Great book, very well written. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the field of criminal justice. The book is very informative, yet easy to understand. I think it would make a good book for reference or a good book for course instruction. I will recommend it to anyone who wants information regarding the execution of a criminal investigation.

What a wonderful book for the layman, the beginner cop, the security guard, law student, or any other para-police professional. The book covers both the developmental history and the modern practical application of criminal investigation practices. Topics range from time tested investigation tactics through today's highly sophisticated forensic techniques. While investigatory theory is discussed, the book is rooted in day-to-day police work.

As a criminal justice major I have found this book to be very helpful for my studies. I really like the pictures of defensive tactics.

these stories go beyond your average collection of horror tales, and it isn't hard to tell that maupassant was going over the edge when he penned these. they are less focused on the supernatural than on the chilling capability the human mind has to construct terrifying illusions and reduce the most rational and cerebral man to a shivering mass. you could almost call these philosophical in that maupassant remorselessly exposes the tenuous and fragile nature of our mental health and reminds us that insanity is a potential danger for the more thoughtful and sensitive. this is personally my favorite work as far as maupassant's stuff goes, and anyone with a taste for the morbid, pessimistic or terrifying is well advised to pick this one up right away, although it is pretty rare nowadays and difficult to locate. i took it out of my local library. those who are interested in the field of philosophy should enjoy the brief but somewhat humorous tale, "the smile of schopenhauer", which amuses but at the same time inspires fear. if you're interested in abnormal psychology this is also a must read for you. the creme de la creme of horror literature.

DeMaupassant's unparalled insight into the human condition is strongly in evidence in these tales. Some of the most powerful evocations of fear and pathos even penned, this is in a completely different league from Stephen King and his ilk: it is literature in the best sense.

De Maupassant wrote horror like no one else. His stories are not for the run of the mill Stephen King fan - so if your head isn't screwed down tight, don't attempt this one. However, if you like to hear the brilliant ramblings of a genius-type that's dying of Syphillis, you'll love it!

I think that candle making is fun! but is it easy? I've only made them once!

Easy-to-Make Candles is an inexpensive but worthwhile book for anyone interested in getting started in candlemaking. The illustrations are black and white, but it provides an excellent understanding of the materials used in candlemaking and a sample of different types of candlemaking projects. If you want a book on candlemaking but don't want to spend the money on books with fancy pictures and home design ideas, this is the book for you.

I was new to candlemaking when I purchased this book. The book was easy to read and full of nice ideas. The first couple of candles I made were very successful. The only area the book can improve on is its format. It would be very helpful if the instructions were listed step by step, instead of being in paragraph format. Other than the format, this book is overall very good. Furthermore, in light of its price, the book is also a very good deal.

Only with this book at hand, should you dare to study German. The ultimate reference guide, especially for those using textbooks for German classes that seem more concerned about German culture and glossy pages than thorough explanation of grammar. Forget if a preposition is dative or accusative ? ... EGG is here to help. Thank you Guy Stern and E.F> Bleiler.

I bought this book with little knowledge of the German language. It's very organized and well thought out. It is for the beginner with a limited amount of time. These 120 some pages contain EVERY BASIC thing you would need to learn about German grammar. I wouldnt recommend using this book alone. I use language tapes with this book. A downfall is it doesnt show how to pronounce the words. But otherwise, there is no other book for a beginner to use to grasp a basic understanding of the German language than "Essential German Grammar" --Peace Out

Clearly written, compact and concise. This book explains all the essentials of German grammar in easy to understand terms. This is a great refresher for those who already have learned some German.

This book is full of encouragement, insights, and guidance, to help us see the truth about our lives. Guy shows us how to work at seeing the timeless truth, that in order to change our outer life, we must first understand our inner life. Once we are able to understand that what we choose in any moment, provides us with the content of the next moment, we will start to want to be aware of what we are choosing. Only then, can we start to make right choices, that will truly change our lives. All of Guy's books are wonderful. If you like these ideas, you may also like books by Vernon Howard, J. Krishnamurti, Maurice Nicoll and James Allen.

This book not only can change your way of thinking but can change your life! Finley is one of the most under rated spiritual writers of our time. For those which are in tune with Wayne Dyer or Deepak Chorpa, you will find that Finley rates right up at the top with these writers. The book is an "easy" read and you will learn MUCH! Finley makes us understand what life is all about and does it in a manner that allows you to retain all of the information. WONDERFUL GUIDE TO FREEING THE SPIRIT!

