As an admirer of Chardin I was realy glad to buy this book. Actually this is not a book, this is a treasure. It is an exhaustive work on Master Chardin not only on his still lifes but his work as a whole. The quality of the presentation in one of the best I have ever seen in art books!

Highly recommended

Ars Magica is a truly great system. It is inherently set in Western Europe around 1220 AD. But what of Eastern Europe? There were people there as well, obviously, and your character migth wish to travel there. Pity the poor storyguide who had to run to the books trying to understand Kievan Russia. That is until now.

This book, like Lion of the North, dispells many myths concerning the Kievan states at this time. This is not a unified land. It has been converted, yes, but in many ways superficially. Peoples attitudes are, well, different. This book gives you background on social structures, civic organization, politics, the Old Ways, faeries, and even arms & armour. On top of this, for better or for worse, it lets you glimpse the coming of the Golden Horde, as the mongols will soon overrun this territory (wisely the game suggests setting your time-period rather earlier than the usual 1220 AD, for otherwise you would have a short campaign).

The Order of Hermes is a stranger in this place, thus making it easier for players to plead blessed ignorance. The locals understand this and will pity you for your ignorance. They will send you to the local druzhina for assitance, to a volkhv if you seem wise, or call down the boyars if you get out of line.

At least the storyguide will know what all this means now.

If you want an interesting campaign using Ars Magica, buy this book and perpare for a world of wonder. Dozvedanya!

This book is the easiest to use of all the drug books I have seen. The page at a glance format shows you everything you need to know on one page, no flicking back and forth, and is especially good on interactions.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who wants a handy reference book in the house to refer to again and again, or who is looking for a really excellent gift for a friend or loved one.

on your condition. A unique product, which will save you hundreds of dollars and hours of time. Everything you need to know about the disease, plus all the latest research and findings from the most prestigious medical journals in the world, but summarised by a Johns Hopkin specialist! Easty to use, and something you will refer to over and over again.

An abiding partnership that arises from losses endured by a sister and brother shadows the edge of each page in this amazing little book of words and images where death is not only rendered with a bright, unflinching eye but questioned, pondered, and wrestled with by siblings who through their love for a child, for art, and for each other refused to be silenced by the great wall of suffering they each faced alone. An essential book for anyone involved with the sorrows of cancer, but more importantly, anyone willing to look at what real courage demands.

Throughout the last 100 or so years, artists, collectors and curators have debated what a museum should be. Unfortunately, most museums are buildings that immediately focus on art as icon. Many contemporary artists want just the opposite. MASS MoCA represents a breakthrough in establishing a new sort of museum. Its purpose is to "mount in-depth quality work that would otherwise remain unseen for lack of properly scaled, appropriately tools facilities." That purpose has also been expanded to include being a location for the performing arts, both outdoors and in a theater.

Located 5 miles from the Williams College museum of art and 35 miles from Tanglewood in North Adams, Massachusetts, MASS MoCA adds an important new element to a major cultural center (especially in the summers).

The story of the museum is also very interesting, having been based in a rundown series of converted mill buildings that had housed manufacturing since 1768. Most recently abandoned by the Sprague Electric Company (who originally took it over from the Arnold Print Works -- makers of printed fabric), the facility covers 13 acres and over 780,000 square feet of building space. Originally, Massachusetts had planned to provide most of the funding. A recession and change in political leadership greatly slowed the progress, and much of the funding eventually came form private donors.

The book has many wonderful elements. The director, Joseph Thompson, has a fine essay explaining the museum's roots and concept. The architect, Simeon Bruner, also weighs in with his thoughts about the design along with drawings of his plans. The pieces de resistance, however, are the wonderful photographs of the site (both before and after) in black and white and color that capture the transformation. These were done by Nicholas Whitman, and started before the museum was planned. He and his father had both worked in the Sprague plant, and he wanted to preserve the memory of the space before it was torn down. There are some stunning side-by-side photographs of before in black and white, with after in color with beautiful art on the walls.

Most of the current photographs were taken during the 1999 grand opening of the museum, which I had the pleasure to attend. The classic piece that defines MASS MoCA during that opening was the display of Robert Rauschenberg's "The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece" from 1981, which can only easily be displayed in full in MASS MoCA. There are also nice photographs of Natalie Jeremjenko's "Tree Logic" and James Rosenquist's "The Summer in the Econo-Mist." There are some fine John Chamberlain sculptures as well.

This book is a great resource to have for any contemporary art lover, or someone who is interested in new museum forms. I also recommend it as a working document for a museum still in progress, for most of the development of the MASS MoCA site is still ahead. If you are a museum trustee or are planning a new museum, you should read this book, as well.

I should admit that I collect contemporary art, and love to visit collections of contemporary art. If you share that love, you'll adore MASS MoCA!

Abolish your stalled thinking about what a museum is and should be! Also, be sure to give yourself a treat, and visit MASS MoCA soon. It's well worth a special trip from Boston, New York, or Philadelphia.

Donald Mitchell

Coauthor of The Irresistible Growth Enterprise (available in August 2000) and The 2,000 Percent Solution

(donmitch@fastforward400.com)

That a book changes something fundamentaly in ones life is a rare occasion, but this book did that to me. I read the book in the fall 1998 an was moved by it, but nothing more. Than, after a year, I read it again. During this time I had continued my search for my Patron Saint within The Orthodox Church which had been going on for eight years. Suddenly everything fell in their right place. St.Gabriel of Pskov and Kazan(commemorated September 24.(Julian calendar)/October 7.(Gregorian calendar)) was to be my Patron Saint. I won't go into any details, but the shining love of this Holy Elder is a lasting impression. And the love of God for the love of one's neighbour was the Gospel of this Starets.

It should also be noted that the author, New Martyr Fr. Simeon a saint himself, was not only St.Gabriel spiritual son, but also took over the Eldership after the Elders repose in 1915. The author therefore knew the Elder Gabriel very well and so did many people still alive when the book was first published in Russia in 1917. Thanks to this we can regard theses accounts as highly reliable. And the strange occurances of how this book was refound and published again is a mystery I leave to the happy reader to find out for him- or herself in it's Foreword and Introduction.

I highly recommend this book to everybody!

I picked up this book at a grocery store when my son was justan infant. He is now 19 months old and is always asking me to read this one to him. He loves to suck on the straw in "Pink Drink." It is a great book!

This text provides an authoritative treatment of sojourn times and extreme values for stochastic processes. Emphasis is on stationary Gaussian processes and Markov random fields. Much of the book includes the author's own research providing a unified treatment of results from numerous journal articles.

I think everyone should read this book. It only serves to make us realise how lucky we are and how we, especially in the West, can have nothing to complain about. The sufferings of the various women who in some cases had to fell trees in -50 degrees centigrade for 600grms of bread a day is inspirational. At some points I felt that I was ready fictional accounts as I found it hard to believe that mans inhumanity to man, or in this case, woman could be so mind numbingly awful - and for what.....truly terrifying. Exceptional read you will not be able to put it down and the strength of character of the women will stay with you long after you have finished the book.