I had heard about Best Friends several years ago and had joined as a member never realizing the enormity of this endeavor. I visited Best Friends in November, 2000 and could not believe what I saw. Best Friends is truly a magical and spiritual place. It is a safe haven for those abused and abandoned; a place where a second chance is given for safety and love. Samantha Glen has captured this magic and spirit of this sanctuary with her words. She has told the story as no other can. As you read each page you become one with each founder, understanding their excitement, their pain and feeling their losses. I cried tears of sadness for each individual as they realized what they had taken on was, at times, larger than they ever realized. And I cried tears of joy when others opened up their hearts to support their cause.

Having visited Best Friends I was able to remember some of the furry beings that were mentioned in the book, even having pictures of several. It made the story told all that more endearing to me.

Best Friends is truly magical, and Samantha Glen captured that magic in her writing. The only problem I found with the book is that it ended!!!! I would have read on forever!!! Please, anyone out there who reads this book, go one step further. Join Best Friends and help support one of the best sanctuaries in the world.

If you are a true animal lover, you will love this book. It's a story about how the Best Friends Animal Santuary got started as well as stories of beloved animals they have rescued. If you believe in rescuing our furry friends, this book is for you!

If you love animals and want to see how people can get together to take care of stray and unwanted animals of all kinds, you must read this.. I couldn't put it down.

If you love basketball at it's purest form you want to read this book.A must read for anyone who call themselves basketball junkies.

The layout and slickness of the book leaves a little to be desired, but for the hardcore fan of high school basketball, this is an excellent book. If you're like me, and growing up your favorite part of Street & Smiths College Basketball Previews were the High School Seniors to watch pages hidden in the back, this is your Bible. Although it claims to list every major high school star from the last 25 years, I'd say the book is most heavily loaded for those players who graduated from 1985 to 1995 or so. Any nationally known name from those years is in here, except for maybe Tracy McGrady and a few other rare exceptions. The book was published in 2001 so it won't contain players like Lebron James or Sebastian Telfair, but those guys are overpublicized anyway and you can read about them in any magazine. This book profiles players who never lived up to their high school potential (Shawn Bradley, Damon Bailey, etc.), to those who are current NBA superstars (Jason Kidd, KG, etc.) Each player has a 2 page review, including a photo or two and some interesting quotes about them during high school. This book is highly recommended.

If you spent even a part of your childhood pouring over Street & Smith's high school All-American list, this is the perfect book for you. It answers the "whatever happened to" question for dozens of former can't miss prospects. Of course, as this book reveals, many of them did miss. The book is full of stats, insights and stories. For every Michael Jordan and Jason Kidd, there was an equally touted Tom Lewis and Jamie Brandon. I hope all of the players profiled in the book had as much fun playing basketball as I did reading about them. If there is a hoops fanatic on your shopping list, I promise they will be thrilled with this gem of a book.

Digital publishing is now the foundation of the communication arts. Kleper has done a great job to help users at all levels understand the tools, processes, and techniques for preparing graphics media in the digital era. His two-book set is jam-packed with solid info on crossing the chasm from analog to digital.

Michael Kleper's books are an incredibly complete and competent source of information covering an amazingly broad area. His insights into an industry he has watched from the beginning should be useful for everybody in this business, and his two hefty tomes are certainly the most complete collection ever compiled on the subject.

Highly recommended.

Andreas Pfeiffer, Pfeiffer Consulting

Professor Michael Kleper's two volume The Handbook of Digital Publishing is an outstanding source on the foundations of the digital age of publishing. For those of us involved in some part of Graphic Arts/Publishing/Communications, and today that is just about anyone with access to a computer, digital technology has made accessible much of what was art and technique. Congratulations to Professor Kleper who has contributed a timely, thorough, and readable work. This is not just a collection of terminology and technology but a much needed companion to understand the digital publishing "tsunami" which has exploded as fast as the computer technology which underpins it. Happily, Professor Kleper has a lot of energy for he has opened the door to volumes three and more for those technologies still being created .....

Buy this book!

An interesting read, this book was more like a dream state than a first person narrative. Short, concise visuals, and vivid characters describe village life in post war Naples. This book will keep you reading straight through to the end. Loved the ending.

this is one of those rare stories that is written with such simplistically elegant prose that it can't help but be beautiful. it is not the plot of the book that captivates the reader, but rather the almost plain and 'delicate' way in which the story is narrated. to anyone in search of a new "classic," i highly recommend this book.

