A friend told me about the challah recipe here. It's a marvel, and it's just about fool proof, with great shaping illustrations. I'd buy it again for this recipe alone. This book has become one of my staples. The professional baking tips are very useful, but I have to complain about any baking book that sends you to your friendly local bakery to plead for special ingredients, as this one does. Also, this book is big on baking with steam, which isn't a great idea for your slightly klutzy home baker (like me). But those recipes work pretty well without steam, in my opinion. Okay, so I cheat a little with these recipes--yet the breads still come out yummy! Don't count on this book for desserts, though. It's a BREAD book, and a very good one, particularly for people who want to understand the process and learn to do it right.

I love to bake, and this cookbook has wonderful, easy to use recipes. I get many compliments when I make the pizza and the challah. I also have Bernard Clayton's bread cookbook, but Greenstein makes bread-baking so simple and fun! The recipes are very detailed so there's no way that one could make a mistake. If you love to bake breads, you have to put this cookbook on your shelf.

There are a number of excellent bread books but, for me, this one has it all. The instructions are clear, concise and the recipes have been well-tested. So far I have tried: Challah, Pizza, Sour Rye Bread, Corn Bread (absolutely delicious), Black and Whites (better than from the bakery), Wine Loaf, Bagels, French Bread, Sourdough French Bread (a family favorite) and am about to try Pumpernickel. I have had perfect results every time. Whenever I am looking for a new recipe, this is the book I reach for and if I have a similar recipe in another book, I gravitate to these recipes instead. There a "reading" baking books and "baking" baking books. This is a "baking" baking book and an excellent one at that.

The genius of Dusty Baker's book is that the swing is broken into components, each with a mnemonic phrase, which makes understanding and remembering the key concepts easy for the youngest player. The kids that I have coached who have lost form on their swing, can get their groove back by a single suggestion of, "Ike to Mike" or "Inward Turn." This book is not only for the very young hitter, there are sections on pitch recognition, offensive strategies, and the mental aspects of hitting. I highly recommend this book for dads or youth baseball coaches so they can teach their players proper, and easy to learn hitting technique, and have them remember, and use, the knowledge.

This book is the best I've seen for developing proper fundementals for hitters at an early age. The drills depending on age group will give a coach a working program to follow. Repetition of proper fundementals is critical knowledge for any coach. The book has been endorsed by many proven hitters. It is a great reference book also for problem solving drills depending on the swing flaw. Thanks Dusty, even though I grew up as an AL fan watching G.Brett in KC.

PS. Pitching - see Dick Mills

My son is really starting to get into baseball, so I wanted to make sure I knew enough about hitting to get him started in the right direction.

Dusty Baker's book is teriffic because it breaks down the swing into several components. My boy is only 5, so it would be counter-productive to try and cram every component down his throat. Instead of doing that, I was able to keep him focused on one thing at a time - basically, building his swing from scratch. Important basics like "head down, eyes on the ball," and generating power with your lower body are explained well, and given drills or mnemonic devices to help retention, etc.

After working with him for one month, using Dusty Baker's book as my guide, my son had a noticeably better swing, and (amazingly for a 5-year old) better focus at the plate. He was always good at making contact, but this book helped put his swing together and give him better power without sacrificing his ability to get the bat on the ball.

Whether you know a lot about hitting, or you were a novice like me, this book really does live up to its title. Even my wife has picked up on the components of a swing, and can remind my son of something when he's playing around and I'm not there. There are other books that get more philosophical and go deeper (like Charlie Lau, Sr.'s), but for a FIRST book, that helps you teach, this one is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

When I was hired to be the bread baker at an Italian restaurant in Carrboro, NC, I had no experience baking. The chef told me the restaurant wanted to start baking its own bread instead of buying it from a local bakery. She handed me this book, and I took it home to read and to pick out some recipes to try out.

I found the book quite readable, and I agree with the reviewer below who praises the book's "detailed, insatiable descriptions of the regions, and history of the recipe at hand." Also worthy of praise are the sections on the fundmentals of baking, which were particularly helpful to me when I was learning to bake. By covering the fundamentals and the various techniques used in different regions of Italy, the book gave me a good idea of what aspects I could experiment with comfortably, and which steps were more or less prescribed.

Our baking program turned out to be a success. Diners were especially fond of the scroll-shaped loaves that we learned to make from "The Italian Baker." Later we started making sourdough bread at the restaurant, based on techniques learned from this book. One night after we had been at it for a few weeks, one of our waiters came back into the kitchen to pass on compliments from a diner from San Francisco who said that our sourdough bread was as good as any she had had at home in SF. We were ecstatic. Only a few months before my cooking expertise had been more or less limited to heating up canned soup!

