"Manhattan Unfurled" is a beautiful and unique look at the island of Manhattan. Deceptively simple in appearance, one is quite amazed as the Manhattan skyline truly unfurls in two continuous pen-and-ink drawings stretching 22 feet each! If you do not have the room to fully open it up, you can flip 24 accordion-style pages. Work your way up and down Manhattan's East and West sides, from small collections of apartment buildings to dense clusters of skyscrapers. It took Matteo Pericoli, an Italian-born architect and illustrator, two-and-a-half years to create this incredible work of art. Also included in a quite nice heavy cardboard slipcase is an essay by Paul Goldberger (an architecture critic for The New Yorker) and a handy guide pointing out famous (and not so famous) landmarks for those who may not be intimately familiar with one of the world's great skylines.

Although published in October 2001, the book of course features Pericoli's rendition of the World Trade Center. While it is bittersweet and startling to see the towers even today, "Manhattan Unfurled" ultimately becomes (albeit unintentionally) a wonderful and loving tribute to the skyline that many of us will never forget. Amid all the discussion of the removal of the WTC towers from movies and television, some have said in doing so is like removing a grandparent from a family photo. Just because they are gone, does not mean we should forget or tuck them away. Pericoli's work will certainly be a treasure to look back on for many years to come.

A great gift for your favorite New Yorker, art lover, artist or architect in your life -- even if that happens to be you!

At this time, I find no better way to honor the great NYC than Matteo Pericoli's "Manhattan Unfurled." The fold-out pages (22 feet in length!) explicitly, accurately, beautifully, and lovingly picture the unspeakably west and east shorelines of Manhattan--including the to-be-forever missed "Twin Towers." While viewing the drawn shoreline views, including renderings of the burrough's historically important bridges, I remember fondly those several times, as a fomer resident of NYC in the early 70's, riding on the slow and lumbering Circle Line Cruise and enjoying the splendor of the island's magnificent architecture. This book, so ingeniously created, should be in every library, and would be just the perfect book to be presented to the individual who dare asks, "Why would anyone want to live in New York City?". Thank you, Matteo Pericoli, for offering to the reading public one of the finest and perfectly conceived books in many a year. You are to be commended, and lauded for allowing many the opportunity to enjoy a unique view of such a beloved city as NYC. My only personal disappointment is that I will never have the opportunity for the author/artist to sign my prized copy!!

...

"Manhattan Unfurled" presents a pen-and-ink line drawing of the island's amazing skyline, done before the September 11th tragedy and therefore all the more affecting in the magnificent exclamation marks of grandeur provided by the World Trade Center's Twin Towers. To open this book, page by page or at its full 22-foot length, is to see the improvisational, jazz-like rhythm of the city's architecture as viewed from its rivers and opposite shores, with small riffs where the island's profile is low (at the northern tip and along parts of the lower West Side and opper East Side)and symphonic climaxes in Midtown and in the financial district. This is clearly a labor of love for this young Italian-born architect--the detail of the buildings is fine and exact, the waves of the water mythical, fabulous, the ad-hoc nature of the city's real-estate development unified by a comprehending sensibility. I guarantee you that you've never seen anything like it. And now, more than ever, it is a tribute to the tough, whimsical grandeur of an island rocked by tragedy but ultimately indomitable.

Don't let the title fool you... this book is not about the quick, get rich internet scams that proliferate around the web. This book is for the lay person who has a bricks and mortar business or who wants to start from scratch. The internet is not going away and it is possible, with hard work and this book as a guide, to make money using the internet as a tool. Buy this book and get out your highlighter... you'll find a great deal of information that you can put to use starting today!

Work-at-home experts Paul and Sarah Edwards, the authoring team of a series of leading working-from-home books, have teamed up with Linda Rohrbough to write Making Money In Cyberspace to encourage business people to take their existing businesses online and to invite others to test the waters of starting an online business from scratch themselves. This book will open up the exciting world of online business opportunities.

Making Money In Cyberspace was written to demonstrate that a number of traditional occupations including domestic, technical, and corporate level work can be conducted online from the comfort of a home or office. The authors cite a number of occupations that just about anyone can make a living from online. Check out the helpful checklist at the back of the book!

The book focuses a considerable amount of attention to the details of designing creative Websites that will effectively market an online business operation. Building and promoting effective Websites, developing content, advertising options, payment considerations, and selecting an Internet service provider are covered. A number of actual cases studies are provided to reinforce these important issues.