Freedom from the Ties that Bind has taught me a new, clearer, more uplifting way of thinking. Guy Finley teaches in this book what everyone should learn growing up. The book is filled with insightful instructions that can be utilized everyday to truly change the way you view the world and live your life. As a sponsor in a twelve step program, I've given this book to my sponsees so they "can learn a new way of thinking".

Vishnevskaya's reputation for forthrightness AND the sub-title she chooses here --A Russian Story-- indicate strong intentions for this book. Not 'MY Russian Story', but 'A Russian Story', because Galina Vishnevskaya tells an epic Russian story, honoring with a severe truth the Russia of sorrows of which her story forms but a unique part. This is no prima donna's idle tableau of a curtained career. Vishnevskaya's art comes of suffering, & she doesn't head down that road. She divulges her art generously, but her attitude never self serves. Her aim is always higher - she's interested to say not only what HAPPENED in Soviet life, but what WAS. and WHO!--- Vishnevskaya regularly excoriates with galvinizing abandon the soviet lackeys with whom she had to deal! She names names and motives, because it's the damned truth! The West in general and artists in particular owe a huge debt to Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya for the willing sacrifice of themselves in exile for the simple truth. Rostropovich garners the commentary in the West with the cello & conducting, but Galina is the heart of genius, and THAT seems the telling component in this book. Her depiction of Solzhenitsyn is heartrending, and stands as the book's axis; everything leads to it, and derives from it. Her friendship with Shostakovich, her brilliant feelings toward him-- an almost daughterly reverence informed by the highest artistic aesthetic. It's also through the part Shostakovich played in her life that we meet a musically learned Galina as well. She was a musician FIRST, singer second. How rare and wonderful - no wonder Slava fell in love! Galina dances with the shadows of Shostakovich throughout, & it's one of the book's endearing aspects. There are wonderful stories too of Britten and his music, & a surprisingly frank exposition of Furtseva, soviet Minister of Culture, whose enigmatic machinations both helped and ill-served Galina more than once. Vishnevskaya can sing AND write! The book ends when you don't want it to, leaving Russia... it's ultimately a love story -- Galina and Russia. Maybe she'll yet write her American story.

Galina, né Pavlova, has many interesting stories to tell about her remarkable life: as a baby abandoned by her parents, an army officier and a polish/gypsy mother, she was raised by her paternal grandmother. Galina overcame so many difficulties in her life, surviving the blockade of Leningrad during the war and so many hardships such as tuberculosis and starvation. Unlike so many singers' biographies, this intelligent artist shares more than anecdotes about the opera world and her many successes in the theatre. She speaks of her personal friendships with people such as composer Shostakovich her neighbor, scientist Andrei Sakarov, also a neighbor, and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a live-in guest in her dacha. There is much commentary written with not a little bitterness about the Soviet authorities who so often thwarted her career and blocked free expression in the arts within the Soviet country and in other countries where she was invited to perform. She writes very well and with much insight into philosophy, human relations, personalities, etc. I found the book very absorbing and hard to put down. Her close friendship with British composer Benjamin Britten also yields many stories of their memorable times together both at Aldeburgh and on vacation in Armenia and Russia. Her remarkable and at times stormy marriage to cellist/conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, her third husband, brought about big changes in her life, and their mutual courage and boldness to stand up for freedom against the Soviet regime cost them their citizenship.

"...We were actors in real life and human beings on the stage."

Thus spake Galina Vishnevskaya, in interviews she and her husband, Mstislav ("Slava") Rostropovich, gave in Paris in 1983, captured in a companion book ("Russia, Music, and Liberty: Conversations with Claude Samuel.") to this one. The quotation barely begins to suggest the Kafkaesque world in which they lived, when they were musical artists of the highest order in the Soviet Union.

Vishnevskaya was a "prima donna assoluta" at the Bolshoi Opera during her prime, arguably the finest Russian soprano of all time. And, as her prime overlapped those of Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, one can only wonder what her international reputation might have been had her career been entirely in the west; the first two-thirds (and best) part of it was largely away from the gaze of the international music community.

This is, as she subtitles it, her "Russian story" covering her life up to the final hours in 1976 when she left the Soviet Union, eventually (two years later) as an exile. And it almost ended before it ever started.

