>from my high school liabary.And now,you got a chance to read all of his masterpieces in the same time.I respectfully recommanded you to looked at Steinbeck's novels based upon Salina Valley,CA,his hometown,a heavenly countryside throughout the spiritial world of the master writter.I think Steinbeck's distinguishment is that he reflected two worlds in a character,both historically and mentally.Of course,he had written an epic with roustic American speciality.
The Pearl.......2003-01-04
There was a poor family in La Paz, in a small village. Kino and Juana had a son name Coyotito.
One day, Coyotito was pinched by a scorpion, but his parents did not have enough money to pay for the medication. They unexpectily found a big pearl from the sea, so they decided to sell it and use the money to save Coyotito. Unfortunately, no one was willing to pay a decent price for the pearl. Since the price offer in the village was not enough to pay for the medication, the couple then decide to go to the capital and hoped to find a better buyer who was willing to offer a better price. Although the parent knew better that there would be many obstacles and problem throughout the journey, their love for their son gave them bravery motivation to move on.
The story is very interesting, but the topic is not my favorite. The story is described in detail and it gives me many images as I read on. Therefore, I would give this ***.
Average customer rating:
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Travels with Charley: In Search of America
John Steinbeck
Manufacturer: Viking Penguin/ Book-of-the-month Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Steinbeck, John
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ASIN: B000BHNT50 |
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multiple books ship as one item. save on shipping/handling charges.
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Travels with Charley - In Search of America
John Steinbeck
Manufacturer: The Viking Press, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Steinbeck, John
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ASIN: B0000CLHPQ |
Product Description
Limited edition privately printed reprint of this classic title, sewn binding, illustrated boards, nicely illustrated slip case. This edition includes the original text published in 1962, and the last chapter, L'Envoi, first published in the Penguin Books centenniel edition in 2002.
Average customer rating:
- Breathtaking adventure novel, passionate love story, and action thriller rolled into one
- Interesting
- Wow!
- A luscious piece of literature...
- Iris Johansen was a rare bloom in the garden. . .
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The Magnificent Rogue
Iris Johansen
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
General | Romance | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0553299441
Release Date: 1993-08-01 |
Book Description
A princess and a warrior-chief are swept from the glittering courts of Elizabethan England to the storm-tossed cliffs of the Scottish Highlands, in an engrossing tale of peril and desire.
Customer Reviews:
Breathtaking adventure novel, passionate love story, and action thriller rolled into one .......2007-04-05
The Magnificent Rogue is one of the most exciting and intelligent romance novels I've ever encountered. Set in Elizabethan England, this breathtaking adventure novel, passionate love story, and action thriller rolled into one will keep the reader constantly on the edge of her seat.
Princess Kathryn Kentyre has been raised in harshness and secrecy until rescued by the sensuous, iron-willed Robert MacDarren, the strong handsome laird of an idyllic Scottish island, Craighdhu.
Robert has been forced to marry her for high political reasons. But he can never truly possess her because even Kate's presence at his home threatens all the people under his care.
Yet how can an impossible situation part passionate lovers destined to be together? Even when the fate of a nation stands in the balance?
The Magnificent Rogue features an astoundingly real and unforgettable hero and heroine along with a final plot twist that can only be described as stunning. Here is a novel to treasure and one that no romance lover should miss.
Interesting.......2006-06-24
I really enjoyed the historical aspect of this book. I usually end up skimming quite a bit while reading romances but this book kept my interest. I did find the romance a little bit anticlimactic at the end though. A little more time could have been spent with the romantic relationship towards the end of the book. I also found that Kathryn's attitude toward the queen was a little out of character. She could have got what she wanted without resorting to blackmail. Although a strong character I didn't think she had the nerve to quite pull that off.
