This was the first Young Cam Jansen book we have read. My son read part of it and I read part of it aloud to him. We enjoyed it very much. A great easy to read mystery book.

What little boy doesn't dream at least once of someday being a cowboy? I think that if you ask most men, they will admit to this fantasy. In the charming new release "Young Cowboy," the late Western writer Will James magically captures the joy of a little boy growing up learning how to be a cowboy.

By the time little Billy Roper was just one year old, his dad was toting him along on horseback rides. Soon, Billy was leading his own pony Big-Enough around the corral. Young Billy watches the skillful riding and roping of the ranch hands and learns about the hard work and responsibilities required of a cowboy. Readers of all ages who have dreamed of riding and owning a horse will gallop through "Young Cowboy," reining in just long enough to imagine themselves in the intricate pen & ink line drawings and gorgeous full-color paintings that illustrate the story. Anyone who has a real love the old West, as well as anyone who remembers the great childrens' stories of long ago will come to cherish Will James' works

This is a great picture book of Marilyn Monroe. If you are looking for some great young shots of this beautiful lady, this is the book for you.

This book shows step-by-step pictures of everything from the most common swimming strokes to how to put on swim goggles. It is a good book for developing a strong foundation for competitive swimming skills, and it is easy to understand, even by non-readers.

A timeless tale of four sisters struggling their way through life during the Civil War. I have read this book more times than I can count, and I still love it. Once I pick it up I can't put it down, lost in this seemingly fantasy world, which was actually quite true more than 100 years ago.

My favorite thing about Little Women has to be the characters. Jo, the day-dreaming tomboy, Meg, pretty and proper, Beth, the quiet sweetheart, and little Amy, our artist, who always tried to grow up too fast. Then of course there's Laurie, the tall fun-loving boy-next-door, and so many other fabulous personalities (Aunt March, Fredrick Bauer, Hannah, Marmie, etc.) that I couldn't possibly name them all.

This book is one that I think everyone absolutely MUST read some time in their life, for it teaches moral values that should be used by people of all ages. I also reccommend Little Men and Jo's Boys to follow it up.

Little Women is a charming story that transports back in time and tells the story of the March family. It follows the trials and triumps of the close-knit family living in the Civil War era. The four March sisters manage, although fequently challenged, to remain close throughout time. From the very first chapter the unique character traits arise Ð pretty, proper, and mature Meg, tomboy Jo who loves to read and write, shy and caring Beth who loves music and animals, and vain Amy with an artistic talent. They are as different as sisters can be, but their strong personalities bring them closer together. The family is held together by the loving parents who are devoted and fair. The parents work to mold their daughters into responsible young women by teaching them morality and love. It is very much a coming of age story, each girl striving to become a good woman, and tying to let go of their past. Even though it was written over a hundred years ago, modern readers can still relate to the story. The girls still fight, they serch for love, they deal with loss, they struugle with poverty and fitting in. The story teaches great morals that are as important now as they were when the book was written. The book teaches the value of family, the importance of self-improvement, and the truth that love can withstand all. It is a plot that will involve the reader, a book that you will not be able to put down. By the end of the novel you will feel like you know the Marchs personally and will want to read it all over again. This story has passed the test of time and is a beloved peice of literature that brings people together. It is a tale that has touched countless generations, and will continue to do so for many more.

Little Women, being one of the classics of American literature, is not surprising to be said one of the best books I have ever read. The story revolves around the home life of four close sisters and two strong, moral parents. As Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy grow up, their adventures and mishaps provide examples for any reader of all ages. As they grow up, they struggle with many ideas. First, they are constantly troubled by the necessity of being good, even when they want to be bad. Second, as they grow up, they confront different types of relationships with boys. Friendship turns into love and vice versa, making a strong theme of gender relations. The girls also struggle with the ideas of motherhood, sisterhood, pride, education, and marraige. Finally, two of the most important ideas in the novel are dreams and work. The girls spend their childhoods and adult lives trying to balance the two and fulfill both necessities. Also, throughout the book, society is explained, the harsh winters are described, and the profound work ethic of the people is portrayed to give the reader a strong sense of what it was like to be living during the 19th century. The book gives the reader some mportant guidance to people in similar circumstances in their adolescent years. The novel motivates positive decision making, looks past materialism, teaches morales, and shows us the importance of real happiness.

