Exotic Books

This book is not very imaginative and I guess for a new cook ,it fills the bill.Her special on Food Network in India was fascinating,as well as Spain,.Her stint on Melting Pot was a decent introduction to Indian Cooking. But this book was trying to be all things,from Salad Nicoise to Upma.The third star is for her effort,Recipes, so -so.She seems to have captured many peoples attention these days with Top Chef and her recent marriage,/divorce from Salman Rushdie and her scar,but where is the depth?Havent seen it yet.

This is a cook book for goodness sake. Why all the attitude. This is a good book for the beginner in Indian cooking. I had eaten this type of food at homes of some of my friends and wanted to learn more. This book filled the bill. Good cooking, everyone.

Another reviewer panned this book b/c she bought it simply to "know Padma better." This is a cookbook, not a biography. The recipes are delicious, low in cholesterol and low-fat. They are easy to make and the instructions are clear, so the book is accessible to new cooks but still interesting for those with more experience in the kitchen. I think this is a terrific book, the recipes I've used have all been delicious (especially the Spinach and Garbanzo Tapas). I highly recommend it.

Padma herself had given this book to an ex boyfriend of mine (who kept it)and I have been dying to find it ever since. The recipes of her native Indian quisine are still lingering on my taste buds. The recipes I found to be foolproof and easy. I have impressed many guests with her simply delicious meals. I hope the Men who bought this book could look past Padmas beauty and media coverage and just expierience the quality of these delightful dishes. Her where to buy section is also very helpful but not Mandatory to get mouthwatering results.

I bought this book when it came out and I still use it to this day. The recipes are easy and delicious. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for tasty and healthy dishes.

It was vanity published by iUniverse, which probably charged her $5K to publish it. Beware of any self-published/vanity published book. If an agent and decent publisher won't take it on, you know why....

And Candy Girl isn't really that good either, try Strip City, that's well written.

I love memoirs...and read quite a few of them. I did not
order this book on line because a friend of mine had it
and lent it too me. I was very taken by this womens story,
although parts of it are hard to digest. This is a well
written book , and a real page turner. I liked the authors
writting style because it was not wordy....it was smooth
reading..and very well put together. I thought her dedication
to Janis Joplin was very cool..because it was Janis's music
that she danced to for many years. The fact that she is
a friend or aquaitence ( I don't know which one)..of Dawn
Botkins..who was Aileen Wournos's (convicted serial killer)
and prostitute ) best friend is fascinating... for those
of you who dont know that name..the recent movie "Monster"
starring Charlene Theron was about Aileen's life. All in all,
if your into unusual memoirs..make sure you read this book..

I've only read 30 pages of this book but doubt I will bother to finish it. It's quite possibly the worst book I've ever read. It's riddled with spelling and grammatical errors (was there no editor on this manuscript??), the writing style is wooden and amateurish, the stories range from utterly incoherent to beyond far-fetched, and the protagonist inspires not a drop of interest or empathy. Save your money. Better yet, spend your money on Diablo Cody's "Candy Girl". Now *that* is a great book.

First off, don't believe all the negative reviews you read here, particulary from "while away the evening hours". I have done extensive research on this author and have been in touch with her publishing company after reading some of the accusations of "guerilla spamming" and I assure you this is a person of integrity. The people making these accusations have no proof anyways. The book is a collection of memoirs that spans over 20 years of Chicagoland's highly touted strip clubs. Rebreckka Black talks passionately of her travels with an ex con into the underground world of strip clubs and nationwide wandering. The account of a modern day gypsy of sorts, she professes the journey through her eyes and it brings us to feel anger and despair at every turn. She tries finding a way out by joining the military only to find herself back in the fast and furious lifestyle she tried to escape from. A great read in every sense of the word, I highly recommend it!

