Reviews Books

This collection of poems by bright, up-and-coming writer, Randall Mann, is a stand-out first book. Mann cleverly blends classic form with contemporary themes that challenge, excite, disturb, and inspire readers of these fine works. His poems are neat but not sparse, rich but not overdone, a refreshing and exciting take on themes such as queer experience, Floridian dwelling, and the perlustration of love and beauty. Mann's "Complaint in the Garden" is truly a delightful piece.

I can't stop reading this incredible book of poetry--beautiful poem after beautiful poem after beautiful poem. Mann has a rare gift for describing landscape. His poems about both love and life as a gay man are incredibly moving. But perhaps most importantly, Mann's use of form--particulary in his sonnets and villanelles--is just lovely--and quite brilliant. This is the best book of poetry that I've seen in a long, long time.

Randall Mann lures you into his garden with formal poetic structures and luscious descriptions of Florida. But watch out: Mann's language will pull you around into lands erotic, sad, and sometimes, even a little frightening. It's a dazzling ride. This book won the prestigious Kenyon Prize. Randall Mann is one of the most exciting young poets to come along.

As part of my educational requirements, I was required to write a literature review. While I understood what that meant, the nuts and bolts of doing so was overwhelming to me. Thankfully, I found this title on Amazon. I found this book to be incredibly useful in writing my literature review. What seemed to be the most important factor was that this book lays out a step-by-step plan in writing the review, and what exactly must be done. Additionally, the book de-mystifies the idiosyncrasies of writing style when writing one of these. I firmly think that if I had not found this title, I would have had a much more difficult time writing my review. Highly recommended!

Now in its second edition, Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From The Internet To Paper is an informative guide to identifying, interpreting, and analyzing published and unpublished research literature. Checklists, sample cases, exercises and more illustrate the intricate difficulties and useful methodologies for selecting questions that will make the review most effective, identifying the most appropriate databases, setting inclusion and exclusion criteria, conducting and evaluating descriptive literature reviews, and more. The second edition offers new features including tips for searching the web for research information, flow diagrams to aid the reader in applying each step of the review, new references and other online resources. A scholarly and extremely practical guide especially for students and professionals in need of a strict process to sift through the dross and find the hidden gold within the information highway.

Now in its second edition, Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From The Internet To Paper is an informative guide to identifying, interpreting, and analyzing published and unpublished research literature. Checklists, sample cases, exercises and more illustrate the intricate difficulties and useful methodologies for selecting questions that will make the review most effective, identifying the most appropriate databases, setting inclusion and exclusion criteria, conducting and evaluating descriptive literature reviews, and more. The second edition offers new features including tips for searching the web for research information, flow diagrams to aid the reader in applying each step of the review, new references and other online resources. A scholarly and extremely practical guide especially for students and professionals in need of a strict process to sift through the dross and find the hidden gold within the information highway.

This book mostly covers the area of 7th and 8th grade math cirriculms in New York. Though it helps you to review, the book covers some materials, but not all you need to know for the test. Some 8th grade materials are not covered thorughout the book. The practice test gives examples of how the actual test will be. It gives alot of details of how to solve multiple choice questions,and short and long responses. If you're serious about getting a Level 4 on the 8th grade math test you should buy this book.

Let me tell you if you are an eight grader you must get this book. This book helped me more than any teacher. if you want to get a good grad on the 8th grade assement test this is the book for you.

My students started using this book and they've really gotten the hang of this new question style. The review sections are very comprehensive and the test-taking strategies described and explained in the book are very good. I plan on using future additions of this book and have already budgeted it in for next year. It will help you if you need it.

I find this book very handy as a brief summary for the GRE, but you have to go through the whole course. There is not shortcuts. Remember, this examination does not test your knowledge but your testing abilities.