If you have to choose the story among the Christmas stories I think you should have Ch.Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" among your finalists and many of us might find it as the final choice. Some characters of the story even expand the spheres of Christmas; in the first place we will probably mention Ebenezer Scrooge, who has inspired e.g. Walt Disney quite a lot. It might be that his feathered equivalent, even more prosperous than the (finally) good Ebenezer,is today better known than Dickens' original. One more reason to read the book! Among the rest I'll only mention "Tiny Tim", who has lent his name at least to a tasty species of minitomatoes. The author mixes cunningly facts concerning the social contrasts in 19th century England, rich owners and poor workers, with fictitious ghosts. The latter allow him to move in time, these moves are more related to personal and moral matters than to possible changes in the social frames. The social frames of the story are as well international as English, and they cover - mostly and luckily in a more lenient form - all the ages. The darkest time of the year might make it easier to believe in ghosts or at least accept easier the ones who do so? We can follow how Mr Scrooge's opinions about the members of his staff change, he realizes that he has got some duties towards the people working for him, not just rights to use their skills and time. A kind person is easy to deal with all the year around, one of the wonders of the Yule Tide is that quite a lot of the naughty ones start to behave themselves rather humanly, too. Stories like "A Christmas Carol" might not just bring the reader the right Christmas feeling, but also make some people to change their attitudes - at best not just till Boxing Day Eve but till the next Christmas!

Well, I finally read it (instead of just watching it on the TV screen).

This is what you can call a simple idea, well told. A lonely, bitter old gaffer needs redemption, and thus is visited by three spirits who wish to give him a push in the right direction. You have then a ghost story, a timeslip adventure, and the slow defrosting of old Scrooge's soul. There are certain additions in the more famous filmed versions that help tweak the bare essentials as laid down by Dickens, but really, all the emotional impact and plot development necessary to make it believable that Scrooge is redeemable--and worth redeeming--is brilliantly cozied into place by the great novelist.

The scenes that choke me up the most are in the book; they may not be your favourites. I react very strongly to our very first look at the young Scrooge, sitting alone at school, emotionally abandoned by his father, waiting for his sister to come tell him there may be a happy Christmas. Then there are the various Cratchit scenes, but it is not so much Tiny Tim's appearances or absence that get to me--it's Bob Cratchit's dedication to his ailing son, and his various bits of small talk that either reveal how much he really listens to Tim, or else hide the pain Cratchit is feeling after we witness the family coming to grips with an empty place at the table. Scrooge as Tim's saviour is grandly set up, if only Scrooge can remember the little boy he once was, and start empathizing with the world once again. I especially like all Scrooge's minor epiphanies along his mystical journey; he stops a few times and realizes when he has said the wrong thing to Cratchit, having belittled Bob's low wages and position in life, and only later realizing that he is the miser with his bootheel on Cratchit's back. Plus, he must confront his opposite in business, Fezziwig, who treated his workers so wonderfully, and he watches as true love slips through his fingers again.

It all makes up the perfect Christmas tale, and if anyone can find happiness after having true love slip through his fingers many years ago, surprisingly, it's Scrooge. With the help of several supporting players borrowed from the horror arena, and put to splendid use here.

Charles Dickens writes this story in such detail that you almost believe you have just enjoyed Christmas dinner at the Cratchits home. The characters have so much depth. The made for t.v. or movie screen renditions do not truly depict what Ebenezer Scrooge witnesses with the three spirits that causes such a change in his outlook on life. Such as Scrooge's emotions being quickened by the past heartache in his childhood; seeing how his bad choices caused the hardening of his heart and how deeply it cost him in the end; seeing what could have been his to enjoy and then thinking it could still be his with the Spirit of Christmas Present only to find out the future does not hold any love or joy for him by the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come and instead his actions leave him robbed at death and no one left to grieve for him. Read the book to hear how this story was really written. Even if you have seen every Christmas Carol movie every made, the book will offer so many gold nuggets that you will think you are hearing it for the very first time. Pictures are beautifully detailed throughout the book. Excellent!!!