I AM AN X STRIPPER WHO LIVED AND WORKED IN CHICAGO FOR YEARS.
I BEGAN DANCING WHEN I WAS 17, AND QUIT THE BUISNESS WHEN I
WAS 48. SO, I WAS IN THE BUISNESS A LITTLE LONGER THAN THE
AUTHOR. I WAS SHOCKED WHEN I READ THIS BOOK, BECAUSE I WORKED
AT A FEW OF THE PLACES THAT THE AUTHOR WROTE ABOUT..ALTHOUGH
ALL THE NAMES OF THE CLUBS WERE CHANGED..THERE ARE SOME
DISTINCTIVE DESCRIPTIONS THAT I RECONIZE. ONE OF THEM, WAS
THE OPERATION SAFEBET BUST..THAT I WAS UNFORTUNATLEY INVOLVED
IN.
tHE AUTHOR DID A GREAT JOB IN DESCRIBING WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO
WORK IN THESE PLACES...SHE WAS VERY ACCURATE..AND ALTHOUGH
SOME OF HER STORIES MAY SEEM FAR FETCHED TO SOME PEOPLE..THEY
WERE REALITY TO NOT ONLY MYSELF..BUT TO ALL THE OTHER DANCERS
THAT I WORKED WITH...AND I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT BECAUSE I WAS
THERE...IF ANYTHING..SHE TONED ALL THE INCIDENTS DOWN..IT WAS
ALL MUCH WORSE THAN SHE WROTE...IT WAS A BRUTAL EVIORMENT TO
SAY THE LEAST.I HAVE READ QUITE A FEW BOOKS ON THIS SUBJECT
BUT THIS WAS ONE OF THE BEST..AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT TO
ANYONE INTERESTED IN THE SUBJECT...

I HAVE WANTED THIS BOOK SINCE IT WAS PUBLISHED, AND WHEN I COULD
GET IT FROM YOU, I TOOK IT IMMEDIATELY. I FIND IT TO BE THE BEST
OF REFERENCE BOOKS AROUND TO DATE. THANK YOU.

I enjoyed the book immensly. I read it in one day cover to cover all 900+ pages. Very informative and great pictures of fish. I have been a hobbyist for 20 years and I still learned something from it.

I wanted one great dictionary for reference as I just got started with my aquarium a few months ago. I found this to be badly indexed, and since it is alphabetical by Latin subspecies and then Latin name within it, they assume a great deal of knowledge right off the bat. Then you need to look up the common name in the index to find the latin name and my most common fish aren't even in there under common name (ie., Molly, Platy). Guppy is under "D" in the index, a typo for "G" - which makes me think this wasn't even proofread. I really didn't need information on freshwater fish like bass and pike, since those aren't aquarium fish, so don't understand who the audience is supposed to be. Many fish in here measure over a foot in length. I have an aquarium, I'm not going fishing.

Unlike many previous Tropical Fish books from the Tropical Fish Hobbyist publisher that were not much more that an unorganized child's picture book, this Encyclopedia is well oganized and has a great common name and scientific name index. A desciption of the fish is on the left page with two corresponding pictures on the right page which makes for easy reading. I would rate this book 5 stars if the descriptions were more detailed. It leaves out temperature range, PH range, sexing information, etc. even though there is sufficient room in the description area for about 40% more verbiage. I recommend this book to be used in conjunction with the 4 Volume set of the Baensch Aquarium Atlas which provides much greater detail of each fish species.

The author doesn't even include the temperature to keep the fish.

There are lots of books, such as "Stripped:", that tell the story of sex work from the girl's point of view. There are few, however, that try to tell it from the customer's standpoint, unless you count the tall tales told by the so-called monger websites, such as the worldsexguide, etc.

I've tried to write a book that shows the customers as they really are - losers, mostly - while still being an entertaining good read. You might enjoy Naked in Haiti: A sexy morality tale about tourists, prostitutes & politicians.

As a stripper for 7 years, I did not find this book very interesting. Many of these stories seem a little exagerated. It is pretty evident that the author went from striper to stripper and asked for their stories, then went back and wrote the book. I guess it could make for good reading material to someone who has not clue, but even the average person can read this book and get the feeling that it is not write accurate.

Stripped is nothing more than feminist work: The insights into the work and private lives of exotic dancers are vague but it moves far beyond notions of strippers as exploited or empowered to uncover more hidden aspects of this world--its burdens of emotional labor, social stigma, exhaustion, and boredom as well as experiences of athleticism, ego-gratification, intimacy, and even spirituality."

As a dancer I found this book to be very disappointing and does not show the real side of dancers. There are many other books out there that paint a real picture from real dancers.

