Brown Books

From Front Cover:

"'Aerodynamic Trading' reveals the secrets that propel professional traders and world class athletes to the top of their field. The author has excelled equally in both the intense, high-stakes arenas of international athletics and professional trading.

Competitors striving to excel at The Olympic Games, The Masters, Wimbledon, or in a professional trading room share common pressures and risks. Fast paced stories, observations and insights from Tokyo to New York explore the remarkable similar qualities needed to win in these competitive fields driven by huge financial rewards.

Once technique and execution are mastered, what factors really make the difference between winning and losing? It boils down to who is mentally tougher. Who is most mentally aerodynamic? Who has the least cerebral drag? It is the inner baggage we carry in our heads that undermines our skills and saps our energy.

'Aerodynamic Trading' brings you the actual exercises taught by professional and Olympic coaches to world class competitors to defuse the ticking time bomb of self-sabotage found within us. The reader will actually practice and participate in techniques used to overcome stress, decision paralysis, failure, performance slumps, self-sabotage, and the most destructive - for athlete and trader - burnout.

This is an outstanding book by an author who has been there and done it all. The psychological aspects of trading are extremely complex, and really can not and have not been adequately covered by the psychological trade writers who are not traders. Ms. Brown has the most complete summary of the positive and negative sides of trading that I have ever seen, and her writing is carefully constructed with the understanding of the reader in mind. She helped bring me back from the depths of that dreaded trader disease, burnout. Her work in this book becomes even more impressive when you read her latest book, Technical Analysis for the Trading Professional, one of the most innovative efforts that I have seen by any author. Ms. Brown is very clearly not a one book flameout!!

Buy it. Add it to your library. It is an excellent book on the psychology of trading, which the experts say is really what makes or breaks a trader in the end, not being a technical indicator expert, but being psychologically prepared.

Ms. Brown really knows what is going on here. If you stray away from the moment and allow your mind to be overcome by the distractions of the world, you are going to lose. This applies to not only trading, but to life as well. It's all about your mind. To quote the great Ed Seykota, "Everybody gets what they want."

So how do you get what you want? Well, although I am still trying to figure that out, but Ms. Brown gives some great insight into how you can begin to find out, while becoming even more true to yourself in the process. Excellent book.

Ten years ago author Ian Wilmut shocked science and the general public when he revealed his team of researchers had cloned the first sheep from an adult cell. His revelation was to spark a controversy not just in science, but among consumers and the general public. AFTER DOLLY: THE USES AND MISUSES OF HUMAN CLONING continues the discussion, surveying the current state of the field of cloning, discussing the science behind Dolly's creation and its refinement since, and posing a strong statement on the moral necessity of cloning to cure disease. A pick for both general-interest collections and any who would understand the nature of human cloning issues today.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The most famous sheep in the world, and the most famous lab animal, was Dolly, born in 1996. She was the first mammal cloned from an adult differentiated cell, but she was not at all the first clone. Ian Wilmut was a scientist within the Scottish research team that cloned her, and ten years on he has written a useful book, with science author Roger Highfield, _After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning_ (Norton) which not only gives the history of producing Dolly, and Dolly's life story, but also describes the developments in cloning since then. Wilmut has necessarily become an advisor on the ethics of cloning and embryo research, and while there will be many who disagree with his utilitarian views set down in his book, they do represent a thoughtful scientific opinion of where cloning and embryo procedures ought and ought not to be used.

Wilmut makes clear that Dolly was not the first clone, but the first mammalian clone produced from DNA derived from a differentiated adult cell; he gives a history of pre-Dolly cloning. While the ideas behind cloning are simple, carrying out the procedure is extremely difficult, requiring precise manipulation of unimaginably small cell parts. The manipulation machine, for instance, by which a technician looks into a microscope and carefully removes or replaces cell nuclei, sat on a desk that sat on a heavy metal plate that in turn sat on squash balls to absorb any vibrations from a door slamming or even a radio playing. Wilmut favors human embryo research because of its potential outcomes. The earliest embryo (even sometimes called a pre-embryo) is a blastocyst, a microscopic ball of around a hundred cells in a hollow sphere. There is not enough differentiation within the blastocyst into even primitive nerves, and so we may definitely say that the blastocyst has no awareness and no capacity to feel pain. Wilmut for this, and many other reasons given here, feels that there is no possibility of cruelty to a blastocyst, and that they can be subjected to experiment. He does feel that embryos deserve elemental respect; they should be used in research when there is no other means of doing the research, and any embryo thus used should be used with the consent of the adults whose DNA was joined to make it.

