Beautiful photographs and helpful guides and descriptions to every clam, mussel and scallop on the west coast. A must for any marine biologist or shell enthusiast! While this price is high, it is definitely worth every penny (and more).

If you have ever walked down the beach and noticed all the pretty shells and wanted to know more about them, then this is the book for you. It is a comprehensive guide to all the differnet species of shells that can be found from Alaska to Baja. You would probably not notice by looking at them, but there are tons of different species of shells. Even though they may look alike, there are amazing differences. This book will anwer neary every question one could possible want to know about the shells found along the west coast. Pick it up and head down to the beach!

Framed as a 1920s novel by an obscure French poet, based on the life of Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann, the ambitious mid-19th century Prefect of Paris, LaFarge's ("The Artist of the Missing") second book transports the reader to a cramped, unsanitary, venerable Paris in the midst of its transformation to a modern airy city of wide boulevards and functional sewers - as envisioned by Haussmann.

The narrative opens by questioning the story that on his deathbed Haussmann regretted his modernizing zeal. "Regret is a backward-turning emotion, and the Baron was famous for straightforwardness; he made the boulevards and razed the crooked lanes where tanners' sheds fronted cracked courtyards and sewer ditches spilled over into the bins of wire and paper petals of the artificial-flower makers for which the city, before his arrival on the scene, was famous."

This regret is the thread the all-but-omniscient narrator follows from the old Paris that spawned a great, clandestine love, to the ambition and modern rigidity that crushed it, leaving a bitter thirst for revenge in the ruins.

Haussmann's lover, Madeleine, was born in 1840 in the tumult and squalor of old Paris. "Born to a tanner's dying wife, she was dropped in the Bievre. There she was saved by pollution, for the river was already so laden with debris that nothing more could sink into it." Fished out by a lamplighter who encourages her to regard the mystery of her birth as a special emancipation, and later raised in a convent where the nuns suspect a noble lineage, Madeleine's discovery of her actual parentage drives her to flee into "the cool, criminal indifference of the street."

When she surfaces again, she has found refuge in the home (and arms) of M. de Fonce, the "demolition man" who has grown rich on the clean sweep of Haussmann's modernizing broom. De Fonce has schooled himself in the value and appreciation of "the overlooked" and rich Parisians flock to his door for souvenirs of Paris' vanished buildings. And there, Haussmann meets Madeleine.

LaFarge's style is exuberantly Dickensian - full of painterly detail and droll quirks. The rounds of the lamplighter in old Paris are as vivid as the well-organized domicile of the Prefect or the subterranean warrens of the Paris library. Good natured ridicule is heaped equally high on the "celebrated decorum" of the court of the nervous Emperor Louis Napoleon and the flamboyantly artificial balls of the demi-monde. Much is made of hypocrisy, venality, greed and ambition. The serpentine plot winds through political and amorous intrigue, building to a frenzied crisis over Haussmann's grand plan to move the Paris cemeteries outside of the city and build a Railroad of the Dead.

His characters are richly and lovingly imagined, their foibles and fancies turned out with affectionate humor. Madeleine as a young convent girl fond of cats: "And Madeleine loved most of all that which was catlike in herself, in other words, that which achieved freedom without struggle and independence without loneliness, and for all that never had to go long without food."

And De Fonce's approach to people: "Just as a building becomes rich in artifacts right before it is demolished, so de Fonce found that he was best able to exploit his connoisseurship of human character by imagining those he met as near their ends. The demolition man addressed himself to a banker as he would to a dying patriarch, and to a civil servant as to a soldier polishing his boots the night before a battle with the Turk...."

And Haussmann, so much the visionary civil servant, hastening to consult de Fonce on the question of multiple personalities upon reading of an ordinary shepherd who committed a grisly murder, then had no recollection of it: "The question, yes, of what Sorgel was, really? A shepherd? Or a foot chopper? Which is the main current and which the tributary? ...What would de Fonce think? Would the next century bring a science that could answer such questions, a sort of hydraulics of the mind?"