Maybe the Author should go and shake it herself and then she would get the real perspective about the job. I loved the job and enjoyed it very much. Not all stripper's hate the job and want out cause they can't handle it. I wished I was younger so I could stay in the business a lot longer.

Check out my reviews to see what books about stripping are the best....

I really enjoyed the book. I like that it does not demonize or sensationalise things. The perspective is fresh from outside the industry. This is not a book written by a stripper to justify her actions, as some reviewers on this list would prefer. If you want to understand the internal conflict and external stigma your friends, sisters, and daughters go through when choosing this job, this is a must read. This book does not preach, only offers insight to the many facets that make up this lifestyle choice.

...a book about strippers that does not preach, that does not take sides or pass value judgements, and that does not denigrate or glorify the people who work in the sex industry.

Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers, does exactly what the title suggests: it takes the reader inside the private lives of women who work in the sex industry, and it presents exotic dancers in such a way that the reader sees them first as people, effectively taking the women out from under the overwhelming shadow of their job title.

Barton's writing style is precise, intimate, and candid, and it propels the reader right into the livingrooms and dressing rooms of exotic dancers. The book tackles the tar pit traps of the "sex wars", why/how women get into the sex industry, sexual identity, and the reality of working in the sex industry without getting bogged down in conflicting feminist theory.

Yet Barton adds her voice to the sex industry debate in a way that commands attention from both the average reader and from those well versed in the intracies of the "sex wars".

This book makes its debut in a pop culture where young Hollywood starlets show just how blurry the lines are between acceptable female behavior and sex industry work. Barton takes her readers back and forth across that line with facility and empathy, allowing the reader to finally determine for her/himself where that line actually exists.

I look forward to her next book.

It's hard to learn to dance from reading a book, but there is *some* valuable information in here. I'd buy it used. Either way, this is a fun, entertaining book.

It is a cute book, but for the price it doesn't give you a lot movement wise. Great pictures, but if you really want routines and exercises, go for the S factor by Sheila Kelley

I loved this book. Although I would prefer to have an instructor teach me, I live in a remote area and I don't think these classes will ever make it out my way! =(
I already have the video (same name/class/etc...) and it's really great. The book reinforced what I learned in the video and had all sorts of motivational information and tips. I just thought it was top drawer!
The colors are beautiful, the pictures are too...it was just a real "girl" book!
Buy it, you won't be disappointed!!

Ms. Jones certainly did her research for this book. The level of detail, history and meaning she has found for this global array of names is truly staggering. Need a break from the plethera of Avas, Jeremys, Gavins and Emmas? This is the book for you!

Best Exotic Baby Names: New, Historical, Ancient, Mystical

This book is perfect! We are expecting our baby in the Spring and are looking for a name that is meaningful and unique. We found 4 names right away that we're considering now! This book is the most helpful of all of the books I've looked at for non-typical, original names.

I was acutely made aware of how "careers with animals" is a different concept to "careers for those who *love* animals". The section on farming (which includes veal production) describes its practices so benignly - with no acknowledgement of the horrendous cruelties these poor animals endure. I tossed the book aside in disappointment and disgust. There may well be some useful information in the other sections but the book was already tainted for me. My recommendation is that if you truly care about the welfare of animals you should look elsewhere.

Readers who are animal lovers and who dream of working with animals often stop at the idea of being a vet: in actuality, there's so much more available, as Careers With Animals: Exploring Occupations Involving Dogs, Horses, Cats, Birds, Wildlife And Exotics demonstrates. Career options range from breeding and treating animals to being a show judge or working for a zoo or aquarium. An organization by animal type - marine, horses, birds, wild animals - makes it easy to hone in more specifically to careers with particular types of animals. Very highly recommended.

Ellen Shenk, author of Outdoor Careers, follows up with Careers With Animals, and it is every bit as accessible and readable. All the lists and specific information you will need for planning and executing your search are here--sources, possibilities, definitions, salary ranges. But aside from the practical, the author shines her best light: she makes you think about intangibles--your suitability, your personality, the realities you might encounter with your choice, and the like. As with Outdoor Careers, she includes interviews with "real people" who give their first-person accounts of their everyday vocational experiences.

