I have not had the opportunity to put any of the recipes to use. But I am a fan of Williams-Sonoma products and own many of his easy to follow and tasty recipes. The book is in good condition and free of foul mildewy smells! Such was not the case with another used book Chuck Williams Thanksgiving and Christmas. The recipes and pictures look attractive but the smell keeps me from using it.

I've made a few recipes ou tof this cookbook and so far my family has loved them all (and some of them are fussy eaters that never like to try anything new). The marinades are so simple to make and from there the meat just needs to sit and marinate before throwing it on the grill - very easy!! At my fourth of July BBQ I was able to very easily assemble three of these recipes in a very short period of time in the morning for an afternoon celebration while still having time to prepare a bunch of other things. So far I've tried: Teriyaki Chicken, Lemon Chicken Breasts, Curried Pork Sate, Scallop and Mushroom Brochettes - all very good!!

This cook book has to be one of the best. I have made several dishes and everyone has been a hit by my family and friends. The recipes are easy to follow and alot of the prep work can be done ahead of time. I definetly would recommend this book to others and I have...enjoy.

Finally!... A book providing both practical guidance AND sound theoretical reference materials for change leaders and organizational effectiveness practitioners. Chan Allen's book is clearly organized, easy to use, and accessible at whatever level of conceptual depth her reader wishes to work (or to start from). Her examples are creative, original and fun to use -- in both professional and personal contexts. I highly recommend this for organization development professionals and those interested in transformation methodology.

One of the greatest challenges an author can undertake is to write a book that is both theoretically complex and strongly pragmatic. Rebecca Chan Allen has accomplished this in Guiding Change Journeys. In combining the philosophical underpinnings and conceptual bases of a wide variety of organizational change strategies with practical approaches, examples, exercises and illustrations, she skillfully supports change practitioners in integrating Eastern and Western perspectives. Through her integration of stories from mythology and concepts from organization development, new science and wisdom traditions, Chan Allen takes us on an "Archetypal change Journey" based on Jungian archetypes, which describe enduring patterns of transformation.

In a spirit of integration, the book implies throughout that successful organizational change is dependent upon individual and group psychological approaches, conceptualized within a systemic framework. The author's intention seems ultimately holistic, in that she continually addresses issues of mind/body/spirit, whether individually or organizationally.

Though the book may seem esoteric and philosophically dense at times, it carefully balances the more theoretical introductions to each chapter with a plethora of practical examples and exercises, which bring the theory to life and make the concepts infinitely usable. The overall impression is a treasure-trove of ideas. The many insights, methods and resources are offered by the author as gifts, with the invitation to "tinker and improvise" in order to adapt them to one's own needs.

In this simple offering, Chan Allen summarizes the heart of her book as a journey of discovery - which may well alter the life of the change practitioner, as well as the very nature of his or her organizational context.

An excellent publication for all those who have desired to implement eastern theology and the soul's path into the corporate realm, but didn't have the tools or know how. This book is revolutionary in providing the practical tools to bridge this tricky terrain.
Apply the soul's work in an "acceptable" format that won't raise the eye brows of CEOs. Execute exercises that seem sincere and truly contribute to well-functioning individuals and organizations. Review organizational and personal experiences with the new perspective of eight steps of the change journey realizing that they do exist, and how you can work with each step for the best possible outcome.
Highly effective in my work as a consultant and organizational behavioral specialist.

I bought this book awile ago. Some of the things left behind have letters or notes attached to them. Very chilling. Awesome book for anyone. I love it.

My best friend and I used to curl up in chairs at the local book store to read this book and weep. It is a very touching and poignant book, a must see.

This book is beyond catagorization. More than any story, journalism, or war photos could ever do, this book demonstrates the horrors that soldiers in Vietnam were subjected to both "in-country" and state-side. Every American should own this book.

Ritual & Sacrifice in the Corrida
For many Americans bull fighting is the one of the most misunderstood phenomena. The title of this fine book by Allen Josephs best explains bullfighting to the uninitiated Bull fighting, or toreo as Josephs correctly prefers to call it, is a ceremony of ritual and sacrifice.

