A Compass Error: A Novel

Amazon.com

Though it's a sequel to the novel A Favourite of the Gods, the coming-of-age tale A Compass Error makes a seductive introduction to the work of little-known, mid-century master Sybille Bedford. Flavia is 17, living alone in the South of France in the late 1920s, washed up like a bit of flotsam from the wreckage of her parents' lives. Despite her chaotic childhood, Flavia is a responsible little soul. As the novel opens, the white-hot summer days find her cramming for the entrance exams to Oxford, cheerfully disciplined about her studies. A chance encounter with the wife of a famous painter leads Flavia into the nighttime world of adulthood: convivial dinners, marathon drinking, and, well, hot love. Under these influences, Flavia makes a choice that will change the course of her life. In the end, the book amounts to a kind of perverse appreciation of youth and its terrible, terrible mistakes. --Claire Dederer

Book Description

"Bedford's genius is for writing about people. [Her] excellence is immortal, her career one of great distinction in literature."-Peter Levi.

In this sequel to The Favourite of the Gods, seventeen-year-old Flavia, on her own in the south of France in the late 1930s, lives with the confidence and ardor of youth.

She knows her destiny-it lies at Oxford, where she will begin a great career of public service. But this view of herself is at odds with reality; it springs from ideas she

has of her idolized English father and of her "blessed" Italian mother, Constanza. Only when she is caught up in an intrigue that is to determine the fate of those she most loves does she begins to discover her own true nature-even as she loses the bearings of her moral compass.

Customer Reviews:

A Compass gone awry.......2005-11-06

Bedford's sequel to "A Favorite of the Gods" again takes place in that charmed era "between the wars," when movement between countries was easy, artists, writers and scholars congregated in a tourist-free South of France, and one seemed able to live well on pennies. The story opens with the 17 year-old Flavia being left quite alone in St. Jean, as her mother goes off with her fiance (as soon as he gets divorced, that is) and the family's faithful maid returns to Italy. Flavia lives a solitary, regimented life of study for university exams until taken under the wing of the wecoming Therese, who presides over a home with her children, a famous, tempermental artist-husband, and numerous unidentified lovers. Flavia soon becomes one of these, slowly realizizng that she prefers women over men, although it is "understood" that given her age she has had no experience of the opposite sex.

All this is portrayed by Bedford as perfectly innocent and normal, until the malicious Andree arrives on the scene. Flavia falls hard, not realizing who Andree really is, and none of her new found friends sees fit to enlighten her. In a new forward, Bedford asks whether Flavia really knew in her heart, and chose to ignore her instincts. Bedford readily admits that it may seem improbable that Flavia wouldn't find out, but nevertheless this is the moral dilemma she presents.

I won't give anything else away--all this is more or less described in the forward--but what is disturbing about this tale is the weight of responsibility for her actions that all place squarely on Flavia's shoulders. I saw the story quite differently. Flavia is an odd mix of sophistication and innocence, left on her own, prey to all. Why is not Therese responsible for seducing her? Why isn't Andree judged to be fully responsible?

I won't say more, but I found my owm moral compass disturbed as I read Bedford's novel. She's a beautiful writer; the more autobiographical the story, the better she is. But a reader needs to shed his or her 21st century notions of how teenagers should be protected (or at least how one would like to protect them) and what the responsibility of adults is, to enter fully into the story.

Did they not tell you this is the sequel?.......2003-04-15

You have to read Favourite of the Gods first. Favourite is much better but you will have to read this one too to further explore this complex and courageous mother and daughter pair.

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"Nurse Raven Stevenson had come to Lakeview to forget the haunting memories of her past. She didn't expect to find friends, community, or a thirty-five-year-old mystery of tragic love. A mystery that seems to pose a very modern-day threat to Raven and her elderly patient's nephew Shane Montgomery!

Customer Reviews:

Good romantic suspense.......2005-10-19

DIE BEFORE NIGHTFALL by Shirlee McCoy

From the back cover:
"EVEN OUT HERE IN THE COUNTRY, BAD THINGS HAPPEN."

