The book tells about many different thing that pet lovers need to know for their small animals such as rabbits, gerbils and hamsters. A great book for age level 8-15

He was bound determined not to paint people reading and women knitting, but instead to show people who breathed emotions into his darkly suggestive prints. "Death in the sickroom" showed family members at the ages when they were painted, not when his sister Sophie died; it expressed unity in grief as one of death's longlasting effects by seemingly overlapping planes flowing together across bleakly empty areas, starkly B&W contrasts, and stiffly posed mourners frozen in misery. "The mirror" heads of a disembodied man and woman was his first woodcut to give up the Japanese method of printing each color with a separate woodblock; instead, he jigsawed blocks into pieces according to compositional design, linked each piece with a different color, and put everything back together into a multicolored print. He considered his "Sick child II" his most important print: his first color lithograph, it focused on the diseased upper chest and the head in profile facing right against a large pillow in order to gaze with tragically meditative resignation into the flatly patterned looming void on the far right. However, his "Scream" became the most compelling image for the late twentieth century: it expressed terror before the universe by powerfully decorative lines reverberating through the starkly opposed black lines and bleakly white voids of pulsing land and sky. Elizabeth Prelinger and Michael Parke-Taylor have applied reader-friendly illustrations and text to their catalog of the Vivian and David Campbell exhibition. Their SYMBOLIST PRINTS OF EDVARD MUNCH goes down good with PROGRESSIVE PRINTMAKERS by Warrington Colescott and Arthur Hove, PRINTS AND PRINTMAKING by Antony Griffiths, EDVARD MUNCH by Josef Paul Hodin, and THE PRINT IN THE WESTERN WORLD by Linda C Hults.

This is one of the best books i've ever read. It's about an zoovet, that get's to travel all over the world, treating animals like elephants, killerwhales and antilops. the book is inprinted by an intense love, warmth and charming humor. It's both fascinating and unforgetable.

If you noticed anything about S/M fiction in over the last year or so, then you know that it's been impossible to get your hands on any of the Marketplace books. When Masquerade Books released the third book in the series, The Trainer, it quickly went through two printings before vanishing from sight. Why? Because Masquerade Books vanished from sight. Yes, no matter how many Masquerade Books you may see on your local Borders bookshelves, they are actually no longer in business.

Fear not. Mystic Rose Books has picked up where Masquerade Books left off, continuing Laura Antoniou's celebrated Marketplace series with the release of The Academy: Tales of the Marketplace. Set in Japan, Antoniou's newest novel places trainer Chris Parker in the heat of the Marketplace's annual gathering where he must present a proposal that could threaten a schism within its ranks. Parker's deft maneuvering amid the politics of the Marketplace becomes a lesson in savvy thinking and honorable actions for the reader.

And that's only part of the novel's rich content. Again, we're treated to Michael LaGuardia and his ongoing struggle to become a trainer. We witness more of the Marketplace in all its variety with pony and dog trainers, in its world-wide diversity which ranges from the upper crust of English society to the wild, wild west of Canada's northwest to the formality and stern expectations of Japanese mores. Plus, we learn even more about the elusive Chris Parker's identity (a Must Do for Parker fans). And, yes, there's the occasional orgy and hot sex too.

However, the one-hand pages are few. Antoniou intentionally puts the sex on simmer so she can turn up the heat on the world-building and she applies the same skill that SF/F writers use in their craft to her book. The result? The Marketplace has never been more fully rendered, and Antoniou's novels are pretty much the only pieces of S/M fiction that explore the inner workings of its world more than it explores sex and sexuality. (And I'd like to think the S/M reading world is big enough to accommodate and celebrate her brand of fiction.)

Just as innovative as Antoniou's world-building focus is her invention and use of her "novelogy" template. She invited authors Karen Taylor, david stein, M. Christian, Cecelia Tan, and Michael Hernandez to contribute a series of short stories to The Academy's pages. Each story weaves itself into the overall novel and furthers the lore of the Marketplace. On the whole, the stories explore everything from the first moments of submission to spotters gone wrong to husband hunting via the Marketplace.

