Richardson Books

Grow Your Own Paper is full of beautiful pictures of decorative papers made with plant inclusions and plants - which are of themselves, wonderfully inspiring even to someone who regularly makes pretty plant papers. What it is not full of is detailed papermaking info. As far as I can tell, beating methods are limited only to using a blender which leaves out the wonderful low tech method of handbeating, and no time is given to more advanced methods such as using a Hollander. However it does give a good quick description of how to make wood ash alkali solution as well as a good variety of drying techniques with their results - the best I've seen so far. But my overall feeling is that if you want to understand much about the processes that make paper, it lacks depth. A pretty book. and if you're just starting out, it would give you lots of inspiration for using flora, but for people who already know anything about papermaking, expect the high point to be the photos and if you want a much more detailed and useful guide to growing, harvesting and using plants to make paper and a truly broad range of info on equipment and techniques, get "Papermaking with Plants" Helen Heibert

I loved this book! It is one of the best that I have. Even though it only covers a small portion of the wide world of papermaking it does it very well. It is a great book for the beginning papermaker that is starting out in the kitchen.

Robert Richardson's biography on Dominique Jean Larrey, one of the foremost pioneers in combat surgery who help paved the way for more effective way of treating wounded soldiers. Larrey created the flying ambulance system that allowed the French army to get their wounded quicker to the field hospitals, thus saving many lives. In other word, Larrey help invent the concept of "medivac" long before the helicopters was invented. Larrey also proves to be one of those rare humanitarians as he cares for the enemies of France equally as he care his own countrymen. Thus, he soon gained esteemable reputation among his nation's enemies as well as among his friends.

The book proves to be well written and quite readable. It should be noted that this is a professional biography of Larrey, mostly concerning his professional life. The author stressed heavily on his relationship with Napoleon, the administrative red tapes and his close relationship with his patients. There are very little of his personal life written here. His wife get mentioned few times and he was a tyrant to his kids but outside of few things, we never get to know Larrey if he wasn't on the campaign trail.

But this is a well needed biography about one of the more important but lesser known individuals of the Napoleonic France. I mean, if you mentioned "Dr. Larrey of Grande Armee" to most Americans, you might get lucky just to get a blank stare!

Robert Richardson's book, `Larrey' tells the story of Dominique Jean Larrey, Surgeon-in-Chief to Napoleon's Imperial Guard. The book was first published in 1974 and the current edition was released in 2000. It could not be considered an in-depth or detail biography but in 240 pages the author manages to captivate the reader with amazing accounts of this most interesting man, from Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt to Waterloo.

Larrey was credited with designing a `flying' ambulance which allowed the French Army to recover its wounded on the field and to administer first aid at the front if required. He also devised a practical and life saving system to evacuate casualties from the field of battle to a base hospital. Larrey himself conducted many amputations and other medical procedures whilst under fire.

"Who is that bold fellow?" asked the Duke of Wellington.
"It's Larrey", someone answered.
"Tell them not to fire in that direction; at least let us give the brave man time to gather up the wounded." And so saying he doffed his hat.
"Who are you saluting?" enquired the Duke of Cambridge.
"I salute the courage and devotion of an age that is no longer ours", said Wellington, pointing at Larrey with his sword.

Larrey was a man who cared for the sick and wounded soldiers of any nation regardless of rank or position. This at times placed him in conflict with the hierarchy of the French administration. He established new procedures and methods of training which were adopted not only by the French but also by many of the nations the French Army fought against.

The book is well written and the narrative moves seamlessly through military campaigns to home life and back to life with the Guard. The accounts of the military campaigns are well told even if brief, the main focus of the book is of course Dominique Larrey. There are a number of line drawings and illustrations throughout the book as well as a few maps to help orientate the reader.

The author shows Larrey warts and all but you still come away with a firm admiration for the man "whose skilled scalpel served his Emperor better than any sword." I enjoyed this book and it offered something new in the field of Napoleonic studies. I am sure that anyone who enjoys this period of history will be delighted in this book.

I read this book with my 9-year old son, and he liked it quite a bit. He loves reading and learning about India, and this was a great introduction to Ancient Indian history. The book explains complex ideas like reincarnation, karma, nirvana etc quite accurately in simple words. My son understood those concepts in the first reading!

The book talks about Harappan and Aryan civilizations, almost concurrently, and on one ocassion he got confused between them.

This is a social history of life in ancient India targeted at late elementary schoolers.

