I started reading this book in school and then I ordered it. It is a very good book, it shows things in different persepectives and it is from a teenagers view. It shows us teens that whats happening in our life isn't that uncommon. It shows the consquesnces when people chose that certain lifestyle. You should really read this.

As a high school English teacher, I am always pleasantly surprised by how receptive my students are to the essays in "Starting With I." This book is an excellent tool for teachers to demonstrate how powerful writing can be as a form of expression. When students learn that these essays were written by people their age, on issues that they value, they are not only anxious to read/hear more, they are also moved to write personal essays of their own. What's more, this is a powerful tool for encouraging revision and peer editing as the teen authors in the book discuss this process in a positive light. I have used this book with students in grades 9-12 and have always gotten positive results.

After reading PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT, I find myself scrambling to recall whether I have ever read another American novel anywhere near as hysterically funny. Maybe Tom Robbins's SKINNY LEGS AND ALL is in the same ballpark (and I've yet to read CATCH-22) but Roth simply had my head spinning while I read this book. My jaw is still on the floor, in fact.

Esoterically, this book is one long rant about the joys and (more heavily) the anguishes of growing up Jewish in America in the forties and fifties. It's 1966 and successful civil servant Alexander Portnoy is on the psychiatrist's couch trying to get out all his Oedipal, inferiority, and sexual fetish complexes.

That infamous masturbation scene in the movie AMERICAN PIE? A direct descendent of Mrs. Portnoy's piece of liver!

More deeply, if you can stand it, this book seriously examines the struggle of growing up with smothering parents: Alex's both put him on a pedestal and criticize everything he does. He's unmarried at thirty-three in part because of all the neuroses his parents have bestowed in him--so why doesn't he get married and have children already? Alex lets us know in pornographic detail why. Speaking of pornographic detail, Alex spends plenty of time on his ultimately doomed affairs with (mostly Protestant) women. Most of his anger at growing up Jewish in a Christian-dominated society he takes out on these "shikses"--variously called Pumpkin, the Pilgrim and the Monkey--this is not a politically correct book from the feminist perspective. It does, however, raise serious questions about what it means to be a human being, as opposed to just a hyphenated-American.

PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT is brash, profane and wonderful. It is certainly not for the faint-hearted or those with what were once considered "polite sensibilities." But it is a very moral book in it's own way. Portnoy knows he's no hero, and Roth doesn't portray him as such--in some ways the book is one big joke. Every effective joke has its kernel of truth; Roth's have the whole can of corn.

I never expected a novel that is one long rant to inspire a review that is one long rave, but there it is.

It has been several years since I read this hilariously filthy book, but it still remains in my extensive personal library. I've read it a few times, and always found it highly amusing................Alexander Portnoy is a nice Jewish boy, who somewhere between barmitzvah instruction, and young adulthood, becomes mentally and sexually warped. The book unfolds as Portnoy confesses all to his psychiatrist. The accounts of childhood experiences locked in the bathroom with his "Dumb as a pudding" sister Hannah's brassiere as a sex toy, to his adult sexual obsession with "Shikses" (yiddish word for non-jewish female) are fall off your reading chair hilarious. Portnoy raves on about sex, his parents, and anything else he can blame for his perversity. Roth gives you a very good handle on just who Alex Portnoy is, and as with any great story, whether it be film or written, fact or fiction...you care about the characters. ................Although I've read "Goodbye Columbus" and "When She Was Good" among other Roth titles, this one remains my favorite by this famous author. I was always curious to see the movie version of "Portnoys Complaint", I understand Karen Black is one of the stars, and have read negative feedback about the film in general. Unfortunately, I've yet to see it for myself, as I never go by other opinions if I am curious enough to check something out. ............."Goodbye Columbus" I liked in it's film version. That was a hit in it's time, while the Portnoy film is an obscurity. Frankly, I can't imagine a movie of this book. Then again, the absurdly humorous Jewish mother/sex farce "Where's Poppa" by Robert Klane, was pretty good as a George Segal/Ruth Gordon outing. ............If you want to read a funny, entertaining book with some off-beat bedroom humor thrown into the mix, here's a classic novel by a classic author that will delight and possibly disgust you at times, but Roth surely won't bore you for a second.

