It could be a true book for every child who saw a litter of puppies. We recently had labrador puppies and my 2 young boys said EVERYTHING in this book. It was good to read the book to them so they could understand why there were just TOO MANY PUPPIES! Well done.

My nine year old loves to read this book to my six year old. The illustration is wonderful and the story very imaginative. Over all an excellent book.

I am a product of the world that Mr. Davis so eloquently describes in his book, The World of Patience Gromes. I remember actor Denzel Washington making the comment after his portrayal of Coach Boone in the blockbuster hit "Remember the Titans", that it is the actual real life character's reaction to his portrayal that let's him know if he did a good job or not. Having lived 5 doors down in the same block where Mr. Davis stayed during his work in Fulton, being 10 years old when he arrived and although I don't remember him personally, I do feel qualified to put my endorsement on this book. There were some significant gaps in my knowledge of the place where I was reared and how it came to the point of annihilation. I thank Mr. Davis for answering many of my questions and enlightening me in other areas. To say this book hits home would be more than an understatement. I took it very personal for it was about me, my parents, my grandparents and their parents all the way back to a place we dared not go. But Mr. Davis made the journey back one that gave me a sense of dignity, strength and hope. As a writer myself, the way the book ended inspired me to take up the cross and continue the story, for the hope he wrote about had not been realized at the end of his book. The hope has yet to be realized completely in many of the lives of the descendants of Mr. Davis' characters. However, the hope I found in his book is still alive and should be further documented. Bravo, Mr. Davis for your sensitivity, accuracy and unbaised portrayal of my roots. As you have energized my hope, my wish is that you know, like Denzel knew based on the real Coach Boone's reaction, that you did a great job!

This is a fun read-a-long book that your child will quickly memorize and want to read with you. It's full of fun pictures and animal sounds for you to make. My four year old grandsons favorite is when the cow says "Moo Hoo" to the moon. Your child will love it and so will you. I have to read it again and again for Josh.

In my opinion this book isn't as good as A Gentle Madness. Both are long and indeed "roving," but I would have rather that this book had been marketed as two or even three separate books of which I would have possibly bought one and perhaps read two. There are indeed many nice stories, but i found that I enjoyed some of them markedly less than others which I guess one must expect with this much material. I would think that this book would be a must have for librarians, especially of special collections. I must admit that I'll still be curious to read Basbanes next book when it arrives.

If you are passionate about books, I mean really passionate, then Basbanes may have written this tome for you. He provides a 600-page history of bibliomania, the obsession with books through the centuries. But for the general reader, the non-scholar, this book is probably twice as thick as it needs to be.

The chapter, "Madness Redux," features Jay Fliegelman, a Stanford University English professor and book collector who seriously (and physically) assesses the relationships between the books he owns. "I wake up sometimes and I will go to my library and move a book from one shelf to another, because in the middle of the night I thought about certain connections between the two. I am wondering, does this author belong with this author?" The perfect image for those who live, and literally, dream books.

It is interesting to read of thirteenth century librarians chaining books to wooden cabinets in an attempt to deter thieves and vandals. Chains apparently became a basic component in the layout of medieval libraries (as replicated, too, in the recent Harry Potter movie). The Cathedral Library at Hereford, England, is currently home to the largest collection of chained books anywhere in the world.

There are also pages on some famous bookstores such as the cavernous Serendipity Books, Inc, in Berkeley, California (owner Peter B. Howard's only business goal is to "continue with dignity"), and both the Argosy and Strand Book Stores in New York City. The Strand also sells and rents books by the linear foot, and proprietor Nancy Bass once filled an order for customers in Miami Beach who wanted only books in the colors hot pink, yellow, and magenta.

Basbanes also tracks the antiquarian bookselling trade in Europe. German bookseller Heribert Tenschert, based in Ramsen, Switzerland, produces beautiful book catalogs which are marvels of scholarship, often more than 500 pages long. Tenschert insists that selling a book is only a small part of what he does. "What I shamelessly believe is that you have to fall in love with a book first. It is physical as well as emotional."

Patience and Fortitude in the title, if you didn't know, are taken from the unofficial names of the two lions carved from Tennessee pink marble outside the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. That library is also featured in this big book about book people.

