I have used this book as the basis of several theatre and playwriting classes that I have taught. Ball's language is simple, though the words he creates to explain his theories, such as "trigger" and "heap" (a trigger is the moment when people's motivations are exposed, while a heap is the result of that action) make it it easy for any non-theatre person to grasp the clever concepts.

By having a person read a play backwards, Ball shows how to grasp the playwright's intentions, and the character's movements. It's a basic theatrical literary theatre that is surprisingly effective, especially in trying to teach young writers how to create a play.

I highly recommend this book to the theatre neophyte as well as the theatre professional.

David Ball's Backwards and Forwards is a concise, to-the-point handbook useful to anyone involved in theatre. He, step-by-step, gives methods of analyzing a play, using Hamlet as an example. This is a very useful technique, whereas some books of lesser quality will give information with no examples of application.

As an aspiring director I found the content very helpful, rudimentary, and although at times basic, always insightful. A must-have.

David Ball's book is a must-have for all students and professors of theatre. It demystifies the playwriting process and presents a simple, down-to-earth explanation of why a playscript works the way it does. In a word, it explains how scripts work. I find the deceptively simple explanations help the novices in my Introduction to Theatre classes understand how playscripts are put together and make a fun game of script analysis for these students--a concept that is often hard to communicate to Intro students. At the same time, it make so much sense that it becomes the cornerstone for Beginning Directing, Playwriting, and Script Analysis students. Students whom I teach using Ball's ideas always come through the semester with a lot of self-esteem because having such a solid cornerstone allows their creativity to take off in unexpected directions.

this is the most complete and useful textbook i use, and so are surgeons around me

As a member of the Danish Society for Surgery of the Hand, I have spent a lot of time browsing this text-book which has become the bible of many hand-surgeon world-over. The book is a complete listing of diseases in the hand, and covers everything about it. This book not only covers the diseases but also includes the most wanted "author`s preferred method". Drawings are good and easy to apply on patients. This bible will always be the backbone of my handsurgery.

This is the definitive textbook on hand surgery. Dr. Green should be commended for further improving what was already a comprehensive text.

There are now two editions of Boyle, the older version with an orange cover and the Barred Owl, and a newer version with a photo of a Hooded Warbler on the front. You'll want to make sure you get the latter, since many things have changed over the years.

It is one of the milder species of blasphemy, I suppose, to call any book one's "bible"; but since its appearance 17 years ago (!), Bill Boyle's NJBFG has served thousands of the birding faithful as ritual object and authoritative companion alike. My own copy of the first printing, with its ugly laminated binding in shreds and the bookblock bulging from tipped-in notes, photocopies, and clippings, is probably the single most used volume in my birding library: field guides come and go, but for nearly two decades now, Boyle has come and gone wherever I have.
Just how intensive my use of the book has been came clear to me with the arrival--"long-awaited," in the reviewer's cliche--of the second edition. As I read through the new treatments of areas long familiar to me, I discovered that (like many NJ birders) I'd actually memorized verbatim great chunks of the first edition, and that I noticed every new word and every new turn of phrase in the revised accounts. If it is true that every obsession is at its base religious, then this book truly is the birder's bible.
The birder's bible: divine in inspiration, certainly, but here and there the mortal nature of its human author peeks through. As anyone who has ever written anything knows, it is even more difficult to revise than to write, and this revised edition has some flaws that were not apparent in the first. There are far more copy-editing errors this time around, and the index--more important than ever, given the new book's rather breathless layout--is not an infallible help (just try to find the main entry for Merrill Creek!). Compared to the enjoyably expansive style of the first edition, the new entries strike me as occasionally a bit too concise, a problem that might have been eased by simply eliminating even more of the old sections treating sites that, like the Institute Woods, now offer (in Boyle's words) "the mere shadow" of their former glory; valuable space is also sacrificed to a number of new full-page illustrations.
These things having been said, the book is still an outstanding example of the bird-finding guide. The maps seem to be largely up to date and accurate (Sussex County birders: are Rockport and Blackdirt marshes really the same place?), the annotated species list is even more useful than in the first edition, and the binding isn't likely to crackle and peel. It will take only weeks, I am sure, for New Jersey birders to start quoting this new Boyle, chapter and verse.

