This is an absolute must for anyone wanting to experience the old North East Kingdom feel. Having lived in the Kingdom myself I could relate to the way of life expressed even though the book was placed many years before me. Also having met Mr. Mosher it lends a peaceful tone that is not matched anywhere in the world. Any of his other writings are well worth the time taken to read them. It was a pleasure to be able to shake his hand and thank him for the beautiful treasure he had blessed us with.

I was recommended this book by a friend while climbing Worcester Mountain near Middlesex, Vermont. I grabbed it just before a solo overnight on a section of the Long Trail. The only copy the store had was an autographed (for cover price), but the owner assured me that Mr. Mosher would appreciate my stuffing the book into my pack for a hike in the Green Mountains. I trusted the person who recommended the book, but was not prepared for how good it is.
One part Beat, one part magical realsim, one part historical fiction. All this (and more) combined with an engaging writing style that keeps the pages turning. More than any other book, I felt completly satisfied at the end. Every word sits gently in my memory, so that I won't need to re-read it for a while. It now sits on the shelf in the company of 'The Dharma Bums' and 'Sometimes a Great Notion'.

I first read this book in college in 1987, and go back to it every few years when I need to be reminded how wonderful life is. It is beautifully written, incredibly funny and very, very moving. I don't know why this book isn't more widely read, it certainly deserves to be.

This book has excellent pictures with the most vital information for a biography project. A great buy and great read for interested fans of Ol' Blue Eyes.

This scrapbook is a real treat to any true SINATRA fan.It is full of pictures of everybody who was important in his life from his parents to collaborators like arrangers NELSON RIDDLE; all his wifes from NANCY to BARBARA;the legendary LOUIS B. MAYER etc.Better than most biographies because it is based on facts not rumours.The early pictures from his beginnings are alone worth the price.I was fortunate enough to get this book at the third of it's price and i went through it very fast because once you open it, you simply can't take your hands out of it.If FRANK became the singer of the past century, it's not by accident, he worked hard at it.I was particulary touched by his loyalty to his true friends.FRANK SINATRA is a mirror of his country. He was the son of immigrants who lived the AMERICAN dream to the fullest.Where is the AMERICAN dream today now that it's last legend is gone?Let's not complain too much ,because everything that FRANK SINATRA ever recorded is now available on cd.Nostalgia when you think of it is a very good thing.SATURDAY is not the loneliest night of the week anymore thanks to the chairman of the board.If you are not already a fan, this book should do the trick.

I had to get this book after seeing how low the price came down.The original price was 40 dollars. Nancy Sinatra's book on her Father has everything in here.I couldn't believe Frank weighted 13and a half pounds when he was born on December 12,1915.The Doctor ripped and scarred his ear,check,and neck,plus puncturing his eardrum.Frank wasn't breathing,so his grandmother Rose held the baby under cold running water until he gasped his first breath and cried.This book is like a Diary.It goes from year to year,sometimes month to month.All of Franks movies,records,concerts,TV shows,songs,and the name of the songwriters are in here,plus hundreds of pictures,starting with Frank's baby photo, ending with a touching family photo taken in 1996.There's a wonderfull picture of Marilyn Monroe taken with Dean Martin sitting ringside at the Sands..All of the stars are in here,and family pictures we've never seen before.If you are a Frank Sinatra fan,you have to get this Book.Its huge,and the pictures are fantastic.

Cuddling Teddy Roosevelt is kinda strange...but cuddling a soft bear is better. Who would've known that the teddy bear was named after a president!
In this children's picture book, children will be amazed that they know a bit of history after they read this beautifully written/illustrated book.
~Erin
Age 11

This book appeals to all teddy bear lovers- young and old! It is a great way to share history with children. My kindergarten class throughly enjoyed it cover to cover! A must for anyone who ever had / or has a teddy bear!!

I didn't read the book. I gave it as a birthday gift to my niece who is a teddy bear enthusiast. The rating I gave was based upon her overwhelming response to the book.

