X Books

I was very fascinated with the book and enjoyed ever minute reading it. I truly enjoyed reading about the Native Americans, their stories, and their adventures. A truly inspiring book for all.

This book is a delightful satire in the tradition of Voltaire and Swift, a fact that definetly (sic) eluded critic wannebe Imhof.

This is a book for the intellectual who wants a break from their busy life. The reader will enjoy some great Native American myths through the travels of an Indian brave.

I am an inveterate dog-earer, often bending the pages unconciously, and I find, after reading Robert B. Shaw's SOLVING FOR X, that I've folded down the corners of 17 pages! I haven't messed up a book of poetry this badly in a long, long time.

Many of the poems in this book are metrical, and quite of few of them employ perfect rhyme. One of these, my favorite in the book, is "A Roadside Flock," a poem ostensibly about copper weather vane roosters, which concludes:

" . . . their giddy doom to pivot, / prey to the winds that flounce about the sky. / It's not the life we'd live if we could live it.
And gleam gives way to verdigris, raised high // to weather drably, exiled from the ground . . . / Feel that? A hint of breeze. Birds of a feather, / their regal beaks shudder without a sound, / and all the copper flock turns tail together."

But "A Roadside Flock" has a lot of stiff competition. I also very much enjoy "Airs and Graces," "A Field of Goldenrod," "The End of the Sonnet," "Dec. 23," "Espalier," "A Paper Cut," "Ant in Amber," "Seed Catalogues in Winter," "A Flashback," "Letter of Recommendation," "Out of Character," "Static," "September Brownout," "Other Eyes: Hurricane's," "Remainders," and "Living past 19."

I'm struck by how casual Shaw's style is, how downright funny at times, without being the least bit loose or nasty. It's a tricky way to write, but Shaw has mastered it, and I think this is his best book to date.

And that's saying something when you consider his excellent previous books or poetry: THE WONDER OF SEEING DOUBLE, THE POST OFFICE MURALS RESTORED, and BELOW THE SURFACE. But don't trust me. Read everything he's written, including his superb study of the poetry of Herbert and Donne, CALL OF GOD, and judge this intelligent, accessible, witty writer for yourself.

I am an inveterate dog-earer, often bending the pages unconciously, and I find, after reading Robert B. Shaw's SOLVING FOR X, that I've folded down the corners of 17 pages! I haven't messed up a book of poetry this badly in a long, long time.

Many of the poems in this book are metrical, and quite a few of them employ perfect rhyme. One of these, my favorite in the book, is "A Roadside Flock," a poem ostensibly about copper weather vane roosters, which concludes:

" . . . their giddy doom to pivot, / prey to the winds that flounce about the sky. / It's not the life we'd live if we could live it. And gleam gives way to verdigris, raised high // to weather drably, exiled from the ground . . . / Feel that? A hint of breeze. Birds of a feather, / their regal beaks shudder without a sound, / and all the copper flock turns tail together."

But "A Roadside Flock" has a lot of stiff competition. I also very much enjoy "Airs and Graces," "A Field of Goldenrod," "The End of the Sonnet," "Dec. 23," "Espalier," "A Paper Cut," "Ant in Amber," "Seed Catalogues in Winter," "A Flashback," "Letter of Recommendation," "Out of Character," "Static," "September Brownout," "Other Eyes: Hurricane's," "Remainders," and "Living past 19."

I'm struck by how casual Shaw's style is, how downright funny at times, without being the least bit loose or nasty. It's a tricky way to write, but Shaw has mastered it, and I think this is his best book to date.

And that's saying something when you consider his excellent previous books or poetry: THE WONDER OF SEEING DOUBLE, THE POST OFFICE MURALS RESTORED, and BELOW THE SURFACE. But don't trust me. Read everything he's written, including his superb study of the poetry of Herbert and Donne, THE CALL OF GOD, and judge this intelligent, accessible, witty writer for yourself.

