Online Archives Books

An extraordinary read! I feared that this book was receiving so much praise because blues geeks felt that they had to eulogize the talents of this famed sixties blues promoter. No, it's not hype, this book really does hit new highs in great closeup shots and portraits, woven together with rich and personal tales that describe the crossing of Waterman's path with that of many of the greatest blues musicians ever. Some chapters are touched with sadness, such as the exploitation of Arthur Crudup's royalties (only for Waterman to help secure a rich reward for the family estate shortly after Crudup's death). Others are hilarious, such as the exposure of Robert Lockwood as being perhaps the sweariest bluesman ever. I could go on, but readers deserve to discover these stories for themselves. Albeit to say that the human sides of many famous musicians are exposed here, be they glorious or grim or bizarre. The only other blues read that I know of that gets so close up and personal in text and pictures is perhaps Tim Duffy's from the Musicmaker Foundation, entitled: "Musicmakers: portraits and songs from the roots of america". In fact the two books are complementary because whilst Waterman's subjects are by and large towering figures of the blues who have mostly died by now, Tim Duffy's subjects remain somewhat obscure and undiscovered by the main stream but many are still alive and kicking the blues in a neighbourhood near you.

As a blues enthusiast, I have always found myself looking for the inside stories, the newly discovered photographs or the alternative recordings of the players that literally changed my life 35 years ago when I was in high school. To find that Dick Waterman was a common link among so many of the greatest blues figures of the last century was a revelation. I knew of his relationship to Son House, and will forever speak his name with reverance for bringing him out of Rochester, NY to record again in the 60's. But all these other guys? Dick Waterman, thank you for putting more flesh on to the legends of so many of these guys, most of whom are now gone. I am grateful.

There really are no words to fully describe what a treasure this book is--which is entirely appropriate given that Mr. Waterman himself is an American treasure. Whether you are a hardcore blues fan or a casual listener, the photographs in this book will take your breath away. The stories that accompany them strip away the mythology to reveal the humanity beneath, and leave you looking at these legendary artists through fresh and more honest eyes.

I simply can't recommend this book highly enough. Buy a copy for yourself, and then buy as many as you can for your family and friends. You will not be sorry.

Once I started reading this book, putting it down was impossible. Dick Waterman's stories about the various blues musicians were as impressive as the outstanding photos in the book. It felt like I was pulled inside this incredible book and for a moment felt like I personally knew and was living with these people. The believability of this book was truly enhanced by Dick Waterman's honesty. He truly says it as it is. This book is not only interesting for blues officianados, but also for anyone interested in American history, great photography and captivating stories.

Dick Waterman's photographs are a stunning chronicle of the art and music that are most important to me. Dick calls his photographs products of opportunity and access, but they are far more. I would submit that Dick's "Son House at the Liberty Bell" ranks with the top echelon of 20th century American photographs.

If you have a passing interest in blues or fine photography; you need this book. If you are a fan of the music or the art, you absolutely must have this book.

B.B.KING IS CALLED "THE KING OF THE BLUES" BUT THIS BOOK IS NOT ABOUT THE BLUES THIS IS ABOUT THE MAN HIMSELF FROM HIS HUMBLE BEGINNING AS A SHARECROPPER TO THE LEGEND HE IS TODAY. THIS BOOK DIGS DEEP INTO THE HEART AND SPIRIT OF "THE MAN" THE PHOTOS AND THE MEMORIES ALONG IS WORTH THE PRICE OF THE BOOK. IF YOU LOVED THE BLUES AND YOU KNOW OR LOVED B.B.KING THEN THIS IS THE ULTIMATE BOOK TO HAVE. AFTER READING THIS BOOK I KNOW MORE ABOUT THE LIFE OF B.B.KING THEN I EVER KNEW. IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT THIS MAN WHO IS A LEGEND IN HIS OWN TIME CAN BE SO HUMBLE TO THE MANY PEOPLE BOTH FAMOUS AND ORDINARY

Hello all! I am from India, residing in Singapore. I enjoy listening to blues. Being a big fan of BB, i couldn't resist this treasure when i came across it at the Borders bookstore.The book is great, with replicas of tickets etc. 1 hour cd with BB's interviews and 2 songs is a great treat. BB is an inspiration, having moved from cottonfields to become world's greatest blues singer. Just wait for the clouds, and read this with a cup of coffee when it starts to rain. When you finish with the accompanying cd, put in your own BB collection and read the book along. Lucille won't let you down. The thrill isn't gone afterall! 5 stars indeed.

