Average customer rating:
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Trees of Vancouver/a Guide to the Common and Unusual Trees of the City
Gerald B. Straley
Manufacturer: Univ of British Columbia Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Gardening & Horticulture
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General
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Seed-Bearing Plants
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ASIN: 0774804068 |
Book Description
This award-winning guide shows you how to explore the real Asia, whether you're a long-term backpacker or a value-minded traveler trying to get the most out of a two-week vacation. Author Carl Parkes provides information on offbeat destinations, updated lodging and restaurant reviews, detailed background on the culture and history of each country, and fascinating articles on topics like feng shui, locally filmed movies, and architecture. "A book for armchair travelers and trekkers alike, remarkably informative, sensible, and meticulously researched." -- Thomas Cook's Traveler Magazine
Customer Reviews:
simply the best.......1999-06-03
moon has made a very readable guide that is simply better than the rest. lonely planet also has a good guide, but the information seems to be tied together with rambling of factoids.
Book Description
Who was Theodore Roosevelt? Most of us think of him as one of America's greatest presidents, a champion of progressive politics, and a master statesman. But many feared the political power that Roosevelt wielded. Woodrow Wilson once called him "the most dangerous man of the age." Mark Twain thought him "clearly insane." William James scorned the "flood of bellicose emotion" he let loose during his presidency. Even his biographer, Edmund Morris, is astonished at Roosevelt's "irrational love of battle."
In this book, Sarah Watts probes this dark side of the Rough Rider, presenting a fascinating psychological portrait of a man whose personal obsession with masculinity profoundly influenced the fate of a nation. Drawing on his own writings and on media representations of him, Watts attributes the wide appeal of Roosevelt's style of manhood to the way it addressed the hopes and anxieties of men of his time. Like many of his contemporaries, Roosevelt struggled with what it meant to be a man in the modern era. He saw two foes within himself: a fragile weakling and a primitive beast. The weakling he punished and toughened with rigorous, manly pursuits such as hunting, horseback riding, and war. The beast he unleashed through brutal criticism of homosexuals, immigrants, pacifists, and sissies—anyone who might tarnish the nation's veneer of strength and vigor. With his unabashed paeans to violence and aggressive politics, Roosevelt ultimately offered American men a chance to project their longings and fears onto the nation and its policies. In this way he harnessed the primitive energy of men's desires to propel the march of American civilization—over the bodies of anyone who might stand in its way.
Written with passion and precision, this powerful revisioning of an American icon will forever alter the way we see Theodore Roosevelt and his political legacy.
"A superb scholarly study of how Roosevelt built his political base on the aspiration and fears of men in a rapidly changing nation and world."—Charles K. Piehl, Library Journal
"A thought-provoking and innovative study of the dark side of Roosevelt's personality. . . . [Watt's] arguments are clear, passionate, and thoroughly supported."—Elizabeth A. Bennion, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Customer Reviews:
Brilliantly insightful.......2006-11-28
To judge from at least some of the other reviews of this book, some readers are offended by Watts' steadfast refusal to engage in presidential hagiography. Bravo for her.
The best history and the best biography seek to explain and teach about the complexities of our past and the figures that shaped it. Not a single reviewer takes her to task for allegedly inadequate research, perhaps because her notes clearly indicate that she has mastered the primary sources on Roosevelt and has a clear command of the secondary literature. Watts' carefully documented and researched book is the first to tackle head-on one of this country's most complex and contradictory presidents: Teddy Roosevelt. She suggests that his contradictions shaped, and continue to shape public discourse and politics into the 21st century -- weakling and superman, imperialist and hunter, progressive and conservative, idealist and realist.
One need look no farther than the anguished debate about American imperialism and the Iraq war taking place today, or -- indeed -- the debate about whether John Kerry was "man enough" to lead this country to see that Watts has landed on a compelling argument and written a brilliantly creative biography. I would argue that, as the angry reactions this book seems to have provoked show, she has also hit a nerve.
Well done!
Terrible Historical Revision.......2004-12-18
Having read only brief publications about TR, I can only claim partial qualification for this review. That said, I found this book to be highly insulting and disrespectful to the memory of Theodore Roosevelt. The author paints a picture of a man that was emotionally disturbed at best. How can she come to such far fetched conclusions when she has never even spoken to the man? The analytical process the author uses is abstract. Nearly every page is filled with modern feminist language that I found to be very out of place in a book that is supposed to be about an important American icon.
