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I really enjoy Mary Daheim's Alpine series. I love the characters, who are all a little quirky. This was one of the best. If you want to read a fun mystery series this would be the one! I'm anxious to read the rest of the books.

I really enjoyed the characters and setting in this book. I like the main character and would be willing to try earlier books in the series before the author started padding the book to make it 300 pages instead of 200. Three hundred is simply too long. Many scenes repeated themselves without further revealing character or advancing the plot. I feel it's the publishers who want the books to be longer so that they can charge more for them. Let's tighten up these mysteries and cut to the chase.

I really enjoy Mary Daheim's Alpine series. The characters are like real people. Sitting down with Emma, Vida and Milo is like sitting down with old friends for a guaranteed good time. Not only is there a good mystery, but the people are more than just words and descriptions. I look forward to each one of her Alpine books. Each one keeps getting better, and finally Milo and Emma are progressing

Emma Lord, owner and editor of the Alpine Advocate was just going to Stell's Styling Salon to get her hair cut. The last thing she expected was to open the wrong door in the Salon and discover a woman laying on a table with her throat cut.

This happens in the first pages of the book.

Emma is even more stunned when shop assistant Laurie Marshall tells her the person on the table who was supposed to be getting her facial was Ms. Whitman.

Honoria Whitman, who was in a wheelchair after being thrown down the stairs by her abusive husband who was then shot dead by her brother, had been the Sheriff, Milo Dodge's on again / off again girlfriend for almost five years.

It was a relief when Emma found out it wasn't Honoria, but Kay Whitman, her sister-in-law who was visiting with her husband Trevor, who had just been released from prison for the killing of Honoria's husband and their mother.

But who would want to kill someone who is perfect stranger in Alpine. And was the fact that she had taken Honoria's appointment at the last minute mean that it was actually Honoria who was targeted?

Emma's finds a lot of suspects. Stella Magruder, owner of the shop seems more upset over what people will say than the fact that someone was murdered in her salon.

Becca Wolfe, who was doing the facial and who later mysteriously disappears.

Laurie Marshall, shop assistant who is a very dim bulb and her mother Jane are both acting suspicious as if they're trying to hide something.

And why is a billionaire, Toby Popp building a new multi-million dollar house near Alpine?

This is the best book in the series so far. It takes all the history you have already learned and the people you have come to care for and throws it all into the wind. Nothing is as it seems.

Highlights:

Emma and Milo having dinner at her house, bumping heads as they lean over to pick something up and end up rolling around on the floor for a few moments, before his cell phone rings and he becomes Super Sheriff again.

Ginny Burmeister, the office manager is on her honeymoon in Hawaii with Rick Erlandson's, so Emma is trying to do her job as well as her own.

Carla as usual cannot be trusted with the simplest task which is why the picture she took of the bereaved family has a caption naming Honoria brother Trevor as Walt Whitman.

Leo, the ad manager has turned into a good friend for Emma and Ed Bronsky wants her to ghost write his biography.

I can't write about the best thing that happens in this book. Except that I'm very happy with a turn of events that has been dogging this storyline.

This book had some very funny moments and the ending totally surprised me. I never saw any of it coming.

Can't wait to start the next book.

Baghdad Bulletin is a fantastic collection of entries of one journalist's experiences. It provides enlightening insight into current political and military struggles.

The title of this book is deceiving. The words "Real Story" implies that the writer at least provides an accurate account about the unfolding events, which he doesn't. The words "the War in Iraq" give the impression that David was there during the last days of the regime when America launched its Operation Iraqi Freedom. He wasn't.
David Enders, a college student in his senior year, went to Beirut to finish his BA but then interrupted his semester to go to Baghdad a month after its liberation and the downfall of the Saddam Hussain regime on April 9, 2003. Deciding to embark on a journalistic project, the little-experienced English Major graduate of the University of Michigan and a group of like-minded, young and in-experienced friends decided to start a publication, the Baghdad Bulletin. David was its editor.
Meeting him in Baghdad at the time, it took me no time to discover that David's background about the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular was minimal. His Arabic was even worse, a fact which made him, like most other foreign reporters in Iraq, depend on native translators with their less-than-average English, in order to get a feel of things.
True David was courageous enough to tour different parts of the country, but at the time when he was able to do that, all other foreign and American journalists where also able to do it. In order to avoid anachronism, we have to keep in mind that violence in Iraq - in its current form of an anti-American insurgency - erupted at least six months after liberation. This makes of the first period of David's stay in Baghdad relatively calm, but not safe of the insecurity due mainly to post April 9 organized crime and looting.
David's lack of background and language made him report on Iraqi events from the perspective of a complete stranger, often copyediting pieces that he published in his magazine rather than editing them for content verification.
David's weakness is evident in his book, Baghdad Buletin, which is more of a reporter's diary, with the exception that the background information provided is often erroneous. A good example is his confusion between Mohammed Baker Al-Sadr, the founder of the Islamic Daawa Party, who the Baathists killed in 1980 and Mohammed Sadeq Al-Sadr, the father of today's famous young cleric Muqtada.
David's style, however, is attractive. If you are into supporting the career of a young, ambitious and adventurous writer, buy this book. If you want a reliable source or a record of the events of that period, don't.

