Product Description
This volume features more than 40 of the Bay Area's greatest hikes, with detailed descriptions and superb maps for each trail. Each chapter also includes an elevation profile, difficulty rating, trail contacts, and much more. This is the best hiking guide available to the San Francisco Bay area.
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Customer Reviews (2)

Not accurate at best.
My hiking buddy has taken this book along on several of the hikes that we have done.More than once, we have come to an intersection where the book says to go straight but it's a T-intersection and we can only go right or left. And true to Murphy's law, the book will never have a map of that section to help you out.Also, a few of the hikes where she said was a "slight hill climb" turn out to be monstrously strenuous. While some other parts of hikes that she said were difficult were terribly easy.I've long since doubted that she has done these hikes herself because no one who's actually been out on these trails can describe them that inaccurately.There are better books out there, stay away from this one.

Heavy
A nice sampling of hikes but not enough variety to warrant all the pages.This isn't a book I can take along in my pack so I've had to photocopy pages which is a little inconvenient. This is more a book for beginning hikers. The hike selections weren't chanllenging enough for me. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Dance Magazine, published by Dance Magazine, Inc. on June 1, 2003. The length of the article is 533 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Advice for dancers: former New York City Ballet dancer Linda Hamilton, Ph.D., is a lecturer, a psychologist in private practice, and author of Advice for Dancers (Jossey-Bass).(Letter to the Editor)
Publication: Dance Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 2003
Publisher: Dance Magazine, Inc.
Volume: 77Issue: 6Page: 13(1)

Article Type: Letter to the Editor

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
An exhilarating departure for the bestselling author of "London Fields" and "Time's Arrow", this gritty, credible, totally captivating mystery follows the exploits of American homicide detective Jennifer Rockwell and the intriguing case that gets under her skin.Amazon.com Review
On a beautiful night in a second-tier American city, abeautiful astrophysicist with the clichéd everything to livefor shoots herself dead with a .22. Tough-talking detective MikeHoolihan, quickly summoned to the scene, has witnessed every sort ofvictim: "Jumpers, stumpers, dumpers, dunkers, bleeders, floaters,poppers, bursters." But this case is different. Mike has knownthe young woman for years--she's the daughter, it turns out, of Mike'smentor, Colonel Tom Rockwell. And the colonel is desperate to find aperp, despite massive evidence to the contrary.

In NightTrain, Martin Amis has fixed his sights on the Americanfemale--with a difference. Mike is in fact a woman--a hulking,chain-smoking, deep-voiced alcoholic who comes complete with a squalidfamily background and a none-too-happy foreground. She even lives in abuilding next to the proverbial night train and can't survive withouther tape with eight different versions of the R & B "hymn to thelow rent."

Did this novel begin as narrative flexing, yetanother test the hypertalented author--and number-one Elmore Leonardfan--wanted to pose to himself? If so, he has passed with flyingcolors. True, Mike's search occasionally pushes her up against pulppathos, but mostly the genre keeps Amis true. "Police are prettyblasé about ballistics. Remember the Kennedy assassinationand 'the magic bullet'? We know that every bullet is a magic bullet.Particularly the .22 roundnose. When a bullet enters a human being, ithas hysterics. As if it knows it shouldn't be there."

Mike spends her time weighing the evidence, wishing it would point tomurder, and letting us in on some current police realities. Whatevertelevision tells us, in real life (not to mention postmodern crimefiction), there's no neat solution. Even that old standard, the goodcop-bad cop approach, no longer works: "It's not just that JoePerp is on to it, having seen good cop-bad cop a million times onreruns of Hawaii Five-O. The only time bad cop was any good wasin the old days, when he used to come into the interrogation roomevery ten minutes and smash your suspect over the head with the yellowpages." With such discourses, Amis is stretching the rubber bandof his book's realism. But in the end, all his fancy footwork doesn'tstop us from admiring and pitying his heroine, and hoping she won'tboard the ultimate night train: suicide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (94)

"When the night is young and the land is dark...I won't be afraid...stand by me." Song lyrics
New York Detective Mike Hollihan is called to the scene of an apparent suicide.

