This book is an excellent resource. From it, you will discover books that, if read by your teenager (or yourself) will build character and relationship. The second half of the book is where the treasure is. Get it.

The first time I read Shen Congwen's book,I am still a student of high school.The book named "the simple life".This book was a little hard to me.But appealed to me.When I went to college,I read his novel "Biancheng",The artistic conception make me fall in the border area of drean and poem.

Rising of the Moon is beautifully written. Two young brothers, Simon, age 13 and Keith, age 11 are orphaned but living a fairly idyllic childhood on a farm with their goodtime older brother, stressed, prim sister-in-law and the family's delectable female lodger. The first grisly murder excites the boys' curiousity and as they play amateur detective their clumsy efforts to help their married brother make him appear guilty. Beatrice Bradley appears midway through the book, gaining their confidence and trust. The charm of the book is the style. Mitchell evokes small town/country life in postwar England. The boys fish, plan to sneak into the circus, and live a very independent life beneath the noses of their pub hopping brother and his more conventional wife.

Readers may guess the identity of the murderer but the boys are so likeable, the lovely lodger so charming that the innocence of childhood versus the horrors of a multiple killer make for a striking contrast.

HOpefully since Diana Rigg's series features the (Beatrice) Adela Bradley character the book will again appear in print.

The book that hooked Nicholas Blake (pseudonym of C. Day-Lewis) onto the Great Gladys, as Philip Larkin described her, the book combines pure farce, two murders, and a large amount of satire on Agatha Christie's "Murder at the Vicarage", with several of the characters (the vicar, curate, etc.,'s importance to the tale, and their reversal by Mitchell), and the sheer amount of secrets and shameful past every character is concealing. The detection is done in a workman-like fashion by the greatest female detective of all time, Mrs Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, later being made a Dame, and the ending is ingenious. All in all, one of the true classics of the genre (though her previous novels, "Speedy Death", and "The Longer Bodies", come close).

I think it was Mark Twain who said that a classic is a book that everybody wants to *have* read, but that nobody wants to read. The Scholars is an exception to this generalization. It is one of the masterpieces of the Chinese novel, but it is as fun for a contemporary American to read today as it was for Wu Ching-tzu's contemporaries to read in imperial China.

This book is an incisive satire of hypocrisy and corruption among Confucian intellectuals. Although the circumstances of the stories will be unfamiliar to the general reader, this translation supplies supporting material that will help explain the context. And we immediately identify with the cast of characters and their catalogue of vices: arrogant officials, obsequious would-be officials, impoverished students who become exactly like those who exploit them as soon as they are given a chance, etc.

Wu Ching-tzu's worldview is not wholly negative, though. There are characters in this world who have honor. We get the sense that the author believes that the true spirit of Confucianism is very different from the debased institutional form it has taken in his era.

One brilliant but challenging feature of this work is that it is not a simple linear narrative. Wu Ching-tzu weaves the stories of individuals in and out of one another. One storyline will abruptly stop, seemingly abandoned; another storyline will begin; then the characters from the previous storyline will reappear in the new story. This is dazzling narrative, but sometimes a little hard to follow: I recommend that you scrawl some brief notes in the margins or the back of the book so that you can remember who a character is when he or she reappears somewhere down the road. (I did a chart myself.) Believe me, though, it's worth the effort to fully appreciate this book.

This is a delightful, humorous, and humane novel that will transport you to another world, but leave you with insights into human nature that are universal.

Gladys is my great-grandmother. This is a great book and compilation of Andrew Morgans writings, hence, its title. I haven't picked up this book for a few years, but most memorable to me was his tale of the western men ordering wives! I believe it was a fictional poem (based on a thread of reality???) - but it is quite funny the way it is woven together.

I recommend this book highly for anyone from the Evan Morgan heritage; or anyone from Adams County, Washington.

Seven women writers have written realistic stories about women's lives in the People's Republic of China. The book is informative and realistic, and moves the reader with compassion and admiration for women struggling to make good lives for themselves and others in a difficult world.

I love the Arabian Nights. My headline tells you what my favorite story is. This is a good introduction to the stories of
The Arabian Nights. Sinbad's Seven Voyages and other stories from "The Arabian Nights" is a good book. I don't know why the stories aren't in Bulfinch's Mythology. The stories are from Muslim mythology. Something to remember
these tense days after 9/11. President Bush says we should
be more tolerant of Muslims. I agree. Get this book for your
kids. I've had mine since I was in the seventh grade. The
stories are The Seven Voyages of Sinbad, Aladdin and the
Wonderful Lamp, and Abu Hassan or the Caliph's Jest. If don't have kids, read it yourself. If you do, then read it to them. The might like Ali Baba or they might like Aladdin. All of them are excellent. Two thumbs and two toes up.

Enjoyable because Beery's style of writing is so smooth and captivating. Meaningful because after living here in Laramie for some thirty odd years, it was gratifying to learn of all these historical people, the places, and the events, which shaped this town. Laramie was a rough and tough place to live in those times, and the characters in this book, although now long gone, simply come alive. I would highly recommend it.

Finally someone has written on the subject of high-achieving women and our tendency to try to do it all! The author explores how some men take advantage of this trend by allowing their women to "carry" them financially, as well as how the trend can be a negative in the development of a strong and healthy marriage.

This idea of doing it all and "carrying" others is burning women out. I have personally seen it all too often in the 90's. The author explores this through the many examples. She gives a nice variety in the chosen women who share their experiences.

It is really a positive book. I would suggest reading it to save yourself and your relationship.