This was an enjoyable and excellent book to read and relating it to my growing up in the same little rural town. I can make a wonderful text to self connection with these poems. It was a wonderful experience to share the book with my class, along with the experiences.

i loved this book! it was great! the story line was great! i couldn't put it down. I read it in a day and i would recomend it to anyone who loves poetry.

Paul Shepard will probably be viewed as one of the more important philosophers of nature in the future. He more or less created the field of human ecology and his books have had a major influence on the environmental movement. All of his books are worth reading and are recommended. However Shepard is not to be taken lightly. His work is dense, at times difficult, and will shake up your thinking. From his first major work, "Man in the landscape," to the end of his life he threw off ideas like a grinding stone throwing off sparks. If you are really serious about the idea that human evolutionary history is important to our current lives then Paul Shepard is for you. If you are looking for a light read about animals, I'd look elsewhere.

Paul Shepherd was a great thinker, and I regret that I only became aware of his work very recently. His thesis throughout most of his work is that civilization as we know it is the true enemy of human beings. We have insulated ourselves from nature and from our teachers the animals. I do not always agree with his point of view, but he presents his ideas in such a way as to allow you to grasp and test them, and certainly not to shove them down your throat or tell you that this is the absolute truth. He really gets you to think.

First of all this is not a manual of anatomy, physiology or pathology. It's not a book to use as a home medical guide. It is a compendium of articles that relate to medicine, but there seems to be no overall focus to the book. There are many historical entries covering such topics as Greek Medicine, Nursing in Britain, medicine in Italy, the Plague, the Flying Doctors and the Sisters of Charity. Most medical specialties such as dermatology, neurology, gynecological oncology and obstetrics are given coverage.

There are a variety of articles on medical research, but none on the topic of research methodology in general. Although not a guide to medical diseases there are articles that do pertain to such specific ailments as diabetes, and sexually transmitted diseases. You will find philosophy represented here in an article on epistemology (the study of knowledge). There is also a section on religion, and the medical views of various sects and denominations. I found that the authors refrained from being critical of religious beliefs as they pertain to medicine. The article on Christian Science is a benign one. The article on Chiropractic is also quite gentle. Indeed the book states that Chiropractors tend to get to know their patients to a far greater extent than medical practitioners.

Again, this is a strange compendium of many different topics: hysteria; hypnotism; near-death experiences; mummies; and the pharmaceutical industries. Will this book fill any of your special needs? It is of value to me by simply being an interesting volume of medical articles that I often just read at random..

This book is dedicated to sir Ronald Bodley Scott (1906-1982), a family physician and specialist in internal medicine, who was affiliated with St Bartholomew's Hospital and appointed physician to King George VI and Queen Elisabeth II. Together with a collegue he conceived the idea of this companion, which was in its planning stage at the time of his death. The present companion is the 3rd edition. The three editors are wellknown physicians, Stephen Lock, a hematologist who edited the British Medical Journal from 1975-91, John M Last professor emeritus in epidemiology from the Univesrity of Ottawa and George Dunea, the chairman of nephrology at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.
This companion is not a standard encyclopedia, but rather a selection of more than 500 short papers by more than 200 authors on subjects from abortion to zombification. Each entry is connected to the historical perspective of medicine, relationship with culture or art and information on the persons behind.
It can be learned that autopsies are not without side effects. A certain Josef Kolletschka died of sepsis following an infection acquired after sustaining a wound during autopsy. It was the similarity of his illness and in patients with puerperal fever that led Ignaz Philip Semmelweiss (1818-65) to understand that puerperal fever was caused by infection. This Hungarian obstetrician, working at the Allgemeines Krankenhaus in Vienna observed that the maternal mortality was higher in the ward attended by students (that came directly from the dissection room to the ward)than in the ward attended by nurses. When he enforced hygiene the mortality fell from 9.95% to 1.3%. The administration did not like his ideas and he was forced to leave for Budapest, where he became professor of obstetrics in 1855. His ideas on hygiene (Die Aetiologie der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers, 1861) was not received well and in 1865 he suffered from an mental breakdown and died from septicemia from a wound infection.
On the lighter side you will also find some nice quotations on the medical profession, like the one of Thomas Fuller (1609-61) on "physicians, who like beer, are best when they are old".
All in all, a book with a wealth of information on medicine and its history.

Professor Joav Merrick, MD
Medical director, Division for Mental Retardation, Box 1260, IL-91012 Jerusalem, Israel,

Mohammed Morad, MD
Family physician, Division for Community Health,

Paul Leveille is truly a master of Pastel Portraiture. The book reveals many of the mysteries of properly building up a pastel painting to achieve a lifelike, realistic looking portrait. The book takes you through eight detailed portraits, start to finish. One drawback for me was, Paul does not give us a starting photograph of the subject, so during the stages it is difficult to know why the lights and darks, colors and shadows are placed where they are until you see the finished portrait. More a tutorial of techniques than a means of following along and copying his works step-by-step. Still, an excellent source of learning that will leave you able to create realistic portraits in pastel.

This great oversized book gives good illustrated step by step projects on portraiture pastel painting. It takes out the complications of starting a painting of someone. Though on a few projects some more steps could have been included, but this does not diminish the overall guidance the book provides. It has superb color and a well explanation of tools and materials, and how to take care of them. Composition, perspective and light is also explained for the rendition of your project.

Not for the casual reader or those unfamiliar with historical-critical method, this collection of essays provides remarkable insight into the most recent work in Pauline exegesis. Unfortunately, like some of Professor Horsley's other texts, this book is sufficiently techinical so as to effectively limit itself to the academic community. Once again, Horsley has failed to reach the masses.

