SirReadaLot.org

June 2006, Issue #86 

Guide to This Issue

Contents: Masterpieces Up Close: Western Painting from the 14^th to 20^th Centuries, New Masters of Poster Design: Poster Design for the Next Century, Theatre World Volume 60: 2003-2004, Greed, Inc.: Why Corporations Rule Our World, The Wal-mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works –and How It's Transforming the American Economy, Barron's Accounting Handbook, Working with You Is Killing Me: Freeing Yourself from Emotional Traps at Work, Paradigm Found: Leading and Managing for Positive Change, Faces, Places and Inner Spaces: A Guide to Looking at Art, African Americans during Reconstruction, The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market Cookbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Impeccable Produce Plus 130 Seasonal Recipes, Magnolias: Authentic Southern Cuisine, The Bistros, Brasseries, and Wine Bars of Paris: Everyday Recipes from the Real Paris, Making Inclusion Work: Effective Practices for All Teachers, Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Therapy: The Gift of Healing from Healthy Newborns, The Healing Power of Neurofeedback: The Revolutionary LENS Technique for Restoring Optimal Brain Function, Fitness After 50, Engaging Autism: Helping Children Relate, Communicate and Think with the DIR Floortime Approach, The History of the American Revolution, Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dressage, The Distinctive Home: A Vision of Timeless Design, Listening To Speech: An Auditory Perspective, Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays, The Heart of the World: A Journey to Tibet's Lost Paradise, Last Evenings on Earth, Plato's Secret, Patkau Architects, The Jonah Factor: Thirteen Spiritual Steps to Finding the Job of a Lifetime, True Christianity: Containing a Comprehensive Theology of the New Church That Was Predicted by the Lord in Daniel 7:13-14 and Revelation 21:1, 2, The Four Yogas: A Guide to the Spiritual Paths of Action, Devotion, Meditation and Knowledge, Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching, Good Samaritans and Reconciliation, Natural Products for Pest Management, Synchronizing Science and Technology with Human Behaviour, Bernie Whitebear: An Urban Indian's Quest for Justice

Art / Children’s / All Ages

Masterpieces Up Close: Western Painting from the 14th to 20th Centuries by Claire d'Harcourt (Chronicle Books)

The fame of many art masterpieces has worn them out: we have seen them so many times that we don't really stop to look at them anymore. Masterpieces Up Close, however, gives readers a chance to take a fresh look at some familiar images. Children of all ages discover the beauty and hidden mysteries in Western art's most celebrated masterpieces in this art history lesson cleverly disguised as a game.

Masterpieces Up Close sends readers on a journey through the world's most famous paintings from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. They see some familiar faces, like Leonardo's Mona Lisa and Warhol's Marilyn, and meet some that may be new to them, like the princess in Velázquez's Las Meninas and the mysterious little girl in Rembrandt's Night Watch. Young detectives examine the details of Michelangelo's fescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They uncover the hidden message in Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory. They decode the language of symbols in Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding Portrait and Hieronymus Bosch's Haywain. The game is to find the details in each painting. In the captions, they find many questions, and in the explanations that follow each century's masterpieces, they discover some answers. Some of these paintings are so puzzling, though, that art historians still can't fully explain them. Sometimes, it is a masterpiece's very mystery that has fascinated viewers for centuries.

Full-color reproductions of over 20 paintings provide the perfect hunting ground for over a hundred details. Lift-the-flap keys at the end of the book provide the answers. Informative text helps children learn why these paintings have intrigued us for centuries and discover just what makes each work a masterpiece.

The book is written by Claire d'Harcourt, a children's book editor who lives in France and is the author of many books about art and history, including Art Up Close and Louvre in Close-Up.

We love it! – Parents

Art lovers will enjoy this inviting exercise. – Publishers Weekly

…a striking extra for most [art] collections. – School Library Journal

From Michelangelo's Creation of Adam to Monet's Water Lilies, Masterpieces Up Close is an engaging book giving young readers an up-close look at the best works of some of the world's most well-known artists. Full-color reproductions of over 20 paintings provide a rich hunting ground for over a hundred details.

Arts & Photography / Graphic Design

New Masters of Poster Design: Poster Design for the Next Century by John Foster (Rockport Publishers)

As with vinyl records, the poster seemingly disappeared over the past two decades. What was once an essential form of communication gradually transformed into a postcard-and-email blast. But there were some of us longing for the era when posters were not only major promotional vehicles, but also pieces of art worthy of framing.

Since they could not tolerate the loss of a storied and majestic medium that served as a perfect canvas for creative expression, a determined group of designers once again turned to the poster for personal work and as an outlet from more restrictive media. Their goal was to prove the poster could still be a powerful tool in communicating their clients' messages. The work these designers put forward has brought the medium back to prominence.

New Masters of Poster Design was written by John Foster, vice president of FUSZION Collaborative in Alexandria, Virginia, who has had his posters featured in every major design publication and in numerous books. He is the author of Maximum Page Design, and his clients have included MGM, Coca-Cola, AOL, Hilton, FX, National Geographic, and the National Zoo. The jacket and book design for New Masters of Poster Design were created by FUSZION Collaborative, a full-service design studio that specializes in unique, creative solutions for print and interactive applications.

The work in the book is eclectic featuring art from some of the world’s most influential designers, as well as from a handful of fresh-faced newcomers following closely at their heels. The book features these designers and design firms: Aesthetic Apparatus, François Caspar, Fang Chen cyan, Oded Ezer, Hakobo (Jakub Stepien), Hammerpress, Pedram Harby, Jianping He, HendersonBromstead ArtCo., Fons Hickmann (m23), Jewboy Corporation, Andrew Lewis Design, Little Friends of Printmaking, Luba Lukova, Methane Studios, Modern Dog, Patent Pending Design, Sandstrom Design, Seripop, SpotCo, Spur Design (Dave Plunkert), Slavimir Stojanovic (Futro), Studio Boot, Yuri Surkov, Sussner Design Company, The Heads of State, Thinkmule, Thirst (Rick Valicenti), and Martin Woodtli. The book also features the Next Wave: 344 Design (Stefan Bucher), Bird Machine (Jay Ryan) BOSS Construction (Andrew Vastagh), Decoder Ring Design Concern, Dirk Fowler (f2), Maryam Enayati, FUSZION Collaborative, Dan Grzeca, Wyeth Hansen, Eike König, Zak Kyes, Ron Liberti, Lure Design, Joe Marianek, Octavio Martino, Nothing Something, Qian Qian, The Small Stakes, Ryan Waller, and Lourdes Zolezzi.

New Masters of Poster Design revels in the long-last art of poster design, resurrected by a set of stunning contemporary designers. This groundbreaking collection of work, compiled at the height of the poster rebirth, is sure to inspire all.

Arts & Photography / Performing Arts / Theatre

Theatre World Volume 60: 2003-2004 by John Willis, with Ben Hodges (Theatre World Series: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books) provides a complete record of the American theatre.

Celebrating its 60th year, Theatre World Volume 60 is the statistical and pictorial record for 2003-4 of the Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway seasons, touring companies, and professional regional companies throughout the United States with hundreds of dramatic color and black and white photographs. Complete cast listings, replacements, producers, directors, authors, composers, opening and closing dates, and song titles.

Author John Willis has been the editor-in-chief of both Theatre World and its companion series Screen World for over forty years. He also presides over the annual Theatre World Awards, the oldest awards given to actors for a Broadway or Off-Broadway debut role. Ben Hodges is associate editor of Theatre World and executive producer of the Theatre World Awards. Contents of Theatre World Volume 60 include:

Broadway

• Productions that opened June 1, 2003 – May 31, 2004
• Productions from past seasons that played through this season
• Productions from past seasons that closed during this season

Off-Broadway

• Productions that opened June 1, 2003 – May 31, 2004
• Productions from past seasons that played through this season
• Productions from past seasons that closed during this season
• Company Series

Off-Off-Broadway

• Productions that opened June 1, 2003 – May 31, 2004
• Company Series

These sections are followed by Professional Regional Companies, Awards, Longest Running Shows on Broadway, Longest Running Shows Off-Broadway, Biographical Data, Obituaries, and an Index.