I'm truly sorry and ashamed that I even picked up this book, let alone read it. This is revisionism at it's most rank.
Truly terrible, post-modern, feminist re-interpretation........2004-03-23
Having read over 20 biographies of TR over the years, I would have to say that this is the worst. The author utterly fails to assess TR in his "context", though she claims that this is her intent. She judges TR based on modern, "politically correct" sensibilities, and, naturally, finds him wanting. This book is more appropriate as required reading in the Women's Studies department at Wellesley College than for a student of history or devotee of TR.
Cowboy Soldier Sets The Stage.......2003-12-11
In ROUGH RIDER IN THE WHITE HOUSE Sarah Watts unravels the contradictory strands of Theodore Roosevelt's character, a character forged at the first flexing of America's imperial muscle, and in so doing uncovers the roots of the United States' bipolar political discourse of the twentieth century. She amply proves her thesis that "Although Roosevelt was progressive and optimistic his political vision encompassed his darker, emotional, anti-liberal worldview of men and nations struggling against the forces of evil" (page 2).
This political vision would serve, and to an unlikely extent, still serves as America's domestic and foreign policy, she suggests. Watts makes this argument implicitly throughout most of the work, however, late in the book she does allow this ghost assertion to manifest itself: "For the remainder of the twentieth century, modernism continued to deprived men of viable lives and to force them into compromises that many consider feminizing and emasculating. As the middle class searched for meaning in a world of bureaucracy and consumerism, and as purchasing power and real wages began their long decline after 1972, men still needed a muscular proving ground on which to inscribe their anti-modern revolt, and the appeal of violence on an official level never diminshed" (page 240).
Indeed, she suggests that the conservative backlash of the past 25 years has borrowed much of the bellicose rhetoric and militaristic ethos of Roosevelt, as well as the sorting of citizens into the deserving and undeserving groups by wealth, ethnic and racial background, and social position. As Watts says with respect to non-white, non Anglo-Saxon males, "Roosevelt's exclusionary language had helped to create an intolerant social milieu and a punitive psychological one" (page 240). As Watt's points out, "(Roosevelt's) vision of manhood rested on the notion of a once strong, but now fragile and ever weakening male self, a notion that arose from his own emotional preoccupations, particularly his disgust for his own and other men's physical inferiority, his pervasive sexual priggishness, his anxiety about future sexual and racial degeneracy, and his fears of an interior cowardice that might be exposed to the outside world" (page 4). And, further, she notes that "Throughout his life, Roosevelt met every appearance of this weakened self with aggressive disciplines and punishments," and that ""No matter how he toughened himself, however, he could not escape living in a Victorian world in which normalcy was at stake and monstrosity was everywhere" (page 4-5). This Victorian world, she claims, has been recently been resuscitated as a political dreamspace in our political discourse.
Watts clearly shows that "Roosevelt was the first president to articulate the shared anxieties of his generation, and he provided its first seemingly coherent response to the current dislocations of modern society" (page 2). In retrospect, the bipolar extremes that Roosevelt practiced as the embodiment of its new "manifest destiny," from gentleman Patroon and cowboy soldier, now seem so extreme that they could not have co-existed in one man. Indeed most modern biographers have difficulty explaining these extremes and tend to focus on one side or the other. And so most accounts are usually are just recitations of his activities, while this most contradictory of all presidents, who led us out of the era of the frontier and into the American Century seems lost to our comprehension. Watts makes TR make sense because her contextualization of his life in his times is completely convincing. Excellent illustrations.
New look at TR........2003-09-26
This is a great book, but knowing the author personally, my opinion is probably biased. Just because Theodore Roosevelt is viewed as an American hero does not remove him from criticism. The author of the other review has no idea what he/she is writing about when he/she says that he pitties the students at Wake Forest. Dr. Watts is one of the most caring and thought provoking professors a student could hope for.
Average customer rating:
- A Remarkably Good Read--A Real Page Turner
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Danny: The Murder of a Man With Down Syndrome
Patricia Smith , and
George Smith
Manufacturer: Writer's Showcase Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Special Needs
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| Biographies & Memoirs
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Grief & Bereavement
| Death & Grief
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Criminology
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Murder & Mayhem
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True Crime
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ASIN: 0595005136 |
Book Description
Danny is the story of a true event about a man with Down syndrome who was senselessly and viciously murdered. His life is recounted, and the criminal investigation, trial and its results are laid out for the reader's scrutiny. Only then are readers able to understand what happened to the criminals and to DannyÂ's family.
