Stevens Books

This is my all time favorite calendar! The pictures are so amazing and I love getting to see the "real" Italy instead of the touristy version. Would recommend to anyone with a sense of adventure and a love of travel!

Every year I purchase a 365 Days in Italy calendar for my office. I've spent over three years in total living in Italy, and I love the pictures and how they evoke my memories of the places. It's actually hard to discard them at the end of the year!

Love this calendar! Hangs in my kitchen to organize my retirement days. After the year is over, I cut out my favorite pictures to make my own note cards to keep in touch with my more active friends abroad.

The calendar is so beautiful and it is filled with pictures of Italy and anything associated with Italy. It should be wonderful to look at all throughout the year-

I'm in the midst of planning my first backpacking trip in Washington State this fall. Of all the many trail guides that I've picked up over the past month, this is my favorite. Rick deeply cares about the country that he's describing, and isn't afraid to speak out on the issues that matter to me. Knowing how he feels makes it easier for me to judge his opinions about a given trail. I've seen other guides that don't get around to mentioning heavy ORV or horse traffic on the trails that they cover - that's not the case with Rick. His writing, as mentioned in another rating, remind me a lot of Manning's. It's excellent, as are the photos by Ira Spring.
Even if you don't plan to hike the Stevens Pass region, the book is still an excellent purchase because of the insightful comments regarding the Wild Sky movement. Keep 'em coming, Rick!

I love all the Spring hiking books - the 100 Classic hikes, the Alpines Lakes version, and so forth. This book, unlike the others, offers several lower altitude hikes that are accessible in April and May (depending on the winter's snowfall). I strongly recommend it if you're frustrated with looking for hikes for the "shoulder season." The book has the usual good commentary, though I prefer Harvey Manning to Rick McGuire, and good pictures.

My only complaint is the authors' recommendation in the forward that hikers not bring their dogs but instead strike out cross-country and off-trail if they wish to hike with a dog. The dog may not miss the views, but the people certainly will, and many hikers are not skilled / experienced enough to successfully and safely hike off-trail.

Most hiking guides are simply lists of trails with driving directions and trail descriptions. Anyone with a map can write one of those, and they're fine if you just want some exercise.
This book is interesting even if you're not looking for a trail. There is a lot of information about the natural (and political) history. The author clearly understands that you will have a richer experience if you hit the trail with some appreciation of what you'll see (and hopefully want to protect).
I liked the the invitation to try "off-trail" hiking. I really enjoyed the authors opinions on the Forest Service. I'm tired of guides that avoid controversy in the interest of sales. I was reminded of Harvey Manning.

With so many hiking guides out there that seem like recycled knockoffs of the old classics, it's good to see one written by someone who actually knows and cares about this area. Good to see that Mountaineers Books hiking guides still have a pro-environment point of view. The author clearly has opinions, and isn't afraid to state them. In the introduction section alone he manages to say more interesting things about the forests, fish and wildlife of the Cascades than you'll find in many entire books. And it's nice to finally have the whole of Hwy. 2 covered in just one book; hopefully they will manage to get it protected.

This is a great book for anyone interested in modeling dynamic systems. The authors provide wonderful background theory as a basis for building computer simulations. The simple step-by-step instructions guide you through the process of creating your own simulations using StarLogo. This book is an interesting, easily understandable beginner's manual and comes with all the software you need. It's a great way to teach yourself or other people how to program a simulation. I love the turtles!

This book is a great guide to taking the somewhat difficult ideas explored in Mitchel Resnick's book "Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams" and implementing them with students. Adventures in modeling can be used alone but, for any teacher who wants to use this book in a computer class, it is helpful to read the other book first. The activities and challenges here are reasonable for students from college down though middle school. I know of one teacher who has even successfully used these activites with pre-teens.

