Death Valley's most remembered charactors are often its storied scoundrels -- Death Valley Scotty, Shorty Harris, Sam Ball. But occasionally we find inspiration from one of the region's "good guys," and one such man was Pete Aguereberry.

Pipkin writes plainly of Aguereberry's life of genuine hard work, keen sense of right vs. wrong, and strong compassion for his friends and neighbors. Inside are a marvelous collection of photos and anecdotes on just about every place and well-known figure in turn-of-the-century Death Valley.

This book is recommended to anyone who is interested in quantum mechanical system composed of finite interacting particles. Although authors are inclined to nuclear physics, each subject is interesting and description is comprehensible to a quantum chemist like me. I agree to the authors' opinion that there are too few books on finite systems and they seem to succeed to improving this situation.

These people are ahead of their time - if you had a chance to catch the Guggenheim retrospective of the same name, you know what I am talking about. In 50 years, more people will know about Arakawa and Gins than right now, but why wait? We need to change the direction of humanity NOW!

This book goes though the vast output of Arakawa and Madeline Gins, from Arakawa's thought-provoking conceptual paintings from the 60's, to their more current philosophies about the body and architectural surround.

The pictures are colorful and vivid, every page is different and exciting. Their newer computer renderings of beautiful organic housing projects will blow you away. When you open a book like this in a room full of people, everyone will gather around you to get a look! When something is different than the norm but still maintains logic and beauty, it naturally attracts people.

Get this book before it becomes a collector's item.

Jean Craighead George is a beloved children's author of nature stories. I loved her My Side of the Mountain when I was young, my daughter adored Julie of the Wolves, and now my young son enjoyed this story of a young rhino. Not only does George manage to convey a lot of information about animal behavior in this entertaining story, but she is a master of the telling detail that shows she has really taken a close and loving look at rhinos. The illustrations are superb.

I had a little problem rating this book. As I layed my eyes upon it, I was realy impressed by the quality and quantity of reproductions. The book is of a pretty large format, and includes over 500 pages, and I have only read small portions of it. This is where the problem with rating begins. The texts I came across were pretty basic and general, but still I think they give a good and conclusive idea about the subject to someone with no or little prior knowledge.

The book deals with Greek art from the archaic period to the Hellenistic, Etruscan and Roman art. The middle ages section starts with a very short introduction of Pre-Romanesque sculpture and procedes through the Romanesque to Gothic and late Gothic sculpture.

I personally think, that when a book has such a variety of very very decent reproductions it's worth having, regardless whether you may approve of it's texts or not. That's why I rated it 5. The sculptures are truly remarkable, and looking at them is a pure joy.

I should mention there's a second part to the book - from Renaissance to Modern, which I don't own, and I don't know if it's selling on amazon, but those of you interested in sculpture might want to look it up.

Jean Craighead George combines her love of Eskimo culture and wildlife in this splendid picture book. The story is of a young Eskimo girl named Bessie who, while out exploring one Arctic evening, meets a polar bear cub named Snow Bear. The two immediately become the best of friends, while Bessie's brother and Snow Bear's mother watch over them like the good caretakers they are. The story wonderfully shows how animal life often reflects the ways of humans--close family bonds, playfulness, and a sense of happiness abound between both species. Wendell Minor's spectacular illustrations light up every page. They are filled with warmth, humor, and excitement, and are breathtakingly beautiful. The quiet elegance of Eskimo life and the powerful magnificence of the polar bear are gloriously depicted. Other George/Minor picture books include the remarkable ARCTIC SON, the story of Ms. George's grandson who lives at the top of the world. More ice, Eskimos, and polar bears can be seen in this radiant story. MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT tells the story of many different animals all over the United States and what they do during the transition from sunrise to sunset. Mr. Minor's illustrations are cozy and cheerful. EVERGLADES is another example of the excellent combination of Ms. George's poetic style and Mr.Minor's lush watercolors. It tells the story of the rise and near-fall of one of the world's greatest and most unique ecosystems, the Florida Everglades. Mr. Minor also did the art for the covers and some of the illustrations for Ms. George's spectacular JULIE OF THE WOLVES books. The fourth in the series, not a chapter book but a picture book entitled NUTIK THE WOLF PUP, is written with the same close view into the relationship between humans and animals as SNOW BEAR, but Mr. Minor did not do the illustrations for this book. Jean Craighead George, author of more than eighty books for children and young adults, will surely inspire and warm the hearts of her audiences with SNOW BEAR.

