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Children will connect with Paul forging his parents name on the permission slip for baseball. What child has not forged a signature, or thought about it, and then was caught? This experience by Paul is universal.
Childhood love of activity, also gives universal appeal, through Paul's love of baseball. Many young boys, and some girls, can name their favorite player's statistics. Paul, the main character, is the same. This book is a wonderful story to share. I would use this in a middle school English classroom.
This is my first time reading this book. Hang Tough Paul Mather is a book about a boy named Paul Mather who loves baseball but he has a disease that causes his parents not to let him play. Unless his doctor say it's OK, he can't play. But he plays anyway without doctor's permission. I would recommend it to any one(except a baby). It's a Great book.
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I found the account of GM's entry into consumer finance and the forces at work during the great consolidation periods of most interest.
Sloan seems to be able to keep his ego in check and deliver the facts in a straightforward manner.
Discussions of the DuPont principles of comparison for unlike businesses and the board politics that shaped General Motors are helpful to executives even today.
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On one side of the story was Al Smith. Smith was born into the Klamath tribe, but was pulled out of it to go to Catholic boarding school. Rather late in his life he was introduced to sweat lodges and Native American religion. He was also introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous, and eventually became a respected counselor, speaker, and organizer of treatment centers for alcohol and drug abuse. As he traveled to different reservations to set up recovery programs, he came across peyote religion. It seemed to give some of his clients spiritual strength, and they seemed to do better in overcoming substance abuse if they participated in its religious ceremonies. He began to consider participating in peyote religion. He was told that taking peyote at a ceremony would violate the rules of the treatment center in which he worked, and so he did so. He was thereupon fired, and he filed for unemployment compensation. That filing set the stage for a subsequent battle within the Supreme Court and beyond.
On the other side was Oregon Attorney General David Frohnmayer. He had tried in his political offices in Oregon to mend fences with the tribes of his region. He was, however, very worried about the dangers of drug abuse, and so he felt he was doing the right thing in trying to squelch community acceptance of drugs, ceremonial or not. He approached the Supreme Court proceedings with the mantra, "Drugs are bad. Slippery slope." Not only was peyote illegal, but it was used in a minority religion; if it were allowed, then surely someone would be asking to use other drugs for religious purposes. But he did reflect sadly to his legal team, "How did we get to be the Indian bashers?"
Epps is not only a journalist and lawyer, but also a novelist. His ability to describe personalities and anecdotes serves him well, for although this is a legal story, the human stories within it are what make it live. He has used process of the legal arguments as a springboard for an examination of many connected subjects: the history of the Bureau of Indian Affairs; the story of Alcoholics Anonymous; the tale of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the Oregon town that was taken over by his devotees; the saga of the Road Man who is the ceremonial leader of the peyote religion. These set pieces are fascinating, and strengthen the main story. It is disconcerting that there is no pat final resolution, but Epps writes, "The law of religious freedom remains unsettled." Thus may it ever be.
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It was a lot of work, more work than any 12-year-old could could have undertaken without the guidance of an equally determined adult. But my Dad and I realized that hitting was a process, a method that could be learned. Lau taught that everything I had been told -with horrible results- was in fact wrong. You don't judge whether a pitch is a strike and then swing; you start your swing and let your reflexes hold you back. You don't swing hard with your arms; you swing easy and get your power from your whole body.
All spring we worked on it, practicing in the garage, spending literally hundreds of dollars at batting cages working on mechanics. That very next season, I was hitting the ball better, and I only improved from there. By the end of that season, I was a certified leadoff terror. My team won its league title thanks to a game-winning single by yours truly. I even hit a few home runs (by not trying to, as Lau teaches). I was deliriously happy.
Even since then I've been a good hitter. Not a power hitter (I'm much too small), but a solid doubles guy with surprising pop. What I learned from this book kept me in organized baseball through Babe Ruth and high school (simultaneously), college, and semi-professional leagues. I am a hideously slow runner who soon after puberty had to give up dreams of playing professionally, but to this day I can step in front of a pitcher or pitching machine -cold- and drive the ball. This book taught me how. If you really want to hit a baseball, buy it, read it, internalize it, and put your faith in it. It will serve you well.
