Foreign-market Books

My son was very disturbed about where the parents were. She wanted to know if the parents were mean and why they didn't love their own daughter. Yikes. I had never read Eloise before, but had heard it was cute. I guess it had its moments, but I do feel sorry for Eloise.

Eloise At The Plaza is absolutely one of the best books you can find for children. Sure, the character isn't very polite, but when reading Eloise to a child, you can point out Eloise's downsides and laugh about her good sides, for she has many of them. I am a teenager, and I first read Eloise when I was six, actually. I got Eloise At Christmastime as a birthday gift. I have read all of the Eloise books except Eloise Takes A Bawth, of which I've read excerpts & seen in stores.

Eloise is a great character to reminisce over and have a great laugh with. These timelessly classic books are sure to bring a smile to your face and a thump to your heart. Eloise rocks! xoxox

My 6 year old received this as a birthday gift. I thought: wow, great, very nostalgic. After reading it to her, she gave me a funny look and said "I didn't like that". While it does have some charming moments, she seemed to us to be a sad and lonely little girl. Her fantasy about her doll getting in an accident and gushing blood and being sawn in pieces was really too graphic for my children, even though they knew it was being made up. Just found it sort of depressing. Where are the parents?

interesting to read as an adult. Wouldn't want to read to a young child.

Awesome book! Totally loved it--my three year old finds her fascinating. "Why does she want to pour a pitcher of water down the mail chute, mommy?" She's a naughty girl but such a wonderfully creative and self reliant one! I think she is a great role model for my little girls!

We are planning a trip in November 2008 to Hedo III and we are currently researching everything we can so we "know " what to expect.
This book tells everything there is to know about the atmosphere, the people,the drinks, etc - It mainly talks about Hedo II but I imagine it is much the same- and it gives a great insight as to the kind of people we should expect to meet.
Great reading and interesting pictures too.
Definately worth the read before you go.

Even though the new addition states that it has been updated to include Hedo 3, there are only a few short paragraphs dedicated to it. The majority is about Hedo 2, to which I have never been. This book made Hedo 2 seem like it is old and dirty, and that the guests are an older and less physically fit sort than traditionally would go to Hedo 3. Perhaps this is true; but to me the author portrayed the resort as not very upscale which turned me off. (At this point I was very glad that I had made reservations to Hedo 3 instead.) Too much of the book is dedicated to showing Hedo 2 guests how to scare the folks at the nearby Sandals resort with various displays of nudity directed to the unsuspecting prudes. (Trust me, that's not what I would waste my time with when I'm at Hedo!) I have been to Hedo 3 with Wild Women Vacations, and I have to say that it was an incredible experience. After reading this book, I don't think I'd even try to go to Hedo 2 at all. It really turned me off. Don't waste your time with this book: go to Hedo 3!

The book is excellent and a must read if you are considering a Hedo Vacation.

I have several friends that have been to Hedonism II (I haven't been there yet). They attest to the accuracy of the information in this book. It gives a lot of information that you would never find in a tourist review.

Ms. Santilli's book, The Naked Truth About Hedonism II, is a good cure for DIF (dreaded island fever or what you feel after returning home from the island).

The Naked Truth evokes the island and especially the resort of Hedo II. If you're a newbie, it's a must read to help get your feet wet. If you've been before, it's a wonderful reminder of why you love the resort ... plus you may read about or see some friends.

This is the must have book for those considering a visit to Hedonism II in Negril, Jamaica.

The book is lovely, and reading the French and hearing the cd are much fun!

Merci bien, mes amis!

This is a great book. It is very helpful for the French student--not too difficult as to be beyond the intermediate level, but also with enough themes to keep a more advanced student interested. I loved the story. The only thing is that the version I had for school had a nice introduction and info about Saint Exupéry that this version lacks.

I'm not gonna write a paragraph about this literature, but i will say this...
I cried and laughed and at the end i felt overwhelmed with this book..its all there and i think everyone should read it. the best book ever. Ive read a lot. This one has my heart.

This is probably one of the best books I have ever read. We read it in my fourth year french class, right before graduation. It is such a simple tale wherein lies a deep and meaningful message. It is open for interpretation, which is part of what makes it so great. You really have to think in order to gather the entire message. I hope to purchase the french version soon.

this is a classic book -- a wonderful read. i bought this copy for some friends in Burkina Faso who don't get a lot of books. i figured that they might as well have the best.

"Hiroshima Mon Amour" is a groundbreaking French New Wave movie. It begins with the French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) passionately making love.... then it cuts to the horrors of the atomic bomb. The viewer goes from the boudoir's pleasures to war's pain. It's a daring,powerful,opening sequence, and probably not something likely to be seen in the movie theater nowadays,let alone an art house one.

"Hiroshima Mon Amour",Alan Resnais' masterpiece, has a non-linear sense of time. The French actress is in Japan in the '60s to make an antiwar film. Though she's married, she carries on a brief,passionate affair with a married Japanese architect. Not only does marriage divide them,but culture and the memories of war. The actress reminisces about her brief affair with a German soldier in Nevers (the name is fitting) during WWII. She is deeply pained and conflicted.

