Boston has long been home to a number of professional and amateur athletes and sports teams. Curator of the Sports Museum of New England Richard Johnson's A Century Of Boston Sports celebrates this athletic heritage with a chronologically organized text comprised of illuminating, informative essays by journalist and historian Glenn Stout, historical vignettes, and more than 150 vintage photographs highlighting teams, events, and personalities that are indelibly associated with the city of Boston. A Century Of Boston is "must" reading for all Boston sports fans as well as students of American sports history.

Written with aplomb and great respect for all the athletes that are featured, A Century of Boston Sports is a joy to read. The variety of photographs and layout of the book are eye catching and unique. No matter your team loyalty, this book provides wonderful stories of athletes from all walks of sport. Humour and joy in sport make this a wonderfully inspiring read. Johnson shows a genuine fondness for each chosen member in this gem of a book. Give this book to any sports fan or anyone who would be inspired by reading all these diverse stories.

At Thanksgiving time this book is a feast for sport fans across the country. It is all inclusive,entertaining, and informative. Great snap shots in time. If you are a sports fan this book covers some of Americas top sport heros. Well written and extremely well organized

I have several dog books, but this is my favorite. It has lots of wonderful color pictures of the dogs, and detailed information on each breed. An excellent book for dog lovers, as well as an exceptional refrence for anyone researching dog breeds for themselves.

This book has alot of information about each breed but not alot of general dog information. Thats what I liked about it. It has alot of breeds listed, with 4 of 5 photos of each one. It describes the AKC standard, health problems, and characteristics of each breed. A great coffee table book for dog lovers.

A MUST read for prospective owners & current ones. Best features: breed specific behaviors; potential health problems of each breed; owner suitability: hard to find all this in one book! Covers all AKC as well as other breeds. Easy to read, good color photos. Emphasizes the importance of knowing the basics of each breed so you can find a good match for both you and the dog! Or learn more about the dog you now have!

I loved this book! This is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of our country!

Johnson's book reads like a conversation with the author. It's passionate and based on original draft history. I have heard this guy speak and he is really well-balanced. He talks about how our schools are teaching a philosophy that is completely opposed to that of the founders. Agree or disagree, but if you share his values (Christian) you have a lot of work to do. One wonders, when did values like decency and morality become a joke and how long can this nation survive on the cotton candy values of this generation?

This is a great read for anyone who is interested in a pre-sixties non liberal point of veiw on America and the Christian roots of our Nation! Woe to the generation that calls evil good and good evil. We are that generation. Secular humanism and athiest have rewrote our history books and their lies have become truth and the truth is now considered a lie or evil. Johnson did his homework and it is sad most of todays youth will never hear what he has to say. I found his mixing of history and Scripure to be truely inspireing and eye opening in light of what we are faceing as a nation today. May God truly call us home to the roots of our history!

This book is excelent because there's reviews of calculus, linear algebra and all sort of classical numerical methods needed to understand the finite element method. Moreover, the authors try and succed in giving a clear explanation of many applications of the method.

Well, a must of numerical analysis that every scientific searchers and engineers must own !!!

Great book to learn the fundamentals of finite element methods (FEM). The authors combine both rigour and simplicity in their presentation of the FEM as a means of numerically solving a wide variety of partial differential equations. Highly recommended for engineers--especially those who have been taught FEM using the traditional "structural mechanics" approach.

Excellent approach for numerical and computational issues. Perfect for creating solid programs that work and it also explains every detail in a great way.

I truly enjoyed "Crumbs in the Keyboard." Some parts I laughed and some I cried.. A book any woman, especially woman writers, can relate to! All this and benefitting the Women's & Children's Center. Wonderful! I highly recommend it :o)

The stories in "Crumbs" will inspire you not only to write, but to keep on with your day-to-day existence. Read women's struggles with juggling families, homes, jobs and the love of writing.
Highly recommended!

This book is something every woman should read and then convince your husband to read. With something for every woman, it is well worth the time and money spent. Touching, funy, and more than worthwhile. And all the money made on this book goes to educate on Domestic violence. Fabulous!!!

Margaret Thomas and Lois Johnson did a splendid job writing "Detroit's Eastern Market". I found the book a delight because I not only shopped there many times but when I was a young I sold produce there grown on my Uncles farm in Northville, MI.. I tried some of the recipes and again I was very impressed. I conceder myself a friend of Margaret and hope to have my copy of her book signed soon and cook a dish from the book for her too.

