America's post-Civil War years brought a renewed interest in the European scene. Journeys
known as Grand Tours led tourists to take ship to the Continent. They fanned out across the
landscape with the intent to "know Europe." Their return home resulted in a flurry of
published accounts. Twain satirizes both the tourists and their writings with delicious
wit. Ever a man to play with words, his "tramp" refers to both himself and the walking tour
of Europe he purports to have made. By the time you've reached the end of the account of the
"walking tour" incorporating trains, carriages and barges, you realize that the longest "walk"
Twain took occurred in dark hotel room while trying to find his bed. He claims to have
covered 47 miles wandering around the room.

Twain was interested in everything, probing into both well-known and obscure topics. His
judgments are vividly conveyed in this book, standing in marked contrast to his more
reserved approach in Innocents Abroad. A delightful overview of mid-19th Century Europe,
Tramp is also interlaced with entertaining asides. Twain was deeply interested in people, and
various "types" are drawn from his piercing gaze, rendered with acerbic wit. Some of these
are contemporary, while others are dredged from his memories of the California mines and
other journeys. He also relished Nature's marvels, recounting his observations. A favourite
essay is "What Stumped the Blue-jays." A nearly universal bird in North America, Twain's
description of the jay's curiosity and expressive ability stands unmatched. He observes such
humble creatures as ants, Alpine chamois, and the American tourist. Few escape his
perception or his scathing wit. This book remains valuable for its timeless rendering of
characters and the universality of its view. It can be read repeatedly for education or
entertainment.

All these volumes are self-recommending except, perhaps, to those poor, misguided people who continue to pigeon-hole one of the world's great writers. Yes, Twain was a humorist who virtually invented modern American English as a literary language. But the sheer range of his achievement is staggering. And the best way to experience it is altogether. And the best "altogether" is this magnificent 29 volume set from Oxford. Other people can speak with more authority about Twain the author. I want to speak a little about how delicious it is to encounter him in these books. They are reproductions of the original American editions and the facsimiles are beautifully rendered. But this isn't important in itself; we're not about to spend [...] for a little bit of nostalgia. Rather, just open any one of these 29 volumes and see what a difference its admittedly antique printing style makes. White spacing between the printed lines is generous to an unbelievable degree, as are the page margins. Your eyes don't tire. You can savour each page at whatever pace you want to set for yourself. Worlds open and invite. This is how people read books a hundred years ago. This is the way to read books!

I have not read Twain since High School twenty five plus years ago but a friend on a newspapers book forums got me to read him again and A Tramp Abroad is the first book I picked. For the current generation this book may drag but for those of us who grew up reading books instead of playing computer games this is Twain at his best. One has to actually read into his writing to appreciate a lot of the irony but when this book is really on like the mountain climbing near the Matterhorn ,Twain makes Seinfeld seem like he's talking about something. A brilliant travel essay and by the way the Penguin Classics edition of this book in paperback is 411 pages long, not 670 pages .

Though this title may be a little pricy, it is a must have for residents of California, Oregon, and Washington. At any rate, any family within which there is a flower collecter, should have a copy of this excellent resource. Though my family originally purchased this title because of a biology project assigned to my daughter, it has since opened up an interesting world of the natural plant life of this area and even those farther away.

I like the book and the topic, however the binding is is such bad shape that the book is useless in the field or for a more robust usage. Can this be fixed?

I take this guide (and the Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers-- west) on all my field trips to identify wildflowers. Though Peterson has fewer real photos, it does have better aids to identify specific wildflowers, as it is organized by color, as well as number and types of petals. The sketches help me do a preliminary id on the wildflower.

This book gives an excellent overview of the topic, written in an easy understandable way. The authors have researched numerous articles and studies and compiled them into this work. The book also contains a lot of tables and graphs to illustrate the text. The foundations and the scope of target costing are well discussed and a small case study gives an idea how target costing is working in a practice. Moreover, there are a lot of references to literature and some examples from industry discussed. In the appendix there is a very useful collection of tools used in the target costing.

Definition and scope of target costing as explained in the book:

The target costing process is a system of profit planning and cost management that is price led, customer focused, design centred, and cross-functional. The target costing initiates cost management at the earliest stages of product development and applies it throughout the product life cycle by actively involving the entire value chain.

The difference between target costing and cost management is that the latter focuses on reducing the cost when they are already occurring, that means when the product design and the process are already defined. The target costing approach on the other hand helps to identify the allowable cost for a product in the design stage, the cost at the manufacturing stage are therefore known to be achievable and competitive. Further cost improvements are achieved by kaizen costing (continuous improvement).

this book is best for persons to understand the target costing indeeply with plain english. this book is also suitable for cost management in the globe.