Wow!.......2003-05-15
Wow... what an excellent historical. IJ is really an interesting writer. This was a wonderful romance (love story) & also had a very involved plot. It kept moving, never allowing me to grow bored. I will have to say that it had a touch of gore that I don't care for & had to skim over - but not enough to ruin the book for me. It is set in the late 1500's when Elizabeth is on the throne in England & James is on the throne in Scotland. Of course anything to do with that time period revolves around potential plots to overthrow a throne or two - this story is no exception. However, IJ did it in a very different way. The love story was really an enjoyable one to me. The hero & heroine definitely had their differences to work out, but they didn't fight & hate each other all the way through the book like in so many of the stories from this timeframe. (Also, I would be very remiss to not mention that a couple of the love scenes are enough to make a person fan herself & glance around to make sure no one else is looking!) The heroine started out being a little too naive but she learned her lessons well & turned out to be such a wonderful lady. The hero was a very hard man, as all of them had to be in that time, but he was exceptional from beginning to end (& a lover to die for!) :)
It's not your light reading type, but if you like a true love story with a very involved plot then don't miss this one!
A luscious piece of literature..........2003-05-08
Like the Beatles said " All you need is love". This book is a provacative dream. It was a luminous lovely lustful large enlightenment for the senses. Every page made heat surge through my body. I know love, and this book shows it. Just like my hero Delilah, on wish 99.7, I'm an expert on the human interaction called loooooooove. Just like your mom.
Iris Johansen was a rare bloom in the garden. . ........2002-10-28
. . .of romance writers. Her books are historically accurate, fast paced, and full of sexy, appealing characters. The Magnificent Rogue is one of her finest novels, with a dark and sexy hero and a spirited heroine. I read it when it first came out, and just bought it to read again.
I truly hope Ms. Johanson finds her way back to writing romances.
Customer Reviews:
Learn from the lessons of history.......2001-10-17
The real estate and financial speculation (i.e. high tech/dot com bubble) that has taken place under a corrupt mayor (a development attorney for Catellus, the successor to the railways) here in San Francisco might be a future chapter in this book. This is a fascinating read. I've even taken an SF history class with an Alioto (family of a former mayor, Joseph A.), and I still learned a lot. Hilarious, informative, reads like fiction, based on fact. Pelosi, Feinstein, Boxer, Newsom, Brown, Burton, Warren Hinckle, Ted Fang... These are their predecessors. The newspaper publishers, reporters, prostitutes and corrupt politicians. Read about all of them. You won't be able to put it down!
"The Magnificant Rogues is a REALLY good read!".......1999-01-03
Old San Francisco at its best. Interesting stories about fascinating people. And best of all, because it contains twenty separate stories, you can pick it up any time and read for twenty minutes or so without losing the context.
Average customer rating:
- Great start, deteriorates horribly
- Expansive and interesting universe combined with uneven writing.
- Has some good ideas, but ultimately frustrating
- Great Space Opera, Bad Editing, Terrible English
- Great series, good characters, awesome universe
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The Reality Dysfunction Part I: Emergence
Peter F. Hamilton
Manufacturer: Aspect
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ASIN: 0446605158 |
Amazon.com
This is space opera on an epic scale, with dozens of characters, hundreds of planets, universe-spanning plots, and settings that range from wooden huts and muddy villages to sentient starships and newborn suns. It's also the first part of a two-volume book that is itself the first book of a series. There's no question that there's a lot going on here (too much to even begin to detail the plot), but Hamilton handles it all with an ease reminiscent of E. E. "Doc" Smith. The best way to describe it: it's big, it's good, and luckily there's plenty more on the way.
Book Description
This is space opera on an epic scale, with dozens of characters, hundreds of planets, universe-spanning plots, and settings that range from wooden huts and muddy villages to sentient starships and newborn suns. It's also the first part of a two-volume book that is itself the first book of a series.There's no question that there's a lot going on here (too much to even begin to detail the plot), but Hamilton handles it all with an ease reminiscent of E. E. "Doc" Smith. The best way to describe it: it's big, it's good, and luckily there's plenty more on the way.
Download Description
Too big to fit in this space! In the far future, humanity has divided along a single major line. The Edenists are genetically engineered space-dwellers with telepathic affinity to their biotechnological homes and ships. Adamists are effectively the Luddites of the future, willing to pioneer new worlds much as their ancestors did hundreds of years previously. The two clash on a primitive world called Lalonde, involving a huge cast of characters including a beautiful teenage girl who has inherited a vast technological empire; a freebooting adventurer in search of alien treasure; a renegade Edenist criminal; an alien race which observes human behavior; an ineffectual priest shocked by the world he has come to settle . . . and many, many more.