She was so taken with the story that she excitedly wrote a letter to the author. To his credit, the author responded with a handwritten letter that, along with the book, became a show-and-tell project for her 2nd grade class. She talks about the whole thing with stars in her eyes. It's truly priceless.

I give 5 stars to both the book and the author.

This was my first tile book. I have bought several others, and love many, but turn to Handmade Tiles regularly for quick information. It contains great information without that text book feeling. The tiles pictured in the book are whimsical and inspiring. If you are buying one tile book, this is the one to buy.

I recently became interested in tiles and tile-making and ordered a half-dozen books on the topic. This was the one book I'd keep and recommend over all of the others. Frank Giorgini is a teacher's teacher! I felt like I was sitting in on one of his classes. His in-depth knowledge, step-by-step photos and explanations and clear love of the topic are inspirational. Even if you knew nothing about handmade tiles, this book would make you want to start creating them! I especially enjoyed all the examples that were created by various students - there was something for every taste and level of experience. He makes it look do-able and easy. His tips and tricks will save amateurs much suffering. After reading this book, I felt eager to begin designing and creating my own handmade tiles, and confident that I had enough knowledge to do it right.
Personal note: I envy his students the opportunity to learn from Frank Giorgini!

This book is a beautiful start if you are interested in making ceramic tile. Beautiful, diverse, all-encompassing illustrations and photos and matter of fact text make this an excellent choice.

Gerold Frank's biography is probably the single most comprehensive book written concerning Judy Garland: meticulously researched, debunking many myths, and richly detailed, it is certainly a standard for any one seriously interested in Garland. Even so, I have several issues with the book.

My single greatest complaint about the book is that Frank often seems to include detail for the sake of detail, and at times these details don't seem to make any cohesive statement. That aside, while Frank places Garland under a microscope, he never really quite delivers any sense of the world in which she moved; consequently, we never really have any background against which we may judge her. There is no context.

These are serious flaws, and while the book is certainly readable and enjoyable, I do not think it is one to which the average reader would return, nor would I particularly recommend it to any but the toughest of hard-core Garland fans.

Gerold Frank has taken a subject of innumerable facets, a larger-than-life personality, and an almost indescribable talent and has put the history of her life to words as no writer before or since has been able to accomplish. Judy Garland, one of the silver screen's most beloved stars, is accurately and honestly conveyed in this biography. Frank's style is unique: when he tells of the tradgedies or failures of the star, he is not incriminating against the subject. Frank's book is one as written by an observer, sometimes voyueristically so. His thorough research bring Garland through in all her glory: as the vaudeville headliner, the little girl on the rise to stardom, the MGM superstar, loving wife and mother, and the sometimes self-destructive woman, taken from this earth too soon by the disease brought on by a lifetime of pills, but most of all, the woman trying to find her place in the world and the love she always craved and needed. Judy Garland is a human being, not a media figure, in this book. Gerold Frank is to be well commended for his excellent portrayal of Judy Garland, and readers will also be delighted or surprised by the informative tidbits along this Yellow Brick Road into the life of the great Judy Garland.

This is a very well written book. There is a lot of interesting and detailed information that I have not heard about before. This book sets the facts straight through primary sources. Gerold Frank spoke to Judy's children, husbands, friends, fellow cast members, and even to her doctors. He is the only author that Judy's family and friends completely cooperated with. This was very informative; and it is a real page-turner, unlike so many biographies that merely present fact after fact, or promote fictitious legends. This book sorts through all of this. It is, I believe, one of the best biographies yet written about Judy Garland. A definite must have:)

Dr. Frank's book is excellent. It is a guide with tons of information to help you become the best you can be. You have so many choices and options in life that at times we all fall into the analysis paralysis trap. Dr. Frank gives us a road map to avoid the pit falls and dilemmas that face us daily. Thank you Dr. Frank for your great insights and instruction to help us all achieve a higher personal, business and spiritual level.

Dr. Franks book is so well written and the information is easy to process. Even if you thought you knew yourself, now you can progress and find happiness for your self. Way to go Dr. Sovinsky!