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The two books are quite different in the language and formalism used: more formal and mathematical inclined AHU with respect to CLR. I'd say, the very classic style of his authors who have made history in the CS literature with their books (particularly 2 on algorithms and data structures, 2 on Computer Theory, 2 on Compilers, 1 on CS foundations): as these books have been used in most universities around the world for decades, they've proved to be real milestones in the education of thousands of students.
The books differ also in scope, since AHU is certainly not an encyclopedic collection as CLR does, with his roughly 500 pages against 1000. In spite of this, I'd point out the following: my textbook on Algorithms was CLR, but when we got to Complexity Classes (P-NP and theory behind) we "had" to switch to AHU for the simple reason that CLR did not almost mention at all Turing Machines nor Space Complexity, without which is certainly possible to learn e.g. about NP-TIME completeness, but without which, such a path would equally certainly miss some foundamental topics of Complexity Theory.
All in all, then, imo the book truly deserves 5 stars (and perhaps it would deserve a second, updated, edition too ... possibly, imho, through a bit less revolutionary revision job than they did with "Introduction to Automata Theory, Language and Computation").
As a final note, those looking for a more applicative and self-reference than an educational introductory text, could have a look at the two-volumes opera by the former Knuth's pupil, Robert Sedgewick (possibly the more consolidated C or C++ versions).
It sets up a very formal framework for discussing alorithms, beginning at the beginning..an abstract mathematical model of a computer. and builds up the rest of the book using the model for implementation as well as quantification.
A solid framework for the analysis of algorithms is setup. The necessary mathematics is covered, helping in measuring an algorithm's complexity..basically the time and space complexities.
Then it goes on to deal with designing algorithms. the design methodology, with elaborate examples and exercises.
It should be admitted however that this is a solid text for the mathematically oriented. Thats the reason for the 5 stars!
If you want to go a little easy on the formalisms try
"Computer Algorithms, Pseudocode" by Ellis Horowitz, Sartaj Sahni, Sanguthevar Rajasekaran. I found it more pragmatic.
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ray.sant
A highly recommended read for anyone who has ever written a song.
At one point in the text, Aloysius pretty much says it all: "These lessons are not worked out for actual use but for exercise. If one know how to read one need no longer bother with spelling; similarly, the species of counterpoint are given only for purposes of study."
I have been working out of this book (which is really an excerpt of a larger book called _Steps to Perfection_) with a private tutor for a year, and it has been a difficult but rewarding experience. Essentially, the species provide a platform to learn how to compose concurrent melodic lines. Each following species builds upon the knowledge of the previous. Rules that begin absolute slowly become contextual. While the book's original title is anachronistic, the program within encourages steps towards the understanding of basic tonal principles that have formed the foundation of the grand tradition of western music.
I'd recommend keeping an open mind about the rules. These are treated as the "rules," but are expected to be broken with time and experience. After all, the rules are no more than the collected general tendancies of the great composers.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Fux's book provides an introduction to composition based upon the limitations--and, accordingly, the beauty--of the human voice. This book does not deal with the embellishments and ornaments possible on all instruments.
More caveats: One, I would recommend studying this book with an experienced teacher. It's like a beginning yoga text: basic, but someone with experience will put things in perspective. Two, the exercises, especially for three and four voices, are difficult and require commitment and discipline. (Again, like yoga.) There is no need to rush through the exercises. Three, Fux's book should be part of an integrated tonal curriculum that at least includes four-part writing and ear-training.