Theatre World commemorates the history and excitement of the theatre like no other publication. John Willis and his book are indispensable. – Alec Baldwin

If you’re looking for an elaborate visual record of a theatrical season, you’ll want to opt for Theatre World. – Back Stage

Any show business library should include Theatre World…. It’s a necessity. – Jeffrey Lyons

Nothing brings back a theatrical season, or holds on to it more lovingly, than John Willis’s Theatre World. – Harry Haun, Playbill

Theatre World Volume 60 provides a complete and authoritative record of the American theatre. Visually appealing, the current volume lives up to the previous seasons.

Business & Economics / Ethics / Finance

Greed, Inc.: Why Corporations Rule Our World by Wade Rowland (Arcade Publishing)

Why do automakers sell us cars they know are unsafe? Why do multi-national pharmaceutical companies promote drugs they know might harm us? Why is big business allowed to poison our environment – and us? Why is our food so unhealthy and obesity growing at such a shocking rate? Why do public companies lie to their employees and stockholders by hiding unfavorable results and criminally falsifying figures?

Timely and extremely relevant, Greed, Inc. addresses head-on the pressing question of why so many major corporations have lost all sense of ethical direction, focusing totally on the bottom line, and, more egregiously, falsifying information whenever it suits their needs or demands.

To trace the evolution of the modern corporation, prolific author Wade Rowland goes back to the medieval era to examine the rise of the guilds and the origins of Rationalism, which viewed Nature not as a gift from God but an untamed, menacing environment in need of human control. Discussing the role of virtue and morality in our lives and in the workplace today, Rowland explains how we have evolved from the biblical credo that "Money is the root of all evil" to its polar opposite: "Greed is good." Citing chapter, verse, and vital corporate statistics, he places the blame for what ails contemporary society squarely on one institution: the modern, publicly traded corporation, which enjoys the legal status of an individual but does not seem bound by the same legal and moral responsibilities.

While recognizing the positive contributions corporations have made over the past two centuries in science, technology, and medicine, Rowland examines the greed at the core of it all and pinpoints what went wrong. In that context, he singles out Big Tobacco, Ford, Enron, Exxon, Merck, Pfizer, and WorldCom, among others.

From Greed, Inc.: Adam Smith, the eighteenth-century moralist who invented modern economic theory, assumed that the entrepreneurs who flourished in the primitive capitalist markets of his day had limits to their avarice just like everybody else. Their innate sense of what was right and proper would steer them clear of excess, and, if their moral compass temporarily wobbled, the censure of their peers would soon put them back on course... . Compare this viewpoint with the postmodern perspective of the likes of Gordon Gekko, a fictional character so well drawn by Oliver Stone in the 1987 movie Wall Street that his words continue to reverberate: "The point, ladies and gentlemen, is that greed – for lack of a better word – is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed – you mark my words – will not only save [this company] but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.

Rowland has brilliantly excavated the ideological foundations of today's business corporation, revealing an inherently inhuman institution inimical to any kind of morality. – David Noble, author of America by Design

Timely and important . . . A wise book by a thinker of great good sense and clarity ... All who are worried about the mounting damage done to society and nature in the name of profit should read Greed, Inc. without delay. – Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress

A sound, compassionate survey of a history and misconceptions that have led ... to our present amoral mindlessness. – National Post (Canada)

Greed, Inc. begins with a rich historical perspective and builds relentlessly toward a stronger, nuanced argument. Rowland's writing is clear . . . insightful and thought provoking. – Scene and Heard (Canada)

Greed, Inc. is a searing indictment of modern corporations. It is a work of rigorous research and admirable insight, and it should be read by all those who have concerns about the frightening direction in which the world is heading.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership

The Wal-mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works –and How It's Transforming the American Economy [UNABRIDGED] (Audio CD) by Charles Fishman, narrated by Alan Sklar (Tantor Media)

In The Wal-mart Effect an award-winning journalist breaks through the wall of secrecy to reveal the many astonishing ways Wal-Mart's power affects our lives and reaches all around the world. Though 70 percent of Americans now live within a fifteen-minute drive of a Wal-Mart store, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company. We know about the lawsuits and the labor protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the ‘Wal-Mart effect’ is shaping our lives.
The overwhelming impact of the world's largest company – due to its relentless pursuit of low prices – on retailers and manufacturers, wages and jobs, the culture of shopping, the shape of our communities, and the environment constitute a global force of unprecedented nature. Wal-Mart is not only the world's largest company; it is also the largest company in the history of the world. Americans spend $35 million every hour at Wal-Mart, twenty-four hours of every day, every day of the year. Is the company a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, market guru Warren Buffett estimates that the company's low prices save American consumers $10 billion a year. On the other, the behemoth is the #1 employer in thirty-seven of the fifty states yet has never let a union in the door.

Fast Company senior editor Charles Fishman, whose revelatory cover story on Wal-Mart generated the strongest reader response in the history of the magazine, takes us on an behind-the-scenes investigative expedition deep inside the many worlds of Wal-Mart. He reveals the radical ways in which the company is transforming America's economy, our workforce, our communities, and our environment. Fishman penetrated the secrecy of Wal-Mart headquarters, interviewing twenty-five high-level ex-executives; he journeyed into the world of a host of Wal-Mart's suppliers to uncover how the company strong-arms even the most established brands; and journeyed to the ports and factories, the fields and forests where Wal-Mart's power is warping the very structure of the world's market for goods. Wal-Mart is not just a retailer anymore, Fishman argues in The Wal-mart Effect. It has become a kind of economic ecosystem, and anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping our world today must understand the company's hidden reach.

The audio book is ably read by the winner of several AudioFile Earphone Awards, Alan Sklar, who has narrated over 60 audiobooks, and thousands of corporate videos for clients such as NASA, Sikorsky Aircraft, IBM, AT&T, Pfizer, and Sony.

… In Fishman's view, the ‘Wal-Mart effect’ is double-edged: consumers benefit from lower prices, even if they don't shop at Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart has the power of life and death over its suppliers. Wal-Mart, he suggests, is too big to be subject to market forces or traditional rules. In the end, Fishman sees Wal-Mart as neither good nor evil, but simply a fact of modern life that can barely be comprehended, let alone controlled. – Publishers Weekly
… Although much has been written before on the legendary story of Sam Walton, Fishman finally takes us inside the carefully guarded workings of the "Wal-Mart ecosystem," where management surrender their lives and families, working 12 hours a day, six days a week, in a near-holy quest toward the never-ending goal of lower prices. He brings to light the serious repercussions that are occurring as consumers and suppliers have become locked in an addiction to massive sales of cheaper and cheaper goods. – David Siegfried, Booklist
The Wal-mart Effect is an interesting look at how big corporations affect our planet in positive and negative ways. – USA Today 
...almost certainly the best [Wal-Mart book] yet, as measured by depth and breadth of research, writing style and evenhanded treatment. – Denver Post
...a fascinating dissection of the most controversial corporation in America today. – Baltimore Sun

A successful look at how Wal-Mart works and how it is transforming the U.S. economy. – Business Week A.***

In this lively and hard-hitting investigation, Fishman reveals the true and remarkably high costs of those ‘everyday low prices’. Is the company a good thing or a bad thing? Fishman in The Wal-mart Effect shows that this question doesn't even begin to address what we need to know about Wal-Mart. Anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping our world today must understand the hidden reach and transformative power that is ‘the Wal-Mart effect.’

Business & Investing / Reference

Accounting Handbook, 4th edition (Barron's Accounting Handbook) by Joel G. Siegel, Jae K. Shim (Barron’s Educational Series)

Joel G. Siegel, Professor of Accounting at Queens College in the City University of New York, and Jae K. Shim, Professor of Accounting, School of Business Administration, California State University, Long Beach have completed a fourth edition of their Accounting Handbook. Accounting is a dynamic area that is constantly changing. This fourth edition covers the latest developments in financial account­ing, managerial and cost accounting, auditing, financial statement analysis, international accounting, and quantitative applications to accounting, among others. For example, recent pronouncements of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and American Institute of CPAs are incorporated throughout. The new tax laws are also incorporated.

Whatever readers’ particular interests and backgrounds, Accounting Handbook provides accounting rules, guidelines, measures, ratios, formulas, techniques, procedures, examples, illustrations, practical applications, charts, and graphs they need to know. Whether the reader is a bookkeeper, staff accountant, financial accountant, managerial accountant, financial analyst, personal financial planner, tax practitioner, auditor, computer analyst, or governmental accountant, everyone will obtain immediate and effective answers to specific problems. This reference guide shows readers what to do and how to do it when dealing with an accounting situation.

