Guardian Books

I started reading this to my daugther when she was 8 weeks old. She has enjoyed it from the beginning. The language is simple and easy to read. Now that she is over a year old, she still enjoys it as she notices something new in the illustrations everyday. It is a bedtime must have in our home.

After spending three weeks in South Africa this summer, I realized the real effects Apartheid had on the country. After reading this book, I could envision the entire process of the rise & fall of their government as it happened, and the events that occurred in between. This book is a denfinite good read for anyone learning about or knowledgeable of South African history. Like all political cartoons, it puts current events in a language we can all understand, and helps us realize what's really going on. (Clifford Galiher, 13)

First off let me just point out that this book is exactly the same book as Can You Drill a Hole Through Your Head and Survive?: 180 Fascinating Questions and Amazing Answers About Science, Health and Nature. I work in a library and many people often request the exact same book they have already read and these two are a common mistake made by readers who loved one of these titles and immediately want more by the same author unaware they are both the same book. Why do publishers do this? Who knows but to sell more books would be my guess. Anyway under either title this is a great and very interesting read! Buy whichever book is cheaper.

How Slow Can You Waterski? Can You Drill a Hole in Your Own Head and Survive? Is it Dangerous to Use a Mobile Phone on a Plane or in a Hospital? Why are Giant Pandas so Bad at Mating? British newspaper The Guardian has a column which looks into these sort of weird questions that once asked by someone many people say yeah what is the answer to that. To get even more questions or maybe to appeal to the American market as well The New York Times Reality Column has also contributed questions and answers to this great book. This book is divided up into nine different sections some sections more serious such as medical related and some a lot lighter.

So if your planning a trivia night, want to pull answers to bizarre questions seeming out of the air on your next date or want to impress your colleagues at the watercooler then this is the book for you.

More samples of questions answered within are -
Is it Safe to Fire a Gun on a Plane?
Can Stress make Your Hair Go Grey?
Could Brain Implants Control People Remotely?
Can Too Much Sleep Kill You?
Can You See the Great Wall of China from Space?
How Do You Tap a Phone?
Why Do Tennis Players Check the Ball Before Serving?
How Do You Make a Nuclear Bomb?
How Can You Intercept Other People's Text Messages?
What Are My Chances of Being Stuck by Lightning in Bed?
What Should I Do if a Shark Attacks?
Can Animals Be Homosexual?
Should Backstroke (Swimming)be Banned?
What's the Lowest Height You Can Parachute From?
Does Grunting Help Tennis Players With Their Game?
Does Dining in the Dark Make Food Taste Different?
Will Feeding Prisoners Vitamins make Them Behave Better?
Is Eating Live Insects a Bad Idea?
Is Chocolate Good For You?
Are Cloned Animals Safe to eat?

There's heaps of other interesting questions as well. One of the best if not the best books in this genre.

It's clear Tilly Anger loves cats, particularly the Tonkinese breed. This is a delightful, thoughtful, well researched book that provides intelligent advice particularly to first time cat owners. Her personal stories add another dimension to the book. I highly recommend.

I have found that the apparitions and messages given to patricia talbot in el cajas , ecuador both inspiring and fruitful .They echo the message of Our Lady,Queen of Peace ,in Medjugorje and give the reader a deeper love for Our Lady.The most inspiring part of the book is the story.A family practically destroyed through materialism and egoism finally finds healing and comfort in God`s plan for this family through Mary`s messages.

I've just finished reading this excellent book called The Immortality Of Animals by E. D. Buckner written in 1903. Awesome, profound, moral and rational teachings and explanations about the nature of animals and afterlife are found within the pages of this book. It is a comprehensive look at the principles of reality by a full blown mature, loving, and complete human mind. Respecting animal life, and similarities between mankind and animals in relation to the soul/mind in which all living souls are immortal. Man and woman and animal are all created/formed out of the earth and all have the same God-breathed breath.

Christ was born amongst the animals and He fasted 40 days living amongst the animals. He referred to Himself as the Lamb of God and the Good Shepherd, and a dove represented the Holy Spirit. The New Testament is the `animals Bible', for the poor in spirit. God made a covenant with Noah and with the animals that He will never again cut off all life with a flood.

God said, "Every animal is Mine." There is a lot of Scripture in this book, but concerning Mr. Buckner's own thoughts on this subject I was amazed at his brilliant intellect. I kept going "wow, that's right! I never thought of that, yeah!"

