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Book reviews for "Adam,_David" sorted by average review score:

Cooking from Quilt Country: Hearty Recipes from Amish and Mennonite Kitchens
Published in Hardcover by Clarkson N. Potter (April, 1989)
Authors: Marcia Adams, Alexandra Avakian, and David Pottinger
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It's not diet food...but who cares? :)
This book and "New Recipes from Amish Country" are, without a doubt, my most used, most read and most worn cookbooks in my library. These cookbooks are not only wonderful for their recipes, but also for just curling up on the couch with a cup of coffee to browse through. The pictures and stories are wonderful. Marcia Adams is one of my favorite cookbook authors on the market today. She knows what she's writing about and her books are incredibly enjoyable to go through, not to mention educational.

My favorite recipes out of Cooking from Quilt Country - Whole Wheat Bread (wonderfully easy and very delicious), Cinnamon Rolls (great icing!) and Potato Pancakes (I still haven't found a recipe that can match the flavor of this one)

Easiest, best pie crust
This is a delightful book that offers interesting glimpses of the Amish lifestyle and preserves some wonderful recipes. I greatly enjoy the photos and anecdotes in this book, as well as the terrific recipes.

I make the Hot Water Pie Crust in nine-crust batches and freeze it (it freezes perfectly). It is the easiest pie crust recipe I've ever used and tastes just like Grandma's. We don't have pie often, due to its fat content, but when we do, this crust never fails.

The oven-fried chicken recipe is also a winner. Again, it has a lot of fat, but it's great for special occasions and company dinners.

Kudos to Marcia for ensuring that these treasured recipes aren't lost, and for providing a peek at a unique way of life.

The best cookbook I've ever used
This is the best cookbook I own. The recipes are relatively simple but also unique in a way. I especially like the vegetable dishes. I use this cookbook as a wedding present all the time. My wife makes the Amish apple pie and it is the best. Every New Years Day I make the cabbage rolls and they are outstanding. The crushed ginger snaps make it special. Men and women who cook should own this cookbook.


Yoga for Your Spiritual Muscles: A Complete Yoga Program to Strengthen Body and Spirit
Published in Paperback by Theosophical Publishing House (June, 1998)
Authors: Rachel Schaeffer, Adam Mastoon, and David S. Waitz
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excellent book!
This book is a great resource for developing a home practice, and learning about the spirtual benefits of yoga.

A very different and great aproach to Yoga
I love this book. It is one of a kind. Easy to use. There are 12 spiritual muscles to work with. You can use the book in the order you wish. The author encourages you to make your own yoga posture. A treasure of a book.

Best Yoga book I have ever reviewed
This is by far the best yoga book I have ever encountered. The content, design, photography and overall feel of the book are superb. This book exemplifies everything yoga is and will be a tremendous asset to anyone wanting to start or go deeper into the path of yoga.


Lines on the Water
Published in Hardcover by Bantam Books (01 April, 1998)
Author: David Adams Richards
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An accurate and warm sharing of memories on the river
I read this book and every fishing trip I have ever been on came rushing back. As I read I could feel the weight of the fly vest on my shoulders and smell the campfire. No one other than a down home salmon fisherman could have written this book. While he fished the Mirimichi I fished the Restigouche and once had the privilidge of meeting his Uncle, Richard Adams, on the Matepedia.
I know the beauty of the land and the feeling of a line tighten under a heavy fish, Everything is so real, from the sound of the water and the singing of a reel being stripped of its line down to the irritating buzzing of the bugs. He speaks of the friendships on the river so accurately one knows it is not fiction.
A wonderful read that I tore through and will sit down again to read it again to savour anything I may have missed.
My only regret is there were only 5 stars to give it.

The Baby Who Wouldn't Go to Bed
My neighbor lent this book to me when I was having trouble getting my 2 year old to go to bed and go to sleep with it being light out at bedtime during the summer. She loved the book and would ask for me to read it again every night. It is one of her favorite books. The action words really invite her to get involved in the story. Words like "vrrruuum-chugga-chug", roaring tigers, parading soldiers,resting not racing trains, musicians playing a lullaby, a sighing drowsy moon, and a yawning baby who doesn't want to stay up all night after his adventures. This could be a classic book.

A beautifully illustrated bed-time book.
This is a beautifully illustrated book about a baby who does want to go to bed and so with a "vrruum-chugga-chug" zooms off in his little car awy from "the Mother" - he meets a sleepy tiger, dreaming soldiers, a resting train, and drowsy musicians until his little car itself falls asleep, not even the Moon will play - then he's rescued by the Mother and goes to bed - my little ones love it (and are usually asleep before the end!!)


