MAD

"Something was wrong with Mommy. She burned the toast. She banged the pots and pans. And she forgot to kiss Daddy good-bye..." Little Robbie and his brother Christopher are worried. Why is Mommy mad? Is it something they did wrong? They can't think of anything they've done to put Mommy in such a bad mood. Maybe she's mad at Daddy. Robbie wants a story and a snuggle and a smile, "but Mommy did not look very soft. Mommy looked prickly. All over" This starts to make Robbie feel cranky, too. Eventually, he finds a way to get Mommy's attention, and out of this prickly situation comes a simple and heartwarming solution to a bad mood..... Lynne Jonell's easy to read text really captures the discomfort little ones feel when they don't understand an adult's sudden mood change. Petra Mathers' childlike illustrations, with their marvelous facial expressions, complement the story with engaging stick-figure artwork, in colorful crayon. Perfect for preschoolers, When Mommy Was Mad should open interesting discussions about bad moods, emotions, and the feelings we all have from time to time and how to cope.

Is this for real? The author leaves me wondering whether I should eat beef or not. It reminds me of War of the Worlds. How much danger are we really in. I would recommend this book to anyone who is concerned about Mad Cow Disease.

I was introduced to Bill (or Will, if you prefer) Elder in the early 1950's when I discovered MAD the comic. I had been a fan of Sunday color comics and Superman/Batman as a kid but the comic art of Bill (that's how he signed his work in MAD) Elder
was so stunningly exceptional it was an instant hit with me and my friends. I especially liked all the "extra gags" hidden around the panels that made reading his stories take just a little longer. And made re-reading a must. I followed Mr. Elder through MAD, Humbug, Trump, HELP! and finally Playboy. Collecting his other contributions to popular magazines, his "Hateful Thoughts" collection and covers whenever I saw one. His work is so distinctive in it's clean clear sometimes photographic images, yet so diversified with his ability to mimic other artist's styles. You can be fooled into thinking you're really reading a L'il Abner story until you catch his signature on the splash panel. I am delighted that there is so much here in this book from the full length of his career, but I would really hope that there is a volume 2 that picks up the missing pieces from Goodman Beaver and a few others. MAD has been reprinted as has Little Annie Fannie. We need the complete Elder to enjoy over and over for years to come. Complimenting the fantastic art is the narrative highlighting Elder's life and other achievements. This marvelous book will be a welcome addition to anyone's bookshelf. Especially if you have a funny bone.

I am Vegan. This is a good book.

Howard Lyman says it right: "The most dangerous weapon in the arsenal of the homo sapien is the fork. We are digging more graves with our fork than with any other tool. Take the animals off your fork & chances are you'll not only live a longer life, but a life with more quality." The thinking part of the population will want to read this book. I'm referring to the people that are taking an active part in the direction of their lives & the lives of their children & grandchildren; and who feel a sense of responsibility to the planet. MAD COWBOY points out that we can make smart, educated choices, not just follow the masses. We can choose to take the healthy road, not succumb to disease, prescription drugs & hospitals. Humans can be so vital & energized & in control of their health once they stop just following the herd. Even people who have been eating a plant-based diet for many years have learned many things from this book. It startles them. Just read the first 3 pages! That'll open your eyes in a hurry! Do not allow this very concise, humorous & powerful book to get dusty. Read it from cover to cover, then loan it to friends, buy more copies for friends. It's the most glorious gift you can give to someone you care about. Invite the MAD COWBOY into your home! :-)

I've been a vegetarian for less than a year and this is the knowledge that has made me a lifer. Since it's such an easy and even fun book to read I bought three copies to keep in circulation amongst my friends and colleagues.

Lyman doesn't preach he just lays down the facts about the industry in a way in which the information screams for itself. It made me realize how hypocritical it really is to call oneself environmentally conscience and still eat meat. Also, with the surgeon general about to declare obesity as the number one preventable death in America (currently it's cigarette smoking) Lyman's info on personal health couldn't be more timely.

If ignorance is your bliss, don't read this book! But if you're one who takes responsibility for your actions and the consequences of them and you're interested in exploring the repercussions of something you do at least three times a day... read this book and share it with those around you!

This is a wake up call to anyone not on a vegetarian diet. Very good!

