Living History Books

Bonnie Glassford has written an intriguing travelogue, and has proven to be a fascinating raconteur. Her story reads like a newsy letter to friends - filled with the minuitae of life in the Middle East and full of detail, wit and wonder.

As someone who has not yet visited the places she talks about, her book brings to life the lure of these far-off counties - their sights, sounds and smells; anyone even thinking of following her trail should have a read through 'Living the Sacred Story'. Her narrative is clear and descriptive, but never boring; the people and places she comes across are described in a style that is both reverential and real.

This book tells of the author's experiences and adventures when she went to the Middle East to explore her faith and spirituality. Her descriptions of the landscape, climate, culture and people make it easy to imagine you're with her on the journey. I particularly liked the addition of historical information that was relevant to the situation being described. The author's interactions and relationships with the people dispel the sterotypes created by the media coverage of the region.

By the time I finished the book, the Holy Land had become a real place, with real people, living real lives in a remarkable setting but often under difficult circumstances.

A facinating read!

This book tells of the author's experiences and adventures when she went to the Middle East to explore her faith and spirituality. Her descriptions of the landscape, climate, culture and people make it easy to imagine you're with her on the journey. I particularly liked the addition of historical information that was relevant to the situation being described.
The author's interactions and relationships with the people dispel the sterotypes created by the media coverage of the region.

By the time I finished the book, the Holy Land had become a real place, with real people, living real lives in a remarkable setting but often under difficult circumstances.

A facinating read!

Marc Berman the best beat writer covering the Knicks, writes about the unusual year the Knicks had, without Ewing. It is not just about Ewing, but the Ewing-less Knicks. A great and entertaining read. Much more entertaining than the current Knicks. I can't wait for Berman's next book Living without Latrell.

Someone gave me this book for a present. Don't know why you'd want to write about a void...this book is about somebody (Ewing) NOT being on the Knicks. Berman, whose coverage of the Knicks I like, would have been better off just writing about a year in the life of the Knicks. Who wants to read about someone who isn't on the team anymore?

Very well written account of the first Knick's season without Ewing. It gives you an insider's look into the day to day struggles of the players, coaches and management of the Knicks. You end up feeling as if you were there at the games and in the locker rooms. This book belongs in the company of the great sports classics.

Christopher Dyer's thorough study of social and economic life in Britain in the high and late middle ages is fascinating. The details are remarkable showing a thriving, bustling commercial network that criss-crossed the island - not at all what one would expect of Europe in the middle ages.

All facets of society are examined here - peasants, merchants, craftsmen and aristocrats of all levels - close attention is also played to the roles women played in the medieval economy, their social and economic position was striking. Far from the droll, insulated and simple life that typically comes to mind when one thinks of medieval Europe, Dyer's treatise shows quite the opposite - a bustling and growing economy that was financially diverse and tied to the rest of Europe and the wider world. Utilizing an abundance of primary sources from throughout Britain, a clear picture of the daily economic life of England is provided, with solid analysis of the role economics played in the larger social and political changes that took place between 800 and 1500.

It is not light reading, however - Dyer is writing for a more academic audience. Some familiarity with Medieval (or better still, British) history is assumed, as is passing familarity with English currency. (For example, pence are denoted ("d"); 12 pence to the shilling ('s"), 20 shilling to the pound.) For historians, economists (or better still, economic historians) this is invaluable and fascinating - recommended.

This is a splendidly readable and highly informative book.

Dyer takes us from Anglo-Saxon England, through the Normal Conquest, the long medieval surge then the calamitous C14th (as Barbara Tuchman memorably called it) and ending in early Tudor England. We are guided with erudition and ease through the choices the various levels of society faced, the rich texture of life and the ebb and flow of social change.

Carefully evidence based, and willing to admit uncertainty, Dyer nevertheless informs with a telling mixture of general trends and revealing examples.

I was struck, for example, how the owners of lordly (and other) estates faced similar types of management choices as modern firms, whether to engage in direct command-and-control (farm oneself), franchise (lease), donate (grant) or sell. The balance of choices shifted back and forth, as circumstances changed.

This is an excellent book I would heartily recommend to anyone interested in economic and social change in the long run and medieval history in particular.

