Impressionism is my favorite style of painting so I was really enchanted with this biography. Written by Renoir's middle son, Jean, Renoir, My Father not only gives us an intimate look at the life of Auguste Renoir, it gives us an intimate look at the Paris of Renoir's day as well.

As we get to know Renoir we get to know his contemporaries, too. Jean Renoir writes about Monet, Cezanne, Manet, Sisley and many other great artists. We learn many "little known" facts, such as Monet's penchant for lace and his "artful" way with the ladies.

Paris really comes alive in this book. Many of the places Renoir writes about still exist and can be visited today. This book makes any art lover's trip to Paris more meaningful whether he's a Renoir fan or not.

When reading this book, one must remember that this is not a "run of the mill" biography. This is a son writing about the father he adored. The portrait we are given is very intimate, detailed and loving. It's obvious that Jean Renoir adored his father, just as Auguste Renoir adored his family.

Ultimately, this book is a beautiful tribute from a loving son to a father who was one of history's consummate artists. If you have any interest at all in art, this is one book you simply must not pass up. The last page alone will break your heart.

Renoir was far more than one of the world's greatest artists. He was an adventurer, a family man, a man who held interesting views on just about every subject under the sun, and finally, in his later years, a martyr to life. Although this book was written by Renoir's middle son, Jean, it is as vibrant and alive as if Renoir, himself, had just written the words in his own hand. Through this book we learn how the Renoir family left its roots in Limoges and moved to Paris. We read of Renoir's early years as a painter of porcelain and how and why he became an artist, more specifically, an Impressionist. We learn of Renoir's marriage to Aline Charigot of Essoyes, the birth of his three sons and his move to the south of France. Some of the most interesting sections of the book deal with Renoir's feelings about the effect of light on a painting and why he needed to paint in a "natural" setting. Also, most interesting are the chapters on the birth of Impressionism and Renoir's relationships with the other artists of the time, such as Monet, Manet, Sisley and Cezanne, just to name a few. Lovingly and charmingly written, this book truly brings Renoir to life and makes him accessible to all. Absolutely a must for anyone with even a passing interest in art or artists!

Not only is this a book about Renoir, whose tableaux peer out of every other art store on every mall in North America (what a curious fate!), it is also a book about Paris. Born in 1841, Renoir was older than most of the other Impressionists with whom he grew friendly later. He also had the chance to see Paris as it was before the Commune and the war of 1870. He lived a good part of his life on the Butte in Montmartre and it is hard now to recapture the atmosphere up there among the hordes of tourists. Yet early on Sunday mornings with a light rain playing on the umbrellas of the artist's stands in the Place du Tertre, you can wander freely among the memories of the rue Lepic and elsewhere, and catch glimpses of Renoir (and others) as you pass through the old streets. Reading this book first will help.

Jean Renoir is a very famous artist in his own right, having made numerous films and become one of the most acclaimed directors in French cinema history. Here he has taken great pains to paint a fine portrait of his renowned father, this time with a pen. He has succeeded admirably.

I recently had the opportunity to hear this young, Christian poet read from her book, "God's Anointing Has Set Me Free." I knew then that this book was a must purchase and a must read. After reading this book and the way that it edifies the power of the Most High God, I have been thirsting for the power of the Holy Spirit,which I abandoned in my youth. Ms. Love'll has captured the essence of God's ability to heal the broken-hearted and mend the wounded spirits of his people. She reminded me that God was not the one who walked away, I was. John 1:1 says "that in the beginning was the word." Well, Ms. Love'll has found an experiential means of making his "word" applicable to most and relevant to all. She is a gifted writer who has truly been blessed with God's Anointing. I look forward to reading future works of this truly gifted poet. I thank God for placing this book in my path. I recently contacted the author to get permission to use one of her poems,'It's Not How You Look, It's How You FEEEEEL on the Inside,' in a motivational speech to 500 young people from across the State of Ohio. The poem was widely quoted all week by dozens of young people who said it taught them that no matter how they looked, they had now knew that they had worth and a purpose. Thank you Ms. Love'll.

