This book is a treasure! I am from Southern Louisiana but now live in Colorado. I never really wanted to learn to cook when I was young, but now that I am older and a mom I want to pass on my heritage to my children. This book is very authentic. It is exactly like my mother cooks--with no weird ingredients. The recipes are fantastic and the commentary witty. It also has a glossary for those persons who don't understand some of the cajun terminology. This book was my "early" Mother's Day present. And, I couldn't be any happier.

I have been cooking cajun foods for over 40 years and my mother before me. This book is so true to the authentic "French" cajun cooking found in homes in and around Lafayette, Louisiana that I sometimes am surprised at its accuracy. I watch Miss Lucy on PBS and this book follows her show. I just purchased two more books as gifts for my children and will give it to them as the truest representation of the preparation and enjoyment of "French" cajun cooking. On her show, her accent is alittle too corney but look beyond that and enjoy!!

The up-to-date authoritative and standard reference of first choice for the serious student of Freemasonry. Many other available encyclopedias are out of date, heavy-going or fanciful. The 1996 edition of this work is a must-have. It is written with a North American bias.

Those interested in British or Continental Freemasonry will need to supplement this book with others such as "Dizionario Massonico" by Luigi Troisi (published by Bastogi), Frederick Smyth's "A Reference Book for Freemasons" and "Freemasons Guide and Compendium" by Bernard E Jones.

No serious Masonic researcher should be without Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia. It's pretty much as simple as that. Within its pages is a wealth of useful Masonic information presented in an easy to read format. While Coil's must be considered a secondary source, it presents an enormous amount of hard to find information at your fingertips and proves indispensable in the search of primary sources. Of the major Masonic encyclopedias, Coil's is the most up to date with its second edition being released in 1996. It contains information on European developments and Prince Hall Masonry that is no where to be found in other such publications. I highly recommend this work.

Why is this book going out of print? It is the most down-to-earth dictionary of English that I have ever seen, with numerous excellent examples to illustrate usage. It is perfect for English language learners. I teach college English and writing, and every student who has seen this has been excited by it. The entries include information necessary for ESL students, such as countable and uncountable nouns, subtle differences in meaning, and idiomatic expressions. I keep it near my desk at all times, and prefer it over the standard Webster's or Random House dictionaries when working with students.

I bought this dictionary in May 1990 in Singapore.

The way the content presented is the best I had ever seen. This dictionary is written in ordinary, everyday English that is easy to understand. It has an excellent Guide to the Use of the Dictionary. Every explanation comes with at least one example that is taken from actual texts wherever possible. The extra column in the dictionary, right beside the explanation of a word, creates a visual attraction to the reader. This extra column is used to give two different types of information: grammar notes and semantic relationships (similar or opposite) for the word that is being explained. I love it.

CoBuild is the appreviation of Collins Birmingham University International Language Database. This dictionary was developed and compiled in the English Department at the University of Birmingham as part of a language research project commissioned by Collins Publishers.

Currently, I am looking for its enriched and/or, if any, CD-ROM version. Unfortunately, it seems that the publisher stopped publishing this great dictionary.

This book is a treasure. I take it with me everywhere I go, packing it in my bags no matter how light I am traveling. The book is the size of a very small pocket dictionary, yet it contains maps of every country in the world, as well as an index with thousands of entries to help locate even small unknown localities. True, larger atlases show greater detail and may be more accurate, but this one you can actually carry in your pocket. It's helped me out many a time on my travels in trying to communicate where I'm from and where I am going when I share no common language with the people around me. Yeah, it's a little outdated now since it was printed before the demise of the Soviet Union, but I don't know what I would do if I ever lost it.

One of the smallest "atlases" of the world you can possibly get. It's a few inches tall by a few inches wide, about 1000 pages thick. Maps are detailed enough and cover very small sections (Britain, for example, takes up two pages alone). I keep this in my desk all the time and refer to it often. All the major cities in the world are available for look-up in the index reference.

The book has alot of information. I own one of the old Machetes and it was quite interesting to read about it. I would highly recommend this bood to anyone owning a Collins Machete.

Since I appear many times in the text of this book as an observor, as a facilitator, and as a source, it may be considered presumptuous for me to review it. But since I am competent to do so, here goes. Ed and I knew each other from 1971 when we first met. Since I am in MD and he was in CA our face time was limited but we kept in close touch by snail mail and phone. He made many trips to the source at Collinsville and I dug a large amount of materials out of the National Archives, Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress. Since Ed focused strictly on Collins products and only on the sub lines of machetes and I am interested in all military edged tools and cutlery as well as axe work in general, we overlapped our interests. Is this the book I have written or would have? Certainly not, but I know for certain that it is all in focus and, unless there is a new vast discovery of documents, if there is anything more to be known about Collins machetes you can put in a very small pot. By focusing as he did Ed was able to find things that I never did nor even thought to look for. The ultimate test of this kind of book is is it interesting, and is it useful? I think it is so, and I wll be able to chop out all the corporate history which was in my original work and refer the reader to this one. Carter Rila

This is, by far, the most enjoyable book I have ever read--the illustrations are simply joyous. It has become standard bedtime reading for all my children and it makes a wonderful gift, too.

