literature

"Remmy and the Brain Train" is an exhilerating ride that will fascinate both parents and their young children, a rare accomplishment in children's literature. It's a clever, behind-the-scenes look at the values of sleep, that is just as educational for my husband and I, the parents of an inquisitive 5 year old, as it is for my son. Through the delightfully fun dialogue of Dr. James Maas's characters we are taken on a nightly journey to the land of great sleep and are cheerfully explained the benefits of bedtime...something ALL parents can appreciate! "Remmy and the Brain Train" is the perfect marriage of a working didactic tool and an imaginative, creative fairy tale. The principles behind better sleep are woven seamlessly into the story, and because awkward textbook jargon is thankfully nowhere to be found, our son actually understands why sleep is important! Just as I was intrigued and motivated by Dr. Maas's first book, Power Sleep, a few years ago, so now is my child by this, his first foray into children's literature. I would recommend "Remmy" heartily to all parents who want to raise a happy and healthy child!

Dr. Maas's book, "Remmy and the Brain Train," is an absolute delight to read! The book chronicles a young boy, Remmy, through his important discovery of what sleep is and how it helps in his everyday life. Remmy benefits from the teaching of the wonderful sleep doctor, Dr. Zeez, who offers real-life wisdom about sleep that is applicable to all of us!

The characters are vibrant, the illustrations are very creative, and the story is incredibly engaging... education is rarely this fun! The author has crafted a book that is a true winner for children and parents alike, especially with the enclosure of the read-along, sing-along CD. I would highly recommend "Remmy and the Brain Train" as one of the best children's books available today.

My almost 4 year old received this as a Christmas Gift and he loves it! The accompanying CD makes it even better with a calming rythem and memorable phrases.

There is no author like Roald Dahl. You thought that Stephen King was the master of terror and suspense? Dahl makes his stories look like a stroll on a warm summer's day. I read "Poison" a half-hour ago and I literally still have chills. "Lamb to the Slaughter" is an absolute classic. Read one story and you will agree that Dahl was not alright: These stories are not for the faint of heart. It is truly ADULT WRITING. It covers everything from death to sex to mutilation to death, sex and mutilation. If you enjoy short stories, read this book. If you enjoy horror stories, read this book. If you enjoy twists and turns, read this book. If you can read, read this book. If you can't read, have someone read this book to you. What else is there to say?

This was my first encounter with the more mature work of Roald Dahl. I had previously associated him with the books I had loved when I was in elementary school, such as "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator" and "James and the Giant Peach". The supreme mastery of dramatic irony shown in these stories absolutely amazed and delighted me. Some of the stories left me shivering with a coldness that seemed to leap directly from the page into the very depths of my soul. This book is required reading for anyone who is a fan of literature in general. I have learned plot and linguistic techniques that carried over into my own high school writing courses. I encourage anyone who is able to pick this book up using whatever means possible and read it many times.

i still love reading "the witches" ... but for a little more grownup roald dahl humor, the omnibus is great reading. and as it promises, it is good bedtime story-length (though you get so drawn in that it may end up stay up reading instead of stopping after one story)

I can't finish all my compliment for this book in this short review. You are not gonna believe it is such a splendid book until you read it yourself. This book is a saga with so much wisdom and humanity. It is as good as ancient Greek epic (with all repect to Greek) if not better. The wisdom in it is uncommonly plentiful. Trojan horse looks children's game after you finished the book. Romance of three kingdoms is a part of Chinese lives and now becoming popular in the world. Many Japanese companies make this book as a must-read for management staff. Read this book and I garantee that your time will be delightfully spent.

I'm a girl in Korea, who loves this book, The Romance of Three kingdom. I think this book can be regarded as the 'Odyssey of far east Asia.' It's really funny, exciting and instructive. Almost every far east Asian have ever read this book. And I too read this book five times. But it's not boring at all.I hope much more people in the world can have the pleasure reading this. I like Kung-ming and Chou-Yu best out of too many heros in the book. You'll be excited to see the wisdom fighting between them.