I have always loved the style and social politics of the Regency period (the time of Jane Austen.) But when I read "Sense and Sensibility" in 7th grade I found the first few chapters lifeless, dull and hard to read. Two years later I was encouraged by a friend to give "Pride and Prejudice" a try. I did and have since become a complete Janeite. I am now able to peruse joyfully through "Sense and Sensibility" with a new understanding and appreciation of Jane Austen. The reason? "Pride and Prejudice" is fresh, witty and is a great introduction to Jane Austen's writing style without the formality of some of her other novels (unlike S&S and Persuasion Austen does not give us a 10 page history of each family and their fortune.) If you have never read Jane Austen or have read her other novels and found them boring, read Pride and Prejudice. The characters, and the situations Austen presents to them, are hysterical and reveal a lot about Regency society and morality. This book perfectly compliments a great writer like Jane Austen and is essential to every reader's library. The Penguin Edition of the book is stellar and I personally recommend it not only for the in-depth and indispensable footnotes, but also for the cover that is non-suggestive of any of the characters' appearances. In summary "Pride and Prejudice" is a great book for beginner Austen readers and seasoned fans, and Penguin Classics is a great edition for fully enjoying and understanding the book.

Like all the other jane austen books i loved this one just as much. jane austen is famous for her characterisation and this book proves it to you even more.

elizabeth bennet and mr. darcy intertwined into their own fixed judgements and opinions make this book not just a must read for its witty satire and humour but for its indepth understanding of true love. eliza,prejudiced ....Darcy, too caught up with his high society unfold their true character gradually making you enthralled and wanting more.
mr. collins the cousin, catheran de bourgh his patron bring out the best in subtle humour.
mr. and mrs. bennet, both of them a class apart...their uniquely opposite personalities creating sparks. the four sisters: genuine, bingely:awesome...the story i leave for you to unravel. you'll love it to the best of your ability.

trust me; you're caught. you won't be able to get your hands off it. its the work of a great woman and a great writer, a true genius who to me is just as equivalent to shakespeare. but then thats just me.

a book that shows us how two minds can eventually meet and harbour friendship and love. YOU WON'T REGRET IT.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife". That's how my favourite book of all time begins, and it just keeps getting better.

This novel deals with the pride and prejudices of the main characters Miss Elizabeth Bennett, and Mr. Darcy, as they try to find true love in pre-Victorian England. Elizabeth is a gentleman's daughter and Mr. Darcy is a gentleman, but Elizabeth, along with the rest of her sisters, are not good catches because, their inheritance is being entailed away to their cousin Mr. Collins, leaving them with very miserable looking dowries. Along with poor family connections, they stand little chance of marrying well or at all; they only have their charms to help them.

That is until Mr. Bingley moves into the neighborhood along with his sisters, and accompanying them his close friend Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bingley becomes captivated with Jane Bennett, Elizabeth's eldest sister, and Mr. Darcy has an eye for Elizabeth herself, but can he see past her poor conditions, and can she see past his pride in order for them to get together? That's the question that keeps the audience captivated right up to the end.

I try and find time to read this book at least once a year, and I've been doing that for a few years, and yet, it's always fresh when a get around to reading it.

Set in the dark, bloody atmosphere of 1950's Los Angeles, James Ellroy's "L.A. Confidential" is a brutal, harsh, unsettling, disturbing, confusing, intelligent, and, ultimately, masterful crime drama. The plot is a thickly layered story involving three detectives, Edmund Exley, Wendell (Bud) White, and John Vincennes, and their exploits considering their own lives during the timeframe of the novel. The plot also revolves around the slayings of six people at the Nite Owl, a diner whose infamy spreads throughout the course of the novel. This is just one of many different plots that intertwine to make an incredibly complex novel, filled with hundreds of characters rich in depth and characterization.