The relation between man and the bull is lost deep in the fog of prehistory. Some say it was the bull not agriculture that domesticated man. The corrida is one aspect of that relationship, a sign of respect and honor to a noble enemy and friend.

The book is much more than a story of bullfighting. It is a classic saga of courage and perseverance as Cesar Rincon, a Colombian, against all odds succeeds in a foreign sometimes hostile land. From the plains of southern France, across the mountains of central Spain to the difficult rings of Andalusia, Allen takes us on a whirlwind adventure that criss-cross the breath and depth of Spain as he follows Rincon in his quest for the perfect corrida.

Josephs writes in a lyrical style more in the mode of Garcia Lorca than Hemingway.

Josephs, author of the White Wall of Spain, has an innate understanding of Spain and the Spanish which he imparts to the reader.

Read Hemingway, yes, but Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida is a must read for anyone even vaguely interested in that most Spanish of Spanish phenomena.

As made clear by the subtitle, this is the story of the César Rincón, arguably the best Colombian torero in history, one of the best ever to emerge from the Americas, one of the best -- without respect to origins -- performing anywhere in the second half of the twentieth century.

This is the story of César Rincón the torero (not a biography; we learn little here about César Rincón the man -- quite possibly the only aspect of the book that leaves the reader wishing for more, though we learn plenty about César's view of toreo, his personal take on its hows and whys, the nature and price of the vocation and its demands) who, in 1991, burst onto the taurine scene from nowhere (or, seemingly so -- he was so little known on the day of his first triumph in Madrid that the program listed him as Venezuelan), managing performances that saw him carried out through the Puerta Grande in Las Ventas on four consecutive appearances, a feat unequaled by anyone, before or since.

Just how good was César Rincón? The inescapable impression given by this book is that he was a taurine epiphany:

Josephs is without doubt a full-blooded Rincóncista, but Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida is no tendentiously edited hagiography. The judgments it contains are not just his -- they're from the pens of some of the most important taurine critics of Rincón's day (Andrés de Miguel, Vicente Zabala, Norberto Carrasco, Joaquín Vidal, Michael Wigram and José Carlos Arévalo), writing with Rincon's performances still vivid from the previous days' events. Josephs gives us his eye-witness accounts whenever possible, but generously supplements them with the opinions of other commentators.

This is a stunningly successful book, unlike any taurine work published in English in decades. Without question, Josephs has given us a work that will, for years, sit comfortably alongside the best of Hemingway, the best of Conrad, the best of Fulton and Tynan -- destined to be one of the more re-read works in any taurine bibliophile's library.

Rincón was essentially unknown to Josephs in 1991, and the germ of this book took root slowly as Rincón began to stun the Spanish afición (and Josephs) with his performances during that year's Iberian temporada. The idea for the book chrystalized in the spring of 1992, in Plaza Santa Ana -- a Madrid neighborhood dripping with taurine history and activity -- during a chat with Michael Wigram. Josephs set out to follow Rincón, documenting his career trajectory, from Spain back to the Americas, back to Spain, to the Americas, over and over until the end of the 1995 season when Rincón, suffering from a resurgence of hepatitis "C," announced his retirement, intending to swap the role of torero for that of ganadero.

Written with the aid of unusual access to a torero's inner circle, this is not simply an insider's view of the taurine circuit (as might be, for example, a detailed diary kept by a torero). Josephs didn't travel as part of Rincon's entourage. But it is likely as intimate a view as anyone will soon provide. Josephs shadowed Ricón, his manager and cuadrilla for four years -- benefitting greatly from their assistance, attending every corrida he could manage, describing in great detail what he saw (how the public reacted, and how the authority and critics judged). He had access that only a personal relationship with a torero can provide -- to hotel suites before and after successful and disastrous corridas, to sorteos, to the callejon, to tientas, to family gatherings on ganaderias and in Rincon's home, to hospital/infirmary rooms, to post-corrida de-briefings with critics and ganaderos, and more.