Wilmut is firmly against what he sees as the folly of cloning humans, and that the production of "designer babies" even if feasible (they are not even close) ought to be rejected. Again, this is a judgement based on practicality: he asks us to imagine rich parents who hire a staff to engineer an intellectually gifted child, only to wind up eventually with "a sullen adolescent who smokes marijuana and doesn't talk to them." Also he points out that cloning has huge risks and costs in making a clone; for Dolly, for instance, 277 donor udder cells were transformed into only 29 embryos, only one of which prospered in the surrogate mother. And no one really knows how good a clone Dolly was; she had a good life and seemed to enjoy being sociable due to her fame, but she lived less than eight years, not a good outcome for a pampered sheep. Dolly was a remarkable experiment that helped us better understand the biochemical mechanics of reproduction; Wilmut is strongly against any such experimentation on humans. His book gives up-to-date reporting on where scientists are and are heading, including the catastrophic mistakes by the once admired, now disgraced Woo Suk Hwang of Korea. Wilmut's passionate arguments about using the current technologies sensibly and ethically to benefit future generations ought to help in understanding the ethics of the most controversial area in biology.

Ian Wilmut - with the help of science journalist Roger Highfield - tells the exciting story of how he and his group cloned Dolly, whose donor cell came from the udder of an adult sheep. Much of the book describes the science surrounding the multistage procedures of cloning. The challenges are enormous because of the immense complexity of the reproductive process and for technical reasons. The nuclear transfers themselves were done under a microscope on cells much smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence.

Cloning has been successful in many species of mammals but according to Wilmut, attempts to clone humans are not ethical, feasible, or even desirable. The success rate is extremely low, abnormalities of pregnancy are the norm, the newborn mammals that survive are frequently not entirely normal, and identical genotypes ignore the environmental factors that influence individuality. This can be tolerated in cattle, but certainly not in humans. Using stem cells to cure disease is an entirely different story. Scientists are learning how to manipulate these cells to become replacements for diseased tissue in humans.

In 50 years, scientists may be using stem cells to cure Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, heart disease, and perhaps scores of other diseases. They might learn how to grow customized organs in the lab, rendering transplant waiting lists and immune suppressive therapy unnecessary. In 10 years, they should have somewhat of a handle on a few of these diseases and stem cell treatments or cures for a couple of them. Unfortunately, this valuable research has been slowed by political and ethical controversy.

Wilmut takes a respectful and humble view of these valid ethical issues and the religious objections surrounding experimentation on a human embryo. His bottom line, however, is that the real immoral act would be to withhold definitive treatment of disease from that group of us who are already born.

"After Dolly" is written for a wide variety of readers, requiring knowledge of high school biology and a little genetics. Wilmut modestly gives away virtually all the credit to his team and other researchers, while thoroughly examining the science and history of this dynamic field. Amid the hysteria and media frenzy surrounding Dolly's birth and life, and the tons of newsprint generated about the possibility of cloning humans, Wilmut was perplexed by the lack of details written about how and why they cloned her. He is now excited to finally tell this story.

Ten years ago today, on July 5, 1996, the famous sheep called Dolly was born. There were no press announcements, for her "creators" had yet to submit the paper on the experimental methods and results to a professional scientific journal. It was not until February of the following year that most of press and the world got to hear of this extraordinary accomplishment with mammalian cloning. There is probably no single scientific experiment that has caused such controversy as this one, with most of this controversy coming from a misguided and publicity seeking press.

The authors present in this book an overview of the experiment from standpoint of Ian Wilmut, as one who was directly involved in bringing about the birth of Dolly. Written with the assistance of a professional writer, Wilmut gives the reader a fascinating look into the science behind Dolly, and also make commentary on the biological and genetic science that came after her birth. All of these developments are very exciting, and are ample proof that we are living in extraordinary times. Genetic engineering is a fascinating technology, and hopefully it will continue to play a large role in optimizing the health of all organisms, human and otherwise.

As expected from his public discussion, Wilmut is against reproductive cloning. However, his warnings against its practice he backs up with scientific argument, detailing the many problems that arise in attempts to clone mammals. The authors do touch on the ethical arguments against human cloning, but their arguments on this account are faulty, and have been successfully countered by other individuals, and will not be repeated here.

Wilmut comes across in the book as being a very practical, patient, and humble man, and one who is definitely fed up with the public outcries and misrepresentations of biological science in today's newspapers and magazines. The reader is left with the impression that Wilmut felt honored to be involved in the Dolly experiment, and even might have been slightly surprised at its success, comparing for instance his laboratories with other more equipped laboratories across the ocean.

