Tours and Training Books

I enjoyed reading this and passed it on to my kids who are visiting the Loire Valley this summer and living with a family there. Proper etiquette is always noticed, and a general knowledge of fine wines can only add to their experience.

Highly recommended! The audio format is a great idea! It makes learning very easy and the information is all relevant. This is one lesson that is interesting and easily finished.

This was my first wine book, and it is still the best beginner's reference. It covers everything you need to get started. The real benefit, however, is the audio format. You actually get to hear the narrator (who is fantastic!) pronounce the names of the various grape varieties, wines and terms. This is a huge benefit and something that cannot be replicated in the written word.

A good etiquette book should sit on every professional's bookshelf alongside "how to win friends" and "7 habits." I purchased this book along with Essential Etiquette Fundamentals, Vol. 1: Dining Etiquette and The Etiquette Edge: The Unspoken Rules for Business Success to cover all the bases. These books do an excellent job covering the important etiquette skills often overlooked in today's environment. Although often underappreciated, exhibiting proper etiquette signals to others (especially your boss and clients) that you are well educated, care about detail, and have respect for others. I highly recommend these books for anyone new to the business world or for those of us who may need to brush up on the basics.

Although drinking good wine isn't difficult, learning about wine can be. Once on a winery tour a vintner explained that there are 15,000 different choices that can be made from grape to bottle. Sometimes picking out a wine can seem daunting. Food Scholar's Wine Selection & Etiquette does a superior job of teaching those of us who would like to learn more without the information being overkill.

While there are more comprehensive books out there on Wine, I really like this book because it excels at being written for the average person. The book is divided into logical sections. I also like that the effect of climates in a region on the grape are covered. This is an easy way to tell what kind of wine you are getting just by looking at where the grape was grown.

This book will enhance your knowledge as well as your ability to pick out wines that you and your guests may enjoy. I would highly recommend this book to those who want to learn about wine, as this book does an excellent job of giving a basic education about many of the wines of the world.

Was a great book. Me being interested in the North American T-28 Trojan and seeing this plane many times was wonderful reading. This book covers the history of this wonderful plane in detail and has great pictures. It also has a section about flying this plane. The color photogrpahs were amazing, and shows some great shots of the T-28. All in all I would recommend this plane if you are a die hard Warbird Buff or T-28 Fan. And check out some other T-28 books listed.

A great tool for Harmonic Analysis. The book is really well written, a most read for any one who is interested in the area of wavelets, S.P. or harmonic analysis.

The subject of wavelets has many facets, --infinite in all directions;-- some of the more exciting sides of the subject
are algorithmic, and the underlying mathematical principles are both simple and powerful. Stephane Mallat's great, and readable, book, in both of its editions, brings
this out wonderfully!

This is an outstanding tour through the field of wavelet decompositions of both continuous and discrete signals. It employs the formalism of Hilbert space, instead of linear algebra. This is important because the power of this formalism yields insights into the subject matter that are practically impossible in linear algebra. The formalized approach allows a wide variety of subjects to be placed on a common basis (no pun intended). For example, the transition of the treatment of the Fourier transform into Hilbert space, brings to bear the powerful guns of that space (such guns as inner product and completeness), and allows for a truly elegant proof of the Parseval and Plancherel formulas.
Parseval's theorem, simply stated, is that the inner products in Hilbert space are conserved by the Fourier transform. How simple. Linear algebra approaches cannot hope to make things this simple.

Proof of the General Sampling Theorem is equally elegant; it is shown that the projection of the function to be decomposed onto a basis function gives the discrete spectral coefficient.

Readers will also enjoy the treatment of windowed Fourier transforms and frames.

