This small document gives a brief, yet complete description on the M3 Lee/Grant. The photo's are all real. And are very intersting. The book even goes over the change in all design and equipment through the years. It also has summary's of the use of the M3 in war. I was able to read this from cover to cover in a matter of an hour. Great fun. This is book 33 in a series of books from squadron.

I enjoyed this book, but I am having a difficult time deciding how much. It certainly was one of the more interesting and truthful ones, as far as autobiographical information goes. It was not however, one of my favorites, as far the Star Trek Alumni Biographies go. George Takei's and Walter Koenig's take the top two spots there. Her battle for sobriety was forthright and made for good reading. I don't buy her claims to have had visions from God, however (alhtough I do beleive that SHE believes them). Where that affects the overall "rating" for the book, I guess you will have to decide for yourself. The book was a worthwhile read overall.

I am a long time Star Trek fan who bought this book because I have had the honor of meeting Ms. Whitney at a couple of conventions, and she has impressed me with her warmth and wit. I read this book in a single sitting because I could not put it down. Unlike the other Trek memoirs I've read, this one focuses not on a TV series, but on the incredible story of a woman's fight to find peace with God and herself. This book is a must read for anyone who has ever experienced tragedy, loss of self esteem, or addiction. The one thing that concerns me most is that I feel too many people will look on this as just another Star Trek book when its audience should be far greater than just Trek fans. The author has bared her soul in an attempt to help others, and the courage that must have taken is awe-inspiring. Bravo, Grace Lee!

I was very impressed by this memoir. Grace Lee Whitney went through some terrible ordeals in her life and her account of how she eventually recovered from them and found spiritual peace as a Jewish Christian, while somewhat unorthodox for me to fully comprehend at first, ranks as one of the most inspiring accounts I've read this past year. Probably what impressed me most however, was her willingness to challenge the late Gene Roddenberry's long-standing diatribes against religion and faith in general by using herself as an example of what happens to one who decides its better to reject God in the name of doing one's own thing and thinking it's somehow "liberating" when ultimately it leads to the worst consequences imaginable.

MAYA 4 FUNDAMENTALS
Jim Lammers with Lee Gooding
PUBLISHER: New Riders
REVIEWED BY: Barbara Rhoades

BOOK REVIEW: Maya 4 Fundamentals is a book on 3D animation for the professional designer wanting to learn Maya from the bottom up. It contains a tear-out card of hotkeys on the very first page thus preventing a reader from having to hunt through the book for what a key does.

Beginning with Chapter 2, the book walks you through how to use Maya and interact with the CD. When the information is provided on the included CD, there is a sidebar called ON THE CD and it tells you exactly which file to use. There are tips and traps sidebars as well.

Know what NURBS are? If not, check out page 115 for a definition. Cameras, rendering, lighting, polygons, materials and artistry are subjects contained in the rest of the chapters. The wording in the book gives enough detail to make understanding what is being described easy enough and allows the reader to follow along using the CD.

...

Maya 4 Fundamentals is an excellent resource for those wanting a hands-on introduction to Alias|Wavefront's high-end graphics software package. The book takes you through the basics of their modeling, materials, lighting and animation tools by presenting an overview and guiding you through a project whereby those tools are put to use. As an adjunct to the text a CD is provided which includes not only the individual project files but movies of actual on-screen demonstrations of the book's lessons so that you may follow the author's examples while concurrently running Maya. This is a fine book for those wanting to learn Maya's basics. References are provided for those wishing to explore more about the tremendous capabilities of this software. Readers with previous 3D graphics experience will find it easy to follow along; Lightwave and Max users will find useful appendices listing the specific similarities in the various aspects of the applications. For the novice Maya can certainly seem overwhelming in its scope - especially when confronting all the reference manuals for the first time. This book is a great starting point. Readers with previous Maya experience can certainly use this as a resource as well as a refresher course.