It is organized into 14 two-page, thematic spreads that follow a general chronological progression (from the Harrappan civilizations through the Aryan conquest, Mauryan Age, and and the rise of Buddhism) but have a way-of-life emphasis. The packaging, full of drawings, artifacts, and photographs of people and places, is very well done, and the text is clear.

The only drawback is that the presentation is rather dry and textbook-like. However, it is still a very good introduction to an area that is rarely covered by books of this level.

Not bad though. I was expecting a novel, and was dissapointed to receive this. There should be somewhere in the description that alerts potential buyers to the fact!

The story and especially the artwork was very good.
That in itself rates a top score. The binding and
quality of the hardbound graphic novel is very high.

3 things to note.
The hardback was quite large for such a short graphic novel.
Larger than i felt it needed to be.
The black and white print finish on the pages are high quality but tend to leave fingerprints on the black ink finish.
And lastly, this comic is quite short. I knew what i was
getting in pagecount since it's clearly stated but this comic
really is very short with very little dialogue. Wouldn't have
mattered if it wasn't so expensive.

Overall, a solid 4 stars. It would have been a 5 star if
it was in a smaller, less expensive format.

While "Lord Harry's Daughter" is not a light hearted comedy of manners, it is still a wonderful read. Of a slightly more serious nature, this novel is about the two principal characters, Major Mark Adair and Sophia Featherstonaugh, both products of their rather sad family lives, and of one particular intrigue that takes place in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars.

Sophia Featherstonaugh has learnt the hard way what it is to have a feckless and reckless personality in her life. Life with her father, Lord Harry Featherstonaugh, had been quite hellish. The result of which Sophia has learnt to be more controlled and precise in her emotions and actions. This makes her the very opposite of Major Mark Adair. Reacting against his stern and restrictive father, Adair has developed a reputation for being a dashing and fearless officer. And when Sophia and Adair first meet, sparks fly. Sophia sees in Adair shades of her father, while Sophia reminds Adair of his disapproving father. However the war, and Adair's spying activities throw Sophia and Adair together and the two begin to form a friendship, that is until Adair falls under the spell of the beautiful Condessa de Gonsalvo y Coruna. Will this new infatuation of Adair's affect Adair's and Sophia's friendship?

Sophia Featherstonaugh made this novel really enjoyable for me. She's intelligent, gracious, talented and brave. In fact there's a chapter where Adair and Sophia engage in a battle of the sexes, and Sophia actually wins the battle! The great thing is that Evelyn Richardson allows for Sophia to win this battle in a way that is credible and makes sense! And while I found Adair to be pretty much the typical male hero, I liked that Richardson allowed for the romance betwen the two to unfold slowly and realistically.

"Lord Harry's Daughter" may not be the typical Regency romance novel, but it is a really good read.

This is a fun story with plenty of twists and turns. The characters are fairly real and do not become trite with being forced into the genre. This has all the ingredients for a good, curl-up to relax, light-hearted tale. Definitely a keeper. Sophia has spirit but is not outside the realm of possibility while Adair fits the traditional, strong male but with a good sense of humour. Ms. Richardson keeps her reputation well intact.

I would reccommend this book to anyone who knows nothing about the art of rapport. I knew a fair amount about this and this book taught me very little new. I would highly reccomend "Unlimited Power" by Tony Robbins. Much more value for money and the one chapter in that book covers most of this one!!

A great book that can help you in business, relation, dating, flirting......... in every moment you need Rapport!

This was originally required for a MBA marketing class. Great book. Good examples. Written well. Highly recommended no matter what year your reading it in.

This was originally required for a MBA marketing class. Great book. Good examples. Written well. Highly recommended no matter what year your reading it in.

Philip Latham (1902-1981) was the pseudonym of the astronomer Robert S. Richardson. He wrote a string of science books and articles, mostly for _Analog_ and mostly about astronomy. A couple of articles that I remember with fondness are the controversial "Nice Girls on Mars" (which elicited stern rebuttals from C.S. Lewis and Miriam Allen deFord) and "Space Technology of a Track Meet." Under the Philip Latham byline, he wrote about a score of science fiction short stories that frequently had about as much to do with magic as with astronomy. He wrote only two science fiction novels-- _Five Against Venus_ (1952) and _Missing Men of Saturn_ (1953), both juveniles for Winston.