Customer Reviews:
Great start, deteriorates horribly.......2007-09-26
This is the first in a series of six books, none of which can stand alone, each of the books ending with dozens of unresolved storylines. Therefore it's impossible to get any satisfaction out of each book alone and this review will reflect this.
This is truly a grand and epic series in terms of scope, exploring the universe in the year 2600 which includes unified religions (but no mention of Judaism hmm...), new cults and groups, the split between Edenists (joined mentally and psychically with advanced geneering) and Adamists (nanonic computer implants), various planets at different progressive stages holding different ideals, alien life forms, and a race of beings that have gone beyond the physical.
The imagination is impressive and the first book deserves five stars for creating this world. Unfortunately, by the second book it's obvious that the author is in over his head and has an annoying tendency to keep adding more and more characters and plotlines without adequately exploring previous ones. Main characters disappear for 500 pages, and constantly new backstories and characters start getting dull, and then annoying.
In addition, the story sinks in too much action, military detail, gory horror, and sex to the detriment of developing fleshy characters and fascinating plot developments. The main story then gets lost in some nonsensical zombie-like development with repetitive possessions, and when Al Capone pops up in book three, I simply decided I had enough with all this messy silliness and put it down.
Expansive and interesting universe combined with uneven writing........2007-09-17
While this a 6 book series in three parts (or even a 3 book series with each book split in half), I'm reviewing only the first one as it's the only one I've read so far.
In spite of the average rating, I picked up the next three books and plan to read them in the next month or so when I'll have quite a bit of time available. So it's obvious that something in the first book hooked me enough to keep me going. So what were the hooks?
The synopsis on the back of the book doesn't give away the main event/plot in the book. It barely even hints at it. And when the 'turn' in the plot occurs, it makes the build up worthwhile and leaves the reader (at least in my case) wanting to know more details and interested in what comes next. So as a first book in the series, it achieves one of its main goals... to get the reader to buy the next one.
Hamilton's universe is big and he's obviously put a lot of effort into the background. This makes things seem to hang together well and the fictional universe itself feels like it's solid, rather than a bunch of random ideas tacked onto a skeleton.
There's a downside to the obvious effort put into the background. Hamilton is determined to make us aware of as much of the background as he can possibly get away with, even if it has very little to do with the story itself. For instance, a scene might begin with one character looking out a window on an alien world, and then Hamilton describes some of the biology, history and politics of the world... A page later you've forgotten that the main point is the character who started the scene, who then meets someone new who walks into the office. The new person's arrival then starts another page or two exposition of the politics of the group he works for, or the history of his organization, or whatever. So in 5 pages, you basically get introduced to two characters needed to move the plot forward, but you also get 4 1/2 pages of universe background.
This kind of thing happens ALL the time in this book. One tenet of writing that I remember, is that authors generally need to cut the parts that they love the most. It's obvious Hamilton loves the universe he created and he wants us to share in its richness and cleverness. But these long interludes rarely provide anything necessary to the plot and indeed distract from the flow of the scenes.
One other problem with the writing is that there are numerous threads and characters that get introduced a bit at a time. Ok, so a lot of books do this, but for some reason the characters/locales/etc seem completely disassociated from each other at the beginning, leading the reader to feel as though he's reading 3 or so stories a chapter at a time before switching to one of the other stories. A couple of the earliest threads only appear in the prologue and a single chapter, and when they show up later the reader may even have forgotten they occurred.
Eventually the stories start to converge, but the way they do seems very contrived. In a universe as big as the one presented, the chances of some of the characters running into each other more than once by chance is extremely low. Instead, two of the main characters meet once and then relatively shortly thereafter meet again in spite of there being no real connection between them that would make it likely. I'm guessing it may have something to do with an element of the story (a character's "luck" plays a role), but it still felt a bit jarring.
With regards to the characters, they really aren't fleshed out particularly strongly and I didn't get the sense of any real character growth.
