This book is one of my favorite books I have ever read. It is one of those gems you find that no one else seems to know about. The illustrations are fun, the story is comical, not in a silly, stupid way that some "funny" stories can be, but in a way that will actually make you laugh out loud. And the story is actually a very nice story, ending without giving you the sense that other books can of, "Well, it had some nice parts, but what was the point?" I enjoyed it as a child, and I still enjoy it as an adult (well, semi-adult). I only hope that my copy will survive for my own children.

I chose this book because it is by my fourth favorite comedien, Terry Jones. It is about a boy named Nicobobinus and his friend Rosie, who go to find the land of the Dragons, because Nicobobinus can do anything. My favorite character is the Golden man, because it is funny that a gold statue walks, talks, and has servents.

This book is a great one for any young, or old person who is looking for a wonderful, and adventurous story. I read this book a long time ago and couldn't help but look it up to see if there were more readers who felt the same way about it.It is about a young boy and girl who go on a long journey to find dragons blood.They have a very close call many times, but they finaly find it and continue on their journey safely.I can't wait to read it again.

As a woman who has had breast cancer and is looking at bilateral reconstruction, I found "Reconstructing Aphrodite" to be a book of hope, life, and beauty. The beauty is not in reconstruction without scars but is in the very scars themselves, scars that speak of courage, determination and, above all else, the choice to live life to the fullest. The reflections accompanying each photo communicate the pain of living with cancer. But the stories do not stop with pain; they continue with love, laughter, celebration, joy and delight in bodies that have more to say now than when they were flawless. A truly exquisite book in all ways, one that I will share with many other women because it is so real. The scars are not airbrushed; the pain is not denied. I came away from this book uplifted and encouraged by the lived experience of my sisters on the journey with breast cancer. Forget "Playboy"; the women who have lasting beauty are the ones in this book.

As the interviewer and compiler of the text profiles in Reconstructing Aphrodite, I think often about the work I do and what kind of a difference it makes in the lives of others.
Last night, I attended a spiritual healing ceremony for a friend who was just diagnosed with breast cancer. A small group of us recited and sang prayers for healing, held hands in a circle, and watched our stricken friend gather hope, strength, optimism and faith from our shared energy and love.
The cancer is small, self contained and the prognosis for recovery good. But it's comforting to know that if my friend needs more inspiration and information, this book is available for her and the millions of other women who may need it in the future.

You might think that because you haven't had breast cancer, or because you're a man, that you have nothing to learn from the aptly named book Reconstructing Aphrodite. But you'd be wrong.

This collection of photographs and stories of women who've had reconstructive breast surgery following diagnoses of cancer is mesmerizing and inspiring. Each woman tells her own story, sensitively edited by Helga Hayse, revealing her fears, apprehension, decisiveness, and courage. Each story resonates with everyone who encounters this book.

The stories they tell-of genetic testing, of tumors missed in mammograms, of watching mothers and aunts die painful deaths-speak to all of us. They are funny and brave, practical and spiritual. These are mothers and daughters and sisters, young and old, and they are all the women we know. They are sharing a life-shattering experience with us and to read their words is to be a witness to their strength.

And as much as the stories move us, the photographs shock and amaze. The photographs, from photographer Terry Lorant, feel like personal notes from each woman to the reader. As if she were a friend, sending you her proud news. The pictures are sweet and sexy and honest and very emotional.

I read this entire book, including the detailed information about breast reconstruction at the end. Because, though I don't have breast cancer now, that doesn't mean my sisters or I won't be diagnosed in the future and I'd like to have both the practical resource information that this book provides and the inspiration of these amazing women.

What a work of creative and artistic genius!

What to say about such an amazing work? For the first few times I
mainly absorbed the photos of his works, with only reading the
little captions and it wiped me off my feet. After a few rounds
of these I decided to read all of the writing in the book that
accompany the works he made and it totally blew me away. This
book has definitely altered something deep inside about the way
Ilook at nature, change, the seasons and time in general.