Throughout DannyÂ's life there were many crises, which he overcame by the strength of his personality and family support. Danny had many clear-headed attributes, and he certainly utilized his intellectual abilities to their maximum. Out of determination and need, Danny created his own business enabling him to become self-supporting and financially independent.
But rather than giving him the recognition he deserves, we are left pondering his fate. Danny was brave and didnÂ't submit to his aggressors. His bravery was no different than a soldier's on the field of battle.
Danny's death, unfortunately, presents us with a dilemma: Did he fail to receive equal justice under the law, because he was handicapped? In many ways, our society and the people who govern it appear to be unable to properly cope with individuals like Danny. On the face of it, for whatever reason, our highly technical society is regrettably able to abstract itself from the needs of its less fortunate members.
Heroes are not selected. If they were, they would all be glamorous, rich and, perhaps, celebrities. In reality, we must accept a hero from whence he comes. Danny was an authentic hero, even though he came to us from poverty and obscurity.
Customer Reviews:
A Remarkably Good Read--A Real Page Turner.......2000-09-18
Based on a true story, this book provides the reader with two unforgettable insights. The first is the "human-ness" of those members of our society not blessed with perfect births, and the warm interrelationships of their direct family members as well as the "neighborhood" family members. The second is an "in your face" realism of the consequences of the deterioration of our older established neighborhoods, and a legal system (ours) where many of the key members are much more interested in upward mobility and societal profile than in "equal justice for all" as set out by our constitutional forefathers. The readers of this book will close it with many lingering thoughts!
Average customer rating:
- It is, without a doubt, c**p.
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The Really Useful Owl Guide
J. Parry-Jones , and
Jemima Parry Jones
Manufacturer: TFH Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Birds
| Animal Care & Pets
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Birds
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ASIN: 185279125X |
Customer Reviews:
It is, without a doubt, c**p........1999-11-21
This book is the most mind-numbingly, sleep-inducing, uninteresting book i have ever read in my whole entire life. To start with, the book would be miles better if the author simply chose another subject altogether - owls are not interesting anyway and J.Parryjones writing a really useful book about them doesn't help their cause in the least, especially when he starts waffling on about hedgehogs. Less of a case of unputdownable then don'tpickupatall.
Book Description
Say the words "memory box" and many people instantly think of shadow boxes. Not designer Anna Corba! She let her imagination run wild, went beyond the ordinary, and in the process totally redefined the tradition. Corba, author of the very successful Vintage Paper Crafts, creates romantic, charming projects that use such unexpected items as tins and wooden crates as a starting point. Outside, she decorates with buttons, polish, fabric, sheet music, stamps, and seashells; inside, she places anything that will evoke wonderful memories, including vacation souvenirs and family recipes. Among her clever ideas: "Baby's New Nest," made from a birdcage and adorned with photographs and alphabet blocks and a velvet beribboned "Opera Box" for storing cherished programs.
Customer Reviews:
Anna Corba does it again!.......2007-02-06
If you are a fan of Corba's Vintage Paper Crafts you will also enjoy this book. Filled with great ideas ranging from traditional memory boxes to objects most of us think of as shadow boxes. What unites all these items is Corba's uncompromising style.
LOVE THIS BOOK.......2006-03-15
Very glad I purchased this book ... filled with great ideas. Very well photographed projects. Just an overall pretty book as well.
The phographs are nice.......2006-02-19
But there just really isn't any substance to this book. The projects are very simplistic, so in that regard I suppose this might be a nice project book for a beginning collage/assemblage enthusiast, but if you have any experience, this book isn't for you. It does have some nice photographs of vintage ephemera, which I plan to cut out of the book and use in my projects, but for me, that is about all this book is good for.
Book Description
So it's come to this, then. You've found somebody willing to spend a lifetime with you. Outstanding. Congratulations. But wait. Long before any such blissful celebration can be realized, before that short march that precedes the long, felicitous journey of a life well shared, there is much to do, and more to learn. Legions of friends and relatives must be assembled. Hundreds of choices made. Thousands of dollars procured and hemorrhaged. Do you, sir, have any idea how to select a ring? How much to pay for it? The rules governing tuxedoes? The proper way to dissuade her from the tedious practice of using a hyphenated last name? Are you aware that a wedding is tantamount to the elevation of your bride to deity for a day, while you remain decidedly a supporting actor? Fear not-at least, not much. For in this succinct volume, we bring to bear the experience of the thousands of men who have trod the marital road before you. We build on some traditions, tear down others, and present advice and lore that will gird you with the knowledge necessary to orchestrate the greatest day in your (and her) life. Perhaps more important, we impart practical advice, extending to the honeymoon and beyond, on living as a couple. It is sage counsel, and we trust it will help you celebrate this institution as one that you, indeed, can't disparage. At least, not too often. As the old Armenian toast goes, "May you grow old on one pillow."
