This is the book for the mime who wishes to understand and perfect his or her technique. It is also the book for the theater goer who wants to understand mime as an art. Heavy on theory and tradition, it explores many aspects of the art using numerous examples of the physical techniques. The author,who has 40 years of stage and teaching experience, obviously loves and understands mime and wishes to communicate his knowledge to the reader.

After experiencing a 1 week intensive seminar with Stefan at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. This book is a fantastic guide to his views and technique of the art-form. I recommend this book for the more knowlegable individuals of the art of mime. And also the spectator who has an interest in understanding this wonderful form of art. Stefan is the best of the best, and his views and concepts are thoroughly respected by Mr. Marceau. If your interests are in the art of mime then this book is definately a must, and I don't mean for your bookshelf this is a "must read" for the mime-lover! ...

I am fascinated by war novels. ("All Quiet on the Western Front" is one of my favorites.) And this book was very good. I've just finished reading it once through, and I immediately went back to read it a second time. When I first got it, I opened it up, read the first paragraph, and then stopped to say "Wow." There have been many (translated) foreign novels that I've read that are somewhat halting and broken as far as the language is concerned. ("All Quiet on the Western Front" included.) That was not the case with this novel. It was very fluid and smooth . . . very much like the river of the title. I originally checked this book out from a library, and liked it so much that I've come online to try and purchase it. I hope you like it as much as I did.

After completing my reading of the Faithful River by Zeromski I am reminded of "The English Patient", the movie starring Ralph Fiennes from several years back. Zeromski does a magnificant job of setting the ambience for this work and the reader is transported into the mind of the Soldier as he struggles to live. This book is exremely well transalated by Bill Johnston and is a pleasure for any one to read.

When reading a text, how much does what the author intended count for, if anything? Is there any way to tell what a text "really" means, or can it be read however you like for whatever purpose you like? Simple as they seem, these are the fundamental questions this book is concerned with, and it is Eco's task to explain why he thinks there should be limits to interpretation - against the prevailing opinions of many modern critics and thinkers.

The book is laid out in eight sections. The first is the Introduction, which is substantial. If you're in the habit of skipping the introduction I would advise against it here, unless you consider yourself thoroughly familiar with the subject - it's helpful.

The next three sections consist of a series of lectures Eco gave on this subject, where he establishes his main points. It's quite accessible to the layman, and in the few places where the terms get a bit obscure you can usually figure out what he's talking about from the context. He uses several historical examples which keep things interesting, and his arguments are interesting whether you find them convincing or not.

Essays by Rorty, Culler and Brooke-Rose in response to these lectures make up the next part. Rorty, a self-described "pragmatist", makes the argument that we shouldn't concern ourselves with what makes a "valid" interpretation, and instead just use texts as they come before us for whatever purpose suits us best. Culler, coming from the side of the deconstructionists, argues that what Eco calls "overinterpretation" has a value of its own and reacts strongly to the implication that there should be any limits whatsoever imposed upon the critic. Brooke-Rose's piece on "palimpsest history" is not uninteresting but somewhat tangential, and you really have to stretch things to relate it to the argument going on between Eco, Rorty and Culler.

The wrap-up section is a response from Eco, mostly addressing Rorty's points though dealing somewhat with Culler's objections. There is no clear "winner", and you may not be swayed to Eco's point of view if you found one of the others more compelling, but there is ample food for thought.

I don't have much background in literary theory, but I still found Eco's writing very accessible and very enjoyable. I think the topic would interest anyone that has ever tried to appreciate literature: up to what point can we take events in a book/play/poem to be significant to the idea the writer is trying to get across?

This book constructs its arguments from the ground up, although at times the approach to interpretation taken by Eco is radically different from how one would be accustumed to reading a book.

I believe that eventually one gets used to the different approaches suggested -- or better, exemplified -- by Eco, and the initial difficulties in understanding his point of view are overcome to open a great new horizon of ideas and literary enjoyment.

This is a good primer for heraldry but, be warned, there is no identification of the device or charges time period. Apart from that I would thouroughly recommend this book for anyone who, like me, is a beginner in the compelling world of heraldry. Above all, the title is accurate and does not try to be all things to everyone.