I also as the first reviewer know the authors Lois Johnson and Margaret Thomas. Their approach to writing to me is as fresh as the produce found in the market. I was extremely lucky recently to be part of a tour of the market led by them. Their enthusiasm for the subject is very evident first hand as is their obvious repoire with the traders who generally greet the authors with smiles and hugs. The whole experience I felt was very worthwhile as is reading the book. It has become a stock "Detroit" gift, when I go back to England I take copies for my family and friends who delight in this little piece of Americana.

Sure, Margaret Thomas is a good friend of mine, but I can still manage to be objective. This is a really great book.

Set out as a walking guide to the Market, the text is clear and informative, but maintains a friendly, informal style, just as if you are walking along with the authors in the Market. You will learn about the Market's nearly 200 year history, meet the store owners and get some great recipes while on your "walk". Of course, all the ingredients can be found right in this open air marketplace.

Michigan is a four season state, and this market is open in all seasons, not just summer. A section featuring 8 full menus is organized by seasons-A spring Mediterranean feast features lamb, summer brings fresh salads, autumn has satisfying soups, and a winter highlight is veal scaloppine.

In the index, you will also find individual recipes from appetizers to vegetables (more than 25 unique offerings for vegetables alone) The recipes come from shop owners, employees, farmers, dealers, shoppers and restaurant owners, as well as the authors themselves. Wonderful color photos by Bruce Harkness capture the hustle and bustle of the Eastern Market, and spotlight fresh Michigan Produce.

Like the market itself, this book is "highly useful, convenient and beneficial".

For those of you interested in reading a little history, some present implementations and the possibilities the future holds...this book is for you. If you require a more design-oriented book you might look elsewhere. I absolutely loved this book!!

Being the broad-scope work that it is, this book has hit the bulls-eye in terms of coverage. While there have been other books on IAs recently, this one covers all aspects of IAs.

Doing so, it has more positives than negatives; but of course this depends on whether you want an overview of the field, or an Intelligent Agent (IA) in "C" programming reference manual. It is more of the former than the latter.

It does cover a lot of ground and gives one a detailed taste for what artificial intelligence(AI), and IA's (Intelligent Agents) created from AI technologies are, and more importantly, what they *could* be. That is, if all the suggestions in this book were followed, we might soon have really 'intelligent' software emerging from various quarters (like the Internet or Intranets).

It concentrates on explaining the essentials of the cognitive and computer sciences that are relevant to IA design and creation, especially the considerations that seem to have contributed to 'intelligence' in the natural world (like our brains). I liked all the various definitions of intelligence!

It goes into the details of various architectural approaches to designing systems of interacting, or collaborating components. I found the material on the necessity of common agent languages (that is, languages in which the agents speak to each other) to be particularly enlightening.

Also especially useful was all the information about autonomy, agent mobility, standards that agents can make use of (like IIOP), and what languages and environments might be particularly suited to IA implementation. There were a couple of subjects that seem, in retrospect, out of place (like OpenDoc). But given that the coverage is about certain architectural and implementation concepts of those subjects that were important to IAs, and that it was only a few pages, this was a minor issue with me.

The book explains, at a surface level, the common soft-computing technologies like ANNs, genetic computing and fuzzy logi! c, as well as more traditional approaches like expert systems. It gives examples of real software that you can buy and use to incorporate these techniques into agents. For example, the book provides a good synopsis of Cyc, which can be used by agents to incorporate 'common sense' reasoning capabilities.

I did not expect it, so I was not surprised that this was not a programming manual. There are a couple of other books on IAs that concentrate on particular kinds of relatively simple agents in particular languages. Yet, to be honest, in lieu of lots of specific code and examples of actual agents, it provides a lot of pointers to other researchers' works in companies and academic settings.

This book is much more than what has appeared on the market thus far. Its breadth is actually pretty amazing considering its length of around 400 pages. I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to either gain a good grounding in intelligent agent design and development issues, or to expand one's purview of how intelligence could be enabled within today's and tomorrow's distributed computer systems.