The early chapters present an overview of financial accounting with focus on financial statements, reporting requirements such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Corporate governance, management/cost accounting, analysis of financial statements, and up-to-date information on taxation. The major section that follows is a nearly-500-page A-to-Z dictionary of accounting terms, defining everything from Accelerated Cost Recovery System to Zero-Base Budgeting. Concluding chapters cover information technology (IT), quantitative methods for accounting, auditing, personal financial planning, governmental and nonprofit accounting, forensic accounting, and international accounting. Added features include tables, diagrams, and extensive appendices.

Accounting Handbook is practical and comprehensive; it is written in a clear, straightforward manner. The new edition of this authoritative reference volume belongs on the bookshelf of every accountant, bookkeeper, accounting manager, business manager, and student majoring in business administration. The text is relevant to large, medium-size, and small organizations. This book will also prove useful to accounting students on both undergraduate and graduate levels, because it pre­sents a sound overview of the most important areas in the field. Keeping a copy handy will provide explanations and demonstrations that will enable readers to handle virtually any financial situation.

Business & Economics / Health, Mind & Body / Self-help

Working with You Is Killing Me: Freeing Yourself from Emotional Traps at Work by Katherine Crowley & Kathi Elster (Warner Business Books)
The toughest part of any job is dealing with the people. Scratching the surface of any company uncovers a hotbed of emotions – people feeling anxious about performance, angry at co-workers, and misunderstood by management. Now, in Working with You Is Killing Me, readers learn how to detach from these emotional pitfalls and gain valuable strategies for confronting workplace conflicts in a healthy, productive way.

Freeing oneself is easier than readers may think – and it’s not necessary to quit or fire anyone to do it. The solution is simple: Readers must take control of one’s own response. In this guide, Harvard educated psychotherapist Katherine Crowley and nationally recognized business consultant Kathi Elster combine their expertise and twenty years of research to teach readers how to unhook from upsetting situations step by step. Readers discover how to:

• Manage an ill-tempered boss before he or she explodes.
• Defend themselves against idea-pilfering rivals before they steal all the credit.
• Detach from annoying coworkers whose irritating habits ruin the day.
• Get out of the grip of toxic relationships.
• Protect personal and professional territory from ‘boundary busters’.
• Break out of limiting roles.
• Parent difficult employees to get results.

Through quizzes, real-life case examples, and field-tested strategies, readers learn how to identify and handle relationships that are holding them back on the job.

One way to make your career soar is to get things done with troublesome coworkers. This book tells you how. – Jeffrey J. Fox, author of How To Become A Rainmaker

Crowley and Elster provide all the tools needed to avoid being taken emotional hostage in the workplace. – Lois P. Frankel, author of Nice Girls Don't Get Rich and Nice Girls Don't Get The Corner Office

The authors open our eyes by offering very clear and practical solutions to travails with bosses, subordinates, and colleagues. This is the holy grail for architecting a conflict-free work life! – Michael Feiner, author of The Feiner Points of Leadership

A wealth of strategies for dealing with coworkers or a boss who is driving you nuts. – Pat Heim, coauthor of Hardball for Women

This book is a must for all business owners and managers. – Alan Firestone, CEO, Maurice Max, Inc.

Working with You Is Killing Me is an authoritative manual that provides valuable insights for turning conflicts in the workplace into productive working relationships. In this pragmatic and insightful guide, Crowley and Elster help readers empower themselves and eliminate workplace woes step by illuminating step.

Business & Economics / Non-profits

Paradigm Found: Leading and Managing for Positive Change by Anne Firth Murray (New World Library)

Anne Firth Murray, recently nominated as one of the "1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" started out by working at the UN and other nonprofit organizations. In 1987, Murray, currently a consulting professor of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University, had the idea that funding should go to grassroots women's organizations around the globe and that the recipients themselves should decide how to use that money. From that idea, The Global Fund for Women was born. This revolutionary idea used small amounts of ‘seed’ money to help women's organizations in third world regions develop their missions and make positive changes in their communities. The organization became a major force for good in the world, embodying a new paradigm of philanthropy. Within seven years, the fund was providing three million dollars in grants, and it was administering $33 million per year by the time she stepped down as president.

Paradigm Found responds to a need – millions of people are frustrated by the lack of innovation and accountability undertaken by the government and other organizations, but they don’t know where or how to begin making changes. Paradigm Found is a primer for creating or reshaping institutions and businesses to be run on principles often voiced but rarely followed: learning, equality, tolerance, consensus, empowerment, generosity, and hearing and acknowledging all voices. Providing examples from her own rich experience, Murray shows readers what one individual can do to implement change from within. She encourages others to take risks, start organizations, and judge when it is time, and how, to move on. Full of practical suggestions for giving life to values and engaging stories of what works and what doesn't, Paradigm Found demonstrates that it is possible to walk the talk, even when it isn’t easy.

Few people in our world feel deeply enough to act on the gender and equity gaps they encounter. When they do, the power of their conviction and unrestrained commitment creates magic. This much-awaited book is more needed than ever in our world today. By sharing her courage, experience, and wisdom, Anne gives readers the opportunity to dream and she demonstrates that we are all offered the possibility to contribute to positive change. I salute this book as I do Anne's work. Paradigm Found is an invaluable reference for any and all who dare to walk their paths to fruition. – Rita Thapa, founder of Tewa and founding president of Nagarik Aawaz

Anne Firth Murray's honest and valuable advice has inspired and encouraged us since the very first month of FACE AIDS, and we are happy to find that same wisdom right here for everyone to read. Her insight is invaluable – it could help anyone build a successful organization. Her story of transforming her idea into the largest foundation in the world focused exclusively on women's empowerment will give you faith in your ability to make an impact on the world. – Lauren Young, Katie Bollbach, and Jonny Dorsey, founders of FACE AIDS

In Paradigm Found, Anne Firth Murray describes how strong vision, fierce resolve and leadership humility combine gracefully to create a unique laboratory for historic social change. We at Global Greengrants Fund are indebted to Anne and her colleagues for enabling us to better understand some of what distinguishes successful social movements and how financial resources help and sometimes hurt. – Chet Tchozewski, founder and executive director of the Global Greengrants Fund

…I learned new things about her, about the nuts and bolts of building an organization from scratch, about enrolling others in a grand adventure, and about savoring as well as saving the world. With great gratitude to Anne and to Paradigm Found, I look forward with new eyes and fresh energy to the adventures of my own life. – Barbara Waugh, PhD, director, University Relations, Hewlett-Packard Company

Filled with a compelling personal story and hands-on suggestions and guidelines for giving life to values, Paradigm Found offers a sound blueprint for implementing positive change on both a small and global scale. In the book Murray draws on her extensive experience in the international philanthropic world and provides practical advice for those wanting to effect positive change in an organization. "What we do is important; how we do it is even more important," she maintains. In these pages, Murray shares her wisdom, demonstrating how anyone can turn a clear vision of a better world into reality.

Children’s / Arts & Photography / Ages 9-12

Faces, Places and Inner Spaces: A Guide to Looking at Art by Jean Sousa, in association with The Art Institute of Chicago (Abrams Books for Young Readers) is an interactive art education tool for children.

The personal and abstract nature of art can be difficult for children to comprehend. Award-winning art educator Jean Sousa has constructed Faces, Places and Inner Spaces to simplify the complexities of artwork using references from both modern and ancient cultures. Sousa, Director of Interpretive Exhibitions and Family Programs in the department of museum education, and the curator of the exhibition program in the Kraft Education Center at The Art Institute of Chicago, has divided the experience in Faces, Places and Inner Spaces into three easy-to-understand categories that give children the benefit of observing art in its purest form and incorporating their own knowledge and experiences into the lesson.

How do artists use faces, places, and inner spaces to express themselves? Examining ‘faces’ in art can help us discover how people from different cultures and times have seen themselves. By looking at ‘places’ (landscapes and cityscapes), we can become more aware of our everyday life and appreciate what surrounds us. The word ‘place’ can mean anything from the corner of a drawer to a neighborhood, from a kitchen to a forest, from a backyard to the moon! Faces and places are all around us, but what about inner spaces? Inner spaces can be found in our minds – private places created by our emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and imagination. Artists who depict their dreams or fantasies share something very personal that might resemble some of our own thoughts, or seem so strange that we want to know more.

