Chang Books

This book is a good version to read to kids. The language is basic enough for kids to follow the plot. I plan on using it as a lesson on legends around Halloween time for my fourth grade students.

The cover of this book is beautiful. Most books these days come with dust jackets and dull covers underneath. Sleepy Hollow comes with a clear dust jacket and beautiful art underneath. Totally worth the price of admission alone. The first story, Sleepy Hollow, follows very closely the Disney version. There are a few hints as to how the Johnny Depp version came about. After Sleepy Hollow follow other short stories. Mostly ghost stories some with very cleaver twists at the end. The twists make this book somewhat appropriate for younger children. Still recommend a once over from adult first before reading to youngster. Then the book turns to one story with about five sequels. These stories did not seem to match the quality of the previous stories. Actually on the boring side. That is why I rated this book four stars out of five.

I give my neices and nephews storybooks each year for Christmas.
Last year, I ordered all the books in September and Amazon filled most of the order, but kept delaying several of the books. Christmas came and went, and I had to give some of the kids candy and promises that their books would come later. It took 12 months, until September of this year, when Amazon admitted they could never fill the order. So, this year, I tried hard to find the books in other places, but unfortunately, I had to order a few from Amazon. Despite my low expectations, the books showed up on time.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a fascinating story, but I purchased it for an eleven year old, and its original presentation, i.e., use of words, and small print are difficult for someone of that young age to read and comprehend.

It is a classic story that I hope she will enjoy later on.

I will keep this quick because it was already a waste of time to read this book. They used these horrible drawing for the book that look like my little brother did them. Basically they messed up the story and made it for kids. They made it a childrens book, if that is what your looking for then it is good.

This book was a good, fun read. However I picked it up to be a intsructional book, or rather, something I can learn from. Any man that is on his journey, understandes that learning comes from experience, and this book is the anti-thesis of experience. While the writters experience was great, and so is his ability to share it with his readers, do not pick up this book if you think it will make you anything other than what you are already.

A non believer will continue to be a skeptic, and consider the book a work of fiction. A believer will become a bit more fanatical as they will gain more proof in their reality from the books words. The real problem with this book, and many others of the same nature, is that their is no practical way of finding a master to help you learn through direct experience what is in the book.

Westerners, as a whole, truly don't deserve the ultimate knowledge that can be gained from taoist thought and practices. This book reinforces that truth by introducing the fact that their is so much to life, but we know so little, and have no simple way to learn more.

(So should I buy this book?) Please do, the author needs more money to keep along his path, and the information the book does present to you is worth well over $20. Just don't expect to be anythiny else from reading it, as it's a book of theory, not of practice.

I read this book in a little over 2 days of casual reading, the words flew off the page to me...

Excellently communicated especially considering Kosta's first language is not English...
Completely fascinating story...I can not wait to get the second book. For a qigong practitioner, this will open your eyes to the great power within...
It will also open up many questions about the true nature of the universe, and existence...
Kosta, if you're reading this, thank you! (keep the books comin'...haha)

I first read this book a little over three years ago after reading Nei Kung: The Secret Teachings of the Warrior Sages, and it was rather a surreal read. I kept flipping back to the copyright page to see if it's a work of fiction, but it was not so. This book is a story of an incredible journey of the author, Kosta Danaos, who begun his quest to find and met with an internal arts master by the name of John Chang and his experiences and lessons with him. From reading this book, I thought it was too unreal to be a fact considering that Chang was able to break the laws of the physical reality. But again, it was not so because I have later seen the videos of Chang's psi abilities in action (e.g., pyrokinesis, telekinesis, and levitation), including the video of Lorne and Lawrence Blair's documentary series "Ring of Fire."

The one thing that I have found quite interesting from this book is the moral discussion of karma as relating to becoming like Chang. Obtaining the powers, higher than normal, requires a great responsibility. I do agree with Chang that he does not want to create "monsters" as to why he was strict on the student selections. That made sense since nowadays a thirst for psychic powers is, in an essence, an ego boost or superiority. Also, discussions of Yang and Yin and Mo-Pai tradition are informative read.

Thinking back on it now, the stories surrounds Chang reminds me a lot like Castaneda's Don Juan in The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge.

Considering the fact that English was not Danaos' first language, this book is really well written and well organized. With little over 200 pages, I could not put this book down as it had enthralled my thoughts and emotions. Whether or not if it is a real story, this book is an intriguing and fascinating read, especially the stories about the "Immortals" of the ancient past, but that's just me.

Fascinating look into a nei kung practitioner's life. Danaos has a tremendous knack for descriptive storytelling and provides much information via [Sifu] John Chang regarding the inner workings of metaphysics and the fabled chi energy. However I question (and this may be a slightly cynical side of me) how the author managed to recall (or even take notes on) the numerous conversations he had with Chang so accurately. Either he has a near-Elephantine memory, or he was embellishing many experiences and details- and if the latter occurred it questions his credibility. It should never be underestimated writers' ability to overdramatize (and perhaps outright BS) for the sake of a more interesting book, and although there is no proof of this here, I think it's a valid question esp. given the subject matter (psychic abilities and the like) which has long been associated with unscrupulous individuals. Danaos either took phenomenal practically word-for-word notes of conversations, or he fudged here and there which calls into question the witnessed telekinesis, levitation, etc.

All this being said- whether the book represents the unblemished truth, imaginative fictions or a combination of both, it's a fascinating read as it gives a close and detailed look into the life, philosophies and workings of a truly remarkable man. Students of metaphysics, spirituality, psychic phenomena, paranormal and the mental/spiritual aspects of martial arts should find this a must-read.

