Phytochemistry and Angiosperm Phylogeny

Book Description

From the City of Brotherly love to the gardens of the Brandywine Valley, to sharing the roads with horse-drawn buggies in Lancaster County, Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Dutch Country invite visitors to partake in nature's beauty and many moments that help shape the course of American history. Our resident writers have found the best hotels, restaurants, attractions and activities to make your trip worthwhile and memorable. Before you leave on your trip be sure to pack your Fodor's guide to ensure you don't miss a thing!

The San Francisco Chronicle sums it up best "Fodor's guides are saturated with information."

- Two-color interior design makes it easier to find the information you need
- Fodor's Choice Ratings flag must-see sights and hidden treasures
- Hotel and restaurant reviews that cover all budgets
- Plus multi-day itineraries to help travelers build the right trip for them

Customer Reviews:

Fodor's Philadelphia guide is Fantasic!.......2007-06-02

Philadelphia...a city of American history that steps out in front of you when you arrive. I had the chance to visit the wonderful sights of Philadelphia in October,2004. This was the guide that helped me get introduced to what to expect. From hoagies to the Liberty Bell to the great pipe organ at Lord and Taylor ( formerly Wanamaker's),Philadelphia is another of my favoriet cities. The guide gives its rankings to the hotels, restaurants and sights. Highly recommended reading!

Good, but could be better!.......2005-07-06

Guide offers plenty of information. However, certain driving routes [Fairmount Park Drive, for example] will get you lost. Also, closed attractions are not clearly stated. For example, the Horticultural Center has open hours listed. But Fodors shoould CLEARLY state that it is CLOSED ON MONDAYS. Other details are also missing... like the Bishop White House and Todd House only accomodate about 20 people a day for tours, so you need to sign up EARLY to have any chance of touring it.

Great book to Philly!.......2001-02-15

Fodor's Philadelphia is a great travel book to the "City of Brotherly Love". Everything from short hops around the city to great parts on restaurants and hotels, this guide has it all. The overview of Philly is also very well done. As a guide book, this is one of the best, if not the best, to Philadelphia and the surrounding area.

Book Description

¿Quíenes eran las mujeres y esposas de los gobernadores de Mexico y que poder tenían en el gobierno. Este libro fue un bestseller mundial.

Average customer rating:

perfectly astonishing material

Voices Not Usually Heard

Capital Consequences: Families Of The Condemned Tell Their Stories
Rachel King
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Criminals | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Criminology | Crime & Criminals | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Penology | Crime & Criminals | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
True Crime | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0813535042

Book Description

"Mothers everywhere weep for lost sons, and children everywhere long for absent parents, but the families of those on death row suffer without sympathy or comfort. In Capital Consequences, King thoughtfully describes the anguish of these families as an execution date draws near and challenges the belief that creating another saddened and grieving family is a legitimate consequence of the death penalty."—Robin M. Maher, Esq., director, American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project

"There are few, if any, books like the one Ms. King has written. I hope that people will not turn away from the hardness of these accounts, but will take them in and respond accordingly."—Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center

Those who support capital punishment often claim that they do so because it provides justice and closure for the victims' families. In Capital Consequences, attorney Rachel King reminds us that there are other families and other victims who are excluded from the death penalty debate, and who should be considered.

Combining a narrative voice with vivid, passionate, and painful accounts of the families of death row inmates, the book describes how crimes that lead to death sentences also devastate the families of those convicted. These families, King argues, are the unseen victims of capital punishment.

King challenges readers to question the morality of a punishment that victimizes families of the condemned, having a ripple effect, through future generations. She tells the stories of families that have lost life savings supporting an accused loved one, endured intense public scrutiny, been subjected to harassment by the media, and are struggling to live with the inhumane treatment that their loved ones receive on death row. The author also explores the unique nature of the grief that these families suffer. Because their pain tends to attract less attention and empathy than that of the crime victims' families, King shows how it becomes much more desperate and isolating.

