Originally titled "The Mystery of Chimney Rock" when it first hit the stores in 1982 (and WHY Bantam Books felt the need to re-title most of the first 10 books in the series in the early '90s is beyond me), this is a fun, scary (if you're 10 or under, as I was at the time) ride for younger readers. The whole sub-plot about the cat is interesting and a true twist ending. Read it and enjoy--and try to get your hands on the original if you can! ...Notorious

This book is very chilling and very spooky. Even at age 15 I enjoyed it! (Although I haven't the slightest idea why it's name was changed!)

I love Rilke, and I bought this expecting something similar to his "Letters to a young poet." However, this book seems less personal- it contains much more of Rilke's reflections on Italian art, in Florence, and on the art of the people around him in Germany. It is perhaps more engaging to someone who knows a great deal about the art he is discussing! There are still wonderful, wonderful Rilke moments, but this may not be the best book for non-artists or for people discovering Rilke for the first time.

I'm just starting to explore Rilke...this book is wonderful for understanding where he is coming from in his poetry. In this blend of poetry, prose, journal-like entries and musings on nature, Rilke takes you on a journey into his own internal world of solitude. I force myself to read slowly and drink it in...it is worth it! I highly recommend this book.

In this charming retelling of many favorite Greek myths, Heather Amery makes the age-old tales of Persephone, Pygmalion, Ulysses, and others come to life for the young reader. These stories are beautifully illuminated and perfect for reading aloud. The print is also large enough that an early reader can tackle them himself. As a bookstore employee, I enjoy using this book for in-store storytime. I highly reccomend it!

I'm an EQ coach, and use myths (art, poetry, music and instruction, as well) to help people develop their emotional intelligence. I was fortunate enough to grow up learning myths, and continued to study them in college, as my minor was in Greek. I recently formed a list of books parents could use to help develop their children's EQ, and this book is definitely on it. My grandchild loved it, and I was so happy to find it.

This books gives a great overview of law related education. Students are introduced to legal issues in the context of real life. It contains practical information for dealing with various legal problems. Students learn how to write to a member of Congress. This book has a section that allows students to consider and decide the outcome of legal situations. They learn variations in local law and prodedures that focus attention on where the student lives. Over all I would suggest this book as a great training tool for the law related class study.

As a high school student who studied with this textbook, I learned terms and concepts that I could immediately apply to current events. The news on TV and in newspapers about cases were suddenly understandable to me and I felt connected with justice and reason. I recommend "Street Law: A Course in Practical Law" to anyone who wants a detailed and informative, yet comprehensive guide to the law, from torts and criminal law, to business and family law.

This is a very well presented hardback containing the best of Edward Lear. Perhaps not as complete as Holbrook Jackson's Complete Edward Lear, it nevertheless contains his best work, including A Book Of Nonsense, Limericks, alphabets and his most well-known poems, The Dong With The Luminous Nose, The Quangle Wangle Quee, and The Jumblies. The author's quaint illustrations are well reproduced throughout.

The reason this book is so important to comedy is that the incluence on people like Spike Milligan, Beyond The Fringe, and of course Monty Python's Flying Circus is clear. Lear was obviously the 19th century precursor to those humourists. Lear brings an educated and intelligent angle to his humour just as his successors did, and his talent as a poet and artist make this collection much more than just a collection of 'nonsense'!

I can see why Stacy of California thinks this is a weird "incomprehendable" book. The word is "incomprehensible" Stacy. It takes a person of a proper old-fashioned education to appreciate this fine piece of classic literature. We oldsters don't get weird modern art either, or some of the wacky movies Hollywood gives awards to but no one can imagine why.

Edward Lear's nonsense is of the best. Read it aloud! Your kids will amaze you by how fast they can begin to recite along with you! If you remember "The Owl and the Pussycat" from your childhood, you owe it to yourself and your children to share it and "The Jumblies" with them.

