Litwak provides about as much as a professional could share in this throrough outing. He also shares 'boilerplate' contracts for virtally all key players in a film production. Of course, direct experience is the best teacher, but EVERY neophyte in film or television must own this book, and its a handy reference for seasoned professionals and part-timers.

Also check out his companion book, "Dealmaking..." which has priceless cues on what gray areas to avoid in negotiating with lawyers and their clients.

Essential for producers, directors, writers and anyone hoping to get financed or paid or both!

Mark Litwak's book is by far the best book available on film and television contracts. His book is a no nonsense, thorough guide to the complex world of contractual law for an industry that has a history of taking advantage of those who don't take the time or spend the money to hire good legal representation. He is an advocate for the rights of artists, writers, actors, etc., and his contracts are a good basis for negotiations and deals in the TV/Film industry. Even if you hire your own attorney, this book will help you understand the structure of your deal and alert you to details and potential booby traps in all that fine print. D. Kuspa

I bought this cookbook second hand so had the opportunity to peruse its contents...I continue to be very pleased with the recipes here. Many curries -- tamarind and cilantro are everywhere, the food comes out savory and spicy. There are both veggie (excellent Marwari fare) and meat dishes to be found. I've purchased copies for friends and will continue to do so.

All of us who knew Cope were delighted by his dry humor and his authentic cooking. His passing leaves a void which none can fill, as he was truly one of a kind.

For those of you who didn't know Cope : the recipes are TRULY easy to reproduce at home, and I'm not a particularly experienced chef. Besides, the recipes are authentic, and have little to do with the standard fare you'll encounter in restaurants. Cope learned from ordinary great cooks, and had a knack for passing on the spirit of the dish.

Rest in peace, Copeland Marks. I'll always miss you.

As an astronomy student at the University of Colorado, I have used "The Cosmic Perspective" as a text book for two of my classes (one on stars and galaxies, and one on the solar system). This book is perfect for both: the text is clear and full of insight; the illustrations and photographs are abundant and extremely professional, and they complement the text superbly; the sections called "Mathematical Insight" give the reader a clear understanding of the science involved, and the sections called "Common Misconceptions" are as fun to read as they are informative.

I have read this book cover-to-cover, and although it is intended as a text book, it reads like many of the very popular science books I have read. If you enjoyed reading Sagan's "Cosmos", Gribbin's "In Search of the Big Bang", Feynman's "The Character of Physical Law", Lederman's "The God Particle" or Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", you will enjoy this very well-conceived and well-written book.

"The Cosmic Perspective" is very comprehensive. Besides covering the fundamental concepts of astronomy (such as light as the cosmic messenger; universal motion; celestial timekeeping; and telescopes), this book details how stars are born, evolve and die; the fundamentals of relativity; how the galaxies were formed, as well as how our solar system was formed; how vast space really is; how we know the distances to various objects in our universe; and how we know what happened at the early moments of the Big Bang. Since this book is new (published in 1999), it contains the latest facts and the latest thinking of modern astronomy. This book captured my interest and my enthusiasm the moment I began reading it.

For beginner or intermediate astronomy students, this book not only has all topics covered, but touches on many other branches of science that are essential to the understanding of astronomy. Clear, concise explanations with very careful attention to units in sample problems make many basic science concepts understandable. The depth of current knowledge covered on a wide variety of astronomical topics is remarkable for inclusiion in just one book. The graphic diagrams, drawings, charts, illustrations, and photographs are also outstanding in what they add to one's ability to visualize the material presented. Overall, this is by far the best astronomy book I've seen.

Use the CDROM packaged with Barbara Brackman's Create Your Family Quilt to blend the goals of celebrating family heritage with making a family quilt. From quilt blocks which represent states to vintage pictures, state facts, and regional flavor, this tells how to incorporate state quilt blocks and symbols to create a unique family portrait. Access to a CDROM drive is essential, here.

