This wonderful resource on contemporary sailing vessels is published annually by ASTA, the American Sail Training Association. You can also get a copy free if you join ASTA (a worthy organization, if you are interested in sail training or traditional sailing ships). ...

The ASTA directory provides a comprehensive listing of traditional sailing ships in the US and abroad. Many of the ships listed offer sail training programs; others carry passengers for hire. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in going to sea as a sail training student, or looking for work in traditional sail.

This is an excellent book. Everyone who is interested in sail training or tall ships should own a copy. It helped me find my way around and I am very gratefull to the author for spending the time to put together such a complete and comprehensive listing of sail training vessels. The contact information for the vessels is really what sets this book apart, because it really wouldn't be very helpfull if I read about a sail training ship that I wanted more information on, and then couldn't get in touch with them.

I have a copy of the original version of the book that was published by Wiley. Often books like this one are added to the Wiley classic series and are reprinted in paperback. Although Wiley did not choose to do this, I am glad to see that SIAM decided to add it to its applied mathematics classic series.

Ingram Olkin was one of my professor's when I was a graduate student at Stanford. I met Milton Sobel through my colleague the late Ram Uppuluri, who I worked with at Oak Ridge.

Sobel was one of the originators of the ranking and selection approach to comparison of three or more populations. His work with Jack Kiefer and Robert Bechhofer was published in a text in the late 1960s. The basic idea was that many problems come up where several populations are being compared. An example would be the comparison of a placebo with two or more competitive drugs. The traditional analysis of variance tests equality of means versus a general alternative that at least one of the means is different from the rest. When the null hypothesis is rejected, the answer is that at least one mean is probably different, but it does not answer the basic questions. Which one or group of means is different and how large is the difference? Contrasts are then used and the method of multiple comparisons is used to identify populations with statistically significantly different means from rest.

The ranking and selection approach is different. It asks given the data on the distributions of these K populations, what is the probability that we can correctly rank them from worst to best? What is the probability that we can choose the best population (perhaps the one with the largest population mean)or at least the best M out of the K populations?

The idea is simple, the methodology is well developed but the approach has to this day not caught on as a basic component of statistical training and is not being applied in practice. This was the state of affairs that motivated Sobel to initiate the project of writing this book. The idea was that if the theory could be presented in an elementary way it might be better appreciated and more often used. Greater exposure of the methods could also stimulate further research.

The book provides the clear exposition. The fact that the techniques have not caught on remains a mystery. Milton Sobel discusses this issue in an interview that was just published in the May 2000 issue of the journal "Statistical Science".

The three authors each provide special talents that make this an excellent book. Olkin is thorough in his research and this is reflected in the completeness of the references (for that time). Gibbons is an excellent writer who must have had a strong influence on the clarity of exposition. Sobel is one of the founding fathers of the methodology who provides the knowledge of the theory and applications.

I will not duplicate what is in Vickie Kearn's review. She gives an accurate description of the book and its value. In my view the authors have successfully demonstrated the value of ranking and selection yet it has not caught on. Partially this is because everyone knows the standard ANOVA approach. This is what they are trained and it has consequently become their natural approach to such problems. It is unfortunate that many well trained statisticians do not even know of the existence of this large body of literature on ranking and selection. Sobel has noted in his experience that many younger statisticians rediscover the ranking and selection ideas. Until it becomes a part of the standard courses this will continue.

Another factor is software. These days procedures get used in practice only if they are included in some standard commercial package. The statisticians that invented ranking and selection did not see to it that it was incorporated in SAS or some other important package.

Another factor may be that the methodology might provide an answer like "the probability of correctly selecting the best population is 0.15" and this may not seem too spectacular an answer to the investigator.

Selecting and Ordering Populations: A New Statistical Methodology Jean Dickinson Gibbons, Ingram Olkin, and Milton Sobel Classics in Applied Mathematics 26

This SIAM Classics edition is an unabridged, corrected republication of the work first published in 1977. It provides a compendium of applied aspects of ordering and selection procedures and includes tables that permit the practitioner to carry out the experiment and draw statistically justified conclusions. These tables are not readily available in other texts. Although more than 1000 papers and several books on the general theory of ranking and selection have been published since this book first appeared, the methodology is presented in a more elementary fashion with numerous examples to help the reader apply it to a specific problem.

There is a dichotomy in modern statistics that distinguishes between analyses done before an experiment is completed and those done afterward. Ranking and selection methods are useful in both of these categories. The authors provide an alternative to the overused "testing the null hypothesis" when what the practitioner really needs is a method of ranking k given populations, selecting the t best populations, or some similar goal. That need and purpose is as important today as when the subject was first developed nearly 50 years ago.