As he did with the first volume, "A Gentle Madness", Nicholas Basbanes has written a book for a very wide audience. "Patience And Fortitude", goes well beyond any confines that would limit the work to readers interested only in the smallest of details that would be of importance to only the most addicted of bibliophiles. This is a history book, a political science book, a work that discusses education, and a book that addresses the importance of libraries, whether it is the matter in which they are constructed or how political groups attempt to influence History. It is also about the future of books and in some cases the wholesale destruction of publicly owned library inventory and their contents.

There is also good news, for the moment The United States still has more libraries than we do McDonalds. Such may not always be the case if some of those responsible for the care of our written history are not carefully watched. The most notorious example of destruction came about in San Francisco during the transition from the old library to the new. There is no question that a library may choose to have a limited number of copies of a given book, but having the department of sanitation collect and then dump tens of thousands of volumes in to the city landfill should be criminal. There is never a shortage of interest in books. When the disposal of books became known, books that had been marked for destruction were offered to the public gratis. One woman came home with over 1200 books.

The construction of The National Libraries of England, France, and an attempt to create a new Alexandria library are also covered in great detail. England's new facility may not be a visual treat but as a repository for books, there care and distribution it works. The National Library of France would be funny were it not also ridiculous. Vertical libraries don't work very well and the new French facility has not one but four towers. Dozens of steps must be climbed to reach a common area for the towers, but if you wish to enter you must travel back down another set of stairs to gain access. The towers are made of glass. If there is anything that will guaranty the destruction of books it is sunlight. The French facility was a political project that just happened to involve books. Built as yet another architectural monument to a former president it fails from the selection of the location right through to its layout and high tech book management system that has even locked employees out of the building. A recent novel by W. G. Sebald, "Austerlitz", took the time to harpoon this facility in great detail.

The story of a new library in Alexandria, which is scheduled to open soon, is quite sad. Once the site of one of if not the greatest library in history, the new facility is wonderful but it lacks a key ingredient, books. This may sound like sarcasm but the massive core catalogue that any good library needs much less a great library can no longer be assembled. There are very finite numbers of classical rare books, and other facilities are not about to give them up.

Libraries are also critical to the success of any college or university. The author spends a good deal of time discussing the top collegiate libraries in the nation, the difficulties they face with their expanding stock, and how they deal with it. Mr. Basbanes also highlights an insidious political practice as well. UCLA was offered a 1 million dollar grant from the Turkish Government to establish a chair in Ottoman Studies, but it came with the following prohibition, no scholars would be given access to any material, "that might document the Armenian Massacres of 1915". After having taken a quarter of a million dollars from the Turkish Government UCLA was bombarded with protests and the money was returned. In Turkey education and History may be artificially and selectively constructed and taught, but in this instance at least a library in The United States took the correct path. That it had to be pushed by protests is unfortunate but not as unfortunate as the US Congress that dropped a resolution in the fall of 2000 at the request of a lame-duck president not to pass a resolution condemning Turkey for Genocide in 1915. This is not the only example of gifts with strings attached, but when compared to a string that requests a library be named after the donor of funds, it certainly is the most repugnant.

This book will take you around the world to libraries that have functioned for hundreds of years. You will visit monasteries whose collections are one of a kind and are literally irreplaceable. Mr. Basbanes also continues to introduce collectors of books as well as the creators of books from small presses staffed by true artisans. One of the book's highlights is the section dealing with the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible recently produced by the gifted Barry Moser. This work is the first completely illustrated Bible that has been produced for hundreds of years, and the story of its creation is remarkable.

Two volumes complete and one more yet to come. Mr. Basbanes has and continues to create a body of work that will become a standard not only for those who love books, but those who enjoy the history they represent and record.

I read this book back in college when a friend loaned it to me. It's a little simplistic, but what I liked best about it is that it's a love story set in an era (circa 1815) when the two lovers had to make their own way and define their relationship on their own, without the support of "gay culture".
The author did a good job of conveying the "make their own way" bit; she could have done a better job at conveying a real sense of time and place. While the book was purported to take place in 1815 New York, it felt a little generic (as in "a long time ago in America").
Still, though, the book is good enough to be memorable, as it's been 15-odd years since I read it.

I first read this book about 20+ years ago. I loved it then, and I love it every bit as much now. It's a beautiful story of two women who fall in love in puritanical New England. Their love story is exquisite. (By the way, anyone who enjoyed P&S will also love Nanci Little's THE GRASS WIDOW. It's out of print now, but worth a search.)