Cloning from adults at the time was "proved" to be "impossible" by some molecular biologists of the time, as the authors point out. One can only imagine then the excitement when Wilmut and his team verified through ultrasound that the Dolly fetus was healthy. And their determination to proceed with the experiment, in spite of the "impossibility" proofs, is another strong argument for ignoring the opinions of experts when doing scientific research. Frequently the experts are correct, but their words are not sacrosanct, as laboratory experimentation in this case proved all too well. One hates to think of the research that has not been done because of discouragement from "experts."

Since the book is about genetic engineering as it progressed after the birth of Dolly, one expects to find discussion on transgenesis and pharming, and this is indeed the case. The authors give an encapsulated but effective overview of the developments in genetic engineering primarily from the viewpoint on how they will affect human health.

The authors are optimistic about the future of genetic engineering, but are hesitant to engage in utopianism. They want to leave the impression that genetic engineering will have a minimal impact as compared with what has been done via natural evolution. But as the technologies of genetic engineering become more perfected, and as mammalian cloning becomes better understood, it is fair to say that genetic engineering will have a major impact in the twenty-first century. If it enhances human intelligence and health, if it makes couples happy with children born through human cloning, if it creates thousands of new transgenic animals and plants, in short if it radically changes the biosphere as we know it in a way that makes life on Earth more harmonious, then Wilmut and his team, along with all the other genetic engineers, deserve not only our utmost respect and praise, but also our envy: for taking the first steps into a fascinating new frontier.

As someone learning to shoot a longbow for hunting deer in western Oregon, I read the book more for the archery aspects than the historical ones; however, I was treated to a simply first-class book on a famous battle. I love the way Juliet Barker sets the scene. She provides ample background on the character of King Henry and other personalities so that his actions and responses make sense. In someone else's hands this could easily have been tedious reading but it was not; it was utterly fascinating. Another reviewer wrote that this book reads more like a novel and I would agree. The author is indeed sympathetic to this king and her writing influenced me. From knowing nothing about King Henry V I feel that I understand much about him. He was an amazing person, a genuine leader, a fearless warrior, a brilliant strategist, and most appealingly to me, a man of honor. Would that we could have a president with such character!

I found this book extremely readable and very entertaining. Not something you can say about a lot of historical tomes.

The author gives a compelling account of the actual battle. So much so that the smell of the horses, the blood and gore and all the other noxious smells that are part and parcel of a battlefield seem to pervade the readers nostrils.

However the book is not just about the battle itself but also about the participants particularly the English King, scheming churchmen and murderous Dukes. The knightly heroes, cowards, surgeons and spies. The book has them all.

The author has made it possible for history to be enjoyed by a wider audience, rather than the academic. History has always been interesting. Books written like this one will make many more readers aware of that fact.

I selected this book because of an interest in Henry V. However, the book is so full with anecdotes, stories and interesting tidbits about what life was like in the 15th century that it reads like a novel. Its really hard to put down. Highly recommended!

This is a very engaging work that goes beyond the simple logistics and mechanics of the campaign and battle. It is brings the major players to life in a way that the reader comes to understand their motivations and allegiances with biographical sketches woven throughout the book. Henry V is the main figure and is smpathetically treated. His sense of the noble purpose of the campaign and belief in the righteousness of his cause comes through clearly. By contrast, Charles VI and the Dauphin are no more than shadow characters, as they were in the entire Agincourt story. The book is rich in details of chivalry. For example, the story of Raoul de Gaucourt is followed from his life before the siege of Harfleur and through his leadership of the defense of the city. The strong defense of the city slowed Henry down and cost him unexpected men and material. When Harfleur fell, de Gaucourt surrendered to the king's justice. He was paroled with the expectation that he would appear at Calais to see what fate awaited him. After Agincourt, de Gaucourt presented himself to Henry at Calais and remained an English prisoner for some time. The reader gains a good appreciation of early 15th century chivalry. Barker also addresses other elements, often surprising to the modern reader, about the difficulties of a medieval campaign. Henry landed without maps as we know them and relied on local information and scouting parties to plan his route. Her discussion of the challenges an invading army has in findings its direction is just one of many that broadens the perspective beyond the Agincourt campaign. If you have an interest in the Hundred Years War or medieval warfare you'll find this book worth your time.

Yes, it's old. Yes, much of the data is outdated. But what isn't usable is at the very least amusing.