Every object in Faces, Places and Inner Spaces falls into at least one of these categories: in fact, readers are likely to find that some can be one, two, or even all three! Within each of those categories, the variety of subjects is unlimited. Faces, Places and Inner Spaces gives examples of each and explains how the artist comes to his or her unique vision. Among the works included are an African mask, a West Mexican clay-pole dance scene, a Hindu sculpture, a Chinese screen, a Japanese actor print, as well as surreal objects by Cornell, and paintings by Van Gogh, Seurat, Miro, and others. After exploring each of these topics, young readers will be prepared to take a new look at art and to start understanding how artists shape our view of the world.

As an interactive way to get kids thinking about the concepts in Faces, Places and Inner Spaces, a pocket at the back of the book contains a ‘mirror’ so kids can look at and discuss their own face; a picture frame; and an acetate sheet to use for other activities.

All of the art featured in Faces, Places and Inner Spaces is from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, which houses more than 300,000 works within its ten curatorial departments. This book includes examples from most of these departments, including such world-famous treasures as A Sunday on La Grande Jatte – 1884 by Georges Seurat and American Gothic by Grant Wood. Though housed in one place, the artworks' universal themes and content make them accessible to readers everywhere. Faces, Places and Inner Spaces is a wonderful and innovative way to get children looking at art.

Children’s / History / U.S. / African Americans

African Americans during Reconstruction by Richard Worth; Philip Schwarz, general editor (Slavery in the Americas Series: Chelsea House Publications)

In order to fully understand American history, it is essential to know that for nearly two centuries, Americans bought imported Africans and kept them and their descendants in bondage in the 13 colonies and the United States. Slavery lasted so long and controlled so many lives that its legacy is still felt today. It is difficult to grasp many aspects of today's United States without learning about slavery's role in people's lives and its development through the years. The six-volume Slavery in the Americas set looks at this core subject and explores this time in American History. The books, with general editor Philip Schwarz, retired professor, Department of History and Geography at Virginia Commonwealth University, explain the development, practice, and effects of slavery in the Americas to young readers.

African Americans during Reconstruction begins at the end of the Civil War – it was a hopeful beginning for many African Americans. Although President Lincoln left no definite plan for reconstruction, many Americans supported one, and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 was eventually passed. African Americans were given the right to vote, and the South was given assistance to rebuild. With Republican support, African Americans gained greater power socially and politically. However, they continued to be discriminated against, struggling to find a place in U.S. society. When the nation fell into economic depression, interest in the Reconstruction decreased, thus leaving African Americans to face segregation and violence and to see their hard-won freedoms eroded. Written by Richard Worth, teacher and writer of books aimed at middle-grade readers and young adults, African Americans during Reconstruction covers such topics as Lincoln and Reconstruction, the beginning of Reconstruction, the new Reconstruction plan, the new African-American role in politics, African-American life under Radical Reconstruction, the end and legacy of Reconstruction, and more.

This comprehensive series takes a fresh look at an important topic to help young scholars understand the legacy of slavery and its continuing influence on the lives of Americans today.

Cooking, Food & Wine

The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market Cookbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Impeccable Produce Plus 130 Seasonal Recipes by Christopher Hirsheimer & Peggy Knickerbocker (Chronicle Books)

I’ve traveled some around the world and nothing better expresses the essential reality of a time and place than a farmers' market, where you can see for yourself what's on the offer from the slowly turning lazy susan of the seasons... – from the Foreword by Alice Waters

Peppers are roasting, coffee is brewing, peaches are ripening, tomatoes are practically bursting with flavor … it’s another day at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market in San Francisco, undeniably one of the best places for fresh produce in the country. Internationally known as one of the most magnificent farmers' markets in the world, the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market has inspired this illustrated market companion. Organic fruit and vegetable farmers; fish, meat, and poultry purveyors; cheese makers; artisanal bread bakers; nut and olive oil producers; flower growers; vinegar and jam makers – all assemble under billowing canopies on the edge of a glistening bay.

Such is the inspiration for The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market Cookbook, written by Christopher Hirsheimer, photographer and former executive editor of Saveur, and Peggy Knickerbocker, freelance food and travel writer. This handbook is both a guide for shopping – at the Ferry Plaza or any farmers’ market – and a collection of recipes showcasing the just-picked ingredients readers bring back to the kitchen. Organized by season, the book details the availability of products at the market and offers advice on choosing, storing, preparing, and freezing items. A foreword by Alice Waters, the history of the market, and vivid color photos throughout bring this farm fresh market guide to life.

The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market Cookbook is an inspiring guide and cookbook – each page celebrates the abundant seasonal produce grown by local organic and specialty-crop farmers along with 130 fresh, remarkably easy-to-assemble recipes. In fact, this is a destination guidebook, an all-seasons cookbook, and a fresh food dictionary all in one package. It’s small enough to take along and big enough to give readers all the information they need to select and purchase just picked fruits and vegetables – and turn them into delicious dishes.

Cooking, Food & Wine / Regional / South

Magnolias: Authentic Southern Cuisine by Donald Barickman, photography by Rick McKee (Wyrick & Company)

When culinary uptown meets down south, there is a good chance that Donald Barickman has something to do with it. One of the South's most prominent chefs, Barickman is often credited with sparking the culinary revival of Charleston in 1990 with the establishment of Magnolias Restaurant. Barickman sparked an international interest in what is now known as ‘lowcountry’ cuisine with his uptown approach to down south flavors with the establishment of Magnolias. Magnolias and Barickman have garnered praise for this distinctive fare, a culinary evolution of fresh local and regional ingredients combined with a traditional southern style that is at once comfortable and elegant.

The restaurant, featured in Patricia Schultz's popular book, 1,001 Places to See Before You Die, is a dining institution in Charleston blending sultry cosmopolitan appeal with down home Southern comforts. Southern Living Magazine hails Magnolias the "Best Splurge Restaurant of the South," and gastronomic heavyweights Gourmet Magazine and The Food Network have recognized both chef and restaurant as culinary genius.

Now with a new cookbook by founder and executive chef Barickman, lowcountry food lovers are sure to line up for its tantalizing recipes such as Skillet Fried Flounder and Shellfish over Grits. Magnolias provides a colorful selection of southern favorites from Hickory Smoked Pork Shoulder with Carolina BBQ Sauce to Ham Chowder and Butter Beans. With a forword by the Food Network's Tyler Florence, a chapter describing southern pantry staples such as stone-ground grits and Carolina ham trimmings, and a variety of recipes from appetizers to desserts, Magnolias is filled with southern charm and irresistible flavor.

Barickman brings brunch, lunch and dinner selections from the restaurant into the home, with culinary tips, and tried and true cooking methods guaranteed to bring satisfaction to the dinner guests. The book lists cooking resources and handy tips to create the recipes at home, and Barickman's easy to follow steps guide readers through the process of producing authentic southern meals.

Magnolias Southern Cuisine, first published in 1995, shared Magnolias' patrons' favorite recipes with the world. After more than a decade, Magnolias is the long-awaited sequel, bringing forth over fifty new mouth-watering recipes while retaining many of the originals. Barickman's easy-to-follow recipes make this cookbook a must-have for anyone with an interest in cooking with southern style.

Cooking, Food & Wine / World Cities

The Bistros, Brasseries, and Wine Bars of Paris: Everyday Recipes from the Real Paris by Daniel Young (William Morrow)

One might spend years in Paris and never hear the same answer twice to the question: What is the difference among a bistro, a brasserie, and a wine bar? There is little disagreement, however, about the virtues the three have in common. Together they nourish the Paris of Parisians – the real and everyday Paris – with local food, sophistication, hospitality, and romance. If a routine Tuesday night dinner out in Paris is superior to a festive Saturday splurge nearly anywhere else, it is a happy consequence of the wonderful habit Paris's very best bistros, brasseries, and wine bars have of making the ordinary extraordinary and the extraordinary ordinary.

