Lions and tigers an bears? Oh my! Add Munchkins and Winged Monkeys and a Horse of a Different Color to the list. This is Oz Country, and things simply don't get better than this. To celebrate the centennial of the publication of L. Frank Baum's novel (and the 60th anniversary of the classic MGM flick), preeminent Oz historian John Fricke has written a glorious homage of all things fun and fantastical. Not only does the book offer a fascinating chronicle of the Ozian phenomenon, but the illustrations, culled from Willard Carroll's priceless collection of more than 10,000 museum-quality pieces, are breathtaking. Oh Auntie Em, there's no place like home . . . provided you're snuggled up in front a fire with this gem.

With Willard Carroll's Oz collection as a backdrop, John Fricke has cataloged the fabric of Frank Baum's stories of Oz. I am certain that Frank Baum could not have been aware this fabric would become a great tapestry upon which the world could identify what it meant to be human. Oz has permeated our society with its influence. It is found in our languages, our politics, human behavior, and is probably used more often as a simile than any other imagery in our language.

From the opening pages of this book to the last, the book is a compelling journey through Oz. The collection of Mr. Carroll's Oz memorabilia is so large that it is like trying to comprehend the distance between stars or that a few people actually have a billion dollars. This colligation of Oz collectibles somehow unites every civilization, geographic location, and human condition. It is one of the few things that have true universality.

After reading John Fricke's take on Oz, of course, based on Willard Carroll's collection, I am left wondering how history would be different were it not for Frank Baum's Oz?

The pictures are glorious, the layout intelligent and thoughtful-I will never see Oz in quite the same way again. John Fricke's writing is stellar. Willard Carroll's collection ---what can I say, WOW! 100 years of Oz is entertaining, educative and provides a new look at Frank Baum's Oz through the other end of the spyglass. This is a visit to a museum with a very knowledgeable guide through an unforgettable exhibit. Thanks for the tour. I'll be back again.

This book is a must for all collectors.

"100 Years of Oz" is a delight for everyone who has ever fallen in love with "The Wizard of Oz" (which includes just about everyone.) The success of the book lays in John Fricke's capabilities as a writer. His words are consise, thoughtful, and honest. The photographs, likewise, catch the eye like flashes of brilliant light. It is not easy to take one of America's most chershed series of books, its favorite film, and 100 years of mechandising and condense it all into one volume. Thankfully, Mr. Fricke has done that- impeccably. Buy this book today. I highly recommend it to everyone as an example of first class research. Above all, it is a time capsule of memories. Fricke will long be heralded as "Oz"'s best friend. Congratulations to all who made this book such a beautiful addition to my library.

This is a must for anybody's personal library. No matter where you are in life, Sir John has done us all a great favour by writing this book. He uses a range of philosiphies and theologies to explain everyday events in our lives.
Are you overwhemled or caught up in day to day events? Mr. Templeton's collections of various authors and his own works will explain sometimes difficult situations into easy to understand english. For example, lesson "No one knows the weight of another's burden" on page 20 is about the young man in a male therapy group.
The men were in a group session and the person in the story is a new participant. The mediator explained that each person would have a few minutes to explain his problem and what they plan to do about it. Natually, the new person thought with his marital break down, near bankruptcy and poor health, his would be one of the saddest cases.
Before it was his turn to speak, a handsome young man in his 20's revealed that he was terminally ill and had 6 months to live. Rather than dwell on it, he decided to take up flying lessons and live! Naturally, everybody else was taken off guard and rediscovered the gifts they have.
Templeton's 200 lessons in this book address almost every situation around. You don't have to be struggling with life to enjoy this. Everybody needs a bit of down to earth insiration and you'll have it with this!

John Marks Templeton's most important discovery is that our lives are shaped by certain eternal laws. He has established several foundations to advance spiritual developments and offers free literature plus newsletter to all who ask. Enjoy a visit to the Templeton Foundation . He rose from humble beginnings to lead a 30-billion dollar group of investment companies and established the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, which exceeds the Nobel Prize in financial value. This beloved book includes two hundred "laws of life" and appeals to all on the spiritual path. Contributors to "Laws" include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jesus, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Gerald G. Jampolsky , and Eric Butterworth . Endorsements include Dr. Robert Schuller, Billy Graham, and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale.