So I give this book a very enthusiastic recommendation for anyone wanting to bake Italian bread and then possibly go on to improvise their own loaves. In addition to being well-written, it is also a very handsome volume.

Anyone looking for knowledgeable information on Italian baking will find it in The Italian Baker. Carol Fields has provided, under a single cover, a virtually all-encompassing collection of recipes that define the art of Italian Baking.

With a strong emphasis on regional breads, this book will satisfy anyone's desire to acquire traditional southern european bread-baking skills.

I personally have found the section on Pizza most helpful--I have received nothing but compliments from everyone who has tasted my pizza since I started using the dough recipes that are found in this book.

The Italian Baker should have a prominent spot on every kitchen's cookbook shelf.

This is a superb book that turned me into a baker. The author coversa wide variety of Italian Breads, cakes and holiday specialties (like Pannetone). I regularly make all the breads we consume at home and am thinking of making some items for sale at a local store, like Focaccia. The Ciabatta recipe is one of my favorites. One of the virtues of the book is that each recipe discusses three ways to make the item; 1.) by hand, 2.) with a mixer and 3.) with a food processor. I have found no other book that covers as many types of Italian bread as this one. BRAVA, Ms. Fields!

Trisha Baker once again had me entralled with her story of reluctant vampire, Meghann O'neill and her battles with her master simon Baldevar.Baker is a skillful writer because she could had taken the easy route and just have this novel like it's predecessor with endless scenes of Simon chasing and terrorizing Meghann but no Baker does something I thought could never happen she makes Simon likable! Yes you read it right those of you who read the first book like myself was shocked at the depths of evil and depravity that Simon was capable of and his obessive and terrifying love of Meghann. Baker allows us to see Simon's history on how he became a vampire and why he did the horrible things that he done.When Meghann becomes pregnant
Simon becomes more human in his love and concern toward Meghann and their unborn child. He even saves her life against his fanatical enemies!This novel gives us a Simon's history which takes place in Elizabethan England and it shows how he and Alcuin became deadly enemies.Baker's novel has gruesome scenes of battle between vampires and bloodletting. Simon is still a monster but in Baker's capable hands he becomes sympathetic...

trisha baker has done it again. she has created yet another amazing book! it had been a year since i first read crimson kiss. since then i had long awaited for the sequel. after finally getting the book, i couldn't put it down. even though simon was a mean and domineering fiend i still soften towards him. he had changed his ways and made meghann fall in love with him once again. crimson night made me realized all the agony simon went through when he was still a mortal. and that he was cruel for many reasons. i cried even more in this book. especially at the end when simon is taking in some of her pain into him so she wouldn't have to suffer. and when he tells her he has to leave. i was so furious at simon for wanting to leave meghann. but when i found out why, i was ever so touched. trisha baker is an amazing writer nad for those who love to read i truly recommend you to read her two books. and i hope that her final book to the crimson trilogy will be a huge thriller as the first two were.

I absolutely loved this book because it kept me on the edge of my seat just like Crimson Kiss did. Except this one was more intreging because it actually tells you a little bit of Simon's history which I really wanted to know about after readind Crimson Kiss. I can't wait until Crimson Shadows comes out so I can see what Simon does to Megghan and her twins this time.

WHAT A SUPERB BOOK - PACKED WITH INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS RECIPES THAT MOST CHEFS WOULD NEVER SHARE WITH YOU. THANKS TO THE AUTHORS FOR SHARING MANY OF THEIR MOST WONDERFUL SECRETS AND HINTS - SO HELPFUL FOR ALL THE BAKERS (NEW AND EXPERIENCED). IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU COULD NEVER MAKE A PERFECT PIE CRUST, BUY THIS BOOK!!!! YOU WILL FIND ALL KINDS OF PASTRIES, SUCH AS RASPBERRY CHOCOLATE ALMOND DANISH, SUGARLESS RASPBERRY OATMEAL BARS, MOLASSES COOKIES, WHITE CHOCOLATE MACADAMIA NUT COOKIES, TIRAMISU, PECAN TASSIES, CHOCOLATE MOUSSE CAKE, BEAR CLAWS, CHOCOLATE ECLAIRS, KEY LIME PIE, SOURDOUGH PANNETTONE, AND EVEN THE MOST WONDERFUL BUTTERFLAKE ROLLS. DO I NEED TO SAY MORE? I HAVE USED AT LEAST TEN RECIPES FROM THE BOOK AND EACH ONE OF THEM CAME OUT PERFECT AND EVERYONE KEEPS ASKING ME FOR THE RECIPES. THE BOOK HAS THE BEST BAKING TIPS YOU WILL FIND ANYWHERE. AND MUCH MORE!!! I AM NOW ON MY WAY TO BAKE A DAIQUIRI CHEESECAKE FOR TOMORROW PARTY. ENJOY!

