Sports Books

I feel I can now successfully pass the CMA exam in June 2007, if i can find the time to sit down and study(LOL)

If you buy this book you will not be diapointed. Studing this book for my state test will make the test easy. Even though its a lot to learn you will learn it from this book. Its easy to understand. Some times its hard to put down. Keep up the good work Dr. Moini.

I recommend anyone that is preparing to take the CMA exam to purchase this book. I find the information very helpful and easy to understand. The CD-Rom is also very helpful with over 2,000 multiple choice questions. Thank you Dr. Moini for writing such a wonderful book. Keep up the good work.

I am currently a student of Dr. Moini, and I bought this book while taking his Anatomy I class. I have continued to use it throughout the rest of my Anatomy classes, and it is still very helpful. This book is very helpful; it makes learning even the most complicated things easy. Dr. Moini's book has been an invaluable resource to me so far, and I am sure that it will be just as helpful while reviewing for the CMA exam. I highly recommend this book - it's an excellent way to study!

This book is a must have for all MA students. It helps not only with the CMA exam but as a study guide for all classes. It is clear, well organzied and covers all the necessary information. Thanks so much!

A very good book. Very comprehensive. Explanations, drawings are perfect. Perfect for training at home

I've read a number of books on the game of pool. I was very impressed with the authors grasp of the game as well as his very apparent love of the game. He has obviously studied the art form intensely for many years. I felt that his realistic, open minded approach and access to many of the current greats of the game make his advice quite invaluable to the commited student of the game. Buy this book if you're serious about improving.

Phil Chapelle's book "Play Your Best Pool" is a wealth of resources. It is quite thorough and would be good for someone seriously interested in pool. It's got a 60+ page section on 8-ball, an equally thorough section on 9 ball, and more on the fundamentals, shotmaking, position play,how to improve, practice techniques, and equipment. My games have significantly improved by reading and using Chapelle's book. Highly recommended. So much information that a novice might be overwhelmed, and it might not be so useful if you don't have a home table to go through it all (I wish I did)...but still, an indispensable book.

I got this book when i first became serious about playing pool, while reading it my game just kept going up and up and up, now i break and run several times a night. before it would be make a ball or 2 and that was it for my runs. it is a great book.

I have read eight books on pool. This is by far the best of the eight. The book is cramed with pool information. A no nonsense approach to playing the game. If you want to learn more about playing pool, this is the read.

This book seems to cover many great hiking areas in Sedona. It is quite explicit re: directions and information about the hiking trails. Great book for a person new to the area or even people who have been around awhile. Very informative!

I used this book for planning a 2 day visit to Sedona. I was extremely happy with the format. It has 2 pages per hike, with a high quality photo of what to expect for views, driving/hiking distance/time, as well as selections of their favorites. We didn't visit long enough to do a lot of the hikes, but we truly felt that we were able to select 3 hikes that were perfectly suited to our tastes and with nice variety. Overall, I don't think you could go wrong in Sedona, but I felt like this guide was well worth the price and only wish I could find similar guides for other locations. The Magnum's have done a great job, deserving of 5 stars.

The only shortcoming you may find is that their maps are very general and mostly help you find the trailhead (which was flawless). But, I prefer to have a quality map as well and I purchased the Emmitt Barks Cartography - Sedona Trails Map (not sure if it was on Amazon), and was very happy with it. Personally, I don't think you can create a detailed map inside the book for each hike, so I don't consider this a flaw to the book - just a bit of advice if you are planning a trip.

This book was very helpful in deciding which hikes to do. We were not dissappointed by any of the hikes. It was good that we knew about the pink jeaps ahead of time.

