This is a must-buy book, with an especially deceptive price. This is the mother of all bargains. With dozens to hundreds of sentences in every Spanish verb tense (including subjunctive mood and passive voice), not to mention special chapters on stem-changing and common irregular verbs, and chapters on reflexive constructions and using the infinitive. Then, after you thought you had learned it all, the author throws in full paragraphs to translate from English to Spanish, with vocabulary. I am going to buy a second copy just because it is such good practice. ALL ANSWERS ARE INCLUDED, TOO.

All reviewers praise this book, and so will I. It is really very good: clearly structured into chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of Spanish verb tenses. Very easy-to-understand explanations throughout the book (the explanation of when to use "ser" and when "estar" is priceless!), lots of exercises that will test your comprehension of the covered material. I bought the book about 7 weeks before an important Spanish test I had to take as part of my job application. Although I did not have time to go through the whole book, I was still able to review the most important parts of the Spanish verb structures; and it really made a difference! (I learned Spanish 10 years ago but never used it since then.) If you look for either a review material or for a book that will teach you the tricky Spanish tenses, buy this one. It's more than worth the money.

I would not have learned what I know about Spanish verbs if I hadn't bought this book. The price is almost embarassingly low, and the amount of information you get for your money is astounding.

This book will help with reading comprehension and writing of Spanish. All of the verb tenses are covered, and accompanied by exercises that solidly reinforce the material. All you need to do is sit down with a pencil or pen, start reading and then start writing. The exercises are designed to reinforce your learning, and you'll be surprised how much you retain from completing them. I am almost completely self-taught (I had some help from some native speakers with conversation), and this book was a part of my language-learning arsenal that helped me more than get by with Spanish in South America and Spain.

LIttle by little the book goes through the various Spanish verb tenses starting with the present (hablo, hablas, etc). Before that the book goes over some basics like pronouns to provide a foundation (yo, te, me, elle, etc.). From there the book goes on to cover every Spanish verb tense I've ever heard of, including an elucidating few chapters on the subjunctive. You can literally start with almost no knowledge of Spanish. The book will not help you with speaking, however, nor will it teach you everything. Believe the words on the cover: this book is about verbs.

Verb conjugation may not be the most exciting thing humans have come up with, but this book almost makes conjugation fun (did I say that? No, not me, must have been someone else).

You certainly can't go wrong for the price.

I love cooking with this book! It has everything from soy yogurt, milk to (my fav) spaghetti balls! The recipes are easy and very delicious. I just ordered another one because mine is falling apart from using it so much! I wish they'd make a spiral bound hard copy! :) The Cooks that contributed the recipes are awesome and I'd love to go down to the FARM to take cooking lessons. The BEST book if you're just turning vegitarian and are looking for different soy choices for variety. I LOVE IT!

I LOVE this cookbook. Everything from making soy yogurt, to soy milk and my favorite, soy spaghetti balls! I had no idea the things you could do with soy until I found this little book! It's priceless if you are just turning vegitarian and want to cook soy different ways for variety! The Cooks that volunteered the recipes are incredible. I'd love to go down to the "Farm" and take some cooking lessons. THE BEST SOY COOKBOOK!

I must admit that just 6 months ago there was no way I could fathom the thought of eating vegan meals on a daily basis, until I tasted a recipe out of this book. Not only was I astounded but I was also insulted. Insulted because one of my own famous recipes that I had made for years (with meat), was "up-staged" by the vegan recipe I had tasted in the New Farm Cookbook. And to add insult to injury, it took only a fraction of the time to make it! One of the main things I like about the book is that the recipes are absolutely delicious, simple, and most of the ingrediants can be found in just about anybodies cupboard. From gluten roast to non-dairy cheesecake you just can't beat it. Anyone who wants to change their diet and are skeptical would do themselves a tremendous service to get this book. I have since bought another one in case something happens to my first one. It has changed my life and I can honestly say that it is truly worth its weight in gold. This is why I call it my Vegan Bible.