Ellroy's genius lies in his development of plot and characters. This novel is wildly different from the movie and its screenplay. The screenplay was a masterpiece, simply because Ellroy's novel is basically unfilmable in its present state. The novel is too dense, too dark, and too complex to make a movie that makes any sense within time constraints. Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson deserve considerable credit for taking this mammoth novel and condensing, stripping away plot lines and characters by the dozen. Some of the changes they made were masterful, some detract from the overall impact of the film. Ellroy's fixation is on characters. He has many of them, all deeply constructed. No character is without flaws. The character most interesting in this maze is Jack Vincennes, the smart detective whose life takes a variety of turns throughout the novel. It should be mentioned the novel is ABSOLUTELY nothing like the movie. The movie takes place during months; the book takes 7 years to complete its saga. The character of Jack Vincennes in particular is investigated much more in depth through Ellroy's version. The matter of Ed Exley's father, the involvement of Hollywood, and a Hispanic woman named Inez Soto, all missing from the movie, are central characters to this novel.

Somehow, Ellroy keeps all these characters straight. He has a shocking conclusion, and truly keeps a reader riveted. At its dullest, L.A. Confidential can be a confusing mess, but Ellroy always sprinkles scenes of savage violence and brutality to waken the reader. It must be said that this is not a novel for the faint-of-heart. Ellroy exposes the bigotry of 1950's Los Angeles through its hatred of blacks, homosexuals, and other minorities. This, combined with plots on smut, rape, murder, and the like, make this a book which is very powerful, graphic, and brutal. Ellroy's style is not beautiful, but rather shocking. He tries to stun the reader into submission, using very little description but rather blunt, graphic passages to get his point across. His only distinctive writing style is his use of newspaper clippings to tell about 10% of his story: the method is remarkably effective, since it diverts the reader from the profane, blunt, and direct writing of Ellroy just enough to keep the reader's sanity.

This is not an easy book by any means. Its language is very difficult, for it is colloquial profanity, mixed with language so graphic that the book takes on a dirty, forbidden tone. Its positives, however, far outweigh its negatives. It is truly a work of art, not graceful, but brutally intelligent. The plotlines are brimming with inspiration and rich color, the characters are distinctive and memorable, and the conclusion is a devastatingly pure and noble ending. Ellroy is a master of writing, and during most of the book, it shows. He is inspired at the end, taking his myriad of loose ends and combining them into one glorious plot that leaves the reader in awe.

The trick is getting to the end. The plot lines are wickedly confusing; Ellroy challenges the reader to keep with his pace. Moreover, the action is spread out over a long period of time. Many characters, though provided for color, are expendable, and it is easy to see why Hanson and Helgeland condensed the novel so much. It is quite difficult to get to the end of this book while understanding all of the numerous happenings and plots. However, despite the numerous flaws, and the often dull spots in the middle (though combined with gratuitous violence and sex), L.A. Confidential is a winning story and novel after everything is said and done. It is quite memorable, simply because it works at the end, it is an enjoyable, though exhausting ride. The violence and sex, although gratuitous, makes a rich atmosphere unparalleled since the days of Hammett and Chandler. It is a read quite worth it.

James Ellroy is one of the late XX Century master in noir fiction. His works are in the same level of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Harmmet. His prose has a by flying style and appeal that make almost impossible to put down any of his books once you had started.

I have to admmit that I'd watched "L. A. Confidential" dozen times before reading the novel -- and it is something I don't usually do , I mean I prefer reading the novel before watching a movie. So my work was a bit easier, because I didn't need to picture the characters, I imagined the actors who played them in the movie. But, as my reading went on and on, I noticed how different -- and equally good the novel and the film are.

The novel focuses on the life of three officers of PDLA through seven years. They are Bud White, Jack Vincennes and Ed Exley. And there are hundreds of suporting characters that help to show how these guys went up and down in their carrers.

It is almost impossible to put this novel in a nutshell due to fact it has so many plots, sub-plots and important twist through the story that it would be impossible to tell them without taking away the surprise of who hadn't read the book yet.

