Brian Books

This book is the final of four outstanding books by these two accomplished authors. Any Chase collector or deco enthusiast should have them in their reference library. This book features reprints of original 1933 and 1942 Chase catalogs, factory information, and pre-1933 reprints of Chase Specialty flyers, some of which have never been published before. Pictures of newly discovered Chase products will be a great help to Chase collectors in identification of their wares. This book is a must for all those who appreciate the fine craftsmanship that came from the Chase factories. Donald-Brian Johnson and Leslie Pina should be commended for putting together this four part Chase reference set, this book being the final one of the four. Highly recommend!

In this concluding book in a series of four about the history and products of the Chase Copper and Brass Co., the authors present the first (1933) and last (1942) catalogs of Chase's consumer products...and a wonderful surprise. The catalog pictures are crisp and clear, and the contrast between the early and last product offerings can be easily compared. But the first publishing of a series of pre-1933 "flyers" that were Chase's first "catalog" make this a must-have reference for collectors. Nine new pieces are shown, and new, additional information is provided about several other items previously attributed to Chase. Definite 5 star kudos to the the authors, Don Johnson and Leslie Pena, for this wonderful resource.

As the author of this title I feel required to add a little info to the listing supplied here. The book is meant to cover a wide variety of topics and should be adaptable for use at any level of chemistry. The format is similar to the game show Jeopardy, but has its own scoring system and can be used as a review for midterms, finals, or before chapter tests. It's fully reproducible so you can photocopy sections and hand them out to students to do as a worksheet or review without worrying about the legal ramifications of copying copyrighted material. Check out Walch.com and enjoy! Brian Pressley

This book is easy to understand but also allows for challenging work. It can give anyone a good lesson in Chemistry and also permit some fun to be had at the same time. All in all, a very high quality book that every teacher should use! MITTEN!!

This is a great starter and continuing resource guide for those interested in Play and Folklore among child peer groups - fantastic series of articles! Use this book in your university classes!!

This volume consists of articles on children's folklore. The book provides various ways of studying the games, songs, rhymes, and other forms of folk culture that children express. It is an excellent resource for learning to understand ways that children's culture leads insight into the worldview of children. I also am impressed with the ways that the study of children's culture leads one to think about common and implicit aspects of adults' culture that form important ways of thinking about life -- but need to be critically examined. This volume should interest anyone who is curious about kids, but it is also academically-oriented and scholarly.

"China's Millions" is a wonderfully complex, colorful, scholarly, and objective portrait of the work of the China Inland Mission and its founder, Hudson Taylor, in the 19th century. The CIM was the largest Christian missionary organization in China. It was unique in many ways: the CIM didn't solicit contributions; its missionaries received no fixed salaries, subjected themselves to the tyrannical control of Taylor, and lived, dressed and traveled as Chinese. The majority of CIM missionaries were working class English laymen -- shopkeepers, blacksmiths in the like -- rather than members of the educated elite as were most missionaries from other organizations.

One book can not cover the thousand missionaries the CIM had in China in the 19th century. The author focuses on signal events, including the disastrous beginning of the CIM when Hudson Taylor led his first group of missionaries to China. Most died or defected. The author then turns to CIM operations in a single province, Shansi, with especial attention to a local Chinese Christian, Pastor Hsi, who brooked no interference by foreigners in his evangelical endeavors. Pastor Hsi ran his own show. Among the foreign missionaries in Shansi -- and the exceptions to the rule that CIM personnel were drawn from the working class -- were the famous Cambridge Seven, a group of upscale educated Englishmen who came to China as if on a lark, anticipating, for example, that God would teach them Chinese rather than them having to study the language. They learned a different and a harder lesson in China.

There is much here about the anti-opium campaigns of Pastor Hsi and the CIM, the enormous famine of the late 1870s that killed one-third of the population of Shansi, and the mysterious and often violent cults and religions -- including Christianity -- that rose in the wake of the famine. The story culminates with the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 in which Shansi became the graveyard of dozens of Christian missionaries and thousands of Chinese Christian.

The half-forgotten story of missionaries in China was never better told than here. The author delves into the lives and work of dozens of adventurous, noble, eccentric, or foolish missionaries and leads us down innumerable pathways of Chinese and Western religious controversies and movements. "China's Millions" is a feast of a book.