This book blew me away. It's the incredible tale of John Chang, a internal arts master, as told by one his students. As the author is a former scientist, everything is presented in an objective, responsible, almost skeptical manner. Too often we forget what we're capable of and what the universe can offer us, with the right intent and commitment. This book is a great reminder.

The Chinese in America

"Chinese workers were prevented from immigrating to America by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Its passage was a watershed event in American history. Besides identifying for the first time a specific group of people by name as undesirable for immigration to the United States, the act also marked a fateful departure from the traditional American policy of unrestricted immigration." By William Wei
Professor of History, University of Colorado at Boulder
However, it was not the first, or the last, time that ethnic groups were singled out for ostracism or exclusion. Native Americans were the object of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which led to the dispersal of the indigenous population throughout the Southwest and set the stage for The Trail of Tears-- the dispersal of the Cherokee Nation.
Andrew Jackson's record regarding Native Americans was horrendous. He led troops against them in both the Creek War and the First Seminole War and during his first administration the Indian Removal Act was passed in 1830 which resulted in the massive relocation of Native Americans.

The Acadians of Canada were expelled, becoming Louisiana's Cajuns, the Inuit people of Canada were given their own homeland, Nunavut, after decades of discrimination, and the Japanese, Irish and hordes of other immigrants faced adversity in assimilating. Today, the Hmong of Laos, El Salvadorans, Mexicans and others join the list. Cuban émigrés from Castro's regime created a vibrant society in Miami and Tampa, Florida.
Russians, Armenians, and Iranians help populate Los Angeles. There is a Southeast Asian community in Portland, Maine--about as far away from Laos or Cambodia as you can get.

Against this background, Iris Chang has produced a memorable narrative history of the Chinese experience in America. Chang, who wrote the best-selling "The Rape of Nanking", committed suicide in 2004. Her writing on the experience of the Chinese Americans from the Gold Rush to the Internet follows in the tradition of Irving Howe's "World of our Fathers"; Dee Brown's "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee", and other histories of American diasporas.
I make it a practice not to read other people's reviews before writing mine. Going back to them now I find some are understandably critical of Chang's emphasis on the worst-case-scenarios.
But she can hardly be blamed for chronicling the overt racism that including blaming Chinese women for spreading syphillis and a "Doctor" for labeling the whole population a vector for disease. On the whole, a constructive view of a bad time in our history.

The Chinese are very much in the news. My son is dating a Taiwanese girl and I have been doing some reading about the Chinese. They are a very industrious people. The only thing I ever learned about the chinese in school was that they worked on the first intercontinental railroad but there is a great deal more to their history in the U.S.

Iris Chang is an excellent writer.

As a naturalized citizen originally from China, I particularly appreciate Chang's closing remarks that hopefully most readers can come to see the stories in The Chinese in America as ultimately stories of Americans. I'd imagine an Irish immigrant 100 years ago, or a Mexican immigrant today, could tell me many parallel stories like those in this book. Would love to read about their storeis too, and hope that one day these are all seen as true American stories as ones about the Plymouth Rock and Lewis and Clark.

By the way, I listened to the audio version. The reading is a bit dry, but good enough.

Iris Chang's narrative history of the Chinese in America is engrossing and involving. It provides a generalized history of China and the Chinese that spans two continents -- by no means an easy feat to do. It is well researched, and has definitely stoked my interest in reading more about Chinese (and Chinese-in-America) history.

My problems with the book, however, lie mainly with her characterization of this text as a "narrative history", and the authorial liberties she takes as a consequence. Clearly, history is a subjective narrative from the get-go, and calling "The Chinese in America" a narrative history gives Chang leeway not otherwise allowed by a more rigorous, scholarly work. While this adds to the readability of the work, it detracts from its credibility.

For one thing, she infuses 21st century moral judgements onto historical occurrences and eras in which it was not even a question. In one instance, she calls Manifest Destiny "arrogant". I'm not arguing that it wasn't, but an outright moral judgement like that does not belong in a work of non-fiction, even if that work is a narrative history. Judgement like that is akin to calling Nazi Germany a period of deranged lunacy. Few would disagree with your assessment, but from a point of historical understanding, its benefits are at best minimal. It's just not good scholarly writing.

Similarly, why should I believe what "one Chinese woman" says from such and such a time, or an oral history as told to so and so who told Chang herself? And what is a floating quotation, supported by no evidence from the author, supposed to tell the reader?

What also bothers me about Chang's book is her use of (for lack of a better term) 'common sense wisdom'. The chapter on the Great Depression opens with a generalized statement about how people in times of trouble tend to turn to groups different from themselves in order to lay blame for all their woes and ills (in this case they turned to the Chinese), and she hearkens it back to caveman tribal instincts. Where is the basis for this anthropological assessment, and why is it applicable here in particular?

To Chang's credit, she was not a scholar at all and to have written the books she did and researched them the way she did without graduate training is an impressive achievement. Also, she was clear from the beginning that this was a narrative history, and not some scholarly work published by Yale or some such other academic institution. I enjoyed this book, and I would definitely recommend it as a starting point to further explorations in Chinese and Chinese American history. All I am saying is that it is by no means a perfect work.

The book is interesting and highly readable. I do not read much nonfiction intended for a mass market, so I found it at times condescending, simplistic, and repetitious, but it is much less so than the "how-to" books I have been given in the past.

The book is written in an engaging style and has numerous interesting and revealing stories. It attempts what few books do, and it is valuable to the casual reader. However, it suffers from a number of flaws.

