I just read a review of Ol' Lady Grizelda in a local newspaper, one quote that captured me and forced me out to a bookstore to get the book was: "It made me wish I was a kid again and could ask my mother to read the story to me over and over again. And that's saying a lot..." As I flipped through the book I was first captured by the wonderful illustration then the story line told in a clever rhyme touched my heart. Grizelda is a lovable old woman who lives life in her own way and as is true often because of her individual characteristics, she is shunned by her neighbors and fellow townspeople. A child decides to dispel his fears and the rumors that abound about her and steps up to her door. That is where everything changes (including the text, cleverly changing from third person as in a rumor to first as in the child experiencing his own time with her). You will love this book, it is a treasure that we will read for many years to come. Now I must see about Mr. Matott's "adult" books as described on the jacket cover.

I have been using this book in my classroom for the past three years. I have to keep buying new copies because the kids wear this book out. If you want to use a book that teaches tolerance, love and ultimately the way all people would like to be viewed, read Ol' Lady Grizelda, you will be glad you did. It has also proven to be a wonderful tool for my slower readers because of the glossary included. The language is challenging enough for my picture book/chapter book straddlers and they love, LOVE, the illustrations!

Told with rhyme in presenting a "mysterious" older lady, Ol' Lady Grizelda gives us a delightful story. As a school Library/Media Specialist, I think this book is wonderful for reading aloud. We learn along with the main character that looking at people from afar is not always a true picture. We come to really like and appreciate this older lady. You will too!

I first read this book in 1972, the original 1947 edition. It is one of the few permanent items in my library. I read it again at least once a year. I have even tried some of the projects John describes including the radio set made out of bits laying around the cabin. If you want a relaxing and enjoyable read about life in the woods, get this!

Every true outdoors man and woman needs to read two books. One is Leopold's A Sand County Alamanac, the other is Cache Lake Country. If you've hunted, fished, and trekked the northwoods as much as I have, and love its brooding, dark beauty, this book will capture the sensations of the taiga. It is almost painful to read it if you find yourself trapped in someone else's idea of the good life, when what you really want to do is chuck it all for a cabin in the boreal forest.

I first read this book when I was 12 years old, I am now 46. I could not put it down and can not. I made my first knike sheath, first snow shoes, and my first moc;s (which remain my favorite type of moc's) from sketches from this book, as well as many of the other projects and they all lived up to expectations of a young teenager to present. You feel like you are there with the three men of the story. It is is one of the few books that I reread every couple of years. Worth every penney and then some.

"Coach of the Century" follows Gordon Wood's remarkable career from a small West Texas school to Brownwood, where he won 7 State Championships (Wood won 2 additional State Championships at other schools). Wood doesn't get bogged down in his childhood days. He talks about football.

If you enjoy high school football in the Great State of Texas and have always admired what Wood accomplished at Brownwood, this is a great read.

Great story of the winningest high school football coach of all times. Most seasons are prefaced with a brief historical background to provide the setting. Wood's memories concerning his dealings with opposing coaches (for example, Wood accuses John Clark's Plano Wildcats of "cheating" Brownwood out of a state title game by unethically swapping suspiciously-edited game films, and he discusses the psychology of determining locations for playoff games) go way beyond the facts reported in newspapers or viewed by fans in the stands. On the book's last page, Coach Wood published his home phone number and encouraged readers to call to meet him. I hope to do so!

Even if you don't like High School football, you have to love Coach Gordon Wood. He's a "man's man" who grew up tough, but displays a great deal of respect for his family, his assistant coaches, and his players. This combination has led to one of the most successful winning records in the game. Coach Wood doesn't cut any corners on his opinions. No "politically correct" stuff here. What you do get is a great look inside what is "right" about the game. One of the most impressive aspects of Coach Wood's career isn't his win/loss record - but rather the significant accomplishments that his players went on to achieve in the business, political and sports worlds. That speaks volumes about the impact that a Great Coach and a Great Man had on some young boys in Brownwood Texas. I wish my son could play for Coach Gordon Wood.

This is the best book I have found on the psychology and understanding of African masks. Just fantastic, worth the money. 80% color plates, brief outline of basic African mask types and their interpretation, grouped by region and by style.

First-rate, high quality throughout, this volume does what a book of this type should do: packs in plenty of color plates of the masks, and shows them being worn (in black-and-white in situ photos) on the accompanying left-hand pages of the spreads. The collection is far-ranging and, though it cannot include every type of mask, it does manage to convey the incredible variety, richness and paradoxical sophistication of this art form. Highly recommended.

