This book has been edited skillfully. It contains highly readable articles and essays, especially on population issues.

As one of those whose writing is included in this anthology, I must say that I feel very proud indeed. My partisanship aside, I speak as a veteran journalist and author: this is a must-read work of journalism--especially for young journalists and general audiences.

I have always found The Earth Times to be a wonderful newspaper covering such critical issues as population, the environment and sustainable human development. This book now gathers together some of the finest articles that have appeared in the newspaper over the last decade. It is highly recommended reading for diplomats, policymakers, students, teachers--everyone who has a stake in the way we live and how our common future is being shaped.

Jeffrey Powers has produced a detailed roadmap to life using an incredibly succinct style. His prophecy "The Reach" in 1994
vis-a-vis the power of Corporations and of the Individual via the Internet is uncanny. His "SmartUniverse" reflects our wish for the ideal world while simultaneously exposing the issues reflected in a "nation without borders"---mainly our current inability to attach terrorists to any particular land mass. If you read this book over and over, the subtleties of the Jeffrey Powers vision will become clearer and clearer. Getting to know Jeffrey Powers is a plus for individuals at all levels of sophistication.

The "Back Page" is a very unique blend of reality and humor! Mr. Powers is in a league of his own.. The "Back Page" offers a comic book feel with a powerful theme! Clever, amazing, entertaining, and comedy! I think everybody should read this literary works of art.. I've given the "Back Page" as gifts to spread the wisdom!

I just finished the Jeffrey Powers book, "BACK PAGE-The Smart Universe Revealed". The author has a gifted and very unique outlook on life. The book reminds us of life's simple truths through a magical combination of wit, poetry and art. The ultimate refresher course on life, and a "study guide" on attracting, and then basking in the glow of success. It has a such a fresh new style of presentation for its subject matter...I just loved the book! If you haven't, read it, look at it, savor it. It's funny how funny the truth can be!

There was one another 50's icon who rivals Marilyn in popularity today--Bettie Page. True, she didn't make any A-movies, but like Marilyn, embodied that woman who drew a fine line between good girl/bad girl and crossed the lines as easily as one drank Coca-Cola. Unlike Marilyn, Bettie survived, but like Marilyn, her legend lives on for one simple reason: she dropped out of sight in 1957 following the fall of Irvin and Paula Klaw by the Kefauver Committee on indecency and pornography and refused to have herself be photographed as she is now. Thus, she is remembered as she was back then. And as her life has become simpler, she values her privacy. She says so as much in the hand-written foreword, at the same time surprised and honoured that so many people are interested in her.Karen Essex and James L. Swanson book is a great place to start for those curious about Bettie Page. Basically, it's a biography accompanied by lots and lots of colour and b&w photos, many of them topless. There are two of them which has her completely nude. She also posed for countless magazine covers and photographers. Art Amsie's photos are the best of the lot here. Bunny Yeager is touched on briefly, but that woman has a book on herself so... Looking at the early Bettie, before she became a pin-up from 1947, is also quite a revelation. She is still beautiful, but in an ordinary way, like a typical girl growing up in 1940's America.There is clearly a dualism going on here. There's the pretty wholesome girl in the bathing suit or maybe not, and then there's the darker leatherbound fetish girl, be she receiver or giver. That latter half led to her downfall. The point also was that she enjoyed her work, mainly the lighter beach stuff. You can see it in those twinkling eyes and smile of hers.The last section of the book features models who have been influenced by her, be they in clothes or just looking like her. Of the lookalikes, Eva Herzigova, Debi Mazar, and Janice Dickinson have got it down to the bangs, (it's the bangs that did it for Bettie, after all), long black hair, and prominent eyebrows.Apart from being one of fantasy artist Olivia's favourite subjects, Bettie's images appear on album covers by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and the David Lee Roth Band. Her three videos, Teaserama, where she acts opposite stripper legend Tempest Storm, Varietease, and Strip-O-Rama have come out. She'll live on, no doubt about it.Anyone interested in Bettie Page-start with this book. You won't be disappointed.

