Portraits Of Himalayan Flowers by Toshio Yoshida (botanical photographer, amateur botanist, and Associate Researcher at the University Museum of the University of Tokyo) is a beautifully presented compilation of natural photography and the compilation of ten years of travel. 108 gorgeous color pictures showcase the wondrous beauty of plants that correspond to the 108 beads of the Tibetan Buddhist rosary. Each full-page photograph includes a brief caption about the flower, as well as a knowing introduction combined to create a highly recommended and brilliantly presented work. Portraits Of Himalayan Flowers is an enthusiastically recommended addition to any personal, professional, or community library Gardening Shelf or Horticultural Studies collection.

This is an incredibly interesting book full of photographs showing the plants in their native environment. Toshio Yoshida did a fantastic job with all 108 full color photographs that are in the book.

By getting down on the ground and looking up at the plants you will get to see a viewpoint that is rarely offered in the world of plant photography.

Each photo caption contains the botanical name of the species as well as a wonderful description. While I'm not a big fan of photography books, the photos in this book definitely made me sit up and take notice.

There are plants in there that I had never seen before which were so unusual that they made me want to find out more about them. If you like unusual plants that are brightly colored or plant photographs that are above the average then you will want to acquire this book for your library.

Many short papers have been published on potassic igneous rocks. However, this is the first comprehensive work on that topic. The book is well written and 'userfriendly' for all geoscientists interested in the association between alkaline rocks and gold-copper deposits worldwide.

There is a number of literature published on potassic rocks. However, this book provides a guide for all geoscientists interested in high-K alkaline rocks, particularly those associated with gold and copper deposits. Well written and edited!

This is a collection of essays written over a period of twenty years. This book is as stunning in its unexpected insights as it is diffcult to summarize. Agamben's mastery of classical philosophy and philology gives him the advantage of discussing pressingly modern issues in philosophy, history, politics and criticism as personified in the works of everyone from Aristotle to Heidegger, Benjamin, and Derrida. And that advantage is apparent not only in the ease with which he brings Aristotle's discussion of dynamis (potentiality) on the issue of redemption and Being, but also in the vividness of ancient philosophy's immediate relevance to the discussion of the messianic notion of time and history as transmitted to our age through figures such as Kafka, Benjamin and Scholem.
This collection of essays is divided into three parts: Language, History, Potentiality. Each section has under it a number of essays loosely pertaining to that category. Under the section on Histroy, for example, we have essays on Aby Warburg and the man's legacy in the refiguration of the study of art history; on Tradition; on Hegel's Absolute and Heiddeger's Ereignis; on Walter Benjamin's Angel of History; and on Benjamin's rumination on the Messiah in realtion to the Sovereign.
Heiddeger looms, as always, over much of Agamben's writing, but here so does that which has no name except as a tradition that partakes of the kabbalistic power of deep vision. The content of the book is offered here like so many spores of light, shedding light on so much of what constitutes the abyss/ground of modernity, but resisting capture in the stiff net of unimaginative academic argumentativeness. The prose is as dense as usual, reflecting the very density of the topics the author is trying to analyse. A most head-on collision of a reading.

Potentialities, or more precisely, potentia passiva. Reception and capability go together: the hand is the gift that gives itself (handshake) and receives: catch! The chapter on Heidegger and Stimmung is for me the most interesting. The word "facticity" is confusing because it implies making (factum est verum), but is the very opposite of any making (ie, thrownness). Agamben traces in the word the common root of both fetish and faktish, and finds in the notion of Stimmung a weise, a face, or guise. There too is a passivity, and the passivity of "affect" as both reception and potential (the ability to receive: endexetai). Heidegger would perhaps find there xeir-, or hand: VorHANDenheit and ZuHANDenheit). Aisthesis as both an activity (-is) and a passivity (think of all the plays on the word horen in S&Z). The introduction by the translator is curious. As for the distinction of intentio prima and intentio secunda, it is the very basis of modern science and Descartes' geometry: not this conic section (intentio prima) but every conic section (intentio secunda taken as intentio prima). That is the origin of Husserl's "sedimentation," and hence the return to the "things themselves." In sum, much can be learned from this book.

This text includes all topics necessary for success on the AP exam - I am completing my first year of teaching with this text, and have found it to be an excellent book. The supplemental resource binder for teachers is excellent - it contains sample quizzes, and a short synopsis of what to expect from students encountering this new information for the first time. Lots of activity - based problems and simulations - My hopes for the next edition? The book cover seems to contain some laminate or plastic covering which starts to flake off after much use - a bit annoying- otherwise a very good book.

This is my second year teaching Advanced Placement Statistics. I greatly appreciated having a clear stats book that followed the AP curriculum and included the Texas Instruments TI-83 calculator built in to the examples and problems. Most AP Stats students do not own statistical software and rely on their TI-83. This book is a thorough introduction to statistics text written for the bright high school student with a TI-83. The problems come from real data giving the students the sense they are doing real statistics and not just crunching numbers. All of the students from my class passed the AP test.