This is one of the first books that I can remember owning and reading. In fact there are photos done (i.e. Sears like) of me when I was about 3 or 4 and the photographer posed me holding that book. I would love to find a copy of that book so that I might be able to read it to my daughter.

Ann Likes Red is the first book I remember reading, and I even remember much of the text 30-odd years later. ("Ann likes red, red, red, red. A blue dress for Ann? No, Ann likes red...") I had a daughter in March (my first), and I can't wait to share this book with her. I'm delighted it's being republished in October.
I'm now an editor who reads books for a living, so this book definitely started me on the right track!

Ann Likes Red was my sister's favorite book as a child. I read it to her so many times, I had it memorized. (Ann likes red; red, red, red). I look for it at old book sales and libraries. She just had her first daughter and I would love to find a copy as a gift.

I received this book as a gift from a pen pal in Japan about fifteen years ago, and recently found it on Amazon - so I had to buy copies of it for all of my friends. This is a very sweet, simple book and it is also a true story of the author, who is a famous television personality in Japan. The story is written very simply, and it would not be inappropriate for a child, yet not too simplified for an adult. The story begins when Totto-chan, the heroine of the story, is on her way to a new school after being expelled from her old school (she does not find out about the expulsion until years later). The new school is a progressive school which does things in a different way, and treats children differently, teaching them to see the world in a new way. The book is filled with side splitting funny stories, and a few touching ones as well. When you finish reading it, (it won't take long) it will bring a tear to your eye, but make you smile, and make you feel better for having read it. Check it out - I promise you won't be disappointed.

Totto Chan is my favourite book! I mean it! My first encounter with Totto Chan was in a book of short stories during a literature lesson. I was deeply amazed by the fact that how a first-grader could be expelled from school. Reading about Totto Chan's experiences really tugged at my heartstrings. Even her new school Tomoe Gakuen exuded a charm of its own. I simply love the atmosphere of the school and the song that the students dutifully sing before meals. While reading the book, I could almost imagine myself attending classes in abandoned railroad cars and the euphoria of going to school everyday. Definitely not a chore, not anymore. I would recommend this book to everyone who wants to relive their childhood memories. This book is worth every penny! What are you waiting for? Go get it now!

A heart-warming, and delightful collection of true stories of young Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, a famous television personality in Japan. It begins when Totto-chan ( Tetsuko's nick name) was expelled from the first grade because of her disruptive behaviour. She was then transferred to a very unique school ran by a headmaster who had his own teaching philosophy. The school itself was not in a building but in discarded railroad cars. The book also includes other adventures Totto-chan had been involved in, and also previews what life had been like as a small child in Japan during the outbreak of World War II. I recomend this book to parents, and teachers because of Mr. Kobayashi- the headmaster's philosophy of education. It also makes fun reading for children, as I myself have had this book since I was twelve years old.

Cassandra Mortmain is the middle child in an eccentric English family. Her father is a once-published, once-celebrated author who has had writer's block for years, and as a result, his wife and three children are on the brink of starvation, although they live in a crumbling, albeit leased, castle. They hope that their father will one day begin writing again, or that Cassandra's beautiful elder sister, Rose, will marry well and save them all.

Enter the American Cotton brothers, who are wealthy and have just inherited the nearby estate of Scoatney, as well as the landlordship of the Mortmain's dwelling. Rose Mortmain and her stepmother see nothing but dollar signs as they scheme to marry Rose off to Simon, the eldest Cotton. But Cassandra has fallen for Simon herself...

I was skeptical of this book because the cover was so outdated and plain. The story itself is set in the 1930's, but the book was published in 1948, and it seemed so dated. But once I started reading, I could scarcely put it down. This is classic English literature at its best, with a storyline that will pass from age to age without ever seeming old-fashioned. I highly recommend it and plan to keep my copy forever!!