Robert B. Shaw's newest book of poems, Solving For X, possesses two qualities that are not always found together: lyric virtuosity and emotional depth. Few poets write so securely in their sense of line and stanza; few poets write with as much moral insight and emotional persuasiveness. Very few, indeed, combine these two qualities so happily, as in "Ant in Amber," which I quote in full:

Ever since Fate's undeviating thumb
englobed this ant in aromatic gum,
eons of weighty chafing in the earth
have milled it to a bauble of some worth.
Nature expended quite some enterprise
in getting this poor sap to fossilize.
Now honey-hued, translucent, it displays
intact the forager of former days:
every last leg the little soldier needed
is here embalmed, or we might say embeaded.
Didn't the Greeks believe such beads were spawned
as tears of sunset, hardened as next day dawned?
Knowing the source (a long-gone, weeping tree)
makes this a different kind of prodigy-
a model instance, maybe, of renewal-
interred as ant and disinterred as jewel.
Thus in our scale of values, though we can't
be sure it would appear so to the ant.

The poem displays throughout the sobriety, lyric self-awareness, and precision of the middle style. The sober clarity of the poem is a function of the diction, especially the qualifying adjectives, and of the way in which the syntax drapes the couplets: subject/predicate/subject/predicate in lines 1-4, and then a quickening of the syntax in line five, followed by the expansive adverbial phrase with the groan-worthy pun in line 6. Never is there syntactical displacement to accommodate the rhyme. It is obvious that the poet is composing by the line and the couplet and that the form has not distorted the syntax but sharpened it. The poem conveys a sense of lyric self-awareness in the self-corrections: "...embalmed, or we might say embeaded" and "a model instance, maybe, of renewal." These self-corrections or hesitations are an aspect of the almost Ciceronian rhetorical structure of the poem, with its four line introduction, its general thesis, exposition, conclusion, and peroration in the final couplet.
For all its cleverness, the poem is not light or exhibitionistic. The final couplet combines litotes and the informality of the rhyme on "can't" to prevent the rhetoric from rising beyond the level that is appropriate to the emotional weight of the argument. Although we may notice that the amber is analogous to the poem itself, this analogy is not imposed on readers.

At some point a reader wants to construe poems in relation to the poet's intentions, insofar as they can be discerned. Some of Shaw's own ambitions for his poems might be guessed from "A Paper Cut":

Whatever first impressions may allege,
this poet's work does, after all, have edge-

Witness my finger, slivered to the quick
as payback for its disapproving flick.

Granted, I turned the page with reckless haste,
calling no halt to justify my taste.

But does the stuff deserve a second reading?
Feel free to guess. It stings, but there's no bleeding.

If "bleeding" signifies the strong emotional response of a reader, this seems to be something Shaw expects to experience in poems that merit a second reading. In any poet who seeks such a response to middle style rhetoric there is much restraint and ellipsis. "Style," after all, is not the representation of a persona's emotional state, but the representation of a persona's emotional state as he is speaking. The emotions in Shaw's poems are often reflective, their sufferings and pleasures not stated but powerfully implied.
Robert Shaw is one of the wisest and most skillful poets now writing in English, and this is perhaps his finest collection yet. Anyone with a modicum of interest in contemporary poetry should seek out his work.

Tosca, the cat, wanders away from her owners with another cat she's met while on vacation in Paris. Many readers will recognize the landmarks the felines visit but they may be surprised to find Paris inhabited by a cast of colorful fruits and vegetables. This is a well-written story accompanied by witty illustrations. The children I read the book to (a couple of five year olds) especially liked looking at the pictures while hearing the French translation read aloud even though neither one of them speaks French and they've never been to Paris. We had an interesting discussion about why people communicate in different languages. It was nice to have a story to read aloud that was thought provoking for the kids and didn't bore the reader.

Since vegetables are something I avoided as a child, it is a pleasant surprise now to find myself utterly charmed by Abby Wasserman's cleverly
drawn vegetables. A pear and a leek (Poire and Poirot) go off to Paris with
their adventurous kitty, Tosca. Naturally, all of the Parisians are vegetables, too.

It's always been by belief that in the best children's literature, the language used in the story is as important as the illustrations. That's why in many children's books the illustrator and author are not one in the same person. However, Abby Wasserman, with experience as a writer and an artist, clearly has ample talent to tell this charming tale and to do the accompanying water colors.

I also believe that the best children's books are enjoyed just as much by the adults who read them to their children or grandchildren. When I read this book to my four year old granddaughter, I know I get as much pleasure as she does.