"Hiroshima Mon Amour" is a meditative movie about the nature of forbidden love. While "sleeping with the enemy" is used for titillation in recent films like Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book" and Ang Lee's "Lust Caution",Resnais sees the Frenchwoman's affair as a jumping-off point to look into its deeper implications. It brings a whole new meaning to the '60s motto "make love,not war."

Godard anointed it "Faulkner meets Stravinsky". That should be enough of an evaluation. But if you insist...

Hiroshima Mon Amour is equally beautiful and baffling. The challenge of the film is its narrative structure, which fluidly blends past and present through bursts of flashback. You might say that the form of the film is a cinematic attempt at capturing the mechanism of memory at work (who can really know if it was a successful attempt, memory is a subjective experience).

Marguerite Duras' screenplay is chillingly spare, but a subtle beauty, Sacha Vierny's cinematography, with all its graceful tracking shots is the work of a master, and Emanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada, the handsomely paired couple at the center are played with tenderness and sympathy, and eventually a bitter edge. Alain Resnais pulls them all together for a film that is something of a revolution.

Part of my fascination for this French film is the fact that it never once makes it clear if its either a documentary or a feature film. On one hand, you have the unlikely romance between a native Japanois and a French beauty, and their slow, languid conversations are definitely the highlight of the movie. On the other hand, the opening half hour is a montage of post-bomb Hiroshima and the fallout, complete with LIFE Magazine stills and graphic details of genetic complications ensuing in future Japanese generations.

The good thing is that ALL of it is interesting, but I can understand some of the negative reviews here that compare this to the works of Antonioni who sacrificed everything in the name of slowness. Thankfully, the performance Alain Resnais extracts from his leads here is nothing short of masterful. The Japanese actor, in particular, elevates the film to a whole other level, as he appears to be an Eastern Commentator who is readily acceptable by the European audiences (thanks in part to his ability to speak the French language).

"Hiroshima Mon Amour" works as a photo exhibition of sorts. Despite its fragmentation, its very well crafted, and obviously a sincere work of art. Its got its heart in the right place, and if at all you enjoy watching black and white French films, this one clocks in at a close second, preceded only by the works of Marcel Carne (and honestly, how could ANYTHING be better than Carne?)

Criterion has done another remarkable job of cleaning up an old print. The care given to the print is masterful, and there is not the slightest smudge or visible grain anywhere. The audio is crisp and clear, though do remember that the primary voice here is of the female lead. She almost single handedly provides commentary for the first half hour of the movie, and it is to her credit that the film unravels and presents itself as a bonafide classic.

A Superb Effort by Criterion.

Alain Resnais's widely acknowledged masterpiece is a work of profound beauty. Beyond its sensitive presentation of a most unusual (and then, quite daring) love story, the film is one of the most visually striking black and white films ever made. Both Riva and Okada project vulnerabilities and emotions that feel achingly real, and we stand right beside them in their alternating bliss and torment. A mesmerizing, deeply affecting film.

French film director Alain Resnais is best known for Night and Fog (1955), Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), and Last Year at Marienbad (L'année dernière à Marienbad) (1961). Based on a script by novelist Marguerite Duras (also known for The Lover), Hiroshima Mon Amour tells the story of a torrid relationship between a married French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a married Japanese architect (Eiji Okada). They become passionate lovers while the actress performs in an anti-war film set in post-war Hiroshima. He reminds her of her first love. Using innovative flashbacks (a technique Resnais also employed in Last Year at Marienbad), the poetic film explores the woman's repressed memories of her German lover killed in World War II, and the later consequences of that relationship following the war. The film is ultimately a meditation on memory and forgetfulness. Just as the woman will forget her experiences in Nevers, France, with the passing of time the couple will also forget their love affair in Hiroshima. The film's ending is profound, confronting the very nature of oblivion.

Why makes Hiroshima Mon Amour a masterpiece of French cinema? Leonard Maltin has called the film "The Birth of a Nation of the French New Wave" due to its innovative techniques that helped inspire the movement. Calling it "the first film without any cinematic references," Jean-Luc Godard has described the film's innovations as "Faulkner plus Stravinsky."

The Criterion edition of this film features a new high-definition digital transfer; audio commentary by film historian Peter Cowie; an interview with Alain Resnais (1961); an audio interview with Alain Resnais (1980); Emmanuelle Riva interviewed by François Chalais at Cannes (1959); excerpts from Duras' annotations to the screenplay; isolated music and effects track; a new essay on the film by Kent Jones; a new essay on composer Giovanni Fusco by Russell Lack; new and improved English subtitle translation; and optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition. Highly recommended.

