News and Media Books

My stepson loves transformers and hates to read, so this comic series was a wonderful way to help get him interested in reading.

I highly recommend reading these classic stories from the original Marvel 80 issue run. Bob Budiansky is a great writer, and some of these early stories really show off his creative talent. The art is not bad, particularly the cover art for issue #9. Also, this compilation shows us the first appearance and origin of Circuit Breaker, one of the most interesting comic book characters of all time!

reprints issues 7-12, this is volume 2 of 14 that reprints all 80 issues of the Marvel comics transformers comic from the 80's.

I'm not going to bother explaining the story since amazon has it right there already, but what I can do is explain that this book has held up exteremly well over the years, so many books feel dated and there are little things here that are very 80's but the stories hold up, and i might say they may be better than the cartoons, much liek the G.I Joe comics of the same time and publisher, they were not held back as badly as TV shows were, not to say there is sex and lots of blood here, no these are very child safe issues, but they just seem a little better written, and that's saying something since i loved the old cartoon and toys.

I wish i could have got the original issues but they cost $10 or more for many issues, the cost of one trade here, it's a real good deal and i think old fans will love it, i did, but also new fans could be made, this is the best way to hook a new fan, while cartoon animation can suffer more over time these don't, so maybe you will want to grab a copy for yourself and maybe your kid or a friend, and i bet you will be buying all 14 volumes before it's over...with these stories, there is more than meets the eye.

We got this book for my soon to be two year old son at Christmastime, it's now February and he wants it read to him every night and even sleeps with it! I would highly recommend it, especially to help your young child get used to Santa.

I bought this book as a special treat for potty training and boy, did it work! The story is so very cute and really helps with introducing the different celebrations of Christmas throughout the world. It's nice that there's someone out there finally caring about the quality of books and videos that children are seeing and reading, and the Wiggles are simply the best, in my opinion. Thanks so much Wiggles for providing such educational, fun, and enjoying items!

My own reason why I think that The Wiggles: A Very Wiggly Christms is just like the DVD, Yule Be Wiggling, is because Santa Claus, needed help from The Wiggles. Since one of Santa's reindeer was sick and couldn't pull the slaigh, The Big Red Car was The Wiggles only hope-and delivering presents to children from around the world worked so magically well.
All I have to say now is that today, I've already read this new book. I'll wish The Wiggles my very own Wiggly Christmas to them, in December.

With so many specialized dictionaries abounding, it's a pleasure to report that Weiner's is truly useful for today's communicator. As an advertising/public relations practitioner with a deep interest in the graphic arts, I actually enjoyed finding so many technical terms accurately and often wittily defined. If you're looking for a minibrute to do your bidding, need an Oxberry unit, a Goudy other than Curt, or need a few minutes with a goyu, you're in luck here. You'll even find a goon stand or two, plus a much needed puncheon. All in all, a very valuable and solid book. It is now on my desk permanently, along with Skeat's Etymological Dictionary (1910) and the American Heritage Dictionary (1992). I've been using it daily for the past three months. Highly recommended.

At a job interview, or on the job,it really helps to speak to kmow the lingo of the field. This book has thousands of definitions of technical and slang words used by reporters, broadcasters, printers, advertisers, theatrical and many other media and communications fields, plus helpful hints. It is only $27.95, and Amazon's price is even less! I'm really excited about this investment, and it's easy to read and enjoy.

"Webster's New World Dictionary of Media and Communications" By Richard Weiner, Macmillan Publishing ISBN 0-02-860611-6 The glossaries that are on web sites usually are too skimpy, in number and length of the definitions. That's why most of us still use dictionaries and other reference books. One of the most useful specialized dictionaries is Webster's New World Dictionary of Media and Communications, recently published by Macmillan. The 678-page paperback is the most comprehensive collection ever published of technical and slang terms in 28 fields, including advertising, computer, film, journalism, marketing, printing, public relations, radio, telecommunications, television and theater. Written by Richard Weiner, a renowned public relations counselor, the book combines easy-to-read definitions with useful information for students and experts. The 35,000 "base entries" and related terms are more than in any advertising, film, literacy, television or theater dictionary. Several hundred definitions are not in any other dictionary. Another unique feature is the global orientation, with hundreds of British, Canadian, French, German and Japanese words used by film buffs and business people. Listings include abbreviations, acronyms, associations, awards, biographical dates and several hundred major companies in the media and communications fields, including headquarters cities. Current jargon, nicknames and slang are supplemented with historical information, particularly 19th century printing and publishing terms that are still used. Pithy comments call attention to words that are commonly used incorrectly, misspelled or mispronounced. The book will be useful to the many millions of people who are employed in the broadcasting, postal, promotion, telephone and other communications fields, as well as to freelancers, students, writers and computer users, and the many people who are media buffs.

