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Book reviews for "Steensma,_Robert_Charles" sorted by average review score:

Robert Rauschenberg : A Retrospective
Published in Hardcover by Solomon R Guggenheim Museum (31 October, 1997)
Authors: Robert Rauschenberg, Susan Davidson, Trisha Brown, Billy Kluver, Julie Martin, Rosalind Krauss, Steve Paxton, Nancy Spector, Charles F. Stuckey, and Walter Hopps
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Wonderful, though more text than I wanted
I was very pleased by the large number of high-quality reproductions. Still, as far as I'm concerned there should have been *more*. The book contains (a rough count) about 280 pages containing text or mostly text, out of about 630 total pages. However, I'm very happy with the book.

Best Rauschenberg book ever!
Best book, I have ever bought

Excellent well presented book
The problem with art books is that they go out of print too quickly. This is a beautifully presented book on Rauschenberg that was released with the big retrospective at the Guggenheim in 97/98. Barnes and Noble still had copies avaiable as of Sept. 99, so check there -- they were even discounted!


DK Handbooks: Trees
Published in Hardcover by DK Publishing (1992)
Authors: Allen J. Coombes, Charles A. Wills, and Gillian Roberts
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Very enjoyable, especially for the amateur tree fan
If you enjoy tree guides, you'll find this satisfying. While not the most complete guide available, the illustration are great, as is usually the case in Eyewitness guides. If you are interested in trees as a beginner or hobbyist this book is great for helping to actually recognize the trees included and getting a little interesting information on each one. I also own the Eyewitness guide to herbs and have used both these books a lot, mostly for browsing through in my spare time.

Best tree book ever
This book is great now you can take a leaf and with this book get family,botanical and common names. My landscaping class used it more than anything else. Best money I ever spent.The Identification key in the front of the book is a great time saver when trying to find what tree you are looking at.

All about trees
I LOVE THIS BOOK! I am a horticulture student and I got this book to help me with tree ID. If I wasn't a student, this book would still be WONDERFUL. It is easy to follow- any one who wants to identify trees could use this book. It has become my favorite book! I was able to identify every tree I came across on mt vacation in the San Juans.


A Good Year to Die: The Story of the Great Sioux War
Published in Hardcover by Random House (1995)
Authors: Charles M., Iii Robinson and Robert D. Loomis
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Excelent reading!!
I have read several books about the Sioux Wars so i wasnt really sure i wanted to read another one, but Mr Robinson's book is fantastic.He writes taking in consideration that the reader doesnt know anything about the topic so he explains with good accuracy terms and places like no other author. The author is bold and right on the money when it comes to point a finger at somebody, like for example the stupidity of the Army officers.I found that the interviews and research the author made for this book are very good, especially from the indians perspective.The only thing i didnt like is the fact that Mr Robinson doesnt go into details when it comes to Crazy Horse.I would have loved to read more about Crazy Horse part in this Wars.Otherwise this is an excelente book!

An excellent recounting
This is by far the best book on the Army's conflict with Native Americans since "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee". It treats the material as a campaign rather than a series of seperate battles, so that Little Big Horn is treated as part of a whole. The author also describes the personalities and deeds of several Indian characters, not just Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. This is an eye-opening recounting of an important part of US history and a look at one of the greatest guerilla forces ever to wage war against the American Army.

a first rate overview of the Sioux War of 1876
Rather than concentrate on one battle or campaign, Robinson sets the stage for the reader to follow the movement of all the actors playing a role in the drama across the seasons of the war. I used this book as an orientation to the conflicts of 1876 prior to a trip to Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas to visit battle sites while on vacation. My trip was greatly enriched by reading this volume first. You can find more concentrated studies of particular engagements and the biographies of the participants that will offer deeper insights into the war, but for one overall narrative that provides the reader with the flavor of the contemporary army and Indian experience, here's my choice.


The Grunts
Published in Hardcover by Presidio Pr (1976)
Author: Charles Robert Anderson
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An Extraordinary Book for Putting Behavior in Context
I thought this book was a real sleeper. I bought it as a used paperback and based on its title and cover, I expected a "pulpy" style blood and guts novel. Once I looked at it closer, I realized it was a true story. And once I read it, I realized it was an exceptionally well-conceived and well-written book.