Follow Daniel Young, acclaimed author of The Paris Café Cookbook, as he leads a tour of this Paris of Parisians by way of its definitive eating spots. In The Bistros, Brasseries, and Wine Bars of Paris Young leads readers to thirty-eight of his favorites, from landmark brasseries like Lipp and La Coupole to little-known gems like the bistro Clémentine and the wine bar La Petite Syrah. He shares more than one hundred of their recipes, all house specialties adapted for use by North American home cooks. The selection encompasses such certifiable classics as the Onion Soup Gratinée from Au Pied du Cochon, the Sauerkraut with Fish from Bofinger, the Pan-Grilled Rib Steak with Béarnaise Sauce from Le Bistrot Paul Bert, and the Chocolate Profiteroles from Julien, as well as new variations on old and familiar themes – the Endive Tatin with Goat Cheese from L'Épi Dupin, the Veal Blanquette with Ginger and Lemongrass from Le Baratin, the Warm Almond Cake with Caramel Cream from Le Repaire de Cartouche.

Having shared a dozen evenings of Dan Young's bistro crawl in the real Paris, I treasure his book for telling the secrets of Paul Bert's uniquely crusty steak and remarkable fries. And for capturing the how-to of the haunting warm almond cake we fell in love with at Le Repaire de Cartouche. Young's book is a memoir of a passionate voyage. – Gael Green

The premise of this savvy, stylish cookbook is that French chefs can teach us a thing or two about fast food. Young trains his investigative palate on Paris's sophisticated but informal eateries: wine bars, bistros and brasseries. … Many of the recipes are simply classic: Cheese Puffs (Gougères), Warm Lentil Salad, Onion Soup Gratinée, Pan-Grilled Rib Steak with Béarnaise Sauce, Choucroute and Chocolate Profiteroles. For a somewhat experienced chef with a willful disregard for cholesterol, these are easy to make at home. For the more casual cookbook browser, Young has also included a dining guide of the essential bistros, brasseries and wine bars he so temptingly describes. – Publishers Weekly

With evocative black-and-white photographs and colorful descriptions of the featured establishments, The Bistros, Brasseries, and Wine Bars of Paris brings home the French capital's most extraordinarily ordinary flavors. From vins ordinaires, plats du jour, and rustic fruit tarts to ritual gestures, familiar faces, and replayed dialogue, the book is a celebration of the extraordinary places that exalt the ordinary and make the City of Light the best place in the world to eat on a weekday night.

Education / Teaching / Special Education

Making Inclusion Work: Effective Practices for All Teachers by John Beattie, LuAnn Jordan & Bob Algozzine (Corwin Press)

In today’s classrooms, teachers must meet the educational needs of students of all ability levels, including students with disabilities.

A body of literature exists on effective special education practices. This information is typically presented in special education methods courses that often are not part of the general education teacher's course of study. But Making Inclusion Work changes that.

The authors are John Beattie, LuAnn Jordan, Bob Algozzine, all of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and they have more than 30 years of experience in preparing special education teachers and demonstrating what works in teaching students with high-incidence disabilities. Beattie, Jordan and Algozzine have been consistently confronted with and impressed by the challenges that special education and general education teachers face in including students with disabilities in general education classrooms. These experiences have showed them teachers’ need to increase their understanding of special education concepts that affect general education classrooms, to apply special education concepts and skills to inclusive classroom situations, and to increase cooperation among special and general educational professionals, administrators, related-service personnel, and parents. Making Inclusion Work addresses these needs and is grounded in their more than 20,000 hours of professional development experience in preparing teachers as well as graduate and undergraduate students to teach students with disabilities in general education classrooms.

Making Inclusion Work addresses what works when teaching students with disabilities in general education classrooms. It is designed to accompany methods texts in general education, including but not limited to those in language arts, math, science, social studies, and history. For teaching students with the most common disabilities in classes with their nondisabled peers, general and special education teachers alike will get the most current information on such critical issues as:

• Developing Individualized Education Programs
• Teaching reading successfully effectively
• Managing behavior and motivating students
• Organizing classrooms and lessons effectively
• Using cognitive strategies successfully
• Making appropriate accommodations and modifications
• Assessing students, grading, and collecting data
• Working with parents and families
• Collaborating with other teachers and parents

Chapter 1 ("What Is Special Education?") in Making Inclusion Work describes the current special education system (i.e., numbers of students, expectations) and critical processes related to it (e.g., factors involved in identifying students with disabilities, the prevalence of students receiving special education services, and the impact these students with disabilities have on inclusive classrooms). Chapter 2 ("Why Do We Have Inclusion?") reviews the social, political, and legal basis for both general education and special education. The authors describe the history of special education with particular attention to key laws and legislation that drive contemporary practices, especially inclusion.

An individualized education program (IEP) is a defining aspect of special education services. General education teachers often have little or no knowledge of components of an IEP or their responsibilities with regard to them. Chapter 3 ("What Is an Individualized Education Program?") defines what the IEP is, describes the legal implications of the IEP and the reason(s) it exists, and describes the constituents of the IEP team and the charge/goals of this group. The roles of general education personnel are highlighted.

General education teachers are confident in their abilities to plan for general education students, but they are much less confident in their abilities to plan for special education students. Deciding how to organize the classroom space has much to do with how successful instruction that takes place there will be for all students. Chapter 4 ("What Is Classroom Organization?") describes classroom organization in relation to instructional strategies that are effective in working with students with disabilities in general education settings.

Effective teaching involves meeting the needs of all students with appropriate lessons, and the focus of Chapter 5 ("What Works for Lesson Organization?") is the importance of planning appropriate lessons. The chapter illustrates (a) how to use lesson plans (traditional six-step plans as well as others) in the included classroom setting, (b) how to integrate general lesson plans with the individual plans appropriate for students with disabilities, and (c) how to organize and present lessons with attention to varying learning styles and methods of instruction.

Responding positively, encouraging students, and promoting social acceptance are important to successful inclusion of students with disabilities. Chapter 6 ("What Is Behavior Management and Motivation?") discusses interventions that have proven to be successful in promoting positive behavior. The importance of consistency is emphasized, and motivational techniques that work in general education classroom settings are highlighted. Consideration is also given to creating a positive classroom climate that supports students with disabilities as productive, capable members in social groups.

Given the impact of reading on all content areas, Chapter 7 ("What Works in Teaching Reading?") gives special attention to programs and techniques that foster success in early and later literacy skills. The authors discuss the role of direct instruction in reading in a variety of classroom settings and describe specific modifications or accommodations that increase the likelihood of success in reading.
Teaching students how to approach instructional tasks (i.e., using learning strategies) is one of the most effective approaches for students with learning disabilities. Chapter 8 ("What Are Cognitive Strategies?") describes specific learning strategies that have been demonstrated to be effective by researchers at the University of Kansas. The chapter also includes descriptions of additional learning strategies and learning style considerations in relation to fostering successful academic performance of students with disabilities in general education classrooms.

A primary responsibility of classroom teachers in making inclusion work is adapting the curriculum to meet special needs of students with disabilities. This means making changes that provide learning assistance. Chapter 9 ("What Are Effective Accommodations and Modifications?") describes the differences between accommodations and modifications for students included in general education classrooms.

Once students with diverse needs are placed in the classroom, it is necessary to consider monitoring progress on a daily, consistent basis and to complete and use assessment in relation to the standard course of study to the maximum degree possible. Chapter 10 ("What Works for Ongoing Assessment, Data Collection, and Grading?") illustrates considerations in collecting and recording data in a simple, manageable format and provides information about presenting grades for students with disabilities, with attention to the role of all professionals involved in the process.

As parents and families are the core to a child's life, Chapter 11 ("What Assistance Do Parents and Families Need?") gives attention to issues regarding diversity and their impact on school performance. It addresses issues regarding poverty and its impact on school performance and provides a discussion of the importance of home-school communication, with attention to specific techniques that facilitate this process.

Chapter 12 ("What Works for Communicating, Consulting, and Collaborating with Other Professionals?") attends to collaboration among professionals and consider the roles of these individuals in working with students with diverse needs. It describes strategies and techniques that facilitate collaboration and communication among school personnel and others supporting students with disabilities, and provides examples of successful collaboration with attention to how and why they were successful.

No Child Left Behind is not only a law but a way of thinking. Chapter 13 ("The End Is Just the Beginning!") discusses the latest law to have profound impact on students with diverse needs and disabilities. It addresses the impact of the law on teachers and other professionals working with students with disabilities in general education classrooms. It also focuses on the future as an extension of the information presented in the text.

Making Inclusion Work provides an accessible, engaging book that is comprehensive and compelling. The authors combined experiences in providing professional development in public school systems and higher education institutions across the country; their practical experiences in the field, and their of academic research provide a sound basis for considering issues affecting progress in America's schools. Rooted in the best research and practice, Making Inclusion Work is an essential resource demonstrating how to teach inclusive classes successfully.