I heard Mrs. Holman speak recently at a mental health conference.
Her story and her book felt like they spoke directly to me. The real miracle is not that Holman survived her childhood. A lot of us have difficult ones (though her family's situation was truly bizarre). The miracle is that she has transformed the loss of her mother in to a book that shows people the ravages of untreated mental illness to its sufferers and their families. Mrs. Holman has won a fellowship from the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Center and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, displays her commitment to advocacy and change.
This is not some poor-me tell all book. It is a work of art that is promoting change in people's perceptions of mental illness. I know of few other works that do both. Kay Jamison's
work. Holman is writing for the greater good. This is a book not to be missed if you want to understand what it's like to love someone with a mental disease.

I found Virginia Holman's Rescuing Patty Hearst to be deeply moving. I too have a family member who suffers from mental illness and can relate to the isolation, the shame, and the struggle to find help from the community. Her depiction of a child raised by a schizophrenic mother is heartbreaking. Children often explore the boundary between fantasy and reality, and here, her mother's psychosis blurs those lines even further. Her mother's delusions become enmeshed into her everyday life. As the author grows into a young woman, she begins to sense the immensity of what is lost, and a different kind of struggle begins. How can her mother be helped when she denies needing it? How can her father, her sister and herself cope with the enormous loss and live fulfilling lives when their world is dominated by an illness that destroys the woman they love? Holman's brave memoir is a testament to the enduring human spirit and to the power of love. Through this book she offers a powerful gift to the world, giving valuable insight into the lives of families torn asunder by mental illness.

We recently read Rescuing Patty Hearst in my book club and i have to say that it gave me so much insight and compassion for
family members who must cope with a mentally ill family member.
The years Holman describes seem to me a mix of the magic and
mayhem that ws the seventies as seen through the eyes of a child
watching her mother descend in to a state of irreversible insantity. It is a potent mixture and made me laugh and cry and
laugh again. Don't let the title fool you: this is a rare find
of a book. Not a whiny "oh my childhood was so hard book" but a
book about a family that tries to stay together in terrile circumstances, about a girl and family that grow up beautifully
and tackle their pain and grief and responsiblities as best they
can. This book generated so much conversation in our group. I learned about mental illness, about the obstacles to treatment
many families face, but most importantly, I learned what some families go through. And I definitely feel much more compassion for my friend who have depression and other illnesses. Virginia Holman's book really made me understand that mental illnesses
are brain diseases, physical diseases. I sort of knew that but never really felt it. This book got to me.
Pat Conroy calls it "One of the best books about schizophrenia I have ever read. Virginia Holman has delivered a gift to the
world of letters and the literature of mental illness." Nuff said.

If you liked the Farseer trilogy, you will probably like what Hobb is doing with the Liveship traders. The continuing unveiling of how the world works and how the events tie into the political context she has created are exciting, and pleasantly surprising. The explosion of character viewpoints, however, can be vertigo inducing. At some point, there needs to be a focus on a protagonist or a cause: one might guess that the whole point of her book is a condemnation of the exploitation of natural resources, to add to her diatribe against slavery begun in the first book. On the bright side, Kennit continues to please, the workings of Elderlings and dragons, begun in Farseer, are developed further. Hobb gives un a superb version of just what dragons, a common author's vehicle in fairy tales and fantasy novels, are. For the author: Please get Ship of Destiny to your fans, but don't rush it. I'd rather you scrubbed it and sewed up loose ends, than hurry it out just to make sure we finally get our conclusion. All good things come to those who wait. I'll fidget a bit, but will patiently wait for the next book about the Liveship Traders.

"The Mad Ship" is as finely crafted a book 2 to its predecessor ("Ship of Magic") as one could hope for. All the plot threads in the first book are continued here with both an eye for detail as well as foresight towards the author's vision. If some of the serpentine plot ideas in Book 1 confused you, almost all your questions will be answered in "The Mad Ship" - but read carefully. I realised on my second round of this book that I actually "missed" a few key sentences which explain a lot. In fact, Robin Hobb excels at this - tiny details in the book can shed light on giant plot arcs in the entire story thus far. What could possibly be the relationship between the sea serpents, the wizardwood, the liveships, the wisps of memories, and the Rain Wild magic? The wonder is that Robin Hobb has created such an original story to tie up all these, without a hint of cliche.

