bookpagedev

Self-HelpLifestyles

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Michelle Lovric has compiled another charming, illustrated anthology of letters that allows readers the frisson of peeking at other people’s mail. Woman to Woman: Letters to Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Friends is the result of five years of research into the correspondence of women of all ages, famous and obscure. Grouped by the roles of womanhood such as child, student, young lover, mother, mentor, etc. the letters reveal the common experiences of all women, from all epochs and cultures. Most enchanting are the three-dimensional facsimiles of real handwritten letters from Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Marie Antoinette, and others.

Michelle Lovric has compiled another charming, illustrated anthology of letters that allows readers the frisson of peeking at other people's mail. Woman to Woman: Letters to Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Friends is the result of five years of research into the correspondence of women of…

Religion & Spirituality

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Kenneth C. Davis, the creator of the best-selling Don’t Know Much About series, tackles the best-selling book of all time: the Bible. In Don’t Know Much About the Bible the world’s most owned, least understood book is approached with Davis’s trademark question/answer format and witty, learned insights. Correctly assuming most of us exist in embarrassed silence when it comes to what the Bible does and doesn’t say, Davis pits the Old and New Testaments against historical events and brings to vivid life what we were supposed to have learned in Sunday school, but didn’t.

Kenneth C. Davis, the creator of the best-selling Don't Know Much About series, tackles the best-selling book of all time: the Bible. In Don't Know Much About the Bible the world's most owned, least understood book is approached with Davis's trademark question/answer format and witty,…

History

Review

Review by bookpagedev

For anyone interested in things Irish, Heritage of Ireland: A History of Ireland and Its People would be a perfect present indeed. Not just another coffee table book, this weighty, new celebration of the Emerald Isle spans centuries of conquest, politics, art, and daily life taking readers from the arrival of the Celts to Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance. The photographs, at least one to every page, are stunning, and the fresh format with wide margins and attractive type adds to the general readability. There is no blarney here, just the first-rate effort to be expected from publisher Facts on File.

For anyone interested in things Irish, Heritage of Ireland: A History of Ireland and Its People would be a perfect present indeed. Not just another coffee table book, this weighty, new celebration of the Emerald Isle spans centuries of conquest, politics, art, and daily life…

Nonfiction

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Gift-giving season is here again. If this announcement inspires frustration, oppressive obligation, or sheer panic, there is help. The Perfect Present: The Ultimate Gift Guide for Every Occasion (Crown, $16, 0609601318) takes the work out of giving, and hopefully, puts some joy into it. The author, a consumer advocate and Super Shopper, shifts our focus from duty to creativity, fun, and meaningfulness. A carefully considered, heartfelt gift, she reminds us, matches the unique combination of giver, receiver, and occasion. The quick, creative, tried-and-true suggestions are here for the taking in a helpful guide that’s a gift in itself.

Gift-giving season is here again. If this announcement inspires frustration, oppressive obligation, or sheer panic, there is help. The Perfect Present: The Ultimate Gift Guide for Every Occasion (Crown, $16, 0609601318) takes the work out of giving, and hopefully, puts some joy into it. The…

LiteratureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

If you love books, you will love Literature Lover’s Book of Lists: Serious Trivia for the Bibliophile.

Judie L.H. Strouf has assembled a Brobdingnagian collection of all things literary and presented in the end-of-century format that is now so popular lists! It has serious lists to focus your reading, and it has whimsical lists to shake and stir a reader’s head.

A reference volume for bibliophiles, for teachers, for parents, this volume guides the user to best books in many fields of interest, in a format for browsing.

Literature Lover’s Book of Lists can guide your lifetime reading plan in a helpful, enjoyable, readable way.

If you love books, you will love Literature Lover's Book of Lists: Serious Trivia for the Bibliophile.