G. Merritt

After noticing numerous similarities between aspects of Polynesian culture and Inca culture, Thor Heyerdahl postulates an ancient connection between the two peoples: he argues that Inca traveled to the South Pacific islands and at least partially colonized them. His theory is immediately dismissed by anthropologists for many reasons. Foremost is the argument that the Inca did not have boats capable of crossing the Pacific. All they had were balsa wood rafts, which the experts argue would never survive the trip. Heyerdahl is so sure he is right, he sets out to prove that it is possible to cross the Pacific in a balsa wood raft by making the voyage himself!

He recruits five Scandinavian shipmates and heads down to South America to build a balsa wood raft. After wading through much red tape, his crew finally builds a replica raft and sets sail. Everyone thinks they will likely die on the trip, but they are determined to prove them wrong. And they do. On the way, they have fantastic adventures with sharks, unexplained huge creatures far below the raft, fish jumping on board for breakfast, men overboard, and a final exciting crash landing on a South Pacific island.

I can't say enough about how enjoyable this book was, but I also can't help but be sad that in the days of satellite mapping, GPS, and red tape, such adventures now seem out of reach. This book has a bit of everything: science, history, engineering, philosophy, and of course loads of maritime adventure from an era when the world's geography was a little more mysterious.

How did the Incan people make it to the Galapagos islands and the islands of Indonesia from the mainland of South America. Rumor has it that the Incan people used balsa wood to make a raft and drift all the way across the Pacific Ocean. Heyerdahl and a team of people are about to find out if this method really would work. What are they going to eat and drink on the way over? What sea creatures and new species of fish will they find along the way? Will they make it alive? Read this book to experience one of the greatest sea adventures ever written.

We recently had the pleasure of visiting Oslo, Norway and went to the Kon-Tiki Museum while there. They were sold out of the English language version of this book. I had read it in the mid-fifties and had lost the book sometime over the years. This purchase was to "re-stock" my library with what I have always considered to be a wonderful adventure story. I can recommend this book to anyone in the GPS generation who cannot imagine making passage across the Pacific as did Thor Heyerdahl. It's a wonderful story.

This book was in great physical condition...it just looks way older than I expected...you know how old paperbacks get...kind of yellowish and pages don't totally lay flat...It won't stop me from reading it, and it was a bargain for the price, but I am not sure it was LIKE NEW.

A very wow story.

When the author was told that a particular people's migration was impossible, given the ocean going technology and distance involved, he set out to prove it wasn't.

Crazy, brave, or whatever, but a pretty impressive real-life adventure tale, along with a spot of first-hand scientific historical research.

WE ALL KNOW THAT STATISTICS IS A METHOD OF INTERPRETATION.
THERE ARE DOZENS OF BOOKS NAMED "LYING WITH STATISTICS"

The professional historians faint as prominent mathematician Doctor Fomenko et al research the known historical data and come to fairly controversial conclusions.

For example, the English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. As the sign of recognition of the special role of the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Russian historians brand it as pseudoscience because Dr Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by over two centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called `Tartars and Mongols' were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a trilingual state and aspiring Global Empire with Arabic and Turkic spoken as freely as Russian.

The ancient proto-Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities and the hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called `blood tax'). Their `invasions' were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion.

Fomenko proves for a fact that official Russian history is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scholars brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs. Their ascension to the throne was the result of conspiracy, so they charged these German historians-imports with the noble mission of making Romanov's reign look legitimate.

Dr Fomenko et al prove Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. These rulers represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate Godounovs and the ambitious Romanov upstarts.

The European historians fume not only because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History but for asserting that all medieval European Kings and Princes were but breakaway vice-regents and vassals of the Global Empire who badly needed glorious and very `ancient' past in order to legitimize their new independence from the Empire.

Dr Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one: the Ancient Rome: the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the 14th century A. D., the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, the Ancient Egypt: the pyramids of Giza become dated to the 11th to 14th century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global Empire, no less.

The civilization of the `ancient'' Egypt is irrefutably dated to the 11th to 15th century A. D. following the breakthrough in decoding of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone and painted on the temple walls.

Arabic historians may find some consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire as a part of the Global empire in the 15th - 17th century. The trouble is that this Empire was initially a proto-Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, but built in 1550-1557 A.D. by Sultan Suleiman according to Fomenko and Islam with all its key figures is datable to 15th 16th century A. D.!

The Chinese historians are also an unhappy lot because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such history. Period. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the 17th 18th century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation.

The Divinity excommunicates Dr Fomenko because the history of religions according to Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the 11th century and Jesus Christ ), Bacchic Christianity (11th to 12th century, before and after Jesus Christ), Jesus Christ Christianity (12th to 14th century) and its subsequent mutations (15th to 17th cy) into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on..; and The Old Testament written after the New Testament in xiv-xvi cy A.D., if you please! Everybody served? Saint Augustine was quite prescient when he said: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

this book is absolute garbage. the author has no concept of history and completely disregards the archaeological and historical record. If you you want to know more about ancient history, go to the experts. heck, even Livy is better than this guy!

Looking through this book reminded me of the movie "A Beautiful Mind". A brilliant mathematician constructs a fantasy world complete in every detail. The only problem is that it doesn't exist, and that he's as mad as a hatter.