And Fux's book is hardly the last word even on counterpoint! At the very least, study 18th century and 20th century counterpoint, because those broad styles used Fux's treatise as their basic foundations. Those who criticize this text do so because it does not immediately apply to modern music situations. But they often fail to see how the text fits beautifully within the broad spectrum of composition. This book reflects the basics of tonal architecture. No more, no less
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Williams offers up a tale much less familiar. He introduces us to Clifford Pepperidge, a gay, black, American jazz musician who spends a dozen years incarcerated in Dachau prison, one of the many labeled undesirables who were captured as the Nazis rose to power. While other prisoners suffer the misery of prison barracks and captor abuse, Clifford sits in the comfortable home of a gay Nazi officer and his bovine German wife. There as a servant, Pepperidge allows himself to be used sexually and musically by both husband and wife, the price of survival. In his daily interaction with other prisoners he sees that good men, those with the character and ethics to stand up for their fellows, rarely survive long. It is those who capitulate, who sink down into the muck, who lose their humanity who will endure.
Williams provides us with a fascinating picture of how people react to power and influence, even when it clearly is evil. We see the German burger who blinds himself to the fate of those caught up in the hungry trap of Nazism. The German officer who grasps at every opportunity to accumulate wealth and power. The many who stumbled forward in step with a horror that grows ever larger and more malignant. Where Singer presents a picture of people desperately trying to hold onto their hopes and dreams even in the face of rising oppression, Williams shows us the convolutions that strip away humanity in both victim and oppressor.
The writing is strong, and Williams clearly took the time to do the necesary research to bring his story to life. Richly developed characters hold the reader's interest. It is not a book to be quickly forgotten. Williams holds a mirror up and asks us to look at ourselves and think about how we can be shaped and influenced by people and events. His darkside tale underscores the possibility of our own tumble in inhumanity and evil.
John A. Williams has crafted here a story so compelling, so engrossing in its depiction of life lived on a razor's edge, that you loathe putting it down; you may feel chills when you've finished it. It's that disturbing, and that good. CLIFFORD'S BLUES affirms that Williams retains his gifts (fresh as ever in his mid-70s!) and mastery of his craft.
Clifford Pepperidge is triple-crossed: condemned as "decadent" - for being American Negro, jazz musician, and active homosexual (especially impolitic when he's caught in bed with a prominent white man) - and interned "indefinitely" in a German concentration camp by Nazidom as it rises to power in the early 1930s.
This is a historical possibility we'd not thought of. Yet Williams, no stranger to historical fiction (see, for example, his novel CAPTAIN BLACKMAN), footnotes his text with incidences of real life black jazz musicians detained by the Nazis prior to the outbreak of World War II; I'd never heard about this.
John A. Williams has been publishing books, mostly novels, over 40 years. His heroes have tended to be "manly" black men: uncompromising, heterosexual, hard-loving, hard-drinking and cigarette-smoking urbane sophisticates. I've always taken them to be stand-ins for the author himself; perhaps they represent the image of manliness of a day not quite gone by.
Stepping out of his usual bounds and into Clifford's skin, however, Williams exhibits an even greater sense of manhood, an empathetic virility. Clifford may not fathom how he managed to get himself into such a mess, but he doesn't make excuses. He's as resolute about his sexuality as his racial and artistic makeup, though all combine to make him particularly alienated - and vulnerable - as he faces down brutal imprisonment with other Nazi-dictated "undesirables" (Communists, gays, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews and gypsies) for twelve long years. He lives to see, almost veritably, the walls of his dungeon shake, practical escape, the possible passing on of his testimony - but at what cost?
I can say, with modesty and with pride, that I've read all John A. Williams' published novels. This is, for my money, his most powerful, arguably his greatest book since THE MAN WHO CRIED I AM.
Williams has always been a thinking person's writer and a darn good storyteller. In this extremely well written and deeply felt book he's rendered the poignant story of a character he made me truly care about. Clifford Pepperidge could be the long-feared-lost-or-dead relative whose tattered diary of surviving hell on earth has just been plopped down in your living room. How can you embrace all of what he's been through? What if it were you? The really eerie question is that, given history, or the record of human events, it's apparent that no one has a corner on inhumane depravity - we're each just as likely or capable of being captor or captive when, if, we allow a new holocaust. But when you look in the mirror, do you recognize the humanity within and extending beyond yourself? Will we remember?