Impressively researched, beautifully written, humorous and wise, LaFarge's novel captivates the reader with love and loss and lingers over the mixed virtues of prudence, impulse, heritage and progress.

Having recently returned from a visit in Paris and being familiar with the city's history, it was exciting to read this historical fiction concerning Haussmann. The book flows beautifully and I found it hard to put down. The author has an enjoyable way with words and you'll find yourself quickly caught up in this triangle. (I admit to having been fooled that this was supposedly a translation of a French book written in 1922. Until I read the Amazon review, I was admiring this "older" style of writing and wishing more people wrote like this today. I'm sure the author would get a grin out of that!)

Mr. Peterson is so great at modernizing the words of Paul. As a result of reading this book, it would be difficult to misunderstand the truth intended in Paul's letter to the Galatians throughout the centuries. These pages exemplify freedom upon freedom. Truly, I believe Mr. Peterson is one of the best Christian authors of our time.

Peterson develops his devotional commentary around the relevant central theme in Galatians of FREEDOM. Contains simple and powerful insights to aid any who feel pressured to conform to external religious standards in order to find acceptance with God or the religious community. Peterson delivers with conviction and passion. Full of excellent illustrations and applications. An aid both to understanding each passage and flow of this Bible book (notable are his well thought out chapter divisions and contemporary textual paraphrase), but also grasping and applying its central theme. Very readable.

My copy is well worn for my frequent return trips. Buy it! You won't be disappointed.

This is a great collection of some of the most important papers of E.P. Wigner. It contains his famous paper on representations of the Lorentz Group, as well as a lot of articles on Group Theory.

I absolutely would recommend you buy this book. 10 Day competancy review was the best review of Global I've ever read. If you are in the middle of the year and just want to study early its a great book for you, however if its the day before and your ready for a allnight cram its just as good. If you want to ace the Regence I'd deffinately reccomend this book to you.

The most complete and up-to-date dictionary of Lakota available, this new edition of Eugene Buechel's classic dictionary contains over thirty thousand entries and will serve as an essential resource for everyone interested in preserving, speaking, and writing the Lakota language today.

This new comprehensive edition has been reorganized to follow a standard dictionary format and offers a range of useful features: both Lakota-to-English and English-to-Lakota sections; the grouping of principal parts of verbs; the translation of all examples of Lakota word usage; the syllabification of each entry word, followed by its pronunciation; and a lucid overview of Lakota grammar.

This monumental new edition celebrates the vitality of the Lakota language today and will be a valuable resource for students and teachers alike.

Eugene Buechel, S.J., (1874-1954) spent much of his life working among the Lakotas and recording their words and stories. He is the author of Lakota Tales and Text in Translation. Paul Manhart, S.J., is a pastoral assistant at Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

Just managed to get a copy, and it is well worth the money I spent. As an avid food historian, this document being made available is invaluable to determining the cultural influences in the modern chinese humoral theory of food as medicine. I plan to spend many hours both finding many of the rare ingredients and recreating the foods as part of my studies.

A sensitive and perceptive young college freshman from south Alabama, Eugene B. Sledge volunteered for Marine Corps officer training school during the middle of W.W. II. However, such was Sledge's desire to join the fighting before the war ended, he purposefully flunked out of school and promptly joined the ranks of the enlisted Marines.

Upon reporting to boot camp in San Diego, Sledge was introduced to his Drill Instructor with this eye-opening greeting: "If any of you idiots think you don't need to follow my orders, just step right out here and I'll beat your @ss right now. Your soul may belong to Jesus, but your @ss belongs to the Marines. You people are recruits. You're not Marines. You may not have what it takes to be Marines."