Just two examples of the many "possibilities" suggested by our schizoid author:

(1) The Biblical flood and the Trojan War were the same event because Noah was Aeneas, who fled Troy to found Rome. (Noah and Aeneas had names that sound alike. Thus it is proven.)

(2) Nine kings fled the fall of the Tower of Babel and seven kings founded Rome. Therefore, Rome was founded by the kings who fled the fall of the Tower of Babel. (In the author's words, the Biblical figure of nine is "close enough" to the Roman figure of seven.)

Need I go on?

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RAZQNMXM4M9CL Has history been tampered with? Yes, it has! Did events and eras such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire , the Dark Ages, and the Renaissance, actually occur within a very different chronology from what we've been told? Yes, they certainly did!

The history of humankind is both drastically shorter and dramatically different than generally presumed.

Why is it so? On one hand, it was usual custom to justify the claims to title and land by age and ancestry, and on the other the court historians knew only too well how to please their masters. The so called universal classic world history is a pack of intricate lies for all events prior to the 16th century. World history as we learn it today was entirely fabricated in the 16th-18th centuries. It's likely that nobody told you before, but

there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artefact that is reliably and independently dated prior to the 11th century.

Naturally, after what you've learned in school and university, you will not easily believe that the classical history of ancient Rome, Greece, Asia, Egypt, China, Japan, India, etc., is manifestly false.

You will point accusing finger to the pyramids in Egypt, to the Coliseum in Rome and Great Wall of China etc., and claim, aren't they really ancient, thousands of years ancient? Well, there is no valid scientific proof that they are older than 1000 years!

The oldest original written document that can be reliably dated belongs to the 11th century!

New research asserts that Homo sapiens invented writing (including hieroglyphics) only 1000 years ago. Once invented, writing skills were immediately and irreversibly put to the use of ruling powers and science.

The consensual chronology we live with was essentially crafted in the 16th century by the Jesuits.

The world history was compiled from contradictory mix of innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts and other irrefutable proofs delivered by late mediaeval astronomers that were cemented by the authority of writings of the Church Fathers.

Early in life, we learn about ancient history. Children love the magical lessons of history - they are like fairy tales. Teachers recite breathtaking stories; very soon We learn by heart the names and deeds of brave warriors, wise philosophers, fabulous pharaohs, cunning high priests and greedy scribes.

We learn of gigantic pyramids and sinister castles, kings and queens, dukes and barons, powerful heroes and beautiful ladies, emaciated saints and low-life traitors.

Ancient history is based documents, manuscripts, printed books, paintings, monuments and artefacts - called primary sources.

The problem is that neither these ancient documents, nor events described therein can be irrefutably dated, moreover they contradict each other for the most part.

When a school textbook tells us that Genghis Khan in year X or Alexander in year Y, have each conquered half of the world, it means only that it is so said in some of the written sources.

There are no answers to simple questions:

When were these primary sources written?

Where and by whom were these sources found?

It is wrongly presumed that ancient and medieval chronicles, written by Genghis Khan's or Alexander the Great contemporaries and eyewitnesses, are readily available. Actually, only sources written hundreds or even thousands of years after the events are there, compiled mostly in the 16th 18th centuries, or even later.

As a rule, these sources suffered considerable multiple manipulations, falsifications and distortions by editing. At the same time,

innumerable originals of ancient documents under various pretexts were destroyed in Europe under various pretexts.

The names of persons and geographical sites often changed meaning and location during the course of the centuries.

Geographical locations became clearly defined on maps only with the advent of printing.

This made possible the circulation of identical copies of the same map for purposes of the military, navigation, education and governance tasks.

Historians from Oxford say: "hey, everybody knows that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C.

`Julius Caesar' statement is only a point of view as

there is simply no irrefutable documentary proof that Julius Caesar or any other great name of antiquity ever existed.

Better than that - extremely rare sources that can be reliably dated back to the 10th-14th centuries A D, do not show the polished picture of classical history.

They show a picture both contradictory and confusing.

All methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts are erroneous:

Radio-carbon C14 method produces dating with exactitude of plus minus 1500 years, therefore it is too crude for dating of events in historical timeframe!

The Almagest tractate, which lies as corner stone contemporary chronology, compiled in the 2nd century A D by Ptolemy, the founding father of astronomy, contains astronomical data of 9th to 16th century!

The Bronze Age,that has supposedly began 5000 years ago. Bronze is made of 90% copper and 10% tin, but the technology for tin extraction dates back to 14th century A D!.

All eclipses contained in manuscripts, like Thucydides one, relating 'ancient' events have exclusively medieval dating. All horoscopes cut in stone or painted in Egyptian temples, like Dendera have exclusively early medieval dating solutions.

Not quite what you have learned in school? Open your eyes, and, you will find sufficient proof to reach step by step the inevitable conclusion that the classical chronology is false and therefore, that the history of ancient and medieval world universally accepted today, is also false. Have a fresh outlook on everything said or printed about "ancient" and "enigmatic" Roman, Greek and Egyptian, medieval as well as all other "lost and found" civilizations.

Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th and polished in 19th 20thcenturies. Human civilization is in fact barely 1000 years old!

This book will change your perception of History forever!
What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
Sounds Unbelievable?
Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.

There must have been fans of P.L. Travers's Mary Poppins who were unhappy when the Disney movie based on the book was released in 1964. Changes made to a story when translating it to film can be jarring and are often for the worse. Movies are so often paler versions of the novels that preceded them. But in this case the reverse is true: Walt Disney's classic film is much, much better than the original book. Readers coming to the book after seeing the movie will, I think, be bored and disappointed with Travers's story.

The character of Mary Poppins in the original book is similar to her portrayal in the movie: she is proper and vain and easily irritated; she possesses magical powers whose limit and source are never explained; she is wont to play mind games with the children. In the book, however, despite the children's affection for her, she is not a particularly likable character. It is easier to like the softer-edged Mary Poppins of the movie. Apart from its portrayal of Mary Poppins herself, the book differs markedly from the movie. Some of the differences are insignificant: in the novel there are four Banks children rather than two--Jane and Michael have a pair of twin siblings who are about a year old; Mrs. Banks in the book does not spend her time cavorting with suffragettes; Travers's Bert is not a chimney sweep. The most important difference, however, is this: the story that Travers tells lacks a story arc. Mary Poppins comes to the Banks's home at the beginning of the book. She leaves at the end. The intervening episodes are filler: the chapters could be rearranged or omitted without any loss to the storyline. This in itself would be okay, if less than ideal, except that the middle episodes are, many of them, excruciatingly boring.

Mary Poppins the film, on the other hand, tells the story of the transformation of Mr. Banks--who hardly figures at all in the novel--from a work-obsessed martinet into a man who understands the importance of family, who recognizes the ephemerality of childhood, whose value system has been shattered and rebuilt for the better. Mary Poppins is the agent of this change, but the chimney sweep Bert is also responsible for some of Mr. Banks's growth. The climactic scene of the movie, wherein Banks's transformation is effected, is a small one: his children apologetically surrender to him the tuppence that had caused such a stir at the bank, where he works, leading to his being fired. Ironically, it is this gift of a tiny sum of money that finally turns Mr. Banks, who has been obsessed with the accumulation of wealth, into a man for whom wealth is secondary.

I understand that it's not really fair to find Travers's book lacking because it differs so significantly from a movie that was released thirty years after its publication. But it is impossible not to compare the book to the iconic film and to find it, well, nothing special. Disney injected heart and depth into a mediocre story that had, for reasons that elude me, attracted an audience. In so doing he turned the commonplace into something extraordinary.

-- Debra Hamel

Thankfully this book does not have a nanny that is anywhere near as
annoying, or bursts into song in the same way as the painful movie.

She behaves much more as you would expect, telling the kids off a
lot. She does include them in a bunch of strange happenings and outings
to many different locations.

Mary Poppins is the absolute best book I have read in a while. Mary Poppins is the worlds favorite nanny. The main characters in the book are the children; Jane, Michael, the twins (John and Barbara) and of course Mary Poppins (the nanny). There are a few neighbors and odd people Mary Poppins know, but not mentionable. My favorite chapter was The Day Out. It was so magical and entertaining! I would recommend this book 9 and up, because some things children wouldn't get and others might think it was boring. The chapters "Full Moon" and "The Dancing Cow" were very boring, but good to read.
Anyway, if you want a good book to read this summer, read this book! So creative and enjoyable!!!!!!!!!!!

If you are expecting the Disney's Mary Poppins, you are best making another reading selection. Unfortunately, my expectations may have tainted my reading experience. The book is filled with fun imaginative adventures children would enjoy. However, Mary Poppins is stern and hard. Her tightly guarded compassionate side does pop up during different events, but overall she treats the Bank's children with a harsh and sometimes demeaning hand.

