First, this is not a coffe table book. Though Illustarted, it is NOT a picture book.I mistakenly thought it so.The books dimensions are1.69 x 9.40 x 7.12 ,whic are that of a normal harcover book. That said, this is an interesting volume on the creation of the famous chapel at Vence. Matisse was ill, and a young nurse kept him company though the long bouts of insomnia accompanying his illness. Later, she joined the domincan sisters.Matisse felt a huge debt to this woman-later nun, and a serious of circumstances led to the creation of this magnificent chapel. There was a domincan friar,Fr. M.A Courtier,who after being stranded in the USA during WWII,set about bringing modern art together with the sacred.{he edited a journal called SACred art}. A young architect,Br. L.B. Rayssiguier, was designing a new chapel for the NUNS at Vence, and approached Matisse to ask his advice. The majority of this book is the correspondence between Matisse and Fr Courtier and Brother Rayssiguier. The photos show the chapel in many stages of development{though not nearly enough color photos of the remarkable stained glass windows, nor of the marvelous stations of the cross} Still, it was an interesting read,that 50 years ago, the giants of art were in competition to design great works of religious art,whatever their motives.Along with the Rothko chapel{a comparison drwan in the preface},this stands as a monument to a genius,and the letters bewteen Fr Coutrier and Matisse are filled with anecdotes and observations. The Menil Foundation has done an excellent job in the production of this volume.

Alain Decaux give us in this book, an amazing work of investigation, ten chapters of history, as you never find in other book, with 20 o 30 pages per chapter, Decaux show how history can be fun, an a great enterteinment. The history of Champollion, the men who can traslate the jeroglifics. The tressure of the PLATA FLOTA, the enigma of the Pascua Island, the secret plan to kill Hitler, Joann of Arc, the last Emperor Pu Yi, and many more are the excelents chapters of this excelent book.

"GURPS: In Nomine", the game that proclaims: "Earth is the battleground for Heaven and Hell", allows players of GURPS to make characters that are Angels and Devils.

The plot is very simple - Angels are real, and so are Devils. God created the Universe with the aid of a Symphony - sort of like music that then controls things that go on in the world. Thus by using their own music, Angels, Demons, and even some people, can control parts of the Symphony and turn it to the cause of good - or evil. I must say, as a music fan, the idea of using music to create and manipulate the world appeals to me. This music is then used to influence events - from simple events like whether or not you go to the store today, to much more complex events such as a war. And =both= can cause a ripple effect that can influence the future.

With their almost magical powers and miraculous songs, both Angels and Devils can attempt to manipulate the events on Earth - possibly bringing about Armageddon. But such manipulation can cause a wrong note in the Symphony that can be detected by higher powers. It is only the efforts of other ArchAngels and ArchDemons that keep Ragnarok from occurring today. But there's always tomorrow.

It's yours to decide - do you want to play a fanatic Angel following the cause of light and good by attempting to keep the Symphony in balance, or do you want to play a fallen angel that is trying to regain their position in Heaven, or do you want to try a Demon that creates havoc wherever they go, or something in between? There are rules for creating several types of Celestials or Angels, and Infernals or Devils. You can even play a Corporeal or human, although they have a smaller part to play in this world.

It's loads of fun for players - they can try to use their powers and abilities to influence current events in the game world while trying not to cause dissonance - which would attract the attention of their bosses. And it's a lot of fun for the Game Master - they can look at current events and try to see how those events might have been caused by Angels and Demons fighting on Earth over humans and territory and then try to put that into campaigns.

If you want to try this game, be prepared. Some of the subject matter is very controversial. Some religious people may find the idea of pretending to be an Angel unusual, and the idea of pretending to be a Demon disturbing. However, having said this, I'd like to give this game four out of a possible five stars. I would have given it five had they included more material from the original sources, but interested game masters and players can purchase standard "In Nomine" books and easily convert that information to GURPS. I'd recommend the "Angelic Players Guide", the "Infernals Players Guide", the "Corporeal Players Guide", the "Game Master Guide", and the "Ethereals Players Guide" at least.

"GURPS: In Nomine" is based on the regular version of "In Nomine", which is also published in the US by Steve Jackson Games. "In Nomine" is, in turn, based on an earlier French RPG called "In Nomine Satanis / Magna Veritas" published by Siroz Productions. Try those if your appetite isn't quenched by "GURPS: In Nomine".

In his book, one of the goals of Dr. Goriely is to gather, classify and formalize all what is known about the theory of integrability for dynamical systems. Starting from the idea of a constant of motion for simple dynamical systems, it studies integrability from the geometrical and analytical point of view.

The first reason why I like this book is that, as far as I know, it is the first time someone presents the different results in integrability theory in such a formal and comprehensive way. For example, it is shown precisely why the well-known Painlevé test gives necessary conditions for the Painlevé Property to hold.

An other reason why I like this book is that as a mathematician it is the only place where I can find such an impresive amount of results on integrability gathered together in one single publication. Moreover, all those results are presented in a very comprehensive and pedagogical way. This book could be used for a graduate level course on integrability theory.

An other important aspect of the book is that it is not only restricted to integrability. For example, Dr. Goriely explores several aspects of how integrability techniques can be extended to the study nonintegrability.

To conclude, I think that such a book was missing in the mathematical literature and everyone specialized in integrability theory of will find it extremely useful.

Originally titled "Camus for Beginners", this concise biography combines personal information, short excerpts, and vivid cartoons to illuminate the man behind the modern literary myth.