Faenas are described in near photographic detail, both the good, the bad, and the all-too-commonly mundane. Although the degree of taurine detail may prove more-than-a-little daunting for anyone outside or new to the mundo taurino, Josephs has seized on a clever way of avoiding bad translation of taurine terms while simultaneously keeping the narrative clear of repeated explanatory asides. All terms that would not be done justice by clumsy translation into English are left in their Spanish forms, accompanied by explanatory asides only the first time they appear in the text. Supsequent appearances remain in Spanish and an index of defined appearances is provided for readers who didn't absorb the meaning of a term the first time around.

Althouh this is Rincón's saga, Josephs' eyes aren't focused on Rincón alone. Had they been, no proper assessment of Rincón would have been possible. Though bullfighting isn't a contest between matador and bull, one can't really judge a matador's mettle without seeing him alongside his peers, each trying to tease the best out of the unpredictable complexity of the animals drawn each afternoon. Fortunately, Josephs doesn't slight Rincón's rivals (most noteworthy among them, Enrique Ponce and Joselito), giving everyone their due. We're provided a very balanced view of years of performances, the good and the bad, solidly retained in the natural context. To back every judgment we're given dates and locations (no need to take Josephs' word alone for the quality of performances observered; we're everywhere pointed to sources that can confirm the observations made) and detail that could only be noticed by one steeped -- as Josephs is -- in Spanish history and geography, taurine lore and fact.

All this is done without any of the dry, ponderous, academic heaviness that made Josephs' last major work (White Wall of Spain (c) 1983) so nearly impenetrable. Here the writing often seems to dance along with the improvisational pas de deux between Rincón and his partners of the afternoon.

I can't recommend this book too highly.

You will never get a more in depth understanding of the Corrida and its participants than you will from reading Allen Josephs' book,Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida.To understand the last rite on earth that pits wild animal against man, armed only with a sword,in a modern age where little thought is given to the ceremony of ancient rituals, could only be done by a man like Joseph who has devoted his life to exploring the nuances of the bullfight. Joseph is an outsider and so is Cesar Rincon the Columbian matador who he follows, mostly around Spain, for four seasons.It is the devotion of the author and protagonist to the Corrida that gives them a perspective and a story that could never be told by a Spaniard. From poverty, to tragedy, to triumph, the story of Cesar Rincon, has all the ingredients that make a blockbuster movie. The reflections of life embodied in the ritual, persued with the knowledge of the ultimate end, are found in the myth of Sysaphus in his attempt to achieve life's greatest achievement that never comes. Cesar takes you to a place where his mother's spirit is watching over him and his success, and the ever presence of death, is kept at bay because of her as much as it is because of his talent. For those unfamiliar with bull fights Allen takes you step by step through the ritual. The description , unlike so many books that try to sell the uninitiated on the glory of bullfighting, is true to the typical fight. In fact it is not a fight, it is a sacrifice.Hemingway would have wished that he had penned this book.

I am working my way through all of Ms's Allen's 37 books and this is my 15th. The one I like best so far is Matters of The Heart and I wish she would write another pithy one like that. It is hard to believe that a woman could be a recluse for 27 years in this day and time. I loved what I learned about ordering on the net everything one could want or need. Ms. Allen is currently writing a sequel to this and I will probably read it too.

"Fresh Air" is, of course, a realistic, contemporary novel, dealing with such issues as child abuse and spousal abuse (as do many of Charlotte Vale Allen's other novels). It vividly re-creates settings that range from Hollywood to suburban Connecticut to Harlem. It's even Internet-savvy. But the key to its appeal is something age-old and fundamental -- a fairy-tale quality -- that's hinted at by the nicknames of the heroine, Lucinda Hunter: "Ella" and "Cinders," which add up to "Cinderella." Lucinda, a movie star's daughter, is like an exiled princess, isolated and living in emotional poverty, when, if she only knew it, a world of love and connection, her true kingdom, is within easy reach. Katanya, the little African American girl who frees Lucinda from her self-imposed prison, is the classic facilitator, the fairy, the squire, the wizard, who breaks the spell and makes a new life possible.
This big-hearted story features a wide variety of voices and interesting characters. Some of its people, when "Fresh Air" ends, we may feel we're only beginning to know -- but a sequel, evidently, is on the way. It'll be worth the wait!

