James Agee was short for this world, having died in his mid 40s. In that span of time he wrote a famous book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and a couple of classic screenplays, AFRICAN QUEEN and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. This collection of magazine film reviews and essays is in many ways the leftover part of his work, and yet it feels like enough to make a reputation on. His reviews span just one decade, the 1940s. Many of them tackle foreign films that may be unavailable for all I know.

Interesting to me is that he spends three weeks discussing Chaplin's MONSIEUR VERDOUX, which is a most unusual movie and mostly forgotten today. This might be because he saw it as his only chance to write a poignant piece on the greatest living film artist, or it may be because he identified with the plight of mankind theme that Chaplin was reaching for. You can pick another reason, yourself, but it was a bold decision, because most critics panned the film (according to him) and most readers probably couldn't even see the movie in their small towns. It was as if he knew he would be writing for posterity. Like all critics, he cultivated his darlings. He saw much in the work of John Huston and was very skillful in his sizing up of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. I was impressed that he predicted the all-time classic nature of the film, but also understood the studio system gimmicks that took away from the genius.

You don't have to be literary minded like W. H. Auden to enjoy this book. You'll like it, if you like movies.

Ever wonder what causes a movie reviewer to *become* a movie reviewer? When I was a ten-year-old kid just getting into classic movie comedies, I went to the library and checked out the book AGEE ON FILM solely because it had references to Charlie Chaplin and W.C. Fields. Thus was my introduction to high-quality film criticism.

James Agee made his reputation writing sterling movie reviews for Time and The Nation magazines in the 1940's. Among other glories, he wrote a much-heralded essay titled "Comedy's Greatest Era" that helped to bring silent-comedy icons (most notably Harry Langdon) out of mothballs and caused them to be re-viewed and discussed seriously among film historians. He later went on to work on the screenplays of a couple of gems titled The African Queen and Night of the Hunter.

Unfortunately, many people who regard the critics Pauline Kael and Stanley Kauffmann have either forgotten Agee's work entirely or have assigned his own work to mothballs. But among the faithful are film director Martin Scorsese, who serves as editor of the "Modern Library: The Movies" series of film books. The series has recently reissued the AGEE ON FILM book, and re-reading Agee's work (or reading it for the first time, if you're lucky enough) proves that film criticism can make for reading material as compelling as any fictional novel.

Agee passes the acid test for any film critic: Even if you don't agree with him, his writing is so lively that you can't help enjoying it. His work ranges from three separate columns (three weeks' worth, in print terms) to Chaplin's much-maligned (at the time) MONSIEUR VERDOUX, to the most concise, funniest review ever: Reviewing a musical potboiler titled YOU WERE MEANT FOR ME, Agee replied in four simple words, "That's what *you* think."

If you want to see what high-caliber movie criticism meant in the pre-Siskel & Ebert days, engross yourself in this sprawling book. It'll make you appreciate the decades before every newspaper, newsletter, and Internet site had its own minor-league deconstructionist of Hollywood blockbusters.

James Agee wrote film criticism in America at a time when the American film industry hardly deserved his attention. His celebrations of silent film comedy, of Preston Sturges, of John Huston [for whom he later wrote the script for The African Queen], and of the handful of worthy foreign films that he managed to see are what make this volume worth reading. Besides Agee's beautiful prose and above all his compassion. Interestingly, Agee was a fan of Frank Capra's comedies (It Happened One Night) and bemoaned the director's decent into serious social films (Mr Smith Goes To Washington, Meet John Doe). His negative review of It's a Wonderful Life, which has never been in print since it appeared in 1946, reveals the extent to which Agee was perhaps too far ahead of his time, and even of ours.

This book attempts to provide a unified theory of software architecture, their VRAPS (Vision, Rhythm, Anticipation, Partnering, Simplification) methodology. While the basic approach is reasonably sound, in order to prove their case, the authors delve into the highly speculative field of organizational patterns and antipatterns to provide justification for their model.

The book is divided into three parts. The first deals with and overview of the VRAPS model and the last deals with a presentation of its application in the context of the situation at Allaire. Both of these sections are fine. It is the middle portion, which attempts to "prove" the validity of their model with reference to object-oriented patterns, which stretches the credulity of the reader. The authors even admit that you can skip the chapters where these patterns are presented. Putting them in only serves to detract from the other meaningful chapters of their work.

Object-oriented analysis was developed to solve abstract problems in reusable code paradigms. Previously unknown to me, a group of eager souls has tried to extend this metaphor into the realm of individual and group psychology, with no attempts to provide an empirical basis for their efforts. Whimsical patterns such as "Antigravity Module," "Drop Pass," and "Loan Shark" are relied upon to produce a catalog of objectivist modes of development behavior.