Christopher Dyer presents a general economic history of England during the Middle Ages. He uses primary sources to support his claims and addresses a number of issues that this broad topic encompasses. His language is accessible to a wide audience, yet contains elements that require some scholarly background in order to fully appreciate the impact of the information that he presents. The main problems with Making a Living in the Middle Ages revolve around the inconsistency between Dyer's introduction and the majority of his book.
This book was written very recently so one could assume that the author would take into consideration some of the most recent theories on the matter. While it is possible that this is the case, Dyer does not make specific reference to any such sources. Overall, the text is well written. Syntax and word choice make it accessible. His transitions were lacking, which would make it difficult to read if the reader lacked background knowledge. The vocabulary in the book was not at all difficult, and the author defines terms on initial and subsequent usages. When he fails to provide clear definitions, his context clues make his word choice accessible, providing a general impression of the meaning of the terminology. The book to me was appropriate with occasional oversimplification. The nature of the oversimplification was a lack of depth, but he has chose to cover an extremely broad topic, which I do not think should be approached in one book.
The book deals with the economic history of England from 850 C.E. -1520 C.E. The author has a well-written introduction and clearly states the importance of the subject and his reasons for approaching it. I would not go so far as to say he fully addressed those reasons in his book. One reason he presents for doing an economic history is to gain insight into the daily lives of the people during this time period. I did not get a feel for this upon reading the text. Instead, I saw broader claims. These claims were well supported through the use of primary sources, both written and archeological. Dyer explains a lot about his reasoning for his choice of topic, and it is very convincing. However, he fails to live up to his superb introduction. The material addressed in the book is by no means unimportant. On the contrary, it is well constructed and very important in the overall canon of English history. However, I think that the introduction implied a different treatment of the subject than what I found in the body of the text. Dyer breaks up his book into chronological sections, and within those sections he addresses various topics, some dealing with class, other with important events that effected the economy. This construction makes sense in regard to the topic. Other organizations might allow for more detail, but the scope of the topic does not allow for such a lengthy treatment, at least not to be contained in one book. The length of the book is already on the excessive side. This is not to say that a treatment of this topic could fit into a smaller book. Rather, the topic would be better suited for a series of books, with each book dealing with a shorter time period so as to allow for more detail. In this way, Dyer would have been able to fulfill all his reasons stated in his introduction.
Dyer claims to intend an analysis and present historical theory, but I felt that he relied almost exclusively on making a claim based on the facts without much conjecture or analysis. A broad topic such as this one would be difficult to approach in terms of a thesis, so I think both the actual and intended approaches are appropriate for the topic, but are not consistent with each other.
The book is obviously meant as an economic history, and it does achieve this goal. However, there are also elements of social and political history, which Dyer indicates in his introduction. Considering the subject matter, it would be impossible to address it from a purely economic perspective. Therefore, Dyer was correct in mentioning social and political elements. The problem with this is that he did not go into enough depth in the social realm. He could have done a lot more psychological analysis. While this is not necessary for an economic history, Dyer's introduction and various comments throughout the book indicate that he meant to approach the thought processes of the people living in this period.
One of Dyer's stronger points is his use and treatment of documents. For the purpose of a general economic history of England, a decent body of documents exist, including various charters, wills, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Domesday Book, all of which Dyer uses. Dyer presents plenty of evidence from primary sources to back up his claims. He gives specific examples on a regular basis throughout the book. On first analysis I concluded that Dyer was being overly cautious with his treatment of documents. However, upon further thought and examination, I found that he was merely pointing out historiographical problems that could arise form the nature and availability of documents. He discusses the lack of written evidence dealing with marginalized groups of society. He also provides a partial solution to this by emphasizing the importance of material archeological evidence. My one complaint about Dyer's use of documents is that he could have used diary or journal entries to address the thinking of the people at this time and therefore addressed all of the reasons for choosing the subject that he indicates in his introduction. To his detriment, Dyer fails to acknowledge his own bias. However, to his credit, Dyer does mention the bias inherent in primary sources.
Due to the broad scope of this topic, Dyer is unable to present a complete treatment of it. He also attempts to address much more in his introduction than he actually addresses in his book. Because he does not fully address the ideas set down in his introduction, I must argue that the book is not balanced. Even excluding everything but economic concerns, Dyer still lacks balance in that his treatment of women is highly lacking. I feel justified in this criticism because he claims that the book is a general economic history of England. He does make an attempt to balance the material by making references to continental Europe. Dyer compares England to the rest of Europe in an appropriate fashion. He does so sparingly, which is good, but makes enough connections to put the information in the proper context.
The general content of the book solidified many concepts for me. The chronological presentation and mention of events of political importance put the ideas in a context that is relevant to my prior knowledge. Various facts were new to me, but were not surprising upon consideration in light of what I already know.
I found this book to be empirically good. Dyer is accurate and concise in his introductions, and supports his claims well. He does, however, go on at length at times, and this feature made it difficult for me to organize my thoughts. The introduction to a section was so far from the end that it was often difficult to place the information in a cohesive unit of thought. In this regard, the book provides a great deal of information about the economic history of England, which needed to be broken into smaller sections. Furthermore, I do not feel that the book fully explored the concepts that were indicated in the introduction. An entire series of in depth and incredibly useful books could have been formed from the ideas in Dyer's introduction, yet he failed to even touch on some of the ideas, while providing an excess of cursory examples in other cases. This was disappointing to me because the title and introduction sparked my interest and led me to anticipate something different. As a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, I had hoped to see more detail in regard to the everyday lives of the people and hoped that Dyer would address their motives and thoughts much more thoroughly. Such detail would be both intellectually stimulating and would have practical applications for various aspects of Medieval reenactment. Overall, this is a good economic history that is accessible to a wide audience, and I can see its usefulness in spite of its shortcomings in regard to my personal expectations.