Hamilton also 'switches' the point of view often, and without warning. A chapter might start from the point of view of one character, and then when that character enters a room a character in that room becomes the focal point. This occurs during fights too, sometimes within the same paragraph, which can create confusing moments for the reader. There's nothing wrong with points of views switching, but the suddenness of it is often jarring.
Some elements seem to be of grave importance but only sketchily described. For instance, anti-matter is described as being illegal, and punishable by the death penalty. But nowhere is it mentioned as to why specifically. It's mentioned enough that it seems important, but it feels like the author is deliberately leaving that explanation til later to keep the reader curious. To me it's just annoying.
And finally, my one pet peeve is the author's use of the word 'analogue'. Invariably he will say something like 'bird-analogue' or 'mammal-analogue' to describe something. I'm not sure the best way to not use this phrasing, but other sci fi books simply use 'birds', 'mammals', etc. Or even 'bird-like' could be used. "Bird-analogue" just looks odd to me. Ok, so that's a nitpick.
So most of this review is negative. But the story IS interesting. The writing, while uneven in quality, portrays mood quite well, especially the darker events in the book.
Has some good ideas, but ultimately frustrating.......2007-07-20
This book has some really cool ideas, but ultimately the problems outweigh them.
Pros:
- Finally someone who writes about realistic space combat! Ships engage each other at ranges of thousands of kilometers, one hit and you're dead, ship acceleration puts lethal stress on the human body, it's all about overwhelming the opponent's defensive missiles with your offensive ones, nukes are used all the time, etc. This feels realistic and is a far cry from some other authors' space combat descriptions that seem based on WWII fighter combat.
- The author presents a chilling and innovative version of the after-life. Being dead is an eternal torment and it is described in depressing detail.
- Some scenes and characters are very well described and will stick in your memory. For example, the settlers' backgrounds and their hopes of a new life on a new planet (cruelly dashed by the way) is great literature in my book.
Cons:
- The story contains too many ideas and outside forces. It is hard to get a grip on the universe being presented. Just when you begin to connect and suspend your disbelief, a new supernatural and world-shaking force is introduced.
- On a related note, the book is at least 300 pages too long. For example, the first 240 pages are merely a setup. Only after this does anything really happen.
- The characters are one-dimensional. For example, one of them mainly appears in meaningless sex scenes with teenage aristocratic girls. Weighing it at 10-20 pages each and repeating every platitude from the Harlequin series of books, these scenes get boring really quickly.
- I didn't like the sentient spaceships and the mushy philosophy around them. I guess some people do.
Great Space Opera, Bad Editing, Terrible English.......2007-06-25
Reading - or, for that matter, writing - galaxy-spanning space opera is not for everyone, particularly space opera with the scope and vision of Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy. As other reviewers have remarked, it isn't even a trilogy, but rather a single gargantuan book cut into volumes for practical reasons. The three-volume edition I've read takes over 3,600 pages to reach its conclusion; the obvious question this raises is if Hamilton really has that big a story to tell.
The answer is: yes. Kinda.
Hamilton creates a huge and complicated world, rich in detail and seemingly well thought out in history, economy and sociology. The central problem of the story, its effects and consequences certainly are widespread, diverse and complicated enough to warrant a really long book. Following the storylines of the dozens of main characters is generally worthwhile, and at times the story is hard to put down.
(Can you feel the 'but' approaching?)
Unfortunately, 'generally' and 'at times' is all the story has to offer. While Hamilton does try his best, it clearly takes a better author than him to keep me thoroughly hooked as a reader. There are too many main characters I couldn't care less about; too many storylines that slow down the book without contributing to the overall plot; too many details thrown in just because they are cool. All of that adds op to what I estimate is at least 1,000-1,500 pages too many. The story had enough of a hook to make me want to read it all, but enough of a drag to want to avoid any other Hamilton monoliths.
A good editor should have culled the book to a more manageable length. And while he was at it, that same editor should also have done something about Hamilton's abominable style.
For that is the real problem with this book. Hamilton has ideas aplenty, enough plotting and storylines to go around, and a lot of compelling characters; he just doesn't have the ability to write good sentences. His writing is without rhythm, his sentences convoluted and usually too long, his wording bad. On practically every page there is at least one sentences which is not only too long, but simply bad English. And his choice of words is simplistic, obvious and boring, except in the places where he grabbed his dictionary and chose the first word coming close to what he meant to express.