The book is good overall but I felt they need to use more carefully thought out examples and not try to push an 'agenda'.
It is as if the author(s) are trying to make an issue over creation vs evolution. In the very beginning chapter, they make an invalid example by comparing evolution vs creation to central control vs decentralized systems. This is a quote from the book, "This tendency to assume centralized control, which we call the centralized mindset, makes it difficult for people to understand the workings of many phenomena in the world. The recurrent questioning of evolutionary theories is another example: When people see complex living systems in the world, they assume that someone or something must have explicitly designed them; instead, these livings systems are the products of millions of incremental changes over time."

This is a great book for people intereted in modeling systems behavior. The authors give an excellent background summary of the theory involved in StarLogo. The program given with the CD is easy to install and use. The book takes you step by step through thinking about and creating your own computer simulation in an easy to understand manner. There's lots of support for any technical difficulties you might have and good examples of what you can do with the program. I highly recommend it to everyone.

My father wrote this 2 volume set over 15 years of painstaking research, resulting in 1095 pages with 59 chapters and 980 photographs; most never before published and lovingly restored from private collections and personal albums of the great bush pilots and long established Alaskan families. His own love affair with Alaska began in July, 1946 as a young DC-3 copilot for Pacific Northern Airlines based in Anchorage and continued through his retirement as a senior DC-10 Captain for Western Airlines in May, 1978. 32 years of commercial flying as well as crisscrossing every corner of Alaska in small planes, float flying to nameless lakes for hunting and fishing, he came to see much of Alaska's rich aviation heritage was in danger of slipping into oblivion.

Volume I traces the story from ballooning in 1897, through 1928. Volume II covers the busy times of 1929 and 1930. This set covers civil, commercial and military aviation throughout Alaska, including Russian and Scandinavian trans-Polar expeditions. The day to day progress of events along with the more sensational occurrences and hundreds of other fascinating facts, meticulously researched from personal journals and newspaper archives of the time; clearly presented first-hand accounts in narrative form and fully indexed.

Here is what others have said regarding this Photographic treasury of, and tribute to: the planes & pilots who explored and settled this last American frontier-Alaska!

"I would like to congratulate you on a very thorough job and the best work of its kind I have yet to see. I am ordering from your publisher." ~K. M Molsen-(original) curator of Canadian National Aviation Museum.

"Your publication of ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY, 1897-1930 is needed for the collections of the Library of Congress." ~McDermott- Chief, E & G Division.

"Bob Stevens is one of the best authorities on Alaskan aviation history." ~R.E.G. Davies, Curator of Air Transport, Aeronautics Department of SMITHIONIAN.

"Your two recent volumes on the early history of the Alaskan aviation industry appear to be the difinitive documents to which all future research on the subject will be compared."~Frank Norris-Historian, National Park Service, Anchorage Alaska.

"ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY is a labor of love. Surely it had to be, to be so complete; beautifully done and above all, so readable." ~Lowell Thomas, Jr.-in THE EXPLORERS CLUB JOURNAL (The Explorers Club in New York)

"I would like to order a review copy of ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY for a forthcoming review in Technology and culture, our quarterly journal of the Society for the History of Technology." ~Managing Editor-Smithsonian Institution.

"Herewith my check for two sets of ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY. I have just done a review of these beautiful volumes for the EXPLORERS CLUB and would like to have my own set, and a second for my pilot son." ~Lowell Thomas, Jr.

"Those interested in bush flying will welcome ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY, which includes much Canadian material where it intermeshes with Alaskan flying." ~OUTBOUND- the the Canadian Aviation Historical Society newsletter.

"Received the books yesterday all O.K.- no wonder it took 15 years to complete! Pictures-what beautiful pictures-never saw anything like it. I hope I don't have to wait seven years for the next volume. Keep them coming." ~Howie Schmidt-TWA pilot.

