This novel stirred up spirit in my stress-worn heart that I had not felt in eons. I forgot how good it was to imagine or focus on hopes and goals. I had lost track of all the happiness in the pile of debt and things to do that never seemed to be done. I had forgotten that this is all a journey and we have an option of running a race, taking the senic route, or flying head on into the horizon.

I think every child should be read or encouraged to read Superbike. It is truly a beautiful story filled with a unique humor that makes your heart smile. It is unique in many ways, for example, it's pages contain examples of having hope and doing right. Superbike is filled with childlike imagination adults could get enwrapped in. It is a clever and well written peice, and should be on every child's bookshelf.

A long time client of mine, who is also the most successful salesman I know, said that this is the only good book on selling he has ever read (and he claims to have looked at all the standard ones). The book describes the great swindles of the world (Spnanish Prisoner, Ponzi, etc.) from the point of view of what the swindler has to convince the mark of in order for the swindle to succeed. He then shows how the same principles apply to selling.

Arthur Leff was a brilliant philosopher/law professor at Yale Law School who died of cancer at age 48. Anything he wrote is worth reading, but this one is especially good, and is relevant to all the Spanish Prisoner-type scams that show up in email today (often in the form of "just a few dollars needed to release a fortune in a blocked account somewhere in Africa". Too bad it is out of print.

This is a classic of legal analysis, and a joy to read. Leff has a lucid prose style and a very interesting idea: that the line between "fraud" and "sales" is much less clear than either lawyers or consumers might think. Leff explains how the art of the deal consists of convincing buyers of exactly the same kinds of things that the art of fraud often involves. He leaves you with a new appreciation for the complexities, and sometimes incoherence, of much consumer regulation. This is not in any way a libertarian rant, or an argument against rules but rather a recognition that life is very complicated and a reminder of problems that won't go away

This third installment in Kate Allen's Allison Kaine mystery series continues to be my favorite. Allison, a Denver police officer and her best friend Michelle travel south to spend a peaceful, long, working retreat weekend on womyn's land near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The weekend takes several unexpected turns as Stacy, Allison's girlfriend and a professional dominatrix, shows up to make peace after a recent argument. Uninformed of the commune's strict rules, Stacy and her best friend, Liz set up "Fun Camp" outside the Land. Well provisioned with caffeine and alcohol, they become the local entertainment and outlet for the less pure retreat members. Predictably, arguments concerning feminism and the leather community flare up in the desert heat.

Despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, Stacy and Allison still manage to find time for... Allison and company do a wonderful job of humanizing that feminist taboo- s/m. In depicting intelligent, caring women with ordinary jobs (except for Stacy . . .), bills, and pets, Allen creates cognitive dissidence for people who demonize the leather community.

Allison and Stacy aren't the only ones indulging their... Away from the strain of domestic life with her girlfriend and their colicky baby, Michelle is expressing more than a professional interest in Persimmon, a fellow glass artist, and one of the commune sponsors.

Soon, Sarah Embraces-All-Things, the commune spiritual leader, a bully, and possibly a fraud, is discovered dead in the sweat lodge. Allison, suffering from a recently diagnosed chronic illness, struggles to sort out her professional responsibility as a police officer and her role as a supportive lesbian. Several members of the retreat appear happy to call Sarah's death an accident. Are they protecting a murderer?

Allen succeeds in poking fun at all the complexities and contradictions of the lesbian, gay, and feminist community without being malicious -- a great temptation, particularly over some of the issues. -- and conveys intelligent ambivalence over controversial issues. As the characters struggle with their interactions, political views, and the question of Sarah's death, Allen points out how very funny lesbians can be while she consistently displays compassion for the women that make up our community. All of Allen's novels are intelligent, humorous, and worth buying but this is still my favorite to date.

Another great dyke thriller from Kate Allen. The characters that she has created, Denver cop Allison, dominatrix girl-friend Stacey, best friend the ever-so PC Michelle, lawyer Liz and all the others are further developed in this great novel. This is coupled with a very exciting plot line which challenges many lesbian hang-ups, particulary those around trans-gendered people.

The murder victim is so nasty that you can only cheer when she is killed and Allison's frustration at her attempts to assert patriarchal laws on wimmin's land are well described.

Yet it is the small things that make me long for more Kate Allen novels. Allison dealing with her fears around disabilty and Michelle fighting for independence with a baby in her home are the kind of things that offer insights into the characters and make me want to know more.

This is coupled with a great sense of humour - I have actually laughed out loud while reading Kate Allen. Stacey's and Liz's Fun-camp, Michelle as City Pony, Allison wanting to talk about her cat in Spanish (I've been there!)all make these the funniest series of dyke detective novels I have ever read.

Kate Allen, please, please (I'd bark like a dog!) write more about this fantastic bunch of dykes and their friends.

Another Seattle Fan! This book is my bible for working on campaigns...I keep gifting them to new campaign managers and having to buy new copies. Lots of specifics, how-to's, forms - honest and serious for local campaigns.