The book is in two parts - the first part being about the tour of duty in Vietnam for an infantryman and the second nominally being about "The World". I thought the first part did a fine job of describing the physical and mental hardships imposed on the grunts by the climate, the terrain and the unpredictable boredom/terror nature of the conflict. Following that, Part Two takes the reader through what I believe is the material that really distinguishes this book as one that anyone who studies the Vietnam war should read. Anderson presents a thoughtful and straightforward discussion about the attitudes of Americans who served and those who did not and the forces that shaped those attitudes. He does a great job of relating these to the struggles the servicemen faced in reentering civilian life and to the struggles they faced in dealing with Vietnamese society and their own combat leaders. Placing the veterans' homecoming adjustments, atrocities and fraggings in this context was what moved this book from the very good to the extraordinary class.

Easy to read, hard to put down. Read it - you'll enjoy it and you'll learn some interesting things.

The next best thing to being there!
I served with "Andy" in Vietnam in 1969 in the First Battalion Third Marines. He was a friend to everyone and paid very close attention to things around him knowing he would write this book. Many of the stories in the book are based on actual happenings. The pallet of mortar rounds exploding really happened and it was a wonder more Marines weren't killed. This book ranks along with Jim Web's "Fields of Fire" as two of the most realistic Vietnam combat accounts. A friend of mine served under Jim Web and lost his right arm just below the shoulder. He and Mr. Web still stay in touch and continue the bond that can only be formed in combat. Don't waste you money on all those Vietnam war novels until you have read "The Grunts" and "Fields of Fire".

One of the best books you'll ever read!!!
Anderson's book has got to be the next best thing to "being there". I am envious of his talent for "detailing" the ordinary. He is absolutely "right on" in describing just how wonderful plain old ordinary water can taste. I read Anderson's book before I joined the Corps. Since then I've read all the big names in this genre; Sassoon, Graves, Owen, Mailer, Jones, Caputo, O'brien, Webb. I guess I tend to identify more with Caputo's, Webb's, and Anderson's books since they're Marines. It really doesn't matter because they were all good and they all sent a message that has never been heeded. I wish someone would tell a story about us and all the silly c**p that went on in Somalia.


Carnival of Fury: Robert Charles and the New Orleans Race Riot of 1900
Published in Textbook Binding by Louisiana State University Press (1976)
Author: William Ivy. Hair
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history as page turner
Hair's deeply insightful story of one man driven to take the most desperate of measures in New Orleans at the turn of the Century (1900) will keep you home and the TV off.

Sit back, fasten your seatbelt and go back to Mississippi after the Civil War. It's a tough place to visit, you sure would not want to live there. Eianr E. Kvaran

The Heroic and Mysterious Mr. Charles
This is a big little book well worth reading and well worth owning with a place of honor in the personal library.

Hair does a remarkable job of pulling together the obscure and little-known facts about "Robert Charles", an obscure and little-known historical figure who would have quickly made himself perfectly at home in 1960s America. More importantly, Hair's research and narrative provide a brilliant portrait of a period of American history, approaching the mystery of Robert Charles through a necessarily oblique but dead-on examination of turn of the century racial etiquette in the South; Afro-American attitudes regarding racism, self-defense, identity, militancy, and politics; state and regional economic issues; and the pathological behavior of the white victims of supremacist theories and beliefs. Although the question of who, exactly, was Robert Charles cannot be completely answered---if it could, Hair would have done it---the question of WHY did Robert Charles exist and die as he did is effectively answered through a compelling narrative that proves that history and its writing can be as exciting as any modern story of injustice, oppression, personal dignity in the face of ultimate destruction, and right beaten to ground by actual numerical, and assumed racial, superiority. Hair deserves to be honored for his detective work and meticulous research as well as his ability to make about two hundred pages do the work of some who would have said the same thing, and less eloquently, in six hundred. He should also be commended for refusing to let anything but historical facts and sound reasoning fill in the blank spaces in his history because the temptation to make assumptions in order to flesh out Charles' story must have been a consideration during the writing of the book. This is a small, well-written, rewarding examination of a historical figure and the times that he lived and died in. It's surprising to me that no one has made a movie based upon the book since it has all the drama, suspense, tension, tragedy, and action anyone could possibly hope for regarding a historical figure whose pledge to live and die like a man was a sacred vow and, perhaps, a moral lesson. For those who are aware of Robert F. Williams' place in Afro-American history, Robert Charles will be recognized both as of his time and ahead of it, helping to lay a foundation for the future struggles of others.