My father wrote this 2 volume set over 15 years of painstaking research, resulting in 1095 pages with 59 chapters and 980 photographs; most never before published and lovingly restored from private collections and personal albums of the great bush pilots and long established Alaskan families. His own love affair with Alaska began in July, 1946 as a young DC-3 copilot for Pacific Northern Airlines based in Anchorage and continued through his retirement as a senior DC-10 Captain for Western Airlines in May, 1978. 32 years of commercial flying as well as crisscrossing every corner of Alaska in small planes, float flying to nameless lakes for hunting and fishing, he came to see much of Alaska's rich aviation heritage was in danger of slipping into oblivion.

Volume I traces the story from ballooning in 1897, through 1928. Volume II covers the busy times of 1929 and 1930. This set covers civil, commercial and military aviation throughout Alaska, including Russian and Scandinavian trans-Polar expeditions. The day to day progress of events along with the more sensational occurrences and hundreds of other fascinating facts, meticulously researched from personal journals and newspaper archives of the time; clearly presented first-hand accounts in narrative form and fully indexed.

Here is what others have said regarding this Photographic treasury of, and tribute to: the planes & pilots who explored and settled this last American frontier-Alaska!

"I would like to congratulate you on a very thorough job and the best work of its kind I have yet to see. I am ordering from your publisher." ~K. M Molsen-(original) curator of Canadian National Aviation Museum.

"Your publication of ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY, 1897-1930 is needed for the collections of the Library of Congress." ~McDermott- Chief, E & G Division.

"Bob Stevens is one of the best authorities on Alaskan aviation history." ~R.E.G. Davies, Curator of Air Transport, Aeronautics Department of SMITHIONIAN.

"Your two recent volumes on the early history of the Alaskan aviation industry appear to be the difinitive documents to which all future research on the subject will be compared."~Frank Norris-Historian, National Park Service, Anchorage Alaska.

"ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY is a labor of love. Surely it had to be, to be so complete; beautifully done and above all, so readable." ~Lowell Thomas, Jr.-in THE EXPLORERS CLUB JOURNAL (The Explorers Club in New York)

"I would like to order a review copy of ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY for a forthcoming review in Technology and culture, our quarterly journal of the Society for the History of Technology." ~Managing Editor-Smithsonian Institution.

"Herewith my check for two sets of ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY. I have just done a review of these beautiful volumes for the EXPLORERS CLUB and would like to have my own set, and a second for my pilot son." ~Lowell Thomas, Jr.

"Those interested in bush flying will welcome ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY, which includes much Canadian material where it intermeshes with Alaskan flying." ~OUTBOUND- the the Canadian Aviation Historical Society newsletter.

"Received the books yesterday all O.K.- no wonder it took 15 years to complete! Pictures-what beautiful pictures-never saw anything like it. I hope I don't have to wait seven years for the next volume. Keep them coming." ~Howie Schmidt-TWA pilot.

This is the only book on Alaskan aviation that includes such rare stories as an entire chapter on my great-Uncle Charles LaJotte! He was somewhat infamous in his day for freighting a WWI surplus Curtis Jenny to Nome (via the sailing Schooner Fred J. Wood)and offering aeroplane rides during the summer of 1923. Bob Steven's lifework details the adventures (and misadventures) of many early aviators, both famous and mostly forgotten.

My father wrote this two-volume set over 15 years of painstaking research, resulting in 1095 pages with 59 chapters and 980 photographs, most never before published and lovingly restored from private collections and personal albums of the great bush pilots and long-established Alaskan families. His own love affair with Alaska began in July, 1946 as a young DC-3 copilot for Pacific Northern Airlines based in Anchorage and continued through his retirement as a senior DC-10 captain for Western Airlines in May, 1978. 32 years of commercial flying as well as crisscrossing every corner of Alaska in small planes, float-flying to nameless lakes for hunting and fishing, he came to see much of Alaska's rich aviation heritage was in danger of slipping into oblivion.