Cathy Allen is one of America's hottest advisors to liberal campaigns. This sought-after campaign school speaker's gritty, pragmatic approach gives potential candidates - especially women and minorities - the right tools for deciding whether to run, and once decided, to stage winning campaigns.

There isn't a better resource on the market for practitioners than Masters, Mori, & Mori. The authors, all highly experienced the field, have written a book that is not only must reading for anyone in the field, but is a resource that must be in the library of every secondary school serving special needs youngsters and on the shelf of all secondary special educators. This book is in its third edition and each edition has added important up-to-date information. The book includes practical strategies in all important academic areas as well as timely information on career/vocational education and on transition. There is also an outstanding chapter on assessment, program administration, and meeting the social/emotional needs of adolescent students with mild disabilties.

The framework for teaching students with learning and behavior differences is presented and followed by practical strategies. If you are inclined to remediation it is covered, yet the real emphasis is learning strategies, vocational applications and compensatory devices including computers that students can write what they say. The authors make a point of preparing teachers a parents with the tools to allow a student with a disability tlevel the academic and employment playing fields. Every secondary teacher would benefit, however, the elementary teacher can obtain a view of where the student is heading. For special educators it is must reading.

A book that i dont mind having to read everynight 5 times!!! Very cleverly written to charm adults and children!
Highly recomend

We collect fun cat books and entertaining children's books, and this one is a keeper in both categories. The story is funny, the illustrations are adorable and there was the added bonus of adding some new phrases to our vocabulary --- we now point out the "swagmen" we see and sit down to "have a cup of tea and a bit of a chin-wag."

I don't usually review (or even read) textbooks. However, in researching a forthcoming book, I've spent a lot of time with Tobin and Dushek's Asking About Life. It's made my life much easier.

As those who are familiar with Asking About Life know, this is a textbook with a philosophy. That philosophy is to present biology not as a canonical set of facts about life, but as a dynamic, ongoing dialogue with nature, in which real people who happen to be scientists ask meaningful questions and take understandable steps over time to discover answers to them. The book mixes an engaging narrative style, a strong historical perspective, great examples, and authoritative factual knowledge into an eminently readable, extremely informative, and scientifically impeccable text. As a result, a student or reader can turn to this book not simply to learn about the structure of DNA or how the human immune system functions, but also about Rosalind Franklin's role in discovering the double helix and about why HIV "continues to perplex medical researchers." And, as shown by the book's section headings (How Do Zygotes Cleave? How Does Gastrulation Set Up the Three-Layered Structure?), it embodies the truth that the best scientific questions start not with "what" but with "how."

Asking About Life is also full of beautiful, crystal-clear photos and illustrations, many of which, like the text, do a wonderful job of depicting not just static objects, but dynamic processes.

I can't imagine a better biology textbook.

Robert Adler, Ph.D.,author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation (Wiley & Sons, Sept. 2002).

I used this book for my AP biology course. Thanks to this book, it let me got 5 on the AP exam. I'm homeschooled, I learnt biology myself,well, maybe not cause this book taught me all of the materials to score high on biology.I'm glad I used this book.
By the way, the supplementary CD is very helpful,so if you buy this text, i suggest you also to buy that CD.

A towering achievement. The first fifth of the book passes through a dream-like state while sweeping and surreptitious changes take place in the police forces, the national government, the propaganda movements, the press, the ministries, the military. This book presents things about Germany that are normally not considered. Most Americans probably think that Germany was an idealistic war machine in the 1940s: with one mind, one head, one purpose. Not so. The author begins in 1933 as a new attache in the newly-formed Gestapo. Immediately things begin to go awry. New changes come down, rumors abound, mistrust fosters mistrust. In his own building and everyday workplace, his own boss tells him to take the staircase at the wall-side rather than near the railing, as this would expose him to sniper fire from a vantage point higher in the stairwell. No one walks across the hall to clean his face without phoning a colleague on such a "dangerous enterprise." After these initial scenes, the author travels "outside" of government circles but remains in close contact with the major players plotting to overthrow the Fuehrer. He recounts across the years how the church was subdued, how the German people were "assisted" in imagining that things were working out, that propaganda helped to pave the way for even greater excesses, even how the generals were quailed (these last were long thought to be the last hope). The book is terrific in that it follows an agent in actual work, sifting through facts, talking clandestinely with associates, plotting an important life-or-death struggle to overthrow the Monster. Never knowing who to trust, never knowing what is coming next, never knowing when the bullet will come -- these are momentous and continuing features with which we have to deal. That the author survived as early as 1934 is remarkable. That he lived through the failed assassination attempt and the subsequent purges is incredible. A must read for WWII buffs, this highly readable text is a testament to those Germans working for sound government, healthy industry and a stable German society. An excellent book!

