Fantastic book. I rec'd a 3rd degree burn and found this book a great resource. After the injury I had no idea what to expect or what to base health care decisions on. This book explains the healing process, skin grafting, burn garmets and much more. I felt I could make much more informed decisions after reading this book.

This book, is definitley rated a five star in most burn survivors views, there simply is no better guide anywhere, at least that I personally know of, and I have searched. Congratulaaation, thank you, you are fantastic,and an asset. SEVERE BURNS, should be a requirement that every burn survivor should be in reciept of.

I found this book to be a great resource for information on Burns and Recovery.

This book contains a wealth of information on the history and evolution of symbols. And it has the widest range and depth of symbols and their variations. With my degree in neuroscience and psychology, I also appreciated the insights and reminders about the deepest aspects of sybol/sign recognition.

The type and layout may need to be refined, but this is a real book, about real design--not just another portfolio piece by some design firm/publisher coalition that makes glossy books.

I have been a professional designer for a few years without having gone to design school. This is one of the most valuable books I used to gain the knowledge I use in my profession.

A book all about form: the essence of design. This is definitely something every real designer should read at least once and by the time I finish it I'll probably have learned as much about typography/design/marks/form as a year's worth of my design program.

This has to be one of the greatest design books ever written.

For over a century, this has been THE classic study of the history of architecture. It is a work of art in it's own right and worth owning simply for the joy of hefting it's not inconsiderable weight and browsing once in a while - even as a layman. The text is extraordinarily readable and the illustrations are a delight. It's so packed full of information - believe me, even if you have only a limited interest in architecture you will learn a great deal that will surprise you from this book! Enthusiasts for classical and other older branches of architecture may wish to consider purchasing second-hand copies of older editions - they're somehow nicer, and devote less space to the debased modern form of the art. (Yes, I'm biased and proud of it!:) Of a reasonable collection of architectural history books, (including several larger-format, beautifully-illustrated coffee-table books in the modern style)this book is easily my favourite. It has class, style and above all, character. Buy it!

If there ever was a book on the history of architecture this is it! So very well documented with numerous pictures and chronologies. Wow! the mother of all architecture books-well worth the price.

The comparitive method used in this book is probably the best way of understanding architecture, and putting it into a modern perspective. The diagrams, tables, and charts allow the reader to analize, compare, and then take their own conclusions from the material. It is the quitessential architectural reference book.

This is a wonderful children's version of "South Pacific". (Not the score of South Pacific as mentioned in the paperback reviews.) The illustrations in my first edition of 1992 are wonderful muted tones done in a charming old-fashioned style - not sepia as mentioned in the two professional reviews. A wonderful introduction to South Pacic, the literature of James Michner, or World War II history. Altogether highly recommended. (Refers to the Hardback version.)

If you're interested in this, then don't hesitate to get it! This Vocal Score contains all music from the show (from the Overture to bows and exit music).

Although "The Sound of Music" is their most popular collaboration, "South Pacific" is arguably Rodgers and Hamerstein's finest work. It is also the best scored. This is evidenced by the fact that when the film version was recorded, much of the scoring was kept as it was originally performed on Broadway. Unlike many conductor's scores, most of "South Pacific" is entirely playable on the piano. The occasional omission of a harp, woodwind, or string line from the reduction will not detract from rehearsal. For fans of musicals, conductors, arrangers, and singers, this is a "must-add" to your collection.

Soltis and Mcfarland realized a great work. Soviet chess is an historical topic of absolute interest for chess players and not. Soltis keeps a good balance between historical/anecdotical facts and chess facts. the price is high but correct: hardcover, good paper, many photopgraphs.

GM Soltis has produced a fine work here, just like his biography of Frank Marshall, as well as his 70s book "The Younger Soviet School of Chess" (more than can be said for his opening books alas). He covers chess in the Soviet Union from the October Revolution to the Union's demise.

Soltis covers the inauspicious beginnings of Soviet chess, largely due to the whims of Krylenko, the much feared Soviet prosecutor. There were bad setbacks at first, particularly the defections of Alekhine and Bogolyubov, the outclassing of the leading Russians (albeit of a pre-revolonary generation) by the best Westerners at the great Moscow 1925 tournament (of course, apart from the soon-to-defect Bogolyubov), to the rise of Botvinnik to world class.

By the end of WW2, Soviet strength had grown enormously, but was almost unknown in the West. The West realized it soon enough with the Soviets' drubbing of the USA team, victors in the four previous Olympiad. Then Botvinnik convincingly captured the World Title, and the Soviets held it ever since apart from the three-year reign of Fischer.

Soltis also covers the horrors of Communist Russia, showing that even chessmasters were not immune from Stalin's paranoia. Even Krylenko met the fate he had handed out to so many others. The "Great Patriotic War" also took a terrible toll, including Iljin Genevsky, and Romanovsky's first wife and all their daughters. Soltis speculates on the effects of the Soviet oppression on the character of many of its grandmasters.

