This book is a must for anyone who lives or spends any amount of time in San Francisco. Locals and visitors alike will find it indespensible if they love to eat out but don't always want to do it on a champagne budget. This book reveals not only where the great food is in the City by the Bay (and surrounding areas,) but also addresses the pocketbook, too. It's based on the premise that the meals must not come to more than a [certain amount of money.] It covers the gamut from fine dining to taquerias to everything in between. I find the reviews to be comprehensive, realistic and often mirror exactly my impression of the dining establishment. (So it MUST be good!) ;^) The index is divided by both neighborhood and food type and is very easy to use, as the restaurants are then listed alphabetically. I keep mine in the car so that it's always easily available. I use it often. I'm also buying 10 of them as Christmas gifts. My only complaint is that the book falls apart easily.

A huge thank you to you and your family for your contributions to children's literature. The Christmas Adventures of Space Elf Sam will not be under our tree this year, it's too good to hide in wrapping paper. We, my husband, my 3 girls, 3, 5, and 10 and myself are Star Trek fans and this one could be a new Christmas favorite for us. I was so excited to see the parts of your web site that explain where the story came from and how the animation was done. I really love to see how things come together. I was in awe at how complicated the animation is and how much work goes into it. The effort definately shows in the finished product. The illustrations are fun, inviting, futuristic and friendly, children and adults will love them! I am a preschool teacher and children's writer.

Christmas in the Midwest! the very best of all! From Chicago's Miracle Mile with its myriad of gaily colored lights and its blazing store windows - to the small midwest cities with their downtown lampposts festooned with evergreen and silvery tinsel - to the small towns with their Season's Greetings bannered across the intersection of Main and Elm Streets - to the farm scenes with strings of red and green bulbs entwined round the spindly legs of long-unused windmills and the picture window curtains drawn back to let the tree lights gleam out over the new fallen snow.

And Christmas Eve in little frame and brick churches with "readings" and songs by the children - a decorated tree and some rosy-faced neighbor in a Santa Claus costume - Christmas mornings with families round the tree and the gaily wrapped gifts with their promises waiting to be unwrapped.

And then go over the hill to Grandma's house where all the aunts, uncles and cousins gathered for a gala Christmas feast!

These are images and recollections that M idwesterners and exiled Midwesterners share. You will find these memories and more in the pages of Christmas in the Midwest. Here is a rich assortment in poem, picture, and story, all done by the best of midwest writers and artists such as, Hamlin Garland, Bess Streeter Aldrich, James Whitcomb Riley, John Muir, Marjorie Holmes, Paul Engle, Hartzell Spence, Phil Stong and Susan Allen Toth. They share stories about the Midwest's very first Christmases, Christmases of the pioneers, and Christmases in this changing twenty-first century. Wether the stories and poems are real or imagined, or mixtures of memory and "might-have-been," this collection is guaranteed to stir heartwarming memories of Christmas in the Midwest, and the spirit of the season everywhere.

Christopher Wood an enlish painter is a superb book about the young ambitious painter who set out to Paris ,to be the greatest painter.Ingleby has written a wonderful biogaraphy.Good writing and thorough researched.This book got me so hooked on Christopher Wood that I am now reading his letters (from the TATE archive).I cannot recommend this book enough for ,anyone who wants a picture of europes artworld before the 2nd world war,or anyone interested in a good biography. Also recommended is Sebastian Faulks's The fatal englishman

THE CHYMICAL COOK: A True Account of
Mystical Initiation in the Georgia Woods,
by Jay Bremyer (Station Hill Openings/
Barrytown, LTD., 1996)

In the summer of 1969, thinking to
attend a yoga workshop, Jay and Sara drive to
Georgia, which sets the stage for their
adventure by dropping them from their Kansas,
university student, '60s activist lifestyle,
right into the redneck South of the time.
Synchronicities begin to erupt in every
direction, and they encounter a quirky sprite
of a woman, Elsie, who quickly draws them in
to the idea they need to spend some time with
her. They return home, gather some friends,
and come into Elsie's mystical circle for a
life-changing experience.

