Having spent 4 years of my life in Texas I was introduced to the wonders of Creole and Cajun cuisine. Generally, Creole developed in the city of New Orleans using local produce but influenced by the multicultural nature of the city. Cajun (or Acadian) cooking is food from the country.

I am partial to the simplicity of one-pot cooking offered by Cajun cooking. These are wonderful hearty and spicy meals (gumbo, red beans & rice, etoufee, jambalya) that I often cook to serve large groups of people. In fact, Chef Jamie includes many of these recipes in the "crew" section of the cookbook since he used them for staff meals.

This cookbook really is incredible. It's not only filled with many wonderful recipes from the famous New Orleans restaurant, but also with stories about the history of the legendary restaurant as well.

The recipes are just what you would expect - the best. Everything from appetizers to drinks to mouth watering desserts are included. What I love most though is along with most of the recipes are little stories behind the recipes. Where they came from. How they came to the restaurant. There's also some short tales about the history of the restaurant itself. That's what I love most about the cookbook - the little stories that make the recipes that much more special.

Overall the book is incredible and I highly recommend it. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is I thought it could have had some more pictures and illustrations.

As a longtime fan of Commander's Palace (and creole and cajun cuisine in general), I found the book as much fun to read as the dishes were to prepare. The beautifully presented recipes and well written preparation tips were made all the better by the inclusion of tidbits of New Orleans and Brennan family history. This book is a must have for both veteran and novice cooks interested in preparing great Louisiana style food.

Every recipe that we have tried from this book has been a hands down home run with our friends and family. The recipes are scaled for truly generous portions. For Christmas Eve dinner we prepared the Venison Stew and the Jalepeno Corn Bread for family in the upper midwest. They liked the meal so much that we left them the recipe book and I have just ordered another for myself!

Ian and Ann are survivors of an attack when they were young, but they don't know it. Throw in some sexual tension, engaging secondary characters and a villian who wants Ann and her saloon, and you've got one heck of a western. I like Ian and the way Ann tries to "manage" him. Read and find out how.

It has a great feel of the Old West, romance, intrigue, and poignant scenes with a shocking secret that involves the two main characters. It's worth the read!

I am not a big fan of Westerns, preferring my settings to remain in the British Isles, but this one was one really super read.

I mean, with a lead character named Ian McShane (???LOL) how can you go wrong???

Ann is out to find revenge for death of her parents and willing to go to any length to achieve this goal. And that includes marriage to a half-Sioux, former calvaryman, McShane. They both, as children, survived the same Indian attack, though are unaware of this and now find themselves in a marriage of convenience that is not so convenient!!

Graham/Drake give you strong, well developped characters that will stay with you long after you finish the book and put it down.

Crash Diet reveals McCorkle's strengths as a writer of the New South, which I first enjoyed several years ago in July 7th and Tending to Virginia. It's like I was never gone; her comic style intertwines effortlessly with the truly sympathetic in this collection of short fiction. There are lots of voices here, all of women grappling with changes in their lives that have brought chaos, rather than order. The pieces were written across a span of years and the author's propensity to drop topical references to our disposable culture can be a little distracting when moving from one story to another, as you inevitably pause to recall just when "Falcon Crest" or "The New Newlyweds Game" was hot. But that's just a little itch, and it doesn't date the material.

I found "Crash Diet" in a pile of books and was intrigued by the title. It was a collection of short stories by a southern writer. Usually, with a collection of stories - there is sure to be a couple that you don't care for - but not with this collection.

Each female protagonist was her own charachter. I felt as though I knew each one of them through Ms. McCorkle's description and characterization. Some funny, some sad - all uniquely interesting.

I highly reccomend this book.

I loved the many stories in this book. The protagonists are all female, but they are of different ages, situations and dilemmas. Jill McCorkle shows a lot of humor and wisdom in telling their stories.

Her Private Eye just rocks along. The characters are wonderful, and the story pulls the reader right in. Witty dialogue is frosting on the cake. I really enjoyed this book--it has a permanent place on my keeper shelf.

Shannon Hollis offers a sizzling debut novel with a first rate plot, in depth characters and fabulous sexual tension -- all woven skillfully until the satisfying ending. A real page-turner!

This debut Temptation from Shannon Hollis delivers all the heat and sass you'd expect from the line, but it's got lots more. These characters will make you smile, laugh, yearn, the whole nine yards. And they'll stay with you long after you long after you put the book down. A definite keeper!

Where it all began.---The book grew out from an epic scientific paper in 1948, but luckly its author Shannon chose a light touch and a gentle delivery in his presentation. The paper became a book, with a 1949 first edition, which is now a classic, and which has been reprinted a number of times since, ending with the present lovely 1998 edition. It is still the place where readers can learn the essentials, including the two equations of information theory, that are now named after Claude Shannon.

The book about information theory. It is old but contain all the basic concepts. Even better, you can enjoy reading it!

I think it is fair to say that this book, based on Shannons landmark paper represents what I believe to be, the most important engineering paper ever written in the history of the world (both up to this point, and likely will remain so in the future). In terms of "practical implementation" of theory, it's fair to say that this seminal work has had a far greater contribution to mankind than Einsteins' paper on general and special relativity (just don't say that to a physicists face).

... All to often, famous theorists are relegated to "cult-like" obscurity. Persons like Shannon, Gallager, Forney, Komolgorov may be legendary within a cult-circle of die-hard communication theorists, but are relegated to unfortunate obscurity by the masses. It's rather unfortunate, with todays advanced communication systems, and techniques of coding (Turbo codes, modified LDPC codes, etc..)which push the boundaries to the ultimate limits as defined by Shannon.... that more people (both engineers, and laymen alike) don't recognize the names of early pioneers who started the revolution, and who's theories are the basis for many of our modern luxuries which allow us to download information at such rapid rates.