Raven Stevenson was in Lakeview barely twenty-four hours when she heard those ominous words. She'd come to the small Virginia town to reconcile with her brother and forget the haunting memories of her past. She didn't expect to find friends, community - or a thirty-five-year-old mystery of tragic love.

Nor did she expect to meet Shane Montgomery, whose love for his ailing aunt Abby breaks through Raven's carefully built defenses. When Abby unwittingly shares some of the secrets behind that long-buried mystery, she and Raven are targeted by someone who wants those secrets silenced - and who's willing to kill both of them to do it.

Camy here:
This is good, solid romantic suspense--half romance, half suspense to add the tingle of mystery and mayhem.

Raven comes across as a very real woman, not too sweet or too perfect. Her sad past is poignant, and her spiritual journey is earnest and flows naturally--not cheesy or preachy.

Shane is a nice gamma male, more vocal and less He-Man than Jake from "Still Waters," which is the first book set in Lakeview.

There is a lot of good romantic tension between Raven and Shane, and terrific dialogue. Their relationship develops at just the right pace, without rushing into familiarity and friendship too soon.

The other characters shine almost as much as the main protagonists. Any reader with a grandparent whose mind is fading will relate to Raven and Shane as they do their best for Abby. Jake and Tiffany from "Still Waters" make small appearances, and Tori, who stars in "Even in the Darkness" (January 2006), welcomes Raven to Lakeview. Tori's grandfather is a crackup and a wily old fox.

The pace slowed a bit in the middle, and I had a few personal objections to the ending (I won't disclose them here), but on a whole this was excellent storytelling. The emotions are vivid, the spiritual struggles are difficult and honest. There isn't anything to object to in the suspense. I wouldn't hesitate to give this book to any romance reader, from age 10 to 100.

Camy Tang
[...]

Her Brother's Keeper: Her Brother's Keeper/Storm Clouds/Die Before Nightfall (Heaven Sent Heartbeat)

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Her Brother's Keeper: Her Brother's Keeper/Storm Clouds/Die Before Nightfall (Heaven Sent Heartbeat)
Valerie Hansen , Cheryl Wolverton , and Shirlee McCoy
Manufacturer: Crossings Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1582882266

Windigo Twilight/Reasonable Doubt/Die Before Nightfall/In Sheep's Clothing/Heaven's Touch (Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense Collection

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A Big Disappointment

Windigo Twilight/Reasonable Doubt/Die Before Nightfall/In Sheep's Clothing/Heaven's Touch (Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense Collection
Colleen Rhoads (Coble) , Tracey V. Bateman , Shirlee McCoy , Susan May Warren , and Jillian Hart
Manufacturer: Steeple Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0373150628

Product Description

Short stories

Customer Reviews:

A Big Disappointment.......2007-09-19

From the description or title of this, it looks like an anthology of books in a new style, when in fact it is a freebie from Steeple Hill to people on their mailing list giving just a short excerpt of what the stories are about. It isn't worth the time or money to order it, as it only has 92 pages & touches on the stories of FIVE different books.

Die Before Nightfall (The Lakeview Series #2) (Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense)

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Die Before Nightfall (The Lakeview Series #2) (Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense)
Shirlee McCoy
Manufacturer: Steeple Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000OWJQLS

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Her Brother's Keeper: Her Brother's Keeper/Storm Clouds/Die Before Nightfall (Heaven Sent Heartbeat)
Valerie Hansen , Cheryl Woolverton , and Shirlee McCoy
Manufacturer: Crossings Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SAA2U0

Product Description

Three novels of romantic suspense in one volume!!

Customer Reviews:

Graphic SF Reader.......2007-09-03

Detonation Radio takes a slightly different approach. Firstly, Miranda Zero is kidnapped, and Aleph and others must organise an operation to get her back.

Then, Global Frequency operations is penetrated, and Aleph herself must perform some fieldwork to get out of the situation, with some advice fromt he outside.

Upping the ante.......2006-08-18

The format is still good: one book in the original comic format held one complete episode. That's good for beginners and for the patience-challenged. It also allows for frequent changes of artist, since each story has a different mood, script, site, and cast. Only Miranda Zero, the lady behind the 1001 specialists, and Aleph, coordinator and hacker supreme, hold continuity across the series.