Though possibly a bit unlike adults my age, I am a bonafide blues lover and THE B. B. KING TREASURES: Photos, Mementos & Music from B. B. King's Collection is a remarkable look into the background and life of legendary blues singer B. B. King. In it he details his early childhood and growing up on a farm, to his young adult days, touring various parts of the country and his candid views on segregation and the Civil Rights era.

While the book itself is a wonderful collector's item and can be displayed proudly as a coffee table book, the best parts to me were: the included CD which has a collection of interviews with the singer, as well as two unreleased songs, the numerous pull-outs of old letters, photos, programs and posters, and the respect he shared with and bestowed upon others. THE B. B. KING TREASURES succinctly depicts the life and times of B. B. King, his thoughts on many issues, including race relations, and especially music. It is perfect for the blues lover in your life and a great tribute for B.B. King's 80th birthday celebration.

Reviewed by Tee C. Royal
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

Packed with amazing photos, album artwork, removable memorabilia, and detailed first-person recollections, The B.B. King Treasures chronicles the life of the world's best known and most beloved bluesman, Riley B. King -- "The Beale Street Blues Boy." The beautifully designed and printed 160-page hardback also includes a one-hour audio CD with more than a dozen interviews and two previously unreleased songs, cut with a full band in 1962 and 1971.

We follow King through his childhood in Indianola, Mississippi, and then move on to Memphis and the first years of his career performing on WDIA radio. Kings' decades spent working the chitlin' circuit and later as a globe-trotting star are thoroughly documented, as is his current status as elder statesman of the blues. It's a highly visual journey with page after page of eye candy, as well as reproductions of posters, postcards, ledgers, contracts, concert programs, tour stickers, receipts, and even a vintage business card.

King made music during turbulent times, particularly in terms of civil rights, and many of his quotes shed light on what it was like to be an African-American musician during the days of segregation. But King always tells his stories without rancor, and his honesty, humility, and respect for other musicians -- many of whom add testimonials of their own -- shine through his words. The man is very observant, and it's fascinating to explore American history and the evolution of blues, rock, and the electric guitar through his eyes. If you love King's music, this book will draw you even deeper into its embrace.

Those looking for a present for a blues lover (or themselves) could do far worse than purchasing an absolutely wonderful new coffee table book plus more devoted to the King of the blues. The B. B. King Treasures : Photos, Mementos & Music from B. B. King's Collection is by King, Dick Waterman and Charles Sawyer. Sawyer, who wrote the first book-length biography of King, The Arrival of B.B. King, contributes a concise biography from King's days growing up in Mississippi to his days as an ambassador for the music. The remainder of the book is filled with King's recollections as given to Dick Waterman who supplements these recollections of growing up, working on the farm, moving to memphis, touring and crossing over. There are not only some terrific photographs (many are very rare), but also some reproductions of memorabilia including his sharecropping account from 1940, mostly tickets, programs and posters for his shows, along with sheets shoqwing how much he was earning prior to Sid Seidenberg taking over King's management in the late sixties. You can see him from his WDIA days to receiving the musical equivalent of the Nobel Prize in Sweden with the King of Sweden handing the award to him. In addition there is a cd with King's verbal recollections and some unissued tracks. This is a multi-media feast for fans of one of the true legends of world music. Compiled in part to celebrate his 80th birthday, The B.B. King Treasures, is a treasure.

There are three great novels about the Latin American dictator and all of them are very different. Miguel Asturias' Mr. President deals with a backwater banana republic where the president for life's presence itself is minor. What occurs instead is the lethal working out of a hideously unjust system which crushes and destroys all who resist and those who are caught in its clutches. Then there is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch, an example of high modernism at its most brilliant. In sentences of increasingly serpentine length (in the end consisting of the final chapter of forty-five pages) Garcia Marquez deals with an aged dictator who has ruled for centuries and is capable of every iniquity (such as serving up a cabinet minister for his treacherous colleagues to eat) while living in a world of pretend power and real submission (he has to sell his country's sea to pay off the Americans). This book is also high modernist, but is very different. Instead of the fantastic elements of the Autumn of the Patriarch we have here the story of the founder of Paraguay, Dr. Francia. Dr. Francia consolidated his country's independence by creating a regime of isolation and absolute power. He expelled the Jesuits and set up his own Catholic Church so it would not be beholden to Rome. He was utterly ruthless and the result, according to E. Bradford Burns was an autarky that probably benefited the masses more in terms of literacy and nutrition than any other Latin American country of the time. Its fate, however, was to be crushed by the surrounding countries in the great war of 1870-73 where the male population was almost literally devastated.

