I love this cookbook, not only because I love the flavors of the wine country and John Ash has a great mix of recipes that convey them, but also because the philosophy behind the recipes relies so heavily on using fresh, seasonal, local ingredients. The recipes are not super-simple, but if you have some cooking experience and are willing to take the time to search for the best ingredients, the rewards are well worth it.

I have used this book more than any other cookbook in my home. I am constantly learning about new, fresh ingredients and the results are really wonderful. Every time I cook using these recipes, my friends ask me for the recipe. I've purchased this book for several friends too - it's a great gift, especially if you live in Northern California. Visiting John Ash's restaurant is a wonderful experience too!

As a collector of cook books and as one who entertains regularly (both for friends and for business - it is not unusual for us to have over a100 people in a month at home for corporate related dinners) I find this book the one that I most often turn to. It is imagnative yet practical, sufficiently different to a lot of theothers that I have and everything that I have tried has been a huge success. Would love to know if John Ash has written another one.

Whatever John Ash gives the reader with one hand, he takes away with the other. Now you see him and now you don't. He enjoys subverting his readers' powers of comprehension. Every time you think you know what this poem is about, or where this anecdote is leading, he confounds your expectations and takes you somewhere else instead-and if many of his poems do start off by seeming anecdotal, the frame very quickly widens to take in whole continents and millennia in the space of just a few seemingly effortless lines. The Anatolikon is truly a 'Dictionary of Lost Things' (Mektup) and a travel guide to a country of Oblivion closely resembling Turkey-but at the same time resembling all those other strangely surrealistic but sensuous and colourful landscapes conjured up in his earlier books. One can safely say that none of them resembles Manchester, his city of origin: or then again perhaps they all do, a sort of anti-Manchester, exoticized by dreams of exile. All his poems share a preoccupation with history as fiction or history as evidence of death: the burnt pages are all around us: 'smoke and whispers' (Aunt Petka's Earrings) blown past us on the wind.

At times the formality of his language is reminiscent of Byzantine or Classical models; at other times he can seem as casual and demotic as O'Hara or Koch. Cavafy is a strong influence (The Names of Kings), but so is Ashbery (though the punning tribute of his own name has misled some readers into overemphasizing the magnitude of his debt).

Here is Ash the quintessential Imagist, deftly brushing in the poetry of plain statement with the bravado of a 'running grass' calligrapher: 'The Judas trees are over. / Their fallen purples smudge the paths. // The season of green plums arrives, / and perslane returns / to the restaurant tables.' But the next moment we encounter a florid Baudelairean fondness for classical apostrophe: 'O distances and ghosts! . . . / O the descent of the sun in places where forgotten names are written . . .'. Or maybe you're in the mood for personification, in the manner of Simic: 'Nothing comes to me- / a woman consisting / only of her veils, / colourless as water'.

Whenever you think him guilty of nostalgia, of sentimentalising the past, a touch of sardony agreeably sharpens the flavour of the poem: ' Perhaps it is all very simple. / Father, dear father, has come home / with a fine haul of slaves in his train, / and his children understand at once / how much easier their lives will be.'

Despite the obliquity of his chosen manner, he is never silly or nonsensical (his only 'Language Poem' is of course nothing of the sort-or else one can say that it much more truly a 'language poem' than any L+A+N+G+U+A+G+E poet could deliver: it is instead a poem about language travelling through time).

He is a major poet magnificently in control of his material, and at the peak of his powers. Read him and marvel.

The elegant master of living British modern poets John Ash is living in Istanbul since 1996."The Anatolikon" is the output of his deeply satisfying individual poems concerning the place and the inhabitants of the mystic Anatolia(Asiatic part of Turkey) in Turkey.I have thoroughly enjoyed this slim volume of gripping poems like his earlier books.

I have read everything he has written with consistent satisfaction.He is original,engaging and a"deep" poet.

Michelle Anna Jordan fans will like knowing that the New Cook's Tour of Sonoma will be released next year by Sasquatch Books.

Maclean's done it again, only this time he's done it better. His first book, FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN, was and still is a popular book with wildland firefighters. This one, though, will be a must-own for the summer army of boots-and-nomex firefighters -- and will surely be assigned as mandatory reading in many a fire training course. The collection of stories in FIRE AND ASHES proves up both Maclean's dogged pursuit of history and his determined focus on accuracy gained from 30 years in journalism. Covering many thousands of miles, dozens of interviews, and with painstaking attention to detail in his writing, Maclean has crafted a book that puts his readers out on the fireline. Unlike many authors who try to write about wildfire, Maclean makes no lame allowances for readers unfamiliar with the language and culture of the firefighter. He just explains it for them. His recounting of the 1999 Sadler incident -- in retrospect a problematic compilation of small "oops" decisions that resulted in near-disaster -- is a chilling read when one considers how close it came to being a disaster like South Canyon. His "Short History of Wildland Fire" and glossary of fire terms will be a go-to resource for firefighters -- structural and wildland both -- and for anyone curious enough to read about or write about fire. It's Maclean's reconstruction of the 1953 Rattlesnake Fire, though, that stands as the highlight of the book. It's a can't-put-down story that's finally been accurately researched and told (and illustrated), about a fire that's been a benchmark for safety lessons and fire behavior training for 50 years. Young men and women in fire camps across the West -- and the older ones too -- will be packing this book along in their red bags this summer, and well they should.