Why a methodology with no basis in psychology is supposed to answer complex issues of organizational behavior is beyond me. Could anyone conceivably apply theories of database normalization or compiler design and hope that they would help you to manage your employees better? There is a vast body serious material in the business literature which deals with these issues in the proper context, and I see no evidence why adding a layer pseudo-scientific organizational patterns to the analysis can do anything but to add confusion to the problems.

If you want a pop psychology approach to managing behavior in a development environment, a book such as "Dynamics of Software Development," by Jim McCarthy provides a very entertaining and enlightening approach to the problem. If you want an exposure to serious software architecture methods, a tome such as "Software Architecture in Practice," By Len Bass, et al, from the Software Engineering Institute can provide deep insight.

The authors of "Software Architecture" are highly seasoned professionals with impressive experience. I find it difficult to understand why they would take a reasonable approach and burden it with a false sense of analytical rigor based on the patterns literature. They would have had a much better book had they simply focused on the case study of Allaire in the context of the VRAPS model.

Excellent summary of the relationship between architecture and organization. This will be a hot topic as organizations recover from attempts to do without serious architecture. The VRAPS organizational principles presented are a minimal set of dymanically related principles needed to understand the architecture building capabilities of an organization.

Not quite sure what to expect when I started the book, I was pleasantly surprised. The book explores 5 principles behind Software Architecture; namely Vision, Rhythm, Anticipation, Partnering, and Simplification; or VRAPS for short. Not only will you learn these principles, but you'll get an introduction to patterns and antipatterns as well. Yet it is not a "How To" on Software Architecture.

Much of the book is devoted to VRAPS. After a few introductory chapters, each principle is defined, explained, and then illuminated with criteria, antipatterns and patterns.

Chapter 8 introduces a case study, based upon a well known Internet company. Allaire's jouney through each principle is discussed, including successful practices and warning signs.

Chapter 9 is added for completeness. It presents a case study about building and implementing a benchmark framework for VRAPS. The authors surveyed many organisations in compiling this book, and their results are published here in a summary form.

The book is rounded off with useful Appendixes. One provides a quick reference principles, criteria, antipatterns and patterns, the other is an index of patterns and antipatterns cross-referenced to principles. Overall I found the book to be well structured and well organised - and not too hard too read.

This is the third book I've read from the Software Architecture Series, and the most practical and useful so far. This book should go far in establishing a basic process for Software Architecture that is both theoretical and practical.

Fischer wrote _Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America,_ which is one of the best works published in several decades in comparative and local U.S. history, and in many ways this is a continuation of the "Virginia" section of that book. Which is a bit surprising, since the author is a New Englander and previously showed considerable preference for the folkways of Massachusetts over those in the South. Since I have numerous forebears in Virginia, I was particularly interested in the first three chapters: "Migration to Virginia," "Migration in Virginia," and "Migration beyond Virginia." All of those apply to my people and Fischer's coverage of the in-through-and-out process is first-rate. As before, he's an old-fashioned historian, spending a lot of time describing the concrete experiences of particular individuals and families, not spinning out historiographical theory. This is a must-read for anyone interested in Virginia's first couple of centuries.

A fascinating history of migration to, within, and from Virginia, the Old Dominion. The "to" begins with the English colonization at Roanoke (the lost colony) and Jamestown. "Within" is movement of colonists to various parts of the region, including the tidewater, piedmont, southside, northern neck, and "the valley" (Shenandoah). And "from" is the movement of Virginians to all parts of the country, south, north, but mainly west. What happened to Virginia, the most populous and prosperous of states during the early U.S. Republic? Why the decline after four of the first five presidents were Virginians (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe)? Part of the reason was a great migration west, both northwest and southwest. Why? The land was depleted from generations of farming, and there wasn't enough land for the growing population. But Virginia's emigrants and their descendants had great impacts on other territories and U.S. history: Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, Stephen Austin and Sam Houston. The authors use Turner's theory of the frontier as the backdrop for a vivid portrayal of Virginia and U.S. history. One weakness is a section of name-dropping about now unknown families who migrated west. Other than that, a lively story recommended for those interested in Virginia and U.S. history. Plenty of pictures and maps--the book accompanied an exhibit at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond.

After reading Albion's Seed I was eager to read more about the English folkways. This book expands on that with information about German folkways and African folkways. This books gives a sense the people that expanded westward. There is also a philosophical current about the nature of historial inquiry. He addresses various ideas about frontiers and shows that the process of expansion is not open to one-size-fits all explainations. Though Fischer depricates purely materialist explainations of history, the interplay between the cultural values of the Virginians and the physical limitations of the land is a compelling explaination of the westward expansion.

This text is traditionally seen in the classroom, however not all EMT classes utilize this text and some technicians may not be familiar with it. In essence, the text is designed to provide the necessary knowledge to become an Emergency Medical Technician.