This is the ultimate book on Bettie Page. This book is for every true Bettie fan. Even contains an introduction from Bettie herself.

If you really want to follow the history of legend, this is the ultimate book on Betty Mae Page!

So said one of her photographers. What a marvelous book. If you're like me, and have been a Bettie fan for years, you've been waiting for this book. For years one could find stuff on her only in comic shops and the like, dealing in old memorabilia from the Fifties, or in various "alternative" shops that sold her image on T shirts. As a teen that's where I learned about her, thanks to "The Rocketeer," the comic "The Bettie Pages," and psychobilly trash-punk band the Cramps, who for a short time had a bass player the spittin' image of our fair maiden. Now that we've finally opened our eyes, we can buy several books on her, this being by far the best. It is the ne plus ultra of Bettiebooks, of pin-up books in general. What a trend-setter; a humble, troubled, open and honest woman who was not exploited, who has not turned herself into a PC victim--she's idolized by smart, hip young women who see in her freedom, sexuality, playfullness, life itself. This book had better be reprinted--it's an absolute crime to be unavailable. Get this book by any means necessary!

I rushed home every day after work to read a little more of this Trollope comedy. The book starts out with the death of a bishop during a change in political power. The new bishop is a puppet to his wife Mrs. Proudie and her protégé Mr. Slope. Along the way we meet outrageous clergymen, a seductive invalid from Italy, and a whole host of delightfully ridiculous characters. Trollope has designed most of these characters to be "over the top". I kept wondering what a film version starring the Monty Python characters would look like. He wrote an equivalent of a soap opera, only it doesn't take place at the "hospital", it takes place with the bishops. Some of the characters you love, some of the characters you hate, and then there are those you love to hate. Trollope speaks to the reader throughout the novel using the mimetic voice, so we feel like we are at a cocktail party and these 19th century characters are our friends (or at least the people we're avoiding at the party!). The themes and characters are timeless. The book deals with power, especially power struggles between the sexes. We encounter greed, love, desperation, seductive sirens, and generosity. Like many books of this time period however, the modern reader has to give it a chance. No one is murdered on the first page, and it takes quite a few chapters for the action to pick up. But pick up it does by page 70, and accelerates into a raucously funny novel from there. Although I didn't read the Warden, I didn't feel lost and I'm curious to read the rest of this series after finishing this book. Enjoy!

"Barchester Towers" has proven to be the most popular novel Anthony Trollope ever wrote-despite the fact that most critics would rank higher his later work such as "The Last Chronicle of Barset","He Knew He Was Right" and "The Way We Live Now".While containing much satire those great novels are very powerful and disturbing, and have little of the genial good humor that pervades "Barchester Towers".Indeed after "Barchester Towers",Trollope would never write anything so funny again-as if comedy was something to be eschewed.That is too bad,because the book along with its predecessor "The Warden" are the closest a Victorian novelist ever came to approximating Jane Austen."Barchester Towers" presents many unforgettable characters caught in a storm of religious controversy,political and social power struggles and romantic and sexual imbroglios.All of this done with a light but deft hand that blends realism,idealism and some irresistible comedy.It has one of the greatest endings in all of literature-a long,elaborate party at a country manor(which transpires for about a hundred pages)where all of the plot's threads are inwoven and all of the character's intrigues come to fruition."Barchester Towers" has none of the faults common to Trollope's later works -(such as repetiveness)it is enjoyable from beginning to end.Henry James(one of our best novelists,but not one of our best critics) believed that Trollope peaked with "The Warden"and that the subsequent work showed a falling off as well as proof that Trollope was no more than a second rate Thackeray.For the last fifty years critics have been trying to undo the damage that was done to Trollope's critical reputation."Barchester Towers"proves not only to be a first rate novel but probably the most humorous Victorian novel ever written.

