The short stories in this book are encouraging, and heart warming. The author has the ability to condense very powerful
true stories into just a few pages, making it easy to read and a great gift book. We laughed and we cried.

We love this book! We got it when my oldest was 4. She spent hours looking at the pictures then and still spends hours now. It has helped her develop her love of animals into a fascination with animal habitats.

The biography of Pioneer Baptist preacher, John Taylor (1752-1835, Virginia-Kentucky) was superbly researched and written by Chester Raymond Young, the editor. His annotation of John's pithy, and sometimes rambling discourse, on his 10 Baptist Churches in the Bluegrass and Ohio R. region of early Kentucky, really helps one to understand the history of the pioneer settlers. By reading the biography first, one gains a much deeper appreciation of who the people and family members are, whom John Taylor mentions in his book. This is a treasure trove for both geneologists and students of religion.

Enhanced with both color photographs and drawings, as well as b/w sketches and illustrations, Peter Taylor's Bats Of Southern Africa showcases 78 species of bats native to southern Africa. The reader is provided with clear descriptions and accurate diagnostic features, as well as a wealth of information on the bat's habitat, social and roosting habits, diet, reproduction, echolocation call, distribution, and conservation status. A superb introduction and reference, Bats Of Southern Africa is a welcome and highly recommended addition to wildlife reference collections in general, and the Bat in particular.

Taylor writes extensively and expertly on the rifles and ammuntion used throughout his life as a professional hunter and perhaps as inter-war Africa's most notorious poacher. Since many of the sporting cartridges he used are obsolete this book is a valuable reference work for the student of the big game sporting rifle. Unlike many ballistic technicians Taylor repeatedly comments on bullet performance and that a sporting rifle bullet must be used according to the designer's intent. It is the fisrt such book I have read that repeatedly and forcefully cautions against using too-powerful rifles and too-tough bullets on game because of the danger of the bullet passing through the target animal to wound one or more behind it. All the more interesting is the fact that Taylor's experiences span the black powder express days, the rise of smokeless powder express rifles and the advent of small and medium bore high velocity "magnum" sporting cartridges. He provides sad comments on dead sportsmen who placed too much faith in high velocity magnum small bore rifles. Taylor is one of the few African hunter-authors who has great experience with the famed .600 Nitro Express. His comments are enlightening, and tame the beast, so to speak. Taylor has strong opinions on rifles. He favors double rifles above all others, is fond of single shot rifles and does not like bolt-action repeaters. He speaks, of course, as one who shoots from very close range and admits that things are different in North America. He praises the excellent marksmanship of hunters from the USA who use scope-sighted, bolt action repeaters. He labels the USA as a nation of riflemen.

This is a finely written account of one of England's very best contemporary painters. The author in a learned but easy to read style gives a clear exposition of the painter from abstract rebel in the 1960's to representational painter in the 1980's and 90's.

This is a beautiful book highlighting in particular the truely brillant images of New York City. Bill Jacklin is an Englishman in New York who is building, in a fine body of work, a visual narrative of New York that few if any can match. His work is a more complete and more intrinsically sympathetic account of his chosen city than David Hockney's pictures of LA. Mr Taylor has done the painter and the readers of this book proud with a model monograph.

Coleridge is a writer/thinker whose own life and works, particularly the later ones, seem to defy the eye of future standard, especially in an age of slick convenience. He is looking for "the vast," does not ignore German idealism like so many other Brits, nor philology, and seeks the vast from the socio-political context of a well-booked, if ne'er-do-too-well, remote, clergy-trained, English townsman. Some chapters are almost unbearably (to our age) slow, but don't forget this was the era of the triple decker, and Coleridge's reading (as was his library) was varied and vast. In all it may serve best the reader who keeps STC's religious and political anachronisms in context without relinquishing their flavor. Although this is another one of those disappearing (if at times arcane) gems by dead, white, European males whom we are obliged to ignore these days, yet Coleridge's romanticism, honest pessimism, and philosophical searching will never be passe for the thoughtful. And inasmuch as this title includes some of his lesser known mature work, the rich surpise implicit in that description will happen, recurrently and rewardingly, on the thoughtful reader.

I read this book some years ago on the recommendation of some online friends. I must say if you are a mutual fund investor and want to get better at it, this is a great book to learn from. Some of the benchmarks are dated but the general ideas are not. Additionally, the section on appropriate investment selections based on economic cycles is itself worth the purchase of the book.

Happy investing.

John Taylor of Caroline's " Construction Construed, and Constitutions Vindicated" is a brilliant refutation of JohnMarshall's decision in Mc Culloch vs. Maryland. Taylor dissects the decision based on a Jeffersonian view of the delegated powers of the federal government in the U.S. Constitution. Taylor shows how the decision annhilates the taxing powers of the states within their own borders, and elevates the authority of the federal government above the states. Taylor is especially critical of Marshall's dictum that the federal government is " supreme" in it's " sphere". Taylor rejects this view completely.Taylor maintains that the federal government is a government of delegated, limited powers, and that powers not delgated are reserved to the states. It is truly a brilliant states rights interpretation. He also reviews the Missouri Compromise. He shows the unconstitutionality of the Compromise and is prophetic on how it will lead to civil war. Other objects discussed are the ruinous effects of bounties to corporations and the creation of exclusive priviledges for the wealthy. Overall brilliant.

This book provides different views on the topic of designing new buildings in historic context. Although it does not make one prior to the other, it sits on a specific point of view. This point of view rejects any prejudgements or principles. It singles out specific successfull examples. It gives hints about the key issues leading to success. It helped me in my research for a critical dialogue with the historic environment.