Miller's writing ability is to be highly commended. She manages to combine warmth, love and humor into each page. Having read one too many "small blond" books, it's refreshing to find a lesbian love story in which the writing technique does not become irritating after the first chapter.

Also, this book contains no elderly, non-judgemental housekeepers. The women have to figure things out all by themselves.

Best line in the book: "I'm not playing you, Darling, I'm landing you."

I bought this book so I could learn different ways to play solitaire. It has pictures and plenty of instructions. I do wish it had a few more pictures so I could see how they were saying to lay them out but all in all it is pretty good.

If According to Hoyle by Moorehead was card-game bible when I was a child, this book was certainly a new testament.

I really didn't fit in well with other kids, so I had nothing much to do. So, I studies solitaires. But I had 150 ways to play solitaire, and all that book did was confuse me.

When I found this book at KayBee many years ago, I was most impressed. It's the clearest book on cardgames that I have ever read. They're even thoughtful enough to create two games, Joker Klondike and Joker Canfield.

This book will clarify almost any game, and I still pull it down from the shelf. In fact, I think I'll pull it out right after I've finished posting.

Detailed instructions, illustrations, terminology, time requirements, and odds in winning of over 225 of the most challenging and fascinating card games ever invented from the famous Canfield Solitaire to Napoleon's Forty Theives. It's here -- everything you need to know about Solitaire and Patience games.

This book.......

This book brought you to the depths of human feeling and emotion, ranging from the indignantly annoying drones and male bees, from the sweet pining of Alfred for the Queen, to Mo finding the meaning of life. The book was a child's tale to be sure, but at my age, far more than a child, i immidiately fell into the world of buzzing and honey-fanning, necter gathering and hive gaurding. I cried at the end, very much.

I found this book extremely disturbing, though very good. After I finished reading it, I went back through it again and saw that everything that Daisy said was a prophecy. This really got me thinking- Do workers really drive the drones out of the hive when they're not needed anymore? Belle's death was terribly sad, and even more sad to me is the "lot" that worker bees have- Before reading this book, I always considered worker bees lucky because they seemed to run everything. I never realized what a mess the drones make. I recommend this book to people with an understanding of nature, life and death, philosophy, and love. Younger readers would probably have a difficult time understanding the nature of this book's purpose. All in all, it was an excellent book, full of feeling.

This beautiful story of a worker bee who dreams, follows our own lifes. So much of what we do is fated and we can not break out of our lives no matter what our dreams are. I loved this book: the beautiful paper used, the cover, the color of honey and stamped with the shape of the hive, the drawings of bees so like us. Lally's story is not sexist,but a tale of workers and those who benefit from the work without participating. If one sees male-bashing perhaps its because he sees himself a drone.

Read this book! Enjoy the beauty of the story and words. Lally has a great talent that all can enjoy. Her story will touch many different places in your heaart.

Kathryn Lasky has a great way of expressing the treacherous journey on the Mayflower to the destined settlement of Plymouth. In A Journey to the New World, a diary of Remember Patience Whipple, it describes that an escape from religious persecution would not be easy. It was quite the contrary, the Mayflower, which was a cargo ship used to carry barrels of wine and cloth transported all the Puritans wishing to come to the New World. In the years before 1620, puritans and others wishing for freedom from political persecution, faced the strong power of King James I. If someone disobeyed him, they would face persecution in many ways. Once these pilgrims reached Plymouth, they lived some what happy lives away from persecution and prejudice. The Whipple family felt that the church is in your heart and not in a building. I would recommend this book to readers of all ages who have imagination and an understanding of life and its sacrifices. This book showed me that what we have in life should not be taken for granted but it should be well treasured and respected.

A Journey to a New World makes you feel as though you are on a difficult journey across the Atlantic Ocean yourself! In the diary of Remember Patience Whipple, you will find sadness, excitment, and joy as they take a long trip across the sea. In this story, Remember experiences sickness in her family, a new baby brother, and a few horrible deaths when she lands in America. She encounters Indians and is surprised on their little clothing! She befriends them and likes them so much! This book is really good, but I only rated it a four because there are already so many books about pilgrams and the journey on the Mayflower out there already, so it wasn't all that original. But as it was the very first book in the Dear America Series, I think it was a good start for this now blooming series.