People often underestimate the deepness of Shannons' work,due to Shannon's writing style. He was one of those rare writers (somewhat like Forney, or Massey) who can actually explain complicated subjects using mere words, without the need for prettying the theory up with fancy math. Comparing the equation filled textbooks of today, versus Shannon's work, one might get the impression that Shannon's work was simplistic. I think it's clear to anyone whos studied his work, that IT WAS NOT SIMPLISTIC. Obviously, there was alot of "behind the scenes" math which Shannon had to go through to actually codify his many theorems. Just because Shannon did not show extensive derivations for each one of his theorems does not mean that he was not a good mathemetician..It merely means that he did not want to write a 1,000 page paper... he wanted to keep it simple (as was the customary writing style in the early to mid 1900's).

In short.. This book should be on YOUR shelf if you dont already own it, and if you are interested in information theory, and the deeper underpinnings of digital communications. I give the book 5 stars, not because it's any kind of elegant literary masterpiece; simply because it is based on the most important paper ever written. ... S.A. Hoffman -

Great reading! Every story goes straight for the gut, packs a hard punch and leaves you spinning. Cool mixture of Stephen King-like eeriness and horror, with a sense of humor reminiscent of Elmore Leonard. I bet there's lots more where this came from. A word of warning though: not for the easily spooked!

Shannon's prose is dark, edged with sinister humor and loaded with horror. I did not put BAD SEED down until I read the book from cover to cover! A must red for fans of noir terror.

Harry Shannon has received a number of recommendations for the 2001 Stoker Award from the Horror Writers' Association. In this great collection my favorite is the weird "twist" tale, "Quickie", an homage to TV's fabled Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This is a fun little book, full of down and dirty, lean and mean writing.

TALES FROM THE BALLPARK is a quick read that contains poignant, funny, sad, and informative stories. All of the tales are short (one or two pages) and cover a wide range of subjects - stories about fans, the minors, umpires, old players and modern players.

If you are looking for an in depth book about baseball, this one isn't for you. But if you just want to be entertained for an evening, I would heartily recommend this book.

This book is very entertaining from start to finish. It's hard to put the book down once you start because the stories in it keep you glued to the book. The first book was great also. I just hope that Mike Shannon has a third installment in the works. There are a few glaring mistakes in the book that I must point out. Shannon refers to current Arizona 1st baseman Greg Colbrunn as "Colburn" and he states that Barry Bonds broke into the majors with the Pirates in '89 wearing number 24 when he actually entered in '86 wearing number 7, since Denny Gonzalez wore 24 back then.

Shannon has done it again. How often do we read baseball anecdote books, only to skip 3/4 of the stories, having already read them elsewhere. Well, it won't happen with Mike Shannon's books! It's clear that solid research has resulted in stories that are always unique and usually hilarious. I loved it, and you will too. Check out Tales From The Dugout, too. you won't be disappointed.

I feel this book is a good book for a beginning substitute teacher. There are a couple of problems though. One is that there are very few reproducibles. As a substitute I find worksheets that students can do without assistance more helpful. Although overall I think it is a pretty good book, I would supplement it with others.

Considering that this is a 90 pg. book on such a broad topic, the authors did a great job of putting together both relevant advice and lesson plans for subs (gr. 1-6). The book is divided into 3 main parts: tools & advice, lesson plans in 8 subject areas,& a small section on time fillers. The lessons are very meaningful & easy to implement, and the advice is great for starters. While you still need to supplement this book w/ other activities & ideas (no 1 book can cover it all), it's definitely worth having in your collection!

This book includes many, many lesson ideas in every curriculum area as well as some useful advice for new sub's. I found it very helpful in preparing myself to enter the elementary classroom.

I was drawn to the amusing, true-to-life cartoons and the simplistic text. However, reading through it I found myself a bit disapointed. The entire book centers around two roles of every relationship: the seeker and the sought. It defines and explores these roles while offering ideas on how to be more satisfied in a relationship. However, that's about all it says. And it has been said before, in better ways.

This book deserves some credit. The cartoons are charming and provide a light-hearted contrast to the text. All relationships are covered thoroughly: heterosexual, homosexual, family, friendship.

While I wouldn't recommend rushing out to buy it, I can't say it is all bad. From there you'll have to form your own opinions.

This comical picture book captures so much about how we try to connect intimately, and then defeat our efforts. I thought it was great. Better yet, my husband, who really doesn't "get it" when you talk about or read about intimacy, said he LOVED THIS BOOK. He read it cover to cover, and said he really identified with the messages. He still can't articulate what he learned, but I believe something sank in at the gut level. Now, that's worth the price of the book.

Using simple pictures this book manages to convey some of the most intricate aspects of relationships. It helps you identify your patterns within relationships and what you can do to break those patterns and create a deeper intimacy. I appreciated the honesty of the author because at no point did she say this would be an easy or painless process - but rather that it would be an ongoing struggle that would result in a lively and rewarding relationship. I've read other relationship books but none were as capturing or easy to understand.

My son loves all of the David books and this one was the perfect next step in the series.

My 3 boys and 1 girl love David. I love this book especially. I had personally experienced all of the things David does in this book and it really helps me to find humor in these things and realize that they are children. We all get a chuckle from David and also then realize that David learns from his mistakes.

This is a cute book that shows kids that even though they can be rotten, they are loved very much. Also the importance of apologizing. The illustrations are very good.