The stories are varied and generally enjoyable. This time, the "super-secret" aspect of the orgnization is played down - everyone and their dog seems to know who the group is. As a result, there are two direct attacks: one on Miranda herself, one on Aleph's control center. There's a bit of plot inflation under way, too. The final story takes on the U.S military and, of course, wins. The losers include "credibility", since this particular plot involves top-secret satellites so big that any kid with a telescope could pick them out. And, if I read between lines correctly, those satellites are in geosynchronous over their targets. The problem is that geosync orbit is prime real estate, and already well developed. Heck, there are already so many residents in that one little orbit that overcrowding is a real problem. Adding a few dozen big, secret satellites would be like holding a big, secret parade of elephants down the only street in a small town - people would tend to notice.

If you want exciting stories where people keep their clothes on, you've come to a good place. The artwork is skilled and varied, and there's nothing here to overwork a weak attention span. You could do worse - but you can do better, too.

//wiredweird

good but not great........2005-07-21

I really loved the first graphic novel (issues 1 - 6 of the series) and had high hopes for this one (issues 7 - 12). Unfortunately (and this is my review so take it with a small grain of salt) I feel it suffers from a lack of ideas or inspiration. Maybe it was just rushed. The first half of the series was interesting and diverse, treating the audience like adults, dropping us in a world with minimum of explanation and inferring knowledge. This series uses the old chestnut of "how part of us came to be" and shows us inside the belly of the Frequency. It feels a little tired. Warren Ellis is amazing (the Transmetropolitan series is my favourite) and this screams a little of him phoning ideas in. Still, it's better than a lot of the detritus about these days.

21st Century mind........2005-07-16

Global Frequency is Mission Impossible for the 21st Century. There are 1001 agents on the Frequency, all in contact with each other via satellite link ups through their mobile phones. If a Frequency agent is in NY trying to deactivate a bomb but has no clue how, another agent in, say, Argentina who works in a bomb squad will walk him through the process. They have experts in almost every field and discipline at hand to quell any emergency.

This is the second collection of Global Frequency. It collects the last six issues of the series. It is amazing how quickly writer Warren Ellis can set up and pay off the situation and the characters in the limited space each issue affords. There is a different artist every issue and there's no complaint about any of them. The art is well suited to each particular story.

This series is highly recommended.

Blatantly Secret.......2004-12-16

The Global Frequency is an organization of one-thousand specialists headed by Miranda Zero. Their task is to handle threats that conventional forces are unequipped to handle. At first we get the impression that the Frequency is secret when a character remarks that they do exist (like the M&Ms in the Santa commercial). But members of the Frequency can leave their jobs at a moments notice by saying they are on the Frequency as if everyone knows about them.

Specialists are contacted by a special portable phone. They also seem to all have a "special case" that is never explained (although one character is asked if he got weapons from his case). Members are top in their field, whatever it happens to be.

I felt the Frequency was not grounded well enough, like the author wanted to tell the story before working out the details. One-thousand unique agents doesn't seem like it could be terribly effective but it seems that the right agent is always close at hand. There is very little repetition of character (mostly just Miranda Zero and Aleph) but you may spot a cameo or two. Each story is also drawn by a different artist thus weakening the feeling of continuity.

The threats in this volume include terrorists with a deployed nuclear weapon, Miranda Zero's kidnaping, stem cell religion, biofeedback terrorism, an assault on Frequency headquarters, and a killer satellite. These stories did not seem quite as fresh or original as those in the first volume but it was nice to see some of Aleph's history.

Book Description

August Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud predicted that religion would gradually fade in importance and cease to be significant with the emergence of industrial society. Their belief that religion was dying became conventional wisdom in the social sciences during most of the twentieth century. However, this analysis reveals that the traditional secularization thesis needs updating now. Religion has not disappeared and is unlikely to do so, even though secularization has had a surprisingly powerful negative impact on human fertility rates.