I have read five books about the Sedona hikes, all written approximately across the same time period, and this is why Iknow what I am talking about.I have also been to Sedona twice and know about it in a general sence. Short and sweet...this is the best all around Sedona hiking book filled with lots of bits about popular and unheard of hikes. This book is good because it is created by a Husband and Wife writer and photographer team who have lived in the area for years. The book includes maps of how to get to the trail heads and where the trails go from there. Also, descriptions of weather related to time of year and level of exertion required to do the hikes. The hikes that include VORTEXES are clearly marked. The photography is great. The five other books are best described by one or several of the following phrases: sickening and homespun; the writer as spiritual guru who is grandiose; might as well not bother; information repeated elsewhere ad nauseum. GET THIS BOOK

This book is good you want to look up a specific trail by name. I am more interested in researching trails in a specific area and found the layout of this book VERY frustrating. This book NEEDS a trail map overview where one can see where a specific trail is in relationship to the other trails. If you purchase this book make sure to purchase a Sedona Trail Map as well.

Through the authors Donald Crowhurst has left a tragic legacy for his family and a powerful gift for us the readers. Through his logs Donald documented his fallibilities and revealed his decision path. We are able to armchair quarterback, speculate how we might have done things differently and learn.

The illusion of our own grandeur is revealed through this book. We can be smug about our own approaches and look at the trials and misadventures of others with superiority. However, lurking in the corner is the bit of Donald that seeks our moment of glory. Donald identified and removed the constraints to his validation and too late he realized it was a one way ticket.

This was/is tragic for his family and their bubble was burst very early on. They had no illusions left.

Kudos for Sir Robin Knox for donating his prize to the family.

Deep Water, the video is a must see companion to this book.

I've read the reviews of "Strange Last Voyage," and while I concur with many of the thoughtful, accurate reviews, I can only give the book four stars. My beef? The persistently unsympathetic tone in the book.

Crowhurst's fate was a tragic one and deserving of sympathy. While it was the culmination of many poor decisions (an understatement, indeed!), that he ended up in a position of such desperation merits at least a bit more compassion than the authors are willing to grant. I understand their disdain for the foolhardiness of many of Crowhurst's choices--as well as his choice of a solution for "winning the race"--I found that the portrayal was a nearly sniggering, dismissive evaluation of the man. Fellow race competitor Robin Knox-Johnson's sensitive entreaty that Crowhurst not be judged too harshly in the afterword appears to have been ignored by Crowhurst's biographers.
As for the story itself, the recounting of it is perfectly paced. Their work unwickering his confusing logs is convincing, and the investigation of his final days is masterfully recounted.

This is a wonderful book about a truly remarkable, moving and literally tragic misadventure. I first stumbled across Donald Crowhurst's story through a terrific Channel 4 feature film, Deep Water, and was so captivated by it that I bought this and another account of the race (fellow competitor Bernard Moitessier's The Long Way (which, for the record, doesn't really touch on the Crowhurst story)).

The Bard himself could not have scripted a tragedy better than this. Crowhurst, a mercurial but fundamentally unremarkable director of a struggling electronics business, hits upon a means of saving his business and assuring his family's future: entering (and winning) the 1968 Sunday Times single-handed non-stop round-the-world yacht race.

Yes; quite.

Not only, he rationalises, will his entry publicise his firm's own brand of navigational equipment, but the £5000 prize will satisfy an ever more anxious major creditor. His plan to win, cobbled together from a standing start in six months, is to use an (at the time) almost unheard-of design: the trimaran, substantially of his own specification.

No matter that, a weekend yachtsman, Crowhurst has never been out of the Solent and has no realistic chance of beating the hoary old sea-dogs, renowned explorers and ex-navy officers already signed up for the race. No matter that preparing the boat involves raising further finance from the same major creditor who was already breathing down Crowhurst's neck (you do have to wonder what *he* was thinking, don't you). No matter that there is no time to have the boat properly finished, let alone thoroughly ocean-trialled.

