i discovered this book at a museum bookstore and gave it to my nephew, who is 7. i thought it might be too old for him, but he loved it. in fact, he took the book with him everywhere until he had colored it all in. now he carries it around and shows it to
everyone and tells them the story - he is a little art history teacher now. needless to say, his mother and i ordered several copies apiece to give as christmas presents. They arrived quickly.
i can't wait for the next one.

Finally a coloring book that has something more to offer! This ingenious book is great for kids who want to learn more about art ... and for parents who want to teach them. Kids learn about Van Gogh and Gauguin effortlessly by reading the text and through coloring their own pictures. The book looks like so much fun, I was tempted to start coloring myself. Can't wait for the next one in the series!

My 7-year-old was amazed by the colors at the Van Gogh show at the MFA in Boston last fall, but it was hard to find something appropriate to encourage him. This was perfect!

I first purchased this book from the Al and Al Little League clinic. The author gives proceeds to help fund Little League clinics where money is in short supply. I figure, good cause, what the heck. It was like finding a a hidden treasure at a yard sale. Got half way through it and loaned it to our high school varsity football coach, who also coaches 7 and 8 year olds. He was equally impressed. He says it has even influenced how he relates to his high school football players. He gave a 5 minute commercial at our coaches meeting. Every coach left with a copy. I think it will turn out to be one of the best investments our league has ever made.

Baseball is a game. Too many parents and coaches forget this, but kids don't, unless someone - usually a grown-up - makes them think otherwise. I'm glad Mr. Fortanese shared his wisdom and his experience. There's not a single drill, no baseball playing tips, but this is easily the most important book I've read on coaching - and understanding - kids and baseball. I'm very disappointed it's not in print anymore, because I wanted to give it out as coaches' gifts. PLEASE reprint this, and thank you Mr. Fortanese!

This book should be required reading for all coaches of all children's sports - not just Little League baseball. Even coaches of middle school and high school age children could benefit from reading this book. As a mom of children that play Little League, I had always just assumed that because someone was coaching with a respected organization like Little League that they were sensitive and understanding to children, and that they were knowledgeable about how to teach children now only how to play but how to be good sports. Boy, did I get a rude awakening! All children's sports organizations should request that their coaches read this book. It could help the good coaches be even better and some others to understand that their role as a coach is not necessarily to help the kids win, but to help them develop friendships, character and good memories. I would love to give a copy of this book to the person who would have been coaching my child this year if I had not read this book first! Please hurry and reprint this book as soon as possible!!!!!

_The Sickness Unto Death_ is a good place to start reading Kierkegaard. It is shorter than most of his works, and provides a good overview of his most important concepts. One such concept is man's intense desire to understand or somehow obtain proof of the existence of God. Because of our intense fear of death, we are constantly seeking out ways to relieve our doubt concerning the immortality of the soul. Kierkegaard examines this death-drive with remarkable insight, stating that it is in some ways noble, but in other ways is a gross imposition upon God, and a disrespect for God's privacy. In one passage, Kierkegaard suggests that we seek out reasons to experience despair simply in order to drag God across hot coals; that is, in order for us to reach a satisfactory understanding of the existence and/or goodness of God, we have a tendency to go out of our way to find reasons NOT to believe in God. Sometimes these reasons consist in outward examples of atrocities and widespread acts of destructive evil. Other times our despair is of a more inward form, in which we seek to disprove God because of our own shortcomings in avoiding sin. In other words, if we are evil, and consider ourselves to be abnormally bad sinners, we have a vested interest in disproving God; because of our fear of punishment, the existence of God runs counter to our best interests. On the other side of the spectrum, Kierkegaard portrays the more virtuous type of faith as one that avoids higher levels of understanding. Considering the over-abundance in this world of acts we percieve to be evil, it stands to reason that God does not WANT to be fully understood. On page 98, Kierkegaard states: "Is it such great merit or is it not rather insolence or thoughtlessness to want to comprehend that which does not want to be comprehended?" On p.38 he states: "to believe is indeed to lose the understanding in order to gain God". All of this is not to say that Kierkegaard is an anti-intellectual or nihilist. Kierkegaard, who once admitted that he "gropes for the tragic in every direction" in a perverse and convoluted desire to "see" God, is just as guilty as anyone of this "imposition" upon God. His intention is simply bringing to light the dynamics of our strange tendencies to unearth the tragic and the role of death and fear in propelling our desire to understand God. Kierkegaard is not judgemental or admonishing in his treatment of these natural human drives towards knowledge; he just wants to enlighten us on why we act the way we do, and what are the inner springs of our creativity and curiosity. The sources of these creative drives do not always present a pretty picture, but Kierkegaard is honest with himself and with the reader in exposing the dark forces underlying our seemingly innocent intellectual curiosity.

