The book contains mostly historical material -- photos and text. I was looking for a book about contemporary Central Valley. A one-page graph shows dollar-value of products and the percentage of U.S. production. One photo, of the planting of asparagus in a dust-storm, shows mostly dust.

I bought the book mainly to see the work of photographer Stephen Johnson, and his work truly delivered. These pictures are a must study for landscape photographers. His photographs capture a simple beauty and are a heartfelt display of the region. Also, I was pleasantly surprised by the work of photographer Robert Dawson, and by the amount of information contained within the pages of "The Great Central Valley". If you enjoy photography or are interested in California history, you will highly enjoy this book.

This book follows various major news stories from a presidential summit in Malta to the San Francisco earthquake and how the different networks; ABC, CBS, and NBC reported them. It also spends a day with Rather, Jennings, and Brokaw as they gather the news. It provides detailed biographies and looks back at the personalities. There are several pages of photos, including the anchors in their youth. A 5-star review would have been earned had this been more recent. The news stories and techniques seem to be a little behind to our standards. Other wise, a great and informative book.

I am an ear, nose, and throat surgeon in Indonesia. May I know the first volume of Head and Neck Surgery Book by Byron J. Bailey ? I want to know about the prizes of it. How do I get the first volume ? I have just had the second volume. Thank you.

Gerald Posner, who is the author of Case Closed, the best book on the Kennedy assassinarion, interviewed some of the children of Germans connected to the Nazi story, including children of Hans Frank, Rudolf Hess, Hjalmer Schacht, Dr. Josef Mengele, Admiral Doenitz, Claus von Stauffenberg (how ironic his father should be featured in a book entitled "Hitler's Children"), Goering, and three less well-known Nazis. Many of the children are ashamed of their father, but others are not. A good book to read.

This important anthology makes available a range of Native American writings from the early nineteenth century to the present. Genres covered include fiction, poetry, auotobiography, and drama, making this text a fine choice for introduction to literature classes as well as for courses focused specifically on Native American literature. Luther Standing Bear's autobiographical account of his time at the Carlisle school for Indians is a particularly interesting selection for its historical perspective on the push for "Indians" to assimilate via white modes of education. Vizenor's introduction provides a useful historical framework as well. Some of the selections are relatively well-known in the field of Native American literary studies, while others (including Vizenor's own drama) do not appear in other anthologies I've seen. Overall, this anthology represents a fine if somewhat idiosyncratic representation of the broad diversity of Native American literary voices.

This is a good collection of essays on Missions from a variety of perspectives. It's a great overview and introduction on what is going on in terms of missions work in the mid- to late- 1990s. It's not all theoretical (as there is some practical stuff), but gives a lot of history and context, as well as a variety of places for missions, and some missiological issues. It is written from a varied Christian background.

The book is divided into 4 sections, and every essay is approximately 10-15 pages:

Section 1: Christian Families in mission. Four essays are presented, from Evangelical Missions, Conciliar Missions (i.e., the Ecumenical movement within Protestantism, usually associated with liberal Protestantism, and the World Council of Churches), Roman Catholic Missions, and Pentecostal&Charismatic Missions. Each of these essays gives some background of history, assumptions, theology and missiological background (e.g., for the Roman Catholics, Vatican II plays a very strong influence, and is discussed).

Section 2: Christian Mission by Region. This is a very practical section, discussing missions in various parts of the world. The areas covered are Southern Asia, the former USSR (i.e., the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)), Africa, North America, Oceania, Latin America, Northeast Asia, Europe, and Middle East.

Section 3: Foundational Disciplines of Mission. This chapter is on more of the theory and theology behind missions, and how to interact with other cultures (and their religions). Essays in this section include one by Bosch on "Reflections on Biblical Models of Mission," and others on Mission Theology, Spiritual Formation for Mission (written by Catholics, so they emphasize dialogue, mentoring, developmental psychology understanding of peoples, and understanding culture, religion, tradition, rather than the Protestant approach of in spiritual formation of piety, conviction based upon Scripture, and then Contextualization through Incarnation), Mission Strategies (mostly an essay about applying strategies), Contextualization in Mission, (towards) Forming Indigenous Theologies, and Popular Religions.

The final section, section 4 presents special challenges in mission: The teaching of missions, women in mission, mission and the Problem of Affluence, Mission and Social Justice: An American Dilemma, Urban Mission, Christian Dialogues with Other Faiths, Christian-Muslim Relations, Church-State Relationship and Mission, and then some stuff about Gerald H. Anderson.

I think, if one was looking for a book to be introduced to what's going on in missions and some different views on this topic, this would be a good book. It doesn't strike me as the type that has a timeless classic feel to it (unlike Bosch's book, Transforming Mission) or Stott's book, Christian Mission.

Nonetheless, it's good supplement to hearing first-hand stories on missions.

This is a rather odd novel, broken down into a series of stories, vignettes and (mis)adventures involving various members of the Browne family, 'mixedbloods' from an Indian reservation in northern Minnesota. As the title suggests, Vizenor is deeply interested in trickster themes, here borrowed from Native American and (to a lesser extent) Chinese oral traditions. Also, the concept of mixedbloods is the overriding leitmotiv of the entire book - often symobolized by mongrels. The style varies, and this is a very postmodern literary experience, but that shouldn't stop anyone from reading it. Generally this is a rewarding book: the narrative, if difficult to follow at times, is often humerous, yet behind this light-hearted veneer there is quite a bit of scathing commentary.

Good collection of schematics. The few "hip" amps Weber touches on in detail are all Fenders, leaving out dozens of holy classics. With an almost total lack of subjective analysis, the book ends up as a big Kendrick Amp advertisement (his company)
blah blah blah...

