This is a book that really lives up to its billing as a pocket-sized yet thorough introduction to bridge. The only beef with this book is that most of it is devoted to bidding, with a tiny portion at the end for play and defence. I expect the authors to issue a sequel on play and defense. That aside the material itself is outstanding and clear, and at a surprisingly good level of bridge for an introductory book. I would definitely recommend it as a handy reference for someone starting out in bridge.

I love this book! Once I picked it up, I could not put it down. The author "talked" to me, I felt as though I was having a conversation with her while reading it. The advice given is simple straight forward, yet life changing. I highly recommend this book to all women of all walks of life. Her story is one that we can all relate to on one level or another. Those of us who have grown up on fairy tales are bound to feel some pain when are lives are not turning out the way we imagined. Ms. Busick's book empowers women to live and enjoy their lives and be in complete control, inspite of their circumstances. Read it!

Swing Around The Sun is an inviting kids' picture book featuring upbeat original poetry by Barbara Juster Esbensen against brilliant, full-color illustrations drawn in a simple yet inviting style by Cheng-Khee Chee, Janice Lee Porter, Mary GrandPre, and Stephen Gammell. An excellent book for reading aloud to young ones, Swing Around The Sun would make a welcome and popular addition to any family or community library collection. "Together, / In the sapphire sky / They float: / The milkweed / And a burnished / Trumpet note."

This book gives concrete, clear advice on how to address all financial matters. Many people from professors to friends have tried to explain high finance to me, but this book did the trick! I highly reccomend this book and this author!

The leadership of America and other countries could use this book! The common theme in leadership today usually rests upon talent, skill and motivation, whereas this book's authors look at the "spirit". I found it to be one of the best books I have read in the area of leadership.
The story centers around a manager who seeks out a mentor as his spiritual guide. The real crux here is to seek. I think many leaders rely to heavily upon themselves and do want to seek help from anyone, especially soul help.
One of the key elements in this book is that each reader could percieve differnt lessons and take on their own meaning, which I think is a great lesson in leadership. The book requires the reader to soak in the information and even gives the reader an opportunity to practice what they have read.
On the personal level, I believe that leaders need to soul search and model the behavior in the workplace. Coming from the educational perspective, this is true as far as values and morals are taught. A leader needs to be in touch with themselves if they are to lead others.
In the story, Steve finds Maria and is challenged to look within, which is fearful to him, as it is to most of us. The key is to not avoid our own pain. If we do, we tend to avoid feelings that come out sideways, and this is very dangerous as a human being and as a leader. When we can look inside at ourselves and find a sense of peace, we have more energy, and can be more producticve as leaders. In addition, the "burnout" rate will be much less in all levels of leadership.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who would feel they could benefit from this form of reading. I feel that you need an open mind to this idea of leadership. It is the untraditional form of thinking for leaders and educators alike. The story of Steve Camden and Maria are thought provoking and the interludes get the thoughts going. If you do not fear change or are looking for a deeper sense of self this book gives you the parable to study leadership in a wide range of concepts from the worlds of philosophy, spirituality, and poetry.

Bolman and Deal walk away from the academic view of leadership and its trappings and tell a story of a person's journey to find his inner spirit. In doing so, he finds understanding of the basic elements of being an excellent leader who inspries people and takes the organization on a path to find success. The book is an easy read, written in a narrative, novel-type style that provides a refreshing look at what people can become.

One of the things I admire about Barbara Kingsolver is her willingness to write in every genre: fiction, nonfiction, essay, poetry, short story. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to hear her read from this book from poetry, and I was enchanted at what one could express with so few words, so simply and eloquently and powerfully and emotionally. Her poems take surprising twists that gave them a staying power in my mind. If you are skeptical about poetry, as I was, read her essay that acts as the introduction to this collection. It changed the way I think and respond to poems.

These poems resonated particularly with me in two ways: as a woman and as someone who lives near the border and who has come to appreciate the history of Mexican-Americans and Latin Americans. They helped change the way I think both about myself as a woman and about this land I share with people who have been here for hundreds of years. The poems appear side-by-side in Spanish and English, which I found particularly valuable: it increased my appreciation for the beauty of the Spanish language and the beauty and power of language in general. My particular favorite is the poem "Naming Myself," which for me was a turning point in this collection. For me, it sums up everything about the power of identity, how carelessly we can give it away as young women, and how powerful it is to reclaim it. This poem applies not only to women, however, but ties in strongly with the rest of the collection, in its exploration of what it means to be an American, what the name "America" means to both Americans and non-Americans, and the disenfrachisement suffered by many when they are excluded from taking on the identity of Americans or it is demanded of them to relinquish their Latin American identities.

