Toledo Books

Yes, this book is very, very funny, but it is also poignant. The Art of Table Dancing is not just a shallow, frothy, beach-read about the madcap adventures of DC Stanfa, man-crazy, liquor-swilling, table-dancing, Ohio-girl gone wild. It's about DC Stanfa--daughter, friend, wife, mom, Catholic. Stanfa has a uncanny ability to see the humor (sometimes knee-slappingly funny and sometimes achingly sad) in almost every situation, but it is her life journey that holds the reader's interest from the book's "Dedication" to the very last page. The Art of Table Dancing is a very brave book.

Talk about "laughing out loud"...I snorted, guffawed, and hooted my way through this book. From the side-splitting antics, to the poignant moments DC shares with us, this is the "real deal"; especially when it comes to her light-hearted, personal portrayal of the aches and pains we all can relate to growing up. I am proud to say that I know this "wild child" from the "old days", and I am very happy for her success. Keep "em coming DC!

Life's a beach. So laugh. That's exactly what you won't be able to stop doing after reading The Art Of Table Dancing by DC Stanfa. I highly recommend this book to any female who just needs "a girls night out."

DC Stanfa is one of a kind. I loved her book. I couldn't put it down even though I have my own to finish. She's a pure delight and a great writer. You'll laugh, cry, and relate in many ways. You'll come away from this book dying to meet this woman.

I loved this book! Funny to sad and every emotion in between. I couldn't put it down. DC Stanfa has packed a lifetime of events, calamities, and wonderful memories into a great book to which most every person I know (including me) can relate, from the "FBI Guy" relationship to the struggles (albeit very funny struggles at times) of finding her way down life's path. The book is written with such humor, it'll leave you wondering what happens after you turn the last page. Maybe a Table Dancing, II? I hope so!

How much of what you choose to do and say is influenced by your interior life? Most of us smuggle the contraband of our dreams in our pockets, existing part-time in an isolating underground that no one ever sees, as do the characters in _High Times in Fabulous Toledo_.

Lily James' people live parallel lives that only intersect when a ludicrously botched kidnapping forces them to confront the glaring difference between what they have imagined their lives and themselves to be, and who they really are.

This story is a hilariously tragic fable that pierces the truth of our fantasy lives. Lily James shows us how our imaginary identities both shape our authentic selves, and isolate us from one another. A fast, funny romp that left me hoping for more from this young and brilliant author.

I want Lily James to write about my kidnapping! ... or at least about my hometown!
This is one quirky tale about a kidnapping gone very wrong. Two parts love, one part terror, added to a heavy dose of comedic BRILLIANCE and you've got a book you'll want to read again and again.
Lily James' ability to crawl beneath the skin of her characters and drag you along with her is uncanny and terrific - not to mention terrifying and exhilerating.
This is a Hal Hartley film waiting to be made. Hear that HAL HARTLEY?? You need to make this movie!!
This and _The Great Taste of Straight People_ make me a permanent member of the Lily James fan club.

Lily James is as fearless a writer as anybody on the planet. She does things with her narrative that I've never seen done before, and does it in a way that is thoroughly entertaining and readable. This is a difficult book to describe, because it doesn't really fit into any one genre. I should say that I didn't come to this book as an unbiased reader, since Lily and I both belong to the same e-mail list for writers. I wouldn't have bought it, though, if I didn't like the way Lily wrote in general; and I wouldn't be writing this review if I didn't genuinely love the book. So buy it, read it, and enjoy Lily's unique way of telling a story. You won't be disappointed.

"High Drama in Fabulous Toledo" is a funny, readable, delightful novel from an author I will be watching. If you like women's fiction but long for something truly original and fresh, THIS IS IT. Her writing style just carries you along - it's a compelling and new way of getting to know a character - which makes it one of those books you can't wait to get back to. Adventure and philosophy, sociology and brain studies fans will find much to think about here, all in the form of an entertaining read.

It's good to have books of this sort. It's about time someone instill some sort of work ethic in the Americans. Americans are often dismissed as lazy and unambitious, self-centered, which is not far from the truth. I know, I used to work for Boeing Company in America. This should be required reading for people in American auto industry so they make better car,LOL!