Judie L.H. Strouf has assembled a Brobdingnagian collection of all things literary and presented in the end-of-century format that is now so popular lists! It…

FilmArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Video Hound’s somewhat irreverent slant offers more than your average famous reviewer guide. There are 23,000-plus movies herein, rated on a one-to-four bone scale; particularly heinous movies earn a woof. What sets this massive volume apart, though, is its use of lists. You can locate films according to your favorite stars (John Wayne, 139 listings; Leonardo DiCaprio, 10), or a broad range of categories, such as firemen or lovable losers. Or see how prolific your favorite director, writer, cinematographer, even composer, has been. Video Hound’s Golden Movie Retriever 1999, edited by Martin Connors and Jim Craddock, also contains an elaborate awards section, including the Golden Raspberry for the worst in filmdom. And there’s an extensive listing of Web sites for us internuts. One small down note: Golden Movie Retriever’s format can present some minor confusion. The reviews refer to the performers by their surnames; the full names are listed following each write-up. But that’s just a small flea on this otherwise user-friendly Video Hound, a welcome gift under any cinemafile’s holiday tree.

Video Hound's somewhat irreverent slant offers more than your average famous reviewer guide. There are 23,000-plus movies herein, rated on a one-to-four bone scale; particularly heinous movies earn a woof. What sets this massive volume apart, though, is its use of lists. You can locate…

Technology

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Working via the Internet is work. Some would argue it’s the work of the future. Jaclyn Easton, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, offers intriguing insight into the emerging world of online commerce in Striking It Rich.

Com: Profiles of 23 Incredibly Successful Websites That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of. While it’s been claimed that there’s not yet a clear business model for the Internet, Easton’s subjects simply rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Their e-commerce ventures are not household names and their level of financial disclosure varies, but all are showing significant growth. Their offerings (power tools, perfume, printing services) and sources of revenues (sales, advertising) are all over the map. Easton knows the territory and these short case studies are highly recommended for anyone contemplating making the plunge to the Web. These early arrivals are doing quite well.

(One of the things I learned from the book is this: hits are not people. The nomenclature of Web sites is filled with references to how many hits a site receives in a month. You’d think that means individuals going to the site. But hits relate to the number of files needed to connect you to a site, with text and graphics making up individual hits. So calling up one home page one time might register any number of hits for that site.) Neal Lipschutz is managing editor of Dow Jones News Service.

Working via the Internet is work. Some would argue it's the work of the future. Jaclyn Easton, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, offers intriguing insight into the emerging world of online commerce in Striking It Rich.

Com: Profiles of 23…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Now how did Barry Moser get my cat to pose for the illustrations he and daughter Cara Moser did for Telling Time with Big Mama Cat? I know that’s her with her white undersides and green eyes and exceedingly curious, highly intelligent, utterly feline ways.

Regardless of the artists’ model, Dan Harper’s Telling Time with Big Mama Cat is one of those children’s books in which the text and illustrations work together seamlessly to give children a rich reading and learning experience. Starting at six in the morning, Big Mama Cat goes through the day, telling young readers in a few droll words what she does at each hour, e.g., It’s time for baby Katie’s 9:00 a.m. bottle. I clean up any spills. As the hours go by, she takes a couple of naps, sneaks food from Rosie the dog’s dish, enjoys an afternoon tea party, and helps with the dishes at night ( My job is the prewash ). It’s no wonder Big Mama Cat is big.

What fun children will have spotting the different clocks in the illustrations, and Mama Cat’s family has quite a collection of timepieces. The time each one tells corresponds to the time stated in the text, so young readers have a double reinforcement for learning. But there’s even more! The bonanza in this title is the clock face with movable hands on the foldout cover. Young readers can then see that clock as they go from page to page and move its hands to tell the same time as the clocks shown in the illustrations. Absolutely ingenuous! Kids will love it.

This is a season of several top-quality children’s books featuring cats. Telling Time with Big Mama Cat is a marvelous choice for young ones who are mastering the skill of telling time. Besides they’ll also get to see my cat or at least one that looks very much like her. Marian Schonfelter is a first-grade teacher in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Now how did Barry Moser get my cat to pose for the illustrations he and daughter Cara Moser did for Telling Time with Big Mama Cat? I know that's her with her white undersides and green eyes and exceedingly curious, highly intelligent, utterly feline ways.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Science fiction and fantasy tales have long dealt with the search for identity. It is a common motif in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Robert Heinlein’s Double Star, and John W. Campbell, Jr.’s Who Goes There?, as well as Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear, James Blish’s A Case of Conscience, and Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. Now, Mission Child (Avon, $20, 0380974568) by Maureen F. McHugh joins this pantheon of precedent-setting novels.