I have the 2nd ed of this book. I was worried about the math section, not because I'm bad at math, but that I haven't done math for 5 years. But luckily the math on the GRE is middle school math. The book says that there is no college-level math. If there were, only math majors would do well. I like the practice problems and solutions in the book, but the book could've shown the reader more than one way to solve a problem. I remembered how to about 50% of the problems. After reading the math section, I can now do about 75% with out any problems.

Brandon Simpson

Crash Course for the GRE is primarily about the test itself, not the skills the GRE ostensibly tests, so it's suitable for test takers of all levels. It doesn't try to teach you math, reading, or writing; instead, it arms you with strategies (and an irreverent attitude) for tackling the test itself. You'll learn how to find the correct answer to problems quickly, and how to make an educated guess when you can't find the answer. You'll also get advice about how to make the most of whatever time you do have to prepare for the test.

While a selection of practice problems is included, you'll almost certainly want more. If you can afford a copy of Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE with DVD, 2008 Edition, that's an excellent choice. But if $10 is all you have to spend, or if you don't have time for lots of practice, this book will make an excellent companion to the free test prep materials available from ETS itself.

Whether you're studying night and day to get a perfect score, or just looking for some quick advice to avoid embarrassment on test day, this is $10 well-spent.

Well written and straight to the heart of the matter. If this review does not inspire you to purchase this book, you may count yourself among the hard core cases and should consider reading this inspiring work of words again! Our entire family is getting a copy! Once again, Jamie has captured the essence of the book and captivated her audience with her gift for the written word!

The insight expounded in this review far exceeded any preconceived notions that one would have about book reviews and their usefulness. If Jamie continues to spellbind her readers with the elegant and tactful phraseology, she will surely be recognized by the New York Times.

I have never seen or read anything as good as the review Jamie has written. This is her best work ever. I can hardly wait to read her next review. It was right on!!!!

This book is for anyone immersed in the human condition, waging a war internally and silently stuggling externally. Galeano's collection of thoughts and essays and stories stirs the emotions of the reader and forces them to consider the entirety of the Latin American canon of literature as a formidable one. It encompasses genres such as autobiography, biography, testimony, prose, and short story. This is poetry of the soul for the soul, and shouldn't be limited to those obscure literature classes dealing with oppression

is as Galeano define "Days and Nights of Love and War". The author open the memory box and let escape the pain and the love, the sadness and the joy. That is not only his box, it's my box too, all latinoamericans' box. So, when we open it we live.

The personal testimony of one of Latin America's foremost contemporary political writers, Eduardo Galeano's Days And Nights Of Love And War blends memoir journaling with an eloquent history to record the lives and struggles of the Latin American people under two decades of unimaginable violence and extreme repression. Galeano combines straight-forward reportage with personal vignettes, interviews, travelogues, and folklore with an impressive and engaging emotional enrichment that includes anger, irony, sadness, and humor. Days And Nights Of Love And War is very highly recommended for students of late 20th century Latin American political history and culture.

I discovered Florence King while taking a history class at her undergrad Alma Mater - American University in Washington D.C. - where one of her books, Southern Ladies and Gentleman was used as a primer of sorts for class covering the South since Reconstruction. I became a real fan of her writing and writing style, which is possibly the best in American publishing not only of our time, but of all time.

While her only fiction book was a let down, King excels as an essayist, critic and commentator of American life, politics and social comment. Her writing style is something that every person who takes pen to paper believes (mistakenly) that they are using - its concise wording gets to the point and almost jabs you in the eye with its simplicity and ability to convey her thoughts while changing your mind. Think of King as the ultimate guest at your dinner party of dreams, polite, but ready to snip any loose threads of conversation off lest they dangle in the air and cloud her view.

While I am loath to bring this name up, I will say that I believe Ann Coulter probably thinks that she is a writer on par with Ms. King. She is not. I do bring her name up for one reason: Coulter represents the opposite end of the spectrum on which King "write-fully" (bad pun intended) sits, making King the Grand Dame of true Conservative commentary and writing.