And thereafter a perfect, inevitable, tragedy unfolds. Crowhurst is carried by events, some of his own making, to prosecute a plan it is plain, even to him, is madness. But events and circumstances spur him on. A BBC film crew is following him. A rather over-excited publicist inflates expectations. Before he knows it, Crowhurst is off the coast of Portugal in a slow, leaking, malfunctioning, poorly provisioned boat, fearing for his life if he should go on, and for his solvency and marriage should he not. He realises there his no hope of success, but is compellingly obliged to soldier on, stiff upper lip, and makes the hasty and fatal decision to exaggerate his progress. From that point on, fortune's wheel is set.

The ironies and twists of fate which thereafter play out and force events to their sorry conclusion are so cruel that one can hardly blame Crowhurst for reneging on a lifetime's atheism and laying his plight at the hands of a malicious (and game-playing) God. The saddest irony of all was the last: Crowhurst, never intending to do anything but come in a respectable but uninteresting last, announces (to add some drama!), that he is closing on the last remaining competitor who, in panic, redoubles his efforts to coax his own damaged, worn out and jury-rigged boat faster, causing it to break up entirely and sink - leaving Crowhurst to win (if he arrives home at all) by default - the one thing he simply cannot afford to do.

Tomalin and Hall's book, which came out within a year of the original event, is an expertly pieced-together and beautifully written forensic study of the whole awful saga, and charts sympathetically and extensively Crowhurst's descent into what they assume (plausibly enough to me) to have been a form of paranoid schizophrenia by the end of his life. The relation of Crowhurst's final plunge into the abyss, and his final burst of energy in recording his cosmic revelation is by turns dreadful and somehow uplifting: here is a hero going out in true Nietzschean style with the psychology of the tragic poet: "Not so as to get rid of pity and terror ... but beyond pity and terror, to realise in oneself the eternal joy of becoming - that joy which also encompasses the joy in destruction"

Olly Buxton

In 1968, a London newspaper, inspired by recent feats of daring in the world of sailing, sponsored a contest that offered a trophy and large cash prize to the first person to successfully complete a solo, non-stop and unaided circumnavigation of the globe in a sailboat. This book is the morbidly fascinating story of one of the participants, Donald Crowhurst, a talented amateur sailor and electronics entrepreneur, who announced that he would build the world's most technologically advanced boat, including a first-of-its-kind on-board computer of his own design, and take the prize.

While sailing buffs will like this book, the real meat of it is in the look at human nature that it provides. Like many entrepeneurs, Crowhurst was a bit of a blowhard who ended up departing just hours before the deadline in a boat that had never been tested and with which he was totally unfamiliar. Busy with race preparations, he never built, much less installed, the much-publicized computer. Feeling certain he could make up time as he became more familar with the craft, Crowhurst began to tell "little white lies" in his sporadic radio communications (remember, there was no GPS back then -- the yachtsmen were truly on their own).

As his problems with the boat mounted, Crowhurst conceived an elaborate hoax to make the world believe he was on track to complete the race, maybe even win it all. For months he sailed around the South Atlantic, alone and increasingly desperate, monitoring radio communications about weather and constructing a fake ship's log and fake documentation that showed his supposed progress day-by-day. In the spring of 1969, when Crowhurst reestablished radio contact with his agent and family back in Britain, he learned a shocking truth. He was the only yachtsman still in the race. With all the others out of it, he had become a national celebrity, and a huge welcome was planned.

At this point, the audacious hoax turned tragic. It appears from his journals that Crowhurst suffered a complete mental breakdown in the week that followed. It was too late to confess or backtrack on his claims without complete humiliation; yet as the winner and only man still in the race, he was sure to be exposed as a cheat. A few days after his last journal entry, Crowhurst's boat was found abandoned and drifting in the Atlantic by another ship. He had left all the evidence of his hoax neatly arranged for the world to find.

Crowhurst is an unsympathetic character to read about, but by the end it was hard not to feel compassion in spite of everything he did. This book is much more than a reconstruction of his mysterious death. The authors invite the reader to think about the deficiencies in the heart and soul that lead human beings to lie and scheme, in spite of the inevitable disastrous results. Why is it so hard for people to be honest? And why is it these very people who lie and scheme who often attempt great things, while the honest people sit on the sidelines?

