The New England Journal of Medicine (Vol 347, #18, pg. 1459; 10/31/2002) says that this book provides "information not readily available elsewhere" and that it is a "valuable book for younger women physicians struggling to make a life for themselves".

A collection of 10 actual case histories and classic articles about women at work and two - career marriages -- in medicine, law, education, sales, education -- The author's thesis is that women manage as well, and as poorly as men do. This book is ideally suited for a course in diversity training. Case subjects are women in their mid twenties to late forties and beyond. Women of color as well as white women are subjects in the cases. A discussion leader's guide is also available

It's the final touch that turns a good project into a work of art, that is why wood finishing has become the latest specialty in the woodworker's stockpile of skills. And now you can master the techniques that beautify and protect your finishes, with this essential guide from one of the world's true masters of finishing technique. This exhaustive handbook covers all the tools, techniques and materials for every stage of finishing, including: stains, dyes and chemical treatments, bleaching, uses of abrasives, varnishes and oils, waxes, french polishing, lacquers, decorative filling of wood pores, sandblasting, colorless color, scorched finishes and much more. Over 80 full-color photos shows the stunning finishes you can master. Step-by-step instructions.

At once cogent, compelling and insightful, anthropologist and communication scholar Frank Schaap provides us with one of the most significant new works in the emerging field of cyberculture studies. In The Words That Took Us There: Ethnography in Virtual Reality, Schaap takes us on an anthropological journey through the intriguing world of MUDs (Multi-User Dimensions) - "text-based virtual environments, where multiple users meet, converse and interact in the semi-fictitious surroundings of their virtual world" (p. 2). Answering Stephen Tyler's call for a new (postmodern) mode of ethnography, Schaap crafts an account of online interaction that is not only theoretically rich, but also provides a powerful sense of actually "having been there."

The book introduces us to the virtual world of Cybersphere and the fictive city of New Carthage where Schaap constructed and performed the cross-gender character of Eveline for some three years. Immersing himself in this space of metaphor, Schaap explores how "players" in these virtual worlds negotiation their online persona (referred to as "characters") and the implications of their performances in cyberspace for how gender is enacted in our day-to-day world. Interrogating the "strategies employed by the players to present a convincing and credible male or female character," (p. 3), Schaap exposes the constructedness of gender roles, skillfully unsettling many of the naturalized understandings of what it is to be a man or a women in our society.

Rather than merely delineating what one encounters in these virtual environments, Schaap "evokes" the very sensibility of online interaction through vivid and often haunting vignettes. Schaap employs his considerable narrative skills to bring the reader into the dystopic world of Cybersphere, allowing us to experience the intensity of life, death, and love in this virtual realm. However, Schaap acknowledges with refreshing candor the limitations of what can be (re)presented to the reader in his text. While giving us a robust sense of what it was like to have been there, he notes that this book, like any ethnographic account, "cannot not be an accurate rendering of the dialogical form the characters and their world take, for that is reserved to the moment in which they are lived by the players" (p. 4). Importantly, this book balances analytical authority with self-reflexive scrutiny, providing an account that is as critical of its author as it is of those social relations occurring online.

Adeptly interweaving historical overviews with riveting storytelling, Schaap is able to provide a discussion of the development of these virtual environments that will prove captivating to even the most technophobic reader. Usefully, he notes an important oversight in the existing literature on social relations in cyberspace that virtual environments themselves reflect particular cultural and social assumptions. "The MUD-code is thus not a neutral piece of code," he points out, "but a culturally, politically and linguistically informed program that enables players to perform certain desired acts" (p. 103). As Schaap endeavors to demonstrate, gender is one of the key preconceptions that are programmed into these virtual environments and this reveals much regarding the role gender plays in organizing our identities both online and off.