He explains how the animals are objects of God's creative love. They cannot sin, and are under no moral law. Their sufferings, as well as man's, are a result of the Fall; then of man. The effects of the Fall changed the nature of our eating, health and lifespan. Animals will be rewarded for their sufferings. There is God's justice in the end for them.

Heaven is a real place for all God's creatures. Solomon says animals have spirits. God preserves both mankind and animals, the Psalms say. Animals were sacred to the ancient Egyptians. There are animal mummies buried next to Egyptian humans.

We learn which religions teach kindness to animals and that they were NOT created solely for man's use. The worst sin is cruelty to animals and many of these are done by so called Christians. How can common sense even fathom that a diabolical murderer might make it into Heaven but a sinless animal would not? I don't think so.

We see how people have used and abused animals for financial gain and for scientific advance. According to the Bible many Christians should be following their God given conscience, supporting animal rights groups, repenting, and taking responsibility and being accountable for their actions against the animals. Abraham Lincoln was a great and kindhearted Christian man who was once seen rescuing a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest and gently put it back in.

Mr. Buckner explains the intelligence of animals. They have better moral values and skills than most people. Fidelity, and love, are one of the highest and strongest attributes of the soul, and is greatest in animals. Animals, especially domesticated animals, exhibit numerous attributes some of which are love, hate, unselfishness, pride, jealousy, loyalty, body and verbal language, friendship, reasoning powers, memory, foresight of consequences, and a sense of moral responsibility, all of which belong to the spirit and not the body. Animals posses knowledge, intellect, thoughts, dreaming abilities, physical and emotional feelings, and free will. Instinct is also a very strong attribute of the soul, and it is superior to man. They receive their knowledge/instinct directly from God and are governed by the same physical and mental laws as man. Many people can honestly say that their companion animals are the ones that have truly taught them what love is really all about. I know I can say that.

They are educated by their parents and by experience; they build houses and have families. The only difference between them and humans is the degree of intellect. Monkeys are an example of a higher than average degree of intellect.

Communication with animals is a spiritual thing, not physical. The eye cannot see without a soul's presence. Every movement and sound they make is a result of messages to the brain that have nothing to do with their physiology. The soul is in the brain/mind. Matter - cannot think or speak. Matter - cannot move without the spirit.

The book shows how and why the animals praise God according to Scripture and according to their own nature. Animals are God's pleasure proving an afterlife. Instead of limiting God's goodness, mercy, power and love to humans like so many people do today, he demonstrates how God extends His immense love for ALL of His creation.

Theology's flimsy rationale for animals having no souls is discussed.
There is a very eye opening, yet comforting, explanation about the issue of the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament.

Animals as compared to mankind including infants, savages, the mentally challenged, and the heathen in relation to the placement of their souls; how cruelty is offensive to God; how man is animal's worst enemy, for both wild and many domestic animals; how we should be teaching children, and much more. God's tender mercies are over ALL of His works! (Psalm 145:9) It is an excellent and highly recommended book filled with practical knowledge and wisdom and I think everyone should have one on their bookshelf.

This is the second book in The Guardian Cycle (after The Dark Moon, and before The Crystal Desert, The Red Glacier, and Alyssa's Ring).

After saving the Floating Islands from utter destruction by bargaining with the elemental in the mines of Betancuria and letting the Enchanter take all the credit, Terrel is sent into exile, cast off on the ocean on a makeshift raft, with no idea where he is going. Probably to Macul, a land said to be inhabited by barbarians. Moreover, his link with Alyssa has been broken since he's been over water. After weeks adrift, at the mercy of the waves, his frail embarcation is finally driven ashore in a lagoon. The boy is about to die from dehydration when he's rescued by two young men, Aylen and Olandis, who take him up the river to their village.

In Fenduca, Terrel is taken in by Aylen and Olandis's father Kerin and step-mother Ysatel, and slowly recovering from his ordeal. Alas, he doesn't speak these people's language, and he can feel the whole village is suspicious of him. Could he really come from the Cursed Islands? Could he be an enchanter, a Sharakan? After some difficult times, Terrel is finally accepted when the villagers discover he has the power to heal animals, a power even Terrel was unaware of. And little by little, he'll learn their language and history: Fenduca is situated at the foot of a great black mountain, on the top of which lives the tyrant king Ekuban, in the jeweled city of Talazoria. And since the valley is the source of some riches coveted by Ekuban, the latter and his soldiers are constantly harassing the villagers.