I love Gayle's in Capitola -- all the pastries taste exactly like those from your fondest childhood memories. In the past few months I've made several cakes from Gayle Ortiz' cookbook, and each one tastes just like Gayle's! Even somewhat complicated recipes are broken down into manageable components with easy-to-follow, detailed instructions. I have an embarrassment of cookbooks and baking manuals from four generations of avid bakers, and Gayle's combines the best qualities of all of them. As evidenced by another reviewer's comments, the inherent subjectivity of baking renders no cookbook foolproof. (I've made the pastry cream according to the directions several times, with no problems.) However, this cookbook is nearly foolproof -- my self-proclaimed "not-a-baker" boyfriend & his three children made the carrot cake for my birthday with no assistance, and it was wonderful -- just like Gayle's! (The one error I've found is that recipe's baking time seemed to be incorrect -- 30 minutes instead of the 50-60 mine needed to bake).

What a find! This book has some great recipes. It really caters to folks that know their way around the kitchen and have some knowledge of baking, even though the directions are very well written and each recipe has a refer to page to remind you of a technique that was explained early on in the book.

I've never been to Gayle's but I certainly won't pass it up if I'm ever in the area. Everything I have made, with the exception of the croissants, have been phenominal (the croissants were way too buttery and greasy - this was probably due to my handling of the dough rather than the recipe though). The pastries are to die for even though they took some time to make - no one believed I made them, they looked too perfect - exactly like the photo! The chocolate mousse cake is sinfully delicious and the key lime pie is the BEST I have ever had. Needless to say I have added a few pounds from all the experimenting in the kitchen.

The ingredients are easy to find, the recipes are the ones you'd want from a traditional bakery (danishes, pastries, cakes, cookies, pies). What a gold mind this book has been, I feel like Gayle's has 'revealed' all their secrets. I keep reaching for this book when I want to try a sweet treat.

This book is not very good. It's all line drawings, some photos, boringly presented and basically an adhoc production. Boring and uninspiring. It's written because Montano in her Crazy Quilt Book (superb!) tells how embroidery is the make or break deal in a crazy quilt but this book does not live up to those expectations.

Instead try Lucinda Ganderton's a Stitch Sampler, where colour threads are used and everything is easily viewed or if a Montano is what you are seeking go for the gold and get her Crazy Quilting book, where the main stitches are detailed and her methods outlined. Just pass this one by.

I borrowed this book from a friend and now have to buy one for myself. It has easy to understand directions to do every stitch imaginable on crazy quilts or other types of embroidery projects. It is simply a wonderful book with great photos of the stitches.

This is the only book you will ever need to buy for learning individual embroidery stitches. Never mind it was written with a bent towards silk ribbon embroidery. With hand embroidery becoming a lost art, especially in quilting, references are becoming harder and harder to find. I have spent alot of time (and money) accumulating a large library of turn of the century instructional embroidery references and in comparison, Judith Montano's book is right on the money. It is the most complete, comprehensive, and easy to understand book on the market. My first copy is so worn out, that I purchased a "back-up" just in case! It is a nice portable size with a spiral binding. FABULOUS for laying out flat when your hands are otherwise occupied with needle and thread. This is the ONLY stitch dictionary you will need to buy!!

No doubt about it, digital imaging can be a fun and rewarding endeavor, but contemporary imaging software is as daunting as it is powerful, and many budding digital artists may be too intimidated by the wealth of options and features available in a top-notch program like PhotoImpact. Fun With PhotoImpact 4.2 takes the novice or intermediate digital artist by the hand and leads them through the basics of the wonderful world of PI. With the knowledge and experience of the author for guidance, the reader can approach this exciting technology with a minimum of apprehension and feel confident that a new world will be opened before them. I highly recommend this book, and I am looking forward to the author's sequel on PI 5.0.

