This is my fourth Pilates book and I must say that this is the real fundamental resource for the Pilates method.

One major difference that you'll find in this book is that it asks you to prepare and condition your body first before you execute the actual classic Pilates exercises. The book first discusses the ideal posture and proper body alignment that we are born with, its importance in our everyday life, and the reasons why this ideal gets distorted as we grow older. You can also means of assessing your current posture and body alignment here. According to this book, there are generally three types of postural deformities that can be addressed by doing Pilates exercises. For each of the deformities, corresponding corrective exercises are enumerated and described. (This is akin to Anna Selby's Pilates book in that regard - that is an equally good book although not as expansive as this one is.)

Traditional methods would ask you to do "The Hundred" as a means of warming up the body. Before even touching on "The Hundred", though, this book first asks you, and tells you how to: make sure that you correctly locate your powerhouse, ensure that your spine is in neutral, that your pelvic is steady, that you are breathing correctly, and all the other fundamental exercises that you should know to fine-tune your body. I thought I was doing Pilates correctly, but after reading this book, I realized that so much more can be done in attaining optimal results using Pilates, principally by preparing your body for the exercises to come.

Very often, in doing Pilates exercises, one is asked to put one's "navel to spine". This book clarifies exactly what that means, and gives guidance on how to execute this move properly. In addition, Pilates exercises call for lifting or rolling down "vertebra by vertebra". This book also tells you exactly what that means, and points to the body parts that correspond to these areas. Another thing that I like about this book is that it provides visualization tips to execute each move correctly all throughout the workouts.

Lest you think that this book is all about preparatory exercises for Pilates, let me say too the classic Pilates exercises are also included in this book - with new and helpful tips to execute the moves properly. The instructions are presented clearly and not without good humor at times.

This full color, photograph-filled book is segregated into different sections. You have the sections for the beginner, for the intermediate, and for the advanced exercises. You also have sections for selecting which type of workout you should do (exercises included) depending on your lifestyle. Say you are a dancer, actor, sedentary worker, or athlete - flip through these sections and find the workout suitable for you. Say you have a specific body problem - for example, you are knock-kneed, or you have tight ankles, there are also exercises here that can help you.

My only comment about this book is that it assumes that one has mastered the human anatomy. Through the course of the exercises and discussions, references to specific muscle groups are made, most with illustrations and layperson's terms, but a few without. I readily forgive this flaw, though, for I do find myself benefiting greatly from the contents of this book.

For the serious students of Pauline theology, this is one of the best. Dr. Chamblin is a renowned professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS, and has spent a lifetime studying the apostle Paul. This book is the result of that study and is used in a number of seminaries as THE text when studying Paul. It is easily understood, and compelling reading for those interested in the subject. Very highly recommended.

Knox did an outstanding job of presenting this vignette about life on the Cumberland in another era. The story is simply fantastic. The writing is wonderful.

For it's few number of pages, I treasure it as one of my favorite books of all time, sutiable for all ages.

This book's riveting chronological sequence of stories reveals the devastating tapestry of history, woven by authors who were writing about wars that were central to lives. It includes stories that look unblinkingly at the horror of what it does to people. Whether it is a story about the loss of a loved one, like the haunting Greater Love, of the loss of one's own humanity--as in Victory, or The Marine, the stories hit hard and stay with you long after you have finished the last story. The title story is especially damning to the hypocrisy black soldiers faced in WWII. A very well chosen collection of great authors on a timeless subject that affects us all.

This is an excellent beginners or intermediate book on go live. The thing I like about this book, is that you don't get lost in a bunch of technical jargon or mumbo jumbo. Very clear and concise and a good read. I recommending it to anyone who is a beginner or intermediate in go live.

I like this book because it seemed like it was real. I gave two books to my best friend and now I figured out some of them are out of stock. The whole series is great.

Ms. Knox likes words. The dense mouthfuls of her lines, the absurd decoupage qualities of her language belies a huge sense of humor. Some of these poems, like "Souvenir de Roc-Amadour" use a whistful, other-century tone, are chock full of whimsy e.g. "clydesdales with feet like plungers" and "Belled summits, turfless town, whence a tumble/necessarily results in the valleys of geology". At times, the eye travels over the short movie the words creates, and one is not sure of the poem's meat. Naturally, it's more predicated on fun, and sound and language than metaphor or accrual of meaning. Then again, humor is meat enough in "To Newfoundland". In this title poem, the introductory prose starts in guidebook deadpan, "Rural poverty makes for maritime enterprise, they say" and leads to sneaky tongue-in-cheek set-up. The paragraph continues: "You can imagine that the circumstances of a) being tempest-tossed and blown off course while trying to get to Greenland...Some of the poetry was terrible and highly inaccurate. Few have the gift." Ms. Knox's speaker then provides "examples":