Overall I highly recommend this book to all readers, especially those wanting to get a brief overview of some of Kierkegaard's most important ideas. It is also an excellent precursor to _The Concept of Anxiety_, which picks up where this one left off.

In sum, Kierkegaard shows that despair is the inability to live with oneself. We all experience depression, disappointment, and anxiety rooted in the identities we strive to establish apart from the one we were meant to have in God. Therefore, there is no greater truth to eradicate despair than this: that God has made us for relationship with Himself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him. Only when a person relies on his perfect relationship with God, and not his imperfect relationship with his parents, his society, his friends, as the sole criterion for the worth of his soul will he find rest from despair.

Using a highly compressed schematic of the self as a fundamentally relational being that confronts itself and otherness primarily through the imagination and its determination of anxiety and despair, SK both exposes the pathologies latent within imbalances of the relational unity that mark the integrated life, and points to a fundamental misrelation of the self to the Ground of Being as the source of our alientation. Restoration of that relation -- healing and integration of the self -- comes by means of an authentic faith that "annihilates the possibility of despair" by trusting in God as the answer to the self and its alienation.

For me, SK has an almost providential gifting to communicate the essential truth of the inner meaning of anxiety and despair, and does so the most prodigious profundity, brilliance, and passionate faith.

Highly recommended!!! If you take the time (and energy) to attune yourself to this message of Kierkegaard, your life will be changed....

I discovered Edna St. Vincent Millay through a passage from "Recuerdo" quoted in a novel by Madeleine L'Engle (possibly Camilla). It was the first book of poems I ever bought for myself ($10 hardcover, circa 1968); I memorized "Recuerdo", took the book to the woods with me, pressed wild flowers in it, and was sure I would move to New York and ride the ferry with my lover. Never moved to New York (couldn't afford it), but I did ride Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls with my best friend and husband, who sits beside me as I write this.

This book of collected poems is the most treasured book that I own. My copy is absolutely falling apart - I have to keep it in its own special box.

Millay has been criticized for her lack of technical rigor, but that is the very essence of her accessibility to readers. Yes, she wrote poems that rhymed, sometimes to the point of sing-song meter, but her words carried weight. They meant (and still mean) something, not like the esoteric, pseudo-intellectual hodge-podge that passes for modern poetry. It seems that today's poets wear their inaccessibility as a badge of honor - that only a select group of academic word-smiths can even understand what they have written seems to represent success for them. Not so with Edna. She touches your heart, sometimes even breaks it, with common words, feelings, emotions. You don't have to work for her meaning, it is plainly presented for all to read. But beware! Her poems may be easy to understand, but they are impossible to forget.

This lightweight (literally, if not figuratively) story of the hapless farmer Jabez Stone, of Cross Corners, New Hampshire, and his rescue from a cavalier deal with the devil by Daniel Webster is an entertaining, patriotic lark. Although Webster was a lawyer, the narrator tells us, and the "the biggest man...next to God...He never got to be President." Published in 1937, and with a homespun Twain-like love of freedom and the wry vigilance which watches over it, Stephen Vincent Benet's entertaining lark, set "in the border country, where Massachusetts joins Vermont and New Hampshire" is patriotic without being jingoistic or nationalistic. At the end, after the narrator informs us that devil keeps clear of Marshfield and hasn't been seen in New Hampshire he concludes: "I'm not talking about Massachusetts or Vermont."