This is more a beautiful poem than a story book. With it's short and sweet wording you feel like you can hear the sounds, feel the breeze, and smell the scents surrounding the waterfall as if you are there. And with the beautiful full page illustrations, you are there! What serenity! I highly recommend this book and not only for children.

Introduction by Sister Mary Peter Traviss, O.P. University of San Francisco

"...Van Grieken's Touching the Hearts of Students contributes to an understanding of the current work of religious communities who are using their expertise in operating Catholic schools to prepare the laity to assume leadership of these schools. Written in the tradition of [Saint John Baptist de] La Salle's famous instructions to teachers, the book is logically laid out with great attention to detail. The reviewer captures the spirit of the book and its message."

Book review by Brother Jeffrey Gros, FSC

"As the age of the laity emerges, providing vision and formation for Catholic schools formerly staffed by religious remains a challenge and an opportunity. Religious communities are developing training programs, literature, and inservice processes for empowering lay educators in their mission as Catholic educators, drawing on the tradition of the sponsoring community.

This volume is an important contribution to that literature. While this book emerges out of the tradition of a particular community, as the subtitle notes, the fact that it deals with the Catholic patron of all teachers, John Baptist de La Salle, and that it is designed in a practical, concrete way, gives it a more universal usefulness than just a resource for schools in the tradition of the De La Salle Christian Brothers. The book includes five chapters, a useful annotated bibliography, and three appendices.

The first chapter situates Catholic education today, as religious communities are in the process of moving into shared mission with lay colleagues and of providing support for the merging lay leadership in the schools. Developing this vision is enhanced by grounding that vision in the particular narrative which gave rise to it. The second chapter traces the life and times of De La Salle. The third chapter elaborates the educational vision that has emerged in the Church from the vision and practice of this tradition.

Much of modern Catholic education is grounded in the 18th- and 19th-century movements focused in the heritage of De La Salle. The most well known of those contributions are the simultaneous method and the vernacular language. The chapter that will be most useful for administrators envisioning programs and processes for board and faculty development is the fifth, which focuses on the vision and practice for today. After laying out 10 operative commitments for an educational spirituality emerging from the spirit of faith and zeal, the author provides a detailed reflective process for enhancing the internalization of these commitments. In each section the text delineates consequences for students, teachers, teaching activity, and the teacher-student relationship. With these brief expository segments are included appropriate quotations and follow-up questions. While the quotations here are from De La Salle and Christian Brothers literature, they can as easily be substituted by parallel material from the Church or other communities for use in other context. The tradition represented here could have been conceptualized with a more universal audience in view. The more sectarian focus on "Lasallian" schools does not diminish the quality of the volume as a resource for wider use, but it does exhibit its significance for all Catholic schools as they embody the values inherited from this patron of all their teachers. The charisms of the saints and of religious communities are gifts for the universal Church.  

This volume demonstrates how what has been developed by one leader for a particular movement in the Church becomes a resource for all of us as we move into an era of lay leadership, grounded in the faith of the Church and zeal for the Gospel. This is a book written by a teacher for teachers. It is well researched, but more importantly it is well written with a lay audience in mind. It will be both a useful tool for school administrators and an admirable model for religious communities enabling shared mission in promotion of lay leadership in Catholic schools."

Brother Jeffrey Gros, FSC, is associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC.

This is the second book that I have from this author, the first being concerned with Versailles. The first book I would rate a 12 because of the depth of coverage of the chateau. This book is very informative and an easy read. I wish that there would have been pictures of the interiors and plans for the structures. Those are the only things that I could criticize though. This is a marvelous little book about a very important work of art for those with an interest in this period of architecture.

I really liked this book. It has lots of recipes for differnt wild, edible plants such as oxalis, dandelions, and acorns, to name a few. It also has an illustration of the plant, its scientific name, wwhen you can find it, and where to find it. THe only down fall is this book does not have colored photographs. Overall its a great book.