I ordered this book for my dad last Christmas, and he has used all of the patterns at least once. He is constantly telling me how well-planned the book is. I'm not a woodworker, but my dad is, and he rates this book top notch!

This is a book filled with projects for machines that are fun to play with. Over the years I have built more than half of them. (And given them all away as Christmas presents.) The machines are unique and really fun to watch work. A relatively high level of woodworking skill is required.

There are truly some beautiful artsy haggadot to be had without spending too much money. The Moss Haggadah is one of these. If you only look at the illustration on the cover, Dayenu! David Moss, who has served as an artist-in-residence at Camp Ramah, is a gifted artist who uses his talent to put forth his own interpretation of the midrash that is the haggadah.

My favorite representation is his B'khol Dor Vador (In Every Generation) spread in which he brilliantly includes small mirrors interspersed among depictions of our ancestors so that we may actually see ourselves as having been a part of the exodus from Egypt. It is nice to display some beautiful haggadot like Moss's during your seder and for the entire eight-day holiday for your guests to enjoy, and to help them gain more insight into the festival.

When you see the majesty of the Moss Haggadah, you won't have a problem spending a couple hundred dollars on this must-have haggadah.

Each generation throughout history produces its own interpretaion of the ancient haggadah. David Moss has created what I consider to be the most brilliant interpretation of the 20th century. Beneath his masterful art lies years of studying the traditional texts, revealing both a profound understanding of the words as well as the function of the haggadah. The rabbis who authored and edited these texts asked future generations to experience the exodus from Egypt as if we were there. Using this haggadah truly compels the reader to experience the story of the exodus by creating various levels of meaning through art and word. One sentence for example, asks us to see ourselves as if we went out of Egpyt. David, through a brilliant depiction of the verse, give us a mirrored reflection of our selves - and of people in various generations who also saw themselves as if they had gone out of Egypt. His added commentary is a profound interpretative resource. As a sofer with an appreciation of traditional Hebrew script and as a rabbi who has used and taught the haggadah for years, it is clear that this haggadah is truly a masterpiece of the 20th century. It needs to be used and found on every seder table.

Surely this is how our children were meant to be raised and nourished! In harmony with the rhythms of the earth, seasons, wild creatures, and plants the author shares her knowledge and compassion. How I wish I had known of this book when my son was younger, but it's never too late to begin employing the remedies and recipes contained in this marvelous book which is dedicated to the simple life and family health.

As always, Juliette De Bairacli-Levy conveys wonderful, insightful information in this book for the pregnant and nursing woman, as well as mothers, in general. Her simplistic aproach to herbs and wholistic medicine is inspiring and effective. The herbs she suggests are also, for the most part, easy to grow or locate, and her recipies easy to prepare. Juliette De Baircali-Levy writes the words of a tried and true healing tradition, and shares much knowledge and experience in this book. This book is also enjoyable because it is easy for the beginning hebalist to enjoy, as well as an advanced healer. A most enjoyable reference book, and one which I reach for often.

Without a doubt, Leonard William Levy has produced the finest argument against the doctrine of original intent that I have ever read. As a liberal working in Washington, DC, I have long been bothered by conservative criticism that our judiciary has been over-run by "judicial activists." In my attempts to understand the issue, I have read many accounts of what is supposedly wrong with the idea of an "evolutionary constitution," and found them interesting and compelling and was beginning to think that I had made a terrible mistke in terms of my political outlook.

Granted, much of that can be accounted for by the fact that the only things I was able to find about "original intent" were written by the likes of Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia, both of whom subscribe to this theory. But then I discovered Levy's book and found that the theories of Bork et al. were not all they were cracked up to be.

Levy is a Pulitizer Prize winning historian who examines the birth of our Consititution in amazing detail, citing the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist pamphlets, state constitutions and ratifying conventions and presents a clear view of the state of our nation even as if was being formed. His insight is so far beyond the pseudo-history offered up by Bork and his ilk that it is almost embarrassing to think that men of such intellects could be so sorrily mistaken. With chapters on the main areas of debate within the Constitution iteself, and others covering the Frist, Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Amendments, Levy gives us a very clear picture of just what has happening at the time the Constitution was being debated and ratified.