Applied statisticians as well as researchers who use the basic methods of statistical analysis (psychologists, engineers, biologists, management scientists, etc.) will find this book a valuable reference. Readers should be familiar with standard first-year statistics; no knowledge of calculus is necessary.

Jean Dickinson Gibbons is the Thomas D. Russell Professor Emerita of Applied Statistics at the University of Alabama. She has published numerous articles and books on nonparametric statistics, both theoretical and applied. She has been a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) since 1972 and was elected to their Board of Directors for four different terms. Ingram Olkin is Professor of Statistics and Education at Stanford University in California and is a member of the SIAM Classics in Applied Mathematics editorial board. He has been a Fellow of the ASA since 1962. He was awarded the Samuel L. Wilks Memorial Medal by the ASA in 1991 and the Elizabeth L. Scott Award by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) in 1998. Milton Sobel is Professor Emeritus of Statistics and Applied Probability at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Fellow of both the ASA and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) and was elected a member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI). He has authored several books, published well over 100 journal articles and reports, collaborated with many researchers, and served as advisor to numerous Ph.D. students in statistics.

Contents Chapter 1: The Philosophy of Selecting and Ordering Populations; Chapter 2: Selecting the One Best Population for Normal Distributions with Common Known Variance; Chapter 3: Selecting the One Best Population for Other Normal Distribution Models; Chapter 4: Selecting the One Best Population Bionomial (or Bernoulli) Distributions; Chapter 5: Selecting the One Normal Population with the Smallest Variance; Chapter 6: Selecting the One Best Category for the Multinomial Distribution; Chapter 7: Nonparametric Selection Procedures; Chapter 8: Selection Procedures for a Design with Paired Comparisons; Chapter 9: Selecting the Normal Population with the Best Regression Value; Chapter 10: Selecting Normal Populations Better than a Control; Chapter 11: Selecting the t Best Out of k Populations; Chapter 12: Complete Ordering of k Populations; Chapter 13: Subset Selection (or Elimination) Procedures; Chapter 14: Selecting the Best Gamma Population; Chapter 15: Selection Procedures for Multivariate Normal Distributions; Appendix A: Tables for Normal Means Selection Problems; Appendix B: Figures for Normal Means Selection Problems; Appendix C: Table of the Cumulative Standard Normal Distribution F(z); Appendix D: Table of Critical Values for the Chi-Square Distribution; Appendix E: Tables for Binomial Selection Problems; Appendix F: Figures for Binomial Selection Problems; Appendix G: Tables for Normal Variances Selection Problems; Appendix H: Tables for Multinomial Selection Problems; Appendix I: Curtailment Tables for the Multinomial Selection Problem; Appendix J: Tables of the Incomplete Beta Function; Appendix K: Tables for Nonparametric Selection Problems; Appendix L: Tables for Paired-Comparison Selection Problems; Appendix M: Tables for Selecting from k Normal Populations Those Better Than a Control ; Appendix N: Tables for Selecting the t Best Normal Populations; Appendix O: Table of Critical Values of Fisher's F Distribution; Appendix P: Tables for Complete Ordering Problems; Appendix Q: Tables for Subset Selection Problems; Appendix R: Tables for Gamma Distribution Problems; Appendix S: Tables for Multivariate Selection Problems; Appendix T: Excerpt of Table of Random Numbers; Appendix U: Table of Squares and Square Roots; Bibliography; References for Applications; Index for Data and Examples; Name Index; Subject Index.

June, 1999 / xxvi + 569 pages / Softcover / ISBN 0-89871-439-7

As the disability host on bellaonline, special education teachers will deal with multiple intelligences each day. This book provides you with teaching tips and solutions to deal with them each day.

This book not only describes the multiple intelligences, but gives PRACTICAL, USEFUL ways to implement the different learning styles into your curriculum! I wish all teaching books were as useful.

It's a good book i ever read. I think everyone would enjoy it

The Weathermonger concludes The Changes Trilogy, with Margaret and Jonathan not only being attacked by the people of England but also by the weather. Everything, including nature, now opposes our duo in their quest to restore acceptance of technology to the larger Brittish isle. They must brave the worst to find a solution long dead and a man who may not want to help them. An interesting solution to an intriuging series

REVIEW: Wild Sweet Notes Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry 1950-1999, 418 pages Publisher's Place, Inc., Huntington, W. Va. www.publishersplace.org

Today, for many people, home is a state of mind. Home of the past and the home of the future. "Wild Sweet Notes," Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry l950-1999, edited by Barbara Smith and Kirk Judd is a literary treasure for not only West Virginians and others of the Appalachian region, but for readers of poetry and prose of any geographic locale. This collection contains a rich texture where universal themes are rendered with evocative voices.

