If your idea of love is limited to visions of puppies and balloons, The Thing About Love Is... probably not for you. In Polyphony Press' first effort, the heavy topic of love is tackled in gritty, gutsy pieces that cut to core of this complex emotion. Sometimes it's bliss, sometimes it's bizarre, and quite often it hurts, but regardless of its form, love is always intriguing. This anthology is in keeping with that notion. With a variety of styles and voices, the works featured here are unanimous in their ability to draw the reader in and keep him hooked. It is truly a great read that may challenge one's personal definition of love. Call it an enjoyable experiment in mind expansion!

It's difficult to find an anthology that has as much stopping power as this one. Reading it, I was impressed not only by the diversity of the authorial voices, but also by their veracity. Each story, poem and play seems to have come straight from the gut. What's more, the contributing writers help to remove our blinders; particularly when it comes to matters of the heart. Love, they argue, is nothing less than a battlefield on which each of us daily chances victory or defeat.Those seeking to enter the contest fully armed would do well to buy this book.

Anthologies are not my usual choice of reading material, but as this was recommended to me, I decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised. While I could not relate to some of the pieces here, I enjoyed the underlying topic immensely. The poetry, drama, and short stories were a good blend. The Thing About Love Is... an enjoyable and fast read, but has a peculiar lingering effect that required that I return to it for further exploration. It's a perfect book to read from the relative comfort and safety of your best chair, where you know that you can dip into the joy and angst of love and for once, walk away unscathed.

This is an ok book - it was a bit hard to get into/get through and a bit repetitive. I wish it had more science (written in lay terms) woven in. It was more about driving, spotting a butterfly, driving again to the next spot. (Its more about the journey than about butterflies, they're just the excuse for the drive it seems) Did't really capture me like I hoped it would and I didn't learn much. I was looking for a story more based on the butterfly's experiece and what it goes through than that of the author. Monarchs are actually quite incredible in that its not the same butterfly that makes the whole journey from the east coast all the way to Mexico - it lays eggs and the offspring carry out the journey, knowing which direction to go in innately. Then the process reverses in the spring. I was hoping to learn more about all that in this book but didn't.

Bob Pyle has given us an insightful look into the butterfly lover's life and inspirations. This a nice way to review your own feelings about conservation, the natural world, and how you spend your time. Traveling will never be the same again for me. Now I can boldly ask any convenience store clerk, "Have you seen any Monarchs lately?" This book is a travel log, a natural history lesson, and an expansive look at the world around us.

This is a great book detailing a threatened bio-phenomenon. As always, you can't go wrong with one of Bob Pyle's books!

This book is a good book because it relates to real life and even
mine.Its like if you really want to to do something so badly so you lie but just like guilt tthe quallapillious will catch you and youll have to live with guilt forever until you admit it and the guilt will leave you.I think kids trying to clean up their lives should read this.I give this book a rating of 4 and a half

I'm fascinated about this book. It contains 3 bits information.
#1. you can not break a promise
#2. stay away from the ocean
#3. have an adult supervising you.
I hope there are more books like this!

The Qallupilluq is an imaginary Inuit creature that lives on Hudson Bay, according to the book's afterward. This troll-like thing wears a parka made of loon feathers and is said to grab children when they walk near the cracks in the ice.

This creature was invented much like others' hobgoblins, to frighten children into listening to their parents.

This version of an encounter with the Qallupilluit comes from Michael Kusugak, an Inuit man who was raised in the Arctic. He sent it to Robert Munsch, who had stayed with Kusugak's family while visiting Rankin Inlet in Canada's Northwest Territories.

The result is a dance with some of the greater truths that transcend all cultures. Alyssa A. Lappen

The pictures of the Zulu people remind me of some of the images from the fifties. Stylized images. Images that say - "here is a picture of an african". We know that this cannot be, because there is no one picture of an African person just as there is no one picture of an American person. The book DOES say that the people are Zulu, but Zulu people do not live near the jungle. I realize that they are represented in native costume and ARE supposed to be stylized, but isn't representing them this way kind of like saying "African People live in the Jungle with the wild animals." A stereotypical statement right out of the old time hollywood movies.

By the way, don't giraffes and zebras live on the plains, not in the jungle? Also, according to the Amazon review: In the foreword, world-famous model Iman writes about the mystery and power of the African jungle, and how "the tigress inspired my every step; the graceful, erect arch of the giraffe formed my posture."

Doesn't Iman know that the tigress is from Asia?

All that being said, the rhymes in the book are jazzy and fun and the illustrations are a treat (if stereotypical - I can live with that, but aren't we supposed to be educating our children a little better than this?).

Hate it and love it.

