This is a great book -- smart and funny. It's a very interesting analysis of how art and calligraphy are used to express leadership and exert power in Chinese culture. It may seem irrelevant to Westerners, but ask anyone from a calligraphic tradition about it, and they'll tell you how important it is. A great read with super pictures.

Coast to Coast by Automobile will intrigue any car buff, pairing vintage black and white photos with historic accounts of pioneering cross-country trips in the 'new' automobile, from 1899-1908. Quotes from journals and source materials pepper these sagas in this fine, involving collection of early auto experiences and insights.

What a great idea the In-Home Investing Seminar is. It's much easier to learn from and more interesting than just reading from a book. The video gives a lot of really useful information on more than just how to pick a stock or mutual fund. The seminar teachs you How to Invest and How to Plan for financial goals. The written material on creating your own personalized financial action plan is priceless! I really learned a great deal from this course. Very easy to follow. Excellent investing seminar.

This book is a great book to have around to help solve some of the problems encountered day to day. I haven't found a topic that hasn't been covered in this book, and the authors hit the nail on the head when describing subjects. This is a great book for anyone who deals with multi-platform networks. I reach for it first every time I see a current or potential problem. 90% of the time I can just use this book instead of having to search through topic-specific manuals and references.

Curt Swan was the man who, for many, drew the definitive Superman. This book is a loving tribute to the man. It details the evolution of hus style, it provides a great deal of skethcbook material, and contains many interviews with fellow comics pros and family members. One of the main features of the book is a lovely color montage of some of the most famous drawings that Swan ever did which looks stunning in full color. Highly recommended for fans of the Swan Superman and Silver Age comics in general.

As a side note, this book reprints many images from the "Kryptonite Nevermore" storyline of the 70s. Hopefully, DC will reprint that sometime in the future in its entriety as it was the best Superman story from that period.

The Union's Red River Expedition of 1864 was a fiasco from conception to the last Congressional investigation's end, with blame that extended from Abraham Lincoln far down the chain of command -- yet the complexity of the botched campaign has often been overlooked. That, I thought, is a shame, for some of the mistakes made in this venture nearly 140 years ago are still being made.

Accordingly, rather than take the usual approach -- mixing narrative with soldiers' letters and anecdotes -- I decided to probe the reasons for Nathaniel Banks' dismal failure, to wring as many lessons as I could from the experience. And rather than "preach," I elected to move from Washington to Louisiana, from the politics to the military and naval action, from the Union side to the Confederate, switching back and forward so that readers can form their own judgments -- in short, to tell a good story that has plenty of points.

Also, in Disaster in Damp Sand I had the opportunity to call

attention to a much-neglected aspect of Civil War historiography: how water -- rivers, inlets, creeks, harbors, bayous -- shaped the decisions and actions of commanders. Here, the Red River was not only pro-Confederate, but as much a factor in the outcome as General Banks, or Stonewall Jackson's protege "Dick" Taylor, or Admiral David Dixon Porter who boasted that he could take his gunboats wherever the sand was damp -- and did it.

Actually, the Civil War was the last in which water would have significant influence on land operations. And the Red River Expedition was the last major campaign in which Confederates were clearly victorious.

Finally, although Disaster in Damp Sand is less than 200 pages in length, I've been told that word for word it packs an unusual wallop.

Less than three hours after accepting Christ, I found this book. Perfect timing. Over the next year or so, I read one of these e-mails each morning after I parked at work.

My well-worn copy has dozens of pages folded down. Cloniger has a tough task... taking God's timeless message from the Bible and presenting it in e-mail format. But generally, he pulls it off.

Highly recommended.

I usually borrow books from the library instead of actuallypaying for a book, so it was with some hesitation that I plunked down[my money] for a paperback copy of _Field Notes From the Northern Forest_, by Curt Stager, biologist, educator, and cohost of the radio program "Natural Selections." As it turns out, it was money well spent. As a writer of popular science--biology, in particular--Stager's task is not simple. He must explain, in Darwinian fashion, why and how all the curious adaptations that make creatures so strange and wondrous, confer to them special advantages that make them better able to become ancestors, and this he must do clearly and simply. Stager succeeds resoundingly, with the added touch of playfulness and humor. And, owing to Stager's training in rigorous science (judging by the journals in which he has published), the book is well grounded in Science, mercifully lacking in New-Age nonsense and gut-wrenching appeals to our emotions.

_Field Notes_ is not a show & tell identification guide, nor is it a malediction, written solely to remind us of our reckless and wanton ravaging of the environment. Instead, it is a series of essays covering several years of Stager's careful observations of nature, bolstered by relevant information in the scientific literature. His research, importantly, is gleaned largely from primary sources of information, not from secondary, often cherry-picked and tendentious interpretations of scientific data we so often see in agenda-driven publications. With the flood of books, journal articles, and newspaper stories relating to the natural world that has swept into our everyday lives since the environmental movement emerged three decades ago--most of which is sullied by political correctness and environmental extremism--Stager's _Field Notes_ is a refreshing departure from the "the sky is falling!" message which so often suffuses the Nature genre. Stager does, however, caution us of

environmental degradation relevant in the Northern Forest caused by humans, such as the problems of acid rain, unchecked development, and insatiable resource consumption. But on the whole, the book remains delightfully non-alarmist and upbeat.

One thing that keeps the content of _Field Notes_ close to earth is Stager's ability to appreciate and mediate both sides of a contentious issue. The vast Adirondack Park, where Stager makes his home, contains more than its share of dichotomies--political, social, cultural, and economic--where land-use controls dictate how the area is to be developed, and where a constant battle is waged between many of the natives, who feel the controls are intrusive, and the preservationists, who want minimal human impact on the land. Stager, obviously keenly aware of the struggles that go on in the lives of the creatures around him, is also mindful of the cultural tug-of-wars that surround him, and his sensitivity to both sides resonates in _Field Notes_. For example, Stager risks incurring the wrath of the animal rights activists when he daringly proposes a radical method of controlling the burgeoning beaver population: by--perish the thought!--harvesting them!

