Product Description
Raised a Christian Scientist, Charlotte McGuffey has always been taught to solve her problems by denying their existence. But now, suffering from crippling insomnia, living with a husband she no longer cares for, and bewildered by a three-year-old son who still won't talk, Charlotte is starting to wonder whether this strategy is working. When her husband is killed in a sudden accident she packs her two young boys in the family car and takes off for Beede, Vermont–the town where her husband grew up and died. Here in Vermont, away from the watchful eyes of her older sisters, Charlotte begins to search for answers, making new discoveries about her family's past, her late husband's death, and the possibility of new love. Filled with gentle wit and uncommon generosity, Learning to Drive is a funny, poignant lesson in self-discovery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Honestly lovely
Mary Hays has written a lovely book with believable characters for whom you can feel real compassion.The children are as well-written as the adults, each frayed a bit around the edges and more real for it.The main character's struggle with her faith is touching; her sister's unwaivering belief equally so.

It appears that at least one review has found Hays' portrayal of Christian Science as unflattering, but I disagree.Hays shows views of the faith from various perspectives, but none mean-spirited.

This is a slow-paced book, dawdling in the characters' lives in a kind, non-judging way that makes you want to care for them.

Misinformation unfortunate In easy-reading 1st Novel
While writing an easy-to-read book is certainly a gift of the author's, she is either grossly misinformed or ignorantly misinterpreting the life of Mary Baker Eddy and the healing practice of Christian Science. As a student of this Science, I found the references to it throughout the book untrue, definitely biased, and certainly unfair. Therefore, the main character's torment over whether or not she should stick with her beliefs about Christian Science and her final decision not to were not surprising nor unexpected, for with that degree of understanding (or rather, misunderstanding) of this religion's foundation and precepts, she surely made the right choice. For anyone interested in obtaining factual and accurate information about the life of Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, I advise reading the following:

"Retrospection and Introspection" by Mary Baker Eddy
"Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer" by Yvonne Cache von Feltweis and Robert Townsend Warneck
"Mary Baker Eddy" by Robert Peel (3 Volumes: I. The Years of Discovery II. The Years of TrialIII. The Years of Authority
"Mary Baker Eddy" Radcliffe Biography Series by Gillian Gill

Great story and characters.
I find it hard to believe this is a first novel for the author.The way she tells the story is seamless, and she has a way of making you feel like you are in the moment with each character.I was slightly put off at first because in the beginning this book seems like a commercial for Christian Science, but it is really nothing like that.This is a wonderful book...one you will want to read many times.

Realistic characters, makes you think
This book is more than just a story.It also examines the effect of philosophy/theology on real life.Hays draws her characters with sympathy and hope.A refreshingly different work.I hope to read many more from this author1

My favorite book of the year
For me, it's not the big stories, the telling of complicated histories affected by extraordinary events, it's the stories where a profound shift takes place in regular people, that change me in some way. The characters in "Learning to Drive" are so understandable,imperfect,and brave in their circumstances, I found myself reading much slower toward the end so that the book would not be over too soon. To my delight, I found that long after finishing the book, I think of the characters often with great fondness. Amy Peberdy ... Read more

Product Description
The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.
Delve into what it was like to live during the eighteenth century by reading the first-hand accounts of everyday people, including city dwellers and farmers, businessmen and bankers, artisans and merchants, artists and their patrons, politicians and their constituents. Original texts make the American, French, and Industrial revolutions vividly contemporary.
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The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification:
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Harvard University Houghton Library

N016614

Anonymous. By Mary Hays.With a half-title.A reissue or reprint of the 300-p. edition, omitting the announcement and apology and with titlepage reset; last word of the first line of the imprint is "church-" and the rules above and below the epigraph by Johnson consist of double lines.

[London] : Printed for J. Johnson; and J. Bell, 1798. [12],vi,293,[1]p. ; 8° ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

One of the great political novels of the 1790s
Any fan of Mary Wollstonecraft should turn next to books like this one. Hays's novel is part of the first wave of responses to *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman* (1792) and shows that Wollstonecraft could produce thoughtful responses from British radicals that balance the unthinking ones from conservatives. With Amelia Opie's *Adeline Mowbray*, this novel tells us much about early British feminism and its interest in the novel. Broadview's texts, furthermore, are excellent and provide wonderful supporting materials; this one is no exception.

One of the great political novels of the 1790s
Any fan of Mary Wollstonecraft should turn next to books like this one. Hays's novel is part of the first wave of responses to *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman* (1792) and shows that Wollstonecraft could produce thoughtful responses from British radicals that balance the unthinking ones from conservatives. With Amelia Opie's *Adeline Mowbray*, this novel tells us much about early British feminism and its interest in the novel.

Different, but not great.
I usually love reading books written pre-20th Century, as this one was (1796) but I didn't really enjoy this one as much as I expected. Even though it caused a mild scandal when first published, it is (naturally)rather tame by today's standards. The heroine's great crime is to declareher love for a man before he declares his. How shocking!

The book iswritten as a series of letters to her beloved's son telling him about hergreat crime, in order to save him from making the same mistakes. I didadmire the way she examined and analyzed her feelings, and how she couldstand back and see how her actions didn't always coincide with herintentions. She just loved this guy passionately and she couldn't talkherself out of it, no matter how hard she tried. It got to be rathertedious though, after a while, and I wished she could just get over it andget on with her life.