GOD'S MOUNTAIN is only the second book I've read by Erri De Luca (SEA OF MEMORY being the other) ' and I'm pretty sure these are the only works available in English by him. He's a writer of amazing talent and sensitivity. GOD'S MOUNTAIN gets under the reader's skin so easily ' his economy of language is perfect for this story of a boy's passage into manhood.

Montedidio (God's mountain) is a poor sector of Naples. The story is set in 1960 ' there are still fresh memories of World War II among the inhabitants (a theme that also plays an important part in SEA OF MEMORY), but there is a new, young president in America and despite the political tensions between the East and the West, there is a palpable sense of freshness and hope even amidst the poverty in which these characters dwell. The young narrator has started to keep a diary ' and the observations he makes, the things that he sees as moving and important, are very telling. He is a special soul ' he aches to become a man, but can still look back with genuine affection on the days of his childhood. He honors his parents and the man who employs him ' as well as his other friends. He works hard and feels the glow of it in his soul. He sees the struggle in the wrinkles of older people, and he respects them for it ' and he hears the wisdom in the words they pass on to him.

There is a young girl named Maria who lives in the same building as his family ' she is thirteen, and the depiction of their blossoming friendship and subsequent romance is rendered in such a lovely manner by De Luca's prose. They are each reaching out to discover the nature of love ' out of curiosity, of course, but also out of a burning need that flames within each of them, a need to replace the ties of love they see shredding in their own lives. They are drawn to each other naturally and innocently ' every aspect of their romance is tender and new. Love that includes sensuality, without being driven by lust, is a beautiful thing ' it's a joy to see it in such grace-filled writing.

One of the young man's friends is an old man ' a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust ' who is a cobbler. He has a workbench in the carpentry shop where the boy is employed. The cobbler's generosity ' he repairs the shoes of the poor of Naples for free ' as well as his wisdom and stories touch the boy deeply. The old cobbler has a physical deformity ' a hunchback ' that he decides are angel wings waiting to burst forth, allowing him to fly to the Holy Land. His belief in this ' and the belief of the boy as well ' make it real.

The boy's father has given him a boomerang ' a gift from a sailor friend, brought back from Australia. The boomerang is mystical and mysterious to the boy ' he practices with it every night on the roof of his building. He practices throwing it up to the point of actually letting it go ' he rightfully sees the time when he will actually allow it to fly as a turning point in his life. He is both thrilled and frightened to see that time arrive.

The book reads fairly quickly ' but it's one that should be savored. There is so much wisdom and LIFE contained in these pages, that it mustn't be hurried. After all, life passes by too fast as it is'

This is a little treasure.

Moore's poetry is striking in a number of ways and well worth reading. The fact that they have been translated into Spanish by the well-known translator and poet, Alicia Zavala Galvan, is also worth noting for the value it adds to Moore's book, but also for the access it now allows Spanish readers to Haiku. A nice job by poet and translator!

In this cluttered world where many busy themselves with the radio, television or CD players, enters the haiku. It is not a new type of poetry but one that has been rediscovered. The unique dimension in this presentation by the haiku specialist Michael Moore is that he presents them to us in two languages, English as well as Spanish. He is not a novice to writing haiku His three other collections: Chocolate Haiku, Chocolate Chips and Home Grown in the Haiku Garden attest to this. Alicia Galvan is right in her introduction when she states "translation of a literary work into another language can best be described as opening Pandora's box." However, she has carefully and skillfully translated these poems as if she had the secret to the lock. The task of the poet as an artist is to employed strong vibrant images in as few words as possible. Similar to his other collections, Michael's poems are like (candy kisses), too many of them will only leaves you feeling stuffed. A few at a time will lighten your day and be the inspiration that is often needed for the mind and soul after a full day's work. Contemporary View of Haiku is enriched by the subtle use of the oriental brush of Don Albert, a San Antonio artist. I would suggest having a copy of this near the dinner table and reading a few before meals to whet the appetite or before retiring in the evening. Contemporary View of Haiku would be a wonderful book to teach contemporary haiku to children, especially since it is a bilingual edition. (Trinida Sanchez)

Contemporary View of Haiku is a work that explore the free-verse style of an old Japanese art form in a bilingual format. ISBN: 0-9610702-6-9