The author is one in all: a photographer, a writer and a graphic designer. He is great with photography but writing and book designing should be left for a professional. Book is unorganized. Not enough descriptions for each varieties. Chapters jump around. Page layout is very amateurish. This should not have been a book but a PowerPoint slides show instead.

This is the best book yet for plumeria photo's that are true to life, the pictures are that good it makes you almost want to bend down and smell the pages. This is a must have for every plumeria lover and it will be well read once you do get a copy, especially if you have it on your coffee table. Even non plumeria growers will enjoy the photo's in these pages, they are just so vibrant , anyone that has an interest in flowers will be nothing short of amazed and find it hard to put down, I know I did.

All I can say is that this is the most fabulous book ever published on plumeria. The photography is absolutely outstanding. These pictures could very easliy be framed with great pride. It is obvious no cost was spared, down to very heavy paper stock the book is printed on. Great job and keep them coming.

It is true that photos would have been nice, but the descriptions are excellent. The author also takes time to include interesting quotes both historical and hysterical

the book had great content- interesting subject matter- outlined alphabetically - but its missing the visual - no photos and very boring font- makes it more of a dictionary than an entertainment book - I was disappointed and wont keep it in my "foodie" collection for long.

London writer Weil conducts this global guide to exotic, often culturally celebrated food with wit, panache and practicality. Each entry even includes precise instructions for preparation and consumption, should you be so inclined.

There's fugu, for example, the Japanese puffer fish that can prove fatal if incorrectly prepared. Or durian, the Philippine fruit that smells like rotting corpses. Or bat soup, the Guam festival dish, which may contain a deadly neurotoxin, depending on where your bat hales from. And the dung beetle larvae, about which no more need be said.

There are more appetizing things, however. As in a real guidebook, Weil provides a symbol key so you can see at a glance if an entry is smelly, messy, revolting, has eyes, is an aphrodisiac, might kill you, or tastes like chicken.

Hardly anything in this book seems to taste like chicken. Not lichen or cricket or blubber or fermented mares milk or sea cucumber or dog. Frogs do, of course, and guinea pig too.

Weil introduces the reader to ceremonial eating in remote places like Kazakhstan where the many vodka toasts will help in washing down the sheep's head dinner's ultimate moment, the eyeball, and she debunks a legendary shocker - the delicacy of the live monkey brain.

Sometimes hilarious, always entertaining, "Fierce Food" will spice up the most jaded armchair adventurer's palate.

-- Portsmouth Herald

I feel strongly compelled to caution readers against this book. Although there were many schools of Buddhism, it was the Theravadan Tipitaka (the rough equivalent to a Buddhist bible) that was passed down orally, written in Pali around 2000 years ago, and managed to survive until the present day. The Tipitaka is considered to be the earliest known exposition of Buddhist teachings and philosophy. Within the Tipitaka, the Buddha is repeatedly portrayed as teaching that there are three rudimentary truths of experience: impermanence, suffering, and non-self. The realizations of these truths are considered to be among the conditions that are necessary for enlightenment. In his book, Joaquin Perez-Ramon chose to tackle the third of these facts, that of non-self. Mr. Perez-Remon constructed his manuscript using a hypothesis, that the anatta doctrine "has no absolute value" and that these early texts "...not only does not annul the reality of the self, but reaffirms it..." Mr. Perez-Remon acknowledges that his hypothesis is in contradiction to what are considered the accepted teachings of Buddhism. In exploring the texts to support or negate his hypothesis, Mr. Perez-Remon singles out many of the occurrences of the terms and concepts of both self (atta) and non-self (anatta). Unfortunately (and this is where the Mr. Perez-Remon's book seems to have gone awry) he used translations (of his own making? - see his "Preliminary remarks") that starkly highlighted the words and concepts he was examining, creating rather new meanings to the original writings. These new meanings were occasionally harmless, but more often than not, actually served to contradict commonly accepted Buddhist philosophy on this subject. Mr. Perez-Remon's excellent documentation however, allowed a side-by-side comparison to other translations. Works by translators such as Bhikku Bodhi and K.R. Norman, provide a far more plausible and philosophically coherent rendering of these early texts on this crucial Buddhist concept. Mr. Perez-Remon compounds his dubious translations with assertions and rationalizations that serve only to support his hypothesis. For example, he reasons enlightenment must liberate something (the self), rather than recognizing that enlightenment is the dissolution of the (mental construct of a) self. While inferences may be drawn on what one does not find in the texts, Mr. Perez-Remon pushes this method to extreme, going so far as to assume and assert the Buddha's convictions in a self. Among Mr. Perez-Remon's conclusions, he finds that the different philosophies of self and not-self must be equally valid and require synthesis/transcendence. The end result of Mr. Perez-Remon's work is that much of what is unique to Buddhism is explained away and rendered meaningless. The Buddhist concept of non-self is one that, at least initially, has been difficult for many to grasp and/or accept. Although Mr. Perez-Remon's book is written in an academic manner, I believe that his analysis of this subject is deeply flawed and is misleading to those exploring this concept. I do not recommend his book for beginning or even intermediate students of Buddhism, but only, and reluctantly at best, for those who have a good background in Buddhist philosophy, a challenging attitude, and the resources with which to check Mr. Perez-Remon's work against other trusted materials. I see this book as useful only as an example of how faulty translations and misleading assertions can be used to systematically undermine the concepts of a philosophy, perpetuating the very ignorance that Buddhism seeks to dispel. For intermediate or advanced readers who are seeking scholarly writings on the subject of anatta or non-self, without the misrepresentation found in Mr. Perez-Remon's "Self and Non-Self in Early Buddhism," I recommend Steven Collins' book "Selfless Persons."