Born in poverty to parents who abandoned her to her grandmother, she possessed an incredible voice as a child. Largely self-taught, and then - at age sixteen - improperly taught - she didn't learn proper voice technique until after she had established a beginning career in operetta. Then she contracted TB, and the doctor caring for her offered that the only cure - which she refused - was to collapse the infected lung. It was only by mortgaging her future singing fees for black-market purchase of scarce antibiotics that she recovered.

In 1952, in her mid-twenties, she auditioned for the youth group of the Bolshoi Opera Theater, was instantly accepted, underwent a meteoric rise through the Bolshoi ranks on her voice and talent, and soon became the prima diva of the troupe. In 1955, she met Rostropovich, whose courting of her is one of the few lighthearted sections of an otherwise chilling tale of intrigue, deception and lies in the intelligentsia circles in which the pair of them existed and performed.

The next two decades (1955 - 1975) of this journal focus largely on one person, and the special relationship that they had with him: Dmitri Shostakovich. As artists, it was only natural that their paths would cross and thereafter, for the rest of Shostakovich's life, intertwine. But this was more than acquaintanceship; it was friendship based on trust during Shostakovich's years when it was virtually impossible for him to trust anyone. And Vishnevskaya defended that trust with the ferocity of a tiger. One anecdote of her ferocity will suffice as an example.

In the early 1960's, the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko was well-published in "accepted" Soviet literature journals despite his "rebelliousness." His famous poem, "Babi Yar" (1961) about the German slaughter of Ukranian Jews during WW II, gained overnight success, and Shostakovich, moved by the poem's message, placed it at the core of his Thirteenth Symphony with Yevtushenko's warm agreement. The work received its Russian premiere "as is" on December 18, 1962, and was tumultuously received by the audience but not by officials of the state, who read into it a message of Russian complicity in the matter of anti-Semitism, a subtext of Yevtushenko's that was undoubtedly accurate, as he revised the text shortly after the premiere without consulting Shostakovich. Some years later, in London where Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich met up with Yevtushenko, Vishnevskaya gave Yevtushenko a tongue-lashing over his "revisionism" that runs several pages.

In an act of supreme political courage involving another Russian writer, Rostropovich provided refuge, for four years in the early '70's, to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose writings on conditions in the Soviet Union were officially banned. Solzhenitsyn subsequently went into political exile, but this act of courage was to have its effect on the careers of Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich, particularly the latter, who for all intents and purposes had his abilities to perform and conduct stripped away from him. Only by "pulling in markers" were the two of them able to secure permission from Brezhnev to go abroad on a two-year "artistic leave."

"Galina" ends on a note of uncertainty and apprehension, as Vishnevskaya, in 1976, boards a plane with her two daughters to join Rostropovich in the West, eventually (1978) in exile when their citizenship was revoked for the Solzhenitsyn matter. But this is merely the end of her "first" Russian life and the beginning of another, more international, one. Her own career as a diva continued for nearly another decade; Rostropovich went on to become an internationally-known conductor while continuing his career as a preeminent cellist; with "perestroika," they made an historic return to Moscow in 1990 (after Gorbachev restored their citizenship), at which Rostropovich conducted what is to me the finest performance of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony (immortalized on a Sony CD that also included Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" and William Schuman's orchestral arrangement of Charles Ives's "Variations on America").

Nowadays Vishnevskaya loves to brag about her six thoroughly-Americanized grandchildren. They oversee the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation, a charity for immunizing Russian children against disease. She recently founded the Galina Vishnevskaya School of Opera in Moscow, for providing master classes to promising young artists. All in all, a rather remarkable "follow-up" for this peripatetic pair of seemingly perpetually-young 75-year-olds.

But the clock cannot be turned back. "Galina" serves as a gripping reminder of how things were over the fifty years that the two of them spent in the Soviet Union. And, at least as important for me, it serves as one of the most honest and accurate appraisals of Dmitri Shostakovich the person as one is likely to find, from one who knew and loved him as a true friend.

Even in a totalitarian society, supreme artistry can sometimes carry clout. For Vishnevskaya (and Rostropovich), there was enough clout - barely - to get out and "live to tell about it." Thankfully.

I am definitely glad I purchased this book. While I had a pretty good idea of what I was required to do as the Best Man, this book gave me a lot of helpful hints as well as some good ideas. A lot of people congratulated me on how well a job I did as the best man. This book helped a great deal in being prepared and ready for any possible scenario that may have come up. It is very easy to read and has a great sense of humor.