Gerald Weber has build guitar amps for years, the Kendrick Amps. These are copies of the original Fender tweeds. He's also built a few amps of his own. However, he's really no expert on the real issues as they relate to tube amps, even though he has a lot of good information.

Here are some examples of the misinformation I found in the book:

He states, in the first chapter, that the reason tubes amps sound so good, in the early days, is the fact that they used diode tubes in the early supplies. When current was drawn across the tube, it developed a voltage drop which causes the output tube voltage to sag, thereby causing a mid-rangey distortion type.

While the action (dropped voltage across the output tubes) is true, the explanation behind it, is not.

The real issue, here, is the fact that the power supplies, back then, were not stiff supplies. They didn't have enough capacitance in the output filters to compensate for loading issues (i.e. instantaneous current draw). The newer supplies are much "stiffer" and they regulate better. A solid-state supply could be made to match the older vacuum tube supplies.

There are other obvious electronic explanations, in the book, that do not follow real physics and/or electronics models. What he is saying about the final result in the amplifiers sound quality and operational charactaristics is correct, however, the explanation of how it really works is not correct.

If you're into vintage amps, modifications, or just building one from the schematics Gerald has done an awesome job compiling information. He's got great, readable schematics, layout diagrams, etc. in the book. It's a bit biased toward Fender, however.

He also has some great historical information, as it relates to the Fender amps, as well.

Overall, I think the book is good. It's just hard to read because of the indescrepancies in the electronics section.

Weber does a good job of covering the basics of tube amp design, with a clear bias towards Fender amps. You can learn a lot about these amps, and feel (relatively) comfortable servicing or modifying your amp. It is comprehensive enough to use as the guide in building your own amp from the information and schematics provided.

Any large 2 volume reference text certainly looks impressive. But, unfortunately, NICP is only superficially attractive. I have used this as a reference many times and have closed the book without gaining any satisfactory answers. Considering it's size and price, NICP is a huge letdown. The online subscription service is costly, but at least it gets continuously updated and has videos to boot.

...
Last year I read pretty much the whole 3rd edition cover to cover, so I feel qualified to comment. When I started, the appeal of this book for me was: (1) it looked fairly comprehensive, (2) it was well written, and (3) a lot of time was devoted to teaching ways of thinking and defining what, say, a neuro-urologist does, in addition to facts about diseases.

In regards to (1), I still think it is one of the most comprehensive books out there. But it is also the most verbose. The editors should mandate that contributors are not allowed to say anything that is self-evident, especially anything along the lines of "a multi-disciplinary approach is best" or "the likelihood ranges from 0-70%" or "starts with a thorough history and physical examination". Whole sections, even whole chapters are devoted to this kind of blather.

I agree ... that volume 1 is much better than volume 2. Volume 2 has some really really long and tedious chapters that could easily be (mediocre) textbooks unto themselves. Overall a book like Merritt's looks better for the neurological diseases than volume 2 at this point. I hope the editors take this to heart in the next edition and radically revise this volume.

In regards to (2) it is very well written and you'd be surprised what a difference that makes in terms of how enjoyable it is to read. Kudos to the editors on this.

In regards to (3) I continue to think the "more than just facts" approach make this an attractive book for residents looking for an introduction to the discipline. But as I said before, there are better books when it comes to concise and usable presentation of the neurological diseases.

There a few outright errors, but some serious omissions particuarly in the area of treatment, ...

A couple of other points are worth mentioning: (1) The question book is excellent. The questions are intelligent, and there are only a few mistakes in the entire book. Hats of to Misulis on this one. (2) The website is not as useful as you might think. It isn't updated all that much, and it is structured to thwart would-be copyright violators more than to facilitate easy use. Count on not being able to read more than a few paragraphs without jumping to a new link. In the next edition, I hope you can opt out of web access in exchange for a discount. ...

All in all I don't regret reading this book. I don't think there's another book out there that offers all that this book does, and if they can continue to improve it, it will become the standard text of neurology.

This book is too highly priced, and fails to live up to expectations. A book this expensive should be a superb reference, with a comprehensiveness second to none. Nothing of the sort may be said about NICP. Diagnosis and treatment sections need serious expanding.

The best part of the book is Volume I. First rate chapters on the clinical approach, some of the best written, save the book from publishing purgatory.

From the very start, it is plain the Goldbergs lack any primary sources for their book, since there the exploration of Turner's character and personal decisions tend to be more conjecture than anything else. This book seems to do a good job of listing each of the various public decisions and people in Turner's life, but the important decisions and events are glossed over. For instance: The Goldbergs repeatedly note how Turner micromanaged his companies, only promoted from within, and didn't allow his senior managers and board to make major decisions. Yet, by the time CNN was created, Turner was clearly ignoring his billboard company, and TBS seemed to be cranking along fine. What did Turner think of these people, and what were they doing that made the cash flow possible for Turner to lose so much money while CNN was started up?

The book also has a facination with the chronology of his womanizing. While distaining his extramarital sexual adventures, the Goldbergs seem to do little more than count the notches in Turner's bedpost. Sure they do some pop-psychological analysis, but has no discussion of how his womanizing may have affected other parts of his life, family, and businesses -- especially when the affairs became so blatently open in the 70's and 80's.

Read this book if you want to know what happened in Turner's life up until the First Gulf War (the book was written before Turner's empire was bought by Time Warner), but don't expect a whole lot of insight to his personal life and business genius.

The Goldbergs tie Ted Turner into such a tight package that the reader is left with the impression that their impression is one-sided. But his monomorphism seems to naturally follow his fascinating upbringing and the shaping of an incredible domineering father. And then, when one hears post-Citizen Turner interviews and follows the news about Ted, the authors are vindicated. They've got him pegged! Very easily readable