Size, color and subject matter are not your run-of -the-mill alphabet book. My two children were fascinated with it for over a year between the ages of 20 mos. to 38 mos. It's great to have something we don't already have in our cultural repertoire. It was a gift, and I was pleasantly surprised by the attraction my children had for it. I think it is a great young children's gift.

If tigresses, elephants, zebras, xylophones, antelopes, and chameleons don't all hail from exactly the same part of the world, that's okay with me. This big, bold, beautiful book is a masterpiece...and a powerful tribute to the spirit of Africa.

I have mixed feelings about Michael Jordan. On the one hand, he is a great athlete. I respect his work ethic. He has turned in a number of great performances and is no doubt one of the greatest to have ever played the game of basketball.

There is a flipside. Michael Jordan got all kinds of special treatment while he was in the NBA. He was the first player I noticed who was granted all kinds of trips to the charity stripe because of unbelievably, ticky tack calls. He scored at least ten points a game at the free throw line from bogus calls. It was great when there was a picture session for 'greats of the game' with Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan. Magic told Larry not to stand too close to Michael or they might call a foul. In front of reporters and television viewers, that was a classic comment by Magic. I believe Mike got 99% of all calls in his favor because he was such a cash cow for the NBA. Dominique Wilkins was robbed of a slam dunk championship when Mike scored a perfect 50 doing the same dunk Dr. J did years before. I doubt Dr. J ever received a perfect 50 for it. Dominique's dunk was much more impressive, and he received a 49.5. Please. Mike got in a fight with Reggie Miller, and only Miller got suspended at first. Only after there was an outcry did Mike get suspended. How are Mike's punches different? Mike elbowed Kevin Johnson to the ground for all to see, and Kevin was called for blocking!

I am not too impressed that the bulls beat the lakers in the NBA finals. Magic was double teamed every game every minute he was in. On top of that, James Worthy and Byron Scott were injured. Magic and Larry never won three championships in a row because the competition, teams, and players in the 80s were much better than the nineties. Luc Longley, Will Perdue, Bill Cartwright, or Bill Wennington stopping Kareem? Ha!

Sport Magazine recently had a piece on the ten greatest moments and ten greatest players ever in the NBA. Mike was ranked number one all time player. Kudos to Mike for mentioning in 'For the love of the game' that to pick a "greatest ever" is impossible because of all the different eras and evolutions of basketball. The nineties bulls were given three of the ten greatest moments in NBA history. This is just more Mike bias. Give me a break. There are hundreds of classic and amazing moments in NBA history. One of the moments picked was Mike beating the Jazz in the final minutes of his last game. He put his hand on Bryon Russel's backside and shoved him out of the way. Then Mike made the game winnig shot. All eyes were on Mike, but the ref did not make the obvious call.

There is also Mike's arrogance. According to him, Wilt Chamberlain was a fluke eventhough Wilt was a great all around player. He made a comment about Magic and Larry reaching a 'certain level of greatness' and that the two were not good on defense. What? Are we talking about the same Larry Bird? Shaquille Oneal is also much better and much improved than Mike gives him credit for. Shaq has turned into a solid defender, passer, and he works hard at both ends of the floor.

Mike's corporate poster boy behavior is laughable. He did ads for AT&T and then MCI. The Wayans family is also split between the two companies. Mike talked about the enviroment in Rayovac ads and then pitches hot dogs? Mike is not the only athlete who will pitch anything and everything to make millions. I wonder if Mike has checked into Nike's labor practices.

Players like Mike and Charles Barkley soured me on the NBA. Charles played like a thug and got away with it because he was a star. Plus, Charles insisted on wearing number 34 at Philadelphia eventhough it was retired for NBA great Billy Cunningham. The star treatment and inflated egos has grown old, and that has turned a lot of people off to sports. I miss the Lakers and Celtics match ups of the 1980s.

there are all sorts of neat features in this book. What I especially liked were the box scores, where you can see Jordan's changing cast and how it evolved. I don't agree with every ranking, but he's got good reasons for his choices. There's even a practice listed, which I thought was really interesting.

Everybody has a favorite Michael story; it was a smart move for this writer to hash out an objective way--a formula that makes sense-- to rate stellar MJ performances on the court. In the same way that video stores carry Roger Ebert's movie/video book at the checkout counter, sports bars should stock Condor's book--right behind the Jagermeister and shot glasses--to settle countless Jordan debates that are sure to rage in years to come....

Michael Quinn has collected a body of work that is sure to be remembered as one of his least controversial works in general circulation. That's all well and good, but it wasn't as "fun" to read as some of his own writings.

