Jim Wagner is the ultimate folk artist. This coffee table book is packed with useable information on folk art and its origins. His whimsical artwork will make one smile and laugh out loud. Has anyone ever seen Santa's sleigh being pulled by fish! . The way he sees the world is beyond most people's imagination. This is a book that can be picked up again and again and each time see a different aspect of his artwork.

A fascinating and erudite study of the various principles and strategies of logic that Blake used to examine love, his poetry's most frequent theme. In reading Blake's poems, one may thoughtlessly elide Blake's different types of logic by regarding them (as many of us were taught in undergraduate survey courses) as uniformly dialectical, but Cox shows how Blake's use of logic evolved as Blake matured as a poet. (In this, Cox shares something in common with Peter Thorslev, who has revealed "Some Dangers of Dialectical Thinking" that were known to Blake -- and his critics. See Thorslev's essay in _Romantic and Victorian: Studies in Memory of William H. Marshall_.) Tracing this development of Blake's thought, Cox illuminates Blake's poems, particularly the late poems, in new and important ways. Rising to his subject, Cox proves to be a scrupulous logician himself and a handsome prose stylist. Cox may be familiar to some, as I came to know him, for his other noteworthy work on Blake, which can be found in the journal _Criticism_, Don Ault's collection _Critical Paths: Blake and the Argument of Method_, and Syndy Conger's collection _Sensibility in Transformation_. _Love and Logic_ deserves serious attention by Blake scholars, literary historians, and readers with an interest in Blake's poetics.

Don't let the price scare you off - I've purchased dozens of software programs and books and I can say HANDS DOWN this is the best purchase I have ever made. LWW's Organisms Central gives you one central source for organism information. You can use it to look up unknown organisms by characteristic, or to find the data on the organisms you are working with. Four information packed sections cover Bacteriology, Mycology, Parasitology and Virology. Comprehensive search utilities give you access to detailed information about organisms at any level. Comprehensive Taxonomy and Species Indices make it easy to find an organism quickly. Use the Characteristic Index to craft your search. You can highlight known charateristics such as cell shape, color, size, habitat, metabolism, and biochemical test results. Your search results are displayed on an easy-to-use selection pad ranked by matching characteristics. You will find the data you need to confirm your identification, along with useful illustrations. You no longer need to struggle with Bacteriology Manuals to find the answer to your unknown organism. According to the makers this software will be updated annually in order to keep it up-to-date with the various changes that are taking place in the field of microbiology.

This is more than a collection of masterful song lyrics, the long introductions by Stephen Sondheim and Oscar Hammerstein make it something of a treatise on lyric-writing by two of the art's greatest practitioners.

Also recommended: "Pentatonic Scales for the Jazz Rock Keyboardist" by Jeff Burns.

Stephens knows the holy land, geography and history, He skillfully uses this knowledge of the customs and geography of the time of this great Prophet to bring the message to today. Th reader is placed there with Elijah at some of the great times in history, The battle between God and Ahab for the hearts of the nation of Israel. How old is he(Stephens)? I think he was there at the time!

What are the social, legal, medical and psychological implications of the fact that marriage is good for you? This collection of essays seeks to answer that question.

The social sciences have make it quite clear that marriage confers a number of benefits on those who partake of it. Married people live longer, healthier and fuller lives than those who do not marry. How are the various professions, such as law, medicine and therapy, to respond to these facts?

A number of family experts, theologians, and social scientists here address these questions. The professions, they argue, have tended not to discuss such issues because marriage is often viewed as a strictly private and personal affair. But as we begin to understand the public nature of the institutions of marriage and family, the professions need to look more closely at some of the new findings concerning marriage.

For example, if marriage is indeed good for couples, good for children, and good for society, how should family law reconsider its role? What changes might business leaders make in the light of the new research? How should governments respond to the findings of the social sciences?

The 14 chapters in this book address these issues, and explore a number of related themes. The result is a new examination of marriage and its importance, especially in its social and public setting.

Several of the chapters alone are worth the price of the book. The chapter by David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead on "The Personal and Social Costs of Divorce" is a very fine summary of what the social sciences have been discovering over the past few decades. Their concluding remarks are worth repeating:

"It is clear that children are hurt by divorce, often seriously and much more than many adults seem to believe. And high rates of divorce create a social climate in which the kinds of intact families most likely to help children thrive are in ever shorter supply. Through its gradual corruption of a strong culture of marriage, childbearing, and child rearing, divorce may have negative consequences for society far greater than we now realize."

Equally important is the article, "The Health Benefits of Marriage" by Linda Waite. She provides a helpful overview of the available evidence which tells us that married people do indeed live longer, healthier and happier lives than do non-marrieds. Singleness, cohabitation and other relationships simply do not compare with that of marriage.