Volume I traces the story from early ballooning in 1897, through 1928. Volume II covers the busy times of 1929 and 1930. This set covers civil, commercial and military aviation throughout Alaska, including Russian and Scandinavian trans-polar expeditions. Follow the day to day progress of events along with the more sensational occurrences and hundreds of other fascinating facts, meticulously researched from personal journals and newspaper archives of the time; clearly presented first-hand accounts in narrative form and fully indexed.

Here is what others have said regarding this photographic treasury of, and tribute to the planes and pilots who explored and settled this last American frontier-Alaska!

"I would like to congratulate you on a very thorough job and the best work of its kind I have yet to see. I am ordering from your publisher." ~K.M. Molsen-(original) Curator of Canadian National Aviation Museum.

"Your publication of ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY, 1897-1930 is needed for the collections of the Library of Congress." ~McDermott-Chief, E & G Division.

"Bob Stevens is one of the best authorities on Alaskan aviation history." ~R.E.G. Davies, Curator of Air Transport, Aeronautics Department of SMITHSONIAN.

"Your two recent volumes on the early history of the Alaskan aviation industry appear to be the definitive documents to which all future research on the subject will be compared." ~Frank Norris- Historian, National Park Service, Anchorage Alaska.

"ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY is a labor of love. Surely it had to be, to be so complete; beautifully done and above all, so readable." ~Lowell Thomas, Jr. in THE EXPLORERS CLUB JOURNAL (The Explorers Club in New York).

"I would like to order a review copy of ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY for a forthcoming review in Technology and Culture, our quarterly journal of the Society for the History of Technology." ~Managing Editor-Smithsonian Institution.

"Herewith my check for two sets of ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY. I have just done a review of these beautiful volumes for the EXPLORERS CLUB and would like to have my own set, and a second for my pilot son." ~Lowell Thomas Jr.

"Those interested in bush flying will welcome ALASKAN AVIATION HISTORY, which includes much Canadian material where it intermeshes with Alaskan flying." ~OUTBOUND-the Canadian Aviation Historical Society newsletter.

"Received the books yesterday all O.K.-no wonder it took 15 years to complete! Pictures-what beautiful pictures-never saw anything like it. I hope I don't have to wait seven years for the next volume. Keep them coming." ~Howie Schmidt-TWA pilot.

Rubenstein's book does two things at once: It provides an insightful look into the life of the Shuar healer Alejandro Tsakimp, in which many of the complexities of this person (and the Shuar people) are presented to the reader. At the same time, Rubenstein confronts the issues of representation -- he introduces himself and explains his relationship to his subject and the representation he is making -- then steps away and allows Alejandro to tell his story.

I found this book both interesting and useful for those two reasons -- as a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the Shuar people and as a model of dealing with the critical issues of representation confronting authors (and readers) across a wide range of studies.

This book is a serious anthropological work about an indigenous Ecuadorian Shaman. I had no difficulty reading the book as a layperson. Dr. Rubenstein puts a lot of himself into the book and is upfront about his friendship with Alejandro. I liked how he confronted the ethical and objectivity issues inherent in a study involving people. He lets Alejandro Tsakimp tell the story of his life. Much of the book is dialogue from interviews of Alejandro which allowed me to draw my own conclusions about what it might be like to be Shuar and a shaman in modern Ecuador.

I enjoyed the book. I thought it was clear, expressive and well-paced. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in South American culture. It would also be an excellent resource for anyone considering working with Shuar people as a Peace Corps volunteer or with an aid organization.

This is a serious anthropological book. I was extremely impressed by Dr. Rubenstein's intellectual discussions, his research methods, and his careful approach to his informants as well as his sensitivities to and sincerity for his informants during research and writing. He is honest with his readers. In ethnographic works like this, especially ones involving different cultures, I have observed that authors tend to paint the stories heard in their own cultural colors and speak for their informants instead of allowing the informants to speak their own voices. However, in this book, the author makes sure that the readers clearly hear Alejandro's and other informants' voices and their telling their own stories.

