I bought this book as a companion volume to my little home winemaking library and am very glad I did. The authors explain and illustrate very clearly the choices that winemakers make in response to, and to complement, what nature gives them: The Grape. Four stars because of the exclusive focus on "great" wines (far too expensive for you and I), which as Johnson freely admits, are as much a product of mystique, fame, and rarity as of winemaking practice. Also, the authors' constant fawning over everything French at the expense of the rest of the world lessens the book's value to someone interested in winemaking in California. Still, beautiful photography combined with clear illustrations and excellent, sharp writing make this a must read for the serious winelover interested in more than snobbery, or the amateur winemaker intent on improving his/her closet-full of cab.

Winemaking books come in three flavors. For beginners, some books present scores of 'home' recipies including fruits, veggies, meads, beers, &c. At the other extreme are advanced textbooks for enology courses. And in the middle are a few intermediate books that focus on simple wines, but without hinting all the vintner's options.

Johnson and Halliday assume a basic knowledge of making and tasting wine and proceed to discuss all the options open to the winemaker. Simple charts depicting sequences of events are unique to this book and quite interesting.

I still can't put it down. For a winemaker its a wealth of ideas and possibilities.

James Halliday and Hugh Johnson do a fabulous job of explaining different wine styles and the reasons for the differences.

Terrific photos and diagrams. A good read and an outstanding reference for winemakers and wine lovers. One oddity... they managed to write the book without using the word "zinfandel".

This is a book for beginners of digital video production and editing. With hundreds of pictures illustrating the "how-to", the book gives you a much rewarding hands-on experience. In a learner-freindly environment, readers are led step-by-step into a fun digital audio-vidual world, and yet it allows readers to create professional-looking video with their own imagination. The information keeps you current with the most popular programs of digital programs -- Macromedia Premiere and MGI VideoWave III. The skills you learn will go far beyond these two software applications -- they can be easily adapted to other programs. The only drawback seems that the explanation is too dearth for those who enjoy detailed verbal instruction.

I'm thinking of getting a digital camcorder and I wanted to see what I would be able to do with it. From that perspective, the book is a success. First it discusses the equipment: the basics of using a camcorder, and setting up your computer for video. The book then goes through tasks of basic editing, titles (including effects such as rolling), audio, and working with still images (I learned video tools can also be used for making slide shows). Finally, now that you have your video, the book covers producing videotape, publishing to the Web or CD-ROM, and adding video to PowerPoint presentations. The book is organized into chapters that cover various tasks such as adding titles or making credits roll. The book also has four projects that serve to tie the tasks together. The book comes with a CD-ROM that includes trial versions of the software discussed in the book (including video editors MGI VideoWave and Adobe Premiere). While the book is targeted towards readers who already have a camcorder, for my use the book would have been stronger if it discussed purchasing a camcorder. And, since I don't yet have a camcorder, it would have been nice if the CD-ROM included sample videos so I could try the various techniques described in the book. Overall, the book showed me what I could do with a camcorder, and that tools such as VideoWave make the process fairly straightforward.

If you have ever struggled with making a digital video, struggle no more. This book is an easy to read, easy to follow method for making a digital video that includes both Adobe Premiere and MGI Videowave programs on an enclosed CD. Both programs are demonstrated throughout the book, with information on how each video maker is used and their weak or strong points. The only thing better than this book might be your own tutor or instruction by CD showing actual examples of video constrction. I found the book to be better written, with more concise description than any other text I have evaluated.

this book tells about Goddesses and their sacred animals. i don't know what i expected, but still, it is a good book. the chapters tells about different animals; birds, cats, cows, bugs and so on. also, there are many pictures and drawings. only minus comes from the texts...they would be little bit longer.

This book is gorgeous enough to be a coffee-table ornament, and substantial enough that it'll spend more time in your hands than on the coffee table.

Many of the goddesses worshipped in ancient times were envisioned in the form of animals, or depicted with animals, such as the snake, cow, bird, or sow. Buffie Johnson writes lucidly about these goddesses and supplements her work with TONS of pictures. She touches on many different cultures, from the Mediterranean to Scotland and South America. If you're interested in goddess spirituality, you will definitely want this book.

A side note: I really wish I'd had this on hand when I read _The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory_ a few weeks ago. In that book Cynthia Eller tries to disprove matriarchies, and among other things, questions the theory that there was goddess worship in Crete. She says that the two "Snake Goddess" statues don't necessarily prove anything. No, not by themselves. But from Johnson's book, I learned that there were similar but less elaborate statues on altars in people's houses...that a beautifully painted sarcophagus bore a mural of a host of priestesses performing a bull-sacrifice as a lone male flutist trilled in the background...that there were far more images of female power in the "seal stones" than I had seen before. Or that the smaller of the Snake Goddesses wears a rose crown, the sign of Ariadne, though I don't know if they're connected. I still don't know whether there was a matriarchy there, or whether it would have been a good or bad thing if there had been one. But Johnson has convinced me that there were goddesses worshipped there.