By putting over 3,000 years of faces on the search for the elemental principles -- from the Greek philosopher Anaximander, who held that all the material world was made of four "elements", Earth, Air, Fire, and Water; to teams of modern scientists who race to create new elements -- Benjamin Wiker has moved chemistry off the shelf of dry-and-dusty arcania and given the reader a gum-shoe tale filled with odd and interesting characters. This book is an excellent remedy for people who think the sciences were hatched in university laboratories, or born the test-tube children of egg-headed professors. Tracing the theories of philosophers, alchemists, and scientists, making acquaintance with men of all walks and many nationalities, whose only common trait was their persistent desire to peer ever deeper into the nature of things, Wiker not only outlines the genealogy of the Periodic Table of Elements, but, so doing, introduces his reader to the principles of theoretical and practical science, to the history of the scientific method, and even inklings of atomic theory. This book will be accessible, and of interest, to a wide range of readers: those with no science background can still follow the general story with ease, while even the reader well-versed in high-school level chemistry has probably never encountered the history of modern chemistry synthesized with such clarity and appeal.

This terrific book helps make a complex area of science - the field of chemistry and the periodic table - accessible to everyone. Benjamin Wiker skillfully and humorously takes us through the history of theories, experiments, mistakes and successes in understanding the elements and the development of the Periodic Table. The icing on the cake is how fascinating the order of the table is and how closely and mathematically the elements are related to each other. Fascinating!

The book is written for ages 10 and up, but high schoolers and even college students would benefit from the memorable way this book presents the big picture and helps it 'stick.' The last three chapters are a little tougher to follow. I found it helpful to draw some of my own diagrams of the various atoms and their electron structure.

The biographical information is interesting but some of the chemistry information is too deep for my children (12, 9, 7) who are listening to me read this. I think it would work better if I read the chapters ahead and just pulled out the interesting parts and explained the concept the chapter wants to get across in a simpler format.

The book contains information on getting a visa, housing, banking, getting a car, utilities, and a good list of phone numbers in the back. In other words, stuff that's pretty easy to find online.

Unfortunately, a good bit of it is either outdated or purely informational.

The book is geared toward the college grad who just wakes up one day and says "Hey, I want to move to Japan!" It's for the person who doesn't have a job, doesn't have a sponsor, and generally doesn't have a prayer of getting a resident visa without taking a job at an expat bar or strip club. Here's what I mean:

Housing: Generally, you can't rent a place in Japan on your own. Your company must do it for you, and generally pays rent directly to the landlord. You just show up, pick the place, and someone else does all the work. If you're an English teacher, the JET program handles it, and if you're coming on an expat package, your employer does it. In regards to the housing, the landlord doesn't deal directly with you, the landlord deals with your company. If you're one of those people coming over here and then looking for a job, then get online and check Metropolis or one of the other Japan expat sites and look at the classifieds for people needing roommates. It works much better than getting over here and learning you can't rent an apartment on your own just by handing someone money.