This is a must book for students majoring in anthropology, especially graduate students. Dr. Rubenstein reviews and includes the work by anthropologists in the past such as Malinowski and Radcliff-Brown and engages his reader in great discussions about various issues in anthropology. Because the author explains each issue clearly and systematically, even a person like me, a professor of communication, who has no formal anthropological background and whose mother tongue is not English, could understand the major discussions in anthropology identified in this book. In addition, because the author deals with various issues in academia and in life, readers can apply the knowledge they gain from this book into various fields. For instance, in terms of the issue about colonizer and colonialism, this book made me think about what happened to the farmers in my own neighborhood in Japan after WWII and during 1970 when new land policies were enforced.

This book will make a useful textbook in ethnography, anthropology, or methodology. This book also will aid anyone who is interested in life history, cultural and cross-cultural studies, spirituality, politics and colonialism, social change, history, South American culture, and cross-cultural and intercultural communication. I think more communication scholars, especially the ones who conduct qualitative researches or who teach intercultural communication, should read this book.

Rubenstein's book (about Alejandro Tsakimp) intrigued me because it initially confronted many of the fallacies of the written word. I felt that it was extremely thoughtful of the author to address these anthropological and literary issues, and he succeeded in heightening my awareness of the anthropologist as a lens through which the "subject" (Alejandro) is seen, thus allowing Alejandro to retain his dignity as a subject with a voice of his own.
Rubenstein, in the tradition of Briggs and Belmonte, strives to capture the quintessence of his subject(s) yet cannot ignore the fact that he is, inevitably, a part of his subject's (Alejandro's) tale; he (Rubenstein) is conscientious in admitting to the reader that he is the medium through which Alejandro's story must pass. I view his honesty as one of his many strengths.

Unlike any other ethnography I have read, Rubenstein allows us to hear Alejandro's stories in his own words (at length). I believe that Rubenstein uses the first 4 chapters to prepare us for this framing of Alejandro's life, so that we may understand it (Alejandro's life) in terms of itself, and not through the mind of an anthropologist. We eventually see the irony in this framing of Alejandro's story, because of the interconnectedness of all things; all things and events bleed across their supposed boundaries and the reader understands that nothing is an isolated incident. I was forced to understand Alejandro in terms of his context.
Alejandro's tales reveal the confusion created by the confluence of two cultures. In order to protect themselves from state infringement, the Shuar create a Federation which only seems to further indoctrinate them into a state-level society through bureaucratic representation. The reader has to decide whether the cultural plight of the Shuar exhibits symptoms of ethnocide or a sort of ethnogenesis.
In addition, Alejandro's powerful story is further riddled with the perils of being a shaman and facing the duality of one's power, the power to kill and cure.
In the end, the most enduring thing about Rubenstein's book is his honest and cleverly constructed commentary on the human condition and Alejandro's "quixotic determination to live in that world, to reflect on it and thus, necessarily to reflect it. In this reflection the space betwen history and culture, and the myths people -not just anthropologists but Shuar and colonos and even Alejandro himself- hold about culture unravel. And in this unraveling, Alejandro is just a shuar, just a person, living the best he can."

I believe that Rubenstein's book would be of considerable interest to anyone fascinated by the indiginous peoples of South America or any serious student of anthropology (or even english major interested in literary theory).
However, this book is accessible to anyone who's willing to spend a little time with it. There are so many issues swimming within the pages of Rubenstein's book that you won't have to read far to find something of interest.
Anyone with a sense of humor can appreciate Alejandro's stories, yet Rubenstein's book is not an easy read. It will make a reader think, but it's (the book is) well worth the extra effort.

An awesome collection of ads from this decade. Hundreds of pages w/ ads of all categories. Very enjoyable. I'm an advertising major & this is a fun book to own!!!

Once again, Taschen has put forth a wonderfully illustrated and highly enjoyable publication. The ads are superb. The reader can truly immerse themselves in popular culture and daily life in the United States during the 1930s. What I most appreciate is the fact that Taschen presents the materials as is; they let the ads speak for themselves. I consider it one of the best resources of popular culture from the era.