Mustard Seed Press

Michael Moore's poetic microcosm is inhabited by the subjects usually associated with haiku: cicadas, fish, dragonflies, crickets, plum blossoms, gardens, and the seasons. But Moore juxtaposes themes with images as diverse as bungi jumpers, cotton candy, and a Navajo blanket. Haiku is an intuitive experience, and at times Moore's deft touch results in a surreal leap. Residing in the here and now details, he mines the evocative power of the common place object: a lounge chair, a wheelbarrow, a collar button, an habachi, a clock, a bullet, bike, and museum bench. Moore's perception lies beyond the threshold of utility. As poetic images, he redeems them. to read Moore's poetry is to dwell in the house of possibility:

Gently waking
the sleeping butterfly
a distant temple bell.

La campana lejana de un templo
suavemente despierta
una mariposa que duerme.

------------------------

Spider leaps
from the ceiling fan
ancient bungi jumper.

Arana brinca
del abanico del techo
saltador bungi antiguo.

Bienvenidos al microcosmo de Michael Moore. Su obra poetica celebra no solamente un jardin de temas asociados con el haiku pero tambien el inesperado poder de objectos que presuponemos. Sus poemas celebran el toque transcendental que redide en los detalles de nuestra vida cotidiana. La poesia haiku es un relampagueo. Michael Moore no los desilusiona.

Jacinto Jesus Cardona, Teacher and poet

This marriage of poetry and illustrations is like no other. As an educator I enjoy the layout of the book. The poems are divided into categories such as poems about weather, spooky poems, and animal poems. The illustrations are by Caldecott Medal artists - the best of the best! I have purchased countless copies of Sing a Song of Popcorn as it is a perfect gift to give to families to celebrate the arrival of a new baby. It is a book that all members of the family can enjoy - the young ones will enjoy the rhyming patterns of some of the poems and the silliness of others. The adults will treasure the inclusion of such classic poems as Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and Jack Prelutsky's entertaining "The Spaghetti Nut".

You don't have to be a certain age to enjoy this book, full of wonderful poems from various well known poets. There is a poem for every walk of life in this book. This book is sure to be on your shelf for many years to come!

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of poetry and the beautiful illustrations which accompany. As a kindergarten teacher, I found the anthology to be an invaluable resource for introducing young children (or any children) to the world of poetry. :

When I first picked up my copy of Unicorn Riders of the ORB, I thought nothing of it. Little did I know then that such a sweeping whirlwind of emotions could be contained in such a slim volume. Michael G. Moore has created a tale that resonates within the souls of all mankind. It speaks to us all with a visionary optimism that uplifts the human spirit. Moore's characters are at once tragic and heroic, glorious in their triumphs and disspirited in their defeats, and altogether HUMAN in a way that is stunning in its honesty and beautiful in its message. In these characters, we see reflections of ourselves.

The narrative style is nothing short of brilliant, drawing on the techniques of Tolkien, Dickens, and Garcia Marquez and reinventing them in a creation that is both satisfyingly familiar and breathtakingly new. I found myself completely absorbed in Moore's worlds by the vivid detail found in every setting. The dialogue explores brave new worlds of emotion and excitement, while at the same time it is filled with the subtleties of message that only the finest authors could hope to reproduce.

There are no words that can do justice to this marvel of modern fiction. Moore has redefined the science fiction genre, and indeed the entire literary canon, with this exploration of the hopes and fears found deep within the hearts of man. Unicorn Riders of the ORB sets a standard that will likely remain unchallenged in this lifetime - unless, of course, there is a sequel!

Unicorn Riders of the Orb is quite possibly the most prolific and masterfully crafted novel ever released into it's field. Yet the definitions of it's "field" are so very skewed with this veritable piece of art for it stretches the bounds of literature itself. It is a beautifully sculpted work that drives to the heart of the huma mind. Our desires, our fears, our wants, and our fundamental needs. All are brought about in this mind-boggling masterpiece. With a breathtaking storyline that makes us truely feel at one, we are hurt, loved, betrayed, and even brought to tears by the stunning exposition by Moore. Moore, a Guru by his own rights, has done what no other man on the face of this earth has even dreamed of achieving in a slim 150 pages. This slim volume is burning with a desire, a desire found naught in our lives, but in the deepest reaches of our soul. One feels complete upon finishing that final, beaten page, and it's words leave a final imprint upon the fabric of our inner self that leaves us feeling lost and futile when not immersed deep within its pages. Unicorn Riders is by far the most beautiful and absolute literary work to have ever graced our lives, and quite frankly, I pity da fool who misses out the Unicorn Riders.