Having never been married or even been a part of a wedding party before, I was tapped to go to France and be the best man for one of my oldest friends (25 years). This with 3 weeks notice! The book was instrumental in allowing me to successfully perform my function with a minimum of stress. It was an easy read, it was humorous, and it was comprehensive. I could not have done without it. Thank you for the help Mr. Grace.

I bought this book because my fiance was about to be the best man in a wedding. He was nervous because he had no idea what best men do. This book was all he needed. It tells what the best man's duties are to the groom, bride and everyone else. Tells about etiquette and even talks about what to do in specific religious or cultural weddings. What we found even more useful was it's section on speeches and toasts. We had bought a book especially for that, but it wasn't any good. This book explained the do's and don'ts and gave great examples that helped my fiance to write a great speech. (by the way, his speech went beautifully) He got a big laugh from the crowd and an Ahhh. Just what you want. This book is a must have for any groomsmen or Best man.

This a terrific book for the preschoolers as well as school-age kids. The large pages and bright colored illustrations are funny and attention-grabbing. This looks like a book that boys would love, but it's one of my daughter's absolute favorites. The ending is happy, with a redeemed bunny- Hooray!

My son can't get enough of this book. It's read every day several times a day. It's easy to see why as the text is very catchy and the illustrations are attractive. I've also used the story to talk to him about good and rude behaviour, and how the bunny changes into Quite Good Bunny at the end of the book. Even as I'm frequently rereading the book to him, it's still a hoot every time as it's funny. We're both hooked on Big Bad Bunny.

I bought this book not sure if the kids in my four and five year old preschool classroom would like it or not, but I took and chance. It turned out to be one of the better buys I have made this year. The kids would ask for it to be read time and time again. It was also a huge favorite for those kids who choose to read a story as their job during circle time. I finally had to retire the book we heard it so often and then brought it back for an end of the year treat, even then the kids were as enthralled with "Big Bad Bunny" as the first time they heard it.

The book is great except for one thing. There are not nearly enough, or any, photo's of the inside cabin. I would certainly like see what a 747 looks like on the inside with various views of all 3 levels of the giant. Unfortunatly, the book only shows you one 1969 photo near the front of the book. That of the first
class area. Otherwise, a great book.
David Todd

As with their other collaborative efforts, Norris and Wagner present us with a wealth of quality photographs on the best-known airliner. More than that, the authors take us on a journey of how the 747 came to be and where it is today. Each series and variant is surveyed; the information is concise and accurate. While this book may not be the visual feast laid out before us in the Airliner Color History series, this book is highly engaging and well worthwhile to any airliner aficianado.

Not so informative to bore an aircraft enthusiast, yet provides enough to ponder an aircraft engineer. This contours enough history and facts about the mighty 747 that it's worth reading twice. Ive used this book for foot noting a few aviation college classes. If you like airplanes like I do, you'll enjoy this book.

I am very happy with the Friends Forever books because they are more realistic than the old BSC. I have one complaint though. I am Japanese-American and I don't think the girl who is on the covers as Claudia is. I would guess she is Phillipina. It drives me crazy when people think all Asian-American people are interchangeable, like we won't notice. There *are* differences in the appearances of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Phillipinas, etc., if only you would stop to look.

Claudia has the chance to get her guy and making up with herBFF, Stacey! But,while on her way to getting her man, somethingunexpected happen. Claudia wrote a letter for Jeremy meaning on "More than Friends", and slipped into Jeremy's locker, but it turns out it wasn't his locker! And the guy who reads it falls for Claudia! This incident brought Stacey and Claudia together as friends again, Jeremy left behind, and Kristy Very disgusted! I won't tell you who the mystery guy was, only let you read it and be surprised, but I will tell you two more things, Claudia realizes Jeremy wasn't the guy of her dreams, but her "mystery guy" maybe is what her heart is really for......

I love this new series so much! I've got reviews up on some others in this series, and I speak the truth in all of them. I have read the original BSC books for so long. I am glad for this change. Ms. Martin, kudos to you for making this series much MUCH more realistic than the original BSC series! I'm glad that the time between books is reasonable, and I'm really hoping that the girls will go on to high school when they finish this eighth grade year. After all, they've only been in the eighth grade since book TEN of the original series! I think that's a little long! They've had a million summer vacations, and now, everything that they recall from eighth grade, well, you get the picture. Keep up the good work, Ann!