DOGS: "Bough! wough! whose dogs are we
whan al our maysters are grae hame
or off to Greenland on the sea"

Another good poem is a sestina about Bishop Seabury and another, "Exploring Unknown Territory" which has someone named Admiral Peary talking to John Ashbery. I think you have to really see this for yourself, but here in my final excerpt:

MY HUSBAND: Mr. Ashbery, would you look at my poem?
JOHN ASHBERY: Sure. (Reads aloud.)

The intervening lines describe a simple poem by "Mason Knox" absurd, flat-footed, mournful about how the garbage cans don't stink no mo. Ashbery tells him to read one of his poems, to which Knox replies:

MY HUSBAND: Thank you. (Reads silently.) This is
full of French!

If you are delighted by dogs, sailors, big ships, history, extreme cold of the North Atlantic,and wildly absurdist humor free from pretention or sloth, this will be the ticket for you.

A fascinating collection of two hundred large, one to a page, photos capturing the fifties. The photos are divided into five sections and each picture has a caption and credit taken from the back of the print. Page sixteen shows the back of a photo from 1953 taken in Berlin and it is a mess of crossed out picture sizes, pasted on captions, five in all, and rubber stamps, this photo has been used at least six times over the years.

I was pleased to see that most of these photos can be viewed not just as historical news images but as well crafted compositions. So many photos that we see on a daily basis (especially in the media) are purely for the moment and lack any real creative input but the ones in this book encourage you to linger and think about what the photos are saying.

Apart from the two hundred pictures there are three essays, Douglas Dreishpoon's on the background to the Times Picture Desk is particularly interesting, a twenty-one page time-line to the fifties, bibliography and index. The elegant layout and excellent printing make this book a good addition to the library of anyone interested in the recent past.

The book is published in conjunction with an exhibition of the photos that is travelling around the Nation between now and 2004

Another book of photos from the paper is 'Pictures of the Times' by Peter Galassi and Susan Kismaric, this has 154 photos covering the last century and is equally as good as 'The Tumultuous Fifties'. Both books rightly conclude that The New York Times is the world's premier daily.

The Merion Press specializes in bringing out-of-print masterpieces to a public hungry for old mysteries. Being its second publication, The Viaduct Murder, by Ronald A. Knox, was originally published in 1925. It was included in the ultimate mystery list, selected by Howard Haycraft for The Haycraft-Queen Definitive Library of Detective-Crime-Mystery Fiction, Two Centuries of Cornerstones 1748-1948. Ronald Knox himself was a native of Leicestershire, England; born in 1888. He was educated at Eton and Oxford; held a position as chaplain of Trinity College; converted to Catholicism; and served at Oxford University from 1926-1939, during which time he became domestic prelate to the Pope in 1936.

The Viaduct Murder finds a clergyman (Marryatt); a retired don (Carmichael); a former military intelligence man (Reeves) and a vacationing golfer (Gordon) playing on the links in Paston Oatvile, where the come upon the dead body of Mr. Brotherhood. They set out to solve his murder and take the reader on a merry chase of misplaced logic, secret passageways, mysterious beautiful women, and walls that have ears:

"'We could have tried. But tell me: how much of our conversation does this gentleman overhear? And whereabouts in your room could you have hidden with any safety? Honestly, I don't believe he would have come out except while he knew that you are Gordon were busy watching the wrong side of the door.' 'You're assuming, of course, that he can't have got in at the door by a duplicate key after Reeves and I went to bed?' 'I am not assuming that, I know it. I took the liberty of putting a bit of that useful chewing gum across the lock of the door, and it was still undisturbed in the morning.'"

Ronald A. Knox provides us with the classic whodunit in a light vein. While our amateur sleuths are stumbling around for the answer, it is in plain sight. Their antics, without disturbing their golf game, of course, send the reader into circles of delightful missteps, until the answer is finally provided to the hapless reader by Mr. Knox. The Viaduct Murder is British mystery at its most classic, most entertaining best. Knox knows how to weave a good yarn.

Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer

your book is really interesting one not only for me but also for my wife and children. especially the cute pictures which were attracted all of my family's member and also which I decided to scan and insert them in my computer project.

lots of my thanks and best regards