The implications of these truths are spelled out in the remainder of the book. Legal changes, for example, seem to be in order if it is true that easy divorce has such bad ramifications for children, adults and the broader community. A return to some kind of concept of fault in divorce laws is one possibility. Covenant marriage is another. But societies must make marriage more secure while making divorce more difficult.

Likewise, in education we need to do more to spread the message that marriage is a valuable social good, as well as a benefit to individuals. And the negative impact of divorce also needs to be made known. Just as society has cut down smoking, drink driving and other harmful behaviours by education campaigns, such an approach is needed here as well.

In the same vein, counselors and therapists need to reassess their approach to marital difficulties. Instead of simply blessing a quick divorce, more work needs to be done on getting couples to work through their difficulties, and reinforcing the ideal of marriage. And marriage educators need to restore the social dimension of marriage, instead of treating it in such a highly individualised manner. Marriage is much more than a private, individual affair, and this needs to be kept at the forefront of any counselling.

Indeed, on every front we need to affirm the goodness and usefulness of marriage and family, while pointing out the negative results of divorce and family breakdown. Individuals and societies both need to hear this message.

As John Witte concludes in his article on the goods and goals of marriage: "Stable marriages and families are essential to the survival, flourishing, and happiness of the greater commonwealths of church, state, and civil society. And a breakdown of marriage and the family will eventually have devastating consequences on these larger social institutions."

We now know this truth conclusively, with a wealth of social science research to back it up. The next step is to act accordingly. This book helps us to do just that.

I've used this and the previous edition of Greenberg's text for my epidemiology and literature interpretation course for Physician Assistant students. I've found the text very readable and nicely linked to clinical practice. Each chapter starts with a clinical case around which the chapter is focused. The study questions at the end of each chapter also are useful.

It is an excellent introductory text for clinicians/health professional students. Probably would not be the best choice for a epidemiology course in an epidemiology graduate program or career epidemiologists.

If change were easy, a lot of us (psychologists, counselors, health care providers) would be out of work. Still, that doesn't stop us from complaining about those clients and patients who just won't do what we think is in their best interest. Motivational Interviewing, a "client-centered, directive method for enhancing intrinsic motivation," was developed specifically to help faciliate change in "resistant" populations and has been embraced by addictions treatment and general health care professionals alike. The entirely re-written, highly readable, second edition of MOTIVATIONAL INTERVIEWING updates readers on the state of the art and science of MI, and provides a practical guide for helping people to make all kinds of behavior changes.

The book opens with a brief review of the converging lines of inquiry that supported the development of MI and an overview of core concepts such as readiness to change, ambivalence, and an interpersonally-based understanding of motivation. The second section is a guide to practice. Although "spirit" is emphasized over technique, this section is filled with practical advice on how to increase motivation for change while minimizing resistance. A new chapter on ethics addresses the concerns that arise when attempting to motivate clients to do something they aren't sure they want to do. Consistent with the method's client-centered approach, the third section constitutes a chapter on learner-centered training in MI. The fourth section - comprising about half the volume - includes diverse contributed chapters on applications of MI. These include a discussion of MI and the Stages of Change model with which it is often associated; an excellent review of efficacy research in MI; adaptations of MI such as brief advice and MI with couples or groups; and applications with specific populations and settings. The application chapters necessarily vary in format but share in common careful consideration of the rationale for MI in the particular setting and the available evidence for success along with offering clinical wisdom from the field.

The first edition of Motivational Interviewing has become a modern classic in the field, and the second edition is a worthy successor. Whereas the first edition presented MI as an alternative to traditional approaches to treating addictions, the second edition presents MI as an approach to helping people get "unstuck" regardless of the kind of behavior change in question. The key principles are more fully thought out, yet streamlined and presented in an almost conversational tone. The humanistic values that underlie MI are more consistently evident, yet the dedication to empirical validation of clinical insights remains. There is enough new material to justify buying this book even if you already have the first edition.

Though, this book is less known to the people, I found many useful hints from the high level thought to the low level careness.

A very well done book. It has many examples, with ample screen shots, of useful techniques.

I have used MIC for almost 2 years now, I'm an active participant in the MIC newsgroup, but even I learned a lot of new techniques from this book.

Tait and Sagman show how to use a very powerful tool, MIC, and make it deliver in very practical ways; with a short learning curve to boot!

With MIC, this book, and a little time invested, anyone can turn out professional caliber work for the web that will rival almost anything the other image programs can produce - all at a lower investment in money and time.

Buy this book!