I have read the book, God's Anointing Has Set Me Free, and it is an inspiration to anyone who gets a hold it. God has blessed the author with a pure talent of writing poetry. It is sure to touch all who need touched and there is a special poem for everyone. This is a Godsend to those in need of uplifting. Read it and be blessed.

I had the chance to read this powerful book and my heart is filled with peace as I read through the pages of God's Anointing Has Set Me Free. I hope this book is distributed world wide, because every one can benefit from the powerful words within the book. I never though that one book could be filled with love, life, encouragement and inspiration like this book is. I love to read and I love reading this book over and over. I couldn't put it the the first time that I got my copy from one of the author's book signings. And now a month later I am reading it all over again. That's how the book has impacted my life, because I can go back again and again and read the powerful poetry and stories. I have been truly blessed by the poetry and words from this uplifting book! I had the chance to meet the author and I must say in my eyes this is a best selling book! Get a copy if you can, and find yourself inspired by the word of God's Anointing Has Set Me Free! It is truly a blessing! For a first time writer, this is a work well done! Amen!

I found this book to be truly entertaining and a must read for all people of African descent. This is definitely a novel that should rank among the ten best in African literature.

The writer puts a face on the suffering of a people. His writing is simple, yet highly intelectual.He helps us understand why African people still suffer today - throughout the diaspora. A must read for all 16 and older. TIP: Save the prologue for last. It's much too intense to begin with. Besides, you'll comprehend it a lot better later.

If you're lucky enough to get a hold of this book-Treasure It!. It's currently out of print, but it is by far the most important book I have ever read.

This book, even though geared for Y2K type expected disaster, still has many useful tips for emergency preparedness. I found the food prep and storage section particularly useful. Also it had an excellent section on waste disposal which is often overlooked in other emergency preparedness books. Small and portable enough to take with you.

The Y2K Survival Guide and Cookbook (Ecovillage, TN) by Dorothy R. and Albert K. Bates is not your usual recipe collection. With the savvy of environmentalists ad the frenzy of those expecting emergency, Dorothy and Albert Bates cover every area of survival and food preparation. Expecting the worst case scenario - rolling brownouts and total black outs, failed utility systems and water purification problems - this book provides natural alternatives: food storage, chlorine bleach to purify water, using wood stoves, building your own composting toilet, and gardening. There are even first aid and Morse code directions in the final pages. After coping with any Y2K calamities, it's time to cook. In between survival guidelines, the Bates' book is filled with hearty recipes reminiscent of campfire food. As computers buzz blank, you can enjoy split pea soup from melted icicles, marmalades from sun-dried fruit, or shiitake joes from home-grown mushrooms. Even though The Y2K Survival Guide and Cookbook is intended for the millennium-minded cook, it is an eccentric volume any eco-conscious chef should add to their library.

In addition to the recipes and food tips that could keep a diverse group of survivors happy for years (who wants plain ol' Chili gets that, and who prefers dishes like Rice Noodle Pad Thai will be satisfied also), there is an excellent overview of food storage techniques that includes charts I've never before seen on the shelf life of edibles, from an individually wrapped apple to nuts in airtight packages.

While Dorothy and Albert have given us lists, lists, and more lists to follow and yet others to create lists of our own, throughout their little treasure of a book is a taste of the loving, compassionate sensibility without which any attempt to survive is bound to be futile.

Volume IV of the Lymond Chronicles shows a marked improvement from the somewhat draggy Pawn In Frankincense, if not quite climbing the storytelling heights of the first three episodes.

Ringed Castle spins two riveting tales, Lymond's attempted remaking of Ivan the Terrible's Russia and Philippa's rise into the upper reaches of the English Royal Court. Vivid supporting characters abound: explorer Diccon Chancellor, chess afficiando Tsar Ivan, astrologer John Dee, and Margaret Lennox, Elizabethan femme fatale. The evocation of the Kremlin is gorgeously detailed, as are Lymond & company's adventures in Russia's unforgiving winter and the heartstopping voyage back to England -- Dunnett's uncanny ability to recreate the exotic past with such force you feel yourself there is in full flower. The book's first two thirds are excellent.