Clyfford Still
Published in Hardcover by Yale Univ Pr (01 June, 2001)
Authors: David Anfam, Neal Benezra, Brooks Adams, and demetrion
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From a Recent Still Convert
A few of my favorite painters are contemporaries of Still, so I saw it as my duty to see the Hirschhorn exhibition. Well, I picked a dead day and had the show to myself and simply put I am now a fan. The book is great and David Anfam's addition to the book is especially enlightening about the work of Still.

From a new Clifford Still fan:
I am a painter who has largely avoided Clifford Still but this book has turned me into a great admirer. Particulary influential was the contribution by David Anfam, the art historian who was responsible for the magnificent, award-winning Mark Rothko catalogue raisonne. Anfam's essay is insightful, far-reaching, beautifully written with poetic underpinnings, a pleasure to read. All you'll ever need to know about Clifford Still, his work, and his place in art history is covered in this essay. The color plates are also wonderful and, even as reproductions, offer a great chance to appreciate the paintings.

Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still is one of the giant figures of the art world and this book puts his paintings in a proper perspective. The book contains many color reproductions of his large non-objective canvases. Still himself wrote the book and gives us a very good insight into his life and thinking process. He discusses what went into his paintings and how his unique canvas numbering system worked absent dates and titles to identify his work. It is also a journey through his body of work. His paintings were skillfully balanced with positive and negative spaces and his unparalleled use of color is well documented. This book is a must for any art lover in general and for students of American art in particular. I liked this book not only for the well reproduced paintings in color but also because it let's us into the painter's mind to get a glimps of his true genius.


Gods, Heroes, and Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain
Published in Hardcover by Oxford University Press (September, 2001)
Authors: Christopher R. Fee and David Adams Leeming
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Highly Recommended
Drs. Christopher Fee and David Leeming have crafted an extraordinary work examining the marriage of Celtic, Germanic, and Norse cultures and religious beliefs in Britain (particularly as they are seen via the literary traditions that chronicled them) in an effort to understand how the impact of pre-Christian peoples influenced the unique Christianity of Medieval Britain. While Dr. Leeming has provided extensive retellings of pagan myths, Dr. Fee has written insightful analyses of these myths and their import to the creation of a British religious ideology. Beginning with a scrutiny of the various pagan pantheons, the work then moves through detailed examinations of, among other things, types of deities, heroes and heroines, and the different sagas of the individual cultures. As an apocalypticist, I found the retellings and subsequent commentaries on Ragnarok and the Anglo-Saxon Fire of Judgment immensely informative and useful.
This is an extraordinarily accessible book. It is intended for the non-specialist and, as such, would be perfect for an undergraduate survey course, for an upper-level topical course on British mythology/religion, or for any scholar seeking an understanding of Britain's pre-Christian culture. I would also recommend it highly as a handbook for any medievalist who needs quick and informed accounts of any and all of these topics. Not only have Drs. Fee and Leeming eloquently opened up the field of pagan Britain to further inquiry and discussion, but they have done so in a work that is, above all, easy and enjoyable to read.

Excellent!
This book is a great read. It's obviously well-researched, and filled with intriguing facts. Furthermore, Fee has a writing style that draws the reader in and keeps him/her interested throughout. Highly recommended!

Great read
really intersting read with lots of interesting facts, not for the faint hearted, makes you think and relise alot of different things


The Madness of Adam and Eve: How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity
Published in Hardcover by Transworld Publishers Limited (April, 2002)
Author: David F. Horrobin
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Humanity and "Insanity"
To begin with, I purchased my copy from Amazon.co.uk, the British arm, well over a year ago. Even being shipped from England to the U.S., it's still probably the best way for an American to buy this great book...

You may have heard various movie characters at various times say something along the lines of "We all go a little bit insane sometimes".

Horrobin shows pretty convincingly that "we ARE all a little bit insane at ALL times". In essence, the biochemical manifestations of serious mental illness, when LESS chemically severe, manifest themselves as creativity, imagination, audacity, fixation, obsession, compulsion, etc. A given person might in fact be "3% manic-depressive/bipolar", "2% schizoid", "4% paranoic", etc., and not only function well on a daily basis, but actually function as a great thinker, artist, inventor, or world leader.

Take the "quirks" of major leaders in World War II - from Hitler with his sheer terror at his own flatulence, Stalin drawing 1000 red pencil pictures of wolf heads ever day, De Gaulle regarding himself as "the male Joan of Arc", Patton thinking he had lived dozens of times previously, and Roosevelt allowing both his own and his wife's mistresses to live on the same floor, to Churchill greating world leaders in the buff. All "a little bit insane"? Not so very different from the rest of us, each with his or her own eccentricities...and all very, very human.

This book is both intellectually and socially important to the exact extent it forces us to look at humanity and its mental condition as a full range, rather than categories and "cut-off points".

Most highly recommended!