Who are the insurgents? There are radicals, mercenaries, bank looters, conservatives, old government leaders and more. Kurdistan is safer and is already a defacto independent country. Portions of southern Iraq have also set up some beginnings of independence. Most of the turmoil is in central Iraq. The author has written a vital independent book covering the war and insurgency in Iraq. If you want to really know what is going on there, this book is a big plus.

The author of this book is our only published source of info. from this angle of the Iraq war, which is so crucial. I appreciate the fact that he is not pretentious like most journalists who try to be erudite human thesauruses, but uses his true, raw but articulate voice to give us a glimpse of what the situation was like. We need more of these insider views of Iraq, especially from those who had the guts to step outside the rope instead of only going where they have to in order to get a basic, vague story. Thanks for putting yourself in the line of fire so the world could understand what it's like.

This book is a must have if you collect Beatles memorobilia. It's the most complete guide I have ever seen.

This 240 page, softbound 3rd edition has more than 400 full color and over 400 large, sharp photos covering more than 1,500 Beatles collectibles. Many of these items were not previously documented. There are more than 300 new items from the previous editions of this book. You'll find plenty of text accompanying the pictures, descriptions and values. Topics range from Yellow Submarine, pinback buttons, books, magazines, sheet music, record promotion, trading cards, to fan club items, concert tickets, original ads and how to identify repro and counterfeit items. A treasure trove of information and a joy to browse. Every Beatles fan will enjoy !

This 225 page softbound volume (3rd edition) contains a wealth of information for the Beatles fan. It covers every type of Beatles collectible. Major topics range from Yellow Submarine, Pinback Buttons, Pennants and Books to Movie Items, Record Promo Items, Fan Club Items, Trading Cards and concert items. Scores of items are pictured in full color and black and white. Each item is described in detail. There is even info on reproductions and counterfeits. Everything is priced, although prices are from 1997. Every Beatles fan, collector or not will enjoy this great compendium. Add it to your collection.

I was disappointed with this book due to the fact it needs to be updated from 1997. It only covers Beatles memorabilia, not records or albums. Didn't cover autographs. Only covers pricing for early Beatles items, nothing current or the Beatles as individual artists. If you need a price guide for early items and don't mind the book being outdated by 4 yrs, this is the book for you.

It has been a very long time since "American" food was limited to burgers, hot dogs, and apple pie. Today's Americans, no matter where they originally came from, enjoy the widest range of cuisines on the planet. This delightful book both acknowledges and celebrates the diversity of the American palate.

Contributed by some of the top chefs in the world, the recipes in this book are far from stuffy or overly complicated and instead manage to be well presented and easy to follow. The chefs also offer their personal tips for faster preparation or variations to adapt the recipes to taste. This is not a "for-special-occasions" cook book. While the food looks fantastic and provides real depth of flavor, each recipe slides easily into the normal rotation for the average cook. Whether you are a novice or an experienced cook, this book is called "The Best" for a reason.

Rarely do I read a cookbook, and I read a lot of them, and think that every single recipe sounds fantastic--this is the exception. A yummy, easy to follow compilation of great recipes! The tips and notes from the authors/cooks after each recipe are practical and time-saving--helpful for both the novice and experienced cook. AND the authors picked their favorites from the favorites and listed them in the front for a no-fail pick if you are in a hurry. SMART. I haven't looked at previous "best of" books by these authors, probably the format is similar. I might have to buy them too! It's clear that they have made each and every one of these dishes. I have made three things out of this book--all wonderful. If you buy one cookbook this year, make it this one.

I own every book in this series, and each one of them is excellent. I have a huge cookbook collection, and this series accounts for 6 out of 12 of my "essential" category.

Each volume has several recipes that people rave about for weeks after I make them. I love the format--interesting write-ups, useful tips, and a nice re-cap of the year.

This isn't my favorite volume of the series (if I had to pick a favorite it would be 2000 or 2001-2002), but the yogurt cheese balls, the greek meatballs and the berry clafouti are some of the biggest winners in my repertoire.