This book is just as useful for seasoned birders as it is for the beginner, or the person new to New Jersey. Beginners will appreciate its review of New Jersey's best birding destinations; seasoned pros will enjoy the depth of the information and the amount of detail on nesting species and accounts of rarities.

For us locals, "Bird Finding" is great for those days when you want to hop in the car and travel to somewhere a little different, or if you want to explore a familiar destination a little more closely. The book offers detailed directions (although some of the exit numbers and streets have changed since its publication date), including which trail to follow, which tree to investigate, etc. Its accuracy is remarkable. It's clear Bill Boyle knows each location intimately and visits them often.

This is a must-have for any birder living in the state (and there are lots), and any vacationer planning to spend more than a weekend in New Jersey.

I was very impressed by the quality of the binding of this book, as well as the paper. It has been very difficult putting this little book down. Now I am enjoying reading this New Testament, and it really isn't difficult to understand, even with the original spelling. I highly recommend this book.

The worst thing that ever happened to the Bible was division into chapter and verse notation. When that happened it ceased to be so much a holy book as it became a law book. Prior to such notation one had to read the scriptures as a whole. One had to absorb the Spirit of the whole, instead of using a pick-and-choose study approach of those specific lines (usually taken out of context) that supported one's specific agenda. Indeed, text and verse division did not come into being until the 16th century- long after the end of high point of traditional Christiandom and the start of the age of the profane. The Tyndale is a wholistic work uncorrupted by artificial text and verse division. No doubt this was why the ruling class of the day considered it to be so dangerous.

Tyndale translated this work, alone, from the original Greek. This is not the work of a committee with an ax to grind. Actually, this is the translation that all English Bibles, including the King James, was based on until the 20th century. It seems no one else even attempted to translate the whole book from scratch into English from Greek until the modern age. Unless you can read Koine Greek yourself, it is still the best alternative.

I have heard various experts state that the King James version "eliminated" biases in the Tyndale. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The King James is in fact an edited and censored version of the Tyndale. If there was intensional bias involved it was in the minds of the rich and powerful who had Tyndale and his Bible consigned to the flames- and replaced with a "politically correct" substitute.

Tyndale's sole purpose was to get the undistorted, uncorrupted, word of God, as best he knew it, to the English people. He gave his life for that purpose. I prefer to trust his version for this reason.

The Word of God Preserved by God for the English speaking people by the promise of God. Psalms 12:6-7 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. Tyndale gave his life to get the Bible to the English people. Tyndale was caught: betrayed by an Englishman that he had befriended. Tyndale was incarcerated for 500 days before he was strangled and burned at the stake in 1536. His last words were, "Lord, open the eyes of the King of England". The start of the line of 7 English Bibles which ends with the crowning jewel the Authorized Version know as the King James Version. I must for Bible collectors. Best deal on the market. Other sites sale for $(...). I got mine used and it is brand new for $(...). Amazon is the way to go. Recommend the 1611 replica of the King James also. Also the 1560 Geneva Bible.

I found this book to be very refreshing and uplifting as well as erotic. He uses eroticism just enough to get you to the edge without KNOCKING you over. My favorite by far was Check One, because of its simplicity. Love it!

There is no other way to decribe Mr. Williams except for Da Bomb. He definitely has it goin' on with his book Simple Love. The fact that it's so simple is what makes it so extraordinary. He is so expressive that by the end of the poem you feel every emotion that he was feeling as he was writing it. Keep it up Mr. Williams. I am definitely feelin' you (Especially on that --If I Could Hear Some Saxaphone--) I am awaiting the next release of your great works.