A young nation, built on reason and skepticism, America doesn't have a whole lot of myths and legends. With the possible exception of Parson Weem's tales of
young George Washington, the stories of Washington Irving, and a few tall tales like Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and John Henry, the best might be found in Stephen
Vincent Benet's Faust-influenced but distinctly American short story and screenplay, The Devil and Daniel Webster, which has also been adapted for the stage and
turned into an opera.

Jabez Stone of Cross Corners, New Hampshire is a man of little luck, until, with his wife and children ill and a whitlow on his own thumb, he barks :

I vow it's enough to make a man want to sell his soul to the devill And I would, too, for two cents!

With that, a stranger appears and Jabez makes a deal, signing it in blood, which changes his luck drastically.

Over the next ten years, Stone prospers, becoming wealthy and an important man in politics. But with his mortgage to the stranger coming due, Jabez Stone regrets
the deal he's made and pays a visit to his neighbor, Daniel Webster, of Mansfield, NH--the nation's greatest lawyer and New England's most revered citizen--to see
if Mr. Webster will take him on as a client and see if there's not some way out of the deal. A lesser man might balk at the prospect of such a fight, but Daniel
Webster has a special regard for his constituents and cheerfully assures Jabez that they'll prevail :

For if two New Hampshiremen aren't a match for the devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians.

Webster's first ploy is to challenge the stranger's right to prey upon Americans :

'Mr. Stone is an American citizen, and no American citizen may be forced into the service of a foreign prince. We fought England for that
in ë12 and weíll fight all hell for it again!'

'Foreign?' said the stranger. 'And who calls me a foreigner?'

'Well, I never yet heard of the dev -- of your claiming American citizenship,' said Dan'l Webster with surprise.

'And who with better right?' said the stranger, with one of his terrible smiles. 'When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there.
When the first slaver put out for the Congo, I stood on her deck. Am I not in your books and stories and beliefs, from the first settlements on?
Am I not spoken of, still, in every church in New England? 'Tis true the North claims me for a Southerner, and the South for a Northerner,
but I am neither. I am merely an honest American like yourself--and of the best descent--for, to tell the truth, Mr. Webster,
though I don't like to boast of it, my name is older in this country than yours.'

This prompts Webster to recourse to Stone's rights as an American :

'Aha!' said Dan'l Webster, with the veins standing out in his forehead. 'Then I stand on the Constitution! I demand a trial for my client!'

'The case is hardly one for an ordinary court,' said the stranger, his eyes flickering. 'And, indeed, the lateness of the hour-'

'Let it be any court you choose, so it is an American judge and an American jury!' said Dan'l Webster in his pride.
'Let it be the quick or the dead; I'll abide the issue!'

And so begins a trial, presided over by Justice Hathorne, who likewise oversaw the Salem Witch Trials, with a jury made up of the likes of Walter Butler, Simon
Girty, King Philip, Reverend John Smeet, and Morton of Merry Mount. Inevitably, even these dastards are swayed by the rhetorical power of Daniel Webster and
Jabez is released from his contract. The stranger good-naturedly conceding :

'Perhaps 'tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence,' he said, 'but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster.'

Despite this graciousness, Daniel Webster grabs and threatens him, but then relents to his pleading. In exchange for being let go, the stranger predicts Webster's
future for him. The stranger well knows of Webster's desire to be president one day and of his pride in his speaking ability. He warns that the dream will never come
true and, perversely, the ambition will be thwarted by Webster's own talent :

'[T]he last great speech you make will turn many of your own against you,' said the stranger. 'They will call you Ichabod; they will call you
by other names. Even in New England some will say you have turned your coat and sold your country, and their voices will be loud against
you till you die.'

Webster takes the news surpassing well and in turn receives an assurance :

'So it is an honest speech, it does not matter what men say,' said Dan'l Webster. Then he looked at the stranger and their glances locked.

'One question,' he said. 'I have fought for the Union all my life. Will I see that fight won against those who would tear it apart?'

'Not while you live,' said the stranger, grimly, 'but it will be won. And after you are dead, there are thousands who will fight for your cause,
because of words that you spoke."

'Why, then, you long-barreled, slab-sided, lantern-jawed, fortune-telling note shaver!' said Dan'l Webster, with a great roar of laughter,
'be off with you to your own place before I put my mark on you! For, by the thirteen original colonies, I'd go to the Pit itself to save the Union!'