That said, this is a fine compilation, a smorgasborg that allows someone the opportunity to sample some of the "non-traditional" LDS studies that are available to the open-minded, yet faithful Mormon student. As Quinn defines them, the "new Mormon Historians" are a breed of scholar/student/writer who examine difficult, complex, and often controversial subjects in the church with an eye toward objectivity. The result is material that is neither condemning nor ridiculously apologetic, but rather intelligent and reasonable, with the intent to understand the faith system which they continue to maintain. Quinn respectfully tributes Juanita Brooks for paving this path for careful, objective and yet still faithful Mormon scholarship.

Topics covered in this collection include Mormon authority, evolving interpretatins and use of the First Vision and the Joseph Smith story, charismatic and priesthood gifts and useage among early Mormon women, the legend of the crickets and gulls, polygamy issues, and more. Each essay could send an interested reader down a long path of further study by reviewing the lists of reference material available in each author's footnotes.

A book like this might be a fine place for someone just starting the adventure of understanding Church History. As mentioned below, however, serious students of Church History will be very familiar with about everything found between these two covers.

This would be a good book in a historiograpy class because it traces the development of how studying the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has gone and also treats current trends as well. The book is a good book, and is one of the good works by D. Michael Quinn. One should be warned however. The title says "Revisionist" meaning it is probably going to say some things that someone is not going to like, so keep the title in mind when you read this book. Also since the authors make it plain that this is a "Revisionist" work it would behoove the honest researcher to go find out what the authors are attempting to revise, meaning don't take this book as gospel, but find out both sides of the story before you come to conculsions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

We all need to break free of mind control, and this book has certainly opened up my mind. As Orwell sharply pointed out in his perennial work "1984", he who contolls the present controlls the passt, and he who controlls the past controlls the future. This is exactly what those mortmons are doing, and thank the stars that Michael Quinn has opend up mymind to the truth.

The directions of history are twords a more internal, keeping the sick myths alive, and blatently ingnoring the feet of clay of the church leaders. Michael Quinn has experinece in this area of clay feet, as his footnotes prove.

A footnoted lie is still a lie. "nuff said.

Quinn has a peiercing eye that sees thing that otehrs don't see, and that is the mark of a great man in my book. Ingenutity an the nove are the watchwords of our day.

Everyone should read this book, and everyone should belive this book.

Great reference for all aspects of this subject. Use it every week. Highly recommended for novice-expert.

Its even better than the previous edition. Check my comment in the previous edition's review. Good work Roger Jennings and Group.

Along with Robert Cowart & Kenneth Greg's book on the WindowsNT Bible which is for beginners, this book by Roger Jennings is the BEST that is available for NT.

As the other readers have commented, this isn't a book for everyone.

As a University of Illinois grad, I was curious to see how Coach Hebert had turned my alma mater's volleyball fortune around. He touches on the technical aspects of that turnaround as well as discusses how he feels a major college sport should be administered. The section on how he evolved into a coach is interesting too.

But by far the most interesting section for me is his discussion of the Primary Hitter system and how that relieves the setter from a lot of pressure. This is a particularly good system with experienced stud hitters and a relatively new setter. It takes some of the pressure off of the setter and puts it on the primary hitters. This is an advantage for the team at least until the setter develops into a leader and develops some confidence.

Overall, an interesting read.

Although it appears simple at times, Mike Herbert explains Volleyball as it should be through how it is coached at the collegiate level. More High School and Club Coaches should realize that there is more to Volleyball as depicted by Mikes experiences. The Game Planning and Coaching Section which qualitatively evaluates players takes the guess work out of where players need to develope. By taking resposibility for how his team performes he definitely explains how to teach, scout and understand players which makes the difference between winning and losing

I bought Mike Hebert's book when I first took over the head coaching job at Valley High, and it's difficult to describe how much it helped me.

Valley had been a losing program for nearly 2 decades, with only 2 winning seasons in school history, so I knew my work was cut out for me. I began absorbing Mike's book, knowing he had stepped into a similar situation when he stepped in as head coach at the University of Illinois.

Although the book is written from a collegiate perspective, I implemented a great many of Mike's ideas, and in just 3 years, we've turned the program around. The team went from 5-20 in my first year to 14-12 this season. That may not sound like a big deal, but it's a HUGE milestone for a program that has lived in the cellar for so long.

With its wealth of information on all phases of coaching, Mike's book WILL help you become a more effective coach. Believe me, I know ... first-hand!

This is not the first picture book of lost American movie houses, and I hope it will not be the last, but while the photo quality is excellent, the text and background leave much to be desired. It does indeed create a nostalgic empathy for its subject, those smaller structures made so famous by that memorable movie of 1971: "The Last Picture Show", and just as it featured a show house in a small Texas town, so this book favors black and white shots ("plates") of picture shows that stand as shadows of what they once were. No attempt is made to delve into the early life or the circumstances of the demise of these venues, so the photos leave the reader with much the vacant, lost, tumbling-tumble-weeds-driven-on-the-wind feeling of the movie.

