Vans Books

I was given this delightful book in 1982. The recipes are easy to follow and friends often ask me for the recipes .The Bobotie pie is a real favourite.
I have used this book so much it is falling apart, but to my delight I have found new copies on the internet using [...]
For any newly weds this would be a must as often a recipe I cant find in other books I see it in Magdaleens book.
Thora Angell

This is my bible of cookbooks. I have had a copy for 25 years and have never had a recipe flop or prove to be a diaster. The recipes are easy to follow and the ingredients tend to be easily available. The book has an excellent section on cuts of meats and how to best cook them. It also has a conversion section that is concise and extremely useful.

For those wanting South African recipes this book offers many. From koeksisters to bobotie to biltong to boerewors the recipes are excellent.

I have often found that the baking sections of many general cookbooks tend to be less then great. This is not true of "The Complete" cookbook. My husband has managed to make scones using the basic recipe! My daughters have both learnt to cook using this book and have rarely had any failures.

This is a cookbook that allows cooks from basic to advanced the opportunity to find good recipes that offer a variety of choices and many new recipes that will become family favourites.

This book is a must for anyone who is serious about collecting Morgan or Peace silver dollars. The exhaustive listing of significant die varieties, together with detailed illustrations, makes the identification process a breeze.

other reference like it for the different die varieties of these popular dollars. If you buy this book, also purchase "The VAM Keys", a list of the top 100 Morgan Dollar varieties.

This is one of the important books of gifted education that teachers and researchers must buy.

This book is a terrific resource. As usual, VanTassel-Baska knows what she's talking about!

I bought my copy over 20 years ago and it remains my favorite
book on this topic. Why? Completeness and clarity of
presentation. Not to mention that it is generally well-
written. I have other, more recent books in this area, but
if we ever have to evacuate this building in a hurry, Vlach
and Singhal is the one I'd grab on the way out the door.

I used this book in Graduate course. I found it very useful. It covers most of the theoritical and graph techniques for circuits and network analysis. All the methods are discribed in a clear way along with examples and problems. This is good for upper level undergraduate courses and a "must" for graduate students. This is the Text you are looking for, to use for your courses and for Ph.D. comprehensive exams. I'll keep it with me until I retire...

This book is mandatory reading for any political science major. In a media driven age where the truth is intentionally distorted to further political agendas, Adam-Slabbert&Moodley provide the cold-blooded truth about the hypocracy of contemporary South African politics. In so doing, they lift the veil of piousness surrounding the 'heros' of the apartheid struggle and reveal the true motives of these modern day pirates. Extemely thought provoking reading.

"This timely book is comparable to a seminar on contemporary politics in South Africa. The authors are all veteran analysts of South African political changes since the 1960's. In South African terms, they are moderate left. Thus, they avoid the triumphalism of the celebrants of the demise of apartheid and instead comment searchingly on the dilemma of promoting liberal democracy while engaging in massive attempts to reduce inequality... Part serious-popular history, part comparative political analysis, part sociology, part academic journalism, the discussion is not for a beginner but for the reader already initiated into South Africana...The conclusion is rather sober: politics in the future is no longer about race but about the underclass challenging the "liberation aristocracy." Highly recommended for upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and researchers." -H.Glickman, Haverford College Taken from: Choice. June 1999

The late Norman Del Mar wrote a series of guides on conducting works in the orchestral repertoire. They are not aimed only at conductors but are of great interest to music lovers generally. You will however need to have copies of the orchestra scores he discusses, and be able to read them. But there is no complex musical or philosophical analysis - these are practical guides which go straight to the music itself.

Del Mar wrote with a refreshingly direct, no-nonsense style. Even if you think you know the Beethoven symphonies very well, Del Mar will alert you to many new details and insights. I heartily recommend this book.

English Conductor and teacher Norman Del Mar provides a detailed and enlightening approach to to the conducting student of Beethoven Symphonies. Modelled on Felix Weingartner's book of the same title, Del Mar provides through his countless experience insights and pointers to any hopeful would be conductors. All the traps concerning the performance of these symphonies, including structure, tempi, balance, orchestration, phrasing and articulation are all discussed. Humorous anecdotes are also included. Any student of conducting, or student of Beethoven must have this book, in as much as a guide to how Beethoven Symphonies were performed in the 1940's.

Please note the human rights and restorative justice content which gives a positive dimension to the discussion of the oppression dynamics which otherwise can get quite dreary.

