As an adult Sunday School Teacher I purchased this book for my Women's Sunday School class. These skits are simple, and easy to perform for those adults who think that they lack talent in dramatic arts. Most are humerous, but make a really good point.
The introductions are well written, however I did add a summary after each skit which would highlight the scripture a little more. This is an excellent resource to use with adults whether in a class environment, or as preparation for a Sunday Morning Sermon. These skits can be altered to fit different ages and genders than those presented in the book. They are thought provoking and interesting. Most of all they are short and to the point.

Robert Ward's The King of Cards is, for the most part, witty and charming in ways that few other modern books are. While Ward's attempt at a emotional ending backfires, and the main character's wordy ramblings on the events that shaped his persona are unimpressive, the book is consistantly funny and the characters are well drawn. This book is a nice bit of light humor.

Highly evocative novel set in late 1970s/early 1980s de-industrializing Baltimore as seen through the eyes of permanently laid-off steelworker Red Baker. No prior knowledge of the milieu is required: A friend unfamiliar with the geographic and social specifics that Robert Ward describes attests to the fact that it conveys a feel for Baltimore's industrial decline, and the individual tragedies that accompanied its transition to a post-industrial economy.

The title of this book is way out of the strike zone. You see "Who Invented the Game?" and you think this volume is going to be about the origins of baseball, a scholarly little attempt to separate the true history of the sport from the myth of Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown (certainly one of the greatest public relations stunts in history with regards to promoting a small town in the middle of nowhere). However, this book, based on the PBS documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns, is really a condensed version of what I watch every year just before opening day. Not that there is anything wrong with that; the companion volume to the "Baseball" documentary is a weighty tome and an abbreviated version written for younger readers is certainly a good idea. But then the title of the book should be something else (this has struck a raw nerve with me; as a teacher I require students to have a thesis statement that they prove in the body of their essay, which sort of requires them to be about the same thing, and I have the exactly same feelings when it comes to title). "Who Invented the Game?" will answer such burning questions as "Who played the first real game?", "Who invented the curve ball?", and "Why is the pitcher's mound exactly 60 feet 6 inches from home plate?" But the book is not organized according to such topics, instead following the same structure as the documentary series. Illustrated with dozens of photographs this book by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns with Paul Robert Walker might serve well to get youngsters who have not seen the entire documentary interested in checking it out. But for those who have watched all nine innings or read the companion volume, this is ground already well covered.

First published in 1797, this was the culmination of Ann Radcliffe's writing career. She was seen as the darling of the Gothic mode, which we would probably put into the genre of "thrillers" or "horror". All the appropriate dungeons are here, the hint of demonic influence, the seperation of star-struck lovers, revenge, the searching of dark ruins, and the diabolical and angelic facets of the Church. Radcliffe does go deeper than that though through her paced plotting and and the limited use of sentimentality that destroyed so much of writing back then. The gothic novel would run out its course eventually, but had a great effect on the talent of its day. Keats, Byron, and Shelley all owe at least some of their subject matter and modes of expression to Radcliffe.

Well, back to the novel itself. The story opens in the year 1764 in Naples, Italy as a group of English tourists are visiting a church. They notice a diabolical looking man who they are informed can never leave the safety of the church walls because he is an assasin. The place is his last sanctuary from those who wish to kill him. Of course the group asks to hear the tale of the assasin and The Italian begins.

The story opens as a young nobleman named Vincentio di Vivaldi spots the beautiful but common Ellena Rosalba during church service and falls in love with her. From this Dantesque beginning we are led into a Romeo and Juliet scenario in which Vivaldi begins to woo her without the approval of his parents. Then we have the apperance of a cowled priest who appears to warn Vivaldi of future events before they happen. Vivaldi chases him a couple of times but all he ever finds is thin air. As the book continues, Vivaldi's mother will stop at nothing to keep her son from marrying his one true love.

I didn't have too much hope that I would like this book when I picked it up, having given up on reading a similar work called Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin. I was very impressed with Radcliffe though. She stayed away from sentimentality and none of the characters was a caricature. They all seemed like deeply drawn personalities. The book had a real modern feel to it, probably because she modeled her stuff on Shakespeare, the most advanced writer of any age. The "thriller" aspects were quite good too. I found myself desperately wanting to turn the page before I had even read it to know what would happen next. Ann is a writer I will go back to and read again.