I purchased PI 4.2 program a while ago.I attempted to learn how everything functioned and tried to understand what it all meant while doing it.I figured in about ten years I'd get it all.Then lo and behold Stephanie Baker-Thomas wrote the book that makes it all so easy.She takes you step by step through things you thought you'd never master.The book is easy to read and you don't need a dictionary to understand the meaning she puts into words.This book is by far the greatest purchase anyone could make.I must say that this book is not for just anyone.It's for EVERYONE!

At first I was hesitant to purchace Fun with PhotoImpact 4.2 because I had just upgraded to 5.0, but there was so much I didn't know I ordered it anyway. I have never been so happy with a graphics book. Features and tools of the program that seemed so complicated were explained in plain english and Stephanie Baker-Thomas guides you each step of the way. I had no idea PhotoImpact had so many "hidden" goodies. The mini tutorials are wonderful and the lessons learned in each give you the understanding needed to apply them to any other PhotoImpact project. This book is a must have and I am eagerly awaiting the release of Fun with PhotoImpact 5.0. Stephani Baker-Thomas is a true Diva of PhotoImpact.

There are very few books that I consider mandatory
reading for humanity; Conscious Conception is one
those books.

This is not a "new-age" book at all. It is a
guidebook for living life to its fullest. What
Jeannine and Rico have written sits in the home of my
soul. It is like some kind of cosmic memory had been
brought back. I can just hold the book and feel that
warm fuzzy feeling of being loved in the womb of Terra
Madre.

I learned a great deal about my impact on the planet
earth and how, with a few simple steps, we can all
make a positive change in how the future looks.

With Conscious Conception, you learn how to welcome a
new person into the world. You realize that
everything you do, up to the biological act of
conception, has an impact on our children. Also, you
will realize that free birth, the chance to birth a
whole child without trauma, will be the key that opens
the door of peace.

This is also a great book to better understand your

body's natural fertility dance, and how we don't need
human-made devices (abortions, c-sections, etc.) to
control birth.

A wonderful book! There are not enough stars to rate
this masterpiece.

You will not find this perspective anywhere else. These two remarkable authors have graciously shared their unique life experience of fertility awarness, spirituality and how the two interact. This voluminous book is packed full of fascinating journeys into the mind and hearts of parents-to-be. They give the unborn baby spirits a voice - whether you wish for children or not, you can still speak to them softly with intent. Although it is not a scientific guide to fertility charting (there are many other fine books that do that), it does delve into the uncharted waters of consciously creating a family with honesty, courage, love and spirituality.

Both a practical handbook and a treasure mine of thorough research, meditations, and musings on conception and the primal period of life, Conscious Conception answers every question a reader could have about this essential part of family life.

Central to the book are the Bakers' dialogue and questions about every aspect of welcoming a "pre-baby" into a family, with corresponding articles by many different contributors. The book is arranged in thematic sections symbolized by the elements - earth, water, fire, air, and ether - each section opening with a metaphoric fragment of Greek mythology. What follow are incredibly rich pieces covering everything from optimal pre-conception nutrition, to men and women's physical and celestial rhythms, beautiful rituals for enhancing creativity, fertility and conception, healing ceremonies for abortion, dreamwork, etc.

While borrowing examples and guidelines from a panorama of references and cultural backgrounds, such as the Vedic scriptures, naturopathy, Chinese medicine, feminist literature, ancient healing arts, Jungian psychology, tarot, astrology, anthroposophy and other esoteric arts, it never stays stuck in one optic. Instead, it suggests how we can use all of these tools to forge our own path. By embracing a broad vision, it transcends the usual do's and don'ts of accepted traditions, and joyfully shows how uniting to co-create new life can be a truly spiritual and full path towards enlightenment. It celebrates love, life, and family in all their beauty and freedom.

What makes the book so special is that despite the intense debates and meticulous articles, it never takes itself seriously, and always reaches out to include the reader, while remaining light and fun in the process. It is a book you'll find yourself underlining and dog-earing throughout, reading and re-reading, at once lending out to all your friends and wishing you had it back.

Conscious Conception offers the eye-opening and optimistic message that conception is not a random act. It is a sacred celebration to be carefully planned, as it holds the potential not only for a more fulfilling family life and caring society, but an opportunity to grow, to heal ourselves, indeed, to "heal the earth by healing birth."

This book gave me a good over view of the sales process and specifics on how to relate to the buyer. I have read many sales books, but this one hits the mark. I would recommend anyone who is either a professional sales person or striving to be one read this book. It goes way beyond basic sales training and gets into the mind of the buyer and the seller. Great Job.

