Studios Books

Wanderfull! I finally really doing it!
(what about character animation cbt?)

DEAR Jason Leong from SINGAPORE PLEASE SEND AN E-MAIL
FOR ME : MAXBOX200@YAHOO.COM
I'M WATING TO HEARING FROM YOU.

I have about 20 to 25 books on max and only 2 other books have valuted my skill level as high as this CD has done.
The CD plays great and flows at an excellent pace. Even the way they teach, gives you some great layout and operational techniques to make using MAX so much more efficient.
Plus what makes this training great is THE TUTOR. He is creatig the model at the same time as he is telling you what to do. Hence you always see his steps even if he skips mentioning it.
I have never been so pleased using one product as I have been using this CD.
As someone wrote earlier the CD is worth 3 times more than what we paid for it.

This CD has greatly improved my modelling skills and knowledge in max. It is like having a teacher there showing you and explaining every step, with the advantage of rewinding as many times as you need to. I would recommend this to the beginner of max modelling. It has certanily helped me out a long way. And Tim Kugler provides great support as well.

What are you waiting for, go buy a copy!
Shan J

I have talk to Tim before the author for this Cd.He's a nice chap.I got hold his disc and when through.I was shocked all this while I bought a lot of books on MAX.But none help through for a successfull modeling.But I went through his stuff its power and easy to understand.he make it so easy to absord....I recommend for Max lovers to go for his CD.

I bought a number of digital textile design books. This one is the most updated and simple in terms of the instructions. Also, the author is extremely accessible and available for support, questions and feedback. He was fantastic and very helpful!

As a Graphic Designer, I made a research and bough four products that were supose to solve textil design, and this was the best, It gives you meny alternatives: also the seller stood beside me when nedded.

I love this book! It saved me hours in learning specific aspects of textile design using photoshop - plus the author makes himself available for technical assists. Awesome.

This is an excellent book for textile designers. Easy to follow and Frederick has been a pleasure to work with. Thanks again!

This book took me to an advanced level of textile design! It was like taking a course in textile design in college except you can actually do things when you're finished! I'm ecstatic that I found this book. I have learned many new techniques. The explanations are very clear, precise and complete! I recommend this wonderful book and I fell grateful that Mr. Chipkin generously shared his years of experience. It's a book for professionals, freelancers and an essential book for the students.

WOW!! This book is truly a feast for the eyes, and that's no exaggeration! There are so many first rate photos and plenty of text. Every page has multiple color photos. It is a very heavy book! The paper is high quality and the photos are extremely high resolution and stunningly beautiful. What a great job they did just in printing this book! If you love Victorian homes, then this book is a must have! I like it so much I think I will eventually buy a brand new hardcover copy of it (I bought a used paperback copy). I plan on getting all the other books in this series too. Some of the very best Victorian homes are in this book. They kind of remind me of Disneyland with all the colorful paint schemes and fanciful shapes and decorations.

A fantastic book, a must for anyone who is thinking about painting a Victorian house. It was very helpful to me and my husband who had to come up with a color scheme for our three-story Queen Anne built in 1895.

If you're in the same boat, then you know that deciding on a color scheme for a detailed Victorian house isn't easy and takes careful thought and consideration. This book will help you. It will give you countless ideas, and just looking at the photos is inspiring.

And then, the book will appeal to any fan of Victorian architecture as well. I love looking at the numerous photos of the houses and find myself thumbing through it again and again. Every time I look at this book, I see something intriguing that I hadn't noticed before. Such a book serves to keep me inspired during the remainder of our home's renovation, which is trying at times.