I read this book in Japanese translation years ago, and recently read it again in the original language in order to write a paper. And I can say, both times the book gave me a good, healthy amount of thrill and joy.

Published in 1796, "The Italian" became an instant success, cementing the fame of Ann Radcliffe among the liteary circle. Her name has been already well-known with her previous work "The Mysteries of Udolpho" two years before, but in my book this follow-up is better than the other. Of course, it depends on your view which is superior, but it is commonly agreed that Ann Radcliffe's position in the history of English literature is secured by those two Gothic classics, which clearly gave inspiration to Jane Austen, who wrote the joyful "Northanger Abbey."

The story is rather simple in the beginning. It tells of a romantic love of young dashing nobleman Vivaldi in Naples, who falls in love with a girl Ellena. But his plan of marriage is soon interrupted by the vicious monk Schedoni. Then ensue abduction, murder (attempted or not), and the Inquisition. There are lot of suspense, terror, and thrill that come from the fluent narrative of Radcliffe, who knows how to engage the readers' attention. (And thankfully, "The Italian" is free from any lengthy poems that are found aplenty among "Udolpho.")

To be sure, the third part of the book is damaged by its too complicated relations between characters, and too rapid pen of the author to wrap up the events with rational explanations about the mysterious things in the first part of the book, but the whole book manages to sustain our interest to the end. Radcliffe's effusive descriptions of landscapes (with a little sentimental touch) found in "Udolpho" are gone (but not completely), and the plot is tightly knit so that we can enjoy the fast-paced adventure of the hero and the heroine. The best part of the book is, probably, the middle section where the hero, with his comic relief side-kick, tries to escape from the sinister convent where the heroine is confined to be forced to take a veil. It's a real page-turner which would put many of today's bestselling author to deserved shame.

One of the best Gothic novels ever written, "The Italian" is still a gripping tale. Most regrettabe thing is that the author Radcliffe stopped writing totally after this book for the rest of her life (she died in 1823). Considering the fact that she had never been to Italy (she travelled abroad only once, in Netherland and Germany), and that her sublime landscapes are proof of her amazingly imaginative power, her early retirement should be lamented by all of us. But we must be content with what is left. Enjoy this one.

THE PENGUIN EDITION published in 2000 has 10 pages of excerpts from comtemporary reviews, which would help readers with academic purpose.

The Italian was Radcliffe's last novel. It is about a nobleman who falls in love with a woman whose identity is unknown to herself and the reader throughout her sufferings. She is oppressed by many people in whose hands she falls as she is snatched away from the nobleman Vivaldi to prevent their marriage. Like all of Radcliffe's heroines, her character is marked by an amazing fortitude despite the horrifying things to which she is frequently subjected. Vivaldi faces the powers of the Inquisition and Radcliffe gives the reader some idea of their dealings with offenders and their ways of making prisoners "confess." There are many turns of events which are delightful until another perilous event disappoints and grieves the reader. This is certainly what most reviewers call a page-turner. The sentiments are by no means modern. For a reader who is looking for modern unrestrained "romance," none of Radcliffe's novels is a good choice. Her stories are for true romantics.

This book continues from where Kiyosaki left off in Cashflow Quadrant, his 2nd book in the trilogy (now complete with Rich Dad's Guide to Investing).

In his 1st book Rich Dad Poor Dad, Kiyosaki addressed the differences in mindsets between the Rich and the Poor. Then, in his 2nd book Cashflow Quadrant, he spoke on the 4 quadrants from which one can generate income. To be wealthy, Kiyosaki recommended that we learn to generate our incomes from the "B" (Business-owner) and "I" (Investor) quadrant as opposed to the "E" (Employee) and "S" (Self-employed) quadrant.

In his 3rd book Rich Dad's Guide to Investing, Kiyosaki tells how he got started in his investment journey, starting with nothing, and in fact at one stage, with a negative net worth. Most of us, having read his first 2 books, would have wondered if we could have embarked on our journey to become financially independent without much resource at hand. In this book, Kiyosaki shows how anyone can get started and how it does not take money to make money. He teaches how time is more important than money; how investing in one's self and getting an education and experience precedes excessive cash; how having a plan is more important than being in a hurry to make money.

