My friend's son LOVES Bob, so I gave him this book, and he never gets tired of looking at it.

The book has very nice photo-type pictures, large type and many many sturdy flaps that close nicely when the page is turned. The flaps are easy to open after the first use, good for younger toddlers. Pages are slightly coated to resist liquid damage. The book is rather large, difficult for my son to hold it in his carseat, but would be all right for a 3 or 4-year old.... The focus of this book is on Bob, Wendy, Pilchard and the machines.

Rosalind Brown-Grant is one of the leading authorities on Christine de Pizan, and this is evident in this book. Unfortunately, the book is written for other authorities on Christine de Pizan. Most of the main points that Brown-Grant attempts to make are illustrated in the words of Christine...in the original French. If you speak modern French you'll probably be able to get by, but if not it's pretty inpossible to use this book as a viable source. Brown-Grant did a good job translating The Book of the City of Ladies, why couldn't she do the same for this book?

Here's what Cambridge Univ. Press has to say about this book: "Christine de Pizan's Livre de la Cité des Dames (1405) is justly renowned for its full-scale assault on the misogynist stereotypes which dominated the culture of the Middle Ages. Rosalind Brown-Grant locates the Cité in the context of Christine's defence of women as it developed over a number of years and through a range of different texts. Arguing that Christine tailored her critique of misogyny according to the genre in which she was writing and the audience she was addressing, this study shows that Christine's case for women nonetheless had an underlying unity in its insistence on the moral, if not the social equality of the sexes. Whilst Christine may not have been a radical in modern feminist terms, she was able to draw upon the cultural resources of her day in order to construct an intellectual authority for herself that challenged the prevailing orthodoxy of the day."

Christine di Pizan is widely acclaimed as the first woman feminist in the Western World. She began her defense of women in her "Epistres du debat sur le Roman de la Rose" and continued it in "Livre de la Cit des Dames". An excellent study of the feminist implications of Christine di Pizan's work in the context of medieval European scholarship.

Easily the best book on the subject. In typical Grant style he brings yet another ancient history topic to the masses. This book is easy to read and has a pretty good black and white photo insert. The outlines and graphs of the various homes in Pompeii and Ercolano are very well done. Grant goes into detail about the history of the region around southern Italy (not just Pompeii) which is helpful in understanding the urban development of ancient cities like Pompeii. He sheds light on every day life in Pompeii including chapters on the layouts of homes, the importance of gardening in ancient Italy, religious life, political life, and sports. He mixes primary and secondary sources very well. Primary sources include letters written by witnesses of the great eruption including a very important one written by someone witnessing everything from a ship on the sea. A great book by a great historian.

This book still leaves something to be desired (colour illustrations, for example), but overall, it's a must for anyone interested in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Michael Grant has built up a well-deserved reputation as a popular historian, chiefly on his excellent use of the English language as a medium for communicating with a wide audience; by this I mean that his writing is as close to colloquial as possible without sounding unprofessional. "Cities of Vesuvius" benefits from this as much as from his expertise as a classical historian.

The book is shorter than one might expect (barely 170 pages from cover to cover), but it packs a lot of information about Roman life in 79 AD as explained within the context of the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the subsequent destruction of surrounding communities. Detailed maps of Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as floor plans of major buildings, make it easier to put everything in its proper place. What makes the text even more interesting is the inclusion of quotations from the graffiti scrawled all over the walls of both cities (including a brief but scathing remark from a customer about his inn-keeper's wine). Unfortunately, the material in this book is vintage 1971 -- the copies for sale are of a 2001 reprint -- and I could only hope that a new edition, incorporating the latest discoveries and scholarship, will come out soon.

book combines concepts of Epidemiology and biostatistics. It makes easy to understand how epidemiology is interlinked with biostatistics because in a clinical trial both are needed. I like this book because the language is easy to interpret. It is very useful for those who have difficulty in understanding the concepts of biostatistics. The best part of the book is that the text is explained in reference to clinical research, which makes life easier for medical students and doctors. A lot of examples are given within the text to make the text easy to understand. After each chapter a comprehensive test is given.

To cut the long story short, This book is one of the best for those who have difficulty in understanding Biostatistics.

Many books are available on epidemiology and biostatistics. This book combines concepts of Epidemiology and biostatistics. It makes easy to understand how epidemiology is interlinked with biostatistics because in a clinical trial both are needed. I like this book because the language is easy to interpret. It is very useful for those who have difficulty in understanding the concepts of biostatistics. The best part of the book is that the text is explained in reference to clinical research, which makes life easier for medical students and doctors. A lot of examples are given within the text to make the text easy to understand. After each chapter a comprehensive test is given.

To cut the long story short, This book is one of the best for those who have difficulty in understanding Biostatistics.