Taller than any of the other books and nearly twice as thick as the thickest, this gorgeous 1992 volume (Ms. Pomada, isn't it time we got a fifth??), once again produced with the help of partner Larsen and photographer Keister, is, like "Daughters of Painted Ladies," a survey of Victorian homes from all over the country. From Searsport, ME, where the subtly detailed, white-bodied Mansard Carriage House Inn welcomes its guests, to a pink 1887 Steamboat Gothic in National City, near San Diego, here are dozens of Victorians, large and small, somber and vivid, plus an assortment of interiors, some fully period, others furnished in more contemporary style against the richly detailed background of the time. If you buy it to "get ideas" for your own Painted Lady, you'll find more than you can choose between. If you buy it just to look at, be prepared to spend hours drooling! A treasure trove for lovers of period detail, which is so admirably brought out by the creative combinations of color used in decorating these buildings.

i was speechless each picture was so beautiful , i love each and every house. a great book

Believe it or not but the main reason I purchased this beautiful book was for reference material for scale model building (i.e. LEGO, etc.). I was hunting forever for a book on Victorian homes--with pictures of the OUTSIDE (as most of the books on Victorian architecture deal with the classic interior designs, furniture, etc.). LEGO and Victorian homes go hand in hand, as this book's wonderful color pictures perfectly illustrate--who could imagine such combinations would actually look so stunning!? In addition to excellent photography the text is well written, with interesting facts about each home, why it's unique, yet how it fits into the overall "Painted Lady" lineage... excellent. :-)

Relating modern-era history to children often prove to be be a challenge. Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame, written by Michael S. Class, attempts to fill this void by bringing the child into history, literally.

Anthony is you average twelve year old boy, with one difference, Anthony has a magic picture frame. Anthony's picture frame allows him to step back in time and witness history first-hand. Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame is a narrative journal of Anthony's activities and provides detailed descriptions of what he saw, heard and lived through.

Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame brings history to life for middle-years and older children. Wonderfully illustrated with archival photographs your child can see and read about important events and how these events shape our lives today. The photographs and brilliantly altered to include Anthony, in period garb, right in the middle of the action. Be warned, however, that many of these photographs are graphic. The photographs are real and are well-used but they are made so much more real by the presence of this little boy in each of them, sometimes in the middle of a battlefield. If you have a highly sensitive child you may wish to save this book for when they are of an age to see children in distressing situations.

Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame has a place in the library of all Americans who want to give their children an accurate and detailed education in current-era American history. Best suited for children twelve and older, Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame will provide years worth of lessons or serve as a fantastic stand-alone resource.

Michael S. Class has created an amazing piece of literature that touches on the importance of how history and the present weave together. As he explores particular historical events and how they have impacted the way society functions today, Michael has taken it a step further. His visual interpretation of Anthony is a creative masterpiece. The illustrations capture the imagination of both the young and the old while the text inspires people to think about their own past. Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame is a solid piece of literature and a wonderful piece of art. This book will introduce children to history in a new, lively and exciting manner. Michael is bringing back an education that creates children who are deep thinkers and life-long learners. Don't waste another second. This is a gift for all.
Cherie McIntosh, Deena Cook
P & P Publishing LLC
[...]

This book will inspire interest in the great stories and famous photographs of history. The photos are very creative and tell a lot about the time period just through the expressions of the author's son, who is nearly seamlessly inserted into historical photographs.

Younger children will enjoy just looking at the large photographs (this book is coffee table size) and older children and adults will enjoy the well written text. I have used it with 8 and 12 year old homeschooled boys as a book to read aloud.

The chapters and topics can be read in any order. The subjects cover the Civil War, when the first photographs were taken, to the polio vaccine in the 1950s. Many of the photographs will be familiar to people born in the early to mid 1900s, and so the idea of developing the story and conversations behind the images is especially appealing.

Clearly, the author loves history. He treats his subject with honor and respect and tells the story of individuals using their own words and images. This is not just a cute and clever idea for a time machine; there are serious lessons to be learned and remarkable and heroic achievements to be celebrated.

The book has an excellent resource list including movies, music and places to visit to supplement the journey back through time. An unexpected added bonus!

Highly recommended. Great gift idea.

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." ~ William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)

Imagine what it would be like to be a kid who jumps into a picture and lives some of the most exciting moments in history like walking on the moon or arriving in American ready to start a new life. In "Anthony and the Magic Pictures Frame," history comes alive in the mind of a child.

