Blair Books

Set in an elegant Russian country estate in 1905, Enemies, a political drama, begins by showcasing the aristocratic lifestyle of factory owners, some of them bored, drunk, and so self-serving as to be blind to the humanity of their servants and their factory workers. The owners are primarily investors, and they regard the growing socialist unrest within their nearby factory as a temporary threat they can control by force, not as a large-scale movement which will soon sweep the country and change their way of life. When the workers decide to strike to protest their conditions, the factory owners simply close the factory, leaving the workers to starve. The shooting death of one of the owners is the catalyst for the action of the play.

Playwright Maxim Gorky conveys political arguments through the variety of his characters--the hard-nosed factory owner who believes in pure power; an owner who sees the humanity of the workers but who is persuaded, for business reasons, to agree to the strike; an owner who regards the factory as "a state in miniature" and who therefore regards the shutdown as a patriotic act; and an owner who is so drunk and bored that he withdraws from all responsibility.

Their wives and family also have opinions--one supports her husband's extreme views, one wants to avoid the conflict by keeping the factory open and making some concessions, and one is an actress who shares the socialist leanings of some of the workers. The most extreme points of view are represented by a teenage niece who is filled with reformist ideals, and the family patriarch, a retired general, who enjoys exerting power and subjecting servants to humiliation.

Minor subplots involve love stories and individual personal dramas, but the primary focus is political. Written in 1906, the year after "Bloody Sunday" and the unorganized and unsuccessful "Revolution of 1905," the play reflects Gorky's own socialism and his belief in writing as a political act. The large cast, with each member having individual motivations, keeps the viewer from identifying an individual "hero" with whom to identify, and the extreme behaviors of both the owners and the workers create a drama in which competing ideas are the focus, rather than the characters. Illustrating the socialist ideals which will, a dozen years later, overthrow the czar, the play reflects Gorky's response to Bloody Sunday and the tumult of 1905 and his optimism regarding the ultimate triumph of a new, more democratic way of life. n Mary Whipple

The text 'Essentials of Basic College Mathematics' is used at community colleges and other schools as a foundational course for mathematics in all programmes. While many students test out of this level into algebraic topics, for those students whose mathematics is decades old, or was never perfect in the beginning, this book offers a fairly clear and systematic approach to mathematics topics.

The chapters cover the broad topics in this order: Whole Numbers, including the basic arithmetical functions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), was well as basics of exponents and rounding; Fractions, including the basic arithmetical functions as well as beginning to deal with mixed numbers and order of operations; Decimals, including the basic arithmetical functions as well as continuing with order of operations and decimal/fraction conversions; Ratio and proportion ideas; Percentages theoretical and applied; Basic Measurements and conversions of units between British/American units and metric standards; Geometry at the most basic level of shapes and arithmetical formulas dealing with those shapes for area, perimeter, etc.; Statistics at a very elementary level, such as reading charts and graphs, histograms, and the three concepts of mean, median and mode; Signed and special numbers, including the negative numbers, as well as scientific notation; and finally a brief introduction to Algebra, which introduces the basic concepts of variables, like terms, and equations.

Each of the chapters deals with things in a mathematical as well as an 'English' way - explaining in words the concepts and operations being carried out in the numbers. Each section of each chapter covers only a few key concepts, with enough problems for solving that reinforce the principles thoroughly. Each section also as word problems (story problems) to test the real-world applicability of the numerical/mathematical concepts being presented, so when students ask (as they always do and shall), 'When am I ever going to use this?' there are examples drawn from typical situations.

Tobey and Slater have also worked to make various connections with geometry, graphs and charts, tables, as well as internet resources to provide the most up-to-date and useful text. There are specific problems along the way that assume the use of calculators (as most of real-life mathematics now involves calculators).

The book's design is interesting from a graphic-design standpoint, but from the standpoint of clarity to the students, the pages are a bit `busy'. While I appreciate the need to reduce the number of pages in an effort to keep the costs down (text-book prices are typically higher than popular-book prices, and this text is no exception), more white space on the pages would probably help the accessibility and make it a little less intimidating.

This book serves as a good foundation for students to proceed at our college forward into Beginning Algebra (another book by Tobey and Slater on this topic is used for the next-level course), and then further into Intermediate Algebra and beyond.

A detailed,basic guide to armour and among the best introductory refrences by the foremost 20th. century authority.

My 8 1/2 year loved this book. It is very well thought out and educational as well as fun. It has a wide variety of activities which is difficult to find in a children's puzzle book. We found it one of the best puzzle books and we have done a lot of them as my son has enjoyed activity books from a very young age. I only reserve giving it 5 stars because there are a few mistakes in it that hopefully will be corrected in the next edition.

You've got to love a book with comics in it. The actual text was pretty good too. The book covers several psychological experiments, which were interesting. Works well for general reading as well as a text book if you are interested in psychology.

This book covers the period in the lives of two families that stretches from January 1901, the end of the Victorian era, to May 1910, the end of the Edwardian one. The lives of these two families, the Colemans and the Waterhouses, converge and become inextricably woven together when they inadvertently meet at a cemetery while paying their respects to deceased loved ones. Unbeknownst to them, their lives are moving inexorably towards a tragic denouement, one that is to have ramifications for both families.

