Peter Wald, a journalist with a long personal relation to the Near East in general as well as to the Yemen(s), gives an interesting introduction for those who never happened to stay in Yemen or those who did not get into closer contact with the country and its people. The book focuses on culture (including the famous architecture) and art but starts with a relatively detailed account of the history from the beginnings (800 BC) of the Kingdom of Saba until present, including information on reunification and the last civil war. His pages on Western explorers of Southern Arabia do not content with the well-known ones but also mention Joseph Halévy, Hermann Burchardt, f.i., and give a plastic account of the adventures of Wendell Philipps who went into real trouble when trying to excavate an ancient site in Ma'rib. The choices of the tours, however, are very selective, and the added parts on travel information and on the language stay way behind the quality of the lonely planet of Pertti Hamalainen (now in its 4th ed.). This holds true for the maps, too, but it certainly was a good idea to incorporate two of them - a topical and a historical (of Carsten Niebuhr) one - into the cover pages. The glossary seems a little short, while the recommendations for further reading are quite exhaustive for non-specialists. Written in a non-academic style, and with a photo on almost every page, Peter Wald's guide of Yemen makes up for a very pleasent - while still informative - reading.

I got this book and the other modelers book, and they say you can make this figures using the "pieces you already have." I'd like to know WHERE I was supposed to get some of these pieces. One of the crucial pieces that seems to be in almost every figure is one I tried to find in vain... I don't have every odd set with funky pieces that lego has put out, but I do have quite a few. I could not find several of the pieces used in these models...

Even though it's short, this book has some great ideas to springboard from. Enjoy a collection of the sort of figures that Lego puts in their Legoland theme parks, with full details on how to make them yourself. Several of them are also articulated. This one's well worth the price.

My 4yr old Grandson really loves finding "people" he wants to make and at least trying to do it himself. I am so glad Someone thought of doing this (making models) as I do not have the skill to do it. It is fun for us to see the different things we can make, and then be able to do it!

Sebastian Faulks writes a moving story that takes place in the 1930s about a young woman with a secret so terrible that she has had to change her identity. She has come from Paris to a small seaside village of Janvilliers, to work at the Hotel du Lion d'Or. Upon arriving she meets and falls in love with a married man, Charles Hartmann, and the story follows their affair to its eventual break-up at the end of the book. The story is well written, beautiful and romantic and the characters and settings are very detailed. My only criticism of this book is that Faulks leaves many loose ends...characters and plot lines that are part of the story, disappear, never be seen or heard from again, leaving several story lines hanging. For those looking for passion and romance, love and loss, this is the book for you.

This story opens with a prologue about three newspaper stories. Two of the stories deal with the demise of two political figures. The third story, very brief, almost lost on the page, deals with an unknown female intruder in the grounds of the prime minister's residence. The newspaper makes the French of the day believe the girl is unimportant, but if Faulks' readers are alert, they will see him peel back the layers to show us how important her insignificance is to France. We are introduced to Anne Louvet, a twenty-something girl with a secrect. She has answered an ad to be a waitress at the Hotel du Lion d'or, and when she meets the various characters of the novel, we are equisitely and subtlely introduced to the themes that caused the fall of France. Each character represents something that is amiss in pre-World War II France. In Anne, we come to know the beauty and vulnerability of France; In Hartmann, her married lover, Jewish and wealthy, we see the noblese who makes excuses for deflowering her. In the beginning, he convinces himself that he provides for her because he feels sorry for her, but that is the only way he, as a member of the gentry, can justify to himself that his actions are of a higher calling rather than that of a typical, wayward husband. But Hartmann is not alone. Each of the members of the upper classes, in this novel, are ruthless, wolves-in-sheep's clothing, who can manipulate the weak and convince themselves that they were the victim. At work here, also, is the precursor to the Jewish Final Solution in France. Pay close attention to the characters who interact with Hartmann. The other characters of this novel represent various classes and ways of looking at the world. See if you can identify their role in the shaping of France prior to World War II. Read this novel for it's beautiful, lyrical style, but don't cheat yourself by thinking that is all it is. Faulks is a master of the written word who understands the class system in Europe; it is a subtle yet powerful character in and of itself.