It's true that I love this sticker-story of The Wiggles and Friends, even the cover & pages inside are so beautiful.

The backgrounds on each page are colored in already, but all stickers which is really for decorating arn't in there...that's a job for Wiggle Fans who can place them into each page at a time. One of these days, I'll learn to do that myself.

Even though I haven't used any of the stickers yet, I'll stil be able to play with them carefully...even when the time comes.
It takes practic to be creative with these kinds of stickers that have not-so-easy-to-peel glue on the back. But I know what you have to do in this case, just press down, around the outline of your stickers cauciously. Next, lick the back of your sticker with your tounge, and gently place it inside your book. I even think the pages are amazing and cool.

This is a great book! My 18 month-old loves this book and looks through this several times a day! The pictures are bright and colorful just like the Wiggles shows on TV. He had fun helping me put the stickers on the pages too. The only not so good comment is that we haven't found the stickers to be "reusable" like it says on the cover because they tend to tear or not come all the way off. However, my son loves this books just the way we arranged it!

Even my 10 yr old loves this one. He loves whales and finds anything with more info fun to read. These chapter books provide a great way for kids to learn and enjoy reading at the same time.

This Magic School Bus Chapter Book is the best of the firstfour. It was very funny, especially when the class gets stranded underthe sea. Any MSB fan would love it.

This review is by my 10 year old son. This book has moreinformation on Whales than other books I have read. First they go on abus tour. Then they turn the bus into a sub. Ms. Frizzle, Has four mini-subs. Two kids went in each sub. Ms. Frizzle, stayed in the bus with the Captain Gil. Then the adventure begins. I enjoyed this book very much.

After the fall of Fort Sumter, Victorine LaGrande is brought home to New Orleans from boarding school, and while she misses her friends Elizabeth and Rosamund, she is glad to be home in the French Quarter. She is more than happy to meet the man that her father has picked for her to marry, Andre Valmont, the son of another family her family knows. He's smart, handsome, charming and he showers Victorine with lots of attention. While Victorine likes Andre and enjoys his attention, she starts to have doubts of his faithfulness when she sees him with another woman on his arm, and she meets another man, an American, Dr. Bret Whitman who makes her feel like she never has with Andre.

But who is this woman and what does she mean to Andre? And what of Dr. Whitman, will Victorine do as her father wishes or risk herself in something new?

Book two in the series, but the first is still my favorite. In this book we get to see what it's like for Victorine at home, we get to see her start off as a pampered Creole daughter listening to her father and grow into the woman that she was meant to be, one that makes her own mind up and lives her life as she wants.

Prim and proper Victorine LaGrande, a Creole girl of 17 years, is all set in an arranged marriage with the breathtakinly handsome Andre Valmont. But things have a way of changing during wartime. Victorine spots Andre walking arm in arm with another woman. Then, one Mardi Gras and a sprained ankle later, Victorine is the one who feels like breaking off the engagement- she has met one Dr. Brent Whitman, an American. Unfortunatly for both of them, he is also someone who is a completly innapropriate match for Victorine- in her father's eyes.

This book was about Victorine LaGrande, a 17 year old Creole girl living in New Orleans during the Civil War. Victorine's father has arranged for her to marry Andre Valmont, who shares the LaGrande's Creole heritage. But then Victorine sees Andre with another woman, and falls in love with Brent, a Confederate doctor who is also an American. Victorine's father would forbid their courtship. Will Victorine follow her heritage or her heart?

Robert Jensen's recent book Writing Dissent is terse, pleasantly readable, enlightening and practical. The book is a `how to' of the kind radicals are awfully in need of. Spearheaded by intellectuals and academicians, the radicals lack works like Jensen's. Jensen shows that smart use of the mainstream media is not a proprietary enterprise of the chauvinistic Right. Radicals too can, believe it or not, use the same media to advance their cause of reason, fairness and justice.

The Right invests immense resources in preparing its warriors to exploit the media and blunt the academia through the likes of the Leadership Institute, the Pioneer Fund, the Heritage Foundation, Accuracy in Media, Accuracy in Academia, etc. Their focus is not critical thinking, profound scholarship or honest dialog, but simple exploitation of jargon, redundancy, spincraft and other tricks to win the battle. Mainstream journalism has been a major alibi in this process.