For the most part, Lucinda Hunter has not left her Connecticut home in twenty-seven years. Rarely she will leave to go into town, but that takes quite a struggle for her to achieve. Shockingly, Lucinda is the daughter of the late great actress Lily Hunter and a noted screenwriter in her own right. However, when her mother died, Lucinda learned that her father was a black man. Unable to cope with not knowing whether she belongs to the white or black race, both or neither, she became a hermit.

Lucinda looks out her window to see a young African-American female playing in her yard. The girl invites Lucinda outside. Surprisingly she goes and soon a bond forms between the nine-year-old Harlem resident Katanya Taylor, in town as part of the FRESH AIR program, and the recluse. As they become better acquainted, Kat helps Lucinda overcome her agoraphobia one step at a time.

FRESH AIR is an engaging contemporary tale that showcases how modern communication systems enable an individual to hide from society as everything can be ordered on line. The story line focuses on friendship, as everyone needs someone to care about. Lucinda is an incredible lead character and though Kat acts more like an adult than a preadolescent, readers will find her charming too. The support cast provides the audience deep insight into Lucinda as Charlotte Vale Allen gifts her fans with a deep psychological drama.

Harriet Klausner

Set in a vivid and dramatic landscape, this memoir tells a story filled with honesty, humor, and courage. Allen observes with a keen eye. She takes on one of the great challenges for a writer, giving us not just the surface of the moments of a relationship but the deep undercurrents, both real and imagined, and succeeds with a grace that seems effortless. Allen's inner journey blends perfectly with the wild spaces, the free spirited horses, and the quirky human world, which is at once familiar, weird, and sobering.

Allen is an engaging guide and companion. We can only hope she shares more of her journey with us.

I was very taken by this wonderful real-life novel. Even if the reality level is relatively high, the author manages to turn it into something that transcends the documentary, the journalistic. By mixing many atfirst sight totally unrelated elements, in the end it turns out to be a novel about spirituality in daily life, or about how to see meaning in it.
The location of the American North-West is much more than just an
impressive backdrop. The scenery in the broadest sense of the word, including the population, is subject and metaphor at the same time.
Penny Allen seems to focus on the "outside" of things, but interprets the "inside". All elements come together towards the very end, not only in a literary way, but in the way things sometimes do, in real life.

I read this book with a lot of pleasure and satisfaction. It is
introspective, but at the same time describes mundane and sometimes gruesome events that happen in the real world. And it's funny, if you share the author's sense of humor.

Memoirs are the current hot genre. Often they depend on one big event for their oomph, or they putter along in a very interior manner. Penny Allen, a radical bohemian filmmaker now living in Paris, caretook a horse ranch in eastern Oregon, which would provide enough gist for most memoirist's mills. Perhaps Allen is lucky, perhaps she draws intense people and events to her, perhaps her filmmaker's gaze sees and frames life as most of us do not--certainly most of us wouldn't have emerged with such an amazing quilt of interlocking stories. Thoreau observed that most people lead lives of quiet desperation, and Allen's time on the high desert proves no exception. She finds these desperate lives and recounts them brilliantly, but after the regular weird folks come the hardcore character actors: the cult of Rajneeshpuram, the Vietnam vet "on patrol," the ghost, and more. With the constitution of a war journalist, she never averts her eyes, and she is willing to tell us exactly what she saw. --Hollis Taylor, Sydney, Australia

HOW BUILDINGS WORK is just a great book, even more interesting than Macaulay's THE WAY THINGS WORK. Buildings are everywhere, and most everyone uses buildings of various kinds for various purposes. Yet how a building works is often a mystery. In this way, I think buildings are much like computers; most people who use them have no clue about the inner workings of them.

Edward Allen takes us through the functions of a building without going into traditional architectural theory. This book is more concerned with the needs that buildings must fulfill, and how we can fulfull them. He discusses water, waste, heat, ventilation, lighting, accoustics, energy, structure, and more, first by explaining each particular concept, and then by examining how problems can be solved with the knowledge of those concepts.

