Anthem

Book Description

Available for the first time in trade paperback--this provocative book is "an anthem sung in praise of man's ego"--from the legendary author Ayn Rand

Anthem has long been hailed as one of Ayn Rand's classic novels, and a clear predecessor to her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. In Anthem, Rand examines a frightening future in which individuals have no name, no independence, and no values. Equality 7-2521 lives in the dark ages of the future where all decisions are made by committee, all people live in collectives, and all traces of individualism have been wiped out. Despite such a restrictive environment, the spark of individual thought and freedom still burns in him--a passion which he has been taught to call sinful. In a purely egalitarian world, Equality 7-2521 dares to stand apart from the herd--to think and choose for himself, to discover electricity, and to love the woman of his choice. Now he has been marked for death for committing the ultimate sin. In a world where the great "we" reign supreme, he has rediscovered the lost and holy word--"I."

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A stunning and brilliantly realized future world in which individuality has been crushed is the theme of Ayn Rand's bestselling masterpiece, "Anthem". Rand presents her tale of a man who dares to make individual choices, to seek knowledge in a dark age, to love the woman of his choice. In a society in which people have no name, no independence, and no values, he is hunted for the unpardonable crime: having the courage to stand above the crowd. Introduction by Leonard Peikoff.

Customer Reviews:

great!.......2007-08-23

Of course the book is a little overdone. But I found it refreshing to read this that book celebrates individualism in a world that sometimes celebrates collectivism.

If I had my way EVERY high school student would read it.......2007-08-22

No other work I've ever come across can convey the importance of individuality and the threat it suffers from collectivism, or at least not in such a small format. This book had a profound effect on me when I first read it and it made me want to learn more.

A great message... with a meandering story.......2007-07-31

This is the first Ayn Rand book I've read, even though I was familiar with her philosophy of objectivism. The book itself is set in an alternate world, most likely during the 21st century. It is a backwards world completely controlled by the great "we" in which councils decide everything, and only the will of your "brothers" matters. It is an interesting, if at times confusing, world that she creates; but unfortunately she doesn't describe it enough to offer a firm foundation (however yes I know, it's just a novella). The main character shows great development which can be traced throughout the novel - a vivid, distinct transformation, which is wonderfully illustrated both mentally and physically by Rand.

The story, in the first three-quarters of the book, is particularly interesting, but unfortunately she wanders off-course, by forsaking the plot for the philosophical message she wishes to get across. While the philosophical message is important, as it is the basis of the book, I would've appreciated a more complete ending.

On the whole, Anthem seems to be a great introduction to Rand's philosophy and writing, but as a fictitious story it tends to fall off course. It's a short book though, so I would highly recommend it, as it offers interesting philosophical insight into the nature of individualism and collectivism.

Government.......2007-07-16

Being the normal high school slacker that I am, I chose to read this book and write a response to it, rather than read a book close to 400 pages long and give an oral response to it. And I will say at first I didn't understand anything that was going on. The writing is simple to almost the point that you see no point in reading it. The simplistic writing doesn't seem to shape up to anything. But by the time I got to the last page I couldn't believe what I had just read. It was incredible. I could have written endless pages for the school assignment. It leaves the audience with so many possiblities in the meaning of the book and it leaves you thinking. I'm off soon to purchase this book, every time I see it on the shelves at the book store I tell everyone how much I loved it, definately a reccommended read.

Not much to this one..........2007-07-13

I haven't read any of Ayn Rand's other books but this one was extremely dissapointing. The theme was very simple, and delivered so that the most simple minded would have difficulty not understanding it.

I just didn't feel like this was particularly creative, the worst part being that it is simply a poor piece of literature.

I hate to give one star but the story was seemed trite and simplistic and the writing was poor so I'm not sure if it had any redeeming factors that I could perceive.

American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum

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American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum
Stacy C. Hollander , and Brook Davis Anderson
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0810967405

Book Description

A song of praise to the nation, American Anthem celebrates the symbols of liberty, ingenuity, and refuge indelibly imbedded in American folk art from colonial days through the present. This glorious full-color volume highlights treasures from the important collection of the American Folk Art Museum—works that will be on display from June through December 2002 as the second major exhibition at the museum's new building in New York City.