Lorriane Ash's play "Tyler" resurects an obscure hero from a little-discussed era from American History. Ash deftly evokes the uncertain climate by staging this glimpse into our nation's history on a bobbing Navy ship on the Potomac. This framework brings us, with some foreboding, a demonstration of the latest artillery in 1844: a canon the Navy has christened "Peacemaker" dubbed "Noisemaker" by the distressed young heroine, Julia Gardiner, the future first-lady. The play also includes an aged Dolley Madison and the crusty Whig, John Quincy Adams. It is a play replete with romance, humor, and quiet symbolism--a sweet history lesson. I was entertained, painlessly informed and imbued with greater insight.

I love this cookbook. The wine and food pairings are awesome, the recipes always are wonderful, the pictures are beautiful. I have yet to be disappointed by a recipe from this book. Yes, they take a little time and maybe more ingredients than some people prefer to use, but they are most definitely worth it.

I cook and my significant other collects wine. I found the recipes in this book to be tasty, relatively easy, and a good way to find out how to construct meals around specific wines. Or how to find the right wine for a meal. I particularly liked the explanations of what ingredients can create bridges with wine flavors. The author even gives spicy Indian and chili recipes which can work with the right wines. I hope the author is working on a second volume right now, and will offer some suggestions recipes for other wine varieties, particularly for red wines!

This book has changed the way I cook! I own over 80 cookbooks but this one is one of my most used. I am a grape illiterate. I don't care much for drinking wine but I love to cook with wine and I love to entertain for friends who like wine. This book saves me tons of research. Not only does it feature great recipes to go with each type of wine but it also gives you foods to match with the wine in case you want to cook from another cookbook. So now I know that if I want to serve or cook seafood with wine a dry Pinot Gris would probably go great. It also tells you a bridge item (side dish) that helps to bridge the wine with the food. My only complaint is that the book isnt larger. The author should definitely come up with a part 2 to go over all the types of wines he did not cover in this book. Excellent basic reference book.
Despite what the author below says about the recipes being too complex...the information this book provides in such a concise, organized manner is too valuable to pass up. The ingredients in the recipes are easy to find but most of the recipes do have a lot of ingredients. I just try to serve them on a day when I have nothing better to do. The recipes are not difficult but they do involve a lot of steps. The salmon/crab cakes with remoulade sauce recipe is worth the price of the book alone!
If this is the only cookbook you will own..then no... I would not buy it...but if you are looking for a great resource on how to cook and pair wine (which is what the title implies) then this is an excellent book to add to your cookbook collection and the information it provides will stay with you long after you finish it! Recipes or not...I would buy it for the reference material.

Beauty for Ashes is clearly the most thoughtful, finely textured of the Sept. 11 remembrance books. John Farina, who has also edited the award winning Classics of Western Spirituality Series, has skillfully created a meditation on the Lord's Prayer from the 100 contributions of theologians, political leaders and artists.
Solidarity in suffering,providence, theodicy, forgiveness and healing are the themes presented, along with the practical questions of how religion influences political reactions and what is the future of Islamic-Christian relations.
This collection is not for the simple minded: because its different voices often speak in counterpoint. Hence there is something to both offend and more often enlighten every reader.

Beauty For Ashes is an amazing collection. Instead of getting writing that all speaks from the same persective, editor John Farina draws from very different voices. No single person will agree with everything written here, nor should they. The point is to get a glimpse into the suffering and hope caused by the terrible events of Sept. 11th. While pieces by famous people such as Andrew Sullivan and Salman Rushdie are excellent, my favorites were the pieces by non-celebrities. Libba Bray's mini-diary is wonderful - immediate and heartfelt. John Jones's powerful "manifesto" on the need to forgive the terrorists is sure to make you think, whatever your religious beliefs. Forget the pretty picture books and fancy volumes. This simple, modest volume is a treasure.

This wonderful new resource comprised of a broad range of reactions to the attack on America includes the voices of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others from a variety of religious movements. Provocative and profound.

This book is highly similar to the Reza book, also published by Dover publications. The Ash book kind of continues where the Reza book leaves off. In truth, this book is very, very rigorous... not so much in terms of proofs (see the small Khinchin book for great proofs), but in terms of it involves mathematics and concepts which require a higher level of knowledge. Undergraduate students would have alot of trouble trying to understand both math and general concepts.
Even graduate students would find this book daunting, because after all, it probably is one of the best books written on information theory.

If your a beginner seeking a good book, this is not it at all.
Aside from being too rigorous, it covers many topics which are of completely no use to a beginner or even somebody with a fair amount of information theory knowledge. Also, the book is not very motivating from a practical aspect. That is, much like the Reza and Kitchkin book, it's written more from a dry mathematical perspective and not an "engineers" perspective.
It doesn't examine information theory from the perspective of electrical engineering and communications theory... which might make it hard for some people to relate to if they can't be told what the practical applications are (see Pierce's books and Cover and Thomas for very good "practical" books).