We all pray that we will never fall victim to painful rectal disorders, but what do we do when our prayers fall flat? I had a 9-year history of excruciatingly painful anal fissures and lesions that was aggravated by a series of parasitic attacks. Not only was my health devastated, but I was too embarrassed to visit the doctor. This book gave me my pride back. The color illustrations were right on the money - I was self-diagnosed as an advanced case of inflamed rectal phlebitus, and I embarked upon a scientific cure based on the information I uncovered in Dr. Henry and Dr. Porter's gem.

No one likes to admit that his or her rectum is malfunctioning. But when it happens, thank God there is this book.

This book is wickedly funny. Less wicked, but also very amusing, are Bill Bryson's "In a Sunburned Country," Roy Moore's "Brothel in Pimlico," and even T. Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom." All happen to be British.

You must buy this book! Donaldson's hilarious letters are full of subtle putdowns (sample: "Do you only read the news or do you make it up?) You will be in hysterics reading the straight-faced answers from British notables.

Vincent Henry has written a book that is a valuable contribution to the understanding of Compstat.

Compstat was a 1996 winner of the Innovation in Government and has been listed as one of the major contributing factors to the "turn around" of police productivity in the New York Police Department in the mid-1990s.

Compstat has been the subject of several rumors, half truths and outright distortions. In a book whose audience is primarily college level students of policing and police management, Henry methodically explains the organizational context in which Compstat developed, actual implementation tactics and strategies used and assesses the future utility of the Compstat process in a variety of private and public settings.

Henry clearly establishes that Compstat is more than a "dog and pony show" or a staff meeting supplemented with computer graphics and statistical analysis. Rather it is one of several tools necessary to produce effective results in modern policing, " Compstat must be seen as one facet of a comprehensive and carefully orchestrated array of management strategies and practices".

This book is handicapped to an extent by the several audiences it serves simultaneously. First, nine of the ten chapters close with "Questions for Debate and Discussion", which serves the academic audience well but is bothersome to the general readers. Second, the use of sidebars tends to dilute the impact of the author's primary discussion at several points. However, the tenth chapter "The Compstat Paradigm: Summary of Basic Principles and Precepts" is one of the best short summaries of Compstat to be found anywhere in print. Those seven pages make the cost of the book worth very cent.

The New York City Police Department has achieved great reductions in crime through the Compstat process. Major crimes have declined 66%, and homicides are down 77% since 1993. These statistics translate into thousands of lives saved and significantly improved quality of life for all the people of New York. Those who argue that factors other than the police were responsible for this decline ignore the significant institutional changes in the NYPD and its method of policing.

It was not simply hiring thousands of cops and putting them on the street, it was a matter of changing the way those cops worked. This involved not only technological change, such as the use of computer pin mapping, but also managerial and cultural change within the NYPD. The result was a more analytical and focused NYPD, a more responsive and flexible department, better able to serve the people of New York. Compstat was driving force behind those changes.

Vincent Henry is a friend and coworker of mine for ten years, since I was a student in his class at CW Post College. While he has academic credentials, he also has the experience and perspective of a street cop. He was well placed to observe significant developments in the NYPD and its strategies over the years. He has an in-depth knowledge of the history of the agency and the personalities involved in the development of Compstat. This background provides insight into the subtleties and nuances of Compstat (and the NYPD as a whole) that an outsider may miss. The Compstat Paradigm is not only a description of the development of Compstat, but also a history of the NYPD over the last two decades. This historical context increases understanding of the political and personal forces that influenced the development of Compstat.

I have attended dozens of Compstat sessions as both an observer and a participant. I have read other books on Compstat, including NYPD Battles Crime by Eli Silverman and Managing Police Operations: Implementing the NYPD Crime Control Model Using Compstat by Phyllis Parshall McDonald. The Compstat Paradigm is the most comprehensive and thorough description of Compstat available, and provides the best overview of what the Compstat process is, how it developed, and how it works in the New York City Police Department.

Henry Green's Concluding is an extraordinary novel. Remarkably idiosyncratic, it is a work that may not appeal to everybody equally. Green humorously, and tragically, presents the common misunderstandings that language and our private emotions provoke. Although natural beauty and light's dazzling improvisations illuminate the novel, the recurrent theme of what is secret, underground and buried offers a disturbing and unsettling contrast. Passions bloom abruptly through the dryness and formality of a community stifled by Rules and Directives. A striking example of Green's powers is the lunch episode in which the manipulative Principal Miss Edge feels a missing girl's corpse is buried underneath the azaleas and rhododendrons behind her table. This book deserves to be read and reread.

If you love human beings and/or are one, you will love Henry Green's books! REAL stories, told in VERY imaginative ways, about REAL people expressing REAL EMOTION. Check out: Living, Loving, Nothing, Party Going, Caught, Doting, Blindness, Back, and Pack My Bag; A Self-Portrait -- all by Green!!!

Out with the old wives tales and the unproven, anecdotal legends that persist among so many "experts" in the world of photography! Mr. Henry is a retired clinical chemistry researcher who found many of the accepted methods to be unfounded and not actually true when careful, scientific methods were used to verify them. If you are interested in the fine points of darkroom work and in developing a neutral starting point with your own materials, you will find this a valuable read. It's well written, well organized and everything is meticulously documented and verified.

This is an amazing book. Richard Henry took a very scientific approach to testing. The book has *real* data about what goes on in B&W processing including fixing and washing. Even if you don't do your own B&W darkroom work this book is well worth reading and with contribute to your understanding of how film and paper work.