This is the second of the six Barsetshire novels, and the first great novel in that series. THE WARDEN, while pleasant, primarily serves as a prequel to this novel. To be honest, if Trollope had not gone on to write BARCHESTER TOWERS, there would not be any real reason to read THE WARDEN. But because it introduces us to characters and situations that are crucial to BARCHESTER TOWERS, one really ought to have read THE WARDEN before reading this novel.

Trollope presents a dilemma for most readers. On the one hand, he wrote an enormous number of very good novels. On the other hand, he wrote no masterpieces. None of Trollope's books can stand comparison with the best work of Jane Austen, Flaubert, Dickens, George Eliot, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky. On the other hand, none of those writers wrote anywhere near as many excellent as Trollope did. He may not have been a very great writer, but he was a very good one, and perhaps the most prolific good novelist who ever lived. Conservatively assessing his output, Trollope wrote at least 20 good novels. Trollope may not have been a genius, but he did possess a genius for consistency.

So, what to read? Trollope's wrote two very good series, two other novels that could be considered minor classics, and several other first rate novels. I recommend to friends that they try the Barsetshire novels, and then, if they find themselves hooked, to go on to read the Political series of novels (sometimes called the Palliser novels, which I feel uncomfortable with, since it exaggerates the role of that family in most of the novels). The two "minor classics" are THE WAY WE LIVE NOW and HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT. The former is a marvelous portrait of Victorian social life, and the latter is perhaps the finest study of human jealousy since Shakespeare's OTHELLO. BARSETSHIRE TOWERS is, therefore, coupled with THE WARDEN, a magnificent place, and perhaps the best place to enter Trollope's world.

There are many, many reasons to read Trollope. He probably is the great spokesperson for the Victorian Mind. Like most Victorians, he is a bit parochial, with no interest in Europe, and very little interest in the rest of the world. Despite THE AMERICAN SENATOR, he has few American's or colonials in his novels, and close to no foreigners of any type. He is politically liberal in a conservative way, and is focussed almost exclusively on the upper middle class and gentry. He writes a good deal about young men and women needing and hoping to marry, but with a far more complex approach than we find in Jane Austen. His characters are often compelling, with very human problems, subject to morally complex situations that we would not find unfamiliar. Trollope is especially good with female characters, and in his sympathy for and liking of very independent, strong females he is somewhat an exception of the Victorian stereotype.

Anyone wanting to read Trollope, and I heartily believe that anyone who loves Dickens, Austen, Eliot, Hardy, and Thackery will want to, could find no better place to start than with reading the first two books in the Barsetshire Chronicles, beginning first with the rather short THE WARDEN and then progressing to this very, very fun and enjoyable novel.

I finished reading this in one day -- that's how gripping I found it. It's literary in the way that F. Scott Fitzgerald and Willa Cather are literary -- the diction and syntax are polished, the setting is captured with precise details, but the plot comes through clearly -- and it's hard to put this down once you start to read it. This is my first Dawn Powell novel, but I intend to read all of her works after this amazing introduction.

Dawn Powell (1896 -1965) wrote novels about her youth in small town Ohio at the turn of the century and about New York City, where she spent most of her adult life. In general, Powell wrote the New York City novels, such as "Turn Magic Wheel", and "The Locusts Have no King" later in her career. They tend to be sharp satires. Her earlier Ohio novels, such as "Dance Night" and "Come Back to Sorrento", are marked, I think, by a depiction of small town life which is critical and bittersweet, as well as somewhat satirical, and by a restlessness and sense of frustration, ...

Powell worked for three years on "My Home is Far Away" which was published in 1944. She had difficulty with the book, writing and rewriting the various scenes as she tried to fictionalize her biography and turn it into a novel. The book appears in the midst of her New York novels, and it is a throwback in to her earlier books with its setting in Ohio, its focus on childhood, and its bittersweet tone. Powell intended this novel as the first of a three-part trilogy, but the other two volumes never materialized.