Okay, so I read this 1989 book about 5 years ago. It still has good advice for all but the most seasoned traveller.

I read this book back in 1989 when it came out. I was sitting in some airport east of the Colorado river waiting for a connecting flight when I stepped into the gift/book shop to get a soda and a candy bar. Somehow I spotted this book and bought it, and spent the rest of my waiting period and flight reading it.

The book is full advice regarding air travel that was excellent at the time. I haven't read the book since then, so I'm sure that a lot is out of date. But, I still use some of the major principles from the book when I fly today, particularly those relating packing and boarding and exiting the plane.

One example of the out of date nature of the book is that the author suggests that wheeled luggage will never catch on because they are just too noisy and embarass the user. While that statement might have been accurate for an older person in 1989, wheeled luggage is common now, and there are few people alive today who would avoid a wheeled suitcase for that reason.

The book is well written and the author has quite a sense of humor. It had a lot of helpful information at the time.

Interestingly, at the end of the book, the author asks people to write to him (c/o the publisher) and states that he intends to update the book periodically. Its too bad that he didn't.

If anyone knows what happened to the author, please let me know!

OK, let's put some things in perspective here. This book was published in 1989 and the first three chapters on choosing your flight are totally out of date. Consider those three chapters a history lesson at best.

However, this book is extremely well organized and does offer good tips and advice. The writing is direct with no fluff unlike some of these new travel books. The author displays a good sense of humor which a nice bonus.

If you can get this out-of-print book for a couple of books somewhere, I believe it is well worth it.

It gets 5 stars from me not because it is a completely up-to-date book, but for the value I got out of it. How I wish this book would be revised for curent times!

I read "Aleck Maury, Sportsman" when I worked at Southern Illinois University Press, which published the novel in its Lost American Fiction series. I reread it several years later with even more pleasure. The novel reads like a memoir, but has its own deep springs. I do not know of a more sensitive portrait of a person, and the prose is as lovely as the loop of a fly line uncurling on a fine cast. Because fishing is a topic of both novels, "Aleck Maury" reminds me distantly of "A River Runs Through It"--also a fine and pure novel, but not so fine and pure as "Aleck Maury."

"It is, in a sense, a prose AENEID, written with so much economy and constraint that the reader is only aware at the end that he has been following the wanderings of a hero." -Andrew Nelson Lytle, New Republic (1934)

A minor classic that is too often overlooked. The pure aesthetic beauty and simplicity of Gordon's language is a revelation.

This highly regarded but not widely known masterpiece chronicles the life of Aleck Maury from his earliest forays into opossum hunting and flyfishing to his latter days of quail hunting and fishing in old age. His lifelong quest of excellence in the field conflicts with his commitments to family and social responsibility. The novel is based on the author's father. Ms. Gordon was the wife of Allen Tate, the noted literary critic and poet. The Agrarian context and concerns of Tate are evident in her work, though her writings are unique. She shows herself here and in her other novels to be a master of her craft.

This is a beautifully illustrated, charming book which is a good alternative for train fanatics (you can only read Thomas so many times..!). It has nice pacing which is ideal for reading out loud. The heros are a little girl and a stuffed rabbit and all the folks/places they encounter on an overnight train trip - but of course, the real hero is the train!

My three-year old son loves books about trains. The challenge is finding a book that I enjoy reading over and over as many times as he enjoys listening to the story. _All_Aboard_ has flowing text that is fun to read, and fun to hear. The writing begs to be read aloud, and the reader will feel an enticement to make the words roll off the tongue as rhythmically as the train rolls along the track.

A young girl takes a train ride with Mr. Barnes, her toy rabbit, to see Grandma and Grandpa. The journey is not only one of words and sound. Amiko Hirao has done an excellent job with the art work. The pictures will hold the attention of child and adult for there is much to discover visually as the train moves towards its destination.

This book has a simple yet appealing story that kids can relate to (going on a journey, trains, a favorite stuffed animal and family). The language used is descriptive of a train sounds and fun to read. The illustrations are colorful, stylish and full of humorous detail (the mole's devotion to Crunch bars and reading books). I love reading this book almost as much as my three year old son does.

Mr. Barnes, a slightly mysterious rabbit in a blue suit, goes on a train ride in this incredibly engaging and original book. "All Aboard" combines old-fashioned sensibilities (the first few pages evoked 1950's illustrations to me) with a rarely seen sophistication in the test and illustrations. I loved it.