Readers will appreciate the fact that the authors have expressed themselves in a non-technical manner. Anyone can pick up this book and put it to use! It will make a great companion to other books written by these authors. This is sure to be a favorite among those who love what the Internet has to offer and desire to derive an income from it! This book would also make a nice gift!

This book is great. Though the main focus is to show how people have become successful online, there's no hype about making billions overnite. Examples range from people who have made a few thousand dollars a year online, to people have made millions. The book reviews how some business ideas didn't work on the web at first, how how they had to change and adjust to get better results. Gets into some technical aspects too. Also a must read for web designers.

WOW! Great book! I am not bragging, but I want to qualify my experience with Exchange and technical books.

I am an MCSE and an MCT. I teach Windows 9x, Windows NT Server, Windows NT Workstation, Windows NT Enterprise, IIS, Proxy, TCP/IP, Exchange and more... I have also co-authored and edited several Windows NT books.

This is one of the most technically accurate and readable books that I have read in a long time. I am actually reading it cover to cover and I am enjoying every page.

JOB WELL DONE! Thanks!

Paul Robichaux's MANAGING MICROSOFT EXCHANGE SERVER is a "must-have" for your bookshelf. It is one of those rare technical books that you can both enjoy by simply sitting down and reading it (cover to cover), or using it as a reference book, when you find your Exchange in trouble. For me, it has already more than paid for itself.

If I had to choose but two MS Exchange books for my arsenal, this would absolutely be one of them. The other would have to be Barry Gerber's "Mastering Exchange Server 5.5"

Paul Robichaux has done an EXCELLENT job of filling in what few gaps Barry Gerber left in his book. Where Gerber provides an excellent guide to setting up and getting to know Exchange, Robichaux takes you deeper into more "advanced" administrative issues such as disaster recovery, security, enabling Exchange for remote users, etc.

If you manage an Exchange server or servers for your orginzation, this book is indispensible. Hats off to the author!

This book is the funniest I have ever read. Every page makes me hoot with laughter. If you have a friend or relative who could use many chuckles and guffaws, buy this book for them. If you like David Sedaris' humor in his book 'Naked', you will love 'I'll Take It'. You will not be embarrassed to buy this book for your mother. It's similar humor, but much cleaner than 'Naked'. A Must-Read.

I have only read two novels that made me laugh aloud from beginning to end: Rudnick's "I'll Take It" and Joe Keenan's "Blue Heaven." Wonderful book. Someone should make "I'll Take It" into a movie.

I laughed so hard reading this book I evidently broke something. My wife and sister both read it and both agree: it is one of the funniest, truest books about family life ever written. Paul Rudnick is a national treasure.

After reading it and digesting alot of it I have come to quite a few conclusions. This book is an incredible source of knowledge and enlightenment on the fundamentals of skydiving. It is so well written that even the newest student can understand the technical aspects and physics of our sport. It is an awesome plethora of knowledge combined into one little 396 page book and well worth the $$ spent and the time committed to reading it. To all skydivers: A great tool for re-inforcement and reference.

Although this book is a little out of date, it still explains the different disciplines and activities associated with Skydiving. I found some sections especially helpfull. There is a section that gives common myths about skydiving (Ex: The inherent danger of sudden deceleration when meeting the ground). If you are interested in Skydiving, Dan Poynter is one of the pioneers, and his experience and techincal knowledge will help you decide whether you want to participate in this extremely rewarding sport.

I bought this book prior to starting Accelerated Free Fall. It gave me a good working knowledge of what to expect. Now that I am into the sport, I use it frequently to look up reference items that will be used during my next skydiving session. I appreciate this book being availible.