1) The distortion of facts to prove a point. Chang often makes a big deal out of facts in a way that utterly distorts their meaning. For example, she makes a huge deal out of the fact that the a Chinese worker on the transcontinental railroad was paid less than half what was spent on each horse, apparently in order to point out that mere animals were valued more than people. She entirely ignores the declaration she had made just a few paragraphs back that the white workers were paid half again as much as the Chinese workers--therefore much less than the horses as well! This factoid, thrown in for shock value, is simply silly to anyone with the slightest knowledge of historic economics and particularly the sheer cost of maintaining horses. She makes blunders like this once every ten pages or so, and it leaves me in grave doubt about her overall comprehension of the history she is attempting to explain in the book.

2) The creation of a victimology. She rightly notes patterns of racism and records atrocities committed upon Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans, but she selects among the history of the people in order to form the ideology of a racial victimology without aknowledging, for example, the universality of certain kinds of atrocities (claim-jumping was hardly restricted to whites against Chinese, for example, even if race was part of what a particular group of whites used to justify a particular claim jump) or the commonness of certain patterns of behavior.

3) The confusion of stupidity and racism. Chang routinely identifies all ignorance and stupidity as racism. Sometimes, stupid and ignorant people are racist. Other times, they are merely stupid and ignorant. People ask my husband all the time if he's from "China or Japan"--since he's clearly East Asian, he must be an immigrant, and because those are the only two contries that such people even know about, those are the ones they list. He had also been asked--often!--if his family "eats Chinese all the time--even for breakfast!" These are in line with the questions we get about New Mexico ("Why did you move out of the US?") and that I get about being from Texas ("So do you ride horses everywhere there? Do you have cars?") rather than being fundamentally racist. There's a difference between dumb people and racist people. Chang can't see it.

4) Her deep ignorance about China and universal patterns of immigration. Chang fundamentally does not comprehend the horrific quality of life that drove people from China from the 1800s through the 1980s. Her muddled explanations of reasons for immigration focus mostly upon the exchange rate--but that's only a fraction of the story. And this makes her miss the biggest piece of the Chinese labor puzzle. The reason that the Chinese were willing to undersell so many other immigrant groups in the US (and so a major reason for early resentment) is because the quality of life that they were accustomed to was so horrible that they would unthinkingly accept wages that even people from other poor countries would reject. As a result, poor Chinese drove down labor prices wherever they went. The anti-Chinese feelings on the West Coast were mirrored by anti-Irish feeling on the East Coast and anti-Mexican feeling today. All these groups have embraced, in various points in history, an average quality of life that someone accostomed to the US rejects. Chang also fails to recognize that Chinese immigrants knew intimately about bureaucracies and had usually been treated very badly by their social superiors in China and so were prepared to navigate the legal system with ease while at the same time taking abuse largely in stride. (Watch the fine jockeying for status among supposed equals in China, the extreme focus on class, and the treatment by professionals of people in the service industries!) Chang is a third-generation Chinese American, and it shows badly in her misunderstanding of China and Chinese culture.

5) Her conflation of different groups of ethnically Chinese people living in America into a monolithic body. Chang regularly ignores the extremely important generational issues when discussing the position of Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants. She flatly does not recognize the great lack of English skills that many of even the very well-educated first-generation immigrants have. She doesn't recognize that many cannot speak or write fluent English after being in the country for decades--not because of unwillingness but because the language is so different from CHinese--nor that many of them do not ever understand American culture. While American students at my university were finding Chinese TAs obnoxious, braggadocious, rude, loud, and untrustworthy, these same TAs were being told by other first-gen Chinese that Americans respect people who brag and who are "clever"--cleverness being what in American eyes is underhanded and sly! The obnoxiousness, loudness, and rudeness (in AMerican eyes) is directly traceable to Mao's rejection of the Four Olds during the Cultural Revolution. Good citizens were supposed to reject all of the behaviors that had been honored in previous generations, including quietness, reserve, good table manners, politeness, etc., etc. Fortunately, China is returning more and more to more ingrained cultural patterns, but the good citizen of the Cultural Revolution is flatly incompatible with American culture. First-gen immigrants are seen as often dressing inappropriately and have culturally "wrong" body language, and they often say--with the best intentions--sentiments deeply offensive to American culture. This enormous cultural clash definitely goes both ways. For example, an American wife's behavior toward a husband or a younger person toward an elder or an American empoyee's behavior toward his boss is downright repulsive in Chinese culture, and Americans' inability to engage in expected complementing behaviors and prentended self-deprecation is seen as blatantly crass. However, the context here isn't cultural Americans trying to "get ahead" in China but of cultural Chinese trying to succeed in the US. There will be very, very few first-generation Chinese immigrants who become upper managers in American firms simply because there are very few who have the cultural awareness and skill and the English language abilities to succeed. What they see as prejudice against their Chinese origins is really, often enough, a rejection of their cultural and linguistic limitations in an American setting. A much, much better study than to lump all Chinese togather would be to see how second and third generation Chinese Americans do compared to average Americans of the same education. Then you would be comparing two culturally American populations! Chang also completely ignores the deep racism of Chinese culture by emphasizing the choice of some Chinese to identify themselves with blacks in Civil Rights issues. To put it succinctly: the Chinese side of our family would be OUTRAGED, and that would be by far the most common reaction of culturally Chinese people to such a suggestion. As a white person, I am tolerated, though a disappointment, and I'm sure the family back in China sighs over the fact that my husband married one of those white devils. If he had tried to marry a black woman, he would have been cut out of the family completely.

Even with these flaws, the story is so lively and the anecdotes so diverse that the book is fully deserving three stars.

This book was so interesting, I think I read it in less than two days. It shows the changes Asian women went through as history marched on. I had no other way of knowing any of this information, and it's so different from my own culture.