I think that all Westerners should be exposed to this classic of the East. Without a doubt, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is one of the very best works of literary art that the human mind had ever produced.
A short synopsis is in order. The novel centers around a rather short, turbulent time in ancient China, following the collapse of the Han Dynasty and predating the rise of the Jin dynasty, the period known as the "Three Kingdoms". In order to rise up against the now-corrupt Han dynasty, the mystic Zhang Jiao began what is known as the "Yellow Turban rebellion". In response to this menace, heroes of China gathered in order to put down this threat. Among these heroes are the virtuous Liu Bei, the loyal and familial Sun Jian, and the cruel and wily (but talented) Cao Cao. After the Yellow Turban rebellion is put down, it is realized that the Han dynasty has grown horribly weak and corrupt, and the heroes leave for home with their own ambitions of ruling China. Liu Bei wishes for the old days (he is a distant relative of the Han line), Cao Cao wishes for personal glory and honor, and Sun Jian wishes to rule China in order to leave it to his sons. Many other players enter the drama (hundreds in fact!), but the story really revolves around these three and their spheres of influence.
The author, Luo Guan Zhong, wrote a book that is at once of strategy, history, psychology, warfare. Although battles are always present, even those readers not interested in warfare can find a great deal in this book. Inevitably, the reader will find himself siding with one of the great Kingdoms of Wei, Wu or Shu, and yet will still feel compelled to feel compassion, elation and sorrow for the others, as their fortunes rise and fall with the changing fates. Each time I read the book (six and counting!), I pull for Liu Bei, who brings himself from commoner status to the highest positions in the land despite his tragic flaw of being TOO virtuous! And yet, I cannot deny enjoying reading about Cao Cao, as he gains support and popularity until the battle of Chi Bi, at which point he falls and must rise again. Also, the ending is fabulous, and unexpected.
However, I must warn the first time reader of the complete deluge of names with which he will be accosted. To further complicate matters, different publishers of the book spell the names in different ways (e.g. Cao Cao=T'sao T'sao, Chuko Lee-ong=Zhuge Liang). I was aided in this struggle by the fact that I had played a game with these characters, so that I was familiar with some of them. The author revels in his knowledge of history, and expects the same of his readers, but the reader may feel completely overwhelmed. Just keep in mind the three main characters, and try to remember who follows whom, and you should do fine (however, it is frustrating when the character Xun Yu introduces the character Xun You, etc.).
"Empires wax and wane, states cleave asunder and coalesce". The first statement in the book is as true today as it was 2000 years ago. If you are a reader who prides himself on his knowledge of the classics, I can honestly say that your mental library is incomplete until you read this book. So, what are you waiting for?

I'm very glad to see this one back in print. From their name, I'm guessing the new publisher is one of those that caters to students of military and naval history. Certainly the other reviewers seem to focus on McKenna's depiction of the lives of men serving on a U.S. Navy river gunboat in the 1920s.

And indeed this aspect of The Sand Pebbles is very well done. The whole book is worth reading just for one finely-crafted scene where the other sailors bet a foul-mouthed messmate he can't tell a story without cursing. He wins the bet, but on his own terms.

But there's more to this book then the lives a few seamen. It's about their interaction with the strange, wonderful Chinese civilization around them. And with China itself, which is, in a sense, the most important character in the book.

McKenna motivates this action by centering the book around an intelligent but half-educated hero, a rebellious man who joined the Navy to stay out of jail, and who transferred to the river patrol to escape from the hierarchy and rituals of ocean-going ships. Lacking his shipmates' contempt for the Chinese, he becomes fascinated with their lives and culture. This fascinatation become the source of many complicated interactions between him, his shipmates, and the Chinese, leading to friendship, love, conflict, and tragedy.

Another fascinating character is the boat's skipper, an aging Lieutenant Junior Grade. On one level, he is off-balance martinet, overly fond of military ritual, striving to achieve a strange personal state of grace -- with disasterous results. But he's also a keen observer of the events and people around him, and his inner conversations about them make for compelling reading.

Most people know this story from the Steve McQueen movie, which reduced all the complexity of McKenna's story to Vietnam-era historical guilt tripping. A pity, because this book contains much insight about the interaction between China and the west, an interaction to often reduced to simple political cliches.

The Sand Pebbles is an immensely rich and readbable book. Set in the early early 20th century on the inland rivers and lakes of China, the book shows gunboat diplomacy on the eve of revolution in China. The lives of sailors, officers, missionaries, coolies, and revolutionaries intertwine in a complex drama filled with action towards what some may see as a tragic ending. But in the tragedy, a country is born. This is excellent reading material.

Some of the appeal for me comes in identifying with Jake Holman. Where Jake begins with a love of machinery and an empowering mastery of it, I suppose to some part I originally felt the same way about computers and software. Jake transcends this, albeit tragically, in the book. Will you?

Richard McKenna's The Sand Pebbles is a great novel, it never gets boring and the story really catches the readers attention. The story has elements of humor, action, sadness and drama. It's a great read for anyone who loves reading, or a great work of fiction. McKenna masterfully takes us on a journey about many different people, with very different views on life and philosophy. Whether it be Holman who refuses to conform or Lt. Collins' firm belief in military duty, or the views of the missionaries who resent gunboats in China. The story touches on the issues that people little know about China in the mid- 20's, and the lives of river rat sailors who were placed in the middle of the Chinese revolution.