Amiko Hirao's dazzling pictures draw the reader right into the center of the story. You are immersed in the huge color displays, and the cinematic collages and low and high picture angles. Without showing a single step, she conveys both the upper berth and the aisle of a train; she inserts cut pictures of faces into a colored-pencil nightscape; she startles us with an immense dark tunnel. In one particularly original picture, a child looks directly at the reader, a passenger (only the right arm is shown) reads a yellowed newspaper with the headline "Olivia is Born," and a cuff-linked giraffe talks on a cell phone-it's dreamlike, a little noir film in day-glow colors.

Mary Lyn Ray's writing also combines the traditional and the original. There are familiar repetitions and rhythms (although look how she punctuates the following):

Whoonk whoonk wahooomk. The trains start slow.
But then it begins to roll.
Long train, silver train. Long train, silver train.
Long train. Silver train. Long train. Silver train.
Train, train, train, train.
Whooo whoooooo

and there are phrases that convey imagery and metaphor: Baggaged boxes "sleep," and, as the train rolls along: "A city slides by, strung with lights in the night, like a tug of dreams on a river." Similarly, one page has the familiar cadence of " A freight flashes by...Red red yellow green yellow yellow blue green. Vrooom. Vroom. Vroom," but the next page describes how "Mr. Barnes likes to look out the window. He likes to see the between. The between where's he's come from and where he goes to." The book also has a fun surprise ending. How can you not like an author who dedicates the book "for everyone who waves from trains, and all those who wave back?"

I think that kids from toddler to early grade school age will enjoy the book immensely. However, because of the art and design, teens and adults will appreciate Ray and Hirao's exceptionally talented imagination. Very, very highly recommended!

Really like the new cover design on the paperback edition of this great book by Shelley Pearsall. This story of a math club at an inner city school and their quest to construct the world's largest tetrahedron is a winner. Don't know what a tetrahedron is? That's another good reason to read this book. The paperback edition also has a pattern for a tetrahedron so kids can make their own. The recipes for barbecue sauces, cannonball cornbread and chocolate truth cake are extras that make this book special.

You know what author Shelley Pearsall's got? Flexibility, baby. Loads of it. Let's say, for example, that you write a rip-roaringly good bit of harrowing historical fiction (as she did with "Crooked River"). Now you'd like to follow that up with another book for kids. Do you follow the straight and narrow path of always writing with an eye on the past? Or do you get inspired by a group of students at the Alexander Hamilton School in Cleveland, Ohio? Pearsall opted for the latter, and the result is the surprisingly good, All of the Above. Now I avoided this book like crazy for a while. Why? The crummy cover. But open that same cover up and you find a story that never loses hope but that also never treads into the world of mindless optimism. There's a gritty reality hiding at the core of this book. The surprise is that it's a pleasure to discover it for yourself.

Seventh grade math teacher Mr. Collins is the first person to explain to you how, "the tetrahedron project began with one of my worst classes in twenty years of teaching". In that class you have some pretty odd kids. There's James Harris III who basically comes across as future jail fodder more than anything else. There's also Sharice who does well in school but has trouble at home. Rhondell works hard but she's so timid and stuck in her own little shell that it's hard to get her to do anything besides cower. And then of course there's local celebrity Marcel, who's father owns the best known barbecue joint around. What do these kids all have in common? Well, they're in the math club. Not just any math club, though. Mr. Collins has this crazy plan. You see, a California school once built a "Stage 6" tetrahedron and got into the Guinness Book of World Records. Collins thinks this group can do better. But when personal problems and a devastating bit of vandalism bring the project screeching to a halt, it's up to the kids, not Collins, to come up with a new plan. Told in ever changing first person narrratives, Pearsall weaves together the story's fight and ultimate success.

What did I appreciate about this book? Well, the description makes it kind of sound like a "Stand and Deliver" type story with a healthy helping of "Dangerous Minds" to boot. In essence, the old plotline where a white teacher comes to town and gets the inner city kids to believe in themselves. Oop. Aack. We're all pretty tired of that story, to say nothing of how insulting it can be. Appreciate "All of the Above", then for turning that tired old chestnut of a parable into something fresh and new. Yes, the idea to create the world's biggest tetrahedron is thought up by Mr. Collins, the resident white math teacher. But the guy hasn't a clue what he's doing. He's pretty much willing to give up on the idea, the Math Club, and the project itself when the going gets a little rough. He's not goading these kids into doing more with their lives. Not much, anyway. Their families are doing that. And when push comes to shove he and the kids are helped by the janitor, hairstylists, and the owner of a barbecue joint far more than just dinky little Collins on his own. I half wondered if Pearsall plucked his name from "Pride and Prejudice", knowingly or on a subconscious level. Heaven knows it kind of fits him.