Health, Mind & Body / Alternative Medicine

Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Therapy: The Gift of Healing from Healthy Newborns by David A. Steenblock & Anthony G., Ph.D. Payne (Basic Health Publications) 

More than 10,000 babies are born every day across the United States. The cord that sustains them throughout their development contains blood and tissue that is laden with stem cells. Scientists can now readily and easily extract these stem cells from the cord blood, safely expand their numbers, wash away the factors that sustain them, and thus wind up with pure stem cells that do not provoke rejection or other adverse reactions in people who receive them therapeutically.

In the United States, cord blood is FDA-sanctioned to treat a limited range of blood-borne diseases such as leukemia and Fanconi's anemia. However, accumulating evidence indicates that umbilical-cord stem cells can also benefit many other conditions.

While it's true that umbilical-cord stem cells cannot work miracles by any stretch of the imagination, there is a sufficient body of case history data and preliminary results from small studies to suggest that umbilical-cord stem cell therapy is producing genuine repair and healing. For many people, these results are sufficient to venture into what is only a partially explored frontier.

Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Therapy explores this medical frontier, providing an overview of current research, descriptions of how well or poorly various conditions are responding to human umbilical cord stem cell therapy (hUCSCT), and the personal stories of many patients. Tentative evidence from patient responses to hUCSCT indicates improvements with:

• Cerebral palsy in children and adults
• Traumatic brain injury
• Diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy, and other eye diseases and conditions
• Acute stroke and other circulatory problems.

• A good response has also been found in treating:

• Multiple sclerosis (especially advanced)
• Early-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Doctor-authors David Steenblock, pioneering research-oriented physician and director of Steenblock Research Institute in San Clemente; and Anthony G. Payne, a biological theoretician and senior science writer on staff at the Steenblock Research Institute, describe the therapeutic process: how scientists remove stem cells from the blood, expand their numbers, and administer them to patients. They explain what happens after a stem-cell treatment and what makes treatments more effective and trends in terms of patient responses. Case histories illustrate the accumulating evidence of healing from hUCSCT. Among these is the story of the umbilical stem cell treatment of four-year-old Jordan Logan from a Hurricane Katrina-ravished Mississippi town. She has a genetically-based, terminal neurological disease and has been the subject of many newspaper stories.

The Steenblock Research Institute is at the forefront of the groundbreaking umbilical stem cord therapy research. It has been tracking and analyzing patient responses to human umbilical cord stem cell therapy carried out in Mexico since early 2003. A question-and-answer section in Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Therapy responds to the most frequently asked questions: is the treatment safe, how quick are the results, what is the cost, what are the pre- and post-treatments, does insurance cover the costs, what are side effects, what is the current status of FDA approval for stem cell treatments, and why is this type of therapy permitted in Mexico, Costa Rica, and other countries, but not in the United States or Canada.

There is increasing evidence, the authors report, that relates aging and disease to lack of normal stem-cell growth and repair. A new area of study, they explain, is dedicated to exploring our ability to mobilize our own stem cells to help our body repair itself. The role of diet and lifestyle is discussed, including the effect of environment and diet on cell division and growth – factors that tend to increase stem-cell growth. Additionally, there are scientifically validated ways of ensuring that stem cells in our bodies are not compromised in terms of function or ability to mobilize in response to injury or disease.

Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Therapy emphasizes that there are no miracles with these treatments, but there are improvements in both adults and children suffering from many brain, eye, and circulatory diseases. We are at the threshold of a new and exciting medical era, and while stem cell therapy is still in its infancy, the field is rich with promise.

In Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Therapy, Steenblock and Payne share some of the science that underlies stem cell therapy and put a human face on this field with accounts of people who have benefited from hUCSC treatments. And, in providing this information, they encourage readers to take a bold first step into a vast and wondrous medical frontier.

Health, Mind & Body / Alternative Medicine / Self-help

The Healing Power of Neurofeedback: The Revolutionary LENS Technique for Restoring Optimal Brain Function by Stephen Larsen, with a foreword by Thom Hartmann (Healing Arts Press) is an introduction to the innovative therapy that restores optimal functioning of the brain after physical or emotional trauma.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, each year 260,000 people are hospitalized with traumatic brain injuries. The Brain Injury Association reports 1.5 million injuries, many of which go undiagnosed but which lead to all kinds of cognitive and emotional impairments. While neuroscience has learned an enormous amount about the connection between brain trauma and personality changes, the methods proposed for resolving these alterations are generally limited to drug therapy or surgeries.
The Healing Power of Neurofeedback explores a much less invasive but highly effective technique of restoring brain function: the Low Energy Neurofeedback System (LENS). Developed by Dr. Len Ochs in 1992, it has had extraordinary results using weak electromagnetic fields to stimulate brain-wave activity and restore brain flexibility and function. The treatment works across a broad spectrum of human activity, increasing the brain’s abilities to adapt to the imbalances caused by physical trauma or emotional disorders – both on the basic level and in the more subtle areas of cognitive, affective, and spiritual processes that make us truly human. While the treatment has had remarkable results with individuals who have experienced severe physical trauma to the head and brain, author Stephen Larsen, Psychology Professor Emeritus at SUNY Ulster, director of the Stone Mountain Center for Counseling and Biofeedback near New Paltz, New York, sees it also as an important alternative to chemical approaches for such chronic behavioral disorders as ADHD, monopolar and bipolar depression, and childhood developmental disorders.

The Healing Power of Neurofeedback

• Provides an alternative to the more invasive therapies of electroshock and drugs.

• Shows how this therapy helps ameliorate anxiety and depression as well as childhood developmental disorders.

• Includes extraordinary case histories that reveal the powerful results achieved.

Doctors at Harvard Medical School’s McLean Hospital began noticing last year that MRIs left people with bipolar disorder in much better moods. . . . it suggests that magnetic fields can alter the biology of the brain, and may cause other effects we don’t understand yet. – Health & Science News, The Week

In The Healing Power of Neurofeedback, Larsen provides an in-depth introduction to the LENS, an innovative therapy that restores optimal functioning of the brain after physical or emotional trauma. The book chronicles the development of this groundbreaking technique and includes case histories that demonstrate the validity of this emerging healing modality.

Health, Mind & Body / Exercise & Fitness

Fitness After 50 by Walter H. Ettinger, Brenda S. Wright, & Steven N. Blair (Human Kinetics Publishers)

It’s never too late to get fit!

Whether readers are completely new to exercise or are looking to fine-tune their existing fitness routines, Fitness After 50 shows them how to get started, stay on track, and have fun as they meet their fitness goals.

This manual also serves as a self-paced workbook, teaching readers what to ask their doctors about physical activity, how to exercise safely, and how to fit activity into their busy schedules. If they have an existing medical condition such as heart disease, osteoporosis, or diabetes, they will also find ways to adapt their activity level to their condition. Sample aerobic, muscular fitness, and combination programs are provided, along with lifestyle strategies for fitting activity into a daily routine.

Fitness After 50 offers reliable advice. Authors Walter Ettinger, Brenda Wright, and Steven Blair are among the most highly regarded experts in the field of physical activity and health – Ettinger is a physician and university professor with a specialty in gerontology; Wright is vice president for program development for INTERVENT USA and a health promotion consultant; and Blair is president and CEO of The Cooper Institute and is one of the world’s eminent epidemiologists in the area of physical activity and health. The authors, doctors all, explore the merits of physical activity past the 50-year mark, providing plans and fine-tuning existing programs. And since all of them are over 50, they understand the needs and concerns firsthand.

Regardless of age, say the authors, everyone should feel the exhilaration of exercise and derive the health benefits from a solid workout. They understand it's never easy to start: readers have to get motivated, find time, assess risk and safety issues and develop an individualized plan. Since this can be daunting, the authors start from the beginning – getting started, then preparing, acting and maintaining the program. They stress the importance of keeping things interesting and challenging, and they give special emphasis to lifestyle changes that use everyday activities to help readers keep fit: take the stairs, walk the dog, forget drive-up windows, don't use anything remote.