This book does occasionally go a little bit overboard, seeing goddess symbolism where there may be no symbolism at all. But in general, it is a beautiful and useful resource that will delight anyone interested in the ancient Ladies.

This book was written very well. It covered many of the Goddesses from all around the world and told their stories. The photos were very helpful in showing the old Goddesses when reading their stores. This is one book that is a must for those studying the old religions.

This book is about a teaching to write curriculum that is wideley used in Northern Italy schools.We call it Ferrero-Teberoski. I use the same method to allow my fifth graders write in English, a language they are learning as EFL.Letting them write in English allows me to gear my teaching to kids with different abilities and it also let students having whatever ability to feel proud of his/her accomplishments, and hence improves their self-assureness. I would encourage EFL and ESL teachers to read this book and make this method part of their curriculum.

I am so glad I found this book. I wanted something all inclusive specifically for kindergarten. I have read enough of those k-5 or worse k-8 books, where once finished with chapter 3 there is nothing else for us!
Bea uses practical, but cleaver ideas that we can all imitate or talior to our needs and personalities. This book does not make you feel like you have to go "buy" things to make your classroom better. She uses what most of us already have and illustrates beautifully how to make it work better.
I highly reccommend this book to anyone who teaches young children. She has helped put new life into my classroom!

I am a writing teacher for Primary teachers and students. This book is a wonderful resource for teachers whom I train that are reluctant to start writing in Kindergarten. Real writing, not handwriting, but stories. I was at a workshop with Mrs. Johnson last summer and know that she has the experience and knowledge base to learn from!

I think it was cool. I really like the charactrer Shantel's personality. I would love to play her part.

This is a very creative book. Latoya has a good imagination. My friend refered this book to me, and I hardly ever read. I read the entire book. If this author comes out with a new book, I will buy it. I never read a screenplay before neither. I sure like this one.

I say this screenplay needs to be a film. It was very interesting, and kept you reading it. I love it!

There are much better books out there. I bought this book because it discusses both the parallel port and the serial port. Many of the other books give you several projects to use for experiments. This book only has one project. I wish more pages had been used to cover interfacing the PC with other ADC/DAC chips. Ciruits that are easy for the novice understand and assemble. The source code is not include on disk or CD, and all of the source is in Pascal. Perhaps using Basic or C would be better. Ideally, source and executables would be great. In general, I did not learn much from this book.

I AM FROM MALAYSIA, GOOD TECHNICAL BOOKS ON COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS ARE CONSIDER RARE IF NOT NONE. I PICK THIS BOOKS FROM SINGAPORE FOR SS45.49 AND I STRONGLY FEEL ITS MONEY WORTH, THE SAD PART IS I HAD TO TYPE SOURCE PROGRAM MYSELF, I DO NOT MIND PAYING FOR THE COMPANION DISK. I HOPE THE AUTHOR WILL HAVE WEB SITE WHERE I CAN JUST DOWNLOAD FOR A FEE.

I'm not an Electronics Engineer, but I feel very comfortable with this book. I learned my electronics over 30 years ago. So my knowledge is weak, dated, to say the least. However, I've tried to keep an interest in electronics. I come from an industrial background. I'm accustomed to building power plants, refineries, etc. Then came PC's. Well I waited until the 486 came out. Anything less was a joke. Now I want to connect everything to my PC. This book is just right for me. I took refresher courses at the local college to "bone_up" a bit on my antiquated electronics. I'm not a PROGRAMMER either, but the programming in this book is done already. I think it could be scanned....Whoops!

The price of 8.50 is great for this book.

Being a foreigner learner of English Language, I am delighted to find such a comprehensive material on good usage of English. It certainly pushed me onto a superior plateau of understanding, and opened my mind not only for strict grammar and rules but also for a different culture not quite my own. Clear in concepts and examples this book would greatly improve your own performance on using English (be it written or spoken). Congratulations Mr. Johnson!! Count me on among your fans.

As a copyeditor, I need not only to know the answers but also to back up the choices I make when editing a manuscript. In that regard I have found this book exceptionally helpful. The author was a copyeditor himself for many years, so he knows the kinds of difficulties I am likely to encounter, and he helps me make the best choice when I am on the horns of a grammatical or stylistic dilemma. I would recommend this book to anyone who cares deeply about writing well and using language to its best effect.

This book is quite useful and I have found data in it I was looking for for a long time, especially in the deck plans. Still, it has some quite big faults. Biggest of all is the dates, the first Enterprise served 2221-2285, not some time around the turn of the century and the NCC-1701-A did not possess a Transwarp Drive like described in the book. But overall this book is very useful for its vast amount of details not seen anywhere else

Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise is a good book with lots of information. However, some of the information is speculation. Cool picts, it is a really popular book and I like it.