Fortunately, Sledge did indeed have what it took to be a Marine, and he has written WITH THE OLD BREED: AT PELELIU AND OKINAWA, an engaging personal chronicle of the horror of war as seen through the eyes of a young Marine grunt. Though this book is a personal account of historical events, it reads like a novel. Sledge is able to transform the course language of a salty Marine and the brutality of war into unembellished passages whose honesty have a lyrical beauty all their own:

"The situation was bad enough, but when the enemy artillery shells exploded in the area, the eruptions of soil and mud uncovered previously buried Japanese dead and scattered chunks of corpses. Like the area around our gun pits, the ridge was a stinking compost pile.

If a Marine slipped and slid down the back slope of the muddy ridge, he was apt to reach the bottom vomiting. I saw more than one man lose his footing and slip and slide all the way to the bottom only to stand up horror-stricken as he watched in disbelief while fat maggots tumbled out of his muddy dungaree pockets, cartridge belt, legging lacings, and the like. Then he and a buddy would shake or scrape them away with a piece of ammo box or a knife blade.

We didn't talk about such things. They were too horrible and obscene for even hardened veterans. The conditions taxed the toughest I knew almost to the point of screaming. Nor do authors normally write about such vileness; unless they have seen it with their own eyes, it is too preposterous to think that men could actually live and fight for days and nights under such terrible conditions and not be driven insane. But I saw much of it there on Okinawa and to the me the war was insanity."

WITH THE OLD BREED does not concern itself with a the strategic and tactical campaign of the Pacific Island hopping campaign. Rather, it is a a fascinating portrait of an sensitive young man's baptism under fire -- a first hand narrative of an ordinary young man's extraordinary bravery on a few remote Islands in the Pacific Ocean. No W.W.II library is complete without this book. Highly recommended.

Three veterans of the First Marine Division have written accounts of WWII in the Pacific. E.B. Sledge in this book, William Manchester in "Goodbye Darkness," and Robert Leckey in "Strong Men Armed." Sledge's book gives an honest, plain spoken, first hand account of two horrific campaigns. He pulls no punches in describing the brutality and the horror, but he doesn't dwell on it. He merely describes it in a matter of fact fashion.

Leckey's book ("Strong Men Armed") doesn't dwell on personal experiences, but gives the vast panorama of the Navy/Marine Corps island hopping campaign, and helps to put Sledge's personal memoir into the context of the whole war in the Pacific.

Manchester's book ("Goodbye Darkness") reads something like the out-loud ruminations of a mental patient working through unresolved issues on the psychiatrist's couch.

Leckey is a noted military historian who has written a number of very good books on the subject. Manchester is a noted author, and of the three has the most recognizable name. Sledge, however, although not a professional writer, is the First Division alumnus who has written the best book on the Pacific War. (Leckey runs a close second and Manchester a distant third).

Very few authors of books on the war in the South Pacific bring the vivid first hand experiences to light the way Dr. Sledge is able to do. He paints a picture that your mind and spirit is able to see as you read his words. He tells of the funny side of war, if there is one, the emense amount of hard work involved, and the brutality of war as he experienced it. The contrast of fighting on a barren coral rock, as was Peleliu, to the muck and mud of Okinawa is compelling.

As I have been a close personal friend of Dr. Sledge for over 30 years, I have heard many times in his own words the accounts of the battles fought on Peleliu and Okinawa. However, Dr. Sledge, in the words he writes is able to bring the battles to life, and involve the reader as if they were there. His story is so much like the man he is, strong, well prepared, confident, a believer in God, and willing to go to war for his country and "kill japs".

Anyone who wishes to gain insight into the nature of the war with the Japanese, and of war in general, needs to read this book.

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) spent almost thirty years photographing details of often inconspicuous Parisian buildings, side streets, cul-de-sacs, and public sculptures. In Focus: Eugene Atget brings together more than 50 of the J. Paul Getty Museum's 295 photographs by Atget, with commentary on each image by associate curator of photographs at the Getty Museum, Gordon Baldwin. Atget's photograph and Baldwin's commentary are enhanced with a chronological overview of Atget's life and an edited transcript of a colloquium on his career. In Focus: Eugene Atget is a superbly presented and invaluable contribution to the history of photography.

