You will be drawn into the facinating short stories about the history of the Kansas City police department interwoven with the early history of Kansas City. A book you cannot put down.

This is the best book I've ever read on the history of Kansas City and its Police Department. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Kansas City's history. The vignettes in the book are both informative and a reflection of their times. A must read for all travelers to Kansas City.

What a great book! I especially enjoyed Hugh Chase's writing style and knowledge of the history of Kansas City. The photos were of great interest to me. Some of my favorite chapters were "Union Cemetary, Treasure, and Bob Potee." Sure to be a collector's item.

You may already be familiar with this little book for stepparents, but if not, you'll want to get a copy for now, and especially for the times when things get tough. It's an easy read with more than 60 suggestions for stepparents who are trying to learn, grow and thrive in their role. Called a "prescription to strengthen your family," the book remains hopeful and positive while understanding the challenges inherent in stepparenting.

The book is divided into three sections: Relating to Yourself, Dealing With Your Spouse, and Interacting With the Kids. The experiences and suggestions in each part are practical and encouraging. You'll respond to the stories with warm familiarity, or you'll wish they could be your own.

A couple of my favorite suggestions include: (1) Learning how to use -- and trust -- your intuition. Here, the authors encourage the stepparent to get to know her stepchildren and then to use that knowledge to improve the relationship and intuitively work through the problems that inevitably arise. (2) Solving problems with stepkids directly. This suggestions points out how much power stepparents actually have in getting their stepkids to cooperate with them. Following the advice here, it will be hard to tell who benefits more -- the stepchild or the stepparent, but it's a great way to approach conflicts for everyone involved.

It's a tiny little book, but you will be surprised of its impact. I have been reading several books lately and some have been pretty good, but his little gem is just so realistic and helps one to be realistic in what is possible in a step parent relationship. Great suggestions, a pleasant read.

I laughed, I cried... in the end, I was greatly encouraged to embark upon the exciting journey of stepparenting.

I would suggest that anyone getting married to (or even seriously involved with) someone with children buy this little gem.

And even though I'll be the official stepparent, I plan to have my fiance read it, too!

I am in the process of re focusing my career, and this book has helped me to generate ideas about the moves I need to make. Dr. Harkness uses concrete examples in her work and guides you to the best path in your Life Change.

In a time of work chaos, Dr. Harkness offers the career seeker a guiding light. She insigntfully explores the world of work and shows us what we need to do to find value, reward, connection and satisfaction in our personal work lives. This is not a band-aid cure; Dr. Harkness illuminates the road to genuine change.

Dr. Harkness describes how to develop your own career path in a time of extraordinary change and uncertainty.

Looking to support companies that agree with your point of view? Then this is the guide that you have been looking for. Heather Chase, a life-long lover of animals and founder of Models With Conscience, explains how to live a life filled with both beauty and compassion. Chase explains about current trends of using animal-derived ingredients like tallow, estrogen, spermaceti, and civet musk in everyday personal care products. These products involve inhumane treatment of animals - some require the animal to be killed before the ingredient can be harvested. Instead, Chase suggests some possible man-made or plant-derived alternatives, such as glycerin or jojoba. The book includes an extensive list of companies that work within the boundaries of cruelty-free production. Chase also recommends the use of synthetic or faux fur in respect to fashion or make-up brushes. She further explains that ". . . many endangered species (including lizards, zebras, deer, and kangaroos) are often hunted illegally for their hides." A few more animal-derived materials used for fashion or personal care include silk, ivory, sea sponges, and pearls. There's a chapter that addresses the benefits of eating a Vegan diet - both to humans and animals, wherein Chase shares some of her favorite non-animal product alternatives. Also included in the book is overview of the philosophy of Models With Conscience and a brief introduction to a few of their models. ...

Are you already vegetarian, or a still a carnivore with an increasingly niggling conscience about what (or who) you eat, wear and rub on your body? Either way, Beauty without the Beasts will gently expand your awareness how animals are exploited beyond the shrink-wrapped steak in the supermarket chill cabinet. The more we extend our compassionate focus on issues such as animal tested products and animal ingredients in other items besides food, the more likely such offending companies will alter their policy for the better... we would hope. So making a difference to how companies exploit animals in their products means knowing what product and then simply NOT buying it. Heather Chase's book highlights these issues in simple but effective terms and will certainly help you make conscientious decisions when choosing beauty products.
Wonderfully un-patronising, unpretentious and oozing uncluttered common sense ... BwtB simply states facts and realities about commercial exploitation of animals, from cosmetic industries to circuses. It is both a useful resource and compassionate person's oracle in achieving inner harmony and outer beauty whilst clearly avoiding cruelty to animals.