While this isn't a book on theory, neither is it a wholly practical book. That is, it won't equip you with the skills to go and build a house. But it will open your eyes to the various elements of buildings and building construction and you may think "Aha!" the next time you look at a building and observe a strange structural or design detail. You don't have to be an architecture freak to enjoy the book either. You just need to be curious.

I practice and teach architecture. This is the best book I have ever found for communicating material essential for the study of building science and architecture. The presentation style is frendly and informative. The knowledge of the subject displayed by Edward Allen is superb. I am a unashamed book-a-holic, if I could only take one book to the proverbial desert island - How Buildings Work would be it.

A practical overview of the natural order of architecture. Explains what building do (i.e. Effects of outdoor environment, human environment and the concept of shelter). Explains how a building works (i.e. Various practical functions, providing water, removing wastes, thermal comfort, HVAC, acoustics, form, structural support, fire control, building expansion, etc.).

This book sticks to the basics of what a building is all about. This is not a book about design princples and concepts (old or modern); the book stresses the practical nature of building construction/design and the interface with human beings and the environment.

Excellent book for students, architecture professors, practicing architects, builders and people just wanting to know more about the principles of architecture.

An easy to understand and implement guide to the art of listening. Some great advice and I recommend this book to anyone interested in improving their listening skills.

This book is written mainly for the business audience, but all the principles are applicable to every situation. The author is very good at explaining scenarios and solutions. Other authors spend the bulk of their time explaining why we need to listen, but Burley-Allen spends the bulk of her time explaining how to listen. That alone places this book on a more productive plane than most books on this topic. You'll be impressed with how things change in your inter-personal communication at work and at home with the adoption of even a few principles from this book.

With this exciting new Millenieum upon us, most all of us have had classes, lectures, and read books on expressing ourselves more effectively, public speaking and the list goes on. The problem now is "No One is Listening." Madelyn Burley-Allen's book Listening the Forgotten Skill is the perfect tool for helping us get back to the true meaning of listening. What good is all of this teaching, until you are taught how to listen. With this book you are taught how to communicate effectively and listen effectively as well. This is an excellent book for improving your lifestyle through listening.

I think the part of this book that hooked me was Honoria's energy towards everybody around her. In a time when many people still looked at black people and assumed they were nothing more than hired help, Honoria hired May as her personal assistant and treated her as an equal from day one. When the son of Honoria's best friend comes to her for help (wanting to prove that his fiancee was murdered, and didn't commit suicide) she reluctantly agrees to ask around and see what she can find. Toss in her loyal housekeeper, Mick (her Russian lover who everybody thinks is her husband), and a smattering of other characters and you've got a great story. Aside from the actual story, I liked the fact that the author kept the number of characters minimal so that you didn't have any trouble following who was whom.

This is the first book I have read from this author, but will not be the last. I sat down for a short break, thinking I would read a chaper or two, and ended up reading the entire book in one evening. I simply could not remove my self from the world of Honoria. If you are looking for an escape, this is it!

Mood Indigo is my favorite book. The writing is excellent.

Mood Indigo is brilliant; it kept me guessing "who did it" until the end. Usually in mystery books I can tell right off the bat who the killer is. But not this time. And usually I can say at least one thing I didn't like about a book. But not this time.

I highly recommend Mood Indigo to anyone who wants to read a mystery with exceptional characters in a time before the internet and cell phones. I guarantee you will not be disappointment.

Charlotte Vale Allen has written many books, all different, and Mood Indigo is no exception. She makes you care about the characters.

Mood Indigo is a must read for mystery buffs. Once you've read the book you will see why it's my all-time favorite book.

Cute and clever collection of observances on doggy behavior. Just for fun, but one of the cleverest of its type, and I love the illustrations.

I read this book at the house of a fellow dog lover and ended up ordering 6 copies for other dog lovers I know! Can't wait to share it with them, as they will appreciate the not only the humor, but how well it represents the personalities of dogs we have all known and loved.

This book must be written by a really smart old dog because he does seem to know how everything works. I read some of it to my dogs and they totally agree. We all had a great tummy scratch and took a nap. Great fun!!