This is not a book for those who want hot tips and quick fixes. This is a book on mindsets. Kiyosaki plants ideas and provides a road-map. The reader must take the first step and learn to navigate his/her own journey.

What I like about this book, is Kiyosaki's concept of being an Ultimate Investor, a "selling-investor". The Ultimate Investor creates deals and businesses that the public hunger for and are willing to pay a premium to acquire a share of. With the internet, it has never been easier to create businesses and deals which one can take public.

As in all his other books, Kiyosaki's book is worth reading again and again. I would also recommend that one reads Robert Allen's Multiple Streams of Income in conjunction with Kiyosaki's Rich Dad's Guide to Investing.

All of the books in the Rich Dad are excellent. I also suggest How to make nothing but money by DelDeotto,

In this third of the of the RD/PD series Kiyosaki discusses investing. He shows how he went from a negative net worth to millions. He discusses the importance of having a plan. I like the fact that he emphasizes the importance of having a mission in your business. Kiyosaki also discusses the importance of having a safety net in your investment plan as a back up to the aggressive real estate, business and stock investing.

Good book and the best of the three in my opinion.

After reading Rich Dad/Poor Dad, Cash Flow Quadrant and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing, I found this one to be repetitive, full of too many cutesy stories and not enough meat. The appendix is the best part of the book and I had hoped the entire book would be more like the info offered in the appendix. If you haven't read the other books, this offers a good starting point.

Overall I like Kiyosaki's style of writing and he makes a boring subject come alive with his storytelling style, but sometimes he just overdoes it.

Finally, I recently purchased his CashFlow 101 game and my two teenagers (son 16, daughter 14) love the game and beg us to play it all the time. They caught on fast to the score card which includes a balance sheet & income statement. I'm learning a lot just teaching and guiding them. It's worth the investment just to hear your 14 year old say "I don't want any more doodads, I'm trying to build my passive income here!".

Although this is the first economic based book I have read, I have found it to be very informative and enjoyable. Kiyosaki does a good job at using a style of language that is very coherent and easy to understand. His view are balanced by contrasting his "rich and smart dads."
As a young man without much experience using economic terms, Kiyosaki was able to use real life examples that made the learning so much easier. Although this book was directed to parents to help their children start ou in life on the right path financially, I found it, as a senior in high school planning to go to college and grow up, to be extremely usefull.

I truly enjoyed reading another one of the famous Rich Dad books. I am a senior in high school, and I had no clue where to find direction on how to avoid my parents (in debt) footsteps -- that is until I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Onto the next guide and more appropriate for my age, Rich Kid, Smart Kid taught me many valuable lessons, especially about taxes and the banking system. Kiyosaki's financial aid also helped me to understand that just because I am not a "numerical genious" doesn't mean I cannot be very successdul in the "real world" creating ideas from my more "genious" skills. The only flaw however, in Rich Kid, Smart Kid, was that it repeated much of what was said in Rich Dad, Poor Dad. As a teenager, I want to know more about how to avoid debt with the government and where money comes and goes. As Kiyosaki says, understanding how money works is the key to financial freedom. Overall, Rich Kid, Smart Kid is a great first step toward success in an ever-changing economy.

Ward presents several computer architectures, exploring details from processor implementation to mulit-processor cache coherency issues. It was formerly a required text in 6.004, but as the course evolved, the book became less and less applicable. The book is now quite old and does not explore contemporary issues in computer architecture.

Many pages are devoted to theoretical arguments with few real-world examples (i.e., case studies). The writing is direct but uninspired.

This book is quite idiosyncratic in its kind. The content is quite theoretic, so that probably it won't be the best choice for more pragmatic and practice-oriented courses, for which the two books from Patterson-Hennessy, e.g., will be more suited. However, the value of this book lays in the shocking amount of knowledge it carries. This is the classic gap-filling book: my opinion is that many CS student of us that will read this book page by page, will discover that they really didn't know something they thought they knew instead. This is simply because the discussion is organic and continuos from the start to the end, and the writing is never too hard, so that any gap will easily show itself during the reading.