Ondrea Nicole Lewis

Simple Love is a misnomer. According to the brutally honest poetry of David Brian Williams, there is nothing simple about love. Williams has treated us to an unusally candid perspective of the often masked pain felt by men in love. His touches of eroticism reveal his desire to please, and his plea heard in "Check One" begs for an easier approach to dating and mating. There is nothing in "Simple Love" that any of us can not relate to. This man wants to love and be loved. Don't we all?

When this book came out a couple of years ago it was the first and only book on designing speech recognition systems. It was very valuable then, but now more books are available that cover the same information and more, for a lot less money.

Developing speech applications is not easy to master. Even with VoiceXML becoming more widely adopted, there are a lot of intricacies that that a developer must understand. This book will provide you with a solid foundation to become an effective speech application developer.

The book did very well in presenting the limitations of the current speech recognition technology (dialog design, large vocabularies, promtp design, etc.) and made suggestions on how to overcome such problems in specific situations.

Author, Bruce Balentine's goal with How to Build a Speech Recognition Application is to produce the Strunk and White of speech recognition. An electronic musician and composer, Balentine was a pioneer in the speech recognition field. The text's examination of the problems of navigation from human perception to machine recognition give comprehension to even the layman. The book is well organized and structured with the +,/,- system which allows a novice to follow. According to linguist, Dr. John White, the first chapter could stand alone as a treatise on the dynamics of the human speech interface with the machine.

Like so many people in these unsettled times I long for a sense of stability and certainty. What is solid and unchanging if not our love of life and nature and the inspired word. That is why I recommend 'Journeying through the days 2002' with beautiful photography by David Hay Jones. The book is a rock upon which to rest our weary and battered souls.

At last, a diary and calendar that's spiral bound so it lies flat when you write! The photographs from around the world are great; some can even be looked at and studied for as long as it takes to fill a page with text. What's good, too, is that the quotes and so-called inspiring texts are not from Oscar Wilde and other masters of the ironic one-liner but words that go deeper than that. OK, some of the photo and text combinations are obvious. It shouldn't always be necessary to match so literally. But of the hundreds, indeed thousands, of calendars on the market, this is in the Top Three.

Journal-writing is a liberating exercise in so many ways. We are freed from the notion that other people's "truths" will save us, freed from the dogma of accepting 10-point programs to salvation. Although 'Journeying' is published by a Christian outfit it resists the temptation to point a fundamentalist finger at us. Instead, we are encouraged to listen to our inner voice, reflect on the beauty of our surroundings and use the thoughts of others, such as Martin Luther King, to enlighten our minds. Thankfully, too, the pitfalls of New Age "anything goes" are avoided. At last, Christianity has understood the meaning and content of humility! The photographs by up-and-coming European photographer David Hay Jones are sufficiently subtle and atmospheric to match this sensitive approach to spirituality. They are rarely obvious, certainly not commercial. Rather, they encourage us to look at the world and find our own truths, whether they be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, New Age or agnostic.

I remember in the 1970's when Alvin Toeffler's "Future Shock" was on the best seller list. I devoured it and made it a central part of my "Weltanschauung". It swept the whole country. When a friend told me about "Bold New World", I read it and felt quite sure it would also make the best seller list and would sweep the country. I was really surprised when it didn't, even though it did go through more than one printing. Some of what Knoke predicted is already a fact of everyday life - five years later. I'm sure a new edition will eventually be printed, but this one is still current.

The book is aptly subtitled: "the essential road map to the twenty-first century". The central theme of the book is that we now live in a "placeless society" - a society that is being restructured in every way. How we communicate, how we learn, how we bank, how we fight wars, how we create wealth, how we govern and are governed are all in flux. The world is being restructured for the 21st century. The 20th century will be thought of as the last century when people do not routinely interact with machines.

"Place no longer matters". We live in the age of "Everything-Everywhere". He examines the environment, migration, telecommunications, ethics, computers, war, money and other topics. Each chapter starts with several vignettes that take place sometime in the future. A few of the vignettes are a little far-fetched, but most are interesting and thought provoking, even five years after they were written. He has thought provoking ideas in many areas about what the world in the next millennium will be like:

Financial Centers are less important. Lenders and borrowers do not have to meet face to face or even be in the same place. Banking can be done across state national boundaries. Paper isn't so important, and neither are middlepersons.