Best of all, as you grow use to the stories' presence in the novel, you find that their interludes begin to take on a Canterbury Tales feel to them. You begin to enjoy their place and presence and look forward to one character or another interrupting the novel to tell you a story. I found the novelogy a warm and wonderful thing and I became as rapt as a child during kindergarten story time.

Perhaps the only real criticism I have with The Academy is Michael LaGuardia's role in the novel. Between The Trainer and The Academy, I invested a lot of energy in Michael (even when I didn't like him), and when Anderson reveals LaGuardia's most likely outcome to Parker and then to see it played out in a few swift pages, it all felt very abrupt and dismaying. Even if Michael's route was preordained, it was worthy of a novel in and of itself, given the amount of time readers have spent with him.

The Academy has smaller quirks as well, too. It's obvious that Antoniou wrote the novel some time ago, what with references to Hong Kong's impending (and now passed) return to mainland China and to the emerging (and now dominant) "World WideWeb." On the one hand, those passages do capture S/M sentiments circa 1996 and, in time, these portrayals will become charming. On the other hand, it does mark just how long Antoniou has waited for this novel to see print and reminds me just how disruptive Masquerade's demise has been for established authors.

Laura's getting back on track, though. Mystic Rose Books will release the first three Marketplace books in coming months, plus Laura's fifth Marketplace book, The Reunion, will follow soon after. She's even at work on a sixth novel, The Inheritor. Given the rich tapestry that Antoniou wove in her newest novel and given the pent-up demand for Marketplace books, the new novels can't see print soon enough. Which is a wonderful position to be in.

Although I've read (and contributed to) Laura Antoniou's anthologies, this was the first Marketplace novel I read. I must admit that I'm now eager to "start at the beginning," and am thrilled that the first three books are returning, and a fifth is on its way -- the tantalizing inclusion of the first chapter of the next novel was wonderful! For first time Marketplace readers, I found this to be a book that thoroughly immersed me in an exciting, erotic world of Owner/slave relationships, and the behind-the-scenes machinations that make such a world exist. The short stories were marvelous, and added new voices to the main theme. Antoniou's writing is excellent; I look forward to more from her in this series.

Of all the erotic bdsm fiction, this is the one series that consistantly mesmerizes. With its delicious characters, it's hot, yet tasteful scenes and it's totally original concept, Laura Antoniou remains the true master of medium. The most remarkable thing about "The Academy" is that even though more than one writer contributes to the piece (in reality a series of short stories rather than one fluid work), it reads like the perfect novel. With my personal hero Chris Parker being the tie that binds the stories together we learn so much about the players and (as always) ourselves. I hear there is one more book due for release in the imminent future. I hope there are many more.

After 26 years of teaching in the New York public schools, John Taylor Gatto has seen a lot. His book,Dumbing Us Down, is a treatise against what he believes to be the destructive nature of schooling. The book opens with a chapter called "The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher," in which he outlines sevenharmful lessons he must convey as a public schoolteacher: 1.) confusion 2.) class position 3.) indifference 4.) emotional dependency 5.) intellectual dependency 6.) provisional self-esteem 7.) constant surveillance and the denial of privacy.

How ironic it is that Gatto's first two chapters contain the text of his acceptance speeches for NewYork State and City Teacher of the Year Awards. How ironic indeed, that he uses his own award presentation as a forum to attack the very same educational system that is honoring him! Gatto describes schooling, as opposed to learning, as a "twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the onlycurriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it," taunts the author.

While trapped in this debilitative system along with his students, Gatto, observed in them anoverwhelming dependence. He believes that school teaches this dependence by purposely inhibitingindependent thinking, and reinforcing indifference to adult thinking. He describes his students as"having almost no curiosity, a poor sense of the future, are a historical, cruel, uneasy with intimacy, and materialistic."

