Iowa Books

I probably can't describe this book any better than the above articles and reader reviews, one reason being that this book represents an example of truly original writing. Heynen's style is truly his own. (To compare his style to Ernest Hemingway's---as one newspaper review does above---is simply lazy and misleading.)His stories are spare but often very poetic. There are not a lot of details, but there is always the right detail, often presented in a way that will stay with you (I doubt I'll EVER forget the image from "Eye to Eye".) In short, a tremendous book.

I've been a fan of Jim Heyden ever since a friend introduced me to his The Man Who Kept Cigars In His Cap not long after it was published. He is a master of the one or two page sketch that illuminates a sliver of human behavior.

In this collection, you feel as if you're listening to a keen observer, a quiet storyteller reminscing about childhood on a midwestern farm - corn, pigs, cows, chickens i.e. very diversified farming. The characters consistent primarily of the boys, the youngest boy, the men, with guest appearances of the preacher, town boys, and grandfather.

Whether you're reading about the preacher who passed gass, the gypsies at the old school yard, grandfather teaching the boys to make firefly flashlights, the youngest boy hiding in a dip until a dandelion seemed to breath, hunting June bugs with old ping-pong paddles, you'll enjoy the honesty, earthiness, innocence, and style of these stories.

Literature that will change the world? No. Literature that will be known in a century? Probably not. But for pure delight, especially if you were raised on a farm, this book is great fun.

Heynen has been writing about "the boys" for years; this is a collection of the many stories he has written. "The boys" are an indeterminate number of boys growing up in the rural Midwest. In the course of their days, they find insight into many aspects of life, death, love, friendship, and an amusing number of encounters with animals and small town bureaucrats (if there is a distinction). Humor ranges from a chuckle to laughing out loud, and poignancy ranges from a knowing nod to fighting back tears. This is lovely writing.

I discovered this book while rummaging around in my high school library and fell in love wiht it almost instantly. Most of these stories are short enough to fit on a postcard, and I don't think there's a proper noun anywhere in the book. These characters are merely "the boys"--but they wouldn't even have to be *boys*, as far as I'm concerned. The stories are about tiny events - electric lights, rat-tails, the coming of spring - but Heynen, with just a few deft words, gets you to see and feel them, and opens up all kinds of wellsprings. But I'm babbling; the stories speak for themselves.

There is hardly any book for CRNE review , and sure this one is excellent.
we really need more of such books in areas like Obstetrics , psychiatry.

El libro esta muy completo, verdad que sip, con todo y los apartados de maquinas sincronas que lo hacen mas completo, God bless you!

Although old but this book is really one of the top books in the area of power system stabilization and control.
The book provides the principles of electrical machine modelling which are explained with many examples. The last chapter gives a brief idea of modeling of multi-machine systems.

This is the only good source where you can find a decent exposure to the dynamical modelling of the power systems, the details given in the book were very helpful to conduct my research. There are other books around but they are either incomplete or too detailed or a major pain.

After completing "Through Different Eyes" I felt a part of the journey; I was right there with the immigrant child throughout her impelling story. A gifted author, J. Barbara Alvord's very personal, vivid, detailed and historically-correct vision of her grandmother's difficult and emotional journey from her homeland to America is reminiscent of the joys, hardships and opportunities experienced by so many of our own family members. The story left me wanting to know more about Anna Barbara's adult life; the ultimate compliment to the talneted writer's story-telling ability,

Through Different Eyes is skillfully written. The book is based on the author's grandmother's life as an immigrant. What I like best about the book is that it reads like fiction and educates like non-fiction. The details and descriptions make the times and places come alive. I fell in love with the main character. All the characters add to the richness of the story and make you want to keep reading. The book was an emotional experience that evoked all my senses. It will hook you on the first page.

Educator/Writer J. Barbara Alvord has written a book that captures your interest in its very first line: "It was pouring rain that day in April 1992, as I stood on Ellis Island...". "Through Different Eyes" spells out the poignant and loving story of her grandmother Anna who arrived at Ellis Island, knowing no English, in 1903. Alvord has created for us a touching biography of Anna, a 14 year old peasant girl who was uprooted from her small Czech farm community to face the rowdy melee that was New York City. Six weeks later she made the long, slow trip across the country to an Iowa farm.
One of Alvord's notable skills is her ability to effortlessly weave into the book the historical events in Europe and this county during 10 years of Anna's life. In addition the epilogue lists occurrences in her story starting where the book ends. Despite upheavals in her life, Anna continues to live on until 1956.
Alvord's piercing eye, her years of research, and her superb writing skills have yielded an infinitely compassionate book of her beloved grandmother, an immigrant.