Customer Reviews:

Important but Significantly Flawed.......2006-06-09

This book presents a significant re-statement of secularization theory, framing religion as declining with the advance of "existential security" through modernization and human development. Along the way, the argument interestingly contradicts with strong empirical findings Stark and Finke's "religious economies theory," in a way that will demand a response from them. The book's strengths (and perhaps weakness, in some ways) are its cross-national perspective and survey data, which are all too rare in sociology of religion (although some are skeptical of the reliablity of the World Values Survey) and its attempt to seriously empirically test hypotheses deduced from significant theories. This is an important book in many ways, but note that is also compromised by a number of apparent flaws: 1. It uses mostly cross-sectional data to make claims about historical changes. 2. It perhaps wrongly assumes cohort rather than age effects in its generational analyses. 3. It does not actually even directly measure its key variable of existential security, but relies instead on indirect measures and inferences. 4. It does not well develop theoretically the social psychological and cognitive mechanisms that would lead increased existential security to secularize, leaving the reader to imagine the connections that would make that happen. 5. The major types of societies analyzed are also strongly correlated with different kinds of religions (post-industrial are heavily Protestant, agrarian heavily non-Christian), which the analysis does not always control for well. 6. It focuses on the "mass publics" of various nations, relying on calculated national means, with little attention to potentially important diversity and complexity within cases that matter for the overall argument. 7. We have very good reason to doubt that the survey measures used really work well across all religious traditions analyzed--e.g., can one survey question about church attendance or prayer really facilitate comparison across, say, Alabama fundamentalism, Japanese Shintoism, and Indian Hinduism?--very blunt instruments, indeed. 8. The book theoretically recognizes the importance of culture, but hardly touches on culture in its own analysis, other than creating regression dummy variables for different religious types, which is hardly attending to cultural analysis well--one supposes these are the limits of conducting research from a computer lab. 9. Some of the writing reflects a lack of genuine familiarity with religion as a human phenomenon per se (e.g., pg. 241 talks about "fundamentalist Evangelical churches," which anyone who knows American religious history ought to know doesn't make sense). 10. The strong linking of religion to existential insecurity seems reductionistic and two-dimensional, at least to this reader. The authors do recognize some of these problems, but recognizing them does not fix them. Thus, the book has significant potential flaws, but I think still is an important voice in an ongoing debate and is thus still worth a reading. Despite its flaws, many of the empirical correlations presented are truly impressive and need to be explained one way or another. And the empirical evidence on post-Soviet societies and on Islam and democracy is very interesting. One looks forward to Stark and Finke's reply to this book's attack on their paradigm/theory.

The bottom line: poverty breeds religious faith..........2004-10-24

The single strongest argument to be found in this book -- shown through extensive data anayis, rich evidence, and clear thinking -- is that societies where people have enough to eat, housing, healthcare, good education, and jobs are societies marked by LOW religiosity: few go to church and few believe in God or that the Bible is divine. Conversely, societies whyere life is precarious, marked by poverty, corruption, sickness, low education and unemployment, are societies marked by high degrees of religiosity. Makes perfect sense. And this book spells it all out, with lots of reliable data.
The funny things as that all the social scientists of Europe from the 1800s who predicted the detah of religion WERE RIGHT -- for their own societies. Their predictions obviously didn't hold for the rest of the world, but heck, no prediction is perfect. Religion in most of Europe is dying -- as was predicted. See the work of Steve Bruce for even more solid contemporary evidence. or Grace Davie.
Greeley, Stark, and Finke are simply wrong. This book proves much of their theories wrong. Shame on Greeley for calling secularization theory "dogma" without data. Shame on Stark for mocking sound sociological evidence.
Rife with clear data and clear theoretical articulation, this is a solid look at religion the world over. Religious faith is indeed flourishing throughout much of the world, but that is only because poverty is also flourishing throughout much of the world. And why is religion so strong in the US? Hm...let;'s see...could it maybe be that we have the highest percentage of people below poverty of any advanced industrial democracy, and we have the greatest gap between rich and poor, and no national health coverage? Well heck, at least Bush is big on prayer....

Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide.(Book Review) : An article from: Journal of Church and State

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Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide.(Book Review) : An article from: Journal of Church and State
Wendy Dackson
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Church and State, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2005. The length of the article is 484 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide.(Book Review)
Author: Wendy Dackson
Publication: Journal of Church and State (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 47 Issue: 3 Page: 647(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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High altitude bakers

Baking at High Altitude/the Muffin Lady's Old Fashioned Recipes: The Muffin Lady's Old Fashioned Recipes
Randi Lee Levin
Manufacturer: The Muffin Lady Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Baking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Muffins | Baking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Culinary Arts & Techniques | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
West | U.S. Regional | Regional & International | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
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Pie in the Sky Successful Baking at High Altitudes: 100 Cakes, Pies, Cookies, Breads, and Pastries Home-tested for Baking at Sea Level, 3,000, 5,000, 7,000, and 10,000 feet (and Anywhere in Between).

Sharing Mountain Recipes: The Muffin Lady's Everyday Favorites

High Altitude Baking: 200 Delicious Recipes & Tips for Great Cookies, Cakes, Breads & More

New High Altitude Cookbook

Cookmark-High Altitude Cooking Adjustments for 6,000-9,000 ft

ASIN: 097450081X
Release Date: 2006-03-01

Product Description

No more high altitude baking disasters! Awarded Best First Cookbook in the World, Baking , offers a variety of recipes and tips for successfully baking in higher elevations and avoiding results such as flat cookies, concave cakes, and dry muffins. These phenomenal recipes have been shared and passed down through generations so that all may share in the goodness of scrumptious tasting, homemade, attractive treats; including recipes and tips designed for those with special dietary needs.

Customer Reviews:

High altitude bakers.......2006-10-14

Reviewed by Kelli Glesige for Reader Views (9/2006)

Randi Levin, better known as The Muffin Lady, has written a unique cookbook with an extensive variety of baked goods adjusted for baking at high altitude. All the recipes are tried and true, old-fashioned, and have been handed down and enjoyed for several generations. Many of the recipes have been used for professional preparation over several years. The distinction of this cookbook is that it is written for scratch baking at a minimum of 4,000 feet above sea level.

The Muffin Lady shares recipes with us and gives tips on how we can adjust almost any recipe to high altitude baking. With her book, successful alterations to almost any recipe can be quite simple and fairly easy. The recipes found here can also be adapted to meet dietary needs that are sugar-free and low in fat.

"Baking at High Altitude" offers a superb variety of recipes including cakes, cookies, mountain muffins, sweet breads, fruit-filled treats, brownies, pies and strudels. Inspiring quotes are mingled throughout, and a personal note of each recipe's origin is included with each recipe. A color picture is encompassed in each chapter showcasing what the finished treats will look like when prepared, and attractive pencil drawings make the pages eye-appealing. The book also stays open nicely to a particular page so that a specific recipe can be followed and prepared.

The Muffin Lady hails from Evergreen, Colorado, which is where she was nicknamed "The Muffin Lady" by the United States Postal Employees. She frequently delivered muffins and other baked goods to the local shops in the area, and it was these individuals who helped her realize just how successful her recipes and baked goods could be. The Muffin Lady has since served such customers as the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, Colorado and the Wild Oats Natural Marketplace.

I recommend "Baking at High Altitude" to everyone who lives at or above 4,000 feet above sea level and who enjoys baking. If success from the oven is what you desire, your needs should be met here, for The Muffin Lady says all the recipes have been tested and perfected to insure great results. All the recipes are eye-catching and will entice you to give them a try. The Muffin Lady offers a unique quality of cookbook unlike any other I am familiar with. I encourage high altitude bakers to give it a try. I will begin by trying the recipe for Fresh Peach Cake!

Baking at High Altitude: The Muffin Lady's Old Fashioned Recipes

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High Altitude gets a High Rating

Baking at High Altitude: The Muffin Lady's Old Fashioned Recipes
Randi L. Levin
Manufacturer: The Muffin Lady INC.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Baking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

Muffins | Baking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0974500801

Product Description

Long-time professional Colorado baker shares her grandmother's recipes, all of them adjusted for high altitude and some adjusted for low fat and low sugar.

Customer Reviews:

High Altitude gets a High Rating.......2006-11-06

This cookbook has helpful high altitude tips as well as decent recipes.
There are only baked items in this cookbook. Other high altitude recipes will have to be found in another cookbook.

