Starting with a good premise (post nuclear holocaust) this book is a horrible addition to the genre. The entire book is nothing more than childlike characters engaging in adult practices. With no inhibitions or restraint. The characters are drab and unappealing. The description of the character is such that it is very difficult discern between the individuals with a few exceptions. The ending is not worth 250 pages of mindnumbing drivle you have to endure. This book is a romance with less of a plot than usual.

On the book cover of this book, it is compared to "Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter Miller. I found that the theme and writing style are similar, but I enjoyed this one much more. The characters were more engaging and the plot was more enjoyable.

Found the book easy to find what I can for but it needs polishing, very broad generalizations, and nothing indepth or where you could go for futher information on a subject or situation you have with your childs development. Some chapters were out of order and context, however most information was there in very basic and symplistic forms still needed tremendious review. This is not a book written from love, but for financial gain, using the elderly as the target market. Data on medical charts are inaccurate and out of date from the dosages posted in local Peditritions offices. Who's right and who's wrong. This could be fatal to a childs medical dosages. Author only has small children and no experience on emotional development past 5 years of age. Yet book notes authoritarian attitude, not suggestions of manerism of politeness. This could be the authors complex authoritarian parenting style. Complete missing areas of contributal factors for future development stages, and improper development signs to be aware of in a child growth and behavior. No web site for updating, or e-mails to the author. I will not recommend this book.

Riveting!Dazzling!Awesome! I was left spellbound! No, these are terms reserved for fictional works found on the bestsellers list. But, if you want a thorough, comprehensive and readable collection of wit and wisdom on childbearing, then this is the book for you. Or, more precisely, for the up and coming grandparent generation...the baby boomers.

The handbook is an easy read. It is well organized to cover the period from birth to thirty six months. The first ten chapters are organized chronologically, then followed by thirteen chapters that cover the day to day aspects just good childrearing sense. There are four appendices with charts that are easy to follow and chock filled with valuable information that go well beyond the old 'castor oil' solutions to every symptom. As a two time grand parent, I thoroughly enjoyed the authors'writing style, depth of research and organized approach to a new subject for many of us. I whole heartedly recommend this book to new or veteran grandparents. I just ordered my second copy as a gift to our grandchildren's other grandparents.

Overall, this text is not bad, although several instructional areas are out-dated material, ie: marking "shell casings, "bullets", on the face,etc. Also, todays training does not include marking handguns on every piece that can be removed, ie: frame, cylinder, barrel, grips, etc.

This book was defintely meant to be used in a classroom setting. The theory is very well explained, but when it comes down to practice, there are not enough exercises to practise what you learnt. Additionally, for the exercises offered, only some of the answers are provided at the back of the book. If you want to learn about finance on your own, this is not the book to buy. However, if you do buy the book, then make sure that you buy it as a compliment to another finance book filled with exercises; or beter yet, as a compliment to a finance class where your teacher (should) give you all the extra exercises you need.

Heroine: average/pleasingly plump

To the world redheaded Penelope Anne Calhoun, aka "the tiger cub", is the epitome of the moneyed heiress. She is used to getting whatever she wants, has all the right connections, and has a fiery temper to match her hair. She's also known to be passionate when it comes to business, yet said to have ice in her veins where the opposite sex is concerned.

But college Master Stephen Konig thought he knew differently, having glimpsed an open, wary, and vulnerable woman when the two bumped into each other on an airline flight. An opinion he quickly revised upon their second meeting, when he saw the business woman the rest of the world saw.

Bitterly disillusioned by the loss of his imagined "goddess" and annoyed by the termagant who supplanted her, Stephen sets out to make the pedigreed "Pepper" Calhoun very miserable indeed.

And if he can just douse the sparks of sexual energy that ignite whenever he gets near her, he just might succeed!

What worked for me:

Pepper was a bit prickly at times, but both she and Stephen were likable. And the villainesses were so easy to hate. The two of them really should get together for tea, crumpets, and backstabbing sometime.