The older volumes are practically free on Amazon Marketplace.

I was excited to get this cookbook when I read all of the other reviews but when I finally got it and started looking through it, I was disapointed. First of all, there are no pictures in the book. I like to see when the final result is supposed to look like. Also, all of the recipies are very fancy. Like panchetta crisps with goat cheese and pear, fig and peanut salad with arugula and mint, beet salad with horseradish and fried capers, or turkey carnitas on mesclun greens with tangerine vinaigrette. Anyway, it was just not what I was expeting for an Americans recipies cookbook. Hope this review was helpful!

The Greek News is a fun book which clarifies Ancient Greek history and makes it clearer. It is a great supplement to another more dense book on the history. I think reluctant readers would get more information from this book and I enjoyed it myself.

This book was truly helpful in the classroom. It is a great intoduction to the Greek world. It is an ancient times new paper filled with a lot of factful information about Greek life in today's modern langauge. Kids learn about what the Greeks ate, what they wore, who went to school and who did not, about their government, religion, every day customs and even every day utensils used back then. I found myself being fascinated by this book the first time I saw it because it is a great fountain of information in just one small book. I learned a lot too!! It is not a text book, but it has just what you need to introduce the Ancient Greeks to your students.

This book has been the greatest help for my greek projects. In this book you get an easy explanation of the greeek culture with out a lot of dry information. It's an easy read and something one can get the best info from. Especially culture and war though it does an article on both dsacrifices to the god and the oracles. Easy and fun IF YOU ARE A TEACHER PLEASE PICK THIS BOOK! Your students will enjoy it! :)

This was a great book. I used it along with my studying of Greek History in school. I would read out of my textbook and other books then find a section in this book to read about. It helped me understand Greece a lot better. I enjoy the little cartoons and fake advertisements put in. The articles are written in many different forms including: interviews, traveling reporters and submitted articles. It is a fun book to read and I really loved it. This book is great for anyone either studying Greece or just interested in the subject. Age 13

Inman does a wonderful job of telling the story and developing his main characters. A must read for any reader who is nostalgic about their Southern heritage.

The clatter of a moody Linotype ready to spit lead at the ceiling. The rattle of a typewriter. The eye-watering smell of ink on a hot summer evening, press night. The taste of good whiskey, shared with an old friend at the other side of the desk. The clutter that seems to be the required décor for any tradition-abiding hometown newspaper office.
If there's one thing that author Robert Inman has down pat, it's the atmosphere of a community newspaper, circa 1944.
And he uses that setting as an integral part of a story that is both comic and tragic, the story of Jake Tibbetts, the cranky owner/editor of a small-town southern weekly inherited from his grandfather, a Confederate war hero.
Jake and wife Pastine are raising their grandson, Lonnie, whose alcoholic, irresponsible father Henry is disowned, disinherited and thoroughly despised by Jake. Henry joined up with the National Guard. He's fighting in a hellhole called Bastogne.
In the meantime, Jake handles all matters on the homefront in his usual manner, stubbornly and cynically trying to control friends, family and the town.
"Home Fires Burning" is a story that surprises (the first chapter is a fooler), amuses with its cast of cornball characters, thrills with its flashbacks to the Civil War, and ultimately delivers thought-provoking messages about honor, the futility of foolish pride, and forgiveness.
It's worthy of your "must read" list.

As an avid reader, I must declare this as one of the best books I have ever read. Well written and engaging, it is a colorful story that I will encourage others to read. I'll put it as the #3 book of all I've ever read. (#1 being _Watership Down_ and #2 being _Travels with Charley_.)

"Home Fires Burning" is a wonderful book about the snarls and knots of our family ties, the mental imprint of the past that edits our daily lives, and day-to-day experience of small-town Southerners surviving and struggling while a Great War rages far away. Jake Tibbetts is a somewhat crotchety, stubborn maverick who edits the local newspaper. He is troubled by his estranged relationship with his son, who has gone overseas to fight for his country. Inman nicely details the history of this family's father-son relationships down through the years and their effects on people from boyhood to their twilight years. Vivid characters and relationships abound, and the portrayal of small-town life in the 1940s is slightly sentimental yet realistic. Inman seems to go out of his way to create strange first names, which I thought went a bit overboard: Tunstall, Ideal, Rosh, Biscuit, Fog, Pastine (any Johns in town?), but this is a minor quibble. Also minor: I don't always believe that Jake is eloquent enough to write for a newspaper, but it's clear Inman does know the ins and outs of the business in the '40s; also, the scenes late in the book where a character comes back from the war seem incomplete and impact-less. Still, this is a marvelous book that will stay with you. Tibbetts' complex character and the genuine webs of interaction among the other townspeople are a great achievement. The book probably could have used a slightly better editor, but is in general highly recommended.

