(Excerpt from the November 7, 2002 newspaper column "Constant Reader," by book reviewer Ann LaFarge, executive editor at Kensington Publishing Corp., New York)
"Illustrated with more than 100 original drawings -- and a special eight-page 'Color Gallery' -- the book celebrates four decades of Kath Howell's poetry -- PLAYFUL, THOUGHTFUL, READABLE, QUOTABLE, FUN TO READ ALOUD. And lovely to give as a holiday gift to the poetry lovers on on your list."

Omer Call Stewart was a man with many missions. He was among the first to study the use of the hallucinogen peyote in the Native American Church, and he was a stalwart defender of Native American religious freedom in many influential court cases. Omer Stewart was a student of Alfred Kroeber and produced important ethnographies of various Ute, Paiute, and other American Indians in the western U.S. He began his religious life as a Mormon and ended his life as an atheist who sincerely supported and respected people's religious commitments. He was a longtime teacher and practitioner of anthropology who embodied what it means to be a social scientist. Cannibalism is an Acquired Taste is his life's story.

Carol Howell's book on Stewart is a wonderful blend of family stories, good science, and the early history of American anthropology. Howell has compiled a series of interviews with Stewart and his family, pertinent letters from Margaret Mead, Ruth Bunzel, and other contemporaries of Stewart, and manuscripts that illustrate key points in an anthropologist's life. The book could have been a wild melange, but instead it wonderfully illustrates Stewart's many interests and wide range of involvement. This mix of views makes the book appropriate for a variety of audiences, ranging from people interested in anthropology to those simply interested in the life of one of the more interesting personalities of the twentieth century. Throughout, the blunt honesty and yet true humility of Stewart shines through.

For an anthropologist, Stewart's life is an alluring case study of how a professional comes into being. The passion and mistakes of a young anthropologist are clear in Stewart's early work with Julian Stewart and Alfred Kroeber. His journey from being a committed Mormon disciple to being a practicing scientist devoted to understanding the wide-ranging aspects of human culture is fascinating for anyone who has seen their own life change. From the 1930s to the 1970s Stewart constantly found himself in the midst of the key controversies and central areas of anthropological research. His life traces the change from Indians being non-citizens to their being active participants in national politics and issues. As an anthropologist, I can't think of a better or more fully described life of a student of culture.

For the curious lay-person, the honesty of this account of Omer Stewart's life is striking. He serves as a wonderful cursor tracing many of the changes of the twentieth century. From his travels as a Mormon missionary in the twenties to his discovery of anthropology in the thirties to his service to the Chief of Staff in the Pentagon in the forties, the first half of his life illustrates the radical shift in U.S. policy from isolation to world leader. The second half of his life cuts a course of social activism in racial integration, Indian religious freedom, and scientific debate. For Stewart, the practical consequences and rightness of an endeavor often weighed more heavily in his decisions than did anthropological theory or the opinions of his mentors. At times, we--the curious voyeurs--want to know more about issues such as Stewart's friendship with famous people such as Robert Redford--the Sundance resort is on the old Stewart ranch above Provo Canyon--but the focus on this biography is squarely on Stewart and the issues at hand, not on gossip.

I recommend the book highly to anyone who is interested in the practice of anthropology or in the active pursuit of Native American rights. Stewart was an anthropologist who did not shy away from a fight for people's rights. In this time when we often do not know what many individuals think or believe, Omer Call Stewart is a bright light illustrating how to live a life that is true to one's convictions. Carol Howell's book is a fascinating synthesis of sources that paints a picture of Stewart that is strikingly on target for those who knew him. Omer Stewart's wit was an acquired taste, but unlike cannibalism, it ultimately worked for the good of humankind.

A true pleasure of a book. I would recomend this to anyone. Fine work.

This book comes out with much anticipation from two of the world-renowned experts on nonlinear time series. Indeed, the once superhot chaos theory in physics and math in the 80s was only introduced to statistics by Howell Tong in his 1990 book on nonlinear time series, Tong and R. L. Smith's 1992 RSS Chaos Day workshop and subsequent JRSS B special issue on chaos and L M Berliner and others's 1992 review articles in Statistical Science. Now 10 years after, what has achieved in between and what has not materialized as once seemed so promising? There are several PhD theses written in this area and there are continuing applications of chaos theory in science, from physics, mechanics, atmospheric sciences to biomedical and physiological data analysis. We can safely say that chaos theory is probably just another area or another tool that one can use to understand or interprete apparent randomness in simulations or in observed data. With purely stochastic tools that are dominant in modeling high-dimenional and un-parameterizable processes, chaos theory provides the crucial link between deterministic and computer modeling, and uncertainty in observed output and model simulations. Maybe with the ever closer collaboration between statisticians, mathematicians, and physical scientists in understanding and using the most daunting PDE and large scale models or computer models, chaos theory may finally come to be appreiated more by statisticians, who have traditionally been over-concerned with modeling noise, while overlooking modeling the overall deterministic patterns and structures in data.