Smallchief

CIM was not only the single most influential Christian missionary enterprise in the Chinese empire, it has been called one of the most influential forces in shaping modern Chinese culture. Alvyn Austin's study of CIM is quite simply the most sophisticated and scholarly study produced to date on this movement; it is also among the best studies of Christian mission to appear in recent years. Most works on CIM focus biographically on the famous founder, Hudson Taylor. Austin takes a different approach, looking at the varied different missionary encounters between CIM missionaries and local Chinese in different cultural contexts. His study demonstrates clearly the compexity of missionary encounters and shifts the focus away from hagiographical reflections upon missionary greatness to the social and cultural dynamics of the encounter between east and west. Perhaps most impressively, he for the first time brings to the forefront the role of the converts themselves.

Without losing any analytical depth, Alvyn Austin tells the story with real narrative flair. Any student of Chinese history, Colonial encounters, or History of Christianity will find this to be a worthwhile study. For any student of Christian mission, it is essential.

This is a good introduction to logic, inductive and, to a lesser extent, deductive. It probably serves better as a textbook than as an aid to individual learning, but under the proper conditions and with the proper reader, it could serve both. I liked it best when it was explaining the truth tables and the rules of the calculus of probability. Particularly interesting are the practical applications in the exercises, especially in cards and dice and, to a lesser extent, horse racing. The concepts of utility and belief need amplification because they come off too briefly in relation to their importance. No one who has mastered this book would ever have trouble calculating the exact value of a bet - a benefit of some importance to us gamblers. I have never seen or heard of the theory of marginal value applied to money. It certainly applies to other things, like water. Too little water makes water very valuable, enough is enough, and too much gives water a negative value (as in our current flooding in Texas). Skyrms is right about some aspects of money: Too little and it hurts. Don't believe me? Try walking around New York City on the weekend with only a dime in your pocket. A poor man would be a fool to risk $1000 on an even money bet. Because if he lost, it would hurt a lot. A rich man could lose that bet and not suffer at all. And of course, enough money is good. Therefore, money does have a relative value. Whether it has a marginal value (too much is bad) is debatable. Some things that might be corrected in the next addition: The answers to the exercises should have pages numbers for more easy reference. The cover is wrong in saying there are answers for every other problem. That is only partially true and in fact some exercises have no answers eg VIII 3 has no answers to any exercise. And Symes is wrong in assuming that evaluating all the evidence doesn't cost anything (page 154). It costs time and trouble. Whether it is worth it would depend on the situation.

This book, in its 4th edition, was one of the first textbooks on
inductive logic I read. Here is the table of contents:

1. Basics of Logic
2. Probability and Inductive Logic
3. The Traditional Problem of Induction
4. The Goodman Paradox and the New Riddle of Induction
5. Mill's Methods of Experimental Inquiry and the Nature of Causality
6. The Probability Calculus
7. Kinds of Probability
8. Probability and Scientific Inductive Logic
Answers to Selected Exercises
Index

I did not read this textbook as a textbook for a class, but instead read it independently. I also did all of the exercises in the entire book, and used the answers at the end of the book to verify my answers whenever possible. Overall, I was very pleased with the textbook. The explanations were mostly clear, and the progression of topics from the simple to complex was appropriate.

I have two minor complaints about the book. The first regards chapter 7, where Skyrms discusses, among other topics, the chance function as well as the von Neumann-Morgenstern theory of utility. I don't know if this is a statement about the textbook or the reader, but I felt the explanations of those two topics were less clear than other sections of the book. I was able to compensate for that by doing Internet searches on those two topics, however, so it wasn't a major inconvenience.

The second complaint regards the answers to exercises. As the other reviewer noted, the back of the book is incorrect when it states there are "completely worked out solutions at the back of the book for every other problem." Off the top of my head, I would say that is probably true 80-85% of the time, with most of the exceptions occurring towards the end of the book. This is unfortunate, since the most complex exercises are naturally found towards the end of the book. In particular, the exercise for section VII.6 (on chance) on p. 150 is enormously complicated, and cries out for an answer. There should have been a second exercise for that section, so that at least one exercise would have had a fully worked out solution in the back of the book.