The story got me to the end of this megabook. But his writing brought me to the conclusion that I do not want to read any more of his writing.
Great series, good characters, awesome universe.......2007-04-03
I was a little disappointed with the vehemence of all the negative reviews. I'm a hard sci-fi & fantasy reader (been reading since 5th grade)and I didn't see any of the problems that other reviewers mention. Sure, it gets a little rambling and some plotlines get lost, but a) not all plotlines HAVE to be resolved with the end of the book and b) a work of this huge scope will have some mistakes and/or mis-edits.
I won't rehash the plot, as others have done that very well. I just gotta say it's one of my favorite series, not only because of the plot and awesome twist (the dead coming back to inhabit bodies in a hard sci-fi future? sweet!), but also because of the deep richness of this universe. It's very well realized with a great background history, and I love how each culture is so well thought out.
My one and only complaint is the villain: Just like in the Pandora's Star series (where we have a Socialist villain. Huh?), I don't get the villain. I mean, a Satanist? Really? Paging Geraldo Rivera... that is too trite a way of creating a "bad guy". I'd rather Quinn be more morally ambiguous to pin down rather than just make him a Satanist and it's done, he's evil, and there's no more writing to do. Maybe it's a British author thing?
But other than that, fantastic series.
Book Description
The archaeological find of the twentieth century was the astounding discovery by an Egyptian peasant in December 1945 of a large storage jar filled with ancient papyrus manuscripts. Painstakingly restored and translated, these fragments came to be known collectively as the Nag Hammadi library. Through them we glimpse a fascinating alternative perspective on Jesus and many of his earliest followers, including the influence of Gnosticism on their beliefs.
"Gnosticism," a term alluding to special mystical knowledge, designates a series of religious movements that have existed since ancient times. This philosophy permeated Judaism, Greco-Roman religion, and what now appear to be different varieties of Christianity. Some of these alternative views, including Jesus's relationship to Mary Magdalene, have revolutionized biblical scholarship and were recently sensationalized by Dan Brown in his bestseller, The Da Vinci Code.
The struggle to publish these ancient manuscripts has at times seemed like an ancient story of Egyptian magic -- filled with curses and drama. Included in these discoveries are several gospels of Jesus's life that never made it into the modern Christian Bible as well as a treasury of lost, esoteric wisdom that portrays a side of Christianity suppressed by the institutionalized church. Meyer provides an overview of all the texts and their contents, grouping the codices by their respective genres, schools of thought, or attributed author, and discussing their meaning and significance for us today. He also provides an appendix that for the first time offers a quick survey of all the texts of the Nag Hammadi library and the Berlin Gnostic Codex, summarizing the contents of each of the texts and offering select quotations to illustrate their character and style.
The Gnostic Discoveries is the best available guide to the history and significance of the find at Nag Hammadi -- an amazing archaeological link to the founding of the largest religion in the world.
Customer Reviews:
Fine overview on the contents of the Nag Hammadi codexes and of gnostic schools of thought.......2006-04-27
The Nag Hammadi codexes are a series of papyrus books originating from around 300 AD, discovered buried near the town of Nag Hammadi by Egyptian farmers just after World War II. Long an outpost of Coptic and gnostic thought in early christianity, Egypt has proven to be an archeological bounty when it comes to early religious works. Upon examination of the codexes by scientists and scholards it was discovered they contained early christian writings including many of what are considered gnostic texts and gospels. Meyer's book dissects and discusses the various schools of gnosticism, their relation to greek and egyptian religious beliefs, and the value offered by certain texts like the Gospel of Mary which lie outside the official Christian canon.
Meyer also does an excellent job summarizing each codex with the works contained within. He explains the differences between the Valentinian Gnostics and the Sethian gnostics, which are baffling to say the least, and shows that early christianity was even more diverse then we ever believed. So how did the Codexes become buried in the sands? Meyer makes a strong case for Coptic monks from monastery close to Nag Hammadi being the source of the compilation of the Codexes, as monks in those days were often scribes. Meyer believes that after Christian leaders like Irinaeus declared the acceptable, approved list of what would become the New Testament from the hundreds of various gospels, letters, and essays in the early church, the monks took everything that might be heretical and had them buried.