It's obvious that Pearsall has spent a fair amount of time in high schools across the country too. When James Harris III says, "You ever notice how school clocks do that? How they don't move like other clocks do; they jump ahead like bugs?". Yup. I've noticed that. So has every school librarian, teacher, and child attending public school in the United States of America. It just takes a well-attuned author to pick up on it. Pearsall zeroes in on other little things as well. I liked that for every foodstuff Marcel mentions there's an accompanying recipe that follows. This is true of even the less tasty treats, like "Willy Q's Cannonball Cornbread". The reader is informed at the end of the recipe to, "Cover and refrigerate leftovers. Trust me, there will be a lot". I also enjoyed that the first person narratives were sometimes voiced by adults as well as children. Sometimes books of this nature limit their narrative voices, thereby narrowing the possibilities for the story itself. Pearsall doesn't fall into that trap. If Rhondell's Aunt Asia is the best person to talk at a given point then that's who's talking. Nuff said.

What the book did that others of its ilk sometimes fail to is come across as timeless. The Nikki Grimes novel, Bronx Masquerade, may have sported some top notch writing, but the slang alone dated it within a year of its publication. This is not the case with, "All of the Above". For one thing, the slang is popular without being trendy. Pearsall doesn't spot the text with the newest technology, partly because her characters couldn't afford it, and partly because it would date the book considerably in a few years. I was also rather touched by how well Pearsall was able to distinguish between the voices of her characters. You wouldn't think Rhondell was talking when it was actually Sharice and vice versa. And I appreciate that there were happy endings in this book. Better still, they appear in a true and honest manner without so much as a whiff of Deus Ex Machina.

What didn't I like about the book? Well, it's hard to get around the fact that what the kids are trying to do is rather small. Then again, that's kind of the point. This isn't about getting everyone a free ride to Yale or anything. It's about breaking a world record, which is a seriously kid-friendly concept. Still, it's going to be difficult to sell this story to kids on that idea alone. "Hey, kids! Want to read about a class that glues tetrahedrons together?". Booksellers and librarians are going to have to hand sell and booktalk this one on an individual level. And even then it's not going to be a story for everyone. Add in the unattractive cover (note the school bus yellow shade) and you've a book that's going to have to work to get people to pick it up. Once they do they'll be fine. Just getting there is the difficulty.

To be honest, I don't think this book is going to get the attention it deserves. But for those few lucky souls who get a chance to read it, "All of the Above" is a lively wonderful recount of a project that actually occurred at the Alexander Hamilton School in 2002. Pearsall lists every true fact that she has put in the book in her Author's Note at the back and it offers the reader a sense of closure. This comes across as a fine title and one worth perusing. If you can, sneak it into the reading pile of a kid you know. You'll find them pleasantly surprised.

Even if you don't go to an urban school (or didn't as a kid), you can connect to this story that starts with a lame math class and a pretty lame math teacher. The math teacher gets desperate and comes up with this idea about breaking a world record for making four-sided triangle thingies (tetrahedrons). Needless to say, his students don't leap all over that idea, but somehow James, Rhondell, Marcel, and Sharice end up doing it. Pretty soon you will be all caught up in the lives of these four characters and the people around them. Because each character "talks" in first person, you see different points of view on what's going on with the project--can they do it? Is it a dumb idea? What's the point? Is it really helping anyone learn math (or anything else)? What happens if they do it? I never got the four characters mixed up (like you do in some books) and the author made them seem so real that you just want to hug Sharice and get Marcel to talk and... If you are a clever reader, you'll see that the story itself is kind of a tetrahedron--four characters, four sides... Anyway, it's a great book--check it out!! P.S. Another cool part of the book is how it includes the drawings that James doodles...

Sharice:
"As we get closer to finishing, I start having dreams about what's gonna happen when we do. In most of my dreams, there is this big flash of light when we finish the tetrahedron and our school isn't a crumbling, peeling-paint building anymore. It's rainbow colored. (I know this sounds kinda weird.) And our giant pyramid sits on top of the school roof shooting out colors all over the neighborhood, like spotlights. Houses turn shades of red, and orange, and blue. And people stop their cars and roll down their windows to take pictures of the sight."

That their one-of-a-kind tetrahedron building project gets off the ground at all is astounding in itself. ALL OF THE ABOVE is a tale of four inner city public school kids -- none of whom are initially friends -- and their math teacher. The teacher, Mr. Collins, acknowledges that he was frustrated with his teaching, his school, his students, and himself when he impulsively announced his brainstorm: a plan to have students come together in an extracurricular math club for the purpose of building a stage seven Sierpinski tetrahedron.