Latham explains that when he was asked to write a science fiction novel set on Saturn, he found the task to be daunting. (Remember that in the early 1950s, there was very little that we knew about the planet with any certainty.) His solution was to turn to a nineteenth century astronomy book by Richard A. Proctor that confidently asserted that there was almost certainly life on Saturn. He used Proctor's picture of Saturn as the basis for his novel.

Latham then takes the interesting step of populating his novel with less than sterling characters. His hero, Dale Sutton, is that most obnoxious of creatures, the Big Man on Campus at the Space Academy. Sutton gets assigned to a beat-up space tub called the _Albatross_, and the crew begins to take him down a few pegs. But the crew are not wholly virtuous, either. Many of them are uneducated and superstitious-- traits that cause them to balk when they are assigned to investigate the mystery surrounding another crew that has vanished before them on Saturn. And they are traits that will contribute to a tragedy at the end of the novel.

Give this novel a try. It is solidly, if unspectacularly, written. The cover by Alex Schomburg depicts a spaceship tilting precarously on the top of a lava crusted cliff with an erupting volcano in the near background and a smoky, acerbic atmosphere. We now know that Saturn is predominantly a gas giant. But given the state of knowledge at this time, we can hardly fault Latham or Schomburg on scientific grounds.

This is a "space opera" of the first order. I first read it as a very young man, shortly after it was published, and the work has stuck with me over all these years. I recently found a copy in a used book store (no, I won't sell it) and gave it a reread. The little boy in me enjoyed it as much now as when I first discovered it. Recommend this one highly and those interested in the history of this particular genre certainly should give it a close look.

Here are two of the premiere writers of 18th century Britain engaging in a literary duel. Both tails are splendidly written and certainly worth reading. Any British lit enthusiast (or any literary enthusiast period) will derive immense pleasure from these two spectacular tails.

Although I identified with Richardson's Clarissa, I truly hated his Pamela. Pamela is filled with deeply ridiculous and contradictory themes - most notably that a woman held in abject terror and against her will by her would-be rapist would come, in time, to love the man. And while I would welcome a novel like this if it was some sort of treatment of what we now call Stockholm Syndrome, it is clear that the mentality here is that which Clarissa tried so hard to refute: That a wedding ring cures all crimes committed prior to marriage.

Shamela, included here for a side-by-side comparison, highlights those absurdities in the novel (such as Pamela's constant failure to escape her rapist, despite numerous clear opportunities to do so, and her willingness to be persuaded back to her prison cell when proposed to by this rake who had held her without pity for an extended time) and comes to the tongue-in-cheek conclusion that Shamela is really an opportunist who teases her master (with her sexual wiles) into an unfavorable marriage. Fielding doesn't approve of the herione's wit in doing so, however - it is clear that he disagrees fervently with a gentleman "marrying down" and one is left with the impression that the master should just force Pamela and sweep her aside.

So, really, we have in essence two novels which winkingly advocate the notion of rape as long as the gentleman makes it "right" afterwards - with the only disagreement being over what will make it "right" (marriage or abandonment). The reader, upon reading both these viewpoints of the same basic story, will be left with a better understanding of why both authors were wrong - but it's not clear that this understanding is worth the price of admission.

It is so refreshing to know that our children can read, or we can read to them, words of prayer and spiritual guidance, that can help them to know, love, and appreciate the word of God, the Father of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. In a world filled with so little good reading materials for our children, I find that this book a true delight and a blessing. I highly recommend it to all parents, and others, who love children.

Parents are living in a time when we cannot afford to forget the value of balancing our lives and the lives of our children with appreciation for prayer. Prayer let's us know that there is a power source we can tap into to make our lives better. Ms. Nettles' book offers parents an opportunity to give children an appreciation for the things around us. The prayers are non-denominational. And, even if a parent is an agnostic the book can still work for the family. It's not far fetched to invision some of the tragic stories we hear today about young children and adults going on killing sprees being prevented by parents taking time to pray with their children. Nettles' book takes life situations and turns them into prayer subjects. This allows a parent and child to converse about everyday subjects and place a higher value on them . What I'm sharing is that this book makes it easier to pray and converse with your children in one important setting.The prayers can then lead into stories you share from your life experience.That's how I make the prayers an event my grandson and 12-year old look forward to. If we are well off or not so well off, this book is a tool to help us guide our children. Every time I see or hear a news bulletin of a tragedy of mindless brutality the value of "Prayers and Meditations For Our Little Angels" is reinforced. The title is a message to our precious young ones. It's their book.