Dodie Smith may be best-known as the author of The One Hundred and One Dalmatians, but she was the author of many hit West End plays and several best-selling books. If you enjoy mid-20th-century British fiction, may I recommend a perfect gem of a novel, back in print after many years a-languishing: I Capture the Castle, told in first-person narration by Cassandra Mortmain, the younger daughter of a family of impoverished eccentrics living in a small run-down castle in the British countryside, as she tries to "capture" her life in her private journal. Her father is a once-famous writer with a seemingly-insurmountable case of writer's block; her stepmother Topaz is an unusually-gorgeous former model with pretentions of artistry and a loving heart; her beloved sister Rose is hungry for some sort--any sort!--of change. Into this almost Austen-like situation comes Simon, the new landlord, an upper-class American from New England, along with his informal younger brother, raised in California, and their "club woman" mother, and suddenly the potentials and possibilities and coincidences become endlessly interesting...Will Simon propose to Rose? Will Mortmain ever write again? Will Cassandra's swain kiss her in the bluebell wood? Perhaps it doesn't sound like much, but it's engaging and endearing, a period-piece with "good bones" and long-lasting, pleasurable resonance, still holding up well after half a century on the shelves.

On my top-40 list, certainly, if not my top-10. I can't recommend this one highly enough.

"I Capture the Castle" is the 1930's coming-of-age story of 17-year-old Cassandra, who lives in rural Britain with a cast of simultaneously comic and tragic family and friends. During the spring, summer, and autumn months spanned by the story, she pens a diary that describes her first adult lessons about love, sisterhood, and friendship. Although the voice is believably adolescent, the lessons Cassandra learns are completely adult.

"I Capture the Castle" is beautiful in every way a book should be. It's gentle without being sappy, humorous without being mocking, gorgeously (although a bit painstakingly) written without digressing into flights of narcissistic prose. The narrator is both an ordinary child and an extraordinary woman, and her greatest strength as a character is the believability of her weakness. The other characters are interesting and unusual and completely human. The setting, a barely-refurbished medieval castle, is very nearly a character in its own right, and it informs and interacts with the story in a way I've rarely seen outside of the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The book, with all of its lyricism and innocence and wise optimism, teaches a gentle and almost invisible lesson. It's about learning to love fairly and accept love gracefully, about being faithful to your friends even when it hurts, about who constitutes a family and how one goes about caring for them, about how growing up is not the end of a the road but the beginning. It's not a new lesson, but it's one we all need to learn a little more.

But "I Capture the Castle" is more than a beautiful book, and more than a lesson. It's an experience. It's as if Jane Austen had been reborn 130 years later and rewritten "Sense and Sensibility" with a compassion and magic her original work missed. Or as if "Little Women" had been written for adults: just as so many little girls start their own "Pickwick Papers" and take to eating apples in attics after reading Alcott's book, after reading "I Capture the Castle" I wanted to find a ruin in Britain, fit it with indoor plumbing, and spend the timeless days of summer sitting in the tower and penning a journal of my own days and dreams and loves.

In the beginning, as Peggy Parrish puts it, Elizabeth Ann was a wimp.

She was sent to her cousins, the Putneys, in the middle of her story. They began to teach her how to think for herself.

By the end of the story she could think about anything she wanted to without explaining it to anyone. This is a very well written story. It's a wonderful book relating to life at the turn of the century. It shows how schools, homes and lifestyles have changed over the years. This is one of the top ten books on my personal list.

I received this book as a Christmas present in 1997 when I was eight years old. I thought it was an excellent story because Betsy really improved in her new one-room school. Her teacher is really nice because she let Betsy read with the seventh graders, do second grade math and third grade spelling!

This story really makes you feel like you are Betsy's friend Ellen. I also like how she and the other girls in her one-room school joined together to make new clothes for the boy whose stepfather is an alcoholic. All the people are really caring in this book.

I first received "Understood Betsy" when I was 8 years old, over 20 years ago, and I still remember some of the passages and characters as if I had read them yesterday. I read and reread this book countless times throughout my childhood.

Written in 1916, "Understood Betsy" immmerses the reader into rural life in the 1800's. Elizabeth goes from the city to live with farmer cousins, who call her Betsy. She then becomes a girl who learns to do things for herself, think for herself, and take care of others.