Mike is a woman with a nicotine voice, dyed blond hair and is an alcoholic who had been abused by her father.

The victim is Jennifer Rockwell, who Mike had known since Jenn was a little girl. Jenn is the daughter of Mike's former boss, Col. Tom Rockwell, who is also a father image to Mike.

After viewing the body, Mike concludes that it is a suicide but when she tells Tom, he can't accept that his well adjusted daughter would commit suicide. He asks Mike to look again.

The medical report is that there were multiple bullets in Jenn. Could her finger have frozen while pulling the trigger? Why would this seemingly adjusted, beautiful girl commit suicide? Why isn't there a suicide note?Mike must answer these questions as the story continues.

The author gives the reader an appealing character in Mike Hollihan. Amis must have been in a mischievous mood when he was establishing her characteristics as a woman named Mike, formerly abused by her father and an alcoholic with a nicotine voice. What more could we ask for?

I was drawn into the story as it went along and found it delightful.

Great read, perhaps a disappointing whodunit
This book was one many which I've read in the last few weeks, as part of my re-discovery of the mystery genre, including police procedurals.

Having gone through the reviews, it's clear to me that you can love it, hate it or even be ambivalent about it. Some reviewers seem to have problems with the kind of person Amis is, which is immaterial to me. On the other hand, I think it's a serious flaw that the idiom isn't American (I couldn't make that out myself, so it didn't affect me).

In my view, first of all, what stood out was the cleverness of the writing. It's extremely smart, and it was difficult to let go of the book once I started. I also liked the fact that it's a gripping story, but told very concisely - it's a pretty short novel.

The story seems to be heading towards a perfect "procedural", with some dots being there but the investigator only connecting them at the end. But finally it deceives readers to an extent. I thought this was a bit of a let down. IMHO, most authors don't seem to be able to write modern thrillers without throwing in an angle of child abuse. Amis does this as well, which is a pity (unless it was meant in a satirical way, I'm not sure).

On the whole I still think this is an excellent read. It does qualify as a police procedural, it has its quirky insights into police work, the characters make an impact. It doesn't have a neat ending in the usual way, and you need to assess how important that is to you.

Spoiler
For me, this was a suspense novel, not a whodunit.

This is how I saw it: While Mike is trying desperately to get a hold of her life and find a reason to keep on going, a flawless beauty commits suicide out of sheer boredom with her perfect life. Then memories of the girl start to creep back into Mike's consciousness; she was contemptuous of Mike and all things imperfect. Faced with this, Mike makes a decision about her own fate, leaving this reader furious with the dead girl. So who murdered whom?

Fantastic!
I thought this was the best book I have read in years---and I read plenty.A whodunnit wrapped in electrifyingly good writing and also absolutely hilarious at times. HERE COMES THE SPOILER.Never mind.I hate spoilers and will not bother.Suffice to say that Mike's idea that the crime is firs tof it's kind and the wave of the future I felt to be vital.Also, Mike's boyfriend's name and the last sentence.

Exceptional composition; ends with a wimper, not a bang
I found Night Train to be a maddening contradiction.There is some damn brilliant prose in this book.There are a few really trenchant observations about American life.And then there are some really clumsy, hack handed passages that come across as mean spirited and off target.

But more than anything else is the ending that really isn't.The reader can take the last few paragraphs of the book and interpret it in a lot of ways, far more than most books.At the end of Night Train, the reader finds himself looking at himself through the reflection of a fogged fun house mirror.The image that the reader sees is not about the characters in the book, the very thin plot, or bromides about American culture.Rather, what we see are ourselves, our questions about what really happened, and our realization that often brilliant prose has led to unanswered questions and our own faces staring back at us.