Hobb's characterization continues to impress. Rarely does one encounter characters so real and so sympathizable. At risk of garnering "unhelpful votes" from Amazon readers, I would like to point out that Hobb strongly favors her female characters - with almost no exception, all of her female characters (even the big reptilian one) demonstrate intelligence, fortitude, maturity and above all, strong will. Seeing how they grow and develop, how they deal with life, is an education in itself. On the other hand, the male characters tend to be two-dimensional, straightforward, coarse, even crass; even where they are good, they tend to be naive. There are a few sentences which clearly show what the female thinks of the "only knows how to feed and breed" male.

I write the above as a statement, not as a criticism against the book. The fact remains that Hobb's characterization is first-class, and totally believable despite this "favoritism". In fact, what is most impressive is how Hobb turns an apparently "bad" character into a "good" one, an art only the best writers can achieve naturally.

I'm only adding my voice of praise for this book to bring up the average rating to the level I feel it deserves. Not since George R.R. Martin's "A song of ice and fire" have I read a series with such character depth and panoramic vision. Many nights I'd curse, roll over, turn my reading light back on to read "just one more chapter".

This fictional work of fantasy could have been appropriately titled "In Cold Blood". Lead character Dorothy, an apparent megalomaniac, and her 'gangsta' cohorts -- scarecrow, tin man, toto, and not-so-cowardly lion -- set out in a deliberate and premeditated scheme to kill the "wicked" [alleged] witch of the West (after Dorothy has already admittedly dropped her house on West's sister -- the wicked [alleged] witch of the East, killing her off, stealing her silver shoes, and then killing anything or anybody who gets in their way [sic] -- including the great Kaliddalah beasts and wildcats ...). The senseless violence continues as Dorothy and her "thug" sidekicks are ordered by the Emerald City "Chief" Wizard to perform a "hit" on the wicked [alleged] witch of the West [sic] in exchange for favors from the great and powerful Wizard ... Do today's parents actually condone such random and God-forsaken acts of violence? Do we really need so many senseless killings in children's literature? (Is this book actually endorsed by the Catholic Church to be read by children attending Catolic schools?) Isn't it time we remove this endorsement of randomized violence from our children's schools and libraries? Thank goodness there are some sensible alternatives currently offered in today's world of children's literature. Take the books recently penned and published worldwide by Madonna Ritchie ... The English Roses and Mr. Peabodie's Apples (not to mention soon to be published Yakov and the Seven Thieves [October 2004] and Das Lotsa ****load of Cash [whenever, 2004]). On a scale of 1 to 10, I collectively give Madonna's children's books (with the exception of 1992's Sex ...) seventeen stars, six apples, 4 oranges, 3 bananas, two plums, a blackberry, and a half a cherry ... [you do the math ...] Madonna's red-hot right now ... and you don't need a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal (or half a brain) to figure that out ...

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a classical story about a girl and her dog that get trapped in a twister. She wakes up in a magical land and asks how she can get home. They tell her she has to follow the yellow brick road. She meets people on her way to the Wizard. The Scarecrow needs brains, the Tinman needs a heart, the Lion needs courage and Dorothy needs to go home. They meet strange things on the way to The Good Witch of the South. I like the book because it's interesting and exciting and that's why I think you should read it.

This story all started when a farm girl from Kansas named Dorothy Gale, and her little dog Toto got sucked into a tornado and landed in a fairyland named Oz. In Oz she meets a bunch of strange characters, a scarecrow, tin woodsman, and a cowardly lion. Together they go on a mission to see the wizard of oz by following the yellow brick road. Each one wanting a different wish. On the way to the wizard they come across multiple things. And when they finally got to Emerald city the wizard told them that they must first kill the wicked witch of the west if they want him to make there wishes come true. Eventually they succeed in doing that along with multiple hard things to do. After all that they find out that the wizard is a "humbug" and he grants everyone's wishes. Except for Dorothy's wich is for her to return back home. So now Dorothy and her friends go on another adventure to find the Good Witch of the South. Well they found her and Dorothy got back home along with her dog Toto, and she had what she needed all along in order for her to return home. Personally in my opinion I enjoyed the book better then the movie. I would recommend this book to anyone with a good imagination, because I kept imagining the story as I read it. The book has some drawings in it wich makes imagining things a lot easier, it has drawings of the main characters, villains, and some of the scenes in the book such as there journey on the yellow brick road. I would also recommend this book to anyone if the ages of 10 and up.