Ellroy is really good in character developing. All of them have a past -- and most of them very obscure-- with interesting facts that also have some relation in their present time. Moreover, they are very psychologically believable.

LA has never looked so glamurous and so scary! In this city everyone is an angel, but also a little devil. This is the perfect city where any noir story fits.

When it comes to the movie, the script written by Curtins Hanson and Brian Hellgland is very smart. Many scriptwriters could have fallen into the trap of trying to translate the whole novel to the screen. Such a thing would be very complicated and the film would result in a mess. In the book, many characters and plots work very fine once the readers can move back and forward according to their needs. But in the movie -- once you are in a theatre-- you have to follow what is in the screen, so if you missed an important line, you can miss the whole movie.

More than adaptating everything, they took L.A. Confidential's premisse and worked on their very own story, although it has many things inspired by the novel. They left out many sub-plots and created another ones, that make the story more watchable and interesting. But, they never lost the Ellroy's appeal.

All in all, both novel and movie are great, and they should be experienced by everyone, once they are two different works that complete each other.

LA Confidential begins as hardboiled as a book has ever begun. It's Los Angeles in the early 1950s with plenty of organized crime and questionable police tactics. The just of the story is in the first page, Mickey Cohen the gangster that runs Los Angeles is going to prison which leaves a vacuum in the city. The rest of the book is figuring out who is trying to take over his rackets. The fun of the book is watching the characters battle to figure it out.

As is usually my wont, I read the book because I liked the movie so much. And with many great movies that are books, LA Confidential is just more of a good thing. The same main characters and a couple of interesting tertiary ones roll through Los Angles with a show horse of justice, though ambition and corruption are the real guiding factor.

Having seen the movie doesn't ruin the book, because the book is enough different to keep you wondering and Ellroy is such a good writer that you'll enjoy even the familiar dialogue. This is the kind of book that makes guys want to read books.

The Color of Water is dual biography documenting the stories of both James McBride, the author and his Mother Ruth McBride Jordan. Ruth, a Polish Immigrant was raised as a white Jew in rural Virginia. An abusive father, however, caused her to flee to the sanctuary of New York City. There, defying all expectations, she married a black man, converted to Christianity, and raised 12 successful biracial children. James then tells his story of his confusion over his racial identity and his falling into drug and alcohol abuse. His mother prevailed, however, and James started once again on the right path. It is now, though, that he desires more than ever to discover the roots of his heritage and in doing so finds, for the first time, himself and his mother.

The Amazon.com book review describes this book as "a success story, a testament to one woman's true heart, solid values, and indomitable will." Amazon.com emphasizes the address of racial identity found in the book and also the remarkable odds of racism and poverty through which one woman not only survived, but thrived. Their story is said to be, "in a word, inspiring." It will give you, they say, an "unalloyed admiration for a flawed but remarkable individual."

I agree. This truly is a success story. A story of perseverance of one who has all stacked up against her. Even when faced with poverty and racial oppression Ruth still manages to raise 12 children. And not only that, but put them all through college, and some even graduate school. She is certainly the remarkable person the reviewer described. And also flawed. Her struggles lead her through plenty of mistakes and at times the reader may even goes as far as to question her sanity. Indecision and irrational decisions seem to flow from this woman's mind, yet her strength is never doubted. I find the word "inspiring" to be true of this book. After reading, one feels ready to take on the world in all its imperfection. Reading this will give you the desire to carry on and make the very best, whatever the hand life deals out.

Beautiful memoir by a gifted musician and writer, offering a hymn of praise to his Jewish mother (Orthodox, born in Poland, abusive childhood, etc.) who married two remarkable African American husbands, gave birth to a passel of kids, and refused to discuss issues of race with her many children. She answered their question, Am I Black or White?" by telling them, "You're a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!" How this remarkable woman succeeded in raising what? about 11 kids in a crime ridden, all-black ghetto, instilling in them respect for religion and education, is at the core of this book. Told in a linear format, alternating chapters of his childhood with his mother's story (told in her voice), it sucks the reader along like riding the rills of a swiftly-moving stream. When the author asked his mother what color God is, she replied, 'The color of water,' i.e. colorless. But this novel is anything but colorless.
Must reading for all thinkers, people of all races and religions.