Time, as the title of the book suggests is the main topic of the
book and Andy Goldsworthy's art in general or at least his
approach and intention towards it. The body of work presented in
numerous photos and with corresponding writing in the form of a
journal covers the whole range Goldsworthy's work. For example
works made from stone, wood, leaves, snow, ice,...

As a result it gives an excellent overview and introduction of
his work and via the numerous writings a very deep, personal and
detailed insight into how he approaches different places, how he
reacts to change and works with the weather. The writing is on
par with his work. Very clear, direct, honest and poetic.

His insight into the concepts of time and change and seasons and
nature is truly breath taking. The introduction he wrote for the
book is a wonderful example illustrating this. Part of it can be
read by using the "Look inside the book" feature of Amazon.

Spending time with this book really cracks ones mind wide open
about time, change, nature and seasons and how to look at it and
perceive it.

And honestly I don't know what's more amazing. These amazing
and unbelievable pieces of art. Or the incredibly crisp and poetic
writing, deepening so much ones understanding of the works and
give insight into Goldsworthys view and approach and thoughts. Or
simply that out there somewhere a human being is walking this
earth with such an amazing understanding of time and nature and
able to transform this into amazing art an writing.

If the idea of Goldsworthys work is for him to work with time and
change and nature and to further his awareness of these concepts
and make sense of them in the most beautiful way then that is
exactly what this book excells marvelously at for the reader.

Andy Goldsworthy's artwork is utterly ephemeral and fleeting, and perhaps because of this, utterly transfixing. There is something of the ancients in the way Goldsworthy puts together stone, or wood, or leaves--or even in the way he lays himself down on a dry patch of ground in the rain so that when he gets up, we see a sort of reverse shadow of his body. There is an astonishing intellect at work here, and a soul which sees the value in what some art snobs might term "mere beauty."

Goldsworthy's many mediums are covered in "Time," which features sumptuous photography by Terry Friedman. We see perfectly constructed stone cairns--some pyramidal, some only half done and all the more startling for what isn't there as for what is. We see ruddy sandstone arches four times the height of a man. But Goldsworthy's most consistently inviting work is done not in stone, but in the ephemera nature leaves for him everywhere he looks. Goldsworthy's work is sometimes so fleeting as to question the very nature of whether it constitutes art when it lasts only minutes or hours. The frost shadows, for instance, are simply photographs of the still-iced patches of grass over which Goldsworthy stood in the early morning, then stepped aside so that a photograph could be taken. Of course these are gone within minutes as the sun warms the now-exposed grass. Is this art? Merely the fact that you question it shows your engagement with the work--Goldsworthy fosters a kind of subtle dialogue between reader and artist and the dialogue is consistently engaging. Another heat-destroyed piece is the thinnest imaginable sheet of ice, laid against a moss-covered rock, and Goldsworthy's handprint visible on it. As it thawed, it buckled and disappeared and we see its disappearance in the photographs. It's lovely, it's witty and it is, improbably art.

Other things disappear, too, but not from the sun's warmth. There is a "stick hole" Goldsworthy built early one spring which he and Friedman came back to photograph throughout the summer until the final photograph shows it utterly covered with the lacy ferns which grew up around it. There are the perfectly circular or perfectly ovoid leaf rafts Goldsworthy stitches together, then sends on their way down a meandering stream, having their path photographed before they disappear. There are the piled of rocks he constructs leading into the ocean so that the tides swallow them up--each stage meticulously recorded on film.

Perhaps the most transformative art in the book is the mud wall displayed on the cover. Goldsworthy applied mud to walls and floor in such a way that when the mud cracked and dried, it showed the meandering, snakelike pattern he'd put into it. It has become something entirely different solely through the passage of time. This book is filled with surprises and delights, and will have you utterly absorbed, charmed, and astonished. I can't recommend it highly enough.