A fascinating look at mental illness and genius
This book covers new ground in linking genetics, environment, diet and history with not only various mental illness' like schizophrenia, bi-polar,and dyslexia, but also with the genius and creativity that run in families through out history. The first half lays the basis for his thesis and the second half, which is more readable to the lay person applies his theory to modern life. Anyone dealing with mental illness in any form should read this book for a new and hopeful take on an important subject. The book was originally published in England in 2002, and very favorably reviewed by the London Times. ...

An excellent book!
Very insightful look at schizophrenia. It changes one's perception of 'mental illness'. The author suggests that schizophrenia is something essential to humanity and without it we would still be animals.
Everyone out there...read this book!


Cape May Ghost Stories: Book 1
Published in Paperback by Exeter House Books (June, 1997)
Authors: David J. Seibold and III, Charles J. Adams
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The true stories
This is a great book for believers! Historical Cape May is made frightful. The tour is Eileen's Ghost Tour. I know because I work for her in Strasburg, PA for the Ghost Tour of Lancaster County. If you like this book, read the Pennsylvania Dutch one. It's excellent and that's where we get our stories from also!

Care To Meet, Dine, Or Live With Ghosts In Cape May?
After we went on Elaine's Haunted Mansion Tour, in Cape May, NJ, we got Cape May Ghost Stories. It's true, and believe me, all of this stuff is true, not made up fiction. We learned about Bridget, who is spending her afterlife in the Bed And Breakfast which was across the street from us. The writers/researchers are very good and if you enjoyed this too, there is Cape May Ghost Stories . . . Book Two!


ColdFusion MX Bible
Published in Paperback by John Wiley & Sons (February, 2003)
Authors: Adam Phillip Churvis, Hal Helms, Charlie Arehart, and David Churvis
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The MX Bible will easily become the new 'standard'...
Back in the day, the only CF books available were the WACKs by Ben Forta. They quickly became the 'must have' books for any serious CF developer, largely because Ben is...well, he's Ben...but also because there was very little competition. As CF has grown in popularity, other publishers have released CF books...but none have ever seriously challenged the WACKs...

...until now. The MX Bible will undoubtedly be regarded as the premiere CF reference. Unlike so many others, this is definitely NOT a simple regurgiation of the docs. The authors are all very well known, respected CF developers who are obviously teaching from their own (real world) experiences...not simply expanding on existing documentation. They explain what works and what doesn't...and why.

This is not really a book for beginners (IMO)...but anybody who's been using CF for at least 6 months or so will find this to be an invaluable, ALL INCLUSIVE (cf, homesite/studio, XML, XSLT, SQL, triggers, stored procs, fusebox, etc) resource that should never be far from the keyboard.

You won't find this much (quality) information anywhere else for close to this price. Do yourself a favor, and make a small investment that will yield huge returns.

Why you must own this book.
I am a self-taught application programmer with 20 years of experience - starting with the AS/400 then PC's and finally coding applications in a web browser. I have so many books on programming I could start my own library. This is one of those rare books that moves from the realm of dispensing information into the world of teaching. This book is loaded not only with "how to" examples (learning comes through hands you know) but also with "why to" and "why not to". And the clear examples and guidance are not only given for the easy and obvious but also for the difficult and obscure.

From the simple demonstration of creating a basic application (add, update, display delete) along with provided sample data to use to using web services, components, xml, and regular expressions - these guys cover it all.

But wait - there's more. They teach you in context leading you not only through why and how but show you the whole picture, the application framework, proper documentation, testing, errors, and exception handling. They even include a language reference.

If I could only have one book on ColdFusion - this is the one.


The Underground Lawyer
Published in Hardcover by Gopher Publishing (April, 2001)
Authors: Michael Minns, David Adams, C. Michel Feray, and Michael Louis Minns
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Written specifically to be understood by lay people
Reprinted in a new Millennium Edition, Michael Minns' The Underground Lawyer is comprehensive, highly detailed introduction to the American legal system, written specifically to be understood by lay people. The next best thing to a law school education, The Underground Lawyer covers everything from criminal law to bankruptcy. A must for anyone with immediate need to quickly learn more about criminal or civil law, the judicial system, the role of the attorney, constitutional rights, bankruptcy, wills, or any other aspect of American jurisprudence.

thanks a million
Twenty years ago, I lost my husband in a crash. I was a widow at 25 and I wish I had had the underground lawyer then. This book is a real lifesaver when there's legal trouble around.