Great therapy. It is an easy read. Something you can open a few minutes a day to lift your spirits, and it doesn't hurt to read over and over again. It may not dazzle your senses (nonfiction), but it should make you feel good.

50 years and this is still a great book in a great series. Unlike so many popular Christian books that become dated over time, William Barclay's Daily Study Bible just seems to get better. He has excellent historical material. He offers valuable insight that will apply to your life as we begin the third millenium. You will be glad you bought this book, or any of the others Barclay wrote in the New Testament Series.

I find that William Barclay's "The Gospel of Mark" is an excelent book to learn more about what is the true meaning of what the Gospel of Mark is all about. It is fairly easy to read and it puts what is written into historical contexts. It let me know a lot more about what was going on during the life of Jesus Christ. so that I could understand the Gospel in much greater depth than I ever had before.

I would greatly recommend this book for use as a suppliment to the Bible for study groups or individual study of the Scriptures. I also think that this book is good for both a historical and/or a theological study of the life of Jesus Christ. It really helps to make sense of what Mark had to say by reviewing what the people knew and thought during the time that Jesus was among them so that we could view the Gospel from that perspective as well as what it means to us today.

I think that every Christian will find that they will learn a great deal from this book. As a Christian I feel that this book should be on everyone's must read list.

Reading this commentary was like having a daily conversation with a deeply learned companion. Barclay's remarks are always insightful. Without being dogmatic, he brings Mark's prose alive. His understanding of the original Greek and of the customs and mores of the ancient world provides helpful context to the story. What a wonderful personal tutor! I now am reading his book on the letters to the Corinthians and will read the entire series.

This 1965 textbook is arguably the most scholarly textbook ever written for communication engineers. Although the Proakis and Sklar (and also McKay) books are the standard textbooks for digital communications and estimation/detection theory nowadays; they don't even come close to this textbook. The Proakis textbook has gotten the unfortunate reputation as having the most comprehensive treatment regarding "hard-core" communication theory. However, the divergence between modern textbooks which are "practical" versus older textbooks which focus more on "theory" is very clear. Somewhere along the way, today's textbooks have truly lost much of the hard-core theory, and this book has it.

The Chapters are as follows: (1) Introduction (2) Probability Theory (3)Random Waveforms (4)Optimum Receiver Principles (5)Efficient Signaling for Message Sequences (6) Implementation of Coding Systems (7) Important Channel Models (8) Waveforms Communications and appendixes (A-D)

The chapter on probability is bar-none the most comprehensive I have ever seen in any digital communications book, and covers multidimensional pdf's and explains the significance of moments and other things you might only find in a book dedicated specifically to stochastic processes. The coverage of the topics on signal-spaces is fantastic, and the chapter on optimum receivers is also extremely thorough despite the age of this book. Wozencrafts treatment of "channel capacity" and the derivations which he provides are unlike anything in any other book, covering the sphere packing argument quite thoroughly (the only other author to ever get this comprehensive was Shannon himself, and Pierce in his 1960'is vintage book on information theory). His coverage of various important bounds is covered very well (i.e. Chernoff bound) such that even an undergraduate can understand it. Other chapters are equally well written. No, the book obviously is not as up to date as Sklar or Proakis and doesn't cover alot of the more "practical" aspects of modern communications.... but if you want a die-hard communication theory book... this is a classic must-have.

This book is the best "text book" ever written for graduate-level digital communications, though some contents of the latter half part of this book is outdated.

The highlight of this book is its excellence in explaning "signal space concept" and "sufficiency of observables for optimum detection". Forget other textbooks and references you have. Read this book. I haven't yet found any other book that has better explanation on these topics.

I used parts of this book in a digital communications course at UIUC. The book is written in a very lucid manner, atleast the chapters that I referred to - 3, 4 & 5. They provide a solid understanding to the subject material and it may seem mind boggling that even though the book was written way back in 1965 it is still a classic and is considered as one of the best references for optimum receiver principles. It makes for some smooth and sufficient reading (chaps. 3,4,5) when compared to other books such as that by Proakis etc. A must buy for any person in the Communication Area!