I seldom write a review by reading other reader's comments, but I was so torn by this book that I wanted to see if I had just missed the point.

Two things stood out after reading a dozen or so reviews.First of all, the stratification of rankings is almost symmetric across 1-5 stars.That's really unique for Amazon rankings, where usually a book is either well liked or disliked. Secondly, the things the 1 star reviewers disliked vehemently were some of the same things the 5 star reviewers lauded.

I have NEVER seen that before in any Amazon review.

If you're a fan of detective novels or noir, I'd skip this book.The lack of definiteness at the end is going to drive you nuts, unless you're a closet deconstructionist in your philosophical nature.

If you want to read something different by an author who can deliver a half page of prose that glimmers in the mind far longer than most books, you may well like this.But don't get hooked on finding out what really happened.Amis expects you to come up with the answer(s) and to learn about yourself as you turn over each one in your mind.

Not one writer in one hundred today ends a book like this and the effect is jarring, to say the least. ... Read more

Product Description


For every woman who has ever dreamed of getting married or survived the pre-wedding hell of planning the big day; for every man who has ever watched in horror as the woman he loves mutates into a bride-to-be--a wickedly funny first novel about the excruciating ritual otherwise known as modern marriage.

Michael has finally asked Eve to marry him. It is tempting to believe that everything is going according to plan. But from her first anxiety-producing encounter with Modern Bride magazine to setting a date ("My impression is that if you don't set a date, they stone you"), finding a dress, ordering, and the unrelenting chaos of life in the world beyond the wedding, from the fights and resentment to the disconcerting realization that lately when she looks at her fiancé she hears the striking of a Chinese gong and the words FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE echoing through her head, Eve discovers that planning a wedding is fraught with unexpected perils, and it's a long walk to the altar.

Otherwise Engaged is a wry, deliciously caustic ride through the outsized rituals of an American wedding, and a hilarious portrait of what happens to an otherwise rational, intelligent woman when she begins to plan one.


Reader Bio:

Linda Hamilton's many film appearances include Dante's Peak, American Pie, and The Terminator. She was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Emmy for her starring role in the television series Beauty and the Beast.
Amazon.com Review
After 18 months of dating, hemming, hawing, begging, badgering, andthreatening--as well as performing "really sincere fellatio"--the heroineof Otherwise Engaged has finally finagled an engagement ring. Eveseems confident that Michael, "the epitome of a Nice Jewish Man," is theperson she wants to spend her life with. Yet she nearly kills herself soonafter the celebratory dinner, staring at her newly acquired rock whilespeeding along a San Francisco freeway. And she may kill Michael, too, butnot accidentally: "Michael leaves his socks on the floor when he takes offhis shoes after work. This used to be fine. But now a sock on the floorisn't just a sock on the floor. It's a sock on the floor for the rest of mylife."

Suzanne Finnamore's comic novel chronicles the happy couple's year-longengagement--which, to judge from Eve's Valium intake, is about 11 monthstoo long. Eve and Michael bicker over every last detail: whether to hire aprofessional photographer or one of Michael's advertising-directorbuddies; which one of them wastes more money; who used up the last can ofchicken stock and didn't add it to the shopping list. At 36, Eve throwsmore tantrums than the average toddler, and Michael's moodiness and problems with his ex-wife certainly don't help. The result is one drama-queen dilemma afteranother, none of them much ameliorated by Eve's slapstick sessions with "aseventy-year-old Marin County prominent Jungian."