The editors are to be complimented on their artful selections and placement of this diverse range of poetry and bringing together a cohesive book of superb quality. Certainly, the pride of West Virginia comes through; and as a West Virginian, I feel there is much to celebrate with this publication. The writers represented cry out on issues that are all about humanity.

The word "confluence" comes to mind--a word that the late Willie Norris used to describe his world of the South. Yes, there is a confluence in this collection where the personal becomes public and the public becomes personal because of the intense commitment to the landscape, family, and friends. A strong appreciation exists for what money can't buy--the feeling that a person is a part of something larger than the self.

Several of these writers have a national reputation as poets and as writers of fiction and nonfiction. However, every writer represented in this book is equally worthy and deserves the highest praise and recognition. Reading this book you say to yourself, "One is as outstanding as the other." When I studied creative writing with Lester Goran (Isaac Singer's translator) at the University of Miami, Goran repeatedly said, "The arts are not about a democratic process." It took a few years of experience writing and submitting my work to appreciate his words. Thus, I believe in giving equal tribute and praise when deserved, and I particularly feel this way in regard to this anthology.

Striking images appear in the late David Jarvis' poems that breathe with keen observation and emotion. I have a bias for what he created having read his chapbook, The Born Again Tourist. Jarvis' work leaves much for the reader to complete in his or her own mind. It is the same kind of feeling that I have when I view a Walker Evans photograph. Following is an excerpt:

Sometimes I hear them call my name at night.

Why do they make me wear these chains

And stake me to this land,

Land stained with their sweat and blood

And rich with their bones

This faceless choir that's chanting now from mountaintops

An ageless aria that penetrates the rock

And writes through hollows

Where streams rush like their ancient bloodlines. ***

Joseph W. Caldwell's, "BELLS ON PARCHMENT CREEK" resonates with an immediacy of the kind that lasts for decades, and you sense it will be handed down to the next generation as an historical document. Excerpts of the first and last stanzas are as follows. (Stanzas two and three are extraordinary in lending to the development of this poem but are omitted here because I believe it is unfair to reveal too much in a review).

ON THAT FEBRUARY MORNING

DINNER BELLS SURGED AND SWELLED ALONG THE CREEK

CARRYING SHARPLY IN THIN AIR,

SENDING THE WORD SOMETHING

HAD HAPPENED AT THE HANNING FARM.

EIGHTY-NINE YEARS LATER

SHE RETELLS THIS STORY

ABOUT A MOTHER SHE HARDLY KNEW,

AND THE BELLS STILL TOLLING.

Barbara Smith's Apple Pie Dying has a personal quality, the kind of a reflective conversation where, as the reader, you feel she is conversing with you and sharing intimate thoughts. She causes you to pause and think about your own life. An excerpt of the first stanza is as follows:

How I wish I had been with her

As she measured the flour and the salt,

Cut in the shortening

And sprinkled on water,

Baling the dough,

Rolling it out, lifting it--

Peeling the applies, slicing them

Spicing them and crimping the crust,

Listening to Paul Harvey or Cokie Roberts

Or Oprah in the background,

Mopping the floor and changing the beds,

Filling the birdfeeder while the pastries were baking,

Then cooling, then being basketed and backseated

And on to the church.

In Wilma Stanley Acree 's "At Honanki," she takes you on a journey with her where you examine the vastness of space and time--understanding that which flees and what still remains. An excerpt from the first stanza is as follows:

At Honanki (the Badger House)

the guide,

Arizona Hopi face

framed by gray braids,

leans against the red cliffs,

points at the pictograph, and recites, "This is

Kokopelli,

the Sinagua symbol

of fertility,

fertility of soil,

of woman,

of action and thought.

See the raindrops he scatters."

One of the most compelling pieces I have ever run across on the importance and the beauty of the written words comes in Grace Cavalieri's poem entitled Letter. This will be a piece that I will read at my writing workshops at The New School, in New York City where I teach. Excerpts are as follows:

If you ask what brings us here,

starting out of our lives

like animals in high grass,

I'd say it was what we had in common

with the others--the hum of a song we

believe in which can't be heard,

the sound of our own

luminous bodies rising just behind the hill,

the dream of a light which won't go out,

and a story we're never finished with.