No venal tinpot hack, Dr. Francia appears as a man of frightening sincerity, in an account that is of direct revelance to the fate of Castro's Cuba. I, the Supreme begins with a proclamation in which the dicators calls for the decapitation of his corpse and the lynching of all his ministers. It continues with tales of prisoners forced to live in boats travelling down the rivers of Paraguay without ever stopping. We read of Francia's dialogue with a sycophantic Vicar General ("How long did the trial of the infamous traitors to the Fatherland last? As long as it was necessary in order not to rush to judgement. They were granted every right to defend themselves. In the end every recourse was exhausted. It might be said that the case was never closed. It is still open. Not all the guilty parties were sentenced to death and executed."), who then goes on to condemn his priests for siring dozens and hundreds of illegitimate children. Like Lenin and indeed Stalin he rants against the jungle of bureaucracy that he himself has created, he outsmarts the greedy surrounding oligarchies who wish to absorb Paraguay, he reminds his civil servants not to express and exploit the Indian population. We read reports of how school children are indoctrinated to see their great leader ("The Supreme Government is very old. Older than the Lord God, that our schoolmaster...tells us about in a low voice.) The book is a masterpiece of polyphony, filled with many voices and viewpoints, combined with a richness of metaphor and incident and a complexity of moral vision that have few competitors this century. Writing for a country that has possessed only brief and shadowy vestiges of liberty, Roa Bastos deals with its pain in a way that should be required reading for all who care about democracy.

if you want to understand power get this book.

A sublime book with fabulous ideas and use of language. Very much worth buying.

In what has to be a fictional note at the end of the book, the author claims that he is not such, indicating that he merely copied parts of historical documents, writings and tales, thus the real "author" of this book is history itself and not him, who he says is merely the "compiler." The work is indeed true to history; the history about José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the controversial Dictator of Paraguay between 1814-1840 who used to sign his official decrees not with his name but the sentence that is the title of this book. This is a wonderfully complex book; not easy to read. Sometimes fascinating paragraphs are unexpectedly cut with some note form the "compiler" indicating that the rest is illegible because the page is partly burned, which lets you to think that it was indeed copied from an old document; while at other times you read fascinating dialogs and monologues which you would think had to be fictional; but it is not as simple: You cannot tell truth from fiction because the truth seems fictional and the fiction tells truth. Truth that comes to you in the form of insights about the state of mind of a dictator, about absolute power, and about the soul of a country that owns its independent existence to its first dictator's determination to be its supreme ruler. It is an utterly fascinating book.

This is a wonderful book, by a great writer. The catch is that very often it will be misunderstood, and associated with the group of fantastic south american writers, like Garcia Marquez. Instead the story is basically for real (the story of the last years of Paraguay dictator Gaspar Francia, who ruled the country from 1813 to 1840), and most of the mentioned documents are authentic, or at least plausible. Roa Bastos has played on the borderline between history and fiction, but most readers will not know this, and take for fiction what are very important and interesting historical facts, that would deserve a different approach and attention. This is the only (but rather painful) fault I find in an otherwise beautiful work.

You sit sometimes and think for hours about how to do something in Visual Basic that is so darn easy to do in the pure Win32 API. It still does not come. More Jolt. Nope still nothing. Then you read this book and holy moly there it is!

I think that pretty much covers what this book is about. For someone like me that started programming Windows with Windows 2.0 and am an old hand at the actual C level API this book brings some of the tricks of the trade to the Visual Basic programmer. Between this book and "Advanced Visual Basic 6" by Matthew Curland a programmer of VB will find plenty of ammunition to shut down those "VB is a whimpy language" attack chihuahuas.

If you are a better than average VB programmer and need some new tricks to keep interest up or if you are any level programmer that needs a little spice to go with your code get this book and play with the code inside.

This book also does something else all books should do. The authors included the source code for ALL the examples and annotated the code to the max. Thus the "Annotated Archives" title, eh. Other peoples' code is a valuable tool for programmers and there is plenty of it in this book.

This book is the best example book I've ever read! A lot of examples, all are explained and the Code is very useful: Create flat toolbars with the Toolbar Control, do floating or docking Toolbars, or display designer menus! Congrats!