The three final chapters are, by far, the most impressive deconstruction of the theory of "original intent" I have ever encountered. In fact, I would recommend that the reading of these final chapters alone offers up more insight and better arguments than anything else ever written.

While at times the reader can get bogged down in details, it is the fact that Levy knows and includes them all that makes this work so extremely valuable. The writing is clear and entertaining and Levy has no problem telling those who subscribe to the doctrine of "original inent" that they have "the historical imagination of a toad."

In all, Levy has crafted a solid, insightful and entertaining book that I can not recommend highly enough.

Debates keep raging and struggles re-surfacing over the original intentions of the Founding Fathers when they drafted the Constitution: this provides an argument by constitutional scholar Levy, who rejects the views of both left and right sides in examining sources of constitutional law and cases supporting original intent. Recommended for college-level political science students.

'Phaedrus' is the first work ever to provide an explanation to how we organise our ideas, speeches and use our knowledge in a general sense. It explains the basics of an arguing and convincing, within the context of Greek politics and society.

As I said, it's division and gathering that is evident in all of our arguments. We make our claims based upon the similarities and differences in things, and this is the core of argumentation.

In his dialogue style, Plato talks about many other things, that range from what makes a good writing a good one, to the heritance of knowledge. How should knowledge be attained from others? How should we present our knowledge for new generations to understand us? These are some of the questions that come up in Phaedrus.

Plato, one of the clearest writers in philosophy, wrote yet another beautiful work. I've started reading Plato when I was thirteen, and I really enjoy reading his works, which just flow.

I recommend not only this book, but almost any book of Plato's, for all philosophy lovers out there, and all those that would like to make their first attempt in understanding some philosophical issues, which build the base of our living.

In Phaedrus, Plato records the conversation of love and rhetoric between Socrates and Phaedrus. Socrates uses love as a metaphor for rhetoric by categorizing the differences between love and lust, as well as the differences between a philosopher who pursues divine truth, and a poet who forgoes truth for ostentations. Then Socrates and Phaedrus eventually conclude the requirements for being a dialectician. In the course of defending proper love and truth, Socrates pointes out that beauty and truth are divine. Whoever pursues reality would worship beauty and truth with reverence, and his admirations of divinities yield pleasures. Then in order to receive the blessing from gods, the proper lover and the philosopher must overcome desires with reasoning. Conversely, those commoners who are tempted by earthy imitations of the reality would be trapped by carnal or linguistic pleasures, as the improper lover and the poet, who lack reasoning would drown in the momentary enjoyments of their own wantonness.

I've got great news for anyone in the market for a book on healthy eating and weight management that includes a bunch of recipes. "Power At The Plate" will cover all your bases. The book is an informative and entertaining read full of useful information.The book covers all facets of food nutrition and includes information on foods to eat and avoid and provides sample meal plans. The book contains healthy recipes covering all meals and snacks. The recipes are such that anyone should be able to prepare them with little difficulty.

With the upcoming holdiay season, this book would be a great gift. It will really come in handy after the new year when we have all eaten too much and need to get healthy.

I found the book easy to read and understand and I personally went away from the book learning a lot of things that would help me control my weight and yet stay healthy. I Would highly recommend this book as a handy reference book for everyday use.