As a college student at the age of twenty I have been in the pursuit of inspirational words and ideas to help lead me towards a successful adult life. This book contains so much wisdom and inspiration it is only necessary to read a few lines each day. It combines a diversity of ideas into one place which makes it a must have book for anyone trying to make the most out of their lives.

Several years ago I received Templeton's Discovering the Laws of Life, as a gift. Each day I read one of the passages of the book and received what can only be described as encouragement and direction. I yellow marked every word of wisdom and found at the end I had turned all of the pages in the book to the color of my highlighter. In Worldwide Laws of Life, Mr. Templeton has again completed a masterpiece which should be placed nexted to the Bible as a source of wisdom and reflection. Last Christmas I purchased three and gave one to each of my three children as a gift. Over the year they too have expressed to me the profound pleasure they get in reading book, especially in times they characterize as troubled, but Templeton characterizes as, simply..the questions that life asks you. I encourage every Father, or Mother, to give it as a gift for any occasion. The wisdom in the book, related by the World's elite, cannot but improve your childs outlook and encourage his or her positive participation in life's journey.

These are the things I wish my father had taught me, and the things I wish my children will learn. It's such an extraordinary treasure chest of wisdom, one of those few books that you'd want to have stranded on a desert island or standed on Manhattan Island. Just superb.

This short but sweet story gives a hilarious look of the ever so familiar creature-the human through the recognizable figures...Adam and Eve.

Mark Twain presents the journals of Adam and Eve. In a satirical tone we see how they cope with new things. Eve names things and animals and is appreciative of nature. She comments on the moon which falls out of the sky and is brought back. She recalls her reflection in the water, but regards this as a separate entity all together. Adam, differently, builds shacks and searches the land. They eventually find a baby, Cain, who for Adam may be a fish, a bear, a kangeroo, or parrot. He eventually sees that the baby is, of course, a premature human.

There are many instances of humour. The reader is left to wonder how it might have been for the 'first' couple. Kierkegaard remarked that Adam and Eve must have felt trapped by their own freedom, not knowing what to do. I myself regard Adam and Eve as mythology but can see the curiosities of what a 'first couple' would have been like. Would they be happy? Would they be attractive? What were their conversations like? It gives to the imagination, undoubtedly. But like Twain, I can't take it seriously.

Mark Twain creates a fascinating experience of a man and a woman discovering each other, learning to live together in the real world, growing up toward being a whole being.

Throughout the entire delicious epic of the story, the two characters grow from unaware children to mature humans, able to make a living together through all difficulties.

Adam, on one side, starts regarding Eve in a critical way that reminds the rigorousness of an engineer and ends warmly with the calm passion given by a lifetime of togetherness.

Eve, on the other, depicted here as the essential expression of the womanhood, appears as a living miracle of contradictions. She is so playful, sunny, innocent and wildly alive, that Adam finally realizes he's happy to be sentenced to love her forever. It is worth saying that even the Sin is reconsidered here rather as an abuse of Eve's ingenuity than an assumed trespassing...

The friendly, optimistic approach to life, the art of putting strong, fundamental feelings into everyday's words, the gentle humor far from cheap melodrama, the subtle metaphor of the joy of living arising from each chapter made me to consider this novel the most touchy love story ever written.

This book has become my "bible" for exploring the most beautiful and wild areas in Colorado from my home in Colorado Springs. My original copy of the book was destroyed when it was left in a soft-top jeep with the windows off, during a rain storm (while hiking one of the trails in the book, nonetheless). That is why I am back here to purchase another! One word of warning: the author seems to underestimate, vs. overestimate, the trail distances. Be prepared to hike an extra mile or two! This book is great!

I'm a native Coloradan. No matter what I want to do, be it a quick day hike up to a 4 day backpacking trip, this book has it. I own other hiking books, but this one gets by far the most use. I love the historical descriptions of each wilderness area. The maps are good enough to get your bearings and find the trailhead. Plus each Wilderness Area has a "John Fielder's Favorite" hike which always spectacular.

One thing, though. A reviewer below said the maps are inadequate... If you plan on anything more than a day hike, you should have topographical anyway. This is true for most if not all guide books.