It's also well worth browsing the "Selected Titles from Seal Press" at the end of the book. How delightful to discover this apparently small, independent press! A number of titles by women from all over the world caught my eye.

I deeply regret that I was clueless about the richness and struggles of Latin American culture and society until I moved to Tucson and had the opportunity to experience and interact with this culture personally and firsthand. I cannot think of a more fitting title for this collection than "Another America." I encourage you to read it to gain a perspective of America through the eyes of Latin Americans. Barbara Kingsolver's writing resonates with me personally because it seems that she, too, discovered a whole new world upon moving to Tucson. It's an important perspective to have if you're an Anglo-American, to increase and broaden your awareness and deepen your appreciation for what we have and this land we share with our Latin American neighbors.

I have long been a lover of Kingsolver's novels and even though I don't consider myself much of a "poetry person", I love her poems, too. Great!

I am still in awe over this fabulous collection of poetry. Never have I read poetry with such passion, craft, and art. Barbara Kingsolver has truly touched my heart with her chosen words. What I would kill to have her gift. These peoms dig deep into the heart of political struggles and triumphs of central america. And as it is said, "the political is the personal." You will read these peopms and your stomach will hurt. The very center of your soul will burn. It takes a great writer to make you feel such emotions. My favorite peom, I say that even though I could never chose a favorite, was a fabulous five part poem called The Loss of My Arms and Legs. You will cry, and if you don't, you have no heart. I am sixteen and in a residential writing school and i feel like quitting now becasue I will never write a poem like This House I cannot Leave. I give my upmost respect to Ms. Kingsolver for a true work of art.

I don't think I would ever have made a handful of identical full-sized quilts just so I could experiment with various styles of quilting. But I'm glad that Lee Cleland did. My copy is in storage, so I can't cite details, but the differences are--not amazing exactly, but important enought to justify spending quite a lot of time looking at a quilt top with a view to finishing it.
So, yes, it's worth quite a bit of study. A bunch of different quilts, each one made a bunch of times, so that we could see how much difference quilting makes.

Not a first quilt book, or even a third. After a couple of basic how-to's, a specialized folder,and a pretty picture book maybe.

I purchased this book as a companion book to "The Fabric Makes the Quilt" by Roberta Horton. Here are two quilters and one believes fabric makes the quilt, and the other believes the quilting design makes the quilt. I think they are both right! Having both these books for comparison--gave me quite a visual lesson in quilting! What is truly unique about Lee Cleland's book is that she photographs a quilt and shows you how it looks with different quilting patterns. She does this with twelve quilts and it makes you truly consider how you will quilt your design. Truly the quilting is itself a design element and after studying this book--you will never make the beginner's mistake of considering the quilting pattern an afterthought. The color photos in this book are clear and well thought out. There is a pull out quilting paper in the back of the book to practice some of Lee's patterns.

This book is the only one I've found that does a really good job of showing how the quilting can change the appearance of a quilt, by showing the exact same piecing with different quilt patterns. The photography is excellent and the subject fascinating. I don't mind at all that machine quilting was emphasized...