In this analytical discussion, Schaap adroitly mobilizes the theoretical arguments of such feminist scholars as Suzanna Kessler, Wendy McKenna, and Judith Butler. However, unlike the so many theoretical discussions on gender and sexuality, Schaap's writing remains lucid and accessible. Indeed, those who have struggled with the arguments of individuals like Butler would do well to first read this work. As important as Schaap's theoretical arguments and keen observations, is the very structure given his account. The experimental form of the text is designed to meet the author's aim of positioning the MUD itself as the ethnography. As Schaap so eloquently contends, "To make the mental leap from considering the historical, agreed upon idea of the ethnography as an authoritative text produced by the author/researcher to the MUD as an postmodern ethnography, I think it is of crucial importance to let go of the idea of a possibility of closure, of telos, of an ultimate truth" (p. 132). Schaap demonstrates with finesse the inherent incompleteness of any representation of the social universe, and thus the need for ethnographic researchers to challenge those conventions underlying scholarly accounts of the "Other."

Despite its modest length, this book is indeed an ambitious one. With writing that is as poetic as the analysis is rigorous, The Words That Took Us There is scholarship at its most poignant. Only the most obtuse of critics would deny the important intellectual space Schaap endeavors to open for ethnographic researchers. Clearly this book represents a significant initial work by an important new thinker in the realm of cyberculture and gender studies.

Frank Stella is one of contemporary art's most challenging and compelling figures. This series of lectures presents his view as to how nonrepresentational art has gone astray by focusing on an excessively cold northern tradition, following it from Mondrian up through the color-field painters. He looks now instead to a warmer mediterranean strain that he traces up through Reubens and Picasso, as his own solution to the possible deadness and flatness of so called "abstract painting". A clear and thoughtful example of how a contemporary painter turns his take on art history into praxis.

Why didn't I read this book when it first came out? It is a very well written book from a true "insider" at Taliesin. Besinger does what he says and tells it like it was, from his personal experience. It gives a wonderful look inside the forbidden city, one that is often enhanced and usually turns out to be a lauditory biography of Mr. Wright. Here is a real narrative in the best sense of the word. Besinger does not interpret he just tells what he knows and also does not speculate on what he does not see. It is the best insight to date on the evolving process that went on in Taliesin. Besinger worked on most of the important projects and gives us the process as well as the result. I am very glad he took the time to write so well and include the detail that carries it through. One only wishes for more.

This book provides an excellent reference regarding DBS satellites, a companion for those interested in following this industry. The book is divided into four different sections: "Technical, Programming, Satellites and Companies".

The core of the book is the section "Satellites" that provide the orbital data and technical documentation for about 230 satellites. The "Technical" section at the beginning gives an overview of satellite communications, although the reader should be knowledgable in this kind of systems

If you have to quit buying all your car magazines for two years to afford this book, it is worth it. Of all the auto related books, photos, etc. etc., World Sports Cars is the next step up. It not the cars alone but the quality of the photographs. All other work now has a new benchmark. I know from now on every photo I take, I will first think of these and model my work after them

I found this to be one of those "just can't put it down" kind of books. Fascinating to read through the eyes of an infantry foot soldier. Laid to rest the idea that the POW camps were a "nice" place for soldiers to go to wait out the end of the war. Frank takes you from his training in the Army to action on the front, through his capture, transfer to his final POW camp and the terrible months of surviving there. Then his liberation by the Brits and his rehabilitation and return home. It is truly a amazing story that all should hear. Would be a great movie.

How much can you say about one ship? Frank O. Braynard knows that answer: quite a lot. To be exact, six volumes' worth. Six volumes of the history of every aspect of the Leviathan, including everything from passengers and crew's stories, to the changes in the ship herself, to the convoluted histories of the people and companies that ran her. This amount of information is astonishing, but it's nothing compared to the next bit: it is not only interesting but in many places the combination of Braynard's style, the bizarre anecdotes, the personalities and the politics make it hard to put down. By the end the reader can understand the author's fascination with his subject, and agree that every page was needed. Almost every page, anyway.