Sure enough, Webster's great speech in favor of the Missouri Compromise in 1850 would ensure its passage but with its provision for admitting a new slave state to
the Union would make him anathema to hardcore abolitionists and doom his presidential hopes.

Benet helped adapt this story for the screen and it made for one of the really underrated great American films. With sterling performances by Edward Arnold as
Webster and Walter Huston as the stranger, here called Mr. Scratch, the middle portion of the story, detailing Jabez Stone's rising fortunes and declining character,
is greatly expanded. This is problematic because James Craig as Jabez is pretty nondescript, but Jane Darwell as his mother and Simone Simon as a sultry vixen who
becomes the Stone's housemaid help to carry us through until the trial starts.

One interesting aspect of Benet's tale is his refusal to let his countrymen off the hook; the Devil is obviously integral to the American experience and though Webster
matches the Devil in the end, he too hears the siren call of Mr. Scratch. In the end though Webster is redeemed by his all consuming love of the nation :

And they say that if you go to his grave and speak loud and clear, 'Dan'l Webster--Dan'l Webster!' the ground'll begin to shiver and the trees
begin to shake. And after a while you'll hear a deep voice saying. 'Neighbor, how stands the Union?' Then you better answer the Union stands
as she stood, rock-bottomed and copper-sheathed, one and indivisible, or he's liable to rear right out of the ground.

What a worthy legend for America and for one of the greatest of her citizens.

GRADE : A

Daniel Webster might be a Yankee New Englander, a politician and peddlar. This fictious short story by Stephen Benet utilizes a great American statesmen in a great legal case, albeit a fictious one. I first read this in the 8th grade for a book report. It stands out as an entertaining classic of American literature. I also recommend books by James Fennimore Cooper.

Madame Curie is a touching and honest biography. It tells the perserving story of Marie Curie, a native Pole who would seem out of place in France and--being a woman in a more prejudice timeframe--in the scientific community in general. Although this was the case, it did not stop her from becoming one of the most prolific and important scientists in the realm of physics and chemistry.

Within this book is held the tale of a woman who worked almost every single minute of her life in either the laboratory, the classroom, or her own home. But she never faltered under pressure and endured inhospitable laboratory conditions (she was originally working in a shed to help discover radium, the element that created the field of radiation cancer treatment and spurred the field of nuclear science.

As a biographer, Eve Curie remains factual in content, allowing the reader to form an unbiased opinion of her mother. She buttresses the book with personally letters to and from Marie Curie, which add a first hand account of certain aspects of her mother's life.

A must read for anyone looking for a heartwarming story.

The book is a reprint of the biography written by Marie Curie's daughter, Eve Curie in 1937. It is a book which should be read by all - especially aspiring scientists. Marie Curie was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in France, the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize and the first person to receive two Nobel prizes. The work she accomplished under the most difficult situations for a scientist is truly inspiring. When asked why she and her husband, Pierre Curie did not patent the procedure for extraction and purification of radium, something which would have made them very wealthy, she said "No, It would be contrary to the scientific spirit." How refreshing, since in today's world the first thought of scientists is patenting their discoveries.

My mother gave me this book when I was about twelve years old. And, still now this book serves as a constant inspiration ...

After Coffman (what kind of name is that for a detective, anyway) has been beaten, shot at, stuffed in a trunk, jilted, cat-scratched, nearly drowned, and he hasn't even been paid yet. People are dead, dying, and disappearing, but After keeps after the facts, inch by inch, even when he doesn't like where they lead. This is a page-turner, and author Vince Lutterbie's wacky imagination and oft-times humorous look at the darker side of small-town life kept me up late, reading just one more chapter. Definately get this one and hope for a sequel.

If you like mysteries, you will love this one. Lutterbie has the ability to paint a picture of each character and each situation in the readers mind with great detail but keeps things moving along at a fast pace throughout the book. There are no "flat spots" in this novel. Lutterbie is every bit as good as Steven King and Dean Koontz. Hopefully, he will keep producing more quality books in the days ahead. I look forward to his next book with great anticipation.

