The novel starts off with the voyage to 'Salt'. The planet is so-named because the main element on the planet is a preponderance of sodium chloride. Not the most hospitable environment for a human; but as someone points out to Petja, if there was no supply of salt, then all the colonists would die (although the colonists' recycling process seems to cover all their needs). Petja is the opening narrator of the novel. He belongs to a community of anarchists called the 'Alsists'. Adam Roberts openly acknowledges that there is an element of intertextuality involved in the novel, referring to Ursula Le Guin's 'The Dispossessed', Nabokov's 'Bend Sinister'. There are various other religious groups making the same journey, all strung out like pearls attached to a comet (an inevitably risky form of transport, especially considering the cabin fever inside the various ships, but a speedy one at that). One of the Alsists commits suicide and threatens the whole mission. This causes concern in the Senaar ship, who bid to avoid a repeat performance. They ask the Alsists to send a delegate to discuss the issue, and Petja is sent. Not that Petja is any kind of leader: like all the Alsists, he's against any form of hierarchy. Thus begins the troubled relationship between Senaar and the Alsists, which is exacerbated by the fact that Senaar men have fathered children on the Alsist ship. The undisciplined Alsists then break ranks by deciding to land on Salt first, angering the Senaarians further without even realising it. Not that the Senaarians want to grab the best land for themselves, or anything. The Senaarians have a patriarchal, hierarchical culture. They're named after the place in Genesis where the Tower of Babel was built. Babel later became Babylon, and there is a settlement named 'Babulonis' in the novel, complete with water flowing uphill, just like the famous Hanging Gardens. Barlei, the Senaar leader, would have preferred the planet Salt to be called 'Kepesh', after the Hebrew word for 'silver', which most often seems discussed within the Book of Exodus. Indeed, Barlei later builds a 'Great Dyke', which he describes as a 'Pharaonic feat', without any hint of hypocrisy. It's debatable as to whether the Alsists or the Senaar are representative of 'The Chosen People', and it's Petja who seems most like Moses, despite Barlei's use of language from the Book of Exodus. When the debate is held on how the future Senaar should be built, there is the suggestion that it should be constructed in the shape of 'The Eagle of St. John', which may be a sign of freemasonry in Senaarian society. One of the Senaarians who has fathered Alsist children is called Beltane: perhaps by referring to the Pagan May Day, Adam Roberts intends to remind us of modern anarchists who now wander forth and protest on May 1? The anarchists are well drawn by Roberts, and he is quite topical in including them. Roberts' dystopia is just as biting. All those scenes where Alsists threatens to punch one another's lights out does reflect how an anarchist society would settle disputes (or so I've read). This contrasts with Petja's use of force, which is violently opposed by some members of the Alsists later on (although Alsist society has been more or less smashed by then). Although they have talked their way onto a religious exodus, only a minority of Alsists have faith in a divine being. Most of them reject religion as just another hierarchical structure. This probably explains why some of them are so found of the atheist Roman philosopher Lucretius, together with his ideas on the 'free movement' of atoms. Thus it's quite a spiritual novel, in tune with recent fictions like John Meaney's 'Paradox' or Mary Doria Russell's 'The Sparrow'. Adam Roberts also claims that 'Salt' is intertextually related to Frank Herbert's 'Dune', but I couldn't really see much of a similarity, except that both worlds obviously have dunes. There are rather more factions involved in Frank Herbert's epic. There is no feudal empire or choam company (no minerals worthwhile exploiting), no fabulous sandworms, no Mentats, and no Bene Gesserit here. One of the disappointments of 'Salt' is that it doesn't really throw up any of the gender issues embodied in anarchism. Okay, so Senaarian women are obliged to do their duty by staying at home, and Rhoda Titus has the most irritatingly girly middle name ('Blossom'), and Barlei misogynistically calls Alsist women 'Maenads' whilst viewing Alsist society as matriarchal. Maybe it's a fault of characterisation, but all the narrators seem a little bland and lifeless. None of them seem to have worthwhile aspirations, but then I suppose they are living in a dystopia. At times, it does seem at times as though 'Salt' has far more in common with 'The English Patient' than 'Dune'... For instance, there are dunes in 'The English Patient' also. A bit of a tenuous link, I'll admit. But what about this? If you look at the movie soundtrack listing to 'The English Patient' by Gabriel Yared, you might be able to guess what music Adam Roberts was listening to when he first started writing 'Salt', and why the Alsists all seem to have Hungarian names. First off, there's a settlement called Yared, Pteja seems to have got his surname from the Song "Szerelem" (meaning "Love" in Hungarian), Marta Cserepes is possibly related to Marta 'Sebestyen' (name of the mountains in 'Salt'), or maybe Karoly Cserepes, who arranged the song 'Szerelem'. Is it "As Far as Florence" or 'New Florence', 'Convento' or "Convento di Sant' Anna"? Hamar, Sipos, and Csooris also seem to belong to the Hungarian band 'Musikas', featured in 'The English Patient'. Swapsies Herodotus for Lucretius? Compare with pages 18 and 63 of 'Salt' and weep. I reckon that Adam Roberts should utlise Gabriel Yared's soundtrack for 'Betty Blue' next time - I've always thought that 'Zorg' would be a great name for an alien!