This book provided more detail for target costings, more useful everyday, in both practical and theorical case. Moreover, this book use plain english for whoever in the world.

I found this book in a library and read it. I was surprised that Mark Twain wrote such a serious piece -- it did not contain his typical wit or sarcasm, but was a rather sentimental account of Joan of Arc. I wasn't sure when I started or finished it if it was actually a translation he made from a real account or if he had written it himself as a sort of historically based piece of fiction. I gather from what I have seen elsewhere that this is considered fiction -- a novel -- but he was painstaking in his attention to historical details and facts. It was a wonderful book, and I found it inspiring. He persuaded me to believe her story.

Albert Paine's biography, "The Adventures of Mark Twain" says: "It was just at this time [while Clemens was still in Hannibel working for his brother's paper] that an incident occurred which may be looked back upon now as a turning-point in Samuel Clemens's life. Coming home from the office one afternoon, he noticed a square of paper being swept along by the wind. He saw that it was printed . . . . He chased the flying scrap and overtook it. It was a leaf from some old history of Joan of Arc, and pictured the hard lot of the 'maid' in the tower of Rouen . . . . Sam had never heard of Joan before -- he knew nothing of history. He was no reader. . . . But now, as he read, there awoke in him a deep feeling of pity and indignation, and with it a longing to know more of the tragic story. It was an interest that would last his life through, and in the course of time find expression in one of the rarest books ever written. The first result was than Sam began to read. He hunted up everything he could find on the subject of Joan, and from that went into French history in general -- indeed, into history of every kind. Samuel Clemens had suddenly become a reader . . . ."

Mark Twain's best. I couldn't put it down. I was away for the weekend, found it on a book table in the lobby, and bought it for bedtime reading. The rest of the weekend was devoted to living Joan's story. A great weekend. An incredible book.

This book will make you feel like you walked with Joan, knew her, loved her - READ THIS BOOK. Truly one of the greatest reads of my life! A Book that really changed my perspective on a lot of things.

If you have easy access to squab, pheasant, loin of rabbit, quail, buffalo, antelope, Mexican oregano, blackberries, poblano chiles, gualjillo chiles, serrano chiles, chile molido, chile carib, chipotles in adobo sauce, Apaloosa beans, calypso beans, Steuben yellow beans, fresh hoja santa leaf, dry aged goat cheese, smoked gouda, chanterelles, Silver Queen corn, fresh marjoarm, fresh epazota, pumpkin seeds, cumin seeds, dried blueberries, huckleberries, etc., then you might find the recipes in "Red Sage: Contempoary American Cuisine" the kind that will give a fresh and creative twist to your culinary endeavors. Otherwise, you are likely find very little in this book that you can put to use in your kitchen.

that guy who wrote the derogatory one must live in a closet.

Not only have I read the book, which is well written and quite insightful, but I have had the priviledge to create many of the dishes presented. The techniques are fairly simple for a seasoned chef, and the only trick is finding the ingredients if you live in a smaller town. One item I have discovered cannot be substituted is the can of chipoltes in adobo sauce. If you find them, buy many cans, as you will be using them often! The beauty of this book is the diversity of dishes featured. Vegetarians can find many recipes to entertain, and the poultry, game, and beef dishes are quite intriguing. This cookbook is fabulous, and I consider the recipes to be invaluable. A must for any cook!

If you like books (which I presume you do if you're hanging out on the Amazon.com website :)), and especially if you like book reviews (ditto!), you're going to LOVE this book. Gleaned from a century of New York Times book reviews (plus interviews and letters to the editor), "Books of the Century" gives us the some of the best in 20th century literature, as seen through the eyes of some great reviewers (e.g., WH Auden on Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings"). I can't decide which is more entertaining and edifying -- reading a well-written review which really "nails" a book, or laughing over a ridiculous "panning" of what would turn out to be a great classic.

My only MAJOR criticism of this book is that it includes almost NO science fiction whatsoever. Besides being one of my personal favorite genres of literature, there are just some great all-around WRITERS missing here: Philip K. Dick, Olaf Stapledon, Alfred Bester, HG Wells, and many more. I mean, I can understand that "Books of the Century" wasn't thousands of pages long, and obviously couldn't include EVERYTHING, but leaving out an entire GENRE of literature? I seriously question the editors' judgment on this omission (and that's why I give "Books of the Century" four stars instead of five)!

Besides that problem, which can be solved by checking out David Pringle's "The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction," I strongly recommend "Books of the Century." The New York Times Book Review section is a national treasure, and this is a select sampling of that treasure. An excellent book for a lazy summer afternoon...enjoy!