Most interesting, the book shows the older view of treasuring common day moments, such as making the applesauce or playing dolls. If you always enjoyed the "Little House" and "Caddie Woodlawn" books, then you will LOVE "Understood Betsey", which delves even more into the everyday life of girls in that time.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher is simply one of the smartest psychologists, long before Freud came on the seen. In her book, Understood Betsy, Ms. Fisher not only crafts a wonderful story of how a little sheltered and fearful girl under the care of one aunt, grows into an independent thinker, and joyful person under the care of her other relatives when the former aunt is taken out of the picture.

Elizabeth Ann, known as Betsy to her farm relatives, was orphaned as a baby. Her city relatives scoop her up to save her from being reared by the 'Putney Cousins' (our heros in Vermont). But fate sweeps Elizabeth Ann away from the only woman who *understands* her, and takes her to the dreadful farm in Vermont, where children have been known to *do chores*. How does Betsy fare?

That's the children's part of the story. For the adult, especially one who is unfamiliar with children, the lesson is given that you *can* love a child into the the fearful person you yourself are. But you *can* also love a child to let that child find things out for herself, and become aware, that she is aloud to find things out for herself. Isn't it amazing that children have brains, and they do not have to be programmed by 'pre-warning' them of every consequence to their behavior?

Please read, and see Betsy grow into a useful engine (for those of you who know Thomas the Tank Engine). Please read and learn yourself, how to help your children, by learning to leave them alone to find things out for themselves.....

The PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN proves yet another of MacDonald's fantasy charmers (q.v. AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND), as the novel presents the adventures (psychological as well as physical) of protected Princess Irene (aged 8) and a brave miner boy with the unlikely name of Curdie. The tale involves the schemes of evil goblins who lurk below the earth, who exult to tease and torture the "sun people" as they call humankind. Can a mere youth foil the callous machinations of these subterranrean fiends?

Princess Irene meets a mysterious but loving old lady at a spinning wheel (have we heard this somewhere before?), while Curdie proves himself a useful ally to her King-papa. Her faithful but outspoken nurse, Lootie, learns some bitter lessons, as she is almost dismissed by the king and (even worse) by Irene herself. Grown ups must learn to believe what they hear from honest children; children must learn to believe what can not always be seen or what makes scientific sense. Any little girl who sees herself as an unrecognized princess can learn to behave with the grace and dignity of a True Princess. Boys will admire the courage and resourcefulness of the miner's son--the only one in the kingdom to realize what the goblins are plotting. A quaintly spun yarn (with gentle edification for children) for readers of all ages.

This wonderful children's novel tells the story of eight year old Princess Irene. Cared for by her nurse Lootie, she lives in a mountain farmhouse while her father rules over the region from a mountain top castle. The local folk work as miners but are beset by the Goblins who inhabit the underground. Irene is saved from the Goblins by Curdie, a thirteen year old miner, and she in turn saves him. The whole thing is told in a pleasant conversational style and is filled with humor, word games, magic, derring-do, and pure wonderment.

George MacDonald, a Congregational minister turned novelist, who seems nearly forgotten now, was one of the seminal figures in the development of Fantasy. His influence on other Fantasy authors is obvious, he was a childhood favorite of JRR Tolkein, who especially liked this book, and C.S. Lewis named him one of his favorite authors. His own stories draw on many of the themes and characters of classical European fairy tales. But where they were often merely horrific and meaningless, MacDonald adds a layer of Christian allegory. Thus, Irene and Curdie are eventually saved by a thread so slender that you can't even see it, but which leads them back to safety, teaching Curdie that you sometimes have to believe in things that you can't see.

The book would be interesting simply as a touchstone of modern fiction, but it stands up well on its own and will delight adults and children alike.