Beauty without the Beasts is editor's choice at Veggieglobal and Looking-Glass UK (formerly Amazon Site of The Week)

Vegan Voice September/November 2001

Beauty without the Beasts A Guide to Cruelty Free Personal Care Heather Chase

Heather Chase is the founder of Models with Conscience (MWC), an international group of models of various ages and sizes dedicated to promoting cruelty-free products and causes. Beauty without the Beasts was written because Heather was convinced that caring and compassionate people everywhere would join in her quest if only they knew more about the issues at stake and where to find cruelty-free products. This is an American-based book but it is still highly relevant for the Australian/NZ market. In the chapter "Aware Personal Care," the author gives a full description of animal-derived products, civet-free fragences and cruelty-free companies. However, this book is mainly about Heather and her models' commitment to doing no harm to any living creature. It's this alone that lends the book its most charming feature. As the photography shows, Models with Conscience aren't just about anti-specieism but are unashamably against ageism and sizeism as well. This is a thoughtfully-written book from Chase's own experience and its style is bound to attract many readers who have contemplated the concept of cruelty-free cosmetics and/or lifestyle but just haven't gotten around to it yet. She provides information and tools to help consumers choose animal-friendly skin care products, apparel, foods, entertainment, and more. Her message is "Liberate yourself and the animals by the choices you make." Each model photographed in the book gives their story about their passion for animals and why Models with Conscience is a great way to combine career goals with ethical considerations. In many cases this is a far cry from mainstream modelling practices. The bottom line is that abuse and suffering must stop and if Heather Chase has her way it will be. It must be. Today's consumers are growing increasingly animal-conscious. In no small way this gentle book contributes admirably towards that burgeoning awareness.--Jessica D'Hart

As a Southern California-based mystery writer, I have been genuinely impressed by Martha Lawrence's works. Many people initially react to Ms. Lawrence's psychic detective as a silly gimmick. As created by Ms. Lawrence, Elizabeth Chase is a fully-realized and realistic character. In this fourth outing,PISCES RISING, Elizabeth is mourning the death of her lover, and she becomes involved in investigating homicides that occur on an Indian reservation. Gambling issues play a major part in this novel, as does Native American beliefs. Ms. Lawrence tells a fine tale with a swiftly moving plot and fabulously drawn characters. Another winner for Martha Lawrence.

I just love entering Martha Lawrence's world, and I so hate to leave it! This one is her best yet, and the others are terrific too. ( I'd recommend reading them all chronologically.) I applaud her gutsiness as an author in doing away with appealing characters in situations that realistically might call for that. (I'm reminded of T. Jefferson Parker doing the same with Tim Hess in The Blue Light--a very interesting and appealing character.) ... was a real loss, I felt, but it's clear that she has even better characters up her sleeve.. I'm particularly drawn to the Sequoia character in this book. Wish I knew someone like him.

Her ear for dialogue is unerring...I'm a stickler for fake-sounding conversation and I can't find remember a false note being struck in any of her books. Wish you could write faster, Martha!

I've been a fan of Martha Lawrence ever since her first book, following her psychic detective, Elizabeth Chase, around the zodiac from Murder in Scorpio to the current Pisces Rising. Her gutsy detective, Chase, combining sound detective skills with her psychic gifts, sets out to discover the murderer of casino owner, Dan Aquillo. Along the way she encounters one of Lawrence's most compelling characters, the Native American shaman, Sequoia. Lawrence introduces the reader to some fascinating Native American lore, as she combines a taut, thrilling tale with tantalizing psychic phenomena. Combining suspense with New Age is rare, but fascinating. The only other book I can think of that does that successfully is "The President's Astrologer", which interweaves an exciting political drama with the world of astrology.

Professional PHP4 Multimedia Programming is a unique book in the midst of all other PHP books. No other book aims to cover the topics that this one does. If you are a PHP developer looking to expand you knowledge and integrate the multimedia capabilities of PHP into your applications, then this is the book for you.

The goal of this book is to introduce the concepts and techniques needed to produce dynamic multimedia content. The extensions covered are Ming, GD, ImageMagick, PDF, and FDF. Each technology is thoroughly explained from installation through example use. A case study is then given to go into further detail on the use of each extension.