Visas: Tourist visas are easy to get, resident visas are harder and require a sponsor (i.e., that company that gets you your apartment). You don't just show up at the registration office, the paperwork MUST be completed in Japanese, and to get the resident visa, your registration must be completed before you even enter Japan, or you have to leave, go back to your home country, and get it there before they'll even think of giving you a visa. The book tells you that, but makes it seem that you just go to the Japanese Embassy in your home country, and you're set. The book offers nothing with respect to the rules that came into effect in November 2007. It doesn't discuss giving power of attorney to a bin goshi (Japanese lawyer) who completes the paperwork on your behalf, it doesn't discuss the requirements for your visa and that your company must show why you are so special so that they must move you here. Once you get the visa taken care of and come over here, the Ward office tells you, in English, exactly what you need to do to register.

Health Insurance: The Ward Office tells you how to get National Healthcare. If you have international insurance, your company tells you what you need to do. With respect to doctors, the best and only way is to get recommendations from other expats, either through work or make friends. Expats learn pretty quickly which doctors are good and speak enough of the desired language to allow you to get proper care. The pages with the Japanese words for body parts/medical conditions is great to have if you ever need to call 119 (Emergency). In the back of the book there are lists of phone numbers for medical services. Some are still accurate, but the names of the specific doctors to contact are not provided. This information is necessary when you call the numbers. For this reason, the recommendation to get recommendations from others is so necessary.

Phones and utilities: The information is completely outdated. You go to a company called Softbank, get a cell phone, and you're set. Of course, you need your alien registration to get a phone. You can't get one without it. If you have a home phone, it is because it is owned by your landlord. You just get the line and pay the service fee as part of your rent. In other words, your boss pays this bill. You get a separate bill for long distance that you pay at the NTT office. Gas and electricity are almost always paid by your company/boss.

Shopping: Other guides (Lonely Planet, e.g.) provide more and better information than this book.

Keeping in touch with home and getting internet sections: They are outdated. They don't provide the right information at all.

Banking: It's pretty easy these days. A couple of the banks in Tokyo have programs for foreigners. Most ATMs are bilingual. The book is good in regards to providing information that you can get a bank account at the post office, though. That doesn't exist in most countries, so it's a "good to know" part of the book.

Postal services: This is all accurate, but largely outdated. The only courier you'll need to know about is the Yamato Transport, the one with the cat.

Education and learning Japanese: There are a million Japanese teachers who advertise online through the English publications. For children, it depends on where you live, and the lists of schools in the book are still accurate.

Public transportation: It's also outdated for the most part. The rail passes have changed, and the subway passes have changed.

Clothing size information in the book is not even close to being accurate. Calendar year stuff is unnecessary because they use the same calendar as the West.

There is very little in this book that you won't get in other, better and probably more necessary books or the internet. The japanese translations are in a japanese-english dictionary which you will need anyway. The up to date phone numbers for services are available online through Google searches, but having this book to allow you to have all the numbers in one location is a plus. But it is probably the only plus to an otherwise useless book.

I originally borrowed a copy from the library, and many other books about working in Japan. This is the most useful book out of all of them. The information is quite recent(2002), and it has a load of contact details in the back, airlines, embassy addresses and much more. It also contains useful pictures, and good tips to surviving in Japan. Definitely a must have. Suitable for anyone looking to move or live in Japan.

A Practical Guide To Living In Japan: Everything You Need To Know To Successfully Settle In by travel expert Jarrell D. Sieff is a definitive, "user friendly" guide for students, business travelers, and vacationers arriving in Japan for their studies, business operations, or sight-seeing. A Practical Guide To Living In Japan covers immigration matters, finding a place to stay, money and banking, studying the Japanese language, getting around Japanese cities and countryside, health and insurance, as well as Japanese customs and social etiquette. A Practical Guide To Living In Japan is a highly recommended resource that will save the traveler, businessman or student an immeasurably valuable amount of time, expense, anxiety, confusion, and hassle.