I am quite familiar with Dr. van Wormer's work and have read other books she has written, as well as numerous articles in professional journals. Her current book, like her other works, is excecptional. What I really like about this book is the many definitions and examples of oppression, discrimination, injustice, and social justice. These examples are made more real with her personal disclosures as a young woman and as a professor in criminal justice and sharing poetry from her mother. She decribes issues related to all powerless and oppressed groups, including women, African Ameicans, Native Americans, Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexual Persons, and Latinos. I also like the model that she describes for conducting a policy analysis of unjust policies, and both professors and students in social welfare policy courses would find this model extremely helpful. She discusses the strength perspective and restoratice justice, both needed perspectives in the justice field. Last, within her appendix is the U N Declaration of Human Rights and the articles contained therein, which provides and outstanding of humans' rights in the United States and developing countries. This book brings not only a remarkable book for teaching in academia, but also for the general public who are interested in fully understanding oppression and discrimination.

A great collection of essays. I learned a lot. My favorite essays were: (2) Naturalness revisited: why westerners should study Confucius, (3) Ren and Li in the Analects, (4) "What does Heaven Say?", (6) Whose Confucious? Which Analects? (7) Confucius and the Analects in the Han, (9) Unweaving the "one thread" of the Analects 4:15, and (10) An existentialist reading of book 4 of the Analects. I highly recommend it.

The other book reviewer asked rhetorically, "why does Confucius continute to be a source of fascination?" Confucius had a penetrating view of humanity. The book under review is a stimulating academic book, but it does not bring you in touch with the transforming power of Confucius's lessons. To appreciate the power of Confucian lessons to change lives I recommend the book by Robert Canright: "Achieve Lasting Happiness, Times Secrets to Transform Your Life."

Confucius and the Analects is an important collect of studies on a pivotal figure in world civilization.
Editor excerpt: Imagine a person who has an influenence on his native tradition comparable to the combined influence of Jesus and Socrates on the Western tradition. Such a person was Confucius.
The similarities continue. Although all three were literate, perhaps all highly so, neither Confucius, nor Jesus, nor Socrates left behind any of his own writings. We know each only through the later writings of his admirers and detractors. In addition, each had a distinctive, charismatic, and complex personality. These three common features have made each the object of love, hatred, admiration, denigration, and debate for over two millennia.
Though Confucius is referred to in a variety of early Chinese texts, one of our most important sources of information about him is the Analects, a collection of sayings, brief discussions, and observations by and about Confucius, his disciples, and his contemporaries. Despite its great importance, prior to this volume there has never been a collection of secondary essays in English on the Analects. This volume is a collection of essays on the Analects, and on Confucius as seen (primarily) in that classic.
For the last two millennia, most scholars (whether Eastern or Western) have taken all twenty "books" of the Analects as an accurate record of what Confucius and his disciples have said. But scholarship in recent centuries has become more suspicious, investigating such issues as the historical composition of the text of the Analects and the sectarian motives behind various conceptions of Confucius. Consequently, the essays in this anthology are loosely grouped into two sections (based on an aphorism from Analects 2:11: "One who can keep warm the old, yet appreciate the new, is fit to be a teacher"). "Keeping Warm the Old" consists of essays that do not call into question the view that the received text of the Analects represents a coherent worldview. In contrast, the essays in "Appreciating the New" either call into question the integrity of the received text of the Analeces, or explore aspects of the image of Confucius that have been neglected by some of the dominant interpretive traditions.
Why has Confucius been, and why does he continue to be, such a source of fascination? One easy answer is that he has been a symbol for a variety of different (and often contrasting) things: meritocracy, aristocracy, traditionalism, rationalism, aestheticism, "feudalism," secularism, wisdom, ignorance, Chinese culture, virtue, hypocrisy, and "the Orient." On this explanation, Confucius is almost a cipher that functions to mediate our interest in other ideas and institutions. This explanation is not completely inadequate. All of us, at our worst, reduce Confucius to the father figure we either love or love to hate. However, I am enough of a traditionalist to believe that there is something about genuine classics that draws us to them, again and again, independently of accidents of historical association or privileging. Some texts and thinkers touch on central aspects of human life in a way that is elusive, yet unendingly evocative. Confucius was such a thinker, and the Analects is such a text.

If a church is going to be discussed, it is less likely to be the Orthodox Church.
If it's an Orthodox Church, it's unlikely to be a Non-Chalcedonian Church like the Coptic.
If it's the Coptic Church, it's less likely to be the monastics.
If it's the Coptic monastics, it's highly unlikely to be a discussion of women.

