This book is a very detailed depiction of how an all woman team of sailors(or mostly women by the end) lead by Dawn Riley compete for America's Cup 1995. With great photography, this book is without a doubt worth a look, but one will be enough. Unless you find that the pictures are worth looking at multiple times.

American Voices has uncovered some remarkable lesser-known Amercan writers and poets in this diverse anthology - for example, John Heaviside's "A Gathering of Deafs" on Page 538 brings the work of one of New York City's outstanding Spoken Word performers to the fore...I've seen this guy perform at the KGB venue in NYC and I never thought I would see his stuff in print! If you can stomach the classroom review questions in the back, the rich selections are worth it.

After I finished reading this book I was not too sure how I felt, I was a bit ambivalent about how good or bad it was. At times I found it hard going to continue but then it picked up with a very interesting account of some particular siege or battle. However other times I felt it was becoming repetitive, the same story with variations on the number of dead or the way the victors tortured or killed their enemies. There is no doubt that the author has thoroughly researched the subject but the narrative came across a bit dry in the end. The chapters on the Roman army's conduct of siege operations stand out. There were a number of line drawings and maps but I found the maps to be of poor quality, I'm sure better ones could have been found. If you are looking for a detailed account of how siege operations were carried out in ancient times and the result of those sieges then this is the book for you. I can only say that I did not find the narrative as free flowing as I usually like in a book, it was almost like reading a school text book at times. I would recommend this book only for those who have a keen interest in the subject matter.

Canadian Master Paul Janicki explores a popular variation of the Englisch Opening in this second volume of a two-part series (the first volume treats the two Knights system). The analysis is thorough and illustrated with current tournament practice examples.

Instructive!

This book is mostly a collection of previously published material either from Games Workshop's out of print supplements or White Dwarf magazine. If you have both the Restless Dead and Warhammer Companion supplements, you will probably find that most of material here is lifted from the two books. For the new converts to the game, the contents are interesting and the varied mix of articles (from new rules to short adventures) would make it useful to any player or GM.

Breeding fish is not a simple prossess. If you are not experienced enough you can cause a change on the genetics of the fish. This will cause new hybrids. But this book teaches a lot about this subject. Lots of information about efficient breeding your fish.

This is a nice little handbook of fish that is handy to take to the pet store when shopping. It has chapters of basic fishkeeping information, and sections on the habitats of various types of fish. It tells you how large they get, where the fish are from, and tells you how aggressive they are. It is well organized and easy to use. Many of the photos, however, show fish with very little color. Many of them seem to be photos of immature fish. All in all, this book is nice to have as a reference.

This book is considered to be "the great survey" of early Renaissance architecture, and is, in fact, the only one that has ever been written covering the subject (except for a 1998 book in Italian that is really more a collection of articles). I find this lack of surveys rather surprising as Renaissance architecture is one of the most well-loved subjects in art history, and I would think that specialists, students, and laymen would demand a simple World of Art kind of treatment of the topic. The Pelican series generally does not provide this type of clear, thesis-driven introductory text, and Heydenreich's book is no exception. It is a collection of facts--a catalog of "this building was built then and it shows influence from that and the architect was so-and-so"--with minimal interpretation and explanation (we generally don't even learn what details indicate that "this" building was influenced by "that" one). A great deal of familiarity with the material is required on the part of the reader, so the text entirely failed my mission of gaining a broad understanding of quattrocento architecture. If you are well-versed in the topic and are looking for a reference, this book may be helpful; if you're looking for elucidation, it almost surely won't be. The most Heydenreich seems to be able to say about the style of buildings or the reason they were compelling to their contemporaries is that they were "perfect" and "beautiful," terms I have heard altogether too frequently (and too frequently unexplained) from Renaissance art historians. I regret that I have no better book to recommend in Heydenreich's place.

On a somewhat different note, the binding of the paperback Pelican books is shoddy at best. By the time I had finished this book, which I did read cover to cover despite really disliking it (it's only 151 pages anyway), all of its pages were falling out!

Although Sakomizu's book is a thoroughly engaging read, it is, in my estimation, somewhat generic. It borrows heavily from ideas proposed in Bill Ostergard's 'The Wandering Eye' and often seems lacking in depth. That said, there is a great deal of wit and charm to keep the reader's attention. The author's coverage of the Swan Project is paraticularly enlightening. Fun, smart but ultimately light.