Elk and Deer: Antlered Animals of the West (An Altitude SuperGuide) (Animal Superguides)

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A sports drama brought to life in the pages of a great book

How Can You Not Love This Story...??

The Greatest Basketball Story Ever Told: The Milan Miracle
Greg Guffey
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0253216311

Customer Reviews:

A sports drama brought to life in the pages of a great book.......2004-03-07

...can there be any better way to spend a few hours of reading time?

I have seen other positive reviews of Mr. Guffey's book: they are well-deserved!

"The Milan Miracle" is one of those sports legacies as big as the world of sports itself. To think that the characters Mr. Guffey writes about are real--and to know that the story he tells actually happened--makes this book an even more compelling read.

With the arrival of the 50th anniversary of this milestone sports event comes another occasion to remind ourselves of the sheer joy provided by the greatest all-American game!

Perhaps it is the fact that I live in Indiana that I can relate to this book's underlying themes of fundamental human emotion: through the telling of this true David-and-Goliath story (and a fast-forward to the lessons learned in the meantime), we encounter the doubt, the disbelief, the sheer grace of high school sports the way it existed 50 years ago.

If this book merely retold the tale in order to wax eloquent about the 1950's as a "time of innocence," I could not recommend it as highly.

But here is a story that's more than a story...it's a history of a simpler time when the values of hard work, perseverance and dogged determination could carry a small-town kid to the pinnacle of achievement.

Most importantly, Mr. Guffey's book provides the encouragement that these values still exist--and are worthy of pursuit.

There is much to be said in favor of Mr. Guffey's writing style. There is an underlying respect for the characters in this book. Having seen some of the recent ESPN coverage of the 50th anniversary ceremonies, it is evident that many of the individuals Mr. Guffey interviewed are from social backgrounds as varied as their Hoosier drawls. Whether conveying the voices of the townspeople or the Milan players themselves, Mr. Guffey writes with a real respect for the characters. It's an important element of his obvious respect for the "Milan Miracle" and high school basketball in general.

I look forward to Mr. Guffey's next work!

How Can You Not Love This Story...??.......2004-03-04

The one class state basketball tournament. I miss it and I am not even from Indiana. I miss it despite the fact that I have never watched a single game of Indiana high school basketball. I miss it even though in Texas I have never known anything but multi-class basketball.

And reading a book like Greg Guffey's "The Greatest Basketball Story Ever Told" is a big part of why I miss the single class tournament. The story of the two-season run by the overwhelming underdog Milan Indians in 1953 and 1954 is not only the greatest basketball story ever, but maybe the greatest sports story ever.

Everything I love about small town America is here. The spirit, the hope, the despair and even the pettiness. Reading this book made me wish I was from Milan and made me wish it was 1954.

I was fascinated by the follow up stories of the players; each of them a success in life in their own way. I was deeply moved to find out that Marvin Wood, the coach, had lost a battle with cancer at around the same time of the change to a multi-class basketball tournament.

I really enjoyed this book. I'll read it again. And when I do, I'll be in the stands at Butler Fieldhouse watching Bobby Plump realize the ultimate high school dream in the ultimate American era.

Customer Reviews:

The Shot Heard Round The World.......2003-04-05

I had the good fortune to talk at length with the book's author. I asked him why people wanted to read about Milan. He said Milan was the ultamite underdog. He drove to each of the players' homes and interviewed each of them for a day. As good as the movie? No...but you'll hear the players themselves speak.

The Greatest Basketball Story Ever Told.......2002-04-02

First, just to set the records straight - Milan wasn't the underdogs that the movie "Hoosiers" made them out to be. They should have won the State Championship in 1953, but they were overconfident (they lost in the championship game).

The book is very disappointing. It's a very dry history of the team. It's not poorly written, but it's not as exciting as I had hoped. I would suggest only getting it as an addition to a collection of other Indiana High School books.

I grew up with this story and would recommend "A Boy, A Ball, and A Dream: The Marvin Wood Story" Marvin Wood was the coach of the '54 Milan Indians.