the Oxford Shakespeare has been touted as 'a new conception' of Shakespeare, but is in fact merely an update of the cumbersome old Arden editions. Like these, 'King John' begins with a 100-page introduction, divided into 'Dates and Sources' (full of what even the editor admits is 'tedious' nit-picking of documentary evidence); 'The Text' (the usual patronising conjecture about misprints in the Folio edition and illiterate copyists); 'A Critical Introduction', giving a conventional, but illuminating guide to the drama, its status as a political play dealing with the thorny problem of royal succession, the contemporary legal ambiguities surrounding inheritance, the patterning of characters, the use of language (by characters as political manoeuvring, by Shakespeare to subvert them); and an account of 'King John' 'In the Theatre', its former popularity in the 18th and 19th century as a spectacular pageant, the play distorted for patriotic purposes, and its subsequent decline, presumably for the same reasons. The text itself is full of stumbling, often unhelpful endnotes - what students surely want are explanations of difficult words and figures, not a history of scholarly pedantry. The edition concludes with textual appendices.
The play itself, as with most of Shakespeare's histories, is verbose, static and often dull. Too many scenes feature characters standing in a rigid tableau debating, with infinite hair-cavilling, issues such as the legitimacy to rule, the conjunction between the monarch's person and the country he rules; the finer points of loyalty. Most of the action takes place off stage, and the two reasons we remember King John (Robin Hood and the Magna Carta) don't feature at all. This doesn't usually matter in Shakespeare, the movement and interest arising from the development of the figurative language; but too often in 'King John', this is more bound up with sterile ideas of politics and history, than actual human truths. Characterisation and motivation are minimal; the conflations of history results in a choppy narrative. There are some startling moments, such as the description of a potential blood wedding, or the account of England's populace 'strangely fantasied/Possessed with rumours, full of idle dreams/Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear'. The decline of the king himself, from self-confident warrior to hallucinating madman, anticipates 'King Lear', while the scene where John's henchman sets out to brand the eyes of the pubescent Pretender, is is full of awful tension.
P.S. Maybe I'm missing something, but could someone tell me why this page on 'King John' has three reviews of 'Timon of Athens'? Is somebody having a laugh?

Many people feel that this play of Shakespeare's is either unfinished or a poor effort. But I do not think this is accurate or fair. The reality is that many people can never find a middle ground. It is actually (in my opinion) quite common for people to only be able to see things from one extreme or the other. Despite Apemantus' cynical nature, there is no denying that whatever his faults are, HE DOES HAVE RIGHT ON HIS SIDE when he tells Timon: "The middle of humanity thou never knewest,/ but the extremity of both ends...." (4.3.342-343). Critics also tend to think Apemantus is unlikable, but are we missing a crucial point? I can not help but think Shakespeare is commenting on the fact that more people DON'T have a concept of reality. Apemantus refuses to join in the delight when Timon thinks highly of his false friends. Apemantus is aware of reality and no one wants to hear it. In my opinion Timon and Apemantus are VERY TRUE to life. In addition, the roll of Flavius is very touching. He can not dessert his master even when he knows (or thinks) Timon has nothing. Finally, I can not over estimate the mastery of Shakespeare when first Timon has money, he can not do enough for his so called friends and when he has nothing they dessert him. When Timon through fate gains a second fortune, he does not turn back into what he was, but rather he uses his 2nd fortune to destroy Athens. It is interesting that Shakespeare derived this play on the legend of 'Timon the Manhater,' and decides to take it a step further and show how he got there. And how much more realistic could Shakespeare have made this than by first showing Timon as a 'manlover?' Many people feel Timon should have somehow found the middle of humanity, but if he had, that would have defeated the whole purpose of this excellent play.

Timon of Athens has often been thought the work of a madman. Disjointed, polemical, irrational, and downright inelegant, many have thought that Shakespeare (or whosoever it may be) suffered a mental breakdown. This and more surrounds what I believe to be a tragic under-appreciation of this play. This play is NOT the story of a naively generous soul who eventually "faces reality". This is instead the story of a glorious Dionysian self-expender, who, upon realizing the cowardly conservatism of his so-called "peers", runs off to the wilds, to continue expending himself in body and soul. He dies on a curse, the climax of all the "evil wind" he has been sending out, the ultimate self-expension, his ultimate glory. The "tragedy" is the stone cold tablet that lies atop his corpse at the end, and the message of frugality it seems to send out, which is all too easily accepted by fatally declining cultures.

While usually a great fan of Lonely Planet guides, I found other Greek Islands guides to top this one. I found The Rough Guide to contain more (and better) information and detail on a greater number of villages. Some island villages which looked interesting to me would not be even mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide, yet would be in The Rough Guide. As well, I found the Cadogan (Dana Facaros) Greek Islands guide, while not completely written for the backpacker to be more helpful, with all of the basic information needed, fantastic writing and a satisfactory Athens chapter. I hope they improve the Lonely Planet Greek Islands guide as they're a wonderful outfit, but I'd pass on this one.

This is a great guide book for a trip to the islands. It offers good information on Athens and great background information on Greek culture and history. Beware: the Flying Dolphin office no longer exists in Athens and avoid Hotel Pelican. I also would not recommend the Art Gallery Hotel in Athens. Try Acropolis House instead.

