Elliott Books

This book of poems is spoken by 23 children (one poems each), their ages ranging from about 8-13. Both girls and boys are the speakers of the poems.The subects range all across the gamut of pre-teen and early teen experience. The poet himself, while Japan's best-known and most widely-read post-war poet, is also a translator of Mother Goose, Peanuts and children's poems abd stories, and thus has a whimsical side that is evident in some of the poems. et himsel

Elliott Barkan edited this volume about North America's cultural groups. Somehow he knew just how to get the exact information out of his writers that Americans are looking for--historical facts, migration patterns, push-pull factors that led to emigration, cultural practices, contributions to America, and adaptations each group had to make. BRAVO!

Expertly compiled by Bruce E. Johansen, the definitive two-volume reference work, Native Peoples Of North America: A History, is a very highly recommended college-level pick for any academic or community library seeking a strong overview of Native American history and culture, and joins the prestigious Praeger's 'Native America: Yesterday and Today' series. Volume 1 covers the earliest indigenous peoples to the movement West, covering Native American origins and the effects of European expansion processes. Volume 2 focuses more narrowly on the rise and fall of Native American regional tribes across the country, from the ending of the frontier to assimilation processes. Together this outstanding two volume set provides an essential and comprehensive coverage.

this is Carter's most interesting piano solo,written late;a quadruple commission; it seems most of his piano repertoire,his thinking excursis for the keyboard has been skewed toward chamber settings(The Double Concerto),the Wind and String Quintets(also late bloomer works) and the massive penumbral "Piano Concerto", that which has equally more interesting orchestrations than the content for what is played on the piano. The earlier Brahmsian/Copland-esque "Piano Sonata" from the Forties, has its points of interests,rolling rotund resonant timbres,bombastic declamations but that is an earlier Carter,formative times and a different set of creative paradigms at work actually, prior to the maturity and interest that set in after the "First String Quartet". . . The golden fruits of maturity has seen many works even an opera of mixed quality,and predictable-ness some of the solos and duets,dedications as "Espirit rude" are quite glib materials,tossed off. Here however the "Night Fantasies" is an interesting piece of music,certainly one that has entered the modern piano literature, a modern nocturne of darkness for dark times which never seem to recede,simply differing gradations of it. This work has entered the mainstream and academia naturally and you can see it played on piano competitions,although difficult to perform in that all the suggestive timbral layers Carter employs/deploys need continuous clarity.He sets a large pallette of piano attacks,mixed with an equal distributions of dynamics sustained moments mixed with more percussive effects,staccato with sustained, cloistered-like chorals deployed.If this agenda for "layering" is abandoned well the work will cohere-melt into one quite boring unadorned glob of timbre, suggestive of Schumann or Brahms having lived through World War 2.Ursula Oppens and Charles Rosen have exhibited the most interesting readings I think,and quite recently Pierre Laurent Aimard,in a nice recording with his own commnetary thrown in.I would like to hear Frederic Rzewski play this work, with his overriding dynamic approach and technical clarity he can summon to his fingers and perhaps glean the overbearing romantic-nesses from the work, making it leaner and more articulated.That is always the problem with modernity of this kind,it always tempts the interpreter into a more facile reading,more direct, more bound to the aesthetic of the romantic as Solti playing Schoenberg as Brahms or as he had done with Carter's "Variations for Orchestra" he had takened on tour.. If you bring direct unencumbered musicianship to Carter the music will reward you, and if you acknowledge its intellectual agendas you will be twice blessed.
Jon Link has done excellent work on mapping the poly-rhythmic distributions of this work,and David Schiff's excellent book to a less exhaustive degree and Yes! some can hear all of it,the poly-rhythms, layered textures if you have a map inside your head, and have some pre-requisite home study of the score prior to a listening experience, but short of that the work still harbors a neo-romanticism with an affinity for modernity, the wonderful fast furioso filigree displays, "fugitive" lines wanting to escape from the work's structural tyranny has a kind of other wordly quality.

My faded (1961) copy of Jim Dante's 1947 "The Nine Bad Shots of Golf and What to Do About Them" is a gem! It's still available in reprints (1990). The scope is exactly what all beginning and most experienced golfers need and want: How to stop hooking, slicing, topping, pushing, pulling, smothering, shanking, skying, and sclaffing. The language is wonderfully straightforward. To hit a low ball, Dante says use one more (lower-faced) club, put nearly all your weight on the left foot, and dont't pivot. "These three things," Dante says, "are virtually all you can do." What if the green can't be approached by a run-up? Dante: "Well, that's just too bad."

It's hard to believe. In fact, for all I know, some of it may not even be true! But the shaded topics and colorful caricatures of bigger-than-life personalities sure ring loud with entertainment if nothing else. Vollbracht's writing is as vibrant as his pictures - witty and pointed with big splashes of color. His Elizabeth Taylor story is almost worth the price of the book. His pictures certainly ARE worth the price of the book -they're flat-out gorgeous.

Great for the biggest table in your house. You'll look at it many times over.

My Spanish-speaking students are willingly doing the activities in this book. It validates their heritage and life experiences and creates opportunities for interpersonal learning. The grammar reviews are easy to understand and some students are experiencing "discovery" of written Spanish for the first time.

High School Teacher

Excellent description of the complex relationship between these two
famous WWII leaders. Both faced tremendously difficult odds against
Germany in June 1940, when the German armies quickly invaded
Benelux and France, throwing the British divisions back to England.
At a time where the US was only standing by, and France was overwhelmed by
a vastly superior ennemy, Churchill had the courage and vision to support De Gaulle's refusal to surrender and subsequent negation of the (collaborationist) Vichy government. The author also provides an excellent
description of the two men, describing their trials and highly tempestuous relationship, including their enduring -if severely tested- friendship. In the end, it becomes clear that both men indeed truly loved France -and what it stood for, expecting it to fulfill its European role after the war. The book also describes Roosevelt's persistent attempts to undermine De Gaulle while pressuring Churchill to do likewise -- perhaps the origin of the strained rapport betwen France and the US ?

This is one of a four volume set that is indispensible for anyone who is interested in modeling aircraft of the U.S. Navy or Marine Corps, or anyone interested in seeing the finest photographs ever put together of naval aircraft to the date of publication. The author is a career Marine Corps veteran, and made it his formidable task to organize mounds of data regarding the subject for future generations. Included are the standards for painting and marking naval aircraft into the 1990's and his interpretation for how well they were or were not carried out. The photographs were carefully chosen to illustrate the text and are of superior quality in their reproduction. There are also many beautiful color illustrations painted for these volumes that often have humorous aspects in them that only enhance one's overal enjoyment of the book. You will find all types of naval aircraft here from fighters to floatplanes, transports and lighter than air craft. To top it all off, there are paint chips in the back of each volume that were produced with the greatest of care from original examples. This particular volume is interesting because of its coverage of the period of the transition from reciprocating engines to jets. I visited the Silver Hill Md. Restoration Facility of the Smithsonian Institution during the time this series was being released, and the publication of each volume was advertised on the bulletin board. There can be no higher praise than that! This series deserves to be reprinted.

This book is full of great recipes. I have used at least 30 of the recipes and their variations. One of the best things about this book is that is almost always gives you additional ways to make the recipe. For example, if you've made the plum torte, but want to try it with apples, you can, because they give directions for using apples at the end of the recipe. I found this to be extremely useful.