Roger Books

A must for all food lovers traveling to New England. One of the few books for those who travel to experience food, rather than eat while they travel.

A few reviews I have seen of this book elsewhere expressed surprise that it wasn't a restaurant guide or cookbook. Thank goodness it isn't! There are plenty of New England cookbooks and restaurant guides, but *this* book isn't meant to be either. Instead, it's a travel guide centered around local foods. "Eating New England" directs you to places where people make and sell good food and don't mind putting the process on display, from farmstands to factories, so that you can not only get something tasty and locally produced but also learn a little something about where food comes from. The book is a good resource for planning road trips, or for checking out what local food producers you can visit in a given area.

If you live in New England, you probably already know where in your area you can pick your own berries or apples, or where you can find the closest place to eat lobster caught in sight of your table, or where you can buy goat cheese and pet the goats that helped make it, but if you're even an hour away from home and care about this sort of thing then you'll want this book.

I should point out that there are a few restaurants which seem to have been included because they showcase local foods, but they're not the focus of the book. There are also a couple of recipes as a bonus, but if they'd included more recipes and restaurants there wouldn't have been room for the more interesting stuff you can't find easily elsewhere.

This book, the Ecology and Silviculture of Oaks, absolutely rocked my world. Never have I read such a moving, overwhelming discussion of oak trees. Wow. I may seem a little biased because author Steve Shifley is my rockstar father (yeah, Dad!), but this coming-of-age tale of oak trees in a changing, oppressive urban culture is truly a tearjerker. Well worth the [$] I paid for it. Buy as many copies as you can, because all the proceeds go to fund my college education. Once again, READ THIS BOOK! It'll alter your worldview- forever.

Foresters and other land managers usually have to rely on shelves and boxes full of books, reprints, bulletins, and notes for the information they need about the ecosystem they are concerned with. Here, between two hard covers, is a great wealth of carefully selected, clearly organized, and creatively synthesized knowledge dealing with the biology and management of American oak forests and woodlands.Chapter titles will indicate the diversity of subject matter: Ecology, Regeneration Ecology (flowering, fruiting, and reproduction characteristics), Regeneration Ecology (population dynamics),Site Productivity and Stand Development, Development of Natural Stands, Self-Thinning and Stand Density, Even-Aged Silvicultural Methods, Uneven-Aged Silvicultural Methods, Multi-Resource Management, Growth and Yield, plus seven appendices. There are numerous sub-topics within each chapter, greatly amplifying the diversity of information. There are many illustrations, graphs, flow-charts, and photos. Each chapter has its own lit cited, about 90% of which are from 1990 or later. As a tree biologist I read the sections on acorn dispersal, vegetative reproduction, and growth, and found all to be clear, accurate, and current. This excellent technical volume should serve as a model for the digestion of information for all significant forest tree genera.

This book combines humor and wit with lessons appropriate for all ages. The author is able to paint a clear picture of the joys of being friends with people who are different. The illustrations are fabulous, and you will want to read this book many times over.

Our entire family loves this book. It is a wonderful tale of friendship and love (And a little bit of comedy too ^_^). We read and re-read this warm fuzzy book all the time. We would recommend this book to anyone!

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. As a teacher I thought I had a pretty good grasp of world religions. This book enlightened me even more. Easy to read without being condescending or patronizing. Excellent photos and graphics throughout. And it covers a broad range of religions from all over the world, even some that are no longer being practiced. Every page has internet links where you can research more information. A worthwhile purchase!

This is a wonderful book. It took me hours to read and I read it thoroughly and slowly to absorb everything I could. Later, I'll use it as a resource, but this book is great! I have never read an encyclopedia of world religions that was so complete and interesting. The writing is great. I'm crazy about the Usborne series and my students love them too. I'll have to say goodbye to this book for awhile as my students will be grabbing it up.

William Roger Louis is a giant among scholars of British imperialism. The editor of the "Oxford History of the British Empire", for nearly half a century his scholarship has helped define the field. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Suez crisis he has collected his essays related to that defining episode. These not only cover the incident itself but a number of related topics - for as he explains, "the Suez crisis can be studied as an episode in decolonization and that decolonization itself . . . can best be understood in the context of the long colonial era extending from the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 to the death of Nasser in 1970 and the withdrawal of all troops East of Suez in the following year."

Louis groups these essays into ten categories. After an introductory overview of Suez and decolonization, he provides an essay on colonial empires in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and four on "the scramble for Africa". These are followed by four which examine the First World War and the mandates system, two on the British possessions of Singapore and Hong Kong, and four on India, Palestine and Egypt, which are linked together by the theme of impending independence. After five essays on decolonization in general, he includes six on aspects of the Suez crisis itself and four more on Britain's withdrawal from the rest of the Middle East in its aftermath before finishing with three essays on the historiography of his field.