Reviewer: Liz Clare, co-author of the historical novel "To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis and Clark"

This is a must-read classic for any armchair sailor or adventurer. It tells the story of one of nine entrants in the first around-the-world sailing race, Donald Crowhurst, who perpetuated one of the great hoaxes of the 20th century before mysteriouly disappearing. Jonathan Raban, Fellow of the Royal Social of Literature (among his many accolades)writes in the introduction, "I've been reading the Strange Last Voyage every year for more than twenty years, and with each further reading, the Crowhurst story deepends and darkens, gaining in power as the world it records slides further into the past." Written by two journalists just a couple of years after the 1968 events, it is meticulously researched and brilliantly written. The result is a singulary moving, amazing, and haunting story. It transcends genre to become a genuine human tragedy. I envy those reading it for the first time.

As everyone has stated, this is a good book with lots of good information. One thing to know about it, however is that the information is presented more in a 'conversational' style than an 'encylopedia' style. If you are looking for a traditional 'field guide' type style with color-coded cross-references and the like, you may want to look elsewhere. However, if you don't mind a more casual presentation of the information - and it is that way in this book - then this one is for you. In other words, you'd be more inclined to pick up this book for some casual reading than you would a traditional field guide.

I live in southeast Alaska and this is the book I have been looking for years. I love it! It goes into such depth, but it is simple to understand.
I enjoy hiking and like being more informed of who/what has also pased this way before me. Great Resource for anybody who enjoys hiking. The photo's are excellent.

I usually check out tracking and reading sign books from the library because I would rather spend my hard cash on backpacking gear, fuel, and tires to get up and down those rocky roads, but this book was one that I had to buy. Most tracking guides have sketches and if they have photos they usually are not very good quality. This book has amazing photos that will aid you in scat and sign identifying. It is a great book for begginers and just a pleasant read. I would have to agree with another reviewer that he does tend to focus on northern or eastern animals. Learning about Mule Deer sign would be more pertinent than learning how to read Moose sign. There is also another book on Amazon that is PACKED with photos and has more photos of dens, tracks and sign. I would have to rate that book higher than this one, if I had to choose one, but this book definately earns 5 STARS!

This book provides an excellent introduction to reading animal tracks. In the first chapter the author explains why we should try to understand the tracks around us in the forest, and what we might see. He then delves into the kinds of observations we need to make, such as trail widths and trail patterns and scat. The rest of the book is divided into chapters by animal family, including chapters for rodents, rabbits, weasels, dogs, cats, bears, and hoofed animals. There is also an extensive bibliography and index.

Each chapter is comprised of short articles about the specifics of tracking the individual animals that make up the family covered in the chapter. Rezendes provides a short informative description of the animal with a color photograph. The descriptions cover behavior, range, and diet. Rezendes also includes black and white photos of the animal's feet, both front and back. The next section of the article covers tracks and trail patterns, and it includes illustrations or diagrams, photographs, and typical trail width and stride measurements, as well as a lot of information to help you sort out this critter's tracks from all the others out there. He also includes short sections on signs, such as dens, food caches, kill sites, and scat, also with photographs or illustrations.

I purchased this book after moving out into the country because I wanted to identify the critters that visited at night leaving their tracks in the snow around our house. I found Rezendes' approach captivating and easy to understand, even as a beginner. Rezendes explains how tracks can tell us much more than just the identity of an animal- -through a careful study of tracks, you can determine how fast the animal was moving, whether it was browsing, being chased, or chasing another. This book is a highly informative reference; it's also a delightful read on a blustery winter afternoon.

I am an old guy-pushing 60-and have examined books on tracking ever since I was a child. No other book compares to this one. I purchased it based on the positive Amazon reviews and on this book they were right on the mark. I mean, this guy not only provides excellent photos of tracks, he has photos of the ANIMALS' FEET! What a simple yet sensible idea! I very much like his philosophy of tracking, his emphasis on looking at the whole picture of the impact an animal makes on its environment. Good job, Mr. Rezendes.

