IF YOU ARE GOING TO BUY A BOOK ON LA HABANA THIS IS IT !!!!!!! IT IS MOST INFORMATIVE AND THE PHOTOS ARE THE BEST. BEING CUBAN I HAVE BOUGHT ALMOST EVERY BOOK WRITTEN ABOUT CUBA AND THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE - THE BEST.

Unlike other reviewers, I have no link with Cuba and I have never been to Havana, but this book made me want to go there. It was given to me as a present. Since then, I have bought two copies for friends. The photographs are as beautiful as the writing. A really special book.

Truly a unique and memorable book. I own many books on Cuba, but this book is exceptional. As Maria Luisa's book provides us with in-depth historical and architectural background accompanied by impressive photography, she also delights us with her memories of sound, sight, smell and far away world of her childhood which comes alive for all readers, but specially those who lived in the beautiful island of Cuba. It is a treasure for our Cuban heritage and a beautiful addition to anyone's library. A friend, relative and admirer from Miami, Florida

Hands down, this is one of the best atlases I have seen of the Ancient Near East. And it presents the majority consensus of scholars today in terms of geographical distributions, routes taken, culture and history. Just reading the text alone is worth the price of admission. I must confess, though, that I am a map junkie and would loved to have seen more maps. As it stands, however, this atlas still makes an outstanding resource. I simply can't think of a better way to describe it. If you're a serious Bible student, or even a not so serious one, you should defiantly get one. Put it on your Christmas list or whatever, but pick up a copy.

The maps are colorful and detailed. The maps also give the viewer a good sense of the elevation changes from the hill areas to the sea-level areas. Different nations are highlighted in different colors, and viewers can see the empires land borders in the different time periods.

There are many photos of the land and archaeology items.

The book also gives detailed descriptions about what life was like in many of the empires, and how the empires were formed and grew.

If you are trying to decide whether to spend the extra dollars for this book: I believe the extras including the map details, land photos, and commentaries on the living conditions and empire developments make this book a much better value than some of the less expensive books, which I like...but the extra details in this book make it more than worth any difference in price.

The Holman Bible Atlas: A Complete Guide to the Expansive Geography of Biblical History is worthy of reading in its own right. It is a beautiful and super-informative volume. It is an invaluable tool for using while studying the Bible. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The Atlas is laid out in chronological order. It begins taking a general look at the geography of the ancient Near East. It ends with the expansion of Christianity up to 300 AD. In between these two time periods, the Atlas follows the sweep of the geographical history of the Israelites and the early Christians.

Every Chapter is filled with beautiful pictures, informative charts and lists, and excellent maps. I found especially useful the cutaway topographical maps such as the one used to vividly show the course of Joshua's military campaigns.

As great as the maps and pictures are...this atlas has a lot more to offer. Each chapter analyzes the economic, cultural and religious practices common in the time periods being discussed. Side bar articles discuss some of these issues in an in-depth manner.

In this atlas I found clear, visual explanations of several Biblical topics that had previously been nebulous at best in my mind. The chart on page twenty-eight alone is worth the price of the book. It is the first chart I have ever seen that clearly explains the relation between the Solar Months, the Hebrew Names of Lunar Months, the Feasts and Rainfalls, the Agricultural Activities and Pastoral Activities in ancient Israel.

Another great feature of this atlas that I have found useful is the bibliography for studying the topics presented here in greater depth...now I have more books to read!

I give this excellent book my highest recommendation. Get a copy today.

This is a very practical and powerful guide for improvement.

1. The first revelation this book brings is: improvement is a change. From this viewpoint, the fundamental questions faced by the improver (e.g. Green Belts and Black Belts) are:

(1) What are we trying to accomplish? (Define phase)
(2) How will we know if a change will result in an improvement? (What are the key Y's?)
(3) What changes can we make that will result in improvement?
(What are the key X's and their settings to affect Y's)
Appropriate tools from '6-sigma' tool sets can be used to seek answers to (2) and (3).

2. The Guide emphasizes testing a change in small scale before full implementation so we can learn and improve the proposed change using the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. This significantly improves our typical 'trial-and-error' approach.

3. The Guide classifies improvement into 3 categories:
(1) Eliminate Quality Problems (the aim of many '6-sigma' projects)
(2) Reduce Costs while maintaining or improving quality (the goal of many internally focused improvement efforts)
(3) Expanding Customer Expectations
Specific advises and examples are presented for each of these categories.

4. Best of all is a list of 70 Change Concepts categorized under 9 sessions, e.g. standardization under Manage Variation, Synchronize under Improve Work Flow.
Using these change concepts can significantly reduce the time to develop the specific changes.

