AS

Men have their hearts broken too. This book respects that fact and offers a clear picture of how it takes two people to make a relationship work. If one partner is scared or not sure, that partner will be a problem and cause problems. The only problem that partner will not have is how to justify the actions. This book takes the reader on a ride of emotions that I think we all can relate to with an inspiring ending. As a man, this book, written by a women, is refreshingly revealing of the fear that women have about love and the uncertainty of the future. I loved it!

It was a wonderful book about life and relationships. I read it in two days! I enjoyed every word and I recommend that every woman whose had their heart broken read this book. It offers hope that there are good men.

I really enjoyed this book. It was sweet and funny and very heartwarming. This may be sold as a children's book, but I think it is for anyone who loves dogs. Fun story and the pictures are a scream.

This book is tons of fun and has a great message about kindness to animals. It's good for kids or adults and will be a big hit with any animal lover. The photos of the dogs are a hoot!

I'm not one of the sort of people who falls often for heart warming. I'm too bitter, too jaded... too educated to be able to gush openly about kindly regard for many things. This book, though, deserves that kind of praise.

As you could gather from the blurbs from magazines, this is a hundred year old book that seeks to illustrate the lives of typical, everyday (not to say uninteresting) Americans. The book is short; it's stories are realistic. Thus, it gives great insight into our collective 'ancestry': a voice to the long-dead.

I'm inclined to think that every time I mentally want to destroy America, in this book, again, could be found renewed hope and exploration. In this book one can find the stories of Lithuanians who set out to cross the ocean, of free black women finding for the first time life in a segregated south, of Greek pushcart workers who end up with $50,000 in the bank. More or less, these are the voices that give our community continuity.... and, well, I'm starting to ramble and make little sense....

Just read the book....

This book should be more widely available. I find it full of the kind of detail about peoples' lives (in this case, immigrants to the United States) that are cogent, relevant, and delivered with considerable charm and lack of artifice. Everyone to whom I have given a copy of this book has raved about it.

I wish I had read A. D. Coleman's "Light Readings" years ago when I was studying photography. I have no doubt I would have become a much better photographer than I am now, taking to heart his profound commentaries on photography when it became accepted finally as one of the fine arts. Not only was A. D. Coleman the first major photo critic in photography's history, his early essays set a literary and intellectual standard which few have attained. In this newly revised, updated edition of "Light Readings", Coleman offers us some fascinating remarks on the Museum of Modern Art and its pivotal role in shaping the direction of fine art photography, most notably through the personal tastes of John Szarkowski, its autocratic director of the photography department. In one of the unpublished essays now appearing in the current edition, Coleman offers a harsh criticism of a book regarded by some as an important collection of photographic criticism, written by a well known novelist and essayist. Those interested in reading some of the most important themes and issues confronting photography in the late 1960's to mid 1970's will find Coleman's book an invaluable resource. And yet, it is more than just an important first-hand history of photography, but a thoughtful, penetrating look at the medium by one of its most astute critics.

" . . . When [W. Eugene] Smith turned his activist attention to the mercury poisoning of the waters of Minamata, Japan, in the early '70s, then-New York Times photography critic A. D. Coleman wrote, 'It seeks to be, and succeeds in becoming, not a product but a process, a tool for change.' While some may take issue with aspects of Mr. Coleman's oeuvre of humanist criticism, none would deny that as this country's first and foremost photo critic he has made a singular contribution to the field, broadening both the definition and discussion of photography. " A collection of his writings from 1968-1978 called Light Readings has long been a must-read for anyone serious about photography, and has now been reissued in an expanded second edition."

--Taylor Holliday, The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 1998

We use this book in our TOEFL study group(3 of my friends get together everyday and study for the test) and I think it is especially helpful for foreign students who are weak on the Listening section of the TOEFL. This book is concentrated on the listening section so it has more listening practice questions than other general books. And the book has both the CD-rom and cassette tapes so you can make use of them at home. The book gives you practices on all kinds of new question types on the TOEFL including matching and ordering and clicking, etc., so it was fun to study with this book.

We use this book in our ESL TOEFL class and I think it is a lot of help for foreign students who are weak on the Listening Section of the TOEFL. This book really has so much practice questions and I really liked that. Also, the new question types such as ordering, matching... were included so you can prepare for the new CBT toefl well. If you are a student worried about the listening section of the TOEFL, then, stop worrying and just get this book and study!

This interviewer, Mickey Pearlman, has mastered the technique of transporting the reader into the presence of some of the best writers in America. As a reader, I felt that I was in conversation with these writers hearing them talk candidly about their childhood, religion, racial and ethnic identity, the world of publishing and their respective genres. Here is a book that captures imagistic words that describe these authors'lives, values and writing habits. This book should be in the hands of every writer who wants to emulate success and comprehend other writers' defiance, imagination and obsessions. A great read!

How sad that this is only available through "special order." It's a great collection of interviews with some of our most beloved and critically acclaimed female writers--mostly authors of fiction. Mickey Pearlman is an insightful interviewer, and the window into the creative process this book provides makes it good for would-be writers and writers' groups, not to mention anyone who is a fan of good fiction. Mickey Pearlman has also published another set of interviews called "A Voice of One's Own." It's apparently out of print now, but it's also a good read if you can get a hold of a copy. Some of the authors interviewed in these books include MFK Fisher and Laurie Colwin (before their deaths, of course), Josephine Humphreys, Alison Lurie, Carole Maso, Jill McCorkle, Janette Turner Hospital, Margaret Atwood, Kate Braverman, and Jane Smiley.

