Boyd Books

Energy is a huge topic, forms of energy, physical study of energy, how does it all relate. This book does a nice job covering these basics, very clear and concise. I think all young non-fiction lovers will find that this book awakens their curiousity of how the natural and industrial world around them works. Nice quick read.

This isn't a cookbook at all in the usual sense--it's a series of comments and suggestions, with recipes thrown in. It goes month-by-month through the year, with Teresa Waugh offering seasonal observations, ideas, hints, and meal plans, and Auberon Waugh critiquing these, and also suggesting appropriate (and/or interesting) wines. It's great fun to read, and a really different gift for someone who already has quite a few collections of recipes. There are no complete step-by-step menus here, and the focus is mostly English (the rest French), but if you already know your way around the kitchen, this book is a great source of ideas, inventive and (I can vouch for them) sound, and the wine advice is superb. I love my copy and use it often; you can even read it just for pleasure.

My dad wrote this book. He sure is a smart guy.
love,
Alison

The text is very informative and easily simplified when reading aloud to younger children. I thought the illustrations were warm and friendly, and beautifully done.

... the best biography of Elizabeth Blackwell ever written. ...

Julia is a meticulous researcher. She personally visited every repository in Britain and America that has primary source materials relating to Blackwell. During these travels, she spoke on Blackwell at Upstate Medical University and the New York Academy of Medicine. Her use of the facts and images she found in these repositories is judicious, scholarly, and precise. Her narrative is abundant with quotes from diaries, correspondence, and other scarce or unique items, both manuscript and printed, all clearly documented. Each of these quotations is entirely germane to its matter at hand and most of them are quite fascinating. Every assertion Julia makes is well supported by primary sources.

The book is also a real page turner. Julia paints a vivid portrait of an opinionated, controlling, ambitious, but benevolent, idealistic, and mostly optimistic Elizabeth growing up in a large, close-knit, non-conformist, intellectual, religious, abolitionist family characterized by intensely competitive sibling rivalry and beset by sine waves of financial prosperity and despair. The story reads so much like a novel that readers could sometimes forget they are reading history.

Nevertheless, there are lacunae and ellipses. Expecting more detail in a certain section, I often felt frustrated when the narrative did not give it, but instead proceeded -- not abruptly, but decisively -- into another aspect of Blackwell's life. For example, Chapter Seven concerns her clinical training from March 9 to September 23, 1848, at "Old Blockley," the Philadelphia Almshouse, later Philadelphia General Hospital. Three times Julia mentions Blackwell's attending physician, "Dr. Benedict," with no first name and no further detail. Since he played a central role in Blackwell's life for six months and since she called him "the loveliest man the Almighty ever created," I would have liked to read a bit more about this "Dr. Benedict." [He was in fact Nathan Dow Benedict (1815-1871), a member of the University of Pennsylvania medical class of 1840, a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia since 1845, Amariah Brigham's successor at the New York State Asylum for Lunatics at Utica in 1849, and generally a rather interesting physician.]

The book could easily -- and probably should -- be twice as long. Blackwell led a very exciting life which could be told in greater depth without boring readers. Julia's fluid and graceful writing style could support this extra length with no trouble. Blackwell's encounters with physicians like Benedict, Austin Flint, Clemence Sophia Lozier, and many others deserve more than just mentions and allusions.

Blackwell did not become a physician because she was attracted to medicine or even to healing or compassion. Rather, she went into this field specifically to show the world what a properly motivated woman could achieve. Unlike the Seneca Falls feminists whom she criticized, she did not blame women's subservience and low social status on men. She believed instead that women's problems came mainly from their own lack of will to say and do what they most deeply believed was right. Moreover, she held that if women only exercised their natural moral superiority, infusing the ethos with maternal values, the world would be a better place.

Julia excels at showing Blackwell's philosophical, political, and religious growth. She traces the character of Blackwell's moralism, which was woman-centered but not feminist, and the influence of François-Marie-Charles Fourier and William Henry Channing on the "Christian Socialism" that became her ideology.

The scholarly apparatus is impeccable and the bibliography contains some real gems, such as Redelia Brisbane's biography of Elizabeth's sister Anna's lover, the Fourierist Albert Brisbane; John Closkey's history of Philadelphia General Hospital; and Flint's anonymous article, "Female Physicians," Buffalo Medical Journal, 3 (1848): 494-496.

I can't say I agree with all of the author's statements regarding Israel, but what he does have correct, and what he did an excellent job in doing, is to outline step-by-step Israel's captivity, eventual return to the Land, as well as their future in the Millenial Kingdom when Jesus sits on the throne as the Son of David.

A good resource if you are looking for a brief overview that will help you get through the Books of Samuel, Chronicles, Kings, as well as the major and minor prophets.

As a teacher of language arts and interdisciplinary studies, I recommend Bentley Boyd's work to kids 10 and up. He developed a strong graphic sense over his years as a long-time political and educational cartoonist (full disclosure: I have known Bentley for many years, and saw early versions of many of the narratives that ended up in the Chester the Crab series). This makes his work visually stimulating for readers of all ages.

This series started as an educational tool aligned with Virginia's content-focused "Standards of Learning". The current educational environment promotes a focus on real content; a school that wants its students to learn plenty of real content could do no better than to connect with this author/artist's work. Each page is a stand-alone piece of history that addresses a clear content objective, and each book tells a handful of stories that put years of history in context. The color is great, the layout engaging, and the subtle references add layers of information and humor.

One note: even though this is a series for students, Bentley is unafraid to address sensitive issues and unwilling to gloss over the unpleasant aspects of history. "Heroic figures" are not larger-than-life, and their flaws are not airbrushed away. This is history and art from someone who loves and respects both.

It's almost impossible to understand Marx's specific theoretical and methodological positions 150 years after. Not because they're exceptionally difficult, rather that they've been obfuscated by generations of pro- and anti- ideologues. Althusser's project is to reconstruct Marx's theoretical practices at a very high level of rigor, clarifying, for example, the specific differences between Hegel's understanding of "dialectics" and Marx's. In doing so he produces a series of new concepts: "structure in dominance", "overdetermination", "problematic", "epistemological break", "combinatory" and others. While none of these *terms* is present in Marx's writing, the things they refer to definitely are. In turn, this labor makes it possible to clearly understand the theoretical differences between Marx's early works and his mature ones; that is, between his "Feuerbachian" youth and his Marxist maturity. This is a difficult work, but a profoundly rewarding one for those interested in what it is that makes Marx Marx.

F-M's are an often unremarked and forgotten footnote in Locomotive history that deserve mention. This book does it!!! This well written book has many well written chapters which are just as much about the respective locomotive owners as much as the locomotives themselves. The pictures are a genuine look back in time. The pictures are all excellant and well printed. This book is a lasting monument to the railroaders and worker of F-M.

-Willie in Massachusetts.

This book was purchased by my 3rd grade students to be placed in our library in memory of my co-workers mother who died recently. It is a beautiful book. She was very touched by the gester and very pleased with the content and illustrations in the book.