In The Eclectic Odyssey Of Atlee B. Ayres, Architect, Robert Coote (professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Texas, Austin) informatively surveys thirty years of the architectural career of Atlee Ayres, focusing on Ayres' residential architecture in the San Antonio suburbs of Monte Vista, Olmos Park, and Terrell-Hills. It is in these architectural designs that Ayres' eclecticism is most apparent. Coote studies twenty-five of Ayres' houses in detail including their plans, spaces, exteriors, materials, and structure. Additionally, Coote describes Ayres' architectural education, travels, and career highlights. Highly recommended for professional and academic architectural reference collections, The Eclectic Odyssey Of Atlee B. Ayres, Architect is a superbly presented treatise on the work and career of a most remarkable American architect.

Emergency Medicine Self Assessment and Review is a must to bring out the important clinical teaching points on the very factual and sometimes verbose chapters of the book it reviews: Rosen's Emergency Medicine Textbook. The explainations that are provided explain not only why the correct answer is correct, but also why the wrong answers are incorrect. The book enables emergency medicine attending physicians, residents and interested medical students a feedback mechanism to insure the most important points are understood, and not just memorized.

An excellent choice for anyone who is interested in transportation. The essays range from issues related to developing countries to those that are pertinent to the US. While this is not exactly a beginner's book it is very easy to read with some background in economics or engineering.

This book answered all of my questions regarding cultivating plants from tissue samples. The photographs and illustrations are fabulous. Being a botany major I seek out books that teach me new and improved techniques when it comes to plants. This book will remain in my personal library forever.

Rydell, Findling, and Pelle do a wonderful job of describing the influences that helped shape the World's Fairs and expositions held in the United States between 1853 and 1984. Initially designed to boost local economies, the fair promoters gradually shifted to more national agendas; imperialism, cold war, and capitalism. The book is a great resource for those not aware of how much impact these fairs have had on our country's development!

This book is a collection of four different works of Saint Augustine. The table of contents is as follows:

"Christian Instruction", introduced and translated by John J. Gavigan

"Admonition and Grace", introduced and translated by John Courtney Murray

"The Christian Combat", introduced and translated by Robert P. Russell

"Faith, Hope, and Charity", introduced and translated by Bernard M. Peebles

Index

The supplemental materials in this book consist of fairly short introductions to each work written by the translator of that work, footnotes that explain translation issues, references to other works, including scripture references, and finally, a shared index.

Each of the four works which comprise this book will be discussed in turn.

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The title of the first work, "Christian Instruction", leaves the reader to wonder whether the work is intended to instruct him in Christianity or to be an instructor of others in Christianity. The answer is: yes. To quote Augustine himself, in his discussion of it in his "Retractions":

"I...completed the work in four books. The first three of these help to an understanding of the Scriptures, while the fourth instructs us how to present the facts which we have just comprehended."

Of the "books" alluded to by Augustine, the first prescribes the proper attitude for the study of scriptures, specifically from the perspective of "faith, hope, and charity". The second prescribes a program of education, central to which is knowledge of language: both the general knowledge of language as a system of signs, and specific knowledge of Hebrew and Greek. The third prescribes a system of hermeneutics or interpretive principals and rules. Finally, the fourth is essentially a discussion of rhetorical methods of persuasion and their application to teaching Christianity to others.

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The second work, "Admonition and Grace", was written because a number of monks had been disturbed by an a letter of Augustine which they thought so exalted the importance of divine grace as to leave no place for human free will (and responsibility). The specific question they asked was:

"Why are we preached to, and given commands, in order to have us avoid evil and do good, if it is not we ourselves who do these things, but God who effects in us the will and the deed?"

To the immediate question, Augustine in reply developed the doctrine that while man of his own free will could do no good without grace, he could recognize his own evil, and in that power lay his responsibility:

"Whenever you fail to follow the known commands of God and are unwilling to be admonished, you are for this very reason to be admonished, that you are unwilling to be admonished...You are unwilling to have yourself shown to yourself, that you may see your own deformity, and seek one to reform you, and beg Him not to leave you in your ugliness of soul."