This book varies hugely from the action in both Birdsong and Charlotte Gray but is still to date the best novel that Faulks has penned. He has the amazing ability to create characters that seem so real they could almost be your neighbours. In Anne there is a true victim but her robust attitude to all the trouble the world throws at her is inspiring. I have read.. and re read this book and each time I discover a new and very varied angle or character. This novel has not the profile or impact of Birdsong but it contains an elequence that is so often lacking in modern novels today. Faulks is not afraid to put characters at the centre of his novel and for this he should be aplauded. Read this book and fall in love with France, I feel like I am actually watching an art house European film when I read it.

I usually LOVE reading Howe books. But when I picked up this one I had to put it down again and it took all of my strength to keep reading. It was, I'm sorry to say, VERY boring. There was no humor, nothing worth reading about, and I myself would not reccomend this book to anyone, but a person who can't sleep.

In this story there is a young boy named Milo Groot, and he got food poisoning from the school cafeteria. He gets very sick and his best friend Berry tries to help him figure out who had done it? While trying to figure out the mystery some strange things happen to Milo and Berry. Milo just kept getting sicker and sicker and Berry started to see into the future little by little (none believed him not even Milo). And every time he saw into the future he would feel a lick feeling in his stomach. But that wouldn't stop him! In the middle of the story one of the lunch ladies that they thought had done it got very sick and died, so there went one of the suspects! So the person who was poisoning these kids was younger then 30!
Berry being a good detective that he is, figured out the mystery. Milo seemed to be getting better and better after this event because the lunch lady was into witchcraft and was putting a spell on both boys. But she was putting the wrong spell on Berry and that's kind of why he figured out who did it!

Yes I liked this book! It was very informing, but at some points there was no point and it was very boring. I think I liked it more then I disliked it!

I love mysteries, so this book was interesting to me. I also love books dealing with people my age: and Sebastian and his friends were in the eighth grade... perfect. I loved how there were a few things that could be the cause, but there was one Howe focuses the reader on; however, with the experience i have with stories and dialogues, i knew it could not be the obvious. Overall, I give Eat Your Poison, Dear; A Sebastian Barth Mystery a green light, even when it comes to all the books there are out there...

Save your money and purchase the REAL stories 'outlined' in this cheap book put together to ride the wave of The Perfect Storm. The collection of stories is nothing more than a collection of extended abstracts of the real stories. Many of the 'abstracts' are taken out of context and the reader does not get an accurate picture of what and why the nautical situation developed or how it concluded. Pass on this one.

This book is in a series put out by Adrenaline books and each book contains certain selections chosen by the editor. The selections are either excerpts from books, excerpts from diaries and journals, short stories, or an occasional essay. I look at how good the writing is, and how good the stories are.

There are 16 selections in this book. Half of them range from good to great, and the other eight are fairly poor. The writing is okay throughout, with some being more exceptional than others, but it's the stories that differ the most in quality. Six of them, whether written well or not, have virtually no story whatsoever or are very poor. As it turns out, the best stories in this book are also some of the better written. This is where the book's strength shows up. The selections introduce you to stories and books you may have never read and after reading some of the good selections, it makes you want to go read the books they were taken from. So I would mostly recommend this book to people who have not read much or any sea stories. It introduces you to a wide variety of sea literature. But otherwise I would only lightly recommend it by saying that everyone would find some selections that they really like.

Clint Willis has created a fascinating series of books with Epic, Climb, High, Wild, Ice, Rough Water, and The War. Each of these volumes presents the best literature about their respective subjects in a powerful cohesive manner. These books are a quick read, but intricate and spellbinding. I have given many of them to friends and family as gifts.

