This is a real masterpiece of a book about one of the greatest masters in architecture: Beautiful details of Mies van der Rohe`s splendid functionalism and clean sense of beauty. The inspiring features of German Bauhaus meet the pragmatism of Japanese functionalism. A true "must" for lovers of modern architecture and design...

In Windows On Jesus, Wim Weren (Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the Theological Faculty of the University of Tilburg, The Netherlands) provides a "reader friendly" and illuminating survey of the Gospels based on his many years of teaching university students. Professor Weren focuses on "synchronic" approaches which concentrate on the gospel texts. The literary aspects are in the foreground, including discussions of the limits of a text, structural analysis, narrative analysis, and meaning in context. Then he proceeds to examining "diachronic" approaches, examining the phenomenon that texts in the Gospels go back to early traditions, including discussion of historical criticism, form and redaction criticism, consideration of duplicate and triple texts, and the relation between John and the Synoptics. Professor Weren also examines relations between Gospel texts and other passages in the Bible, Jewish exegesis, and the apocryphal Gospels. Finally, he addresses the question of the historical Jesus. Brief theoretical introductions are followed by examples and illustrations which serve as an encouragement to a personal exploration of the Gospels. Windows On Jesus is an impressive, scholarly, and accessible introduction to a systematic, insightful, and informative contemplation of the New Testament Gospels.

This book is special in that it adds empirical support for the authors' business hypothesis. However, their ideas themselves are not revolutionary. Rather they organized and framed a lot of the ideas that today's business leaders already know and practice.

I suppose that the book is in the tradition of academic research paper rather than overblown business hyperbole. As with any academic oriented publications, they make less than interesting reading, but valuable nevertheless.

Mendelson and Ziegler combine solid research with interesting real-world company information to provide an insightful discussion of what it will take for tomorrow's companies to be successful. In brief, companies need to take a hard look at how effective they are at monitoring their business environment for new threats and opportunities, sharing knowledge across different parts of their company, strategic and operational decision-making, and focusing on key core competencies. The company's performance along these dimensions, or lack thereof, will provide clear directions for change and improvement.

The performance of the company along the above dimensions determines its Organizational IQ, which Mendelson and Ziegler's research shows is a strong indicator of financial performance. I find this Organization IQ concept very useful and practical, especially since the book provides guidelines for diagnosing IQ deficiencies and setting directions for improvement. The wealth of real company examples and case studies make the concepts in the book concrete and actionable.

I highly recommend the book to all senior managers, and anybody else interested in understanding what it will take to meet and successfully overcome the challenges of the information age.

The importance of this book can be judged by any employee asking why can't we work in an organisation which is better developed on the author's 5 Organisational IQ factors:

1 EXTERNAL INFORMATION AWARENESS, ie each part of our organisation captures external information (customers, technology opportunities, competitors' actions) quickly and accurately

2 EFFECTIVE DECISION ARCHITECTURE, ie in our organisation decisions are made at the right level (by the people with the best information and perspective). As a result decisions : are made quickly, have high quality, instill ownership and accountability

3 INTERNAL KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION, ie each part of our organisation knows what it needs to know when it needs to know it. Effective information flows 4-dimensionally: Horizontal, cross functional Top-down, org-wide goals and priorities Bottom-up, operational challenges and opportunities Learning, review over time of all of above

4 ORGANISATIONAL FOCUS, ie organisation systematically fights overload and complexity by: Limiting scope of the business; focusing on core competences; simplifying processes

5 CREATING AN INFORMATION AGE BUSINESS NETWORK, ie Organisation maximises the value of eternal partnerships by applying the above 4 High IQ factors to the entire business network

Would love to share experiences with anyone working or reading up on how to improve organisations IQ factors

chris macrae, chief infomediary, brandknowledge.com e-mail wcbn007@easynet.co.uk

As a music major in college, I read lots of books on music, including many composer biographies. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Swafford's book on the life of Brahms. I am amazed at the thickness of the book, despite the fact that Brahms tried to discourage future biographies by destroying many personal items, such as letters and scores. Many musical biographies tend to focus more on the music than the composer. Swafford's book takes a very itimate look at Brahms the man and how it influenced his work.
The only shortcoming of this book is that it may be a little too academic for most readers. The reading is a tad difficult from time to time, but I still had fun with it.
If you are even remotely interested in Johannes Brahms, I suggest you buy this book because it is an excellent read, and you'll learn a lot! Also recommended is Jan Swafford's "Vintage Guide to Classical Music".