I found this book to be a compelling read. It does reveal, while the author is relating the life of her great aunt from China, a lot of interesting information related to the customs, traditions and mores of the old Chinese culture in the early twentieth century. Her great aunt was the first in old china to get divorced from her husband, after being abandoned by him .She was young, poorly educated, with two children, one of whom tragically died shortly after her divorce. She morphs from a poorly educated, dependent woman into a self-reliant,educated, successful woman, who eventually becomes a VP of the Shanghi Woman's Savings Bank and helps ensure it's survival, while Japan was invading Shanghi. Luckily, she leaves Shanghi a day before the Japanese take over and moves to Hong Kong. Eventually, she remarries in 1952 and then, after her second husband dies in 1972, she emigrates to the USA. When her great niece finds her name in books while she is studying Far East Culture while studying at Harvard University, she is amazed to find her great aunt's name listed and then decides to interview her, and thus the idea of the book emerges and is completed over many years. A truely unusual and compelling book to read for anyone interested in the Chinese culture, people and history. Quite a different read, inspiring and moving in many ways.

Change can be a frightening affair, and looking back at change can be something that seems almost alien when beheld in the light of certain convictions. That seems to encapsulate the whole of the experience that Chang Yu-I talks about as she tries to explain something of who she is to her granddaughter, Pang-Mei, and it is one of the things that seemed to haunt me as a reader as I listened to Yu-I's tale. The chapters switch from Yu-I to Pang-Mei to give you and idea of how things have changed and to try to identify one person with the other, and I have to say that I found myself glued to the pages and not able to stop reading this book. At first I simply thought it was a story about a granddaughter wanting to explore her grandmother's life because she was the first person to have a Western-style divorce in China, and maybe that was her reason beginning the book. Still, the book goes well beyond that and touches on the dynamics of change and strength and how strong a person can be even when they think they are at their weakest.

Honestly, I thought I could vicariously feel my heart cracking under the weight of some of Yu-I's confessions, amazed by some of the things she was able to tell her granddaughter.

One of the best things about this tale is the detail that Yu-I goes into about China, and about the way things were seen in the past versus the way things became seen as war loomed on the horizon. Yu-I gives a great amount of detail about what it was like to be a child in a country like China, and she vividly recollects what its like to have one's feet bound and the reasons why this practice took place. All that breaking and rebreaking, the tying of the big toe over and over again; when I read this I cringed because it seemed so debilitating just to have a crescent-shape added to the foot. Furthering this are pictures in the book, showing what the feet actually look like when this happens - you can see the shriveled remains of feet that look almost mummified, and you can tell some of the extremes that went into making a foot look like that. Yu-I talks about the pain that's she, herself, experienced because of this practice, too; she tells her granddaughter about being three and having her mother try to bind her feet, and then talks about the torment of those moments and how it was her brother that made her stop this because he couldn't deal with her suffering. Yu-I goes on to tell of the pain that this caused her, too, with her always feeling as if she were ugly because she had "big feet" and "big feet" made a person almost untouchable when it comes to marriage. Still, she does marry the poet Hsu Chi-Mo and, for a time, she thinks this is perfect and learns the rites of being a wife. She cares for the mother-in-law, she takes care of the husband's family; basically she becomes a slave and thinks that this dedication is seem by her husband as love. It is only when she moves to a foreign country with her husband that she finds out what he is like and how she is alone, and when she understands that she is utterly abandoned she explains how it feels to want to die.

There are other painful things in the book, too, things I can't disclose without messing up part of the tale, but I can say that when she is in Germany and loses something more dear to her than anything that this was devastating to read, making the book almost too heavy to pick up because its honesty was like a barb in the soul. I appreciated that, to be honest, and can say that I have read a lot of pieces of literature but that I have rarely encountered a person like Yu-I that both loves the world she lives in, understands the things that she has experienced, and even knows what forgiveness is like.
While this normally would not be something I would recommend, it has my highest recommendation and the most humble form of respect I can give, thinking it an enduring read that really has something to say.
I cannot give the book or the voice behind it enough praise.

Bound Feet and Western Dress by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang is about a young girl who has a unique relationship with her great aunt, Chang Yu-i. She first meets her great aunt in 1874, at a family dinner. Chang Yu-i had just come to New York after having lived in China, and then Hong Kong. Several family members had come to these dinners in the past, but this was the first time Pang-Mei had met her great aunt. Pang-Mei explains how the family refers to Chang Yu-i as "half man" because of her strength and persistence. Pang-Mei grew closer to her great aunt as time passed, but she still knew very little about her. She first discovered some of Chang Yu-i's secrets while studying Chinese History at Harvard University. She learned that her great aunt had been married to a well-known romantic poet in China, as well as issued the first "real divorce" in Chinese History. After Pang-Mei learned of this, she asked Chang Yu-i about it at once. Her great aunt told her hundreds of stories about her life in China eventually unraveling over a long period of time. Pang-Mei and Chang Yu-i build a strong relationship together and learn about each other, as well as themselves. Pang-Mei comes to love and grasp the heritage she once tried to hide and Chang Yu-i understands herself better after having told her own stories. They are finally brought together even closer by a major phenomenon that takes place in the end.
I found Bound Feet and Western Dress to be rather tedious. Personally, I find books that dives right into the plot to be the most enjoyable. Bound Feet and Western Dress eased slowly into the excitement. However, I found this book be written with great enthusiasm and detail. Pang-Mei Natasha Chang used delightful details that gave me a perfect picture of the context. On Page 9, Chang Yu-i tells her grand niece about the strict rules she grew up with, "Chinese paintings required admiration form above, Baba said, explaining that the perspective of Chinese paintings differed from Western ones. The best paintings were only hung when your grandfather, Eighth Brother, and I cleaned them, passing tiny feather dusters over the surface of the rice paper. Of all the children, you grandfather and I were the two that Baba allowed near his paintings, and her would hover behind us as we worked, explaining the genius behind a musty mountain landscape or historical portrait." This excerpt shows the details the author used to represent her great aunt's stories.
The stories of Chang Yu-i told were also extremely touching. Not only did they paint a precise image in my mind of her life but were also genuine. For instance, when she was telling of her childhood and growing up with her large family her descriptions were beautifully written and conveyed. I loved hearing of her two favorite brothers personalities and what each of them gave her. I fully understood her thoughts and joy while talking about her brothers.
Generally, I think Bound Feet and Western Dress is a thoughtful and well-written book. It is historical and educating as well as a good read. I would suggest it be read.