Here we find Anthony in digitally enhanced pictures so it looks like her really was walking on the moon or standing next to Charles Lindbergh and his airplane in 1927. The pictures are great because they show things you might not normally see like the inside of the plane. You might not see this unless you went to the National Air & Space Museum in Washington.

Here we also find Anthony interviewing Thomas Edison and standing with Lou Gehrig on opening day at Yankee Stadium in 1937. Throughout this book there is a sense of humor, but also profound moments and moments for reflection.

Suddenly history becomes far more interesting when it is told from this type of perspective. Even in the stories of harsh realities during the war, there is a sense of kindness as people help one another to survive. This is a book children and adults will love and it puts a smile on your face while you learn a lot about history.

~The Rebecca Review

Anthony And The Magic Picture Frame is an informative exploration for children into the history of America and the world. Anthony And The Magic Picture Frame offers young readers an incredible depiction and encouraging read for many of the great historical markers of America's history as twelve-year-old Anthony travels the world, and even to the moon. Included are the first lunar landing, Charles Lindbergh's first New-York to Paris flight, WWI and WWII, Edison's first electric lamp, and so much more specifically designed and deftly written in a child-friendly and educational format. Anthony And The Magic Picture Frame is very strongly recommended -- especially to all parents wishing for an accurate and expansive education of American history for their children.

I love this book. I bought it for my kids to give me for Mother's Day. I'm a handspinner and just love this story about Charlie the shepherd who needs a new cloak. He goes through all the steps from shearing his sheep to sewing the finished fabric together into a new cloak. It has great humor and is a fun read.

Tomie dePaola always writes such good books, that I don't worry if it will be good, I know it will be. I will be using this book to help with a yarn/fiber art unit in class. I have enjoyed reading it and I know my students will like it too.

Though it's rated at the pre-school level, I've found Charlie Needs a Cloak to be useful and entertaining for kids up to third grade. In my work as a museum educator, this delightful tale serves as a valuable intro to the world of pre-industrial textile production, especially in colonial America. The illustrations are humorous, which dePaola is famous for. Charlie needs a new cloak, and he takes the reader through the process of making one, from shearing his whimsical sheep, who help him with his work, to weaving, dyeing, and sewing the new garment. Too bad Charlie doesn't notice, as soon as he puts it on, that his favorite sheep is already chewing on his hem!

I enjoy dePaola's books very much, but this one I am extra enthusiastic about. I work in a classroom of 3,4 and 5 year olds, and I am responsible for selecting literature for, and reading to, the younger children in the class. Sometimes when I am reading a dePaola book I have to cut some of the narrative to keep their attention. I don't have to do that at all with this book. This is a book that will keep the 3 year old's attention and still offer something to the older children as well. A lot of the charm of this story is the pictures which feature the action outlined in the text as to what Charlie is doing and also clearly represents the agendas of a spunky sheep and craftly mouse. YOung children love to discover these little "surprises" within the illustrations.

While I am a pre-service teacher, the second grade classroom that I am observing is currently working with _Charlie Needs a Cloak_and sequencing. The students are given the prompt of each of Charlie's actions on 'wool' pieces and then the students write 2-3 complete sentences using various punctuation. Also, there is a story within a story, which students (at least these 12 second graders) showed enthusiasm with prediction and sequencing. The story within a story format is one big reason why I am a fan of this book!

Not to be cheesy but this was the most arousing and dare I say gyrating read of my life. I thought I knew my cheeses but I found out that my cheeses know me, oh yeah, they know me. The cheese bible is the finest piece of theology ive read and has opened me up spritually to world of cheese and its various manifestations. My girlfriend loves the cheese that I prepare for her. This book is useful for people who do not know their cheddar from their cheddar. When i showed my girl my cream cheese (from this book) she lapped it all up like a savage. When I finished this book I said to my partner - "e-DAM this is good!". May the cheese be with you.