Newsthinking by Bob Baker is aimed at journalists, and certainly they will get more benefit out of it than they would from a
4 year college course. But even more important, the advice here is essential for EVERY type of writer, not just journalists.
Baker teaches us how to see things from the READER's viewpoint, how to hold their interest, how to make your material a "must-read". This shouldn't even be called a "textbook". It is the polar opposite: it's lively, fun, and totally unpretentious.If you have any aspirations of being any kind of writer, this book will give you the edge you need to succeed. It did for me.

A comment from a former Los Angeles Times writer who has had the benefit of Baker's insights firsthand. This is a unique book whose author is known to insiders as both a top writer and the staff member the Los Angeles Times selected to help their top writers get even better. Baker is an author who realizes that good journalism isn't as just about stylebooks and grammar and accuracy, but also about identifying the core of real stories and how to extract strands of fact, quotes, and style on deadline and weave them together fast. it's helpful for future purchasers to know that this isn't a teacherly book, but someone who backs his recommendations with a real life understanding of how newsrooms move. how many other journalism textbook writers have their own rock bands?

This book attempts to help journalists figure out the thought process that goes into organizing stories. To that end, this is a helpful tool for anyone who has struggled to piece together all the facts of a complicated story as well as coaches who are helping writers organize their thoughts into a coherent, flowing series of sentences. The problem is that it also is a difficult read that is full of complicated flowcharts and takes a long time to get to the point. But if you can get through it, you will come away with a better understanding of just how it is you get from the notetaking stage to the printed page -- even if you've never thought about it before.

As an editor at The New York Times, I have seen how even the best and smartest reporting benefits from careful organization and precise writing. This book shows how to do it, in terms that speak to young writers, veteran journalists or anyone who wants to communicate with authority and engage readers with lively prose driven by facts.

I've read every book I could find about Katharine Graham and the Washington Post -- and if you're only going to read one, this is it. Complex business dealings are explained clearly, people are approached evenhandedly, and scandals (public and private) are discussed without either shirking or sensationalism (and with a lot of citations.) The book focuses on the personalities of these fascinating people, making for a riveting story.

Ever since I read Halberstam's the Powers that Be, I wanted to read more in depth about Kay Graham. She is a fascintaing character: taking over the Post after the suicide of her manic depressive husband, she was the one to bring it to greatness. Not only did she overcame fear and terrible personal insecurity, but with Watergate and the Pentagon Papers she earned a place in history. That is not bad for an heiress that everyone dismissed as a figurehead when she took over.

Unfortunately, Felsenthal brings few new revelations to her well researched and long book. The facts are there, as is much of recent US history, and this is extremely well covered. Instead, what she adds is more on the level of back-biting gossip, such as the tales of her dysfunctional children, her fickleness at the office, or her insensitive quips about money ("you mean you have to live on your salary?" she is quoted as snottily and incredulously asking a reporter.) At times, the book has the flavor of personal pique: you can tell that the author doesn't like her subject or resents as her undeserving.

Felsenthal even seems bent on undoing the reputation of her star editor, Ben Bradley, whom she portrays as a capable courtier manipulator of Graham. While this perspective is useful, it appeared biased to me, too consciously against the grain of popular (admittedly perhaps mythic) image. Essentially, she portrays Graham as a twit who will do whatever the last person with whom she spoke advised, hence Bradley knew to be "the last person" to speak to her. I do not doubt that there is much truth to this, but Graham also did come down on the right side when she made the big decisions. Is her entire image romantic PR puffery? The author seems bent on convincing the reader that this was so.

However, if you don't know the story of Kay Graham, this is a solid introduction. Recommended with reservation.

This is an excellent book about Katherine Graham, former owner and publisher of The Washington Post. Katherine is initially, for all intents and purposes, ignored by her family throughout her youth. Little attention is bestowed upon her as her father, Eugene Meyer, runs The Washington Post and her mother, Agnes Meyer, socializes with every powerful individual she possibly can. Katherine perseveres through these harsh circumstances only to have her husband, Phil Graham, blow his brains out in the bathroom of one of their homes during a respite from an insane asylum. Katherine takes control of the newspaper (and company behind it), makes it the most influential paper in the nation, and becomes the most powerful woman in the world in the process. I recommend this book for any individual seeking a source of inspiration. This book should, and will hopefully, inspire many downtrodden people the world over for years to come.