...Author Joel Levy's appealing and informative book entitled Really Useful The Origins Of Everyday Things will provide you with the information to continue your conversation. According to Levy "your house is a kind of museum. In every room, on every surface, are the exhibits: everyday things that you take for granted, but each of which has its own story. "The book is a superb endeavour that leads the reader from room to room pointing out the origins and components of such items as deodorant, toothpaste, shaving cream, eyeglasses, razor blades, Tupperware, plastic band aids, tea bags, instant coffee, tooth brushes, mirrors, showers, plugs and switches, toilets and toilet paper and many more that we presume have always existed. For example, did you know, as the book mentions, "cave paintings and archaeological finds show that prehistoric man was shaving at least as far back as 30, 000 BC. Stone-age cultures used sharp-edged flints, shells, shark's teeth, or volcanic obsidian glass, implements that were still in use under medieval Aztecs and other Stone-Age cultures right up to the 20th century. "Perhaps you were not aware that toilet paper dates back to the sixth-century China, but in most parts of the world was a rare commodity until the 17th and 18th century. Levy also takes us outside the home and tells us about some of the toys we play with, such as the Frisbee. You probably are not aware that the modern recreation of tossing the Frisbee all started at Harvard and Yale in the 1940s. Apparently students attending these Universities amused themselves by throwing around shallow tin pie-pans from the William R. Frisbie bakery of Bridgeport, Connecticut. A gentleman by the name of Walter Frederick Morrison, who was inspired by flying saucers, created his own flying disks and sold his patent to a company called Wham-O Manufacturing. Initially the toy was called "flying saucers." The president of the company, Richard Kerr, decided to name the disks Frisbee after he visited the campuses of Harvard and Yale. We all know how successful the toy became. These are a sampling of the more than the 100 objects and "goodies" Levy writes about in a book that will surely interest young and old. In fact, for most readers, it will probably be a book to slowly digest during the course of several readings. After all, you do want to be able to remember many of the tidbits.

As coffee table books go, this is one of the best to have come out in a long time. Obviously very well researched, and full of fascinating information, I was very pleased when someone gave this to me recently. Oh, and the photos are excellent too.

What makes this novel different from the many post-apocalyptic versions of a cyber-based reality and failed extra-terrestrial colonization is the believability of the characters. You care about what Jon Sciler feels in Cathar, and how the past has blackened his future. You care even about the characters in the VR world, because he does. The mystery is gripping and the detail vivid. So many novels in this genre have characters so damaged that they are unappealing, but Sciler's portrayal make you want to know what will happen to him, even when it is frightening.

Reckless Sleep is set in a near-future world devastated by global eco-terrorism, where tectonic collapse, uncontrolled volcanic eruptions, and release of radioactive waste have made life almost unlivable. In this doomed environment, people turn increasingly to drugs and Virtual Reality games for escape, while the governments of the world try desperately to find some way to save the human race.

Most of the world's hope has been invested in the plan to colonize an Earthlike planet called Dirangesept. When the first expedition ends in disaster, highly-trained soldiers called Far Warriors are sent to re-take the planet. Mind-linked to autoid combat machines which they control from orbit around the planet, the Far Warriors are thought to be invincible. But the savage protectors of the planet--sentient creatures that look like mythological beasts, though everyone who encounters them sees them differently--make short work of the machines. Identifying totally with their autoids, the Far Warriors suffer the machines' destruction as if it were their own. Irreparably scarred in mind and body, they return in defeat to a world that blames them for their failure.

As the novel opens, Jon Sciler, a former Far Warrior as damaged as most but more functional than many, signs up for a games test program at a mysterious Virtual Reality games company called Wanderers of the Maze. Because of the need to remotely control complex machines, the Far Warriors were all accomplished games-players, and Maze is focusing its testing efforts on them. At the same time, Jon hooks up with a student named Chrye Roffe, who is doing a thesis on Far Warriors and wants to make him part of her research.

As Jon explores Maze's gamezones--one of them so authentic he thinks it might be a genuine alternate reality--Chrye finds herself more and more attracted to this damaged, paranoid man. When he tells her that someone at Maze is murdering the Far Warrior testers, she believes him, and together, they set out to discover who the killer is. But as a Far Warrior himself, Jon too is marked for death. He must find a way not just to solve the mystery, but to save his own life.