I loved the setting for "The Independent Bride". Ancient buildings like castles and universities automatically bring out the romantic in me.

Size-wise Pepper was a softly-padded average, but rather unhappy with her appearance through most of the story, poor thing.

What didn't work for me:

Perhaps it was a case of too many shades from my own past, but Pepper's low self-esteem really was discomforting for me.
I don't know if it was a question of having had an English mother or that she was just picking up the local lingo, but sometimes Pepper didn't sound American.

Overall:

A sweet and enjoyable read, especially for folks who like a British flavor to their romances.

Warning: there was one sexy scene, but it was very tastefully done.

If you liked "The Independent Bride" you might also enjoy "The Bridesmaid's Reward", "The Librarian's Passionate Knight", "The Course of True Love", "Born to be Wild", "More to Love", "Runaway Bay", "His Seductive Revenge", "Carried Away", "His E-mail Order Wife", "Dear Cupid", "Spellbound", "It Had to be You", or "This Heart of Mine".

Almost nothing has been written on the pictorialist movement in California in the early 20th century, yet every well know photographer in California was active in it. This book is an imaginative look at one of the best and most mysterious practitioners. Mather and Weston found themselves in L.A. at the time in history when the movie industry was taking shape and a lot of creative and adventurous people came out here. This book captures some of that atmosphere.

Mather is interesting as a woman, as an artist and member of an eclectic group of West Coast artists, one of whom was Edward Weston with whom she worked and did other things for about 12 years. There is no question that they stimulated each other. Nothing could be less important except to get you to buy a book, I think.

Warren weakens Mather by linking her to Weston, trying to make the case that she influenced him. Her analysis is superficial to the point that her writing seems like an "infomercial". This is not surprising since the author used to work for an art auction house.

She would be far more informative if she had pointed out the differences between their approaches to the same subjects. Artists, particularly photographers of the place and time in question, met each other in clubs where they showed each other their work and talked about it. Everyone knew everyone and their influences helped define the differences between them. The Impressionists hung out together, the Dadaist hung out together as did almost every group or movement in art history. It is not informative for the author simply to restate this commonplace.

One of Mather's photographs of a boy wrapped in a kimono Warren compares with Weston's photograph of Tina Modotti in a kimono taken some years later. The subject is not new, and both photographs are wonderful but entirely different. Mather's is graphically 30 years ahead of its time, abstract, soft and easy.
Weston's is bold, sharp and explicit, and a dramatic break with pictorialism. It was probably influenced by Stieglitz, not Mather, according to those who wrote about Weston's meeting with Stieglitz. These two pictures, like many of the others Warren compares, are not even about the same thing.

In the end, this is a book about Edward Weston and not Mather. No new light is shed on either one of them, despite the huge bibliography of reference material. Not all of the works listed support Warren's case but she never mentions this of course.

There is a lot of art in this biography but not much art history. The photographs are well selected and presented. Margrethe Mather made some exceptional photographs which brought her a just amount of fame.

Mather's personal life would make a good movie. She was beautiful, talented and led a mysterious life which ended somewhat tragically. She died unknown mostly because she wanted to, and that is an important part of her story which Warren explores in this book.

Warren is working on a longer treatment of Mather. Hopefully she will pay more attention to the substance of the artist's work and her personal life and distract us less with her association with Weston.

This book is graphically rich and stimulating food for thought. Buy if for the art and dig up some of the material referred to in the footnotes.

As soon as I read the opening sentence 'Throughout the twentieth century the house has commended itself as the most appropriate and responsive vehicle for testing ideas and expressing an architectural position in built form.' I was disappointed.

And then, on page 18, "The decorative elaboration can easily blind us to the imagination and discipline with which Macintosh's ideas were grounded in responses to patterns of use, and proved an embarassment to later critics."

Not my kind of book I'm afraid. Don't want to unravel all those sentences.

Still, the pictures are all excellent, as is the overall design. A small floor plan will appear on every third page or so.