This book is an amazing voyage of discovery. McBride unravels a life forgotten and buried by a mother, who was born in 1921 to a Jewish Rabbi and his wife in Poland, and found Christianity and love in the arms of a black husband and her 12 children. The book tells two stories. The author tells of growing up in the projects of New York with a white mother and she tells her story of a young Jewish girl growing up in the south and then Harlem, always an outsider wanting only what all girls want, the love of her family and to be accepted.

It was early on in life that Ruth Shilsky realized that this would never happen. She found herself up against some of the greatest odds a person could face in an era of blatant racial prejudice and a family that turned their back on her because she dared to be different. The life she made was a remarkable one and the children she produced are all extraordinary people, to put it in the words of the author. An inspiring read of warm languid prose, I couldn't put it down, nor could I stop rooting for "Mommy" who just never stopped moving forward. Kelsana 6/3/01

Sister Carrie is probably best known for being the American example of the Naturalist school of writing. Centering around Carrie, a girl who comes to Chicago to live the good life in the big city, it follows her action from being a factory worker, to a 'companion', to a housewife, and finally to fame and fortune on the stage in New York City.
Dreiser sets the measure of the game early, on the first page, with the statement that all women are provided two options in life. One is to work hard, live, and have children. The other is to fall into a life of sin.
For those who don't hold with that line of reasoning, the book will be a bit hard to swallow. Dreiser operates along the same line of logic that Emile Zola set down when creating this genre. Every action Carrie makes is predestined, in Dreiser's eyes, by her surroundings. She will not and cannot make any decision contrary to her 'nature'.
While this is all very well and good for Dreiser, it is not so for Naturalism. Thomas Hardy's famous Tess, and Jude, make decisions contrary to their nature all the time, it is society that is at odds with the characters and not the other way around. Carrie's society seems perfectly willing to accept her, but it is her decisions that one finds appalling. The feeling is more like being on a careening freight train, with the outcome inevitable and predestined but terrible nonetheless. There is none of the same despair and void that one finds in Hardy, and somehow that is the books biggest flaw.
Hardy's novels, that were written a full forty years before Sister Carrie, explore naturalism in such a way as to make the character the hero and society the villain. Dreiser's Carrie is no such hero, she is just the unfortunate victim of circumstance.

This book was written at the turn of the century and it is a great portrait of American life and ideals at that time. It is the story of a young girl named Carrie who leaves her small town to go to Chicago to live with her sister and find work. She soon finds that living with her sister and her husband is very boring and that work is hard and dull. Soon she is a mistress of a pretty wealthy man, and the rest of the book is the story of her rise in society.

One of the main themes of this book is materialism, and how people would do anything for money. During the book I could see how innocent Carrie becomes a victim of circumstances as she tries to fit into the environment around her and becomes swallowed by the anonymity of the city. I love Dreiser's style, although he goes off on unneccessary little lectures at times, and I really liked following the plot. The characters were drawn so well that I would forget they weren't real. This is a great book to read and it accurately portrays American cities at the rise of industrialism and materialism.

This novel hooked me from the first page - who can forget the opening scene where the young Caroline Meeber is "spotted" by the travelling salesman Charles Drouet on the Chicago-bound train? We follow in this novel two seemingly irreversible life flows: Carrie uses her beauty and ambition to rise in life, and Hurstwood falls from his secure position of middle-aged, upper-middle-class success to utter failure, all for the love of a woman half his age. It's the stuff of melodrama to some, but not when handled by Dreiser, who takes the reader into a vividly realized urban world with well-drawn characters whose virtues and vices are equally on display. You leave the book feeling that Carrie and Hurtstwood could very easily have stepped out of the pages of today's newspapers, such is the zone of uncomfortable truth inhabited by the denizens of this brilliant novel.