Book Description

There is a wealth of open and free software available today for Windows developers who want to extend the development environment, reduce development effort and increase productivity. Windows Developer Power Tools is an encyclopedic guide to more than 100 free and open source tools available to programmers who build applications for Windows desktops and servers, including web applications and services. With its unique task-oriented organization, this book will help you find the tools you need to solve common (and uncommon) problems. Each tool in the book includes a capsule summary -- a mini user's guide -- to help readers get up to speed quickly. Also, plenty of links point you to additional detail online if you wish to delve more deeply into features and functionality. This one-stop resource covers a wide range of open source and freeware tools to help you answer questions around planning, developing, testing, and rolling out great software.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Productivity Booster.......2007-10-01

[...]

Until reading this book, I did not realize how much productivity I stood to gain.

When I first agreed to review this book I didn't know what I was really getting into. I expected a brief catalog of fairly standard, well-known tools which would only come as a surprise to fresh graduate. I expected I getting a small pocket-sized book which I could devour in one train ride. I could not have been more wrong.

The book covers over 170 Open Source tools across a wide variety of development domains from Windows Forms and Web Development, to working with Databases and XML data. Each tool will in some way enhance your productivity in some way, allowing you to do the things your really enjoy about writing software on the Microsoft Windows platform. The productivity gains vary from being able to generate the tedious 80% of your project to those 5 second boosts which all add up and prevent RSI.

Each of the 23 chapters is targeted at a particular issue or development task and opens with one or two pages describing this task. These are so well written that I think the opening of Chapter 9 [Analyzing Your Code], which gives a quick explanation of code metrics, is my favorite section of the whole book. This means that the book is not just an encyclopedic reference of tools, but also of modern development techniques.

After the introduction a very brief description of each tool follows. These are great memory refreshers once you have read the book and are repeated on the companion web-site. Each tool is then given its own section and the chapter closes with a bibliography for people interested in finding out more.

This structure of "Introduction, Overview data, Full text, Where to get more information" is repeated for each tool. The overview data includes such information as:

The version covered
The home page
The license type
Which versions of the .NET Framework are supported
A collection of related tools for cross-referencing purposes

The full text of each tool explains where to get the tool, how to install it and how to get started using it allowing you to jump straight in and leverage the tool. This section is often littered with useful screenshots which give you a glimpse at the experience you will find when using the tool. The text for each tool closes with instructions for getting support on the tool and often a brief passage from the tools creator explaining the thinking behind creating the tool.

If that weren't enough, the book also has a companion website at www.windevpowertools.com where all of the tools are listed and tagged, each with a download link enabling you to download one straight from the site. You can even create your own "toolbox" and add tools from the site to it, allowing you to quickly and easily provision new machines from the web site itself.

All in all I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I would have liked to have seen more information about the selection process for the tools and readers would do well to remember that a tools inclusion (or lack of inclusion) in the text is not necessarily an indicator of its maturity or usefulness. Be sure that you have a lot of time if you buy this book as you are likely to download, install, and play with many of the tools. If you do then using a virtual machine is highly recommended. None of the tools did anything harmful to my computer, but having 170 tools running at once just isn't advised!

Great for anybody who wants to be more productive.......2007-09-18

I'm big into using the right tools for the right jobs. One can find a gazillion of tools out there on the internet, so it's hard to decide which ones are actually worth checking out. This book remedies that by giving you a consolidated list of tools that everybody developer should at least have a look at.

I also blogged about this book at:
http://claudiolassala.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E2A4B22308B39CD2!356.entry

Excellent Reference Guide to Developer's Tools.......2007-08-16

This book is an excellent source of useful tools and mini-howto guides. I especially like the layout where each tool is described along with links to the code, a summary of its abilities and a mini-howto on how to get started with the tool. The book gives a nice cross section of tools for all occasions, broken up by category. If you are new to development or are needing a tool to help you develop code then this book will probably point you in the right direction.

The reason for 4 stars rather than 5 is more because of the topic rather than the book itself or the authors. By its very definition some of the tools were outdated by the time of the book's release. It is a limitation of the publishing process. The authors simply have no way of knowing what tools will be available at the time of the books release. Therefore readers should not assume that each tool is the best in its category. Nor should readers assume that the howto guides are completely accurate for the current version. This book could have really used a CD containing each of the tools at the time of the writing so readers could get a feel for the tool without: a) having to download the tool separately, and b) try to match the current version of the tool to the version discussed in the book. Even better would have been a VPC image that users could run without having to install all the tools on their own system.