Eve's troubles are primarily self-induced, of course, and the lush life sheleads as a lavishly compensated advertising copywriter makes it hard toregard her as a tragic figure. Still, Otherwise Engaged is worth aquick read by any anxious bride-to-be who's delaying that inevitableappointment with Martha Stewart's premarital to-do checklist. --EricaJorgensen ... Read more

Customer Reviews (278)

Pitiful
I enjoy kicking back with some chick-lit "fluff" every once in awhile, but Otherwise Engaged was a much darker, more depressing and pathetic book than I expected. A handful of witty comments make Otherwise Engaged somewhat interesting, but I felt a deep sorrow for the protagonist, and feel genuinely sorry for anyone who can relate to the main character's experience, situation, or outlook.Eve has a difficult past, one that she pokes fun at with her dry humor and sarcasm, but it had some serious impacts on her adult life and her adult relationships, most especially the one with her fiance.Marriage can be scary, everyone has some commitment issues or doubts- and a book exposing the "bundle of anxieties that is the bride-to-be" could have been truly funny... had the main character not been so wounded and emotionally unstable.Hearing Eve's story throughout the year she is engaged up to her wedding, I don't see her marriage to Michael faring much differently than the messed-up marriages of her family and friends.That's too bad.Definitely one to skip.

A fun read.
This one is about the year long engagement between a couple. It's filled with fun scenerios but also has some good insights into the life of a woman who wants, wants, wants so badly an engagment ring and the ensuing circumstances. I liked it, overall, and would recommend it, along with Love the One You're With.

Boring
I only made it through the 1st half of the book. Didn't keep my interest at all. Too much talk about the character's job and not the engagement/wedding.

Boring until last 30 pages
I found that I could have put this book down at any time and wouldn't have cared about finishing it. The plot was uninteresting, and the author's writing style was even worse. She would jump around between the past and present in a confusing way. The story was uninspiring. Eve is getting married and the entire book is about her having second thoughts. Being engaged myself, I could not relate to this character at all. The only way you will like this book is if you are engaged and have incredibly cold feet.

Laugh Out Loud Funny
Okay, you don't even have to be engaged or in a relationship for that matter to enjoy this book. I found myself laughing out loud at certain parts and could not wait to lend it to my girlfriends. They all loved it too, by the way! ... Read more

Product Description
Integrated Curriculum, Daily Language Practice, Review, Teacher Resources and more. ... Read more

Product Description
Text and graphic illustration of the American Horse Shows Assoc. 1999 dressage Second Level Tests 1,2,3,4. Printed on heavy paper and plastic laminated for outdoor use. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: H. Altemus Co. in 1900 in 87 pages; Subjects: Children; Conduct of life; Children's stories; Drama / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Drama / Shakespeare; Literary Criticism / Shakespeare; ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Veeeerrrry short. Lovely illustrations. Note for educators: list of all plays at end of review
The stories are quite short as mentioned above, but still wonderful. And yet, I would not have minded a little more meat, even for the young listeners & readers. I look at these stories as a whetting of the appetite and mental preparation for the real and better thing.

One of my frustrations while trying to decide whether or not I should purchase this book was the lack of a complete list of the "plays" contained in the collection. I want to share them with you along with short notes regarding how they appear in the book:

The Winter's Tale: 8 pages, with a little over 2 pages of dialogue.
Romeo and Juliet: 10 pages, about 2 pages of dialog.
The Tempest: 4 page long synopsis, with good summary quote at the end.
A Midsummer Night's Dream: 7 pages with about 4 pages of dialogue.
King Lear: 8 pages with about 2 pages of dialogue.
Cymbeline: 8 pages with about 6 pages of dialogue.
The Taming of the Shrew: 9 pages, 5 pages of dialogue
Hamlet: 8 pages, 2 and a half of dialogue
Twelfth Night: 8 pages, 7 of dialogue
As You Like It: 8 pages, 5 of dialogue.
Pericles: 8 pages, 1 of dialogue. Basically a synopsis.