Heraldry is not an easy topic to grasp. There are so many rules of use, esoteric terms to define everything from color, to subject, to shape. This book is the best introduction you'll find. Be forewarned, this is not the usual "What's Your Name?--Here's Your Coat of Arms!" encyclopedic look-up. Instead, it shows examples of heraldry and explains in full detail just what information can be derived from the coat. What is the importance of animals, weapons, figures, mottos, colors, and shapes? Where did heraldry come from? What were the rules regarding the changes of the coat of arms down through children, crossed by marriage, changed by death? This book is a beautifully illustrated and comprehensively written introduction to the beginning of your understanding to heraldry. It makes for a charming coffee table book that you'll refer to again and again.

I truely liked the book, but in the edition I have got, the whole index is messed up, i.e. you find the keyword a few pages below the page given in the index. Probably this blunder will not be repeated in coming up editions...I hope so, because the book is worth being used.

This text is a must read for aspiring mathematical physicists. Here the inherent geometric nature of classical mechanics is laid bare; revealed in its most beautiful form. There is much material in this text. That material falls roughly into two categories. First, there is material of the well known variety: Manifolds, Lie Algebras, Sympletic spaces, Symplectic manifolds, Langrange's equations, Hamilton's equations, Poission's brackets and so on. That material is concisely and precisely presented making those portions alone a thoroughly pleasurable read. The second variety of material is lesser known results. For example, Quantum mechanics formulated through Schrodinger's eqtn as a *classical system*, geometric formulation of Noether's theorem, Poisson manifolds, the theory of Casimir invariants and its relation to foliation of symplectic manifolds. This second variety of material is truly beautiful to see. The results are surprising when seen for the first time and they beg the reader to go futher themselves.

Eberhardt, Nameless's police friend calls him to a crime scene. Does he know the victim? He never saw her in his life. Why then is his business card in her possesion? Nameless hasn't an answer but the question nags at him even though he has another case to keep him occupied.

Nothing can go smoothly for Nameless. His twenty-four hour surveillance job ends up with a murder but the suspect didn't commit the crime but is charged anyway. Nameless does some more digging and before he knows it three more murders occur all of which point to him and the orginal victim. How will Nameless be able to unravel this labyrinth of mayhem and murder as he moves through its corridors.

Labyrinth takes us through that valley called coincidence, syncronicity and intuition. How is it that unrelated incidents of foul play are linked together in a haphazard way. Nameless tries to use his cold logic to bring the pieces of the puzzle together but finds himself frustrated at every turn. He is forced to think outside the box if he is ever to solve these series of crime. Like Nameless, you too will find yourself looking for the "connections" which makes this work of Pronzini's more fun and challenging.

One of the oldest gambits in PI fiction is the dead body that turns up with the detective's business card in a pocket. Pronzini breathes new life into that scenario with "Labyrinth." Nameless has no idea who the dead girl is -- how did she get his card? This book has tons of action and excitement; thank goodness it's short enough to devour in one or two sittings. Fans of the PI genre have got to check out Nameless. The books are best read in order, so it's a major shame that they're out of print -- but they are certainly worth tracking down.

This is a good collection of ghost stories, many by authors who are known for other genres of literature, such as Edith Wharton, Graham Greene, Charles Dickens, Joyce Carol Oates. I recently have been told that this collection is going out of print. I wish it weren't! I've been using this collection in a class I teach, with good results. It's so hard to find a good collection of shorter horror fiction.....

I used this in an English course and my students loved it. It is one of the most accessible ghost-story collections ever. Many other anthologies focus on just Victorian era (langauge too difficlut for many) or modern (subject matter too visceral or abstract). This had a beautiful blend of everthing from artistic use of langauge to psychological and visceral themes. It did not bore anyone in the class. I wanted to use it again and discovered it was out of print. HISS-BOO! PUBLISHER TAKE NOTE: If this book isn't revived, it will come back to "haunt" you!

This is a must-have book for couples and singles who are sexually active. I found this book very informative in a very direct way. It's like a having a sexual therapist right in front of you. The book shows each issue in alphabetical order so it's very easy to reach the information I need. At first I thought it's more like a reference book, but after reading more, I found this book very readable, lively, and full of, not just knowledge about sex, but also advice. It answers thousand questions that many people feel embarrassed to ask. This book is like a good sex, you'd better read it before having it.

Every person should have this book in their home. Men and women of all ages will benefit from using this information that has been so accurately and tastefully presented.