This will probably be the definitive Brahms biography for some time to come. The oft-told story of Brahms' relationship with the Schumanns, and of Robert's decline and death, here becomes gripping (and sad) stuff. Also, as related in their letters, Brahms and Clara Schumann were *not* the happy couple often depicted; they quarreled, often over incredibly petty issues.

Swafford strikes a great balance between a "life and times" bio and a "musical analysis" bio. Several themes are touched upon over and over: Brahms' difficult nature, his inability to relate intimately with women, and his obsession with perfection, even at the expense of beauty, in his music. This is a long book, and some have complained about its length, but I actually wished for more. Well done!

As I noted in the title of this review, this book is a great portrait of the man who was Brahms. The fact that he was a great composer is almost seconary. He had a fascinating life, with a great deal of personal intrigue, and a great unrequited love story spanning most of his adult life with Clara Schumann. As a musician, I appreciated the clear and understandable way that Swafford writes about the music of Brahms. His musical analysis is of sufficient depth for the me, and is not "dumbed down" material for the reader who is not musically trained. The best reason to purchase this book is the great and interesting man (and composer) who is examined. I highly recommend this book.

The best art history tells us not only about the painter and the paint, but the surrounding events of life and the world as well. Since so little is known of Vermeer himself, the city of Delft, on which this book focuses so much attention, truly becomes the central character. We cannot know Vermeer, but we can know his daily life. This is a marvelously researched if somewhat dryly presented history that should set a bench mark for the popular study of popular artists.

The print quality though not a perfect color match in the paintings, is better than most. I've yet to find a Veermeer book that closely matches Vermeer's vivid use of color while at the same time closely matching the original colors. It's a well made book, amazing considering the low price.
The writing is rather dry and unemotionally scholarly albeit comprehensive, and can be somewhat boring. I would rather read a more thorough analysis of what each painting was intended to say and how it was made and composed, written with less emotional detachment. At the price though, it's a pretty good book.

I saw and was transformed by the Vermeer exhibit in Washington, D.C. a few years ago. I bought this book along with Girl in Hyacinth Blue. While the print edition cannot begin to reproduce the "light" of his paintings, this excellent production brought back a flood of feelings and remembrances from show.

Overall this is a really nice little book, it's well laid out, the illustrations are fitting, and the extra info included is very apropriate to its theme.

But the proof of any good recipe book is in the success of its recipes. I believe there are 3 categories a good recipe should fit: it must sound delicious, it should smell good when baking/cooking, and the finished product should make you not want to wait a proper ten minute cooling period to stuff it in your mouth. Aphrodities Love Cookies only fit the first 2 of those requirements, looking more like a splat of poo when pulled from the oven. (sorry Cait) They tasted nice and herby but looked absolutley dreadful. I finally decided that the reason they are called "love cookies" is becuase only someone who truly loves you will try them. If anyone else has had the same problem with this particular recipe, you might try using all the witchy herbal ingredients with a good, tried and true, oatmeal cookie base.

I will still try some of the other recipes in the book, every one sounds delicious. However, I am suspicious now as to how accurate the ingredient measurements are. It's lucky for my family that I keep a batwing and toadstool pizza in the freezer.

This book lays out a spiritual practice of reconnection with nature and the seasons of the year through the food we eat and its preparation. As with all paths there is a need to establish the environment and rituals for practice that enable the alchemy of transformation. With chapters on setting up the sacred space of the kitchen and rituals based around the wheel of the year, the stage is set for connection to our world through feeding our bodies. The healthy, earthy vegetarian recipes sound deeply satisfying for both body and soul. The dishes I have tried were a joy to make and eat.