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Baking At High Altitude, the Muffin Lady's Old Fashioned Recipes
Muffin Lady
Manufacturer: Self Published
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SM788M

Customer Reviews:

Belongs on a doorstop collector's bookshelf.......2006-11-27

One must first be able to get past the problems that this is an old book with out of date values and poorly focused, washed-out photography. But its value lies in the fact that there are very few books on this subject and it has some pieces and color variations not found elsewhere.

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Doorstops - Identification & Values
Jeanne Bertoia
Manufacturer: Collector Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VAAUFY

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Love the book!

Quilt, fun and versitile

Cozy Quilts!

Snuggle Up: 8 Lap Quilts to Warm Your Home
Beth Merrill Kovich , and Retta Warehime
Manufacturer: Martingale and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Quilts & Quilting | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Textile Arts | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Scrap Lap Quilts

Pink Ribbon Quilts: A Book Because of Breast Cancer

Fat Quarter Small Quilts: 25 Projects You Can Make in a Day

Making Scrap Quilts to Use It Up

Seasons (Leisure Arts #4215)

ASIN: 1564774643

Book Description

Draped over the couch, nestled by the fire, folded next to your favorite easy chair--every spot needs a snuggle-up quilt! These quilts are casual, cozy, and easy as a breeze to make.

· Choose from eight warm and inviting traditional quilts
· Quick-to-stitch patterns are easy enough for all skill levels
· You'll find these quilts are big enough to cuddle under but small enough to finish with no trouble

Customer Reviews:

Love the book!.......2007-01-09

The book comes with easy to follow directions for each pattern and beautiful color photos to help envision the finished quilt.

Quilt, fun and versitile.......2003-05-25

This is the best quilting book I have bought yet. I have only been quilting for 3 years and these projects are both fun and easy. The instructions are very well written and are great for beginners and others. Each quilt is pictured on a seperate page by itself in great detail. I made the Americana Stars quilt as a gift for my cousin who just returned for the war and it was a great success! I am also in the process of making this quilt with different colors into a king sized bed quilt. The quilts are all throw sized but can easily be modified to make them larger or smaller. I am actually shopping to find other books by these authors. Few books I have found give such good instructions and clear pictures. I would recommend this book to anyone! Happy quilting!

Cozy Quilts!.......2003-05-05

You can never have too many lap quilts and the eight projects presented in this book are yummy! The designs are accessible to novice and experienced quilters alike. Rotary cutting directions are given for quick preparation and most of the shapes are squares, rectangles, and half-square triangles. The fabrics that are used in the examples really "sell" the patterns. My favorites were "Americana Stars" and "Button Basket". I highly recommend this book!

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Funny and Motivating!

What a Treasure!

For Packrats Only: How to Clean Up, Clear Out, and Live Clutter-Free Forever!
Don Aslett
Manufacturer: Marsh Creek Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Household Hints | How-to & Home Improvements | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Reference | How-to & Home Improvements | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Interior Design | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Clutter's Last Stand: It's Time To De-junk Your Life!

Don Aslett's Clutter-Free!: Finally & Forever

Weekend Makeover: Take Your Home from Messy to Magnificent in Only 48 Hours!!

Lose 200 Pounds This Weekend

The Office Clutter Cure

ASIN: 0937750255

Book Description

America's #1 cleaning problem is not stains, dust bunnies or ring-around-the-collar--it's clutter. Don Aslett, America's #1 cleaning expert, provides light-hearted room-by-room methods for clearing out the stuff that readers stow away "just in case."

This companion to Aslett's best-selling and popular Clutter's Last Stand details a step-by-step "de-clutter" program, charts, checklists and informative sidebars that help readers get control of their living and storage spaces in a fun, easy and highly entertaining way.

Customer Reviews:

Funny and Motivating!.......2006-04-01

I love this book!! It really makes you want to jump in and start decluttering. It is funny and he knows how to relate to the reader.

I try to reread this book before every spring cleaning!

What a Treasure!.......2006-03-11

This book is my ticket to the orderly and uncluttered life that has been eluding me. It's not only effective, but also well-organized, besides being entertaining to read, because of the way the author presents his material. I have bought an additional copy as a gift (for someone who asked to have it!), and I know she will be happy with it, too.