GRADE: A

So many fine reviews here already about MacDonald's powerful text (for children and adults). I would only add that this edition which includes 8 or 10 gentle and mysterious drawings (watercolors?) by Jessie Wilcox Smith portrays the fearful goblins (also Curdie, Irene, and her father, etc.) without weakening the strength of the tale or scaring the young reader. I purchased this book for an avid seven-year-old reader who loved the story and also commented on the "beautiful" pictures. The book is also good to read aloud to a number of children in a broad age range. My too-cool 11-year-old became mesmerized after the first chapter and found himself talking with his younger brother (!) about the story.

You will not regret reading this excellent book. I have bought this book four times because I have given copies to friends who have in turn bought copies for friends. I am an aspiring author and an avid reader. This is the best book I have ever read. It has changed my life and continues to remind me of what is really important in life. This book has some magic in store for you. Please read it and realize your potential as a better human being.

I read THE KIN OF ATA almost twenty years ago and have given many copies away as gifts. I adore this story and have read it numerous times. It is important to note that the first two or three pages are NOT what this book is about. This book is about what is possible in each and every one of us, even the proud and arrogant. The images of Ata bring me great comfort (The Comforter was it's original title); the "holkas" for healing, the sleeping wheels, the spiraling wall with shells for collecting drinking water, the great cone shaped gathering hall, the bowls of food for feeding one another...

For anyone interested in social responsibility, spiritual growth, the power of dreams or even parapsychology, I highly recommend that you buy this book, read it and pass it on to your best friend.

I read this book for the first time about 15 years ago. I have read it at least 6 times and have told many, many people about it. The Kin of Ata reaches in deep and pulls at the heart and soul. It reminds us all of the journey we are on. It re-awakens you and reminds you to listen to your dreams. ...Nagdeo to you Ms. Bryant

Keep in mind, no matter how good I tell you this book is, it's better. You'll lose sleep, miss your stop, forget family and friends and then need to tell them all about it. It's why you read fiction.

Or at least why I do: to become lost in story, among fictional characters and situations that for the duration of the turning pages are more real than reality, a dream you finally leave richer and wiser -- and better understanding your own world -- then when you first entered.

Price of admission to this one is steep -- the five previous Lymond Chronicles are excellent novels all, but tally a dense 2500 pages. What isn't clear until this sixth is how much those serve merely as set-up for its breathtaking conclusion.

The emotional distance of the past two volumes is gone, revealed as an authorial ploy to finally bring us closer to Dunnett's peerlessly charismatic and mysterious characters. Here, the swashbuckling and history take a backseat to one of the most compelling gothic love stories in literature. Everything from the previous books pays off spectacularly, leading to a final hundred pages without comparison in suspense, heartbreak, and genuine thrills.

Taken as a whole, the six Lymond Chronicles form a wonderously intricate, moving mosaic, steeped in historical storytelling traditions yet completely unique, a complex, shimmering gift to anyone who loves to read.

I first read The Lymond Chronicles over ten years ago. I have re-read this series several times since. Checkmate is the most exhilarating, intoxicating conclusion to a historical series ever written! Dorothy Dunnett ingeniously intertwines fictional characters and events with actual historical figures and happenings. The main character, Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny is, to my mind, the most amazing fictional character ever created. He is brilliant, neurotic, scholarly, cruel, willful, witty...I could go on indefinetly. Throughout the series, Lymond is surrounded by intriguing characters, both real and fictional, and travels all over the world in search of his future, but afraid of his past, and the truth of who he really is. He returns to the battlefields of 16th century France in the sixth and final installment of the Lymond Chronicles. He must lead an army against England while friends and family "assist" him, against his will, in his search for the truth.

Do yourself a favor: read Checkmate only after you've read Game of Kings, Queen's Play, Disorderly Knights, Pawn in Frankincense, and Ringed Castle first, in that order. You won't ever regret it.