The combination of Wicca and cookery is not usual, but works well in a title where the author shares spells and meals centered around the eight pagan holidays, ideas for creating a kitchen altar, and season preparation methods which account for planetary signs and changes. The recipes for seasonal fruits and vegetables provide plenty of ideas.

This book could have been a lot better had the author done a bit more research and training before rushing it to print. As it is, it seems that the purpose of the book is to set the author up as a "published authority" with other members of his clique giving their vocal support of his work.

A bit of explination seems to be needed. The Ancient sword master Liechtenauer wrote some cryptic verses to help his students remember their lessons. Later, one of his students by the name of Ringeck wrote more detailed explinations of the verses. In neither case were there any illustrations to go with the text. A few years ago, this text of Ringeck was translated and posted on the internet. The author of this book went further than the internet translation and added sections on fighting from a horse and the like. He also added pictures of what he thought the techniques would look like.

The problem is that he does not seem to know much about the subject matter. I understand that he was merely trying his best to figure out the movements, but he should have done a lot more experimentation and research before commiting things to print. In a lot of cases, I looked at the sequences he has through the experience of sword and unarmed fighting I have had in the orient and found that his interpetations seem to be less effective than ones I can see in the descriptions. In many cases, he reverses some aspect of the verse to fit his view of what a technique should look like. Instead of the right hand going in as the verse says, the pictures clearly show the left trying to do the move. There are many, many sections where this happens. Too many to list them all. They occur in all the sections.

One example will have to suffice to show how the Author makes a bad choice and then ignores any evidence to the contrary rather than admit imperfection. On page 159 there is a technique for when you chop down at the opponent and he intercepts your sword so that now the right side of your sword and his are touching. Ringeck writes, "move your pommel over his sword" by which Tobler takes to mean going under the other person sword and ending up on the left side of the opponents sword.(picture 20:10) He ends up at the end of the technique with his right foot forward. Ringeck states, "remains thereupon with your hands" and instead Tobler moves the hands quite a bit- leaving himself wide open to an attack in picture 20-11.Tobler also ignores Ringeck's instructions to snap the sword back at the left shoulder and cut with the short ("back") edge. The picture is quite clear that Tobler is using the long ("front") edge after pulling it back with his hands and losing contact with the other sword.

If Tobler had stayed on the original side of the sword with his left leg forward, then everything would make sense. The sword pushes across the body, the hands stay where they are, control the other's blade and act as a pivot as the back part of the blade snaps back towards your own left shoulder to hit the opponent in the face. And it does not leave you open to a counter strike or otherwise break with the doctrine of Liechtenauer.

And the author seems to have missed that later masters in the tradition started by Liechtenauer did indeed provide illustrated versions of the techniques. The techniques by the writer of the Codex Wallerstein, the sword master Hans Talhoffer and the illustrator Albrect Durer all left historical texts that show illustrations that match the descritions by Ringeck. And those examples differ greatly from Christian Tobler's pictures in this book.

This book should have been a internet web site that had an invitation for input and suggestions for improvement. As things stand, the chances of a published author admiting his mistakes are fairly slim. Christian Tobler can now point to the fact that he is a published author in his aurguments, but this book should have been delayed until he knew a lot more than he seems to know.

Also, for the begginer to Western Martial Arts, there is little that they can use from the descritions themselves. There is precious little background on the realities or enviroment of the art. It is a little like trying to learn how to fly a plane from a book when you have never actually seen an airplane and know nothing of the science of how things fly.

My best advice would be that if you have this book, to read the text only and ignore the pictures. Ringeck was a genius, but the pictures seem almost a parady of what he was trying to get across.

I've read with interest the reviews posted here, and the many kind comments about my work that have appeared online at SwordForum, NetSword, and elsewhere. While I never overtly set out to produce a 'how-to' guide to Sigmund Ringeck's work, I am gratfied that a great number of my readers have found the book to be of direct utility to them in their swordsmanship studies.

I do feel that I need to correct some misconceptions that may be created via the review by the 'Reader from Asia'. First, this book was in no way 'rushed to press'. Rather, my work here represents three years of intense study of this manuscript and the related material surrounding it (Martin Wierschin's transcription and comments, Hans-Peter Hils treatment of the Liechtenauer tradition). All of the interpretations depicted were evolved through practice with an enthusiastic core of students.