Biographer Carol Felsenthal turned her fine talents ro Katherine Graham and produced a top-notch bio, one which the reader can easily understand, and feel for, the housewife-turned-Fortune 500 businesswoman. What sticks in my mind is how Graham's distant mother finally decided to talk to her daughter about menstruation, to which Kay replied, "I started that last year."
Rich detail such as this makes it easy to see why Readers Digest condensed the book, and opens up a controversy over just how much of Felsenthal's research was co-opted by Graham herself to write, or have ghostwritten, her "Personal History." Felsenthal's objectivity adds to Graham's life story in a way only a detached biographer can. If one wants a map of how a shy woman can succeede in the business world, one can do no better than to read Felsenthal's illuminating text.

This book is great. I'm not even finshed with it yet and already I've learned a lot. It's full of usefull tips that I never learned in school. It is a wlecome contrast to the many industry books that show you lot of examples but no explanations for the principles behind the design. I would highly recommend this book.

I blame Amazon for this horrible problem I have with buying gillions of design books...most are good references but not really day-2-day tools and inspiration...in my lastest order, got this book and RIGHT AWAY I was stoked with the samples and the dogma presented. YIPPEE!

As with other books by Samara (e.g. Typography Workbook), this one is filled with beautiful and relevant examples. My only gripe would be that... the type used for the main text is too light and hard to read! - which kind of contradicts the subject? :-/

As an introduction to publication design the book is good.

The only criticism I have is that there is no glossary or even an index. There are some places in the book where a term is introduced before it's been described so at times I was wondering if I'd missed something. The term is eventually described, usually a couple of paragraphs or sometimes pages later, so if you're not reading the book from beginning to end it can be difficult to find the place where a term is described.

The book does not offer an exhaustive treatment of design principles and I will buy other books to learn more, but it's been a helpful introduction.

Though currently out of print, this textbook from Kodansha is quite excellent and well worth tracking down for students of Japanese eager to reach an advanced level of control in the language. Very few "Advanced" textbooks really do much to help you with anything other than the specific stories or articles that they provide as examples. "Reading Japanese Financial Newspapers," however, is extremely effective at getting the new vocabulary and kanji compounds in your head keeping what you learn in the front of your mind. I am an actor, not a businessman, but this book has helped tremendously in making the leap forward to reading contemporary newspapers, novels, and essays in Japan.

That said, this is NOT for the beginner. You must already have a firm grasp of hiragana, katakana, and basic kanji. This textbook will make the difference for those who have mastered basic and have a relatively firm grip on intermediate Japanese. At the beginning you should feel that much of the material is repetition of more vague words that you've already experienced in some capacity. However, the book moves at a very quick pace, cementing those aspects for a strong foundation upon which to gain control of the more advanced language that comes soon after.

If you're new to the language or just finished the beginning phase, try another more basic textbook. But for the already fairly experienced Japanese student, this book is more than worth the search.

My advice is to use Jordan's Reading Japanese as a starting point, and eventually move on to Reading Japanese Financial Newspapers. I struggled with this text for quite some time, but eventually emerged literate enough to read Nikkei Shimbun pretty comfortably...

I do not recommend this for learning kanji, but only for the word lists (like the sample financial statements at the end) and some of the grammatical points.
I've owned this book for ten years or so and never got even half-way thru the first section until I had worked my way thru another, far better book, "Business Kanji" published by Tuttle in 1999. I am now finally getting thru it, but still don't like it much.
Although this book is exhaustively thorough especially regarding grammatical patterns, it relies far to much on brute force memorization. Kanji are introduced and used in no apparent order and are not reinforced once learned.
It is perhaps the "best" for business of an outdated methodology which has been replaced by the far better approaches of Prof. Eleanor Jorden ("Reading Japanese"--although that doesn't begin to go far enough to read a newspaper), Prof. Edward Daub et al. ("Basic Technical Japanese" which I have also reviewed very favorably here) and "Business Kanji" by Reiko Suzuki, et alia.

I got this book hoping that it would give a boost to my newspaper reading ability... It did. Although I already knew almost all the Joyo kanji, I didn't know a laaarge number of the terms commonly used in newspapers... especially the financial terms. This book greatly helped in remedying that...

The most important thing you should know is that this book _isn't_ just about finance -- it's about almost everything in japanese newspapers, including sentence structure and common idioms... And at any rate, it's much nicer to skim by boring financial articles knowing that you could read them if you wanted to ...

If you are frustrated with newspapers, get this book. It won't do everything for you, but it'll do a lot... And it's easy to work through, especially if you're looking at papers all the time trying to read them... ;)