But as in the previous volume, Ringed Castle starts to feel like work down the backstretch. Dunnett's authorial sleight of hand in hiding much of Lymond's viewpoint until the final pages begins to frustrate in its familiarity, this ruse particulary trying given the ongoing story regarding his mysterious parentage.

One hopes for less of this in the final volume...

Most reviews of the Lymond series focus on Francis Crawford of Lymond, the enigmatic, often-tortured central character around whom all the other characters revolve. This isn't surprising because he is the central player on the stage. But my favorite character is Philippa, not just because she is genuinely good, but because whenever she enters a scene, it simply begins to sparkle.

Dorothy Dunnett obviously feels a great love for Philpipa because she gives her the best lines and gave her a marvelous sense of humor. She is a wonderful character, both funny and wise. But her greatest attribute is her strong moral character, her desire to do the right thing. In the prior novel, her desire to save Lymond's son caused to her to risk everything--not everyone would become a member of a harem in an effort to save a life. In Ringed Castle, her desire to reconcile Lymond with his family causes her to place herself at great risk.

With regard to Ringed Castle, I didn't find it as consistently compelling as Pawn in Frankincense, but it is still a wonderful book, particularly the haunting and tragic voyage back to England and the last 100 pages at the English court.

I have a tinge of sadness in the realization that I have only one more installment to see how it all ends, to see if Philippa can ultimately tame Lymond.

Luckily, this series is so strong on many levels I can look forward to many productive and enjoyable re-readings.

This book has less action in it than the preceeding novels in this series, but even so, more action than most. We see our hero making his way in an 15 Century Russia. As each book goes by I find that I have difficulty maintaining a liking for this man. He is extremely hard and bitter, and appears to have no loyalties to friendship while he tries to make his point. Even so, I find I still have to keep reading because these books are so powerful. In this book Lymond falls in love, but in true Lymond fashion, feels that he can't share this with anyone, let alone his lady love. I await with much trepidation the final installment in this series in order to find out if Lymond bears any human characteristics or not.

This precisely rendered historical novel relates four disparate periods in the life of its fictional heroine, Mei-Li Murrow, or Madame Psyche. Mei-Li's childhood and early adulthood is spent as a renowned (if fraudulent) spiritualist wunderkind, a period which begins with the San Francisco earthquake and continues through the First World War and influenza epidemic to the advent of radio. During the 1920s, Mei-Li leaves her first profession and establishes a utopian (and ultimately dystopian!) community south of the Bay area. These first two sections are truly novel.

In the last two parts, Bryant retreads familiar literary ground. Mei-Li's Depression-era experiences are very much like Steinbeck's novels (both "In Dubious Battle" and "The Grapes of Wrath"), yet, like other proletarian fiction of the time (such as Alexander Saxton's "The Great Midland"), it is more representative of the non-white ethnic mix of American labor. Mei-Li ends her life in an asylum for the mentally ill, in a section that exposes the injustices of these institutions while simultaneously displaying the humanity that can flourish within their walls. Mei-Li's various episodes and adventures, while seemingly unconnected, conspire to trigger the novel's one big plot twist--and I can't say anything else without ruining the surprise

As J. J. Wilson notes in her afterword, the novel is "admirably well-researched," and the result is a fascinating historical panorama. The narrative is always absorbing and occasionally suspenseful, yet the story is rarely emotional or sentimental; Mei-Li relates the death of a lover with the same matter-of-fact tone she uses to describe one of her fraudulent seances. Often this works in the book's favor, but at times the meticulous research and academic tone nearly overwhelm the drama. Even Wilson admits that Bryant "chose a difficult path in putting her Psyche in charge of her own narrative. . . . Mei-Li reports events with little comment."

In spite of this weakness, Mei-Li's story is faithfully and believably depicted, and there is much wisdom and beauty to be culled from Bryant's epic novel.