I had heard that Roth's prose often reminds readers of JD Salinger, and that Portnoy is merely a Jewish version of Catcher in the Rye. Well...yes and no. In Portnoy, Roth explores the similar themes of adolescenct alienation, self-doubt and loathing, and social displacement which Salinger also regards. Yet Roth does so much more in this ranting and irrefutably hysterical portrait of the American Jew as a young man. Lewd, crude, and achingly funny, this book demonstrates what Jewishness, and the Jewish experience, is like for so many boomer generation males in this country. Portnoy's struggles with his demanding family ("Why can't you stop being so selfish and give us some grandchildren" - remarks his mother), his self-loathing resulting from being unable to derive satisfaction from anything other than emotionless sex, and his overpowering anger at being helpless to change any aspect of his life as it barrels forward, are what makes this novel a must read.

The Tin Princess wasn't all that I expected it to be. Philip Pullman did not exactly follow up The Sally Lockhart Trilogy beautifully. The beginning was good and got me into it, but, by the end, I felt as if Pullman had left me hanging. If Jim hadn't been in it, I probably would have ended up hating it more. By the way, did any other Lockhart fans notice the pattern of the two main characters making love, and right after, a tragedy happening? I sort of saw a pattern! Well, over all, it was a good book, but it can not nearly compare to the Sally Lockhart trilogy!

I didn't like this book as much as I did all the Sally Lockhart books. The plot was pretty interesting. I loved Jim and I wished there were more of his points of view. I wish there was also more Sally in the book. I also would have loved to see a scene with both Sally and Dan together to see how they're getting along. One of the things I loved best about the Sally series was the wonderful relationship between her and Jim. The scene that moved me the most was when Sally showed up near the end of the book to see Jim. I really liked Becky as well. She was such a spirited and interesting character. If only her character was expanded a little more. The one character I could not like was Adelaide. I understand that she had a tough childhood and everything, but I just couldn't get used to the fact that she was queen and all that. I didn't like her attitude or her personality. I found it unbelievable that Jim would be in love with her forever, because the last time he was in real contact with her was when she was about 9 and he was about 13 or 14. Who falls in love that young and only knowing each other for a few days? But I liked the whole Razkavia thing and I loved the parts with Sally in it. So if you want to continue on with some beloved characters it's worth reading.

I don't see how anyone could hate this book. It's a little far-fetched, but you gotta expect that with Phillip Pullman. Look at the Sally Lockhart Trilogy! I liked how Sally made her appearance in this book. Of course she's changed since the trilogy, she's gotten older! Jim is still a cool character. The book was suspenseful and interesting. I fell in love with this book. The ending surprised me, thoguh. I wish that there was a sequel to this book!

There aren't too many books published to help specifically for the SAT II W. Hist. So before I took that exam I bought this book for some practice problems, and it did help. I scored a 710 although I it had been 2 years since I took W.Hist. If you also plan to buy the Barron's How to...World History, read the review section, which is pretty good, but don't let their exam questions tarnish your perceptions. The questions intensified popular misconceptions and what not. That's why you would want this book for practice questions. Ironic: same publishers, two different recommendations.

This book really gave me good practice for the regents

Adam is a junior art director at a New York advertising agency. Restless, disillusioned with his work and with life in general, he is subjected to a series of apparently inexplicable happenings ranging from the trivial (popping lightbulbs) through the neutral (pretzel sticks falling out of a tin and landing in an organised pattern) to the downright bizarre (solidifying water, melting trash-cans). At first these seem like mere random coincidences, but gradually they begin to take on a more alarming aspect. In order to make sense of what's happening to him, Adam forms a theory based on the infinity of the universe, but as events overtake him it becomes clear that this rational explanation is not enough. And when the strange happenings (which are now verging on the miraculous) start to interfere with both his private and his working life, he quits his job and his home and takes off across America in search of answers. This is very much a novel of ideas. The ideas themselves are stimulating and ingenious; indeed the reader needs to bring a considerable amount of mental agility into play in order to follow them, but the effort is rewarding. The story is written in a vivid, colloquial style, the ideas being developed mostly in dialogue (like Plato's), a device that lends immediacy and makes the reader feel involved. For a first-time author, Philip Travisano writes with considerable skill, assurance and verve. He deftly employs the vital ingredients of good storytelling to carry the weight of his hero's theories and to make them accessible to his readers: the characters are engaging, the plot endlessly inventive, the pace relentless and the denouement unexpected, yet satisfying. In short, this is everything a good novel should be: it makes for a read that's both entertaining and thought-provoking. Self-published in 1997, the book itself is beautifully produced: a credit to the author, who not only wrote it but designed and typeset it himself, as well as commissioning a most attractive illustration for the cover.

