John Fulton was the first American (USA) to become a matador. His book gives a good insight about bullfighting. There are many pictures to help one understand the fight itself. There is some history and also a list of Spanish bullfighting terms.

This is a collection of photographs taken of some of the most prominent figures in the 1920's and 30's. The photographs, for the most part are clear and quite vivid, but there are a few that are slightly blurry and grainy, but still manage to retain their luster considering the time period in which they were taken. The book has rare photos of writers, artists, dancers, actors and athletes. Some of the people featured are Marlene Dietrich, Claude Monet, Anita Loos, Greta Garbo, Calvin Coolidge, Lillian Gish, Cole Porter, Agnes DeMille, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Helen Keller, H.G. Wells and many others. While there are quite a few pictures of movie actors, the photographs of the novelists, artists, dancers and musicians outnumber them slightly. Overall, a good collection of photographs. Also recommended is "Hollywood Glamor Portraits, 145 photos of stars 1926-1949" and "Movie Star Portraits of the Forties" both by John Kobal (editor). These books feature stunning and breathtaking photos of many of the most popular movie stars of Hollywood's golden age.

In this delightful book, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen attempts to accomplish one goal: to show that Jesus of Nazareth is the Word become flesh, that He is the personification of Truth, and that this Truth is perserved and proclaimed in the Catholic Church. The outline of his book is the life of Christ, but this book is not a retelling of Christ's life; rather, Sheen uses the events of Christ's life as a stepping stone to enter into beautiful, yet challenging reflections on the situation of the modern world. For example, in Chapter Two, Sheen sees the shepherds and wise men who visited the Divine Babe as symbols of those who are able to approach Christ: those who are truly simple, because they know that they know nothing, and those who are truly wise, because they know that they don't know everything. Thus, those of the modern world that are not simple enought or learned enough, i.e., those who think that they know something, will never find Christ. Consequently, this method allows Sheen to enter into deep meditations that will challenge every reader.

If any one is wondering why I gave the book only four stars and not five, it is simply because, at certain times, the book is dated. Sheen wrote the book in 1934, and the reader needs to keep this in mind, because Sheen will enter into a polemic against one intellectual trend or another that was prevelant during the first half of the 1900's (e.g., Liberal Protestantism). Of course, the book can't help but being dated, and it doesn't take away from the overall quality of Sheen's work. Thus, the four star rating must be taken with a grain of salt, because other than this "historical fact," the book is wonderfully profound. Sheen not only accomplishes his goal, but the reader will walk away from the book with a deep sense that the Eternal Galilean is eteranlly present in His Church.

This book is a great description of the events surrounding the Lincoln County War, which is an absolutely fascinating case study of lawlessness in the American West. Although the author's bias is clear--and probably warranted--the entire series of events is well documented and the writing very accessible. To his credit, the author refuses to fall into the trap of making Billy the Kid--who was just a minor figure--the star of the show. Billy remains a background figure almost throughout and the real players in the drama are made memorable. This book does rely very heavily on excerpts from the self-serving letter writing campaign going on during the events.

A useful refrence book for the writer, The International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses contains information on hundreds and hundreds of small press markets, such as 'zines. Not specific to the poet or fiction writer, the Directory provides information on publishers of all sorts of writing, both literary and nonfiction. This is probably the definitive refrence guide to the small press publications. You'll find publications in here that you won't find in the Writer's Market or Poet's Market.

Anyone who needs a concrete set of examples from the set of general algebraic varieites will find them in toric varieties. The definitions and resulting constructions of toric varieties satisfy the need for an intuitive understanding of varieties. In addition, toric varieties are the easiest collection of varieties to manipulate from the standpoint of computational-geometric algorithms. Toric varieties also have applications to various areas of mathematical physics, such as in mirror symmetry. Indeed, the case of toric varieties is one of the few examples where an explicit mirror can be found.