Pros:
The book takes a very hands on approach to learning Maya by walking you through a modelling a house from start to finish. It also comes with a set of mel scripts to speed up workflow. To top it off all the tutorials are viewable on cd, which must have added to the workload of the authors, and enhances the value of the book. It's coverage of the modelling tools and the hypershade is excellent.

Cons:
It lacks depth when it comes to animation. There's no tutorial on creating a skeleton for a character. Also lighting, which lots of people say is a key factor in making a good scene, is not covered in sufficient detail. However this is a fundamentals book and if you want more detail the manual is a good resource. It won't teach you how to make a pretty face like that on the front cover of the book, but thats too be expected from a fundamentals book.

A nice collection of artists, with some great examples of what they can do. But....
Paper stock is poor and some prints are a bit blurry.

This is a great artbook, featuring many famous furry artists. I love the art, and look at it regularly. If you're a fan of Michele Light, I recommend it.

This book started my physical collection of furry publishings, and still remains the best singal pice I have. Not only is it perfectaly published, but contains excellent examples of anthropomorphic artwork. Its my personal bible.

As a liberal feminist living is San Francisco, I have few venues to share my appreciation for Kathie Lee Gifford. Although I suspect most of her fans are wholesome, All American Christians living in the Midwest and the South, I too find her sugary, self-absorbed persona irresistable. Why? While so many of today's celebrities have images that seem somehow manufactured, Kathie Lee breaks down the fourth wall, on her show and in this book, by sharing all her intimate secrets, some of them embarassingly tame. Perhaps more than any other tv personality, she is a reflection of a time that is fading from modern life: a 50s childhood of church on Sunday and summers at the beach, with parents that threatened to disown her if she slept with her boyfriend prior to marriage. The childhood reminiscenses in this book are charming, as are her accounts of motherhood. But Kathie Lee proves herself as a normal human being when she recounts her mismatched first marriage to "the perfect Christian catch" and her disillusioning experiences at Oral Roberts University. She emerges, unlike so many of today's celebrities, as a woman who has had to question herself and her values.

This is one of the better autobiographies to read in my opinion. Kathie Lee may be sugary sweet, but she doesn't sugar coat it in her book.

I find her interesting, because I think there are and have been many women that tried to have a career and fame that she has had. Yet when she was told at an early age that she couldn't sing, she took on the "Oh yeah? I'll show you." attitude.

In all honesty she is a good example of why trying until you succeed works. She has it all and even after bad press she still has it all.

She goes into detail about growing up with parents that didn't tolerate bad manners, a non-appreciation of family and God, and still fell head over heels for a surfer named Yancy. She saw the false side of show business before entering it herself. She married young, and then went on to have a few relationships before the "Giff" that showed her what the difference between being a trophy and a treasure. Of course would the book be the same if she didn't share stories about Regis, Cody and Cassidy?

Great book to read at the beach or by the pool. If you don't come away wanting to do something more with your life then you didn't read the whole thing.

Spike Lee written by Jim Haskins is about Spike Lee's life. Spike Lee is a movie director, and has directed over twenty films, like Malcolm X, and Summer Of Sam. It ranges from his family history before he was born to the present. But it goes in great detail about the movie industry and how it's a dog eat dog world out there. This book was missing a lot of the fun and positive things about being in the movie industry. It really focused on several of his own failures and obstacles. But it did not really go into details about why some of his movies were more successful than others.
This book was written really well. It had good sentence fluency, but lacked in voice because the author wasn't very interested. The word choice was bad because they used simple words, and organization was also bad because they jumped around. The ideas were also terrible because this is not an interesting fellow: he's just a dead beat.
My overall opinion would be one star because this book is really slow and boring. I would have rather sat and fiddled my thumbs together. But people that love his movies might like this book.

This book was the personal story of the man who rose from thief and hoodlum to becoming the most dynamic leader of the Black Revolution. The themes mentioned in the book are the endless problems of the Afro-Americans. A man that fought for what he believed in, and sacrificed his life for the freedom of his people. The book showed how Malcolm X changed his life by using different and peaceful changes later on, in his young life.