I have had a long experience with DB2, albeit in MVS platform but this book provided a useful insight into the workings of DB2 for Common Servers. As I am readying myself to get the DB2 certification, this book lifted my comfort level more than a couple of notches and the fog of hesitation and fright that seemed to hinder my journey on the road to exam has transformed into a bright and sunny path. If you are not aiming for IBM DB2 certification, please do not be misled by the authors' claims that the book is also an excellent reference material for DB2 Common Servers, which it is not. It just serves as a good study guide - 'good' being the operative word. The absence of any competitive product and the prohibitive cost of IBM sponsored / conducted classes on the subject make this book an easy winner. The CD-ROM that accompanies this book is filled with ready-to-use goodies, including a DB2 Single-User product. The flip side is that you can use these only for a limited time. (Not all things in life are free, are they?).

I just passed the DB2 Certification exams to become a Database Administrator (exams 500 and 501) so I can't give this book too bad a review. It did cover all the bases and was good to complement my operational experience with DB2. The book is organized into 3 sections, one section for each exam. Each section has multiple chapters which relate to that particular exam. At the end of each chapter are sample exam questions with the answers. Following the sample exam questions are exercises for you to complete on the computer. I found those quite helpful. But the negative to the book is that it is riddled with spelling, grammar, and even mathematical mistakes. That was frustrating to me since I tend to notice all such mistakes whether I want to or not. So my recommendation is to buy if you want to pass the exams. If you're looking to just get a good understanding of DB2 for Common Servers, I would also recommend it.

The amount and diversity of the crictical opinions expressed in this book should give it at least 4 stars. Sadly two essayists works contain errors so blatantly ignorant of the source material I had to dock the whole barrel a single star. Carol J. Clover goes into incredible, albeit wincingly inaccurate, detail when describing the stabbing deaths of two characters in a hot tob in the film Halloween 2. However neither of these characters were stabbed in the actual scene, one was strangled and the other scalded. In another example, editor Barry K. Grant, in his essay on legendary horror auteur George A. Romero, continually confuses Dawn of the Dead with Day of the Dead and vice versa. One would think that after supposedly studying these films so closely the writers would get the titles and scenes correct in the texts. Error quibbles aside THE DREAD OF DIFFERENCE is a fascinating and mostly positive study of a genre that has been critically maligned (if not out and out ignored) for far too long.

For students of horror and film this book is indispensible. Taking horror film seriously is, many times, a losing proposition, but not for the writers here. The essays on the "Alien" films and David Cronenberg are worth the price alone. One of the best books on horror movies out there--intellectually satisfying and illuminating, worlds away from the tepid, incomplete "encyclopediac" fare usually published. My highest recommendations.

Having loved The Flame Trees of Thika (both book and PBS Masterpiece Theater series), I eagerly awaited this biography of author, conservationist, and defender of colonialist England - and for the most part it doesn't disappoint. Huxley is a difficult subject to pin down politically, as her opinions shifted with the tide of the changing times. She lived through the fall and failure of the colonial period, and her best and most loving writing comes from the era when it was in full bloom: the period around both sides of the First World War. As an old woman (she lived to age 90) in the mid 90s, she still held to some of her beliefs concerning the benefits of English rule of Africa.

With Liberia making headlines as to send or not to send that is the president's question (it only took fourteen years and three administrations to get to that point), a biography on Elspeth Huxley, known for her writings on Africa, seems timely. The book provides a fascinating glimpse of what seems like an archaic philosophy today, but only a few decades ago was acceptable. C.S. Nicholls analyzes Huxley's vast works that for the most part defend the English dominant position in much of Africa throughout the first half of the twentieth century.

The biography is extremely strong when the author paints an insightful and propitious picture that enables readers to better understand bygone eras. Huxley lived for most of the century (1907-1997) and what she supported through her writings has been one of the key factors that later led to much of the devastation that the continent has faced since the 1960s and 1970s independence movements succeeded. The only flaw is that author C.S. Nicholls rationalizes Huxley's defense of white colonialism, turning the biographer into an apologist rather than being a historiographer and thereby placing Huxley in a wider social text. Still the book is well written and will keep readers interested in a proficient, but not popular defender of the crown.

Harriet Klausner

The Erie Lackawanna, whose main line was New York-Chicago, was one of the more interesting US railroads. It was originally laid with a wider-than-standard track gauge, had wider clearances than competing railroads, and had unusually mild gradients, at least in Indiana and western Ohio. However, throughout its history, it was always clinging on for dear life, never a truly credible competitor against the larger railroads. Today, it's little more than a memory, and much of its main line track has been lifted. It's a shame, because railroad rights-of-way are impossible to assemble in this day and age. As the author points out, Erie Lackawanna would have been perfect as a 1990s-style carrier dedicated to container and 'piggyback' trains, thanks to its generous clearances. The Erie Lackawanna was also noteworthy for avoiding all significant cities between New York and Chicago - a liability in its heyday, but an asset in the container era.

This book might more accurately be labeled a 'financial history.' We're given an incredible depth of information about securities, taxation, business practices at headquarters, and biographical information of executives; the end result is thorough but something less than riveting. The most interesting portions describe the organizational turmoil resulting from Erie's acquisition of the Lackawanna, and the later acquisition by Conrail. Sadly, there is very little regarding rolling stock, stations, details of its route, or operating practices. This book has four excellent maps and about 20 black and white photos of rolling stock, plus various miscellaneous photos, especially formal pictures of executives.