When P.L. Travers first wrote Mary Poppins in 1934, she probably didn't know how popular it would be with young people 72 years later. She also probably didn't know that this would end up being my favorite book of all time! I often thought that every book was my favorite (for example, The Wizard of Oz, Bunnicula, Detectives in Togas, Eye of the Storm, The Secret Garden, and the Little Princess) but I now KNOW this is my favorite book of all time. There is just something about this Nanny that I can't explain. I want to read the other books-not only about Mary Poppins, but all of P.L. Traver's books!
It starts when Mary Poppins comes to Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane to take care of her charges-Jane, Michael, and the twins John and Barbara-after the other nanny, Katie Nanna, left. She takes them on crazy adventures such as floating in the air with her Uncle Albert, to going to a mysterious gingerbread shop to meet a lady who is nice to everyone, but verbally abusive to her to overweight daughters. Mary Poppins also goes on expeditions herself. She jumps in a sidewalk drawing with her friend Bert (love is in the air in this chapter...) and goes to a zoo at night.
The book (I thought) was much better than the movie. Mary Poppins was portrayed in the movie as a sweet, but stern nanny. She was always loving and was very pretty. In the book however, Mary Poppins is just plain stern. Sure she is always there to help, but she definitly doesn't take any guff. Mary Poppins was also kind of ugly in the book, with a sharp nose and in another book had big feet. I also loved the original illustrations by Mary Shepard (E.H. Shepard's-illustrator of the original Winnie the Pooh Books-daughter). So I thought (even though Julie Andrews did a spectacular job) that the book was better. However they were both suppose to be 27. I saw on the 40th edition DVD that Walt Disney was worried that P.L. Travers would not approve of the new actress Julie Andrews, so he asked her how old she thought Mary Poppins was. To Walt's surprise, she said that she thought of Mary Poppins being 27. It turned out that Julie Andrews was just that age! But I digress.
If you want a book that is sweet and charming, witty and clever, and has good morals, read this book! But if you want something that your young children will understand and cherish, watch the movie. They are two totally different feelings. This book is geared for ages 8 and up, but if you can get your young child's attention, you can read it to anyone, young or old. Children over 12 will understand where Mary Poppins is coming from, and children under 12 will understand where Jane and Michael are coming from. I give it a bazillion stars, but I can only choose 5. I like it because this book is absolutely charming!
I loved this book and I hope you will too...if you have the patience to read my review!

Ed Ponsi's explanation of trading strategies for trending and range bound markets is a well written publication. Although one would not expect him to demonstrate everything that is needed to be known on this subject what he does cover is certainly drawn from his past experience and as such extremely informative. Bottom line is though if you are new to forex it is a must read especially since the potential pitfalls of the trade are definitely well highlighted.

I read many trading related books over the last 5 years and I mean to absolutely score this book with 5 stars. It's simply excellent! The author uses a very simple and familiar explanation scheme to descibe some simple yet effective strategies to profit in the forex market in practically any time frame. He also explains the underlying psychological factors which cause certain patterns to develop, creating the so called "tendencies" that, once understood, may be fully exploited to cash in some good profits. I really like Ed Ponsi because he wants to make you understand that great targets can be achieved through simple and linear reasoning and through hard work (which trading should be supposed to be), leaving too complex strategies to other market actors. Reading this book you will realize that Ed ponsi is a real genius in his total genuinity and simplicity.

Excellent book which everyone who is new to forex trading should read and backtest strategies discussed by the author.

This book is packed with lots of information for a new trader like me. I wish this was the first book I bought about forex trading.

What a great book on trading, by far the best I've read on Forex (and I've read most of them). The book begins with an overview of Forex, but doesn't get bogged down in minutiae - instead, the author lays out the groundwork and explains what he calls the "playing field" of Forex. Then, he shifts into high gear, blasting out one fully developed strategy after another. Entire chapters are devoted to individual strategies for ways to trade trending markets, and there is no filler or wasted time. Once he has taught us several strategies to take advantage of trending markets, then he teaches tactics for those times when the market is not trending - including my personal favorite, "The Boomerang", which is designed to fade moves at certain times of day. It's all incredibly clean and logical, and practical - this is stuff you can actually use! This book is absolutely brilliant and deserving of all the praise it receives.

I believe the author accomplished exactly what he meant to accomplish with this book. Some folks who gave less than stellar reviews were concerned that the book offered no in depth analysis on Harry's systems or was a bit unrealistic in the way Harry bounced back into becoming a good trader. My understanding of the overall theme, which is pointed out in the epilogue, is that one should stick to the "laws" of trading. Excellent book. Took me only a couple days to read and loved every moment of it.

Though this book is based upon a fictional character as to how one got started into trading, it provides a very interesting reading into the psychology of a trader's mind. Do not expect the book to present any strategies for trading, it makes one think before acting. Have a plan before entering a trade instead of shooting by the hip....

I thought this book was done just fine..!!
Rob Booker really wrote a book that happens to capture the mindset of every trader just starting out.
I liked the fact that the book has a variety of scenarios, which encourages the trader in all of us to think outside the box.
I look forward to reading other books that Rob wrote.

Una manera muy didactica, y divertida la que nos presenta rob en su historia de Sr Banes. Excelente

cubre los aspectos que uno como trader novato comete, por que tiene que cometer.

Gracias Rob

This is the best book I've read so far on trading. If you have ever traded currencies, or are thinking about it, you need to check this title out. There is a little bit (or a lot) of Harry Banes in all of us! Read this book before you take your next trade!

This is a short but well-written novel that explores many themes-crime, guilt, oppression, horror and judgement. The heroine of the story is an oppressed, exceedingly bored woman married to a sickly cousin not of her own choosing. They live in a dark, cramped apartment with her aunt, who dotes on the husband. She meets and then has an affair with a selfish young man and they fall in love. The boyfriend murders the husband and makes it look like an accident. After a suitable amount of time passes, the two marry. Up until now the book has been extremly well written; Zola has great descriptive powers and insight into the psyche. The characters are well developed and the plot very realistic.