I love a quilt that tells a personal story. I also love quilt books that come with CD software to help with design and pattern.
Although Barbara Brackman focuses on states to build a family story quilt--it can be the foundation for so much more.
The book itself is gorgeous, filled with facts and art from all fifty states. The software loads easily and is the same format as Electric Quilt which let me use it immediately.
I grew up in central east Florida in a neighborhood called Palm Bay Point. It's a small peninsula that juts into the Indian River. Hibiscus and orange trees decorate front lawns. Giant oaks hold heron nests and palms sway in the salt breeze of the Indian River. Pelicans and dolphins are plentiful.
I designed a Palm Bay Point quilt as a test. Here is what I found. The applique designs as well as the state blocks were interchangeable. I was able to use hibiscus from Hawaii and Pelicans from Lousiana as well as Orange Blossoms from Florida.
Since the point is surrounded by water and sailboats are a frequent sight--I borrowed the Mayflower block from one of the New England states. The end product was a quilt that told a visual story of my childhood neighborhood.
I particularly liked the attention given to border(applique) design as well as the body of the quilt.
I can imagine designing many personal story quilts using this software and book.
I'm a fan of Barbara Brackman (although I have never met her.)
She researches her material well, her writing voice is easily read and understood. She has been on many quilting journeys of history and design and she is generous to share the highlights with others in a beautifully designed format.
I'm already having fun with this book. So far, it's my favorite book this year.
:)

I love the spiritual and practical guidelines outlined in this book. There are high-energy affirmations and meditations included to help you develop prosperity consciousness and truly believe you can attract prosperity into your life. There are also practical steps you can easily apply to your life, like forgiveness, visualization, and giving a tenth of your supply. This book is wonderful if you are looking for a spiritual approach to increasing your financial health!

There are many manifesting prosperity books out there but this is one of the top 25% of them all. Very easy and simple tasks that truely do work. The best part they are based on biblical foundations

Creatures Of Habitat: The Changing Nature Of Wildlife And Wild Places In Utah And The Intermountain West is an illustrated, exhaustively detailed account of the extremely fascinating animals and plants to be found in the Utah and the intermountain west, ranging from the shorebird that eats brine shrimp and flies nonstop each year from the Great Salt Lake to central Argentina, to the rare mustard plant just recently discovered on Mount Ogden. Creatures Of Habitat openly discusses what is happening to this wildlife and its natural surroundings, emphasizing how the loss of its habitat is contributing to the decline and extinction of numerous species. With lists, guides to wildlife viewing, and habitat maps, Creatures Of Habitat is an excellent reference for any amateur animal watcher or natural world armchair traveler, particularly those who live in or near Utah!

Development is overtaking both habitable places in the Intermountain West. The general wealth of our society, the inherited fortunes of the world war generation, and the achievements of technology, allow urban areas to expand across the habitable landscape. Growth in the urban footprint, along with that of the supporting technological and recreational infrastructure, results in habitat loss. In turn, several Utah species are becoming extinct.

This book looks at the creatures at risk and the choices that have resulted in their becoming endangered. The reader learns that each sub division, road, strip mall, and power plant that is built to support our lives takes away precious habitat. The wild species that lived in that territory are not displaced. They may become endangered if the habitat loss is substantial. The burden of preservation is ours. The creatures endangered species cannot choose where to live. We must choose what to develop for ourselves and for them.

"Creatures of Habitat" is divided into three major sections. It addresses endangered species, loss of wild places, and the choices we have for the future. The technical material is presented to tell the stories of how and why certain species are endangered. The story of each creature deserves to be heard. The book examines habitat loss issues from many angles, connecting these into a coherent picture of the complex problem of western development. There are several suggestions for becoming involved as individuals or in organizations dedicated to saving what remains of our wild places.

I found the book to be unprejudiced and well researched. Problems are stated along with the history and present solutions, as are the behind-the-scenes groups that have been working to preserve habitat for years. There are probably surprises for readers who have not examined endangered species and habitat loss issues from all sides. In particular, I was pleased with the recognition that the hunter, and associated organizations, have worked to preserve habitat years before it became a well-known problem.

This book is shows us that there are no easy solutions to these problems. Perhaps the greatest hope is in education. This book does just that.