Gatto suggests that the remedy to this crisis in education is less time spent in school, and more timespent with family and "in meaningful pursuits in their communities." He advocates apprenticeships andhome schooling as a way for children to learn. He even goes so far as to argue for the removal of certification requirements for teachers, and letting "anybody who wants to, teach."

Gatto's style of writing is simple and easy to follow. He interlaces personal stories throughout the book to bring clarity and harmony to his views, while also drawing on logic and history to support his ideas about freedom in education and a return to building community. He clearly distinguishes communities from networks: "Communities ... are complex relationships of commonality and obligation," whereas, "Networksdon't require the whole person, but only a narrow piece."

While Gatto harshly criticizes schooling, we must realize that his opinions do come as a result of 26 yearsof experience and frustration with the public school system. Unfortunately, whether or not one agrees with his solutions, he has not outlined the logistics of how these improvements would be implemented. His ideas are based on idealism, and the reality of numbers and economics would present many obstacles. Nevertheless, it gives us a clear vision and a direction to follow for teachers and parents who believe in the family as the most important agent for childrearing and growth.

John Taylor Gatto was an award-winning public school teacher when he wrote much of the text for this book. He reveals the curriculum of public schools nationwide under the headings: Confusion, Class Position, Indifference, Emotional Dependency, Intellectual Dependency, Provisional Self-Esteem, and One Can't Hide. He asserts that the true goal of childhood learning should be to discover some meaning in life...a passion or an enthusiasm that will drive subsequent learning pursuits. Instead, schools cram irrelevant facts into young minds, substituting book-knowledge for self-knowledge. This book explains a lot for anyone who got good grades, went to college, and then didn't have any idea what to do with his life. It's also a wake-up call to parents with school-age children. Do we really want our children to grow up to be good factory workers and do as they're told? Do we really want them to buy into the "Good grades=good jobs" myth? Do we want them to believe that the goal in life is to acquire more and more stuff to fuel consumerism? Or should we give them more reflective, unstructured time in childhood to find out who they are, what they like, and how they can contribute to their communities? Dumbing Us Down is a quick, worthwhile read.

Mr. Gatto's authoritative rant will serve to further destabilize the already shaky public education system -- no loss, as it should be obvious to any but the most simple-minded. As one of two dedicated parents of an almost-four-year-old, we had been disgusted with the "choices" the state deigns to present to us in education: bad and worse. These are, of course, not choices at all. Mr. Gatto explains briefly how far education and learning have fallen in the US, and how the "education" system serves only to propagate and serve itself, not the children who are its nominal clients.
If you doubt that the US state school system is de facto totalitarian, just try to homeschool without jumping through hoops, pleading for exemptions, and submitting to standardized testing. See how long you go until you get "the knock".
Any current or soon-to-be school-age parent must read this book to assist them in their decision to send their kid to or keep their kid in the 12-year prison of progressive factory schooling. Those who are the product of the system, as I am, will read, grieve, get angry and get primed to take action. It is a disillusioning book, in the sense of having the wool pulled off one's eyes at last.

As one of the poets featured in Will Work for Peace, one might expect me to be a bit biased, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Most poets work in a virtual vacuum, only tenuously connected to each other by the occasional workshop or shared membership in a 'poetry society'. When Brett Axel first approached me for a submission to an anthology he was considering, the names Marge Piercy, Lyn Lifshin, Moshe Bennaroch and so many others were abstractions to me as a fledgling poet. I knew these tremendous writers were 'out there' somewhere, beating down doors with their words and keeping a struggling artform alive. But to think that someday I would ever share a credit with these dynamic modern poets would be a pipe dream at best. It is through the sincere efforts of Brett Axel that many newer voices like mine have an extraordinary opportunity to appear with Pulitzer Prize winners and other poetic heavyweights. By way of an honest review, however, I will say this- not everything in this book will be to your particular liking. I myself came across some works that did not move me in the way the author may have intended. Some imagery can be raw and visceral, using shock value in place of craft at times. But to ignore those voices would be an even more shocking turn of events, so praise be to the editor for not sacrificing his vision to a senseless conformity. As Pete Seeger so aptly put it in his quote, trying to read all these poems at one time would be like trying 'to swallow Manhattan whole'. I say to you- buy this book, read this book, but understand that it's what you do after reading this book that will ultimately define who you could be. Poetry is alive and well, and lives in the blunt pages of Will Work for Peace.

