England's Queen Mary--grandmother of the current Queen Elizabeth II--commissioned the construction of her extraordinary dollhouse (or "dolls' house" as it is referred to here) in 1921, during her own reign. It resides at Windsor Castle, as it has since being constructed there. Designed by Edward Lutyens (famous for his graceful furniture), the house is a reproduction of Windsor Castle right down to the last nail--almost literally.

David Cripps' photography beautifully captures the interiors of this amazing dollhouse, from the grand to the plebian. Here is the linen closet, each batch of towels tied with different-colored ribbon to denote whether they were intended for the nursery, the staff, or the kitchen. Here is a lacquer cabinet with gilded stand, dovetailed working drawers, and gold-leafed decoration. Here is a bed, complete with pillows, bolsters, sheets, blankets, and even a tiny walnut-handled bedwarmer. The toilet, complete with toilet paper discreetly placed in a bowl alongside, really works. The toothbrushes are made of ivory and have bristles made from the hair of a goat's inner ear. In the cellar, bottles of Chateau Margaux are properly corked and waxed and labeled. The pantry shows real bows of Fry's Chocolates sharing space with McVitie & Price biscuits, barley sugar candies in hefty glass candy jars, and Frank Cooper's Seville Marmalade in squat jars tied with brown paper and string.

The garage houses a miniature bicycle with brakes "in perfect working order," not to mention a Rudge motorcycle and sidecar, a seven-seater Rolls Royce limousine-landaulet, a Vauxhall, a "Sunbeam open tourer," and two Daimlers. Gorgeous royal crests are hand-painted on each. The house even has its own petrol pumps and fire appliances, as was normal for large houses in that era.

The house's garden is splendid despite the absence of a single living thing. The lawn, made of cut green velvet, boasts several tiny mowers (both motor-powered and not), and the nearby garden has its own lovely benches, hoes, spades and the like. There is even a robin's nest, complete with eggs, and a tiny, tiny snail.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing in the house is the book collection. Famous authors were asked to contribute their own works. Arthur Conan Doyle obliged by submitted "How Watson Learned the Trick," an original 500-word short story done in his own handwriting. The bookplates for each of the books were designed by beloved Winnie-the-Pooh illustrator Ernest Shepard. Rudyard Kipling submitted not only two poems, but illustrated them himself as well. Other well-known authors who gave their own works to the Queen's house included G. K. Chesterton, Joseph Conrad, Robert Graves, Aldous Huxley, Hilaire Belloc, Rose Macauley, W. Somerset Maugham, and Vita Sackville-West. Topping off the fine works of this distinguished crowd are the leather-bound autograph books--one each for famous folks from stage and screen, famous folks from the military, and famous politicans.

There is even a room for storing the scepter, crowns and other regalia--all featuring flawless gemstones!

The details are endlessly fascinating and the house and its furnishings so well-constructed that without a tennis ball or coin or some other everyday real object, you easily forget that everything your eye falls upon here is miniature. For those who cannot get to Windsor Castle themselves to view the house in person, this book offers a very fine tour.

This book is a fascinating study of the historical and cultural contexts for everyday foods. Each chapter looks at the history of a fruit or vegetable that is a common part of American foodways. The writers fill out the historical background with intriguing discussions of the social and cultural norms that are associated with nine different foods and also with tobacco use. Readers can find out the real scoop on Johnny Appleseed and also discover why the cities of Fulton and South Fulton host a banana festival in two towns that straddle the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. The book is an excellent resource for information about common foods in Americans' diets, but it also provides a model for writing a social history of significant aspects of everyday life. You'll never eat an orange or a slice of watermelon in quite the same way after reading this interesting and well-written book that presents solid folklife scholarship in a digestible format.

I know David Kahn and when he gave me this book to read for my script analysis class, it opened my eyes one how a play writen and why the writer made the choices he made. This book helps you take new scripts and break them down so they can be produced for stage or film. This book is great for actors when they first pick up a script to their rehearsals. It helps for directors when they discover the event chain of the play and character chain of the play. For set desginers when they discover the world of the play of the character. Also it helps for writing because you can see examples of these things in the workings of a completed play. This great book because it's easy reading. Another great tool for those in theatre.

This is a boxed set of two CD ROMs that are also sold separately: Software Process Assessment and Improvement (ISBN 1562523139) and Implementing a Quality Management System (ISBN 1853125938). Each CD ROM is described below:

Software Process Assessment and Improvement (ISBN 1562523139) contains nine articles that each deal with an aspect of software assessments or process improvements. It's main value is to consultants who specialize in general process assessment and process improvement (i.e., are more interested in best practices than a specific approach such as CMM or SPICE), and organizational SQA groups that are developing an enterprise framework.

Articles I liked best are: Chapter 3, which discusses assessment-oriented approaches and how they relate to various problem situations; and the software improvement model that is presented in Chapter 9.

In addition to 'nuts & bolts' articles, this collection also contains case studies, and also gives a good comparison among SPICE, the CMM and Bootstrap. This is ideal research material for the audience I cited above.

The material to be valid despite the age of the articles, most of which are over four years old. For the right audience this CD ROM represents a good investment in knowledge tools, but those who are interested in specifics should seek the appropriate book on the particular topic, such as CMM, SPICE, etc.

Implementing a Quality Management System (ISBN 1853125938) Is an excellent collection of articles on interpreting quality standards as they relate to software development, developing an implementation plan, and implementing and managing the system.