I should add a note about the style of the treatise. This treatise is not ordinary. It consistently uses very precise and carefully defined symbology. Contrary to popular belief, this makes the text easier to read, not more difficult. Once the reader understands the symbol set being used (they are all defined in the front of the text), even the proofs are tractable. Yes, I said proofs. That is another aspect of the text. There are proofs embedded in the text, without loss of continuity or clarity. Proofs are necessary to a good understanding of the subject matter. The formalism of theorems, lemmas and propositions makes the conclusions understandable, because the theorems, lemmas and propositions supporting the conclusions are identifiable.

I applaud the author for his approach and recommend that other text book writers use the same approach.

I say universal because this book would appeal to engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians alike. Mallat was particularly successful to present the topic in a sufficiently rigorous way but without losing sight of the practical and more intuitive side. The presentation comprises the mathematical and the signal processing viewpoints simultaneously. The wavelet field is very vast by now with several subfields. In this respect, Mallat made a great selection of topics in this book. There is a chapter on estimation which offers great review material and pretty much the state-of-the art on signal estimation over a wavelet basis. The chapter on approximation is particularly useful for those who are not well versed in approximation theory and thus are unable to understand other treatments. If you're interested in learning wavelet theory to solve practical problems such as image compression, signal estimation, etc, this is the book to have.

I just finished Chapter 3 of this book, but I have had enough of it. Conceptions about Fourier Transform are not clear at all. And the most unbearable thing is that, there are many printing errors which may lead to misunderstanding.

Sadly the author has passed. However she attended and assessed Esalen in its hayday. She appeared to approach it as an investigative NY Times journalist with aggression. As she spent time there , she seemed to soften and accept their life approach. Highly recommended as a review of Esalen and to the credit of a great journalist who kept an open mind. If only we could see more journalists like this. Read the book and try a week at Esalen - it might change your life !

This is a wonderful book when used properly. The book is to be used as a training guide for a class or workshop. The book is set up to work out specific excercises for a mock historical site. I took such a workshop through the National Trust in which this book was used. We followed along with the instructor (who used slides, charts, and yes, colored markers--see review below)working in team groups. It has been a valuable reference to refer back to. Even if you do not get to take the workshop put on by the National Trust you could adopt the book to conduct a workshop in your own organization. It empahsizes using historical materials and research available to you to create inclusive narratives based on facts and verifiable, giving authority to your exhibits, rather than leaving visitors with mistruths and misconceptions.

I am very disappointed with the book. Just a few ideas are given here and then repeated and repeated and repeated. The authors give very simplified and basic instructions about guide training in a way that can be useful only for schoolteachers in remote areas of Africa.

For instance, they suggest a procedure, which begins with the following operation: "Begin the session with an open discussion. Ask the class: What is material culture? If the class know what it is, ask them to name examples of material culture, both generally and at the site. If they are not familiar with the term (?!?), give a quick accurate definition: material culture is anything shaped by human hands".

An another example is the authors' suggestion to trainers about how to prepare their class on "Identifying the Site's Topics". They say: "Assemble materials. Flip chart pages developed during Activity 2.1 (tape to walls or make available for people to see). Easel, flip chart, and markers of at least four colors." For God's sake, it's about the guide training for conducting historical tours and not about kindergarten activities!

The whole text of approx. 150 pages twirls around a basic idea that 'a great tour' is based on several elements such as storylines, themes, physical evidence, biography of historic personalities and historical context. How to pull it all together is probably a scheduled purpose of the book, but I'm afraid that its authors missed their aim.

I found this book at my local medical library. It's in the vein of "Roadside America", but without the laughs. It showcases 7 main cities (i.e. NYC, Baltimore, Boston) and then has a state-by-state breakdown for the major universities, hospitals and museums in each. My taste runs more towards the creepy Mutter-museum type places, and this book devotes significant attention to medical schools and hospitals. These tend to have little interest except if you want to tour the grounds and bask in the "historicalness" of the site. I checked some of the places I know and they were described factually. It's kind of out-dated, but the places will be around for a long time, although the collections are likely to change some. However, I'll definitely consult this book before any trips, just in case there's a good museum where I'm headed