A simple, encouraging guide to maintaining fitness after the age of 50. – Kirkus Reports

Fitness After 50 shows readers exactly how to reach their fitness goals, addressing all of their questions about exercise. Stage by stage, the authors provide the mental, emotional and behavioral skills necessary to keep active, and the workbook format is a useful tool. With more than 50 forms, lists, and other learning tools, Fitness After 50 is the one-stop source for fitness information that readers will reach for repeatedly.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling / Parenting

Engaging Autism: Helping Children Relate, Communicate and Think with the DIR Floortime Approach by Stanley I. Greenspan & Serena Wieder (DaCapo) is the long-awaited guide to autism and autistic spectrum disorders by the authors of the timeless classic The Child with Special Needs. 

As cases of autism continue to rise worldwide, Stanley Greenspan's Floortime approach is producing promising results that could one day stem the tide against this dread disorder. Building on the latest brain research, Dr. Greenspan shows that children of all ages can progress in relating, communicating, and think­ing beyond what has been thought attainable. The inspiring success of his unique approach to autism and autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), such as Asperger’s Syndrome, is known to parents and to professionals throughout the world. One of the world's foremost child psychiatrists, Greenspan, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School, has pioneered a method called the Floortime approach. Recent studies indicate that, when employed early-on, Floortime can actually prevent a child from becoming fully autistic.

Engaging Autism, coauthored by Serena Wieder, Associate Editor of the Journal of Developmental and Learning Disorders, provides the first comprehensive blueprint for applying the Floortime technique, which encourages two-way communication and social problem-solving. It's also a guide to identifying the warning signs of autism; overcoming difficult symptoms like avoidant behavior, meltdowns, and regressions; and working with older children and adolescents, as well as with resistant school systems. In addition, the book looks at ways to deal with tasks like meal time, toilet training, and getting dressed – challenging for any parent, but even more daunting for the parent of an ASD child.

A number of innovative, features distinguish Greenspan's approach to autism: First, his program has demonstrated that children with signs of autism or autistic spectrum disorders do not have a fixed, limited potential, but in many cases can join their peers and lead full, healthy lives, emotionally and intellectually. Secondly, his approach can be applied at a very early stage, when signs of autism first appear. Thus, the hope of preventing the full onset of autism becomes a real possibility. Third, the approach empowers the entire family to promote their child's development throughout each day. Also, the Floortime approach guides the efforts of speech pathologists, occupational therapists, and educators to work with the family and builds on the latest research on the development of the mind and brain.

The Floortime approach is unique in that it treats the source, not the surface symptoms of autism. The unusual promise of this approach has been demonstrated in a case review of over 200 children diagnosed with autism. A subgroup of these children has even demonstrated outstanding creative and intellectual abilities. There are helpful things that parents can do for their child right away at home while waiting for assessment and professional treatment. The methods of early identification explained in Engaging Autism have been shown, in preliminary studies, to prevent the core deficits that lead to autism. These techniques also develop individual profiles of children which can guide their treatment and improve the outcome. There is no limit to progress at any age. Older children, adolescents, and even adults can benefit from the Floortime approach. Autistic kids can progress in areas previously thought were fixed, such as the ability to perceive the emotions and intentions of others.

Some of the topics covered in Engaging Autism include:

Part I: Improving the Prognosis of ASD: Myths, Facts, Early Signs, and a New Framework: Redefining Autism and the Way We Treat It; Myths and Misdiagnoses; Early and Ongoing Signs of ASD

Part II: Families First: How Families Can Use the DIR Model to Promote Relating, Communicating, and Thinking: The "Family First" Initiative; From Attention and Engagement to Higher Levels of Abstract Thinking; Working with Unique Biologies

Part III: Floortime: Floortime: What It Is and What It Isn't; Working with Older Children, Adolescents, and Adults with ASD; Floortime for the Whole Family

Part IV: Assessment and Intervention: The DIR Model: Designing a Program around Your Child's Needs; Intervention: Implementing the DIR Model; Educational Approaches That Promote Thinking, Communicating, and Academic Progress

Part V: Overcoming Difficult Symptoms: Self-Stimulation, Sensation Craving, Overactivity, and Avoidant Behavior Mastering New Challenges: Eating, Toilet Training, and Getting Dressed; Developing Social Skills

Appendices: Theory behind the DIR Model; Neuroscience Support for the DIR Model; 10 and 15-Year Outcome Studies and Follow-Ups of Children with ASD

Dr. Greenspan provides lots of practical methods for engaging children with autism in meaningful interactions with parents and teachers. – Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures

Parents and professionals interested in helping children with autism have long benefited from the ideas and techniques developed by Stanley Greenspan and Serena Wieder. Now with their publication of Engaging Autism the principles of one of the most prominent approaches to intervention for autism have been described with extraordinary lucidity and compassion. – Peter Mundy Ph.D., Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, University of Miami

This is a valuable book: valuable to all parents who worry about their child, valuable to professionals who are consulted, valuable to the teams (parents and professionals) who are looking for interventions for this frightening disorder. Floortime and the DIR programs are exciting innovations and dramatically effective. – T. Berry Brazelton, M.D. Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus, Harvard Medical School

Greenspan's rich, developmental approach to understanding and treating autism offers many new ideas for intervention and hope. – Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., Professor and Director, University of Washington Autism Center

At last Greenspan’s highly effective and influential program is presented in one clear and accessible volume – what Dr. Susan Loge's Breast Book is to women with breast cancer and T. Berry Brazelton's Touchpoints is to new parents, Engaging Autism may well become to those who love and care for the one in every 150 to 200 kids who suffer from this disorder. No one involved in the care of children with autism, parent or professional, can afford to be without this landmark work.
 

History / Americas

The History of the American Revolution, two volume set by David Ramsay, edited by Lester H. Cohen (Liberty Fund) The History of the American Revolution, Volume 1 The History of the American Revolution, Volume 2  

David Ramsay's The History of the American Revolution appeared in 1789 during an enthusiastic celebration of nationhood. It is the first American national history written by an American revolutionary and printed in America. Ramsay (1749-1815), a well-known Federalist, was an active participant in many of the events of the period and a member of the Continental Congress from South Carolina. Based on the original and authorized 1789 version, The History of the American Revolution, in two volumes, is the first modern edition of the work. In it Ramsay discusses the events and ideas of the American Revolution (from the outbreak of turbulence in the 1760s to the onset of Washington's administration) and makes an ardent Federalist defense of the Constitution of 1787.

The History of the American Revolution, Volume 1 contains the Foreword by editor Lester H. Cohen, Bibliography, Editor’s Note, Preface to The First Edition, and an appendix, as well as 13 chapters:

CHAPTER I – Of the Settlement of the English Colonies, and of the political Condition of their Inhabitants.
CHAPTER II – The Origin of the disputes between Great-Britain and her Colonies, in the Year 1764, and its progress till 1773.
CHAPTER III – Tea is sent by the East India company to America, and is refused, or destroyed, by the Colonists. Boston port act, &c.
CHAPTER IV – Proceedings of the Colonies in 1774, in consequence of the Boston Port Act, viz.
CHAPTER V – Transactions in Great-Britain, in consequence of the proceedings of Congress, in 1774. 
CHAPTER VI – Consequences in America, resulting from the preceding transactions of Parliament; and of the commencement of Hostilities.
CHAPTER VII – The second Congress meets and organizes a regular Continental Army - makes sundry public addresses, and petitions the King, &c. Transactions in Massachusetts.
CHAPTER VIII – Ticonderoga taken, and Canada invaded.
CHAPTER IX – Transactions in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and the general state of Public Affairs in the Colonies.
CHAPTER X – Transactions in Massachusetts, and Evacuation of Boston.
CHAPTER XI – Transactions in Canada.
CHAPTER XII – The Proceedings of Parliament, against the Colonies, 1775-6. Operations in South-Carolina, New-York, and New-Jersey.
CHAPTER XIII – Of Independence, State Constitutions, and the Confederation.

The History of the American Revolution, Volume 2 contains 13 chapters, 3 appendices and the Index, as well as An Alphabetical List of the Members of Congress, who attended from the several States, from the 5th November, 1774, to the 3d of March, 1789.