You expect a book like this to be fun, and it is! The hard sell approach, the inflated claims, and the infamous phrase, "It isn't brand X if it doesn't say Y!" (as if your brain is scrambled) ... it's all hilarious now. And even when these techniques get tedious, the drawings and paintings are colorful and well-designed by themselves.

The ads don't mention the Depression, but you can see it in the phrases "stretch your dollars" and "these days..." That's a technique auto makers adopted after Sept. 11th, as in "we're getting America moving again with 0% financing." In that sense, ad makers fashioned a social history that belongs alongside stories of travelling Okies and bread lines. These ads showed what people hoped for, what they wanted to become. And that's just as important as where they were. So while post-Sept. 11th ads wanted to get the family back to the dinner table, so Depression-era folks wanted to get their friends back for champagne and elegant dinner parties.

Still, there is enough variety here to reflect many points of view and design style. Some ads were clearly ahead of their time. Some were still mired in Victorian imagery. A few are really shocking, like the public service ad with a drawing of a sinking Lusitania with the headline, "The Lusitania Sank. So What of It?" (It was an ad for World Peaceways.)

I am no historian or designer or advertiser ... but I found this book mind-blowingly fun.

Taschen's fourth volume of the All-American Ads series provides a big look back to the day before yesterday. Steven Heller provides a short overview of the decade and explains that despite the Depression magazines, in which most of these ads appeared, had very high circulations. For a few cents readers could escape the reality of everyday life and be entertained by the features and the colourful advertisements. Naturally there is no real mention of the Depression though some of the ads sport the little NRA symbol and the words `We do our part'

The format of this book is the same as the others, nine sections (Alcohol and tobacco, Automobiles, Consumer products, Entertainment, Fashion and beauty, Food and beverages, Industry, Interiors and finally Travel) provide whole, two or four ads to a page and fortunately none of them are angled or overlap. The digital reproduction of the 1500+ ads is excellent, it is always a problem to reproduce anything that is already printed because it can create screen clash but these are reproduced with clean colors and sharp lines (thanks to 175 dpi).

Most of these ads are copy and picture heavy, stylish use of white space and clever typography was years away, though three ads for Pierce Arrow autos on pages 176-177 stand out because they do seem very modern. Illustrations rather than photography were the main visual elements with headlines and copy used to fill any space that was left.

This as a super book if you are interested in social history or want to see how copywriters created product desire more than sixty years ago or you are just curious about things your grandparents reminisce about. Maybe they remember the 1932 ads for the Pitcairn autogiro, after all no home should be without one!

an informative and entertaining look at gay and lesbian images on radio and television through the decades. the author makes a number of interesting and relevant points in a non-judgmental yet authoritative style. should be on all public and university library shelves.

Witty, insightful, daring, complete, and as non-dry as you can get, this book goes where none have gone before, not only regaling us an authoritative on-screen compendium of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered images, but the "stories behind the stores" - lesbians invading NBC studios, gay activists interrupting Walter Cronkite on the air, from the tortured, pitiful images of the early "exposes" of "the gay lifestyle" to full, responsible news coverage of activism. Neatly divided into small chapters, it weaves the tale of the first whispers of the "love that dare not speak its name" through to the out and loud shouting of "Ellen" and "Will & Grace" (and the format, for better or for worse, makes for great bathroom reading). An absolute must-have for every queer library and TV fan.