Have a look at the table of contents. It starts from digital logic basics and it ends at the Interrupts chapter (this means, almost, operating systems). The distance seems to be prohibitive, but the path traced by prof. Ward and Halstead is remarkably solid and meaningful. Once basic logic circuits blocks are covered, it leads to computation issues (from FSM to Turing Machines), passing from performance considerations (e.g. pipelining) and memory hierarchies (cache memory is extensively covered).
Two chapters are devoted to milestone architectures: the S machine and the G machine. Such a thorough coverage on these two machines is something I've not found in other books.
The chapters on Processes, Processor Multiplexing, Processes Synchronization and Interrupts are good and at the level of an OS course. The astonishing thing is that the background to face these issues is well built before (again, recall that the book starts from basic Logic Levels !).

This book has been a very worthy read. My course used materials from different books, internet resources and my instructor's knowledge. The instructor itself suggested us to give the book a complete read when we had time (we didn't cover all the topics of the book) because we would have really learned important things. I've not done it completely, but the more I do it, the more I agree.

A clumsy story by one of my favorite authors. Pitchers, quarterbacks, and point guards all lose their extraordinary skills, or at least have bad days, so why not writers? Any "Rockford Files" script gives us a better exasperated L.A. anti-hero than this Mickey Murphy stereotype. The minor characters in _Violent Ward_ are almost as cartoonish. (And what's with the title? It's pretty bad when the blurb has to try to explain it.)

Deighton's over-detailed descriptions of clothing remind me of a Nancy Drew novel. But the worst part of reading _Ward_ is the feeling I get that this is a British writer pretending he's a lifelong American. Britishisms such as "rang off" instead of hung up and "ramp" instead of driveway reinforce this irritating dent to the story's credibility.

Other critics ask, Well, what's a spy novelist to do now that the Cold War is over? Hello-oh. . . China, Iraq, Japanese industrial espionage? I'll ring off now.

I really liked this story and it had some really funny lines in it too. I will read some more books by this author if they are anything like this. This is about an attorney, his ex, his kid, an old girlfriend and her husband, riots, money, murder. A really interesting novel.

I just picked up a copy of Rich Dad's Prophecy at our local Waldens. If you are concerned about retiring and investing you must read this book.You will see some of the familiar topics. And the Rich Dad/Poor Dad parable. But didn't Cicero say that repetition is the mother of skill?You will learn why mutual funds are not quite as safe as you had thought.And you will learn why some financial advisors are just salesmen.You will also learn the truth about 401 (k) plans (or is that 201 (k) plans) and social security.You will learn the difference between diversify and diworsify.And you will find out why the biggest stock market crash in history is still ahead of us and what you can do about it.

If you are a fan of dollar cost averaging, buy and hold or day trading, you'll not enjoy this book.Rather, if you are open minded to facts, not opinions and want to prosper in the next decade and avoid the next big stock market crash, you'll love this book.Robert Kiyosaki's advice makes sense ( dollars and cents too) RTK shows how to create your own financial Arc to avoid the turbulent waters that lay ahead. He shows how to prosper during the coming boom and even offers advice on tax free funds that yield 7% or more.Let me say that I8 was not at first a fan of Mr. Kiyosaki. I was put off by his advice to go to a full service broker in lieu of a discount broker, untill I tried it and found that it did cost me less. People are walking past dollars trying to save pennies. RTK's advice is right on and works for those perceptive enough to use it.As for the ads for his board games, so what? The games help to instill the Rich Dad Philosophy. I suspect that the people who bash Kiyosaki's board game attack it because they cn't figure out how to play it. Still using college training and a Poor Dad philosophy? Too bad.Rich Dad's Prophecy, I believe, is the best in the series.Good book RTK. Keep em coming!

If you are a serious investor. A baby boomer hoing you can retire in the next decade, then you must read this book by Kiyosaki.I also recommend Rich Dad's Guide to investing and Retire Yound, Retire Rich.And please ignore the 1 star reviewers with an aggenda.As a greater power than me once said; "Forgive them for they know not what they do."