Original Books

TWO FOOLS AND A HORSE is a charming new folk tale in the old style. Children will delight in keeping one step ahead of the characters and will respond to the rhthym and balance of the writing. Rayevsky's illustrations capture well Derby's wry humor in this successful pairing of story and pictures.

A charming old-style folktale matched with bold and lively pictures. Kids will enjoy the humor and the easy storytelling style, and parents reading out loud will enjoy the rhythm and careful crafting of the language. This book is a winner!

Underseeboat 505 is a Type IXC U-boat of the Kriegsmarine, notable for its capture by the United States Navy in 1944, and presently a museum ship at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Codebooks and other secret documents were captured from the U-505 which assisted Allied codebreaking operations.

On 4 June 1944, United States Navy Task Group 22.3 (TG 22.3) captured U-505, the first time a US Navy vessel had captured an enemy at sea since 1815, when USS Peacock seized HMS Nautilus during the War of 1812. The action took place in the Atlantic Ocean, at 21<30N, 19<20W, about 150 miles off the coast of Rio De Oro, Africa. The American force was commanded by Captain Daniel V. Gallery, USN, and comprised the escort aircraft carrier USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60), and five destroyer escorts under Commander Frederick S. Hall, USN: Pillsbury (DE-133), Pope (DE-134), Flaherty (DE-135), Chatelain (DE-149), and Jenks (DE-665).

Underseeboat 505 is a Type IXC U-boat of the Kriegsmarine, notable for its capture by the United States Navy in 1944, and presently a museum ship at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Codebooks and other secret documents were captured from the U-505 which assisted Allied codebreaking operations.

On 4 June 1944, United States Navy Task Group 22.3 (TG 22.3) captured U-505, the first time a US Navy vessel had captured an enemy at sea since 1815, when USS Peacock seized HMS Nautilus during the War of 1812. The action took place in the Atlantic Ocean, at 21<30N, 19<20W, about 150 miles off the coast of Rio De Oro, Africa. The American force was commanded by Captain Daniel V. Gallery, USN, and comprised the escort aircraft carrier USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60), and five destroyer escorts under Commander Frederick S. Hall, USN: Pillsbury (DE-133), Pope (DE-134), Flaherty (DE-135), Chatelain (DE-149), and Jenks (DE-665).

The Uglified Ducky: A Maynard Moose Tale is a children's picturebook with a twist on the classic story of the Ugly Duckling. Author Willy Claflin (adopting the alter ego of Maynard Moose) tells of a hapless moose who becomes mistaken for a baby duck and struggles to learn how to waddle, quack, swim, and fly until he finally discovers the true value within himself. The Uglified Ducky is often told in "moose words"; a glossary at the beginning helps readers of all ages understand such scrambled moose language as "quadrapedagogy" ("A Moose medical term - the state or condition of having four feet, just right for a moose, not good at all for a ducky.") A read-aloud audio CD enhances this upbeat picturebook, sure to delight young people.

Claflin's winning irreverence is combined with affirming messages to produce a completely hilarious and charming collection of tales. His version of the "Three Little Pigs" in alien language is a virtuoso bit of storytelling, and his "Maynard Moose" and other voices provide wonderful variety from this master of his craft.

A wide selection of various types of bread, rolls, muffins, and any other type of baked goods you may want, and all prepared the "old fashioned" way.

I can't find my 30 year old paperback which is missing front and back covers and am lost without it. There are recipes for every type of bread you could want to bake and most of the directions are colored with the author's humor. The recipes come from his family's bakery. I highly recommend it and am about to order a new one.

I've been using Sound Track for a while now. And I love it for a quick and dirty sound track. And although I use the FX options I've never really explored them in depth.
I was really pleased to see Douglas take the FX plugins and break a few out to discribe how to use them. I know it rang a few bells for me. Things I had been frustrated with NOW suddenly made sense.

I am not a musician. The last instrument I played was the basoon (and no one ever asks you to play that in normal social circles).

So to summarize my music knowledge is rudimentary. Douglas Spotted Eagle's is not (cripes he has a Grammy!) But he does lord that knowledge over you, rather he generously shares his wisdom.

