Becker Books

The Joy Of Cooking was my first cookbook given to me by my mother. And reading the recipe as it were, as how it all came about is quite compelling.

Take one family--the St. Louis Rombauers--from good German stock. Add a 1931 vanity printing of Mrs. Rombauer's mostly unexceptional recipes: molded fruit salads, Kitchen Bouquet-colored gravies, things involving canned soup. Watch this collection rise into a successful commercial volume, leavened by its idiosyncratic voice (comparing a "vegetable plate, unadorned" to Gandhi's bald head, the amateur chef recommended a sprig of parsley). Throw in a contentious author-publisher relationship, plus daughter Marion Rombauer Becker's reluctant inheritance of her mother's legacy, and a delicious story forms.

Mendelson, who writes for Gourmet, discusses this most definitively American kitchen manual with measured but contagious relish. Like The Joy of Cooking, her closely researched work will be many things to many people. It's publishing history, intimate biography, and a record of changing national tastes--a practically foolproof repast.

STAND FACING THE STOVE, is a robust volume (475 pages)detailing the life and work of Irma Rombauer and Marion Robauer Becker, the mother-daughter team responsible for writing the JOY OF COOKING, America's best-loved recipe and cookery reference book. STAND FACING THE STOVE will change your way of viewing cookbooks and the publishing process forever. The book took a decade to write, and author, Anne Mendelson, has done a thorough job of tracing the complex history of the writers' families, and JOY's life from it's inception in the early 1930's through the mid-'70's when daughter, Marion, dies. Presented is a fascinating insider's look at the culinary fads and trends that have defined our eating habits through four decades. JOY, which has sold over 10 million copies in its long and enduring history, was far less than joyous for the Rombauer clan than the ebullient light-hearted tone of the cookbook would belie. There were rancorous feuds with JOY's former publisher, the now-defunct Bobbs-Merrill Company. As a cookbook and recipe collector (WRITE ME!), I found Mendelson's book fascinating, but so complexly verbalized that it demanded being red in short fits and spurts. The book does provide valuable insights into the lives of the writers, their "magnum opus," and the terrible tension that existed between the publisher's self-interests, and the writers' unrelenting quest for ever more perfect expressions of their work. Sadly, Bobbs-Merrill refused to allow Mendelson access to the correspondence and records that would have shed even greater light on their publisher feud that fueled a long and embittered battle. At the close of the book, I found myself with a deep respect, not only for the Rombauers with their unrelenting tenacity at this enterprise, but also for Anne Mendelson whose depth and attention to detail resulted in huge and rich trove that enlightens the "culture of cookery." For reference, I wish the author had provided readers with pictures of the prominent versions of the ! Rombauer's volumes, especially the earliest editions. Instead, I suggest readers pull out their old, grease-spattered JOY OF COOKING, and have on hand a copy of the huge 1997 version(1136 pgs., Henry Holt, publishers) of the book from grandson Ethan for the fun of comparing copyrights, acknowledgements, and recipe updates which help to enrich the saga. (P.S. Those of you with 1930 editions of JOY, hang on to your hats! Some are worth over $1,000 now!)

Anne Mendelson gave a very descriptive account of life in St. Louis. She loves large words and uses them correctly, but it could have been a shorter book with less words

The book is up-to-date and effectively presents the basic concepts. Deals with current power and sphericity concerns. Example SPSS-keyed analyses and APA-format results sections are especially valuable for research training. Uses post-hoc Tukey HSD test. Separate nonparametric chapters. The authors know their material (not always the case with statistics texts) and they provide a solid (higher-level) introduction. Good selection of topics and fairly thorough. Perhaps a bit wordy at times. One of the best available introductions. From a long-time teacher of statistics with no connection to authors.

