X Books

Iguanas In The Snow And Other Winter Poems is an impressively presented bilingual children's picturebook in English and Spanish. Each two-page spread features a different free-verse poem in both languages by Francisco Z. Alarcon, and is jubilantly illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez with simple, exciting color artwork. Iguanas In The Snow/Iguanas en la Nieve is especially recommended for young people learning to read in both the English and Spanish languages.

This beautiful suede book contains The Adventures, Memoirs, and Return of Sherlock Holmes, plus The Hound of the Baskervilles. The real attraction of this book lies in the original sketches that were created by Sidney Paget that were included. Each picture was meticulously drawn and helps to convey atmosphere of the stories. One is drawn into a world of horse-drawn carriages, gaslights, and foggy London air. Also inluded is a both moving and factual introduction plus the format of that the stories were presented in in the Stand magazine, where they were originally published. The reader is drawn into the comfortable ambience of the brilliant Sherlock Holmes, humble Watson, and the memorable cases which they solved. It is a shame that this book is no longer in print, and if any reader of this review should ever come in contact with it, I would urge that person to buy it and add it among their library. This is a true classic.

The iMovie 3 Visual Quickstart Guide is a thinner book than most others
in the VQSG series. It has only 170ish pages and is labeled for the
beginning to intermediate user. After looking through the book, though,
I don't see any topic that is not covered (and I have used iMovie
pretty extensively). So I think that maybe there isn't such a thing as
an advanced iMovie user; advanced users are probably using Final Cut.
For any iMovie 3 user, this book would seem to satisfy the need.

iMovie is meant for the novice user; it is meant to give the average
person the ability to produce videos that look semi-professional and
can be easily burned to CD-ROM or emailed. This book undeniably meets
this demand. OK, you say, but what about iMovie 4, the newest version
of iMovie? Well, I chose this book for two reasons: first, there is not
a good selection of iMovie 4 materials yet, and second, only buyers of
iLife '04 and new Macs (since March 2004) would have that program
whereas iMovie 3 is still a free download and usable by anyone with
10.1.5 and up.

Although people argue that iMovie 4 is worth the upgrade, that is
another discussion. My focus on the utility of this book is intended to
reach a larger audience. This book contains EVERYTHING you need to know
about iMovie 3 and has added sections on using a digital video camera
and integration with iDVD 2 (only available on Macs with a Superdrive).
The iMovie 3 VQSG is an excellent resource to have around and will
likely find a home in my classroom where my students can benefit from
it.

iMovie and iDVD are two of the iLife programs that ship with your Macs. Many folks think that, because they are the "simple or basic" programs, that they don't have a lot of features or can't do professional looking movies.

The fact is, you can get VERY nice results with these applications. There was a fellow who won a prize at Sundance Film Festival for a movie he made entirely with a cheap miniDV camera and iMovie. If you have budding aspirations as a filmmaker, or you just want to video a birthday party or wedding, you can get great results, too.

Jeff Carlson's book is aimed at beginner-to-intermediate users. It takes a visual, step-by-step approach. Everything is explained well and accompanied by lots of photos.

I was really pleased to see that he devotes the first 50 pages of the book to explaining how to use the DV camera, including how to take good video to start out with. He covers focus, depth-of-field, lighting, composing your shots, how and when to move the camera, etc. The term "garbage-in-garbage-out" was invented for computers, but it is really true with video and photography, as well.

Part 2 covers iMovie in logical order. He starts with an overview, then tells you how to import footage, edit video, edit still pictures for video, edit audio. He pays nice attention to the audio portion, including how to adjust the audio that came with the video, adding sound effects, music from iTunes and GarageBand, and adding audio from other sources. He also covers transitions, adding titles and making them look good on-screen, and adding visual effects to the movie.

Carlson calls Part 3 "Sharing." He tells you how to get your finished movie back to video tape or export it in other formats, such as QuickTime. Depending on the QuickTime compression scheme, you can put your movie on a CD, the web or send it via e-mail. And ... of course, you can send it to iDVD, complete with chapter markers.

Part 4 tells you everything you need to know to make a DVD. He tells you how to apply themes, customize them, create sub-menus, add chapters to an existing iDVD project, and creating slide shows with background audio. Then, he shows you how to create a project archive and burn the DVD. He finishes up with a chapter on troubleshooting.

I wont this additio

Woodblocks-manuscripts-calligraphy-paintings on silk-rubbings from bronzes and tomb carvings-books-silk screens-maps: the U. of California East Asian Library has them all. The eclectic, museum-like library holdings are studied by scholars. Such historical and cultural characteristics of the varied items are recorded in annotations for the photographs of them written by the collection's curator--Deborah Rudolph; who has advanced degrees in both classical Chinese studies and library science. Collecting East Asian antiquities ran in her family. With many of the items, she also notes production techniques, materials, design features, and other technical aspects dealt with by the artists and craftsmen.

The book is visually rewarding as well. Each piece is photographed so that its overall appearance can be apprehended and its details appreciated. For its knowledgeable text and its handsome, skillfully formatted visual matter, "Impressions of the East" succeeds in "allow[ing] the general reader to appreciate [the] worth" of the Library's collection--the main purpose of the book as denoted by Rudolph in the "Preface." While the Library's holdings cannot have the breadth or depth of museum collections, it's clear they are second to none in quality and in value for scholars. The collection is also an ideal representative collection for the public.

"In Remembrance of a Special Cat" is similar to a sympathy card in that it has poems and verse to help the recipient handle grief. I gave a copy to a friend whose pet died. A month later that friend showed me the book and the pictures of her cat, from kitty to maturity, that she had glued into the book on the pages reserved for photographs. My friend told me that, of all the words of condolence she had received from friends, that this little book was the most important.

In 'X', Catherine Pavlou has written something extraordinary, and wildly original. Is she being approached by film producers seeking the rights to this fascinating, even revolutionary, book? Probably not: they're mostly men (actually it's about 60%/40% in their favour in the screen trade), which means they're probably too busy trying to conquer the world (and the nearest woman) to realise that this book isn't remotely anti-men. In fact this reader gets the impression the writer rather likes us neanderthals. But I'm a neanderthal and proud of it, and my only question is: why the hell is this book not better know? It's a cleverly researched and structured, multi-disciplinary tour-de-force - the product of a first rate mind. Seriously: read it.

Nick Green

This is a surprisingly useful and innovative book. Focus is on individual techniques as opposed to team play. That's what makes this such a terrific teaching tool. Clear, well illistrated, and extremely detailed. If you are a player you can improve your game simply by reading it as an individual since it only focuses on team play as it relates to the individuals contribution. It's strictly a how-to guide to improving YOUR play. If you are a coach it's very valuable but somewhat limited in it's scope.
There is very limited discussion of team play, team drills, ect. so this is not a good source for general theory. But as a teaching tool to help individual players learn to improve their technique this book is second to none. Having played for 20 years and coached 12 more at a Division I level I still learned a few things from this book. If I ever go back to coaching I'm going to give a copy to each of my players.