Meyer succeeds in making clear what is considered fact, what is scientific theory, and what is his personal opinion. The reader is allowed to make up their own mind without undue influence, which in works on religion or archeology is so often not the case. Meyer's writing is concise and easy to digest, and the pages move quickly without bogging down into jargon. Fair warning though, only minor passages from the codexes are contained in this book. There are many other works available that contained detailed translations. Good overview on the subject, recommended for those interested in the topic.
A.G. Corwin
St.Louis, MO
A Fine Introduction .......2006-04-18
This is a slim little book easily read by almost anyone. Further, it is a fine introduction to the Gnostic texts of the early Common Era both on a substantive basis as well as their place in a broader evaluation of the religions of Antiquity and Late Antiquity. However, as with the Dead Sea Scrolls, expect to find nothing that shockingly changes anything in the present. The thought patterns of Gnosis are alien to modern rational thinking. Therefore, they seem exotic to some. But, reified dualistic gnosticism was always heretical to Christianity. Neither Primitive Christianity or Second Temple and early Rabbinic Judaism were dualistic. The soul and the body are tied together in both religions.
Meyer is a master of this subject. In this book he supplies enough information for almost anyone. Both the texts and their importance are covered incisively and with an economy of words. Beyond the Thomas corpus and the Valentinian writings and activities in Rome, Christian Gnostic texts have had little influence in the West. While gnosticism reflected the marginalization of women by the Catholic Church, it was not alone in this indictment. If you wish to go on, Valentinus's writings are gorgeous literature that constitute some of the most moving Christian mysticism known. The Gospel of Thomas always makes one think about who Jesus of Nazareth was. I found this book to be very enjoyable and informative.
Comprehensive.......2006-02-25
While this book does not contain any new information about the Nag Hammadi texts not covered in other books, it does contain the whole story of their discovery in Egypt along with some of the more important gnostic myths. If you aren't familiar with Christian gnosticism, it is a great place to start your study. If you are, having both the discovery of the texts and a brief description of the gnostic belief system in one volume can be very useful.
1/2 a book is better than no book at all.......2006-02-02
In 2005 Meyer produced 2 books which deal with the gnostic texts, both published by HarperCollins who are a leading company in the Christology field. Meyer's other book, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus, is a collection of common (Mary, Philip, Thomas) and obscure (Baruch, Seth) texts and provides a valuable resource for the serious student. When reading that book I longed for a more comprehensive in-depth discussion of gnosticism and the texts themselves. Well, here it is! Meyer provides us with an excellent discussion of gnosticism and a detailed analysis of the texts themselves.
I suppose someone (either Meyer himself or his publisher) made the decision to do 2 good books instead of one excellent one. Too bad. There is a certain redundancy to owning both of these books, yet neither one is fully complete. Maybe the economics of publishing requires such decisions, but the reality of purchasing also dictates decisions. If you had to choose only 1, I would go with the texts themselves, and forgo the excellent work in the other book. If you can afford both, go for it.
My main criticisms of the current book are (a) Meyer's updated translation (e.g., the "Son of Man" is NOT the "child of humankind"), (b) the lack of a narrative strand in the text descriptions, and (3) the lack of integration between the general discussion and the text discussions. Otherwise this is a fine 1/2 book.
Good Introduction to the subject, good refresher for the more advanced reader........2006-01-11
Dr Meyer's book is wisely titled for it not only provides an interesting and engaging narrative of the discovery and publication of the Nag Hammadi texts, it will be helpful to those seeking to discover in Gnosis a deeper and more personal spirituality. The first part of the book provides an adequate history of the origin, discovery and publication of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic writings. In the second part of the book, Meyer gives a brief analysis of the entire contents of the Nag Hammadi library, along with selected quotes from the documents themselves. This is a good, basic introduction to modern Gnostic studies. Seasoned readers on the subject will find it excellent reading as well. Thank you, Marvin Meyer, for a well written book!
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