I especially enjoyed the fact that they provided installation instructions for these extensions. One of the biggest hurdles people have with using Ming, GD, and the others is the installation process. Once someone gets past that stage they can at least experiment with how the extension works. It can be very frustrating when you can't even get something installed. Hopefully this book will help ease some of that frustration.

The case studies used by the authors are superb. These are real would applications that people want to create every day! They include a headline grabber with Ming, a mobile web coffee shop finder with GD, an image gallery using ImageMagick, and a PDF template system. Each one of these case studies is designed to get you thinking. Sure, they you the code needed for the application, but they also show you how the design process works and detail possible enhancements.

The one thing I found lacking in this text was some type of common problems section. Invariably, people are going to have difficulties when it comes to installation or use of these extensions. A simple google search will show the abundance of problems related to these technologies. A small chapter, or a section in each chapter, detailing some of the most common problems encountered, with their fixes, would have been great.

Overall, this book is great. If you are looking to develop multimedia applications in PHP, it is a must have.

Professional PHP4 Multimedia Programming is an extremely handy book to have on your bookshelf, even if (and possibly especially if) you don't design and implement multimedia applications with PHP all the time. Within hours of getting the book, I realized that I could use PHP as a commandline scripting language to solve several problems. I've used it as a reference several times since, even though I do NOT consider myself a PHP Multimedia Applications developer.

The book is organized nicely. As a "Professional" book, it assumes a decent understanding of PHP. This assumption saves you lots of time and unnecessary hand holding. There is a brief PHP refresher chapter for those who aren't quite as familiar with PHP as necessary, but after that refresher chapter, you're expected to understand things. You bought this book (or will, anyway) because you already know how to program in PHP but are not familiar with the various multimedia extensions.

The next several chapters each dedicate themselves to a specific extension concept: Ming, Ming with ActionScript, GD, ImageMagick, PDFLib, and FDF.

Each chapter gives an overview of the library, it's uses and limitations, and gives lots of example source code giving examples of all the functions in an extension and how they are used together.

The next few chapters are full-fledged application case studies. Though you may not agree with the authors' coding styles, these case studies walk you through (from start to finish) several different applications to show you how the libraries can be used within the scope of a larger PHP application, not just example toy scripts.

Following the case studies are several appendices. Each appendix is a language reference for a multimedia extension. Most of the information in the appendices is found online in the PHP manual, and I, for one, find it more convenient to look it up there, but having it in the book is a nice bonus.

Another wonderful addition is a full-color screenshots gallery index, which shows you what various scripts from within the chapters should look like when run. This is great for two reasons: 1) You can "check your work" as you write the applications and sample code in the book, and 2) You can see the results of functions in the book while reading it away from the computer.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about writing even just ONE application in PHP that will manipulate any supported multimedia (Shockwave, images, PDF/FDF, etc.) The time you save by having this book as a companion will more than pay for the cost of the book.

Unlike most open souce projects, PHP has been blessed with many good books. Professional PHP4 is another fine book aimed for the serious PHP developer venturing to add multimedia.

There is a short refresher on PHP followed by PHP Multimedia installation. Then it gets into the nitty-gritty stuff of making it work.

I found the case studies towards the end of the book particularly helpful in mapping out a solution action plan.

Please let me know if you find this review helpful. Thanks.

This book was one the the best books I have ever read! I just couldn't put it down. As a Christian barrel racer myself, I can tell you, this book should be read by everyone who loves God and rodeo. Definately a ten star! Too bad the rating doesn't go that high!

I loved this book. I read it once for something I had to do and fell in love with it. I'm going to buy it so that I can read it again. This book kept me up for hours, before I found that I loved to read.

CHASE THE DREAM IS THE BEST BOOK IVE READ. ITS FULL OF RODEO FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE. I HAVE BEEN ON THE RODEO CIRCIT, AND THE AUTHER DID A GREAT JOB OF MAKING THE BOOK SEEM FOR REAL.I LOVED IT. CONSTANCE COLSON SHOULD WRITE A SEQUAL!

I was introduced to the comedy of Charley Chase by a film collector friend of mine back in college and have always appreciated his unique style. Brian Anthony's and Andy Edmond's book does justice to this far underrated and nearly forgotten talent in a way that is readable and as entertaining as Charley himself. In fact, the wealth of material here is so great, one wonders why no one has mined it for a film. In any event, if you're into early film history, or even if you are just curious about a man who was a powerhouse both in front of and behind the camera, you owe it to yourself to check this book out.