Intelligente Agenten sind längst nicht mehr nur ein Thema für abgedrehte Software-Entwickler. Microsoft ist in den Markt der Agent Software Produkte eingestiegen und die Regale der Buchhandlungen füllen sich mit Abhandlungen zu diesem Themenkomplex. Inhalt: Michael Kapnik und Jay Johnson beschreiben in Ihrem Buch die Architektur, Technologie und Anwendungen für Intelligente Agenten in ver-teilten Umgebungen. Die Autoren thematisieren nahezu alle Aspekte dieser Technologie. Künstliche Intelligenz in Experten Systemen, Fuzzy Logik, Objektorien-tierung und Architekturen von Agenten bilden den ersten Teil des Buches. Der Vergleich na-türlicher und künstlicher Intelligenz beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob Computer die Natur des Gehirns nachbilden können. Die Industriestan-dards CORBA, OpenDoc, OLE/ActiveX und DCE werden als Basis für die Infrastruktur intelli-genter Agenten kurz erleutert. Für Tools und Entwicklungsumgebungen geben die Autoren neben der theoretischen Beschreibung auch einen Marktüberblick über verfügbare Produkte und weiterführende Literatur zu den Tei-laspekten. Im Anschluß werden Design- und Sicher-heitspekte beschrieben. Dies umfaßt die Bereiche Anforderungsanalyse, Plattform, Umgebung und Paradigmen für verteilte Um-gebungen, Client/Server und Mobilität. Daneben werden Methoden zur Fehlerbe-handlung, digitale Signaturen und Konfigurationen durch die Endanwender dar-gestellt. Nachdem die Grundlagen für die Entwicklung der Agenten gelegt sind, beschäftigt sich das Kapitel "Developing Intelligent Agents NOW" mit Sprachen und Entwicklungsumgebungen, wie Java, Smalltalk und Telescript. Die Einsatzgebiete intelligenter Agenten sind vielfältig. Viele Anwender setzen sie bereits in Standard-Office-Produkten oder E-Mail-Anwendungen ein. Daneben unterstützen in-telligente Agenten ihre Anwender im Netzwerk-Management, bei der Suche im WWW, bei der Filterung von Daten, beim Kommunikations-management und vielen anderen Bereichen. Der Ausblick in die Zukunft intelligenter Agen-ten bi! ldet den Abschluß des Buches. Neben weiteren Anwendungsgebieten für Agenten in Datenbanken, im Netzwerkmanagement, in Suchmaschinen und im Privatbereich wird auch auf mögliche Gefahren durch spionierende oder destruktiv agierende Agenten hingewie-sen. Beurteilung: Sätze, wie "Mein Computer fühlt sich alleine, weil ich es bin" zeigen, daß es sich nicht um eine theoretische Abhandlung über die Agen-ten-Technologie handelt. Immer wieder stellen die Autoren einen praktischen Bezug her oder wagen einen Blick in die Zukunft. Es gibt je-doch auch Kapitel, die nicht so leicht zu lesen sind. Dies ergibt sich aus der Komplexität der behandelten Themen. Denn die Entwicklung intelligenter Agenten in verteilten Umgebungen ist nicht trivial. Das Buch liefert das "Handwerkszeug" für die Entwicklung verteilter Systeme mit Hilfe intelli-genter Agenten. Es schneidet alle relevanten Themen an, ohne dabei zu theoretisch zu wer-den. Aufgrund des Umfangs der behandelten Themen sind die einzelnen Technologien nicht erschöpfend dargestellt. Wer detaillierte In-formationen benötigt, kann jedoch auf weiterführende Literatur, auf die in dem Buch hingewiesen wird, zurückgreifen.

This is a remarkable collection of short stories from Egypt's urban and peasant societies. Alifa Rifaat stories are full of raw emotion and overwhelming sense of the hopelessness of the human experience. Rifaat is an extraordinarily gifted writer with a fresh approach and a remarkable ability to transplant us completely in just a few paragraphs to totally different worlds, to the lives of the very ordinary.

The recurring themes of this collection of short stories are sexual frustration, pervasive cultural pressures and death. The loneliness and emptiness of the lives of Egyptian women from every class and background are, in particular, well portrayed in an honest and bare fashion. Each and every story in this collection stood out for me and forced me to reflect on the lives of their imperfect characters. The melancholy that dominates the style is so reminiscent of Annie Proulx's Close Range; with ordinary sad lives racing at breakneck pace from hope to the inevitable acceptance of no fulfillment. Rifaat's characters, however, illustrate quiet perseverance along with their submission to their fate in a uniquely Egyptian way.