Where's the tension?.......1999-01-06

If you're a basketball fan, you gotta love the concept of the '54 Milan team; underdogs take all in THE high school basketball tourny. But this book is hard to read; I had to fight to make it through the repetitious phrasing and metaphors. And the organization is a bit odd. First an overview, then the '53 season, then the '54 season, followed by biographical chapters for each of the players. You would've though the bio chapters would come first.....at least it would do a lot more for the flow of the book. Recommended only for the most die-hard HS basketball historians.

The Greatest Basketball Story Ever Told: The Milan Miracle, Then and Now

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The Greatest Basketball Story Ever Told: The Milan Miracle, Then and Now
Greg Guffey
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQQNC4

Amazon.com

Geoffrey Nunberg can make one quite self conscious to write even a simple sentence. And yes, that is a compliment. A regular language commentator on NPR's Fresh Air, Nunberg examines the curious ways in which the modern language expresses far more about history, politics, and culture than most casual English users would ever realize. Going Nucular, besides having one of the more whimsical titles to come along in a while, offers up scores of chapters, each examining specific words, phrases, or verbal tendencies. And while words like "terrorism", "fascism", "appeasement", and "Caucasian" (and even the hapless "like" and "ain't") are tossed about regularly in contemporary usage, achieving an understanding of their origin and evolution can serve to better explain not just the word but the issue to which it is attached. Other language books have become popular among the "grammarati" for their hard line approach but Nunberg seeks to explore and understand rather than to enforce and punish. To that end, he defends "blog" as being a verb and noun that has earned its place in the language; it's very phonetic clunkiness being part of the appeal. And though he can diagram a sentence with the best of them, Nunberg is at his most delightful when shining a harsh lingual light on the ways in which the average person encounters words every day. A stinging and hilarious indictment of TV news' weird obsession with the present tense ("In North Dakota, high winds making life difficult") makes the reader hear the evening news in an entirely new way. Going Nucular is much more than a nudge and a wisecrack to self-appointed word cops, it's an insider's tour of the vernacular by the English teacher you only wish you had. --John Moe

Book Description

The "Fresh Air" commentator and New York Times contributor artfully shows how our use of language reveals the true mindset of contemporary America.

The words that echo through Geoffrey Nunberg's brilliant new journey across the landscape of American language evoke exactly the tenor of our times. Nunberg has a wonderful ear for the new, the comic and the absurd.

He pronounces that: "'Blog' is a syllable whose time has come," and that "You don't get to be a verb unless you're doing something right," with which he launches into the effect of Google on our collective consciousness. Nunberg hears the shifting use of "Gallic" as we suddenly find ourselves in bitter opposition to the French; perhaps only Nunberg could compare America the Beautiful with a Syrian national anthem that contains the line "A land resplendent with brilliant suns...almost like a sky centipede."

At the heart of the entertainment and linguistic slapstick that Nunberg delights in are the core concerns that have occupied American minds. "Going Nucular," the title piece, is more than a bit of fun at the President's expense. Nunberg's analysis is as succinct a summary of the questions that hover over the administration's strategy as any political insider's. It exemplifies the message of the book: that in the smallest ticks and cues of language the most important issue and thoughts of our times can be heard and understood. If you know how to listen for them. Nunberg has dazzling receptors, perfect acoustics and a deftly elegant style to relay his wit and wisdom.

Customer Reviews:

Entertaining, fun, thought-provoking.......2006-06-15

After typing the title of this review, I wonderful nervously (tongue partly in cheek) whether the terms "entertaining", "fun", and "thought-provoking" may -- by virtue of their respective trajectories in the venacular -- be laden with nuances of which I am not (at some peril?) aware. No one, with the possible exception of professional linguists, has time to ponder every word he utters or writes. As GN so ably -- and entertainingly(!) -- reminds us, however, we would all be wise to choose our words carefully. It matters deeply whether we invoke language in a vacuum, with no regard for context or history. The indiscriminate application, in private and public discourse, of labels like "fascist" and "genocide", are acute cases in point. I have always considered myself sensitive to language. Reading GN, I am reminded how much more I must study, ponder, and self-reflect before I can really make the claim. The tiny essays in GN are enormous food for thought.