I think that just about anything is better with cheese, so this book is right up my alley. Even if you aren't a cheese addict, you will find this book to be an interesting and useful resource. The book is divided into two basic parts: an encyclopedia of cheese types and recipes with cheese as a principal ingredient. The encyclopedia is amazingly thorough - both in the varieties of cheese discussed and in their analysis of the history and processes behind them. I particularly liked that the authors organized their presentation of cheeses into categories and subcategories of similar cheeses. Very useful. Also, it was nice that they included some of the more pedestrian cheese varities. Too often books like this focus exclusively on varities that are rare and exotic - these specialties are fun for special occassions and to read about, but they are frequently hard to find and not always practical for everyday cooking. Even though the recipes are not particularly flashy, they are well-designed to showcase special characteristics of the applicable cheeses. A lot of effort clearly went into this book, and it pays off. Oh, and lots of nice color pictures to browse through.

This book is amazing, it has changed my life in many ways, people now want me Mr Ian Fry to start my own religion, and they want me to read from this bible for the sermons. Buy this book and become a slave to the cheese!! Go on spoil yourself!! i did!!

As my two standard cheese reference books were in dire need of updating, I went in search of the perfect replacement. This is it. It's structure is an introduction to cheese making and regulation in general; followed by a cheese encyclopedia dealing with the making of a family of cheeses for which an astoundingly broad range of varients are described; this is followed by a chapter on buying, storing, cutting etc ... i.e. everything you need to know about handling cheese. This is followed by about 100 pages of recipes using cheese. The book is lavishly illustrated, enabling you to identify and check the quality of nearly all cheeses.

The structure of cheese families and their many variants makes it easy to relate the information about cheeses in general to the handcrafted cheeses available in your region. It contains the most comprehensive list of cheeses I have ever seen. There is an index in back for the encyclopedia and the cheese names are in boldface type, but it still my take a bit to find a cheese in which you are interested in the text.

The illustrations in addition to providing illustrations of a particular cheese often show the cheese in various stages of aging. This is of particular use for cheeses whose use changes with age or whose peak stage of aging is of limited duration.

This book may be intimidating to someone with no previous experience in cheeses outside the two or three American standards. But for anyone who has broadened their tastes into imported or handcrafted cheeses, this is a perfect volume.

If you love cheese, this book is for you. As more and more restaurants offer quality cheese courses, it is worthwhile to have this book around so you know what is and is not worth trying. Even seasoned tasters will enjoy the tone of the text and the content. The recipes are simple and clear, with a structure that should appeal to even amateur home chefs.

This is a very moving account of a heartbroken man who was betrayed by a person he loved dearly. The pain, the trauma, the love, the anger, the frustration is evident in every single well-written sentence. This book is not only a window into the mind of one of the best British writers of the late 19th century. It is also a timeless lesson on what can happen when one falls in love with someone who doesn't truly appreciate what they have before them. Of course there are other lessons to be learned in this book but rather than point them out here, I'd much prefer you pick up a copy of "De Profundis" as soon as you can.

Not actually a "letter," though it had to be originally presented as such for him to be allowed to write it while in prison, *De Profundis* is Wilde's masterpiece--one has to have really lived and really, really suffered to have written it and it's amazing that he achieved it.

I only very recently read it--and "got" it. It rings true to me, and is very, very moving and "profound." It ain't summer beach reading.

Wilde is still and will probably always be best known as a "Personality"--that and the author of a couple of decent period plays, a short novel, a few stories, and lots of forgettable poems and such. But THIS--THIS is IT.

He really WAS a great writer, it turns out, after all.

So many people concentrate on De Profundis' accusations cast towards Alfred Douglas. Yes, it's true that the letter was written to him and that Wilde is ruthless in letting Douglas know exactly what he thinks of him but that's not why De Profundis is a great piece of work. It is great for three reasons. Number one - It contains the best account of the life of Christ. Christ as the romantic artist is the only account that has moved me to tears and the only account I can personally embrace. Number two - it is chock full of the Oscar Wilde voice and wit and as a result it reverbates as a true work of art and number three - It is ultimately a work that celebrates the things in life worth feeling - failure, love, injustice, strength and forgiveness.

