"Some writers have it, some don't, and Mr. Gonzales definitely does. In here are the best things to be found in writing, the warm and beating hearts of humans. These fine and touching pieces about the occupations of the tribe of man strike fire on every page...." Larry Brown, author of Big Bad Love and On Fire.

Laurence Parent is a talented and prolific Texas nature photographer whose hiking and camping guides are a staple both on my bookshelf and in my backpack.

In Hiking Big Bend, Parent's keen eye is turned towards one of Texas' largest and most rugged parks, ensuring even the smallest of details, if worthy of note, is shared with readers. A borrowed copy of Hiking Big Bend came with me on a week-long camping trip to the park in October 2001, and upon my return home I purchased my own copy. Though lacking photos, the text serves dual roles as a trail by trail hiking guide and written "memory book", chock full of details about the parks history, geology, wildlife and natural phenomena.

Couple this text with the National Park Service's three-booklet guide to the park's hiking trails, paved roadways and unpaved/offroad trails and you will be set to plan and enjoy your travels in Big Bend National Park.

The American arch-conservative economist James Laurence Laughlin (1850-1933) studied under Charles Dunbar at Harvard and later dropped out of academia to make a small fortune in the insurance business. He returned to teach at Cornell and been there a scarce two years before the newly-created University of Chicago invited him, in 1892, to form its first economics department. Surprisingly, he appointed several institutionalists to the department - notably his old student at Cornell, Thorstein Veblen, whom he put at the head of Chicago's Journal of Political Economy. However, Laughlin remained an avid free-marketeer and refused to become a member of the American Economic Association. Laughlin's reputation rests on his work in monetary economics. He was a vocal opponent to bimetallism and one of the more avid promoters of the Federal Reserve system.

I bought this book thinking it would be similar to the horrific 'The Rape of Nanking'(i.e. all of the book would focus on the atrocities committed in China). Indeed, the first three chapters(I.The China Solution II.Dealing with the West III.Prisoners of the Japanese) do focus on the mindset of Imperial Japanese soldiers and is very interesting and appalling. Jap soldiers were inculcated in a dogma of brutality. In basic training and out in the field, soldiers slapped and beat each other viciously as a way to train and harden the troops. If they were this brutal to each other, it is easy to imagine how they were able to view and treat the Chinese as 'sub-human'.

But it is in the final two chapters(IV.Lurching Towards Defeat V.Endgame) that I learned much of profound interest. Even as the war turned against the Japanese, the Imperial military leaders of the Army and Navy could not even imagine defeat. Japan had never before in their history suffered a loss on the battlefield. As the Allies continually achieved victory at sea and on the islands, the Japanese high command kept fantasizing for 'one big victory' that would sap the fighting will of the Allies and instead opt for peace negotiations. Wrong.

Because of the numerous dark stains committed by the Japanese military(Nanking, Pearl Harbor, barbaric treatment of Allied POWs, 'Banzai!' death charges instead of surrender, kamikazes) and the alieness of Japanese culture(American Marines were incredulous the Japanese worshipped Emperor Hirohito as a living god)these facts formed into a intense hatred of the Japanese by their American adversaries. The Americans would settle for nothing less than the unconditional surrender of Japan - the exact opposite of opting for peace negotiations as the Japanese sorely miscalculated.

Something else I learned was of the fire-bombings of Japanese cities, including Tokyo, just 5 months prior to the dropping of the atomic bombs. I was only aware of the Doolittle Raid. But after securing Iwo Jima, American B-29 bombers used it as a base to launch devastating conventional bomb attacks. The biggest fire storm in history swept through Tokyo and killed 100,000 people.

Another event that I was not aware of (and helped precipitate the surrender of the Japanese where as even the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima did not) was 48 hours after Hiroshima, Stalin declared war on Japan and the Red Army quickly moved to engage the Imperial Army in Manchuria. When President Truman received no word from the Japanese after Hiroshima, a day later another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Unconditional surrender was now the only choice Japan had. (America did concede that Emperor Hirohito would remain in power, but only to make transition to a democratic state easier).

In summary, This book informs on many levels. It describes how the Japanese military worked and how such horrors and atrocities were made possible and basically encouraged. And even more interesting, it explained how the Japanese could make such foolish predictions and assumed outcomes as they thought they could take on the might of the United States.
And best of all, this book reads quickly, informatively, and entertaining(if graphic war can be called entertaining) - a veritable 1-2-3 knockout punch in the murky hit-n'-miss world of military history books.

Helias's book is one of the classics of a genre known as "literary ethnography." Works in this style are designed both to provide a thorough understanding of life in a community as well as to artistically portray the experience of doing field research through well-written and elegant prose. Helias grew up in the community that he returned to study. Consequently, he knows about the daily life of his community, and his training in European folklife studies provides him with an amazing resource for writing about the quotidian realities of Breton folk culture. The book provides solid ethnographic description of daily life in the peasant village, and he writes of the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of daily life with equal grace and ease. The book reads beautifully, and the insights are timely and even more poignant 20 years after he completed his insightful study. This book is an inspiration to writers who present studies of folklife throughout the world, and it is essential reading for anyone interested in ethnographic writing.

THIS BOOK HAS THE BEST DETAILS ON GRAFTING ANYWHERE! DETAILED EXPLANATIONS AND METHODOLOGY!

This book takes a VERY important topic - laying out an ownership agreement BEFORE any disputes arise - and makes it accessable to all of us non-lawyers. My business partner and I are working through this book and so far have found it easy to understand. The book provides all of the "legaleeze" you need to put your agreements into a binding buy-sell agreement (one that reflects YOUR choices for the agreement). Working through this has had a positive impact on my relationship with my business partner, because it increases trust in what the future will be like. I highly recommend this book to any business with more than one shareholder.

This book was exactly what I was looking for: learn about the bankruptcy process and the rules. The author is a bankruptcy lawyer and some parts can be detailed and difficult to read... the bankruptcy process is not simple. If you are trully interested in the bankruptcy process though, you will like the details.

If you want to buy a small company one day and you are looking for a way to do it, this book is very helpful. I have a background in finance and management of small companies... so if you are unfamiliar with how the business world works, you might not appreciate this book. However, if you are like me, this book was GREAT!

This is a very good book. After seeing the reviews regarding this book in the hardbound version, I will agree that this is very helpfull for those seeking a career in advertising.

Now is the time to read The Hunger for More because it is possible to look back and reflect on Shames's thoughts and predictions. "Hunger" is one of the most readable accounts of the social and economic forces of the last few decades, how American life has been affected by affluence, and what it has done to Americans as individuals. "A sickness called success" may be the best chapter--how we as individuals make choices that eventually rebound on us as well as society. A little feedback goes a long way. Extremely readable, not a dry scholarly treatment of how we lost our values or why our society is fragmenting into dozens of class-based but culturally (read "racially") emphatic parts.