This is perhaps Goldsworthy's most elegiac and moving book, a profound meditation on time and change. If you like his work, you won't be disappointed. This volume and "A Collaboration with Nature" are wonderful and permanent sources of inspiration.

As a reader, I think that Terry McMillan is one of the best authors there is. I have read all her books, and I really enjoyed each and everyone of them. I recommend for anyone to try and read her books. There Great.

When my English teacher told us that the class had to read a book and present an oral summary in class, I was a little apprehensive because I only read when I have to. So, for the literary-challenged she brought in some of her favorite books, one of which was Disappearing Acts. I started reading the book in class, and I couldn't put it down!! That afternoon I went straight to the bookstore and bought it and finished it that night. McMillian really has a talent of grasping the true characters, reaching into their souls, and telling the reader Franklin and Zora's story of dating, love, careers, and sex!! McMillian definately has the power of empathization down to a skill!! A must-buy-tear-jerker!!!

Disappearing Acts examines the up and downs of a relationship and believe me Franklin and Zora had their fair share of problems. Franklin despite of what he took Zora through really was a good man he just had some issues. I don't think Terry can top this one.

In the 8th grade I did a project about the protests against the Vietnam war i nteh 1960's. THis book was my main reference. it has pictures, quotes, lines from songs, and all-over great information. I would reccomend this book to just about anyone who just felt like learning something new about the "flower child" era. (It was the best of times, it was the worst of times) this is a great book, and it was fun to read, in spite of it being for a grade. I really encourage you to read this book.

Anderson's book is a great narrative account of that most legendary of decades, the Sixties. He does a good job of identifying the various strands that made up Sixties culture, strands which are often lumped together by people today who have but a hazy notion of what really went on. The book is full of great anecdotes and supported by loads of primary sources. Read this book and check to see if this is how you remember it!

As a student and then student teacher of a course using this book i have found it not only personally interesting but a stimulating book for conversation with my students! It is in no way dry but gives insightful analysis of a time too often shown to today's youth in cliches and stereotypes.

Any book that can provide you with one insight is worth whatever the author wants in exhange - and that is in part the core value of this book.

The authors formalise the need to reduce the Why people purchase a product down to the core value the buyer perceives - the first or second given reason is often not the case and the reality is often more about personal irrationality (who needs a Porsche yet they sell the annual production at full price) rather than reasons that can be easily tabulated. Too much marketing is written about these top level issues and miss what this book identifies.

However, while many of their examples appear relevant to the point they are making, they focus on the good fit between the idea (easy to install new computer) and that these were (for the moment) winning ideas, and leave the exploration of the lower level value out of their analysis, the one thing they stress in the best part (the first two) chapters of the book.

One very good item is where they provide details of their personal contact details to encourage feedback - you do not see that often enough. Another is telling about failures with all the details, some consultants tell you the names of their successes but talk about the failures (and then only of others) in only the general.

I would suggest you puchase this book - it is not the definitive platform (that say Porter's Competitive Advantage is) about creating value; it does raise and examine relevant issues in creating value, particularly for service industries.

MasterCard commercials effectively dramatize a distinction between the cost and the value of human experience. In essence, this is what LaSalle and Britton have in mind when explaining in their brilliant book how to turn "ordinary products into extraordinary experiences" for consumers. They organize their material within two separate but related sections: in the first, they examine the interaction of customers, value, and experience; in the second, they explain how almost any company can prosper in what James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II characterize as "the experience economy," in their book so entitled. But HOW? By offering a product or service which, according to LaSalle and Britton, fills a consumer's need for freedom, adventure, and a sense of well-being. My own rather extensive background includes market research on what consumers value most. Those surveyed ranked "feeling appreciated," ETDBW (i.e. easy to do business with), and enjoying the experience were ranked highest. Those responses are consistent with what LaSalle and Britton have learned. What astonishes me (and perhaps them as well) is that only recently has the importance of sensory experience been recognized, relative to purchase decisions and to consumer perceptions of those from whom their purchases are made.