Most of Powell's novels seem to me distinctly autobiographical in tone and "My Home is Far away" is particularly so. It tells the story of a family, focusing on three young sisters, Lena, Marcia, and Florrie, their father Harry, their mother Daisy, and, after Daisy's death, their stepmother Idah. There are basiclly three parts to the story: the period leading to the death of Daisy, and intervening period in which the three girls are raised by their father and assorted other relatives, and a the period after their father remarries and the girls are subjected to a cruel stepmother. When they find they can no longer take the abuse, they leave home and come into their own lives.

The title of the novel, "My Home is Far Away" derives from an Irish song that the girls sing with their mother. The title well captures some of the rootlesness of the family as they move from here to there. It also evokes well the longing for a home life and for a stability which the family, and Dawn Powell, never had.

One of the problems with this book is diffentiating the characters of three young girls. On the whole, this is handled effectively. The Dawn Powell character is the middle sister, Marcia, who is plain but highly precocious. The older girl, Lena, is much more sociable and outgoing.

The family moved a great deal from one small Ohio town to another and to different places within various towns. The most effective scenes in the book for me were the pictures of many dingy, run-down hotels and small town back streets during which the girls spent much of their childhood. The father, Harry, was a travelling salesman who, for most of the book, has difficulty holding a job and spending time with his family. He professes to love his family, but doesn't provide well. He spends his time and money hanging around with his friends and, apparently, with women in various towns.

One key moment in the book occurs rather early in it when the girls' mother dies. This scene is beautifully told. Then we see Harry trying to shunt the girls off to various relatives until he finally attempts to care for them himself. The marriage to Idah brings Harry some stability, but at a terrible cost. Idah is a shrewish, jealous stepmother. The two older girls both leave home to get away from her.

This book has some slow moments, but it is a wonderful coming-of-age novel and gives a good picture of the rural midwest. It is good that Dawn Powell's novels are in print and readily accessible. It is intriguing to think how she might have proceeded in the remaining two projected volumes of her autobiographical trilogy.

Dawn Powell was no whiner- and as this highly autobiographical novel attests, she had plenty of reason to complain! The story of her turn of the century Ohio childhood, is told through the viewpoint of Marcia, the gifted, plain, middle child of three motherless sisters. Despite a neglectful, absent and grandiose father, ( a child himself,) and a host of inadequate relatives, the girls are largely delighted with their world, which by modern standards is one of poverty and neglect. The book is an object lesson in attitudes and expectations that become reality.
This was an era that discouraged pity, and would have been dumbfounded by modern 'confessional' trends. The attitudes toward children, would be barbaric today. The girls remained loyal to their father, even as they grew to understand his weaknesses, and they found delight in characters that would be considered dangerous and forbidden today. Their own grandmother, refusing to attend to fire safety, managed to burn down four houses, including her own, from which weeks before the girls had just been removed. This is a story of a triumph of childhood with nothing of the tone of the adult looking back in a lament. In some ways, it is similar to "Angela's Ashes," another horrible experience of childhood, that uniquely avoids the subject of depression and rage. This even holds true for the archetypical wicked stepmother, an unrelenting, hateful woman who sadistically confiscated or forbade any object or activity of pleasure.
The most amazing part of Marcia, is this 'game' she played, when she was in the midst of an ordeal. She could reach down inside of herself and become the person who was devoid of reactions to the current stress and be completely strong and capable of enduring the trauma through to the end. It is a testimony, spoken by a child, of the human spirit, and the infinite manifestations and sources of power by which mankind survives. I will definitely read this book again, for its fresh outlook and restrained economy.

I had seen this book around but hadn't purchased because I didn't think a one-page business plan, even if possible, could be of any practical use.

I have been involved in several successful startups and have done a fair bit of business planning. I had even won prestigious awards for it. Currently I am involved in another startup, Worldlingo.com, an internet startup focused on language translation.

So what changed my mind - why did I purchase it?

I saw the author speak and he made a lot of sense, so I thought I had better get his book and check it out once and for all. If half of what he said was right - this one page business plan was going to be a big help.

It so happened I had a long 14 hour flight in front of me and took the book along to read. Its friendly style, graphics, and plain good sense (frankly the book is more like a kids coloring book then a traditional business planning book) enticed me to do the exercises as I went (which I never usually do). Answering the questions for my business and me.