On a human level, this book is a powerful reminder that tragic events have tragic consequences that far outreach their immediate victims. At the same time, the accounts illustrate many of the flaws inherent in the judicial system—racial and economic bias, incompetent counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, the execution of juveniles, and wrongful convictions, some of which are only now being overturned as a result of recent advances in DNA technology.

Regardless of which side of the death penalty issue you are on, this book will lead you to pause and consider that all acts—criminal and retributive—have broader human implications than we are sometimes willing to realize.

Customer Reviews:

perfectly astonishing material.......2005-05-30

Rachel King's writing is compassionate and urgent. In telling the story of how these families cleave to dignity, she exposes the moral failure that is the death penalty. This book is profoundly moving and almost sickening. It makes one ashamed to be part of a society that can act so cruelly and can traumatize so many innocent people.

Voices Not Usually Heard.......2005-02-08

Rachel King has followed up her previous book with a similar theme, though with a completely different voice. Imagine the shame, ignominy, and ostracism that can come from having a family member sentenced to death and executed.

In Capital Consequences, she tells the stories of family members facing this unique victimization. As in her previous book, King allows the eloquence of the individuals to shine through in their own words.

There are unexpected nuggets in this book, and it is an important addition to the growing body of literature about the impact of the death penalty on American society.

Book Description

This memoir of a life gloriously lived with dogs illustrates how dogs can have a profound affect in our lives. The six dogs in Pregosin’s life have been: Moppet, the sweet little American cocker spaniel from her childhood; Della, the sleek black Great Dane; Timber, the wolf hybrid; Boo, an iron-willed Rottweiler; Daisy, a chocolate American cocker spaniel; and Tyler, a Bernese mountain dog. Pregosin recounts the stories of how each dog came into her life and what each taught her. Pregosin also explores myriad dog issues - from the American Kennel Club standards (and departures) of the five breeds and their history, to the adventures of owning a dog. She explores the nature versus nurture debate, medical issues, dog breeders, boarding facilities, housebreaking, and obedience training. In the end, all six of Pregosin’s intrepid "teachers" showed their beloved mistress simple but profound truths about perseverance, patience, joy, motherhood, the foibles of excessive rigidity and self-defeating aggression, the gift of good health, adjusting to age as youth gives way, accepting death as part of life, and the importance of really living the life that is given to each of us.

Customer Reviews:

Engaging read.......2007-03-20

I enjoyed this book and the stories of her 6 dogs. I am passing this book on to my doggie friends. Worthwhile, enjoyable read. My dogs have also taught me what matters.

Touching Memoir With Wonderful Advice!.......2002-05-09

What can I say about this great book? It made me laugh and cry. I read it during my lunch break at work and tears would be streaming down my face from laughter and sadness!

Ann Pregosin discusses her life with dogs. She got her dogs through breeders, which isn't so popular in today's world where rescuing pets from animal shelters is considered more acceptable. But Ms. Pregosin is so knowledgable about dogs that when she explains why she chose the dogs she did and how she found them, it really doesn't matter where she got her beloved dogs from.

The book is full of great stories, as well as tons of information about training, breeds, and dogs in general. You don't have to be a dog lover to like this book. Anyone who loves animals should pick up this book right away!

Average customer rating:

Not for hand piecers

Difficult, but worth it!

Woo Hoo!

Disappointing

I Dream of Finding Quilt Books like Bella Bella Quilts

Bella Bella Quilts: Stunning Designs from Italian Mosaics
Norah McMeeking
Manufacturer: C&T Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Quilts & Quilting | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Casting Shadows: Creating Visual Dimension in Your Quilts

ASIN: 1571203044

Book Description

•Step-by-step directions make it easy to create stunning, unusual quilts

• Photos of Italy's glories add inspiration

Let the beauty of the Italian Renaissance inspire crafters to create eight magnificent quilts based on classic mosaics. There innovative projects use familiar shapes in new combinations—clearly explained with step-by-step directions, photos, and illustrations—for stunning results. Every quilter will want to travel to Renaissance Italy with Bella Bella Quilts.