Two of the daughters of these respective families, Lavinia Waterhouse and Maude Coleman, find that they have formed the beginning of a friendship during the brief interlude at the cemetery. The two girls also befriend Simon Field, the son of one of the gravediggers at the cemetery. The friendship of the two girls is cemented when they later discover that they are to be neighbors, as through happenstance the Waterhouse family moves onto a property adjacent to that of the Colemans. Despite differences in social class and personal taste, as the Waterhouses are definitely sentimentally bourgeois and the Colemans have pretensions to more refinement, the families are brought together, however unwillingly, through the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

The mothers of these two girls are unable to form a true friendship, as stolid Gertrude Waterhouse and pretty Kitty Coleman are unable to find much common ground. Gertrude is bound in tradition, while Kitty, dissatisfied with her marriage and her life, is looking to escape tradition and expand the role allotted in society to women. Never the twain shall meet, as these women will never see eye-to-eye, despite the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

This is a well-plotted novel with each character adding his or her perspective to the events that unfold, many of which are of a secretive nature. Even the husbands, Albert Waterhouse and Richard Coleman, have something to say that contributes to the development of the story, as does Richard Coleman's mother, Edith, as do the Coleman's maid, Jenny Whitby, and their cook, Dorothy Baker. Lavinia's younger sister, Ivy May, who plays a small but pivotal role, also has her say, as does Kitty's admirer, John Jackson. There are also a number of twists and turns in the tale.

The story is told in the clean, spare prose that fans of the author have come to expect. It is told through first person narratives, and it is almost as if the narratives were taken from the personal diary or journal of each character. Therein lies the rub, as the author is unable to make the voice of each character truly distinguishable from that of the others. The book suffers somewhat from the failure of the author to develop a truly unique voice for each one. This is, however, the only failing of this otherwise absorbing and intriguing story that is suffused with period detail. This is an otherwise excellent book that fans of the author will enjoy, as will those who love historical fiction.

This book covers the period in the lives of two families that stretches from January 1901, the end of the Victorian era, to May 1910, the end of the Edwardian one. The lives of these two families, the Colemans and the Waterhouses, converge and become inextricably woven together when they inadvertently meet at a cemetery while paying their respects to deceased loved ones. Unbeknownst to them, their lives are moving inexorably towards a tragic denouement, one that is to have ramifications for both families.

Two of the daughters of these respective families, Lavinia Waterhouse and Maude Coleman, find that they have formed the beginning of a friendship during the brief interlude at the cemetery. The two girls also befriend Simon Field, the son of one of the gravediggers at the cemetery. The friendship of the two girls is cemented when they later discover that they are to be neighbors, as through happenstance the Waterhouse family moves onto a property adjacent to that of the Colemans. Despite differences in social class and personal taste, as the Waterhouses are definitely sentimentally bourgeois and the Colemans have pretensions to more refinement, the families are brought together, however unwillingly, through the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

The mothers of these two girls are unable to form a true friendship, as stolid Gertrude Waterhouse and pretty Kitty Coleman are unable to find much common ground. Gertrude is bound in tradition, while Kitty, dissatisfied with her marriage and her life, is looking to escape tradition and expand the role allotted in society to women. Never the twain shall meet, as these women will never see eye-to-eye, despite the friendship between Lavinia and Maude.

This is a well-plotted novel with each character adding his or her perspective to the events that unfold, many of which are of a secretive nature. Even the husbands, Albert Waterhouse and Richard Coleman, have something to say that contributes to the development of the story, as does Richard Coleman's mother, Edith, as do the Coleman's maid, Jenny Whitby, and their cook, Dorothy Baker. Lavinia's younger sister, Ivy May, who plays a small but pivotal role, also has her say, as does Kitty's admirer, John Jackson. There are also a number of twists and turns in the tale.

The story is told in the clean, spare prose that fans of the author have come to expect. It is told through first person narratives, and it is almost as if the narratives were taken from the personal diary or journal of each character. Therein lies the rub, as the author is unable to make the voice of each character truly distinguishable from that of the others. The book suffers somewhat from the failure of the author to develop a truly unique voice for each one. This is, however, the only failing of this otherwise absorbing and intriguing story that is suffused with period detail. This is an otherwise excellent book that fans of the author will enjoy, as will those who love historical fiction.

This book was the required reading for one of my favorite courses in law school. It is a little on the lengthy side, but definitely worth it.

I read "A Farang from Virginia" during my lunch hours over a period of two weeks. I was in high school during the period described in the book. Vietnam was just starting, and the Krakowski's were in Thailand on a Fulbright lectureship. This journal describes the times, and the place that is Bangkok - a place we have all heard of, but most of us will never visit. Ms. Krakowski's descriptions of the day to day dealings with being in a new country, and the royalty with whom they rubbed shoulders was informative, and entertaining. I will read it again.

Amazon.com has the price of the book wrong - it is only $9.00, and well worth it.

If you're looking for a painless introduction to a healthy topic, this book is for you. It has an appealing cast of characters, an interactive format, and accurate information. My daughter (age 9) learned a lot of useful information while having a great time reading it