Perfect blend of wit and insight.......2005-02-02

Like with his first book, The Way We Talk Now, this one is filled with the wit, wisdom and a keen eye for the English language that anyone who listens to NRP's Fresh Air has come to expect from Geoffrey Nunberg. Across the range of politics, business, pop culture and technology he not only has an amazing ability to recognize trends in language, place them in their historical contexts and tease profundity out of them. Nunberg does this in recognizing that words are not just tools which we use to chip out some semblance of meaning from life but rather the words we use work on us as well shaping us as we use them to shape our world.

While I very much enjoyed his first book this one seems to be the stronger of the two. In part this may be because Going Necular represents a more mature Nunberg but also because it pulls from a wider range of material than just his Fresh Air commentaries like his first one did.

My only complaint about this book is the dates that are offered for those pieces which were first Fresh Air commentaries are often inconsistent with there actual dates - at first I thought the differences in the dates might be due to the differences in when they were drafted verses when they aired... but this doesn't seem to be the case since sometimes the dates published in Going Necular are before the actual air date and sometimes they are after. This is only annoying because it seems like such an easy to avoid and consistent error - but admittedly that is a small grievance with an otherwise exceptional book.

Engaging, stimulating, full of surprises.......2005-01-18

I don't get the chance to listen to NPR as often as I'd like, so the pieces in this book--a Christmas present--were new to me. Nunberg sneaks up on issues we think we've heard everything about and lights them up in new ways. The pieces, written for radio, are short, compressed, and full of surprises. He's not one of those smug, boring grammar-guru linguists (e.g. "Abusers of the semicolon should be shot on sight!") He uses linguistics as a means to pose deep questions about the world.

Stale air.......2004-10-29

I am usually disappointed when the interview part of NPR's Fresh Air show ends and the tail end commentary or review fills out the show's hour...except when Geoffrey Nunberg gives one of his little radio essays on language. For that reason I was eager to read this book, but I was frustrated to find that Going Nucular is simply a collection of those radio essays, with a few newspaper columns thrown in. I had heard most of what I was now reading, and since all of the essays were written since 2001, they were mostly fresh in my mind. Not that they weren't interesting, but they simply weren't new. I suspect other regular Fresh Air listeners will have a similar reaction. After finishing the book I scanned the cover and could not find any indication that the book was a collection of old essays, which I found sort of ironic being that the Nunberg is a communication expert.

Phonies and Manipulators Beware: Nunberg's Got Your Number!.......2004-08-03

The Word Man Cometh! That would have been a better title for this book. Professor Nunberg loves words and loves thinking about what it means when people use certain ones . . . rather than others.

In the last 60 years in the United States, we have seen a substantial increase in the kind of political language that George Orwell satirized in 1984. When it's very overt, we all get the message. When it's a little more subtle, we may be manipulated without realizing it. Professor Nunberg is very sensitive to that problem, and this book will help protect your unconscious mind for unperceived assaults.

Stanford professor of linguistics Dr. Geoffrey Nunberg has taken a number of his "Fresh Air" commentaries and brief articles from leading publications in the last few years, and grouped them into somewhat related areas. He begins with Culture at Large, moves on to War Drums, sidles over to Politics as Usual, looks next at Symbols, before considering Media Words, then lampoons Business Cycles and Tech Talk before finishing with words to help us while we're Watching Our Language.

Foes of President Bush and conservative talk show commentators will probably enjoy the book the most. The title piece looks at the great difficulty the president has in pronouncing "nuclear" when he's referring to atomic issues . . . and takes a sideways swipe at his possible motivations in conceivably making this mistake deliberately.

But the book has more charm than that. In many cases, he shares with us the arrival and departure of various words into common use while giving us a sense of what it all means. An early essay on how "plastics" when from positive to negative is a good example. I was pleased that he also took on the label of "Caucasian" which I have never understood the reason for. In sympathy with the youngsters who compete in spelling bees at the national level, he wonders what it proves that some can and cannot spell words that hardly anyone knows and which don't spell much like they sound. He also has kind words for the use of "ain't" and what purposes it can serve.