Eugene Atget (1857-1927) is the undisputed photo-documentarian of 19th century Paris. With studious attention to detail, Atget seemingly photographed every intimate corner of his much-loved city. Leaving the well-known monuments and boulevards to others, Atget instead concentrated on the atmospheric fabric of everyday Paris, photographing shops and window displays, cobbled streets, doorways, stairways, vehicles, churches, amusement parks, street-peddlers and prostitutes.

Unraveling the mystery of Eugène Atget's life and work is easier said than done. Now considered to be one of history's most important photographers, Atget was relatively unknown during his lifetime. Posthumously famous for his photographs, Atget in fact made only a humble living selling his prints to architects, artists, and institutions.

Atget wrote in 1920, "I may say that I have in my possession all of Old Paris." His systematic method of photographing Paris street by street is spellbinding, and the result is a detailed catalogue of 19th century Paris. The result of Eugène Atget's life's work is gathered here in a heartbreakingly beautiful book for lovers of Paris, architecture, and photography.

I received this book as a gift because not only do I collect photography books but I also frequently go to Paris because I love the city. This book is full of full page photos of Paris in the past and has a dreamy quality of the day to day events and sites of Paris and the surrounding areas. It's a great collectible book for photography fans and Paris lovers.

It's a long,foggy voyage taken in Edmond's deep ocean and its very sad. Through the blurry minds of the four members of the Tyrone's we travel back into their pasts and follow their tragic flaw. Especially Mary's choice has destroyed her whole life. Even though she loves James , its obvious that she has wasted her life by following his ambitions of becoming an actor and also has become a victim of his misery. James Tyrone is an old man now who unfortunately has not been able to get rid of his childhood's fears. The poverty that he suffered along with his three brothers has turned him into a vicious man.Who can blame him?He has suffered a lot when he was only 10 years old. How can we deny the fact that only the ones who experience real poverty, do know it closely and are afraid of it. He does not dare spend a bit more of his money for his own son's health. Money is more important than anything for him. Thus we see the couple lead their children into an unsober life .Its almost as if the father is like a Tyrant instead of a Tyrone. Thus, Jamie escapes them as a sailor and returns suffering of consumption without a penny in the till. The fog is even more depressing now. Edmond who critics believe to be Eugene O'Neill ,helps the narration by drinking with his father, where each one gives a long speech about their disillusions. They have no one else to blame but their past lives and what do we do with our wrong doings of past ? Don't we all have some long past wrong doings , haven't our parents taken the wrong choices sometimes? What are we supposed to do with them? Does the past hold in hand the right to ruin our present ? And if we allow it to happen , what will become of our future?

i don't think that the term 'enjoyable' can be attached to this poignant intensified private documentary of o'neill's life. what it is, is thought-provoking, humbling, heart-rending. one feels thoroughly uncomfortable, to say the least, reading the text; as if one were peeping through a spy-hole at a forbidden scene but with the master of the house standing behind one.

read it if you feel down in the dumps.

strangely, it promises a glimmer of hope in the enveloping 'fog' of despair.

From the opening curtain, O'Neill's play relentlessly examines the disintegration of the lives of four people. It is a disturbing drama where love and hate co-exist in such close proximity that it is sometimes difficult to separate one from the other.

The story unfolds in the course of a single day, which begins with an emergence from the fog, both literally and figuratively and ends with the descent of the fog yet again, deeper, more profound, more isolating than ever.

The youngest son, Edmund is the pivot point for the story. The other members of his family revolve around the drama of his failing health. He is represented by his family as both the cause and the victim of his mother's return to her addiction, his jealous brother's attempts to destroy his chances for success and his father's dissatisfaction with his life. And he accepts the responsibility thrust on him, all the while recognizing, acknowledging that it is merely an excuse for failures and bad choices.

The family, despite their best efforts, is bound together, caught in a web of their own creation, unable to escape eventual destruction. It is a sad commentary of life, poignant and fascinating. In spite of some dated references, it still provides an insightful look at the human condition.