This is a great intro to garden design drafting. It covers at a high-level how to draw a garden design and some basic principles of structure. If you are wanting to learn how to draw designs for your garden, this is a good place to start. If you have experience in garden design, another book may be a better choice.

"Ichthyosaurus and Little Mary Anning," by Brooke Hartzog, relates a fascinating story from the history of fossil hunting. The book tells how a young girl named Mary Anning discovered the first whole skeleton of an ichthyosaurus, an extinct species of marine reptile.

The book is full of fascinating illustrations of fossils, and of artistic recreations of ichthyosaurs. The only weak element of the book is the fact that the text is often superimposed over the illustrations, thus frequently resulting in text that is difficult to read. Still, this is a visually impressive educational text.

Marlowe deserves credit for even trying to write a sequel to Homer's Trojan War. Jupiter (or Zeus) offers a powerful opening when he promises to aid the survivng Trojans including Aeneas. The triangle between Dido, Aneas, and Iarbus serves to keep us in suspense. The regrouping of the survivng Trojans is a memorable scene. Aeneas' telling of the war in 2.1 is dramatic and powerful. (Especially when he blames himself for allowing the Trojan Horse into their gates.) Juno (or Hera) is chilling as the venomous woman she usually is. Iarbas and Anna draw sympathy as victims of unrequited love. The tragic parting of Aeneas and Dido is quite moving, and the triple suicide of Dido, Iarbas, and Anna is a sorrowful, chilling, and yet beautifully done ending. Only Marlowe could follow up Homer's Trojan War with a sequel of this outstanding quality!

A. Brooke Caruso does a wonderful job of accurately stating the impact intelligence played in the annexation of Texas, as well as in the war with Mexico. This book is for everyone who wants to know "the rest of the story," as it pertains the the Mexican-American War. For the reader who wants to learn everything there is to know about the Mexican Spy Company, this is not the book. This book covers much more. It shows the drive President Polk had in the annexation of Texas and his persuit of the Mexican Northern Territory. From his brilliant use of executive agents in the field to his not so brilliant deal with General Santa Anna, this book accurately depicts the extreme means Polk would use to accomplish his goals. The book seems to be a compilation of several different research projects, and that is how it is presented. The author did not tie all the pieces together so that the reader could get a big picture of everything that was going on. The reader is left with the task of putting everything together on his own. Nevertheless, this book is a must read for any military intelligence, military historian, or Texas historian who wants to know more than what the textbooks teach.

SPSS can be a challenging program even when it is in a Windows format.This text gives the reader clear guidance on performing most basic statistical operations such as ANOVA, regression, data base management and descriptive statistical functions to name a few. The volumn is thin on statistical methodology background (as one would find in a statistics text) but rich in "how to" directions and screen visuals. A great place to start mastering SPSS and analyzing that first data set.

I used this book to research peer groups for a paper I was writing about first-year composition. I am a graduate student instructor of first-year composition and found the information in this book very helpful--stuff I wish I'd known when I started teaching!

If you have some time to spend cooking, this book is for you. For special family-style suppers or lunches with guests, these recipes fill the bill! This book has it all- including menu tips using the side-dish and dessert recipes found in this book. This is probably one of my favorite cookbooks and I refer to it again and again!

This book provides a great insight into the history and design of type, and quite a bit of the commentary is useful even today. Morison is well known, of course, for the Times New Roman face - and there is a section in the book on that face. But his commentary on the designing of faces like Plantin and Bembo is much more interesting, if you ask me. Also, if you are at all a fan of Eric Gill, you will like the section on Perpetua and Felicity. Anyone interested in the history of type should have this book, that much is certain.

Textermination is an excellent book, but be warned - it is not an 'easy' read. Set at a convention of characters from literature, it is crowded with overt and subtle references to, and quotes and characters from, a huge number of sources. There will be books and authors you have never heard of mentioned in this book, and it can make you feel very small. There are also passages in French, German, Spanish and other languages. Those challenges aside, this book is worth reading for the way it engages narrative conventions, separating and subverting the roles of characters, authors, the "Reader", and more. Brooke-Rose's use of language is inspiring.

As a set text it did not seem to be the most interesting of choices. However the the autobiographical style of "Jo's" life is both imaginative and capturing. Although slow in parts, the tension of the second world war keeps you gripped throughout. The quite alarming experiences forced upon the boys makes the journey you share with the author, one of the most touching stories of childhood striuggles in french literature. Certainly not what I expected.