Some of the usual targets take their shots too, such as postmodernists.

Business authors, reporters and leaders will probably not stop blushing for two decades from the unerring rapier of commonsense aimed at their inflated use of language.

There's even a nice look at whether and when adverbs make sense to add.

It was with great relief that I found that he isn't all that comfortable with the grammar police, noting how many times the required constructions look, read and sound awful!

I suspect that this would have been a better book if limited to just one area -- like the current presidential campaign . . . but it's more than rewarding as it is. I hope Professor Nunberg will consider creating something special next year to deepen the points he has made here.

Book Description

Celebrating Florida presents for the first time a full-color collection of 66 important paintings, drawings, and prints of Florida-based art.

Featuring such artists as Winslow Homer, Louis Comfort Tiffany, George Inness, William Glackens, Martin Johnson Heade, Frank Shapleigh, and Herman Herzog, the book highlights some of the world's most significant artists, who came to Florida from 1823 to 1950 to capture the Sunshine State.

Essays by noted historians Wendell Garrett and Erik Robinson discuss the settlement of Florida and its birth as a state in 1845. Additional essays present an aesthetic, historical, social, and cultural overview of the significance of the art as well as biographical information about each artist.

Celebrating Florida is a Sesquicentennial publication, part of the celebration of 150 years of Florida statehood.

Customer Reviews:

Paintings in Print.......2000-01-19

This book delivers what it promises; it celebrates the labor of love that has resulted in the finest private collection of Florida art. Well produced and printed, Celebrating Florida catalogs the exhibition of the same title that the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts and Sciences had the foresight to curate. (I saw the exhibition there and was overwhelmed by the installation and the paintings.) The book's design concept, of utilizing informative essays, contextualizes the images for viewers to understand the necessities that inspired the artists while permitting the paintings to work their magic. The introductory essays set the stage for viewing period art and the interpretive entries accompanying each plate help viewers to consider the particular image. It is difficult for even a finely produced book to do justice to the exhibition that it archives, but author Gary Libby realized that the goal was not to compete with the show but instead to serve it. In deed, the book encourages dialog and a sense of personal exploration. Celebrating Florida is a first to demonstrate what many of us know, that the state really does have an artistic heritage and it opens the door for other surveys (like Mann's Art in Florida and Libby's Coast to Coast: The Contemporary Landscape in Florida). The Vickers have judicially amassed images of Florida which seep in to viewers' consciousness, defining Florida. Their passion elevates collecting to creativity. A must-have for Floridians and those interested in its past and meanings.

celebrating florida.......2000-01-01

I find that it is no more than a catalogue of a private collector's paintings with no idea or history of the art, why it was created, and what it may mean in the realm of art. It is a good collection, but not on view for the public. It is more of a personal vanity press item.

Celebrating Florida: Works of art from the Vickers Collection

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Celebrating Florida: Works of art from the Vickers Collection

Manufacturer: Museum of Arts and Sciences
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 0933053096

Book Description

Cats deserve the best care and nutrition, as well as the love we lavish on them. This holistic approach gives them the natural alternative in food, medication and healing practices, and includes sections on feline behavior and how to bond with your cat.

Customer Reviews:

For The Love Of God, Make Her Stop!!.......2004-02-09

I can't get past the first couple chapters. The book is scattered, hard to read and basically unenjoyable. A complete waste of time and money. Plus the foundation of this pseudo-doctor's feeding regime is the Pottinger Cat Study. This is an antequated study from the 1930's that had no controls. Reading it, any nutritionist worth their salt would know the diet Pottenger fed lacked taurine which caused his problems. Why doesn't Dr. Yarnall? Now, we have that and much more in today's food. How else can generations of cats reproducing year after year and living long heathly lives on commercial diets. This book is just one big long scare tactic to sell her product.

But, it has one pratical use. It's a great sleep aid.