When it comes to references and "secrets of" books, there are so many choices that it makes finding a decent book nearly impossible. I am delighted to have stumbled onto "Visual Basic Annotated Archives." Whether you need to learn how to write an ActiveX DLL or simply wish to look at snippets of clever code, this is the one to consider. I heard that one of the authors (Kent) is a teacher... it shows in his writing style, which is very easy to follow.

this book is so good that you will never need another VB boo

Young adults, Internet ethics, and digital information are the intense focus of communities all across the U.S. Frances Jacobson Harris is a widely published librarian/author who addresses issues that concern library boards and parents. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are examined with clarity. Every library serving young adults in public libraries and schools should read this book and deliberate on the issues. This book is especially important for private and charter school staff who often struggle with little context. I believe I Found It on the Internet will broaden understanding and lead to fewer unfounded fears.

Now in an updated and expanded second edition, Allen Benson's Neal-Schuman Complete Internet Companion For Librarians offers a definitive, comprehensive, immensely helpful, reader friendly text enhanced with an accompanying CD-ROM annotating links to 500 sites. A core reference title for library staff, Neal-Schuman Complete Internet Companion For Librarians is comprised of invaluable chapters on What Is The Internet; Internet Addressing Systems; Copyright And Digital Information; Librarians' Roles In A Global Network Environment; Connecting To The Internet; Tips On Choosing Hardware; Software For Establishing A Basic Connection; Developing Your Software Toolbox; General Security and Virus Protection; Happy Hacking in UNIX; Lynx For Hard-Core Searching; Resource Discovery On The Web; Transferring Files On The Internet; Telenet Remote Login; Archie; Online Library Catalogs; Free-Nets; Integrating Tools Into Traditional Reference Practice; Integrating Internet Tools Into Other Library Services; Virtually Yours For Free; Creating And Editing Multimedia; Multimedia On The Web; E-Mail; Mailing Lists; Usenet News; Publishing On The Web; Implementing Web-Based Search Engines And Databases; Digital Publishers And Digital Libraries.

This book is an excellent resource for those interested in Online Searching. I am a graduate student in Library Science and have found this book to be a valuable tool for learning to use online databases, such as Dialogue and Lexis-Nexis. Very helpful. I recommend this book for academic librarians and others interested in internet searching.

I love this book! I'm buying a replacemnt for my dog-eared copy. I've used it as inspiration for fabric design, as collage material, painting sources, and for cheering myself up and getting me going when I don't feel like working.First published in the twenties, Seguy wanted to show exotic insects as inspiration for the designers and craftsmen of his time. This beautifu, reasonably priced book still does just that.

For those of us who can understand the depth and layers of writing here, it doesn't get much better than this. One need only be steeped in Lovecraft, Howard, Mythos Lore, Newton's Telecom Dictionary, video gaming, techno gadgets and James Bond to begin to scratch the surface of the little gems found in this collection and The Jennifer Morgue. Truly unique, kind of like reading a Brian Lumley / Ian Flemming / Neil Stephenson novel?!

Clever writing highlights this novel. Recommended for those who enjoy well-crafted plots, likable main characters, with references to the grand masters of science fiction, supernatural fiction & spy fiction.

What a hoot... enough inside geek jokes to choke a Gibbering Horror...

I finished it in record time... and re-read it a day later to catch everything I missed the first time!

What a great book! Charles Stross' "Atrocity Archives/Concrete Jungle is a mixtue of Lovecraft, Len Deighton as well as Monty Python and Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" all in one. This is a book that a reader will have to read multiple times and will glean something new from the book in every reading.

Bob Howard is an IT (Info Technology)support person for the Laundry, a British Department under the OSI banner, now known as MIV and MI VI. The Laundry is the Department that deals with the paranormal for Britain and endeavors to keep the nation free from events and creatures from other dimensions and universes that "would like to suck brains and souls from our bodies." In Mr. Stross' world, supernatural events and creatures are not conjured through arcane blood rituals but through uses of computers, mathematical formulas and other non-supernatural, technical means. Other countries have paranormal departments as part of their spy/security apparatus. For example, the U.S. paranormal department is known as the Black Chamber.

The reader discovers that no one joins the Laundry, they are forced to "join". Bob Howard "joined" the Laundry after he was discovered playing with a mathematical theorem on his computer that threatened to obliterate the town of Wolverhampton in a ghastly Lovecraftian manner. He is promoted from IT to field agent after rescuing a summoning class from a possessed classmate who did not follow the rules and discovers that his first case means saving Britain and the rest of the world from a nameless horror from another universe who is working it's way to our earth with past cooperation from a renegade SS Unit, the Ahenenerbe, who used a ghastly summoning ritual that pertains to the Holocaust, to escape the current earth at the end of WWII.