For beginners, I recommend the Pierce book, subtitled "Symbols, Signals and Noise" which is bar-none the best beginners book ever written (or some of Pierce's other books). Pierce is one of the finest authors of his era and he published several books on information theory; most of which are more "engineer friendly" and are more relavent to the study of electronic communications.

Summary, this book is NOT for beginners. It will be almost completely useless unless you have a decent degree of information theory knowledge to begin with. Sadly, this was the first book I ever purchased on that topic.. and boy was that a mistake!! I spent 2 years trying to figure heads or tails of half the chapters.. Then I went ahead and got some more appropriate books (Pierce, Reza, Cover and Thomas) and when I had sufficient knowledge... only then did this book make any sense.

The book by Shannon and Weaver (1949) is the classic; Shannon almost *is* information theory. There is more to it: The present lovely little book appeared first in 1965, but is still very relevant. I think it is a good next book to read. At least the mathematical part of the subject stays more constant over the years, as do the fundamental principles;-- that is what Ash's book is about. I especially liked ch 4 on error correcting codes, and the mathematical appendix which is centered around the Karhunen-Loeve theorem;-- the latter having found recent exciting applications in wavelet theory.

I know what you're saying - Dover books have a reputation for publishing crap books, right? This book is just too cheap to be any good, right? Well, think again. This book is a no nonsense introduction to classical information theory. By no-nonsense I mean it does not have chapters like most books out there on "information and physics", "information and art", or all sorts of pseudo scientific popularizations of information theory. It does one thing: present with a minimum of hassle and with a maximum of details and examples the mathematical and conceptual framework of information theory, nothing more, nothing less. On the other hand, it manages to avoid the old "theorem-lemma-corollary" format of many other ultra-dense math books out there. This book actually makes an effort to explain where the math fits in conceptually. When introducing a new concept, it always accompanies the definition with an example. This is even true when proving a complicated theorem. Add to these virtues the interesting problems at the end of each chapter, each with its own detailed solution at the end of the book, and you've got a pedagogical gem.
It should be noted that the only prerequisite is a prior course in basic probability - conditional probability, Tchebychev's theorem, simple and basic stuff every 2nd-3rd year undergraduate should be familiar with.
If you're looking for the perfect introduction to information theory, look no further, this is it!

This TPB reprints Uncanny X-Men #168-176. It tells of Angel's kidnapping by the underground mutant outcast group known as the Morloks, Cyclops meets Madelyne Pyor (who is a clone of Jean Grey created by Sinister), Wolverine's marriage in Japan with Mariko and introduces Rogue into the X-Men.

This collection of stories is pretty good and the art is the standard of the time, which was in the early '80s. I still think Marvel charges way too much for their TPBs, but it doesn't really make your wallet bleed anywayz. But it's a pretty good read if you want to know some more background info on the X-Men.

A grieving Scott Summers lost his true love Jean Grey, when she killed herself to save the world from the overpowering Phoenix. Now he's met Madeline Pryor, who has an uncanny likeness to his former love...very uncanny!

Meanwhile, Wolverine prepares for his marriage to the Japanese beauty, Mariko; Storm gets a new look and becomes the leader of a unlikely group of mutants; Kitty starts exploring her love for Peter/Colossus; and an enemy seeks help from the X-Men.

I enjoy "From the Ashes." The artwork is classic and the story is entertaining and adventurous. And this is a highlight in Claremont storytelling.

If you're an X-Men fan, you'll like this.

I've been a fan of the X-Men for years and years now, and I have to say, this is one of my all time favorite X-Men graphic novels. It chronicles some truly great moments from X-Men history. The two chapters concerning the X-Men's visit to Japan, the tragic, failed wedding of Logan to Mariko, and Wolverine's ultimate battle with the Silver Samuraii, is the stuff that made X-Men one of the greatest dramatic-action comic book series of all time.

The younger generation of comics fans who got hooked during the wacky 1990's/Jim Lee/Rob Liefield/Image years will probably overlook the simplistic beauty of Paul Smith's artwork. But his subtle handling of facial expressions, his accuracy with human anatomy, and his technique for panel-to-panel storytelling is flawless. As a kid of the 80's who is now a working professional artist, I learned more about the basic craft of drawing comics from looking at Paul Smith's work in these stories than I did from "How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way."

Claremont's writing here is also superb, with a good balance between the everyday, normal lives of the X-Men, to their crazy, violent adventures, to their mixed-up, emotionally turbulant personal relationships. And of course, his interweaving of many tangled subplots. X-Men books became unnecessarily talky in later years, with dialogue and captions crowding the art, but this volume presents stories from the classic era when Claremont preferred to keep the chatter to a minimum and occasionally even shut up altogether and let the artwork tell the story by itself.

And finally, the fun front-and-back cover illustrations by Art Adams, are just the icing on the cake. This one is worth every nickel.