Having managed a Japanese invested company in the USA for 8 years, I was exposed to the strengths and weaknesses of the philosophy of operation, style and processes. It caused me to rethink the validity of the mostly unspoken and unexplained management approaches that cause much frustrations and inefficiencies to American workers. Back in the introductory period of American Karate in 1962, I learned, as an instructor, to explain the reasons behind Karate practice and thought processes, rather than leaving the art vague and mysterious. Americans would do well when all the chips and stones are turned and have clear objectives and rewards for the effort. I decided to write, perhaps for the first time by a Japanese executive, a plainly explained managment book on the system of Japanese companies in the USA. No theories but all practical questions and experiences Americans will be exposed in working for or with Japanese companies. Answers to the questons and different experiences are clearly written to assist Americans to succeed in managing a Japanese company which has been expected but being realized so slowly. EVERYTHING IS EXPLAINABLE AND CAN BE LEARNT!

As an American who has worked two years in Japan and four years in the US for Japanese automotive startups (and married to a beautiful Japanese woman for six years), I was able to relate to this book on a level that a majority of readers cannot comprehend. I was fortunate to have a Japanese President who took me under his wing early in my career and taught me the lessons of "ho-ren-so" and the like. However, working for the Japanese is a challenge still. As an American, reading through the first few chapters of Mr. Honda's book, I found myself becoming somewhat angry at the accusations and arrogance of the Japanese thinking being explained. After stepping back I realized the author was just providing information to help better explain ideas presented in later chapters and his overall point. This book is not so much "Americans are bad or lazy" and "Japanese are superior," it is more or less food for thought. Japanese or American, working with people requires understanding of one another. Often, the most difficult aspect is getting both sides to acknowledge and accept the good points of one another and adopt them to create true synergy. As for the coward from Pottstown, PA, who doesn't even have the courage to give an e-mail address. He totally misunderstood this book (that is if he read it at all). If Americans are so lazy, then why does the world economy depend so heavily on us? Why do Japanese companies continue to invest billions in new US ventures every year? If it were not for us lazy Americans, ignorant fools such as this coward from Pottstown, PA would not have world dominating companies such as Boeing to work for. One more point for the Japanese to understand. A reporter once asked a former football coach of Notre Dame, "Coach, how do you motivate your players?" The coach responded, "I don't motivate them. They come motivated. I try not to de-motivate them." As pointed out in Mr. Honda's book, Americans enter into Japanese companies with childish optimism and enthusiasm. All to quickly is that enthusiasm shattered and the American becomes just another body punching the clock or "lazy". Until Japanese executives (and many American companies) understand this and learn how to harness this energy, they will never understand the true work ethic of the American worker. If going home to spend time with your wife, children, community volunteer organization, church, or night school at the end of an eight hour workday instead of sitting at your desk looking busy but you really don't have anything to do or as the Japanese at two companies I have worked for, sitting in the smoking area for hours at the end of the day just to get face time, if not wasting my precious time like this is considered lazy, then I am guilty. Ask any Japanese Executive on his deathbed if he has any regrets in life. I do not believe his answer would be, "I wish I had spent more time at work." Thank you Mr. Honda.

Mr. Honda takes the mystery out for American managers who want to know what to say and do in order to be successful in Japanese companies. He provides numerous examples and comparisons between the American and Japanese styles of management along with recommendations. A special emphasis on diversity-communications is provided from cover to cover to guide the reader on the perceptions and expectations American and Japanese managers have of each other, and how to improve their working relationship. In summary, Mr. Honda's book is long overdue for American managers who are looking for practical tips and guidelines to have a successful career in Japanese companies.

This is one of the finer Images of America selections. Well written from an arcitectural and historical perspective. Lots & lots of great photos. Wish there were similar architecture guide-oriented Images of America books for other cities too.

The "Images of America" series vary quite a lot in quality, and this is one of the good ones. At one time, Toledo was pretty representative of 2nd ranking cities in America, in architecture as in other ways. As anyone who lives there or has had the misfortune to visit it knows, it is now one of the grungiest cities in America, the geographic incarnation of obese, emphysemic, morose, ignorant America. Check out the downtown these days, and you'll see something reminiscent of Newark New Jersey at its nadir. Buildings crumbling, gang graffiti on the walls, junk in the streets, shabby library, the works. Good art museum, though, for some reason.
Check out this collection of postcards, you'll see that even a dump like Toledo once had a money grubbing middle class and a few hot shots that felt the need to thump their chest architecturally, and saw fit to do it in public rather than in a private dwelling, which seems to be the norm these days.
"Tempora mutantur, et Toledo mutantur in illis" [sed non renascit sicut Cleveland].