Content includes basic physiology, medical terminology, patient assessment, and emergency interventions on the basic life support level. The book assumes no prior medical knowledge on the part of the reader and the information is presented in a clear and logical manner.

The text is also useful to the layman who would appredciate a more in depth approach to the recognition of medical emergencies and life saving interventions.

This is really a reference textbook for the education of new EMT's, but the information it contains is complete, concise and extremely up-to-date (important in a field that is changing ALL the time!)

Highly recommended as a text to have on your EMS shelf.

I am an EMT Basic student and use this book very much. It is a very easily read book with a good amount of emphasis on the practical applications neccesary for emergency care. It is also divided for ease of refernce, which is neccessary for quick checks of how to do something.

When I saw the page I recognized the cover of the book, but I could not believe what people were actually writing about it.

First I want to say that I am an undergraduate biotechnology student. I have a very strong background in biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, tissue culture techniques, and immunology; but I have not had any classes dealing with anatomy or physiology since Bio 101 way back when. I have read and am quite comfortable with Alberts Molecular Biology of the Cell and Stryers Biochemistry, and even a handful of primary journal articles, so I do know how to read a textbook.

Now with that out of the way, let me say that this book is completely incomprehensible. It is so full of anatomy and Latin derived words (which it does a poor job at explaining BTW) that I can only assume that it was meant for medical students, and to have physiology an a prerequisite for it, but it doesn't even have an introduction describing the recommended background or whom it is supposed to be for. In fact, most of the book is devoted to the physiology of sensation and movement, not neurobiology. Now if you have the background for it and thats what you are looking for then it is a very thorough text that goes into a lot of depth.

If you are looking to understand the biochemistry or molecular aspects of neurobiology, find another book!

As an undergraduate Psychobiology student, this text served me well in my Neuroscience course. In all honesty I never went. I just read this book. I got excellent marks in the class. As a serious slacker and bibliophile, I recommend this textbook for any like-minded student.

As an undergraduate Neuroscience major I found this textbook to be highly informative and well-written. It was used to a Freshman-level course, and was easy to understand, yet thorough and interesting. The graphics are well done, and the format is better than most textbooks I'm used to. Anyone, even with minimal science experience could dive right in and learn a great deal. It may not be advanced enough, however, for grad or medical students. As a reference it does okay, but there are more-advanced texts which would probably do better. All-in-all it is an excellent book. In-fact, I liked it so much that I didn't sell it back at the end of the semester and keep it on my bookshelf for future reference (and future classes!)

This time it is up to Kane and his companions to discover what exactly is happening on the planet Mars.

The answer is surprising and it leads to one of my favorite editions to the outlanders series.

Overall-If you think that this has been done before you are sorely mistaken, read the book and find out!!

This is the third audio book of the Outlanders series to which I have listened. It was also the best. In each of the other books, the heroes kicked a** and the story went on. This time little guys were the big shots. In the end our heroes won out over the bad guys but you had to stop and remind yourself who the good guys were. After all the bad guys had far more self control and appeared more honest than our heroes. I hated having the spacestation blow up though, I would have been happier with that avenue left for exploring.

I was one of those people prejudiced against Outlanders, thinking it was just a rip-off od Deathlands. Well my thinking got straight after I read Parallax Red. This is only one I read so far and I could kick myself for passing up the others.It has a lot of cool action and the heros are interesting and it's really nothing like Deathlands. I loved the bad guy, Sindri and esepcially all the stuff about Mars.I'll be a fan from now on.

Cherryh is one of my favorite authors, so you'll need to temper my enthusiasm with that knowledge. I haven't ever read anything by her that I didn't like. And many many books (she's extremely prolific) that I absolutely loved. This is not one of her best - but it is very good. Combines science, genetics, sociology, psychology and great story telling.

The reason this isn't one of her best books is that it doesn't spend the kind of time with characters that it could. Her greatest strength is placing very real and complex characters into real and complex environments. But this book takes place over hundreds of years, and doesn't ever get deeply involved with any one or group of characters. So it doesn't shine like she typically does. But there is a greatness to this book and I recommend it to anyone who has read any Cherryh fiction. As a first exposure I'd stick to Downbelow Station, Finity's End, Merchanter's luck, or Cyteen.

This book just gets better and better as you read it.

It starts somewhat slow, as most of Cherryh's books do. I would contend, however, that it only _seems_ slow as you begin to recognize the characters and the plot lines.

Cherryh leaves us with an incredibly complex book. The complexity of the book is not in the characters, nor in the plot itself. Rather, she has woven perhaps one of the most complex societies and man:man, man:environment conflicts I've ever read.

The continuing question throughout the book is debated by people removed from the situation (I won't go in to details for the sake of the prospective readers), and new details come to life as the story progresses.