At first glance, there isn't much new in Reckless Sleep. The devastated near-future world with its drugs and diseases and cults, the VR zones so well-designed they seem real, the edgy hero, the near-magical technology: we've seen it all before. A contrived, cyber-noir prologue and initial chapters in which too much seems to be happening too fast don't help matters. But this appearance of derivativeness is (like much else in the book) illusion. Very quickly the narrative settles down, and Reckless Sleep becomes a gripping and unconventional examination of reality, Virtual and otherwise, and of a wounded psyche working its way back to wholeness.

The narrative moves back and forth between the grimness of the real world and the seductively beautiful Virtual world of Cathar, the gamezone Jon is helping to test. Levy has a gift for mood and atmosphere: these two settings, and the contrast between them, are powerfully evoked. Dirangesept, which shares qualities of both worlds--the beauty of Cathar, the violence of the outside world--is also very vivid, surprisingly so considering that it never appears in the book's real-time narrative, but only through the memory of the various characters. It needs to be vivid, though, for it occupies an iconic place in the minds of nearly everyone in the book, and in the wider consciousness of the world as well, as a symbol of Earth's failed hope.

Dirangesept is also the book's real mystery. The other questions--the purpose of the murders, the identity of the murderer, the possible reality of Cathar--are in a sense red herrings, for each of them turns out to be a different aspect of the larger question of Dirangesept's true nature and significance. The answers are revealed in bits and pieces over the course of the narrative; Levy keeps us guessing all the way, adroitly blurring the lines between Virtual and actual, putting the reality of nearly everything in the book in question at some point. It's a lot of elements to juggle, but Levy interweaves them all with a skill not always found even in the work of more established writers. If a few questions remain at the end, that's okay: one of Reckless Sleep's strengths is the way it plays with readers' expectations.

On the cover of Reckless Sleep, Levy is called "a sensational new voice in world SF". It's rare that this kind of hype can be taken literally, but in this case it's entirely appropriate.

Regulation of Securities: SEC Compliance and Practice is a useful handbook on securities compliance for public companies. The Second Edition adds a new chapter on going private transactions, and seems to expand and update the previous material fairly extensively.

The book is not an academic treatise. There are no lengthy footnotes, and no theoretical discussions about what the securities laws might be or should be. Rather, the book answers real-world questions in a straightforward manner, gives contextual background, provides illustrative examples, and points you to the most relevant primary sources if further information is required.

There are 12 chapters:

1. Introduction to securities regulation (including a section on EDGAR)

2. Periodic reporting under Sections 13(a) and 15(d)

3. Reporting of beneficial ownership under Sections 13(d) and 13(g)

4. Insider reporting under Section 16(a)

5. Short-swing trading and exemptions under Section 16(b)

6. Tender offer disclosure requirements

7. Proxy solicitations under Section 14(a)

8. Securities fraud under Rule 10b-5

9. Use of electronic media

10. Selling restricted and control securities under Rule 144

11. Private resales to institutional investors under Rule 144A

12. Going private transactions under Rule 13e-3.

This is a good book to consider for any corporate governance library.

I would give this book high marks as a thorough but very readable guide to complying with SEC rules and regulations on a day-to-day basis for public corporations, corporate insiders and their counsel.
I actually like the question and answer format, which makes it fairly easy to find the exact information you are looking for. The index and tables are also well done. The other nice feature is that the book not only gives the rules and how to comply with them (for example, periodic reporting, Rule 144, short-swing profits, insider trading, etc.) but also the rationale behind the rules and historical background.
Overall, a good investment and a five-star rating.

This is a lovely book-- especially as it was written by a contemporary, or at least someone who grew up with these traditions, even if he seems to have left them behind in the haskalah. The translation also seems to be very well done.

An excellent book for someone looking for less-known view of jewish communities in the 19th century in 'west' Western Europe.
Enjoy!

Remarkable primary source account of small-town Jewish life and customs in Alsace 150 years ago. Writer and translator-editor combine to offer uncommonly literate first-hand detailing of family and cultural routines, with one of the finest succinct explanations of Jewish holidays available. I began to read it out of curiosity and ended genuinely moved. Remarkably rich!