To get top of the heap, and to start a war, and to institute Death Camps for Jews and other undesirables, Hitler had to leave many corpses. Among this carnage are the dead bodies of some of Germany's Finest People. If there was any GOOD person more knowledgeable about where the corpses were buried, it was SS Agent H.B. Gisivius, who was also an insider in the tragically unsucessful attempts to get rid of Hitler. Agent Gisivius also distinguished himself as a witness at Nuremberg with his testimony that enraged Herman Goering, the same Goering that was able to frustrate Supreme Court Justice Jackson's prosecution efforts. Gisivius goes though several adventures, from the Nazi Regime's bloody beginnings, to his transfer to the Abwehr [German Military Intelligence] under Canaris, to the frustrating attempts to get rid of Hitler, often interrupted by the major events of the war, and the lawless antics of Nazi Functionaries (including the embarrassing trials that took place for the Reichstagg Fire). Gisivius was a Witness, and like Historian Procopius, who tried to do GOOD in the Midst of EVIL, and He lived to tell about it!

Firstly, Hitler was a constitutional scholar, not in the sense that Thomas Jefferson was, but in the same sense that Houdini was a Locksmith. Hitler reasoned that the Law of the Land was what the Police enforced. His partners, Goering, Frick, Bormann, Hess, Rohm, and later Himmler, proceeded to build the Gestapo, which they eventually integrated into the Police. The SA acted independantly, starting their own private concentration camps. A power struggle broke out for control of the Police which Gisivius describes in detail with black humor. The result was the Night of the Long Knives, where SA Chief Rohm perished and Himmler gets control of the Gestapo. Meanwhile,Goering uses his special units to end the SA private concentration camps with his own special purge (Goering wanted no competition). In its first months, the Nazi Regime has already shot a Mountain of Corpses.

It was frustrating work to bring about the end of the Nazi Regime. Hitler, when he was in the deepest of doodoo (as in the Reichstagg Fire Trial) was able to pull off some magic trick to put himself back into a favorable light, be it the Annexation of Austria, the Occupation of the Rhineland (where he narrowly missed being declared insane), the annexation of Czechoslocakia, Poland, and the Russian Front. Hitler, had he passed from the scene during his pinicle after the Annexation of Czechoslavakia, would have been known as the Greatest german Statesman of All Time, and would have been the Supreme Proof that "Character DOES NOT Matter". Instead, Hitler stayed on and things turned sour by degrees, and it took till 1944 before things got bad enough for Assassination Atempts to become sufficiently daring to recieve notice. (Granted, the March 1943 attempt happened, but those in the know did not talk about it. It was so secret, even Hitler did not know!). Hitler was certainly protected by his own Guardian Devil!

The Big Day approaches! We must get rid of Hitler. The German Resistance meets for one last time before it happens. (The German Resistance were certainly a cut above the average Resistance Movement. In the French Resistance, you only had to worry about an interrogation [you did your duty if you lasted 24 hours] and a speedy execution, with some hope of release. The German Resistance, on the other hand, had secrets that had to be kept for months! No quick execution by pistol either! These guys died by long messy execution by piano wire at the end of a Meat Hook! Look up Fritz Nova's book for the biographys of the July 20th Martyrs to get into the details.) They argue and dissent! Stauffenberg delays and delays, with the hope of getting Hitler, Himmler, and Goering in one fell swoop. Leber has been arrested and is about to be shot, whom Stauffenberg wishes to save as a consequence of his tyrannicide. Staufenberg can delay no longer and the bomb goes off!

The Abwehr acts with Operation Valkyrie, or does it? When Gisivius sees that the dawdling that ensues will come to naught, he looks up his friend, Police President von Heldorf and attempts to abscound. Tragicommically, his attempts to leave the country are frustrated. The Good News is that Gisivius'es hous has been bombed, making it an excellent hiding place for the duration of the war. Finally, the Allies escort him out of Germany as Germany perishes in flames.

This is not a book for the weak of stomach! It is a study of Tyranny. Fritz von Hayek's Road to Serfdom had already been published in 1944, but doubtless, had Gisivius and Hayek had ever met, the von Hayek chapters on German and Austrian History would have been thicker. This book deserves to be a contender for the top 100 Great Books of All Times, and is Certainly worth the trouble to read.

If you are a beginning gardener and don't know the difference between a shovel and a spade, or what to use them for, this book is immensely useful. It is certainly worth the price and the time it takes to browse through it to find and understand the exact tools you will need for your individual garden before you go out shopping. In addition to pages of full color pictures of each tool, it contains historic accounts regarding the tools and some nice quotes about gardening. After reading this book I felt like I understood garden tools, whereas prior to reading it, I just used tools in a haphazard way without understanding their purpose and how they could help me in the garden.

A piece of art, fits the coffee table and yet is packed with valuable information

In the retail industry there is constant change. You must continually learn more to stay ahead of your competiton, and succeed with your business growth. I personally guarantee that this collection of shared success stories will teach you how to become a better retailer.

The retail industry needs any and all the help it can get right now and books like this are just what's needed. - President / Ames Stores (12 locations + 47 years of retail experience)