This book is an easy and engaging read AND you you learn something from it. Soundtrack is a powerful tool, and DSE opens it wide up so you can get the most out of it. Douglas combines years of music expereince and his extensive background in digital media to craft an excellent book.

This book is a required reference in our office and shoudl be in yours too,

This book is absolutely hilarious. If you have ever been to pre- or post-perestroika Russia, you simply must read it.

Essentially, the book is a tour guide, but one designed to be read (at least to get the full impact of the humor) after you have been to Russia. I could not count the number of times I found myself saying, "That's exactly right!" or "It happened to me to!".

The humor lies totally in the fact that the authors write in an very subtle, straightforward way that makes the "quirkyness" of many Russian customs and traditions seem side-splittingly funny. For example, you are provided with the step-by-step process for bribing your way past the doorman at a restaurant. Or the description of borshch, the beet soup whose "purple coloring will transfer itself readily to fingers, clothes and subsequent bowel movements." (Probably the only example of bathroom humor in the book). The authors are both British, and this is reflected in the understated style of humor in the book.

Once again, do not miss this book!

This is a story of the USSR which is no longer there (except for its people who remain unchanged since 10 or 20 years ago).

Today, you don't have to pay a doorman to get into a restaurant, and floors at Moscow metro are no longer "fit to eat off". However, old ladies in the street will still reproach you for wearing no hat in winter, and your new Russian friends will still make detailed inquiries about your salary and incomes of other "typical" people in the West.

This informal guide to the USSR is very accurate and well-researched and the authors have remarkable attention to every breathtakingly ridiculous detail of life in the State of Workers and Peasants.

If you have never been to the Soviet Union, you will think that some of the things described there are too grotesque to be true.

If you know the Soviet Union well, you will be astonished by the depth of the authors' knowledge; then you will be laughing out loud as, page after page, you recognize one Soviet idiocy after another.

In addition, the authors offer structured explanation of the things you knew only empirically: i.e., brotherly nations are those which embraced socialism; progressive nations are those which have not embraced socialism but are not capitalist either because they are still working their way through feudalism; hard currency is a currency of any nation which is neither brotherly or progressive.

You will read this book in one evening, even if this means reading until 3 a.m. You will then regret that you got through it so quickly.

This book is a rare combination of first-class writing talent, honesty, humour and a subject matter which ought to be handled only by a writer who is capable of not taking even the grimmest issues seriously.

Four unintended results of World War I were the Great Depression, the rise of Big Communism, obviously World War II, and the rise of Fascism. Some historians argue that the rise of Big Fascism may have been the result of the the other unintended consequences. John Maynard Keynes served clear warning of the economic consequences only to be ignored and later, too late, to be proved correct and prophetic. Eugene Weber's book titled VARIETIES OF FASCISM is a surprising informative book on the emergence of Fascism. This small book was well written and very comprehensive for such a small book as a previous reviewer has noted.

Weber begins this book with ideas and trends of the second half of the 19th. century. He traced one source of Fascism to Rosseau's political thinking. Weber also comments on Euroepean economic conditions especially after 1850. Some European merchants accepted Classical Liberalism and laissez-faire economic theorizing as well some some respect for civil liberties. However, when some businessmen and merchants realized that they were being undermined by international corporations and banking institutions, they began to look for other political responces to these problems as Classical Liberalism appeared to be either a failure or too corrupt.

Weber was clear in this book that Fascism was usually a combination of socialism and nationalism. Communism which represented international socialism and class warfare did not appeal to most industrial workers. Weber cited some comments made by European workers who thought that the notions of class warfare and international socialism were ludicrous. Many industrial workers and failed businessmen saw socialism as national socialism which is a key to Weber's book.