Don't waste your time with the accusations towards Douglas. He is unimportant. Oscar Wilde is what's important and De Profundis is Oscar Wilde bare.

Ah, me...one doesn't know which to be more irritated
and exasperated with: whether it be Walt Whitman doing
his dissembling shuck-and-shuffle about the children
he had sired (to throw off a probing, serious John
Addington Symonds) -- or Oscar, in this "j'accuse," which
he should have spoken while looking in a mirror, rather
than writing it on paper to Lord Alfred.
This is without doubt a fascinating, horrifying,
and yet in places humorous, "piece de Miserere mei"
(to combine a bit of French with Latin).
If one chooses to believe Oscar, his only fault
was weakness in "giving in" to Lord Alfred. Oh,
come now. Blinded by Eros, reason flies out the
door...if ever reason was in control. There are
some sentences which are devastatingly revealing,
but Oscar doesn't seem to see it. "The trivial in
thought and action is charming. I had made it
the keystone of a very brilliant philosophy expressed
in plays and paradoxes." Ye gods, and little fishes!

And this man dared to call himself a "Classicist?!"
Yikes!!!
The best exercise for the reader is to just take
many of the things which Oscar accuses Lord Alfred
of, and turn them toward the self-blind, self-
justifying Oscar, to see their devastating hitting
of the mark. Never having met the young man, but
only having the "benefit" of hearsay (mostly from
Oscar's literary defenders) Lord Alfred seems to have
been calculating, temperamental (using anger to get
his way), manipulative, etc., etc., etc. The best
description of him may be Wilde's referring to him
with the lines from Aeschylus' play AGAMEMNON,
about the lion cub being raised in a house and
being let loose to wreak havoc and ruin.
But Oscar bears his share of blame -- more than just
that of the "sin" of weakness which he constantly falls
back upon in his own justification. Even in the midst
of what purports to be some sort of penitent cry from
the depths of hell...Oscar still is ever the poseur:
"And I remember that afternoon, as I was in the railway
carriage whirling up to Paris, thinking what an impossible,
terrible, utterly wrong state my life had got into, when
I, a man of world-wide reputation, was actually forced
to run away from England, in order to try and get rid
of a friendship that was entirely destructive of everything
fine in me either from the intellectual or ethical point
of view...." Er, when was the last time that the
"everything fine" had last seen the light of day?
Was Oscar an "Artist," as he consistently claims?
Was he the wronged, harmed Artist? Perhaps only the
reader can decide that for himself. Without doubt
he was witty, acerbic, funny, cute, clever, perhaps
even charming (to some -- sort of like a Pillsbury
Dough Boy with flair and a clever tongue), perhaps
stylish (in a frumpy, velveteen sort of way). Was
he wronged by a predatory clinger and manipulator,
and a hypocritical social prudery and class power
play (Oscar is no Socrates--that's for sure!)? He
hardly seems worthy, in some ways, of being a poster-boy
for Gay Pride parades. More likely, he is a better
warning poster boy for the self-excusing, and never
take-responsibility-for-your-own-actions crowd.
But this is an incredible piece to read and think
about. There is some of it that is mordantly hilarious.

