Pennsylvania Books

This book explores with depth and and perceptiveness the different forms Women's activism taking place within sub-saharan africa. With africa's image being over-shadowed by war and political conflict this book offers an even handed look at what is happening on the round, and how women themselves are effecting change.

After The Smoke Clears: Struggling To Get By in Rustbelt America by Steve Mellon (a journalist and staff photographer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) is an informed and moving chronicle of the rise and fall of the steel and mining industry in America. A tale of the communities surrounding the employment bounty of the steel mills, and the struggle to survive when the closure of this employment bounty left a void in people's ability to support themselves, After The Smoke Clears is a compelling and highly recommended saga of twentieth-century American history enhanced with black-and-white photography.

Amazing! Brewer's book reveals an astonishing precedent for some of today's literary afterlifes. With the advent of the Web and cheap, ubiquitous access to it, fans of some books have published unauthorised sequels to those. For example, the Draka novels of S M Stirling have attracted short stories expanding on various characters. To some extent, this also happened before the Web. But the ease of accessibility and of other fans finding such sequels has led to a rise in this practise.

What Brewer shows is that some two hundred years ago, this also occurred in Britain. Readers of Gulliver's Travels, say, wanted more than what Jonathan Swift was able to deliver. So some talented readers took matters into their own hands and wrote bootleg sequels. It is unclear if they ever made much money doing so. But perhaps it was a combination of opportunism and love of writing.

Perhaps to some extent, the phenomenon was also a function of much less choice in those times. What did one do for recreation, before TV, radio, movies, recorded music and video games? Reading was only one of a few possibilities.

Brewer's monograph displays considerable scholarship. He clearly has researched many obscure and long forgotten manuscripts in this masterful analysis.

This is a verse translation of Walter's most important work and the only English transl. that's easy to get one's hands on. If you'd like to get the Latin text, the most recent (& supposedly best) edition (there are only two, the other long out of print) is by Marvin L. Colker, who uses the Italian form of Walter's name: Galteri de Castellione. The ISBN is: 88-8455-147-1. (I had to order mine from Rome.)

The translation here by Townsend is very nicely bound and will make a reasonably good pony/crib for a verse translation; Colker's Latin edition on the other hand, even though it's not that old, has raggedy oldschool binding with rough edges on the pages and you have to cut each page at the top (they should reprint it in nice new hardback), but whatcha gonna do? The lines are numbered and there's a complete ap. crit. at the bottom.

Though nobody reads this anymore, the work is part of a very cool tradition of Alexander romances, is the immediate source for the Old Norse /Alexanderssaga/ (not translated into English but available in German if you don't read Icelandic), and is quoted by Chaucer on the assumption that any literate person will of course catch the reference. I hope you enjoy the work & I hope this helps; b[u]ona fortuna!

I am a doctoral student in ed policy and use this book in my research...but, don't let THAT scare you! This book is an interesting read and well-written! If you think it's time for American educators to respond appropriately to religious minorities in our society, you will find this book helpful.

Great pictures from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. They really brought the rescue alive! I loved the book.

This book might be the most well researched of the entire series. Try as I might my wife the genealogy guru and I could not find a simple error in the text, and that is saying something with regard to some of these volumes. If you are from Pittsburgh or are one of the many ex-patriot Pittsburghers scattered about the land you need to pick this book up and lose yourself in it from cover to cover.

I remember being 10 years old and watching the PHILLIES winning the World Series. A defining moment of a boys childhood. It's great to remember, be reminded and relive that time in ALMOST A DYNASTY. Kashatus does a wonderful job discussing THE PHILLIES history, the farm system, outside influences that effect baseball (free agency, players strikes, etc), individual players; weaving it into what is almost like an enjoyable, well-researched thesis paper. If you a fan of baseball this is a great read, and if you're a PHILLIES fan this is a must read.

The history is well researched and very informing. The pictures are well chosen for the subject matter and very pleasing to the eye. This is a great book for anyone interesting in seeing the way it was.

I found this book to be a very interesting look into the past. It is especially of interest if you are familiar with the area. If you love to research local history,I would highly recommend this book.