The author's charm and wit add to his obvious mastery of the material, so I'm sure many will find this an enjoyable read.

Considering the reputation of the primary author, I found the book to be ponderous to read and seemingly focused more on what the authors wanted to discuss than what might be really useful to students and those practicing M&A. The authors should have sought a more appropriate balance between theory and practice. This tome is weighted in favor of theory. It seems to spend more time addressing societal issues and issues of government policy than addressing the mechanics of how to plan for and implement transactions. In fact, only the last few pages of the book deal superficially with an approach to doing M&A.

The book also assumes substantial knowledge of accounting, finance and economics on the part of the reader. The dearth of examples also hinders the readers ability to readily understand how to apply complex concepts explained in torturous paragraphs of prose. It would have been helpful to use more illustrations to communicate concepts that are difficult for those of us that don't have Phds to understand.

Thankfully, there are other books that are far more helpful in explaining both theory and application of M&A. I have found Mckinsey's book on Measuring and Managing Valuation to be a much better guide to understanding how to apply complex valuation techniques. Integration methodology is well explained in Marks and Clemente's Winning at Mergers. For an excellent detailed overview of M&A, see Depamphlis Mergers Acquisitions and Other Restructuring or Weston's other, more recent book on M&A.

The book is really only useful for those interested in a literature survey, discussion of public policy, and somewhat tedious discussion of theoretical concepts.

On balance, this book provides a good overview of the subject and of recent academic studies. However, it is often theoretical and "ivory-towerish." There is relatively little that really instructs the reader about transactions are actually done. A great deal of time is devoted to discussing why they occur, but little practical insight is provided as to the challenges and issues that must be resolved. This book may be suitable for someone who is curious and interested in reading about M&A but provides little guidance for those interested in learning how to undertake transactions.

Archie Moore, The Ole Mongoose by Marilyn G. Douroux was an attempt to write a great book about a great man and a great Champion. However, the author wasn't able to go the distance in this one.

Douroux knows her subject very well, and the book was written with Archie Moore's blessing, but the story of Archie Moore and his life is much more interesting than this book eventually proved to be.

Douroux tells the story of the young Archie Moore from the time he was born dirt poor in Mississippi, and details Moore's travels throughout his boxing career and life through such locales as Australia and South America in his quest to get a title shot that was denied him for so many years by the boxing establishment.

The problem with this book is that it is not very entertaining. While there are some anectdotes and "Moore-isms" throughout the book, Douroux commits a major faux pas by glazing over the details that surrounded some of Moore's biggest fights with Rocky Marciano, Yvon Durelle and Floyd Patterson. It was these bouts that helped Moore become who he was and build his legend, yet nary a few pages is dedicated to these historic events. It leaves the reader feeling shortchanged when Douroux skims over the most exciting part of Moore's life without much more than a few words of type.

What I'm trying to say is that Douroux wrote a book about a great boxer without including enough boxing related material. Douroux seemed much more interested in Archie's junkets to Australia and Argentina - in particular his hob nobbing with the Eva Peron and her husband.

The book is nice because the author seemingly had full access to Archie Moore and there are several pages of pictures and press clippings that one won't see anywhere else but this book. Also, Douroux goes into Moore's life after boxing quite deeply and fully explains Moore's hugely successful attempt to save young people from crime with his own ABC program.

However, by and large, the book leaves the reader wanting more. More details, more stories, more punch! If you're looking to learn more about Archie Moore then this isn't a bad book, but if you want the full story on Archie Moore and the career that helped make him great then this book doesn't make it to the last round.

One wonders what is the goal of this book? There are a number of other excellent books in the field of mergers and acquisitions that provide a comprehensive treatment of the field. This books enagges in much rambling about the field but never seems to arrive at a presentation that wil be helpful to students of the field or to those working in mergers. Much of the subject matter is old. With so much going on in this area it is surprising that the authors did not have a more timely treatment of the subject. This was a disappointment!