Taking advantage of archival material, Mark Solomon has written what might be the definitive history of the CPUSA's involvement in the black struggle during the period of the party's formation to the beginning of the popular front turn. ("The Cry was Unity: Communists and African Americans 1917-1936," U. of Mississippi).

Solomon is emeritus professor at Simmons College and a member of the Committees of Correspondence. The CofC split from the CPUSA because of objections to the dogmatism and bureaucracy of the Gus Hall regime. The event that finally led to the formation of the CofC was Hall's support for the coup against Gorbachev. Some of the most prominent black members of the CP went with the CofC, including Charlene Mitchell who is co-chair of the CofC with Manning Marable, department head of African-American studies at Columbia University. Although Solomon is white, he explains in his introduction why he was drawn to the black struggle:

"The environment we knew was one of spirited demonstrations to save the lives of Rosa Ingram, Willie McGhee, the Martinsville Seven, and other victims of a racist legal system. It included attending vibrant interracial dances at Rockland Palace in Harlem, sitting in awe in the back of Birdland to ask Charlie Parker to support Du Bois for the Senate, and listening to Miles Davis, engaged by the unhip Marxist Labor Youth League, which somehow thought that Davis's brilliant, elliptical bebop was right for dancing. All of that had nearly disappeared by the mid-1950s. But that defiant interracialism, grounded in the unity of cultural traditions, of shared support for all who labored for an end to oppression at home and abroad never died. Its special commitment to, and admiration for, black culture, history, and community life survived and fused with a pervasive sense that the liberation of one group was essential to the spiritual and physical freedom of all."

What is significant, however, is that Solomon understands the progressive character of black nationalism as well, sparing no effort to show how the Communist Party at various points in its history embraced such initiatives. I want to focus in one particular moment in party history, which is highly revealing for the affinity black party members had for nationalism, namely the African Blood Brotherhood. Despite the separatist name, this group was the instrument of Communist Party involvement in the black struggle in the early 1920s.

Cyril Briggs was the founder of the African Black Brotherhood. Born in 1888 on the Caribbean island of Nevis, he always considered himself a "race man". His father was a white plantation overseer and this accounted for Briggs's light complexion, which earned him the description of the "Angry Blond Negro" later in life, just as Malcolm X was dubbed "Detroit Red" before becoming a nationalist for similar reasons. Briggs moved to Harlem in 1905 and launched a writing career, finally landing a job with the Amsterdam News in 1912.

Briggs was swept up by the self-determination rhetoric of WWI which inspired his editorial, "Security for Poles and Serbs, Why not for Colored Nations?," a call for a separate black state in the United States. He was also a strong supporter of the Irish Easter Uprising of 1916.

Briggs started a new magazine called the "Crusader" in 1918 to focus on the struggle for self-determination and black pride. The magazine made no distinction between such goals and more immediate social and economic issues. It backed the Socialist Party electoral campaigns of A. Philip Randolph and exposed lynchings in the south and job discrimination in the north.

In the February 1919 issue, the Crusader began demonstrating a concern with class in the Marxist sense. Comparing the forced removal of black workers from a Pennsylvania steel town (where they had migrated to during wartime labor shortages) to the Palmer Raid deportations of white foreign-born radicals, The Crusader attributed such actions to the "mailed fist of capitalism." By May and June, the magazine was equating capitalism and colonialism, and projecting proletarian unity between black and white workers as a way to eradicate national oppression of black people.

In the first months of American Communism, Briggs drew close to two members of the party's underground, Otto Huiswoud and Claude McKay, who would later become known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. (Huiswoud, another Caribbean immigrant, was a charismatic figure in his own right. He got involved with the Socialist Party while studying agriculture at Cornell University. During a summer job working on a cruise ship, Huiswoud organized a successful job action by black members of the crew for higher pay and better working conditions.) Solomon believes that Briggs became a party member in mid-1921. This connection influenced the direction of Brigg's own organization, the African Blood Brotherhood, which would begin to absorb Marxist influences.