My Father used to get mad at me because I didn't hear anything while I was reading. "Gone With the Wind" when I was nine, "Lolita" when I was 10 (no, I didn't understand it!- I read it again later), "Henry the 8th", etc. and etc. I was addicted at an early age. But until I read the Lymond series I didn't realize the depth of my addication. The electricity went out one night so I read by flashlight. Philippa and Lymond made Scarlette and Rhett pale by comparison. Not to mention Dolores and Humbert Humbert. With DD's series I almost felt like a voyeur. When you read a book and at the end you feel as if you intimately know the characters, you can only praise the author that imagined them for your enjoyment (education?). Being an American living in France, understanding French did help deciphering the quotations: "Tant que je vive...As long as I live...". And "medianoche" was a mystery until recently when I found out that it's a meal eaten around midnight, thanks to Le Catalog des Musees. Yes, I can understand the readers that found the 1st book in the series a little (a lot) difficult. But I can only think: Too bad for you! You have missed out on a treasure. Please try again. You'll never find more complete characters - male/female, young/old, rich/poor, whatever! They still live inside my head and I am happy to share their world, a world I would have never known without DD's talent. I love to read history books now thanks to the author of the Lymond series. And I have never read such a touching love story (Scarlette and Rhett - get real!).

Dorothy L. Sayers wrote some of the best mystery novels that ever appeared in print. In fact she wrote most of them.

Gaudy Night is mainly a novel of Oxford, despite its being ostensibly a mystery. Harriet Vane is the main character of this novel, though of course Sayers' best creation, Lord Peter Wimsey, plays an important part in this book. The dialogue is as clever and wonderfully piffling as ever, the story thought-provoking, and best of all it is here that Peter is finally successful in wooing his Harriet. (The punt scene! And the finale...)

There never was a better mystery writer. I would suggest, before reading this, that you read Strong Poison and Have His Carcase for the full effect. Oh, and follow Gaudy Night up with Busman's Honeymoon.

This book is amazing: not only does it comment intelligently on just about every human life issue, but it does so while being a very competent murder mystery, and consistently enjoyable to boot. Gaudy Night is the novel that shows the world why Dorothy L. Sayers is the master. Her style is as beautiful as always, and this third book in the 4-book Harriet Vane/Peter Wimsey series is a fascinating piece of whodunit mystery fiction, a commentary on the single-sex environment as well as the place of women in education and education in women, a treatise on love, and a breathtakingly realistic and satisfying romance that anyone who's been following Harriet and Peter through Strong Poison and Have His Carcase will appreciate. The fourth and final book, Busman's Honeymoon, is the only thing that could possibly crown Gaudy Night, and I recommend them both.

I think anyone who's pondered the very real problems in reconciling Harriet and Peter and how Sayers could approach them while remaining true to both will feel as I did--bought the book, liked it, will keep it.

Dorothy Sayers has frequently used autobiographical experiences as a starting point for her writing - as an example, "Murder Must Advertise" was set in an advertising agency and based on Sayers' own experiences in the field. Here again, Sayers goes back to her past days as an Oxford student at Somerville College and this makes "Gaudy Night" a unique entry in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. Harriet Vane, an Oxford alum, attends the Gaudy, which is a reunion of past students and is asked by her old professors to turn her talents as a detective writer to practical use. Someone is terrorizing the faculty and students of the college by sending vicious anonymous letters. The college is terrified of this leaking out to the press and giving education for women a bad name, therefore discretion is vital. Rather relectantly, Harriet accepts and comes down to Oxford to stay for a term. She discovers that the perpetrator is not now satisfied by just sending letters and is moving on to more serious offences like trying to burn the books in the college library, destroy the works of the faculty and eventually attacking certain faculty members. Harriet struggles with the realization that the perpetrator may be a professor as well as with the realization of her growing feelings for Lord Peter Wimsey. The actual unraveling of the mystery is fascinating by itself, but I was particularly intriuged by Sayers taking the opportunity to discuss issues such as society's view towards University education for women, and the need to maintain one's own identity, even in a serious relationship. "Gaudy Night" is therefore a truly feminist work and Harriet's internal struggle between her love for Wimsey and her desire to maintain her independence is something all women can identify with, even today. Although she is hard to like at times, being prickly and sensitive to a fault, we can all sympathize with her predicament. In a nutshell - absolutely fabulous and required reading for all Sayers fans!