Warfare will be changed, since an enemy could attack your capital without ever setting foot on the border.

Terrorism will replace warfare as the biggest threat to our security.

Government will eventually become a world government. National governments may lose some of its control to multinational corporations.

Economy: The infinite global labor pool will cause the labor unions to lose their grip over industry. Robots will continue to displace humans in increasingly complex tasks. The world will not be "unemployed", but rather "redeployed". In the Stock Market "Merrill Lynch's neural network...immerses itself in historic stock market data and teaches itself to recognize patterns of behavior in pricing. ... The more information such systems digest, the more they develop an uncanny ability to anticipate future events." In capital intensive projects such as aircraft or spacecraft, the best technologies from all over the world will be melded together into one or two designs used worldwide. Multicurrency accounts will enable writing and cashing of checks in any currency.

Large Corporations will fragment.

Telepresence will be developed so sights, sounds and tactile feelings will be transmitted just as words are transmitted over the Internet now. Datasuits will enable people to visit with and touch one another when they are located in different parts of the world. The computer revolution is in its infancy. "The true computer revolution has yet to begin."

Transportation Hypersonic flight, supertrains, and highly specialized fleets of cargo ships will transform our world. the expense of shipping overnight packages across the country is no more than shipping them across the street. Distances will still exist, but they will no longer so powerfully determine how society will be organized.

Demographics People will no longer have to live where they work. They will no longer be place bound. Population centers may shift, and may become less important as some people move away from more populous areas.

Schools and Learning will be uncoupled. Schools no longer need buildings (library, classrooms, auditoriums...). Lifelong learning will be required in lieu of or in place of degrees. Learning will be done in a body suit -- in a simulated environment that responds with artificial intelligence. Education will be redesigned to mimic reality. The student will be free to explore. "Countries that thrive in the twenty-first century will be those adapting their educational systems to the Placeless Society."

Religion is likely to have a resurgence as people strive to cope with rapid change.

Knoke covers a whole series of challenges the world faces that result from the changing foundations of society: Terrorism, xenophobia, detached labor force, pollution, radioactivity, environmental degradation, social class and a host of other problems.

Knoke is an investment banker, business consultant, and futurist. He has written a book that's thought provoking and well worth reading.

I remember in the 1970's when Future Shock was on the best seller list. I devoured it and made it a central part of my Weltanschauung. It swept the whole country. When a friend told me about Bold New World, I read it and felt quite sure it would also make the best seller list and would sweep the country. I was really surprised when it didn't. Some of what Knoke predicted is already a fact of everyday life - five years later.

The book is aptly subtitled: the essential road map to the twenty-first century. The central theme of the book is that we now live in a placeless society - a society that is being restructured in every way. How we communicate, how we learn, how we bank, how we fight wars, how we create wealth, how we govern and are governed are all in flux. The world is being restructured for the 21st century. The 20th century will be thought of as the last century when people do not routinely interact with machines.

Place no longer matters. We live in the age of Everything-Everywhere. He examines the environment, migration, telecommunications, ethics, computers, war, money and other topics. Each chapter starts with several vignettes that take place sometime in the future. A few of the vignettes are a little far-fetched, but most are interesting and thought provoking, even five years after they were written. He has thought provoking ideas in many areas about what the world in the next millennium will be like:

FINANCIAL CENTERS are less important. Lenders and borrowers do not have to meet face to face or even be in the same place. Banking can be done across state national boundaries. Paper isn't so important, and neither are middlepersons.

WARFARE will be changed, since an enemy could attack your capital without ever setting foot on the border.

TERRORISM will replace warfare as the biggest threat to our security. Government will eventually become a world government. National governments may lose some of its control to multinational corporations.