In the late 1990s, the Chinese-American Pang-Mei Natasha Chang wrote her first book entitled "Bound Feet and Western Dress," which accounts the life story of the author's great aunt, Chang Yu-i. The author was the first generation of the Chang family to be born in the United States. She wrote the book about her own search of Chinese identity in the American world and the tale of her great aunt's hard and interesting life.

The book is broken into fifteen chapters, which describe the early life of Yu-i, the history of the Chang family, the life of the author herself, the lifestyle of women in China, the marriage and the divorce of Yu-i and Hsu Chih-mo, and the last years of Yu-i's life.

One can understand the influence of modernity on the Chinese society and the Chinese women as one look at the author's great aunt as a traditional girl and her strength as a woman, why Chih-mo marry her, and the significance of their divorce in this book. "Bound Feet and Western Dress" is intriguing work and an enjoyable read.

I love the pictures but, as other reviewers have mentioned, the instructions are horrid. Instructions were missing or so vague it took forever to figure it out. (I was making the little elephant.) Mind you I have been sewing since 7th grade and I am 52, so I have some experience. I quilt and have made many clothes and other things along the way. I have never seen instructions like this. Please do not buy this book unless you just want to look at the pictures. It was a waste of my time and money and I threw the book away.

Great gift ideas, beautiful colors, great photography. My only wish is that the instructions were a little more detailed. As a beginning sewer, it's a little intimidating. I'm sure for others with more experience, it's just the right amount. Good book overall.

This book is without a doubt one of the most inspirational and beautiful crafting books I have come across. At first glance, the photographs and fabric choices are so compelling I almost forgot the book contained actual projects and instructions. With that said, once I sat down with the book and inspected the contents, I found the projects to be sweet not corny, simple not boring, and elegant not plain.

Too many crafting books waste pages in the beginning talking about the basics of needles, thread and other basic techniques. What I love is the brief section on Exploring Color. It is something often missed or overlooked and so important when dealing with any art. The author has an obvious strong grasp of color not using it as a sort of assault on the senses in a careless manner, but rather to enhance the projects and fabric choices letting all aspects of the projects speak for themselves.

I have been crafting for only a couple of years and while this doesn't give me the viewpoint of an experienced artist, I feel I have a fresh perspective. If you're new to the patchwork and quilting world, this book will be what you're looking for when needing some inspiration and manageable projects to tackle. If you're an old-hat at this, maybe it's time to branch out. This book will definitely breath some new life into your sewing and quilting.

I got this book as a Christmas gift from my wish list. I loved the simplicity of the projects and the gorgeous fabrics (maybe that's why the projects are so lovely?), but once I started to try to make my first quilt (Little Bits pg.90)for my toddler boy I've had to read and re-read the directions so many times before cutting! I started about 2 months ago, then stopped because of frustration with the unclear directions. I picked it up again, and guess what, I'm frustrated again! I think diagrams would help so much to make it clearer for cutting, sewing and layout of ALL the pieces, instead of providing a diagram for just one detailed section. For a visual learner, which is what I am, pictures speak more than words in this case. As mentioned by other reviewers on different patterns,it seems that parts of the instructions are incomplete or missing. ie, the putting together of the back pieces of Little Bits quilt. Unless I totally missed it after re-reading it so many times. My eyes started to blur and my brain began to blow steam. So now I'm resorting to putting that part aside and finding help on-line somewhere. Or going to the local fabric store for help, again. Hopefully they won't try to rope me into spending money and signing up for an open quilting class like last time after giving so-so help. I just want clarification on the directions and sew my quilt before my little boy is off to college!

Others have mentioned the cover of the book was the selling point. I must say that is what sold me on the book. After looking inside, I was a little disappointed. The instructions are the worse. "Cut one 38 inch deep piece." What on earth does that mean? Is that length or width? Don't waste your money. You will read the instructions a million times before you understand what the author wants you to do.

Mr. Chang has repeatedly denied that his book is definitive, but his subtitle says otherwise. The volume struck me as being comprised of two rather disjointed halves. The first is more about hip-hop and the latter more about violence, gangs, and race relations. It's the second half which falls apart as he fails to tie all those stories of riots and truces back to hip-hop. This section might as well be a separate book.

The author goes into excruciating detail around many historical and racially motivated killings (those of Karen Toshima, Michael Stewart, Amadou Diallo, Michael Griffith, Yusuf Hawkins, George Jackson, Eddie Lee, Latasha Harlins, Oliver X. Beasley, Henry Peco, etc.). Cataloging these injustices apparently seemed topical to him, but they are tangential to his ostensible subject, music. Failures in race relations are treated over and over again in the book, to the detriment of many other roots of hip-hop (funk, 808s & 1200s, marijuana, the dozens).

Mr. Chang is prone to hyperbole: "A millennial impulse was brewing." (329) "Youth itself was being criminalized." (389) "The discourse was migrating from the realm of the political to the cultural, from the intimacy of street corners and race papers to the fishbowl of the global media." (273)

The author's grip on economics is shaky and anecdotal; he makes many difficult uncited assertions. Several egregious editing mistakes crept into the first edition. The 500-page book is inexplicably set in a sans serif font.