The book answers thousands of questions that many people are afraid or too embarassed to ask. Even though the book was written in the early 90's, it has up to date information on human sexuality and health issues. This great book covers everything from stress, hormones, potency, vasectomy, yeast infections, to performance and sex aids. It also has chapters on desire, the g-spot, homosexuality, std's hysterectomy, oral sex, orgasm, spermicides premature ejaculation, pregnancy, childbirth, puberty fantacies, dreams, cancer, castration, circumcision and much much more.

The book is packed with sound advise. I just gave my copy to my younger sister. She was amazed about all the answers she got from this great book. I highly recommend it to all families. It is well written and contains a great source of information.

The authors give a nice overview of computer performance evaluation using queueing theory and continuous and discrete-time Markov chains. After a short review of the relevant probability and statistics, the authors discuss Markov chains in the second chapter, pointing out that Markov processes can be used to model queueing systems even when these systems have behavior governed by non-exponential distributions. They characterize these as Markovizing methods. Their treatment of both discrete and continuous time Markov models is short but adequate, covering all the necessary concepts such as ergodicity and irreducibility. They then give a thorough discussion of the modeling process as actually done in practice. Their discussion of model sizing sets up their methodologies for dealing with large models later in the book. Performance measures for system requirements are discussed in terms of Markov reward models. Their treatment here is very detailed and they also give a large collection of helpful references on the subject.Petri nets are also discussed in the context of model generation. The authors state, correctly I think, that more time should be spent of developing models rather than the underlying mathematics. In their treatment of networks with non-exponential service time and interarrival time distributions, the authors employ the diffusion approximation via the solution of the Fokker-Planck equation. The don't discuss this in detail but give references for those who can read German. This would have been a place for a detailed analysis and derivation, given the surprising introduction of the Fokker-Planck equation in queueing theory. They also use, interestingly, maximum entropy methods to get approximate solutions of open and closed queueing networks. A very short chapter on optimization is given in the next chapter, which could stand to be more lengthy given the importance of this in implementing networks commercially. The next chapter covers some of the performance tools that are available for studying networks. The Performance Evaluation and Prediction System (PEPSY), stochastic Petri net package (SPNP), the CSPL language, the Model Description Language (MOSEL), the symbolic hierarchical automated reliability performance evaluator (SHARPE) are discussed with examples of each. Readers not having these tools will of course will not benefit too much from reading this chapter, except for maybe to get an idea of what is available. The OPNET and Ns-simulator packages,which are very nice modeling tools are not treated at all for some reason.

The last chapter covers applications, with case studies of queueing networks, Markov chains, stochastic Petri nets, and hierarchical models. Although of somewhat limited value in practice, the examples given do give the reader an idea of how the material in the book can be applied. And here again, the authors stress the use of modeling packages such as SHARPE and PEPSY, to verify the calculations in the case studies. They consider a closed non-product form queueing model of a medium-sized LAN in some detail with Ethernet links and a FDDI ring, solving it using Marie's method. Also interesting is their model of the UNIX operating system, which is also represented by a closed non-product queueing network. They compare the computation time needed to solve the model using CTMC, shadow, and DES techniques. Although the discussion is rather hurried, their model of an ATM network is also interesting, in that they use Markov reward models, obtaining both the state and transient solutions.

The book is one that will be of great assistance to those doing network modeling, performance analysis, and other time-scheduling modeling activiites. It is somewhat expensive, but worth the price I think considering the care which the authors take in their exposition.

Queueing Networks and Markov Chains is a scholarly book written by internationally recognized experts in their field. The book provides both basic concepts and complex topics. The book is embellished with multiple illustrations, solved examples, and problems. In my opinion this book should be useful to researchers and practitioners of the queueing theory discipline as a convenient reference, and to students as a useful textbook. Look at the price! It's worth it.

There's enough songs to keep a good guitarist busy and happy for a while. If you're a beginner you'll be frustrated for a while. Other reviewers mentioned a CD. I was expecting a CD based on a user review. If you're expecting a CD don't unless it's explicitely mentioned. The book makes no reference to a CD, neither does ... (except in their user reviews). I don't know where they got the CD from, I didn't. --mike

Fans of fingerstyle guitar will love this CD and the book of transcriptions. Rev. Gary Davis has a distinctive style of playing and singing and is a very (VERY) good guitarist. Be warned that the transcriptions are quite challenging--there are some lengthy ragtime instrumental pieces. A better book for beginners might be Stefan Grossman's collection of Mississippi John Hurt tunes. Still, an excellent publication--the CD that comes with the book would be worth the purchase price by itself.