Powell Books

Anyone with a love of West Indian literature should real ME DYING TRIAL. Likewise, those with an interest in the gay and lesbian literature that has been coming from Caribbean writers over the past decade. ME DYING TRIAL is the first novel of Jamaican-born Patricia Powell who was only in her 20s when the book was published. It is an amazing accomplishment for a young writer. ME DYING TRIAL traces the life of Gwennie, a bright but unhappy Jamaican woman who has many children, an abusive husband, and a great deal of ambition. We feel we know her intimately and two of her children - Rudi and Peppy - are certainly memorable long after the book is finished as is Ma Cora, the woman who helps to raise Peppy. This is a novel about survival, about the complexities of family, about expectations, about hurt and loss. For those reading of the Caribbean for the first time, it gives a real flavor and feeling for the West Indies. And for those interested in finding characters to identify with in literature who feel slightly out of step with their families, ME DYING TRIAL has a lot to offer. The book may never be a classic, but it is well-written in gorgeously rendered dialect, and it was written by a brave and intelligent young woman.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls presented the greatest challenge to Christian beliefs since the time of Darwin's theory of evolution.

This paperback book retells the fascinating story of the discovery and purported meaning of the scrolls. It also describes the importance and interest to believers around the world. For those seeking spiritual enlightenment and a reconciliation of the scrolls with their faith, this book will give them a scholarly interpretation of the scrolls relationship to the Holy Scriptures and the origins of Christianity.

The book includes a few drawings, maps and photos for clarification as well as a bibliography.

The author, A Powell Davies, was a pastor in Washington DC and has written several other books based on the Christian religion.

In the race between the memory required to run the latest applications and earning the money to upgrade the hardware, the first often wins. However, it does not have to be that way. This book will give you information that will allow you to configure your system so that that extra bit of memory is there when you need it. And in the process, you will learn a great deal about the basic concepts of memory utilization in a DOS/Windows environment.
The level is advertised as beginner and that is right on target. Anyone with a basic understanding of computers will be able to follow and execute the advice given here. Well worth the money as a resource on understanding memory as well as perhaps preventing a hardware upgrade, this book is perfect shelf fodder for public libraries.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

I have used the library's copy for reference around my home. Comparing with other books on this subject, this has more detailed descriptions, with the botanists' technical jargon and line drawings. The plants are organized by plant families. The jargon lends succinctness, but you have to remember the meanings. The drawings show characteristics, often better than photos, but color is omitted. Uses made of the plants, and other interesting information, are given, as well as details distinguishing one species from another. The author gives several common names for those species having multiple names, as well as the scientific names.
This book is better than others for scholarly presentation, but more popular concepts would appeal more to people with casual interest in the subject.

This is wonderful book for learning the concepts of TCP/IP. It goes into great detail about all of the protocalls in TCP/IP. However, on the CD there none of the protocalls, only the RFC (Request For Comments) on how the internet was started.

The third book in the third volume of Powell's monumental series (Book 3 of Autumn). World War II sees its final days in this book.

Again, Jenkins role is more observer, watching and commenting more so than acting upon others. Chance encounters abound, his survival more a matter of convenience to others than from any special merit of his own. Widmerpool's rise continues,directly or indirectly causing the death of one of the school friends. Half the original cast are casualties to the war by the end of this chapter in the series.

The most important introduction would be Pam Flinton, a femme fatale likely to wreak havoc on whatever males, and possible females, remain standing for the final Winter volume.

This is a super photo book of the best streamline houses built in England in the thirties and still standing. Photographer Nick Dawe has captured sixty-five of them and he makes them sparkle in the sunshine, some interiors shots are included as well. Author Kenneth Powell provides short essays to the four chapters and captions to each set of house photos.

Good as the book is I only gave it four stars because I felt it was let down by the sloppy minimalist design. Of the sixty-five houses shown only fifteen have floor plans (beautifully redrawn by James Taylor) and strangely these are placed in three sections of the book rather than be placed on the same page as the relevant house photo. Bizarrely the eighteen pages of plans do not have page numbers, should the reader really have to flick backwards and forwards to find the house and then the plan (if there is one!) There are nineteen spreads that have one large photo and again no page numbers. Call me old fashioned but I prefer to have numbers printed on each page, every other book has them and they work, too.

Some of the house interior photos seem rather obscure and not helped because there are no captions to them.

So apart from the silly annoying design I found this book worth having. A similar book of streamline houses, this time in the US, is James and Katherine Ford's 'Classic Modern Homes of the Thirties', a reprint of a 1940 book with photos and plans of houses designed by Schindler, Ain, Neutra, Gropius, Breuer and others. It has 194 photos and 128 plans and details about each house. Oh, and it has a number on each page too!

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

This is a well written and well organized guide. There are very few that focus on the Four Corners per se. If that is your area of interest, definitely buy this book. If you are interested in the Four Corners as part of a bigger AZ or NM or UT tour, you may be just as happy with buying the AZ or NM or UT book(s).

Very readable about expat life in French village. The author lives in Languedoc Rousillon unlike Peter Malye who lives in Provence. She was from England and moved to a small French village with her husband and kids.

She has a good knowledge of French bureaucracy: utilities, buying property, social security and points out accepted social behaviour required of interacting with the local French. What strikes me is her sincerity to integrate as fully as possible into French life instead of living on the sidelines like Peter Mayle also an English author of "A Year in Provence" who seems more like a loafer and a parasite feeding off the French.

As the author is a young mother she tries her best to get her kids integrated in French schools to get a better start as being French. Three quarters of the book is full of anecdotes about family life in a small French village. The last quarter deals with French officialdom, the whys and hows of dealing with the nitty gritty of it.

This is a slender book with 10 art projects that replicate mosaic for kids. The projects include: a greeting card decorated with paper "tiles"; an African mask; a picture of a knight made with silver-toned washers, bolts, etc; a fabric shoebag decorated with a felt "tile" design; an Egyptian necklace with painted macaroni mosaic; mosaic cookies; a clay pot covered with painted eggshells. The very-clear photos show the projects from start to finish. The finished projects are shown by children, but look quite professional as if they were done by adults, however, older children should be able to follow the instructions with good results. Younger children would definitely need help.