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As a fourth-year Spanish student, I couldn't resist taking a look at this book. I opened it up and immediately wished I had books like these when I was younger. On opposing pages are opposites or "los contrarios". The illustrations show colorful and cute bears that represent a word. At the top of the page is the word in english, and at the bottom the word in Spanish. Also at the bottom is a pronunciation of the word, in easy and understandable terms that a child can comprehend. In the back of the book is a list of the all the words with their pronunciation. This is definetly an effective and cute bilingual book I sure wish I had as a kid.

Bought this book for my daughter, age 2, but I used it for my own beginning French class. The professor said that she wished these books had been around when her children were little.

I grew up bilingual in NYC, and with the birth of my child, I wanted a natural way to incorporate Spanish into our lives (I now live in the NW). This book is wonderful, because the bright, contrasting colors make it possible for me to read this book to my newborn, and she is interested in the colorful illustrations, as weel as what I'm saying, in either Spainsh or English, and then my anglo husband can use it as well.

I recently bought a box turtle and this book was very useful! It's great for anyone who has a box turtle or who is thinking of buying one. The pictures are beautiful and helpful as well. Full of great information on feeding, housing and much more.

An excelent source of information on Box turtles of all types. Details about many species and subspecies and incredible eye catching photographs with expert discussion.

Without this book my Coura Amboiensis would have been a less happier turtle. A really good book, beautiful pictures.

I bought this book in conjunction with a very very primary Italian language course, and ended up getting more from the book than I did from the course. The book is well laid out in the sense that every chapter is the logical followup to the previous one, and you get a great sense of confidence because it's such a great teacher, and makes it so easy to get to love the language. By halfway through the book, I was able to hold conversations with native Italians. I must find out if there's a similar book on Spanish!!!

I would recommend this book to anyone just starting to learn Italian because the book gives a great summary along with lists of eveyday vocabulary with timely quizzes to test yoour memory of the material. Although I speak Molise Dialect this book really helped and is helping me on my formal Italian. My father Henry DiOrio who was born in Italy and speaks Italian, Swahili, Hebrew,and English fluently says this is a great book to use if you are someone who wants to start learning Italian. I am using this book in a night school class I am currently enrolled with my friends Sandro DiFrangia and Tony Rinella,two other Italophiles who also share a high opinion of this great book. Buona Fortuna e Arrivederla

Great book for learning how to get around in Italy. I am currently using this book in a nightschool I am currently going to, and it is helping out greatly!!!!!

I had American Heritage dictionary CD and Microsoft Encarta Dictionary. Recently I discovered this and found it far superior to earlier mentioned products.
Almost every word contains usage examples and I found it extremely useful.
I feel unlucky for not being able find this earlier.
I would absolutely recommend this to anyone.
Excellent product for the price.
Kudos to whoever created this product.

I consider the CD-Rom you get with the book the best dictionary on the market. Each entry has IPA symbols and also a red loudspeaker icon for the British pronunciation and a blue one for the American. A microphone icon lets you practise your pronunciation.
The feature I like using every day is the QUICKfind with the automatic sound. You just point the mouse at a Word document or at the text on a web page and the software speaks up the sound for you. While listening to the sound, the QUICKfind let you have a small dictionary window open on the screen with the meaning of each word you are pointing the mouse at, and the two loudspeakers with both English and American pronunciations are still there. Just imagine all those foreign languages and literatures university students who are going to prepare for their oral exams and have to be able to read aloud loads of poems with a perfect pronunciation and also explain the words' meanings - what a lot of time saved with the aid of this software!
The main window has three other useful icons, i.e. Exercises, Pictures and Study pages.
Among the Exercises, you can find Word Exercises (adjectives and adverbs, affixes, homophones, irregular and problem verbs, noun forms, suffixes, verbs meaning 'perform') and Pictures Exercises (animals, back, birds, body, car exterior, car interior, cars and trucks, clothes, flowers, foot, fruit, hair, hand, hats, head, in the kitchen, in the office, kitchen equipment, office equipment, phrasal verbs, planes, ships and boats, skeleton, sports, vegetables).
Among the Pictures you can find about 100 tables of content with colourful drawings. If you point the mouse at a drawing, its word appears, whereas if you click on the drawing, its meaning appears.
Among the Study pages you can find very useful documents in PDF format, divided into two categories, i.e. "Vocabulary, Grammar, Pronunciation" (a guide to pronunciation, determiners, homographs, homophones, irregular verbs, modal verbs, phrasal verbs, prefixes and suffixes, punctuation, regular inflections, regular verb tenses, relative clauses, word building) and "General Information" (common names, common symbols, computers, geographical names, letter writing, measurements and quantities, money, periods of time, relationships, sounds and smells, telephoning, varieties of English, work and jobs).
I would give this item six stars, if only I could! Highly recommended to all those who need a very fast desktop companion, for it's a real pleasure to work with, and once the software is saved into your hard disk, you won't need to run the CD any more.