Mission Child bears some striking thematic resemblances to LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness and obviously owes some debt to historical accounts of women who went to war disguised as men, but this is an entirely different point of view.

Young Janna lives on an alien world where the Earthers’ technology threatens the local flora and fauna and has cost 14-year-old Janna her family. Despite the violence and conflict, this is a vibrant and warm coming-of-age story, where off-world artifacts and alien cultures figure prominently as Janna negotiates the dividing line between child and adult and between female and male. Disguising herself as a young boy, Janna journeys forward in both spirit and adventure as she grows through her love for a dangerous criminal and the discovery of her dead child’s spirit. She also overcomes both the advantage and disadvantage of her linguistic abilities. Truly this is a novel that will arouse strong emotional responses while enticing with its sense of adventure and wonder.

In a lighter and more entertaining vein, the female protagonist of Holly Lisle’s Diplomacy of Wolves (Aspect, $12.99, 0446673951), Kait Galweigh, discovers a Sabir plot to assassinate the entire House of Galweigh at her cousin’s royal wedding. Kait’s escape involves her in battle with both mortal and demonic attackers, and she ultimately must rely upon her secret family power whose disclosure may result in her death. The rebirth of the magical energy that she controls is the only salvation available to defeat the evil from the shadow world as the great Houses of Sabir and Galweigh battle for control of their world, Calimekka. This is the first in a projected trilogy of epic fantasy adventure of sorcery, conspiracies, wolves, and deception.

Starfarers (Tor, $25.95, 0312860374) by Poul Anderson marks the return of one of the grand masters as author Anderson plots an exciting hard science fiction story of a starfaring civilization and Earth’s attempt to send a human diplomatic mission over 60,000 light years to contact them.

Science fiction and fantasy tales have long dealt with the search for identity. It is a common motif in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, Robert Heinlein's Double Star, and John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Who Goes There?, as well as Ursula LeGuin's…

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Science fiction and fantasy tales have long dealt with the search for identity. It is a common motif in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Robert Heinlein’s Double Star, and John W. Campbell, Jr.’s Who Goes There?, as well as Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear, James Blish’s A Case of Conscience, and Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. Now, Mission Child (Avon, $20, 0380974568) by Maureen F. McHugh joins this pantheon of precedent-setting novels.

Mission Child bears some striking thematic resemblances to LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness and obviously owes some debt to historical accounts of women who went to war disguised as men, but this is an entirely different point of view.

Young Janna lives on an alien world where the Earthers’ technology threatens the local flora and fauna and has cost 14-year-old Janna her family. Despite the violence and conflict, this is a vibrant and warm coming-of-age story, where off-world artifacts and alien cultures figure prominently as Janna negotiates the dividing line between child and adult and between female and male. Disguising herself as a young boy, Janna journeys forward in both spirit and adventure as she grows through her love for a dangerous criminal and the discovery of her dead child’s spirit. She also overcomes both the advantage and disadvantage of her linguistic abilities. Truly this is a novel that will arouse strong emotional responses while enticing with its sense of adventure and wonder.

In a lighter and more entertaining vein, the female protagonist of Holly Lisle’s Diplomacy of Wolves, Kait Galweigh, discovers a Sabir plot to assassinate the entire House of Galweigh at her cousin’s royal wedding. Kait’s escape involves her in battle with both mortal and demonic attackers, and she ultimately must rely upon her secret family power whose disclosure may result in her death. The rebirth of the magical energy that she controls is the only salvation available to defeat the evil from the shadow world as the great Houses of Sabir and Galweigh battle for control of their world, Calimekka. This is the first in a projected trilogy of epic fantasy adventure of sorcery, conspiracies, wolves, and deception.

Starfarers (Tor, $25.95, 0312860374) by Poul Anderson marks the return of one of the grand masters as author Anderson plots an exciting hard science fiction story of a starfaring civilization and Earth’s attempt to send a human diplomatic mission over 60,000 light years to contact them.