Eric Lewin Altschuler loves lists. At the back of this book, and referred to throughout the text, are lists of his top ten preludes and fugues, and even his top ten subjects and episodes. This self-confessed "disk jockey for Bach" can't help trivializing the music with his tone of forced jocularity and "delightfully irreverent" analogies to such subjects as football games, sex and horror movies. It's not all bad, however. The essays could provide an entry point for those nervous of getting to know this wonderful music alone. The basic analysis is good, and the summaries of form are an easy way of following what's going on in the fugues. Grown up alternatives? Donald Tovey's short analysis pieces are still the best. Cecil Gray's book on the 48, although grumpy and quirky like the author, is interesting. Both are hard to get hold of, though. Altschuler's book can be found in second hand stores - just look out for the gaudy cover.

The Well Tempered Clavier is a refreshing book which enlightened me to many details of Bach's compositons. Helpful observations on Bach's fugues made reading the Well Tempered Clavier as enjoyable as having a great conversation with a passionate music lover. Alstschuler had a lot of interesting details on compositon and music history. As a songwriter myself, the insights into many of the techniques Bach employed to keep the listener enthralled were especially valuable. It seemed every page was filled with at least one extremely interesting observation. This very good book was a very pleasant reading experience.

This book is highly irritating for eight reasons:

1. It constantly tries to SELL you on VRML. Every tenth word is
"exciting".

2. It tells you all sorts of irrelavent stuff, like VMRL 1.0,
early VRML history.

3. It gives almost no examples.

4. It has almost no illustrations of what the VRML will render to.

5. It reads like a W3C reference manual. It constantly presumes you already know everything so there is no need to explain anything.

6. Here is an example of some prose that tells you that you must write "Shape { geometry Sphere" in that order.

"For geometry nodes to appear to the viewer, they must be contained by a Shape node and they can only appear in a geometry
field of a Shape node. Geometry nodes can't be children of group
nodes because they aren't leaf nodes. Geometry nodes, therefore,
must be contained by Shape nodes. The shape node contains one
Geometry node in its geometry field."

ALL THIS WITHOUT A SINGLE EXAMPLE OF WHAT THE HECK HE IS TALKING
ABOUT.

7. You come out the end not able to even do anything more complex than the two simplest W3C examples.

8. 3/4 of the book has nothing to do with how to write VRML.

This book is covering all the features of VRML, we waited long for such a work!

The Language is understandable and clear.

As someone very interested in American History, I was anxious to read this book to get a different perspective on the events that shaped our country's future.

It's an interesting account but tends to ramble at times. Most of the writing is fairly dry. The author either skims over details or spends way too much time on them.

A nice little refresher if you forgot what college reading was like.

The Constitution may not be what you think it is. This book examines the history and meaning of the Constitution through tales presented, by a young English woman, in the fashion of Scheherezade (of Arabian Nights fame). Sounds strange, but it works remarkably well. I would highly recommend the book to any - American. We could all use a good healthy dose of Constitutional tutoring and this particular lesson is taught with style.

I agree with both Mr. Yin and Leonides. The premise of the book was good, but the book is heavily biased and ultimately unsatisfying if you are a serious student of this and related conflicts. The author admits that the Chenchens are proud, but somewhat thuggish, then goes on to praise how they cherish their knives while at the same time castigating the Russians for acting war-like. War is murderous and both sides in this book play at savagery. The author cannot praise one side and castigate the other - and contradicting himself on many pages - for the same characteristics; he loses all credibility.

And, let us not forget that Chechens are supporting Al-Qaida and related extremist,Islamic groups.

I highly recommend this book as a moving account of the wars in Chechnya and the only book to explore all the remote North Caucasus nations. Smith travels deeply among these little known, ancient peoples and in Chechnya he seems to have witnessed just about every major turning point in the first war.

Having enjoyed this book so much and also having read several others on Chechnya(Anatol Lieven, Carlotta Gall, Anna Politkovskaya) I was amazed by the uninformed review already on this site by a previous reader.

