Curtis Books

This volume contains expository introductions to some of the most exciting research areas in algebraic combinatorics. Although most of the articles began life as a lecture at MSRI, the authors have done much more than publish transcripts of their talks; they have produced carefully written articles that contain much information that they could not present during the severe time constraints of the original combinatorics seminar. Anyone interested in entering one of the fields touched upon in this volume would be hard-pressed to find a better way to get started than to study the relevant article in this book.

Since the articles were written there have of course been advances; I will just mention that a number of Jim Propp's matchings problems have been solved, and that Mark Haiman has proved the n! conjecture.

Contents: Matroid bundles (L. Anderson); Combinatorial representation theory (H. Barcelo, A. Ram); An algorithmic theory of lattice points in polyhedra (A. Barvinok, J. E. Pommersheim); Some algebraic properties of the Schechtman-Varchenko bilinear forms (G. Denham, P. Hanlon); Combinatorial differential topology and geometry (R. Forman); Macdonald polynomials and geometry (M. Haiman); Enumeration of matchings: problems and progress (J. Propp); The generalized Baues problem (V. Reiner); Littlewoord-Richardson semigroups (A. Zelevinsky).

My new book is black with a picture of me
On the front and the back in the middle
The letters of the title shine in gold
With my name in foil as the fruit of my toil

The design is suggestive of riddle
And of the secrets those black covers hold
For adventurers whose curiosity
Would lead them astray from the commonday bland
To enigmas of my heart drawn by my hand

I would give everyone my book if I could
Hoping that somehow I might be understood
Something new for the few for those with a true
Heart open hand open mind to understand
An honest gift of love from me to you

+Steven Curtis Lance

I loved this book! :) I couldn't put it down! It was a great book with four romance love stories. They were all excellent. I really liked the fact that it included stories from the guy's point of view and not just from the girls. Everyone had made New Year's resolutions and they were all trying to follow them. I think that my favorite story was about Karina who always wanted to study and that was what all her New Year's resolutions were about, but her best friend Navajoa convinces her to have a good time. Karina falls for Borg(literally!), a hockey player. It's a really good book and i recommend it to everyone who likes romances and has a New Year's resolution for love!

In this collection of stories by Jean-Claude Dunyach, imagination full of hopeful wonder is the key. The 14 stories in this 279-page book, all science fiction, are driven by imagination powered by hopeful wonder. This is science fiction in its truest form where the possibilities are endless and the vision, or the visions in this case, of the future are not negative and involving the downfall of civilization. Instead, anything that can be dreamed is the limit and even those boundaries known to man are blown away by the concept of wonder and imagination allowed to flow free across time and space.

It simply isn't possible to cover every story in depth. I have chosen three, that for this reader, really made an impression on my mind. This is one of those books that means massively different things to different readers so your favorites would vary. And I suspect, years from now when I read this book again, my selections would change as well. That is the mark of truly great literature.

"Time, as it evaporates..." (Page 91) opens with a city where time as if it were a lake, floats above. The level is slowly receding and compressing downward on the citizens of the town. The city has survived the rip in time until now, but the pool is diminishing and their days are numbered with no escape. Or is there?

"Watch Me When I Sleep" (Page 152) on its simplest level, is about a young boy who, while he slept, accidentally swallowed a fairy. This story was included in the "2002 Year's Best Fantasy and Horror" for good reasons.

"Footprints In The Snow" (Page 185) details a group that makes an annual pilgrimage high above the tundra line in the mountains. As their numbers slowly shrink every year, they keep faith with their purpose.

While those are just three examples of the work in this book, there is a stunning variation in subject matter, perspective, and vision of the future. Each story, written in the Jules Verne style by a modern author, shows incredible use of imagination and hope. These are not the downer cataclysmic end of the world type stories so often found today masquerading as science fiction. This is how science fiction used to be.

This book, courtesy of Black Coat Press, is another wonderful example of a publisher crossing continents to bring little known authors, at least in America, to a new audience. Owned and operated by Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, Black Coat Press books seem to always be quality novels worth reading over and over again. Whether the book is from the Doctor Omega series (sure to interest fans of Dr. Who), the Holmes vs. Lupine series, or this book, the stories are complex with interesting and varied characters. Additionally, the cover art and illustrations as well as the books themselves in terms of the printing process are always top notch.