Bob, a big-game hunter shipwrecked off a remote island, encounters Zaroff (Leslie Banks). Typical of guys named "Bob," Bob (Joel McCrea) is handsome and rugged. Zaroff is wide-eyed and quite mad on the subject of hunting. Finding that animals are a lesser challenge, Zaroff moved on to hunting humans. Zaroff's houseguests, Eve (Fay Wray) and her drunken brother Martin (Robert Armstrong), were also shipwrecked. It seems that Zaroff keeps moving the buoys. Since Bob is a famous hunter, Zaroff finds particular pleasure in making him the prey. After Martin disappears, Bob and the delectable Eve get a head start. Zaroff releases the pack, and the grim fun begins. If nothing else, this old movie proves that it is possible to make a great action/suspense flick without fiery explosions, computer-generated FX, and stylized violence. Since some of the same people who made "King Kong" also made this flick, it has a familiar look, even for a first time viewer. For example, Bob and Eve race across the log bridge where Kong encountered the sailors, albeit from the opposite direction. Eve wears a tattered dress, much the same as the famous one in "Kong." Nobody looks better in revealing rags than Fay Wray. There aren't any giant monsters running through this murky jungle. Zaroff is monstrous enough. Finally, Zaroff gets the point of the real danger. The stone-faced Noble Johnson is around as one of Zaroff's menacing minions. The story races right along and doesn't waste time on subplots. Based on the often-anthologized story by Richard Connell, this little film is a good change of pace. ;-)

Still the best screen adaptation of one of the great short stories of all time. The theme of Richard Connell's masterpiece has been used countless times, from "Woman Hunt" to "Slavegirls from Beyond Infinity." The movie was made on the set of "King Kong," and Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Noble Johnson were in both. Total running time may be short, but it's still longer than it takes to read the story.

In the original, the only characters on the island are Zaroff, his servant, and the shipwrecked Rainsford. Naturally, though, Hollywood needed romance, so Fay Wray, no stranger to playing a damsel in distress, makes a fine heroine. Robert Armstrong, on the other hand, grossly overplays the part of the drunken American boor. But overall, it's a good, enjoyable picture.

By the way, the original story is politically incorrect from every angle and could not possibly be faithfully adapted to the screen today. (Zaroff expounds on how easy it is to hunt men of certain races.) And some otherwise intelligent people insist that "dangerous game" in the title refers to the game Zaroff plays of hunting humans. But it obviously means that, for the hunter, the most dangerous game to stalk is man.

Most film viewers are familar with the great horror movies of the early 1930's: Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy, King Kong, etc. This title belongs in this group! The Most Dangerous Game has a great cast (Joel McCrea as big game hunter Sanger Rainsford; Fay Wray as the beautiful Eve; and Leslie Banks as the sinister General Zaroff); compelling plot (General Zaroff hunts humans on his private island); energetic pacing (the movie runs approximately 62 minutes); high production values (many exterior scenes were filmed from same set as King Kong); and a memorable music score (Max Steiner). What is so amazing about this movie is that all of the above elements came together in a movie that was shot in about 30 days with a limited budget.

The Criterion print of The Most Dangerous Game is excellent - the best print I have ever seen of the movie. Most of the prints available previously on inexpensive videotapes are very poor. In addition, the critic commentary by film historian Bruce Kawin is an added bonus to the Criterion offering.

This is a great survival story about two teens named Danielle and Jake who are traveling with their parents to their cabin high in the Colorado Rockies. On their way to the cabin, the car slides off the road and slams into a tree, badly injuring both parents. Amazingly Danielle and Jake are unharmed. The family is stranded far away from where anyone can rescue them, but Jake came up with the idea of climbing up Mount Remington to reach the manned weather station at the top. With no real climbing equipment, the two teens must find a way to reach the station atop the mountain. While they were climbing the two faced many problems but their will to survive kept the going. Finally, they reached the top and got help for their parents. This book was one of my favorite survivor stories.

Climb or die is an extremely well- written survival book about a family, the Darcys, vacationing in Colorado. To get to their log cabin deep into Rockies, they must drive on a lonely dirt road in a blizzard. With zero visibility on the road, their car smashes into a tree, leaving the mother and father both badly injured. To find help before its too late for their mother and father, Jake and Danielle, two teenagers, must climb a mountian and radio for help at a weather station on the top....