For a super fun, funny read, you MUST read the Mad Bride books! Starting with the hilarious Diary of a Mad Bride and continuing on with Diary of a Mad Mom-To-Be, readers will be entertained with laughs-a-plenty and many will be able to relate 100 percent.

After two years of marriage, Amy Thomas Stewart is starting to feel the pressure to procreate. After a lengthy (and persuavive) discussion with Amy's husband, Stephen, the plan is finally put into action. Only things don't go exactly as envisioned, and Amy's commentary on the situation is, as usual, hilarious. And armed with her "Baby Now, Baby How" book and ever-present To-Do List, Amy's adventure is sure to have readers falling off their seats with laughter.

Don't read this one without first reading Diary of a Mad Bride since they go together. Both novels are a lot of fun to read and I hope there is another installment soon -- perhaps Diary of a Mad Mom-of-a-Two-Year-Old?!

I read 'Diary of a Mad Bride,' and 'Diary of a Mad Mom To Be,' in a couple of days, and thought they were both exellent books. I loved the main character, Amy, because she was such a funny person. In the first book, Amy completely renounces marriage, saying she will never get married, but then her boyfriend Stephen proposes, and she turns into her worst nightmare, 'A Mad Bride.'This happens again in 'Mad Mom To Be,' with Amy saying she will never have children, but then suddenly feeling the need for a child. I really liked reading about her pregnancy, and her list of 'thing they don't tell you about being pregnant' was hilarious. Also, her lists of 'things to do' which appear in both books are great, giving you an idea of how much preparation goes into weddings and babies, even if some of the items on the list are slightly unnessecary.
All in all, they were great books, and I hope Laura Wolf writes more. If you like these books, i'd like to reccommend books by Sophie Kinsella, who has a similar style to Laura Wolf.

I laughed so hard reading this book that I bought copies for all my girlfriends who have ever been or are even thinking about getting pregnant! It's sweet, touching and most of all hysterical!!! This book makes a great gift! I loved it!

This book is a historical account of a shipwreck and mutiny that took place at the beginning of the 17th century. At that time, the unhospitable western coast of Australia was the end of the known earth, and this provides the desolate backdrop for the misery that followed. Passengers and crew from the Dutch ship Batavia found themselves stranded on a few lifeless islands with inadequate food or fresh water. With the help of a small band of mutineers, a deluded heretic Cornelisz seized control of the limited supplies and began to systematically exterminate the other survivors. Mike Dash leaves no stone unturned in bringing to life the horrific events that befell the Batavia and those who sailed on her. He describes in graphic detail the disease, death and physical and social torment that plagued these people and were commonplace in their time. The attention to historical detail is simply fascinating, as a little known piece of history is retold. This is a tale of true horror, reconstructed from the past and although it is not pretty, it does make for compelling reading.

In Batavia's Graveyard, Dash has presented us with a wonderful, thouroughly researched history that is exciting and chilling to read. His story of the psychopathic man who caused the deaths of over 100 people is absolutely riveting.

The amount of detail in this book is a testament to what must have been painstaking research. Dash provides expert commentary on all of the subjects he touches on in this book, from 17th century shipbuilding and medicine to the 20th century definition of a psychopath. The descriptions Dash gives of an around-the-world navigation are quick to disgust and astonish. The sights, smells, and actions are vivid.

Most importantly, the story itself is extremely interesting. Why did a seemingly normal, if unfortunate, individual from the Netherlands decide to murder so many unlucky men, women, and children, after they had been shipwrecked on an unknown reef group near Australia? The story of the ship's journey, wreck, and the subsequent establishment of power on the islands, is a wonderful study in human interaction and psychology. With the limited resources available to him, Dash does a very good job of attempting to recreate this disturbed man: a man able to drive others to evil, but shying away from physical violence himself. A veritable Iago.

The only drawback to this novel is the limited resources that Dash has at his disposal. Because of this fact, many characters and subtexts remain incomplete, and some aspects of the tale have to be inferred from the little evidence provided. Despite this handicap, however, Dash has, without question, written a gripping book about a little-known tale in history. A recommendation to anybody, even if he or she is not interested in history.

Dash does a magnificent job in taking us into detailed (and very interesting) 17th century life on the high seas. The massacre that follows the Batavia's wrecking makes for some gruesome reading - all too much so because it is a true story. Excellent and highly recommended read.