Although I had read The Fall, The Plague, The Stranger, and a few collections of essays a decade earlier, I had only a vague memory of Camus' actual life and conflicts. This fine book, which I read in less than two hours, remains a solid primer. Both longtime admirers of Camus and undergraduate students forced to read his celebrated novels should find this brief work a valuable investment of time.

It's also worth noting that cartoons are often read by adults in Europe. The format provides readers with a superficial, yet accessible and non-threathening, way to enter into academic and philosophical discussions. College and high school teachers of French, literature, and philosophy would benefit from adding this book to their students while assigning any novel by Camus.

It¡¯s now the fashion to use the network analysis in social sciences. Originated from sociology, it¡¯s easy to find the term of network in top class journals like ¡®Strategic Management Journal¡¯ or ¡®Research Policy¡¯. Alas, there are not many primers available on the market, however. It¡¯s a weird thing. Without some decent introduction, you can¡¯t read even a piece of article which comes out in ¡®Social Networks¡¯, the official journal of network analysis field. The network analysis might be the only sociological methodology which attains the level of economics in terms of the mathematical modeling. Almost all articles adopting network analysis tell the forms and contents of network in number. They use the dedicated applications, such as Ucinet or Structure, to compute and plot the networks, and test hypotheses. In doing so, they deploy idiosyncratic terminology which would baffles uninitiated novices. There are some textbooks like Wasserman and et al¡¯s ¡®Social Network Analysis : Methods and Applications¡¯ or Scott¡¯s ¡®Social Network Analysis: A Handbook¡¯. But they are dry and boring: terse description with no enlightening examples. In this regard this book is the absolute savior. This book has two strong features:
1.A plethora of example: textbook is expected to introduce neophyte to utterly unknown field. Writer should not assume the reader would have read or even hear of any part of the field. Of course, it¡¯s a daunting task. But there is some usual prescription: explain with real world examples. This book is full of examples from real field works done in France and America. Even if you can¡¯t figure out what the hell of that explanation of term, like multiplexity, equivalence, or centrality, at all, you can easily grasp the meaning and applicability of the term through lengthy examples from various researches.
2.Systematic organizing: The network analysis is not confined to drawing out the network structure (or graph). The real focus is always directed to the contents of the networks: What resources are flowing through the network? How is the community or clique structured? What is the impact of network position of individual node in that structure on the member¡¯s behavior? To answer these questions, researcher, first, should map out the network structure. Ch.1 to 4 deals with the form of network (or, in the words of network analysis, network structure). And ch.5 to 8 tackles what kind of contents is expected in the network and how to evaluate them. With following chapter by chapter, you can capture how the network analysis could map out the social world and interpret it with not much difficulty. Network analysis is proposed not mere research methodology, but now the general theory of social world. So they prefer the term of structural analysis to the word of network analysis: they attempt to solve the dichotomy between the society and individual, or between integration and conflict with their own image of social world. After the fall of functionalism, a bunch of theorist has come and gone with bold claims that they have the answer to the conundrum. Such big names of Giddens and Bourdieu are the good example. Giddens¡¯ structuration theory gained popularity in this regard. But it has waned away. The problem is this: theoretical framework of structuration theory is gorgeous. But there is no key to where one should start the research at the real field. For example, the concept of power plays the organizing role in his grandiose framework to integrate all fragments he collected from various sources. The resulting profile is lovely and glowing. But the concept is too plastic or at worse elusive, when it comes to real work. Nobody would reject his conception of duality. But it¡¯s easier to be said than done in research. It¡¯s no more than eclectic artifice. Here comes the structural analysis. I think the theoretical position of structural analysis is fully compatible with Giddens¡¯ (for example Nan Lin¡¯s theoretical architecture). But it¡¯s more than that: it provides us with the unit of analysis, the network. This book is not displaying the level of theoretical sophistication of Nan Lin¡¯s. But you could capture what the picture of social world the structural analysis would depict. This book is carefully constructed to introduce the reader to the social world the structural analysis depicts in the incremental cascading from personal network to total network, to network position, to power to global dynamic of total network.

Compared to his other works, i did not enjoy it as much. But this is a brilliant writer. Anything he writes overflows with creativity. I recommend this book. But i recommend The Voyeurs or The Erasers first.

The settings of both stories are oriental. In `Djinn' the protagonist works undercover for an androgenous American spy. There are some curious adventures met in the hands of two children. After a while the book begins to fold back on itself and we find ourselves right where we started but we go off in a slightly different direction. It is as if the protagonist is trapped in some never ending mystery that doesn't explain itself. `La Maison De Rendez-Vous' is about an evening get together, again we find some mysterious elements and the story folds back on itself various times, everytime we get a further glimpse into the affairs. It is the most curios style of narration that ends up adding a nightmarish aspect to the mystery. I wouldn't suggest this book to a die hard mystery reader but this will make an interesting reading otherwise

In the best style of a Jack Higgins, an Alistair MacLean or Ken Follett, French writer Alain Paris wrote a very exciting, intelligent and fast-paced war thriller.

This time, instead of a "commando" trying to kill Winston Churchill (as in Higgins's book, "THE EAGLE HAS LANDED"), we have a commando, ordered by Hitler and Martin Bormann, destined to kill Hermann Goering. THe commando has a German leader and five British volunteers from the SS British Corps, a divison of British renegades who fought, teoretically, only against the Russians.

Very clever plot and beliavable action, and also has a lot of historic accuracy about the facts of those times. (the action takes place in the last days of April, 1945).

Maybe they translate it to the British language soon.

This dictionary was a huge help to me during my years studying French. (My professor at the Sorbonne insisted that each of his student's own one). I now ask my students to purchase a copy.

If you are seriously learning French, grab a copy of this dictionary. It will prove its worth time and time again.