One of the most famous - and infamous - letters in all of literature, De Profundis is a strange little piece of work: either much more than it appears on the surface, or much less. It is something I think everyone should read, if only for its insight into the human character, particularly that of one under great personal suffering. Wilde wrote this extraordinarily long letter from prison to Lord Alfred Douglas, his friend, lover, and the man who - by all accounts - was the reason Wilde was in jail in the first place. Despite repeated assertions in the first few pages alone to the contrary, Wilde seems reluctant to blame himself. He clearly blames Douglas to the hilt, and harbors a certain bitter resentment towards him. And yet... he clearly still hold much dear affection toward - and even loves - Douglas. He still seems to be asking for forgiveness - despite the fact that, by all accounts hardly excluding his own, he was the man wronged. It is quite clear from reading this letter that, desite the view history holds of him, Wilde was clearly a man of very high moral character. Certainly, one would not put Wilde atop a pedastal as the zenith of ethics - he himself says that morals contain "absolutely nothing" for him, and clearly admits - and is proud of - his having lived the high life to the hilt during his youth - but Wilde was a man of principles, and he stuck to those principles to the tragic, bitter end. Perhaps you might say he carried them too far. One gets the sense in reading this letter - or a biography of Wilde - that, not only could he have stopped his immiment imprisonment, but could have severed his ties with Douglas completely - had he wanted to. Apparently, he had his own utterly compelling reasons for not doing so. Whatever the case, Oscar Wilde is one of the most fundamentally and perpetually interesting characters in the whole of history. A self-described man of paradoxes - Wilde was subsequently the true essence of his time, while also being far ahead of his time - De Profundis makes for required reading by one of the most endlessly fascinating individuals you'll ever read about, and also provides a startling - indeed, perhaps too much so - insight into human nature.

De Profundis, though long for a letter, is not a long work in the conventional sense. Consequently, as many editions of Wilde's collected works are available, buying this on its own may be deemed questionable. I highly reccommend purchasing a Collected Works of Oscar if you have not done so already - it's well worth the price - but, should you desire to have more compact editions of specific works, an edition such as this will be privy to your needs.

Girl Genius Volume 1: Agatha Heterodyne & The Beetleburg Clank (Girl Genius)Girl Genius Volume 2: Agatha Heterodyne & The Airship City (Girl Genius)
I found the first two in this series to be well drawn and have a very good story. I will be sending this very good juvenile fiction to my daughter.

Great fun, as are all of the Heterodyne books - I especially appreciate the "overdrawn poking-fun-at-Gothic" artwork throughout, and the "biographies" of the contributors. On a side note, thanks to these, one of my friends is actually trying to build a dirigible... oh well!

One slight problem with several of the Girl Genius volumes - the binding is very weak, and I've actually had to get Amazon to replace this one, as it fell apart when I opened it. Luckily, Amazon is simple and easy, and this one isn't their fault - the publisher is being scrooge-ish with their glue. Examine carefully when they arrive, and don't hesitate to send them back for replacements. This series is too good, and too compulsively readable to miss! (or to suffer with bad copies... )

Return to the world of adventure, romance, airships, mad scientists and power hungry Nobles. Agatha Clay, now on the giant airship Castle Wulfenbach, wishes she could leave. Pretending to be the lover of a soldier while surrounded by monsters, angry constructs and talking cats is not her idea of fun.
But getting away isn't as easy as it might look when traveling thousands of feet about the ground while hostage to one of the most powerful men in Europe!

Phil and Kaja Foglio are marvelous. Girl Genius has an engaging, complex plot line; intriguing premise; characters full of personality; and great art - detailed, beautiful, very expressive, and always keep an eye out for what's going on in the background. There is lots of humor in the Foglios' work, with the text and art working together perfectly. The only downside is waiting for the next volume to be published!

This second collection is just as good as the first one (while there are certain aspects that are better, the "raw fun" of the first one is a little more controlled here). There is little I can say to praise it enough that has not been covered in the other reviews or in the description, but I do want to point out something that makes me love this series.

While Girl Genius starts out as sort of a silly story with an odd cast, it quickly exposes one of its themes: the nature of legend versus truth. In this second volume, we begin to see more and more of the legends that build up the world. In contrast, we get more and more hints that legends do not always tell the story as it truly happens. This juxtaposition between belief and reality plays an important part in the storytelling method. False thing become increasingly chipped away at, enabling a story that seemingly is given away at the start a chance to actually grow and mature. Though we are told in Volume 1 what will end up happening, we quicly learn that there is a big divide in the legends and the reality which brings them about.

