You're a Home Inspector or simply in search of picture after picture with little other detail other than technical information. If you are looking for advice on how to repair or fix items, DO NOT BUY this or other Carson Dunlop books in this series, or the $$$ - The Illustrated Home. Carson Dunlop is a firm out of Canada that does produce good materials for Home Inspectors, but these are not "how to" manuals, nor are these books good for the average home owner. The reviewer g_clarke is, in my view, clearly associated with Carson Dunlop and his or her review should be ignored - check out his/her other reviews, they are worded exactly the same for each book in this series. Kind of sad when people write misleading reviews to simply increase sales. On the positive - DO BUY this book if you are simply looking for very detailed technical information.

With almost 500 illustrations, "Electrical, Plumbing, Insulation and the Interior" shows you exactly what the finished job should look like.

Alan Carson and Robert Dunlop prove in this easy-to-use book that pictures really are worth a thousand words. Through clearly detailed illustrations Carson and Dunlop walk you through your home, showing you just what your repairs and renovations should look like, inside and out. This book is an excellent tool for the new home owner or home inspector, showing you which pitfalls to avoid and what to look for when searching for potential problems in the electrical work, plmbing and insulation in your or your client's home.

The Fairy's return is a mishmash of Romeo & Juliet (without the henchmen), The Golden Goose, and others set within the Princess Tales mythology. It's a fairly quick read with more depth than "The Princess Test," but not as much main character development as "Cinderellis and the Glass Hill."

Robin is considered an imbecile in his family because he likes to tell jokes instead of making up words (like his two elder brothers Nat and Matt) or create poems (like his father Jake). He wants to be accepted -- a common theme in these stories -- but his relatives won't.

Robin stumbles upon Lark, the also-bird-named princess to the kingdom of Biddle. They hit it off because they treat each other as normal people. Unfortunately, Robin's a commoner, and the two are discouraged from meeting again, though we know they're destined to.

Robin has more of a personality than some of the other princes-to-be of the other Gail Carson Levine stories, and it's interesting to glimpse into his struggle. He likes her, he's not sure she likes him, he gets discouraged, starts to have hope, etc.

The subplots are not as enchanting as the other stories. King Humphrey has a speech impediment that causes him to harrumph every word. There is one scene where this is pretty funny because he's describing what he wants done while his scribe is attempting to translate it to English (Biddlish?). It's a bit much to read aloud, however.

On the other hand, the quests Robin must fulfill are absurdly funny, and listening to him work out how to build a ship that works as well on land as it does the sea is amusing.

The Fairy's Return is a retelling of the golden goose story. Robin and Princess Lark love each other, but King Harrumphrey forbids their marriage. All seems lost until the fairy Ethelinda intervenes. This story is filled with subtle wit and plays on words. If you enjoy humor and fairy tales, read The Fairy's Return!

Jane Warner needed help right away. Handling the daily duties of her brother's farm and the responsibility of raising his two young sons was too much for one woman alone. And there was no telling if or when her brother would return. And along came Rider Magrane.

Jane, thinking Rider had come in response to her ad, welcomed him whole-heartedly. He was good with the boys and was handy around the farm. And just the sort of man a woman could lose her heart to if she wasn't careful. But Rider had a terrible secret from his past that linked his life to Jane's. A secret that could very well destroy their chances of happiness together.

Cleverly written, "Family Man" was a treasure from cover to cover.

This is the second of two (first book is Bad Company), but it can be read first without any problem at all. The two kids are adorable, the heroine plain to all but the hero (all women, after all, aren't drop-dead gorgeous), and the hunky hero is truly a family man - and (unbelievably) a virgin! I think you'll really enjoy this, as it's so down to earth that it could have really happened. Only silliness is the quack/doctor's curses.

In my opinion, this book gets off to a shaky start. Hero and Eldin are to do battle with a conspiracy of the Dreamland's most evil forces. But rather than set up the situation with a gradual unfolding of events, Lumley shoves his characters right into it, explaining the full background of the conspiracy in a long letter from Randolph Carter. I found this to be somewhat forced and awkward, it was as if Lumley couldn't be bothered to set up the story in a more natural way.

Still, I can forgive him that, because once the weak setup is done, Hero and Eldin are launched into their most sweeping adventure yet.

But it's also the corniest adventure yet. All of the old villians are back and united - it reminds me of a silly Batman plot, with the arch-villians banding together to fight the caped crusader, but spend as much time fighting with themselves. Still, it works, as long as you don't take it too seriously.

This is the first of the Dreamlands books that introduces some Great Old Ones into the action. As usual with Lumley, he shows them as being far more interested in and susceptible to the affairs of men than Lovecraft ever would have. The HPL purists out there will probably be disappointed or offended. I'm not a purist myself, but I did have problems with some of the Nightgaunts starting to act heroic, on their own, being even a little bit human.

Once the action gets started, this is the most ambitious of Lumley's Dreamlands books, with harrowing escapes, battles between large fleets of sky-ships, all the way up to the incredible fate of our heroes at the end of the story. If you're willing to tolerate the absurdity of some of it, and can deal with the liberties Lumley takes with some of HPL's creations, it's a fun ride.

Our heroes are back for more adventures! In Mad Moon of Dreams everyone is back. The Hive Queen, Zura, almost every evil and good character we have ever met in this series so far. It leads to a fun reunion. Hero and Eldin however, still have their duties. An ancient god residing on the moon wishes to take over dreamlands. It is up to them to stop it.

The book was informative however the foward by Spike Lee was out of place. It breaks my heart that so many people profit from the life and death of Malcolm X other than his family. Although this is a good book do your self and Malcolm justice by getting this book from your public library!