Zirin was an important discovery for me. As a kid, I followed professional baseball and basketball with a very childlike passion. Later I got disgusted with the general state of the corporate franchises and drifted away from any interest in watching sports in any form. After being assigned as a teaching assistant to a course on the history of sports in the modern world, I picked up Zirin's first book and this one to help me appreciate the political side of professional sports. I'm of the audience Dave Marsh of XM Radio had in mind when he wrote that "the people who need to read Dave Zirin most are people who don't think sports is important at all. Zirin knows it is and he continually shows how it fits into the rest of our world."
I believe Zirin also has much to say to those who already understand the importance of sports. The debates over race, class, business, jingoism, steroids, and so on, that rage within the world of sports bear directly or indirectly on just about every area of politics and public life. In all of these essays -- which explore the political underbelly of major league baseball, the NBA, the Olympics, soccer, and more -- he shows a fine understanding of the precisely these kinds of connections and the ways people with political influence routinely use sports for their own ends.
Zirin has strong opinions, and that in itself is not unique. But he expresses his arguments more cogently and supports them more effectively than any other opinionated sports commentator I've ever heard. This is what enables him to engage and challenge the preconceived beliefs of every one of his readers. Furthermore, he's an outstanding writer. Welcome to the Terrordome frequently had me outraged over a fact or quoted statement and then, sometimes on the same page, I'd be laughing out loud at a particularly funny or audacious turn of phrase. Whether or not we agree with Zirin should not make or break the book's significance. If we really want to challenge our sometimes ossified views of the world, we've got to seek out writers like Zirin, who offer perspectives entirely lacking in the weak analysis, calculated outrage, and narrow political perspective on offer in the overwhelming majority of mainstream political commentary.
My only complaint is that there should have been some endnotes, not just to document the quotes he uses but also to help orient the book in relation to other writings on sports with which Zirin is in dialogue in his essays.

I enjoyed the book. I am glad to know about the authors website to get his new writing. I thought the book was insightful and great for a fan like me.

Sports are the world's great distraction, especially in the United
States. To really understand American culture, and other cultures too,
you have to understand sports to get why people get so very fanatical
about them. In a sense, they are a form of reality TV, except they
envelope so much more. It is very easy for radicals to dismiss sports
as a distraction from more important things, like changing the world,
but in a sense, by dismissing sports, they also dismiss sports fans,
which is a great deal of people. It's also important to understand how
sports is used to distract people, and why athletes are told to shut
up and be good soldiers. So having said all that, when Dave Zirin put
out a sequel to his first book, "What's My Name Fool?", I read it as
fast as I could.

Much like his first book, "Welcome to the Terrordome", (Chuck D
does the introduction, since the title is taken from a Public Enemy
song), the book is broken down into chapters exploring different parts, exploring
politics in the sports world. Roberto Clemente was a Hall of Fame
right-fielder for the Pittsburg Pirates from 1955 to 1972. He is often
described as baseball's Latino Jackie Robinson, in that he never shut
up and never backed down from disrespect. He was outspoken on issues
of the day, like racism, segregation, colonialism in Latin America,
civil rights, the war in Vietnam, and media mockery of minority
players. Clemente was instrumental in winning a World Series for the
Pirates in 1960, yet finished 8th in MVP voting because of his Puerto
Rican heritage. When non-white baseball players had to eat in the bus
while in the South, he led a protest against segregation and demanded
that all players be treated the same. He died in a plane crash on his
way to deliver relief supplies to victims of an earthquake in
Nicaragua a year after his retirement and remains one of the best players to ever play the game..