Do you ever wonder how some of the most highly regarded and influential books of the century were reviewed when they were first released, without the benefit of hindsight? This book, a collection from the New York Times Book Review, gives you the answer. It's a tribute to the reviewers that they were often right on the money in their evaluations (like the reviews on "Ulysses", "The Grapes of Wrath", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", etc.). It's also kind of a hoot to read the "Oops!" reviews, where they dowgraded books like "Catch-22" and "Catcher in the Rye" when they first came out. There is a lot of fascinating reading here. I just wish it were more comprehensive, which may not be realistic on my part, since that would mean about a 10,000 page book. But for what this book sets out to do, it succeeds with flying colors.

I would suggest that all who are interested in obtaining this book put it in your "Shopping Cart" IMMEDIATELY, because if you come back later and put "Books of the Century" in the search engine, it will inexplicably bring up a bunch of books about architecture. HUHHH?? C'mon, Amazon, let's tweak that search engine a little here!!

This book selects hundreds of representative reviews from NYT's "Book Review". This's a great book! It reflects the taste and the trend of American (or put it boldly, contemporary) literature and lit-crit. Numerous witty articles and perspectives prevail here. While in retrospective, we can find how precise the words were to some great literature works when they were just published. Typical examples like reviews of "Ulysess" ,"The grapes of Wrath". Such reviews undoubtly testify the high-standard of NYT's review. This is a must for book lover.

Logic of sense is a very difficult book to get in toto. I'm not sure that it's even meant to be read that way. The book is arranged in a series of paradoxes that each take on a concept or problematic through which Deleuze undoes the hermeneutics of "meaning" in order to replace it with one built around "sense." What makes this book rewarding is its importance to an understanding of expression and imagination in Anti-Oedipus, and various images and signs in his two cinema books. But it almost takes having read his books on Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Bergson first to get the most out of Deleuze's strange and non-subjective ideas of sense and event. I will agree with the reviewer above that the book leans hard on the Stoics, but to stop there would be to miss Deleuze's project here. He wants to create a logic that establishes sense neither in speech nor in language, neither in sign systems nor in structures. He wants to place the production of sense in a philosophy that has restored its grasp of movement and becoming, has shaken its dogmatic belief in concepts and abstractions, and that creates and affirms through virtual qualities and events that, while communicating in fact and through the repetition of the familiar (order), still relate to and express pure qualities. This is really the companion piece to the cinema books but on literature. I don't know that his theory of sense carries well to performance and social convention. Which is frustrating, because we need a some good theories of social convention and language that can take us past linguistics and speech act theories. This is a fantastic book and one of his most inventive.

This was the first book of Deleuze's that i read. The book begins with an analysis of Lewis Carrol's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". The often playful style of writing is deceptive; the concepts explored are often extremely complicated. Furthermore, i personally found it difficult to link together the various concepts, although of course Deleuze is not trying to write a unified whole. The first section of the book in which Deleuze deals primary with Carrol discusses, amongst other things, paradox, "pure becoming", and explores the relationship between the "surface" and the "murky depths". Somwhere a little after half way through "The Logic of Sense", Deleuze begins the "pyschoanalytic" portion of the book, applying several of the concepts developed previously, especially the relationship between "surfaces" and "depths". Personally, I enjoyed the first half of the book, and all of the talk about phallus' and orality seemed to come out of nowhere; there is no transition or preparation for this shift. The essays including in the appendix provide added (and helpful) insights into the main text and into Deleuze's thought in general. Overall, i found the "surface" of the Logic of Sense not too difficult to grasp, but the inner workings are indeed elusive.

The Logic of Sense is a deceptive book, for you feel after the first 30 pages or so that you kinda grasp what's going on, only to put it down, take a breath and go: "Eh?" A reviewer once famously called it 'dry as a biscuit' or something to that effect, but I don't think it's dry so much as weird. Weird, that is, that it comes off so calm and *logical* when it's really so insane and delirious. Compared to Deleuze, the majority of postructuralists are like so many Fregeans.
All of which is not to say that the book is as inefficacious as he claims sense is. See, the book works almost as sense comes to by the end---at first shimmering but sterile, and then fecund and obscure. But rest assured, you do find your zone of clarity.
It is difficult, but nowhere near as difficult as the companion piece, Difference and Repetition. One will find many of the arguments there updated and clarified here.
Logicians and the analytic minded might find it annoying that Deleuze keeps referring to sense (which they might read "Sinn") but seems to be completely oblivious to the great Gottlob and his ilk. 'Tis true, after all, that Deleuze sleeps with the enemies in this one; namely, the Stoics and that evil ontological hyperinflationist Meinong.
Which brings me to a word to the wise: it can only help you to have a good understanding of Stoic physics, logic, and ethics before coming to this book of Deleuze's. He may jump from place to place a bit, but--and this is my reading--this book remains fundamentally Stoic. Basically, change "God" to "the aleatory" and endow "sayables" with a potency they were often denied in Stoic logic, and you got yourself a pretty good grasp of the material you'll find here. Or at least a start. IMO, it really does help to just slap your mind into Stoic mode and think about his approach from that angle, rather than simply trying to wrestle Anti-Oedipus or Cinema 2 into the Logic of Sense rubric.
I agree with one of the other reviewers, and believe me it pains me to say it, that the six or so series (chapters) on psychology and dynamic genesis pretty much blarney. They're boring and seem to stop the motors of the book by needlessly colliding with Freud. And since they take us away from the interesting Stoic stuff, and bring us to the other psychology stuff, one can't help but feel they're at least obsolete with respect to Anti-Oedipus and the Fold.
Other than that, it's mega.