We talk of things we cannot comprehend

so that you'll know about

the inner and the outer world which are the same.

Someone has to be with us in this,

and if you are, then,

you know us best. And I mean all of us

the deer who leaves his marks behind him

in the snow, the red fox moving through the woods.

The poetry and prose that is here is accessible and creative in form. This book can serve many purposes--the main one for the pure and simple joy found in reading. It also makes a lovely gift, which is how I came to know this book. It was given to me as a birthday gift from my brother, Sam Kessell, and Larry Halsted. They also happen to be friends with the late David Jarvis' brother. A West Virginia heritage is like that--we find one another, one way or the other, sooner or later. On another level,"Wild Sweet Notes," has tremendous academic and historical value, which can make a strong contribution in an academic setting. The voices are authentic, direct, and powerful. They serve as excellent examples of fine writing in terms of language and form.

--Reviewed by Mary Sue Kessell Rosen

Bio: I teach writing workshops The New School in New York City (An Essay Writing Workshop and The Bloodroot of Our Voices Workshop, a multi genre course).

Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry leaves me in awe of the poetic achievements of West Virginia writers. Rarely does a poetry collection read as compellingly as a novel and possess the same power to hold a reader so strongly in its grip that it is nearly impossible to put the book down. But Wild Sweet Notes accomplishes this and more and in the process reveals that West Virginia is not an intellectual and cultural black hole but rather a place where poetry is a natural and necessary response to life in a harsh, unyielding and sometimes strange place. These poets could all be Welsh given the way they see and feel and touch their world and let it touch them; the way they use language and the music of words to capture the experience of the mines and miners, the black and barren waste of land and men, the mystery of the back-woods hollows and mountains and people who live there, the dreams of the young and the memories of the aged. West Virginia surprises the visitor in many ways - its beauty, its drama, the tenacity and strength of its people, its landscape where nature nurtures and destroys. It is a land where appearances are illusions, where the man who runs the little roadside grocery could have the wisdom of a sage and the heart of a poet. But who would know it from his rumpled clothes, his weathered face and gnarled hands, except perhaps by looking into his eyes and reading what they have to say. Wild Sweet Notes is not a simplistic down-home collection of local poetry, but rather a universal journey through time, the mind, landscapes, essences, and the enduring spirit of people and a place so little known, so misrepresented and so misunderstood. Few poetry collections are as satisfying, moving, enlightening and rewarding as Wild Sweet Notes.

You can never go wrong buying a book by Polly Longsworth. Especially if it is about enigmatic,obstinate Emily Dickinson. Ms. Longsworth knows her subject as well as, or better than, any other active ED author. She has a common-sense approach to the famous ED obscurities and mysteries, born of decades of study and the influence of Richard Benson Sewall, Yale professor and creator of the Pulitzer-prize winning "Life of Emily Dickinson" in l974. That's the best biography of the poet we have or are ever likely to have. Polly writes well and this book shows off the Amherst of ED's era in ways that nicely complement the text and the poetry. She's also a nice person, kind to other ED researchers, both professional and amateur. Not everyone in that specialty qualifies for such a compliment. As a person who has written a play about Emily's survivors and how they struggled to get her poems published, I have had reason to correspond with lots of Dickinson buffs over a 20-year period. Polly and Sewall and William Luce, author of the play "Belle of Amherst" made room in their lives for letters from an unknown. Many others did not. This book is inexpensive, fortunately, but it is a grand addition to the library of any fan of Emily's. The fact that its creator is also a decent sort is just frosting on the cake.

I am a fan of old photographs, I pour over old family pictures with great zeal. The World of Emily Dickinson certainly feeds my passion. It is crammed full of wonderful pictures of the Dickinson family, their friends, and the changing and growing town of Amherst, Massachusetts. I learned more about the life of Emily Dickinson in just half an hour than I had ever known about her. It certainly shows that Dickinson wasn't the lonely recluse that I had always heard her to be. In addition to photographs, there are many facsimile reprints of letters written both by Emily Dickinson and to her. I believe this book will be very helpful to future biographers and historians.

The Final Judge of the 2001 Emily Dickinson Award in Poetry, David Kirby, W. Guy McKenzie Professor of English, Florida State University, wrote the following about the winning poem, "Because We are Men," as well as commenting on other poems featured in this anthology:

"If you're a poet, it's easy to love poetry, which makes it difficult in the extreme to judge a contest like this one that has so many praiseworthy entries. But when I read a poem, the first question I ask myself is, do I want to read this poem again? (You can't do that with Moby-Dick or Macbeth, but you can re-read most poems right there on the spot; indeed, if the poems are any good, you have to.) Then I want to know, Is every part as good as the whole? After all, a great poem can be deflated by a flat ending or a wobbly middle or sometimes just a comma error. But then all art contains error, as the sages of the desert tell us, so finally I ask myself if the poem transcends its own frailties. In other words, I end up where I started: do I want to read this poem again?