Another topic is how Major League Baseball sets up minimum wage
baseball sweatshops in the Caribbean and Central America, where the
only options are the army, the factory, or baseball. In the so-called
"America's Game", baseball, nearly a fourth of the league are foreign
born Latinos. During the World Baseball Classic, sponsored by MLB in
an effort to show-case homegrown talent, the Team USA was trounced by
Latin American teams. Interesting statistics like how 6 of the last 10
American League MVPs have been Latino, and here's why. In the
Dominican Republic, US teams run "baseball academies", where young
boys who have dropped out of school attend to get trained how to play
baseball, some coming with soapboxes for shoes and tattered clothing.
99 out of 100 don't make it to the MLB who attend these academies

Around the world, soccer, or football as it's known outside of
the States, is by far the most popular sport. It's famous by soccer
hooligans in Europe, full-scale riots in Latin America, and national
pride all over. Players like Diego Maradona are heroes in the third
world, for standing against corporate globalization, war, and famously
"avenging" the Falkland War in 1986 World Cup against England. In
2002, he attends the protests against the Summit of the Americas,
where he says that Argentina will never enjoy the fruits of corporate
control. Another famous player, Ronaldo of the powerful Brazil team,
goes to Palestine to meet with a Palestinian boy who wrote him a
letter asking him to meet with him, and brings international attention
to Israel's travel bans when he is stopped from meeting with him.

Most famously, Zirin goes into the famous head-butt incident at the
France-Italy World Cup when France's Zidane headbutted Italy's
Materazzi. Materazzi comes from an Italian fascist club, and Zidane
instantly becomes a hero in much of the Third World for responding to
Materazzi's racist taunting. It follows a culture of right-wing and
left-wing organizing in soccer fans, where political parties and other
organizations try to recruit fans at matchs and brawls often break out
over politics. (I've often wondered why there wasn't much organizing
at sporting events in the US when it seems so obvious.) The Prime
Minister of Italy even comments that "The French team is made up of
Negroes, Islamists, and Communists." In effect, people of the Third
World root to beat First World teams because of the history, and cling
to the ideals of hope and pride and dignity through them.

The world of sports is not a separate world, nor is it just for men,
and nor is a perfect world of saints. Just like all aspects of the
world we live in, the best thing to do is to understand it and
understand the people who follow it. I think I've just about always
fit into my work situations pretty fast by being a die-hard
Philadelphia sports fan, particularly the Eagles, as well as just about
everyone in this city is as well. When Donovan McNabb says that black
quarterbacks are criticized different than white quarterbacks and that
there's racism in the league, I applaud him for stating the obvious
when others are afraid to do even that. Left-wing sports fans might be
few and far between because of many on the left's complete rejection
of sports fans in general, but sports writers like Dave Zirin remind
us that the there's social justice in everything in life, if you look
behind the scenes a little bit.

The politically charged sports book Welcome to the Terrordome by Dave Zirin. The book covers the connection between social and cultural issues and sports, and it's really a great read. Among the topics Zirin connects are race relations in baseball thru Roberto Clemente, public financing of stadiums and how politicians often exploit sports figures.

While the title suggests a book about public financing battles of sports arenas, it really is suggestive of a broader context of sports and poltics. If you are reading only for the stadium connection this book might be a disappointment, but otherwise it was a delightful bonus as Zirin hits many aspects of sports, sports figures and sports coverage in the context of politics and life.

Not a book for a sports fan, but more for politically aware and interested people who enjoy sports or understand the large role it plays in our society.

A very interesting book that will leave you thinking, observing and expanding how you see the sports world....and isn't that pretty much why you would read in the first place?

-Cudo

Additional comments related to sports entertainment and operation in the Gameops.com Editor's Blog, www.blog.gameops.com.

Amongst sports writers David Zirin is a man among boys. He hasn't just mastered a single aspect of the genre; he has reinvented it with the complete package, which is showcased in Welcome to the Terrordome. Zirin combines acerbic wit, original insights (which is rare in sports journalism), a higher understanding of 20th century social history and an infallible drive to deliver "untouched" goods (partly allowed I suspect by the nature of the non-profit publishing company of the book). It's a breath of fresh air as his motives are only to inform and influence and not to sell anything or apologize for anyone.