To catch a real pronunciation of words, I often use Collins Cobuild English Dictionary CD-ROM, Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary CD-ROM, and occasionally Merriam-Webster's free on-line dictionary .... In most cases, the pronunciation of Merriam-Webster is most euphonic. And from a comparison with Cambridge Dictionary CD-ROM, it can be roughly infered that Merriam-Webster has an Briticism, and the tones in Collins Cobuild CD-ROM tend to be American (but seem a bit monotonous).

However, Collins Cobuild CD-ROM supplements a shortage of Cambridge Dictionary CD-ROM in thesaurus part (Cambridge Dictionary CD-ROM offers only related words, not synonyms). Furthermore, Collins Cobuild CD-ROM offers a lot of real sentences and examples to help reader define a word more accurately. This is exactly why I choose Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners rather than a reputed Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary or Random House Webster's College Dictionary. By the way, both Webster's Unabridged Dictionaries have CD-ROM versions. If any opportunity, I'd like to try to explore any one of them.

This anthology of women's poetry is great. If you don't have it, get it.

How often do you read poetry and say - this has nothing to do with me and my life ? That will not happen when you read Claiming the Spirit Within. Marilyn Sewell has put together poetry that lives, breathes and just is. The women whose poetry has been selected for this compilation are not just good poets but possess an earthy spiritual quality. They explore all aspects of a woman's life including love, the body, family, frienship, death and illness with a confidence that is larger than life. As Marilyn Sewell puts it, "these poets show us how to live". I can only wonder at why some of these women poets; much better than some of the male poets that I have read, are not household names.

As a poet and writer, I am drawn to this book. The poetry is rich, accessible and honest. As a woman, I was astonished by the wealth of experiences shared by so many. There is a commonality in the words yet there is nothing common about this book. An extraordiary find, I would not hesitate to share this book with my daughter (who is 13). It is a valuable resource for explaining life's variable condition as well as honoring the sacredness of female experience. Editor Marilyn Sewell has done an outstanding job in selecting her subjects and poets.

This book isn't really meant for pet owners, but for those interested in biology, its a good resource. Despite a fairly thorough review of what's known about ferret bio, its decidedly lacking in some areas. One example is the coverage of vision, which is so small it seems a mere afterthought. We're not even treated with a cross-section of the ferret eye, nor any kind of detailed analysis of rod/cone density, optic nerve cross section, and how these might influence visual resolution. Each chapter, however, does include a list of references.

this book is a must for caring ferret owners, especially for those who live in a region where medical information about these animals are not so readily available.

Whilst this book isn't for every ferret owner, it is certainly a signifcant reference for veterinarians, animal technicians, biliogists or the really serious ferret owner. With indepth articles on certain topics (theres a massive section on neurology) most aspects of ferrets biology and diseases are covered in this text. Although the information is becoming a little dated, an update to the text is due out soon. A worthwhile read for anyone who has the time and patience to study it.

This collection shows both how these years brought such profound changes for young women, for society in general...and yet how each woman's coming-of-age is unique and archetypical at the same time. Future collections could be made stronger by more regional diversity, as well as more structural diversity in the poems themselves (thematic development, poetic form). Still, it was wonderful to be transported back to sticky, stifling, no A/C summers when Van Morrison sang for me, too. Prepare to read it cover-to-cover.

--and am giving it to every other boomer girl I know. I found so many poems to like and to read over and over again -- also many new poets, which is great. It's a wonderful collection. Oh yes -- I also had a dress exactly like the one on the cover --

This is a wonderful collection of moving, accessible, sometimes funny poems. Readers of both genders will find many gems here. Betsy Sholl's "Sex Ed," among many others, is worth the price of the whole book.

This book is wonderful in the sense that it conveys the writer's joy and love of baking and bread. Some might argue that it is just too touchy feely but for the more thoughtful baker it is a good read.

The book is not that geared to the beginning baker unless that beginner is ready to work by 'feel'. The assumption is made that you know what a dough looks like when it comes together and what the right temperature water and room should be. The book also does not even deal with making breads with heavy duty mixers or bread machines -- this is back to the old fashioned way of doing things where you. have a greater connection to your product.

Now, I happen to enjoy this book but I would begin with a better beginner's book like, Baking with Julia before tackling the breads in this book because you will have a better technical understanding. But once you do the breads of this book you will be amazed and deeply grateful for the generousity of Reinhart for sharing his recipes.