As a grad student who is at present using this textbook (I am in spring quarter, 06), I will sum it up in two words "it sucks". I have taken three different statistic classes and I am using their textbooks to fill in the many blanks this textbook has.
There are two major problems, one is that it does not have a connection with statistic software. My instructor assigns the problems in the chapter exercises to be performed on SPSS. This textbook is not geared for SPSS; it is set up for the problems to be worked the old fashioned way--paper and pencil, with a hand calculator to be used. It does not work well with SPSS, as my classmates and I have complained about to each other.
The other is that the authors seem to assume that students who have signed up for statistical classes love stats. Wrong ! ! ! Most students dread statistics class, they jokingly call it sadistic class. This is the only class that many of us feel totally stupid in (remember, we are GRADUATE level students, so we are not stupid). We need a textbook that explains everything in simple terms, gives many examples and then explains the steps in detail. The problems should be up-to-date, and able to be used in SPSS software.
The book does not adequately cover many topics, and the one subject that ever stats student hates to deal with is Z-scores. And as usual, this textbook hardly mentions it, four pages in one chapter discussing how to do z-scores. Yet it is one of the most important methods a stats student needs to know how to do. Several of my classmates feel that this book was a waste of their money.

For basic statistics in undergrad it may be adequate, or for those who are knowledgeable of statistics this may suffice; but for regular statistic class students, this textbook fails the class.

This is an exceptional book. Another review says the book is not good with SPSS, which is strange because the book includes sections in all the main chapters that explains SPSS output. This book is great this way. The disgruntled student reviewer must have skipped these because they appear in special chapter boxes that (bad) students often skip over. The treatment of z scores (which is not all that crucial anyway - when was the last time you saw a z score in a research article) is outstanding, so the review just sounds like sour grapes to me.

This book explains statistics intuitively and gives great explanations and examples. It is written very clearly. After reading it, I was able to read and understand journal articles much better. It has special sections to tell you how statistics will be presented in research reports and how to read them. This is a great feature. This book helped me so much and I think it deserves seven stars!

*Thai for Advanced Readers* is a fairly good reader for lower-level intermediate students. It's got to be kept in mind that, for less frequently studied languages, "advanced" is used to describe non-native speakers whose abilities would still be considered fairly primitive in the major Western languages. This book could be a good stepping stone, but to what? There's still a vast amount of knowledge necessary before a person who had worked thru Becker's books could read a newspaper or short stories, but there don't seem to be any real materials for instruction in those skills. I don't know of any book, yet, that merits this volume's title.

Worked through most of this book some time ago, and it is a great book. It is fun to read, and gives a good insight to Thai culture and history also. I believe some people might find a thai vocabulary in the back of the book useful.

This is a very tough course. I finished "Thai For Beginners" and "Thai For Intermediate Learners" and I still had trouble with this course.
The book has vocabulary and stories / essays which uses the vocabulary. The Cd's, though, only have the stories / essays on them. That makes it difficult to insure you are pronouncing the words correctly. If you make it to this book, you should know how to read Thai. That will help you with decipher what tone the vocabulary should be and how to sound out the words. But, being a non-native speaker, I'm sure I'm still not saying the words like a native Thai speaker would.
This book makes a large jump from "Thai for Intermediate Learners." I think Mrs. Benjawan Poomsan Becker should write another book to bridge the gap.
This is a good course for anyone who wants to learn more about Thailand, Thai people and their customs... And for those who would like to improve their Thai reading skills.

This book is a series of essays on various topics related to World War I. It does not claim to be a thorough analysis of the war, but it does point in directions for further thought and research. I found the book to be quite fascinating. For example, there is a chapter about forced labor behind the front lines that was new material to me. Also, there is quite a bit about how the war was remembered and memorialized that is very intriguing. A major thesis of the book is that Paul Fussell's idea about a big cultural disconnect resulting from the Great War is wrong. The authors endeavor to show that, other than some avant-garde artists, most people continued to understand the world in traditional terms. Overall, a very stimulating book.