There are many profound nuggets of body-mind wisdom that Dr. Frank Sovinsky pointed out in "Life the Manual, " that are valuable to every human being. Scientists say we may live into our 120th year--do we want to spend this time being miserable? Another interesting concept is "germs don't make us sick--we make us sick." Our thoughts and fears can erode our immune system--so why can't we change? Thanks to Frank's words of inspiration I now feel that I have the ability to embrace both the lifestyle and live the life that I want. Thank you, Dr. Frank for sharing your insights, and really giving us words of wisdom to help us achieve our full potential.

I had been a long time away from reading fantasy when I picked this one. It brought me back into fantasy stuff. The books strong points are it's agile storytelling and it's bizarre concepts. The author isn't excessively wordy, doesn't describe the settings and actions neither more nor less than he should. Concise writing. Good. He is also a little on the twisted side, as far as his villains are concerned. The evil on them is not comic book evil, or James Bond films evil - which are "light" villains. Silke's bad guys are "heavy"; really insane and mean. They don't need to boast to be cruel. There's a lot of sexuality in the book, which, added to the violence, would make me label it dark fantasy. And good one at that. For fans of the genre (who aren't disturbed by strong violence), I recommend it.

Great sequel, just like the others. He, in the mask of destruction, her, qwelling the beast within him. His axe, drinking the deformed enemies. Great, fun, Conan like adventure.

This book is one of the best books I've ever read. The whole series is just killer. If you like in your face and no-holds barred fantasy this is the series for you. I own the series once and lost it. I'm dying to get it again. the books have everything you could ask for in a series. Action, magic, suspense, and the good guys aren't always the nicest people nor do they always survive. For any SciFi/Fantasy buff this is the series to get. Have a nice day!!!!!!!!

This book is good for getting a general view of genetic programming. Nevertheless, I think it neglects many details. For example, it is very hard to from the book how a simple selection strategy (tournament selection) works in practice.

I do not think this book is useful for someone intending to code a genetic programming algorithm.

I skimmed the Koza books (GP: I & II) and this one at the store. Using the layout, chapter names, and the introductory chapters as my guide, I decided to buy this book to introduce me to the current state of the art in GP. The strengths of this book are its textbook format and the informal exercises that are presented for the reader at the end of every chapter. There is also a great deal of compilation from other relevant gp works presented in a localized, intra-chapter basis. The book is thus highly digestable to a newcomer, and is a far less time-consuming way to learn about GP than through the "expert" papers on the web. Having now almost finished the book, I feel that I am ready and able to author and apply GP techniques in a wide variety of applications and languages, having spent less than 20 hours in study time. A terrific achievement by Banzhaf and company, highly recommended.

We all know that kind of books where the author likes to show how much he knows making things intentionally complex....well...this is the opposite side of the spectrum.
The book is very complete and detailed yet easy to read, even after a day of work.
The first part of the book contains introductory information on background areas like probability, biology and computer science as a general discipline.
Getting into the topic, it clarifies some of the differences between evolutionary systems and genetic algorithms and shows how all this contributes to the theory of genetic programming and the evolution of computer programs.
It explains how things are done with different types of individuals (tree, linear, graph, etc) and gives valuable insight about the implementation process.
Although you may need other sources for formal treatment of some topics, this book is a very good acquisition.

McPhee has written a highly readable account of the impact of a single individual on one of New England's important boarding schools. This work is particularly interesting when juxtaposed against similar works on the history of Groton School, St. Paul's School, or Exeter/Andover when viewing how one person can cause an entire school culture to take root. Found most often in schools where strong headmasters have either founded the school or contributed a life of service, Deerfield Academy comes across in McPhee's work as the true child of Boyden whose various quirks in no way detracted from his personal mission of making a difference in boys' lives. While by no means a critical work, "Headmaster" is nevertheless an important document in understanding the history of an important boarding school.