Adam Roberts, with SALT is a great read. Roberts assumes the reader has an IQ above average room temperature; is over 17 years old; and can pay attention to details. Salt is a could-not-put-down book. In brief, a string of deep space habitats and colonists, literally hitching a ride behind a comet, set off to a distant planet, one that according to data was much like Earth. Misunderstandings develop during the long journey, planting seeds of mistrust among the ideologically differing colonial groups. Their destination is not Earth-like. It is covered with salt and contains an atmosphere of chlorine gas. It's impossible to return to Earth and the colonists have no choice but to deal with the alien atmosphere, and ultimately, with each other. I think Roberts' story could have gone on for a few more thousand words and hope that his next book will pick up the saga.

I think that this book is really fun because Adam Joshua cheats on his math test by making someone else do it for him so he can finish his science project. In the book they take away the skeleton they have in the science room and . . . read more to find out what happens!

I think that Serious Science is a good book for a lot of kids. It might be a little hard for people and it might be a little easy for people. But, it's perfect for me!

I adore Shag's artwork, and in that respect this calendar does not disappoint. The illustrations are very cool and colorful. There is a large image on top half (the flipped-up part of the calendar) and then smaller elements from that artwork decorate the calendar and the recipes on the bottom half.

I haven't tried any of the recipes but they look pretty easy to make. In March, for example, the art is titled Carnaval de Bahia and there are recipes for Caipirinha, a Brazilian cocktail; Rum Batida, a blender drink that serves 12; Bolinha de Queijo, some sort of cheesy appetizers; and Coconut Shrimp.

Unfortunately, the calendar only shows the current month. This is very inconvenient when you have to see the months before and after. This may sound minor, but almost every time I've gone to consult the calendar, this has been a problem, especially for the prior month because one must detach the calendar from the wall to flip the top, and then reattach it to the wall. I would much rather have the before and after months than the recipes.

This is a GREAT calendar... such a FUN addition to a cubicle wall, a kitchen fridge, or pinned to your leapard print velvet wallpapered while, whilst you sit in your eames chair and sip your martini! :D TERRIFIC GIFT FOR SHAG LOVERS!

Being in high school was never like this for me! I played sports but was never recruited from any colleges, much less a top ten Division I school. It's amazing to learn about what these kids go through while being recruited to play at that level. The story of Nicole Louden is the story of very bright and motivated young women making her way through her inner-city high school basketball career and the recruiting process.

This book is also a comment about the challenges that kids in America face today. Nicole grew up around kids selling drugs, gangs and violence. Without her families strong support it's unlikely that she would have excelled as she did, both academically and athletically. Zagoria does a great job following Nicole and documenting all the details of the recruiting process. If have ever been interested in what it takes to play college sports, and the process of getting there this book is a fun page-turner.

