You don't know me or my tastes from Adam. Why bother listening; well because I don't have an axe to grind or dollar to make.

James K Baxter is a great poet. Being a parochial New Zealander helps, but the way JKBaxter moves me spells 'good' in 6ft letters above my head.

Start with something fun 'An Ode on Mixed flatting' 1967 and work you're way round this collection. There is something for any mood you're in.

dorje@greenkiwi.co.nz

JKB is THE MOST underrated underappreciated poet to come out of the antipodes. This is not light reading!. Don't pick it up as before sleep fodder It deserves at least an entire cold, drizzly day by the fire.

I bought this book from the authors at a recent & fantastic David Grisman/Bela Fleck show. That night I didn't turn off the reading light til very late--one thing leads to another with this guide to the roots of great music. It's amazing how many musicians are influenced by Miles and by Bill Monroe. We are so lucky to live in this time of blending, eclectic music, with so much choice. Clearly a labor of love, this book plays one of my favorite games: who influenced my musical heroes. And the range of musicians they connected with is astounding. It was obvious the musisicans got into the process and put a lot of energy into thinking about what albums were on their turntables, 8 tracks, cassestte and CD players. From two members of the Grateful Dead to John Lee Hooker, the authors really connected with the best to find out who they thought really had the good stuff. This book is a lot of fun; it's one of those books you can just open anywhere, and whooosh, you are on a fun journey. Highly recommended for anyone who cares about music.

Be warned: This book could cost serious music lovers some serious cash. Loaded with reccomendations from musicians from so many genres there is something for everyone. Clever in it's lay out and an overall interesting read, allowing you to "walk inside the ear" of legends like Greg Allman to up-and-comers like Jeff Tweedy (Wilco). Plus, the master list of recordings and an appendix with some great web sights for finding the thousands and thousands of recordings listed in the book make the whole collection a great cross between reference and absorbing non-fiction.

If your CD collection knows no bounds, buy this one now!

this book is the book you want to have when you're doing your endocrinology rotation. It goes step by step from the basics and it doesn't loose itself into minor not important detales

As with all anthologies, you have to take the good stories with the bad. But in this year's Best New American Voices, I was glad to see that--for the most part--these new writers were more than holding their own. Charles Baxter did a wonderful job of judging this volume--no surprise there. The two highlights for me were Christina Milletti's "Villa of the Veiled Lady" and Roopa Bhattacharyya's "Loss." These two writers have a sure sense of rhythm and an appreciation of long sentences. Other stories that caught my eye were Jeb Livingood's "Oh, Albany, My Love," Kira Salak's "Beheadings" and Whitney Davis' "The Sharp Light of Trespassers" which opens boldly with a discourse on rivers. Hopefully, we'll soon see some of these writers with books of their own.

I read the 2000 Best New American Voices and was a bit disappointed. A friend highly recommended the 2001 BNAV, however, and I'm so glad she did. Like the first reviewer I was also very impressed with Roompa Bhattacharyya's "Loss"... after I was finished reading the entire anthology, I found myself turning back to "Loss" and re-reading it. She has a lovely writing style that is fluid and rhythmic within a moving, well-controlled narrative. It's a balance I wish I could achieve in my own attempts at fiction! Other excellent stories include Kira Salak's "Beheadings" and Julie Orringer's "Pilgrims", both of which were well-paced and absorbing. I also liked "Before Las Blancas", "Bats","The Mean", and "Home, James, and Don't Spare the Horses". The rest range from pretty good to all right, so for an anthology of new writers this one is overall tops. I'm sure we'll hear much more from these writers in coming years.

Glasgow is as far North as Moscow. In the time of Charles Rennie Mackintosh it was a tough, smokey, industrial city still living in the shadow of centuries of Scottish Puritanism. Not exactly the most promising environment you would think for an artistic movement that created the works of exquisite beauty presented in this book.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, with a tight-knit group of fellow artists known as the Glasgow School, ensured that Glasgow at the turn of the century was an integral part of the international Art Nouveau movement, that was also flourishing in Paris and Vienna. The Art Nouveau movement is now seen as a major watershed in global culture because it was the first major art movement that drew inspiration equally from East and West.

As art evolved away from representative art, spiritual aspects came more into play. As with the Secessionist in Vienna, the German Expressionist, and the French Symbolists, mystical ideas became increasingly prominent, turning much of this art into a kind of ouija-board farce. The ghostly and heavily-symbolic works of the other members of the Glasgow School earned them the nickname of the "Spook School" and saw them marginalized.

But while much of the painting of the time reflects the faux spirituality of misunderstood oriental mysticism and sham seances, Mackintosh's work was distinguished by his deep, instinctive understanding of Oriental aesthetics, expressed unpretentiously in beautiful lines. This gave him the Midas touch at whatever he turned his hand to.