The detailed histories of graffiti, Public Enemy, and Source magazine were excellent and worthwhile. The letters and speeches quoted are illuminating and would be difficult to find elsewhere.

While I did finish the book, and enjoy many parts of it, the hip-hop generation Mr. Chang describes is apparently not the one to which I belong.

From Jamaica to Public Enemy all the way to The Source and beyond, this book is just chock-full of really gripping narratives which help hiphop fans really see what shaped the music we all love. My favorite part is the Public Enemy narratives simply because it shows, very clearly, the struggle artists go through. or when Tipper Gore and her gang go from attempting to censor heavy metal to rap. Just goes to show how powerful of a catalyst music is.

A MUST READ FOR ANY MUSIC LOVER.

Rocky

Chang's history of hip-hop starts at the beginning (in the 70s) and examines the phenomenon from musical, cultural, and political viewpoints. His main strength is that he refrains from discussing "current" events, lest the book become dated too quickly. Indeed, only the last couple of chapters deal with the last ten years, and at that it's a cursory look. Chang's writing is outstanding, if a little too focused on certain acts (Public Enemy seems to take up the entire mid-section of the book), but his depth of knowledge of his subject matter and his manner for conveying it are excellent. His primary weakness is that he has a definite political slant to his work, occasionally dropping his journalistic guard to take shots at right-wing causes/politicians. It doesn't get in the way of the text, but it does get annoying. It's hard to write a history of a person/event/phenomenon that is ongoing that actually seems like a history, but Chang has done an excellent job doing just that.

As a literate college graduate who loves hiphop and reading, this book bridges the gap by bringing a history of the movement and the place that, more or less, made hiphop. The initial chapters about NYC and Jamaica from the sixties onward really clarified the scene for me: white flight, the major NYC highway projects and the civil strife in Jamaica created a cauldron of creative activity in the center of the greatest city in the world, among its poorest citizens. This book rules, quite simply. I read it over a weekend, while downloading a lot of the music along with it, immersing myself in an epoch and a movement that I have only begun to truly appreciate in the last 3-4 years. Excellent and highly recommended.

After reading Chang's book Can't Stop Won't Stop it is amazing how all the pieces come together. He writes with an amazing breadth that captures politics, sociology, history, economics, globalization, exploitation, capitalism, racism, media tricks, etc. and how they have all contributed to the formation of hip-hop and the resulting culture. As I came of age in the mid 90's I became transfixed with gangsta rap and inner city culture, I never realized how all the afore mentioned concepts made up an entire culture that connects with audiences all around the globe or the economics that helped regenerate a struggling economy and an evaporating job landscape. As the new century comes into full swing it is astounding to think of the power hip hop still holds and the mouths it feeds.

As I dig deeper into the sociology of this last statement I can't help but think while hip hop has revived industries like music, fashion, and film and laced corporate pockets with green the conditions that breed hip hop still have not changed. The current Bush Administration is continuing where Reagan and his pops left off by gutting social programs and destroying education while offering hope through the army only to die for a country that doesn't give a damn about a better tomorrow only a richer, whiter one. Hip Hop heads are still seen as criminals in broader society, still harassed by police and still followed around the stores their culture helps feed.

Perhaps Hip Hop can be the vehicle that delivers a unified front to reclaim this country from corporate interests and the carnivorous capitalist system. It has the power to reach audiences of every creed and the prophets to deliver the message.

Jeff Chang is a prophet of history. Thanks for writing this book and teaching me about my past. Because if you love hip hop this history is a part of you.

Thanks for the book, It looks great and it got here when I needed it.

I took a couple of courses in Chemistry 30 years ago back in high school and then a couple more in college. My son just finished using this book in HIS college Chemistry classes and I thought I'd read through it for grins. I wasn't very impressed. Oh, the information's all there. But, it's presented in the manner of someone having gone through a checklist to see all the Chemistry subjects that should be taught in general Chemistry and then just including them. It's hard to explain, but I think the problem is the lack of historical background in the book. The book has little historical snippets on Chemistry *personages*, but it doesn't follow along the historical *path of discovery* to explain WHY Chemistry is what it is. The end result is that the student is presented with dry, bare facts with no place to hang them in his head.

Another problem is the lack of math in the book. I mean, general Chemistry is not exactly a higher math subject (it's an empirical science, instead). But, as an example, on page 277, in the midst of the Quantum Mechanics section, there's a sidebar explaining:

"The <= sign means that the product (DELTA)x(DELTA)p can be greater than or equal to h/4(PI), but it can never be smaller than h/4(PI)"

(I've substituted the capitalized words for the greek symbols). 277 pages into a Chemistry book and the author is explaining what the "<=" sign is. This assumption of utter mathematical ignorance on the part of the reader continues throughout the book. And yet, a mere 72 pages further on (page 349), the author assumes knowledge of Coulomb's law in an explanation. Coulomb's law implies a class in Physics which means that anyone reading this book should be well versed in basic math.

And, finally, the biggest problem is that there's almost no lab material presented or used. I don't mean just a lack of lab experiments (I initially assumed there was some companion lab manual for this book -- but, if so, there's nothing anywhere in the book that references it). I mean that the author uses almost no hypothetical, lab-based scenarios to illustrate his points. Again, Chemistry is an historically empirical, experimental science. To entirely ignore that in a Chemistry book makes no sense at all.

Personally, this book feels like a book designed for people who have no interest in Chemistry but are forced to take a Chemistry class because of silly academic requirements. The problem with this is that presenting Chemistry as merely a collection of boring facts makes it even harder for such students to get anything out of the subject. And, for anyone who really is interested in the subject, this book could scare them off. Because of this, the best I can rate Chang's "Chemistry" is a Not Very Good 2 stars out of 5.