I teach 4th grade and found this book very good at explaining what electricity is and how it is generated. There are not experiments crowding each page, just clear electron models that clearly explain electricity theory.

This thoughtful work contains speeches by Native Americans on topics such as wisdom, our relationship to the earth, and other sacred subjects. Beautiful photographs of Native Americans are included. A peaceful read.

Although it was a while since I last read this book, I must admit I enjoyed it a lot. Batt, Raider, Tech and J.J. are 4 post apocolyptic survivors who were born inside a Government Relocation Camp. At the age of sixteen, all the young men in the camp will be trucked off to work for the government doing various types of jobs to try and rebuild whats left of the continent. However the government is harder and harsher than the one before the war and the boys decide they would rather take their chances in the Mojave desert than stick around. They break out of the camp, meet the last survivor of the Yavapai indian tribe named Tracker. He is their age and joins the group and agrees to teach them how to survive in the desert.

Before you think that this is just a simple survivor story, think again. This world contains a few other elements as well. One of the first friends the "Turbo Cowboys" meet is a man named after the hotel he used to run; the Mecca Man. A trader of sorts, he bargains with the kids: Raider, who learned how to be a mechanic in the Relo camp will fix the unused motor dirt bikes in the garage of the hotel and as payment the Cowboys each get a motor bike.

Now the Turbo Cowboys, with the help of Mecca Man are able to more than just survive the desert. But is what they have enough?

There are new enemies to face in the world now. Government hunters, who search the country side looking for relo camp runaways; Takers, who will use force to take anything from your food to your life; and lastly there are other bands of survivors riding around throughout the country. Can five young men truly live in this world?

The story follows Clarissa, a young woman who wants nothing more than to be left to herself. The problem is, she winds up being used as a pawn in the fortunes of her family and a libertine known as Lovelace. While the story is very interesting, the novel has many things going against it. The novel is entirely told in letters, which at times completely alienates the audience. The novel is also extremely long, and even the abridged version becomes a chore to read at times. It is worth a look, but only if you have a lot of patience and a lot of time.

Samuel Richardson's massive 1747-8 novel, "Clarissa," is not only the longest novel I've ever read, but one of the best and most complex. Much like Richardson's first novel, "Pamela," "Clarissa" deals with the torments of a virtuous young lady abducted by a rake/libertine (in modern parlance, a rapist) who submits the heroine to a series of trials. Unlike Pamela, a lower class maiden, Clarissa is a member of an established and wealthy family. This change in social situation allows Richardson to explore a host of new issues, with the primary goal of moral didacticism remaining intact between the two.

Clarissa Harlowe, the most beautiful and exemplary of her sex, is being imposed upon by her implacable family to marry one Mr. Solmes, a man of no mean fortune, but whose ethics, especially with regard to his own family, are suspect. Simultaneously, Clarissa's sister, Arabella, has just rejected a proposal from one Robert Lovelace, the heir of a nobleman, educated and refined, but known for his libertinism - his tendency and enjoyment of seducing young women and then abandoning them. Lovelace falls in love, or in lust, with Clarissa, and after he and Clarissa's brother James, heir to the Harlowe fortune, engage in a near fatal duel, Clarissa's continued correspondence with Lovelace becomes a major thorn in the side of the Harlowes' plans for Clarissa. The Harlowes continue to urge the addresses of Mr. Solmes while vilifying Lovelace - Clarissa not approving of either - and when her family's insitence becomes insupportable to Clarissa, the utterly demonic Lovelace takes advantage, whisking her away from a seemingly inevitable union with Solmes. Thus begins an absolutely terrifying journey for Clarissa through the darkness of humanity, as Lovelace plots and executes his seduction of the 'divine' Clarissa.