This is absolutely one of my all-time favorite novels. It has everything I want in a good work of visionary fiction. Written by perhaps the most overlooked genius in literature today, this book has the power to touch you deeply and change the way you see the world forever after. When I think of titles that SHOULD HAVE won the great prestigious critical awards in the past quarter century, Confessions of Madame Psyche heads the list.

This is one of the most beautifully written novels I have read in a long time. Selections from Confessions was assigned in a college philosophy class, and I had to go back and read the whole thing from beginning to end. Characterization was so complete and encapsulating that I was sad to leave Mei-Li at the end. Her journey becomes your own journey of selfdiscovery; what it means to be moral, human, a woman.

I think Dorothy Garlock's books could be rated on separate items e.g. time setting, characters, plot, descriptions. Ribbon in the Sky I thought:
The setting: great
The characters: interesting
The plot: good
The descriptions: excellent.
I left the story a little sad for people that read and quoted scripture yet knew nothing of forgiveness, repentance or unity.

This is one great book!!! The romance is sizzling, and the characters are unforgetable!! I couldn't put this book down, and am now anxious for my next Dorothy Garlock book!

Tension and excitement are found on every page, as Letty and Mike fall in love, then lose each other due to Letty's father. When Letty - fifteen, pregnant, and terrified - seeks out her grandparents that she doesn't even know, in hopes they will take her in until Mike finds her, you can feel the fear with every word Ms. Garlock writes. Throughout the story, you feel all the growing pains of Letty as she becomes a woman and mother.

Mike Dolan comes home from working in the logging camp to hearing that Letty has become ill and died at her grandparent's farm. Mike begins a reckless life when joining the war, and when he finally gets out... decides to visit Letty's gravesite, hoping he'll be able to move on. Only instead of a gravesite for his dear Letty, he finds out she is alive... and with another last name... could she actually be alive?? ... and is she married???

In addition, the story includes murder and threats from Letty's family after many years... these items will keep you turning the pages!

This is a touching story, and if the romance doesn't draw you in... the relationship of Mike Dolan with his son, Patrick, will. Great story... and as always with Ms. Garlock, great selection of characters!!!

This book was by far the most romantic, exciting, and wonderful book I have ever read. Dorothy Garlock is a fantastic story teller. Her characters are great people especially the men. This is not something that you normally find with other romance books. If you don't read this book and get excited when they finally find each other, then you are not human. Take my advice, buy and READ this book!

Mrs. Parker possessed a venom that incapacitated its victims with sheer brainy pleasure. Her stories are tight, sparse, and crunchy with wit--Oscar Wilde looks like Krusty the Klown in comparison. While some would complain that she rarely strays from critiquing the hypocrisies of the wealthy and powerful, it's hard to argue that there isn't enough material therein to fuel a thousand careers. Her work is essential reading for those of us who aren't perfectly at ease with the ways of the world but find ourselves coping with it anyway.

The Elaine Stritch readings of seven of these stories are also tremendously entertaining and worthy of separate purchase. The delight of sitting in a darkened room, listening to a master actress reading Mrs. Parker, sipping from a tumbler of whiskey, must be experienced to be believed.

Dorothy Parker is one of the great women writers of the twentieth century. Though her life was marred by alcoholism and rather poor choices, her biting, insightful stories are a window into the twenties and women in general. I read her stories whenever I've had a rough day and need a giggle.

And I thought I knew all of the short story writers who write good social satire, especially about the Battle of the Sexes. Do you like John Updike's dissonant couples the Maples? John Cheever's middle-class suburban sashayings? John O'Hara's accounts of evil-propelled mis-treatments and non-treatments? Ring Lardner's tales of hamfisted bunglings? Katherine Mansfield's dry-point etchings of looming males and tendril-like females?

To these I can now add Dorothy Parker--whom I discovered only last month after enjoying the above social-critics for decades. A sharp-tongued journalist, Parker wrote in New York City in the 1920's through the 1950's. She's a key addition to the "fruit salad" of these writers--call her a lime, perhaps--small, tart, acid but somehow quenching our thirst for the truth however tangy?