This was an easy, upbeat read...a great way to justify going to the movies. I was disappointed that the book did not probe into the cultural impact of movies. I am also curious if Gire can hear God in the highly popular horror film.

This is an excellent book that approaches movies from a Christian perspective, but it may not be what some expect. This is not a book that critiques movies by counting sex scenes, cuss words, and violent acts as some Christian reviewers do. In fact, this book doesn't review movies in a conventional manner at all. "Movies are made up of moments", to quote the author, and sometimes his meditations on particular movies zero in on moments that, for him, have particular spiritual resonance. He is also not afraid of unflinching reality. The truth is important, even life-changing, despite the fact that it can be offensive to some. The author states, "I would rather be told an R-rated truth than a G-rated lie." Therefore, movies that are bold and unsparing in their reality, such as "Saving Private Ryan", "Schindler's List" and "Amistad" have great impact because they tell the hard truth, distasteful as it may seem. Of course, spiritual truth may be gleaned from more lighthearted fare as well, such as "The Wizard of Oz".

When I finished this book, I immediately wanted to take a trip to the video rental store, even though I've seen most of the movies discussed here. But I can look at them somewhat differently now, and I can, I daresay, listen for the voice of God that comes through these films. I certainly hope Ken Gire writes a "Volume Two" on this subject.

If you are interested in films, a true film buff, a historian or just a fan of well written films and film critiques, add this book to your library. I would like to say bravo to Mr. Gire for his work in such a medium. Films are not only a powerful form of influence for the society in which we live, they are a vehicle for social and personal change. His book gives delightful insights on many popular movies. Mr. Gire truly finds the Spirit of Christ in each detail that moved him as an audience member. Watching these films along side reading the book has opened my eyes as well. There are however, countless other films that have the same capability to show God's grace. It should be up to the readers of this book to find those references in other movies and build their lives upon the experiences they discover.

The overall impression of "Reflections on the Movies" was a positive one. There were times during the reading that I felt as if Mr. Gire was interpreting a scene or film to have a Christian oriented influence when, in reality, little of it existed. The problem with this book (albeit a very small problem) is the fact that every reflection is a personal experience. The author simply dares us as readers to focus our attention on the possiblities of seeing Christ in films. Mr. Gire may offer his opinion of the movies presented but he also gives enough creative writing for the individual reader to try and posses the same mindset the next time (or the first time) he/she views the films in the book. I enjoyed the book completely from start to finish. One thing that any reader should remember when buying this book is to use their own individual interpretation of the films in question. Mr. Gire gives great examples and suggestions about how to experience God in the media. That is the key to the success of this book. If more authors took the chance of including their faith in their reveiws, editorials, critiques and writing then the media world in gerneral may actually achieve a new morality. Thank you Mr. Gire.

A little over a hundred pages in Obesity Modern-Day Epidemic: America's Unhealthy Lifestyle Supersize It! tells not only the changing history of American diet, but how everything from evolution to advertising have been working to encourage weight gain and unhealthy lifestyles. Chapters survey social and health issues alike and provide many basic insights into nutrition and proper eating habits.

This was actually a book from the juvenile section at the library...but as I am currently working on a reading "set" that is about obesity, diet (as in eating habits, as well as over viewing various "diet" books), and general health and well-being.

I figured why not...what are they telling kids about fat and obesity these days. This turned out to be the first in a series of 7 books (of which my library has exactly 0 of the remaining books), it's a very broad overview of what "they" are calling the obesity epidemic these days. In many ways it's like Fast Food Nation or Supersize Me! but with out the gross stuff on animal slaughter (FFN) or the throwing up (SSM).

I think this is aimed at teens, but think that audience would be extremely bored by this book (it's only 100 pages...and well over half of that is splashy graphic layouts), I'd guess that older children 8-12 (ish) might like this book, as it would be easy to read and understand. I'd recommend trying to find any of the books in this series USED simply because they want nearly 25.00 a pop for them and they are not much substance for the amount of money they are charging for them.