This book has fantastic photos and information about the masks pictured. There are also archival photos of similar masks from earlier times. The most impressive part is the photos of the masks in use. I have often had trouble imagining how the masks were worn or used until this book. Not only are there photos of many of the masks in use the whole costume is also pictured. Truly one of the best books I've seen on the subject.

A truly comprehensive book, enjoyable to both read and look through. It covers the history and scope of air travel, including airport and aircraft design, corporate identities and marketing in a thorough, extensive and compelling manner. It is distinctive in how it successfully melds a global scope and a focused perspective.

This book is an excellent overview of the history of civil aviation, terminals, and airfields. The attention to detail, both photographic and linguistic, is marvelous and provides a wonderful account of airport design. The faithfulness to the original traveling photo exhibit allows readers the opportunity to experience the cultural presentation alongside the historical reconstruction. All in all, a wonderful book for any aviation fan.

BfAT is one of the most intriguing books you'll find about airports. It covers a lot of airport design aspects- but it is not an engineering book. In other words, you won't have to face boring charts and graphs. All you get is interseting texts, divided into differnt issues, and many rare and beautiful pictures. If you really like airports- you should have this book.

.Excellent ...

Over twenty years ago, Roger Fisher and William Ury published a thin volume entitled Getting to YES and immediately and fundamentally changed the field of negotiations. They called their new approach "principled negotiations" and its central tenets are taught and practiced throughout the world, often labeled as "interest-based," "win-win" or "collaborative" negotiations.

In their work, Fisher and Ury recognized that one of the greatest weaknesses in the traditional positional approach to negotiations was that it operated on "... the assumption of a fixed pie" (Getting to YES, p. 58). Negotiators in this setting spent their resources on dividing it.

Fisher and Ury then postulated that if negotiators turned from positions to focusing on the interests of the parties and then worked together to seek creative options to satisfy those interests, negotiations offered an unlimited potential for adding value for all the parties. It was a true break through.

"How you negotiate may determine," Fisher and Ury wrote, "whether the pie is expanded or merely divided" (Getting to YES, p.177). Their approach offered the promise of changing negotiations from a zero-sum game to a collaborative effort to create new value.

When Fisher and Ury published Getting to YES in 1981, it was far more than a theoretical treatise. Their work provided multiple examples of negotiating situations and interactions to illustrate their approach.

In the two decades that have passed since their book appeared, however, author after author has written a primer on how to do collaborative negotiations. Training programs have abounded on the subject.

Why, then, the reader might ask, is yet another book on how to achieve the promise of the collaborative approach important. It is vital because negotiators continue to struggle with practicing the concept.

Expand the Pie uses the experiences of its three authors in consulting, training and coaching to teach the reader "what to say and do" on order to successfully practice collaborative negotiations (Expand, p.2). Two of the authors of this companion piece to Getting to YES, Grande Lum and Irma Tyler-Wood, were students of Professor Fisher. Fisher calls Expand the Pie "...perhaps the most useful book you will find"(Expand the Pie, p.i). This reviewer fully concurs.

At it's core, collaborative negotiating requires careful and thorough preparation, an orchestrated process towards clearly defined objectives during the negotiations and the patience and skill to keep the participants focused on creating value. Expand the Pie provides a tested, clear and easily understandable step-by-step guide to the process. I am convinced you can become truly a successful collaborative negotiating leader by using this complementary volume to Getting to YES.

The key to collaborative negotiating is clear in the Getting to YES and reinforced by the authors of Expand the Pie. "Prepare, then prepare some more, and finally, prepare again" (Expand the Pie, p.185). This said, what do we need to know?

The writers begin by focusing on the key elements of the negotiation and introduce a preparation model they call ICON, standing for Interests, Criteria, Options, and No agreement alternatives. It is these elements that the negotiator must explore in detail to ready themselves for negotiations.

Using their model, the authors clearly define and discuss the importance of each of the elements and offer solid suggestions on how to prepare fully. We follow real negotiating cases, use simple negotiating worksheets and encounter quick summations and review questions at the end of each chapter as we move along. It is a brilliantly constructed self-learning approach.

When the first section is completed, the reader will have identified the interests of all the stakeholders, prioritized them and tagged complementary and opposing interest clusters. Also, the reader will have searched for potential options, identified criteria that might be used to evaluate various options and analyzed their position and alternatives in the event that no agreement is concluded.

Having planned the basic elements of the negotiation, the reader moves to the next section on formulating a strategy for conducting the negotiation in a collaborative manner. The authors present another organizing device for this phase that they call the 4D Process: Design, Dig, Develop and Decide. At this stage, the reader is setting goals for the negotiations, devising methods to probe for interests and brainstorm for creative options and learning to develop decisions through a variety of interim steps.