As one of the few Colorado Natives, I have seen much of the state. But our local boy John Fielder has seen much more. His ratings, descriptions and maps have been 'right-on' with what I have seen thus far and with the Fielder photography, it provides a great additional perspective on the already detailed descriptions. I 've gotten lost in the book a few times just dreaming of my next outing!

If you believe that the authors were actually permitted to reveal the secrets contained in this book, it is monumental.

But knowing "The Company", it is more likely that this work is some sort of 'controlled' leak, softening the blow for the revelations of the inevitable congressional investigations that followed in the aftermath of the Watergate fiasco, the death of J. Edgar Hoover, and the continuing insinuations implicating the CIA of complicity in everything from the murder of JFK, to secret, malevolent control over the war in SE Asia.

Irrespective of ones' take on the voracity of the means of disclosure (whether legitimate whistle-blowing, or CIA damage control) this heavily-censored/redacted book ostensibly blew the lid off at CIA, with at least superficial examination of the structure, operations, methods, and mind-set of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. In the main, time has tended to validate this contents of this expose'.

Out of print and hard to find, this book nonetheless remains must-reading for anyone interested in intelligence, the Cold War, Vietnam, and the defense of the Free World up to the early 1970s. Buy it.

This is one of perhaps ten books from prior to 1985 that I decided to include because of their continuing value. I believe that both history and historians will credit these two individuals with having made a difference by articulating so ably both the clandestine mentality and the problems extant in the lack of oversight regarding proprietary organizations, propaganda and disinformation, and intrusive not-so-clandestine operations.

Professionals at work. This reviels it all. Don't read encyclopedias read crediable books by credible authors in the know. It teaches you the truth. Highly recommendeed by me and everybody else. Thanks for reading my review.

I am not a Linguist, but this book helped me to appreciate all of the differing theories and various fields within what is known as linguistics. If you are seeking a book that is simple to read, yet very comprehensive, I recommend this volume. If you enjoy languages, speech development, regional dialects, language acquisition, theory of language, language trends, and more - this book is for you.

Major disciplines coverd include: phonetics, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Also included in this new addition are new chapters on second language acquisition and psycholinguistics.

One of the best features of this text is how well it is laid out. It is a pleasure to peruse and even study because of it's logical and user friendly format.

If you love anything about language- whether knowing it's origins, or what part of the mouth is used to create certain sounds, or how language changes over time and for what reasons, or a host of other curiosities, you will certainly enjoy the wealth of information within Contemporary Linguistics!

"Contemporary Linguistics" (CL) is a wonderfully clear and accessible introduction to the field of linguistics. The authors begin by introducing the methodological assumptions that underlie present day Chomskyan linguistics and then reserve a chapter each for almost all major research directions within linguistics.

One thing in particular that I liked about the format of CL was the treatment of more advanced material (marked "Advanced") in each chapter. The "Advanced" sections augment the material in the rest of the chapter and are placed in logical sequence with the rest of the material instead of appearing in an appendix at the end of the chapter. For example, a section marked "advanced" on X' (read X-bar) Theory appears fairly early in the syntax chapter. Having some knowledge of X' Theory allows the reader to proceed to examine the rest of the material with the knowledge that there exists an intermediate level of structure between lexical categories (N, V, ...) and phrasal categories (NP, VP, ...).

Most chapters in CL are pretty well written and technical tools to treat linguistic phenomena are almost always introduced at the correct juncture. However, CL does not treat Innateness properly (why Innateness and arguments for and against Innateness), and has a weak chapter on semantics. The reader would do well to augment the material in CL by reading Pinker's "The Language Instinct" or Jackendoff's "Patterns in the Mind" for a non-technical introduction to some ideas in linguistics, as well as sections of De Swart's "Intro to Natural Language Semantics" to get an idea of how semantics is done. If the reader is interested in looking at language from a cognitive science perspective, she would also do well to read most of Gleitman et al's "An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Language".

All in all, CL provides a relatively painless initiation into linguistics and I highly recommend it.

Speaking as a newcomer to the subject, I found this book to be an excellent intro. Very useful.