J. Barbara Alvord manages to make history come alive in this biographical tribute to her Czech grandmother. Honest and painstakingly researched, including a visit to the archives in the Czech village of her grandmother's birth, it encompasses the childhood and young married life of Anna Mrkvicka. The book resounds on every page with wit, truth, and human interaction that are all brought to life in vivid images. Impossible to choose favorite passages, I will name some that may be more universal in interest to readers. Those would include the Czech village with its strict school run by unforgiving nuns, and its burdens and realities of village life; the astounding Atlantic Ocean ship voyage to Ellis Island and the days waiting on the Island; life in the early 1900s in New York; and the harsh family hierarchies found in the "simple" farm life of central Iowa. Through Different Eyes weaves a complex history with a loving, gutsy, sometimes humorous, always grippingly real look at the early 20th century American immigrant experience. A pleasurable mix of a young woman's determination, spiritualism, and ability to meet significant life challenges; this book belongs in every family's library somewhere near Louisa May Alcott and Willa Cather. It is one of only a few books that I relish rereading.

Trace of One is searing, stunning, intensely meditative journey. Goodman mines the possibilities of language to penetrate our deepest emotional core. Think Hopkins brough into the 21st century--blending the lives of saints with the complexities of modern science, nature, philosophy, and the day to day difficulties of a secular life. Trace of One is not an easy read, but the rewards one reaps are more than worth the effort. These poems will stay with you long after you put it down.

Joanna Goodman's debut collection is stunning in its virtuosity: in the complexity of its language, its use of metaphor, its ferverent desire to trace lines of connection. Poem after poem makes clear why the book won the Iowa Poetry Prize. Goodman, whose work has appeared in some of our nation's best journals, challenges her reader, demanding a nimbleness of mind, a willingness to take the poem on faith at first. If one continues to read, the sounds of the poems and their far ranging images and allusions reward in moments of estatic vision. As she says of a beech tree in March: "Pale gold, acrylic gold, / fledglings of wind-stream, slipstream, / late light's flexagon--where's the inroad?" It is the inroad Goodman seeks in poem after poem, and as we follow, she lets us see more clearly into the nature of things that only poetry can reveal. A splendidly conceived volume!

I enjoyed this immensely. Goodman is careful where she ought to be and, more importantly, bold when it counts. I thought this was a good debut and will definitely read her next.

In a poem in this book, Joanna Goodman says that every word is a choice over another sound. These poems sound incredibly beautiful. & the thinking in them is always fascinating. The poetry in this fantastic first book is absolutely modern & very erudite, informed, wholly self-aware. I recommend it highly. & I look forward to more from this dazzling poet. She's very exacting in her writing. I think it will take a while.

You will find ways to cope with tradegy. Nothing is going to make the pain go away, but to find a balm is comforting.

Gregory Clapper was an Air National Guard chaplain in Iowa when United Airlines flight 232 crashed. Over one-hundred people. Clapper ministered to the families of the victims, those who survived, and even members of the various National Guard and governmental agencies involved in sifting the wreckage.

His book is not a thrill-seeking story. It is a thoughtful spiritual reflection on the crash. Clapper examines small interactions and relationships . In these reflections Clapper offers six resources for living with tragedy, something which we cannot escape. His resources range from embracing the essential mystery of life to releasing the tears to living with hope. This evocative book brings forth tears and joy and a sense of God's reign in the midst of imperfection.

Considering the numbers of tragic events (e.g., ethnic cleansing, high school and grade school shootings, natural disasters), this engrossing book is a must read.

Feels a little like reading the news online about the latest airplane tragedy, but the author is dealing with the aftermath of an airplane crash some time back. Despite the time difference, the author's focus on the spiritual ways to deal with tragedies (whether the crash of an airplane, a car accident, a tornado, a divorce)seems very helpful and should spark some conversation among religious people and religious seekers. How do we find the answers to the mystery of tragedy? Clapper does not offer anything easy, though he writes in a way that is comprehensible. A book worth reading before the tragedy happens.

This book feels real. It talks about faith and spiritual resources in order to live in the aftermath of the disasters that happen. That simply happen. No one's fault. Just there. I've lived through tornadoes, hurricanes, divorce, deaths. Enough to ask the "Why" question, but that seemed like the stuff of a never-ending all-night conversation . This book assumes that the horrors happen and then it helps people receive the spiritual resources to live through the tragedies. That may sound easy, but the author is not a fundamentalist with pat and trite answers. Clapper shows his intelligence by insisting that we accept the Mystery--not passively quitting, but actively accepting and living with Mystery. That is not an answer I've seen very many church preachers give, but the author builds well on this premise.