Once again, the reader examines accounts of actual negotiations, explores clear expositions of the essential steps in each process and employs negotiating worksheets and review questions to reinforce the learning process. It is practical and clear direction that the reader will find absolutely on target.

Finally, recognizing that even the most carefully planned negotiation may go astray, the authors address a litany of "difficult tactics" the negotiator may encounter and offer a strategy for dealing with each of these ploys and tricks. Additionally and importantly, they focus their strategies beyond merely countering these tactics and give the reader some solid ways to redirect the negotiation back to a collaborative format. The redirection advice is particularly valuable.

You will find much more in this book including some valuable observations on the nature of negotiations in general. The authors correctly point out, for example, that "the reality of negotiating is that the parties involved are advocates for their interests or the interests of their organization" (Expand the Pie, p. 142). As advocates, negotiators, of course, owe it to themselves and their organizations to "aim for the best possible agreement" (Expand the Pie, p. 139). Implicit in that need are the two key messages of this book:
"Until you create value, any price is too high," that is, expanding the pie (Expand the Pie, p.64)
"Prepare, then prepare ... (Expand the Pie, p.185).

Expand The Pie will show you how to negotiate, guide you as you do it and pay-off in creating more value in your negotiations. It is not just a follow-on book, but a true companion piece to its intellectual wellspring.

I strongly recommend it.

John D. Baker, Editor
The Negotiator Magazine

Collaboratively written by professional business negotiators Grande Lum, Irma Tyler-Wood and Anthony Wanis-St. John, Expand the Pie: How To Create More Value In Any Negotiation is a straightforward and "user friendly" guide to improving one's skill at negotiation and bargaining. Individual chapters cogently address the importance of abandoning preconceptions and readying oneself before approaching the negotiation table; the 4D process (Design, Dig, Develop and Decide) to see discussion through to closure; using objective standards; and much more. An excellent self-help guide useful in both business and daily life, Expand The Pie is especially recommended for those new to negotiating business contracts.

Collaboratively written by professional business negotiators Grande Lum, Irma Tyler-Wood and Anthony Wanis-St. John, Expand The Pie: How To Create More Value In Any Negotiation is a straightforward and "user friendly" guide to improving one's skill at negotiation and bargaining. Individual chapters cogently address the importance of abandoning preconceptions and readying oneself before approaching the negotiation table; the 4D process (Design, Dig, Develop and Decide) to see discussion through to closure; using objective standards; and much more. An excellent self-help guide useful in both business and daily life, Expand The Pie is especially recommended for those new to negotiating business contracts.

I've looked for this book for ten years, and can't believe I finally located it! I loved the story when I read it (circa 1975) but then lost track of the title. I knew it was about a bat and a flying squirrel, and it was called 'something...In the Night Woods.' A great mystery book for kids. Can't wait to read it again.

Like other reviewers of this book, this was one of my favorite stories. I think I checked it out of the school library a dozen times. It is entertaining and it makes you think. Both boys and girls appreciate this wonderful mystery.

I loved this book. I got it in either second or third grade (~1970) and read it over and over. The mystery was great and I felt transported to a different world. I would recommend it to any kid who likes mysteries and adventure stories. I was really pleased to see that it was reprinted and am buying a copy for my own son.

Interesting, isn't it, that it took a Belgian photographer to create a book filled with exquisite black and white images of the American West specifically symbolized by the small town rodeo cowboy. I was immediately reminded of John Huston's brilliant movie, THE MISFITS in which, Montgomery Clift who could easily have been playing one of these very cowboys, calls his home to sadly tell his family that he has failed, once again, to win a prize or top money. A desperately sad scene, played brilliantly by Clift, written by none other than Arthur Miller.

Arena Editions has produced a handsome volume for Wouter Deruytter's magnificent pictures in which the horses, riders, clouds, mesas and mountains look as if they come directly from a John Ford western starring John Wayne. Here we see young men preparing themselves for tests as grueling as chivalric games from the Middle Ages.

I do not usually like alot of text accompanying books of photographs: I prefer to let the images speak for themselves. That said, John Wood's wonderful essay "Youthful Elegance and the Masks of Destiny" helps a city slicker like myself understand exactly what Deruytter's photographs are saying.

Some of my favorites include a little boy sitting astride a metal barrel pretending that the barrel is his first rodeo horse, the same boy practicing wrapping tape around his wrist as his older mentor/idol/friend does the same, a pen filled with black, brown, white horses looking as if they would give the world to be free and, finally, an unnamed cowboy stretching his legs, getting ready for the games, doing a deep bend, so very close in looks to a ballet dancer's plier. This is a beautiful, moving book. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Wouter Deruytter is a Belgian photographer best known for his images of people in masks and costumes ranging from drag queens to circus performers. In Wouter Deruytter: Cowboy Code, we are treated to his photographic images of the American West drawn from three summers spent photographing Montana cowboys and the small town rodeos of Big Sky country. Augmented by John Wood's informative text, Wouter Deruytter: Cowboy Code is a photographic compendium with strong appeal for students of photography, as well as the non-specialist general reader with an interest in the cowboy culture of the modern American West.