To its credit, the book does contain two 'necrologies' of sorts: the first is a four-page chapter called "Demolitions Noted" where several hundred movie houses around the nation are listed as gone, featuring, for example, an eight-page spread of the Pekin Th. of Pekin, Illinois being demolished, yet nothing is shown of it in its prime so that the reader could really appreciate that this was a unique Chinese-styled small movie palace of the 'atmospheric' (stars and clouds) type worthy of preservation. Had the author taken the trouble to locate a copy of one of the foremost books on the American movie theatre: AMERICAN MOVIE PALACES by David Naylor, he would have seen on its page 82 a photo of the Pekin Theatre in its pre-demolition prime, and then his photos of it in demolition would have had more context and impact had he sought to include this photo with his. Any research on his part would have disclosed that the photo was owned by one of the founders of the Theatre Historical Society of America which publishes a magazine of such theatre history: "Marquee", and no doubt that photo and many others could have been obtained, but neither the Society nor its magazine are mentioned in the book. Such research is what sets a quality book apart from others of lesser stature, picture book or not.

The second 'necrology' is the chapter entitled: "Conversions Noted" which is perhaps the least depressing in the book since it shows, within its seven pages of listings, that theatres large or small can have other useful lives. An overlooked conversion was the unusual one which occurred in Milwaukee when the 1920 Riviera Th. was converted to a bicycle emporium cum velodrome with a planned bike racing track to be constructed atop the balcony and around the walls under the old chandelier positions with inverted bicycle frames supporting high intensity up-lights as the new 'chandeliers'!

The comentaries by several notables do little to advance scholarship, something one would have expected from a book published by a university press. When the author/photographer explains in the "Conclusion" that he knew nothing of the documented locations of movie houses (few of these here could really qualify to use the term 'theatre') until someone introduced him to the standard of such guides: "The Film Daily Yearbook", it is obvious that scholarship or any real contribution to the body of knowledge was not the genesis of this work. Even one afternoon in any real library would have introduced him to the many volumes on the subject as well as magazines, and had such limited research been done, no doubt the author would have been able to do more than stumble about the towns of America hoping to find a dead show house; he could have given us some background to the origins of this genre and thus put meat on the bones of the photos, good ones though they are.

The book's 100 some pages in the long format are nicely produced, and they may create a longing for more information so absent from this opus, in which case one is well advised to consult the landmark book which its Forward writer described as the "appropriate epitaph" of the movie house: "THE BEST REMAINING SEATS: The Golden Age of the Movie Palace" by the late Ben M. Hall (several editions available here at Amazon). "SILENT SCREENS" is a clever title, and in some depressing way it is more of an epitaph than the former title, yet it is unfulfilling, unless one is satisfied with a vagabond's jaunt with a camera down so many main streets.

This is a wonderful, haunting book, which I think at least one of the previous reviewers here has missed the point of. The point is not to show these theaters in their prime, but rather, in pictures of their present state of decay, to hint at the glories that were. If you're looking for a picture book of grand movie palaces, this isn't it. But if you're looking for something that operates on a different plane, the romance of decay, and the melancholy of a world lost, this is definitely it. For all those who want to let their imaginations loose upon the ruins, this book should provide a field day.

I saw this exibit at the Smithsonian and loved it.

This is a very dry and disjointed work. If you are interested in the topic, have a blast and read Suburban Nation and The Geography of Nowhere. Then if you want more, buy Christopher Alexander's works--and savor them.

The Charter of the New Urbanism not only sets forth a manifesto of what future generations of town planners and residential developers may deem the most significant architectural movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but it does so with clarity, precision, and economy.

This volume is an essential text in an essential field, and should be considered so by municipal planners, developers, builders, architects, and citizens who care about the quality of life in their cities, towns, suburbs, and hamlets.

In addition to rendering their own analyses in compelling and thoughtful prose, McCormick and Leccese have displayed the deftness of master cat herders by wrangling a passel of leading New Urbanists -- by no means the most egregiously agreeable of architectural types -- into presenting their thoughts in a thorough-going and satisfying manner.

The reader who delves into this book and rides it to its conclusion will come away understanding a great deal about how we live today, and how we could -- and perhaps should -- be living.

"An important work that defines the tenets of New Urbanism, this book serves as the group's manifesto. The charter illustrates the 27 principles of New Urbanism, from the scale of regions to neighborhoods and buildings, and pairs each with an essay by a different author. Now followers of the movement can use the charter to define their work and detractors can refer to it when presenting their side of the debate. ... Graphically pleasing, the book reads well ... When defining the problems of today's development patterns, the text is clear and seductive. ... The test of the Charter of New Urbanism will be its timeless quality. ..."