I thought my brain was broken because I tried several times to understand Chemistry. The problem was the other textbooks required by my professors. When I came across Chang's book, I thought it would be written like the rest of the boring chemistry texts written for people starting out in chemistry (but seemed like they were for people with a Ph.D. in chemistry). After I started to read Chang's book I was surprised, but I doubted myself. I assumed that I would get concepts mixed up or that I did not understand them at all. I was wrong because I passed every test in my Chemistry class. I am so happy to have found this book. I recommend this book to every college student that is somewhat familar with chemistry. This book helped me pass! Now, it would be great if he wrote organic chemistry and biochemistry books also.

This one of the nine books listed by the College Board as a high quality chemistry textbook for teaching AP Chemistry so it's a recognized quality text and has been a standard for years. It's not light reading. College level chemistry is a tough course and no book can make it easy without skipping important concepts. If you want an easy chem-lite, get Cliff's notes. It will get you by with a minimally passing grade, but if you want more than that, use a complete book like this one. Following the explanations in this textbook will get you through the toughest sections of chemistry with an clear and correct understanding. Examples of all the types of problems in first year college chemistry are given with step-by-step descriptions. The illustrations, graphs and example problems alone are enough to guide you through the toughest chemistry course. I've taught AP Chemistry and used a number of texts: Ebbing and Gammon, Zumdahl, Brown and LeMay and each one will reward a dedicated student. Chang ranks right up with them.

I used this book for 3 quarters of general chemistry. Its an ok book, as I use it quite alot for my organic chemistry lab work. My school bookstore ordered the paperback "custom" version of this book, which I think is retarded because most chemistry / chemical engineering students are going to want to keep their chemistry books for future class and or job reference. A paper back just isnt going to cut it, and I am going to have to repurchase this book as a hard back. That fact that I plan to repurchase this book as opposed to finding another is proof enough of its value. As a second choice, I think the Brown / Lemay chemistry book is just as good of a choice.

Raymonds fun is about a little girl named squeaky and her brother named raymond.Squeakys real name is hazel elizabeth, but they call her squesky because she is a small skinny little girl.Raymond is squeakys older brother whom she has to take care of he is mentally challenged.Squeaky loves to run, she is the fastest rnner in town the only person who can beat her is her father.May day is an extremely important day to squeaky because she runs in the racestheres only one thing she doesn't like is the may pole dancing, because shes not really a girly girl, shes more of a tom boy.
I really enjoyed this story. I liked reading about how tuff squeaky thiks she is and how she relizesthat shes not the only chiild and that raymond might be able to do something too. When your reading Raymonds run you get the point of view of the narrator and ou feel like you are really in the story.
I would recommend this book because its really kind of cute. If you are a sensitive person then you would really enjoyit, it is a very sensitive sotry with a little bit of hummor added in at the sames time, its a great story.

Raymond's run is mainly about a girl named squeaky and a boy named Raymond. Squeaky is Raymond's younger sister. Squeaky's number 1 responsibilty is to take care of raymond.Raymond is mentally challenge. He tends to wonder off.
Squeaky is the best runner. SHe loves to run and she's good at it.Her dad is the only one who can beat her.She runs in lots of events.
Squeaky is a little petite girl. she is very tough SHe has an attitude not many people like but i like it because it shows whose boss.
Squeaky's big event si running in the May day race.She doesn't like the May day dances. She only loves the races.
My opinion on this story is good and bad. I like some of the story and i didn't like some of the story. Th things i like about the story is how squeaky is kinda like me, Shes short and has an attitude. Some things i didn't like about the story is the subject of running. To me its a little boring, just cuz im not into running.
Overall the story was decent. I would recommend this story to people who like to run or who can relate to raymond and squeaky.

In my 8th grade english class our teacher, Mrs. Miller, assigned us to read the story Raymonds run. After reading it we discussed the story and most of everyone loved it. It was a great story for both kids, teens, and adults. It made me realize personally that even though a person is handicaped or has a disorder dosent mean that they are useless and cant do anything. In this story Raymond, squeaky's brother, has a disorder and looks up to his sister. Even though his sister is younger than him. At the end of the story I think it is wonderful that squeaky can look aside of herself and realize that her brother can be good at some things she is. Like running, her brother is just as good as anyone else, it just takes him a little longer. I would recomend this story to anyone and everyone who is looking for courage, strength, and hope!!! Thank You,
Michelle

Raymonds Run was a inspirational story, which taught me great hope and respect for people with a disorder. Raymond in Raymonds Run had a disorder but that didnt stop him from trying. He kept up with squeaky his sister when she ran, and knew how to breathe when running. I would recomend this story to everyone to read, its great and I hope everyone at one point in time would read it.
Thank You,
Michelle

Raymond's Run is about a little girl who doesn't have the ordinary chores like everyone else. Squeaky only had to take care of her brother Raymond. She's a little punk who doesn't take crap from anyone. Shes the fastest runner and no one can beat her besides her dad. She likes to walk down Broadway doing her breathing exercises while her brother walks on the inside of her. If he doesn't he likes to run across the street and make the pigeons have a fit so Squeaky has to apologize to everyon that is standing there. As they walk down Broadway they run into Gretchen and her sidekicks. Squeaky cant stand Gretchen and her friends. Squeaky has to race Gretchen and her brother and knows shes going to win against them. Mayday is her and she doesn't want to go because she doesn't like to get dressed up and dance around like a girl. Beanstalk asks her to loose the race so other people have a fair chance to win but she doesn't let him get to her and trys her hardest. When theres a confusion on who wins she decides shes goin to retire and train her brother to pass it down the family.It shows how important her brother is to her.