I'm hoping the authors put out a new edition later and, perhaps, include a CD of the tools. Until then this is one of the best books available for getting information on some really useful developer tools.

Excellent Resource.......2007-08-03

Clocking in at close to 1300 pages, this book is an excellent resource for almost every Windows developer scenario you can think of. It's certainly not a book you're going to read cover-to-cover, but the next time you're implementing a project of type X (SQL, unit testing, performance monitoring, etc. etc. etc.) you'll want to look it up in this book to see what tools are available to aid you in your development goal.

One of the things I found wonderful about this book is that not only does it list the tool, where it's available, and basic stats, but it also goes in depth on how to use the tool to fit the need with sample source code, screen shots, and real-world examples.

Great stuff. It should be on every Windows developer's bookshelf.

This is not a pick for amateurs, but for seasoned developers.......2007-04-11

Over a hundred free and open source programming tools and frameworks are packed into James Avery & Jim Holmes's Windows Developer Power Tools, a reference perfect for programmers and documentors, including tools for over twenty common Windows and .NET software tasks and lists which pair the right tool with the right job. This is not a pick for amateurs, but for seasoned developers who have some background already but need a more definitive reference to selecting and using tools.

Way Up North in Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem

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Way Up North in Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem
Howard L. Sacks , and Judith Rose Sacks
Manufacturer: Smithsonian Inst Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1560982586

Book Description

This book traces the lives of the Snowdens, an African American family of musicians and farmers living in rural Knox County, Ohio. Howard L. Sacks and Judith Rose Sacks examine the Snowdens' musical and social exchanges with rural whites from the 1850s through the early 1920s and provide a detailed exploration of the claim that the Snowden family taught the song "Dixie" to Dan Emmett--the white musician and blackface minstrel credited with writing the song. This edition features a new introduction in which the authors discuss the public response to this controversial claim, and present new information on the Snowdens' musical and social experiences.

Average customer rating:

buy it!
Eye-Opening, must-read for anyone interested in Politics/Government
Not bad, just disappointing
Hateful
Good quick read.

Anthem (Centennial Edition)
Ayn Rand
Manufacturer: Plume
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0452286352

Book Description

Ayn Rand's classic tale of a future dark age of the great “We”—a world that deprives individuals of name, independence, and values—anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

Customer Reviews:

buy it!.......2007-08-23

Of course the book is a little overdone. But I found it refreshing to read this that book celebrates individualism in a world that sometimes celebrates collectivism.

Eye-Opening, must-read for anyone interested in Politics/Government.......2007-04-08

A story about one man's struggle against an overbearing collectivist government, Anthem has (over the years) become MY anthem. The idea that ONE THING or ONE WAY can accommodate all the people of the world is a concept that has taken hold in American culture. Breaking away from this is paramount to conserving what the American fore-fathers fought for: personal liberty and personal responsibility.

The main character's "transgression" of seeking knowledge for it's own sake (and not necessarily the sake of mankind) should be held in the highest regard, yet many believe as those in the book do, that anything not good for the whole is not good for any.

Of Ayn Rand's novels, Anthem is by far the most accessible; at ~100 pages it can be read in a day by almost anyone w/ a 5-6th grade reading level, and the premise and ideas are easily understood. Recommended to anyone w/ an interest in government or politics, but especially to those in junior/highschool with an authority problem :)

Not bad, just disappointing.......2007-03-07

First, the good parts: Anthem is too short for Rand to have shoved too much of her fatuous pseudo-philosophy into it. Second, it is fun to read. This is where the good parts end.
Everything worth noting in this book was done earlier by Yevgeny Zamyatin in his spectacular book We. He did it better and with more style and finish than Rand ever managed in any of her books. This is obviously a cheap rip-off of We and not worth buying.

Hateful.......2007-02-15

As usual, Ms Rand is so worried about her philosophy of greed that she sacrifices her credibility as a writer. We should be happy that the president is illiterate, as he would be fueled by this message were he to read it. All one needs to know about Ayn Rand is that she does not believe that people have the capacity for selflessness.

Good quick read........2006-09-25

I'm typically not a fan of fiction, but Ayn Rand's philosophies are (almost) in lock-step with my own, so I decided to spend an hour of my Sunday evening reading "Anthem," with which I was not disappointed.