Bernd Schmitt and Alex Simonson's Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel,, Think, Act, and Relate to Your Company and Brands was first published in 1999. In it, they examine a number of different companies (e.g. Nokia, Procter & Gamble, Apple Computer, Volkswagen, Siemens, Martha Stewart Living, and SONY) which demonstrate the fundamental principles of what they call "experiential marketing." They were praised as pioneer thinkers (which I certainly do not dispute) when, in Part Two of their book, they focus on what they call Strategic Experiential Modules (SEMs), each of which has its own distinct structures and principles which must be understood by each manager. SEMs include sensory experiences (SENSE), affective experiences (FEEL), creative cognitive experiences (THINK), physical experiences and entire lifestyles (ACT), and social-identity experiences (RELATE). Schmitt and examine each, explaining how to achieve the effective integration of all four.

LaSalle and Britton share my high regard for Gilmore and Pine as well as for Schmitt and Simonson (among others) but break critically important new ground in Priceless by providing a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective system by which almost any company can increase and enhance the appeal of almost any product or service. More specifically, LaSalle and Britton identify and then explain a series of interdependent components throughout Chapters 1-6 which comprise what they call the "Priceless Roadmap." By the end of their book, they have enabled their reader to understand the relationship between value and experience (including emotional as well as sensory experience) by showing the link between them and customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and (most preferable of all) customer evangelism. They trace the series of events which a customer experiences during the consumption process. Most important of all, with precision and clarity, they demonstrate how a company can deliver value through experience by focusing on three key attributes: product, service, and environment.

It would be a mistake to assume that this book was written primarily (if not exclusively) for marketing executives. Every value, principle, strategy, and tactic which LaSalle and Britton examine is directly relevant, for example, to increasing and enhancing the appeal of any workplace and to strengthening relationships between and among those within it. I also think this book will be of substantial value to senior-level executives as they embark on mid-range and long-term planning (i.e. up to 36 months at the most) because organizations as well as consumer products and services, and indeed individuals, can achieve greatness only if guided and informed by a "Priceless Roadmap" in one form or another.

Priceless captures the next leap business leaders need to consider and then act upon! The concepts can be applied universally. The key is to apply the strategy BEFORE and better than your competitor. The application can be used with our internal customers just as effectively. In fact, if it is used inside, the results will surely impact the external customer in a very positive manner.

Interesting to think of the ways to apply ... Thanks.

This book actually can be read by non-math majors.

Watsham really makes the effort needed to make
the book "readable" to non-quants.

Unlike Neftci and Wilmott, who jump to more advanced material
without really explaining most of the details,
Watsham explains all the needed details.

However, Watsham's book covers much fewer topics
than Neftci's or Wilmott's (Quant finance) book covers.

I hope Mr. Watsham next edition includes more of the
topics that are found in Netfci's book.

It is one book that covers a wide range of basic to intermediate level concepts that are essential for any quantitative finance practitioner, financial analyst, portfolio manager and derivative traders. The book assumes some very basic mathematical background. Throughout the book the authors seem to have deliberately relied on basic algebra rather than complex integration and differentiation -- except in some relatively advanced topics that are covered in final few chapters of the book. I highly recommend reading this book to build a solid background of mathematics that is now commonplace in finance.

This book targets readers who have little or no familiarity with statistics and calculus (or who, like me, has forgotten much of these two disciplines. The authors do a great job of explaning why we use the methods they explain. Clear examples are provided. Complex subjects are built up from simpler principles. I highly recommend this bood to students seeking a thorough grounding in the quantitative methods underlying the pricing of assets and derivatives, portfolio management, risk management, etc.

This book has left me wanting more. Not many books do this for me. I felt the relationshop between the sisters was very cleverly written. Who could fail to like Darcy? ? A very real person. Also Sophia - at the beginning I disliked her - then I continually liked and disliked her - I still can't make up my mind. I have given four stars because I was frustrated that we did not discover more about Alex and Darcy. I hope a second book with these characters is written.