The accusation that I have in "many, many sections" willfully reversed the translation of the manuscript to fit my own conceptions of how the techniques should work is a very heavy one indeed, as it implies nefarious conduct on my part. I challenge the reviewer, without the cloak of anonymity of the entire Asiatic landmass, to point out where these many infractions are in the book.

I am also keenly aware of the existence of other illustrated works within the Liechtenauer tradition. Had the reviewer actually carefully read my work, he'd have noted several referenced to Hans Talhoffer's several surviving works. The reviewer is further in error about the corroborative nature of the illustrated manuscripts that he cites: while Talhoffer is within the Liechtenauer framework and rarely shows techniques directly connected with Liechtenauer's verse; Codex Wallerstein is of a similar nature. Lastly, Durer *wasn't* a sword master, he was an artist who happened to depict some fighting techniques.

It's quite clear that the reviewer in question was much more keen to launch an attack than to cite errors of fact: his or her reference to some 'clique' trying to present me as an authority makes that clear. I'm not sure who the reviewer represents, or what the source of their ill will is, but for the record, of the reviewers posting here, the only one of any significant acquaintance is my friend and colleague Stephen Hand. I know Mr. McIlmoyle only through one meeting, while the others are strangers to me. Further, it's clear that the reviewer is unfamiliar with any of the major discussion fora related to Western Martial Arts - if he were, he'd be ashamed to accuse me of being unwilling to admit mistakes now that I'm a published author.

In closing, I'd like to say that indeed there is always room for improvement in our understanding of these late Medieval fighting traditions. I, and the rest of the Western Martial Arts community, are still on a very steep learning curve. As I point out in the book's introduction, no one should fall too much in love with their current understanding, as it will continue to evolve with the passage of the years, and as more material is unearthed, translated, practiced. To the truly humble practitioner, whether he be author or reader, this is not a burden but rather a joy: there's still so much to learn!

Thanks again to the many wonderful readers who've bought this book. Your response has exceeded my expectations and made this endeavor (and its forthcoming successors) more than worth the effort!

Germany produced dozens of manuals on martial arts in the 1400's. Most of them stemmed from the work of one man, Johannes Lichtenauer. He is the root and baseline for much of German combat. If you understand him, you have a much better chance of understanding anyone from the Medieval German tradition. Understand the German tradition, and you can start understanding the general Medieval tradition. Understand that...it goes on. Basically, this is a great resource for anyone who wants to start using a sword or spear or even start wrestling. Ringeck presents a sophisticated system of combat, the equal of anything else in the world. Get it, no matter what kind of martial arts you dig. It will be worth it.

The book allows us to witness World War II through the experiences of German soldiers and civilians. These first hand accounts are remarkable and somewhat chilling at the same time. For example, there are accounts that talk about the success of the German military in Europe, and accounts that describe the Russian front in great detail. I found the accounts on about the Russian front to be very disturbing. The soldiers suffered through many ordeals that its amazing they survived at all. Overall, this novel would be a welcome addition to anyone's library.

This was perhaps the best of Johannes Steinhoff's books, since it does not deal with his own stellar yet tragic WW II and post war career. The insights of the average person living in Germany are of great importance to both social and military historians alike. Steinhoff offered this collective testament as a warning to all of us regarding war and the rise of a dictator. As Johannes said in an interview, "It is always the civilians who suffer the most, yet are remembered the least."

This book is an excellent work that shows the German side of World War II. Through many accounts, the tome reveals slices of German life from the rise of Hitler to the toppling of the Reich. It shows that the German people, even during the monstrous horrors of the Holocaust, were still just people trying to survive. It is a fine work and is worthy to be included in any library.