The first twenty or so pages serve as an introduction to the future faux-utopia, where everyone is assigned a name/number and profession. The main character, Equality 7-2521 keeps a journal of his independent thoughts (forbidden by the collectivist society in which he lives) and feelings, including those for a young woman (relationships are forbidden, reproduction is achieved through a "mating ceremony") and an amazing invention he's created secretly (it is forbidden to create or to do anything outside of your assigned duties), yet plans to show to the Council of Elders, thinking they will find favor with him. The unraveling of the built tension comes from there.

The plot at sometimes seems stretched to the point where, even in a science fiction novella, it is unbelievable, or too obviously structured around her philosophy so it gets in the way of suspending disbelief, but as the story goes on, it becomes less and less of a concern. There is a short lecture near the end on Objectivism, masked as the character's thoughts (don't get me wrong -- it was never Rand's intention to mask the fact that this novella was about her philosophy. All of her fiction works were), which is quite interesting.

"Anthen" is a worthy introduction to Objectivist thought and Ayn Rand that can be read in the course of an hour and some minutes...

Prelude (The American Anthem Trilogy, Book 1)

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History comes alive
A Disappointed Fan
B.J. Hoff is a real wordweaver!
Another Great Book from B. J. Hoff!
Great beginning to a new BJ Hoff series!

Prelude (The American Anthem Trilogy, Book 1)
B. J. Hoff
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0849943892

Book Description

B.J. Hoff, one of CBA's premier writers brings this riveting historical fiction series that meticulously depicts nineteenth century America. Prelude transports you to nineteenth-century New York and invites you to step into another time--a time that shaped a nation and defined her faith. This lively story carries you from immigrant ships to opulent estates, from skating-rink evangelistic crusades to star-studded concert halls, and introducing you to men and women you'll grow to love: a brooding blind musician, his suspicious but sympathetic sister-in-law, an unlikely pair of medical partners, and a struggling immigrant family. Pulsing with romance and intrigue, shining with artistry and faith, Prelude sounds the opening notes of a tale with a voice as big as America.

Customer Reviews:

History comes alive.......2004-10-14

BJ Hoff has written a wonderful beginning to what is sure to be a magnificent series. Irish immigrants, an orphaned young woman facing an uncertan future, a heartbroken Italian opera singer, and a handicapped New York doctor all come together to fill the pages with courage and hope. This is marvellous tale crafted by a master in the art of historical fiction.

A Disappointed Fan.......2004-08-05

I've read most of B.J. Hoff's other books and loved them. But I was disappointed with this one because of the subplot of the MacGovern family inserted into the story. At the end of the book, it still shows no connection to the rest of book. To me, this is an obvious effort to sell more books, which I resent. If a book is a good read, I'll buy the next one. If not, I certainly wouldn't buy another simply to find out how the subplots are linked.
Other writers delve deeper into characterization than Ms. Hoff but her portrayal of Renny stole my heart. I look forward to reading the next book simply to see what happens to this young girl.
All in all, the book is easy to read and generally enjoyable if you like historical romance.

B.J. Hoff is a real wordweaver!.......2003-09-06

This is the first book I've read by B.J. Hoff and I can't wait to read more. One thing that especially struck me was her writing style and use of words. As someone who is starting to think about writing more than Amazon reviews, I loved the words she chose and how she weaves the different characters and story lines together.

In addition to the story of Susanna and her brother-in-law Michael, Hoff includes two sub-plots - one of two doctors working in New York City, and a story about an Irish family traveling to this country after hard times in their country. These last two plots weren't as fully developed, and I look forward to reading the next book, which will no doubt get back to those characters!

And then there's the whole fascinating part of how the author weaves famous Christians D.L. Moody, Ira Sankey, and Fanny Crosby
into the story! I highly recommend this book!

Please check out my other reviews!

God bless you all!

Another Great Book from B. J. Hoff!.......2003-08-07

Reminiscent of the classic "Jane Eyre" and Mrs. Hoff's earlier book, "Winds of Graystone Manor", this book captured my attention from page 1. With multiple characters and scenes, it can be difficult to keep track or get into each person's life, but not here! B. J. Hoff keeps each segment interesting, so you won't want to skip a single bit.

Susanna travels from Ireland to America to be a governess for her late sister's husband. She immediately warms up to her neice, a sweet, intelligent young girl, and is surprised to find that Michael Emmanuel, her brother-in-law, is seemingly kind and pleasant. What of her sister's descriptions of a dark, hard man and being so unhappy with him?
Susanna begins to experience the captivating genius of Michael's musical talents, as well.