All the melodrama in the book comes in the lastthirty pages, which is such a contrast to the mild, slow-paced rest of thebook. It seemed very foreign to the first part, like the author felt sheought to throw in some action at long last.All in all, it was okay, butnot great. ... Read more

Product Description
Zeke, a nine-year-old boy with a lame leg, lives five flights up in a house in Harlem and amuses himself by looking out the windows. When the Jazz Man with his wonderful music moves into a room across the court, Zeke's life takes on new meaning--until trouble comes in the form of near abandonment. A Newbery Honor Book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

what a great book
This book is one of the best books I've ever read and I'm 12 so it is for all ages and people.I've given this book 5 stars because it was so good.I wish I could buy it!I only read this book for my class novel to read,but it was still good.

IT WAS A GREAT BOOK
THE JAZZ MAN WAS A GREAT BOOK.IT HAD GREAT PICTURES.THE ARTIST WAS VERY ARTISTIC WITH THE PICTURES.I DON'T THINK IT WAS BORING AT ALL.

A wonderful book called the jazz man
Ok I thought the book was wonderful. It gave you so much detail.

First- It didn't matter whether he had a lame leg or not. He still got around what ever he did because he could walk up and down stairs.

Next- His mother and father didn't leave him. It was just a dream he had about his mother and father leaving him and there not being any food.

Then- He walks down the stairs andacross the street. He sees the jazz man, tony, Manuel, and Ernie plaing there instuments. He goes in to the resturtant and here's a voice and it sounds like his father. He looks up and it is his father.He wakes up and sees his father and mother.

That is my point of view of the jazz man.

weak for a Newbery
First of all, the boy's disability was hardly worth mentioning. I have known three people (one of them my father) who had one leg shorter than the other since childhood and walked with distinct limps. Their limps never prevented them from doing anything they wanted to do. It seems highly unlikely that this boy would have been permitted to stay out of school.

Second, the descriptions of the music didn't make me feel anything; they were just words. I've read writing that sounded like music, but this wasn't it.

Third, there was no explanation for the parents' behavior, why they left, or why they returned. In real life, the boy would likely blame himself for their leaving.

It has occurred to me that the last page and a half may be meant to take place in heaven after the boy has died of starvation.

A Bit of a Disappointment
The Jazz Mary Hays Weik was a disappointment. I probably expected too much from it. When I read about the very short book, I thought that it sounded like a children's version of the James Baldwin short story "Sonny's Blues." "Sonny's Blues" is a marvelous story set in Harlem about a man who lives in his music. The Jazz Man reaches none of its brilliance. It does capture the ability of music to music to brighten a dull life, but this book doesn't treat some matters well enough. Social problems which could have been explored were not, and the relationship between the main character, Zeke, and his parents was not developed. The book is an interesting read. It is worth the fifteen minutes that it takes to read it, though it did have flaws. Do read "Sonny's Blues." ... Read more

Product Description
Mary Hays is known for her literary works and as a formidable member of radical circles in the late eighteenth century. Her letters help the reader understand the extent of her engagement with contemporary issues and how these were voiced in her writings. Until now no full edition of the letters has appeared and earlier selections were greatly abridged. This new edition of almost 400 letters reaffirms Hays' position within literary and radical circles and provides an important background against which to assess the importance of her writings. Because letters from as well as to Hays are included, we are able to see how much her opinions were sought and assess her importance within sensibility, rational philosophy and the development of feminism. The letters span a long period beginning with her youthful correspondence where we see her 'story' unfolding as she grapples with the implications and vocabulary of sensibility, and strove to give meaning to her life, then her engagement with the demands of Dissent and the beginnings of her writing career.Family and friends supply background details of her influential behavior on others and the correspondence with well-known writers reveal her centrality in contemporary literary circles. The final letters to Henry Crabb Robinson show that even in her reclusive old age she was still engaging with philosophical issues and liberal discussion. It would seem that, here, Hays takes on the role of mentor so often assigned to men of her acquaintance. Hence, we find several 'Mary Hays' in this collection and the letters help clarify some of the 'myths' surrounding her. This book which contains almost 400 letters contributes to a greater understanding of the contemporary time and its issues and will enable greater awareness of the central position of Mary Hays within it. Scholars interested not only in the life of Mary Hays but also in the emergence of Romanticism and contemporary life in general will find in these letters invaluable source material. ... Read more

Product Description
Mary Hays, reformist, novelist, and innovative thinker, has been waiting two hundred years to be judged in a fair, scholarly, and comprehensive way. During her lifetime and long after, her role in the ongoing reformist debates in England at the end of the eighteenth century, intensified by the French Revolution, served as a lightening rod for opponents who attacked her controversial stance on women's intellectual competence and human rights. Gina Luria Walker's intellectual history of Hays finally makes the case for her importance as an innovative thinker. She was a feminist thinker who advanced notions of tolerance that included women, an educator who broke new ground for female autodidacts, a philosophical commentator who translated Enlightenment ideas for a burgeoning female audience, a Dissenting historiographer who reinvented 'female biography,' and a writer of deliberately experimental fiction, including the roman a clef "Memoirs of Emma Courtney".Walker approaches Hays from several disciplinary perspectives-historical, biographical, literary, critical, theological, and political-to elucidate the multiple ways in which Hays contributed and responded to, and influenced and was influenced by, the most significant issues and figures of her time. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... 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: Hurst and Blackett, Publishers, 13, Great Marlborough Street. in 1883 in 342 pages; Subjects: History / General; ... 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: Harper in 1877 in 141 pages; Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; History / General; Language Arts & Disciplines / Composition & Creative Writing; Literary Collections / General; Literary Collections / Essays; Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / American / General; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; ... Read more

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In Three Volumes. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
In Three Volumes. This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more