I've been an amateur breadmaker for years, but tend to bake irregularly because of the effort involved. No more! Mark Miller's recipes for bread both plain and exotic, healthful and richly delicious, have rekindled my enthusiasm for bread. I'm baking almost all my own bread now and making breakfast and lunch special occasions. From genuine sourdough, comforting cornbreads, spicy cheesey flatbreads and foccacia, to tempting quickbreads and breakfast treats (try Cream Cheese and Blueberry Bread, or Scottish Scones with honey, cream and Drambuie) No tedious copying of recipes from a library book this time: there are so many delicious recipes (and I've tried a lot of them) that I need to buy this book!

This is chock full of wonderful recipes. Not one that we've tried has disappointed. A batch of Blue Corn-Maple Muffins never lasts long in our house. Nothing out of this book ever does.

This is a nice little succinct book that breaks down those things that hinder the Christian walk. It is divided into two categories: Giants (that which are *huge* obstacles) and Thorns (not obstacles, but the little things that chaff, bother, annoy and wear you down).

The book is full great Biblical advise and is devoid of the bland platitudes that generally plague this type of Christian literature.

Be warned on two accounts though. First, you *will* find yourself saying, "yup, that's me," a lot. Secondly, this book can be a "downer." If you are looking for a happy-sappy pickup, look elsewhere. These are gritty answers to gritty questions.

A series of short stories that give examples of different situations that we all face in life. The stories will give the reader an insight as to how to come to grips with different fears, troubles in life, and grief situations such as the death of loved ones.

This book would have at least 4 stars if not for the negatives mentioned below. Regardless, the reader is truly exposed to Mark Twain's thoughts about his life as if he was on the porch with you talking about them. Particularly interesting were his recollections of his early childhood, his exposure to slavery and African Americans at that time, his lecture travels later in life, and difficulties with publishers. You also seem to catch fragments of stories that might/should have made it into his published works. (And his comments on all of the unpublished material that he destroyed! To be able to read that material now . . . .) Overall, a very enjoyable book that does well to capture a truly great American author.
There were some negatives -- The numerous times that Twain was apparently financially duped by publishers, relatives, and acquaintances was depressing, and much of the middle part of the book became a lament, in my opinion, because of that. But still, you get the perspective of a great author who was either genuinely financially naive or a lousy custodian of his money; or perhaps he 'stretched the truth' a little.
Also, at least in my copy, the pages were out of order in several places. (It was the equivalent to actually sitting on a porch with the great author, listening, but being occasionally interrupted by clouds of mosquitoes.) The out-of-order pages made it extremely annoying, and if you get a copy like that, send it back!

Treat yourself to the autobiography of a great man whose rich life held everything - humor, joy, sadness, passion and heartbreak. I love his highly evolved sense of social justice and his clear perception of the hypocrisies of his time (and indeed ours). The most touching aspect of this book is the way he opens up and gives us access to the most intimate and tender parts of himself. This is one of the best autobiograpies I've ever read and I've read it countless times. This book will touch your heart and make you laugh out loud.

The problem with putting together Twain's ramblings about himself is that in the original, they are scattered all over his life in no particular organization. The editors of this version have put them in roughly chronological order and taken out some of the more repetitious pieces--and it really works well when you sit down with this remarkable book and make your way through the life tale of the greatest of all tall tale men.

What also comes through clearly is the immense sadness and loneliness he felt at the end of his life. He is a man looking back on a lifetime of irreplaceable moments, some tragic, some unjust, many downright hilarious--and some unspeakably poignant, as when Twain mentions his pride to discover that his little daughter Susy, who died before him, had started writing his biography.

If you want to know more about the man who saw a river so wide it only had one bank, this is the place. More than almost any biography I can remember, this one made me smile, made me laugh loudly, and just as often filled my eyes with tears.

"I love to think of the great and godlike Clemens." -- Rudyard Kipling