The 1920 ABB convention defined resistance to the KKK, support for a united front of black organizations, and promotion of higher wages and better working conditions for black workers as paramount. While calling for "racial self respect," it also maintained that cooperation with "class-conscious white workers" was necessary. As the ABB drew closer to the Communist Party, nationalistic prejudices as such became less frequent. The Crusader, which was now the semiofficial organ of the ABB, declared that while the oppression of blacks was more severe, blacks and Jews shared a historic experience of persecution.

Furthermore, Briggs began to, as Solomon puts it, "...fuse his own sense of African identity and national culture with Leninist internationalism. He found in African antiquity the primitive communism that provided an Afrocentric root to the vision advanced by the Third International." As opposed to Garvey's nationalist movement, the Marxists of the ABB did not view "Africa for the Africans" as an invitation to capitalist development. He wrote, "Socialism and Communism [were] in practical application in Africa for centuries before they were even advanced as theories in the European world." Within a year or so, the ABB would have evolved into a full-fledged black Marxist organization.

Mark Solomon has produced perhaps the most important study on the Black struggle in a first ever analysis of the role and contribution of the Communist party, working with Black leaders, in acknowledging and acting on the special nature of racism in America. Ultimately the party leaders learned from Balcks that racism had to be addressed as a prerequisite to fostering black/white working class unity. Unlike the liberal tradition which could only offer "reforms" within the system that produced racism and class exploitation, the Communist Party recognized racism and classism as inherent in the liberal/capitalist system. The party focused sharply on the need for fundamental change of the economic and political institutions as the only real solution for oppression and exploitation. The Party understood the drive for Black self determination was not as a contradiction of class unity. Black self-determination addressed the problem of racism by providing a people with a sense of worth which could then allow them the freedom to go further in confronting the exploitation of black/white class oppression. Lenin understood the importance of national self-determination when he developed his own nationalities policy, and the broader national struggle of colonized people to experience national independence first before uniting to dislodge global capitalism. Solomon's work is comprehensive of the period studied because he was among the first to access former USSR archives elucidating the thread of strong commitment to Black self-determination united with the working class struggle. As a result, he was able to show clearly the importance of the left to offering a real venue for articulating the systemic roots of the issues of racial and class inequalities. As a result, clarity and accuracy of policy, if not strategy, stood out in relief. Solomon plans a sequel to his present seminal work which will focus on the way the cold war affected the Black/Communist relationship and actions. He will also analyze the impact of the recent loss of the left, forcing the Black struggle back to the confines of the liberal/capitalist system. Can a system which produced the problems solve them without altering the conditions within them that produced them? Read Solomon. His work offers the most important analysis to date in understanding the essential core of these yet festering issues. The best scholarship produced on these issues in years.

This book is a fascinating study of the calendars of ancient Mesopotamia, from the third millennium B.C. to the first millennium B.C. Each section begins with a synopsis of what is known about the calendar from that place and time (e.g. Nippur's calendar versus Ur's), and then launches into a month-by-month list of the festivals associated with that month (complete with the known name of the month). The final chapter focuses of festival themes, and is of general interest.

This is a fascinating book, containing a wealth of information that I didn't realize was available. Sadly, the book is written in a somewhat dry and academic tone, which means that it is not good bedtime reading. That said, though, this book offers a fascinating look into the Mesopotamian's view of the year, and what it offered to them. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the daily life in ancient Mesopotamia.

I greatly enjoyed reading Prof. Cohen's book. It is certainly technical and of special interest to students of the ancient near east, but it is also quite lucid and accessible. The author has mastered and explained an immense amount of information about ancient religion and sacred times. This is an interesting way to learn about religious practices in ancient Mesopotamia and Palestine.

Reviewer: luismendez@codetel.net.do from DOMINICAN REPUBLIC It is the first book that i have read which is written by an american who knows what he is talking about. very serious and concern treatment of topics. i like specially the part about latin american writers and their changing ideology

LUIS MENDEZ crazzyteacher@hotmail.com

It is the first book that i have read which is written by an american who knows what he is talking about. very serious and concern treatment of topics. i like specially the part about latin american writers and their changing ideology.