You end up becoming entranced, nervous, even though you know "the outcome".

Great fun, this series.

I have been programming for years and didn't really realize how much I didn't know.

Mr. Vaughn has been building databases and writing code against them since the beginning. His explanations of DB and ADO evolution is something that every webApp/dba should know.

The book is a fast read, imformative with lots of .Net examples.

Thanks for writing such a great book. I am excited to get the next version.

I am very inmpressed with this book! This is one that will be dog earred.

This is truly an outstanding book. Not only is it extremely well written and "readable" (unfortunately many a tech book is not these days), I feel it begins a dialog of sorts between the developer side of the fence and the database side of the fence (were that there were no fences, alas).

I've visited far too many organizations that work in near complete isolation when developing applications. For those types of organizations, no tool like Team System will improve things: if they don't collaborate already, a tool won't get them to do so.

We need more books like this in the market. Today's technology is so complex you simply can not perform your role properly without understanding the larger picture.

I'm a C programmer, new to SQL and Windows programming.

Bill's book has gotten me up to speed on SQL Server and Visual Studio in record time.

I looked at a number of books on these subjects and this one definitely stands out as being the most comprehensive. At the same time, it is easy to follow.

I highly recommend the book.

Reading the book, it is clear why Bill is a Microsoft MVP. I appreciate how Peter and he precisely describe and assess this complex landscape, including traps and warts. I believe you will also appreciate their deep knowledge.

Depending where you are on your journey to designing and building powerful solutions with SQL Server and Visual Studio, some of the chapters will be more valuable than others. I assure you that there will be sections of the book that are exactly what you need. The knowledge can keep you from making big mistakes, either in your selection of which version of SQL Server to use, in architecture and design, or simply in trying to figure out the myriad of implementation choices you might otherwise try on your own through days and days of trial and error.

As a software program manager, I appreciated gaining an overall appreciation for how the technologies and techniques need to fit together to deliver a successful solution. I especially appreciated the early chapters on architecture, the flowchart showing how to debug a connection on page 142, and other advice scatter through the book.

In subsequent books or articles from these authors, I'd appreciate more architectural graphics, e.g. showing various data access layers, and also a description of how AJAX techniques affect how we should think about building data-centric web applications.

I expect this book to be a valuable reference for many years to come.

Keillor is probably best known in the Midwest where his tales of the imaginary town of Lake Wobegon are heard on many radio stations in that region. This book is set in a variety of real Minnesota towns and depicts life in the rural Midwest. Those from these stomping grounds will easily relate to the short stories contained in this book. But even if you dwell in a California metropolis you will still find a warmth, perhaps uncommon, yet very appreciated. Take, for example, the following exerpt quoted from The Notebooks of Carl Krebsbach:
"It was the annual January thaw, nature's way of arousing false hopes and tempting the good people of Lake Wobegon to let lown their guard and not wear a scarf so that nature can kill them. A form of natural selection to reduce the optimist population and promote the survival of embittered stoics who believe that fate is against them. Which it is.
The thaw means that snow on the roof melts and freezes on the overhang of the eaves, forming a dam to back up the water so it can get under the shingles and freeze and gradually rip our house apart, which is nature's goal, to obliterate us. Nature is not benevolent towards us, it wants us out of here. It's good to know this. In summer, you can almost believe otherwise.
Luckily, summer is soon over. As it turns cold, our mood improves. we're excited. Cold is a stimulant. So is danger. It's good to have nature to deal with. That's why self-pity declines in the fall. People don't sit around and anguish over what to do with their lives. Instinct tells you. You're a mammal. Stay warm. Stay close to the food supply. Shovel the roof. Make babies. Make a few extra in case the wolves get one. And then on a cold night in January, you walk out in the moon light and agsinst all reason, beyodn all expectation, you're utterly happy."

In addition to Keillor's down-to-earth story telling this book contains wonderful photography by Richard Olsenius. I actually bought this book because I am a fan of photojounalistic photograghy. Great writing and great photography, a bookshelf is incomplete without this volume.