I finally discovered why I am not making more sales. I have been plateaued for 5 years. this book opened my eyes and showed me that if I understand where my buyer is in their process, I can then time my sales thoughts. Every sales person should read this book.

This book capsulizes the essence of the sales process. Anyone - and I mean anyone - in sales should read this. It is a primer or a review. Either way the reader will walk away with practical hints and selling concepts that will inspire you to greater selling heights.

Baker and Smith have accomplished two objectives in their short book. On the surface, they have expertly captured the key elements in the development of KKR as the frontrunner of the LBO firm. However, on a deeper level, they have also captured many of the elements that managers and entrepreneurs should consider when running or starting a firm. In this regard, the Preface and Chapter Five are worth the price of admission. For anyone interested in the evolution and history of modern American finance, read this book.

This is an outstanding academic treatment of the investments made by KKR, all of which were some kind of leveraged buy-out. The authors focus their attention on the transactions themselves, not the way they were viewed by society or on the people that put them together - in this regard the book is a rare gem. It treats the period up to 1990 in some depth, with some very interesting case studies that show pretty good financial detail with outstanding qualitative descriptions of the transactions that were put together. As you walk through the various case studies, you are able to sit alongside with the KKR team and watch as the LBO goes from an unusual financial instrument to a mainstream product that is widely accepted in the marketplace. While growing acceptance of financial products is an established facet of Wall Street, to follow this evolution through the work of a single firm really is quite interesting. The manner in which the complexity, leverage and size of the transactions grow is laid out in plain English, making this a fascinating read.

Only Chapter 5 "KKR as an Institutional Form" focused on the firm itself, and even this treatment was not nearly as obsequious as many other financial books (most notably "Goldman Sachs: the Culture of Success" by Endlich). Mr. Baker and Mr. Smith take a very level-headed approach and document the growth of the firm in a straight-forward manner, although they do inject a good deal of 'positivity' to their view, i.e. the revolutionary introduction of Monday Morning Meeting's at KKR in the 1990's (this is commonplace at most banks).

I particularly enjoyed the second chapter "Recasting the Role of Debt" which talks about some of the earlier transactions that KKR did in some depth. The description of their LBO of Houdaille is very much worth reading, if only for the fact that traditional 'Old Economy' companies are again garnering such interest. Indeed, that is a very noteworthy aspect of the whole book, KKR focused on established companies with real cash flows. The one transaction which involved real growth financing was a near bust. This is very different than all of the financial maneuvering that has gone on over the past two years, and it is interesting to compare the sustainability of the two efforts (the many years of KKR's existence surely triumphs over venture capital's recent 15 minutes of fame). Chapter 4 on "When Risk Becomes Real" talks about some of the failed KKR transactions, EFB Trucking and Eaton Leonard in some detail. The reaction of KKR to these hiccups is very impressive, and while it is told with the same 'positivity' of the authors as mentioned above, the authors still do a good job of telling the story in an objective manner. The efforts of the partners to maintaining KKR's reputation in the marketplace is nothing short of heroic, and while there was a clear financial incentive over the short term it is clear that the longer term reputation of the company also played a clear role in motivating their actions.

It really is rare to get a book as good as this with detailed financial information (even if it is more than 10 years old) and a mostly unbiased view of the Company. Where the authors are biased, it is easy to pick up and interpret. This is very much an academic treatment of the firm, with some detail as to what the rest of the market was doing, but not a whole lot. There are just the right number of graphs, which is very nice. I would think anybody working in finance would enjoy this book, although given the depth in which it describes the transactions, it might not be the most leisurely read. This is an outstanding book.

Baker (Harvard Business School) and Smith (New York Univ.) provide a well-documented history of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and its development of the leveraged buyout (LBO). During the period 1976-93, KKR acquired more than 50 firms with an equity investment of only $10.9 billion. As of 1998, these equity investments were worth $40 billion (an annual return exceeding 28 percent). The authors examine KKR's strategy of identifying undervalued, poorly managed firms with potential to increase cash flow. Each LBO was financed with 80 to 90 percent debt, and equity was provided by a partnership organized by KKR. The LBO managers were required to have a large proportion of their net worth in the equity. After the acquisition, KKR's strategy was to cut costs and increase productivity, quickly pay down the debt, and sell the firm to unlock the equity investment. The large debt service inflicted discipline while management's investment created incentives. By linking managerial and ownership interests, Baker and Smith argue that KKR improved corporate governance and contributed to increases in corporate profits and productivity. This volume is an excellent addition to the literature on mergers, business history, and corporate strategy. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections as well as large public libraries.