With her ear cocked to inaudible
voices, she exposes them to riddles, to
paradox, to true magic, to great good humor.
They are transported to other realities,
challenged to understand and grow, confused
and confounded. She feeds them well, seems to
be everywhere they individually happen to be,
and gives them simple chores fraught with
meaning. She urges them to look at all they
encountered for the hidden messages.

Bremyer writes this true account in a
compelling, fast-moving, poetic waterfall
prose, a particular style that urges the
reader to see the layer upon layer of meaning
skillfully tucked in between the words. The
book is one that begs multiple readings, and
is likely to be ear-marked and underlined and
annotated, and returned to again and again.
The magic of this book is that for every
question answered, two more arise, and the
reader is invited to actively partake and
participate in the juicy great mystery openly
available to all.

The Chymical Cook is a golden read,
one from the pots of the successful alchemist.

__ Jan Thatcher Adams
Whole Health Editor of The Edge,
Exploring the Evolution of Consciousness

(Excerpted from "Seeds of wisdom sown with
Bremyer's Chymical Cook" which appeared in
the February, 1997 issue of The Edge.)

John Dugdale is one of America's finest photographers. We must celebrate his artistry--he is still a young man with so much more work and so many dreams still in him, although he is 80% blind from HIV.

This volume, published by Leo and Wolfe Photography could not possibly be more beautiful. At a full 13 1/2" x 13 1/2" it is magnificently hardbound with beige/grey linen covered boards and the artist's self-portrait on the front cover.

John Wood, poet and photography critic, has supplied a lengthy, wonderful appreciation of Dugdale and an investigation into his works: images of transcendental beauty. Poet Morri Creech has contributed "The Pilgrimage of Lazarus" (after the photographs of John Dugdale) and, perhaps, best of all, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, Robert Olen Butler, gives us "A Prayer for John Dugdale" which begins "Saint Ludwig pray for me. I am going blind. Just as you went deaf."

Dugdale's cyanotypes are superbly reproduced in this once in a lifetime volume. They take us to another time, another place and a new spirituality. Even at this very high price, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I lent this book out in graduate school and never saw it again. As I recall it is very good. Made sense of the Apology. Marxist interpretation of Plato. But, I thought it was by Neil Woods and his wife

For people who are really interested in classic cars, this book has to be THE bargain. The author is someone who really knows cars. I have never seen a book with such a quality at such a low price. (hard cover, glossy paper, superb photographs, etc.)

What a relief it was to find this book!

After ordering and returning 'Architectural Design for Tropical Regions' by Cleveland Salmon (avoid Salmon's book, unless you don't already know that "the sun can be very bright when the sky is clear and the sunlight is intense"!), this book came to my rescue.

Packed with detailed information and design strategies, along with good illustrations, this book is well suited to architects or well-educated laymen (it is NOT written at a grade school level). I was at first hesitant to order this book, as little information was provided by Amazon. After reading it cover to cover more than once, I'm happy to recommend CLIMATE RESPONSIVE DESIGN as one of my two best books for hot humid building design.

(The other favorite is COURTYARDS: Aesthetic, Social & Thermal Delight. Not just a "pretty picture book," Courtyards contains lots of highly useful information (charts, graphs, formulas) as well as wonderful color & B&W photos, plus line drawings.)

Climate Responsive Design has provided a wealth of solid, useful, pertinent information while working on projects for the Yucatan, where the climate ranges from hot humid in the summer/rainy months, to warm humid in winter/'dry' months, to WHEW in April & May (hot hot hot & maybe humid or not).

Excellant compendium of hypnotic technique, encyclopedic collection of therapuetic tricks of the hypnotherapist's trade. If you buy no other hypnotist's handbood, buy this one. It is a library in itself.