I am the author of a half-dozen books on American women, and THE FAIR WOMEN is one of the sources to which I return again and again. Jeanne Weimann did an absolutely masterful job, and the photos are incredible. It provides a terrific overview of the status of women in many places at the turn of the century, and it's full of bios of barely-known women. I would not sell my copy for any price.
Doris Weatherford
Executive Editor, WOMEN'S ALMANAC

This is a wonderful review of Jack Miller's growth in faith and experiences of sharing the Gospel. Read it and God will change your life and outreach to those around you.

This is a gripping and sweeping tale of several Dalton family generations, whose characters and story lines span the globe. Most of the action is set in Australia and New Zealand, where the author has captured the style and culture of life Down Under.

The novel serves as a history lesson, as the characters are interwoven with accurate accounts of both World Wars, the conflict in Northern Ireland, and other historic events. The descriptions of trench and tank warfare in World War I are particularly realistic.

The portions of the novel which are set in Northern Ireland will give the reader a different perspective on the causes of the conflict in that country.

The ending of the novel will surprise you.

This book introduces a letter with a rebus-type drawing and the name of the picture the first time it appears in the story. Then the words are repeated throughout the book; but only as the picture. Great for group reading - teacher gives word first; next time it appears, class responds back for what the picture means.

This book for absolute-beginning readers is fine in a variety of ways. The text--limited to a bank of about 30+ words--is very simple and repetitive helping young readers learn words, the drawings are brightly colored and detailed as Freddie and family go to a zoo and see many animals, and I thought it was neat how a reader can compare/contrast the types of pictures and animals (and even family members) both by Freddie's pictures at the end of the story as well as illustrator Susan Miller's. A great book that will grab a young reader's attention for more than one reading.

This is a very moving novel set in the Lower East Side of New York in the early 20th century. I was surprised by the richness of historical detail and the sense of place. It is a very accomplished novel for a first novel -- few writers have such an eye for detail and an ability to convey emotion. Well worth reading.

This book focuses on the domestic political scene in the United States during the period covered. Foreign affairs, and social affairs are discussed in context of how it affected the development of the Federalist party and the Democratic-Republican party. The book is well written and I found it enjoyable to read. It is well organized although there are a couple of times he discusses the same event in two widely separate parts of the book without a clear transition, so it makes it look like he's going off on to a tangent, then back to his original topic. Good academic history.

I own several field guides to Texas wildflowers, and I find this one to be the best among them. There are books with bigger and better photographs, but none come close to having the nearly 400 color photos this one has. This one also has maps of growing areas for each plant identified and very clear descriptions of each plant. It even has sections on Texas' endangered species and landscaping with native plants.

The book divides the plants into five sections for easy use. The wildflowers are further divided into colors to help find and identify them quickly. The five sections are (1) herbaceous wildflowers, (2) vines, (3) trees and shrubs, (4) cacti, agaves, yuccas and other succulents, and (5) miscellaneous plants, weeds and growths on trees. These are followed by appendices on how to identify common plant families and "plant watching" as a hobby (collecting plants, how to make a plant press and save your specimens, and a sample wildflower documentation sheet). Finally, there are three glossaries and an index.

While some might complain that the plant photographs are not printed with the specimen entries (they are grouped together in the center of the book), this is really quite handy. Each photo is numbered identically with the entries, so matching the photo with the description is really very simple. Indeed, it is quite easy to find the flower by its photo and then look up the corresponding plant description by the photo number.

All in all, this is the only wildflower field guide Texans will need. If you want a desk reference, that's another matter.

This is one of the reference books I keep in my studio.It covers techinques on materials that are not covered in other sources. The set up of the book is logical and helps one to understand the materials and techinques valuable to a sculptor focusing on the figure and other forms of expression. So valuable are these techiques as they offer a sculptor the opportunity to quickly create his design with the use of fairly inexpensive materials. i highly recommend this book to anyone serious about sculpture.

I first noticed this book in the office of the National Academy of Songwriters in Los Angeles, where it was used as a sort of coffee-table reference book for their members, who are increasingly interested in the film world as a potential market for songs. Now, book in hand, I confess I'm genuinely excited about Northam's and Miller's achievement, which Northam describes as a manual intended for film composers in the first five years or so of their careers. To appreciate it in context, you need to understand that music industry how-to books seem to come in batches, and the nineties will be remembered as the decade when the film industry came to light, going from, maybe, half a dozen good books which were available through the 80's to twenty or more by this writing. Based on what's available now, you'd never dream there was a recent time when very little information could be found about music in film. These days there are several popular magazines (see for example FILM SCORE MONTHLY), and books on just about every aspect of film music and the business that surrounds it. And now, let's talk about CinemaTrax, the business name for co-authors Northam and Miller, and their FILM AND TELEVISION COMPOSER'S RESOURCE GUIDE. Of all the new film music books, theirs used to be the hardest to find, and yet it's possibly the most helpful with respect to doing the business of film music. (For the actual music crafting part of film scoring, the front-running book is ON THE TRACK, by Fred Karlin.) If the best success formula for these days is, as I believe, to literally become a music business while you're taking your shot, then it's only logical that a good new book would come along promoting business savvy and independent entrepreneurial spirit among film music composers and songwriters. These authors talk about getting started, with sample cover letters, demo package cover letters, advice on how to handle the marketing and promotion of one's music, legal aspects, including how to read and negotiate a deal memo, business considerations germane to the world of film music, budget checklists and breakdowns, and then some nuts and bolts reference material on temp tracks, time code, spotting, cue sheets, all the things that are so difficult to find out about if you're trying to break in from the outside. The book is rounded out by listings and references that will help in the building of your own personal and customized data base (no matter how many reference books one buys, there's no way to avoid the creation of your own networking system.) They also include tips on navigating the several websites devoted to film music topics. Thinking back to my own breaking- in days, when Sound Column Productions was getting off the ground with a lot of music inside us but not much industry background, I'd have given just about anything to get my hands on a book like this. To me it seems incredible that such a insider's book would be available in the broad national market, and that is exactly what has happened in 1999, as publishing giant Hal Leonard Books has picked up distribution rights. Better grab one of these. Ron Simpson, School of Music, Brigham Young University. Author of MASTERING THE MUSIC BUSINESS.