This book is very easy to follow and contains a lot of examples. It is a must read for all improvement practitioners including Green Belts and Black Belts.

Whether involved with improving products/processes within a business or coaching little league baseball, The Improvement Guide provides a practical and fundamental approach for improving performance. The book serves as an excellent reference for those involved with change, specifically, change that will result in improvement.

A few of the items from the book which ring in my mind continuously include:

Improvement can be viewed as a science (in fact, some of us do!).

Three questions provide the framework for improvement: 1.What are we trying to accomplish? 2.How will we know if we if a change will result in an improvement? 3. What changes can we make that will result in improvement?

While there are many opportunities to change, there are only 70 change concepts (included in the Appendix) available to us today.

Any system for improvement will include five activities: 1.Establishing and communicating the purpose of the organization/team. 2.Viewing the organization/team as a system. 3. Designing and managing the a system for gathering information for improvement 4.Planning for improvement and integrating it with business planning. 5. Managing individual and team improvement activities.

Leaders are required to implement change that will result in improvement and they draw their power from three sources (the informal leader gets his/her power from sources 2 and 3 below). 1.Authority or position 2.Knowledge 3.Personality and persuasiveness (caring about people)

These items and many more, are introduced in the book via an easy-to-understand model that uses proven methodology for developing, testing, and implementing change that produces specific, identifiable improvements.

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, whose management ideas and Profound Knowledge provide the theoretical underpinnings of this book, continually asked the question to anxious audiences: "By what method? How do you go about it?" As a professional in the quality sciences field, I believe this book has the answer to those questions as it relates to improvement. The Improvement Guide defines improvement and describes in complete detail workable, easy to use techniques that are effective and time-tested. The book is based around the Improvement Model, an expanded and improved version of the Deming-Shewhart cycle, whose historical roots trace are grounded in applications of the scientific method and applied scientists since Roger Bacon. The principle of testing on a small scale, learning using the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, and building knowledge sequentially using the Improvement Model are some of the most practical and useful aspects of the book. Part I is written on an introductory level and provides lots of simple examples that guide the beginner through theory and practice. The heart of the book, and some of its most useful content, describes ways to develop, test, and implement a change. The insights provided, based on decades of experience and knowledge of the authors, are invaluable. They are followed up by thoroughly documented and easy to understand case studies that ring true using real life examples related to manufacturing, services, health care, and a variety of standard business and educational processes. Finally, the third section describes an integrated approach to various standard improvement goals and useful strategies for achieving them. This section also includes extremely insightful guidance for leaders trying to promote and enable improvement, and an innovative and thought-provoking section suggesting techniques for expanding customer expectations to increase demand for products and/or services. This section, too, is replete with examples and case studies to support and illustrate methods and concepts.

This book should be studied by anyone, beginner or experienced professional, interested in a systematic method for improving processes, products, or services. I strongly recommend it.

A wonderful and provocative book although some may find the subject matter a bit too rough for light reading. The book combines a graceful lyricism with a whole variety of interesting symbolism which implies the author's depth of human understanding.

One curious example would be the character of Ms. Bevan who connotes pure compassion and understanding; a true Madonna figure. She is modern, monied, dignified and thought to be Protestant by everyone in town, which she is not. This subtle reflection of Irish self-loathing and the fact that Mr. Sheehan, a kind of suffering moral hero, is the only one capable of even speaking to her makes an interesting commentary.

Also of note is the book's ambiguous treatment of Irish Republicanism. IRA members are all damaged characters suffering from their involvement and regretful, neurotic or base and ruthless in the extreme. It is fundamentally a romantic novel whereby the enviable qualities are of a personal nature and the "collective" goals are misguided and taken-up by unfortunate rabble and impetuous youth.

Who is responsible for Willie's death? The English, the IRA, all who where present, only those in favour of the killing, the village that reared the killers? The verdict seems to be that all are guilty, the pain real and perhaps the living suffer most.

I think this book started out a little hard to understand and take in, but once you got down and started reading it, it grabbed you and sucked you in. It was well written and it gave you an idea of grief and love. I think anyone who hasn't read the book should.

Being somewhat of an "Americanized" European expatriate, I've always had trouble understanding the passion and connections inherent to that mysteriously unique Irish sensibility. Perhaps it has something to do with the vast ocean separating the U.S. and Europe.

Mr. Phelan's book is so touching, so powerful, I was moved to tears at one point. It's a deeply emotional account of one boy's personal tragedy... and coming out of it feels like coming off a long and painful relationship gone wrong. I'm grateful for having read it, and even more grateful to Mr. Phelan for writing it, but I hope I never suffer as much in my lifetime as little Seanie Doolin.