However, once the two marry, they are both terrorized by visions of the murdered husband coming back from the dead and tormenting them to the point where they cannot sleep. This part is a little overdone, but the sense of guilt is very acute. The aunt has a stroke and becomes immobile and unable to speak. She overhears the couple arguing about what they did and learns the truth about the murder. Zola does a fine job of describing her anger, pain and desire to expose the two and her frustration at being unable to do so. The couple eventually get their due.

This little novel is well-written and fast paced. The descriptions of the surroundings and the thoughts and behaviors of characters are very vivid and astute; one feels like they are right in the room with them. I am eager to read more of Zola's works after reading this one.

Emile Zola's `Therese Raquin' is a tale of obsession, paranoia, and narcisism. In modern parlance, this would be called a psychological drama. The tale relates a love triangle among the working poor in Paris in the 1860s. The title character, Therese, is unhappily married to Camille, a man whom she cannot stand and finds a bore. They live together in Paris with Camille's mother. Camille could be described as a mama's boy. A weekly get together with several local friends to play dominoes turns into a passionate affair between Therese and one of the friends, Laurent. Ultimately Laurent murders Camille (with Therese's support and blessing) and eventually takes his place as Therese's husband. Both Therese and Laurent become obsessed with their vile crime and feel the hot breath of Camille's spectre watching them at every turn. Their passion for each other eventually turns to rage, despair, and hate. There is almost no dialogue, virtually all of the text describes the thoughts, impulses, and emotions of the protagonists as they proceed from unbridled passion to rage, fear, and insanity. This work predates Zola's Rougon-Macquart series and is a good tale, if far below the level of the best of this series. Unlike Zola's best novels, this story offers the reader little insight into life in France prior to the destruction of the Second Empire. With very small tweaks, this tale could easily be set in New York City in the 21st century. Other reviewers state that this is a dark tale, which is true, although I think that this is often overstated. Zola certainly has a well earned reputation for writing dark novels, although I think that this is relative to a 19th century audience. Some of the subject matter on prime time TV in the US (like Law and Order SVU) makes this novel appear tame. This is definitely not a `feel-good' novel. Overall, this is a good, not great, novel. For someone approaching Zola for the first time, this would not be a bad place to start. A must read for any serious fan/student of Zola of course.

From the opening page, we are aware that this will be a dark work. 'Above the glazed roof the wall rises towards the sky,' writes Zola, 'black and coarsely rendered, as if covered with leprous sores and zigzagged with scars.'

A small household is described. We have Camille, a sickly, mothered, placid boy. As he becomes older, his mother's protective nature remains as strong as it was when he was a child. He is plied with medicines and 'adoring devotion', such that 'His growth had been stunted, so that he remained small and sickly looking; the movement of his skinny limbs were slow and tired.' Camille is presented as a wholly unattractive young man, with his ignorance 'just one more weakness in him.'

And then we have Therese Raquin. She was given to Camille's mother by his uncle when she was two, and has remained in Madame Raquin's household ever since. Therese has suffered the medicinal ministrations of Camille's mother, and because of this, has developed a quiet, introspective, intense demeanour. 'she developed a habit of speaking in an undertone, walking about the house without making any noise, and sitting silent and motionless on a chair with a vacant look in her eyes.'

This is an unhappy household. Or, perhaps, because everyone is so concerned with repressing any spark of feeling or emotion, it is a dead house that just happens to still be living. Camille is too ignorant and sick to have a personality beyond the studied egotism of a man who has grown up with a dominating, too-concerned mother, while Therese is a blank piece of paper, purposely unwritten upon. When her twenty-first birthday arrives, Madame Raquin informs Therese that she is to marry Camille. Therese accepts the decision, with all that changes of her life being she sleeps in Camille's bed and not her own. All else remains the same.

But soon an idea enters into Camille's head. He has always wanted to work in an office, the idea makes him 'pink with pleasure'. Against his mother's wishes, they move to Paris, where he finds a job working for the railway. Very quickly, life settles for everyone and time, as it does, plods along.

Thursday evenings become a social occasion for the family. Camille invites a colleague from work and his mother, a retired policeman she knew in Vernon, for a weekly game of dominoes. A few others arrive, and another routine is added to that of the Raquin's. Here, Zola is quite clear in his disdain for the evenings, 'After each game the players would argue for two or three minutes, then the dismal silence would descend again, interrupted only by more clicking.'

We are still near the very beginning of the novel. What Zola is doing now is to put all of the pieces into place - much like a game of dominoes - before adding the final character. A well-developed sense of drudgery, boredom and inevitability lies heavily across the text. We can quite comfortably imagine these characters continuing their lives in much the same manner until they are dead, and happily at that. What we do not want is for their life to become our own.

One day, Camille bumps into an old friend, Laurent. Camille invites his friend to Thursday's festivities, an invitation Laurent readily accepts.

When Therese lays eyes upon Laurent, she is floored. He seems, when compared to the colourless Camille, a real man, red-blooded and active. He has passions - he wishes to be a painter. He has emotions - he hates his father. He has desires - he speaks openly of painting naked women, and admiring their curves.