I just finished re-reading "Smile When the Raindrops Fall" (third time, I think) and I second the opinions of the other reviewers. Very few authors have ever discussed the films of Charley Chase in print, and nobody has ever delved into the prolific comedian's personal life in so much detail. Brian Anthony and Andy Edmonds have done Mr. Chase proud, amply demonstrating how he created many clever and amusing movies, and how his private life sometimes colored his work. There are many rare and charming photos, including a memorable candid shot from his final days: his camera crew has just presented the new grandfather with "Gramp's Chair." If you've only been casually acquainted with Charley Chase, here's your chance to get to know him. Great reading for movie buffs, and well worth the publisher's price tag.

Until this book appeared, there wasn't much information available on Charley except in Leonard Maltin's book on sound shorts. This great book will illustrates the life of both Charley (Parrott) Chase and his brother James Parrott. Their lives were intertwined, and when one of them had problems it certainly affected the other. While Chase always had a jolly face on, this book illustrates both his triumphs and his failures. Chase worked with many great comics like Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe Arbuckle, Laurel & Hardy, Thelma Todd and the Three Stooges. Chase also directed and/or supervised many good comedies where he did not appear on-screen. There is a very detailed filmography (and musicography) in the back that includes the lyrics to many of the songs that Charley wrote, his many directing credits, and other film appearances. Sure this book is expensive, but if you love silent comedy or early sound shorts you will not be able to stop reading it.

I love historical romances, but it's tough to find one that is realistic and not sappy. This book is a true winner! The story spans decades and there is just the right amount of character development. I couldn't put it down and read it over a period of about two days. I felt there were a lot of unanswered questions, though. When the twins were seperated, the explanation of where Jenny had been and what happened to her were summed up in about a paragraph. The connection of the twins to one of the characters was never put to rest. There has to be another book that follows up this. This certianly doesn't distract from the story, but it leaves you with the feeling that there has to be more.

This book was excellent reading! I laughed, I cried!
There should be a part 2, because it left you wanting more!

Cindy Holby's first novel kept me turning the pages and has me waiting for the next in the series.

I am certainly not a romance novel kind of guy, but I found this to be an exciting western saga with touches of romance. It's certainly not your typical "cowboys & indians" book. I recommend this book for anyone who likes horses or the 1800's frontier.

Three of the main, male characters - Ian, Jamie, and Chase - are the types who love to have fun, stand for what's right, and are willing to fight for those they love. They are smart, funny, strong, courageous, and faithful. Two of the female characters - Faith & Jenny - are my kind or women! They are smart, determined, caring, strong-willed, yet considerate.

Without giving away the plot twists let me say that there are plenty of surprises in this book. To some I said, "Oh, no, not that." To others I said, "All right! Way to go!" The book has plenty of laughs and touching moments. There is not a lot of foul language or sexual content; but there is some.

From the beginning I liked the forbidden courtship of Faith & Ian. As the courtship blossoms to love they know that they must escape if they are to remain together. Their daring escape & marriage seals their commitment in their hearts. Starting a new life together brings good times & bad, but they persevere which causes their love for each other to grow stronger. Then along comes the children...

Twins Jenny & Jamie are handfuls taken individually, but together they feed off of each others' excitement & humor. They care for each other like few other siblings. They pester each other at times, but will defend each other to the last breath. Fate brings their relationship closer and closer.

Chase is the truest of friends. He is like a brother to Jamie & Jenny. Chase becomes attracted to Jenny, but he is reluctant to make it known because of his sense of honor and because of his commitment to true friendship - or maybe he's just one of those guys who needs to get a clue. Chase stays with them through the good times and bad - even the very bad times.

This novel beautifully describes the awkwardness of courtship, the love of romance, the bonds of friendship, the thrills of adventure, the sorrows of tragedy, and the joys of triumph.

There's plenty of good guys & bad guys. I think it would make an awesome movie.

I really enjoyed reading Nick Chase's Great Escape. Everyone makes decisions in life, and this is the story of a person who makes the more interesting choices - and muddles through the consequences. The author, Christopher Orcutt, gives you a voyeuristic glance at what it would be like to live life making irresponsible decisions for convenience. These are not fatal decisions but just more risky than most of us folks might have the intestinal fortitude to carry out. They are however fantasies that anyone can relate to. This makes the main charecter, Nick, believable and the story quite entertaining. This was a fun read.

Nick Chase's Great Escape was a fun read. Anyone who has escaped a small town will enjoy the humor. It reminded me of A Confederacy of Dunces, but in the Northeast.

For me, turning the last page of Nick Chase was like leaving the old neighborhood. I'll forever wonder "what's become of those guys?".