Climb or Die
By Edward Myers
Reviewed by: J. Soon
Period: 6

During their vacation, the Darcy family drive up a lonely mountain road. Then a Blizzard comes in, making their car slide off the road and slam into a tree, injuring both parents. But Danielle and her brother Jake are unharmed. Their parents say that they have to find help, and fast. Then Jake has an idea. He says that there is a manned weather station on top of Mount Remington. But, since they don't have any mountain climbing equipment, it is going to be hard. Jake and Danielle then realize that their only hope is to reach the weather station. If they don't, no one can find them both or their parents. This is the ultimate test of survival.
I liked this book because it gave alot of adventure. Like I said in my other reviews, adventure stories are on of my favorite books. My other favorite one is suspense. And it also gave suspense, too. So that is why I rated this book 5 stars. "But the climb got harder, not easier. The cliff grew steeper. The rocks turned slicker. Handholds and footholds beame more difficult to find and less reliable once Danielle found them." I like these entences because they described the hardships Danielle and Jake faced. That's what I like about this book.
I disliked this book because I am not really into mountain climbing. I'm guessing that the author liked mountain climbing alot because of all the vocabulary he knows about it. In this book, there was alot of mountain climbing. It kind of made me frustrated, but in a way, it was exciting. That's what I don't like about this book. "For Danielle and Jake, there is no going back-- ONLY UP.
My favorite part in the book is always when it gives me flashbacks. That's why I picked this certain part. It was when Danielle and Jake started climbing and struggled with it along the way. It reminded me when I was in Las Vegas. There was a place called GameWaorks, where they had tons of games. My dad encouraged me to mountain climb a mini-mountain there, so I tried. In the start, I struggled alot, just like Danielle and Jake. But in the end I made it all the way to the top, just like Danielle and Jake. That's why that is my favorite part in the book.

Although not in the class of Jane Austen, the earlier writings of Fanny Burney contributed a great deal to the evolution of the novel. No mere romance, Fanny Burney's Evelina gives us a surprisingly modern heroine--modern both in her proto-feminist awareness of the world and in her "mixed" character. Evelina is not a paragon, and Burney's writings are neither mere pleasant fantasies of romance, nor cumbersome stories of impossible virtue. Like Richardson, Fanny Burnery was creating something very new in the 18th century: a psychological novel. Unlike Richardson (whose best-loved novel, Clarissa, has been described--by fans of his, mind you!--as "That long, still book.") Fanny Burney's books withstand the time travel down to our day. Evelina is--thus far, at least!--my favorite of her books.

As part of a group read, I picked up a week late"Evelina" from my local library. I wasn't quite sure whatto expect - certainly this would be no Tom Jones, but it wouldn't be Austen either - however what I found was a pleasant epistolary jaunt through a young girl's first season out. A jaunt, which, although begun a week late was quickly finished two weeks early! Customary to 18th century novels, Evelina's history is somewhat romantic, both her guardian and the hero impossibly good (a refreshing novelty, if a little sappy in places. They were apparently active members in the Mutual Admiration Society), and the secondary characters ridiculously vulgar. As Burney's first novel, the work shows some awkwardness in construction, but is otherwise excellent. Readers of modern romances may find the heros a bit formal, and fans of Jane Austen may find the epistlotary form unbelievable, but both they and lovers of historical fiction would do well to invest in this book, which provides an excellent glance into the end of an era, and one charming heroine's attempt to muddle through it. END

Anyone who loves Jane Austen (and don't we all?) will certainly enjoy Fanny Burney's Evelina. Burney is really a precursor of Austen, but has unfortunately been completely overshadowed by the later novelist. In its time (1778) Evelina was a tremendous hit and shy Fanny Burney a celebrated author overnight. She was invited into the literary circle of Samuel Johnson, became a reluctant lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte because of her celebrity and at age 41 married a refugee from the French Revolution, thus becoming Madame D'Arblay (check out her interesting diaries). The subtitle of Evelina (The History of A Young Lady's Entrance into the World) says it all: Evelina is an innocent and naive young girl, who suddenly finds herself in unfamiliar London society, surrounded by suitable and not so suitable suitors and a host of other characters. Lots of misunderstandings and perilous situations block Evelina's road, but don't be surprised to find humour and suspense as well, for the continuing question is of course whether Evelina will survive Society unscathed. Even though the pace of a novel more than 2 centuries old may be a bit slow for some, this is something you get used to soon enough: the novel contains far too much life, fun and social commentary too be dull.

It was an okay book, but it was predictable. What happened in the end happened in other books that have the same topic......it was also a bit boring.....It took me more time to read this book than books I like......but this book is preety good, if you want to use it for a book report or something like that....or if you this is one of your first books to read that are like this.