Jensen combines the rare insight of an ex-journalist, an activist and an academician to tell the inside story of mainstream journalism. What Chomsky and Herman tell us on a macroscopic scale in their propaganda model finds real world microscopic explanation in Jensen's work. Yet, the book is not big on theory, its primary focus remains actual dos and don'ts and how-tos of journalism. Several examples of journalistic pieces Jensen has written and gotten published add to the utility and power of the book.

The book is useful for anyone, though the reader is assumed to be a radical throughout. Whether you are a burgeoning activist looking for practical guidance on whether, how and where to write and publish, or an experienced intellectual looking for ways to write in simple, clear and comprehensible journalistic style, this is the book for you.

A pleasant aspect of the book is Jensen's candid style that is a reflection perhaps of his radical ideology. He forcefully claims that `any one can write' and that his success as a journalist is not due to a special gift. Journalism is a craft, and anyone can learn it.

The author sets out very clearly how activists and in fact anyone can challenge dominant ideas within our society. He provides information and advice on how to lobby and challenge institutions. It is well-written for the general reader and shows we do not have to submit to narrow concepts. I highly recommend it for both voluntary organisations and individuals who wish to engage in activism and campaign work. Institutional ideas can be challenged as Jenson clearly demonstrates.

Writing Dissent: Taking Radical ideas From The Margins To The Mainstream by Robert Jensen (Associate Professor, School of Journalism, University of Texas - Austin) is a manual written especially for political activists with radical ideas, who often find themselves excluded from mainstream news and media. Tips, tricks, and techniques for getting one's message out in the public, drawing from the author's experience as a journalist, activist, and academic. Sample, passionately charged pieces of opinionated political writing along with the author's wisdom and travails attempting to get them distributed pepper Writing Dissent as real-life examples, and the more general advice on journalistic style and how to make one's message as clear as possible resonate powerfully. A "must-read" for concerned citizens, activists, and journalists alike.

Whether one is a beginning ethnographer or one is an advanced ethnographer wanting to learn more, Goodall's book is extremely helpful. His writing style is accessible, but does not shy away from the difficult questions. His insights on living an ethnographic life will make an ethnographer of anyone.

I read this text from beginning to end in one day! That is how interesting this work is. Not only does the text provide valuable conceptual clarity, but also exercises for students to help them along the road (God help them!) from research to writing the ethnographic report. Also of great value is the attention the author gives to writing as method: both in terms of writing up fieldnotes and the final report. Students need to grasp the importance of writing within ethnographic research. Dr. Goodall (I think they call him Dr. Bud) provides! I plan to use this text in an undergraduate class on the sociology of everyday life. Certainly great for graduate students as well.

Bud Goodall's book is probably the most important work that I have read the entire time I have been in school. Why? Bud writes in a clear, yet soothing voice, clarifying concepts, not in dictionary-like language, but through his ease of story-telling, narrative and analysis. He covers the whole range of concepts regarding not 'how to do ethnography,' but 'how to be an ethnographer.'

He takes on the hard topics. He talks plainly about the being reflexive and studying yourself as you go out to the site, watching for your own biases and preconditioned sensemaking. He discusses the hard aspect of leaving the site - when you have come to know the folks you've been watching and learning from. He discusses perhaps the hardest part of all - the writing of the ethnography, the development of one's own voice - the necessity of writing, rewriting, editing - and then writing again.

Bud's book is chockful of good concrete information, and yet when you are done reading, you realize the grandest part of all: He did it all with only a few bullet points, but with a great style of writing that makes you want to read it all over again.

I create full web marketing plans for my clients who want to break into the Internet via the web with a focus on search marketing and call-to-action oriented content. This little book takes note of several emerging Internet-based marketing trends.

With insights and latest data on the full range of media, including TV, radio, internet (incl. rich media), outdoor and much more, plus Top 100 Markets, at-a-glance section organization, and a helpful glossary, this pocket-sized reference is a quick, lightweight companion on the way to the office, cab or flight. Take it to the hotel and review before the big client meeting. There are tons of ways to make the most of this handy tool. I've seen how it can make the difference when quick numbers and insights are what's needed to sketch out a media buying plan.

Awesome! Thanks Ron. Just in time. I'm looking forward to buying other things from your store. I appreciate it. We just landed a major national media account with stores in 15 media markets, and for a small agency, data costs are just sky high. This is great.

Margaret, Media Planning/Buying Service

Abu Monkeys Around: A Story From Disney's Alladdin is a great book. Kids will love it. Abu gets into a lot of trouble and its rhyming text makes it easy to read.

Children will love Abu Monkeys Around: a Story from Disney's Alladin. Its ryhming text is just perfect for beginning readers.