Considering the fact that Hair first published this book in the late 1970s or very early 1980s, I am amazed that there are so few reviewers of it. I fervently hope that the lack of reviews is not an indication of a lack of readers for this important historical work.

a fantasic examination of one slice of race history
William Ivy Hair in this fast-paced, readable book accomplishes more in a couple of hundred pages than many of our more ponderous historians have aimed to achieve in far-bulkier works. If future historians learn to write and marshall their facts as well as Hair does here, the tales of our past will remain vivid and important to young readers of the future.


Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times (and What the Neighbors Thought)
Published in Audio Download by audible.com ()
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Lives of the Musicians--Good Times, Bad Times, and What the
I first read lives of the musicians when I was about 7 yearsold or so. Then, I thought it was terrific. I still do. However, I amnow 12 years old, and now that I have paid more attention to it, I see several faults, but overall it is still a very good book. First of all, their choice of musicians is not the best. I would have recommended Debussy and Schubert, like the Kirkus Reviewer. Some of the composers I have hardly ever heard of, like Igor Stravinsky or Nadia Boulanger. And while Clara Schumann was a great pianist, I think they should have focused more on her husband, Robert, a prolific composer, whose works are among the very best. Also, some of the parts of the biographies are questionable. Frederic Chopin may not have actually been romantically involved with Aurore Dudevant (George Sand), but in love with the Countess Delphine Potocka. The book states that the Waltz in D-Flat, or Minute Waltz, was written for George Sand's dog, when in fact it was probably written for Potocka. However, the book was still very well written, and I enjoyed it, despite the possible mistakes. I recommend this book to anyone who likes music, classical or not. So sit back and enjoy!

I Loved This Book.....
I loved this book because it made those musicians seem like real people instead of great-all-star-super-geniuses. It is full of strange little facts about all the famous musicians like Bach,Gershwin,Beethoven and Schmann.

---Megan W.

Lives of the Musicians
This book provides interesting insight into the lives of composers. I teach music to elementary and high school students and I read this book to all of my students. They all enjoy learning the details of the composers lives. The book presents the composers in such a way that the students remember the information about the composers. The book does not provide information about what the composers' music sounds like, and that is something I also like to teach. A great book to gain kids'interest in famous composers.


The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics
Published in Paperback by Rutgers University Press (1996)
Authors: Robert P. Crease, Charles C. Mann, and Timothy Ferris
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Excellent history of particle physics
This book is an excellent choice if you are looking for an easy-to-read history of the development of particle physics in the twentieth century. The book almost reads like a novel. The authors lead us on a tour of the most critical breakthroughs from the discovery of the electron to that of the top quark. Each episode describes not only the physics but also provides interesting insights into the physicists who made the contributions. It is a great diary of man's attempts to discover the smallest components of matter.

The best popular science book yet written
This book has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the telling of the story of 20th century fundamental physics is a task that should not be entrusted to physicists. No, it appears a journalist and a philosopher are not only able to bring the story to life in a way that almost all physics text books fail to do, but at the same time to never lose sight of the important scientific issues.

I thought that I understood these issues well, having been a researcher in the area myself until 1987, but I have to report that they filled embarrassingly large gaps in my knowledge, particularly in relation to experiments, including in subjects that I used to teach to undergraduates.

