This book gives history and interesting facts with color illustrations; a very good choice. All American manafactures covered. I always enjoy my copy finding new information i missed the last reading.

Author Brian Solomon has picked the best resources available to provide rail historians the newest tome on the technology and history of the development of the steam locomotive in America. In addition to culling the most reliable authorities in a well-written text, Solomon has carefully picked what appear to be some of the highest-quality photographs available of the various types of steam locomotives developed, some from the earliest days of Kodachrome slide color photography. Written with all knowledge levels of rail buff in mind, this is a volume that deserves to be in the library of every railfan, from the newly-initiated to the knowledgeable veteran.

This book is a feast of witty stories culled from mostly first century sources about the dining customs of the Caesars and those they ruled, followed by a hundred or so pages of tasty recipes - including several in the original Latin - all dug out of the prose and poetry of the time and many attributed to persons who would be known to any first year Latin scholar. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read, and the recipes are easy, authentic, and delicious. I borrowed this book from the library at St. Anselm's Abbey, and all 10 of the dishes I prepared for my daughter's 8th grade Latin class using it were devoured voraciously.

I was impressed by the level of scholarship involved in finding and testing all the recipies, and I appreciated the detailed source list, which gives recipe by recipe citations. The practical hints for modern readers and encouragement to use authentic ingredients rather that substitute were also great. Best of all were the cultural and historical stories used to introduce many of the recipes. One tidbit: did you know that Ancient Romans thought lettuce was indigestible, and so they pounded their romaine to a pulp before making their salads?

I just have to have a copy of this cookbook for my home library, and I highly recommend it for any student of Ancient Rome or as a present for a beloved Latin teacher. Lastly, the author is right. The Stuffed Dates with Honey are addictive!

What a cool book.

The title says it all, and this new revised and expanded edition of Jon Solomon's THE ANCIENT WORLD IN THE CINEMA, first published in 1976, is even more fun and pleasant to read. So much so that, after you finish it, you might just be tempted to read more about antiquity. Now that's really cool!

Solomon, a professor of classics at the University of Arizona, is not one those classicists or historians who turn their noses up at films set in antiquity. As he writes in the preface to the 1976 edition, which is reprinted in the revised and expanded edition:

"My intentions in this book are by no means strictly academic. I examine all these films first as pure cinematic entertainment; then I examine them as cinematic renderings of history; and I also examine them as cinematic adaptations of ancient, biblical, or modern literature."

Solomon is not only unbiased but also flexible. How many professors do you know who would praise two such disparate films like Pier Paolo Pasolini's MEDEA (1970) and Ray Harryhausen's JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) in the same lifetime much less the same book? MEDEA, if you have never seen Pasolini's film, is one of the most serious and harrowing films ever produced set in antiquity (In a caption for a still from the film Solomon writes: "Here [Medea] bathes one of her two sons, knowing full well that she will cut their throats in a few minutes."), while JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is a classic of wholesome entertainment (Solomon compliments the two green DynoRama harpies who attack blind Phineas as "the most vivid impression of any Greek mythological monsters seen on film.").

Solomon breaks THE ANCIENT WORLD IN CINEMA into subjects and title his chapters accordingly: "A Survey of the Genre," "Greek and Roman History," "Greek and Roman Mythology," "The Old Testament," "The New Testament and Tales of the Christ," "Babylon, Egypt, Persia, and the Ancient Orient," "Ancient Tragedy and THE SATYRICON," "Ancient Comedy and Satirized Ancients," and "The Muscleman Epics." And if you like movies at all, this last chapter cannot be missed.

They just do not make mindless entertainment for its own sake the way they did back in 1957, the year Steve Reeves took the world by storm as the titular HERCULES. Solomon revisits many of these wonderful films about a "chesty hero," "their less chesty companion," "their chesty but innocent girlfriend," "pointy-bearded despots," and "bowling pin" adversaries. Many of Solomon's insights here are as piquant as those made in his book's other chapters, but you will also find many less-dignified but delightful observations such as "Muscleman heroes are wont to throw things," and that the hero's chesty, innocent girlfriend is typically "adept at virtuously bathing the hero's wounds (generally only flesh wounds on the shoulder)." You get the idea, and the tone.

I could go on...and have gone on too long...but hopefully I have made my point. Jon Solomon's THE ANCIENT WORLD IN THE CINEMA is a cool book. A fun book. And an intelligent book. Best of all, this book, like most of the movies Solomon examines in it, is worth checking out. Judging by his writing, I only wish Solomon could have been my classics teacher in college!

A fascinating autobiography of an American Jewish woman coming to age in post-WWII New York and Europe, this book has much in common with a female novel of development. Probst Solomon portrays with striking honesty and intimacy the personal twists and turns that bring her from the "linguistic bouillabaise"of her educated New York home with its German nanny, through the perils of adolescent loves, to her political adventures in post-war Europe and the sudden deaths of her husband and Spanish lover. An American journalist, who wrote in Spanish for "Península" magazine, which was to provide the intellectual base for Spanish exiles of the Franco regime, Probst Solomon's work is infused with erudition, "intelligent rebellion" and idealism. With the help of Norman Mailer's sister, the young Probst Solomon helps spring dissidents from Spanish jails. From her home among the exiles in Paris, she travels to Munich and Dachau at the end of 1948, where she has unsettling encounters with a Jewish survivor in the black market and with occupying American troops. She returns to New York, politically mature beyond her years, at the age of 21.

My students really enjoyed thinking about ways to verify database information associated with a dating service. A fun industry to think about, but the concepts and skills are anything but lightweight. Great package.

October 10, 2000 Finally a book that makes understanding all aspects of NFPA 13,13D and 13R easy. Text of the codes appears in black and the helpful explmation text, line drawings and/or photos appears in red. The Editor really focous on the intend and interpertations in which the code was written. This is a must have for system designers, engineers and installers.

Popular mythology of the Solomons Campaign holds that the Japanese Navy was invincible at night and hopelessly outclassed the United States Navy. Read the average account of the battles in the Slot and you come away with the impression that the Japanese won them all, or at least all up until Second Guadalcanal.

Cook's book provides a fine, straightforward narrative of one of the early engagements which the US Navy, in fact, won. It's a readable, exciting book which also contains information useful to serious students of the war and campaign.

James Baldwin was right. This is "an extraordinary piece of work" and Barbara Probst Solomon is "an amazingly gifted writer". This first novel moved me. The couple, Timothy and Natasha just want to make love and be happy, and as Baldwin wrote, regarding Probst Solomon, "she conveys a grim, grim sense of how remarkable, if one's going to survive this desert, one's got to become; she makes us see far better than they ever do, what they lack and what this means...her people are the 'beat' generation, stripped of the dubious protection, the pose, the shrillness, the fake poetry and the fake jazz...and her book is the best thing I can remember reading on the subject." Baldwin put it much better than I could. I simply loved this novel and feel better to have read it.

This is an excellent introduction to philosophy...the only problem with it is that it does not include enough primary source material. But it is packed with other good stuff...including Solomon's wonderful explanations and clear writing on some very difficult topics.