It took me a while to understand why I was so disappointed and uncomfortable with this book. The subject matter and chapter topics seemed intriguing; the writing style wasn't bad. Then I began to understand that the problem is with the authors' scholarship. In an attempt to reinterpret the war and make it meaningful for a contemporary audience, they used the inexperienced-author-survey style of writing, which takes an anecdote or two and turns this limited information into the basis for broad, sweeping conclusions that are inaccurate, or worse. As an amateur historian who understands the rules of scholarship, I was finding it impossible to suspend disbelief as I read through this series of interrelated but lightweight essays. Some of the information presented is indeed interesting, but the conclusions are not, and overall it does not hold together well as a book.

If you're looking for a recent WWI publication that is informative, well-researched and engaging, get Winston Groom's book, A Storm in Flanders.

This is an absolute life changing read, if you are to practice what Lawrence has to offer. It is un-conventional, and a paridigm shift is required...Good stuff...even greater life experiences as a result....JUICY as Lawrence says....

I was really excited about this book when I got it, but the first half of the book basically says the same thing over and over--that our lives revolve around the myths that we were taught and believe--he says this in about one thousand different ways, and I found myself saying to myself "ok...I get it already! Now what?!?" So that was kinda frustrating. Not that it's not insightful, because it is....but if you're the kind of person who catches on quickly...you might find yourself a little tired of this book very early on. Also, be aware that Lawrence speaks as if he knows the absolute truth about this life--he says that there is no truth--he actually says things like --"This life is a lie." (Including what we see around us--our brain thinks it's there, but it's really not) And although this is very possible, part of me is going "well how do you know that?" He says that there is absolutely no truth and everything that we believe is a lie and essentially, all we are is awareness (energy) (which may be true)--but I feel that is a little bold of him to say that THIS is absolute truth--if someone says that there is no truth, they are automatically debunking their own belief that there is no truth--because how can that be true if there is no truth? Does this make sense to anyone else? Anyway, I am always weary of those that believe that they know the absolute truth about life--Basically, I feel that this book is kinda boring, but fairly interesting SOMETIMES. I don't really recommend it. But I will say that parts of it are insipring to do what you really want in life, and fullfill yourself with yourself, because no one can do it for you--Like I said, can be inspiring, but nothing new or groundbreaking. If you are looking for something VERY interesting, intellectual, open-minded, and inspiring to the fullest degree, buy the DVD "What the Bleep Do We Know" and skip all the other junk. This pretty much cuts right to the chase when it comes to quantum physics and the possibilities of life!

Author Stanley Cohen has done a thorough job in investigating the murder of gambler Herman "Beansie" Rosenthal in the Times Square area of New York City in 1912. A good portion of the book deals with the trial of the actual murderers by the shady names of Gyp the Blood, Lefty Louie, Dago Frank and Whitey Lewis, and the two trials of the man convicted of orchestrating the hit of Rosenthal, Lieutenant Charley Becker. Becker apparently enlisted three others (Bald Jack Rose, Bridgey Webber, and Harry Vallon) to set up the hit on Rosenthal who then hired the four hitmen to carry out the actual assassination. Becker was afraid of Rosenthal exposing Becker's involvement in shady operations in his police department, and the only way to silence Rosenthal was to place him in the past tense. I feel Becker's mistake was to involve three middlemen who then turned state's evidence against Becker to save their own neck. The four actual hitmen paid the supreme price for their involvement in Sing Sing's electric chair in 1913. Despite two trials Becker also kept a date with the electric chair in July of 1913, a few months after the actual hitmen. The fact that Becker was a police officer who faced execution in Sing Sing made this story front page news from the time of the murder until his execution. The book involves several people in addition to those already mentioned, and I found it hard to keep everyone's role in the drama straight. That, however, is my problem. I feel the author did a wonderful job on this book, and if you enjoy crime stories this one is a dandy. Two sets of pictures show the main characters in addition to New York landmarks in the 1910's such as The Tombs and the Criminal Courts Building connected by the Bridge of Sighs, Rector's Restaurant, New York's Lower East Side, the Tenderloin District (Times Square area), the Hotel Cadillac near the site of the murder at the Metropole Hotel, children hawking newspapers with the cry of "Extra", the building where Lefty Louie and Gyp the Blood were arrested in Queens, and children licking huge blocks of ice in front of a grocery store to ward off the stifling July heat. The pictures, I felt, gave me an idea of what New York City was like during the 1910's. Those who enjoy crime stories will want to make this book a permanent addition to their library.