My opinion about Raymonds Run is that it was easy to read and understand. You get to know the characters and what evryone else was doing while Squeaky is telling you what she thought about them or what they were doing. The key events were placed in the story right. It wasn't all chopped up and going back and forth.

This story is heartwarming and an inspiration. If you have close relationships with your brother or sister you would like this story and I think you should read it. If you like acting like a punk or trying to be one you should read this, it's a fun story.

I WAS SO IMPRESSED WITH THIS BOOK I ORDERED ONE FOR A FRIEND WHO IS AN AUSTRALIAN DESIGNER.SHE IS OVERJOYED WITH IT AND STATES THAT THERE IS NOT A SINGLE PAGE THAT SHE DIDNT FIND FASCINATING AND I CAN ASSURE YOU SHE IS A VERY DISCERNING PERSON SO FOR THAT SORT OF ACCOLADE THE HIGH STANDARD OF THIS BOOK IS VERIFIED

I love having the chance to learn from the best, which is what I get with such great books as this one . Thank you Amazon Books..........

Bunny Williams has a great eye and this book is chalk full of great photos. Great inspiration for any designer.

Once I knew that Bunny Willams would be coming out with this book, I had no doubt that I would buy it. I proudly own and display both of her other books and find myself looking through each of them again and again. I happened to be in the library and noticed Point Of View there, so I decided to check it out before ordering from Amazon. It was sheer luck that I was able to look through and read this book before purchasing it! I so wanted to like this book but it was very disappointing to me. There is nothing, and I mean nothing practical in any of the pages of this book. I love to shop and feel that I have a beautiful and well loved home, but the houses in this book were beyond inspirational. It smacked of affluence at it's most over the top and displayed excessive consumtion of any object to fill every single table, space, etc. I found the rooms to be over-decorated even knowing and appreciating Ms. Williams style. I didn't see room on any of the tables to even put a cup of coffee! The rooms lacked any editing and there was much too much everywhere! The houses appeared to be enormous by any standard and crammed full of "stuff". Who could possibly be inspired to create several seating areas in one room to seat 8 people in each grouping. Come on! Way too much money sometimes equals absolutely no restraint.

What I did like was the writing. I also enjoyed the rooms which showed a television in them because so often these remain hidden. The reality is that everyone watches some TV. An Affair with a House was hard to top, I'll say that as well. Bunny and John's style seemed more personal there and the adorable pups in all the pictures were heart warming.

I wanted to like this book, darn it. But I didn't. Please look before purchasing. Sorry.

Bunny Williams is a significant figure in the realm of interior design, a distinguished apostle of a style that she learned from Sister Parish; and Williams' prior book AN AFFAIR WITH A HOUSE was tremendously inspirational to homeowners of both the aristocracy and the bourgeousie. Much was expected of this new book POINT OF VIEW, and while there are things to be learned from a close reading of the text, the dark photographs detract and indeed render the book less significant than it could have been.

-E.P. League

Loved the detail and also the story. After reading it I began collecting the matching dishes...... I highly recommend this book - it's amazing with the little 'extras' that are in it.

Very interesting read--recommend it especially for people who have bought the dinnerware by the same name from Pfaltzgraff.

I was given this book as a gift a few years ago and I love it. I recently gave it to my sister as a birthday gift. Her response was so enthusiastic - she found its beauty and magical qualities irresistable.

Enchantment, beautiful artwork, and empathic cooking mark the success of this book that touches readers' hearts in places often forgotten.

At first, because of a marketing display at a local department store, I thought The Secrets of Pistoulet was not for individual sale, but could only be obtained by purchasing Pistoulet dinnerware. The book so touched me, I briefly considered buying the darn dishes! Luckily, I found the book right here, standing on its own. It hardly needs its own china to promote sales; in fact, the opposite may just be true. This little book is a great marketing ploy to sell the whimsical, pastel dishes that are said to be the very plates used to serve the magical Potages created at Pistoulet. A marketing genius, I tell you, but that is beside the point.

The book is lovely, simple and true-to-heart. Tucked with mouth-watering recipes, paintings, photographs and excellent folklore, this book reminds us that food does not just feed the stomach - it feeds the soul. I plan to keep it displayed in my kitchen with a simple spray of herbs and oils, to be read by any lost soul who happens to pass by...

I originally bought this book because I was so pleased with the Pfaltzgraff pattern of the same name, and I was curious as to what the book might be about. It was a delightful surprise! It's really a little work of art more than it is a "book" per se. It's delightfully arranged, with little secret pockets, recipe cards, windows, vellums and peek-throughs. And it's very well-made - feels good to just hold it in your hands and turn the pages. Oh, yes, there's also a Story there! Well - mostly it's "hints" at a Story. The Story seems at first to revolve mainly around the culinary adventures of Mlle. J in various lovely provincial settings, but it's not just cooking she's learning: it's magic.

I'm spelling "Story" here with a capital "S" because it's a BIG Story! You can tell that the author/artist really has lovingly created an entire, finely-detailed world in her mind on which she bases this Story. The glimpses of it in this little book and its sequels piqued my sense of wonder and left me hungering for more (yes, I immediately went out and bought both sequels - and hope there will be more.) I keep going back and re-reading all three now, when I need a little something to lighten my day. Once I even tried some of the recipes and have to say it made cooking seem more fun to me (I normally only cook because that's what you have to do in order to eat!)

Mind you - I'm normally a "big, fat, thick novel" type of reader, so it kind of makes me nuts that Kolpen hasn't [yet] written the full novel version of her Story, but, I am not above begging... :)