"Diamonds are Forever" is a marvelous book for anyone who loves baseball. I have lent it many times to my piano students and their parents, and they delight in the colorful paintings, witty drawings, artful photographs, deeply felt poems, and whimsical essays.

I believe that baseball has something for everyone, on many levels from the most superficial "three strikes and you're out" to the statistical for those devoted to numbers, to the "head"
game", the insiders' level that develops with thought and experience. By the time our three daughters played high school softball, they had learned the inside game quite well and found competitive joy in it.

"Diamonds are Forever" is a great coffee table book, but in addition to the wonderful visuals, it's a good read. Highly recommended!

When I picked up the Paul Klee Diaries it fell open to the sentence every artist must secretly yearn to see: "...I am still incapable of painting, in spite of my sharp observation of tonal values and inspite of my clever way of determining the proper gradations of light and dark." Well! If he had trouble, there must be hope for the rest of us! The diaries, edited by his son and published posthumously, cover his 19th to 40th years as he travels, attends concerts, draws, paints and engages in intense artistic discourse with friends like Kandinsky and Macke. An exquisite writer, Klee captures whole experiences in a few brief words. The book is a chronicle of the development of both the artist and the art of his time. I especially liked the precise descriptions of his drawing experiments and periodic review of his progress. His grasp of techniques and insights into the creative process can be returned to again and again.

I teach a intermediate/advanced reading and writing class in an adult English as a Second Language program in Arlington, Virginia, and this book is by far my favorite resource. My students are always asking for dictations, and this book provides stimulating twists on the standard dictation. Each activity is rated as to the difficulty and adaptability level, and most activities are adaptable to different levels. The book provides activities for groups and pair work, which is so important in the adult ESL classroom. The activities really get the students excited, and many get them up and moving around. A favorite is an activity called "Messenger and Scribe" in which one student reads from a prepared text taped to the wall in the hallway, remembers what he or she has read, and returns to the classroom to dictate to the "Scribe" in the pair what the text says. This provides excellent opportunities for self-correction, and different prepared texts can be used for different level students in a multi-level classroom. I highly recommend this book to any teacher who is looking for a new way to present an old favorite. If reading and writing is even a small part of the class that you teach, this book should be on your shelf.

Too good to go on the coffee table!. This is a great reference for those Minton collectors, and historians. There are not many books on Minton available, but this is a MUST HAVE for your library. The *only* issue I have is that it does not have the famous Minton "seaweed pattern" mentioned anywhere. Photos are great, and overall it is well researched.

This reference provides readers interested in plant diseases with access to a wide range of useful information: authoritative names of plant pathogens; concise definitions of terminology; names of infectious diseases and noninfectious disorders; brief information on fungicides and other varied topics; and in all cases, citations into the main literature.

The greatest strength of the book to be in the definitions of terminology. Definitions provided in the Dictionary carry the weight of a scientific society, as they are based primarily on a paper published in 1973 by the Federation of British Plant Pathologists. Most of the technical terms I sought during my review were defined in simple, clear, and precise language. I found this reference to be very valuable for refurbishing a glossary used in my introductory plant pathology course; it was also handy for periodic reference throughout the semester. A few conceptual terms are missing, such as exclusion and avoidance. In a relatively small number of cases, the definitions given for certain terms do not reflect the varied ways the term may be used by specialists throughout the world. One example is the term virulence, although in fairness, it should be noted that plant pathologists do not agree on the usage and meaning of this term, and the Dictionary does cite key literature from that debate. Overall, however, the reader will find this reference to be an excellent resource for understanding the often arcane terminology of the profession.