This is a sloppily written and poorly researched book. Major errors appear on the opening page (Herman Rosenthal was one of the few gangsters not to have had a nickname; Cohen repeatedly refers to him as "Beansie"--the monicker of the similarly named "Rosenfeld" who was actually a partner of the murder victim.) Big Jack Zelig is incorrectly identified as William Alberts (his true name was Selig Harry Lefkowitz--a biography, THE STARKER, is being published in February 2008.) Photos are badly labeled. Some of the gangsters are still changing identities even now, years after their deaths. Two pictures (Sam Schepps and Harry Vallon) are captioned differently than the same photos in Andy Edmond's much better AGAINST THE EVIDENCE, which is now out of print but worth reading.
This book is a good guide to the inaccurate reporting on the Becker case, since it seems to rely mostly on newspaper accounts of the trial that were invariably highly unfavorable to the defense. But it should in no way be considered historical fact. Corrupt policeman Becker was an unsavory character, but he went to the chair for a murder that he did not commit. The District Attorney hounded him to his death for political advantage. Cohen portrays this even more unsavory man as some kind of hero.
SATAN'S CIRCUS by Mike Dash is an immensely superior work in every way.

This book only has a handfull of good puzzles. Not surprisingly the best are about cars, that's what I expected from this book.

What I don't like are the "filler" problems in the classic logic&math genre; seen too many of those around in countless puzzle books. The hokey photos and silly puns just don't make up for the lack of originality of the puzzles -sorry fellas.

I hope the next book of cartalk puzzles will have more original puzzles.

Wow! This is one greak book.

This is the best book on infertility and its effects on relationships that I've read (and I've read quite a few). It is written by an anthropologist who has struggled with infertility herself and is based on her research. I never expected to find such words of wisdom in a book like this. Empowering, life-affirming, hopeful, and full of love. Every couple who is experiencing infertility should read it. I would also recommend it to infertility doctors and counselors, and social workers working with adoption.

I am so thankful for Gay Becker and her research. This book is a treasure.

I read this book cover to cover. from the beginning it wasn't grabbing my attention.I was very bored while reading it.It's main focus to me was on older couples, 35 and up, with infertility problems. Completely ignoring the younger reader such as myself. (I'm 24 and have had infertility issues for 4 yrs.)I did like the interviews the author used to express the couples actual feelings, although, my husband and myself didn't seem to relate to a lot of the male perspective and some of the female perspective the author was giving. The title is -Healing the Infertile family:Strengthening your relationship in the search for Parenthood- I don't feel like I learned any new coping techniques,I don't feel any good information on what my husband and myself could do to strengthen our relationship was presented like the title would insinuate. So I rate this book only 2 stars.

This book is poorly printed. It is done on the inexpensive side with very cheap paper. Thus, when you try to really open the book you break the spine.
The printing is very close together and very difficult to read.
The information is crowded together. Not a book for the Hungry Traveler.

Italy has a lot of variety in its regional cuisines and language dialects. And that affects the design of this guide.

There's an 85-page menu primer of food terms used in Italian restaurants, pretty much all over Italy. There's also a short section on comfort foods and another on beverages. And there's a special 96-page section of words describing regional and seasonal food specialties.

Take this guide with you and eat well!

Itis the first "Joy of Cooking" to disappoint me. It is cute, but with none of the substance I have come to expect from the Rombauer crowd. If you love the original or any of the new versions as I do, You may be disappointed in this one. I guess I just hoped for that same "Packed with information" quality and didn't get it.

This miniature edition of the classic American cookbook is a wonderful kitchen keepsake! It is enclosed in a resusable plastic jar that also contains a set of red plastic measuring spoons.