Though all but one of these essays have been published before now, bringing them together allows Louis to draw out three main themes. The first is the one which occasioned the volume - the study of Suez in the broader context of decolonization. This last, failed effort to hold onto the empire through force led the British to attempt to maintain some vestige of their influence through more informal means, which is the second theme of his collection. Finally, as British control gradually slipped, new states emerged throughout Africa and Asia; it is the consequences of their emergence which forms the final theme Louis emphasizes.

Taken together, these essays represent a formidable body of work on one of the key developments of modern times. Though some of the essays have been reworked, the basic scholarship within them remains as informative and insightful as it was when they were first published. Delving into the pages of this book provides insight not only into the demise of the British Empire, but into how it shaped and defined the world in which we live today. No student of British imperial history should be without this volume, and anyone interested in understanding the twentieth century will profit from reading it.

The Ends of British Imperialism provides an excellent survey of how the British Empire rose to prominence in the 1800's and then began a decent after the second world war. This book is a collection of William Roger Louis lifetime essays and focus on different aspects of the process. William Roger Louis is one of the most respected scholar's on this area of British history and these essays are a treasure trove for anyone wanting to understand why the British Empire fell. The collapse of empire is often described as happening in four main events. The fall of Singapore, the independence of India, the Suez Crisis and the winds of change that granted independence to most of Africa. This book covers all of those areas but spends the bulk of the time on Suez and analyzing its importance in the fall of the empire. It is very well written although it can jump around at times due to the fact that it is a collection of essays and not a continuous book. Also for the historians out there it does have a decent summary of historiography in the last three chapters that really give the reader a good sense of what the general historic community has to say on this topic and for those wanting to read more it will be an invaluable guide to finding more books to read on the subject and what their arguments say. All in all a superb book and one that should be read!

Enduring Echoes was written by my father so I am a bit biased, but this is truely a book worth reading over and over. My dad's collection of short stories (all of which are loosely based on actual life experiences) and poems are not only entertaining, but have a whole new meaning and value in "post 9/11" society. From Vietnam to the Cuban Missle Crisis, the Cold War and beyond, this book tells what it's like to be an American and why it is so important to value and protect the freedoms that we have learned to enjoy and that we take for granted. The book has tales of war, romance, family, and much, much more. It will make you laugh, make you cry and make you proud, but most of all it will make you think about what we have, how we got it, and why we must fight to keep it. I feel it is a "must read" for any military serviceman, veteran, or anyone that values the sacrifices our young men and women make every day in the name of freedom and the American way of life. A great gift for any military member, especially those serving overseas and in harm's way as it is a powerful source of inspiration and a reminder of why they are there and what they are fighting for!

Before reading Enduring Echoes I didn't have any idea about how truly dangerous the Cuban missile crisis was to all of us.And how it changed our history.The stories and writings in this book made me at times laugh,and at other times made me have to hold back my tears.It educated me,made me sad,made me happy.It also made me proud.It gave a new understanding of human beings.I'll never again jump to conclusions about people I don't know.I do know I will go back and reread parts of this book over and over again.It is worth more than five stars in its ratings.It is always enlightening and a pleasure to read a book such as Enduring Echoes

Sincerely

Norman Deloge

A colorfully illustrated celebration of the often expensive slot car hobby, with fascinating narrative & anecdotes covering the trajectory & evolution of scalextric product worldwide, from rudimentary beginnings through endorsement by real Formula 1 Champion Jim Clark in the sixties, up to the digital present. Contains a plethora of pictures of the people, cars, sets, scenery, accessories, etc., including detailed historical product line index in the back. For enthusiasts of all ages!

This is a comprehensive recap of the Scalextric toy line. A must have for any collector or someone interested in slot cars. It is a real help in figuring out if something is really a "collector's item" or identifying odd individual pieces. This is the goto Scalextric answer book.

The first thing that hit me in this book was its exuberance. It reminds me of "The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony" for its sheer joy in pressing ahead. Miller isn't afraid to let his sense of humor show, either. But, no mistake, this is a serious work of scholarship, deep and detailed.

The book starts off with an evolution of the hero, from the Greeks, through chivalry, the Renaissance, straight on to present day's concerns with the hero as he gets explained by anthropology, sociology, and psychology.