There are not many books available on tempera painting mainly because few artists these days have either the time or the patience to grind their own pigments and mix them into a binder. For anyone who does have such an interest egg tempera is a fascinating and beautiful medium to learn. Anyone who has ever tried to scrape off dried egg yolk from a plate will soon realize how incredibly durable a binder it makes for a painting medium. The Practice of Tempera Painting covers a lot of subjects in-depth. Everything from preparing the surface, pigment to egg to water ratios, discussions of various pigments to actual instructions for the traditional hatching and cross-hatching brushstroke technique is shown.

The only section readers today might want to supplement is reading up on a more up-to-date book on pigments. Many of the pigments discussed in Thompson's book, while still available, are now known to present health risks. Modern pigments that are safer and just as lightfast (in some cases even more lightfast) are now available that Thompson and painters of the 1930's didn't have. Other than that one caveat this book is a great introduction to egg tempera painting.

This excellent introduction to egg tempera is invaluable to oil painters as well. Thompson's writing is filled with humor and wit, making the book very readable.

I was delighted to discover that, unlike so many books about painting techniques, Thompson's is clear and thorough without being a condescending "how to" manual. It also avoids being mired in footnotes and tedious tangential detail. It is obvious that he speaks from the perspectives of both painter and scholar. The only drawback is that the reproductions are in black and white, but as this was standard when the volume was written it is forgivable.

This book will prove informative for artists, teachers, and museum professionals (I am all three) who are in search of solid information on tempera painting. Look no further and enjoy the read!

This book was crucial to my early release from prison. Although it deals primarily with prison condition litigation, rather than conviction issues, I can think of no other gift to a loved one or friend who is incarcerated.

Not just for prisoners. Know your rights. Learn the Legal Process from the inside. Be a jailhouse lawyer without going to law school.

Stroock in the preface to his preface gives his graduate school introduction to probability from Kac and McKean to explain why the book is written from the analytic rather than the probabilistic viewpoint. The coverage is thorough and rigorous with important proofs provided in the style he likes best. As an example in Chapter 2 where he covers the central limit theorem and the Berry-Esseen results on rates of convergence, he uses Stein's method rather than more complicated approaches using Fourier series.

This covers all the standard topics for a first year graduate course in probability and a bit more.

I am using this book as a reference for a first graduate coursein Probability Theory. In all fairness I must confess that I have notread the whole book, though I have browsed through it and I have read a few pieces here and there. My reason for selecting this book as a reference is partly the fact that the instructor is not using a book, only his notes and this book is listed as an additional reference. Having done some serious book browsing before settling on this one, I can say that its certainly more advanced than typical "first graduate course" books like the ones by Durrett or Williams. The author assumes knowledge of real analysis and launches right away into Probability. The book covers topics like convergence of probability measures and Wiener measure which are given little or no mention in Durrett's and Williams' books. The author in fact devotes an entire chapter to Wiener measure. I don't know if I would like to use this book in isolation. Its pretty advanced and has a whole lot of material that'll take a very long time to read, at least for me. On the other hand, Stroock is a star in the field of Probability and I like his style of writing which is why I did not hesitate to invest a small amount of money (by textbook standards) on an obviously excellent, but difficult reference.

Outstanding book! Very informative and easily read format. Best promotional book on the market. Many thanks to the authors.

best promotional book i have ever readJ

For anyone working with proteins for the first time, this is the book. It tells you how to do the basic procedures in a straightforward cookbook way, without alot of theoretical background. Old-school purists may object to this, but just as you don't need to understand Fourier optics to use a microscope, you really don't need to understand how Laemmli gels work in order to be able to use them to resolve proteins. This book just tells you how to do what you need to do, and for that purpose its really perfect. Using this book, you can singlehandedly do each technique without needing to ask anyone or read anything else, it is entirely self-contained. There aren't too many methods books that can compare with this one in terms of ease of use. I have used this book and its earlier edition for years and I highly recommend it to everyone who is starting to work with proteins.

This is a good handbook for starters and students, contains methods that easy to follow and understand, I love this book.

Lacan's seminars are superior to his articles because he clearly is addressing an audience, and needs to make himself understood, but he has already anticipated all of his students questions, as if he could read their minds: "I know what you're thinking." The argument of the third seminar is easy to summarize: the psychotic, because foreclosed from the father, faces a hole in the imaginary that is filled by the symbolic (or is it the other way around?), hence the hallucinations and voices. The psychotic always imagines that somewhere the big Other resides, in this world, like the man who broke into the US capital because there was a time machine inside that was trying to control his mind. The psychotic is in fact unable to distinguish the small from the big other. Lacan is always thought to be a little mad himself, something of a fraud, "il gagne beaucoup d'argent," and even Heidegger gave up reading Ecrits because he couldn't make sense of it, and he does make something of a display of his learning (not so much in this seminar). That said, there is something to Lacan, and eventually he will get his due, and outside the narrow circle of his devotees.

The work of Jacques Lacan is infamous for the often obtuseness of its language and presentation. It is often said that the reader must work hard at Lacan to reach a glimmer of understanding. The work of Dr Russell Grigg as translator to this edition certainly gives the reader a head start. Dr Grigg address the work of Lacan from a new perspective of the 21st century, nolonger happy for the work to remain arcane and cloistered from the reading public, but he throws open the windows of further understanding for those willing to look and read closer the work of this French master. An excellent work.