This was my first of many 'Lonely Planet' trips. The Athens hotel reccomendation (our first stop) turned out to be a small place with a lovely breakfast served on the communal 4th floor balcony filled with tropical plants and overlooking the Acropolis. With each stop on the Cycladic Islands, we appreciated this direct and detailed guide that shows you what qualities to look for in an authentic Greek restaurant, tells you why all the cats and dogs are around, while all the while allowing you the freedom and comfort to explore.

This novel has stayed on my mind ever since I read it. It's so frustrating that Dickens died before completing this novel. On the other hand, the fact that this classic British mystery was never finished has created a great opportunity for literary critics and mystery lovers alike to try to solve the mystery for themselves. We'll never know who Dickens really had in mind as the murderer, or if indeed there was a murder after all. That's a huge loss. But it's a great ride for readers to try to make up their own minds.

I still haven't made up my mind about who did it. Sure, there is a very obvious suspect in Jasper, but that doesn't mean Dickens thought he did it. Some people have speculated that Dickens wrote this novel as a tribute to his friend Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone," so perhaps the opium addiction would have played a huge part in the mystery. It's even possible that Dickens saw a bit of himself in Jasper's tortured love life because of the way it paralleled his own life. After all, Cloisterham is supposed to be based on Dickens' Rochester. Then again, just because Dickens sympathized with someone, that doesn't mean that character was innocent, either, does it? Now you see why this story continues to torment mystery lovers.

Like any other Dickens novel, this one has lots of memorable characters, from the suspicious and tormented Jasper to the Reverend Crisparkle to Princess Puffer. And of course, the enigmatic Datchery. The gravedigger and his obnoxious but perceptive boy assistant provide both Dickensian eccentric characters and possible clues.

The power of this book even today is clear in the way it inspired an award-winning Broadway musical where the audience got to solve the mystery on their own. (By the way, 1935 movie with Claude Rains was good, but some of the main characters were cut out, and others seemed little like the characters in the book, even if they were fine actors.)

Anne M. Marble
All About Romance and Holly Lisle's Forward Motion Writing Community

It is a tribute to Charles Dickens' reputation that to this day this unfinished novel, a mystery no less, still garners such speculation as to who allegedly murdered Edwin Drood. There are organizations created for the sole purpose of analyzing the novel and to theorizing whom the culprit may have been, if indeed there really was a culprit. After all, only Drood's watch and his shirt pin are produced, not his body.

As in all of Dickens' novels, the characterizations are the thing. You have the innocent young woman with the somewhat eccentric guardian and his Bob Cratchitlike assistant. There is the dark, possibly unfairly accused, but hot headed antagonist of Drood. Then there is Drood's brooding choirmaster uncle, John Jasper, who frequents opium dens, and who may or may not have ulterior motives in his seeking revenge. Durdles, the stone mason, and a somewhat weird character, provides some chilling comic relief in cemetery scenes with his stone throwing assistant. There are also the typical Dickensian characters, which includes a snooty older woman, a class conscious, spinsterish school mistress, and in a hilarious restaurant scene, an unappreciated, hard working "flying waiter" and a lazy, wise acre "stationary waiter."

It is a shame that Dickens died before he could complete "Edwin Drood." What is here are the beginnings of an exploration of man's dual nature, a journey into "the heart of darkness" so to speak.

It is so strange to see a long, well-plotted novel suddenly come to a dead stop. (Of a projected twelve episodes, Dickens wrote six before his death.) The title character is either murdered or missing, and a large cast of characters in London and Cloisterham (Dickens's Rochester) are involved in their own way in discovering what happened to Edwin Drood.

There is first of all John Jasper, an opium addict who suspiciously loves Drood's ex-fiancee; there is a nameless old woman who dealt him the opium who is trying to nail Jasper; there is a suspicious pile of quicklime Jasper notices during a late night stroll through the cathedral precincts; there is Durdles who knows all the secrets of the Cathedral of Cloisterham's underground burial chambers; there is the "deputy," a boy in the pay of several characters who has seen all the comings and goings; there are the Anglo-Indian Landless twins, one of whom developed a suspicious loathing for Drood; there is the lovely Rosebud, unwilling target of every man's affections; and we haven't even begun talking about Canon Crisparkle, Datchery, Tartar, and a host of other characters. All we know is that the game is afoot, but we'll never know the outcome.

It would have been nice to know how Dickens tied together all these threads, but we can still enjoy THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD because -- wherever Dickens was heading with it -- it is very evidently the equal of his best works. Life is fleeting, and not all masterpieces are finished.

There are two universal truths of acquiring a second language. First, there is no "quick method." It takes time and work. Second, self-study only gets you so far. Language is about communication, and that requires more than one person.