Darcy and Sophia King are non-identical twins born in Dublin, in a very normal family. Their father Robert is a pathologist at a local medical centre, and their mother Colette lives through her love for her husband.

The novel focuses on the evolution of this family during one generation, seen through the eyes of Darcy, a young rebel who suffers from being the twin of a perfect girl loved by her parents, her teachers and her peers. Darcy feels so far from a perfection she tends to despise that her relationship to her sister develops in a mixture of sisterly love and sometimes heinous jealousy.

Their differences increase as the chapters go by.

Sophia (pretty, polite and discreet), reveals a vulnerable side that she hides under the appearance of a woman who perfectly controls her life. From unhappy experiences to success, she admits that she's rarely physically alone but that she lives in an emotional loneliness against which she can't struggle. Darcy invariably fights weight problems and suffers from only being "Sophia's sister". It is only through separation caused by Darcy's international carrier that the two sisters finally get closer.

Although one can't talk about an epistolary book, the story centres around the correspondence between Darcy and an American sociologist, Alexander Carbine Brookstone, who's thirteen years older than she is. Despite the age difference, their relationship evolves into genuine friendship, and Darcy takes refuge in the letters, faxes and, later on, emails that she exchanges with him. Her rebellion, her lack of confidence, her relationship to her sister, to her parents, to her boyfriend, and her frustration regarding her weight explode in this correspondence. Reassured by the idea that she will never meet Alex, she confides her most secret emotions and her thoughts about the world around her, in a way that is alternatively tender, defiant and hilarious.

The biggest quality of this enthralling novel is a confident writing style and a quick pace which doesn't leave room for boredom. It gives life to the characters in a completely exceptional way. The relationships between the protagonists are amazingly real, and page after page, their evolution manifests itself very naturally, whether it's through Darcy's letters to Alex or through Sophia's diary. Terry Prone has masterfully succeeded in making each sentence a fascinating discovery -- even the (side-splitting) description of Darcy's fridge contents is enchanting. This book depicts complex characters and carefully avoids stereotypes and shortcuts. Identifying with Darcy is extremely easy, not because she's an empty shell in which anyone could fit (Darcy is anything but an empty shell!), but because Racing the Moon pulls the reader into her life and -- a rare phenomenon in literature -- makes one forget that she's a fictional character. Darcy is the woman next door, she's someone you pass on the street every day, she's that girl sitting at the back of the room. To everyone, she's quite mundane. In truth, she's exceptional.

A must-read!

I read this book in one sitting on a train journey, and couldn't put it down. It was utterly captivating, and I love the characters of Alex and Darcy.

The way in which Alex and Darcy meet - the teenage Darcy has to correspond with an American academic because her school has asked her to take part in the US university's reseach project - is ingenious, and the letters between the dry and dusty researcher and the teenager are hilarious. Prone makes much fun out of Darcy piercing the pomposity of this guy she knows only by initials.

As Darcy grows up, she sees Alex much more as a friend, but because of the rules of the research they must never meet or exchange any identifying information. This is both fascinating and intriguing as an examination of what makes friendships, and whether it is possible to have as a close friend someone you have never met.

The other characters and events in Darcy's life are also very well portrayed, as a study in growing up; Prone makes excellent use of her knowledge both of the US and of Ireland.

The denouement is sheer brilliance. My only regret is that I felt the book finished too soon.

Terry Tempest Williams is without a doubt one of the finest writers to tackle the intricacies of the American West in literature of any sort. Carrying her own torch is impressive enough, but Williams also evokes the activism and urgent motivation that calls us to appreciate, respect and save our remaining western wilderness that was so powerfully put into words by Edward Abbey. I have reviewed a portion of "Red" before (see "Desert Quartet"), so I will limit this review to the remainder of "Red".