In the world of kiddie books, this is about a B- Interesting if you buy into the obesity as a national epidemic or just want to give your kids a solid grounding in what is wrong with eating a lot of fast food.

In this short, succinct book, a collection of three lectures given in the 1980s, Stegner sums up the history, problems, and ever-so-bleak future of the American West. He paints the clearest and most inarguable case that has yet seen print against the overdevelopement of the West's water, land, and resources and, jarringly, recants his youthful appelation of the West as "the geography of hope."This should be required reading in every high school, every college, and every home in the West--make that the entire country--no, make it the world.

These three essays are crisp, clear statements of Wallace Stegner's beliefs about the influence of the American West on American consciousness.

Please note, however, that these three essays appear with 13 others in Stegner's book _Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs_. With a total of 16 essays, that book is a much better value than _American West as Living Space_.

In the same genre as "Married to the SAS," this book looks at the SAS from the wife's perspective. Quite an insightful and interesting account, particularly when compared to "Married to the SAS." To Jenny Simpson and her husband's credit, their relationship does survive the SAS. She also offers a great deal of insight into the family pressures and strains that are caused having a husband in the SAS. Whilst also being somewhat critical of the "support mechanisms" that are in place for wives and families.

The usual Brit class thing comes thru in the book too. There's the "officer's wives", with typically Brit upper/upper middle class attitudes, and the NCO/Troopies wives, usually Brit working class. For those who are not Brit but have worked with them, it's a real Brit problem that most of them really don't realize or see coz they've grown up with it and it's embedded in their psych. Quite fascinating to those of us who grew up in countries without the whole "class" thing.

Behind the bravado and heroic derring-do of the Special Air Service lies another story, the one you have never read about in the spate of "tell-all" books about these bold British commandos that have surfaced in recent years. Jenny Simpson pens a heartfelt story of the families of SAS operators and the lives they lead, which are in some cases every bit as demanding as those of their gutsy men. These true stories of both the hardship and the immense psychological pressure endured by courageous women like Simpson bring a long overdue, more human face to the hyper-efficient "Killing Machine" persona that the SAS wears in pop culture. No library about the SAS would be complete without this volume, for it serves to give real depth and dimension to the SAS mythos. On the other hand, readers of macho spec-ops books like "Rogue Warrior" would probably be turned off by this read, since it doesn't have much in the way of action, save when the SAS decides for a time to get spouses involved in firearms training and the "Killing Rooms", which in itself is fascinating. Highly recommended.

The Boy Who Saved Cleveland is the wonderful coming of age story of Seth Doan. Although this is a work of fiction, Giblin has based the book on actual events. In the summer of 1798, the small settlement of Cleveland experiences a malaria outbreak. Many of the founders fall ill to the "shakes and fever" and it is left up to Seth Doan to supply food for the entire settlement. Seth has been protected from hardwork by his father, who fears something may happen to his only surviving son. Although, understandably terrified by the task ahead, Seth sets out to try and save his family and the rest of the settlement his father has worked hard to help establish. This book is great for children in grades 3-5. The sentences flow smoothly and has a vocabulary that will challenge young readers. In addition, the historical setting is sure to captivate young history lovers.

James Cross Giblin is known for writing extraordinary nonfiction books for young adults. His books have a reputation for being accurate, readable, and above all enjoyable.

THE BOY WHO SAVED CLEVELAND is a departure in some ways from your typical Giblin book. It is a fiction book for young readers--I'd estimate second to fourth graders. Definitely a "chapter-book" look and style to it, clear, easy-to-read, straight forward text, short chapters. Also, the book is fiction not nonfiction.

THE BOY WHO SAVED CLEVELAND is based on a true story of a young boy who saved his small settlement in 1798 from from a malaria epidemic. As one by one his family members and neighbors get sick it is his responsibility to take the corn to the mill to grind. Each day his burdens become heavier as more neighbors add in sacks of corn to be taken to the mill. This young boy has a great responsibility, and a newfound purpose. He is proud of his accomplishments...and is taking his first steps to manhood.

Overall, while not as 'fascinating' to adult readers like his YA books are...it's hard to have a 'fascinating' chapter book...it is an enjoyable read that I hope many children will enjoy.

The illustrations by Michael Dooling are also impressive.