What I like is collection of experiences and lessons learned from implementation in real companies, and the two chapters that show that even small organizations can establish quality management systems. I also like the common theme, which is the competitive advantage that accrues from having a quality management system in place.

Much of the material is over four years old, but with the exception of ISO 9000 this isn't a problem because the implementation and management portions are still valid. The lessons learned are equally valid because the ones described in the various articles are the ones that will crop up in any implementation. This is a function of organizational change more than particulars of a particular quality management system approach.

The one article that I most liked described an industrial production approach to software and the parallels to manufacturing. Since this book was written SEI's product-line software engineering approach seems to incorporate many of the ideas expressed by the article's authors. I also found the article titled "Making Software Measurement Work" interesting and filled with advice on how to take this important element of a quality management system from theory to practice.

For both having the material on CD ROM is, in my opinion, an added bonus because it can be searched and is much more convenient to take as reference material on consulting assignments where much of this material can prove invaluable as cited work in findings and recommendations deliverables.

(This is a review from a third-year medical student who just finished his pediatrics rotation.)

The case presentations in this book are fast, easy to read, and concise. Each case is accompanied by a thorough discussion of the common physical exam and laboratory findings, disease process, and natural history, and the basics of treatment and follow-up are provided. The differential diagnoses given are broad enough to make you aware of less-common conditions and will guide you when you decide to look to other more in-depth sources (eg, current literature, or the hefty, all-inclusive "Bibles" of pediatrics).

Its philosophy of focusing on presenting symptoms is very logical when considering the patient population. Children are often unable to specifically tell you what's going on, where they're hurting, when they started getting sick, etc, and often a vague history and a few physical exam findings are all you get. Thus, the chapter titles "Fever and rash," "Cyanosis in a newborn," "Failure to thrive," "Runny nose," are consistent with the process you'll go through when admitting a child.

All the essentials are well-covered, especially the most common pulmonary problems (aspiration, asthma, pneumonia), and infectious disease issues (pharyngitis, gastroenteritis, sepsis, antibiotic choice). Points that are not so thoroughly discussed include:

- Many aspects of inpatient care (assesment of dehydration, fluid resucitation, management of pain and fever) - Genetics - Biochemistry, inborn errors of metabolism - Toxic ingestions - Orthopedics/sports medicine (common musculoskeletal injuries) - Hematology/oncology (anemias, leukemia/lymphoma) - Cardiology (cyanotic heart defects, murmurs) - Psychosocial, developmental, and neurologic problems (abuse, short stature, encopresis/enuresis, cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus)

A medical student using this book would do well to review these topics more in-depth later in the course of the rotation. That being said this is an enjoyable and ideal book to read early in the rotation as an introduction to pediatrics!

David Niall Wilson creates a new gospel (The Book of Judas), turns one of the pivotal characters in the Bible into a vampire, and puts an entirely new spin on the life of Christ, all with a stylistic flair that leads one to believe that maybe the author knows something we don't, but that we should. With vampire tales being a dime a dozen, and few of them worth the dime, THIS IS MY BLOOD stands out as one of the most thoughtful and creative takes on the legend one might hope to find. I suspect that even devout Christians will hardly find much to quibble with in regard to Wilson's interpretation of Biblical history and the existing gospels. The book explores personal faith with real thoughtfulness, wrapped in a witty and exciting package. Highest recommendation.

This is the translation that I first read (years after it was published) and loved. The novel has been around a long time but its attraction can be won or lost according to the translation. Another, later translation irked me so much that I didn't want to finish reading it. Now that I've found my favorite translation -- which I think is more poetic and does better justice to the style and mood of the Russian original -- I'm buying a copy for myself and one for a gift to someone in high school.

I found this book to be very readable and a great reference on why and how the PC computer architecture is like it is today. Clearly a bit dated in the scope of technologies covered, but what is covered is done so with great historical reference and a true understanding for the underlying technologies.

You know a book is good if you come away with a lot of new perspective, and I certainly did. I won't part with my copy for any amount of money.

Wilson's take on the early Irish immigrants to America is both thought provoking and important. Some of his points are a little strong: I'm not certain that the United Irishmen can be seen as a primary reason for the downfall of the Federalist Party. Still, he backs up his assertions with reasonable facts, and in so doing certainly opens debate on the matter. He does a fine job of showing both the radical nature of these immigrants as well as their scattered geographic nature (Denis Driscol, who became editor of the Augusta [Georgia] Chronicle is a perfect example of both). Wilson's book also emphasizes the Irishness of the United Irishmen, a point which should not be overlooked, given how the Dissenters in Ireland were appropriated by the establishment after 1798, and how modern America wants to emphasize the "Scots-Irishness" of the Dissenters. Wilson reveals these men as truly IRISH in thought and action.

Urban growth is pervasive. It can be as benign as following the signs to new housing tracks on weekend drives or discovering that old downtown buildings are being reused with trendy lofts. Is this growth simply the result of a free market at work or is it the result of a specific agenda created by a powerful lobby for the purpose of influencing politics? The Jonas and Wilson text explores through a compilation of scholarly essays, the urban growth machine thesis developed by Harvey Molotch over two decades ago.

It is a great reference point for practicioners, scholars, students or individuals interested in reading about one of the field's seminal arguments explaining urban economic development. As a graduate student I found a great reference point in my research. The reference section alone is worth the purchase. It is a great day for the serendipty of research when you can find a compilation of essays, both critical and supportive, of this major theme in the field of urban affairs.