Although the setting is French, and there is in fact a lovely French
translation at the rear of the book, this is a book for all children
(say, from four on up) and for all adults who still remember their own favorite childhood books, and who therefore really appreciate good children's literature.

I should add that this book is not a clever way to con children into eating their vegetables. It is simply a lovely story.

Tosca's Paris Adventure could and should be part of an on-going series, the way so many classic children's stories are. One hopes that Abby Wasserman is already at work on the next book.

The child inside me truly smiles as I read and turn through page after page of whit, charm, curiosity, and wonderful illustrations by the author. My imagination runs free from beginning to end, as Tosca goes about her adventure, and I'm left wanting more - a quality I love in a fine story or novel. After reading it, I quickly bought and sent off copies to friends with children. This superb book deserves a place on my shelf next to Isaac Bashevis Singer's great children stories.

Easy to read, clear to understand, simple to apply. Highly recommend it for anyone that is new to xrays!

Rarely does one find a medical book that is so easy to comprehend, yet the reader gains immediately-useful knowledge; heretofore such practicality was unknown in radiology.

The background information is superbly presented, so that the reader can effortlessly and quickly make his way through the simplified presentation.

So delightful is this large-format, profusely illustrated text, that the reader finds it more recreational than didactic, learning all the way.

This "plain English"(author's words) approach is THE way to understand X-rays. I wish it were available when I was in training. Highly reccommend!

This book gives a simple overview of some common x-rays and helps to clarify their meanings.... literally in plain English! If you have read Dubin's Rapid Interpretation of EKG's and liked it, then you would love this book. It is set up similarly. It's an easy read and there are tests at the end for review. I highly recommend it!

This book is wonderful. Mark tells of his own battle with alcoholism and his determination to become sober. He gives a good insight on the root of alcoholism. His recovery alone is inspiration for anyone to believe that they too can be sober.A must read for anyone who is trying to over come an addiction.

I wish all parents of high school age children would read it. It is so very true to life. I still have broken diningroom chairs as testimony to my children's highschool days.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Judge's book. Not only does he provide educational information on the root of alcoholism, he tells a very entertaining story of his youth. Many times I laughed out loud. My only complaint (which isn't one concerning the story) is that the book was printed on paper that utilized only half the page. A lot of wasted space.

Francisico is my cousin, and I absoultly love his book it was,intresting {One of those books that you can't put down } funny witty and partially autobiographcal but you really would'nt know that unless you are related to {javier} Francisco.So I give this book 5 stars not because he's my cousin, but because the story itself is so good .please if at allpossibly give Francisco my email adress lolik@peoplepc.com or please send my email adress to him.thank you from the bottem of my heart. loli

Though I have a few favorites in iconic literature, I'm not much of a reader of fiction and I've never felt a need to read in Magical Realism or Latin American literature. I was led to The Way of the Jaguar by a bit of a synchronicity -- not a possibly "New Agey" title I'd normally pick up -- and was deeply rewarded for paying attention. A Columbia educated attorney who studied Latin American Literature at Harvard, Francisco's coming second and third novels surely will win him the widespread recognition in contemporary literature that he deserves. A prize winning and heartbreaking loosely autobiographical first novel, The Way of the Jaguar is a work of a rare knowing integration of sharp humor, deep intelligence, deep sexuality and deep spirituality -- the journal of successful but lost Boston attorney and "inmate" Ismael Diaz on a near magical, tragicomic death row not likely seen before in world literature. Evidently thus far overlooked by Hollywood producers, with an easily well cast Ismael, The Way of the Jaguar is a deeply sexy and poetic Latin American Shawshank Redemption (for lack of another comparison) and intensely engaging ironic and heartbreaking read. Enter romantic Francisco's jaguar way of knowledge on death row soon; highly recommended.

On the surface, this is a story about "making it" by renouncing your roots. In all these stories, the character is later brought down by not belonging to any culture. But this is not merely a story of a "home boy" rejecting his roots to make it. The message of these "stick to your own kind" stories is to stay put. What makes this tale different is that it supports the opposite view-- cultural amalgamation is possible and one can be successful in different cultural environments.