Not only had I finished the book by the end of the flight, but I also had time to type up the final product on my laptop. I guess having already done a full blown traditional business plan for the business helped.

I have to say I was feeling pretty pleased with what I had produced. I felt more focused and had a much clearer picture of what the most important things were that needed to be achieved next.

But the most thrilling part was when I tabled it our staff meeting - they loved it. They could clearly see where we were heading, what we had to achieve, and it gave them a clear framework in which they could make the many decisions they have to make everyday.

The language translation business has been around for centuries, but the opportunities for it on the internet are changing and evolving very fast. This one page business plan is easy and quick to update, and the staff can quickly understand any refinements to our goals.

But actions speak louder than words, since I have purchased another 10 copies to give away to my product managers (so they can do a plan for their products) and the CEOs of other businesses I am involved in.

I think the one page business plan is a great management tool that will have a very positive effect on our business. I am already seeing the benefits.

I guess the joke was on me.

There are books on how to design business plan, and there are books. Sure, you can have a thick book, that will take weeks to read and understand. But if you have a need to not only understand the essense of a business plan, but the essense of your business, your vision, your goals - this is the book for you! Don't miss it! Ronen Ben-Naphtali, NY

Being a severely right-brained person, the thought of actually having to sit down and put to paper a plan for my business was painful. When my coach sent this book to me, I was reluctant to even open it. But, when I did and saw the graphics and journal style layout, I couldn't put it down. I now have a vision for my business that stretches much further than I ever thought possible. What a tool!

I just started to learn ASP. I have programming experience so it was relatively easy for me. This book has great, easy, PRACTICLE examples for what you would use in a real-life application! It delivers that reasonably well. In addition, explanation of ASP basics done very well. On the other hand, I wish the code examples could have been formatted better for easier reading; for example, perhaps the keywords could have been in a different color, and use of indentation inside loops, and If..Then..Else statements, would make for easier reading. Overall, great book, great price!

As a HTML web-designer I was always a bit afraid of database programming techniques, until I got this book. The really good structure introduces subjects as you go, it is actually possible to read this book. The examples are clear and simple, and each one is explained nicely, so you really can see how it works.

It really introduced me to the subject so that I got interested. Now I can judge the subject, see what others have been doing and judge which of the deep technical books are good.

In a nutshell, it was an easy way to demystify the whole subject. I have been very happy with the book and can recommend it to everyone interested in ASP.

This book teaches the basics in a way I have seen no other programming book do it. I actually "learned" something instead of just reading examples and then wondering why it all worked. This book is short and easy to read, and the problems it gives you forces you to learn ASP. A great book, one of my favorites out of 6 ASP books.

A door opener, maybe, but also very basic. I needed something slightly more advanced than this picture book text. If you have no experience with web pages and limited experience with computers, this might be the book for you. For me, it was a waste of my money.

This book is a door-opener for those who want to learn to use HTML. This book teaches you the basics, and gives you room to expand, and learn more by practice and trial-and-error. The best book for learning HTML!

The full color photos and easy to follow instuctions make this a great book for the experienced and inexperienced computer user alike. I would recomend this book to any one who wants to learn how to build a web page or wants to learn more about building web pages.

"Somebody, Someday" is wonderful autobiography and travelogue. Robbie Williams, one of the biggest pop stars on the planet except in the United States, and Mark McCrum takes us on a yeaer-long journey through the ups and downs of Robbie's life. We get to see the ugly moments that inspires his introspective, self-effacing, and witty music. These moments are offered up forthrightly and honestly without the sense that he is fishing for pity. It's a good and solid read even if you're not a Robbie fan.

Although this book was good it was no where near as good as the first official book "let me entertain you". The book follows Robbie and friends around while on tour and has some great bits about Robbie himself but i was a bit dissapointed to find that the book is alot of the time about his band and management instead of him. Although that is not a *bad* thing, i really just expected it to be more about the great Mr. Williams himself, i didn't purchase the book to read the life story of people in his management (although they were very sad and touching storys)! A good book but could have been better.