ECONOMY The infinite global labor pool will cause the labor unions to lose their grip over industry. Robots will continue to displace humans in increasingly complex tasks. The world will not be unemployed, but rather redeployed. In the Stock Market "Merrill Lynch's neural network...immerses itself in historic stock market data and teaches itself to recognize patterns of behavior in pricing. ... The more information such systems digest, the more they develop an uncanny ability to anticipate future events." In capital intensive projects such as aircraft or spacecraft, the best technologies from all over the world will be melded together into one or two designs used worldwide. Multicurrency accounts will enable writing and cashing of checks in any currency.

LARGE CORPORATIONS will fragment.

TELEPRESENCE will be developed so sights, sounds and tactile feelings will be transmitted just as words are transmitted over the Internet now. Datasuits will enable people to visit with and touch one another when they are located in different parts of the world. The computer revolution is in its infancy. "The true computer revolution has yet to begin."

TRANSPORTATION Hypersonic flight, supertrains, and highly specialized fleets of cargo ships will transform our world. the expense of shipping overnight packages across the country is no more than shipping them across the street. Distances will still exist, but they will no longer so powerfully determine how society will be organized.

DEMOGRAPHICS People will no longer have to live where they work. They will no longer be place bound. Population centers may shift, and may become less important as some people move away from more populous areas.

SCHOOLS AND LEARNING will be uncoupled. Schools no longer need buildings (library, classrooms,auditoriums...). Lifelong learning will be required in lieu of or in place of degrees. Learning will be done in a body suit -- in a simulated environment that responds with artificial intelligence. Education will be redesigned to mimic reality. The student will be free to explore. "Countries that thrive in the twenty-first century will be those adapting their educational systems to the Placeless Society."

RELIGION is likely to have a resurgence as people strive to cope with rapid change.

Knoke covers a whole series of challenges the world faces that result from the changing foundations of society: Terrorism, xenophobia, detached labor force, pollution, radioactivity, environmental degradation, social class and a host of other problems.

Knoke is an investment banker, business consultant, and futurist. He has written a book that's thought provoking and well worth reading.

Everything causes cancer. Right? Well, this book has thatsentiment beat. According to Knocke's theory, everything in today'ssociety causes people to become "placeless." The author would have you believe that if you aren't connected to a "community" you just might blow up a Federal building, or the World Trade Center, or drop chemical agents in a crowded subway, or believe there is an alien spaceship behind the nearest comet. But, who would do those things? I couldn't put this book down. It was like ripping the ski mask off my neighbor's face and really seeing him for the first time. I kept thinking that the author must be a little off. After all, who is going to believe that Boeing and McDonald Douglas will merge? Yep, he writes about it way before it happened -- AND he tells you why it happened! The placeless society is so unnerving that you shouldn't read it alone. Buy two; give one to a dear friend who likes to talk things over. This book definitely has a "place" on the keeper shelf in my house.

It may seem an immediate departure to discuss Blake's biography, but it must be considered. Leaving formal school at ten, Blake first entered a drawing school, very early evincing great artistic talent. An eight year apprenticeship with engraver James Basire was a milestone of Blake's rather low key life. Blake's talents in the art of engraving were immeasurably important to both the full expression of his poetry and visual art.

As a poet, Blake opted for an almost facile, rhythmic, lyrical approach. His metre was superbly tight, his vocabulary surprisingly controlled for an 18th century writer. Of the two parts, Songs of Experience is the better of the two; not only did five years give Blake's poetry just one more dash of prowess, but his topics are dealt with in a more effective and interesting manner. His subject matter also becomes more bleak, more wearily phrased. A perfect example: Here is a stanza from ...Innocence's The Divine Image

For mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human dress
And love, the human form divine
And peace the human dress

Compare this with the poem of the same name in experience:

Cruelty has a human heart,
And jealousy a human face
Terror, the human form divine
And secrecy, the human dress

Whyfore this turnabout, from an almost sanguine mentality to one so dour and unmitigatedly bleak that Blake excluded this poem and attendant engraving in most editions of his Songs...