Remember Patience Whipple, called Mem, is a bit frightened at the thought of the New World her family is sailing to on the Mayflower. She hears tales of strange "feathered people" who will attack the settlers. But she has more immediate concerns - the dreadful Billington boys, who mercilessly tease Mem and her friend Hummy, the ever present seasickness, and the daily boredom during the long, tedious sea voyage. But once she arrives in the New World, things become even worse. During the long, cold first winter at Plymouth, many settlers become sick and die. Mem is frightened that her family might be next. When spring comes, she thinks they are safe - until her mother falls ill and dies. Can Mem find the strength and courage to go on without her mother? And can she come to accept her future stepmother, quiet, sad Mistress Potts? What I liked best about this book is that it told what a young girl who sailed on the Mayflower and lived at Plymouth Colony might have thought and done. In making the main character a young girl, the author brought the history to life, and I really like the fictional diary format used in this series - it makes you feel really close to the characters.

David Shenk has a gift for giving voice to my nagging anxieties, and an ability to discover the essential features of complex problems. I think he is a truly fine essayist, and all of the ones in this slender volume are wonderful. "Stealing Calm," however, is in a very rare class. It even approaches the likes of Loren Eiseley's "The Bird and the Machine," and for me, there are no higher accolades.

The End of Patience: cautionary notes on the information revolution by David Shenk

This is a very fast, fun read, and I found it simultaneously interesting and frustrating. Every chapter/article is a reprint of a previously published (either in print or online) essay - for the material that is 2-3 years old - I would have liked to also read additional current follow-up or commentary. It would be fascinating to know, in this time of exploding commercial enterprise on the web if the author still holds the same opinions about the need for a World Wide Library ("a regimented, filtered, ultra-reliable segment of the World Wide Web") as he did in mid-1997. And how he thinks it might be accomplished given the current free market boom.

Every essay provided food for thought, even if only to wonder "is this still true?" The author writes clearly, humorously and cogently. I would be pleased to see book length treatments of many of the themes he treats in just 2 or 3 pages ("Hall Pass to the Twenty-first Century: the problem with putting schools online" would be a particularly juicy book topic). In light of the coming anti-trust judgment remedies in the Microsoft case - a book extrapolating on the essay "Hating Gates: the culture of Microsoft bashing" could be quite provocative. His conclusion that "as long as Microsoft keeps its focus on itself, maintains that hungry feeling, and stays (more or less) within the bounds of the law, they're bound to succeed ... [but] technology has a way of turning the tables rather suddenly. Regardless of Microsoft's foresight, toughness, breadth of investment, and research, Gates knows as well as anyone that his days as technology king could come to a fairly swift end" (p. 88) seems especially prescient.

The concluding section on Technorealism, while 2 years or more old - still resonates and is a very appropriate way to end a book by the person who coined the phrase "data smog". I think it is important to try and retain a sense of proportion about the high-tech "information society" - and his basic principles are a good thing to keep in mind: 1. Technologies are not neutral 2. The Internet is revolutionary, but not utopian [...] 4. Information is not knowledge 5. Wiring the schools will not save them. [...]

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is trying to find a point of equilibrium between boosterism and neo-Luddite rejection of high tech and the changes it is bringing to us all.

David Shenk writes with wit and warmth about profound matters that affect us all, and manages to make high tech information intelligible and enjoyable.

I was introduced to Mr. Shenk's work in "Data Smog", an earlier publication about the impact of technology on us mortals. Time and time again, I experienced that 'click' of recognition, as Mr. Shenk articulated what I had been feeling, but unable to voice.

Mr. Shenk hasn't let us down with his current work, "The End of Patience". One warning, though - this book will make information technology addicts very grumpy. For those of us who have embraced this technology without question and spend most of our lives 'plugged in' on an endless quest for more and better and faster, Mr. Shenk's insights will not be welcome.

For the rest of us, those who just want to retain our humanity in cyber-world, it's a must-read.This is especially true for those who are privileged to work in developing our information technology and communication systems, and have the power to deeply impact our futures.

Mr. Shenk does not advocate disrespect for our modern miracles. On the contrary, he reminds us that it is in the nature of miracles to overwhelm those who are touched by them.