Rifaat is a very sensitive writer capable of conveying so much emotion and graphic detail with very few words. In the ' The Flat in Nakshabendi Street' Rifaat talks of an elderly Cairo spinster who has nothing left in life to do but attend funerals and pick on others, she captures the image so well 'Everyone else lived in hope yet her own life was a struggle to ensure that the present routine continued forever'.

In 'The Long Night of Winter' Rifaat starts with an exceptional setting of the scene, a wife that knows of the never ending infidelity of her husband, 'In an instant between sleep and wakefulness, an instant outside the bounds of time, that gave the sensation of being eternal, the sounds of night, like slippery fishes passing through the mesh of a net, registered themselves on Zennouba's hearing, filtering gradually into her awakening consciousness: the machine 'like croaking of frogs and the barking of dogs in the fields answered by the dogs of the village on the other bank in a never-ending exchange of information in some code language'. This first paragraph is typical of Rifaat approach to seducing the reader to relating to and advocating for her characters.

It was unfortunate that Johnson-Davis chose to use 'Allah' in lieu of 'God' in the English translation, apart from that the translation comes across faithful to the original, with thoughtful and beautiful often lyrical prose.

A friend who teaches non-western literature recommended this author, and now I wish there were other collections of Rifaat's in English. I am not a short-story lover at all, but these were wonderful, well-rounded gems. Other Egyptian writers whom I have read are also English speakers, so reading Rifaat takes one truly back to an unfiltered Egypt.

The author is not militant, but writes realistically about the lives of (mostly) women in Egypt. Each of the slice-of-life stories is short, usually less than ten pages, but in those pages the reader is drawn into the lives and personal struggles of ordinary, likable people. It's easy, interesting reading, and I was sorry to reach the end of the 116 pages.

I read this book about divorce strategies. It's a great book. I think my clients will benefit from Divorce Strategy and will recommend it at initial interviews of future clients.

Robert Feder, Esquire
Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis
Philadelphia, PA
Editor, Valuation Strategies in Divorce

First word that comes to mind, methodical. Black and white, step by step, no nonsense directions for navigating one of life's more difficult decisions. Twelve chapters exhaustively cover most conceivable divorce scenarios.

There are seven appendixes, a glossary and index. The breadth of information is astounding. All of it is presented in easy to read, easy to understand words that amount to indispensable resource tools.

At a time when you may feel beset by strong winds, Divorce Strategy will be the anchor that keeps you in calm waters.

Buzz Review News

Laura Johnson's Divorce Strategy: Tactics for a Civil Financial Divorce takes the reader through a financial divorce and the legal system by which it is accomplished. Readers will learn about divorce, divorce lawyers, and courts from an expert. Divorce Strategy offers its readers specific, proven techniques and ideas to help them plan and manage their divorce.

By following the suggestions encompassed in Divorce Strategy, a divorcing person will be able to take a more assertive and informed approach to their divorce, knowing what questions to ask to get the answers they need to make good decisions.

Divorce Strategy is "must" reading for anyone contemplating, or currently going through, the process of divorce.

James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review, Law/Justice Bookshelf
October 1997

Never have I read a collection of more powerfully written and organized words. I first heard Dread Beat and Blood as a high school student fifteen years ago and was struck by the rhythm and the tone of Johnson's voice. The words on the page come alive with the images of racial strife and injustice that LKJ creates with his pen. I am currently using these and other poems by dub poets as a teaching tool in my Clairemont High School language arts classes. Spread the word!

I am from Brixton, and have to say LKJ put into lyrics what in the 1970's/1980's what most of us could not (our access to all mediums was cut off). The reality he writes about in say, Sonny's Letter is true - believe! It was ignored by politicians (obviously) etc. It's series and when you read or even better LISTEN to the lyrics (he recorded most of this) you will see why so many of us self destructed so early.

the whole idea of dub poetry, and especially the contents introduced by LKJ are here found in written form, powerful, strong, touching. If you read it, you#ll understand more about the focus of LKJ's works.