Tracks Books

Elton Glaser's new work presents a rich gumbo of precise observation and down-home longing. Having known Mr. Glaser and his writing for 35 years, I find these poems to be among his finest to date. His potent blend of erudition and Louisiana vernacular creates humor, perception, and profound connection with ourselves. I recommend his work highly to readers who appreciate a master of language, intellect, and emotion in verse.

This book complements the other biographical and (semiauto)biographical works on Richard Feynman. In many ways we see him more intimately than ever before.

I once read a book describing the Roman Catholic Church as a struggle between saints and cardinals. (I would love to refind this book.) The cardinals were the guardians of orthodoxy, the saints broke new ground. The cardinals often burned the saints for heresy, then the saint's ideas became accepted and the next generation of cardinals beatified the ex-heretic (while burning the next future saint). Saint Joan is the best-known example of this habit.

Whether it is Einstein (who was described as a lazy dog by his professors at graduate school) or Feynman (whose paper that ultimately recieved the nobel prize was originally excoriated by his seniors) events move faster now, and original minds can now be canonized within their lifetimes. Einstein famously said something like "I always resented authorities - God has now punished me by making me an authority".

This book can be regarded as the record of Feynman's attempt to evade or accept this fate.

This book is extremely helpful for interpreting a clean set of tracks, or getting a handle on a more challenging jumble of older and/or windswept tracks. It covers tracks of skittering tenebrionid beetles, to the big cats, and helps to separate out various antelope.

With it's great pictures of the animals, accompanying generally pen drawn tracks with centimeter ruler, and occasional color photos of tracks, it is a solid and readily available guide for a beginner in the field. I have been once to Southern Africa, I would welcome opinions from those more experienced with tracks, and especially with books upon tracking, for recommendations of other books as well.

No, as a beginner, you won't be able to necessarily separate out different zebra at first, or tell a black from a white rhino, or juvenile males lions from a lioness from tracks alone, however you'll use other clues to get there! While figuring out a set of cat tracks, listen to the agitated monkey in the next tree, warning you of the leopard perched in the tree, directly overhead!

It's strength is that it's a thin narrow book to go in a shirt pocket quite easily; to add more to it would have made it less pocketable. It has helpful ink drawn pictures of droppings...and scattered scats throughout the book in color, no less!

I gave the book a 5, and would have preferred a 4.5, downgrading from a 5 only because it tantalizes rather than tells much about the Art of tracking, i.e. using the many clues of spoor such as marks on trees, distinguishing running from walking or hopping tracks, talking about utilizing dehydration of scat to "age" it...and these are skills best learned in the field, with day after day experience with a more experienced guide.

I highly recommend this to accompany you to Southern Africa to learn about tracks, despite my reservation about it's tracking, as a good guide can fill in on that quite readily, whilst in the practical laboratory of the field!

Two years ago, I didn't know the difference between am exacta and a trifecta, or a fig from a fig newton. All that changed when I ordered my first book on racing "Picking Winners" by Andy Beyer. I had read Beyer's horseracing articles in the Washington Post for years, but was such a novice, that I had no idea that he had to speed handicapping like no other before him.

Picking Winners introduced me to the game -- to what handicapping was all about. Beyer gets you started. Read this book, and any novice is ready to go to the track and at least have some fun pretending he knows what he's doing.

The most important aspect of this book, of course, was my introduction to the Beyer speed figures. They are all he claims them to be; they are not all what others claim them to be. The figs are not the Holy Grail -- but you'll never find the Grail without them.

Most importantly, Beyer gave me an instant understanding of the horseracing game -- no crap -- no esoteric wanderings, but a true working knowledge of handicapping techniques -- and did I mention the speed figs? (haha)

If you are new to the game or if you have little knowledge of those mysterious numbers highlighted in the DRF under "Speed," get this book.

After two years and a dozen other books, I still refer to it several times a week. It has made betting the horses for me a fun, and most often profitable hobby.

Now in a newly revised and updated edition, Please Don't Call My Mother!: How Parents And Schools Can Team Up To Get Kids Back On Track by school administrator John Lazares and classroom teacher Coleen Armstrong is a straightforward treatise describing how parents and teachers can cooperate to help bring misbehaving kids back into good graces. From setting up parental interventions when necessary to guidelines for school principals, Please Don't Call My Mother! is packed with solid information, sometimes presented in concise point-by-point format, sometimes in question-and-answer format. Please, Don't Call My Mother! is a first-rate tip book for helping unruly kids.

with some great stories thrown in to boot. This book recounts the colorful life of Mel Anderson, South Dakota rancher and businessman. He's a "real deal" cowboy, knowing the joys and deprivations of ranch life. As you read this book, you can picture Mel sitting at his dining room table telling you about his experiences and life. It's a great, fun read!

A concise, colorful history of the first 120 winners of America's most famous horse race. A short page story accompanies each lovingly done portrait. This lady knows how to draw horses--she doesn't pretty them up, she shows them how they are, beautiful enough without having to add any artificial ingredients. The stories are fascinating if you are a racing fan or like to read biographies of people and animals. The book is relatively inexpensive for art and history of this quality

Ms. Heywood has written a compelling story of a female athlete (runner) coming of age. She presents her memoir in a straight forward manner and does not hold back. She had a sexual relationship with her high school coach. She presents her story with all the emotional ambiguity I'm sure it carried. Ms. Heywood later struggled with an eating disorder. Again, this is presented in a very real manner. Ms. Heywood is also a very gifted writer. I found this book a compelling read and it should have a wide audience.

It's very important to me to maintain utmost integrity whenever I review a product, so in keeping with that, I'm going to explain what this audiobook offers by first explaining what it doesn't. You will not learn how to punch by listening to it. Obviously, it's not possible to learn how to perform any technique solely by having someone describe it to you verbally. You need to see it performed with your own eyes, as you can in Franco's DVD Armed to the Teeth, and you need to practice it, comparing your technique to what you see. But if you do know how to punch or are learning how because you've been trained or because you own Armed to the Teeth, then this audiobook will provide you with a huge amount of advice on how to keep your technique true and how to improve upon it. There are a great deal of nuances to each offensive strike that Franco discusses in detail, and when you visualize the technique in your mind while listening to the audiobook, you really come to understand exactly what it is you're doing and where you need to improve. Furthermore, throwing a punch a certain way doesn't mean you understand the theory behind it. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the theory but I learned a great deal by listening to this. Knowledge is power and anyone who wants to supplement their training with a convenient means of learning not only the "how" but the "why" of it and how it applies in the context of a street fight should buy this audiobook and listen to it multiple times.

This book is a guide for supervisors and managers who want to get promoted. There are 17 tips to get ahead that came about by the author's research; 80 seminars, 1,700 hours of training, traveling 160,000 miles to evaluate 140 consultants and 1,400 managers and front-line supervisors.