In Paul And Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation, Richard Horsley has assembled an impressive collection of contributors arguing against the traditional thinking of the past and dealing in original and provocative fashions with several interrelated issues running through Paul's letters and their subsequent interpretation within the context of Christian history. These issues include Paul and the politics of interpretation; Paul and the politics of the Roman Empire; Paul and the politics of Israel (with reference to the relations of Jews and Gentiles); Paul and the politics of churches)with respect to relations of men and women, slaves and freemen). Very highly recommended for personal and academic Christian history and theology reference collections and reading lists, Paul And Politics is a seminal and scholarly work that will prove an admirable springboard for group study and seminar discussions.

The title of this book, "Paul Between Damascus and Antioch", is a little misleading. This book is not nearly as much about Paul as it is about earliest Christianity.

Hengel explores the first 15-20 years of the Christian movement in great detail. Unlike many scholars today, Hengel gives the book of Acts a great deal of respect as a reliable source of historical information for this era. This aspect was refreshing.

Unfortunately, I did not come away from this book with the belief that I had learned much of anything about the person of Paul. However, I did learn a great deal about the Christian movement in the 30's and 40's C.E.

A basic knowledge of Greek vocabulary would be beneficial to the reader of this book, but its certainly not necessary. You can know nothing of the Greek language and still learn much.

A much superior book on Paul is by F.F. Bruce entitled, "Paul - Apostle of the Heart Set Free".

Dr. Martin Hengel is currently the top NT historian alive in the eyes of many NT authorities. Here he is at his best. This rich treatment of Pual's early history as a convert has already made a huge impact on Pauline studies around the globe. Hengel's capacity to surface an authentic sketch of earliest Christian history and issues related to first century Judaism sets the standard for leading edge NT scholarship. I recommend this book very highly for anyone serious about the subject matter.

Greek language skills are recommended, but perhaps not necessary.

Though this book's recipes are for relatively humble dishes, most assume that the reader has at least some basic cooking knowledge. The majority employ ingredients commonly available throughout the United States, but recipes which demand eel, brains and rabbit (to name a few foods which terrify some Americans) are also included.

This having been said, this book's recipes are nevertheless generally more streamlined and less intimidating than Julia Child's recipes for dishes of comparable difficulty, and they are no less foolproof. The author's Hungarian goulash and dried fruit compote are easily within the range of a bachelor dad who cooks twice a year, and his duck with turnips will be a rewarding experiment for someone who's just stepping beyond the chicken-and-turkey frontier. The master's experience and taste are on display throughout, but professionals or sophisticated amateurs seeking novelty should look elsewhere.

This is an excellent introduction to simple, yet evocative, French cuisine. Follow the directions and you, too, can produce incredible results! Without a doubt, no one will be able to resist Chicken in Cream Sauce Louhans-Style.

I wouldn't recommend this book to a beginner. This book contains all the complex topics you can think of in Office 97 and they are covered in fine detail. However, the basics get crushed under the advanced topics, thus making it useless for a complete newbie or even an intermediate.

This is the most comprehensive reference on Office 97 we have found. It provides the whole spectrum of information on Office, from basic tasks to writing your own VBA routines. This is the corporate standard for professionals in my company.

This is a nice brief book on some of the historical aspects of Long's as well as some climbing information. The good news is that this book is so thin you can take it with you on a backpacking trek. The bad news is that because it's so small, it contains limited information, hence the 3 star rating. Overall the book is very interesting and informative about Long's Peak. For a first time visitor to the mountain, this would be a good book to purchase.

... in a small package.

This book was first published in 1946, and has been revised eight times since. Every revision adds new material and updates information from the previous edition. I picked up the eighth edition (1969) on my first attempt to summit Longs Peak in 1978, and learned more from it than from any other book on the subject. In 1999, when I tried to summit a third time, I bought the 10th edition (1990), and enjoyed the new material and revisions it contains.

The back cover has a detailed map of the Longs Peak Keyhole route trail from the ranger station to the summit. Page 59 begins listing over 100 different routes that spans the next three pages. Page 63 begins a listing of notable events related to Longs Peak, beginning in 1820, sorted by date.

Truly, if you want a concise, yet very meaty book on Longs Peak, Nesbit's small volume is something you should add to your library.

I found myself becoming nostalgic looking through the pages of this book. Having grown up in Florida, I was stunned to see that the house I lived in had been a knock-off of one of Rudolph's houses. His early Florida houses were widely emulated for their clean lines and passive solar designs. It is an impressive collection, and illustrates the lighter side of Rudolph before he became caught up in the monumental forms that dominated the latter part of his career.

You might call him the John Lautner of Florida, creating a lifestyle as much as an architecture. You could see Travis McGee laying back in one of these houses, drinking a beer as he waits for the elusive flash of green. Rudolph really captured the spirit of Florida in the 40's and 50's. Simple, well-thought out designs that are as relavent today as they were then.

As the Case Study program got under way in southern California, Rudolph launched his own from his office in Sarasota on FloridaÕs Gulf coast. For two decades (with time off for U.S. Navy service) he created (first with Ralph Twitchell and then independently) a succession of airy pavilions that mitigated the steamy heat and filtered the brilliant light. In Ezra StollerÕs crisp period photographs these houses seem almost dreamlikeÑtoo graceful and pure to endure storms and the crass consumerism of waterfront development. And yet, despite the pressure of escalating land prices and the cult of gigantism, most of these houses have survived in their original form, and several have been lovingly restored. Every aficionado of mid-century modern should buy this elegant volume. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)