This volume of rodeo photographs presents young men engaged in a lifestyle that is desperately under-appreciated -- and often mocked -- by many academics and much of the American literati as unsophisticated drones of Western resource exploitation.

Far from being automatons, these men have no pretense regarding their communion with nature; it is their LIFE. Whether relaxing, preparing for an event, or nursing wounds, these gentlemen evince a stoic elegance that is all but absent in the trappings of modern urban life.

Like his mentor Bruce Weber, Mr. Deruytter has a great eye for demonstrating that even that which is ultra-masculine retains far more than a glint of delicacy.

A solid pick for those interested in rural western life, and for those who appreciate cowboys yet to have their faces etched by the natural elements.

John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise regained are enticing, interesting, enjoyable, and thought provoking. Milton creats Satan, he whom we were all raised to hate, as a being not purely evil, but with aspirations just like the rest. More disturbing so, was the way Milton managed to portray God as not only good. This book causes one to think and reexamine everything they have believed to be true since they began studying and learning about their own religion. That isn't always a bad thing.

Mr. Milton is without a doubt, a liteary genius! I got intrested in the book from a quote, which I read in John London's The Sea Wolf. Even though, I am only 17, the views presented in Paradise Lost, as well as Paradise Regained could still be used today. I highly reccomend this book to ones who want to know where it all started.

I must admit that this has been probably one of the hardest texts that I have ever read ( well in league with Thomas Paine's Common sense). However, it, i.e., Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton, Christopher B. Ricks(Editor) also is one of the most beautifully written and well written pieces of literature ever produced. Milton, has a sense for language that can only be compared with the great writers of the literary tradition, e.g., Dante, Shakespeare, and Thoreau. Writers of today lack these skills and cannot write with the same complexity as the great authors of the past. A good example of this when one reads Dante's Inferno or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.; these stories are both good examples of a lost art that Milton was a master at. The art of writing a story in the form of a poem without the story in question sounding phony or having lines that do not make sense. The story itself, i.e., Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton, Christopher B. Ricks(Editor) is very hard to follow if one is not a biblical scholar and most of the angels are new to me ( which does not disturb me a bit, since most people nowadays, do not study the Bible as they did during the life time of Milton and his contemporaries). Overall, I would have to say that this story, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton, Christopher B. Ricks (Editor) is easily one of the most thought provoking stories that I have ever read and I will definitely recommend it to anyone remotely interested in well written literature.

I mistakenly bought this book thinking that is was full of naked women. This book is full of great pictures filled with details and textures. But, it is all men...not what I was looking for. Seemed like a nice book, but just not for me.

Magnificent collection of photographs by Steph Gorkii. The photographs play off the theme of death/eros/youth and have both a Noir and Heartbreaking feel to them, of youth cut down in its prime and the eerie relationship between sex and death. These are not depressing photos or "shock" photos--far from it. They are, as the title suggests, "nostalgic" for a lost youth, a youth that has passed away. Great collection and highly recommended.

Steph Gorkii's "Nubile Nostalgia", a collection of photos, travel from neo-classical to gothic to innovative. The couple dozens of images included here are sample of the continent spanning map of muses Gorki pours his heart and developer into. He knows each one and it is shown in how he places his "boys" in the haunting landscapes and interiors. Phalluses on the brink of danger (a scythe pushes into one model), drugs brothered with sex (a fix being had shortly before or maybe after he's had his way), angelic gazes (love at first and every sight thereafter), and out-and-out worship fuel Gorkii's trigger finger. The spirit of these works are reminiscent of Thomas Eakins elegant photo studies and Francis Bacon's many tortured representations of his lover in their tranquility-coated ferocity. The range of pieces here carry from his life in Provincetown, MA. where Gorkii was a big fish in on a small cape, to Seattle, WA. in it's early nineties hey-day. His eyes are driven by his muses and his mind by his extensive knowledge of and passion for classical and modern art. Having had the opportunity on occasion to interview Gorki, I am always astounded by his fully-armed sensibilities. His talents stretch from his Johns/Rauschenburg-esque assemblages (of which tragically, none are included in this tome) to his horrifically erotic collages and smarmy self-published zines. "Nubile Nostalgia" contains his scientifically erotic memories of young men for whom his passion and compassion for, speaks volumes.