The next chapters deal with elements in the hero's life and adventures: his remarkable birth, strength as a youth, threatening family, problematic sex life and requisite death; his landscape, both exterior and interior, and his relation to the otherworld, to his quest, and to his king. Variations of the quest are laid out, including its structure in time (maturational, sequential, and the effect of the otherworld on times of day and year), and the hero's costars (helper, sovereign and woman).

In a chapter ironically titled "The Hero 'Speaks'" we find the many nonverbal ways the hero is expressed and described, from physique and coloration, to gesture, to weapon and armor, combat, and finally to actual speech, which is generally just as violent as his actions.

Next Miller takes up other characters the hero comes upon (or sometimes is), including the trickster, the smith, and the comic coward. He further discusses color and the hero, with an interesting passage on black, green, and other knights.

The hero exists on the edges of our experience; his relation to the shaman, to the gods, and the line between life and death, are discussed next.

The conclusion draws all this together into a series of graphs that show the connections of different hero types, the hero to royalty or to a trickster, and to the other characters in his life.

I read this book hoping for another point of view after reading Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" and other related books. I assume most readers who, like me, are not academics, will find this book for much the same reason. So some comments about the two works might be worthwhile.

Miller is not trying to draw all of human experience and mythology into some single linear form. As he says, he isn't interested in the monomyth. He limits his discussion to epics with Indo-European roots. This is a comforting strategy when set against Campbell's inclusion (and shaping) of many many cultures, with the problems that raises.

He also doesn't limit the discussion to what fits. Some heros, for example, will have childhoods that make it obvious they're something special, but some don't fit that mold, and may be entirely unpromising.

The problem (well, my problem) with Campbell is the limitation of the monomyth; not only is the story line constricted, its psychological meanings are too concerned with Freud and Jung. When you hear someone say that in myth, water represents X, suddenly this becomes a game of finding the correct meaning for the symbol, makes *everything* a symbol, and leaves me feeling like I've been watching a fortuneteller explaining away dreams. Surely by now we can subscribe to a different view of psychology, symbolism and meaning.

Miller, by refusing to create a central character and storyline that will explain all his examples, lets the literature be as vibrant as it wants to be, as problematic and multivalent. I found myself wishing at times that instead, he would create multiple spines for stories, a limited but useful number. This would sacrifice accuracy, but would offer more anchors for the discussion. I suppose I came to his book expecting a multimyth rather than monomyth, but that's not his intention. Then again, he gives the apparatus for constructing that kind of multimyth on one's own, so maybe that need can be fulfilled after all.

This is a lively, bountiful book, scholarly, aware of the possible pitfalls, and exuberant in its pursuit of the hero in all his epic forms.

If you're searching for the definitive compendium about all aspects of epic heroism, this is the one book to buy. The author quotes famous as well as lesser-known epic stories, drawing mainly from Norse, Welsh, French, Balkanian and Persian sources among others, profoundly analyzing and interpreting the cultural specialities of their protagonists as well as their striking similarities, sometimes pronouncing obscure and even humorous aspects and episodes. The book is academical and down-to-earth with a lot of footnotes and cross-references, don't expect an esoterical, over-simplifying Campbellian take on the subject matter. Thankfully, Miller keeps a certain ironic distance which results in a more entertaining read than I expected. For writers, especially in the movie business, "The Epic Hero" can be a real treasure, a source of immense inspiration - not from the structural point of view, but regarding the many details, themes and characters Dean A. Miller puts on display here in his great effort. I consider it the perfect companion (though not a surrogate due to its different scholaric approach) to Christopher Vogler's "The Writer's Journey" of which it sometimes appears to be an accidental yet very valuable continuation.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and that is why I read. It was interesting from the beginning, had me wondering if some was fact not fiction at least until near the end. The book did not get bogged down anywhere. The kind of book I love to hate, one I can't stop reading.

In a word this book was terrific! You don't see the plot twists coming. It is a fast paced, action packed, entertaining book that you can't put down.

An outstanding book. It has given me new insights into creativity. Having read many books on the subject, I feel its consideration of Asian as well as Western ideas about creativity supplies a fresh perspective. It also taught me practical ways of improving my own work, an almost-finished historical novel about British India, the field of my Harvard Ph.D. in history.

Which brings me to another strength of the book: It is accessible to a non-psychologist like myself. It has a minimum of jargon, a fine bibliography, and lucid style.

To solve our age-old problems we need new ways of thinking. Ruth Richard's very valuable collection of authors on everyday creativity show us that creativity is a force that is alive, fluid and interconnected with everything in the universe--it is truly revolutionary. It shows us new ways to think about the world and create a healthy future.
Ilene A. Serlin, psychologist, author of Whole Person Healthcare (2007, Praeger). Whole Person Healthcare [Three Volumes]