Bethany Cole, one of the few early woman doctors, is trying to establish herself and longs for her own private practice. Andrew Carmichael, a young doctor, meets and likes Bethany, and asks her if she would like to join his practice and have her own room. Bethany is happy to accept. There is something Andrew is keeping from her--a dark secret, or an innocent one?

Conn McGovern decides to leave Ireland and go to America since things are getting hard in his native land. His son, Aiden, is against leaving. On the way to the shipyard, Conn runs into a street musician girl who seems to be in trouble. After helping her out, he heads to the shipyard again. The girl, Renny McGee, follows later on.

There are also a few interesting appearances from some famous people of the past, such as Fanny Crosby and Dwight L. Moody.

Painful partings, emotional upheavals, new hopes, soulful music, and spiritual journeys. Add a touch of romance and mystery, and here is the result. A wonderful book with stories of characters we can't help but love.

Great beginning to a new BJ Hoff series!.......2003-08-06

I ordinarily prefer contemporary novels and hadn't read a BJ Hoff book in many years, but after finishing PRELUDE I will be reading anything she's written that I can get my hands on! This book had everything--characters to fall in love with, several equally compelling interwoven plots that kept me turning pages, and a wonderful portrayal of the difference true faith can make in a life. Best of all, there are more books to come! I am so happy to have discovered this new series and can't wait to read CADENCE.

Book Description

A major revision of the essential guide to national anthems. With both the original and translated words plus music for 198 anthems, this invaluable guide includes countries from Armenia to Zimbabwe. All the latest changes are incorporated: the anthem of the new state of Timor-Leste, formerly East Timor, which became independent in 2002, and replacement anthems for Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iraq, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Somalia. And where the country’s language is not written in Roman script, the lyrics are transliterated phonetically.

Average customer rating:

Classic Individual versus the collective

Anthem
Ayn Rand
Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0451166833

Customer Reviews:

Classic Individual versus the collective.......2006-06-01

At first glance, one might think of Huxley's 'Brave New World' but this book goes beyond just showing one course that the future of man might take. 'Anthem' shows the course our future will take if mankind loses the most important aspect of being man - the ability to recognize individuality, the sense of our uniqueness, and the 'I' in us all. Ms. Rand's philosophy of Objectivism is underlined in this one small story - a story that shows us an awful glimpse of the future and then gives us hope that we can avoid such a fate. I first read this book as a teenager, and have since read it (and all her books) dozens of times. It never loses its value.

The New Church Anthem Book: One Hundred Anthems

Average customer rating:

An Excellent collection of Anthems

The New Church Anthem Book: One Hundred Anthems

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0193531097

Book Description

A definitive collection of 100 anthems from Tudor times to the present, this book includes favorites as well as lesser-known pieces. The anthems were selected for their practical usefulness for church choirs today, bearing in mind the needs of smaller choirs: the anthems are mostly for SATB
with or without keyboard accompaniments.

Customer Reviews:

An Excellent collection of Anthems.......2000-05-28

This is an outstanding collections of very beautiful anthems. It has varying in levels of difficulty. In addition the music is not only in English. An easy to read text (musically) that combines the ablitiy to hold it and sing and a very wide range of music. The book contains wonderful pieces by Palestrina, Purcell, S.S. Wesley, Mozart and even Tchaikovsky. This is a book that will get much use and never be boring, for the singer, congregation and or audience, and musical director. A book with endless possibilities and variety. A truly wonderful work.

Cadence (The American Anthem Trilogy, Book 2)

Average customer rating:

Historical fiction at its best
The "Storyteller" spins another heartwarming tale
A masterpiece!
Cadence leaves you wanting more!
An entertaining read that illumines spiritual truths

Cadence (The American Anthem Trilogy, Book 2)
B. J. Hoff
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0849943906

Book Description

Cadence reunites us with Andrew Carmichael, an inner city physician, and his partner in practice, Bethany Cole, one of the first female physicians in America, who share a desire to serve the poor with their healing skills and with love. As the story continues, they discover that they share more than a professional passion--they share a love for each other.

Set in late nineteenth century New York City and the surrounding Hudson River Valley, and incorporating the beginnings of American gospel music, Cadence continues the saga of the courageous immigrants who helped build our nation, the struggles they endured, and the music they created, lived and loved by.

