i just found my copy of this book today while packing to move. i had forgotten how charming and enjoyable it is. the recipes that i tried did work, and they were fairly unusual. this is the only cookbook i have ever sat around and read while not cooking.

This is my kind of book--amusing anecdotes from an offbeat mind splashed with a variety of tasty recipes. Al Sicherman is an admitted chocoholic ( and food columnist) so the dessert recipes are GOOOOOOD! This is a collection of his diversely-themed columns, so you can find "mom-style" food (my husband has adopted the chicken and dumpling recipe as his own) just pages away from the junk-food clones. If you prefer your cookbooks traditional, divided by course and teamed with impossibly perfect pictures (whose food ever looks like that! ) you will be disappointed and quickly frustrated. If, however, you believe food is fun, should taste good and hold no pretensions then beg, borrow or buy this book. Look for Al's column in your local paper and enjoy the read!

This is a wonderful summary and deep analysis of a highly important subject to American society, the use of media in portraying icons of poplular culture derived from the most frightening scientific accomlishements of the decade. Professor Evans does an amazing job of simplifying and displaying for the reader the complexity of modern life, while emphasizing the impressive nature of modern life. This is a wonderful book, an intensely interesting subject and an excellent analysis. I would recommend it to any reader.

I really liked this book, it made me think differently about movies and what they portray. This study points out how decisions about what movies contain are influenced by the profit motives of the industry. It also provides a new look at science fiction movies of the 1950s and 1960s, how atomic culture contributed to the development of that genre.

What if you died, went to "Heaven" and wound up working a job proofing copy for an office product that made no sense, had a distant and uncommunicative roommate, noticed that half the population were dead ringers for Abraham Lincoln, and spent most of your "free" time drinking beer while watching your family back on earth on television as your wife remarried and your father grew old? That is the basic premise of Cloud 8, a wonderfully subtle novel by Grant Bailie. His life after death is unlike any you have ever experienced, one not filled with angels, trumpets and an omniscient God, but moments of quiet and slow revelation (Revelation into what remains a mystery even at the end.)

Bailie's writing is an intriguing mix of humor and pathos, and I found myself thinking about this book long after I finished it. It is one of those rare novels that makes you think and think, and even after you are all thought out, you still aren't sure you know the answer, or if there is even an answer at all.

One of the best books I have read so far in 2003.

A rather frightening look at where we go when we leave this place...In Bailie's work, we are forced to examine our deepest fears, not necessarily what IS in the afterlife, whether heaven or purgatory, but more startlingly, what ISN'T. No fluffy clouds, no long lost loved ones waiting in a bright, warm tunnel (though, a tunnel could perhaps exist later). Though lacking a linear plot, it is a well-written and introspective tale of self-discovery, and ultimately acceptance.

I bought this book for my grandfather in January of 2000. He immigrated to America with my grandmother and father from Lago, Calabria, Italy and worked as a miner and mine rescue worker in Pennsylvania during the days of H.C. Frick.

He turned 91 in December of 1999, but he vividly remembered his days in those mines until his death in April of 2000, when black lung finally weakened his heart, causing him to pass. Reading this book was one of the final acts of his long, admirable and often difficult life, and he assured me that this book portrays conditions inside the mines and in the company towns very accurately. The book tells the tales of the coal barons, but it is much more. It recalls the coal mining region's contribution to the building of the United States and is a testament to the immigrant spirit of those who made it possible.

This is an historically correct accounting of the beehive coke industry of Fayette and Westmoreland Counties of Pennsylvania (Connellsville Coke Region), which dominated the region from the end of the Civil War until the end of World War Two and was largely responsible for the growth of the Pittsburgh steel industry. Ms. Sheppard tells the story of the Coal Barons and their miners, mostly European immigrants, without taking sides in an issue which continues to this day. Financial manipulations and the growth of the unions are described in great detail. Her account of the rise and fall of Uniontown, Pa. coal baron J.V. Thompson is particularly intriguing, as is the story of Henry Clay Frick, one of America's premier industrialists. A must-read for any student of Pennsylvania mining or industrial history.

This is a great book on soaring and the history of sailplanes. Wonderful describtions about what you can expect on your first sailplane ride. No pictures though...my only complaint Experience the thrill of soaring for yourself!

This book is great, It covers all the bases, from what to expect to the basic and history of soaring flight. Having just taken a sailplane ride my self I recommend both the book and the AMAZING activity it describes! Highly recommened !