LUIS MENDEZ

I was deeply impressed by the book Cydonia Controversy, both for the scope of the data and analysis, but also the effort by the author to place this controversy in its proper context in the history of science and philosophy. The book presents a comprehensive and up to date review of the latest images from Cydonia, that bear deeply on the two great questions of the age: are we alone, and, if we are not alone, how close are our neighboring intelligences in the cosmos?

The question of whether humanity is alone in the cosmos has mesmerized great thinkers since ancient times, as this book illuminates. In the present era, science has focused its SETI efforts on radio, or more recently optical, signals from faraway stars. The "between the lines" message being: that it is acceptable to discover intelligent life, past or present, as long as it is many light years removed from us. However, on Mars , the nearest earthlike planet in the cosmos and only five light minuets away from us, we may be confronting archeological remnants of a past civilization.

The Cydonia Controversy still rages despite new images of the face on Mars and other objects. This occurs, as the author shows, because despite apparent erosion and wind drifting many of the features seen in the original Viking images actually persist in the new and more detailed images. The author points out that the first new Cydonia images taken by the MGS probe and released by JPL, upon which most of the world formed its present opinions , were processed differently from other images taken of Mars surface on that mission, and were of much lower quality. This troubling phenomena remains a mystery to this day. Fortunately the images in question have now been better enhanced, and more images have now been taken and these are all shown in the book. The author also shows the effects of erosion on earthly archeology for comparison, showing that it is rare for archeology on earth to be pristine or perfect and hence any possible archeology found on another planet must also be interpreted with the help of a model of its appearance before erosion occurred.

The book also discusses the curious similarities of the Cydonia mystery to tales of similar ancient and even legendary civilizations on earth.

All in all this book was an excellent and informative read that left me feeling that this controversy is still alive and kicking.

The "Face" is a mile long formation on the surface of Mars that appears to be an ancient and highly-eroded artificial structure. The Face and other anomalous objects were first photographed by a Viking orbiter spacecraft in 1976, and more recently by the Mars Global Surveyor. The objects are located in Cydonia, a region lying along what many scientists believe to be the shoreline of a vast northern sea which once existed on Mars.

The Cydonia Controversy provides the most complete and up-to-date treatment of the Face and other anomalies on Mars from a scientific, historical, and political perspective. It summarizes and synthesizes information from different perspectives into an integrated picture of the controversy, and presents new imagery and research results not previously available to the general public. Organized chronologically, the Cydonia Controversy:

*Traces the evolution of our interest in extraterrestrial life and Mars from the time of the Sumerians and Babylonians, through the Greeks, the Renaissance, to Percival Lowell and the great debate over the Martian canals

*Discusses how the debate over extraterrestrial life changed in the 20th century from a legitimate area for scientific research to one increasingly influenced by politics and concerns over national security

*Tells the story of how the Face and other objects on Mars were discovered during the Viking mission, and later denied by NASA, and how a group of independent investigators rediscovered these strange objects and brought them to the attention of the public

*Describes the science behind the investigation, summarizing all of the evidence for, and against, artificiality

*Considers the question of whether or not the existence of artificial structures in Cydonia is plausible in light of what we know about Mars

*Discusses what happened after the Viking mission, including the mysterious loss of the Mars Observer in 1993, and the successful launch of Mars Global Surveyor and NASA's plan to re-image Cydonia in the spring of 1998

*Presents and discusses new evidence of artificiality in Cydonia based on the new Mars Global surveyor imagery of the Face and other objects on Mars

*Reviews and assesses the Cydonia discoveries in the context of the extraterrestrial life debate, and concludes with a discussion of possible implications of the discovery of archaeological ruins on Mars

The controversy over the Face and other objects in Cydonia involves science and high tech, NASA politics, UFOs, government cover-ups, scientific revolutions, ancient mysteries, and other scientific and historical threads. Woven from these threads, the Cydonia Controversy walks the fine line between science and speculation.

The book is targeted toward open-minded, critical thinking individuals with a general knowledge of science and technology. It is written for those who are fascinated by unexpected connections between disparate fields and the new insights they can sometimes provide. There is no intended age group as both young and old are equally fascinated by this subject.