What really makes this book a shining example of what a good author can do is Cherryh's creation, quite literally of the ground up, of a new race. A new society. And describing that race, and that society, at every step of the way. Not only does she create conflict and strong interactions between characters and groups of characters, but she creates a new morality, a new language, and indeed a new culture.

This book shows the talent of one of Science Fiction's most gifted authors. Highly, highly recommended. I buy this book for anyone who will read it.

If anything this is more ambitious than Cyteen, though that novel will remain the greater one because of its scope and depth, the latter of which this novel tends to lack at times, though Cherryh is still better than most science-fiction writers. The events of this novel are referred to in Cyteen and that planet is still a big player during the course of events, but Cyteen was also a big part of Downbelow Station and you didn't need to read Cyteen to understand that one either. What you do need to understand is that this is one strange book, the basic plot is that colonists are sent to Gehenna which has these strange lizards and then they're essentially abandoned there and when people find them again this entirely odd culture that is hard to understand has grown up to live with the lizards. Most of the book is devoted to explaining the way this strange culture arrives at what it is, and that is probably the most fascinating part. The encounters between the scientists and the Gehennans are also classic moments and the characters are all well defined even if because the novel takes place over so many years they tend to pop in and out, so don't get too attached to many of them, because they don't stick around for too long. Overall definitely one of her better novels and on par with both Cyteen and Downbelow Station, it may not have the greatness of the former or the sustained intensity of the latter but in its exploration of culture and how it can be formed, Cherryh shows that she has few peers in the science-fiction world.

The publisher says that this book is appropriate for grade 6-12. I disagree. While I feel the book is well written and informative - I strongly suggest that educators think twice before putting the book in an elementary school library.
Perhaps have it available in case an advanced 6th grader has a need for detailed information regarding the topics.
My 9 year old - 4th grade son brought the book home from school yesterday. While AIDS is an important subject for him to learn about - I do not feel that the details of specific high-risk sexual contact needs to be available to him at his age.
I feel the book would be more appropriate for grades 9-12.

This book was fun to read and it was really easy to get a book report out of.

We read this book in class and it is an excellent source of information as well as interesting, and offers all points of view on each "plague" as well as the facts. Covers a lot on the little known parts, and victims of AIDS, and a short kind of Bio on Ryan White.

There's nothing on the cover to indicate that this is anything but a fun, creative children's story with beguiling illustrations. But it soon takes a hard right turn into religious propaganda, very heavy handed and manipulative. Only for those who are trying to make their kids grow up fundamentalist. Whatever happened to stimulating youngster's imaginations and letting them think for themselves?

Adam Racoon and the Flying Machine is a good adventerous book that relates to the lives of children. Sometimes it's hard for children to do what may be best in life. I think this book helps children have a better understanding about their relationships with jesus and the adults around them.

Another great book in the Parables for Kids series. It is wonderful to help children see that in every instance, the Bible really does show us the way to go. This book helps children realize that to go the right way, they need to keep the right focus throughout life. And, that focus should always be on God and His Word, the Bible.

I thought this book just tread the same path as John Bradshaw (whom he quotes) with a few biblical examples thrown in. I didn't find anything in this book that I hadn't seen before.

Dr. David Stoop speaks in terms that may resonate with engineering-types.

He describes families in a systems approach using language such as "homeostasis", "action-reaction", and "non-linear systems".

As an example, we cannot react to a family problem/dysfunction in an "action-reaction" or "linear" manner. We must realize that each member plays a distinct role, essential for maintaining the homeostasis (i.e., thermostat) of the family system. Thus, each role must be examined prior to formulating a conclusion about the problem. He and James Masteller contribute many examples that support this hypothesis.

This book is essential if you are dealing with any type of emotional malady--depression, anxiety, anger, bitterness, stress, etc. Chances are likely that these maladies have found root through a family dysfunction that may have occurred years ago!

The workbook found in the book's epilogue is practical if one is *serious* about dealing with a dysfunction.

I always thought I was the one in the family who was *not* in denial - the one who called things as they saw them, but this book showed me that I too, had been in denial.

I'd hit parts of this book that were so upsetting or so revealing that I had to set the book aside for a time and think deeply about what I'd read.

And it relieved me of tons of guilt and shame I'd carried for years. Quite frankly, this book was an answer to prayer, but it took some wading through the mire and muck to get to the fresh, pure waters.

After reading one chapter and doing an exercise, I recalled a painful incident when a family friend harmed me and I told my father about it and he didn't even want to hear about it. My father accused me of being a liar.

Subsequently, I made some poor choices in life and I'd always kind of wondered how I'd wandered down that bad path. Stoop's book helped me connect some of the random looking dots and see what happened, why it happened, and why it is okay to forgive myself and forgive the others who let me down.

First and foremost, this is a book about healing. The very last chapter though, is rich. It's a section you'll want to read again and again.