At the beginning of the book, our hero, Ismael, is on death row--Huntsville, Texas, where else?--so we know he must have been involved in some major mishap. Ismael's life moves back and forth on two oposite points of a personal pendulum: youthful passion for Armanda and his later love for his beautiful, upper middle class, professional wife. Ismael's narrative goes from one side of the pendulum to the other until he upends his legal career and marriage and tries to regain his lost love in Texas. Instead of recovering his lost world, he unleashes a chain of events that lead to death row. In the book we get to know Ismael in a manner similar to forming a new friendship-- a tidbit of childhood here, a recounted professional experience there-- until we grasp him well. The narrative reveals a great sensitivity to popular american culture. As one follows our hero's journey from mexican immigrant; to success in a catholic college; to his final entry into the inner core, Anglo-American big leagues-- Harvard, old boston law firm, beautiful episcopalian wife-- the reader cannot help but savor the wonderful texture of time and place that the author weaves into the story. Somewhat Navokovian, all the places and events that the author describes are vivid and familiar: the jesuit Spring Hill College, two lane roads in leafy Boston suburbs, Juarez bars, etc. The author skillfully captures a lot of the mood and feel of society...and yet those times and places are disappearing. His story leads us to a new cultural reality. One in which cultures and backgrounds amalgamate. As Dylan used to sing, "the times, they are a changin". Yesterday, success meant achieving Ismael's dream: the country club, the bow tie,and the gin and tonic. Things are changing..our new billionaires are from Bombay, Jennifer Lopez and Denzel Washington are our sex symbols, and America's sweetheart is Michelle Qwan. This is a country in which half the kids in Chicago's public schools are black baptists and in which Andover students aspire to attend jesuit Geogetown. Ismael's America of the 50's, 60's, and 70's is goin, going..and almost gone. The change to a more open society-- one in which one's culture and background will not keep people in their predetermined place-- may be brutal but worth the price. The novel ends with our hero's brahmin wife uniting with him in an effort to help him avoid the death penalty. It is this act of fidelity and solidarity by his wife that makes the final resolution of this tale different than the other "home boy rejects home in order to make it" stories. The Way of The Jaguar gives us the hope that Ismael can have his cake and eat it too-- he can make it and be accepted for what he is: an intense, intellectual, sexy guy who happens to be a Mexican dude.

Yes, Baby Boomers do suck, but that's not what makes this book so great- it's great because Finley is a master of picking out things in our culture and society and looking at them from a distance. His comments on the Boomers' selfishness (everything's about them), their cronyism (uh, Bush), their sense of entitlement (all of them) and everything else are poignent and hilarious.

I love the cartoons about the whining mullet-promoters and the fast facts like one on how many baby boomers think they made a good parent (just after the chapter on why they sucked at parents.)

Hilarity and sadness- I laughed, I cried, I wet my pants.

Why Baby Boomers Suck!: (No Offense Mom)
This shiz is crackin my arse up. A lot of the books out there are funny but they don't really make sense- this one makes political statements and it's hilarious. I bought 5 for my cousins.
Peace out- Tio

This is a witty (though Mr. Harrison isn't as funny as he thinks he is) collection of essays complete with statistics and cartoons about the largest generation on Earth (they still are, I think)- the Baby Boomers. Harrison makes the obvious disgruntled points like the Boomers are ruining Social Security and their political correctness is becomming so oppressive, and some great original points like how they were social activists only when it made their parents mad (then became greedy Yuppies) and how, as parents, they just want to be the cool parent and forget about responsibility to their kids.

People need to read this book if not for its humor, then for its sociological proclamations. Highly recommended!

this is a very cool little book with i think 6 or 7 stories in it. although sometimes scully looks really WIERD it is a great and fun book to read... so go and do it

it is a Fabulous book especially if you love the X Files.

the book can not be summed up in a review it is so amazing that it is beyond words. The only way to get the atmospheric feeling that pertrudes from this book is to read it yourself. Ethereal, otherworldly and punctuated by Miran Kim's mysterious paintings.