Science fiction and fantasy tales have long dealt with the search for identity. It is a common motif in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, Robert Heinlein's Double Star, and John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Who Goes There?, as well as Ursula LeGuin's…

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Science fiction and fantasy tales have long dealt with the search for identity. It is a common motif in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Robert Heinlein’s Double Star, and John W. Campbell, Jr.’s Who Goes There?, as well as Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear, James Blish’s A Case of Conscience, and Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. Now, Mission Child by Maureen F. McHugh joins this pantheon of precedent-setting novels.

Mission Child bears some striking thematic resemblances to LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness and obviously owes some debt to historical accounts of women who went to war disguised as men, but this is an entirely different point of view.

Young Janna lives on an alien world where the Earthers’ technology threatens the local flora and fauna and has cost 14-year-old Janna her family. Despite the violence and conflict, this is a vibrant and warm coming-of-age story, where off-world artifacts and alien cultures figure prominently as Janna negotiates the dividing line between child and adult and between female and male. Disguising herself as a young boy, Janna journeys forward in both spirit and adventure as she grows through her love for a dangerous criminal and the discovery of her dead child’s spirit. She also overcomes both the advantage and disadvantage of her linguistic abilities. Truly this is a novel that will arouse strong emotional responses while enticing with its sense of adventure and wonder.

In a lighter and more entertaining vein, the female protagonist of Holly Lisle’s Diplomacy of Wolves (Aspect, $12.99, 0446673951), Kait Galweigh, discovers a Sabir plot to assassinate the entire House of Galweigh at her cousin’s royal wedding. Kait’s escape involves her in battle with both mortal and demonic attackers, and she ultimately must rely upon her secret family power whose disclosure may result in her death. The rebirth of the magical energy that she controls is the only salvation available to defeat the evil from the shadow world as the great Houses of Sabir and Galweigh battle for control of their world, Calimekka. This is the first in a projected trilogy of epic fantasy adventure of sorcery, conspiracies, wolves, and deception.

Starfarers (Tor, $25.95, 0312860374) by Poul Anderson marks the return of one of the grand masters as author Anderson plots an exciting hard science fiction story of a starfaring civilization and Earth’s attempt to send a human diplomatic mission over 60,000 light years to contact them.

Science fiction and fantasy tales have long dealt with the search for identity. It is a common motif in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, Robert Heinlein's Double Star, and John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Who Goes There?, as well as Ursula LeGuin's…

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Versatile novelists never stay content for long with a specific genre or style. Restless like a big cat in a small cage, they assume another fictional persona, don another narrative voice, and strike out for new pastures. Walter Mosley, creator of the popular Easy Rawlins series, has temporarily abandoned soulful Los Angeles, triple cross schemes, rubber checks, and raw fisticuffs in the night. His old fans will be startled by his wicked curveball of a new novel, Blue Light, a work of speculative fiction. A space-age mortality play, Blue Light does not burst from the starting gate, instead it falters momentarily through a fragmented prologue, where a vast array of characters meet a baffling fate with their first encounter with the all-transforming light. No one is the same after the strange contact. The narrator, Chance, recounts some of this other-dimensional tale from the comfort of a sanitarium. He tells the readers of his endless bad luck, his termination at his library job, his academic failures, and the bitter departure of his girlfriend. And things only get worse from there as the surreal fable soon begins to pick up pace.

Chance, one of the chosen by the light, joins a shadowy cult, led by Orde, a man afflicted with a rare blood disorder. Each of the people touched by the light morphs into a new form of human, complete with exaggerated strengths and flaws. This evolving super-race experiences a quickening of the genes, causing both spiritual and physical changes, bringing them into direct confrontation with the Old Order. The other key targets of the light band together into a group, The Blues, who seek to convert the non-believers into acceptance of their reconstituted existence.