Weber treated Fascist movements in Britain (Oswald Mosley), France (Mauras & co.) Belgium (Degrelle and the Rexists), Hungary (Szlazy and the Hungarian Arrow Cross), Germany (Hitler and the National Socialists), Italy (Musolini and the Fascists), etc. Weber was clear that each of these Fascist leaders rose to popularity and some to actual political power based on promises to reform the economic disasters of the Great Depression which in turn can be traced to World War I. Each leader demanded control over the economy but did not want to take private property. The prominent British historian, A.J.P. Taylor, has an interesing comment in his book THE ORIGINS OF WORLD WAR II that Hitler and co. stumbled on the econmics exactly as FDR did with FDR's New Deal.

Weber also made mention of the fact all Fascist leaders exhibited fears of Big Communism. In parts of Central and Eastern Europe fears of Big Communism were very real. Weber implied and Nolte states very clearly that without Big Communism there may not have been Big Fascism. Weber repeatedly mentioned that angry memories of W.W. I on part of both the "winners" and losers were long standing. Any honest historian will state that actually no one won that blood bath.

Weber made interesing comments regarding Franco and the Spanish Phlangists. Weber contended that Franco got control of the Spanish Phlangists before there could be a Fascist revolution in Spain, and Franco used the Phlangists to fight against what was seen as a Communist grab for power in Spain. Franco disbanded the Phlangists and politically harrassed them after the Spanish Leftists were defeated. Readers should note that once the Spanish Leftists were defeated, Franco obstructed Hitler's plans to invade Gilbralter which was British. Franco kept Spain neutral during World War II.

Weber could have mentioned the Bolsheviks which some historians think had Fascist tendencies. For example, Lenin, not Stalin, crushed spontaneous workers' movements early in the Russian Revolution. Borkenau and Nolte commented that both Lenin and Stalin secretly fostered anti-Semitism. If Fascism is defined as anti-Communism, the Stalin regime may have been Fascist. Stalin & co. launched the biggest purges of Communists in history, and everyone of Lenin's followers were destroyed by Stalin' purges. The only exception was Lenin's wife. Nolte makes interesting comments on this phenomenon in his book titled THE THREE FACES OF FASCISM.

Weber's VARIETIES OF FASCISM has a good section of excerpts of Fascist comments made througout Europe. The bibliography is brief but is very useful. For those who want a better understanding of Fascism which has been used too loosely in poltical parlance, Weber's book helps to correct some of the confusion. Again, this is a surprisingly good book for its size which another review has mentioned. This book is recommended.

Prof. Weber begins by finding the roots of fascist tendencies in the thought of Rousseau and proceeds to sift through the substrate of ideas, primarily anti-liberalism (abandonment of laissez-faire and individualism) and nationalism, that fertilized and led to the eventual flowering of fascist movements. That nationalism is collectivistic in nature is a point that is frequently overlooked, and readers will be reminded that nationalism and socialism are both products of the same assumptions. Once this is recognized, it is easy to understand why the author views fascism and communism as not antithetical but rather "fréres ennemis".

He goes on to pinpoint in a very straightforward and persuasive way the general dynamics of fascism. This discussion yields several gems too numerous to list here, including the observation that fascist ideology contains both an equalitarian [egalitarian] AND elitist element...an observation pregnant with implications that go a long way toward explaining why fascism became so immensely popular. The book concludes with a brief analysis of several better- and lesser-known fascist movements that have appeared throughout Europe, along with a list of readings pertaining to same.

This is a compact volume, but its size is deceiving. Readers will find more substance packed into these 191 pages than in most works twice as long. You won't learn everything that is important to know about fascism from this book but as a quick and concise introduction to the subject it is, for anyone with an earnest interest, indispensable.

This extensive checklist is a must for every fan of native plants. I used it extensively when planning my own wildflower gardens! Laara Duggan, author "The Best Flowers for Midwest Gardens"

This extensive checklist is a must for every fan of native plants. I used it extensively when planning my own wildflower gardens! Laara Duggan, author "The Best Flowers for Midwest Gardens"