Alternative cat health, California style.......2001-07-16

Celeste Yarnall, a former beauty queen and present cat breeder and nutritionist, has California credentials, which means that she doesn't hesitate to talk about what others would consider flaky and New Age: astrology, dowsing, Eastern philosophies, homeopathy, alchemy, flower remedies, herbs, etc., etc--and their place in your cat's health picture. She also advocates a raw foods diet with plenty of supplements to go along with it for cats, something which I've recently been exploring, with mixed results (It's very difficult to convert the average feline to another way of eating after she's gotten used to the old way. Patience and persistence are key, and the end result, a longer-lived, healthier cat, is worth it). There are more and more books out there about alternative nutrition and health for pets, but this one, in my opinion, is well-written and well-researched and well worth buying.

Average customer rating:

Not bad, but.....

Only book a Philly gardener needs

Only book a Philly gardener needs

The best book on landscaping

Finally!!

The Townhouse Gardener: Distinctive Landscape Designs for Small Gardens in the Mid-Atlantic Region
Sherry Mitchell
Manufacturer: EPM Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Landscape | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Regional | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books | Canada | Middle Atlantic | Midwest | New England | Pacific Northwest | South | Southwest | West
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ASIN: 1889324094

Book Description

A veteran of gardening in small spaces and a teacher of garden and landscape design, Mitchell helps townhouse owners turn their tiny yards into sanctuaries. Fifteen garden plans with three-dimensional drawings are included.

Customer Reviews:

Not bad, but............2006-09-26

A pretty decent book on gardening in confined spaces. There are a lot of useful tips and ideas that are presented throughout. However, the book in my opinion is poorly illustrated, which is somewhat strange for a gardening book. The illustrations are sketches with no color, doesn't give you that feel I think one looks for in a gardening book.

Only book a Philly gardener needs.......2002-04-19

This is unequivocally the best garden book I own. After extensive research into "colonial" plants, Pennsylvania native plants, cold zones, planting zones, what does well in sun, shade, coordinating colors within a plantscape, what plants are the right size for my needs, etc. all I did was come up with confirmation that the best plan was already whole, complete, and in this book. I could have saved myself much time and trouble if I had just followed Miss Mitchell's plans. I am on my second copy, and would give this as a gift to any of my friends interested in gardening in the city. Hint: you can find almost everything you need on "Monrovia.com".

Only book a Philly gardener needs.......2002-04-19

The best book on landscaping.......2001-05-25

This book is the single most inspirational garden book I have ever read. I have a single family house with much more ground than a townhouse and the ideas in this book are easily to translated to to larger sites. The author covers design, implementation and maintence basics quite well. The best part of the book are garden plans and container garden combinations, an excellent source of plant combinations for the mid-atlantic region. If you only own one garden book this is the one.

Finally!!.......2001-04-04

Finally, someone has written a landscaping book on the terrors of landscaping a small townhouse back and front yard. Sherry Mitchell's book is clearly laid out, and along with detailed black and white renderings of the proposed yards, she includes a detailed plant list for each and every area...TO include, I might add, the ever-dreaded area "under-the-deck" where usually you can only grow moss and mushrooms. Most designs include small fountains or ponds as well. I have waited a LONG time for something to show me the way to something other than grass and fence. Thanks, Sherry!

Book Description

This is a pioneering study of the impact of Christianization among the Chinese. Focusing primarily on the minority peoples of Yunnan province, it nonetheless fully mirrors the historical development of the Protestant mission in China. Drawing on many years of observation in the field and upon a comprehensive consultation of official documents relating to Christians on the mountain peaks, the study chronicles how the early foreign missionaries, thanks to their self-sacrifice and the examples they set of religious zeal, cemented the hitherto segregatory and leaderless tribes together, vigorously shaking the desolate mountain folk out of their age-long isolation. It was the trend of the time to identify Christianity as the desirable agent to promote socio-economic change in the undeveloped communities. This is a timely original contribution to the historical study of the Christian missionary enterprise and the pressing problem of freedom of worship that currently exists in China.

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