The author does a terrific job chronicling the journey of a young girl whose dream it is to play Division I college basketball and then the WNBA. The book takes you through the struggles, the victories, and everything in-between about a high school female basketball player attempting to beat some very long odds. Growing up in a violent, poverty stricken, drug-infested New Jersey neighborhood, SHE GOT HANDLE describes how an extremely ambitious girl uses her enormous basketball talents, overwhelming support from her family, and terrific smarts to get an athletic scholarship from a top educational university.

I am a Richard Adams fan - so of course had to own at least one of this 'out of print' book. The entire book is written in verse that it is not acheived without creativity!
A great story of adventure and excitment but unfortunately, I don't feel that I can give this book to my 5 year old nephew like I had hoped. My guess is that most children that age won't be able to understand the story very well at first read because an explaination is required at almost every verse. Words like 'gaol' 'bilge' and 'halbert' 'dons' oh and many more. Of course this book is very Bristish, so some words are spelled with extra e's and p's for fancy (this might confuse kids). The artwork is detailed and incredible. I am considering giving a copy to my nephew just so he could see the artwork and perhaps one day learn the story. This is a fun one to read aloud.

This is an incredible 'childrens' book. The artwork is incredible, detailed and unbelievably imaginative. I was amazed to discover that it had gone out of print, as I was certain that in the time that had lapsed between my childhood and now it would have surely become a classic. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys very artistic, creative and amazingly detailed picture books, not to mention a swashbuckling adventure story.

Raymon F. Adams for many years has has collected books about the Wild West badmen and studied the contents of these books. "Never would I have believed," he writes, "that so much false, inaccurate, and garbled history could have found its way into print." This book is where you should start if you wish to sort the harsh facts from titillative fancy.

Was there ever a book that took telling the truth about the American West so seriously? Although Adams destoys many of the cherished myths, the Rose of Cimmaron ,Wild Bill Hick's heroic battle with the McCanles gang, the basic Robin Hood attitude of Jesse James, what emerges in its place is a gritty, much more believable and much more interesting story.
Arranged as a series of essays on the basic truthfulness of scores of works on Western history, this is an essential addition to any Western library, highly recommended

This is a selection of reactions to the encounter of self and wilderness by contemporary (living) writers, poets, educators, philosophers, theologians, boatmen, healers, and a hunter (Ted Kerasote). As a hunter I review it. There's no dearth of intelligence here, of reflection, of solid writing and even the occasional glint of humor, as in Doug Elliot's "Night of the Living Skunk" or Heilig's "A Walk with the King." The book stands at the beginning of an axiological recovery effort. If you look at Daniel Quinn's "The Story of B," you are presented with the philosophical underpinnings of an ecologically-based discontent, an alienation, a dissatisfaction with the place we've reached after 15Ky of totalitarian agriculture, property rights, scientific nature-penetration, and human-centered, gods-replacing decisions. Quinn sees the birth of a paradigm, a world-order, but he sees few details, he offers very little prescience about what's going to have to arise. I see most of the selections in this book as first efforts toward roughing out that new order. The writers are joining a conversation, debate, or exploration of the shape of what must come if we are to be here to see it. Thus a lot of this book is centrifugal. Strength/weakness: you don't get a lot of unmediated experience here: Judith Minty's dense and disturbing short-story "Killing the Bear" with its foiled-rape suggestions, Ted Kerasote's tale of killing a female elk from Bloodties, a couple of anecdotes from Rod Nash. What you do get is intellection, a kind of centrifugal direction of the prose. Time and again, writers in this anthology start with an incident, and mediate it through quotations from Thoreau, Muir, van der Post, Abbey, Lopez or Roszak. When these writers experience, they describe first, but then almost gratefully retreat into opening the intellect, the collective intellect of 19-20th century nature writers; they enter the great conversation about wilderness as soon as they want to understand. So a lot of these writings start in immersion, and abstract themselves a little nervously into thought. It's a lion, but somehow not really a lion until van der Post and Barry Lopez get cited about lions and the reverence-fear for lions. Or maybe it's too real as a lion until we raise the wordscreen. Again, weakness/strength, mine as well as some of the writers: even when pleased or delighted by a selection, I found myself muttering "Thus I refute Berkeley" and thinking about gutting a moose.