So this is a rare book on a subject no one speaks of. When Abba Shenouda, the Coptic Pope, is asked about the number of monastics in his church, he lists only men. Pieternella performs a great ethnography on the Coptic Orthodox Nuns, discussing all aspects of their life in an extremely satisfactory etic study. She looks at the long history of monasticism in Egypt, and, because of the dearth of resources on nuns, we also get to learn a lot about Coptic monks and ecclesiology in the process. Pieternella lists the various forms of ministry that women have available to them in the Coptic Church- contemplative nuns, active ministry nuns, and quasi-deaconesses. She convincingly demonstrates how, in the Coptic tradition, contemplation is a more valuable pursuit for the monastic than is service for the poor and social justice work. She compares the monastic situation to the wider culture- the opportunities for women in Coptic Orthodoxy and the Muslim hegemony to show that monasticism is the best opportunity for religious advancement available to Egyptian women. It is only here, especially as Abbess, that a woman can become a spiritual authority figure, even to the point of performing the charisma of healing of men. And Pieternella doesn't just give a Western look at these monastics. She is to be highly credited for not falling into the myth of the excluded middle, in which the personal miraculous is ignored and does not exist. She looks in great detail into the supernatural, the mystical, prayer life, and saint hagiography. In this study, you get to learn all there is about a group that most don't even know exists. These are the women who have devoted their lives to love of others and serve through work and prayer to the Eternal Listener.

The general editor's preface to this volume states, "If books treating Christianity from a comparative religion standpoint are rare as hen's teeth, books in English treating Coptic Christianity from any perspective are far rarer" (p. vii). Pieternella van Doorn-Harder has thankfully reversed that trend. She reminds us of early lessons: listen to those who live their own history, write what they have said and meant to say, and write without casting too much of a personal shadow on the text.

Van Doorn-Harder's academic rigor sets her in critical solidarity with the subjects of her study and their ecclesiastical institutions. Her direct writing style joined with life experience sets a sympathetic tone for a text whose dissertational structure might otherwise have proven dull and pedantic. She aims at highlighting and describing how contemporary contemplative and active Coptic nuns have developed their place in their church and in the context of modern Islamic Egypt. The roots of this monastic tradition are found in the lives of the earliest monks, Antony (251-356) and Pachomius (292-346). The author points out without ambiguity that there is little written history of Egyptian convents, except for scant references to the twelfth century. She concludes that this "heritage is more or less confined to the centuries prior to the Arab invasion. What came after the invasion remains rather opaque" (p. 33).

The modern Coptic monastic rule of life is not a set document as it is in the numerous contemplative and active communities of Roman Catholicism. The singular rule for Coptic monastics does not yet exist. References to early patristic tradition and the needs of present-day bishops in consultation with convent superiors establish lines of authority, prayer life, ascetic practices, and bread-and-butter issues. In the case of the active convents, the type of social involvement also shapes both their ascetic life and the economic requirements of daily living.

The nineteenth- and twentieth-century revival of the Coptic Church is at the source of new religious lifestyles. Contact with European convent life and the Egyptian Islamic context have helped shape the lives of these Coptic nuns. Questions confronting all religious orders in Christianity are raised: authority and its exercise, the role of women as role models and leaders, the relations with the non-Christian community, and finally, the demands of the spiritual life in a modern society: "the key words for the situation of female monastics seem to be transition and redefinition" (p. 197).

The author neither shirks nor skirts the difficult issues. She shows a prudent restraint in being nonjudgmental with questions of possible conflict. One example is male authority and female competence, about which Van DoornHarder states, "This situation forms a potential source of friction within the highest levels of Coptic male hierarchy who on the basis of their interpretation of scripture, tradition, and culture, cannot tolerate self-reliant women" (p. 201). Photographs accompany the text. Notes, a glossary of Arabic words, a good bibliography, and an index complete a welcome and much needed study.

This book is extremely powerful, down to earth and pragmatic. In no uncertain terms, it clearly and concisely lays out exactly what to do and how to act in personal and business relationships to increase ones power, influence, prestige and popularity. Don't be misled by the language of the books title and other titles by this author. This isn't a book on how to gain power by being a backstabbing, dishonerable little person. Instead, it describes how to lay the foundations of true power by becoming indispensable to other people and meeting the basic motivating needs that drive us all. If you work in ANY managing capacity at all, you NEED this book. As an added benefit, these techniques can be used to dramatically improve the quality and quantity of your personal realtionships and family life. One of the best books I have ever read.

This book really offers pratical, down to earth methods on how to improve your conversational skills, it also very specific that it touches on the various aspects of different situations offering very prudent and experienced advice on dealing with live's expreience. This book not only teaches about conversation but also touches on the skill of relationship and how to deal with people respectfully without offending them even though they are unreasonable, deflecting their verbal offences in a subtile way that does not offend them so that you can win them over as friends.It also teaches you about dealing on the different kinds of communication in business, at work and at a social gathering.
This book is a great value for money offering many wise insights to enhance your communication skills and must be kept in your bookshelf as an invaluable reference.