I loved this farcical mystery. Great humor and character in this small town story.

This book had more impact on me than any other battle account I have ever read. It's an account of a vicious fight by soldiers who had the best training but no previous experience of the reality of war. Vince Bramley later wrote a follow-up, '2 Sides of Hell' based on the experience of some of his friends, and some Argentina soldiers who fought against them. I have seen translations of both books in shops in Buenos Aires. Vince Bramley is a guy I'd like to meet.
After reading these books, war fiction books are suddenly much less interesting.

great read with a real look on what happend in the war

5 stars guaranteed

I served with the RAF in the Falklands between 1996-97. During a Sunday afternoon walk to Mt Longdon I met 2 men on electrical contract work for 4 months. One was Vince(nt Bramley) and the other Dom(inic Gray). Having briefly chatted with them they invited me to walk their battle the following Sunday. Wow! What a humbling experience. Only after the end of the walk did he tell me that he had written a (this) book. Reading it again 4 years on it still has the same impact. Vince is an honest and candid man. Having been there, you cannot underestimate the cold, the damp, the barren and harsh terrain, the unforgiving ground and unbelievably,how dark it can become with no light pollution.

The battle itself must have been horrific, let alone the TAB before hand, which in itself was a superhuman effort.

Well done Vince. You have written a frank account of something that (thankfully) most do not have to do. It is a fitting and lasting tribute to your colleagues.

Summer is upon us and it is the time of year I traditionally put all serious reading on the shelf and turn to trash. I picked up The Hampton Affair this week and settled down for an afternoon of murder and mishap. I ended up with a wicked sunburn - couldn't put it down. This intricate thriller twists and turns around three main charcters: a vain and straying voyueristic husband of an ultra rich woman, a bisexual blue collar teenage manipulator, and the local detective. It takes the usual "haves vs have nots" and kicks it up a closer to a Hitchcockian notch. In a nutshell, start with a secret affair, a murder, and how it all ties in with three diverse families, and finally who done it. Read it! Wear sunscreen.

I am a big Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen fan and thought Vincent Lardo's Hampton Affair to be along similar lines. The pace was fast, the plot was filled with twists and turns, the writing was smart and the characters were all well-fleshed out. I highly recommend this book for anytime - leisure reading at home, on a plane, at the beach, etc.

THE HAMPTON AFFAIR is a tightly crafted and quickly paced murder story which holds its suspense to--and even past--its last page. Told from the points of view of three characters, author Vincent Lardo describes the rhythms of East Hampton, the town in which he and I both live. His use of the characters' individual voices is excellent, and the dialogue often is funny as well as perceptive. The primary narrator, Michael Reo, is sort of a modern-day Nick Caraway. Along the way, Mr. Lardo reveals certain basic truths, which he notes with the keen eye of an observer. East Hampton, indeed, is a peculiar little town, probably with more billionaires per square mile than anywhere but Kuwait. Yet the haves and the have-nots of East Hampton bang up against each other much like bumper cars, except with amazingly few sparks. Mr. Lardo gets it: the fashions, the parties, the sex, the envy, the affectations and pretensions, all of those facts of life in The Hamptons. And he uses these details with his own elegant style, to construct a page-turner that will keep readers absorbed until the final sentence.

This is an excellent book for anyone who engages in public speaking, whether it be for business, in school, family reunions, or elsewhere. Great book!

This is certainly one of the best books on public speaking I've read. The only other work that deserves special mention is Jack Valenti's Speak Up with Confidence. Walters gives surefire tips and techniques that are recipe for a successful presentation that may inspire for years.

Her crisp advice on the main requirements of a speech of "passion and compassion with a purpose" is very potent and often leaps off my mind each time I prepare to instruct or make a speech. Walters has carefully drawn from the "secrets" of public speaking pros and concocted them into a surefire formula for success. What's more, her anectdotes and quotes are both entertaining and memorable.

I found myself a better speaker even after reading and applying steps 1 and 2. Wait till I conquer step 11! Thank you Lilly Walters for an absolutely inspiring and terrific book.

Excellent book for anyone who plans to do public speaking - whether it be for business, school, family reunions, or the like!