Out of 2317 books on Buddhism that I own, this book ranks as top 10 outside of the scriptures themselves. If you notice the diatribe 1 star review below, no evidence is given to refute the 1000s and 1000s of Suttric quotes given by Perez proving that Buddhism deplored nihilism and most especially Theravada notions of empiricall emptiness.

The entire Doctrine of ANATTA AN(not) Atta'(True Self, Attan, Atman) is the netti netti ( not this, not that) doctrine to demonstrate to the monks that which cannot be construed as the everlasting self as such.

Know you and know you well that nothing is refuted in the entirety of Buddhism other than that the Attan (true self, deathless) cannot be associated with the Khandhas ( 5 aggregates of phenomenality). To prove otherwise is imposible by scripture.
There are opinions and conjecture, and there are facts and quotes from Sutta ( Nikayas). Those who embrace the notion of no-self empircally have not one dot of evidence to back them up in Scripture period.

Nowhere within the Scriptures of Buddhism is the True Self denied, but
only that is must not be identified with the transitory
and ephemeral aggregates of phenomena. Such that forms, feelings,
perceptions, impulses, and mental machinations of the
mind are temporal, unreal, arise and pass, and are of the realm of
phenomena and cannot be construed as what is everlasting,
best, real, and most dear of the True Self and therefore must not be
identified with the Attan as such.

Even now the world standard for Pali-English translation reference being
the new "A Dictionary of Pali" by Margaret Cone
states about the Attan (atta): [Sanskrit Atman], The self, the soul, as
a permanent unchangeable, autonomous entity; p.70, Pali
Text Society

Without an entity that fares on, there are no grounds for rebirth,
nothing which could be perfected, and Buddhism flies apart
at the hinges without a basis. Since there is nothing of any substance
of the aggregates which can recollect previous lives,
and nothing everlasting within such temporal phenomena to be perfected
to dwell within Perfection;

There cannot be assumed even loosely that Buddhism can exist without the
concept of the Attan, so offhandedly rejected by
sectarian nihilism which runs contrary to sutta.We are more interested
in what the Buddha said than what he didn't say, and
as it pertains to the Attan, nothing is rejected but temporal
aggregates, not the Attan.

The greatest mistake made after the passing of Gotama Buddha was the
arising of the non-doctrinal notion that Buddhism
somehow preaches empirical-extinction. The much discussed doctrine of
Anatta [an (not) Atta (True Self)] which occurs a
little more than 240 times in the entirety of the Buddhist Nikayas is
used only to describe that which cannot be identified
with or clung to as genuinely real and everlasting, or possessed of the
True Self in its proper identity.