In his painting, posters, stained glass windows, furniture, and architecture, we can see the masterly interplay of straight and curved lines. Although John McKean's rather pedantic text in the book doesn't really emphasise this point enough, what we in fact experience in the stimulating tension between Mackintosh's straight and curved lines, is no less than a fusion of yin and yang, the 'female' and 'male' components of the Universe.

Fighting an uphill struggle in a city that didnÕt really understand his unique aesthetic, Mackintosh still managed to do an impressive amount of work as Colin Baxter's excellent pictures reveal. The greatest fulfillment of his art is in 3-D work, especially his furniture designs, which are notoriously difficult to photograph well, although here Baxter does a good job.

It was with furniture, especially in his many chair designs, that he most fulfilled his aesthetic. While most furniture designers of the period gave into the yin or the 'feminine,' with over-elaborate curves and rich decoration, creating a heavy effect, Mackintosh played these 'feminine' aspects off against the yang or 'masculine' by emphasizing simplicity and straightness, creating an uplifting tension that was not only beautiful in itself but also interacted with the curvature of the human form.

While much of Art Nouveau art and design is forever anchored in the historical period that created it, the work of Mackintosh continues to float with us into the future.

In Charles Rinnie Macintosh: Architect, Artist, Icon, John McKean and Colin Baxter collaborate to showcase Charles Mackintosh's kaleidoscopic talents as an architect, painter, furniture designer, and graphic artist. They provide an insightful appraisal of Mackintosh's unique talents and offer an informative overview of both the man and his achievements within the context of his personal life and times -- and how his work is viewed today. Enhanced with often stunningly beautiful photographs, Charles Rinnie Macintosh is an outstanding contribution to personal and academic artbook reference and art history collections.

The authors provide convincing evidence, mostly from Russian scientific and international historical sources, that indicate that the massive explosion over Siberia in 1908 was not due to a black hole, or a comet, or a bolide, or any other hypothetical (unproven) natural cause, but was thermonuclear in type and that the object was seen by witnesses to maneuver, as if guided by intelligence, moments before its demise. The "Foreward" of the book, written by Isaac Asimov, may be summarized as "Hmmm, very interesting!" The reading experience is short but sweet; evidentiary photographs are included. It's the only convincing evidence I have seen about the possible origins of UFO's.

It has been a book that has been upon my mind since I first read it, and I feel that is of a significant value at this time!

If you have an older car (like me), something inevitably fails or needs to be replaced. This manual has step-by-step instructions for repairs and service, showing in detail how to get to each part and do what needs to be done.

It has procedures ranging from minimal to major. It's an invaluable tool to have around and a great addition to your other car repair tools. I used mine several times and keep it in the car for the next time it's needed.

Seeing as how the authors had to scour Soviet-era records and sift through eyewitness accounts from newspapers of the time, they managed to get just enough information together to make a reader ask questions--and maybe get a goosebump or two.
In 1908 (not 1909...'Ghostbusters' was sooooo wrong!), a meteor was spotted flying over the Tunguska region of Siberia. The locals saw it, watched it come down, felt the sonic booms of its passage . . . then watched it change its course one hundred-eighty degrees in mid-flight. The object then exploded, causing damage to the landscape and injuries to people that would not be seen, explained, or understood until the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts nearly forty years later. The heat and concussion from the blast were felt well over sixty miles away.
What happened? What was it? Nobody knows for sure, but with the tantalizing tidbits found herein, you'll have your own ideas. The authors don't say definitely what it was, but they have their opinions, which they offer alongside others they've encountered along the way, from Russian geologists and meteorologists to conspiracy-theorists.
Feel like having your beliefs tweaked or your confident views on alien life shaken up? Pick this one up.

Connie Baxter Marlow has put together a tribute to Mount Katahdin and Baxter State Park. The people of Maine have a right to be proud of their mountain. This is not a trail guide to the mountain but rather a presentation of its flora and fauna. The photography is very good. However, the text tends to the mystical. This is not a total surprise. Mountains like Katahdin that stand by themselves tend to be regarded differently from those that are found in mountainous regions. For example, Mt. Shasta which looms over Northern California, just as Katahdin looms over the center of Maine, is the subject of legends about lost civilizations. However, this book is worthwhile for its photographs.

Even with the tremendous number of mistakes and typos, this is still a nice compact review book to read while you're on the subway or don't feel like lugging a >800 page C++ primer around. You still need to have a good C++ reference and tutorial book, though.

I bought this book after I took one semester of programing class with C++, just to freshen my memory by solving many problems. it was very useful, after all, then when I started to take the next programing course, I felt very comfortable. if you think about this price and the ingredients, it is a great buy. i have other C++ books for more detail references. the best part of this book is that you can try all the problems if you want since all the problems have solutions, so you can check right after you solve the problems. (please check for some mistakes in the programs -- you will find out if you write your own programs and run them) I highly recommend this book.

This is one of the best C++ books I've ever seen, and I've looked at quite a few. It has the only useful discussion of stream classes, including strstream, I've ever found. Reference material, such as a listing of ioflags was easy to find and well structured. And the price is much lower than other comparable books