Customer Reviews:

Not for hand piecers.......2007-09-18

Lovely complex quilts, but not for hand piecers like me. I found that the patches were too small and the amount of templates need to be made too many.

Difficult, but worth it!.......2007-05-22

I'll agree that this book takes careful reading, but I think it's worth the effort. The cutting templates are only approximations and easy to make and they save so much cutting time! Best of all, foundations make the patterns easy to sew! I'm nearly finished with one quilt and am planning the next as a graduation gift. My husband is so impressed with what I've done. Since I never went to Italy, I even like the "tourist" photos. I think it's nice to see the actual floors that inspired these designs. I wish there were more books with new ideas like Bella Bella Quilts. And, I agree with another reviewer that the author is incredibly helpful, and very quick to answer her emails.

Woo Hoo!.......2007-05-09

I am starting my second quilt in this book, and I LOVE the designs. I found, for my next project, I wanted to alter the design a bit. So I contacted the author via email. She is extraordinarily helpful and responded to my email very quickly. One look inside this book, and you'll want to do them all.

Disappointing.......2007-02-04

I am a quilter who has traveled in Italy, where we have family, and I am interested in art history, which was my college major. So naturally, the enticements for _Bella Bella Quilts_ by Norah McMeeking made me drool.

"Stunning Designs from Italian Mosaics"
"Photos of Italy and its architecture - a great coffee table book!"
"If like me, you are inspired by architectural photography, then you too will think this book 'bella bella'."

I was seriously disappointed when I received my copy in the mail. While the quilt photos are good quality and well-labeled, the photos of Italy are merely tourist quality. Even worse, they are not only unlabeled, but also appear throughout the book without comment or connection to what else is on the page. I can't imagine why anyone would consider poorly lit, unlabeled photos appropriate to a "coffee table book" or what about a book which uses such photos without respect to content to be "inspiring." I have not been inspired to use any of the patterns.

But I do like to learn from other quilters so am reading the book carefully. And having just struggled to decipher "Sewing a Circle Band into a Square" (pp. 16-17), I had to spout my two-cents' worth. In short, argh and double argh!

The directions are inadequately illustrated and poorly related to the text and photographs.

Sewing directions are unnecessarily complicated. E.g., "Anchor stitches to about 1½" shy of where the corner meets the curved band at each end of the partial seam" is clear as mud. "Sew from A to B" would have been much easier, provided an A and B were provided on the illustrations.

The text uses terms inconsistently and without regard to the labels on the drawings. E.g., the instructions refer to "circle bands" while the drawing only shows a "curved band"; the instructions refer to the "corner piece" which isn't labeled on the drawing; the term "corner unit" is used to refer both to the corner piece attached to the straight bands and to the corner piece attached to the straight bands and to the curved band.

The in-progress photographs are difficult to decipher, not only because they use poorly contrasted fabrics and thread colors, but also because the finished example shown is made from entirely different fabrics!

I Dream of Finding Quilt Books like Bella Bella Quilts.......2007-01-10

The quilts featured in this book are amazing. They look intimidating and complicated to construct, but they are not difficult to make. An intermediate quilter familiar with paper piecing and sewing curved seams could make any of the Bella Bella mosaic quilts. I made the Carnevale quilt featured on page forty-eight. It's now one of my favorite quilts. It is stunning and impresses everyone who sees it (if they only knew how easy it was to piece together!).

There was a lot of prep work involved. Lots of fabric cutting and preparing paper foundations and templates, nothing unusual. After that, it was like any other piecing project. Just sew in numerical order then press and trim. And so on. You don't need to know anything about geometry. Just be sure your templates and foundations are absolutely accurate when you make them and your quilt will lie flat.