First, the death of Robert, Blake's beloved younger brother and apprentice. It is said that Blake stayed up a fortnight nursing his ill brother; a four day sopor followed. Later, Blake was to report that he was visited by Robert's spirit, laden with ideas as to the format of the Songs. ...Such poems as the Chimney Sweeper and the Little Boy Lost are frightful, cynical visions of the fractured side of London life. Take this stanza from Little Boy Lost, a story of a child martyed for speaking his mind:

The weeping child could not be heard
The weeping parents wept in vain
They strip'd him to his little shirt
And bound him with an iron chain

And burned him in a holy place
Where many had been burned before
The weeping parents wept in vain
Are such things done on Albions shore?

This darker judgement of life does not preclude the two motifs most sacred to Blake: Religion and love. Poems such as the Clod and the Pebble, The Pretty Rose Tree, both Holy Thursdays, the Laughing Song, and the Lamb all explore some aspect of divine justice or the perverse or beautiful aspects of love.

Something fascinating: In that very racist, colony-crazy, native torching time, Blake iconoclastically treats the subject of race in the Little Black Boy, which describes a black child of such spiritual perception that he is able to guide his paler brethren on the path to God. This intimation of an oppressed race's closeness to an arcane but majestic God is a keynote in the study of the fiercely individualistic Blake. Buy this book when you see it.

I bought this book for a friend's birthday. At home, I read it through, soon experiencing the shameful thought that I wanted to keep it for myself. I didn't keep it, but I quickly found my own copy.

Fool that I am, I have never appreciated poetry much. This book opened my eyes. I write this review in the hope that someone may be encouraged to read it, and experience the wonder that it brought to me.

No words can do justice to these poems. I just marvel at how such seemingly simple compositions could contain so much meaning. Blake cuts straight to the spiritual essence of human existence. There are very few books that I could say have deepened my faith in God. This is one.

I was recently lucky to see the Gutenburg to Gone With the Wind Exhibit in Austin, Texas recently. At that marvelous exhibit I got to see one of Blake's original editions of Songs of Innocence. After that, I (of course) had to find a copy with the amazing poems and the amazing artwork by Blake. This edition satisfied both criteria well. First of all, the poems are brilliant. Everybody has read such works as "Little Boy Lost," "Little Boy Found," "The Shepherd," "The Lamb," and "The Tyger." These poems are just as good as they are made out to be. Each poem is excrutiatingly simple (in the style of children's verse), and each has such depth. The artwork is all in this edition, too, and it is fabulous. The colors are exactly like those of Blake's. I really think that the poems should never be read without Blake's engravings. This is a marvelous book for poetry lovers to own. It is high quality and affordable. Any fan of Blake's should own this book.

I will not discuss the story because I assume anyone looking for this edition of the book knows something of the novel. I will say that I think this edition is the best I have ever read and I enjoyed it immensely. I read the commentary and reviews with as much interest as I did the novel itself. The editor did a good job assembling an all star cast to review the book and provide background information.
Anyone interested in this novel, first time readers or fans of the book, should own this copy. It was fabulous from beginning to end. Make sure to read all the articles and reviews, you will not be disappointed.

This book is confusing and difficult to read at first. You have to ride it like you would a "rapid river"-- just hang on, get what you can, and go back a second or third time. It might be helpful to read the background information AFTER you've read the story at least once.

Now, does this sound like too much work? Well, it isn't. Once you've done the reading, you'll realize that there is real genius at work in this text. The prose is strongly crafted, and the story that Faulkner relates is one that cannot be forgotten. You will want to read the rest of the Compton's stories-- Absalom! Absalom! is one, and you'll never think of those big gorgeous moss covered southern mansions the same way again.

I read The Sound and the Fury last year for my English research paper. I'm glad I forced myself to read it and not get discouraged by the incredibly difficult first chapter. I wouldn't recommend this if you have trouble reading complex literature but the time I put into the work was well worth it and the criticisms and supplimental material in the Norton edition were very helpful...