The problem is that almost all the poems I read for this year's Emily Dickinson Award competition meet these criteria. Finally, though, I chose "Because We are Men." True, it's a manly poem, and I am a man. But his poem about warriors is, in a larger sense, about the victims of wars, and each of us is a victim of one conflict or another, from the domestic to the global (not to mention the most widespread fighting of all, the kind that takes place in our minds.) At the highest level, though, "Because We are Men" is about the oldest of literary themes, isolation, as well as isolation's opposite, connection. "Because We are Men is succinctly encyclopedic; it's just two pages long, but it covers the world. It has a sound as new as the terrifying events of September 11, yet its lines remind us that, as William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there."

I also like "The Nuclear Family" because of the brainy, goofy way it combines family and geography in a way that makes both a lot more fun than they could ever be on their own. Finally, "Closing Time" is a poem that makes God more human and our fathers more hauntingly god-like; it's hard to imagine a topic more rewarding for either poem or reader.

As I say, all the poems are winners in one way or another. This year's poets honor me by allowing me to read them, and they honor poetry by continuing to pursue this most difficult, most rewarding craft."

Hilarious, twisted, brilliant. This book has a great streak of bawdy black humour. It is very cleverly written, fun and fast paced. The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace has a very irreverend view of the english aristocracy and upperclass twits everywhere. This book shows the incredible wit of Bruce Dickinson, the frontman of Iron Maiden. It is a must have for any Iron Maiden fan and any fan of the particular brand of black humour only the english can do.

AFTER GREAT PAIN : The Inner life of Emily Dickinson. By John Cody. 538 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971. SBN 674-00878-2 (hbk.)

This book is a fascinating psychoanalytic reading of ED's tortured life, by a professional psychiatrist who devoted seven years to it, and is unsparing of the falsifications indulged in by most of her biographers and critics. ED cultists, in particular, loathe the book (always a good sign) because it gives us a very human and very tormented Emily Dickinson, a woman starved for love who had serious psychological problems which retarded her emotional development, and who almost certainly suffered a nervous breakdown as a result.

Why any of this should disturb the open-minded I have no idea. The Dickinson household was certainly a very strange and abnormal place, and the Dickinson children had a far from normal upbringing. The aloofness of the father, his inability to show love or warmth and relate in a normal fashion to his children, would have a devastating effect on any child.

The arguments I have seen against Cody have been very weak, though proof of the rightness of his thesis is very strong. It runs all through the poems and has been analyzed in great detail by Camille Paglia in Chapter 24 of her _Sexual Personae_ 'Amherst's Madame de Sade : Emily Dickinson' (pp.623-74).

The poems Paglia quotes are authentic Dickinson poems. No matter how much worshippers at the shrine of their 'Saint Emily' would like to wish them away, they will not go away. Also, they have meaning.

My advice would be to read both Cody and Paglia. They're both fascinating writers, they both know what they're talking about, and I think that what they say helps us to understand aspects of both Dickinson and many of the poems she wrote.

Emily Dickinson was a very complex figure, and everyone tries to claim her for their camp - Cultists, Christians, Psychiatrists, Sadeians, etc., - but I guess the truth is that, although there's a certain amount of truth in all these positions, Emily Dickinson is just too big to be contained. She bursts free of all categories. Like her poems she explodes into a multiplicity of meanings, perhaps because, like them she wasn't about something, but about everything.

Although the book is short, it took me about half of an hour or so to read, Dickinson reminds the child in all of us that God is always watching over us. With wonderful illustrations and simple phrases the book serves as a help mate for those who have trouble in their life in one way or another. Looking at all the emotions and what they can do to a person, Dickinson reminds us that no matter how strong the emotion may be or how much that emotion controls us, we must remember to seek out our friends and our God to help us through these tough and trying times. The description is very apprapo for the book. Written as though it were a book for a child, with matching illustrations, the author uses the simplicity of the child in all of us to help the reader reach a better understanding of what happens when we let things like greed and envy take over our lives and then what to do when this takeover does occur. I have read this book many times now, especially when I feel like life is not quite going my way, and it has never failed to pick me up or head me in the right direction. I strongly suggest, if you get this book, to keep it handy for those times when you are having trouble in your life.