Stager's essays probe and lay open to question many of our idealistic, romantic, and often intuitively-held notions of nature. He challenges us to rethink our tendency to regard all things natural as healthful and benign. Quite to the contrary, as he mordantly points out in his revelatory essay on plant defenses. In his chapter on native species, Stager reveals the dynamic and transitory nature of the natural world, one that is in a state of constant flux, thereby pulling apart our idea of stasis in nature, and invalidating such a thing as a "native" species. The well-intentioned foot soldiers waging war on invasive exotics might pause to consider this before brandishing their Round-up-filled spray guns.

My only disappointment with _Field Notes_ is (to me) a palpable omission in his essay on beavers. In it he talks about the modern beaver's giant six-foot-long ancestors, but he fails to speculate on what might have caused their demise, along with the extinction of several other species of magnificent megafauna that once roamed the Northern Forest a mere ten thousand or so years ago. He only cites a Native American folklore account, most likely based on mysticism and superstition, of how the present beavers came to be. But there is fairly convincing evidence in the scientific literature (of which I'm sure Stager is aware) that adduces their demise to over-hunting by Native Americans, and I suspect that this political-cultural hot-button, coupled with Stager's close friendship with local Mohawk Indian poet Maurice Kenny (to whom he co-dedicates the book), and Native American rights advocate Ray Fadden, colored stager's decision not to share this information with his audience. Had he shared this information, it would have been in keeping with much of the Nature myth-dispelling that runs through his essays, and the notion that Native Americans were intentionally careful stewards of the land could have been another popularly-held idea worthy of more scrutiny by his audience.

No one can fault a culture for behaviors based on mysticism and superstitions thousands of years ago, but today, more than two centuries since The Enlightenment, the notion of a scientically advanced culture clinging to such irrational beliefs is astonishing. And Stager, who has already warned us of the potential health-related dangers of our foolish New-Age belief in the supposed innocence and benignity of nature, in his chapter on bears again warns us of the potentially far-reaching and devastating consequences of the silly and superstitious belief that a bear's bladder (or a rhinoceros horn, etc.) can cure impotence. This irrational belief, largely based in Eastern cultures, is fundamentally no different from the New-Age belief system that has most recently emerged in scientifically and technologically advanced societies today. This sort of fuzzy thinking is anathema to science, and we may be facing another wave of extinctions of megafauna if it continues to manifests itself as an assault on the natural world. (That is, of course, if we don't manage to kill them all off some other way first.)

Stager's allusions to the folly of magical thinking add even more to the depth of _Field Notes_, already rich in content. Keeping in mind that his intent is to keep the content optimistic and hopeful, as well as instructive and entertaining, inviting too much controversy would only defeat this purpose. Field Notes will go up in my bookcase and share a space next to two of my favorite popular biology books, May Theilgaard Watts' _Reading the Landscape of America_, and Paul A. Colinvaux's _Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare_.

This book provides a wealth of information to all interested in physical fitness. It really cuts to the core of what makes up a sound and well balanced exercise program. Highly recommended.

This tells how the rulers and politicians of 1916 San Francisco tried to legally murder Tom Mooney and Warren Billings for a crime they didn't commit. Every scrap of testimony by the prosecution was perjured! The verdict caused worldwide protest demonstrations. Both men were freed after twenty years in prison.

Preparedness Day parades that year were business sponsored, pro-Republican party, anti-Wilson, and anti-labor. It could mean the European War, the Invasion of Mexico, or an attack on Democrats, Progressives, organized Labor, Socialists, pacifists, or supporters of President Wilson (p.12). The parade went on with unaccustomed silence from the crowd. At 2:06PM the bomb went off, killing 10 people and wounding may others; over forty were hospitalized. Glass from broken windows fell on the people below. When DA Fickert arrived, he used a sledge hammer and crowbar to create more damage! Photographs on page 28. Five people were arrested for this crime, when there were no warrants and no evidence to connect them to it.

Thomas Jeremiah Mooney's father was a coal miner and union organizer. His early death left the family poor, and they moved to Massachusetts where they had relatives. Tom became involved in union activities (p.34). The Panic of 1907 saw him travelling to find work across the country. He found work in Stockton, and joined the Socialist Party. Salesman Mooney went out to sell pamphlets rather than wait for customers to call. Tom became a militant organizer for industrial unionism. He then joined the IWW and its "direct action". Tom often criticized the union leaders as much as corporate employers; he made enemies of those who should be allies.

The early life of Warren Knox Billings saw him moving from job to job. One of his jobs was at a struck factory, where he sabotaged the work (p.54). He then became part of the Mooney family. Page 60 explains how the frame-up racket worked. Tom seems to have had too much arrogance and pride. Page 66 tells how the president of United Railroad looted the company of millions, not unlike today's scandals. Tom tried to organize a union there but failed. Page 70 tells of another attempted frame-up: they hired a look-alike to carry suitcases to where bombs would be set off!

This book is important as it documents prosecutorial tricks repeated at other political trials. Single, double, and triple agents do not occur only in wartime! Part One is their personal history. Part Two is about the trial. Part Three is about the efforts to free them. Part Four tells of their release. The appendix discusses the solutions to the crime. Henry Landau's "The Enemy Within" tells of German espionage in America during that time. His "Secrets of The White Lady" tells of his intelligence work in occupied Belgium and France.