...this is what they'd say. At least if interpreted by someone with a consumate knowledge of Toledo history, like the author. Beginning with the city's origins as a transportation nexus in the canal and railroad eras, continuing through its emergence as a manufacturing hub at the dawn of the automobile age, and ending with the Postwar struggle against economic decline, this three-book series lets pictures tell the story. Each volume has hundreds of photos with captions that concisely describe this vanished world with fascinating anecdotes and occasional dry wit.

It is a summary of what a laser crystal or better a rare heart doping material could do. Special solution on particular wavelength could be found on this book.

The book "Laser Crystals" is dealing with the basic properties of doped single crystals. Stark level splittings, some (low resolution) spectras, any demonstrated laser transition (with temperatures) gives a survey of this topic, some new materials and dopands are not included (published 89), over 900 references! Unfortunately out of stock.END

I ordered and received this book a couple days ago and have already read through it twice. Author Gregory Miller has picked the most awesome historical photos of Toledo for this book and added captions. The book is just GREAT!!!!!!
Greg has helped me often while at the Local History Department of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library and has always proved to be most helpful and knowledgeable about the Lucas County, Ohio area. Greg you did an excellent job!!!!
Gaye Gindy, Sylvania, Ohio

Toledo is a solid mid-western industrial town with a lot of history and the ups and downs we in the Great Lakes region are used to. If you look at the Southern border of Michigan, you will notice that it isn't straight across as you might have thought. That jut northward on the Eastern part, including Toledo, was claimed by both Michigan and Toledo and was the subject of a "war" that involved a lot of walking around in the woods and drinking without any shooting. In the end, Toledo went to Ohio and Michigan got the Upper Peninsula. Ya! We sure did!

This fascinating book of large format photos picks up after the Civil War and ends with a pair of pictures from the 1970s. One is the urban renewal project that tore down the Town Hall Burlesque Theater, showing it in ruins. The other is of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Seven of the crew lost when that ship went down in 1975 were from Northwest Ohio - including its captain.

The book is divided into four periods. 1870-1899 when Toldeo was and up and coming city. The second period is from 1900-1929 showing Toledo as a rising industrial, entrepreneurial, and commercial center with its port and river access playing an important part. While there are many cool shots, the one of Roy Knabenshue and his dirigible earning his $500 prize by taking off and landing from the A. L. Spitzer building is pretty near the top. (pg. 41).

The third chapter take us from 1930-1949 and shows us the effects of the Great Depression and World War II on the life and work of the people of Toledo. The last chapter takes us from 1950-1975 and the rise and fall of the American mid-west's industrial might.

Gregory Miller provides excellent chapter introductions and captions for the photographs he selected for the book. The back jacket information says that he has been curator of photographs for the Local History Department of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library since 1991. They provide internet access to more than 100,000 images through their website.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

This book focuses on Florentine fashion c1540-1580 during the period when Eleonora of Toledo was Duchess of the city. Its inspiration is obviously the iconic portrait of her and her son Giovanni painted by Bronzino in 1545.

The book is full of rare gorgeous colour illustrations on high quality art paper. It starts out with a biography of Eleonara and then discusses her style. Then the book discusses individual garments she is known to have owned and surviving examples, including an extraordinary red velvet gown in the Pisa Mueso di Plazzo Reale. The book rounds off with a list of the garments recorded in Elenora's wardrobe accounts.

This book, published in both Italian and English, should be on the shopping list for anyone interested in Renaissance costume. Its one of those books you pick up and go "wow" and it's a visual feast on the eyes that is fully illustrated in colour.

The Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo: Duchess of Florence and Siena

Bronzino's Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio (California Studies in the History of Art)

Patterns of Fashion: The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women C1560-1620

There is very little written about Florentine fashion from the 16th Century. This book fills that gap admirably. It has gorgeous color pictures, many of which are published here for the first time. With full descriptions and a glossary of terms make this the perfect book for historians and lovers of historical costume alike. The text is in English and Italian (side-by-side on the same page) so it is easy to see the Italian terms and how they translate into English.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I am delighted to see Amazon carries it!