Carson is a well-known Black scholar whose most important work has been organizing and opublishing from the Martin Luther King Papers. This book was an effort on his part to expose how the FBI followed Malcolm X from the time he wrote to a radical youth group for information, long before Malcolm X joined the Muslims until his death, a death Malcolm more and more expected would come from the FBI/CIA. Along the way the FBI has preserved speeches and letters and views of Malcolm as they evolved throughout his life. Anyone who treats Malcolm X as some sort of prefabricated god, and not a man whose views developed over time, over experience, and particularly after his exposure to the struggles of the civil rights movement, and the anti-imperialist struggles ongoing in Cuba, Africa, and Vietnam at the time, is in for a rude shock as this book shows how his ideas changed and grew.
I recommend Pathfinder Press's series of books by Malcolm X. Malcolm selected Pathfinder to publish his speeches before he died. The first book Malcolm X speaks was selected while Malcolm was living, though published after he was murdered. Every book has been published in cooperation and with royalties to Malcolm's family. Pathfinder has gone as far as the jungles of Guyana to find every speech or interview available with Malcolm particularly in the last years of his life.

You're a Home Inspector or simply in search of picture after picture with little other detail other than technical information. If you are looking for advice on how to repair or fix items, DO NOT BUY this or other Carson Dunlop books in this series, or the - The Illustrated Home. Carson Dunlop is a firm out of Canada that does produce good materials for Home Inspectors, but these are not "how to" manuals, nor are these books good for the average home owner.Kind of sad when people write misleading reviews to simply increase sales. On the positive - DO BUY this book if you are simply looking for very detailed technical information.

With over 500 illustrations, "Structure, Roofing and the Exterior" shows you exactly what the finished job should look like.

Alan Carson and Robert Dunlop prove in this easy-to-use book that pictures really are worth a thousand words. Through clearly detailed illustrations Carson and Dunlop walk you through your home, showing you just what your repairs and renovations should look like, inside and out. This book is an excellent tool for the new home owner or home inspector, showing you which pitfalls to avoid and what to look for when searching for potential problems in the structure, roof or exteriorof your or your client's home.

This book interested me if only because it described an under appreciated facet of American history: Spanish occupation of the Southwest and her attempts to understand and defend the frontier.

Carson's "Across the Northern Frontier..." examines chronologically the period of first Spanish and then Mexican domination of the lands centered on Santa Fe, the principal outpost in the province. It is largely a tale told through the adventures of governors and explorers.

For three centuries the Spanish had an uneasy hold on the area. It was far away from present day Mexico, the hub of Spanish domination of the region. Spain wanted New Mexico first to satisfy its appetite to forever expand. Later, the region was seen as a buffer against the many tribes to the north and later still against encroaching French and English (later Americans). Life and occupation were hard. Numerous Indians lived in the region. Settled farmers in pueblos that predated Spanish settlements as well as roaming plains/desert and mountain tribes who dominated the outlands. The first were easier for the Spanish to dominate because of their fixed location. Sometimes allies, sometimes in rebellion, the pueblo Indians had an uneasy relationship among the colonists. They also provided the man power for agriculture, commercial enterprises and armed militia. The plains Indians, although in some periods in commercial or military alliance with the Spanish against other tribes, were generally an over the horizon threat that had to constantly be guarded against or actively punished in order to maintain a somewhat secure area around greater Santa Fe.

The book focuses on forays made by the Spanish over three centuries to "Colorado" (the name used to describe the area above Santa Fe and beyond -- much larger than the present day state). Some of these forays involved exploration, trail-blazing or trade. Most, however, involved a military interest -- either retaliating or punishing plains tribes who made war on the colony or showing strength in the hopes that plains tribes would fear the wrath of Spain more than the entreaties of French trappers and traders who mingled with native peoples to the north.

This is an interesting book - principally because I had only the most general understanding of this history. The book does have sort of an adventure/exploration quality to it as foray after foray into relatively unknown and completely natural areas of present day Colorado, Kansas, Utah and Oklahoma are examined. The book does stick to it's mission -- the focus is on these outward thrusts of the colony. Administration, Indian relations and everyday life are sketched over, usually as they relate to the security concerns of the area and it's ability to survive as one of the "furthermost outposts of Christiandom" as it was described by many of the Spanish.

This book provides a very useful introduction to key debates in and about behavioral genetics. A nice range of topics and perspectives is provided, many by leaders in the fields of biology, psychology, sociology, ethics, etc. Several articles (such as those by tobin, duster, and carson) are extremely insightful and informative, and purchase of the book is worthwhile for the articles alone.

(If only it were in paperback!)

But, like many edited volumes that cover "hot" topics, this book suffers from a lack of coherence. As noted by the professional reviewer, one must wonder to what "clash" the editors refer - even when contained in the same volume, authors of different perspectives seem to talk past each other rather than "clash," and the editors don't really put the debates in a perspective that illuminates the perceived relationship between the two constructs of biology and culture. Indeed, the book jacket reveals the focus to be quite different than advertised: "Throughout, [the authors] focus on two basic concerns: the quality of the science behind behavioral genetic claims and the need to formulate an appropriate, ethically defensible response when the science turns out to be good." While this is certainly a worthwhile topic, it is not nearly as intellectually challenging or interesting as the title promises. Nevertheless, some selections deliver.

I enjoyed the book, but then again I'm already a faithful fan of McCullers and used the book mainly as background information for a research paper. There were several points and concepts Bloom brought up that I had never put together, which was very helpful. I thought the book was helpful and informative, and a good general overview for the casual reader.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.It included interesting facts on wine-making with believable,interesting characters and plot. I hope to read more from this author.