I would recommend this book to anyone, but most of all to those who call themselves practitioners in the subject, to remind them of how, if at all, what they do fits in to the bigger picture, and also to remind them, to quote Murray Gell Mann (who was probably quoting someone else at the time), that "the best instrument that a theoretician has is his waste paper basket". As the mathematical tangents that theoreticians have gone off on in the last twenty years get ever more bizarre and disconnected from reality, I fully expect this to be full to overflowing soon.

A great 100 year long trip comes full circle
One of the consolations of being a graduate student at a big ten university is having marvellous libraries at your disposal. I picked this one up two years ago in one of my favorite sections: general physics and biography of physicists. This book gives a clear account of how we got from the physics of the turn of the centry, when some wag suggested all that was left to do was to measure constants to the next decimal place, to today where... uh... gee, it looks like we are stuck in the same bind again! But what a century it has been. It was a treat to see how the problems of the "ultraviolet catastrophe" (quantization of light), X-rays and other radiation (atomic structure), and the non-existance of the aether (relativity) spawned whole new areas of inquiry. The interesting thing is that we have indeed come full circle... probing nature to provide support for the "Theories of Everything" will either require ingenuity and precision in measurement that defies belief, or accelerators far beyond our ability (let alone will!) to build. Meanwhile, are there any small, nagging inconsistancies lying about that will provide rich fodder for the next generation? But that is a tale for a book yet to be written. Until then, if you want the low down on 20C physics, this is an excellent place to start. The authors give especially warm and entrancing accounts of their interviews with some of the movers and shakers in the field that give a nice helping of human color to what could have been much too dry a book.


A Shakespeare Glossary
Published in Paperback by Oxford Univ Pr (1986)
Authors: Charles T. Onions and Robert D. Eagleson
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Good, but could do yet more
The original version of this glossary, done by C.T. Onions, was certainly a landmark publication. Indeed, there are some things in it (not many) which over the years I have discovered Eagleson has unaccountably omitted in his revised version. On the whole, Eagleson does, however, offer quite a bit of extra material, though the claims made on this score by both the publisher and some reviewers seem to me exaggerated (and I have used Onions's text and Eagleson side by side for many years).

How good is the present compendium for today's purposes? Certainly very good for what it does within its limits, but those limits are significant. By now there have, for example, been a good many books proving the existence of bawdy puns and various related kinds of slang within Shakespeare, and for proper understanding of that author a glossary should certainly explain such Elizabethan usages. In common with *The Oxford English Dictionary* (for which Onions did a great deal of important work), *A Shakespeare Glossary* is - and remains even in its present form - largely silent and uninformative on these matters, with the result that modern readers who look up a word suspecting that it may have a bawdy sense now no longer current will find themselves almost always frustrated (in strictly scholarly terms!).

Such readers will have to turn to e.g. Eric Partridge's *Shakespeare's Bawdy*, which remains invaluable, but is itself coming to look less than complete now that we know so much more, perhaps especially since the publication of Gordon Williams's *A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature* (expensive and not easy to use, but a real mine of information).

Despite these reservations I would still recommend the Onions-Eagleson glossary as a worthwhile component on "the Shakespeare shelf". It should be added - but this is not a fault of the volume - that in many cases a modern reader is simply not AWARE that a word in Shakespeare does not mean what it means today, and therefore will not look it up in any glossary or dictionary. This makes detailed well-annotated volumes such as are published with the New Cambridge, Oxford, and Arden series (or the one-volume Bevington Shakespeare) essential for anyone wishing to understand what he or she is reading: in such editions, the necessary glosses are volunteered by editors who ARE aware of the fact that many words have changed in meaning since Shakespeare's time . - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University, South Australia

A good reference for the humanitarian Shakespearean
This is a good dictionary for Shakespears terms. I was proven wrong when I thought I would never find many of the words I found. I would recommend it.

Good resource that leaves nothing wanting!
If you are a reader, actor or spectator of Shakespeare you must have this book. It is an indispensable guide to the speech and hidden meanings of Shakespeare's words. I especially stress the hidden meanings aspect of the glossary--- a feature you may not find in a footnoted version of the play. This glossary also allows for a fast reference to finding a word in any Shakespeare play. A word will have the meaning and examples of the when it is used in a play. This comes in handy when trying to locate a quotation or a scene. The binding is sturdy and the book is easy to carry and reference to. There is no reason not to have this book if you love Shakespeare. If nothing else it is also fun to just peruse!


