DC Washington Books

This book has some great photos of DC. I loved looking at the photos of the places I love visiting.

This book is very well put together. If you like Spencer you will refer to it constantly above all other works about him (except a full length biography). There's a lot of writing about his life, and there are many, many color plates of his paintings that provide real depth of viewing what this person was about. All of this is in a pleasing font and design. The best art book I've ever seen.

A great map-- small and sturdy. Ideal for carrying around in your pocket or backpack as you explore Washington, DC. It will stand up to months, if not years, of use. Especially good for walkers.

Probably less good for drivers, who will find it too small to read easily while driving around and dodging other cars, tourist buses, bigwig motorcades, and distracted pedestrians.

For cyclists, this is a decent, but limited, choice. It doesn't cover much of the city beyond the mall, and it does not include bike route information or bike paths, which are essential for getting around the greater DC area. For pedaling around the downtown area, however, it is great.

This volume presents an analysis of one of the most controversial parts of the tax system -- the taxation of income from capital. In a wide variety of papers, the contributors seek to quantify aspects of the effects of current tax law on the allocation of resources and economic efficiency.

Martin Bailey discusses the special tax treatment of capital gains, estimating the effective rate of the tax by comparing data on capital gains realized and declared with estimates of capital gains accrued. David Laidler investigates the distortion in the demand for housing arising from the exemption from taxation of imputed rent on owner-occupied dwellings.

The special incentives offered the mineral industries by percentage depletion, expensing, and capital gains provisions of the tax law are analyzed by Susan R. Agria. Leonard Gerson Rosenberg's paper measures the aggregate burden of corporate income and property taxes by industry group and the variation among industries in the ratios of such taxes to income from capital.

Luigi Tambini looks into the long-term pattern of financing of U.S. corporations to determine the effects of taxation on the choice between equity and debt capital.

The econometric studies of Robert E. Lucas, Colin Wright, and Marvin Kosters inquire into some basic economic relationships affected by the tax laws: Lucas focuses on the elasticity of substitution between labor and capital in manufacturing; Wright analyzes the responsiveness of savings to changes in the rate of interest; and Kosters estimates the effects of income taxation on the supply of labor.

Arnold C. Harberger is professor of economics at the University of Chicago; Martin J. Bailey is associate dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Rochester.

Deftly compiled by Naphtali David Rishe, Terra Atlas: Central Washington, D.C. is an expansive aerial photographic mapping of the central Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia areas. Comprising a concise, visually informative, superbly executive photographic atlas complete with map-style scale measurements indicators, a street index, points of interest index that serves as an easily accessible landmark locater, Terra Atlas offers readers a "user-friendly" visual guide from an overhead perspective. Terra Atlas: Central Washington D.C. is very highly recommended as the ideal atlas for the Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia areas -- and would serve as an excellent template for overhead photographic mapping reference books for other major
American cityscapes as well.

I just moved to the DC area and bought this book for my nephew - he just turned 4 years old. He lives in Ohio and I wanted him to know about the new city that his Auntie lives in. He LOVES IT! The way the book repeats "That's good, that's bad!" makes it interactive for kids. I have already recommended it to a friend to buy for her kids!

I just moved to DC, and I was really lost here until I picked up this thing. The reviewers selected great activities, restaurants, places, etc. Each one I have tried has been worth my time, if not really outstanding. I've asked long-time locals about some of the highly recommended but low-profile places, and they have agreed that those are hot spots. The maps are very nice, and the style is extremely readable. If you need one guide to the city, this is as good a choice as any.

The current Timeout 2004 guide for Washington, DC has really good coverage of DC art galleries; in fact it is the only DC guide that offers any decent "guiding" to Washington area galleries.

It is written by Jessica Dawson, who also pens the "Galleries" column for the Washington Post.

She has a good introduction and even lists her favorites for 2004 under "Names of the Game."

Jessica nails it when she recognizes in her intro that a new "optimism" is kindling a really good art scene in the Washington, DC region.

Unfortunately, throughout the pages dedicated to the galleries, and as it is to be expected, there are quite a few comparisons to New York this, New York that all over the place.

And reading through Jessica's descriptions of the various galleries also offers an honest and rare insight as to how this critic evaluates and views (she seems to have something about "safe art," whatever that is) most of the Greater Washington, DC region's art galleries. For example Dawson praises Zenith Gallery's Margery Goldberg for her "tireless activism," but describes the gallery as "while influential in the neon art scene, consistently shows mediocre painting and craft."

Addison/Ripley is praised for selling "high-calibre paintings, photography and prints," but "their selections, while lovely, are awfully safe."

Cheryl Numark is "Washington's power dealer", while Leigh Conner shows work by the "kind of cutting-edge artists that Washingtonians usually travel to New York to see."

MOCA is "DC's answer to the hip, alternative galleries of New York."

Fraser Gallery (which I co-own) "concentrates on photography, but occasionally shows innovative sculpture and work in other media," while our Bethesda outpost is a "bright, glass-walled gallery [that] exhibits realist painting and photography."

Hemphill Fine Arts "plays host to many of Washington's strongest artists," but "the art here tends towards the decorative."

Fusebox is "sharp and savvy," and has "raised the bar for visual art in Washington," and their openings are "events to see and be seen at."

Anyway... Bravo Timeout!

"Undercover Washington" is unlike any other travel guide I've seen. It covers all of the places in Washington, D.C. and surrounding suburbs in Maryland and Virginia where spies lived, loved, worked, and defected. The book covers spies and espionage throughout history from George Washington to current events. This is a fun book for locals and tourists.

Published in early 1980, the NASA produced book (NASA Special Publication NASA SP-441) contains numerous photographs obtained by the two Viking space probes which had been in orbit around Mars since mid 1976 are presented. The pictures represent only a small fraction of the many thousands taken; however, the resolution of these photographs was approximately ten times better than the previous Martian orbiter, Mariner 9 and gave a hint of the discoveries that would come with the Martian probes of the late 1990's and early 2000's. The photographs that were chosen illustrate the diverse geology of Mars and its atmospheric phenomena. Specific topics discussed include the Viking mission and its objectives, a brief comparison of Earth and Mars, and surface features of Mars including the great equatorial canyons, channels, volcanic and deformational features, and craters. Martian moons, surface processes, polar regions, and the Martian atmosphere are also covered.

Even though this book has been out print for nearly 25 years, it is readily available from many used book dealers for around $25 and well worth the price.

It is important to note that amazon has multiple listings of this book, but they are all NAS SP-441