Not content with having answered the question at hand, Augustine went further, and discussed the ultimate origin of sin, and the state of man and the fallen angels before their respective falls and the nature of those falls. Going further yet, he discusses grace with regard to Mary and the elect, and still further, ultimately ending in a theodicy.

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The third work, "The Christian Combat" is a short, muscular work "written in a plain style for brethren not proficient in the Latin language". Its end is to lay out how a Christian should live, and to identify heresies that Christians should avoid falling into. As befitting its audience and purpose, it is simple and direct. The basics of Christian belief and scriptural justifications for them are quickly described, then then warnings are given a series of heresies that must be rejected.

The points of Christian belief covered are the nature of evil (Manichaean dualism being explicitly rejected), the governance of Providence, salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and God as the Trinity.

The list of heresies to be rejected is actually the bulk of the work. Each begins with a "Let us not heed..." introduction, followed by a description of the particular heresy, and then a justification (generally scriptural, sometimes logical) for why it should be rejected.

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"Faith, Hope, and Charity", the fourth and final work in the book, is also known as the "Enchiridion", or handbook. It was written in response to a letter containing a list of questions pertaining to Christian doctrine.

"Faith, Hope, and Charity" begins by discussing is a wide-ranging work, as its origin might suggest. Most of the work is loosely organized around the apostles' creed as a framework for explaning the faith. As such, it discusses belief in God, the goodness of creation, the nature of sin, the origin of sin, God's grace and Christ as the means of man's salvation, the church, the resurrection of the dead, the relation between providence and free will, hope and the Lord's prayer, and finally charity as the crowning principal of the commandments and the true good at which man should aim.

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For my part, the work that really stood out was "Grace and Admonition". The subtlety and power of Augustine's solutions to the problems of grace and free will make truly impressive reading. Several times, I went back to the beginning and started reading again - not because I didn't understand it, but because I was so floored by it, that I simply had to read it again right away.

An essential book for every American both young or old, male or female, Democrat or Republican. A delightful discovery on the need of God and guns (or perhaps swords) in the United States and the intolerance of a government in charge of all but answerable to noone. An undeniably perfect fit for todays culture.

Discover your roots from the men that gave their lives for the signing of the Constitution; true heroes. Their resolve was unquestionable and the love for country without reproach.

They brought us so far. We've walked away. Read it and weep. BK

David Lyon writes an interesting book, and reproduces about as much as is possible on the elements in the rapid development of the English TBD. The gaps in this work are caused by the gaps in the Royal Navy records, not by David Lyon. I look forward to successors to this work.

Matt has done a great job with this book. It is well written, and he seems to really know what he's talking about.

The descriptions (with color photographs) of the different weight exercises are nice, but the real value in this book comes from all the different programs. It's like having a personal trainer write this stuff up for you directly.

For anyone getting involved in fitness, I'd recommend that they get human training in how to lift weights (free weights, machines, etc), but I think that once you get that base level understanding and fitness, this book can take you to a next level of fitness. The programs are tailored for specific goals (Fat loss, Legs, building mass, abs, glutes, etc..). This is a book that speaks to men as well as women.

If I were to buy just one fitness book, it would be this one.

This book is about the founding of an international revolutionary workers organization after the triumph that resulted in the world's first workers' republic: Soviet Russia. The delegates' reports of the revolutionary events in their countries, inspired by the workers' and peasants victory in Russia-in Finland, in Hungary, in Germany-read like a novel. The reports by the leaders of the Russian Revolution to the assembled delegates of the founding congress of the Communist International speak clearly to us today, to those who want to act for fundamental social change, about how capitalism and imperialism can't be reformed or tamed into "peace" but only make perpetual war for perpetual profits, the need to look at the world as part of an international class with interests in common across national boundaries (not whine about "our government" doing terrible things that "we" must feel guilty about and vote in some other criminal 'cause he/she is a Democrat and his/her wars will be "nicer", and maybe most important all: workers' democracy, like they had in Soviet Russia then, before it was rubbed out by Stalin-who was NOT any kind of communist-workers' democracy, like they have in Cuba to this day, is the "dictatorship" of the overwhelming majority, just like capitalist "democracy " is really the dictatorship of the billionaires. If this sounds to you anything like answers we need for today's world and what to do about it, then you are on the side of humanity against the side of the gods profit and dollar. So check this book out.