I was what you would call a "Noobie" to all of Garrison's work until recently. I picked up this book at a college library after speaking to my mother about the Minnesota author project I was recently assigned. She was familiar with his work and suggested that I look into it....so I did. I never thought that this would open up such big can of worms, and I mean this in a good sense. After reading the book from cover to cover, I went on the internet to find out more about Garrison's work and turned up some very interesting search results. I then read it again and now I guess you could say that I'm hooked on the Lake Wobegon saga and I am planning on picking up a couple of his earlier writings related to Lake Wobegon.
I really enjoyed reading this book and I would recommend this book to anyone who has vast, little, or no knowledge of Lake Wobegon.

I was what you would call a "Noobie" to all of Garrison's work until recently. I picked up this book at a college library after speaking to my mother about the Minnesota author project I was recently assigned. She was familiar with his work and suggested that I look into it....so I did. I never thought that this would open up such big can of worms, and I mean this in a good sense. After reading the book from cover to cover, I went on the internet to find out more about Garrison's work and turned up some very interesting search results. I then read it again and now I guess you could say that I'm hooked on the Lake Wobegon saga and I am planning on picking up a couple of his earlier writings related to Lake Wobegon.
I really enjoyed reading this book and I would recommend this book to anyone who has vast, little, or no knowledge of Lake Wobegon.

Fans of Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" are already an imaginative sort. We know what Arlene Bunsen looks like, or Pastor Inquist. We've got a good idea how Roger Hedlund has been rotating his crops, and the main goings on on Main Street. We don't need pictures of this area because we already know it by heart--we've seen it on the radio. This book does exactly what it should...it doesn't dispel our images of Lake Wobegon, but gives us pictures of its neighbors and people living their lives in rural Minnesota. All the images are sepia toned. With a few exceptions, the subjects are unposed and candid, getting ready for the prom, or readying the field for corn.

The composition of the shots are superb. The short prologue gives a first person retelling of how Keillor invented the town that "time forgot and the decades cannot improve." That introduction, however, is so short that it's almost unfair to say that this is a Garrison Keillor book. He essentially wrote the foreword (although it's not titled that way), and the pictures tell the real story.

My only disappointment is that there isn't any color. Certainly sepia tones give us nostalgia the way we'd like to remember it, but sunset on a farm is something you can't appreciate in shades of brown. Rural life has its monochromatic moments, to be sure, but there's enough color and life to help us remember that not everything is nostalgia.

This gripe doesn't detract from the beauty of this book, though. Thankfully we never see Lake Wobegon, only hints and shadows. It allows us to preserve our preconceptions, but gives us a deeper feeling of connection with the area. If you're a fan of APHC, you probably already own this book (or you should). If not, take a look at a lifestyle that might be foreign to you.

From the Central Minnesota prairie, in beautiful black and white pictures and picturesque prose, here is the Genesis of Garrison Keilor's magical mythical Lake Wobegon, site of "A Prairie Home Companion." Here we get to *see* the strong women, good-looking men, and above average children of and for whom he speaks on Saturday nights. Accompanying Richard Olsenius' stunning photography (how can the viewer not be deeply moved by the picture of the veterans at the St. Wendell cemetery on Memorial Day?) are excerpts from the Radio Show, interviews with inhabitants, and essays and musings from Keilor - like this:

"Culture isn't decor, it's what you know before you're twelve. It sticks with you all your born days. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. You can try to wrestle free of it, like those geese who trail the V-formation, trying to look as if they aren't part of this bunch, as if flying south were a personal decision on their part, but your feint towards independence only makes it clearer who you really are. Some people like hot dish better if it's called cassoulet, or pot roast if it's pot-au-feu. Fine. Suit yourself. Same difference."

Whatever you call those culinary delights, you'll like this book. Come see Father Kleinschmidt's Annual Blessing of the Snowmobiles. Ja, you betcha! Reviewed by TundraVision.