I will admit that it took me at least 50 pages to get "into" this book. However, once it grabbed my attention, I was hooked. The characters are incredibly human -- flaws and all. The "heroine," Rose, elicits sympathy, impatience and furor from the reader while the dementia of her charge, Alice, is almost mesmerizing.

The one complaint, if it can even be called that, with this book is that it always seems as though it is setting up some great metaphor with the embroidery (seemingly the only industry of the town), but that metaphor is never fully developed.

What remains sacred when everything is for sale? What happens to a tightly-knit community when heritage is traded for an illusory economic security?

Laura Hendrie sets "Remember Me" in the forgotten New Mexico town of Queduro. The residents, once miners and shepherds, now rely on tourists for economic survival. Queduro is the most isolated of mountain towns, cut off from the rest of the world in October through May by impassible snows. The town has long spent its winters bent to embroidery, but only in recent years has the outside world developed a taste for their intricately worked crafts.

Into this picture of a town struggling to create and maintain the perfect tourist enviroment are set some fairly eccentric characters. Rose Devonic, a twenty-nine year old woman who's been an orphan for the last thirteen years, is in Queduro because it's the only home she's ever known. Rose is as stubborn as she is strong, and she's determined to chart her own course in spite of the town elder's wanting her to spout the tourist line. Already teetering on the far edge of acceptance, Rose crosses the invisible line when she challenges Alice, the sister of a local motel owner, who has returned to this town she'd rather forget to sell her brother's business.

Queduro residents, sharply attuned to the business damage eccentrics could wreak, have had it with Rose. Alice presents a different, but fully equal challenge. Though she comes across as a strong and determined seventy-year-old, her mind has started to wander. It is only a matter of time before the town begins to turn on her as well.

Laura Hendrie crafts an incredibly lovely and moving tale in this first novel. Though set in the west, her themes are universal. Rose's loss of her home is paralleled by Alice's struggle to hold on to her memory. It's a conflict which unites some very unlikely allies.

It would be easy, and unfair, to characterize this work as a book which would appeal only to women. The main characters are women, but the issues raised by this work cross gender lines as easily as they do geographic ones. It is a book that looks at what makes a hero, and how does one make a home. It seems, in Hendrie's vision, home has very little to do with physical grandeur, and a whole lot to do with what you love.

This is a wonderful story, beautifully told, and a total immersion experience that should not be missed.

Memory -- its presence and its absence, its wonder and its terror, its helpfulness and its harm -- weaves its way through Laura Hendrie's REMEMBER ME like a minor-key musical leitmotif. Rose Devonic, lifelong resident of tiny Queduro, New Mexico, struggles against the memories of the townspeople; the failing memory of her sometime-nemesis, Alice Pinkston; the bittersweet memory of a family killed in a car accident when Rose was just 16.

This is a novel about belonging and difference, remembering and forgetting, acceptance and rejection. Hendrie makes you care about Rose, seeing the world through her slightly offbeat, but clear and decisive eyes.

I opened REMEMBER ME at bedtime and turned the last page at 5:00 AM. I couldn't rest without knowing how Rose's life turned out.

Read this book. Now.

If you think that Dr. Seuss's art is just for children, think again! This collection of oil paintings, watercolors, pencil and ink sketches, and even sculptures show new dimensions in his work. The general style of the figures and background is familiar to us from his children's books, but the dazzling palette of colors goes far beyond that of the books.

Anyone who loves Dr. Seuss should have this beautiful book!

While few would contend at the genius Seuss put into his writing, with distinctive meter, use of words and rhyme, sometimes overlooked is the artwork that illustrated this strange world. Theodor Geisel was an accomplished illustrator. Unfortunately, most of what we saw of his work was only what was published in the books. This volume introdues you to a wider range of his work. There are not only his paintings, but his studies in 3-D of some of the whimsical cross-bred characters that were his hallmark. But there is also a sense of the adult audience in these - with jokes and puns aimed squarely above the kid level. For many of us, we delighted in Dr. Seuss as children, and delight with our children today, but this book shows us that Seuss was speaking to everyone, not just the kids, and we are richer for it. An impressive collection of artwork to make you smile.

Best known of course for his dearly beloved children's books, Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) was also an supremely talented artist, as this collection of his paintings and sculptures attests. Far more detailed than the illustrations of his books, the paintings in particular range from gently witty to absolutely dazzling.