Book Description

* Shows readers how to create high-end, professional effects using Photoshop Elements, which offers most of the features of Photoshop at a fraction of the cost
* Features step-by-step instructions for creating amazing special effects like lightning, x-ray illusions, photorealistic objects, "carving" headlines in stone, morphing two faces, and more
* Designed for home users and hobbyists, it's written in simple language that enables readers to maximize the program's capabilities quickly and easily
* Features a thirty-two page color insert highlighting the most striking effects
* CD-ROM includes valuable Elements "toolbox" of layer styles, effects, and gradients

Customer Reviews:

Missing files and "clueless" instructions...........2003-10-27

is what kept me from rating it higher. Usually Wiley publishes quality books. I feel that this book was rushed to the presses. Good authors usually have their work reviewed by their peers and the critics before publishing. Had that been done this book would have been first rate.

For example, tutorial 1 step 2 has one loading a JPEG from the "projects" folder in the included CD-ROM. Search all you want, the "projects" folder and the particular JPEG is MIA. To add to the frustration, if you go to Al Wards's website, you must subscribe, at the tune of $49, to ask him where are the missing files. Some of the instructions are not well thought out, sometimes it requires doing a step several times to acheive the intended results. Some of the menu items one is supposed to click on do not exist or are mislabled.

The tutorials will give one the foundation to create special effects and come close to profesional looking results. Like anything else it depends on how well motivitated one is, and for this book one better have lots of motivation.

Photoshop Elements 2 Special Effects has defects.......2003-09-07

I cannot find the project files on the CD-Rom as noted on the books cover. I sent an email to Wiley asking them what the hell was going on and waiting for a reply. I'm not happy with the book so far. At least as far as the projects are concerned. Tried to go to the author's web site, but, you have to pay in order to ask him anything.

Maybe it's just me?.......2003-08-13

Maybe I'm missing something here, but as I go through these very long set of instructions, I get lost. All of a sudden I'm staring at a dozen layers, and I can't figure out which one I'm suppose to be applying yet-another-filter to. Sometimes I don't even see the menu item that's being refered to. For example, Page 40, near the top, says "Choose Edit->Deselect" - Well I don't see it. But if I choose Select->Deselect instead, then the following instructions don't seem to work either. So I'm lost. Then, on page 42, it says to load the file "crate_texture.jpg" from the included CD. Well I browsed the CD and did a file search and haven't found it. In fact, the CD mentions being installed, but there are no EXE's on it!

I have to admit that it's helping me learn the basics of Photoshop Elements 2, I mean you use the basic tools and layers over and over again and they're reasonably easy to figure out. But then the book pulls out 10 filters in a row, and it looks cool, but it doesn't explain why it works; Why they are performed in the order that they are; Why we use a parameter of 100 instead of 25; Why Radial instead of Linear - I might as well just run a prewritten script! There is no explanation for anything, just a long list of type this, click that.

Great book.......2003-06-06

In this book, Al shows you how to do all kinds of things that you didn't think could be done with Elements. Great special effects and well written, this book shows you things you won't find in the manual or other places.

Dissapointing and frustrating.......2003-04-03

The bulk of this book is step-by-step guided exercises that I had hoped would demonstrate the myrad features in Photoshop Elements. A CD containing art work and support files required by the exercises is furnished with the book.

Unfortunately, my experience with a half dozen exercises left me less than pleased. Some of the exercise steps described items in Photoshop Elements that didn't exist. In some cases I found things that came close... I think. My guess is the author was working with a different version of the program as he was developing the book and never went back to check things with the final version. A further complication were several instances where the instructions called for files on the CD that didn't exist. Finally, the author provides cookbook-like instructions without saying what it is you are trying to accomplish.

Book Description

The first objective biogrphy of Frank Sinatra since Kitty Kelley's opus - an entirely new assessment of the most important figure in 20th century entertainment. This book discusses Sinatra the performer, the singer and the actor and the life which has made him the most enduring and successful of the Hollywood artists.