"What the heck is a stage seven Sierpinski tetrahedron?" you might (or might not) be tempted to ask. Well, as I learned, thanks to Rhondell, the member of the student quartet with private dreams of one day attending college, it is a structure composed of 16,384 little tetrahedrons which, in turn, are three dimensional geometric shapes that have four faces, each of which is an equilateral triangle.

And to understand what about this particular book caught my eye -- a book that was formerly to be found amidst my stage seven mountain of review copies -- is to get a sense of my life-long affinity with numbers and mathematical concepts. For front and center on the book's cover is that key number 16,384, a number I instantly recognized as being part of my habitual childhood recitation of the exponents of 2. You know, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384...

Oh...you didn't walk around middle school with those sort of things streaming through your head? Well, regardless, readers will be intrigued by the four urban students (and the teacher) who are all facing personal challenges inside and outside of school:

James Harris III:

"I stare at the window behind Collins and think about how good it would feel to jump out that window and send all that glass flying into the air like one of those jagged comic book pictures with the word 'CRASH' written above it. Get out of school, Collins' class, all the other dumb teacher's classes -- and never come back."

Marcel:

"Ain't spending the rest of my life working at Willy Q's Barbecue. Saying sweet things to customers who don't deserve sweet. Smiling like I care about selling rib bones and chicken wings and pig meat.
"Ain't joining the Army either, like my daddy thinks. Won't salute nobody. Least of all, him."

Sharice:

"You see, foster non-parent #5 (Jolynn) doesn't allow anybody at home when she isn't there and since she isn't there most of the time, I'm not allowed to be there either. Which is why I mostly end up sitting in the blue plastic library chairs, or in the mall food court, or riding around on the city bus (or wherever I can find a seat without too many weirdos or drunks around)."

Rhondell:

"Sometimes I imagine college as a big wooden door where you have to knock and say the right password to get in. Only people who know big words like metamorphosis and epiphany are allowed inside. So, I think I try to save all the words I can because maybe, deep down, I believe they will somehow get me inside college without money or luck.
"But around here if you talk and act like you have dreams, or as if you think you are better than everybody else, it only causes trouble. So, I keep most of my college words locked up in my head, and I try to make it through each day by saying as few words as possible. 'She's quiet' is the way most people describe me, and I figure being quiet is just fine because it means you won't be bothered."

ALL OF THE ABOVE vaguely reminds me of The Breakfast Club. In this case you meet these four random students who just all happen to be in the same math class when their frustrated math teacher decides to launch a seriously wacked math project and all four kids wittingly or unwittingly find themselves captive to the process. And me, the former math team member, found myself right there with them.

So join in. Grab yourself a stack of colored paper, some scissors, a glue gun, some munchies, and partake in the Tetrahedron Club.

This gorgeous novel reflects many of the ideas found in "A Room Of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf, with whom Vita had a famous affair. After the death of her husband, the Earl of Slane, Lady Slane shocks her staid family by asserting her own will, leaving the house she kept with her husband, and settling into a small house in the countryside. Finally after seventy years, Lady Slane is determined to live as she chooses, with a life full of contemplation, dreams, and memories. She reflects on her lost ambition to be a painter, but knows that the life she lived was not without merit or value. She finds passion in the freedom to choose, and this gift she bequeaths to the one member of her family who understands its importance.

I meandered my way to this book through Sarah Ban Breathnach's treasure of self-excavation, Simple Abundance. I had read Anne Morrow Lindbergh because of her recommendation too. AML & Charles Lindbergh were good friends with Vita Sackville-West & her husband, Nigel Nicholson. So I finally got around to Vita Sackville-West & this book. It was so moving, wonderful, unforgettable, that I will reread it. I laughed & cried. I will try to find older copies of this to give away to dear friends, old & new. It's one of those books. I'm 41 & have sacrificed much for the men & children in my life that I nonetheless love so dearly. This book helped me bring those feelings of ambivalence into focus. It also helped me realize I'm relatively young & still have time to live the life I've dreamed of since I was a little girl. Maybe this "child-bearing years" thing was just a detour.

This curiously overlooked novel was revived by a Masterpiece Theater production starring Dame Wendy Hiller, which like this novel was superb. The gentle story of an elderly woman's retirement while her forceful children squabble over unimportant matters is at once comic and poignant. The author has peppered the tale with curious, memorable characters, among them the eccentric art collector who is allowed to eat in portrait galleries because museums hope he will donate to them when he dies; the benign landlord Bucktrout, who sees Lady Slain's desire for peace at home; and the coffin maker who pictures people dead to reveal their true characters. This fine little masterpiece deserves to be read today.