This book is awesome. In addition to Carnevale, I plan to make other Bella Bella quilts.

*UPDATE*: I am now tackling Venice Rose on page 42. Gorgeous, gorgeous quilt. I do wish the author would have included templates for the individual fabric pieces that make up this quilt. Though it does contain pullout foundations for the projects, templates for individual fabric pieces are not in the book (nor in the foundations that are sold separately). It has taken me over three hours of tracing, adding half an inch seam allowance to all sides of each piece, and cutting templates for thirty-six pieces. If the author writes another book, and I hope she does, she should consider including pre-measured templates for individual fabric pieces. Quilters really appreciate them, trust me!

After making Carnevale, I purchased the paper foundations that accompany the book. WOW! I wish I had bought them before making my first Bella Bella quilt. I highly recommend them. They'll save me hours of work on this and future projects.

Average customer rating:
Companion Planting: Successful Gardening the Organic Way
Gertrud Franck
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0722506945

Book Description

Do the math: If a mother averages six diaper changes a day, she'll change 2,190 diapers during her baby's first year. Things improve slightly over the next twelve months. Based on five changes a day, she'll add another 1,825 diaper changes to her score. By the time her child is half- way to her third birthday, Mom will pass the 5,000 mark. That's a lot of dirty diapers! If this mom is you, it's no wonder you might be thinking seriously about potty training.While successful potty training in itself isn't considered a developmental milestone in a child's life, it is nonetheless an important transition for both you and your child. The good news is that potty training doesn't have to be complicated and neither does a book that explains it. Busy moms need a resource that gives them comprehensive information without a lot of unnecessary details and presents them with options instead of a one-size-fits-all program. Potty Training 1-2-3 provides all of that and more. The more is in the results.

Customer Reviews:

potty training book.......2007-05-14

I bought this book because I used the baby wise books by the same author and was elated to have such a resource. This book was very practical, easy to understand and implement.

knowing when to start.......2007-05-13

I have found this helpful so far with my 2-year-old, mainly learning that he is not as ready as I thought he was. Now that I have let off the pressure and am giving potty training a break, we are both happier. I will start again, with the ideas in the book, when we are both more apt to be able to follow through and succeed.

Simple, Short to the Point.......2007-01-19

If anyone has ever read, "How to Toilet Train your Child in Less than a Day" you know that potty training books can be somewhat obnoxious to read. Making it seem much more simple than it is, and yet forcing you to wade through way too much information. This book took many of the concepts from the less than a day book, but stuck to the basic points, and also admitted that not all children can be trained in less than a day. Great resource for potty training!

Didn't work for me.......2007-01-19

Although I found Babywise and Toddlerwise by the Ezzos very useful, I found this book somewhat difficult to follow. I tried to potty train in a day, but was not successful. I did use the suggestion to reinforce keeping undies dry and clean in addition to rewarding success on the potty. My 2 1/2 year old daughter became so focused on keeping her panties dry that she would hold her urine for hours without going potty. I used a combination of approaches and my daughter was day time potty trained within a few weeks. Overall, I felt most information in the book could be found elsewhere.

Great resource!.......2007-01-14

The author offers several options for training in a matter-of-fact manner. The troubleshooting and frequently asked questions sections were very helpful.

Average customer rating:

Carver of mountains

One of the best historical biographies I've read

An Interesting Book on A Controversial Monument

A sometimes ugly, but compelling story

A monumental work

Great White Fathers: The True Story of Gutzon Borglum and His Obsessive Quest to Create the Mt. Rushmore National Monument
John Taliaferro
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: B000GG4GJY

