not -- leave this screen without buying this book.

This book is awesome! It makes you think, and yet have fun as well. The patterns in this book are outstanding, and even as a teenager they are fun to color. I enjoyed spending my time coloring these in. Some designs are very complex and do take time to finish. People see many designs in this book. When you open it up what will you see?

I have colored for many hours in this book (as well as on photocopies of the pages) and can honestly say it was time well-spent. Nothing can relax and revive a busy adult like pure, time-wasting creativity. The geometric designs are like pieces of a puzzle - the end picture is whatever YOU see in the patterns. I like the freedom of finding logic, pattern and even pictures out of the chaotic mish-mash of triangles, polygons and squares on every page. Some see stars, some see flowers, some see animals. What will you see?

This is the best "coloring" book ever! It's not for little kids, like pre-school through maybe 3rd grade, but it's really fun for people over that age level. The only problem is that the designs are really complicated and it will probably take you awhile to finish one. But it's worth it!! I think that for adults it would be a good relaxer. Six-twenty five is a bargain and it's the perfect gift for every occasion!!

Kudos to Dr. Diane Plotkin for her thorough research into the lives of the women featured in this book. Her attention to detail helps transport us to the various camps where we experience dehumanization and deprivation. Through it all, however, it is interesting to see the various ways these women nurtured and tried to protect one another. This is a "must-read" book because it clearly illustrates the general differences in the ways men and women coped with, and adapted to, life in the concentration camps.

It was hard to put this book down once I started it. Although the women portrayed faced a living hell all around them, the authors elicit the courage and determination each women had to continue the daily existence in the camps. And that is what is so powerful; the daily horrors which become the backdrop for extermination are also part of the reason that each was able to define for herself a path through death.

This book was a difficult endeavor, as one never wants to face the potential raw ugliness of mankind. However, the voices of these women are invaluable in helping the world to remember a time which must never be forgotten.

As a young woman (34 years old) and a mother of three (which qualifies me as a caregiver, I guess), my heart went out to these brave women, struggling to impart some small measure of kindness or at least relief of suffering to their fellow prisoners. Women and children are seemingly the most vulnerable when society engages in chaos, but the women caregivers chronicled in this book were apparently among the most intrepid of all. I believe they gathered strength from the acts of focusing on giving aid to others in the most desperate of circumstances. Anyone who is interested in what the human spirit can endure, and indeed, overcome, should read this book.

When Washington lobbyist Cassera meets a beautiful young girl who tries sorcery to steal his heart, he will find his life changed, his successes challenged, and ruin on the horizon. It takes a gentle stranger/angel to change his downward spiral. Sleeping With An Angel includes pop/rock music by the author's son Jon Campos in a cd which links the book to tracks on the cd for added emotion and impact - a unique approach.

Roger A. Campos and Jon Campos have written an inspiring novel with an exceptional music CD. I've never read, or heard anything like it before. The way the author describes the characters, and then relates it to music is totally unique. When the characters hear music, so does the reader, by playing appropriate tracks from the CD (which is included with the book). This book and CD spans the ages for young and older alike. This truly is MUST READING FOR THE NEW AGE READER!!!!!

This book is awesome! It has everything: pathos, humor, characterization, passionate love scenes, and an inspiring message. Roger Campos is a wonderful author, and the songs on the CD, sung by Jon Campos, are powerful, and are a range of many different styles. I especially like the song "I Wanna Know." And after the book is finished, I can still play the music, so the experience lasts. I think it is neat that the author and the singer are father and son. I am sure this father-and-son duo is one to watch!

Petunia is a silly goose who finds a book and believes she'll be wiser if she's seen carrying it around. And the other barnyard animals actually think she *is* wiser because of it. The thing of it is, she's still just a silly goose, who gets her friends into all sorts of scrapes.

"Petunia" is a pleaser but gets a little too philosophical in the last two pages. That's okay-- the first pages and clean 1950s illustrations make up for it. A classic.

Petunia was a fourth grade favorite of mine many years ago. Her "wisdom" was so cleverly revealed in the end that I kept the book checked out of the school library all year long.

I was saddened to see that Petunia was out of print. I wanted to order a copy for each of the first grade students who I worked on this class play with this year. The book has a great moral to it, is hilarious to the younger set and has such cute illustrations. I remembered this book from my childhood and will order an out-of-print copy for my son. Any publishers out there--"Please reprint the Petunia books!"

When the Professer is tired of not having family time with the girls, he decides to become a powerpuff too.But parents always embaress their kids, and this is no execption. So the powerpuff girls come up with a plan.Will it work? It better,or else the powerpuff girls will be called babies for the rest of their lives! GOOD FOR BEGINING READER POWERPUFF FANS

The professor is lonely and misses his girls so he decides to help them. This book is great, it is humourous and delightful and it's something everyone can enjoy.

My 8-year-old usually needs a lot of prompting to finish a book. She absolutely loved this one and read it without any urging. She can't wait for them to write more as she as read both available now.

I really enjoyed Beverly Gray's new book, Roger Corman, An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking. The story is exhaustively documented and chockfull of interesting tidbits. It is written in an easygoing, readable style and offers a fascinating look at the world of moviemaking.

Roger Corman is a Hollywood movie making legend in his own lifetime. What is sometimes overlooked is that he was also responsible for launching the film making careers of such luminaries as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, James Cameron, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, and Sylvester Stallone. Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography Of The Godfather Of Indie Filmmaking is the thorough, informative, illuminating, at times inspiring life of a unique, one-of-a-kind film directors who has fifty low-budget movies to his credit, and who has producers almost five hundred more! This is one well-written, meticulously researched Hollywood biography that is a "must read" for all movie fans, film buffs, and show business historians.

Usually, these unauthorized bios of entertainment industry figures are either slick, superficial rehashes of newspaper articles cobbled together by pseudo-writers or vicious hack-jobs by bitter ex-employees out for blood. Not this one. Beverly Gray's book is a wonderfully written, methodically researched, indepth look at a movie-making legend, written by an ex-employee who manages to portray her former boss with warmth, wit and surprising objectivity. Gray's background in academia really comes through, not in the dry, textbook writing usually associated with scholars, but in the intelligence and smoothness of her prose. This book is as educational as it is entertaining, marked by exceptional reporting and insightful anecdotes from her first-hand experience as Corman's right-hand woman. You'll learn far more about Roger Corman from her book than the one he wrote about himself. Highly recommended for anyone interested in movie-making...and the business behind the business.

Corwin decides to see if it's possible to rescue Brother Brand, and gets the rest of his siblings involved in the action. What becomes unfortunately apparent is that one of them wants him dead, and that family politics are always a lot more complicated than they look when it comes to the Amber royal house.

A lot of great information about the family dynamics comes to light here. A readable, fascinating installment in a readable, fascinating series.

I read the first two books, and I thought they were pretty good, but this book is by far the best! The plot becomes so much more complex and interesting, (Not that it wasn't good before) and the characters become so much more interesting. I hope the next two are more like this!

The third installment of this exceptional series continues the thrills and lays on the intrigue as we deal more thoroughly with the royal family of Amber...they make my family look like the Bradys...and Corwin continues to kick a$$ and take names. Arguably the most intelligent, well-written, and exciting fantasy series ever written.