With his new play, Jungian-oriented Portugese playwright Armando Nascimento Rosa takes on millennia of literary tradition and a century of psychoanalytic theory by casting Oedipus, the legendary ill-fated Theban king, in a bold, new light.
Inspired by James Hillman and others, Rosa probes deeper into Oedipus's family history and finds the source of his fate not in incest, as Freud believed, but in the now-forgotten crime of Oedipus's father, Laius, which occurred long before Oedipus was born: Laius's abduction and attempted seduction of Pelops's beautiful young son, Chrysippus. Rosa sees the Oedipus complex as part of a broader matrix of complexes, one that includes the less-well-known "Laius complex" - the desire of fathers to kill their sons preemptively for fear of being upstaged by them. Rosa seeks to uncover the archetypal dimensions of the tragedy, drawing readers and viewers of the play to a less literal, more imaginal understanding of human passions and desires.
The play unfolds in the manner of a psychotherapy session in which repressed memories are brought to consciousness and deep, dark secrets are revealed. Ghosts, spirit possession, shamanism, and psychology come together in a dizzying array that subjects readers and viewers of the play alike to a "gnostic" experience like no other before it. Rosa weaves together a number of contemporary issues, including homosexuality, homophobia, transgendering, and same-sex unions.

An intellectually stimulating
revisitation of a virtually inexhaustible mythical motif.
Inexhaustible as it may be though, Rosa takes it in his own skilled
playwright's
hand and turns out a pleasurable dramatic 'object' altogether worthwhile
reading---and enjoying. Rowland's forword as well as the critical essays by
Carlson and by Downing are the best companion you could ask for to
illuminate both the play and the theme it stages in such a thought provoking
way.

Like any arresting narration of a grandiose adventure, Amjad Hussain's book is imbued with the power to expose the readers to a myriads of feelings which range from awe and envy to pathos and pleasure. It is his genious to record on paper the words that convey tha sounds of deafening winds on Mount Kailas or the melodies that emanate from the waves of the great Indus River in Pakistan.He has lived upto the challenge of being a superb story teller. I trust he is as good with the knife-he is a surgeon- as he is with his pen. He uses a vast canvass where he is equally at ease exploring the Indus River, hunting deer in Pennsylvania, narrate the dynamics og the Afghan war in the eightees and write about the sacred icon of Judiasm. His enthusiasm for life, nature and humanism permeated through the short essays in this anthology. It is a fascinating reading where the reader not only learns about the subjects the author has discussed but also about the multidimentional author himself.

Of Home and Country: Journey of a Native Son looks across time, distance, and cultural differences to bring the Indus River and Pakistan into our view. Dr. Hussain's book conveys his rare energy and vision, to become an American success story while remaining deeply loyal to home, old friends, and his Islamic faith. Most people live half asleep, but he wakes the reader into two distinct worlds (U.S. and Pakistani) with details of history, sights and smells of daily life, and cameos of friendship and memory that add depth to the view of another culture. We see the U.S. from Pakistani eyes, as well as Pakistan from the U.S. Love--of people and landscape--shines through this book.

I don't think there have been many, if any, WWII memoirs written from an enlisted woman's point of view. This one is superb! Gilbert tells of her naval training at University of Wisconsin, Madison, to become a radio operator, and talks about studying Morse code, and her subsequent adventures during postings to Corpus Christi and Pensacola. I was a Morse op for the army during the Cold War, and wrote about it in my own memoir, "Soldier Boy", so I could easily relate. Helen Gilbert, the writer, is a natural if there ever was one. This eighty-something year-old great-grandmother will certainly make you laugh, and you'll also ache for her, as she ably describes first what it was like being a woman in uniform during the war, and then the problems she faced as a wife, mother and a flawed human being in her life after the war. "Okay, Girls ..." is a welcome and necessary addition to the canon of WWII literature. Good job, Helen. Thank you for sharing your story.

Ever wonder what every day life during World War II was like from an every day woman's perspective? Helen Gilberts' earthy vignettes from her life (growing up in Philadelphia to becoming a Navy WAVE and her life after) quickly sketch out her tale with sure gestures. Her frank remembrances are told in a conversational tone - you can almost hear her hearty laughter as she sits back and unfurls her memories... rough nuggets, polished and presented with a salty vigor.