What I enjoyed most about this book was the realistic feel of a young person's emotional problems. The narrator is a young man who is going out with an older woman who lives in a different country to him, and so he has plenty to worry about! As the story is told entirely from the narrator's viewpoint it feels just like a real relationship, where you never really know what your partner is thinking and are therefore never secure.
The problems that the narrator faces are very real - he worries about his girlfriend being chatted up by other men, he feels inferior and unable to cope with the long distance relationship, when visiting his girlfriend he cannot even speak the native language and is often worried about being attacked or shunned for his ignorance.
What makes this book special is the author's ability to create totally realistic situations where you really feel that you are a part of the scene, not just reading about it. For example, his description of making a twenty-hour coach journey from London to Frankfurt really has you feeling the horrible griminess and impatient anxiety of the time and makes you truly thankful to be sitting cosy at home reading it! Also, when writing about his character's emotions, the author captures the dark, confusing thoughts, almost bordering on insanity, that come from such a desperate love affair.
I felt that I learn a lot from this book. I would love to read more of Michael James's work.

Yes, super-real, that's the best expression that I can think of to describe this exeptionally powerful piece of work. Throughout the last hundred years there have been numerous books written which attempt to get inside the head of the main charecter, but none, I think, that achieve it so well, or present it in such readable prose, as Cloud Gazing.
I began reading this book at six o clock on a thurday evening, and finished it at three the next morning. A few days later I read it again... When I put the book down I truly felt as though I had been somewhere else. While reading, I was no longer sitting in my bedroom at home; I was living the scenes of James's work, feeling the power of the emotions and tasting the colours of the lands he describes.... which means, in short, that I was amazed by this book.
Another reason that it is so special is that, as well as being fantastic from an artistic/psychological point of view, it is also very readable and exciting. You find yourself longing to know what happens next... the situation that the main charector finds himself in - a ragged long-distance-relationship - is the kind of extreme situation that many of us find ourselfs in over life, and so, in the best traditions of our literature, the author has taken an everyday, yet quite extreme situation, and created the most powerful form of writing from it - the study not only of the person, but also of the mind and the imagination.

I like this book because I can read it to my little brothers, who are 6 and 3 years old. They like the pictures, which are interesting, and they like to hear me read to them about the saints, especially the new ones we didn't know about it before. We have Joni's other saint book, too, and we like that one too!

I am twelve years old and I love this book. Some books about the saints are VERY boring. They're too long, and give too many facts. But, this book is all in poetry so it's easy to read. It also gives interesting information about the saints. Next to each poem there's an awesome picture of the saint. It gives just enough info. without being boring. I love this book, and I'm sure everyone else will also like it as much as I did.

This is the definitive history of the Alamogordo/Sacramento Mountain Railway. The steepest standard gauge railroad in the world. I am the chaiman of the foundation dedicated to preserving the memory of the famous historic railroad. The A/SMR was the first railroad to use switchbacks to gain altitude, the first excursion tourist railroad (1898-1947), the steepest, 4300' to 9600' in 30 miles of track.
thanks to AMAZON for helping us raise funds to continue our work.

Richard Haskell

This is an excellent source of information about a long lost piece of American History. I have personally visited many of the sights contained in the book during time stationed at nearby Holoman AFB. in the middle 1980's. The book has been a great resource in modeling the branch line with my son in HO scale. Much of the old road bed still remains in the forest near Cloudcroft, and can very easily be followed during hiking trips. There is even some remnants of old tressels deep in the woods today.

"The Color of Nature" is a very good book. The photography is wonderful, and there is nice text to go along with it.

Paul Dogerty makes learning the "whys" and "hows" of colors fun. He presents the scientific principles of how we see what we see in an easy-to-grasp manner that is both interesting and comprehensible. In addition, the photographs that accompany the text, which alone are worth the price of the book, serve to admirably highlight the processes Dogerty seeks verbally to illustrate. Together, art and words combine to emphasize the wonder and beauty of the world in which we live

My daughter has read all of the Fairy School books. She just needed this one. The book is exciting to read and utilizes the child's imagination! I would recommend this series to any parent.

This is the second Fairy School book my daughter has read and she loved it just as much. The cloud fairy has to babysit her new twin brother and sister while trying to get ready for a cloud sculpting contest.The babies run away and Olivia doesn't know what to do. She just loves the Fairy School books and looks forward to reading them all.