What's truly unique and appealing about this book is the way it blends significant intellectual inquiry with the joys of a good dish session. One minute we're hearing about a specialized moment of poetic influence and the next we're in a smoky bar watching how a beloved poet conducts herself in front of fans and foes. In Efforts and Affections, we discover the connections between the poems, the stories behind the poems, the surroundings that are the trappings of the poems and finally, the poems themselves, which, after all that gets said, are even more tasty.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in contemporary poetry. It offers creative writers, academics, and general readers alike rare insight and entry into what the editors call "the clamor and community of contemporary women's poetry." Efforts and Affections reveals a richly textured map of poetic influence, a wide-ranging genealogy that includes a variety of poetic schools. It's an important book for and about women writers in particular because it gives voice to a diverse group of women poets whose mentors have provided them with an alternative to the "anxiety of authorship" that has historically characterized women's writing. There really is no other book like this out there.

This book rocks. Everyone who thinks they may like poetry should check it out. I don't usually like poetry, but these essays were truly engaging. I couldn't put it down, even when my wife tried to pry me away with a lucious slice of chocolate cake.

This is a must-read for anyone interested in poetry. The essays are thoughtful and interesting, and they are followed by poems by both the younger poets and their mentors. It's great to get to see the actual work immediately after reading about it. This book is engaging pleasure reading, but could also be the basis for a whole semester of study. Fascinating and well done.

Robyn Schiff's poetry is beautifully smart. Her work is moving, intellectual, and not at all your run-of-the-mill poetry. Everyone should buy this book to help support this artist.

Schiff is a poetic genius. Worth is a small masterpiece.

Schiff's work is simply beautiful. Filled with both real and surreal images, Schiff has a true talent for the written word and the reader can't help but succumb. Her topics are original, the prose outstanding. Even those who aren't poetry fans will admit to being swept away. A must for everyone's library.

Schiff's poems make use of a wide range of vocabularies and texts; throughout this collection, the reader comes up, again and again, against pleasurable surprises. Well worth buying and reading.

As most anthologies inevitably have, there are a few poems here that don't speak to me, but the rest just floor me. I love this book. Great stuff, Suarez and Van Cleave. Good, solid choices.

it was delightful. I'm not even a fan of poetry, but this is the only book I didn't sell back this semester. I was surprised by how powerful so many of the poems were. Really a good book, one of the best I've read in awhile.

This is an exceptional anthology for teaching students about contemporary poetry, and the experience of being exiled. I can't believe such a book finally exists. It makes my job easier as a teacher of English where the poetry lesson has always been such a hard-fought battle to win. I highly recommend it to all teachers (9th-College).

This book contains page after page of richly colored Amish quilts in a variety of patterns and settings - literally a rainbow of quilts! At times I found the text to be a bit dry, but the background and historical information was very thorough and definitely worth reading. The author has put together a wonderful, well-rounded collection of quilts that will inspire you to want to make a few of your own. If you are a fan of Amish quilts, you will absolutely love this book!

Sara Miller is Amish and owns her own quilt shop out on the family farm near Kalona, Ia. Who better to have the best collection of Amish crib quilts ever. Crib quilts are used hard and loved to shreds by their owners. These quilts are beautiful rare quilts that have survived childhood. I lost my first book of Sara's quilts that I bought from her at her store 13 years ago. I was very happy to find the current version on Amazon, so I could purchase it again for my quilt reference library. If you love quilts, this book is worth owning.

This book presents beautiful and clear color photographs of the Sara Miller Amish crib quilt collection, combined with the authors' detailed knowledge of the Amish quilting experience. Not having known much previously about Amish quilting, I was surprised by how beautiful and modern in appearance the quilts were. If you love to look at photos of interesting quilts, and are interested in American history, this is an outstanding book.

There are many excellent canine anatomy references available, but for really visualizing anatomy, this is best. The illustrations are the best I've seen anywhere, done in large, beautiful color. The text is bare-bones; but that's appropriate for an atlas. It's not a replacement for Miller's, but this is FAR more useful as an atlas.

I do love pets and all animals and I did enjoy the book very very muc

I bought this as a backup book to Millers for my years in Vet Med at UCD. This book has become a favorite as the the pictures are very, very good when it comes to anatomy texts (and I've got 5 of those, so I think my opinion is valid). Just like any anatomy text, there are a few things here and there that a course may ask you to know and it's not in there but overall it had most everything and was very useful. Oh, and it is much thinner and lighter than Millers for lugging back and forth from school to home.
Also the appendices are FABULOUS, they cover many extra topics, from detailed radiology info to a huge section on clinical and functional anatomy where it list parts and says a few important clinical things about it.
I wouldn't recommended it as a replacement for Millers but as a secondary addition to it.