Finally, some words about the book itself. I think it is a fairly comprehensive survey on the statistical work in the last decade, though understandably it is biased toward the authors' own research and collaborators' work. I think in order for it to be used as a textbook, it needs to be supplemented by a more balanced account of other aspects of chaos theory, such as geometrical theory and dimension reduction techniques. For example, the review chapter of dimension theory by C. Cutler in a book edited by H. Tong himself in 1990 (published by World Scientific) and Michael Kirby's recent book: Geometric Data Analysis: An Empirical Approach to Dimensionality Reduction and the Study of Patterns. The significance of fractal geometry theory on multivariate data analysis and time series statespace when the vector may lie on an manifold or lower-dimensional intrinsic space has recently been demonstrated by Z.Q. Lu in Nonparametric Regression With Singular Design in J. of Multivariate Analysis 1999, vol. 70, pp.177-201. It appears that the potentials of chaos theory for motivating newer statistical techniques and developing new statistical theory to understand better deterministic systems and related data analysis remain to be explored. In conclusion, I warmly recomend this book to next generation students and time series lovers, and to scientists who might be wondering what statisticians are up to in this important area.

On a visit to Piney Point Manor, an elegant seaside resort, Sean and Brian Quinn investigate a series of thefts that have baffled local police, and someone tries to frighten the brothers off. This series i recomend for all young readers.

You need not be bewildered by the 1,000 clematis on the market. Knowing just twelve clematis gives you the features of all twelve group and thus all clematis. This book shows you each of the twelve groups. Describes three to six example plants in each group. Read about one group at a time, look at the examples, and you quickly learn the features of that group. Soon you know all twelve groups and so all clematis. If you want to grow clematis but do not know which ones to grow, then this book is for you.

When she was in the third grade my older sister bought a little book of christmas stories with the nickles she had saved by not having milk at break time. "Christmas Every Day" is our favorite story from this carefully preserved little book. Our mother still reads "Christmas Every Day" every year for her grandchildren. Though we are all grown we still enjoy the story too. Even my oldest sister's hyper-active 7 year old sit's quietly for his grandma's reading of "Christmas Every Day."

It was a great relief for me to find that Amazon.com had "Christmas Every Day" because the little book my sister brought home in the early 1960's is quickly becoming too fragile to handle. Thanks Amazon.com, someday I hope to read "Christmas Every Day" to my grandchildren.

If you can only buy one of the healing tapes, I recommend this one. It has more of the acupressure points than the high blood pressure tape or the insomnia tape. The sounds on all 3 tapes are the same and so is the guided imagery. There are only 2 extra acupressure points on the high blood pressure tape that this one doesn't have. And it makes you sleepier than the insomnia tape!

Do you like books that make you feel happy and sad at the same time?? If so then this book is great for you. It is about a boy whose dog that dies and he finds a new dog that is about to die. He cares for the dog and feeds it until it is healthy. Then one day something happens to the dog and the boy is very worried. What happened to the dog? If you want to know then read the book.

The Routledge reference book "Companion To Contemporary Musical Thought" is a must for anyone who takes music seriously wether they be a performer, composer, musicologist or simply a lover of art and sound. Brought together by an editorial team consisting of John Payntor and other members of York University, the Companion is perhaps the first reference book which aims to present, in a clear and scholarly manner, the developement of contemporary music as well as the many facets of musical science and thought. The fifty-seven articles include a vast number of topics such as music appreciation, including the ability to understand differences in musical style, past and present; the reason behind the exploration of new musical resources; performers attitudes towards interpretation; in depth surveys of the possibilities concerning creative processes in composition;and the investigations and general critical writings of various music scholars. Contributers consist of various internationally respected composers, musicologists, performers, sociologists, educators and music analysts. The "Companion" presents a comprehensive survey of current thinking within the framework of culture, technological, structural and interpretational viewpoints. The topics discussed are of particular importance to the international music community today, offering possibilities for debate, discussion and stimulating study with the aim of promoting a richer understanding of music. Contributers include Jonathan Harvey, Lou Harrison,Ellen T. Harris, Bruce Pennycook, Jean-Claude Risset, Philip Wilby, Klaus Neumann, Peter Holman, John Bryan, Graham Dixon, R. Murray Schafer,James Fulkerson,Alison Wray, David Kershaw, Istvan Anhalt, John Payntor,Joel Chadabe,Richard Orton, Richard More, Curtis Roads and many others. Of course many of the seminal figures of twentieth century music are discussed accordingly throughout(i.e. Xenakis, Stockhausen, Cage, Varese, Webern etc.). The "Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought" comes in two beutifully bound volumes,consists of 1208 pages and includes an introduction by distiguished composer and writer Wilfred Mellers.