Sudden Fiction International: Sixty Short-Short Stories
Published in Hardcover by W.W. Norton & Company (1989)
Authors: Robert Shapard, James Thomas, Thomas Shapard, and Charles Baxter
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Great for an aspiring writer
I used this for a class in creative writing. Anytime I got writers block I would read a few of the stories in Sudden Fiction. It didn't always help but all the stories are highly entertaining and from time to time the stories inspired me to pen up my own experiences in their voice or mine. All in all, whether you're using it seriously or not, you'll enjoy this book's short stories. There's a wide variety for all moods and writing styles. It'd be hard not to like at least some of the stories and if you're a writing student or pro I'd think this type of material would be essential for those lean times.

A fine and comprehensive anthology
This is priceless collection of very short stories from all over the world.In this cosmopolitan range of stories many known authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez,Julio Cortazar,Heinrich Boll,Nadine Gordimer and Mrozeck are joined by those we will come to know better later by reading their well crafted short short stories.
I have translated 37 of these collection into Farsi.The Farsi title is Dastan e Nagahan meaning Sudden Fiction.
Thanks to the talented authors of this anthology and its fine predecessors,Sudden Fiction and other titles like Flash Fiction and Sudden Fiction Continued.
I recommend the readers to buy this book and enjoy its taste in discovering a world wide scenery,multi cultural surprises and find new friends.
The stories are indeed perfect for bed time reading

A feast of short international fare
A great book for those with short attention spans, short story writers (or aspiring short story writers), and those who want to see the variety of short shorts available. These stories are short but they have a sharp impact on the reader. The Afternotes section provides extra information about the author, which is often not included in short story collections. It also provides interviews with the authors on their inspiration for the story of theirs included in this volume and occasional interviews with translators on how they set about getting the most accurate translation of the story.


The Piano Teacher: The True Story of a Psychotic Killer
Published in Hardcover by New American Library Trade (1987)
Authors: Robert K. Tanenbaum and Peter S. Greenberg
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Riveting and chilling
Though I read this book several years ago, I still remember it vividly and hope this review inspires someone to buy it. I don't normally buy books like this; in fact, I picked this one up from a freebie table at work because I needed to read something on the train home, and boy, was I in for a surprise! The author leaves you hanging at the end of each chapter, luring you into the next until you're done before you know it. My heart pounded from the suspense and ached for the victims. This will be well worth your money.

The Piano Teacher: The True Storay of a Psychotic Killer
Excellent writing. The author keeps you interested. By the end of the book I absolutely despised Charles Yukl. This is good reading for those who love true crime.

The Piano Teacher The True Story of a Psychotic Killer
I really enjoyed this book. It was intense, and very explainitory. It started with the terrible murder that happened in 1966 and the murder that happened after his parol in 1974. Then it went into Yukle's up bringing. It explained the lifestyles of his parents. They were both very good musicains. They taught Yukle music from a very young age and they were very strict with him. His mother was a perfectionist, and expected him to play every thing perfect. She would make him sit at the piano until he did. When his brother was born they weren't as strict with him. They let him do and be who he wanted. Soon his parents were divorced. He and his brother lived with their father and his new wife. He didn't see his mother for years after that. Yukle and his father weren't very close at all. His father was very cruel to him. He always made Charles feel unworthy. Yukle was a loner and kept to his music, the one thing he was very good at. His grades in school weren't that great except for music. He quit school to go into the army. He was still a loner there to. He was court marshalled and sent back home. He went back to school and met a young girl in band that he really liked. He moved to Chicago to go to school for photography. He felt like a different person behind the camera. Things didn't work out with the girl back home and soon he met his wife; she was one of two women that he was able to talk to, but he was never able to completly open up to her. It talks about the police reports and the events leading to his conviction. It was all very intresting. I like reading true stories rather than fictional, and this one kept me reading until the end.


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