From 1902 to 1968, Frank Boyden was the Headmaster of Deerfield, a private boy's school in the countryside of Massachusetts. When Boyden arrived, the school had 14 students, transportation was by foot or horse drawn wagon, and he intended to stay only long enough to get enough money. 66 years later, Deerfield was one of the leading prep schools in America, the equal to Exeter and Andover. Best of all, the school wasn't an imitation of British schools, as so many prep schools of the first half of the 20th century were. Boyden had turned Deerfield into an outstanding educational institution while keeping it uniquely American. Demanding, even a bit of a despot, Boyden shaped the school and its students into something special, a school where the students come first, then the faculty.

Only John McPhee could tell the story as it deserves. Boyden and all the other residents of Deerfield come alive under McPhee's pen. The little touches, like the Headmaster's rejuvenating midday naps, followed by letter writing and inspections tours, make it seem as if the reader is there.

I doubt you'll be able to read this book, and not wish you could have been a student under Boyden. For several generations, Deerfield under his leadership was what a school should be.

Sure, this may be more of a panegyric more than a biography, but it's inspiring. As someone who has spent years in private schools, it's great to read about a headmaster who really shaped a school -- Boyden defines headmastership: he was head of Deerfield for 64 years! Even more impressive than Mr. Boyden was his wife whom he called the smartest person on the campus. Proves the theory that behind every great man is a great woman. I hope we restructure our school administrations so that we allow for heads like this again -- too much time is spent these days on fundraising and not enough on school. Though Boyden was not an intellectual, he inspired and trained generations of boys and never lost his personal touch.

I am about halfway through this book, but so far I enjoyed Frank Partnoy's first book, "FIASCO: Blood in the Water on Wall Street", much better. FIASCO was mainly an auto-biographical account of Partnoy's career at Morgan Stanley. Writing about his own life afforded Partnoy the opportunity to be more anecdotal and humorous about his subject matter. In this book, his focus is on scandals that made the headlines, or even worse, were suppressed from greater public knowledge. (Enron, LTCM, Orange County, the Salomon Bros Treasury auction scandal, etc).

He recants these tales with tongue in cheek humor, and he translates finance-geek-speak into a language which people outside of the business can understand. However, in his Vernacular translation, he loses some of the wind of the real story. Maybe its because I am in the business, so no details need to be spared for my benefit, but I would have preferred reading more technical accounts.

At any rate, Partnoy is a crusader, out to teach the world about the dangers of financial products. Frankly, I think he goes to far in his ranting, and this book is merely a vehicle for him to advance his agenda of reform and regulation. Its true that some people have exploited the market for less than altruistic purposes, but the truth is that derivatives have been more beneficial than harmful to the global financial system. To tell the tale all of the evil in the financial markets without mentioning the good is misleading.

Wow... what a scary book.

You already knew that something very wrong has been happening in the relationship between investment banks and their customers but I'll bet you didn't how wrong.

Partnoy's long book (there is an ENORMOUS amount of malfeasance available for the author to dissect) is well written. He has done an excellent job of creating separate threads from inter-connected stories without falling into too much repetition between chapters.

An earlier reviewer remarked that Partnoy is a crusader and "Frankly, I think he goes to(o) far in his ranting".

I couldn't disagree more. It is clear (to me, anyway) that, for too many people, the balance between the desire to make money on the one hand and the utterly vital community issues of honesty and integrity has been lost.

It's also clear (to me) that the justice system does not seem to be properly configured to deal with this.

If you've an interest in how your investment banker will roll you if he gets the chance - READ THIS BOOK.

In a much more serious project than his previous FIASCO, Partnoy gives an extremely persuasive explanation of how the interaction between financial product developments, legal change and administrative character have led to the series of financial scandals witnessed over the last twenty years. Few books on the subject have managed to explain the bizarre stories of Enron or LTCM in a way that really rings true but using his knowledge and experience of legal, administrative and financial products Frank puts together a highly believable interpretation. It is a story which throws the major scandals into a new perspective and gives a sense of how the corporate and financial worlds have become destabalised.
If not as humorous as the first book, Infectious Greed is still a fascinating and entertaining read and should be read by anyone keen to understand the true nature of modern financial markets.