For a Sweet Valley High book, this is pretty good. When the Wakefields and Bruce suspect that Regina has been kidnapped, they decide to take action. Slowly, the mystery unravels as tension builds up. If you liked this book, I highly recommend the "Nightmare Hall" series by Diane Hoh. Action-packed and thrilling, those books will keep you up late at night

HOSTAGE is a great book because it is sort of like a sci-fi thriller.I liked the part when Bruce was pretending to be a grocery delivery person so he could get a note taped inside a magazine to Regina Morrow,the girl being held hostage.I recommend that you read HOSTAGE by Francine Pascal

This is a very entertaining novel, though not as good as the best of Kipling's short stories. As an adventure-oriented bildungsroman, Kim is well constructed with its gradual exposure of the ethnic and religous diversity of India, its engaging characters, and good quality of writing. While written as an adventure novel, Kim is also Kipling's prediction of the British Raj would become. The hero, Kim O'Hara, is in many ways an idealization of what saw as the logical conclusion of British India; a hybrid composed of both Indian and British elements. In an ironic way, this is how things turned out in British India. But where Kim is ethnically British with a largely Indian cultural background, the real inheritors of the British Raj were ethnic Indians (of a variety of ethnicities, castes, and faiths) whose outlook is colored strongly by Western influences.

How this book is read in a 'post-colonial' era is an interesting question. It would be easy, and wrong, to dismiss this book merely as an Imperialist tract, though Kipling clearly supported British Imperial control. It is even wronger to attack Kipling's racism, though there are unquestionably stereotyped elements present. In many ways, Kim is a celebration of India's ethnic and religous diversity. Probably the most unsympathetic characters in the book are not Indian, but Britishers with provincial outlooks. Kipling's support of the Empire is rather more subtle. It is clear that he viewed the existence of the huge and relatively tolerant polyglot society that was the Raj as the result of relatively benign British rule and protection. This is probably true. Without British overlordship, India is likely to have been a congeries of competing states riven by ethnic and religous divisions. Where Kipling is profoundly misleading is what he leaves out, particularly the economic exploitation India and crucial role India played in the Imperial economy.

To be honest, I disdained Kipling as a writer ever since turning away from the Jungle Book movie. When pressed to read his more representative novel "Kim", however, I was much more impressed. Kipling picks up on the bildungsroman theme in his book about a young white boy growing up in British India. True, the reader feels the heavy intrusion of Kipling in the narrative, such as the caricatured descriptions of ethnic peoples, but one also feels a genuine fondness for India, however patronizingly misplaced.

I thought some passages were quite remarkable for a writer at the height of the British Raj, such as the occasional sympathetic treatment of Indians and the allowance of deep relationships between the conquerors and the conquered (e.g., Kim and Mahbub Ali). The feeling of youth is well-given and Kipling succeeds at making the horror of imperialism both remote and romantic.

Rudyard Kiplings' "Kim" is so utterly enchanting it, in some ways, defies description. It is a tale of personal growth, filial love, and the joy of life set amidst the Indian sub-continent in the time of the British Raj. Kim O'Hara, an orphaned Sahib, cunning and street-wise, and of India in all but blood, embarks upon a journey with a Tibetan lama in search of spiritual cleansing. Kim matures under the lama's patient guidance and, in turn, gives his heart to his mentor. The two support each other unconditionally through the passages they both must make.

In time, Kim's parentage and talents are "discovered" by the British and he is drafted and trained to be a participant within the Great Game; a political battle between Russia and Britain for control of Central Asia. Lama and student seek their disparate goals together as they traverse the plains of India, hike Himalayan foothills, and discourse along the way.

I found myself completely rapt by the book and longing to return to it. The characters are splendidly wrought and the descriptions of India and its' people enthralling. Though previous reviews tell of difficult reading, I found it nothing of the sort. One must orient themselves to the vernacular employed, but this isn't in any way trying for those attuned to historical reading. Some previous knowledge of the Great Game and the British Raj would also be helpful. Be that as it may, with remarkable ease the reader is absorbed and transported by this tale to wander India, late 19th century, with Kim and his Tibetan holy man amidst the intrigue of colonial rivalry and the mysticism of Eastern belief. Rudyard Kiplings' "Kim" has rightfully earned a place among my favorite novels of all time. There is no higher praise by which I might recommend it.