Blair Books

This book is full of great kid friendly jokes and riddles. The riddles challenge a child's mind and the jokes are easily understood.

As one who has grown up in the Korean-American church, I have always been curious about the foundings of Christianity in Korea. This is an excellent, first-hand account of the work of the first Korean missionaries during the early 1900s. It also contains incredible descriptions of the sufferings endured during the Japanese occupation and the subsequent Korean War. I found it to be quite inspirational.

Lovely, exciting historical drama from the end of the 19th century passing by the mexican revolution and the end of the romantic era and the dead of Antonieta in 1931 in Paris.
Follow the lives of Antonieta and her family, her father Antonio Rivas Mercado was the architecht of the Independence Angel monumment in Mexico city. Sweet, funny, sad, violent and poetic a real best seller. Writen by Antonieta's daugther in law.

This book is a wonderful and very valuable reference work for the study of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century embroidery. The author has included patterns for four projects! It has beautiful and nicely detailed colored photographs and ninety some pages of black and white photos as well. There are examples of contemporary pieces and the best works of several centuries. And, the authors showcase very well their skills as researchers and teachers in the field of embroidery.

This is one of Blair's earliest works, written in the true tradition of the Rogues. Justin is yummy. Lots of sexual tension throughout, with one surprise after another.

Another of Blair's early works, this one ranks right up there with the best of them. Very, very difficult to find, probably because of the hunky pirate of a sea captain. It's funny, sexy, delicious from beginning to end. Don't miss this one. I read it so many times I wore the first one out and had to hunt for spares.

Phillippe Sands "Lawless World" is a deeply disturbing book for anyone who shares my belief that America lives by the rules.

It is indeed a "whistle-blowing" account of just how many rules of international law the Bush administration, with the complicity of Tony Blair of Great Britain, flouted in the run-up to and execution of the Iraq war. For someone like me who previously knew next to nothing about the body of international law that exists, it is incredibly eye-opening.
From the Geneva Convention and its protocols, to the Convention against Torture (1984), and the Charter of the United Nations, Sands reveals in plain and readily understandable language just what this body of law contains, how it got there, and how and why the Iraq war violated so much of it.

I have been accused of being an idealist and a liberal. (Which makes me doubly tainted). If I am an idealist, it is because I grew up in a time and in a place where I cut my teeth on the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights. I grew up believing the U.S. was a country of ideals, rules, a code of ethics and fundamental decency, that we had a system of checks and balances that prevented any one arm of the government from becoming too powerful, and that this government governed with the consent of the governed.

When laws, whether domestic or international, are flouted without demur, as they have been by this administration, we are all of us, each and every one of us, at risk. To quote Sands, "what you take away from others you take away also from yourself."

I would recommend the book to anyone with even a remote interest in what went on both before and during the Iraq war regarding the body of law that existed internationally from the end of W.W.II. International law is the only thing now standing between the civilized world and barbarism. Greater adherence to it by all the nations and peoples of the world could make obsolete Wordworth's words,
"Have I not reason to lament what man has made of man"

For anyone interested in the history of Leadville and Colorado's mining days, this book is a must read. Edward Blair has extensively researched Leadville's rambunctious past, detailing the history of the region and the fascinating people who lived there. Blair paints a vivid, moving portrait of the Colorado boomtown and includes a treasure trove of photographs. The volume has the appearance and layout of a college textbook. It has been an invaluable source of information to me in my own research.

Wow! What a wonderful book, and what a huge difference from the commercial travel guides I've been seeing. I was amazed at how much the author was able to cover within only 300 pages. But what I really appreciated was the sense of integrity and compassion with which the author was writing- you could sense her really trying to get the stories right, to reflect different viewpoints, and to do justice to the different opinions and perspectives that want to be heard in a multicultural, multi-religious country like Lebanon. Of course, the standard travel information is all there: getting your bearings, maps, weather, shopping, eating out, hotels, where to take children, universities and schools...I don't need to list them all. But what a reader will certainly appreciate is the sense that the author seems to speak from inside the culture but with a full awareness that she is addressing people of various backgrounds, nationalities, orientations. The sensitivity, both to Lebanese culture and to the needs and assumptions of the wide range of readers,is astounding and certainly unique to this travel guide.
Another refershing point- the book is packed with cultural information: religion, history, politics, arts, literature, music, film, even critiques of TV programs -it's all there, but without being too intrusive. And then there is coverage of little known facts about Lebanon: for example "Reincarnation in Mount Lebanon" (an issue rarely discussed among the Lebanese themselves!), or a hilarous take on Lebanese television as it tries to go global.
For first- time visitors and residents alike, this book is certainly worth reading.

For any teacher of writing and rhetoric, this book is a gold mine of classroom methods and resources. It is, of course, written in a different time, but not altogether _for_ a different time. The principles of expression and clarity that it teaches still hold. It is a very practical book.