This book in particular is a definite must read for science fiction fans hungry for a read where wonder and the imagination are still acceptable. Not everything has to be a doom and gloom future and it is nice once again to read a work that sees the positives.

Book Facts:


The Night Orchid: Conan Doyle In Toulouse
By Jean-Claude Dunyach
Adapted In English By Sheryl Curtis, Jean-Louis Trudel, Dominique Bennett, and Ann Cale
Black Coat Press
www.blackcoatpress.com
2004
ISBN # 0-9740711-7-X
Large Trade Paperback
$20.95 US


Kevin R. Tipple© 2004

No Man Canyon was like a "Who Done It"... as good as any mystery I've ever read. You get so involved and attached to every character as Mr. Bales brings them to life for you. From beginning to end this was a book that you can't put down. Definately a "Five Star" book!

My daughter read it aloud to me twice. I could see that she was moved. This is an excellent book for youngsters who are trying to make sense of different opinions, who are exposed to several world-views. It's a story about inter-generational understanding. A special book for sensitive, searching young souls.

this is the best book I have ever read. I have read it 10 times and everytime I read it I am surprised once again by the outcome even though I know what it will be (and it's not a memory problem)!This book takes you through all the emotions of teens and it speaks to you as no other book has!

I bought this book hoping to glean secrets of how to become a famous illustrator. What I got was the best entertainment since Mark Twain's "Roughing It". It's not, "Well, I was born here, I had a good (or bad) childhood, I went to art school, and became famous".

Norman Rockwell had a quirky family, quirky neighbors, played boyhood pranks, had little boy models play pranks on him, and served in WWI by painting portraits of all his officers and quirky navy pals. He goes into ineresting detail about everyone.

He tells about his teachers and classes. One teacher was George Bridgeman. (He didn't know who Bridgeman was, so he flipped a coin to see if he should sign up under him or the "other" teacher.)

When he talks about his art classes, he mentions what the teachers said, and what he learned. (George Bridgman would rate all the paintings in the room, and Rockwell was dissappointed that he was only number 2 and never number 1. George Bridgeman told him, (implying that the number 1 guy was just the best at copying Bridgman), "Don't try to be number 1, be an ORIGINAL). He talks about when he submitted his first Post Cover, how intimidated he was, and if he could just paint ONE, he would be famous, happy and rich for life. (He went all the way down to the POST building, and almost didn't go inside.)

I have not finished the book yet, but I don't care if Rockwell ever becomes famous or not, I am having so much fun finding out what happens next. Reading this book is like sitting down with Rockwell at his house and saying, "Tell us a funny story about something that happened in your life." He lights his pipe, thinks a minute, and decribes it so that you can see it all: the background, the people, the dialect, and then, the funny climax -- just like a post cover.

I want tell you everything in the book to entice you to buy it, but then you would know all the punch lines, and I can't tell them as well as he can. So buy it, snuggle up on the couch, and have a fun time.

From 1896 to 1930, famed photography pioneer Edward S. Curtis documented Native Americans, their cultures and way of life throughout the western United States and British Columbia. His years of field work resulted in the publication of a unique twenty-volume visual record, accompanied by his written observations. 68 photographs have been gleaned from the original collection of hundreds of period photographs and compiled into the Aperture edition of The North American Indians, along with Curtis' field notes detailing the content of the images. Enhanced with an informative introduction by Native American expert Joseph Epes Brown, The North American Indians is an enthusiastically recommended contribution to academic and community library Native American studies reading lists and reference collections.

There's something most of us find fascinating about the lineages of persons of note, whether they're royalty, U.S. presidents, movie stars, military leaders, or literary and historical figures like Pocahontas and Louisa May Alcott. The Virginia ancestry of the Queen Mother is relatively well known, as are the New England cousins of the late Princess of Wales and the Duchess of York -- but did you know Elvis Presley, Jimmy Carter, and Jesse Helms are all collaterally related? Roberts is probably the leading expert at this sort of thing, especially when it comes to uncovering surprising connections, like the British royal descent of Karl Marx's wife (whose grandmother was Scottish), and he carefully lays out examples of what might be called "genealogical evolution," demonstating that genealogy really is inclusive, not exclusive. Many British, European, and American contemporaries are much more closely related than we often realize. There are also a number of descents contributed by guest columnists which maintain the same high standard of documentation.