Customer Reviews:

Historical fiction at its best.......2004-10-14

What a wonderful tapestry of relationship stories set against the backdrop of New York City in the mid-1800's. The vivid details and realistic characterizations make the reader feel as if these stories must surely have taken place. Each of the characters faces a challenge in his or her relationship to another person or persons, and the resolution of each dilemma is both satisfying and delightful.

The "Storyteller" spins another heartwarming tale.......2003-11-05

In her true story-telling fashion, B.J. Hoff brings us the next mesmerizing instalment in her American Anthem series. Revisit the characters first introduced in PRELUDE, and be swept away in the saga that unfolds, where love grows amidst heartbreak and misconception, and hope is restored despite grievous loss. The colourful setting of late 1800's New York is punctuated with the music of the era, presenting trials and triumphs that will resonate with the reader. Old and new fans of B.J.'s historical fiction will love this story. ~~Ellie Schroder, owner of The Christian Fiction Site

A masterpiece!.......2003-10-22

I was once again drawn into the lives of each intricate character. I didn't want to put it down, but had to at times. (You have to eat and sleep at least a little, right?)

Susanna, haunted with fears of failure, refuses to play for Michael's orchestra when he asks her to.

Dr. Andrew Carmichael tries to find a way to tell Dr. Bethany Cole his feelings for her-and his secret past.

The MacGovern family finds that America (so it seems) is not so glorious as they had thought it would be. Will Mr. MacGovern ever find a job to keep his family afloat?

There are also other intriguing and entertaining characters such as police officer Frank Donovan, young Renny MacGee, and Paul Santi, Michael's gentle cousin.

The ending was so glorious and beautiful that I was actually weeping with joy, hearing the music Mrs. Hoff spoke of.

It was ALL wonderful-I loved it so much and want to read it again (many times, perhaps) in the future! I would recommend reading the equally good Book 1 first, of course, but this book stands on its own, too. Masterfully written! Bravo!

Cadence leaves you wanting more!.......2003-10-15

Love LOVE LOVE these characters!! Just as in Prelude, I jumped in this book with both feet and didn't emerge until the last page was turned. If possible, this book was even stronger than Prelude...the characters more defined and even more rich and colorful. The ending left me breathless...I almost stood up and cheered along with the audience in the scene! I cannot wait until the next one... hurry!!

An entertaining read that illumines spiritual truths.......2003-09-09

"Fiction can illuminate Truth beautifully. There are few adornments more lovely and compelling than good fiction artfully woven around the neck of Truth to bring out the eternal beauty of the face of Truth."--Christian author Jeri Massi

Nowhere is that quote more aptly illustrated than in the fiction writing of B. J. Hoff, and her latest book, Cadence, is no exception.

In this second book in Hoff's American Anthem series, we become further acquainted with the appealing cast of characters we met in Cadence. There's the handsome and brooding composer, Michael Emmanuel, and Susanna, the sister of his deceased wife, who acts as a governess for his young daughter. In Cadence, Michael and Susanna deal with the growing awareness of their feelings for each other...and Susanna must face her fear of failure in regard to her own musical talent.

We get to know more about the altruistic Scottish doctor, Andrew Carmichael, and his medical partner, Dr. Bethany Cole, and discover that there is something significant in the good doctor's past. Meantime, Andrew and Bethany are another couple that realize their dawning love for one another.

The Irish immigrant, Conn MacGovern, continues to be one of the most engaging characters in the series. Proud and strongwilled, he embodies the strong immigrant spirit, and you can't help but like him and his equally strong wife, Vangie.

I suspect --and hope--we'll be learning more about a few of the characters in the next book, including the intriguing Irish police officer, Frank Donovan, as well as Renny McGee, the former busker girl taken under the wing of the MacGovern family.

I really enjoyed this book's predecessor, Prelude, but I do believe I liked Cadence even more! Maybe it's because the characters now feel like old friends, and I'm even more involved in their individual stories. As always, I relished B.J. Hoff's lovely and evocative writing and the smooth flow connecting the characters' scenes.

Most of all, this book touched me on a spiritual level, causing me to look inward and challenging me to face my own fears with the help of God's Word. An entertaining, absorbing read that points you to spiritual truth...can you ask for more?

Just one problem, though. Now I can't wait until the next book in the series!

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