Despite these two complaints, however, this is still an excellent book. Overall, Skyrms has provided his readers and students with a helpful introduction to inductive logic.

I purchased this book for a 14 year old friend of mine. She was so excited!! She seems to really love the book and the fact that there is a CD to go with it. I purchased this version because it has the CD and the suggestions about interpretation and fingering.

This masterly set represents every major feature of Romanticism. The modest skill requirements of no. 20 encourage the deeply emotional musician in the intermediate player, while the demands of no. 8 celebrate virtuosity. No. 16 indulges in stormy bombast, whereas no. 7 unabashedly embraces simple sentimentalism. The harmonic advances of the nineteenth century are explored in no. 9, while broad melody comes to the fore in no. 6. The serious, spiritual overtones of the central portion of no. 15 are balanced by the capricious whimsy of no. 23. The tonal clarity and simplicity of no. 3 are balanced by the complexity and, in some passages, virtual atonality of no. 14. And the grinding ugliness of no. 2 is matched by the elegant, sonorous beauty of no. 19. And the set as a whole successfully expresses so much variety that it offers a sensitive view of an awesome world every bit as deep and rich as (if not more so than) a Wagner music-drama, a Tchaikovsky symphony, or a Strauss tone poem. If you love Romantic music and don't know these pieces, you'll want to own them. If you don't love Romantic music, this set will probably win you over.

The architecture and urban planning professionals of the twenty first century have at their disposition, digital technologies for design never before available to the mind and practice of designers. The problem is how to bridge the traditional way of conceiving and representing space in two dimensions, and the three-dimensional representation and animation in digital virtual space.

'Cinemetrics' presents a successful theory to help the designer develop a concept to perceive, analyze, imagine, and construct form and space in time as'mater-flux'.

Using as models three masterful pieces of cinematography, Ozu's 'Early Spring', Goddard's 'Contempt', and Cassevetes' Faces, McGrath and Gardner explore, as a model, the imagination of the cinematographer as a vehicle to humanize the technological tool and elevate its potential as the ultimate drawing and design tool for the contemporary designer.

Computer Assisted Design (CAD) is now a vast prison for young designers, a tool for seniors to censor discourse and suppress creativity. The seniors don't know how to do CAD, crow about their inability and disparage those who do know CAD as contemptible "CAD operators."

What the narcissitic fogies do love, though, is stab their greasy fingers at the screen, yell do this or do that to the operator, then swoon at the capability of computers to generate glorious images to peddle inept design, even though computer-generated structures have evolved to appear to be the work of morticians out to make carcasses appear better dead than alive.

In delicious contrast to the moribund illusion of the design profession, what computers in the hands of the truly creative can do is what Brian McGrath and Jean Gardner wonderfully demonstrate in "Cinemetrics: Architectural Drawing Today."

They use cinemetrics to show bountifully diverse alternatives to the static monoclic rendering intended hypnotize the viewer with a command to sit there, shut up and admire this newborn-dead.

Cinemetrics invites engagement of participants in the forever difficult design process, to be never sure of a perfect outcome, to not settle for the easy-greasy solution lifted from the magazines, to refuse the irresponsible deception of the ghastly rendering so favored in property development brochures.

Realtors offer 360-degree walk-throughs for prospective buyers. None offer a chance to design the property to fit imagination.

With liberating cinemetrics the CAD shackles on those who produce construction documents, and in particular lying computer renderings, will be unlocked.

Design may then be freed to be as variable and exhilirating as computers are to those who know what's phony in the colored output.

Creative cinemetrics, not CAD manuals, and never ever CAD standards tailored to productivity.

best thing to read before class to brush up on cases or in time crunches!

PLUS it includes background info on the case that neither the Lexis nor the West briefs (let alone your casebook!) will give you. Funny details, cool pics to remember the case by (c'mon, you start talking Supreme Court 20-page decisions--easy to drift off and forget what the heck the point of the decision was!)...GREAT help in my Civ Pro class.

MUST BUY! Make sure you're using the one keyed to your casebook. If a high court summaries briefs is not available for your specific casebook still buy one of these nonetheless. HCS are THE BEST!!!!! bar none-- I've tried Legalines, Gilberts, etc, this is the best, believe me.