Fulton gives an excellent overview of toric varieties in this short book, and the reading is fairly easy going. He introduces toric varieties in the first chapter as objects originating from compactification studies, with projective n-space the natural example as a compactification of complex n-space. It is their definition in terms of fans in lattices however that permeates chapter one. The author's treatment is very understandable, and he does not hesitate to use many diagrams and figures to illustrate the concepts. This is followed by a consideration of compactness and resolution of singularities. The example given of the resolution of a two-dimensional toric singularity is done, interestingly, via Hirzebruch-Jung continued fractions. A taste of the algebraic topology of toric varieties is given in the next chapter, where the fundamental groups and Euler characteristics are calculated, along with the cohomology of line bundles over toric varieties. More of this follows in the next chapter, where a statement and proof of Serre duality is given, along with a calculation of Bott numbers. The most interesting results are in the last chapter of the book on intersection theory. Because of the intuitive nature of toric varieties, one can see the very abstract constructions of algebraic geometry take on a concrete form. I think one can appreciate the more abstract constructions in algebraic geometry if the more concrete examples are studied first. This is especially true for those seeking to apply these ideas, for example physicists, who must grasp them quickly and efficiently.

This book should give readers sufficient insight into the subject to move on to applications or to more advanced treatments of toric varieties or algebraic geometry.

The Layman's Bible Dictionary edited by George W. Knight & Rayburn W. Ray contains over 2,500 entries from A to Z. It's comprehensive and accurate. It's laid out so that it's easy to understand. Key words are based on the King James Version, but one can use any bible version. Each entry is cross-referenced with the scripture for indepth study. It's very helpful in explaining all the obscure terms of the KJV Bible. It's simply written that anyone with very Bible knowledge can understand. Every entry is concise with essential facts about the most significant Bible people, places, things and ideas.

I find this to be practical and reliable. For added interest it's illustrated with about 27 black and white photographs. It's a great compact size to keep handy along with your Bible for a quick reference. I think this is an excellent resource for students or anyone wanting to expand on their Bible knowledge. It'a also priced just right. I'm sure this would be a valuable source of information to those who are eager to learn more about the Bible. What is NOT included is the pronunciation of names. An excellent source in this area is 'Pronouncing Bible Names' by W. Murray Severance. My other choice for reference would be the 'Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible' by Allen Myers, 'Dictionary of Paul & his Letters' by G.F. Hawthorne and 'Oxford's A Dictionary of the Bible ' by W. Browning as extended supplemental study.

This book proves to be the best virtually all-encompassing prep tool for The Excel 2002 Microsoft Office Specialist Exam. That being said, you won't do it in one weekend - as the hype fallaciously proclaims - unless you're one of two things - an Excel freak or ... settling for the Core cert.

I just passed the Expert Exam today. 45 minutes for 14 multi-part questions. You need a 780/1000. It's no cakewalk, so to speak, but then again, I am an Expert. The only areas on the Expert exam where you need to get more info that aren't covered in this book are: customizing macros, subtotal options within PivotTables, and custom number formats. This book has a practice file from the CD_ROM for each and every lesson in this book - very helpful. It's very well written and comes highly recommended - I mean, we're talking Barabara Clemens.

If you want in depth information about Netscape, here it is. I was looking for detailed directions and an explanation for Netscape Composer set up for new web pages and this book was just what I needed. Most of the extras that come with the Netscape browser you may never need or want to use, but if you do the directions for each component including Navigator, Netcaster, Messenger, Collabra, Conference and Composer are covered in "Netscape communicator 4 6 in 1" I found it as easy as a dummies book but more informative in a easy to follow format with a content layout that makes it easy to find what your looking for. Very helpful!

A Ready-Made Life is a collection of translations of Korean short stories written during the 1920s and 1930s, a period when Koreans writers and intellectuals were just beginning to experiment with the short story form. The collection offers a diversity of stories whose styles range from comedy to romance to politics. Korean is a very difficult language to translate into English but Fulton and Kim do a good job of capturing the Korean authors' styles of expression. The only weakness of this volume is that it sometimes doesn't provide much explanation for certain peculiarities present in the stories. For instance, characters in some of the stories included in the volume have one letter names such as "P" or "M". I was left curious as to whether Korean authors actually had a common practice of using Roman letter names for their characters or whether these letter-names were somehow derived from Korean by the translators. Yet this is a minor defect that could be corrected by a few explanatory footnotes. Takes as a whole, this book provides a good introduction to Korean literature from a period that has been neglected by Koreanists in both Korea and the United States.