Author Steven Capsuto chronicles the history (1930-2000) of gay and lesbian characters on Network TV and in doing so mirrors the history and struggles of the gay community to be shown as real, full human beings. Even as a reader familar with much of the material mentioned here I even discovered new things that I didn't know. While heterosexual television character continue to romp all over the screen in wanton abandon, even the smallest, simpliest signs of affection between two characters of the same sex is treated with scorn. Has the gay community actually progressed? Given the choices of lonely Will on "Will & Grace," the constant in your face gay sex on "Queer as Folk" and the little screen time of the now lesbian romance and soon child for Dr. Weaver on "E.R." I'm not sure. Media (especially televison) and gay and lesbian studies scholars should take note, there is such a wealth of a history and knowledge here that it can't be ignored. A rich, acurate and very well written text.

The first striking thing about this book is the amazing amount of research that would have been necessary to have written it. Just how does a person master this much material, run down particular episodes of "Medical Center" from the early 1970s or "Hill Street Blues" from the 1980s, and dozens of more obscure programs? I don't know, but Steven Capsuto has managed to do it.

The result is a singularly fascinating book, and a worthy companion to Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet. And since television plays a more important role than movies in shaping public perceptions of gay people (and in helping young gay people to understand their places in the world), Capsuto's project is arguably even more important.

For gay readers over 40, this book is likely to produce some strong nostalgic feelings. Reading the author's accounts of such significant broadcasts as "That Certain Summer" (with Hal Holbrooke and Martin Sheen) or "A Question of Love" (with Gena Rowlands and Jane Alexander), one can't help but reflect on memories of a former self and how the world was then.

For younger readers, this book will fill an important gap in their cultural knowledge--what happened many years before Ellen and Will & Grace, "lesbian chic" and heightened gay visibility. It also tells the story of lesbian and gay media activism, of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and its forerunners. And Capsuto covers television and radio depictions of bisexual and transgendered people in his thorough account.

Perhaps most important, the book also helps to illuminate a continuing flaw in television depictions of gay life: for all the progress of the past decade, there continues to exist a kind of unwritten Hays Code that bars most expressions of affection or sexual desire between persons of the same sex from American network television.

Will & Grace continues to depict what may be the only attractive, witty, smart and successful gay man in Manhattan who has no sex life. In its own way, this show is as deficient today as was "The Andy Griffith Show" in depicting (during the height of the civil rights movement) the only town in North Carolina with no black people.

Television provides a crucial window through which we see our lives and our society. Capsuto's book helps us to remember how skewed that vision has often been, and to realize the important changes that are still needed. This is an important work of cultural and social history.

LOVE this story, funny too. Isn't the title intriguing? Eric Kimmel's Anansi tales are the best! We've enjoyed this one so much. Great illustrations. Eric, keep writing.

Anansi the spider bores his way into one of Elephant's melons and thus begins the great trickery of some of the greatest animals in the Animal Kingdom. I used this book with the second grade class and we loved the human characteristics of the animals and all the funny things Anansi says while he is in the melon. It is a great book to act out in the puppet theater and we had great fun taking on the roles of the elephant, monkey, spider and other surprised and astonished animals.

My 5 year old son LOVED the mischief Anansi got into and understood the lessons that were being taught. It is written in a way that younger kids can understand and the illustrations are great!

That Anansi is such a scoundral!!

After boring into one of Elephants melons, he eats himself too big to get out!! So, Anansi waits to get thing again...Only, he's bored! So he decides to amuse himself at Elephant's expense... and Hippo's...and Warthog's...Well, you get the idea.

This is a cute story about a trickster spider. Janet Stevens' illustrations are, as always, excellent. Anansi is not just a regular spider. Stevens gives him expressions and a personality. You wind up laughing with Anansi's pranks. Very well done!

I would definitly recommend this book. I read it to a group of young school age kids - 5-9. They could kinda tell where the story was going, but were more than willing to sit for the ride.

Having read Dead City and By Reason Of Insanity, I was looking forward to this one as well.An excellent,complex tale involving an angst ridden French detective named Cesar Dreyfus who is assigned the case of a former Nazi who is found hanging in his apartment in an apparent suicide.However nothing is as it seems and Inspector Dreyfus finds himself unraveling a complex conspiracy involving numerous players and countries.This story reminds me of a large box that when opened reveals another box and another within that box and so on.The masterful characterizations are so real they come to life off of the page.I would liken this to the very best works of Frederick Forsyth, one of my favorite writers.The knowledge of French and German locales was impressive and especially the description of East Berlin.Stevens wrote with a passion all his own and it is sad that there are not more offerings from him.