An epistolary novel, "Clarissa" is written in the form of a series of letters spanning nine months, principally between Clarissa and her best friend and iconoclast, Anna Howe, and between Lovelace and a fellow libertine, John Belford. Richardson's 'to the moment' style of writing gives a minute account of everything that happens to the main characters almost as it happens, giving the novel a highly dramatic sense of urgency. The four major correspondents, as well as others, also give the novel a well-developed sense of perspective, as we get not only the events, but biased opinions and readings of all the other characters, making the events at times difficult to follow, but at the same time, marvelously rich and complex.

Some of the most interesting facets of this novel are its interactions with the law, primarily inheritance law, the contrast between history and story, and at the forefront, the debate over gender roles in marriage. Almost of a piece with the novel's legal issues, Richardson examines the vagueries of semantics - what do words mean? How are words regarded and used differently by men and women? Richardson also confronts the way we read and interpret 'truth' - in a book composed of letters, subjectively written and read, where can we look to for 'truth'?

Among the characters in the novel, by far the most captivating and challenging in "Clarissa" is the aforementioned Anna Howe. The ways she clashes with tradition and propriety throughout the novel are entertaining, and very much reminiscent of the eponymous heroine of Defoe's "Moll Flanders." An amazing and influential novel to say the least, anyone with a few weeks on their hands who is interested in the history of the novel in English should pick up and give "Clarissa" some serious attention, stat!

May I add a review from Lord Macaulay, via William Makepeace Thackeray...

"....Under the dome which held Macaulay's brain, and from which his solemn eyes looked out on the world but a fortnight since, what a vast, brilliant, and wonderful store of learning was ranged! what strange lore would he not fetch for you at your bidding? A volume of law or history, a book of poetry familiar or forgotten (except by himself who forgot nothing), a novel ever so old, and he had it at hand. I spoke to him once about "Clarissa." "Not read 'Clarissa'!" he cried out. "If you have once thoroughly entered on 'Clarissa' and are infected by it, you can't leave it. When I was in India I passed one hot season at the hills, and there were the Governor-General, and the Secretary of Government, and the Commander-in-Chief, and their wives. I had 'Clarissa' with me; and, as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly Lovelace! The Governor's wife seized the book, and the Secretary waited for it, and the Chief Justice could not read it for tears!" He acted the whole scene; he paced up and down the Athenaeum library; I dare say he could have spoken pages of the book - !...."

For an expanded discussion of Clarissa's power to fascinate, please see:

http://www.jungcircle.com/muse/negcap.htm

I discovered this book after reading the Golden Compass and its companion. I loved it. It's so sad at the end, though! I was furious with the way it ended but not furious at the book, if you know what I mean. I'm once again impressed at how Philip Pullman can change his style, tone, and genre without sacrificing any of his delicious writing skill. Everything is so believable when he tells it. I didn't put all five stars mostly because it just wasn't my favorite book, but it was well written in all aspects. The only part I didn't understand was the last page, about Jenny's father. I've read it over and over again, and I can't tell if it's sarcasm or not. Enlighten me, someone. My last words? Read this book. It's good.

Philip Pullman has done it again in this captivating novel about trust, betrayal and love. While His Dark Materials was delightful in an innocent, fantastical sort of way, this book seemed a bit darker, more honest, and truer to our life. None of those things are bad or good; they're just different; and if you're expecting another THE GOLDEN COMPASS, change your expectations or you may be startled. This is an older children's book, more for fans of Chris Crutcher than C.S. Lewis. The characters are like people you meet on the street, not "destiny children" like Lyra and Will. They have dark pasts and modern-day troubles. You will love them and understand them as normal contemporary people.

Pullman's descriptions bring the print of the book to real life. Without ever boring you, he lets you feel Chris's emotions, and Jenny's, and their feelings about their pasts and each other. It's a tragedy book with plentiful references to child abuse, sex and troubled families, which means I wouldn't give it to a ten-year-old who adored HIS DARK MATERIALS, but read it yourself and give it to him in a few years' time, and he'll love it for what it is: a compelling modern masterpiece.

I am 14 years old and i just LOVE this book. The way Philip Pullman writes about Chris's love for Jenny is so awesome! I cried when i read this book! If you are a daydreamer like me you will just fall in love with it!