With this in mind, "Japanese for Busy People I : Kana Version" is a fine supplement to Japanese learning. While you will never learn Japanese solely from this product, the book will help you study and practice. It is definitely one of the best of it's type.

Taking the plunge into kana is essential for learning Japanese. This book does not teach you kana of any type, but assumes that you have learned them elsewhere (preferably from the kana workbook in this series). Hiragana and Katakana are used. There is no Kanji, as this is a beginners level text.

There is a focus on traveling businessmen, and most of the activities focus on traveling and getting around an office. However, the vocab used in these situations is useful and easily transfers to other situations.

Like all self-study books, you will gain as much out of "Japanese for Busy People I : Kana Version" as you put into it. Learning with a group of people is easier and more fun. This book easily adapts to a group, and would work best if you and a few friends got together to practice.

I watched my teenage daughter learn Japanese from this series over the past year, and I am amazed about how quickly she learned to speak elementary Japanese using these textbooks. I recommend those new to the language to begin not with the Kana (Japanese symbols) version, but with the English phonetic version. Until the basic Kana characters and their pronunciation are mastered, this book can be daunting, especially if one is attempting to learn the language independently. Still, the transition must be made eventually. My daughter's Japanese class began with the phonetic version and then moved halfway through the year to the Kana version. (My daughter still feels it necessary to refer occasionally to the English textbook.)

I found the text to be straight-forward and the directions easy to understand. The dialogues are geared more toward business people than those interested in, say, history. You will learn how to introduce people, give (and understand!) directions, buy items in a store, etc. Despite this practicality, this book should not be confused with a crash course in travelor's phrases. Although the vocabulary is biased toward business (one of my daughter's first Japanese words meant conference room), this book aims to give the student a serious and solid foundation for the eventual mastery of Japanese. In this version, katakana and hirigana characters are used in all dialogues, examples, vocabulary building, and grammar, although brief instructions are written in English. (Kanji is reserved for more advanced textbooks.)

I recommend those serious about learning Japanese to purchase both this, the Kana version, and the English version. If you can only afford one and if you have no basis in the language, you might want to buy the phonetic textbook instead. However, since the mastery of Japanese characters is essential for progressing, this book is a valuable tool.

I love this series! This KANA version is designed to FORCE you to learn the correct pronunciation of japanese. Rather than learning japanese written in our own alphabet, which may lead you to speak it with OUR pronunciations, this book has all of the japanese words written in the Japanese syllabaries (kana) of Hiragana and Katakana. Where you might pronounce the word SAKE (rice wine) as "sacky" you will learn that all A sounds are "AH" as in "box" and all E sounds are "EH" as in "pen" -- Sa Ke. You might want to get the Tape or CD series to help you with pronunciation. Of course, before you start with this book, you MUST learn kana. Look for the Japanese for Busy People KANA Workbook ISBN: 4770020961. Once you've learned the kana (it takes practice but it can be done fairly quickly) you can jump right into Vol I of this series. Vol II introduces some KANJI, yet another set of characters, based on the chinese syllabary. Vol I has many situations to learn from with Key Sentences to learn, practice sentences, vocabulary, and even quizzes (answers are in the back of the book, wink wink). Vol I is a great start and you will really be able to understand and speak the basics! Buy this book! Come on! Do it NOW! I'm Here! What are you waiting for!?! Bennnyyyyyy!

This book is very informative! 5,600 signs, Information about proper spacing / movements of signs, it even tells you that alterative signs may be considered offensive. ( Important to know. Especially if you are traveling to foreign countries.) It also tells you origins / some histroy of ASL.

As an educational interpreter, it is hard to find resources that are as complete as this one is. This ASL dictionary is a concise description of most uses for the same sign even if that sign can be used in a different context. That is important once you start teaching your student the differeces in multiple meaing words and signs.

I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting a complete and easy to use dictionary for Sign Language. Beginners as well as professionals can use this dictionary with the greatest of ease.

Random House Webster's American Sign Language Dictionary by Elaine Costello and Lois Lenderman is an excellent resource for anyone interested in learning and using American Sign Language (ASL). Not only do I use it, but recommend it to students at the local college where I serve as an ASL lab instructor. The step-by-step descriptions and memory aids (hints) help the reader understand the nature of the sign and better remember how it is made. The book is published in two sizes, the print type being the only difference. I highly recommend the larger print, but the smaller book is lighter weight and more convenient when transporting between home and school.

I highly recommend this to anyone interested in ASL.