The best part of Zirin of course is his ability to recognize and extrapolate on sports as a microcosm for important societal issues such as race, social and economic inequality. While I don't necessarily agree with all of Zirin's opinions, I found myself often putting the book down just to logically think through his positions and how they refute or support my own beliefs. I consider myself well versed in both sports history and social history yet I constantly was introduced to new events, people and history within the varied topics Zirin covers (Bonds, Olympics, Ali, Cycling, Clemente, etc.). To top it off Zirin has a great sense of sarcasm and I laughed out loud numerous times throughout.

This book is important because it has a potential to reach an audience not normally associated with higher-level intellectualism; namely sports fanatics. This is part of Zirin's overall argument in the sense that he criticizes modern sports athletes for not using their leverage to tackle social issues but are instead highly paid slaves of the corporate world.

Bottom Line: Full of energy and insight and should be read by anyone (including non-sports fan) who are interested in how the sports world is interconnected and related to various aspects of social justice. Genre defining.

Like many others, I too stumbled across this book almost 30 years ago as an 8 or 9 year old and have never forgotten it. It strikes the perfect mix of imagination and word fun. I'm ordering a copy now in hopes my six year old daughter will enjoy it as much as I did.

The Witch Family is nice, non-scary magical tale with more heft than contemporary "Color Fairies"-type books. It's a sweet, old-fashioned book -- but heavy emphasis on the sweet. It's the sort of book where things get called by kiddie mis-pronounced names like "noo-doos" for noodles, over and over again. When you're reading to yourself, or reading aloud, that can be part of the charm. But when your kids are listening to 5 hours of audio book on a long car trip, you have to hope that the narrator doesn't lay it on too thick.

As it happens, this narrator lays it on triple-thick: syrup on top of honey on top of sugar. Every single sentence, happy or not, is pronounced with a huge, honey-dripping smile...for 5 hours straight. I grudgingly gave it 4 stars because my girls did enjoy it, and they're the target audience in the end. But as an adult, it was flat-out excruciating.

I too stumbled upon this book as a child and was completely enchanted by the story and characters. I hadn't read it for more than 30 years, but recently bought a copy to read to my children (girl 9, boy 7, girl 4) It hasn't lost any of its magic - I'm enjoying it as much as they are. It includes so many of their favorite things, magic, witches, mermaids, babies - and it blends real and imaginary worlds in the same way that they are blended in the minds of children.

One of my favorite childhood books. I bought this for my niece. I'm sure she will love it as much as I did. A perfect book for young girls with big imaginations!

The Witch Family is about two girls who while drawing witches pretend to banish the head witch, also known as Old Witch, to a glass hill because she is very wicked. If you multiply the "Old" with one million, you get some idea of how old she was! The girls also let Old Witch do her abracadabra so that she can have a witch girl named Hannah and a witch baby. Old Witch gets to be wicked only on Halloween. At the end, the two girls take pity on Old Witch and turn the glass hill into a real hill with grass. After that, Old Witch is not wicked anymore except on Halloween. I think this is a good book to read on Halloween.

I am a Master of Wine Student. I have own 5 editions of this atlas during my wine career. I thought I wouldn't need to upgrade to this new edition because, well, honestly, I didn't think this book could tell me any more than I already knew. Wow, I was wrong. The details of New World regions alone is reason to buy this book. The maps are always the BEST, but now they are more informative and more realistic of the wine world at large. You can also see the maps on the [...] site, but the book is still a great reference.

Great update to a reference work well-known among wine educators and consumers. The geographical context of the knowledge base about wine and winemaking is exceptionally well done and informative.

Really better than 6th edition. I hardly encourage anyone interested in wines to buy it

This seems to be truly a complete Atlas on wine and locations for
finding anything you might desire in wines.

This is my third copy of World Atlas. Each one has been such a substantial improvement over the previous one that its purchase was inevitable. Great maps, witty, relevant text and the usual breath-taking photographs of wine country. (did you ever notice that no body grows wine in ugly places?)

