Born Free And Equal: The Story Of Loyal Japanese Americans is an impressive combination of historic photographs and writings about the Japanese-Americans who were imprisoned in Manzanar, one of ten such relocation camps, as a result of wartime fears regarding possible sabotage by members of the Japanese and Nisei (American-born men and women of Japanese ancestry) living along the American west coast. During the era of World War II, virtually all the American people of Japanese descent in the states of California, Oregon and Washington (most of them citizens), were interned in relocation camps scattered through the Midwest. Born Free And Equal captures memories of this prison community and how the families in it lived in broad, sweeping, black-and-white photographs. Born Free And Equal is a powerful, highly recommended, historically factual book, accurately capturing with poetic realism a dark and controversial aspect of America's WW II effort, which, along with such horrors as the European Holocaust and the Japanese atrocities in the Far East, must never be forgotten.

In the autumn of 1943, the eminently talented photographer Ansel Adams traveled to the Relocation Center at Manzanar, California. This was one of the camps where the United States government relocated (some would say "imprisoned") the many people of Japanese descent who lived in the western, Military Zone 1, so that they could not assist Imperial Japan in its war against the United States. Among the many people sent to this camp were men, women, children and the elderly; immigrants from Japan, the children (born in the U.S.) of Japanese immigrants, and the those even farther removed from Japan; not to mention a decorated veteran of the Spanish-American War (Seaman 1st Class Harry Sumida of the U.S.S. Indiana).

It was here that Ansel Adams set up his camera, and put a human face on this tragedy. This is his book; the pictures he took, and the text he wrote. Originally published in 1944, this newer edition (published in 2001) contains all of the original photos, several additional photos that Mr. Adams took but didn't include in the original, and several fascinating introductions written by Japanese-Americans.

Considering the topic of this book is something of a cause celebre, one might imagine that this book was something of an anti-American screed. Well, if you thought that, you would be wrong. This book is a very balanced look at what happened, and the people who were caught up in it. Mr. Adams wanted the book to be factual, so both the good aspects and bad aspects are covered. That said, though, the book was something of an expose of what happened, and is not a whitewash. Therefore, if you are looking for a book that will tell you about this historical tragedy, then I highly recommend this book.

Finally, I was able to pick up a copy of this long-awaited book. The original is extremely expensive to pick up, and with the additional introductory information, this is an improvement. A fascinating read, fantastic print quality... A must have!

Since I have read this book my life has changed. I have lost inches and gained energy and motvation. Donna has done a great service and I appreciate the understanding that comes across in the book. It is fuuny and tells my story alot. Finding the foods that don't work for me has been a great help and I am able to finally get a good nights sleep. I could go on and on but theres too much to be excited about. The book is a must have !!!

Review for Burn Fat for Fuel Fat to Fabulous in Only 28Days

My husband and I are both "into" this book and its"Live It or Diet System." We are both over fifty, and aware thatwe need to eat right,watch our weight , get more exercise - and weneed inspiration.Donna.Michaels-Surface inspires us in her new book"Burn Fat for Fuel.

With her example, her stories,and her greatsense of humor( one of her chapters is called " 'A Little Behindin a Big Hurry' Lower Body Routine"), she is able to communicate tous in simple terms complex information.

As a breast cancer survivorand one of the many perimenopausal women of today, I personallyappreciate her explanations of cellulite and what todo about it ( HereI was thinking it was hopeless!), estrogen,testosterone etc. She alsohas inspired meto lift those weights and offers great instruction andphotos of howto do those lunges and other exercises correctly.

What a wonderful book. Such insight and wonderful information presented in a fun and easy to read format. Donna and Dr. Snyder really hit home with their diet program... especially their information regarding food allergies. This is a must read for anyone who wants to live a longer, livelier and healthy life.

Christabel, from the prolific Karin Kallmaker's Laura Adams persona, is a gothic romance, a tale of the supernatural and how an evil entity torments one woman's soul through generations. There are two stories told: first, how the evil found and took a young woman, Christabel, for his own in colonial New York. The second story is of the modern la Christabel, supermodel, spinning out yet another life to provide the suffering that the evil thrives on.