Amazon.com

Former Newsweek editor John Taliaferro calls Mount Rushmore "one of the nation's most luminescent beacons of democracy," ranking up there with the Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty. Yet comparatively little is known about its remarkable genesis. Taliaferro wryly notes that pop singer Cher "honestly believed that the sculpture was a natural formation." He tells the story of how Rushmore was conceived and built, and why controversy surrounded the project from the start. Great White Fathers is about the meaning of public art, the rise of automobile tourism, and the development of kitsch culture. At its center is Rushmore's feisty sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who waged an energetic campaign on behalf of his artistic vision and then carved the faces of four presidents into a mountainside. Taliaferro discusses every conceivable aspect of the monument, from the filming of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (a minor hullabaloo) to the Native American activists who have threatened it (a more significant one) to recent suggestions by conservatives that Ronald Reagan's image be added (not yet one only because it hasn't approached reality). Great White Fathers is an engaging blend of travelogue and history; vacationers willing to spend umpteen hours driving all the way to the Black Hills of South Dakota would be wise also to invest a few in this fascinating book. --John J. Miller

Book Description

Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, had an Ahab-like obsession with Colossalism-a scale that matched his ego and the era. He learned how to be a celebrity from Auguste Rodin, how to be a political bully from Teddy Roosevelt. He ran with the Ku Klux Klan and mingled with the rich and famous from Wall Street to Washington, many of whom became his clients and/or subjects. Mount Rushmore was to be his crowning achievement, the newest wonder of the world. But what began as a personal dream had to be bailed out by the federal government, a compromise that nearly drove Borglum mad. Nor could Borglum control how his masterpiece would be received. Or its controversial impact on the remote Black Hills of South Dakota. Great White Fathers proves that the best American stories are not simple; they are complex and contradictory, at times humorous, at other times tragic. This is the history of public monuments from ancient times to modern, and of the evolution of an icon. It is at once the biography of a man and the biography of a place, told through travelogue, interviews, and exhaustive investigation of the unusual records that one odd American visionary left behind.

Customer Reviews:

Carver of mountains.......2007-01-17

In addition to being an excellent biography of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, this book is also a fine examination of the South Dakotan monument itself. Borglum was a difficult artist: conceited, overly opinionated, and confrontational. Early in his career he developed a pattern of behavior that would mark most of his years as an artist: he would "demand control, ruffle feathers, allege conspiracy, exaggerate evil, throw down the gauntlet, burn the bridge - and lastly, foul the nest." He often criticized publicly (and harshly) the works of other sculptors, especially if they were chosen over his own works in competitions or commissions. But his artistic vision was large and his ability to carve beauty out of mountainsides unmatched. Taliaferro traces Borglum's life, including the time during the 1920s while working on Stone Mountain near Atlanta when he was a member of the KKK - often glossed over by others dealing with the artist's career (the NPS at Mt. Rushmore, for example). And Taliaferro also writes about the monument after Borglum's death, including when Alfred Hitchcock used the monument in "North By Nothwest" and the Sioux Indian protests over Black Hills land ownership during the early 1970s. Taliaferro is an excellent writer, and his final chapter which involves an account of an Independence Day 2001 re-visit he made to the monument is an engaging conclusion to this interesting book. Recommended.

One of the best historical biographies I've read.......2005-02-25

A compelling description of a man's motivation, relationships, and excessive personality, it almost reads like a novel. And what detail! The additional insights into other historical figures (including characters like Calvin Coolidge) really made it not just a book about Borglum or Rushmore (or Stone Mountain) but an insider's look at a whole period of American history.

Surprise your favorite non-fiction buff with this one from off the beaten path.