This book defies convention. This is a mixture of Science Fiction, Horror and British Humor all rolled into one fascinating mix. The reader becomes intimately involved in the minutiae of the British Civil Service and their frustrating and over beaureaucratic methods of conducting business. Bob, for example, lives in constant fear of explaining his every action and decision to the unseen but fearome "Auditors". Stross' characters are enagaging and memorable; from the sensuous and mysterious Dr. Dominique "Mo" O'Brien who has a major part to play in Bob's first mission, to the mysterious and very sinister Angleton who Bob ends up being a Private personal secretary, the British term for "Administrative Assistant", Bridget and Harriet from HR, his fellow Laundry worker roomates Pinky and Brains and Bob's slightly harried superior Andy.

I love this book. I am currently finishing "the Jennifer Morgue", the second, but hopefully not final Laundry/Bob Howard novel by Mr. Stross. Finally, if you haven't caught the direct parallel between the main character's name and a famous American writer, then you are not a true fantasy/sci-fi/horror fan. Congratulations, Mr. Stross what an excellent novel you have written.

"The Atrocity Archives" (which includes the title story as well as the short story "The Concrete Jungle" both in this edition as well as in the omnibus edition that I have, entitled "In Her Majesties' Occult Services") is a very unusual piece - the world that Stross has created is our world, but just one-half step over ... maybe. Or maybe not - maybe he has just provided us with the real story for the first time? Who knows?

Mixing Cthonian mythos, quantum physics and metaphysics, mathematical metatheory and spy thriller, Stross has made reading this book kind of like watching Monty Python in Japanese. There is simply no way to define the genre. That said, it is certainly a fun ride! Populated with computer programmer wizards, electronic gorgons, zombie birds and genetically engineered mer-people, this is a weird and wonderful world.

Bob is our hero, a member of the Laundry - a section of the British Secret Services that is so secret that even knowing about it is illegal unless you are a part of it. The Laundry is dedicated to making certain that the veils between the realities don't end up being pierced by accident - some mathematician using an unusual theorem or a computer programmer coming up with something new - that would actually end up calling up the Elder Gods or opening up a portal to allow the gibbering hordes of demons access to our world. Bob was conscripted when a computer program he was working on almost ended up remaking a large part of a section of Britain. He recently made the mistake of asking to work in "active service," and that request has just been approved ... things keep going from bad to worse as he is continually thrown into circumstances that end up snowballing into events beyond his control; and things are never quite what they seem.

In "Concrete Jungle" he is awakened at 4 am to go and look at concrete cows in Milton Keynes; it appears that there may be an extra one there (there is a herd of concrete cows - sculptures. There are supposed to be 8. Bob finds 9). Bob discovers what appears to be the work of a basilisk or gorgon. How can this be? Again, things quickly tobaggon out of his control.

Bob is the perfect hero for the modern age - armed with a Palm Pilot and cell phone (and occasionally a pigeon's foot) rather than a gun; scrawny and nerdish rather than tall and handsome, he is the epitome of the modern computer geek/hacker. Somehow, despite his tendency to stick his nose where it doesn't belong, and to jump into the middle of things where he has no business being, he manages to always come out ... well ... alive.

I can definitely recommend this book to anyone who: likes dry British humour, likes Monty Python, likes Charles Stross, likes Ctholian mythology, likes H. P. Lovecraft generally, likes spy thrillers, likes alternate reality worlds, or just enjoys a really weird and wonderful yarn. Don't miss it!

Really enriches my game playing by absorbing me in the history of the places and races in the game!

This was the most exciting collection of Warcraft books since the "War of the Ancients" series. All four books within take place within the same time frame. All of the Authors from Richard Knaak to Christie Golden seem to create the images through words and when you read their stories it feels like you are watching them on the big screen. If you are new to Warcraft then this is the book to read.

All 10million users of World of Warcraft should read these books! It should be mandatory reading, for the pure simple fact of making the online world we play in richer. Blizzard has created an amazing world with an in-depth history, these books (there are 4 books in the Archive) will provide more in-sight and change the way you look at some of the NPC and locations.

While reading these books you will find yourself thinking about locations you have played in during questing, you will go to the website to look up the world map so you can picture where the characters are at. You will love them, and you will want to buy all the WoW books, I have.

simply: a great background, but does perfectly on its own as well. well-written, fully engaging.

My son is a WOW-head and plays the game all the time. Being a parent who wishes he spent more time reading, I found these books to be a great way to extend his interest in WOW, and have him read as well. They aren't 'game guides' but actual stories set in the World of Warcraft. This contains four stories and he seems to love them.