There is a good collection of lightly annotated games, many unknown but still high quality. At the end, there's even a guide to pronouncing Russian names, which may surprise many, but on the ones I've heard pronounced by native Russian speakers, Soltis provides an accurate guide as far as is possible with the Latin alphabet.

This book offers a fascinating historical account of chess in the Soviet Union. While it does contain lots of game scores with light annotations by the author, the book is more historical than instructional. The book gives a detailed account of the evolution of Soviet chess from the basement of a small house in Moscow just after the revolution, to a national fascination that would dominate the world scene. All throughout the book there is a strong emphasis on the connection between chess and politics in the USSR. A great read for history buffs.

Andrew Chaikin is best known for his classic book "A Man on the Moon" which describes the Apollo missions to the moon and was basis for the equally classic HBO series "From the Earth to the Moon." In his latest offering, Andrew Chaikin presents the history of space exploration from the early space pioneers, through the space race, to the latest space shuttle missions to the International Space Station (ISS) using numerous high quality, large format photographs and a very small amount of introductory text for each chapter. I feel that this book will be another one of his classic space exploration books.

The book opens with a small discussion of the early space pioneers such as Wernher von Braun, Sergei Korolev and Robert Goddard, and their efforts to develop workable rockets. The book then moves into the dawn of the space age and the race between Russia and the United States to achieve various "firsts." For example, the first satellite, the first probe to the moon or another planet and of course the first country to put a man into space. After this portion of the book, the Mercury, Gemini, Vostok, Voskhod and early Apollo programs are examined. The next section is devoted to NASA's exploration of the moon and contains many full page photographs. To further emphasis the grandeur of these missions of exploration, there are several two page foldouts. The next chapter of the book covers the early robotic exploration of the solar system, up to and including the Viking and Voyager missions. The next portion of the book examines the space shuttle era. It is here that I feel that the book should have included more. While the space shuttle has been flying for over twenty years, there is less than twenty pages of shuttle related photographs. The book concludes with the current robotic exploration of the solar system, some really excellent photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station.

I only have two minor criticisms about the book. First, most of the photographs are devoted to the space race up to the Apollo moon landings, with very little dedicated to the Space Shuttle and International Space Station projects. Secondly, many of the photographs are ones that have been published before so there is very little new here. Nevertheless, these two very minor complaints, are overshadowed by the splendor of the numerous high quality photographs is this book.

it's hard to believe we haven't gone back to the Moon, after seeing these phot0graphs

Andy Chaikin has chosen some of the most beautiful photographic vistas from the Space Age and packaged them into this wonderful book. This is one book that you want to thumb through slowly as you take in the fantastic views of the incredible sights that humans and space probes have brought back to us since the dawning years of the space age.

Space photography and imaging has given the human race a view of some of the most unimaginable wonders of our universe. We also see the miraculous images of humans and their fantastical machines in a realm long thought impossible to reach. This book beautifully documents all of the key milestones along our greatest journey. These images, taken together, capture one of the more hopeful and forward-looking pieces of the human story.

To be perfectly honest, until Deep Space Nine went off the air I scorned Star Trek books. However, not only was DS9 my favorite "Trek" series, it just got better and better and ultimately became my all-time favorite program. I consider it the most admirable, well-written and well-acted long-running TV series--EVER. Since it went off I haven't bothered to turn on my TV except to watch tapes and DVDs. After being spoiled by the quality of DS9, there's nothing worth watching. So, since I prefer reading to watching the idiot box anyway, I started buying the DS9 books and have a fair collection of them.

Who better than the intelligent actor-writer-playwright Andrew Robinson to perform some intricate self-analysis and produce this history of the life of his own character on the show, Elim Garak, DS9's fascinating, morally ambivalent Cardassian tailor-spy? Motivations, characterizations and descriptions are right on the mark. This book would stand on its merits had DS9 never been produced, but it brings special joy to someone who misses the TV program as much as I do.

If Robinson wrote this with only minor editorial help, then let's have more from his pen, please!

I remember hearing word that Andrew Robinson was going to write a DS9 novel, and experienced a very mild reaction. Thoughts of an actor just trying to earn an extra paycheck by letting someone else fill in every piece for him except for some creativity here and there filled my head. I picked up this book at the bookstore, read the back cover, and my emotions still didn't overflow with anticipation.

But there was something that snatched me and persuaded me to buy it. Call it curiosity, call it Deep Space Nine withdrawal, whatever it was gave me the needed "oomph" to purchase it. And it was one of the biggest surprises in not only Star Trek history for me, but fiction writing in general.

Plain and simple Garak evolves in this novel, and fills in all the pieces of Garak's past and personality like a well-placed collar. You can feel Andrew Robinson's connection with this exiled and lonely man, and in watching Deep Space Nine episodes after reading this book - particularly "Improbable Cause," "The Die is Cast," "In Purgatory's Shadow," "By Inferno's Light," and "Empok Nor," it causes a ripple of understanding and fascination with Garak, even stronger than by watching the series alone.