An Interesting Book on A Controversial Monument.......2004-04-12

Author John Taliaferro has provided us with an interesting and controversial history of Mount Rushmore. The first part of the book is a general history of the area encompassed by the Great Sioux Reservation of which the Black Hills of South Dakota is included. I found this general history to be a good summary of the conflict between the Native Americans and the American government. During the early 1920's South Dakota historian Doane Robinson wanted a monument of significance in the central part of the country for Americans to visit. Enter Gutzon Borglum who was running into difficulties on his Stone Mountain project in Georgia. The author delves into the strengths and weakness of Borglum as a man and as a sculptor. The project proved to be overly ambitious and ended up being a scaled down version of what was originally intended. The author provides us with numerous tidbits of information as to why the four individuals were chosen to be enshrined and the difficulties in carving their faces. Since Mount Rushmore is on land claimed by the Native Americans, part of the book includes the controversy between what some view as a monument to American democracy while others view it as honoring four individuals who have poor historical dealings with Native Americans. Depending on your point of view Mount Rushmore is either a sight for sore eyes or an eyesore. The book, while controversial, is an interesting read. I did find one mistake. On page 43 the author states the Wounded Knee massacre took place on December 28, 1890. The actual date was December 29, 1890. If you are interested in the history of the Black Hills of South Dakota and Mount Rushmore I would recommend it to you as a book I'm sure you would enjoy.

A sometimes ugly, but compelling story.......2003-09-17

This is a book worth seeking out for those interested in the history of the Black Hills, the American west and in the story of how this unique and monumental sculpture came to be.

Taliaferro will be known by some for his fine biography of cowboy artist Charlie Russell, but this time his main subject, the great Gutzon Borglum, whom some have compared to Rodin, is a much less likeable artist. He turns on his friends, is impossible to work with, and scapegoats with racist and antisemitic prejudices (he was an active member of the revitalized Klan) when things don't go his way. Nevertheless, as an artist he was brilliant, and Taliaferro tells his story, not just of the carving of Mt. Rushmore, but of Stone Mountain in Georgia and other controversial but masterful sculptures, particularly of Lincoln.

Borglum (1867-1941) knew Teddy Roosevelt, championing him as a westerner deserving of his place on Mount Rushmore with Washington, Jefferson, and the Lincoln. He also knew the Wright Brothers, Lindbergh, Helen Keller, FDR, Woodrow Wilson, Coolidge, Frank Lloyd Wright, and other notables of his time, and was an inveterate social climber, and Taliaferro tells of these relationships. Taliaferro writes about the attempts to place a fifth face on the mountain, be it Susan B. Anthony, Crazy Horse, or Ronald Reagan. The book is also about our perception of various presidents. He also writes with sensitivity and insight, but not with sentimentality, about the Native Americans in the Black Hills, bringing to the story Custer, Hickok, Wounded Knee, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, the AIM movement, others, and the fight over the federal government's siezing of land promised eternally to the Sioux. It's often an ugly, if compelling story.

A monumental work.......2003-09-03

This book is a biography of a man and place.

The man is the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, the place Mt Rushmore,arguably America's greatest monument and certainly the country's most unique one.

John Taliaferro does a great job in researching the colourful history of Borglum, born to the second wife of a Mormon polygamist, later a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan,and a man with access to every president from TR to FDR.

Brilliant but irascible, Borglum typified the artistic temperament and Taliaferro concentrates on him to a greater extent than another excellent 2002 book on the same subject by Jesse Larner (Mt Rushmore: An Icon Reconsidered).

The irony that this great "Shrine of Democracy" has been built on stolen lands does not escape the author's attention and he details the Indian view. Contrary to some reviewers I do not think this is overdone. History is about conflict and competing opinions and no country, regardless of how great, enjoys a spotless past. As a conservative I consider the Indian criticism has validity.

Taliaferro captures the excitement and passions involved in the creation of this great monument and the history of the Black Hills generally, something that continues to fascinate this reviewer who lives as far away from South Dakota as is possible while still remaining on the same planet.

Having just finished a third book on the monument - by historian Gilbert Fite (whose 1952 book is the best in detailing the politics and construction difficulties of Rushmore) - gives added appreciation to this part of American history.

Reading Taliaferro's book, or the other two mentioned, is a rewarding experience and will enhance any planned visit to Mt Rushmore - something this reviewer did in October 2001 and hopefully will do again.

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