This book is an excellent introduction to the spiritual discipline of lectio divina (divine reading) of Scripture. The book is divided into six parts of five sessions each. Each part has a common, well chosen, theme from Scripture. The book can easily be used in groups or individually. This is a spiritual discipline that every Christian should have some experience with. Many Bible study guides encourage you to dissect Scripture to understand its meaning, intent, bacground, context, etc. This is important and has its place. But lectio divina helps us let God's Word study us. It lets God form our character through reading, meditation, listening, and prayer. The steps outlined for each session may seem repetitive, but this is important for practice. By the end of the book the process comes naturally.

There are few pre-made Bible studies that I do not despise. Too often they do all the work for the participant. They remind me of the regurgitated food a mother bird feeds her children--enough to sustain, but growth doesn't really happen till we're booted out of the nest. That said, Jan Johnson's "Listening to God" is one of the exceptions.

Though Johnson walks us to the right spot in the field and gives us the best shovel, the digging is left to us. What a rich field it is...

More so than any study I have yet read, Listening to God has called me to reflection and prayer. Truly having God's voice wash over me has transformed my life. I have learned to wait and be still before the One who loves me most.

Johnson's methods are not new. This guide teaches us one of the greatest spiritual disciplines known to Christ-followers throughout the centuries--Lectio Divina (don't be scared by the big, Latin sounding term...it only means divine reading). The participants in the study come not to debate or intellectually mull over the text. Instead, the text is savored, reflected on and prayed over.

For me, this has meant the texts have become a part of me. In the past I have tried to live out the "applications" of studies. I usually forgot what I was "supposed" to be doing in a few days. With this study, the words of the text have become grafted into me--more strongly rooted in my soul.

For that I must give Jan Johnson my deepest thanks and give "Listening to God" my highest recommendation.

I believe this to be a very important and necessary work.

The Literary Structure of the Old Testament gives a great overview of the use of literary patterns found to be common in the OT. It also covers each book of the OT in some detail.

Why should we care about the literary patterns in the OT? The ancient Hebrew author used them to communicate meaning. And if you want to know what an OT author was saying then you need to understand these patterns and how he would have used them. David Dorsey helps us see this in this wonderful book.

If you are a serious student of the Hebrew text.. then I encourage to get this book. You will be enlightened by it.

I personally keep 5-10 copies of this book to give to those who I know would appreciate it.

Many thanks to Dr. Dorsey for his time and effort.

This is a very important one-volume study on chiasmus that deserves shelf space for any biblical enthusiast of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). After a very instructive twenty-nine page introduction to biblical literary structure, the author organizes his analyses of biblical structure book by book (English order) of the Old Testament Scriptures. As he states in his Preface: "At first I planned to include analyses of all the books of the Old Testament. Then reason set in, and I selected a small sampling of biblical books on which to focus. In the end, however, Kenneth Miller, my colleague at Evangelical School of Theology, convinced me to reverse this decision and return to my original (foolhardy) plan. I am keenly aware that what I have gained in breadth by greater coverage I have lost in depth. But I am satisfied with the decision, and hope that the resulting product will be more useful to readers" (p. 9).

If you are at all interested in biblical structure of the Old Testament and its importance in relation to correct interpretation, you will never regret purchasing this indispensable volume. As the author himself states: "Certainly it is time for surface-structural analysis to take its place among the important disciplines within biblical studies. Old Testament authors communicated their message through the arrangement of their compositions as well as through verbal content. Modern commentators devote much effort to clarifying the verbal content of passages of scripture but give relatively little attention to the arrangement of this content. If we are to understand more fully the books of the Hebrew Bible, we must pay greater attention to their structures and to what those structures reveal about their meaning. The purpose of the present work is to encourage renewed interest in this promising and important aspect of interpretation" (pp. 327-328).

The Longman Photo Dictionary is not as comprehensive as other visual dictionaries I recommend, but it's the best basic ESL everyday vocabulary book I've found. Depending on where you buy it, a bilingual edition might be much cheaper. I bought one in China, where it was a fourth the cost of the Oxford Picture Dictionary. It also has the advantage of photos, which are more vivid than the drawings many of the other visual dictionaries use. A bilingual edition is also a survival kit for travelers. So treat it like your traveler's checks: "Don't leave home without it."

Shu Ping
eslbookreview@yahoo.com

The Photo Dictionary has helped me with my English. It is easy to use and is easily understood. If you have trouble with English, this is the book you should get to help!

This is a wonderful autobiography pieced together from Cayce's own writing over the years. A. Robert Smith, who compiled and edited the material, has done an excellent job of assembling and organizing the diverse materials from the Cayce files.

It is a book that should be read by everyone, especially those who have heard of Edgar Cayce but are unfamiliar with the man and his work. He gave thousands of psychic readings for others--but did not operate a psychic "hotline" and never charged anyone for a reading. His is a story of faith in action.

I have been reading about Edgar Cayce for years, but this is the only book that has allowed me a very personal view of the Sleeping Prophet. It allows deeper insights into the man himself, from his own point of view. The book documents the troubles he overcame to become one of the world's most loved prophets.