The title is catchy enough. I expected lots of facts and figures in tables and graphs that would illustrate international trade and finance. Was I surprised. There are facts and figures there, even pictures and cartoons. But the authors see the world differently. "The problem..." we are told, "...is not so much that the world is so tightly linked now...but that the links converge in such a small number of hands." The hands they're refering to belong to corporate executives and billionaires. An ongoing theme throughout the book is the old cliche' that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
One thing different about the current process of globalization, the authors claim, "is that a number of poorer countries, led by China and Mexico, now have the infrastructure to house practically any industrial or service operation...." What's wrong with that? They object that "...Ford, Boeing, and other global corporations are now setting up state-of-the-art manufacturing plants in countries where wages and other costs are kept extremely low through repression." We can all agree that repression is a bad thing. We may differ on where it's happening. For instance, according to the index of economic freedom constructed by the Heritage Foundation (what the authors call a "corporate think tank") and the Wall Street Journal, China is "mostly unfree" (but not "repressed") and Mexico is "mostly free." "Repressed" countries include Zimbabwe, Iran, Cuba, Iraq, and North Korea. Corporate capitalism does not appear to be causing problems in those countries by any stretch of the imagination. Vietnam is among the repressed, but it's difficult to see how workers who produce sneakers for the Nike company would be better off if Nike weren't there.
Much of the book is devoted to criticizing "globalization claims." Although some free traders will justifiably dismiss this criticism, in my view the authors' attacks will work to strenghthen the case for free trade. Put differently, any economist who wants practice defending free trade can find it reading this book. Warning: the bile may rise in you.
To their credit the authors provide an abundance of endnotes to support their case. They offer some criticism a free trader would appreciate. For example they object to export subsidies and IMF bailouts of banks with troubled loans to developing countries. They even profess to reject protectionism. However the alternative they recommend, "fair trade," is better described as "managed trade."
The authors minimize the role of consumers in the process of globalization. Corporations would not achieve their goals if consumers weren't buying their products. The authors also fail to recognize the importance of property rights in economic development. If the governments of poor countries established and protected property rights, the people would get wealthier. Given that these authors reject international trade and investment as a cause of our prosperity and cannot tolerate disparities of wealth, they'll always remain idealists with axes to grind.

That is the first book on economics I read that does not necessarily employ a lot of incomprehensible terminology. Moreover, it is written for the average reader who wants to get a "first introduction" into the topic. It is definitely not written for people who search any detailed infomation. This book explains perfectly the basic correlations in today's global economy.

A group in our high school had been planning a symposium on the global economy when our advisor suggested that we take a look at this book. "Field Guide" offers a clear, concise description of many of the global issues that confront citizens of both the industrialized and unindustrialized nations. To its credit, it offers both the pros and cons of many of the issues it discusses and offers a resource list for others to get involved. I encourage anyone interested global politics or economics to read this book, share it with a friend, and get involved!

I received this book as a gift for planning my wedding and used it religiously to make sure I did not forget any details. "Checklist" takes you through all the basics...etiquette, timeline, suggestions etc. The premise is, if you use the list and check off all you've finished and all that doesn't apply to you, you will have considered all the elements of a wedding. In the end, your careful planning and use of the checklist will reward you with a beautiful day that you will remember forever, and guests who are pleased that you anticipated their every need. (The book doesn't include decorating ideas, etc., so I purchased Martha Stewart Weddings MAGAZINE and used online resources.)

This is just what you need to organize your thoughts, work out the details, and prepare for an absolely elegant wedding. I had very little time to spare, and this helped me figure out what I needed to do, by when, and for what. I can't wait to read the REVISED Version! It will be even better.

When Amazon teamed this book with "With These Words...I Thee Wed: Contemporary Wedding Vows for Today's Couples" for their "Best Value" sale, a dear friend was kind enough to buy both for my upcoming wedding. And without a doubt, this duel gift has served as the most useful in making my wedding the ultimate event I desired. A bit of a perfectionist, I wanted to express vows above the norm--romantic, yet realistic. Superior, progressive and unusual, yet from the heart. No small order. But "With These Words" exceeded my expectations and I created a vow that Ron and my guests will never forget! The only thing left was to make certain every wedding detail was attended to and that's where this checklist book saved the day! Yikes, perfectionist-me had actually overlooked some vital details. So if you want your wedding to become your greatest memory, get "With These Words...I Thee Wed" and "Checklist For a Perfect Wedding" and relax...your dreams will come true.

As an adult wanting to learn algebra again, I looked for a clear, in-depth, easy to read book, that offered many examples that were carefully explained. Eureka! This book is wonderful, and has really made algebra clear for me. Just wish they had a Forgotten Geometry and Forgotten Trig! :)

I have been dreading taking a college math class for years because I felt I had never learned algebra, and what I had learned, I'd long since forgotten. This book has undone years of fear! I've been working in the book for about a week and a half, and I'm almost a third of the way through. I feel very confident now because this stuff is acutally makes sense! Thank you, Barbara Lee Bleau!

I'd been out of school for twenty years. I was ready to drop my algebra class, fearing I'd forgotten too much and would never be able to keep up. This book cleared up every problem I was having. I've recomended it to two other students and both have improved their grades. I've just ordered Forgotten Calculus to help prepare me for my next step in math.