This reviewer says Smith is way too pro-Chechen and never shows the Chechens in a bad light, only the Russians. I found Smith was certainly showing sympathy for this people. But then as a people they are the ones hurting. Their capital Grozny, large parts of other towns, and many of the villages have been flattened by aerial bombardment and artillery. Maybe 100,000 people, probably far more (no one bothers counting anymore) have been killed out of the tiny population. Smith points out early on that the entire Chechen ethnic group is smaller than the Russian armed forces alone. Just think about that.

By concentrating on travels with the Chechen guerrillas, not Russian troops, Smith was able to see the frontlines and feel the same effects of war as the people living in the republic. Any journalist knows that trying to get information from a regular army, especially one committing war crimes, is unlikely to result in anything but lies. If Smith is wrong in believing the Chechen side to be suffering by far the greatest, then so is MSF, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the other western journalists who spent time there and wrote books about it (Lieven, Gall etc), not to mention the incredibly brave Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who is one of the very few to dare contradict her government's propaganda.

What has happened in Chechnya makes Kosovo pale in comparison and Milosovic is on trial for war crimes. Even in Bosnia the Serbs did not inflict such massive destruction - they didn't have half the Russian weaponry, after all. If Smith shows admiration for the Chechen guerrillas, then you do have to think about what he says he saw: a few thousand fighters with light infantry weapons tying down up to 100,000 Russian troops armed with helicopters, planes, tanks, artillery etc for several years.

I wonder if that reviewer even read the book. He/she says that the Chechens are not criticised, but on the first page I read Basayev was a terrorist and criminal AS WELL as being a hero to his own entourage. I read of a Chechen father trying to bury his son during a Russian air raid but cursing the Chechen guerrillas who had dragged him into the war. Etc, etc;

And as for there being no irony in writing about Aslan Maskhadov trying to prove he had a "regular" army by obstinately putting his men in unfavourable terrain against the Russian weapons, then that reviewer just doesn't get irony! What I read was just as he had announced this "apocalyptic" policy to Smith, an attack by Russian artillery started and Maskhadov (and Smith we suppose)had to run for their lives. Seems ironic to me.

Then there was some idea that history is given too much play in Allah's Mountains, the reviewer saying that to compare past Chechen-Russian relations so often to the present is like "comparing modern US-Mexican relations to US attempts to kill Pancho Villa".

Now this really IS ludicrous! Surely the whole point Smith was making, and it is one of the main points of the book, was that in a place like Chechnya the past really does sit very heavily on the present.

First you had brutal and long colonial conquest in the 19th century (Chechnya was about the hardest place to conquer in the whole Russian empire); then you moved straight into Soviet repression and Stalin's genocide in the 20th; then you went straight into the chaos and war of the post Soviet period. In other words there was never a moment when people might put the past behind or have any incentive to change their way of thinking. Conflict, conflict, that's all they know in Chechnya.

The reason it's important to understand this is that then you might have an inkling as to why against such ridiculous odds and at such a high price there are still today Chechens going out and blowing up Russian tanks.

Smith's book is excellent, extremely well written, Allah's mountains is an extraodinary moving report on an oppressed nation by a ruthless state

I guess it makes a difference what you are looking for, but if you are looking for a book to play an instrument to, then this is not it. Words only! Words are in German and English.

The point of this published dissertation was to translate the German text to English so English-speaking people could better understand the chorales. How is one supposed to register, interpret, and convey the music meaningfully if there is no knowledge of one of the most important aspects of the chorale melodies - the TEXT! This is a very useful book in providing textural nuance to the music.

A wonderful reference not just for organists but for all musicians interested in the study of the Lutheran chorale preludes. Dr. Bighley's literal translations from German to English without the use of rhyme give more meaning to the chorale text for affections, proper organ registrations and a proper baroque performace.
exp: Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot'
"These are the holy Ten Commandments which our Lord God gave to us through Moses, his true servant, high on Mount Sinai. Kyrie eleison."