In Coleridge's version of this tale, even nature itself is evil (so green, so female), as is the witch Geraldine, who bewitches young Christabel with veiled references to lesbianism. Christabel is just a victim and the rescuer is Sir Leoline, who must fight both the witch and nature for Christabel's soul.

Laura Adams turns this story upside down. Geraldine represents the peaceful, natural world of the native Manhattans, and when the young Christabel meets the native woman, passion soon follows. Their joyous happiness is discovered and fouled by a demon Puritan preacher, who contrives Geraldine's downfall. Easy to do when Halley's Comet has appeared overhead -- blame it on the nearest nonconformist female and call her a witch. As the preacher takes possession of Christabel in the past, the modern day Christa has adopted desperate measures to try to break the cycle. An investment banker, Dina has renounced the part of her heritage that has passed down over time, but one touch of Christa's hand brings the power -- and the passion -- surging back. Defeated in the past, she arms herself for another battle in this lifetime.

The story weaves back and forth in time with perfect clarity. Minor characters from the past have their roles to play in the present. Even an ancient tree contributes -- significantly -- to the link between the two stories.

The plot makes for a good read, and the writing is pure Kallmaker/Adams -- prose matching time period and, of course, unbelievably erotic tension between her characters. The reality of life on the island of Manhattan in the late 1600s is well researched. The resolution is electric and quite, quite satisfactory. Once you start, you won't put it down until the last page.

Love can conquer anything, even time and always evil. That's the message of this book, which I could not put down. Two timelines are intertwined to tell a story of two women who must defeat a powerful evil that has captured and tormented one of them through centuries. I was completely captured by the concept and fervently pulling for these women, right to the very last page.

I enjoyed Night Vision so much that I ordered this book as soon as it was available. It is so different from Night Vision in subject, but the belief in lesbian magic that reaches beyond space and time is as pervasive here, as healing and as vastly enjoyable! I recommend this book to anyone who believes that love can trescend any pain and any evil.

This work is the best overview of classical architecture that the reviewer is aware of. While most such works concentrate on the five orders, usually in traditional "parallel" format, this work shows all five orders, variations of each, and how each is used. The work shows the various other pieces making up the "kit of parts" of Classicism, and how they are used. In short, a one-book guide.

This is the best recent book I've seen on classical architecture. It doesn't get into every possible nuance, but is graphically very rich and clear... well worth the price.

This is a brilliant book. Derek Brentnall's illustrations are superb. What makes this book a joy is that it really opens a world for anyone who wants to know more about why so many of our banks, office buildings, schools and halls of government look the way they do. And it really gets detailed - not in an overwhelming or pedantic way - but in a fun, informative and artful style that calls out the venerable ghosts of our classical past for a festival of discovery.

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.

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 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.

Ramon Adams has an encyclopedic knowledge of the social life of cowboys on the range. In this one of his many books, he describes the role of the chuck wagon cook on the cattle drives and roundups. Adams is a great collector of amusing stories and colorful cowboy slang. If he knows one word for something, he probably knows half a dozen.

The book provides a detailed description of the chuck wagon itself, how it's constructed and its contents organized, how it's cleaned and maintained, who has responsibilities for what. The chuck wagon was both the nerve center and social center of a trail outfit. Besides getting three meals a day, the cowboys also laid out their bedrolls nearby, and the wrangler's remuda of horses was close at hand. In many cases, the cowboys' bedrolls made the trip to the next night's camp in the back of the chuck wagon.

Of most interest to this reader was the actual fare, typically fried meat, beans cooked for many hours, and sourdough biscuits made in Dutch ovens, all washed down with strong coffee. Depending on the talent and disposition of the cook there were also treats and "sweets," such as pies made from dried apples. An outfit depended for morale and productivity on a cook who kept the men well fed and happy. This gave a well-liked cook a tremendous amount of leverage in the all-male hierarchy of tough cowboys. A man who complained about the chuck or didn't respect the cook's camp rules would soon be sorry.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and while I've read extensively about the cowboy West, it taught me a lot I didn't know, and in a very entertaining way. It belongs on anyone's "Lonesome Dove" bookshelf.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Ol' time cattle drives, this book does a wonderful job enlightening from the point of view of the Ol' Cowboy Cook. I recommend this title to any reader interested in cattle drives

This book is highly recommended for those who follow the arcane art of chuckwagon cooking. Adams displays an excellent, first-hand grasp of the subject and writes with wit and style. Buy it now!