There is value in reading or re-reading apparently dated analytical works. What value in navigating an antiquated literary critique? This: freshness. Those who view a phenomenon first-hand have a different take on events than we who peer from a distance. The authors collected in THE VONNEGUT STATEMENT were looking at a writer at a mid-career apogee. Kurt Vonnegut had recently released SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE (Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1969), his (to that point, at least) masterwork, and was soon to release BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS (Delacorte Press, 1973). Hot stuff. With the 1996 production of the film MOTHER NIGHT ("We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."), Vonnegut re-entered pop culture (versus literary culture), a connection dormant since the film version of SLAUGHTERHOUSE in the 70s. Vonnegut's goal in that novel was a timeless, spaceless vision, "an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep." The analysis in THE VONNEGUT STATEMENT follows Vonnegut's development of a style and a voice capable of handling the horror of Dresden, the Allied firebombing which destroyed both a city and his own world view. In so doing he moved the Novel out of linear storytelling and into a new form, modelled, as he says, on the novels of Tralfamadore, whose alien citizens know that everything is and was and will be as it must -- "beautiful and surprising and deep." With Vonnegut's death this year, I suspect many will want to pick up THE VONNEGUT STATEMENT once again.

With the great popular and critical success of Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and his earlier novels, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has emerged as a major American writer. He has also written plays, films, stories, essays, and personal journalism for McCall's, Colliers, The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan and other popular magazines, all of which are studied here for their contribution to Vonnegut's world.

The Vonnegut Statement confronts the difficult task of explaining a living and productive writer: how his works came into being, why they became popular, and what may be the clues to their artistic success. Fourteen authorities on different aspects of the writer's career have pooled their efforts to produce a complete and coherent picture of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. as a public figure and as a literary figure, concluding with an assessment of his work. Vonnegut's popular acceptance as a paperback writer, as a nationally prominent personality, and as a hero of college youth is studied with his own development through college and popular magazine writing to his current status as one of the significant novelists of our time.

Jerrome Klinkowitz has researched the facts of Vonnegut's publication and popularity. Dan Wakefield has written a personal essay from the view of fellow-writer and friend. The critic Robert Scholes deals with Vonnegut's early writing as an undergraduate, and also conducts an interview with the author. John Somer, with several other contributors, sums up the achievement of Vonnegut's literary art. The Vonnegut Statement begins with a consideration of Kurt Vonnegut himself, the artistic canary in a cathouse; and it concludes with a study of his cry, on the last page of his most recent novel - "Poo-tee-weet?"
--- from book's dustjacket

I'm a London junkie and also a Dickens fan of long standing, and this is a perfect armchair-traveling book for someone like me. The author has been leading walking tours for years, and has written a number of other books about the city's history and haunts, and he's very knowledgeable about the subject. Dickens, of course, though born in Portsmouth, lived in London for most of his life and is interred in Westminster Abbey. Most of his writing, journalistic and fictional, is set in the city or nearby, and these twenty-five tours, each of them covering a couple of hours of not-difficult walking, will take you through both Dickens's own life and those of his memorable characters. The site of Marshalsea Prison (where Little Dorrit was born) is here, and Somerset House (where John Dickens worked in the Navy Pay Office), Borough Market (in whose doorway a drunken Bob Sawyer slept, thinking he was home without his key), the Cooking Depot (on whose simple meal of meat and potatoes Dickens gave rave reviews), the old Bow Street Police Court (where the Artful Dodger was forced to appear), and the grotesque door-knockers on Craven Street that gave Dickens the idea for Marley's ghostly face at Scrooge's own front door. Nor does Jones ignore other literary associations, whether the birthplace of Sherlock Holmes, the Browning residence on Wimpole Street, the location of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, or the Punch Tavern, where the magazine was conceived. The maps are detailed and most of the tours begin and end at Underground stops, so this volume will also be useful to the traveler on the spot.

I am an American who loves the UK and its history. Next time I go and visit London (regardless of bombings), I plan to take this book with me. For those of you who have read of famous and infamous areas in Regency and Victorian London and wondered exactly how to find them now, this is the book for you. I have read my share of Dickens years ago so I also find all the many Dickensian facts and anecdotes interesting but it is my interest in London of old that makes me endorse this book so heartily. The MANY walking maps are very clear and easy to follow. He also gives the distance and time plus mentions what famous old eateries are on the walk and what days they are closed. The walks generally start at one train station and end at another.