Shakespeare for kids fun for any age
This book is loads of fun! I bought it for my third grader, who is taking a field trip to see "Romeo and Juliet." I wanted him to have some familiarity with the storyline so he wouldn't be yawning cluelessly by the end of Act I. He loved it so much he wanted to discuss it! Even my husband who hates to read the stuff enjoyed it.
In short, the book is well done. It shortens the plays into a very long story-summary without the dramatic language that can be somewhat of a distraction. We're not talking Cliff's Notes here folks.This is just a handful of pages per play written on a level anyone can understand and enjoy. The book is not long so it's not intimidating. (Have you seen any books containing Shakespeare's complete works, lately? Mine could be used for a doorstop! It's huge!)
We paired this book with the comedy of "The Reduced Shakespeare Company's" version of Romeo and Juliet. My son is actually looking forward to the trip!

Fantastic introduction to Shakespeare for younger children
I read and reread this book as a youth. The stories read much like classic fairy tales with tragedy, irony, and moral lessons. The writing is very accessible and encouraged me to seek out the full length "stories" in their original (play script) form once I was old enough (6th/7th grade) to really read them.

For a child who has a love of literature, these retellings of the great plays may start a life-long interest in Shakespeare's art (as they did for me).

Lorenzo Schiavo and Felipe Gravier
Romeo and Juliet

Felipe Gravier and Lorenzo Schiavo review:

We think that Romeo and Juliet tells the story of two star-crossed lovers whose families are in a terrible fight which prevents them from coming together. How far the couple will go to be together becomes the focus of the story. Of his richest poetry. The opening and closing choruses are some of his most outstanding work. Romeo's It is a brilliant love story but not much more. It still possesses however some wooing of Juliet is fabulously written. The Friar gets the best lines. Mercutio is one the best friends of Romeo. It is not as good as Shakespeare has written but it's still a fabulous book and up there with his best work. One part of the play we didn't like was that for the tow families get arrange there two kids had to die.
The English language wasn't finally finished so Shakespeare had the liberty to create words and play with the language, as he liked. That's why It was so difficult to understand what each character wanted to express so the teacher had to explain us each of that words and teach us all the words in that age and told us which were the words in the English of today.

Interesting Storys
This book provides lots of Shakespeare's Storys like "A Midsummer's Night Dream" and "Hamlet" with a children's fairy tale twist. The storys are the same as Shakespeare's, but easier for children to understand.My favorite story was Hamlet because I had just seen the play.A while after we read Children's Shakespeare and it helped me to understandHamlet better. ... Read more

Product Description
Text and graphic illustration of the current Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) dressage tests for Prix St-Georges, Intermediate I (new in 2002), Intermediate II, Grand Prix (new in 2002) and Grand Prix Special (revised in 2002). ... Read more

Product Description
Text and graphic illustration of the current Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) dressage tests for Prix St-Georges, Intermediate I, Intermediate II, Grand Prix, and Grand Prix Special. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Dance Magazine, published by Dance Magazine, Inc. on March 1, 2010. The length of the article is 1022 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: QA: dealing with awkward costumes and sets is far from glamorous.(advice for dancers)
Author: Linda Hamilton
Publication: Dance Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2010
Publisher: Dance Magazine, Inc.
Volume: 84Issue: 3Page: 24(1)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

Product Description
Text and graphic illustration of the Federation EquestreInternationale (FEI) dressage tests - 2000 Prix St-Georges, 2000Intermediate I, 2000 Intermediate II, 1995 Grand Prix, and 1999 GrandPrix Special. Printed on heavy paper and plastic laminated for outdooruse. ... Read more

Product Description
Text and graphic illustration of the American Horse ShowsAssoc. 1999 dressage Training Level Tests 1,2,3,4 and 1996 US DressageFederation dressage Introductory Level Tests 1,2. Printed on heavy paper and plastic laminated for outdoor use. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great series helps you learn those tests!
This nice, big book with wipe-clean coated pages is great to have around the home or barn. You can trace out the tests with a grease pencil or crayon (to help you learn), or stash the book in your tack trunk, and it stays nice and new. Horses can bite, stomp or lick it and it won't tear.

The diagrams are big and nicely drawn step by step. Helpful, durable books and I believe the whole series is avaialable all the way up to Grand Prix. Good luck! ... Read more