The years immediately following the end of World War 2 were good ones for the nation's railroads. Flush with cash after record war time traffic, they set about to modernise their worn out systems. Tracks were upgraded, diesels were purchased to replace aging steam locomotives, buildings were painted and rolling stock, passenger and freight, were upgraded or replaced.But by the mid-1950's, the circumstances had changed. Increased highway competition was cutting into revenues while archaic labor agreements ("featherbedding"), high property taxes and crippling government regulations colluded to sap the roads of cash. The situation was particularly desperate in the northeast leading some railroads to seek merger partners.Two such roads were the Erie and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western (Lackawanna). Running side by side in many places, the two companies were quite different. The Erie had been in and out of financial trouble for much of its existence, its stock attractive only to "venturesome investors" ("when Erie common pays a dividend, there will be icicles in hell"). The Lackawanna by contrast, was a smaller, but sturdy anthracite coal hauler whose stock was suitable for "widows and orphans" paying a regular and generous dividend well into the 1930's.But by the late fifties, the two roads could not meet expenses by revenues alone, survived by selling assets (property, equipment, etc.).They entered into merger talks and in 1960 merged as the Erie lackawanna.This book deals with the pre-merger planning and post merger jockeying to keep the merged company solvent. The merger trend was in its early phase at the time, so there were some difficulties. The corporate cultures came into immediate conflict. While it was supposed to be a merger of equals, it soon became evident that it was an Erie takeover. Said a happy former Erie official: "The place is just like the old Erie" while Perry Shoemaker, the former president of the Lackawanna told his former colleagues: "I feel terrible. I sold all of you down the river.H. Roger Grant follows the ups and downs in the 16 year existence of the company, paying particular attention to the brief, but important tenure of CEO William White. A "railroad man's railroad man," he came to the EL in 1963. He had creditability with lenders who had been reluctant to extend financing and he is generally credited with implimenting policies which would eventually reduce the deficit and even produce a modest profit. He is probably best known outside the industry for re-instating the premier "Phoebe Snow" passenger train, a mostly sybolic gesture, but an effective PRmove and employee moral booster.There was some cause for optimism in the late 1960's. The EL was able to negotiate more favorable labor agreements and attract more lucrative on-line industry. It received permission to discontinue its last long distance passeneger train, a considerable savings, and was now receiving substantial subsidies from the state for its North Jersey commuter operation.But a recession in 1970 along with soaring interest rates rocked the still fragile EL and by early 1972, out of cash and hounded by creditors, the company again was "on the brink." In June, a storm, which washed out vast sections of road, finally pushed the company into bankruptcy, thus joining a group that would soon include all major northeast railroads and lead to the creation of Conrail in 1976.Railroad fortunes improved in the 1980's due to government deregulation, more reasonable work rules and highway congestion which reversed the flow of freight traffic to trucks. Auther Grant contemplates what all this could have meant to the EL had it come about sooner. We will never know, of course, but as is illustrated by the heavily footnoted text, EL officials managed to operate an efficient and remarkably safe system regardless of the immense challenges-no small feat. It is seeing how they did it that makes this book interesting.

It's startling how thoughtful, evocative and just plain funny a man can be in writing his regular correspondance. Makes you want to be a prolific letter-writer yourself. Makes you wish he were still alive so that you could respond to some of the more inflammatory things he says.

I don't think I'd realized quite how much Davies was concerned about the "place" of Canadian Literature in the world literature canon; it comes out so plainly here.

Judith Skelton Grant, who edited the letters, is mentioned repeatedly in them -- Davies apparently was amused, worried and sometimes just ticked off about the biography she was writing of him.

I enjoyed this book's organization, which was established by the various books Davies had written over the last part of his career. While not Canadian, and thereby somewhat in the dark regarding some of the letters' recipients, I found the editor's annotations brief but helpful. The main draw here is the author's distinctive voice, which emerges within the various letters.

I am not usually interested in reading compilations of letters. Here, however, I find a volume that constitutes a diversion from my other reading, a book which I can pick up from time to time and garner ideas for those brighter days when I re-read a Davies' novel. For this end, I found the collection worthwhile!

I did like the Grant Hill book ,but I thought it could have been longer. I like learning about Grant Hill he is a awsome player! I think if you want to do a autobiografe on Grant Hill you should read this book. It gives good facts about Grant,and its not hard to read. There are about 6 characters in the book that all play important part in Grant's career. I can't say it was the best book I've ever read but it gets a good spot. I would recamend anyone to this book if you are interested in Garant Hill.

If you want to know about Calvin Hill (Grants Father), buy this book. If you want to know about The history of Grants career, buy this book. If you want to know how Grant got his First name buy this book. If you want to learn about how to get Grant to the altar, buy some other book. This is a good book for a fan of the man's game, and his real personality. If you are a lust crazed fan trying to findout if he has a girlfriend, or what his ideal woman is like please don't buy this book, it will only make you angry. This book is a good book, for a fan of the man and the game, not just a fan of the man.