This is a collection of stories, all true, about Sheila Kay Adams' childhood in the kind of North Carolina mountain community that is fading fast, if it hasn't already disappeared. Her warm voice, fine sense of comic writing, sharply-drawn characters, and lovely descriptions all contribute to a collection that is simply but elegantly conceived. The snapshots of life presented here--tragic, hilarious, wondrous--are engaging and moving. It's the kind of book you'll return to. Highly, highly recommended.

Loved this book. Ms. Adams writes just like she talks. The stories she tells are wonderful. The story of Bertha and the snake handlers is priceless. If you are looking for a good book to share with ever member of the family, as I have, this is the book.

I love this book and have used it to read to nursing home folks. They have enjoyed these often outlandish tales as much as I. True life is often better than fiction they say, and I would agree. All short but entertaining tales.

Where other reporters are afraid of letting their opinions be known, Adam Parfrey, in his exploration of the fringes of society, is fearless. At times he does seem a bit mean, but come on, he is printing what everyone is thinking! Included in this collection are tongue-in-cheek reports on women sexually obsessed with Elvis, the history of big-eyed waif velvet paintings, the Unarians (who prophesized that the Space Brothers would land in their UFOs and save the world in 2000 -- are they still around?), Bo Gritz (the man who Rambo is based upon) and, yes, a group that encourages the empowerment of the handicapped through sex. There are other articles on various charlatans and conspiracy theories,including an excellent one on Waco (Fact: did you know that every ATF agent killed at Waco worked as security for Bill Clinton while he was governor?!?). My personal favourite is an interview with Shelby Downard, my all-time favourite "paranoid" (I can't wait until his collected works are released in 2002 by Feral House!).

I am David Brandenburger. My (deceased now) wife & I are the sources/subjects of "May I Touch Your Scar", in this book. Parfey makes some stuff up, takes things people said, either out of context, or alters their words to suit his own pervertions of thought. While sex INSTRUCTION was a small part of what we taught people (adults only), it was NOT our main focus. To refer to us as, "a sex cult for cripples" is ludicrious. Please contact me for further information if anyone is interested. E-mail to irhp@phonl.com a Thank you.

One of the best things about Adam Parfrey's articles are the subtle sarcasm that abounds. While one man recounts his ardour for Russian mail-order brides, Parfrey, without shame reveals his opinion of this man as a travesty. Not all the subjects in this collection of articles are treated as rudely though. Parfrey investigates anything weird from millenialists to congenital human oddities with an open-mind. Photographs adorn the articles, making this book more alive in the reality of the strange.

Finally, a fantasy novel that treats the reader as an intelligent person!

Marczyk's characters are not flat cut-outs but have a real sense of identity, and as a reader I actually felt I was living their lives rather than just watching from a distance. Marczyk provides a believable world peopled with realistic characters and, as in life, there is no sharp division between good and evil.

In short, the characters are interesting, the plot is gripping, and Marczyk's turn of phrase is very engaging.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for something a little bit different in a fantasy novel. I hope that at some point in the future Marczyk has the time - and inclination - to put together another book showing the events from another perspective, much in the manner of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series (although I cringe at Anthony's rather patronising style of writing!)

Dark Heart combines the ambitions of the evil god Vraxor with the daily lives of extraordinary people. Traditional romance is interwoven with blood sacrifice, knights of a mysterious and magical order, and magicians powerful enough to permanently change the landscape. The characters are well-rounded, not just stick figures jammed in to perform the deeds necessary to the plot. If you hate fantasy, you'll enjoy the descriptions, people, and romance. If you hate romance, you'll love the wars between gods and the striving for some balance between good and evil. All in all, a very satisfying novel.

From beginning to end this book had me spell-bound. I couldn't pull myself away until it was done. The characters are well rounded and very easy to identify with. The story does not drop off or get boring at any time. I haven't had the joy and privelege of reading a book this good in a very long time. I look forward to reading more by this author. My personal recommendation...read this book, share it with your friends..it's good and it's worth your time.