And anyway, there are only so many 1L Civ Pro cases that are fundamental--you'll find them in any book regardless of which casebook they're keyed to.

A STRONG BUY!

Insight is key to this book written by Grant from basically his death bed. What we learn from Grant in this book gives us an opportunity to understand his intentions, strategies and how he worked with people. Grant tries to be very fair in his writing that covers his early days as a colonel to full-fledged commander of the US Army. His style is basic and easy to understand. At times the book feels like he is giving a history lesson about the war and sometimes is vague about triumphs or failures. I was looking forward to reading about Grant's work with the battle of Cold Harbor and he was completely brief in this book considering it was a major conflict. But, this was Grant's choice to write and memoir depth is subject to author decision. Grant does pack a lot of information in and also has interesting coverage in regards to Lee's surrender. Anyone studying Grant or looking for further insight owes it to themselves to consider reading this book.

The only criticism here is that the editors saw fit to edit this masterpiece of American literature. This is a little like editing Shakespeare or the Bible. Don''t tamper with genius! This criticism aside...

General Grant wrote this book while dying of throat cancer. He had been swindled by a dishonest Wall Street Broker and his trophies and possessions were stripped from him to satisfy the demands of his debtors. Bankrupt, suffering from a terminal illness and never passing a moment without acute pain, he produced this magnificent monument to his greatness. Those who denigrate Grant as a drunkard, butcher, bumbling President need to read this book in order to correct these errant assumptions. It is impossible to read this book and not realize that Grant was an inordinately intelligent man and one hell of a writer.

Grant's Memoirs are a deserved classic in American literature and considered the greatest military Memoirs ever penned, exceeding Caesar's Commentaries. Grant wrote as he lived: with clear, concise statements, unembellished with trivialities or frivolities. The only "criticism" the reader might have is that Grant bent over backwards not to wound the feelings of people in the book. He takes swipes at Joe Hooker and Jeff Davis, but what he left unsaid would have been far more interesting. A compelling and logical reason why Grant was so spare in his comments was because he was involved in a race with death. He didn't know how long he could live and therefore, "cut to the chase."

Grant's assessments of Lincoln, Sherman, Sheridan and other military leaders are brilliant and engrossing. His style, like the man himself, was inimitable and couldn't be copied. In everyday life, Grant was a very funny man, who liked to listen to jokes and tell them himself. His sense of the absurd was acute. It's no accident that he loved Mark Twain and the two hitched together very well. Twain and Grant shared a similar sense of humor, and Grant's witicisms in the Memoirs are frequent, unexpected and welcome. There are portions where you will literally laugh out loud.

Though Grant's Memoirs were written 113 years ago, they remain fresh, vibrant and an intensely good read. I have read them in! their entirity 30 times in my life and I never weary of the style and language that Grant employed. He was a military genius to be sure, but he was also a writer of supreme gifts, and these gifts shine through on every page of this testament to his greatness. All Americans should read this book and realize what we owe to Grant: he preserved the union with his decisive brilliance. A truly oustanding book.

"Clocks Stopped and a Strange and Savage Hour: Fulton Street and Other Stories" is author Brian Spaeth's tale of life at his lowest points, when the future seemed unbelievably grim. His poetry reflects on these times of drugs, selfishness, homelessness, and worse. "Clocks Stopped at a Strange and Savage Hour" is a must for any poetry fan seeking something different. "Hot-Spectrum Extrapolations": Latitudes of burning oil and last chances/Dreaming at the hot end of the palette/Particle accelerators at the Fulton Street Cyclotron/Sulfuric night-chant/Fulminating bismuth and churning conjecture/Robustus Contamiensis: the Wilder's Song and crackling-torch accompaniment/Books dropped in oil and set aflame/Human candles burn, sputter, and flicker - then expire in front of your /troubled eyes!//Hot colors disturb our sleep...

This is an amazing read by an author who has been to hell and has not yet made it to the mountain. Spaeth's poems and stories are often strange, sometimes surreal, touched by humor, and full of an autobiographical truth that brings us street-level to the inner mind of one of New York's disposed citizens.