Many great painters use the canvas to tell a story; Seuss goes a step farther. Each of his paintings are like a portal into an amazing little world. "Cat Detective in the Wrong Part of Town" evokes a seedy 50's mystery story, but with cats. Cats, by the way, are a major theme of this collection. They pop up everywhere, doing everything: Dancing the night away in "Cat Carnival in West Venice", playing pool in "Cat from the Wrong Side of the Tracks", even taking a shower in "Cat in Obsolete Shower Bath (Study)". Seuss packs a lot of feeling into his subjects; "Lonely" sums up isolation about as well as anything I've seen, and several untitled pieces each show one lone bird flying serenely above a stormy sea. My favorite painting is entitled "I Dreamed I Was a Doorman at the Hotel del Coronado". With its dreamy South American feel and bright colors it reminds me of an old Technicolor movie from the forties.

I can't recommend this book enough, the paintings are just wonderful. I never get tired of looking at them. A complete must-own for any Seuss fan, or just any lover of the whimsical. A+

On second reading 40-plus years after original publication, Graham Greene's short and masterful novel "The Quiet American" seems profound and prophetic. (To many of us it seemed arrogant, stereotyped and anti-American in 1957). Alden Pyle, the quiet American,has been said by Greene biographers to be a takeoff of Edwin Lansdale, the model for William Lederer's "The Ugly American," a favorable account of America in Asia written contemporaneous with Greene's novel. Today Alden Pyle could be seen as a character based on the Robert McNamara, Maxwell Taylor, Henry Cabot Lodge or Robert Komer of the 1960s. Greene's moral vision is as keen here as in any of his novels.

Greene's The Quiet American is powerful and moving and anyone who desires to better understand the mindset of American policymakers at the outset of the United States' deepened involvement in Indochina. Greene writes with the candor and insight of a seasoned overseas correspondant and shows the ideals and idealism that propelled Vietnamese and American interests to tragically clash. Greene portrays the characters in the novel in a manner in which they are complex and very real and not soundbytes and stereotypes that confront us in other books and in the current news media.

A valuable bonus of the Viking Critical Library edition are the essays at the end of the book that provide additional detail to Greene's story. In addition to reviews of the book in the context of US diplomacy, espionage and counterinsurgency, of particular worth is the brief history of American military involvement in the late 1950s/early 1960s in Indochina by Frank Futrell, former Historian of the Air Force. Futrell is knowledgeable and a prolific yet very readable writer, and his 14-page essay at the end of the book serves as a stark epilogue to the novel.

No doubt Mr. Greene is among the very best politcial writers ever, and this is probably his best political novel, eerily predicting events of many years later. His locale descriptions, and psychic feel for his characters make all his books worthwhile. The "Quiet" American, a young and naive Ivy Leaguer, is convinced his modern ideas can save Vietnam from inevitable chaos. Needless to say, he comes to a very rude awakening. Another great classic in the world of Graham Greene!

Surviving Hitler is a wonderful survival story depicting courage, and friendship in a great, breath stopping story about a boy in a Nazi death camp. Jack's faith, courage, and friendship with Moniek help him get through the hard time in his life and survive Hitler. This story is interesting to me because Jack is about my age and sometimes what happens to him can relate to life now. The story taught me about the Holocaust in a way that I could learn it better than usual. Jack can be an idol for people who are going through very hard times in their lives to show them that they can survive it. This book is so good that it is now one of my favorite books of all.

Serving Hitler, by Andrea Waren. The story took place during WWII, in a Nazi concentration camp for Jews. This a true story about a named Jack Mandelbaum.
Jack was twelve when the Nazis put his family in a Ghetto. Where he worked to support his family, because they were separated from his father. The Nazis did not like Jews and blamed them for the loss of WWI. About a year or two later Jacks family was put into a concentration camp. There were two lines for two different camps... but his family didn't know that Jack was put into a different line then his mother and brother. Jack was put into a line for a work camp, and his family went to a death camp.
Jack was alone in a whole new world to him, he didn't know anyone, and he was probly the youngest boy there. A prisoner he befriended helped Jack get through the camp for a while, until Jack got transferred to another camp; told jack to of the camp as a game. The rules were: avoid getting beat, stay clean to avoid getting lice, and stay healthy, so you can go home to your family, and beat Hitler at his own game.
After a while Jack was transferred to a new camp. He meat a boy about his age named Monike. Jack and Monike became best friends. When they both thought they were going to die of starvation a miracle happened. The cooks became very sick and Jack, and Monike were the Luckey souls who got to work with all that food. Jack and Monike new that if they stayed the cooks for a while they might have a chance of living.
After about a year the whole camp was transferred again, and Jack and Monike were not the cooks anymore. In this camp you were if you got to eat once a day. Jack and Monike were separated. Jack was only in this camp about six weeks, and one night the Nazis locked all the barracks. The Nazis left the camp and took all the food and left the Jews for dead. But they knocked down the doors and were free.
Jack was a free man and found his good friend Monike, but sad fully did not have a family to come to. Jack had own Hitler's game but still his family lost. After a while after he searched for his family Jack gave up and moved the United States and started his own family. Jack died in 1998.

