Gives a well-written and concise treatment of developments in an area of topology that has seen considerable progress in the past 50 years. The only other general expository books in this area are more than 20 years old. This is particularly important because the book unifies many seemingly disparate results and approaches. Even classic constructions (like the Hurewicz homomorphism) are give modern (and very concise) interpretations. I strongly recommend this book to students and researchers in algebraic topology.

This book is the best book of the year .I am a collector of his holiness. I had to back stage passes form when he came to New Orleans and pic clippions sence he was ordain Pope . I always highly admire the pope .Their was ever a time that this Pope let his people down . ... .

SPADA is a journal that contains some of most current ideas on historical swordsmanship by a number of the field's leading researchers. As a student of historical swordsmanship myself, I think it is an excellent step in the right direction for the progression of this school of study.

As far as the contents of the book are concerned, my hat goes off to the editor, Stephen Hand, for distilling such a diverse, and yet interesting range of papers from the vast array of excellent treatises available.

The book also features some interesting reports on some of the most recent activities undertaken in the WMA community. This provides the reader with a very good 'big picture' perspective into what advances are being made in what fields, and an appreciation for the vast range of people who are now interested in historical swordsmanship.

With regards to it's practicality, the book caters for many different tastes - whether you are interested in the finesse of renaissance fencing, or simply a medieval re-enactor using the trusty 'sword and shield' method. SPADA provides useful insights and a greater understanding of historical methods of fighting.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining a greater appreciation of historical swordsmanship, and anyone who is curious to know what the swordmanship community out there is doing. I rate it as a 'must have' item, and I look forward to more SPADA releases in the future.

cheers

Matt Partridge
Secretary
Order of the White Stag

I never knew sex could be sooo funny! This book takes quotes about sex from poetry, literature, movies, TV, newspapers, even the Bible (!) and arranges them in ways that make you think and make you laugh. It's a fun read. Perfect for the beach or on a plane.

This exceptional book contains the Wednesday Catechesis of the Pope from 1989 to 1991. The Holy Spirit is the great unknown among many Christians. Here you have, divided in three sections, a great summary about the reality of the Spirit of God. The first part deals with the revelation, analyzing the main texts in the Holy Scripture. The second one studies the relation between the Paraclete (the Advocate) and the Church. Finally, in the third part, we have the life of the Holy Spirit in our souls, which is a brief treatise of spirituality. In this remarkable work, you will find pages containing a broad spectrum of themes: from the difficult matter of the Holy Trinity to very practical issues of our daily life, such as the role of the prayer, love, freedom and joy. All of them are supported with quotations from the Bible and the saints, especially of St. Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval thinker. Each catechesis, four to five pages long, is presented with the clarity and precision of one of the most eminent theologians of our time.

Podrazik certainly knows the Fab Four. Having previously collaborated on the definitive three volume discography on the Beatles, he uses the opportunity of the new releases on CD of the Beatles' music to update us on their music, the impact of it on the world, and that intimate minutiae that only a real scholar can dig up. Well worth buying and reading. Michael Class

A thrilling adventure! More thrilling even than all her other books combined!

In his historical series the Kent Chronicles author John Jakes wrote about the Battle of the Alamo (in "The Furies" I believe) from the perspective of a fictional woman who survives, but is lost to history. In "Susanna of the Alamo: A True Story" he revisits this story in fictional form again, but this time telling the story of Susanna Dickson, the wife of Alamo defender Almeron Dickinson, who actually did survive the battle along with their 15-month-old daughter Elizabeth. The story Jakes tells spends as much time on the aftermath of the battle and what happened to the Dickinsons, which is significant because usually the story most students read in juvenile histories about the Alamo skip to the victory at the Battle of San Jacinto where San Houston's troop yelled "Remember the Alamo!" Jakes tries to avoid the legends that still exist about the story of the Alamo and stay faithful to the historical record, but admits gaps exist and some "facts" exist in different versions. Jakes tells of Susanna Dickinson's recovery in the hospital, her meeting with Santa Anna and the message he had her carry to Sam Houston in Gonzales. She tells the leader of the Texan army what happened to her husband and the other defenders of the Alamo. It is from that conversation that Jakes crafts a compelling idea that Susanna Dickinson played an important role in the quest for Texas independence. The book is designed and illustrated by Paul Bacon, whose pen and watercolor pictures capture the times and tenor of the tale. This is not the first book a student should read if they want to know about the Alamo, but once they have learned the basic history of these events they will find this version by John Jakes adds something to their understanding. Furthermore, I would suggest that adults interested in the Alamo would find this book of great interest as well. Susanna Dickinson remarried and never spoke of the Alamo again until late in her life and lived until 1883. In his talent hands, Jakes makes this woman more than a footnote to history. This book is what we would call a grace note.

This volume collects an excellent set of papers, each concerned with explicating the ways that people, through talk-in-interaction, do institutional work, (and thereby also 'do' or 'achieve' institutions as stable settings). The papers in this volume were written by leaders in the field of conversation analysis, including: Max Atkinson, Jorg Bergman, Graham Button, Steve Clayman, Paul Drew, John Heritage, Gail Jefferson, Douglas Maynard, Emanuel Schegloff, & Don Zimmerman. This book should be read by every serious social scientist.

I first read Talking to the Moon when living in Oklahoma's Osage County, only a few miles from where it was written. John Joseph Mathews, the author, was a native of that beautiful, rugged, still sparsely populated country. The scion of a locally prominent part-Osage family, he attended the University of Oklahoma and Oxford University, fought in WWI, and then came home to live alone for 10 years in a house he had built on his father's ranch. This book is the fruit of that time; it recounts his experiences and observations of the people, wildlife, and flora of that unique place. I found most of his observations to be accurate and pertinent 45 years later, except that if anything there are fewer people and better environmental conditions than there were in the 1930s and 40s, when Oklahoma's oil fever was still in full swing, and the Osage country was a hotbed of petroleum exploration and exploitation.

The book's structure is based on the Osage's concept of the moon's cycles as the basis of their year. The opening sentence of the third chapter, "Just-Doing-That Moon", says: "The Osage say that the moon is a woman and that she makes her appearance twelve times a year." Each of the moon's appearances has a name and, in the book, a corresponding chapter.

Mathews was deeply involved in Osage tribal politics, attempting to safeguard their lands and mineral rights from encroachment by state and federal government, and also attempting to preserve tribal history. He founded the Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska, and one chapter of the book is mostly devoted to his successful effort to have portraits painted for the museum of the leading elders of the tribe. This was in the summer of 1936, which still stands as the hottest on record in this area. His tales of dealing with the proud, recalcitrant elders and the somewhat clueless portraitist are both humorous and moving.

Mathews was a sophisticated, cosmopolitan intellectual, but he loved his people and his land, was always concerned with their welfare, and in writing this book, gave us an affectionate and clear-eyed account of the beauties and terrors to be found among the blackjacks and canyons of the land that Woody Guthrie called "the great Osage."