In some secular translations, the Atta has been translated in its
various forms and compounds as a reflexive, i.e. oneself,
himself, themselves; but no such reflexive terminology exists within the
Pali language in which the Buddhist canon is
recorded. The Atta (True Self) or the Attan, both in standalone and
compound occur more than 23,000 times within scripture.

DN 2.157 Therefore Ananda, stay as those who have their True Self as the
illumination, as those who have their True Self as
supreme refuge, as those who have no other as the refuge; as those who
have the true law Dharma as the illumination, as
those who have the Dharma as refuge, as those who have no other refuge.
KN 3.78 And whoever, Ananda, either now or after my end will stay as
those who have the True Self as the illumination, as
those who have True Self as refuge, as those who have no other as the
refuge...they among my bhikkhus shall reach the peak
of immortality, provided they are desirous of training their True Self.

AN 1.81 There is monks, an unborn, an unoriginated, an unmade, and an
unformed. If there were not monks, this unborn,
unoriginated, unmade and unformed, there would be no way out for the
born, the originated, the made and the formed.

Bravo to Perez for pulling back the horror in refutation against Sectarian Nihilism not found in Buddhist Sutta.

Dr.of Buddhology S.A.

im a Buddhist monk and Pali translator who is also somewhat of an expert on the term ATTA' within Sutta Pitaka scripture. i dont give this book 5 stars but rather 10, out of 1000+ books i have on Buddhism, this one is top 5.When the Buddha affirmed the existence of atta'(true self) against the materialists, he affirmed the reality of something objectively existing to be true. When he denied the atta' against the eternalists, he did not deny the true atta', but the atta' OF the eternalists that is WRONGLY identified with the 5 Skandhas.the anatta'(that which is not self..not to be confused with NO-SELF) doctrine taught in the Nikayas has a relative value, not an absolute one. It does not say that the self has NO reality at all(nowhere within scripture i might add)but that certain things,with which the UNLEARNED man IDENTIFIES himself with, are NOT of the self and that is why one should grow disgusted with them.This book is the CRUX MAXIMUS and the ROSETTA STONE of the ARYA-PUGALA (noble true self) among the 1315 mentions of the ATTA' (true self) uses of that word with Pali Scripture and CORRECT RELATIVE interpretation of the ussage of the term ANATTA' used 343 times within Pali Scripture.what MOST ALL Buddhist dont realise as stated by Perez Ramon is that the term ANATTA' (that which is not self...not NO-SELF) is employed by the Buddha to say what to his disciples what is NOT OF THE TRUE self...not to say that there is NO SELF...MOST IMPORTANT: nowhere...and i do mean NOWHERE.......is it found in the Scriptures that the Buddha DENIES the Arya-atta' (true self).........this is soooooooooooo very very very important point within Buddhism that is VERY MISSUNDERSTOOD.anyone calling themselves a Buddhist should and MUST know what is in this book (IF THEY CANT READ PALI OF COURSE) because NOWHERE is there any other such extensive book on this subject ...period...its a must have..unless you have this ROSETTTA STONE of a book on the subject of the BUDDHIST SELF NO-SELF view...your missing out on the subject and surely dont have a correct understanding of the term and the USSAGE of this within Buddhist scripure..it really IS that important of a book.its expensive i admit..but its worth 10 times that if your a serious buddhist. Buddha:: He for whom the (true) self is not enough (yassatta' nalameko va), Even if the whole world was his, He would not obtain happiness. (The Buddha). Buddha to Ananda:: Do make an firm island out of the true self, Since there is no other refuge to be found for you. (so karohi sudipamattana' tvam) // 1 quote from the Buddha out of 1600+ POSITIVE affirmatians of something which transcends death and either follows Kamma or passes into the Deathless.BUDDHA at time of death::My age is fully ripe, My life is at an end, I shall depart leaving you, I have made a refuge for the self (katam' me saranam' attano).. /// does this sound like the Buddha taught a NO SELF doctrine (emripical anatta)? THIS BOOK IS PURE GOLD WRAPED IN GOLD. must have for any and all serious buddhists! sounds too emphatic. but if understand that i give most all Buddhist books a 1 star rating and have one of the Largest Buddhist libraries in the USA..i would hope this endorsement carries SOME weight. Buddhist Monk S.A.