All in all, this book was fantastic. From Garak's childhood, through his adolescent years, his relationship to Enabran Tain as both protege and son, his experiences with love, politics, death, and heartbreak, and the reasons behind his exile from Cardassia, this book will have you latched onto it like a vole on an electrical conduit.

The VERY few negative comments I could even possibly make are just some omissions. A lack of character interaction between Garak and Gul Dukat slightly hurts the explanation for their series-long feud and leaves that area too unexplored, and references to the Romulan/Cardassian fleet that attacked the Dominion in "Improbable Cause"/"The Die is Cast" were nearly non-existent to provide some more insight to the Tain/Garak relationship.

These points pale in comparison to the elaborate and perfectly designed situations Andrew creates for Garak's tapestry; you can truly see how his experiences and adventures correlate to the personality you see on the screen in the series. The reasons and foundations for Garak's mysterious ways, blind ambition, thirst for acceptance and companionship, fondness for philosophy and vicious circles, are all explored and presented here. What you read is what you get in the timeline of things. The one thing that's hard to do is mentally visualize the fictional Cardassian characters, and Garak as a young man. But other than that, Andrew does a beautiful job of utilizing explosive and vivid imagery in his descriptions.

I can say little more to persuade you, you will just have to do yourself a favor and purchase this one as soon as you can. Don't be hesistant on the actor/author situation, Andrew Robinson brings Garak to life one stitch at a time.

"A stitch in time saves nine...."

I was resistant at first. I wasn't a huge DS9 fan and I was skeptical about an actor's ability to write about his own character. This book was such a pleasant surprise. It was enthralling and insightful and made me wish DS9 had done more "Garak" episodes. Easily one of the top 20 Trek books published. I hope that Andrew J. Robinson writes more about Garak.

Barton has written a book that should be compulsory reading for all budding university physcists and chemists and their teachers. He deals with models, analogies and other conceptual aids that are used in describing nature. His non-mathematical text captures very essential ingredients of science which are usually omitted in textbooks proper. Is it obvious that students understand the implications of model simplifications and unspoken ideality assumptions ?. How is reality added and model enhanced ? One of the nice features is that the book really deals with various sorts of matter: not only solid, liquid and gas but also surfactants, thin films, foams, aerogels, adhesives, gels, ceramics, glasses, liquid crystals, ........

States of Matter is a beautiful critique on the models we use to understand our reality. The text is really humbling stuff -- not because I thought I "knew", but rather because it highlights that we can barely know what we don't know. This leaves us to publish an understanding of our reality that may, of course, be rigorous and functional, but at the same time must be continually subject to even total collapse as we move closer to the truth. In whole and in part, I've found compelling analogies in this book that can be practically applied across disciplines -- business, literature, etc.

I found "States of Matter, States of Mind" to be an insightful compilation of the known interpretations of "matter" and forces as perceived through our limited senses and through our more highly sensitive laboratory instruments of detection. Allan Barton has done a wonderful service to all that may come across this work. One is taken through the maze of interpretations of the multiplicity of the patterns of existence - into the Classical/Newtonian - through the Quantum - and then out into the future of perception.

I keep this work close by as a reference when I do my own research and writing. I highly recommend this work to all who endeavor to perceive "reality" in its true form.

Michael Spirit

If you like to read about other peoples trials & victories, you will love this book!

Well, you've found it!! Andy Andrews has compiled letters of encouragement to give the reader just the right boost to keep moving forward. Just like the people in this book, each person among us has "storms" of adversity or disappointment or discouragment in their lives; these letters help me each day to search for the "perfection" that the turbulence and trials can bring. Don't miss this one...

Without a doubt "Storms" let me know that those we consider to be wildly successful people are, in reality, just people like us! They were discouraged, disheartened, and they thought about quitting. The difference is, they didn't! "Storms" let me know that the most important factor to success is to simply keep going. Very inspirational!

Ever felt like you've reached the end? That things are as bad as they can be? That it just isn't worth it? So have the people who shared their thoughts in this book. And by reading their shared experiences and struggles, you can perhaps see the light at the end of the tunnel. Like the other books in this series, Volume 2 offers encouragement that can satisfy your soul at just the right moment. I read these letters to my kids in hopes that they will always "persist."

Inspiring! Encouraging! Amazing!

This book will definitely convince you of the accuracy of the old motto: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

As someone who has run into her own share of big brick walls as well as a few incredible successes, I can guarantee this will encourage anyone currently suffering his or her own storm or inspire anyone dithering over a decision to pursue a dream. The book remains a frequently consulted personal source of inspiration to me, as I'm in the midst of a new business venture right now!

absolutely fabulous! I have read all 4 books and still go back to read them again. I get such inspiration from them and know if they can overcome their struggles, so can I.