Over time, Laurent and Therese develop a clandestine relationship, meeting and making love under the nose of Camille and Madame Raquin, coming together in Therese' bed. Her husband and mother-in-law are shown to be so docile and unsuspecting that we can fully believe Therese capable of getting away with such activities, in their home.

From what we have read so far, Zola has written a reasonably commonly themed novel. We have the wife who is unappreciated and dreams of a love worthy of her lust; we have the inconsiderate, uncaring husband; we have the oblivious, hyper-affectionate mother. It would be easy to assume that Zola is spinning a fable such that finding and keeping love is more important than remaining within the shackles of a loveless marriage.

But hold on. Zola is far more clever than that. The passion Laurent and Therese share is shown as animalistic and obsessive; theirs is not the pure, passionate love we might expect. Therese declares, 'I love you, I have done since the day Camille first pushed you into the shop. You may not respect me, because I gave myself to you all at once, everything...Truly, I don't know how it happened. I am proud, I'm impetuous too, and I felt like hitting you that first day, when you kissed me and threw me to the floor here in this bedroom...'. But Laurent, too, is equally afflicted with lust, '...the regular satisfaction of his desires had given him sharp, imperative new appetites. He no longer felt the least unease when embracing his mistress, but sought her embrace with the obstinacy of a starving animal.'. Both Lauren and Therese show the negative aspects of secret, furtive lust - they are not in love, they are animals, tethered to one another with chains of desire and deceit.

It becomes clear that Camille must die for their relationship to progress beyond mere lust and into the love that they feel they deserve. He is dispatched with relative haste, and the novel proper begins.

Guilt, remorse and obsession form the remainder of the piece. Zola is clinical in his dissection of his character's psyche. It is as though he has laid out their mind on an operating table, and carefully removes a slice of personality for the purpose of analysis and understanding. No thought, no desire, no regret is left untouched. It is perhaps predictable that they would suffer from guilt following the murder of a man who, while timid and boring, was ultimately good, but Zola makes the focus of the novel something much greater than mere regret. He does not question or lay judgement, rather he presents the thoughts and feelings of these two people as they descend through the psychological depths of what they have done.

The novel is unrelentingly bleak. Chapter after chapter, the characters suffer their hearts and mind being torn apart. Zola slips the word 'insanity' into the text a few times, and we know he is giving us a clear clue. What would happen if two normal people commit an abnormal, horrible act? Zola pushes the limit of our understanding as far as he is able.

The peripheral characters exist to further the darkness of Laurent and Therese. It is quite clear that their function is to serve the primary characters, and not to exist as people in their own right. Perhaps with a lesser author this would be a problem, but because Zola possesses such psychological acuteness, we allow it. The Thursday night domino games continue, purely because the unending stretch of sameness is precisely what is tearing the lovers apart. They becomes married so that Zola can show us that when the price for our desire is too great, we no longer wish to possess it. And so on, and so on. They fall in and out of debauchery, violence, hatred, remorse and guilt, all so that Zola can analyse the workings of two minds that were once normal, but have become diseased.

Moving away from the psychological aspects of the novel for a moment, it is worth mentioning that Zola also has a tremendous gift for description and mood. Throughout the nineteenth century, Paris boasted a morgue, which was open to the public for inspection. On rows of gray slabs lay the bodies of the recently deceased, with a wall of clear glass separating the living and the dead. There was no such thing as refrigeration at the time, so as the days progressed, the bodies would putrefy and rot as they waited to be identified. Laurent, at an early stage of his guilt, visits the morgue daily, waiting to see Camille's drowned corpse. And when he does, Zola provides us with this breathtaking description, 'Camille was a revolting sight. He had been in the way for a fortnight. His face still looked firm and stiff; his features had been preserved, only the skin had taken on a yellowish, muddy hue. The head, thin, bony, and slightly puffy, was grimacing; it was at a slight angle, the hair was plastered against the temples, and the eyelids were up, revealing the globular whites of the eyes; the lips were twisted down at one corner in a horrible sneer; the blackish tip of the tongue was poking out between the white teeth.' And on it continues. Macabre? Certainly. But Zola's eye for description makes this a powerful scene.

Therese Raquin is a short novel. There is no space for side plots, or avenues of digression. According to Zola, 'I simply carried out on two living bodies the same examination that surgeons perform on corpses.' What we have is an exploration of the darker parts of our psyche in brevity, a bleak early masterpiece.

This is very interesting and different. The story moves at a good pace and it is worth reading. I will probably purchase other stories by Emile Zola

I originally bought this book because my favorite actor, Gerard Butler, was scheduled to make a movie from it. I was pleasantly surprised by how good the book is. I knew it was translated from French and I thought it would probably be a hard read. I found it to be very interesting, even though there is no dialog in the book. It was very well written and extremely interesting. The descriptions made me feel like I was in the story and feeling what the characters felt. I must say that these are very dysfunctional people, but the story is good. This is not the type of book I would normally read, but I would recommend it to anyone.