In reading King, park your political beliefs at the door and luxuriate in her keen eye for word usage, grammar and thought. If you are so foolish as to approach her writing with any preconceived notions as to your own beliefs, she will skewer you just as the dim wit that you you know you are not. King is not the type of person to suffer fools wisely.

If our national culture were really based upon the high lofty ideals that we think that it is, King would be a regular on Sunday morning political shows, putting their hosts in their place. But alas, America and Americans are a vapid lot, and thus we get what we deserve: Ann Coulter distracting us from her unfounded and outrageous opinions by wearing a little black dress like a hooker on her way home from a Saturday night job.

But we have King in print. While she doesn't enjoy the book sales that Coulter does, Kings works will bear the test of time and one day she will receive the type of honors due her as a real American treasure that she is.

I've long described Florence King as my favorite living writer (my favorite writer, period, is Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, who -- probably not coincidentally -- also wrote for "National Review" for many years). Yet I have avoided reviewing her books here, not only for fear of not doing them justice, but also because so much of how I try to review books has come from reading Florence King's own reviews. At what point is the pupil ready to grade the master?

Reviews are an art at which Miss King excels, which is why I was so happy to discover an advertisement for "Deja Reviews" a few months ago. This volume is a wonderful companion to "STET, Damnit!," the collection of her "Misanthrope's Corner" columns NR published a couple of years ago. "Deja Reviews" assembles about five-dozen pieces from NR and "The American Spectator." Most of them are reviews, but there are also a number of non-review essays including some NR pieces that weren't in the "Misanthrope's Corner."

Miss King is sharp of eye, wit, and pen. She famously has no patience with idiocy, and best of all possesses a wonderful facility with the language. I was about to call it a "gift," but I imagine she might object, rightly, to that word: she has worked hard over many years to hone her skills. It's not a "gift," but the product of time, energy, and mental commitment. I remember her writing once in the "Misanthrope's Corner" that she turned down invitations to go on television to discuss one or another of her columns. "If I had anything more to say, I'd have put it in the piece." I so admire Miss King not only for what she writes, but also for the effort she puts into her writing.

Her effort and skill make for a great reading experience. You don't have to be familiar with the books she's reviewing to enjoy what she's written about them. These essays are up to her usual high standards for style, humor, and dead-eye insight. As with her earlier collection, there's no index in this book, but that just means I'll once again be filling the flyleaves with my own notations. I imagine I'll learn a lot more about the art of book reviewing, and have a wonderful, entertaining time doing it.

These are reviews you turn to over and over again, always with pleasure, always with astonishment. With forever the question: Just how did she turn that phrase that way and capture both the essence of the book and its aims and failures?"

In a better world, Stephen King would be forgotten and Ph.D.'s in literature would be written on Florence King's oeuvre, for her erudition is astonishing, and her work cries out for annotated editions. These collected reviews are no exception, for she tackles everything from history to feminism to biography (her review of Strom Thurmond's life is one of the finest sustained passages of prose in English belles letters). All extremely well written, all as funny as hell.

One peaks at her soul for a reincarnation of Rabelais and Voltaire, for she is as burlesque as the former, and as poignant as the latter. To be reviewed by Florence King is to cower in fear of a withering aside that will haunt you to the grave. I am sure those who have suffered here have even the typeface of more than a few of these sentences burned into their memory.

In summary, this is a work of timeless scholarship and an exemplar of American prose that should stand as a ready textbook for the art of the review. A joy, a revelation, a hearty laugh, a stimulated intellect, a new fact, a valued friend, a companion voice, a hope for the future, and a pleasure of spirit are all available to those who read Florence King. Get it today.

Written over 150 years ago, Democracy In America is even more important and compelling today than it was then. This past fall, I had the opportunity to teach a Government class for my college. My class studied the second volume of this invaluable classic. It was such a pleasure to study it through a mentor's eyes. It truly came alive for me in a way that it never had before as I prepared to teach it.