Brett Axel visited my Church and I bought a copy of Will Work For Peace from him, not for poetry, but because I care about working for peace. I started reading through it thinking It'd just go on my shelf and that'd be the end of it, but the book grabbed me and kept me rivited. If I had known that poetry was this alive I'd have been into poetry. I've been reading some of the poems to my friends who also didn't think poetry was important and they are saying the same thing. Fantastic! There's no way to get through this book without having your old mindsets challenged. It's funny, powerful, sad, and uplifting. A book that deserves to be read by everyone. A book that really can make the world a better place!

Just amazing start to finish! I like the disregard for fame used in putting the book together. That great poems got in even if they were writtenby nobodys. Look at Roger Bonair-Agard's poem on page 74. Shortly after Will Work For Peace came out he won Slam Nationals, becoming Slam Champion of 1999, which will be getting him lots of offers. But Zeropanik Press didn't need to be told he was good by an award. They could tell by his writing! Good for them and good for all of us because Will Work For Peace is a literary milestone. It's a new standard for all future anthology editors to try to live up to. Thumbs up to Brett Axel and Thumbs up to Zeropanik Press for their guts and integrty.

Calling this the Ultimate Dog Book maybe just overstating it a little bit ... But it is nevertheless a very good book ... The book comes well bound, with good paper and very good colour separation and printing ... Excellent coffee table type book ...

Barron's Encyclopaedia of Dog Breeds probably carries more text and information of each breed, while the New Encyclopaedia of Dogs (B.Fogle) features more breeds, but the photography in this book is visibly better ...

The book does however provide a general over-view of the breeds featured.

Not the kind of book, if you are into detailed information, but will please all who wish to know a little about each breed and enjoy just looking at great photographs ...

Solid overall value ...

I have owned this book since 1991 and can't imagine being a dog owner without it! Beautifully formatted with color pictures and easy to understand descriptions. Not only is this a complete guide to each breed, but it also gives the history of canines. Everything you need to have a general knowledge of can be found in the back of the book; from grooming tools and techniques to the mating cycle. My favorite dog book since 1991!!!

I really liked this book. it had tons of popular breed information. I love dogs, too!

While I've been very impressed with the clear writing and highly practical instruction in this book, I've noted dozens of syntax, grammatical, spelling, and factual errors, on the order of one every ten pages or so. And this is a very long book. Be prepared to spend a few hours wondering why certain queries just won't work, until your programming buddies tell you that parameter passing to a web page is always done with a "?" and not a "&" as the book occasionally--and erroneously--asserts. If you can make it through the minefields, you'll learn quite a bit about relational databases, Cold Fusion Studio, and data-driven web sites, but not without a few battle scars...

On the whole, the CFWDCK book is very informative, and does take you from start to finish in terms of the creation of a web database. This book has been invaluable to me as go through the process of migrating my flat website to one that is database-driven.

It does do a good job of giving a decent overview of things, and even ventures into SQL (which turns out to be very important in Cold Fusion). And, unlike a lot of books which include CDs, I can say that the software that came with it was worth it. This is especially true if you are the type who erases large zip files after you download and install software. If you are trying to use Cold Fusion with MS Front Page, you might find the two programs don't seem to like each other. Thus, it's good to have a fresh copy of CF available if you need it.

But, like many other "Thick Books", this one does suffer from a few problems:

POOR INDEXING
Most references to CF statements only refer to definitions or sections in the book devoted to them. Not to each different use. This means that, for example, if you want to know about using a CFIF statment within a CFCOLUMN statement, you really gotta hunt.