Sample advice:
It's all right to be scared.
It's not all right to soil your tuxedo.
Some women may believe expensive diamond rings are silly and excessive. We've not met one.
She has no right to know what will happen at the bachelor party.
You'll be better off if you pretend convincingly to care about the selection of china pattern for the registry.
About the seating chart: employ sadistic pairings judiciously.
Design your own wedding rings? Sure. If you're a wedding-ring designer.
Drinking guidelines for the groom: one drink for every two glasses of water.
On the honeymoon: relax, enjoy everything, roll with problems, don't sweat small things.
And don't argue on hotel balconies. Just don't.
Customer Reviews:
Funny but correct info.......2006-06-16
I got this book for my son, but my wife and I could not put it down. This book may not have all of the lists and such, but it sure is funny. I would recommend you get a more serious book to use as a guide, but don't pass up this book if you need a good laugh!
A good resource.......2006-05-24
This is a good one for grooms to be out there. The only reason I gave it 4 stars and not 5 is that it's already a little old. For a more up to date book, try The Engaged Groom. I bought a few books and found both books to be the best out there. Lots of helpful advice beyond the typical advice on what to wear and how to stay out of the way.
a must for the groom.......2003-08-29
I absolutely loved this book and will be giving it to all my groom-to-be friends. Witty and ultimately wise, this succinct guide offers valuable information about everything from the entire engagement up unto the Big Day that any man will find useful. Not cutesy or overly macho, this book strikes the right balance in offering advice to make the man the best groom he can be.
A great gift for a freind about to walk down the isle........2003-04-18
Although this is a humorous book, the advice it gives isn't bad. If you are getting married in the next year, definitely buy this book. It mostly gives humorous, but very true advice on weddings, wedding etiquette and married life.
It also gives some truly funny marriage advice like don't get so much life insurance that "you're worth more to them dead than alive....seriously watch your back."
So if you like the droll sensibilities of the editors Esquire Magazine and you're even remotely thinking of getting married, but this book. Think of it this way, even if you call off the wedding, this book is will still give you a few guffaws.
This book is HYSTERICAL!.......2000-01-09
I happened to find this book in a bookstore while browsing, and since I just had a good friend get engaged, I bought it for her new fiance. I was actually laughing out loud because while it provides current and valuable advice for the soon-to-be-groom, it does so with lots of humor and wit. This is a perfect gift for any newly-engaged guy...as my new husband often tells me, too many gifts are geared towards the female half of the couple, and it's only fair to get the guy something once in a while. Buy this book!
Average customer rating:
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Frank Lobdell: The Art of Making and Meaning
Timothy Anglin Burgard
Manufacturer: Hudson Hills Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
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Abstract Expressionism
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Printmaking
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ASIN: 1555952356 |
Book Description
The first comprehensive overview of Frank Lobdell's paintings, drawings, prints, and sketchbooks, and his long career as artist and teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Average customer rating:
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Faraway Hills Are Green, The
Sheelagh Conway
Manufacturer: Canadian Scholars Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Irish
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ASIN: 0889611769 |
Book Description
Weaving a rich tapestry from the voices and history of Ireland and Irish women in Canada Conway produces us with visions of women who have struggled against sexism, poverty, neo-colonialism and religious constraints. "Sheelagh Conway has provided a fascinating contribution to women's history." - Books in Canada
Books:
- Vascular flora of the Little Thicket Nature Sanctuary, San Jacinto County, Texas: A sanctuary of the Outdoor Nature Club, Houston, Texas
- Verbreitungsatlas der Grosspilze Deutschlands (West)
- Watch It Grow, Watch It Change
- Wild Flora of the Northeast
- Wild Flowers in Danger
- Wild flowers of Tokdo Island, Korea
- Wildflowers And Grasses Of Kansas: A Field Guide
- Wildflowers of the Fairest Cape
- Wildflowers of the Wallum
- Wildflowers Postcard Book
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