I learned X-Windows programming from this many years ago. Please bear with me as I set up the scenario here. As an independent consultant, I was in a situation where--in order to win a juicy federal contract--I had to represent that I was sufficiently expert in X-Windows to (a) build a toolkit of custom widgets; (b) build tools that allowed users to choose from a set of predefined "color palettes" such that (b-i) only certain classes (let's call them "Brand Q") of applications followed those palettes, other applications following the standard system palette, and (b-ii) the palettes interacted with the window manager such that, when the last Brand Q application was iconified, the standard system palette was restored, yet, as soon as any Brand Q application was deiconified, the user's chosen palette was reinstantiated; and (c) build tools that enabled a Certified Professional Ergonomist, or CPE (!), to experiment with widget appearances and parameters so as to craft an optimal set of palettes and then represent those palettes in such a way that X applications would properly follow what was visually intended. Oh, on top of all that, it had to interact with a visual GUI builder called UIM/X that implemented a whole set of "shadow widgets" that paralleled Motif widgets and let you edit their properties--rather like a Java "bean editor" one might find useful nowadays.

Well, I had to learn enough to write a thick, highly literate design document within a couple of weeks, and then go out and build some 40K lines' worth of applications code (in C, of course) and 15K lines' worth of "system" code (I'd define as "systems code" software that (a) interacts with the window manager vis-a-vis iconification and deiconification semantics; (b) communicates complex data structures via interning atoms with the X server; (c) tortures strange color mapping behaviors from an outdated NCR monitor that could only physically display sixteen colors at a time [thus having to rely on dithering and related visual effects to achieve other "colors"] and offers tools for related colormap management tasks) within a handful of months.

Now, I'm not complaining about the level of effort--given the six-figure consulting fee that lay at the end of the rainbow. But without Young's outstanding book, I'd have been dead in the water. Oh, of course I had access to the O'Reilly series of seven or eight books--which were occasionally useful for stealing a handy application that could quickly be incrementally modified (e.g., I needed quick code for a dialogue box managing three green buttons, and one of the O'Reilly books illustrated the code for a dialogue box sporting four yellow buttons). But Young taught me enough about X that I was soon empowered to write my own functions to populate recursive pull-down menus; to write the internals for a widget that borrowed functionality from two other widgets and used cutesy memory management tricks (akin to mainframe-lingo "lookaside buffers") that let me sequentially stack up their respective resources; and to learn how to take advantage of some interesting internals facts, e.g., that the XmN family of symbolic constants are defined as strings identical to their names (a la #define foo #foo).

Bravo, Mr. Young! You taught me much, and you taught me well.

This well written book, with numerous coded examples (that work!) is one of the best computer reference book I've encountered. Although it has not been updated to included Motif 2.1, most applications are still being written in Motif 1.2 anyway. It also includes the necessary Xt and X11 background to write GUIs. I went from zero experience with windows programming to writing full featured X-windows applications solely with the aid of this text and elementary knowledge of C. The author, who worked at Silicon Graphics, went on to write the Open Inventor library (which unfortunately is in C++). Great book!

Once upon a time, when I moved from Windows programming environment to X-Windows.. I found things were so diffiult for me.

Lucky me, one day I went to the library and found this book. It helped me to get start with X programming in s considerable short time. The step of this book is quite easy to follow, and not difficult to understand. At least it made X more friendly to me. Although it was Japanese edition and my Japanese isn't that good. (And I will buy the English edition soon).

If you want to program in X, this one is a must, Along O'Reilly X Reference Series (which I think is the best of X-Ref).

I read this in one of my textbooks for class. I then proceeded to read it to my girlfriend. Then I read it to all my best friends. Then I read it at open mic. Then I bought it outside of my textbook. This book was absolutely awesome. I am going to name my child Francis or Junior and declare its gender X. I am, of course, going to have to buy a copy of the 85,000 page instruction manual for how to work it. :-)

Baby X is a book that make us Xamine our selves and our culture. It is funny and touching and a must for little children. I think this is one of the best books to teach our children a kinder, more open way of being.

With an entertaining story about a mystery-gender child named X, Lois Gould prompts us to question our most deeply held convictions about "boy-stuff" and "girl-stuff." Kids and adults of all ages will smile at the outlandish details and alliterative descriptions used to create a world where a child might thrive based on his/her individual needs, interests, and abilities without respect to gender. Gently prodding us to examine our own long-held stereotypes, the slim volume challenges us to "be all we can be," no matter our gender, and without requiring a visit to our local recruiter! This is a great gift at baby showers!