How effortlessly Ms. Sackville-West spins her surprisingly moving story of an aging aristocrat who, near the end of her life, decides to do those things she could never do before as she sublimated herself to her strong, successful and controlling husband. This classic British diplomat, who expected to be obeyed because such were the times, was, after all, so much more important than she was and what an interesting life she had in his shadow, didn't she - so conscientious and such a good wife and mother. What she does when he dies, how she perceives her existence and her place in her family - and how they respond - will catch you up in its wake and carry you to the ending, which is perfect and thus bittersweet. I found this a memorable novella.

I purchased this book for my daughter for her second birthday. We have read it so many times over the past year, that she is the only child her age that knows all four verses of this wonderful song.

Wonderfully colorful and powerful illustrations! I especially like the refreshing and unique interpretations of each phrase--
Nice as a coffee table book too.

The odd thing about this book is why it took so long to come out. Chris Gall is an illustrator and the great-great-grandnephew of Katherine Lee Bates so I wonder why he had not created these pictures ages ago.

The sixteen stunning pictures were engraved on clay-coated board which makes them very graphic rather than watercolor soft and I enjoyed the little design touches here and there, for instance a picture of some Shoshone Indians in a boat passing a very streamline looking waterfall or a small town snow scene with the buildings placed at different angles to each other.

The choice of image is also refreshing, to illustrate 'A thoroughfare for freedom beat. Across the wilderness!' has a family with their Airstream parked in the open landscape or 'Thine alabaster cities gleam, Undimmed by human tears!' showing a window cleaner eating his lunch and sitting on one of those Art Deco eagles on the Chrysler Building. This kind of originality and warmth comes across from each picture.

The book is well produced and it occurs to me that these illustrations are so good and all the same size that they are worth framing, depending on one's favorites.

I had pre-ordered several copies of "America the Beautiful," by well-known illustrator, Chris Gall in January 2004. Simply put, Chris Gall is one of my favorite artists of all time. His style is bold, campy, and original.

Today, I received the books and I was AMAZED.

The book, "America the Beautiful" is BEAUTIFUL. What is even more beautiful is that Chris Gall shares in the preface how a framed copy of Katharine Lee Bates' verse, written in her own hand, inspired him so much as an artist as he was growing up.

Gall bestows a MAGNIFICENT tribute to his great-aunt's stirring song. Each line of Bates' meaningful verse is paired with a beautiful illustration by Gall. These works of art depict a nation blessed with God-given gifts; a nation built on justice, optimism, hope, and a shared love of America's land.

After viewing this book, which is pristinely made with thick paper and rich colors, I intend to buy several more as gifts. There are wonderful images of the Statue of Liberty, Pike's Peak, immigrants, the Apollo II, and my very favorites - the firemen of Sept. 11th, and the WWII Tuskegee Airmen.

Because "America the Beautiful" is not just a book which is great for artists or children or to grace the coffee table (although that is where MINE is going!), it is a work of art - which magnificently stirs the patriot within us all...

Upon becoming blind at 8 years of age, Jacques Lusseyran discovered a deep inner joy that henceforth illuminated his entire life and never left him, not even in the horror and despair of Buchenwald. He was a daring, courageous French Resistance fighter who taught people not just to see but also to experience that life beyond all life and that joy that surpasses all human understanding. Even the evil of Nazism sweeping throughout France could not dim this ever-shining light. Jacques lived life to the fullest every moment of his waking hours with an enthusiasm that is astonishing, energizing, and almost unbelievable. To read this book is discover anew that light which the darkness has never been able to extinguish.

This book was recommended to me in 1970 by Marshall McLuhan. He was greatly impressed by this book, as was I. Lusseyran's experience with the human voice was particularly intriguing. I tried to contact him at the university, but he had left. Does anyone know what happened to him?

It shows that we all, by remaining open and without fear, can remain in touch with the Light within. I admire J L tremendously, as a writer, a poet, a spiritual person, an antinazi, and an all around good guy.

Startling in its intelligence, moral power, and sheer beauty, this text is a treasure for both the seasoned wise and the passionate young. Lusseyran was a man of rare talent and courage; his untimely death in 1971 saw the loss of one of Earth's freest and wisest souls. May our children and our children's children have the privilege of reading his remarkable story.