Despite his young age, Tocqueville was a master at understanding human nature. Volume II is filled with both compliments for American culture and cautionary advice for us as citizens. It's amazing how accurate his predictions and warnings were. We are falling into the very snares and excesses about which he cautioned. I wish that all Americans would take the time to read this insightful volume. If we would simply heed Tocqueville's admonitions, we would be well on our way to rebuilding our great American culture and securing our liberty.

"When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters." ~Alexis de Tocqueville

I didn't think it was possible for Tocqueville's to outdo volume 1 of "Democracy in Amercia" but I was definitely proved wrong! Volume 2 is more deep and philosophical in its approach to understanding American democracy and ties up any loose ends that might have occured in volume 1. A book that needs to be read now more than ever before, volume 2 deserves to be considered among the Great Books of Western civilization.

De Tocqueville was simply of one of the great social scientists writing about America and Democracy. From reading the book I deduced that De Tocqueville was a social scientist before Marx! He compares European culture and government with the fledgling culture and democracy he observes in America. He is very much impressed with what he sees taking place in America in the 1830's and hopes it will spread to Europe. He at first believed that America's prosperity was simply due to geography and their distance from powerful neighbors, he abandons this idea after his visit to America. He comes to realize that the West is not being peopled "by new European immigrants to America, but by Americans who he believes have no adversity to taking risks". De Tocqueville comes to see that Americans are the most broadly educated and politically advanced people in the world and one of the reasons for the success of our form of government. He also foretells America's industrial preeminence and strength through the unfettered spread of ideas and human industry.

De Tocqueville also saw the insidious damage that the institution of slavery was causing the country and predicted some 30 years before the Civil War that slavery would probable cause the states to fragment from the union. He also the emergence of stronger states rights over the power of the federal government. He held fast to his belief that the greatest danger to democracy was the trend toward the concentration of power by the federal government. He predicted wrongly that the union would probably break up into 2 or 3 countries because of regional interests and differences. This idea is the only one about America that he gets wrong. Despite some of his misgivings, De Tocqueville, saw that democracy is an "inescapable development" of the modern world. The arguments in the "Federalist Papers" were greater than most people realized. He saw a social revolution coming that continues throughout the world today.

De Tocqueville realizes at the very beginning of the "industrial revolution" how industry, centralization and democracy strengthened each other and moved forward together. I am convinced that De Tocqueville is still the preeminent observer of America but is also the father of social science. A must read for anyone interested in American history, political philosophy or the social sciences.

I am more than satisfied after I received the book and actually took a read. The book is well made and organized, containing super rich content in a compact size. I also found those photos in good quality.
Along with the book you also get the access to the Student Consult online which I think still needs improvement. The software took a lot of time to synchronize with my PDA and it generates many un-coded letters.
But anyhow, this book itself is worth the price. A must read for new dermatologists.

I bought this book a month ago,read it thoroughly and find it quite intersting and informative.It is different from the books usually written on dermatology.All questions asked are very common,informative and the one which are usually asked in the ward rounds and clinical meetings.
I recommend this book to all the dermatologists !

Another excellent secret series book that covers must of the essential dermatological facts that must be known by any health care provider. It includes lots of good quality photographs and interesting facts. Certainly, this book is worth the time and the money.

Reading Dime-Store Alchemy is a fine way to get to know Joseph Cornell's work (and of course Charles Simic's). Simic uses a writing style which pieces together different elements of Cornell's favorite authors and poets, beautifully reflecting the montage operation created by Cornell himself. As Simic ambiguously reveals aspects of Cornell's life in New York City, the reader finds him/herself on the same search for an understanding of beauty that the artist spent his entire life investigating. Don't miss it!

Then you will love this book of short essays and responses to Joseph Cornell's work by our Poet Laureate. It's amll and without a dustjacket, quite elegant and easy to take with you to read when you find yourself with a few spare minutes.

This elegant book reminded me of "Einstien's Dreams." The book is about the genius of imagination. Cornell's provincial life gave him the opportunity to observe his world closely and let it expand into his art. The writing by the poet Simic is a piece of art in itself.