Surviving Hitler, by Andrea Warren, is a story about a boy named Jack Mandelbaum. He is a Jewish boy and lives during the time of WWII. He is separated from his family and lives in a concentration camp. He has to survive in them. He is very determined to survive in the camps because he wants to meet with his family after the war.
During his time in the camps he meets a man named Aaron who gives him vital information about the camps. He also tells him that if he cannot work, the Nazis will kill him. He tells him about the ovens. What I think is the most important rule that Aaron told Jack was that this was just a game that Hitler was playing. Jack was in that game. If Jack lost, he would die, but if Jack won, he would survive the Nazi death camps and live after the war was over.
I recommend this book because it had a lot of good description, great quotes, and a very interesting and unpredictable plot. I would rate this book a 4 1/2 out of 5 and not a 5 out of 5 because it didn't give many details about his life after the war or about the other characters lives after the war. This was an all around good book that I enjoyed very much.

Children of the River by Linda Crew, was a very good novel, but not since Rice With Rain have I had so much interest in reading a novel. I never thought that I would encounter another book as depressing as Children of the River, yet Rice Without Rain certainly was the one. The story was about Jinda Boonreung, a village thai girl, who goes through many struggles to free her father. She also seeks love and happiness from a city boy in Bangkok, Ned. Though they met and fell in love, they couldn't be together. What a ironic twist, huh!? To find out more about this ironic love story and what happened at the end, I'll recommend that you'll need to read this book.

Rice without Rain is a book written by MinFong Ho, witch is about a girl who is in search of founding her best friend, and discovers that her father is in jail. And she head's to the town where he's at. And she try's to find away to raise enough money to get him out. And to do so she as to get up in front of the town and give a speech, that will confence them that he wasn't guilty of the crime he was accused of. And when she gets up there and give's her speech, it make's them angry and so they start throwing miniature bombs and food at her. And I'm not going to tell you the rest of the story because it would ruin the ending, and I recommend that people of all ages should read this book because it's a good story. And it gets you really interested in the book and you won't want to put it down.

This book is something that tells things that can happen to you like where you won't have any food and if you do you have very food. Like homeless people have little food. This book explains about a girl who losses her dad but also falls in love at the same time and he moves to a group and asks her to go but for her it was a very hard decision and we all go through hard decisions but she choose not to go because she wanted to take care of her grandmother. This book is inspiring and it is like real life like the book has come to life and is explaining your life but in a very diffrent way thats why i gave this book five stars and i recemend it to all of you.

Hesse's tale of a young Brahmin's son about to embark on the adventure of life is a wonderfully simple and concise story - it is a parable about the struggle of life, and has a wonderfully optimistic message.

Hesse's strengths as an author lie in the way he imbues a strong narrative with a dual meaning - one comes away with the impression of having read a good book, but at the same time with the realisation that the story was merely a framework on which Hesse has hung a touching spiritual tract.

Steps for enlightenment:

Forsake the love of your family and abandon them in pursuit of an intangible goal.

Abandon teachers and friends and all who seek to help you.

Invest all of your money and emotion into a prostitute.

Abandon unborn child to be raised fatherless in the home and place of business of said harlot.

Disappear without warning, abandoning business obligations and personal relationships.

Go live in a shack down by the river.

When burdened with the appearance of your emotionally distraught child, employ mind games to drive child to run away from home.

If child is successfully driven off, do not give chase.

Follow these simple rules, and you will be the Buddha.

The story seems simple on the surface. I believe it depicts an ambivalent attitude about Buddhism, and favors a Taoist way of harmony. Siddhartha's rejection of dogma or teaching is pure Taoism. But at the same time Hesse shows that inflation and gratifacation of the ego with pleasure, wealth, etc. is also problematic. The most memorable line is "the opposite of a truth is also true. A truth cloaked in words is only one sided." Paradox, the insistence on the present, the belief that wisdom can only be lived but not expressed in words or taught, the unity of samsara and nirvana is entirely consistent with Taoism or Zen and not Buddhism per se. Seek without seeking might be the message of the story. This is only my interpretation and might not be entirely true. Decide for yourself.