Everyone knows who "Robbie" is, it was nice to get a look at "Rob". This book takes away some of the aura of stardom that surrounds "Robbie the pop Icon" and shows you his human side.

Excellent read!

Cryptozoology, the study of undiscovered animals, is a relatively new science. One of its foremost pioneers is Karl Shuker, who has a doctorate in Zoology and Comparative Physiology from the University of Birmingham. Dr. Shuker has collected dozens of his cryptozoological articles in his book From Flying Toads to Snakes with Wings. The book is a fantastic journey through every corner of our planet. Throughout the journey the reader encounters a parade of rarely seen creatures, including: whale-sized sharks, man-eating elephants, and blue tigers. Dr. Shuker's writing style is educated and fanciful. The result is a book that can be enjoyed by cryptozoological novices and veterans alike.

The Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot are perhaps two of the world's most notorious cryptozoological entities. Dr. Shuker presents a far more diverse group of lesser-known creatures. In fact, two of his chapters deal with newly discovered animals and proven hoaxes. This impressive collection of creatures would appeal to anyone interested in animals or the unknown.

Dr. Shuker uses thorough scientific research and eyewitness accounts in each of his articles. For example, in his chapter devoted to sharks Dr. Shuker describes an incident involving a very large shark: " They told him that their series of heavily weighted three-and-a-half-foot crayfish pots had been carried away once by a shark of ghostly white coloration and so extraordinarily immense that they estimated its length to have been anything between 115 and 300 feet." Dr. Shuker then goes on to explain that recent research on fossilized megalodon (prehistoric shark) remains have proven that sharks over 50 feet did indeed exist, a mere 11,000 years ago. Dr. Shuker believes the fishermen who saw the shark were shocked and therefore exaggerated the shark's length. Most of the creatures discussed in the book appear to be highly elusive and rarely seen by man. Others like the monster salmon of China, 33 feet in length, are alive and well.

From Flying Toads to Snakes with Wings is skillfully divided into eighteen chapters. Each chapter discusses a certain type of monster, such as: mystery bears of the world, giant jellyfishes, and the graveyard of monsters. The book has many illustrations and contains illustration credits to help locate the source of an illustration. There is also a selected bibliography and an index of animal names. This book would be useful to zoology students, science-fiction writers, and passengers aboard a long plane trip. Dr. Shuker clearly explains scientific information and presents each animal with the enthusiasm of a proud father. The number of animals presented in the book is incredibly lengthy and richly diverse. It has provided countless hours of enjoyment, and the book itself has held up quite well, with minimal wear and tear.

From Flying Toads to Snakes with Wings sheds light on a subject not usually discussed. With this book Dr. Shuker has made a significant contribution to the field of cryptozoology. Dr. Shuker does not limit his research to the common lake monster; he discusses the existence of the Golden Fleece and the macabre eating habits of sheep during food shortages (they bite the heads off young birds). Dr. Shuker's book is a sometimes frightful, thrill ride through the zoo of the unknown.

For me, this book is a five star publication, but thats because I have allready read alot of books on the subject, but this book would probably be much too much for a newcomer to the field of cryptozoology, thus, I cannot give it more than a four. Karl Shuker somehow manages to chronicle sightings and theories on the rearest of the rare, entire chapters are written on creatures that don't even appear at all in Cryptozoology A to Z, the Cryptozoologist dictionary! If you are just starting out, go buy Crytozoology A to Z, if you are a vetran, then order away, for you are ready.

Although I've always been big on the paranormal, and supernatural, and all things abnormal, this was my first strictly cryptozoology book and I thuroughly enjoyed it. It's not the sort of thing you sit down and read strait through, but I had a hard time putting it down. It's fascinating and extremely well written, and very informative. It was a stroke of luck that I happened to run across it in the bookstore, and I think that anyone with even the slightest interest will be more than pleased.