Unicorn Riders of the ORB is a veritable masterpiece of science fiction. Moore continues the legacy which Isaac Asimov began decades ago. The action is fast-paced and engaging, and the depth of the characters provides for a compelling storyline that grips the reader and draws him or her into this rich and interesting world. Moore sheds new light onto a field that is often tiresome and predictable. The story commences on the planet Jubrelius where three young rebels find themselves in the midst of a deep galaxy-spanning conspiracy that threatens to deliver the universe into the grips of the evil Timeless One. These three youth embark on a daring quest that will take them from the Planet of the Porols to a floating city to the Rock Struck by Eight in order to seize the power of the Blue Light and cast down the Mortar. The stunning conclusion is wholly satisfying and yet will leave you craving for more. The underlying philisophocal messages carry a lesson that is universally applicaple. You will want to read this classic time and time again.

I would like to cast a somewhat dissenting view of this book. It is certainly a good place to start for information on various projects but comes up short on construction techniques. Perhaps an older source, Procedures in Experimental Physics (Lindsay Pubs), is better. Of course, it was written in 1938, so materials cited might be out of date, but the construction techniques aren't bad. I recently decided to build a good sized water tank (40" by 6" by 3") of acrylic and found nothing about construction tips. I was thinking of building something that probably required casting, and found a paltry two pages on the subject.

It would be good to see it updated every 5 years or so. I see the pub date is 1991. Things have changed a bit. It has a very good list of references, but with the advent of the web, it would be good to see some the reference material cite the web.

This is a _great_ book! I buy a copy of this for every student who starts work for me--which I consider to be a fine investment. Practical, hands-on information is given on a huge variety of skills needed by those working in Physics labs. From glass blowing to vacuum systems, to instruction on attaching BNC connectors, it's all in here.

Have never seen a book which was able to pack so much practical information into so few pages, and able to explain complex concepts so simply.

If you have to work with any type of laboratory equipment you would be insane to NOT have this book on your shelf.

We have an inexpensive paperback version (see our reviews) of this classic poem, and we said that's enough for us. That was before we looked through this beautifully illustrated (by Bruce Whatley) edition of The Night Before Christmas.

The lyrics are the same, from book to book, but the fanciful illustrations in this one are enough to engage adults and children as they read this book together.

The perfect gift for any family whose Christmas tradition includes reading this classic!

I discovered this book 31 years ago, for my daughter and it is still loved by all the family. The illustrations are wonderful, warm, charming and delightful and bring a special meaning to the story. We still read it to all the young children on Christmas Eve and for adults we read the story and pass a grab bag gift every time the word THE is mentioned. It would not be Christmas without this book. It is magical.

This beautiful book was in my family as a hard cover edition for many years and was a Christmas Eve tradition for my four sons when they were growing up. It's poor battered body disappeared some time after the last of my little ones went off into the adult world. I am so delighted to see it back again, though this time as a nicely affordable soft cover. Clement C. Moore's enchanting story poem already provides an atmosphere filled with warmth and joyful expectation and with the addition of Tasha Tudor's quaint, nostalgic water-colors from an antique New England the Christmas magic is complete!
The winter landscapes fill our senses and Tasha's own gray tabby cat and Welsh Corgi welcome us into this charming world.
Tasha's Santa that you will meet in this book has been portrayed as the poem describes him...a right jolly old elf. He's not that much larger than the corgi and his team really consists of eight "tiny" reindeer. His pointy ears and his Eskimo mukluks add to the delightful ambiance of the book. He dances with the toys and with the happy animals and we can truly believe it will be a happy Christmas for all.
I hope this book becomes a Christmas Eve tradition for many, many more families.

This book is basically a manual for Unicode 3.0. It is not a light read but well worth the price and then some just for the glyphs from all of the various scripts that Unicode supports.

At 1040 large (8.5 x 11) pages it is the ultimate guide to unicode. With information on scripts and glyphs I had no idea even existed.

However if you are just getting started with Unicode I would recomend you get Unicode a Primer written by Tony Graham from M&T books. If you understand or feel you are starting to understand Unicode then The Unicode Standard Version 3.0 is the best comprehensive reference on the subject out today.