This book is the most in-depth resource available on the NCC-1701 and NCC-1701-A as they appeared in the first four Star Trek films. Its deck plans appear to match the actual sets very closely, and it refers to details of the starship model and mattes of sets such as the recreation deck in such a way that you can tell that Mr. Johnson has definitely done his homework. I recommend it to any fan of the film era or later. Many of the sets shown here would later be redressed to serve as rooms of the NCC-1701-D, the 1701-A in the fifth and sixth movies, and the USS Voyager from Star Trek: Voyager.

For years Trekkers have debated over which books are Trek "canon," and which aren't. Many fans do not consider this book to be canon. If you want to be anal about it, no Star Trek book is canon, not even the Sternbach/Okuda works, or the writer's guides or bibles themselves. Since the episodes and films contradict each other from time to time, one could argue that no single episode or film is canon when held up against the Star Trek universe as a whole.

Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda have argued that each fan must decide what he or she believes to be canon. To me, this book is. Buy it.

I also think that this book is too full of academic theory and techniques, and this may be the reason it comes off as so cynical. It works best in providing factual background that would be difficult to find otherwise. But when the book shades into critique, the tone becomes dry and pre-occupied, if not positively dispiriting - particularly when the co-authors subject Tarkovsky to their brand of Freudian analysis. The result is a disjointed collection of facts and vexing speculations, which on balance does a disservice to the poetry of the films. I personally much prefer Maya Turovskaya's book, which doesn't have the encyclopedic range of facts one finds in "Fugue" (a friend of mine described "Fugue's" method as "trainspotting") but is a far more inspired and illuminating combination of intelligent insight and love of its subject.

Johnson's and Petrie's work is an absolute essential resource for any student of film and any fan of Tarkovsky's wonderful work. When I bought the book, I was hoping that it would help me better understand the Russian context of Tarkovsky films and to help make some of the "murkier" parts of the films a little more lucid. The work does all this and more. This book offers a great deal of background on Tarkovsky's life, the Soviet film industry in which he worked, the people he worked with, and the cinematic style that made Tarkovsky's works so memorable. This is an absolute treasure of a book. Ignore those people who complain about the poor analysis of the films; they're wrong or stupid or both. The book's main focus is to help make Tarkovsky's work easier to understand and to provide background on Tarkovsky himself.

The first chapter's title is "A Martyred Artist?" and the question mark hints that some cherished preconceptions are about to be overturned. Tarkovsky seems to have enjoyed thinking of himself as a martyr, and the image has been enthusiastically endorsed by those in the West who believe in Hollywood freedom and Moscow manipulation - four legs good, two legs bad. Johnson and Petrie provide a perspective without slipping into that Charybdis of revisionist critics, the Dreaded Debunker Mode. The director emerges (from extensive interviews with a commendably large number of his collaborators) as a deeply dedicated, troubled artist, charming, impossibly perfectionist, sometimes childishly arbitrary and spiteful, hell to get along with but definitely worth getting to know. After some useful background information on the various hoops to be jumped through in the Soviet film industry and on Tarkovsky's own methods, there are individual critical chapters on all the major works after Ivan's Childhood, and the information they offer is often invaluable for a proper appreciation of the films. Particularly useful is the chapter on the outstanding masterpiece Andrei Rublev, which fills in some of the historical detail behind Tarkovsky's elliptical storyline. At the end are detailed plot summaries, running times and notes on different versions (interestingly, films like Solaris, released intact in the USSR, were horrendously hacked about in the "free" West); and four chapters covering matters of style which are perhaps the least substantial parts of this very satisfying book. The authors are remarkably fair to the Soviet film industry, presenting its bureaucratic meddlers' committees as not so very different from a Western studio or executive producer, and certainly not as monolithically philistine as we've often been led to believe. Tarkovsky was allowed virtually to make Stalker twice over when the original version didn't satisfy him - something Stanley Kubrick might possibly have finagled for himself, but it's hard to imagine anyone else in the West being permitted to do anything of the sort. Quite apart from its very fine critical comment, this book is a much-needed corrective to those myths about the director which have distracted too much attention away from the films themselves - attention which, as the book also shows, they ruthlessly demand and richly deserve.

This is a fan love letter to Peter Cushing. As such it is, perhaps, beyond criticising. It contains an obsesive amount of material on Mr. Cushing and others involved in the old Hammer films. Despite it's fan perspective, it manages to give fair critical readings of his movies. Be warned, the book is pricey for what you get. If you are a rabid Cushing fan, however, or a genre fan with deep pockets, this book is recommended.

Well done book on the films of Peter Cushing, scrupulously researched. The rather lengthy -- and highly interesting -- preface is written by Barry Morse and his wife Sydney Sturgess Morse. They were fellow actors of Peter and their paths crossed a number of times during their joint careers on screen and in the theatre. I recommend this book to fans of Peter Cushing and his many, many films!

From what I know, there are only three books that have been writin about Peter Cushing: the two volumes of his auto-biography and this amazing book. This is a very informative and entertaining book on an amazing actor. It gives detailed information about every movie Peter Cushing ever acted in. This book is a must have for every die-hard Peter Cushing fan.