PARTIALLY SUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS
The back cover of the book talks about how we can make shopping carts, online catalogs, conferencing systems, etc. Where are the examples? Maybe they're there. I couldn't find them

UNCREATIVE EXAMPLES
In any instruction book, most of the examples are going to be centered around basic tasks. How to do a query to a database. How to make a form. Blah, blah, blah. It's all good. But this book seems to ignore a lot of the richness of CFML. Not much talk about graphics at all. One has to hunt for information about using CFML with URLs. It's mostly basic, fairly uncreative applications. For the most part, that's appropriate. But not at this level.

NOT ENOUGH INFO ON CFML ECCENTRICITIES
Some of the tags seem to not work very well with each other. Others require different formatting of URLS. Without this information easily accessible, there is some trial and error that one shouldn't have to go through.

Overall, an excellent book. And, if you are considering Cold Fusion for your website, it's probably the only game out there. Just remember that you will probably need a second book on Cold Fusion once another comes out

I bought this book for my dissertation. After I started to read this book, I fall in love with it. I always have problem reading books in English as my mother language is not English. But this book give me a very clear idea on how to integrate your web page with database. I just finished my dissertation yesterday. But Cold Fusion is still in my mind. You will love this book.

Great photography and sculptures, but the writing style is fool's gold. Too expensive as well, even with the Amazon reduction. It's great but not that great.

as good as the book is, i must say that it pales in comparison to seeing his work in person. i saw some of it at the renwick gallery in washington d.c. and it's just incredible. he's come out of his shell in the last few years but has been producing great stuff for a long time.

nevertheless, the book is worth it. but if you ever get the chance to see his work, by all means do so. there was an interesting piece on him by the "sunday morning" cbs news show. you may be able to get a tape of it from them.

As a professor of Art History at an Afghani University, I would like to congratulate, extol, and exult Daniel Brush's masterpiece of a monograph. Its insight and vivid explanations are invaluable and I am discussing with my colleagues about including it as an elective course for my students. Its sheer brilliance exemplifies its utter domination over any other art book. Congratulations to Daniel Brush for enhancing the art world. He will surely go down in history as the pioneer of gold sculpting and as example for all.

When I started this book, I was looking forward to an explanation of how to use the Convergent Architecture to create a J2EE application. What I found was a vague, confusing, and repetitive discussion that often reads as if it was in a tragic accident with a thesaurus. The idea behind the Convergent Architecture is not that complicated. We need to create a model driven architecture above UML that can link design and actual code development. Too often in this book the Convergent Architecture is not explained in terms of what it is but rather how it is like designing cathedrals, diesel engines, or jet planes. The author tells us that using the Convergent Architecture can reduce time up to 70% and that these numbers are endorsed by neutral parties but he gives us no information about these neutral parties. And he doesn't tell us what the 70% is actually compared to making these numbers useless for doing any evaluation. The book promises to be a "step-by-step" guide but instead reads like a corporate white paper designed to sell a product. And there is a product in here that the author is selling. He is the founding director of the company that makes a product that takes up the last two chapters of the book. The only part of the book that is "step-by-step" is the tutorial on how to use the author's product. Overall, I was very disappointed in a book that I looked forward to reading.

When I got this book, I was primarily interested in MDA. The author provides is a clear outline of the concept of "IT architectural style", something that is greatly missing in the IT industry. Hubert's work is pleasantly different from other books in that it does not try to promote any specific technology as the exclusive solution to all IT problems. Instead, you get a generally applicable conceptual framework and one specific implementation of this concept. The book is of great value for a great variety of readers. IT consultants, CEOs and CIOs will find the more abstract descriptions on architectural style and IT architecture of particular interest. Project managers and IT managers will benefit from the chapters detailing the MDA approach. And even if you just want to know how to organize an IT department in a meaningful way, this book is what you should read.

The author provides a very detailed, readable explanation of model driven architecture, but better still, shows how to implement the concepts for J2EE applications. The book covers all of the steps for designing and building software systems using this approach. And the author clearly knows what he is talking about. Very authoritative and easy to follow.