I suppose I expected a little more meat in a book of this scope, but in the world of pop music writing substance is often way down the list.
The authors give an overview of Cave's early life and how he came to be involved in music. It does a fairly good job of charting the formation of his first bands, the move to London, the making of the Birthday Party, the years in Berlin, then Cave's meteoric rise at the helm of the Bad Seeds. But overall, the book is only mildly informative and skips around incoherently at times. The quality of the writing is spotty but it still manages to convey some sense of the man and his motivations.
What I didn't like about the book was the author taking a couple of gratuitous cracks at Margaret Thatcher. What does Thatcher have to do with a book about Nick Cave? And do the authors assume that all Nick Cave fans dislike her for some reason? Straying from the subject can be dangerous and in this case is a distraction from the reader gaining an increased understanding of Nick Cave and his music.
What I did like was the photography. The book is packed with great shots of Cave, his friends, family, and colleagues in a variety of situations. If you are a serious fan of Cave's, the book is worth the price for the pics alone.

Artist? Hedonist? Rock n Roller? This book reveals Nick as all of these, and yet with his integrity intact. The book places him on his deserved pedestal but still manages to dish up dirt, as told by Nick's detractors from the fickle media circus of the '80s. After reading of his battles and struggles - artistically and with his own demons, I enjoyed his music even more knowing he worked damn hard to be heard. The book sheds light on what he was up against. Filled with intimate photo portraits and quotes from Nick's friends, "Life and Music..." is a lovely biography that leaves you informed, but wanting much more. A lot of the copy is dedicated to disography. I wished for more insight into his personal life, psychologically. Physically, the book is huge and loosely bound, feeling unstable,ready to spill. Much like The Cavester himself perhaps. 4 stars for lack of much interview with Cave personally. But 4 stars for a satisfying peek into his world.

I received this book as a gift, with little knowledge of its contents. I was a bit disappointed with the text; as far as a biography of Nick Cave goes, there is not much to offer. I found most of the writing to be the kind of fawning, "aren't-I-clever" music journalist style I dislike. There is little information on Mr. Cave's formative years, and the bulk of the writing focuses on his musical releases (done in that music journalist way, as opposed to actually imparting any information.) However- the photographs are stunning. This is brilliant photography, and I would say I have more of a feel for Nick Cave as an artist from studying the pictures than from reading the text. I found Ian Johnston's biography "Bad Seed" an excellent book for information on the LIFE of Nick Cave, and after reading it, the photos in Maximilian Dax' book were even more meaningful. I'd recommend both books for a more complete look at Nick Cave.

The subject matter of this book deserves a 5, the writing deserves a 0. Jung should have taken a course on writing - he used typical psycho babble and unnecessarily complex wording to discuss the concept of synchronicity, which is an incredibly interesting topic. Unless you know latin, greek (yes he actually wrote some quotes in greek letters), and have a good understanding of astrology, I suggest you find one of the many contemporary books on the subject to read. If, like me, you feel you have to go to the source to get a better understanding of the topic, then I suggest that, at a minimum, you skip the chapter on astrology, or, better yet, skip the entire book, and read only the appendix. In the 10 or so pages of the appendix, he summarizes the entire book.

Bad writing on a great subject.

I read this book as a free-reading experience and although you may ask why it is becaue books like this are interesting to me at 16 years old. Although I thought it was a bit difficult and there were a lot of terms I didn't know, I still understood most of what C.G. Jung was trying to say. If you decide to read this book I suggest keeping a dictionary nearby or at least have some prior knowledge to many different pyschological terms. Not a lot of the things he said can be proven currently with our current technology but that doesn't mean this book won't provide interesting insight into the world of psychology.

This book will forever be linked in my mind with the Police album, just like Lolita links with "Don't Stand So Close To Me." One of the things I like most about this book is that it is easy to read and not intimidating. For starters, it's not very long and the language is not challenging. Jung uses a lot of interesting stories to explain his theories of synchronicity, when unrelated things seem to happen together at the same time with a purpose. The first time I read this book, I found that while I was reading it, I would experience synchronicity. For instance, I was reading it on my lunch break from work and I ran into one of my coworkers that I had a crush on. Maybe that's just a coincidence, but maybe there are greater forces at work. I would say that if you are intimidated by reading huge books by Jung, this is a good book to get started with, and it will definitely give you something about which to think.