Very good book. If you read "By Reason of Insanity" by Stevens, don't expect this book to be anything like it. It is, however, worth the time to read. It gets a little slow in the middle, but not enough to put down.

Having just read and enjoyed BY REASON OF INSANITY, I decided to tackle this one as well. If the first book was a ride through the House of Horrors, this one is a trip through the House of Mirrors-- you are instantly plunged into a tale with so much evidence and so many twists and turns, trying to figure out where it is going is like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube. Stick with it, though, as it all begins to sort itself out after 250 pages or so, and leads to a very satisfying conclusion. I do have some minor complaints-- the detective seems almost psychic at times in the way he is able to put clues together or anticipate events, and how a person can shoot a gun (accurately) after having been shot in the arm himself seems a bit of a stretch--, but all in all this was a very satisfying thriller. Recommended for those who like GORKY PARK-type novels.

I had never before read a Shane Stevens novel and only happened to come across it thanks to advertising conducted by Stephen King in the back of his novel "The Dark Half". Mr. Stevens- at least as far as the reviews here go- is only noted for his success in "By Reason of Insanity" which is a book I intend reading in the near future. All the reviews about it make of it an excellent novel. This one too should have deserved attention from others other than me, to write a review about it. It is an excellent well crafted and ingenious thriller, and Mr. Stevens deserves to be commended for his work!

Steven Paul, wrote a very good indepth summary of his thoughts about all he had learned from the Bible (namely the book of Revelations) and its truths about our future. He wrote and thought as an ordinary guy but seeked to do and understand extraordinary things. I recommend this book for those who have a zeal to understand the tougher books of the Bible and would like to hear some great insights from a great man.

The quirky, doughnut-scarfing author of this book is proof positive that God is no respecter of persons when he chooses his Prophets. Rigorous attention to grammar and syntax results in precision not only of meaning, but understanding that meaning: Stephen Paul's rigorous attention to the simple words of the Greek of the Apocalypse demonstrates the innaccuracies of previous English translations of the Bible's last book about things to come. Paying close attention to textual use of metaphorical and literal statements , Paul makes the Apocalypse astoundingly conprehensible in the contemporary context; and useful as a practical guide for "reading the signs of our times" explaining the spiritual zeitgeist precipitating the rise of the Anti-Christ--.
Coincidentally, I read this book just after reading "Hope of the Wicked" by Ted Flynn: Stephen Paul's book delineates the spiritual dynamic, --and Flynn's the socio-politic arena where history is forged by current events. Reading both these books in conjunction makes for an eerie but coherent picture of what will soon be upon us. Fear not, --but hold on to your hats; it's gonna get worse before it gets better . . . .

The great good of this book is that it is written by someone who does not owe his first born to academia or some dicastery of the Church. This is the voice of a layman during this hour of the laity, to borrow from Pope John Paul II. His insights seem fresh and new, and indeed some are like long lost treasures brought out once more into the light.

On occasion he makes a declaration or takes a decision one may wish he did not. But no one should be looking for infallibility in this work. What one will find is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit touching the author with a reading of the Revelation to St. John that is a great help to all us during the times in which we live.

I no longer esteem the works of Biblical literary critics or those who must grind out verbiage in order to keep their niche in academia. This account is far more trustworthy because it is honest about what it is and because it is far more concerned about being faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ and his Church than serving some earthly-minded agenda.

At first I found the author's style confusing. He seemed to jump around. And then I realized that was the whole point. You need to compare different sections of the Book of Revelation to each other to determine what they mean. "By indirection, find direction out," the author says. By the end, you understand.