Great Reference
As a litigator myself, I understand the overall complexities of "the law". However, I can't know everything about every aspect of law, so I refer lots of friends and clients to the Underground Lawyer to answer the questions I can't


War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir
Published in Paperback by Steerforth Press (September, 1995)
Authors: Sam Adams and David H. Hackworth
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Interesting look at one man's struggle for integrity
I expected not to finish this book, given my previous lack of interest in Vietnam-War history, but I found that the story transcended its milieu and beyond that drew my interest to a key period of recent American history. I imagine that fans will counsel students of history and political science to read it, and they probably should as an interesting nuance from more high-level views provided by more famous luminaries like Westmoreland, McNamara, et al, but I found this fascinating from a different standpoint: how one individual struggled to keep his intellectual integrity in the face of massive institutional pressure not to. There are lots of melodramatic movies that seek to capture the situation more cleanly, but this book, in chronicling one man's true-life experience, did it better and with more resonance than any film I've seen. As a young person who works with "numbers" myself, I understand how frequently people try to manipulate them and use them as persuasive devices for major decisions.

One For Intelligence Analysts
War of Numbers is an essential book for intelligence analysts as well as students of the Vietnam War. Adams provides key insight to strategic policy failure. In order to fully appreciate Adam's contribution to the intelligence history of Vietnam, it is important to understand that wars are fought by nations in the pursuit of interests and that for Americans, the decision to go to war should address seven considerations: Problem Identification, Interests Assessment, Objective Identification (including End State Assessment), Strategic Self Appraisal, National Power Assessments of The Enemy, Strategy Development, and the Identification of Gaps between Policy and Means.
Adam's book addresses errors in the National Power Assessment phase which had a negative cascading effect in subsequent decision making. Flawed enemy strength calculations contributed to flawed strategy development which contributed to a gap between policy and means. When Adams identified the flaw, the Johnson Administration was too heavily committed to a war of attrition to tolerate public exposure of the gaps between policy and means. Strategically, telling the truth about the numbers of enemy forces would have required larger commitments of U.S. forces increasing the strain on public support for the war. The strength of Johnson's political will and McNamara's quantitative analysis approach to war deeply affected the way the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, counted the enemy (called, Order of Battle).
MACV kept three sets of books; The first set of OB was the official version sent to Washington. The second set belonged to the OB Analysts themselves, and the third set was a blend of the first two. The first set was an undercount to keep official Washington placated; the second set was the honest count but did not go anywhere, and the third set went to Westmoreland who kept it close hold.
Adams contribution to the intelligence discipline is his description of how he found the flaw in OB accounting and the political correctness that resisted him within the intelligence community. The key to his breakthrough was to have actually gone to Vietnam, worked the Order of Battle issues on the ground, understand the enemy from "the enemy's" perspective and then double check how U.S. reporting of enemy strength matched that of how the enemy was reporting his own strength. This is when Adams discovered that MACV was undercounting troop strength. He performed a validity and reliability check on MACV and found their procedures and results wanting. The technique he used is described in detail and serves as a lesson learned for today's OB analysts.
The second lesson is how Adams' persistence caused a rift between the CIA and MACV over the integrity of the OB counting. The CIA is evenhandedly portrayed in the book. Individual analysts who looked at the numbers invariably sided with Adams; those in responsive political positions and vulnerable to the political influence of the Johnson-McNamara Administration behave in the subtle manner normally associated with behind the scene politics. Adams illustrates how assessments were watered down, reports delayed, egos clashed in the briefing rooms, and all of the suppressive efforts were brought to bear to keep him muffled and how he countered them. Basically, his operating principle was that the truth should be allowed to surface and he describes how he created those opportunities; back channel copies of reports; boot leg copies of reports, analyst to analyst contacts (CIA to DIA, for example), as well as maintaining contact with the honest brokers at MACV.
This is an important book for students of Intelligence Analysis. It serves as a guide on how to double check the validity and reliability of Order of Battle data; it gives insight to how politics heavily filtered ground truth under the Johnson Administration, and it lets the world see that the CIA wasn't evil incarnate. Like every other agency in Washington, it simply surrendered to political pressure from the White House.

Intelligence with integrity!
Adams' book is not so much a book about Vietnam as a chronical of what happens when intelligence units and agencies report what the commanders WANT to hear. The CIA and J2 of MACV in Adams' book become pawns in the politics of Vietnam. They ignored facts and basic tenents of intelligence reporting. The agencies feared reaction to the facts and its possible effect on public sentiment to US involvement. Because of that they purposely, according to Adams, reported and knowingly maintained false information.

Even more disturbing are Adams' insights into the CIA of the middle and late Sixties. Though deeply entrenched in war in Vietnam, they seemed to take an overall cavalier approach to the mission. Adams notes after Tet-1968 there were "considerably less than 6" CIA agent handlers in Vietnam who spoke vietnamese. These same case officers received a grand total of 2 hours orientation on Vietnam and their enemy prior to assignment.

This book is a MUST read for intelligence personnel, policy makers and anyone who wants to learn how, the hard way, not to run an intelligence organization.


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