A great read, and suprising page-turner .. an absolutely unforgettable narrative. At times it reminded me (vaguely) of William Faulkner.

This book is not for everyone, but if you like a good mystery story, where the heroes, villains, and bit players just happen to be real, historic people, this is for you ! Hoving is a great writer, who knows how to take a fairly simple story and lead you through all the twists and turns of byways, blind alleys, false hopes, and triumphs. You are with him every step of the way. A great vacation book, 330 pages on non-stop action.

This book was fabulous! Hoving makes the twists and turns of the research and tracking of a precious antiquity enthralling. The adventurous nature of this story is reminiscent of Indiana Jones movies...except it was real! An engaging and spellbinding tale of art history, research, intrigue and treasure hunting.

With as many twists and turns as any suspense novel, embark on the fascinating and true tale of a tenacious curator's quest for a mysterious 11th century ivory cross for New York's Metropolitan Museum. Highly recommended.

If you have been looking for a plain, simple Bible, you know how hard it is to find one (The Milkmen's Edition anyone?). I wanted a Bible that is full of the Word of God, not of the word of man! Don't get me wrong, I read plenty of the "word of man" works, but I didn't want any IN my Bible. After some research and some comparisons, I settled on the NKJV version. It reads almost like the NAS, which I was used to, but a little more fluid, I thought. And the translation work is very scholarly. This IS the update of the Classic King James Version.
So, I looked at several versions of the NKJV, and this Slimline was the only one that had the text, and very, very little of the other stuff. It doesn't even have the cross references, which I feel forces you to memorize more, which is good. If I had my ways, I would get rid of the Words of Christ in red feature, aren't they ALL God's words?? But, I can't have it all, apparently.
I found this version to be of very high quality, and very plain and simple. I made sure to get the Genuine Leather version, because my previous experience with Bound Leather was a disaster. If you read your Bible a lot and take it places, the Genuine Leather version is the only way to go, if you want it to last.
So, in conclusion, if you are looking for a Bible that is plain, of compact size, yet still very easy to read (the text size is just perfect), this is the one.

It was exactly what I was looking for. Small size, not a lot of notes and other junk on the pages. Great Bible with a great price.

Not too small nor too large. The print is just the right size as to not give eye strain to the average person This is the one I like to take to church because of compact yet very readable size. Has a ribbon marker, christ words in red, gold page edges. Its a must have for anyones bible collection.

I am glad to see that this nearly forgotten novel has its fans: I'm hoping for a resurrection. I have tried to keep the flame alive by twice giving lectures on "The Last Western as a Neglected Baseball Novel" to regional gatherings of the Society for American Baseball Research. (Of course, it is much more than a mere "baseball novel," but that was at least a starting point for discussion.) Because The Last Western was essentially self-published (I once spoke to a gentleman who worked for the northern Illinois printing company where it was published, and he confirmed that the Argus imprint was Klise's own), it never gained the visibility that would have placed it on an equal footing with the other ambitious mega-novels of the era by Pynchon, Barth, Gadddis, et al. But it belongs in their company. Recently the book has come in for discussion on the David Foster Wallace listserv wallace-l, and there is some feeling that Wallace may have read it; there are certain similarities between The Last Western and Infinite Jest.

To give the flavor of the book is difficult, but one can say that it is simultaneously very serious and very funny, and that it weaves its subjects -- Roman Catholicism, baseball, racial politics, Latin American revolution, big business, and film-making, among others -- into an extremely impressive tapestry. The Last Western's near-future setting makes it a speculative science fiction novel as well (R.A. Lafferty and Philip Jose Farmer both blurbed it). The prose is first-rate. I wish I knew more about Klise (I heard that he died some years back), but that is a good research project for someone so inclined. In the meantime, a re-printing would go a long way toward rescuing this novel and starting it on the road to the classic status that I believe it deserves. Perhaps someone at a lterary small press is listening?

While bushfires began to ravage my south-eastern Australian home territory on Ash Wednesday, 1983, I bought this book in Adelaide. For years a close friend had recommended it. I soon discoverd why. Like many of my most loved books or movies, it's a Jesus-story. And this coss-bred baseball phenomenon who becomes a member of the strangest Christian order is as good a Jesus as you'll find. Of course, it doesn't have a happy ending, but it's exhilarating, disturbing, very funny, and terribly sad. I lent my copy to someone years ago, and it never came back. As I can't stop thinking about it, I'm trying to track down a fresh copy. Don't pass up the opportunity to read 'The Last Western' by Thomas Klise.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

It is difficult to describe this beautiful book without emotion. It is certainly one of the most powerful books I have ever read. If you ever see a copy of this book -- buy it at whatever the price. Read it, and share it with someone you love. I have never yet met anyone who has read this book who has not been profoundly moved by it.