Parker precisely pinpoints interpersonal shipwrecks. Marriage is--what happens. Often it's like this:

In "New York to Detroit," on the telephone, a man mechanically shoves a desperate woman out of his life. The bad connection aids his "misunderstandings" of her frantic pleas.

In "Here We Are," a just-married couple travel by train to their New York City honeymoon hotel. But we see already the stress-fractures of immature overreactions, and how out of them starts to ooze the lava of hatred which will surely melt down (or burn out) the marriage soon.

In "Too Bad," women are perplexed, even astonished, that the Weldons separated. Such an ideal couple! Except Parker eavesdrops us into the couple's typical evening at home. Its genteel vacancy, polite non-communication, and quiet distancing tell the tale.

Is Parker too crude a caricaturist? Heavy on the satire, too bitter personally? True, her women seem simplified: helplessly-hysterical, nice-nice faceless patseys or creampuffs, captives of bland routines--and of men. Her men similarly seem generic males-of-the-species, "blunt bluff hearty and...meaningless," conventionally-whiskered and all, chauvinistically-insensitive if not cruel. Okay... But if it's overdone, why do I feel I have known and seen these people, or traces of them, often, and not in New York of the 1920's-1950's either?

This is a solid play of a good novel, but it is unlikely that any viewer can see it without having first seen the film version with Ray Milland. The surprises and twists are all there and the dialogue works well. A solid play.

I first read this book at about the age of ten, after watching the 1944 film on late night on television (I was enthralled). There are sub-plots and characters which weren't included in the movie version, but Macardle's fluid writing style keeps one's interest until the last page. The story is about strange ghostly disturbances at "Cliff End" (in the movie, the Georgian house was re-named "Windward"). There are wonderful characters: the Fitzgeralds (Pamela and Roderick) who are siblings, Stella Merideth, the young moonstruck girl who's enchanted by the dangers which lure her into her mother's past. Commander Beech is gruff and Miss Holloway is cold and rather heartless (especially towards Stella; her supposed mother was an "intimate friend" of Holloway's). The Spanish Gypsy - Carmel Casada - whom Llewellyn used as a model for his paintings holds the key to the puzzle....Macardle uses plenty of exclaimation marks throughout the book and her writing style is a wee bit dated - but this story has an ingeniously unique twist in which readers of the ghost genre should appreciate. The Irish Ms. Macardle also wrote THE UNFORESEEN, (about a woman with "second sight") DARK ENCHANTMENT (about witchcraft in France) and a non-fiction book entitled THE IRISH REPUBLIC.

Saw the movie when I was a kid - read the book at the library, then finally bought the republished edition from Amazon. Characters are beautifully drawn, and the love story is great. A great English mystery novel.

In 1960, at age 13, I read a book by Dorothy Sterling, and I recall the title being "Slave Train." The synopsis of "Freedom Train" seems to match what I remember. If they are indeed the same book, I can only say I was deeply impressed by this work and have never forgotten it. Bravo! Dorothy Sterling for keeping the youth of our nation aware of the greatness of Harriet Tubman!

In the beginning of the book Harriet Tubman was planning how to escape from slavery. She worked on a plantation in the south like so many other slaves. Harriet Tubman escaped with another slave and they got caught a white man hit Harriet in the head with a heavy object which caused her to have a concusion. When she got better she tried it again and made it to the north, were she got a job. She went back and got her family and friends. Harriet started making friends on the way that would help her and other slaves escape to the north, so Harriet started going back to the south and freeing slaves. She freed more then 300 slaves over the year.
Also Harriet fought in the army, became a nurse in an Negro hospital and trained other women to be nurses and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. She was a very tall black women that could not read or write. But she did so much for the slaves and to help free them.

A wonderful book. When I say masterpiece, I mean masterpiece. A brillent true story of a brave young woman who lives in the hearts of children as a role model. When I read the book I felt like I was really there. It is very realistic. Harriet Tubman is an exellent book. Read it!