Not always in complete control of this new genre’s thematic demands, Mosley does ask critical contemporary questions about race, loyalty, moral responsibility, and humanity. Occasionally, the writing borders on the farcical during the building of the novel’s curious premise, but there remains an abundance of imagination and literary bravado throughout. Mosley is not afraid to take chances, not shy about pushing into that improbable territory of science and myth carved out long ago by such master writers as Fritz Leiber, Clifford D. Simak, Roger Zelazny, and Arthur C. Clarke. Again, the war of the Opposites returns. Who would have thought that the hard-bitten writer of detective fiction could sing so ably in this key? And then there was the sun shining, Mosley writes in his new-found celestial voice. The pulsing story of creation humming again and again through her inner timbre. So beautiful that it called a song from her depths, a song that flowed out through the atmosphere and deep into the soil and stone of the earth. She was calling to awareness the very atoms that composed the world. If the reader can forget the author’s much celebrated tie to Rawlins and surrender to the lure of the imagined world of the Blues, Blue Light will provide a daring, provocative trek. The novel contains a few miscues, several under-utilized characters, surprises when it hits its stride. It’s a courageous experiment worthy of your time and patience.

Robert Fleming is a reviewer in New York.

Versatile novelists never stay content for long with a specific genre or style. Restless like a big cat in a small cage, they assume another fictional persona, don another narrative voice, and strike out for new pastures. Walter Mosley, creator of the popular Easy Rawlins…

Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

The wait is killing us. Basketball fans want to know in some cases need to know if Michael Jordan has taken his final shot as a player in the National Basketball Association. The future of Jordan and the Chicago Bulls was a major subplot to the 1997-98 NBA season. While the Bulls went about the business of winning another world championship, everyone was dogging the various members of the organization along the way to find out if this was indeed a last hurrah. Jordan, now 35 but still capable of pulling us out of our seats at any moment after another spectacular play, said he’d considered coming back for another season if the rest of his championship cast came back.

Once the Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz in the finals for their sixth championship in eight years in June, coach Phil Jackson wasted little time in cleaning out his office and heading to Montana. Scottie Pippin, one of the greatest players in league history in his own right, sounded like a man who was ready to claim free-agent riches from another team when he spoke right after the Finals. The 1998 season sure felt like the last ride for one of the great teams in basketball history.

Then the lockout came in July. Basketball players and owners couldn’t figure out how to divide the millions upon millions of dollars coming into their collective bank accounts. Players transactions were put indefinitely on hold. As summer came to an end, the league’s record of never missing a regular- season game due to a labor dispute appeared in serious jeopardy. But the casual fan didn’t care much about that. That fan was more interested in knowing if Jordan would ever play again, and that hadn’t been resolved as of late September.

So, we wait.

At least Jordan has given us something to do while waiting for some sort of resolution. He has produced a book called For the Love of the Game, which reviews his pro career to date. It was produced in conjunction with the same people who worked on Rare Air with him, and it features a similar if much larger format.

Jordan and his staff went through almost 10,000 photographs to pick out the 200 used in the book. A particularly striking one is a double-page shot of Jordan’s personal trophy room at home. The shelves are stacked up with awards, as you’d expect, but the floor contains the biggest surprise. It’s made up of the wood from the middle of the basketball court at the new demolished Chicago Stadium, complete with the angry bull’s face in the center circle.

The photos are complimented by more than 20,000 words by Jordan himself. It’s an effort to put his career into a bit more perspective than we usual get from him. The daily sound bites in the media from Jordan usually center on his next game or his last game, so it’s nice to read him expounding on some different subjects.

No one could blame Jordan if he decided to quit basketball right now. He is universally acclaimed as the greatest all-around player in the history of his sport, and he’s won championships in his last six full seasons. Jordan’s final moment in the 1998 playoffs might have been his best. He stole a pass from Utah’s Karl Malone and then hit a jump shot in the final seconds to give his team a victory and a title in Game Six all while realizing that an injury to Pippin would make victory for his team in Game Seven an almost impossible task. No one could have staged a better exit line.

But then again, another championship will be an even greater challenge this coming season, and as For the Love of the Game proves Jordan always has liked a challenge. His fans, then, will look through this book, smile at the memories of his accomplishments, and wait to see if he will add to them in the future.

Budd Bailey is a writer in Buffalo, New York.

The wait is killing us. Basketball fans want to know in some cases need to know if Michael Jordan has taken his final shot as a player in the National Basketball Association. The future of Jordan and the Chicago Bulls was a major subplot to…

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