As a bibliographic list of authoritative names of plant pathogens, the Dictionary is valuable although not flawless. Each taxonomic entry includes useful and often numerous bibliographic citations, with keywords describing the content of each. The names and brief descriptions of genera and higher taxa are without question valuable, as are the citations provided with each. Of the recently renamed fungal and bacterial pathogens which I checked, up-to-date nomenclature was provided for most. However, several pathogens with name changes proposed in publication two years or more prior to the publication of this reference were found listed only under their old name. A pathogen's accepted scientific name reflects a consensus among specialists in their respective disciplines, and consensus takes time to achieve. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is some lag between publication of a proposed new name for a pathogen and the appearance of that name in a comprehensive reference such as this. Two of the pathogens I investigated were still listed only under their old names although name changes had been proposed in publication five and nine years prior to the publication of the Dictionary, periods of time that suggest an occasional oversight. Instances also were found where the entry for the old name was not cross-referenced with the new name, although such cases appeared to the exception. Nomenclature of plant-infecting viruses appeared to be excellent, providing up-to-date names for the viruses themselves as well as for genera and families. Overall, this is the best single source of authoritative names of plant pathogens available, especially given the dynamic nature of microbial taxonomy, although some current names do not appear in the Dictionary.

Other information such as disease names, fungicide information, and other miscellaneous topics appears to be technically accurate, and having so much available in one volume is certainly handy. However, this reference necessarily can only serve as a starting point for the reader on any of these subjects, since very little information on each can be provided in the context of a comprehensive dictionary. Of course, the Dictionary provides citations here, as well, which will direct the reader to further information.

While there are a few deficiencies noted above, this is a valuable reference for those working on a regular basis with topics relating to plant diseases. It should be a standard reference for libraries, departments, and offices with ongoing involvement in agricultural science, and especially for those in plant pathology.

This review was originally published in the Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education; it is reproduced with permission.

This book provides the reader with short definitions of statistical and research terms in easy-to-understand language. It removes some of the mystery. I work with graduate students who are writing research proposals and either theses or dissertations. While they have completed coursework in statistics, they are unfamiliar with many of the terms that are used in journal articles and research books. This book provides a link to help them understand what they are reading and allows them to write their papers with more authority. I have recommended this book to my students, and the professors at several universities with whom I work. These professors are now suggesting their students purchase this book during their coursework to help them with critiques and other assignments.

I found this book to be one of the best around. Its treatment of differential forms was complete, starting at the fundamentals. I can recommend it to everyone wanting to understand forms

Computers are everywhere because they meet business and government needs. Someday they probably can meet such humanities research needs as refereeing different ways of interpreting literature. In the meantime scholars need to become better at computers and statistics so they can direct computers to answer the questions in the humanities that researchers want asked.

At this point computers help scholars with on-line concordances, elementary patterns, and word counts. But THE DIGITAL WORD: TEXT-BASED COMPUTING IN THE HUMANITIES also shows what computers can do with interpreting Offred's character in Margaret Atwood's HANDMAID'S TALE, critical editions of Geoffrey Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES and William Langland's PIERS PLOWMAN, Samuel Coleridge's THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, James Joyce's ULYSSES, THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, and the planned 350,000 alphanumeric or bitmap digitized Bibliotheque de France national heritage library project with 300 reading stations for corporate suppliers, professional readers and researchers to access, store and work with animated and still images, sounds, and texts. So I hope editors George P. Landow and Paul Delany regularly publish more updates to this riveting followup to the earlier HYPERMEDIA AND LITERARY STUDIES.

Dimensional analysis is usually the first method good physicists try on a new problem, and for complex problems it is often the only method available. This book gives the best, and most concise, introduction to dimensional analysis currently available, illustrating its usefulness with a variety of fascinating examples from fluid dynamics, biology, engineering. The style is clear and thought-provoking. There is also a larger, more advanced book by the same author (Cambridge UP).

Dining with the Stars is a wonderful book. It features terrific photographs, autographs and personal antecdotes from many of our favorite stars. It also features many of their favorite recipes. This is a conversation piece that belongs in the living room as well a a cookbook for one's kitchen. And the entire book is a result of one man's desire to raise money for AIDS charities. This book is a must have for fans of the celebrities as well as for caring chefs.