I love this book. It's all about the link between ourselves and nature. I find its well-crafted essays deeply inspiring and eye-opening. Read this book and go on a wilderness trip in your armchair.

Certainly, any rational thinking American is completely flabbergasted by the atrocities Stalin commited in the very long twenty-four years he reigned in the Soviet Union. And naturally any thinking person would want to know why a person would commit these atrocities.

Ulam's excellent biography puts into perspective how a seemingly under-educated person such as Stalin could fill the void left by a giant of a person like Lenin. The part of the book that is most insightful is the chapters describing the power stuggle that took place "after" V.I. Lenin's death. You really start to understand how a gifted author and orator such as Leon Trotsky lost the battle for Lenin's mantle to Stalin. A person can even begin to sypathize for Stalin, but then the author describes what happened after Stalin became the maximum leader of the USSR in 1929. Of course everyone knows what happened after 1929, collectivization, purges, show trials of Bukharin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev, and the assasination of Leon Trotsky. Ulam's book is quite lengthy, but it is well worth the read, I would recommend this book to anyone.

This is quite simply a masterful book. Ulam gives the impression of having read, pondered, and put in context everything ever written in any language by and about Stalin, the other Bolsheviks, and their close contemporaries in the USSR and Europe. And yet he is anything but tedious. He is as fine a writer as any historian around -- lucid, incisive, authoritative, serious and yet with a very witty, very dry irony. His tone is ideally suited for writing about historical figures, especially such grotesque ones as Stalin and his cohorts.

For someone born and raised in the neighborhood that now surrounds this once country home of Rubber Baron F.A. Seiberling, this book is a wonderful rememberance of one of America's fine castles.

The Foreword is written by John F. Seiberling, F.A.'s grandson, who spend his childhood growing up on the estate. He provides a wonderful account of the history of this family home which is interwoven with old family photos.

Steve Love's text provides a wonderful account of the house and it's history. For us neighbors, Love sets some of the myths we had learned about the house and contents straight. He provides us not with the story of a house but the tale of a family and their home. Love also paints a picture of very wealthy man who had not forgotten respect for nature he learned as a boy growing up on a nearby farm and as a man who shared prosperity with his workers as he employed his landscape architect to lay out communities for his workers as well as his executives. Seiberling's contribution to the Akron area in parks and community planning have shaped much of the area today. It seems only proper, upon FA's passing at 95, the community gathered to for the Foundation which has kept this estate intact and preserved it's beauty for us to share.

Photographers Ian Adams and Barney Taxel take us on a pictorial tour of the estate and choose to organize their work by the seasons. This seasonal account continues to present the estate as more than a building but as a family home capturing the beauty of the fabulous landscape throughout the year. The colors and clarity of their work captures this marvelous old home at it's very best. We see the inside and outside in great detail,thus sharing the spendor of this great manor.

This book should be a required reading for all Ohio school children as part of required Ohio history studies. For those who enjoy history of the industrialists of the last century this is a delightful read. For those those who have an appreciation for architecture, interior design and landscaping, this book capture the essence of this home. This book can prepare one for a visit to the estate, serve as a keepsake for those who have been there, or provide a tour to those who don't have a chance to visit our neighborhood.

This book perpetuates the Seiberling family motto - Non Nobis Solum (Not for us alone) as this wonderful photographic and verbal account of this family home serves to further share the beauty of this magnificent estate with all who read.

This is an outstanding book that describes a beautiful mansion and archtectural treasure in terms of the family that built it, lived in it, enjoyed it, shared it, and ultimately saved it. The photography is excellent and the story of the family - with its ups & downs - fascinating.

Many a wonderful batch of goodies have been made from this book. My copy is worn and stained from such constant use. Thank you for sharing your creativity.

I have tried most of the recipes in this book, and they are all wonderful. The recipes are easy to follow and almost foolproof. I am a serious "baker" and feel like I have found a great collection of recipes. I await Sylvia's next book.