Customer Reviews:

Pretty Awful.......2002-08-09

Though this book highlights some enlightening details about Frank Sinatra's life, much of it is shoddy hackwork. The reader learns the true story of how Sinatra freed himself from the talons of Tommy Dorsey. The reader learns of the strong influence of Sinatra's mother, Dolly, on his life. Dolly's own life as a Hoboken ward leader and her barely mentioned extraciricular activity as town abortionist fascinates. The friendship of Dolly and Ava Gardner, both foul-mouthed and proud of it, also fascinates. Ditto, the true story of how Sinatra resurrected his failing career by landing his role in "From Here to Eternity". Yet much is left out in this biography. The author seems to have gathered as much material as he could be bothered with and just slapped it together at breakneck speed in a book. It seems to be a specialty of Mr. Freedland's. More time is spent on Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio's "raid" on an apartment Marilyn Monroe was allegedly staying than Sinatra's relationships with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.. The Rat Pack is glossed over; more time is spent on detailing Lauren Bacall's role in the original Bogart Rat Pack than in Martin and Davis's roles in the Rat Pack that most Americans are familiar with today. Much time is wasted on Sinatra's philosophical views on life, some of which seem to probably have been press releases written by his publicist. The author often doesn't put two and two together. Though Sinatra had great talent as an actor and played some fine roles, his career fizzled by the mid-sixties. Mr. Freedland mentions that Sinatra refused to do second takes but fails to understand that few directors would go out of their way to hire actors who refused to do second takes. Sinatra undercut his own film career. The bio is also very flighty. For instance, the author mentions a benefit concert Sinatra gave in New York which was attended by Jackie Kennedy Onassis at which she wore some sort of head band. Mr. Freedland informs us that the sort of head band used by Mrs. Onassis at the concert was sold out of New York stores within 24 hours as if that was pertinant information. The Jackie Onassis tidbit is indicative of Mr. Freedland's writing style. All in all, All the Way is useful in its way yet disappointing and borderline awful.

What a Bore........2001-03-06

I've read many Sinatra biographies and this is by far the least interesting and most pretentious. Michael Freedland's self-imporatnce oozes from within the lines; his claim that some of the stories are told here for the first time have no interesting payoff whatsoever for Sinatra fans. This is more like reading a book by Robin Leach and the "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous." I think we need to ask the Brits to stick to their side of the Atlantic if they can't do any better than this.

Somewhat negative slant of Sinatra's extraordinary life........1998-08-07

Michael Freedland's British background is too apparent for American readers. His English spellings are bothersome and frequent grammatic uses of "were" instead of "was" get in the way of what otherwise would be a facinating story of one of American music's top performers. The editors failed to catch misspellings of Tiajuana, Mexico. Freedland bashes Sinatra's parents unnecessarily and takes too much credit for "publishing for the first time" anncedotes that may be moderately interesting. This book comes across as an episode of "Lives of the Rich and Famous" with an English accent. Freedland collected notes over a period of years and the book often reads like a collection of them.

Luke warm review of Frank's life by a Brittish writer........1998-08-01

Michael Freedland's editor did not change the spelling or grammar for the American audience and I found it laborious to "read" around the frequent s for z swap. Our Americanized version of English probably puts the Britts off when we say "the band was" instead of "the band were." But frequent plurals where it would be more familiar in singular form were also a distraction. Mr. Freedland says in his forward that he collected notes over a period of years and then wrote the book. Sometimes it reads that way. Freedland bashes the early Sinatra years and makes Frank's mother seem very overbearing. Maybe she was but this autobiography is not very kind to either of his parents. Frank Sinatra's life was threaded with attacks from the press, some deserved, no doubt. Mr. Freedland seems to enjoy twisting Frank in the breeze and comes across as one of those media hacks who saw a chance to make a name by bad mouthing an enormous star. I was often bored! by the author's dry storytelling. As interesting a person Frank Sinatra was, it's incredible that an autobiography could be such a bowser.

All the Way A Biography of Frank Sinatra

Average customer rating:

All the Way A Biography of Frank Sinatra
Freedland Michael
Manufacturer: St Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

All the Way : A Biography of Frank Sinatra, 1915-1998

Average customer rating:

All the Way : A Biography of Frank Sinatra, 1915-1998
Michael Freedland
Manufacturer: New York, NY, U.S.A.: Saint Martin's Press, LLC, 1998
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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