Caution --
If you plan to use a mixer make sure it is a very heavy duty mixer otherwise, your machine will break with heavy, tough doughs like Struan. I tried the dough with both a KitchenAid and a Magic Mill DLX and both had trouble with Struan. In the end it is best to hand knead the final 10-15 minutes, but you will get quite the workout.

Further, I suggest that you read the recipes ahead because the layout is not easy for those into glancing at recipes as they work. And no, there are no pictures to help the baker.

But get this book none the less, because it is a book done with love and is a good addition to the collection.

This is possibly my favourite cookbook of all in my collection. I was privilledged enough to have baked cakes for Brother Juniper's San Francisco Restaurant before it closed and this brought back alot of my fondest memories. I always regretted never having gotten recipes for the muffins and breads so when I saw this book I just had to have it. I have read the book from cover to cover over the last few days and challenge anyone to refrain from buying a pantry full of ingredients after reading this book!! It is all you need to motivate you to make bread - something most of us shy away from. Brother Peter writes from the heart and from his obvious love of making bread. The secret ingredient in baking is always love and this is evident in Brother Peter's book. Having eaten Brother Juniper's breads I can say that the effort is more than worth it. You'll never want any other bread again.

I loved this book! Reinhart has an infectious appreciation for the wonder of bread. The recipes are fabulous, but the inspiration of his writing will give you a new appreciation for this ancient, simple food. A book to return to again and again. I loved this book! Reinhart has an infectious appreciation for the wonder of bread. The recipes are fabulous, but the inspiration of his writing will give you a new appreciation for this ancient, simple food. A book to return to again and again

I read this after reading and enjoying Mazzotta's previous book, Apple Pie. This one has an entirely different feel to it. It is written in third person and has more of what could be called adult themes. It is being marketed as a 'caper' comedy, but like his first book, it really starts from a foundation of 'Lad-lit' and builds from there. In this case, the protagonists are two men trying to come to terms with their situations, though at very different points in their lives. They face the usual 'lat-lit' absurdities with the requisite combination of irony and introspection. The difference here is that instead of spending the entire book stumbling helplessly through life they feel driven enough to take action, and this action is what builds into the caper. The caper only serves to accentuate the absurdities and irony which in-turn further feeds the caper. It is a very smartly constructed book.

I'm only giving it four stars because I'm not sure the portrayal of some of the characters is realistic in a corporate setting. But it is as funny as its reputation suggests. A worthwhile read.

Business As Usual by David Mazzotta is a wry tongue-in-cheek novel of two up and coming corporate stars - who may at first seem overrated for their slimy true characters and resistance to doing actual work, but who just might be well suited and upstanding individuals compared to the mindless company figurehead, the utterly ruthless albeit beautiful vice-president, the blackmailer who doesn't know what he's doing, and others. A chuckle-worthy tale of schemes and office politics spiraling out of control, Business As Usual is highly entertaining reading from start to finish.

Basically a caper story but with some very compelling and sympathetic characters. A younger yuppie-sort of executive joins up with an older jaded executive in a gambling pool scheme. Along the way they engage all sorts of corporate characters and doge all sorts of bullets, including a somewhat unbelievable, but very funny sexual harassment suit. And then there's the head of the company, known only as The Decrepitude, whos comic incompetence is on display throughout.

The real pleasure here is the characters, especially the two leads. The younger executive, Jim, is haunted by his good fortune and can't seem to escape his slacker college friends. The older executive, Jake, is a perfect portrait of a successful, yet bitter man confronting himself late in life.

A very funny, but thoughtful, book.

Carol Field's Celebrating Italy is as much an Italian cultural reference book as it is a cookbook. I loved reading through all the different holidays celebrated in Italy complete with traditional recipes. Having lived in Italy for 8 years myself, Carol's stories made me long for a return trip.. Being the Italian Cooking Host @ Bella Online I found the recipes true to their cultural origins, but yet given with clear, easy to follow directions. If you are as fascinated with Italian cuisine as I am, you'll love this book!

I bought this book from Amazon.com because of its title alone but was so easily assimilated into Carol's amazing talent of recreating events with the written word that I found it difficult to put down. She put me right IN the festival! Because I live in Italy I have been able to visit a good number of the festivals that she describes in this book and have found her descriptions to be so accurate as to be scary. She seems to have found a way to penetrate the soul of these manifestations in a manner that not even many Italians can do.

I praise this not as a cookbook or a collection of recipes, but as a literary work that can be taken seriously as a 'training manual' on the spirit of Italian celebration. I recommend it to anyone who harbors a love of Italy and wants to know more about its inner being...

I highly recommend all Carol Field books, even if you don't cook. She TAKES you to Italy and FEEDS you. She writes engrossing and vividly descriptive literature which also happens to contain really great, authentic Italian recipes. Celebrating Italy will make you want to move to Italy and eat all day and night.