I used it teaching beginner lessons. It really helped me come up with new and creative exercises for the kids to do. You replace the jumps for rails on the ground for students that do not jump yet. I love it and use the exercises in this book all the time.

Brilliant diagrams, excellent keys, simply mapped out and laid out information for difficult and also the easiest of dressage manoevres. It's bound at the top for a vertical flip, with a hole punched down near the bottom so you can hang the book on a nail on your bulletin board or at home and keep it open while you study it. It has handy hints how to achieve positions and gives you ideas to improve certain flaws. It is by far the best book on jumping exercises I have read so far that is dedicated purely to jumping exercises.

Just about EVERY page has another full A4 riding arena on it showing the pattern where the horse is going, it shows crossbars and it shows trotting poles, verticals, gymnastics and where to place them, it shows where you should be directing your horse and what way to approach with an excellent use of diagrams and patterns which have a key right next to it so the design remains uncluttered and simple to read. It even gives you cheap alternatives to make some jumps yourselves and offers quick solutions. A best buy for anyone serious about jumping - or even dressage - to keep their horse supple and to keep their horse (and themselves!) from boredom. Brilliant.

The best how to book on ground poles and jumping that I have experienced. It's a great tool by an expert to keep your horses (young and old) interested as well as the rider thinking. Linda laid out the book very well. Good illustrations and great explanations accompany each exercise. The ground pole exercises are very helpful to use between jumping lessons. This one is a book to keep and give as a gift to a riding friend!

This book has so much info on different exercises and each exercises has little hits about when to use this exercise and what to watch out for while riding it.

This book breaks the demands or jumping down into a logical progression of skills until it takes the insecure beginning rider into a confident partner to the jumping horse. If these lessons are followed correctly, it can also take a training level horse into a skilled show jumper. This book is a must for anyone interested int he discipline of jumping.

This book honors in simple verse and vivid picture, the triumph of the underdog. For young and old, it celebrates that persistence can materialize and that "losers" can win and that even odd-balls can overcome poor odds. Give this as a gift of encouragement to those (male and female) that may "think" there is no hope and let them witness that even when they feel as though they may "standing out in the field, alone and hopeless" the power of BELIEF can, will and does manifest into a life victory. A sweet story of success against all odds.

My husband and I are expecting our first child in June. I bought this as a gift for my husband to read to the baby. He was so excited to receive this! He read the book and immediately declared it, "Wicked Awesome." Get it! Every other line rhymes, and they are are not simplistic. We both have our degrees in education and feel this a good book to help develop children's personal histories.
Get it!

Our small grandson received one as he joined his dad and grandfathers (yes, one lives near Denver) for the current World Series. In his Red Sox regalia, he wanted it read to him again and again. His great-grandfather had seen the last Series before this one, just like the book talks about, and anyone with children who need to be raised as True Believers should make sure they have a copy to pass on to their children in the future.

Although this is a children's book, people of all ages will delight in it. The illustrations are genuine masterpieces.

The book warms up with a Red Sox game in 1918. Somebody's Great-Grandfather watches that game and celebrates the Red Sox' 2004 victory, poignantly reminicing about that 1918 victory. At the time of this review, Boston is celebrating the 2007 Sweep in the World Series against the Colorado Rockies! Go Boston!

Dirty Water was the anthem of the 2007 World Series. The Standells' classic was very a propos!

The illustrations bring history into the picture, literally with the Duck Float Parade; the 1918 lineup and the excitement of the game! Varitek, who helped the Red Sox barrel into victory in 2004 was also part of the Victory Team in 2007! Go, Boston!

I recommend this book for everyone. If you like good baseball and you love Boston, then you want this book. It will hit a home run into the hearts of all readers, just as Lowell hit that winning home run in Game 4 of the 2007 World Series! Go Boston!

Excellent book for any Red Sox fan young or old. Great story for the young, great nostalgia for the not-so-young! A must for any Bostonian!