For the absolute die-hard fan this book cannot be replaced. It details the recordings the Stones made right down to the recording sessions and which records (including boolegs) they appeared on.

While this book is not one to be read from cover to cover, it does provide every piece of information you could ever need. I just used it to settle a bet as to whether "Honky Tonk Women" or "Country Honk" was released first. I won.

Henri Rousseau has been one of my favorite painters for a long time so I was glad to see Mike Venezia finally got around to doing this book for his Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series. Ironically, although Venezia includes seventeen Rousseau paintings in this book (which may well be a record for this particular series), my favorite is not included. Go figure. Venezia provides a basic biography of Rousseau, who always wanted to be a famous artist even though he never went to art school. Consequently it makes sense that Rousseau would be perhaps best known for his jungle paintings despite the fact he never traveled to any jungles, just to the Jardin des Plantes, a huge greenhouse filled with plants and trees from all over the world. Rousseau tended to put he mysterious and faraway lands he dreamed about into his paintings and most of his best work exhibits a compelling quirkiness, such as "The Merry Jesters," which shows monkeys playing in a jungle with a back scratcher and a milk bottle or "Tropical Landscape--An American Indian Struggling with an Ape," which shows an American Indian struggling with an ape in a tropical landscape. His most famous painting, "The Sleeping Gypsy," shows a strange meeting between a curious lion and a sleeping musician on a moonlit night. No wonder I always found Rousseau's work compelling. This particular Venezia volume gets high marks for including so many examples of Rousseau's work, along with key paintings by some of his contemporaries, who turned out to be much bigger supporters of his work than the public at large. Usually I like to see more specifics on the artist's work, because reading these books this year is a key part of my do-it-yourself art appreciation course. However, to be fair, once you cover Rousseau's use of strange images and multiple shades of green in all those jungle paintings, there is not much left to say in that regard. I was also happy to see that this time around some of the paintings reproduced were almost as big as Venezia's original cartoons depicting the artist's life. This series features great artists from Sandro Botticelli to Grant Wood, and every time I think I have almost read them all I discover another half-dozen or more I need to track down. Certainly there are other art books and other series that can provide more insights into these great artists, but Venezia does a fine job of introducing young readers to their lives and works.

Just the fact that the pages are matte and not glossy makes my day. Beautiful reproductions, lovely and dreamy story...what more could one ask? I recommend this delightful book for adults (such as myself), as well as children.

How Raven Stole The Sun is the latest addition to the Abbeville "Tales of the People" series of books for young readers, published in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Felix Vigil's artwork is perfectly suited to Maria Williams retelling of a Tlingit tale she first heard from her father. Its the story of how the Raven transformed himself to bring light to what had been an earth shrouded in darkness. How Raven Stole The Sun is further enriched for young readers with a glossary of Tlingit Words, a brief description of the Tlingit People; and photographs of artifacts drawn from the Smithsonian collection, as well as period photos of the Tlingit people. Other highly recommended titles in this outstanding series include The Butterfly Dance (0789201615, ...); Brave Wolf And The Thunderbird (0789201607, ...); and Coyote In Love With A Star (0789201623, ...).

Imperial cities offer an unexpected view of the late 19th, early 20th century imperial cities. The book is divided in 3 parts, Imperial Landscapes, Imperial Display and Imperial Identities and gives us several examples in each category.

In Imperial landscapes we see London, Rome, Paris, Vienna. London is a world trade hub with a hodgepodge urbanism upgrading its landscape to match its global position after cities like Paris, Brussels and Vienna created their own landscapes to match their global status. Rome, the recent capital of Italy wants to become a national symbol and erase centuries of papal power. Paris is consciously targeting rich travellers, intellectuals, artists to become the world capital of pleasure and attract who's who in the World by her beauty. Vienna is trying to combine tradition of her centuries old empire, cultures of her multinational empire and prove the world she is also capital of an industrial power but does not quiet succeed. And a last chapter dedicated to the Bank of England remodelling between 1919-1939 shows the evolution from Imperial to Late Imperial England and its impact on the building concept.

In Imperial Display we see the the Pageant of London in 1911, the colonial exposition of Marseilles, 'capital of the French colonies' in 1920, the Iberoamerican Fair of Sevilla in 1929, the colonial displays at Sydenham Crystal Park and the tropical plants in English gardens to analyse the imperial discourse and how Imperial cities see their world.

In Imperial Identities, authors show us Glasgow, imperial municipality and the importance of the Empire for the city, the way empires do impact on man clothing and identities between 1860-1914 and reactions to Empire, the Pan-African Conference of London in 1900. And for a final conclusion, how this imperial age still remains visible/invisible in our societies and prepared us to the multinational and global culture of today.

The book is really worth reading because it explains the whole thinking process beyond those landscapes, tourists guides, displays and attitudes which modelled the cities and the people living in them. Once read you will understand London, Rome, Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Marseilles, Glasgow, Sevilla and other imperial cities and never look at them the same way because of the decoded message it suddenly offers. An excellent complement to 'Ornementalism' from David Cannadine.

Enchanting melodies abound in Stefanile's fine book of original poetry and translations. Haunting use of language that takes the reader to a far different world than the one you're in now. Thank you.

Covering topics as diverse as National Policy, Electronic Commerce and Education, this book provides valuable insights into information technology in the Asia Pacific region. The editors have achieved a useful and interesting book by bringing together papers from authors with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences.

While humming and hawwing as to which commercial Astrology software to purchase, I noticed the 'Instant Astrologer' software at a local bookstore ... and bought it. My first impressions were from the software itself: VERY poor. Some thoughts on it: Cons: - The Moon's North and South Nodes are not included in the planet listings for the chart, or anywhere else in the software. - The planet location of Pluto is off by about 25 minutes on 2 charts that I compared to my ... chart data (all other planets were the same at their coordinates) - The Orb widths are not setable within the software - There's no colour coordination at all, in Aspects between planets, shown by connecting lines. - The built-in Atlas for city/town locations is extremely small. - Adding your own name/etc. into the database is a little far from 'intuitively' done. It took me a little while to figure out how to save my own data.

Pros: - MANY people are included with the software, for examining famous people's birth charts.

However, the book included is EXCELLENT for the Beginner Astrologer. Many details are included within it that I've not seen covered in other books. For the [price] that I paid for this package, I'm VERY happy with the book, but outside of using the software for learning from the book, I'll be soon moving towards other commercial software.

Ryk The Kreator

This has to be the #1 product on CD-ROM for reviewing radiology! I used it to prepare for boards and even used it to review cases while on the airplane to Louisville. iRAD contains tons of cases with high quality images, a description of the findings, a pertinent differential, the diagnosis, and a full discussion. It is conveniently organized into ten sections (chest, nucs, GI, etc.) and even has a final posttest (you don't have to submit your answers unless you need the CME's). Multiple choice questions with each case are a great way to simulate an oral examination, either alone or in groups.

This is a technical work, not a teach-yourself; not that anybody likely to be buying it would be likely to be misled (or to need a review here ...?)

The blurb on the back (perhaps lacking our British self-depreciation) describes the book as an "exemplary grammar" and I must say this is a fair description. My interests are general linguistic so I can't make any comment on the work's value for Mayan experts, but it is certainly one of the very best grammars of a non-Standard Average European language I've ever come across. The extensive coverage of discourse-level topics is noteworthy especially.

The book is admirably clear and physically well laid out.
It really, really needs an index though.(my only serious carp)

PS the version sold is a paperback, *not* hardcover