Blessings.

The NKJV Women's Study Bible is a must-have for all women who wish to be closer to God. Written by women for women, you'll find this Bible beautifully written and an excellent study aid.

The Woman's Study Bible leads with the words" Opening the WORD of GOD to WOMEN", I cannot define it better. I have found that I am able to develop a relationship with the LORD. It has helped me to open a once closed heart jaded by our times. We do not always want to discuss with others certain issues as we may feel isolated. All these issues have been addressed and have made it easy for one to dig deep within to stoke the fire of GOD in us. The topical notes are inspirational. I am blessed to have a diverse ethinc background. Still, this Bible spoke into my life, it will into yours.

This bible is in the New King James version and is more "readable" than other versions. In addition, the excerpts on the Women of the bible are superb. It gives in depth analysis of the women of the bible, and how to pattern your life as a Christian woman. Excellent.

This book was a easy reading and totally enjoyable. All young readers having a bad time going to bed should read this book. This book is also really great for babysitters to read to thier children, whom they put kids to bed and which this is a really great bed time story book. I personally like this book because of it's beautiful pictures and kids get a kick out of this book.

I don't want to go to bed is a great example of a perfect children's story. It has all the elements that are required for a children's story. These are, funny characters, good illistrations, the ability to relate to kids, and teaches them a lesson. It also has some much needed humor. It has all the elements and it isnt long and drug out and boring like many other children's storys. In conclusion, it is a great book and I would recomend it to any kids.

I have two young sons who are 3 & 4 years old. Everynight before bedtime, they get to pick out six books for us to read before they get tucked in, and everynight, this book is one they want to hear!

We've gotten into the habit of me pointing at them when it's time and they get to say, "I don't want to go to bed!"

Wonderful book! I highly recommend it to all children! Not only is it a great message, but it allows the youngsters to become involved in the story.

O. Winston Link, in my opinion, was the best train photographer that ever lived. He knew where to aim the light, how much light to have, and the best places to take photos. Most of Link's photos are taken at night, which enhances view of the massive amount of pure white steam.

This book defines nostalgia more than clearly. Being a railroad and steam locomotive enthusiast myself, I dream about the living in pictures that Link took. In the book, Thomas Garver, one of Link's assistants, illustrates the sounds, details, and reasons for the trains being where they are in each photo.

The Norfolk & Western was the last major railroad in the U.S. to say "good-bye" to steam power. When Link heard of the inevitable decision, he immediately began to "document" the railroad as it was before steam was gone. From about 1955 to 1958, he spent countless hours taking thousands of photos of the steam engines on the N&W. "The Last Steam Railroad in America" brings out some of the best photos he ever took.

I like the photos in this book that pertain to the "Abingdon Branch" of the N&W. I used to live in Damascus, VA, a small town that was one of the major stops on this line. The railroad bed is now a bike trail and I have found every spot that Link stood at in order to take his photos of the Abingdon Branch.

I highly recommend "The Last Steam Railroad in America" to any train enthusiast, photographer, or anyone who has memories of a steam locomotive roaring by their home. It will always have a special place on my bookshelf.

I'm far from an expert on railroading, but I still get nostalgic looking at all these great photographs. "The Last Steam Railroad in America" was an impulse buy from an art museum primarily because the title caught my eye and I am a big fan of black and white photography (historical or otherwise). Yes, the pictures are fantastic, and I was even pleasantly surprised with the reading.

Winston Link was a fine photographer who took it upon himself to document the last years of steam railroading by traveling the Norfolk & Western Railway routes in the 1950's. His project started with nighttime b/w photos, and later expanded to daytime b/w's and color photos. His work has made it to numerous museums and art collections, and it's easy to see why: the photographs in this book are stupendous.

Mr. Link had a kind of "photographic vision" that produced something interesting to admire in virtually every photo he published. I'd call every one in this book a work of art. In addition to portraying the "machines," the human element has a strong presence as well, from those who toiled for N&W, to those who are shown just watching the trains go by. Their faces will forever be a part of Mr. Link's chronicling of steam railroading. The color photography has some amazingly striking depictions of rural scenes, almost to the point of making the train a welcome denizen of the countryside.

Thomas H. Garver provided the text, both the biographical documentation of Mr. Link's photographic/artistic endeavors and the captions supporting the illustrations (over 150). Photo historians will enjoy the former; Americana buffs will love the latter.

The reason this book is especially special is a picture of my husband's father and little brother found on page 75. The photography is wonderful and brings back so many memories for some older folks here. The Virginia Creeper came through our county so this is a piece of our history.
And that is why I am ordering another one for a family member.
Thank you