Williams carries on the great and ancient tradition of storytelling to raise consciousness about uniquely Western, and specifically Colorado Plateau, issues. From the Hopi and Navajo peoples, down through the early American explorers, the proverbial cowboys and the present activist community, storytelling has been a central method of encapsulating emotion, opinion and experience into messages that have wide appeal. Williams, in stories such as "Coyote's Canyon" here in "Red", presents her powerful vision of an environmental movement wrapped in the spiritual connection with the stark, often harsh, always awe inspiring desert and given wings by action. Like Abbey, Williams does not shy away from controversy, and her opening to the title essay is a list of places that strangely grows longer each time I contemplate the names set forth. Williams gets personal here, and the blunt approach of listing over a hundred places brings to my mind the fact that I have walked on much of that ground... and that I have seen the critical need to protect these remaining places from the industrious uses and agricultural manipulation that has occured on the infinitely vaster balance of the Colorado Plateau. In this way, "Red" has demonstrated its effectiveness. Some may say that as a resident of California I might have no reason to comment on Utah... and I would, as Williams exhorts in "Red", flatly disagree. Every one of us has a responsibility to work toward a better world, and Williams manages to say this without preaching it or patronizing the reader. (Besides, my mother lives in southern Utah, and I have walked hundreds of miles of that beautiful land...).

In summary, "Red" is another jewel of a book from Terry Tempest Williams. I am glad to see "Desert Quartet" back in print, though I sorely miss Mary Frank's wonderful illustrations that were in the original. This is a book which is not a difficult read, nor a scholarly treatise... rather, it is a frank, realistic look at a serious challenge facing the United States right now.

Terry Tempest Williams created this book to fight for Wilderness with the best tool she has, her writing. The beauty of her words hang in the air and cut like a knife. When asked by a friend why she writes, Williams responds: "I write as an exercise in pure joy. I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt. I write out of my anger and into my passion. I write from the stillness of night anticipating - always anticipating. I write to listen. I write out of silence. ...I write because it is the way I talk long walks. I write as a bow to wilderness. I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness."

Both a piece of literary artistry and passionate activism, "Red"'s audience appeal is the broadest of any book I've ever read. The book's structure, both wild and bounded by cadences of space, conforms strategically to Ms. Williams' conceptual take on the color red - red represents heat, anger, unpredictability, the lifeblood of the earth that runs through human beings and all earth's creatures, and is concentrated in the searing deserts of the American West where Ms. Williams lives. A thematic tapestry though it is, it is, at its core, a living breathing message presented selflessly and succinctly by a woman who I believe understands the need for a lifelong journey down the parallel rails of human and non-human nature until these rails converge. I recommend this book highly.

If you're at all interested in the natural world around us, and concerned about how much we take for granted in this day and age, this is a sobering and fascinating look at black bears. The author tracks the lives of a family of bears (mainly 3 generations worth) over the course of a year to discuss their behaviors and their seasonal variation. Almost as a by product of this you learn a lot about bears, and the actions and motivations of potentially dangerous wild animals as a whole. I feel a lot safer being outdoors having read some of the explanations for the motivations of aggressive behavior, especially towards humans. I would say more about the book itself but I think it is best left as a surprise. Suffice it to say if you've wondered about bears or the upbringing of offspring in animals, this is a superb book. It's my first book on bears so there may be some others out there which others would suggest first, but I don't see how one could go wrong with this one.

I have purchased 3 copies of this book for bear biologist firends. Debruyn gives a wonderful look into the private lives of black bears. I found myself comparing what he discovered with what I see working with black bears in west Texas. The book is written by someone who is dedicated to their research. There is a wealth of information on biology and ecology of black bears that is presented in a wonderful read. I read it cover to cover, then read it again.

Bonnie R. McKinney West Texas Black Bear Study

I can only say that this is one amazing book. Buy it and read it. It's a rare treat.