Consider it an overview of the developing UNICODE standard. As such, it will serve the engineer working on software in English and many other European countries rather well. It will be a good _starting_ _point_ for engineers developing software for other languages.

This book is essential for software engineers, at least for the next ten years or so. All programmers should understand characters, and UNICODE is the best we have for now. Even if you don't need it in your personal library, you need it in your company or school library.

The standard is flawed, as all real standards are, but it is a functioning standard, and it should be sufficient for many purposes for the near future.

The book itself is fairly well laid out, contains an introduction to character handling problems and methods for most of the major languages in use in our present world as well as tables of basic images for all code points. Be aware that these are _only_ basic images. For most internationalization purposes, be prepared for more research. (And please share your results.)

**** Finally, UNICODE is _not_ a 16 bit code. ****

(This is well explained in the book.) It just turned out that there really are over 50,000 Han characters. (Mojikyo records more than 90,000.) UNICODE can be encoded in an eight-bit or 16-bit expanding method or a 32-bit non-expanding method. The expanding methods can be _cleanly_ parsed, frontwards, backwards, and from the middle, which is a significant improvement over previous methods.

Some of the material in the book is available at the UNICODE consortium's site, but the book is easier to read anyway. One complaint I have about the included CD is that the music track gets in the way of reading the transform files on my iBook.

This is not just a reference for computer people, but for anyone interested in alphabets, symbols and character sets.

Central to the book, taking up the larger part of it, are the tables of the characters themselves, printed large with annotations and cross-references. If you enjoy the lure of strange symbols and curious writing systems then browsing these will occupy delightful hours.

For the Latin alphabet alone there are pages of accented letters and extended Latin alphabet characters used in particular languages or places or traditions: Pan-Turkic "oi", African clicks and other African sounds, obsolete letters from Old English and Old Norse, an "ou" digraph used only in Huron/Algonquin languages in Quebec, and many others, particularly those used for phonetic/phonemic transcriptions.

The Greek character set includes archaic letters and additional letters used in Coptic.

Character sets carried over from previous editions with additions and corrections are Cyrillic (with many national characters), Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, Arabic (again many national and dialect characters), the most common Hindu scripts (Devanagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam), Tibetan, Thai, Lao, Hangul, Bopomofo, Japanese Katakana and Hiragana, capped by the enormous Han character set containing over 27,000 of the most commonly used ideographs in Chinese/Japanese/Korean writing. Then there are the symbols: mathematical/logical (including lots of arrows), technical, geometrical, and pictographic. You'll find astrological/zodiacal signs, chess pieces, I-Ching trigrams, Roman numerals not commonly known, and much more.

Scripts appearing for the first time this release are Syriac, Ethiopic, Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, Cherookee, Runes, Ogham, Yi, Mongolian, Sinhala, Thaana, Khmer, Myanmar, complete Braille patterns, and keyboard character sets. And yes, there are public domain/shareware fonts available on the web that support these with their new Unicode values.

There are very good (and not always brief) descriptions of the various scripts and of the special symbol sets. Rounding out the book are some involved, turgid (necessarily so) technical articles on composition, character properties, implementation guidelines, and combining characters, providing rules to use the character properties tables on the CD that accompanies the book. After all, this is the complete official, definitive Unicode standard.

Of course this version, 3.0, is already out-of-date. But updates and corrections are easily available from the official Unicode website where data for 3.1 Beta appears as I write this. My book bulges with interleaved additions and changes. And that's very good. Many standards have died or been superceded because the organizations behind them did not keep up with users' needs or the information was not easily accessible.

Caveats?

The notes on actual uses of the characters could be more extensive, particularly on Latin extended characters. More variants of some glyphs should be shown, as in previous editions, if only in the notations.

Some character names are clumsy or inaccurate (occasionly noted in the book), because of necessity to be compatible with ISO/IEC 10646 and with earlier versions of the Unicode standard. For example, many character names begin with "LEFT" rather than "OPENING" or "RIGHT" rather than "CLOSING" though the same character code is to be used for a mirrored version of the character in right-to-left scripts where "LEFT" and "RIGHT" then become incorrect. And sample this humorous quotation from page 298: "Despite its name, U+0043 SCRIPT CAPITAL LETTER P is neither script nor capital--it is uniquely the Weierstrass elliptic function derived from a calligraphic lowercase p."