Terrel has been searching for a way to go back to his home island of Vadanis when he has a dream in which he learns that there might be another elemental in the city of Talazoria, and that a terrible earthquake is threatening the world again if he doesn't stop the king from angering the "demon". Indeed, Ekuban has been holding the elemental prisoner in an old dungeon surrounded by a moat, and entertaining his nobles by sending beggars and cripples to fight it, to their death. Terrel will have to leave his new found friends soon.

The rest of the book describes our hero's journey to Talazoria, stopping on the way, against his will, in a mysterious valley enshrouded by clouds and where the sun never shines, to help lift a curse that has been preventing the women to have children for the last four years.

I liked The Jasper Forest a lot. It's not that this volume is extremely original, the layout being approximately the same of that of The Dark Moon, nor that the overall plot is passionating, it's just that the characters are so extremely likeable, and the story so well-written, that Terrel's day to day life becomes a real pleasure to read!

In the early 1980s, Erwin James - a pseudonym - was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was in his early twenties at the time. What his crime was we are never told, and nor is it relevant to this account, although James himself never tries to minimise it, making clear that he believes that he deserves his punishment. We're also told that he had a `tariff' of twenty-five years, later reduced to 20. In 2000, James began writing a series of fortnightly columns for the Guardian newspaper, on life as a `lifer' in the prison system. It is these columns, or those printed up to January 2003 (James continues to write for the Guardian) which are published in this collection.

James, in his first couple of years writing for the Guardian, was not paid; a note at the bottom of each column read: `Erwin James is serving a life sentence. He has not been paid for this column'. At that point, the fee went to charity, but once James was moved to open conditions and permitted to engage in paid employment, the fee was held in trust for him. Surprisingly, in 2003 the Press Complaints Commission criticised the newspaper for running the column and for paying a serving prisoner for writing; given the plaudits the newspaper has received, and which have been lavished on this book, by people such as Martin Narey, Director of the Prison Service, that decision by the PCC was astounding.

In his columns, James shows the reality of life inside high- and medium-security prisons in a way other, more high-profile, prison memoirs fail to do. We meet fellow prisoners - all pseudonymised - and experience their hopes and disappointments through the clarity of James' writing. He doesn't look for sympathy, and it's clear that he supports the aims of the prison system, but at the same time his accounts leave the reader understanding that it is possible to believe both in the merits of prison as a rehabilitative function and in the need for comprehensive reform. The book is entirely devoid of self-pity; instead we find often harsh accounts of prison life, but interspersed by humour and `human interest' stories.

We meet Cody, who for the duration of the 20 years he spent `inside' has protested his innocence; we learn that he has just been released on licence and given leave to appeal. But James also ensures that we understand the unpredictability of the appeal system - it seems as if Cody has little chance of success. (In fact, a recent Guardian column revealed that Cody was successful after all, though given his state of health he may not have much opportunity left to enjoy his freedom).

The effects of the iniquitous tariff system are shown when, in 1994, lifers were finally told the tariffs which had been set by the Home Secretary in their cases: prisoners who had been making progress towards rehabilitation suddenly learned that they faced twice as long remaining on their sentence than they'd anticipated, or in some cases that they would never be released. Some of those receiving bad news on that occasion then committed suicide. Similarly, highlighting another area ripe for reform, James tells us of lifers released on licence who had been recalled to prison for a minor misdemeanour - or, in one case, having been prosecuted for something for which the jury took eight minutes to acquit! - and then faced many more years in prison.

Occasionally, James gives advice to other prisoners as to how to survive a long stretch inside. One thing he doesn't say, but which comes across very clearly from this account, is that without hope it's simply not possible to survive. His preferred piece of advice, however, is: `Learn to live where you are, and not where you think you want to be.'

James is now, as he was at the date of the final column in this book, in an open prison, in paid employment. In due course, therefore, he should be released on licence and, as Ian Katz, the editor of the Guardian supplement which publishes James' columns and who writes a foreword to this book, notes, he now as a `well-established career as a writer and journalist'. I hope to read much more of James' work in future, once he is released - and I hope that the Guardian also recognises its responsibility towards the man who has written for the newspaper for the past three years and enhanced its reputation in the process.

wmr-uk

This books are classic Garwood. The men are dyonamic larger than life, and the women are strong, beautiful and lovable. If you never read another romance or book in your life, these 2 books are required reading for all lovers of reading,and what TRUE love should be.

This book is the true experience of a crew chief who flew with his plane dropping paratroopers and supplies in WWII's European theatre. It reads like the author is sitting and talking with you about all the things that happened to him as a very young man
who saw the service as a way to get out of, as he puts it, spending his life "looking up a mule's butt." Very honest, down-to-earth story.