CHAPTER XIV – The Campaign of 1777, in the middle States.
CHAPTER XV – The Northern Campaign of 1777.
CHAPTER XVI – The Alliance between France and the United States. The Campaign of 1778.
CHAPTER XVII – Campaign of 1779.
CHAPTER XVIII – Of Indians, and Expeditions into the Indian Country.
CHAPTER XIX – Campaign of 1780, in the Southern States.
CHAPTER XX - Campaign of 1780, in the Northern States.
CHAPTER XXI – Foreign Affairs, connected with the American Revolution, 1780, 1781.
CHAPTER XXII – The revolt of the Pennsylvania Line; of part of the Jersey troops; distresses of the American army; Arnold’s invasion of Virginia.
CHAPTER XXIII – Campaign of 1781. Operations in the two Carolinas and Georgia.
CHAPTER XXIV – Campaign of 1781. Operations in Virginia: Cornwallis captured: New-London destroyed.
CHAPTER XXVI – Campaign of 1782. Foreign events and Negotiations. Peace 1782.
CHAPTER XXVII – The discharge of the American army: The evacuation of New-York: The resignation of General Washington: Arrangements of Congress for the disposing of their Western territory, and paying their debts: The distresses of the States after the Peace: The inefficacy of the articles of the Confederation: A Grand Convention for amending the Government: The New Constitution; General Washington appointed President: An address to the people of the United States.

As editor, Cohen, who taught history and American Studies as Purdue University, explains in the Foreword, Ramsay's The History of the American Revolution appeared in 1789 just as ‘nationhood’ was beginning to take on new cultural and intellectual connotations. The United States had declared its political independence more than a decade earlier, and a rising group of ‘cultural nationalists’ was asserting that it was now time to declare cultural independence as well.

Cultural nationalism was almost inevitable in the aftermath of a revolution that seemed to require Americans to define not only their political identity, but their spiritual identity as well. Such nationalism manifested itself in a variety of ways in literature and the arts, science, and education. One commen­tator gushed over Ramsay's The History of the Revolution of South-Carolina (1785), saying that it "reflects honour on this country, and gives room for hope that her literary will in time equal her military reputation," and Rev. James Madison enthused that the work's "Dress is altogether American." Another reviewer, praising The History of the American Revolution, observed that it is a “necessity that the history of the American revolution be written in our own country, by a person of suitable abilities, who has witnessed the incidents attendant on that great event.” Thus did patriotism pass for culture, and Ramsay's work obviously measured up.

On a more sophisticated level, some cultural nationalists – Ramsay among them – developed greater insight into the idea of American cultural identity. This realization prompted the nationalists anxiously to develop a notion of American identity that rested on two major premises: that politics, culture, and society were inextricably intertwined, so that a change in any one would subtly alter the others; and that culture was a significant force in shaping human conscious­ness, an idea which offered a powerful incentive to use literature as a means of exhortation.

Like all the historians of the Revolutionary era, Ramsay saw historical writing as a vehicle for fostering nationhood, an instrument for promoting the kind of unity, even homogeneity, that the cultural nationalists desired. Ramsay's passion for unity and his fear of fragmentation prompted him to invent a national past characterized by consensus. This is not to say that Ramsay was a dissembler or deceiver who created a past out of whole cloth. Ramsay did not invent the values and assumptions; he drew them out of the intellectual climate of Revolutionary America and found clues to them in America's past. But he focused upon them and molded them into the story of the new nation, so that his version of the past appeared to be inevitable. Thus, when Ramsay spoke of using history as an instrument of national unity, he meant to incite future generations to commit themselves to the principles of revolutionary republicanism.

Ramsay's principal strategy was to establish a republican lineage, an unbroken succession of American generations that were strenuously committed to the principles of revolutionary republicanism from the moment of settlement in the seventeenth century. But why should Ramsay have presented this manifestly one-dimensional image of the colonists as strenuous republicans, committed to simplicity, industry, prudence, equality, and natural rights? To some extent he actually did see them as American revolutionaries in the making, for so powerful was the ‘republican synthesis’ in his own day that it shaped his ideas and experience and predisposed him to see all of history in its terms.  Yet this will not entirely explain Ramsay's over-simplifications, which seem drastic insofar as his history contains little or no intercolonial rivalry, popular uprisings against proprietary governors, political strife among competing interest groups, ethnic tensions, religious intolerances, or class divisions. Even slavery appears in Ramsay's History as a mitigated evil, which, while manifestly wrong, at least had produced sentiments of liberty and independence among the masters.'' If for five or six generations the Americans had held the deeply ingrained political, social, moral and philosophical principles that Ramsay described and if they had experienced a minimum of conflict, then why did Ramsay have to remind his readers of the American tradition above all else?

The answer, according to Cohen in The History of the American Revolution, contains three parts. First, as noted earlier, there were Ramsay's apprehensions. He feared that disunity would rend the fabric of the new nation – indeed, that without shared assumptions, principles, and values, as well as a federal Constitution, America might even separate into thirteen autonomous states or into two or three regional governments.

Second, Ramsay feared that the great tradition, particularly its powerful moral elements, had been badly damaged by the war. Within a year of delivering his stirring vision of an American republican future in his "Oration on the Advantages of American Independence" (1778), he wrote to William Henry Drayton that "A spirit of money-making has eaten up our patriotism." By 1785 the theme of internal corruption had become more insistent and urgent. "I feel with you the declension of our public virtue," he wrote to John Eliot, "Liberty which ought to produce every generous principle has not in our republics been attended with its usual concomitants. Pride[,] Luxury[,] dissipation & a long train of unsuitable vices have over­whelmed our country." And within a year he expressed the ultimate fear: "We have neither honesty nor knowledge enough for republican governments. . . . During the war we thought the termination of that would end all our troubles. It is now ended three years & our public situation is as bad as ever."

The third part of the answer is that historical writings, like Fourth of July orations, sermons, and ‘all the powers of Eloquence’ had the capacity to shape thought, and thus historians, like ministers and politicians, had an obligation to use their writings "to counter-act that ruinous propensity we have for foreign superfluities & to excite us to the long neglected virtues of Industry & frugality." History, in short, was a moral art. Ramsay was well aware that he was using ‘art’ in the service of history and history in the service of morality and national unity. "Had I a voice that could be heard from New Hampshire to Georgia," he said in 1794, "it should be exerted in urging the necessity of disseminating virtue and knowledge, among our citizens.” His histories represented that voice.

Ramsay's voice was, in fact, heard all over America and over much of Europe as well. Between 1785, when he was thirty-six, and his death in 1815, he published three histories – two on South Carolina and The History of the American Revolution – that remain significant after two hundred years. Even in an age dominated by such philosopher as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Ramsay is notable for his fertile and restless intellect. Deciding to pursue a career in medicine, he enrolled in the newly reorganized medical school of the College of Philadelphia, which boasted an excellent faculty that included the brilliant twenty-four-year-old Rush. Ramsay received his Bachelor of Physic in 1773. On Ramsay's graduation Rush summarized the talents of his young friend, whom he esteemed as "far superior to any person we ever graduated at our college; his abilities are not only good, but great: his talents and knowledge are universal: I never saw so much strength of memory and imagination, united to so fine a judgment.''

In 1774, after practicing medicine for a year in Cecil County, Maryland, Ramsay set out for Charleston, where he made his home for the rest of his life. Charleston was then a leading Southern city, with some 12,000 inhabitants, a growing commerce, and a well-defined social hierarchy that divided whites from one another along class lines and whites from blacks along racial lines – clear evidence of the divisions in society to which he was so sensitive and which he deemphasized in his History. By 1778 Ramsay had a seat on the state's prestigious privy council. He served in the Continental Con­gress in 1785, returned to his seat in the state assembly in 1786, served as a delegate to the convention that ratified the South Carolina state constitution in 1788. From 1791 to 1797 Ramsay was president of the state senate.

Neither his political nor his medical and scientific careers, however, seemed to satisfy his intellectual curiosity. Ramsay turned to historical writing, he explained to Thomas Jefferson “when I was in confinement in St. Augustine in the year 1781 and [it] has employed my leisure hours ever since." But Ramsay was drawn to history and to his national vision by his political experience, which convinced him that state government was, by turns, too timid and too wild to solve many of the problems that arose in the post-Revolutionary era. "There is a languor in the States that forebodes ruin," he complained to Rush in 1786. He also noted the ‘temporising’ of the Southern states in particular, and feared the disintegration of the United States if the Constitutional Convention did not produce ‘an efficient federal government.’

David Ramsay's premier work of American historiography is now available for the first time in a well-edited reprint. Lester Cohen's foreword is an invaluable guide. – Arthur H. Shaffer, University of Missouri

The History of the American Revolution has enjoyed a resurgence of interest in the last twenty-five years. We learn from Ramsay the interpreter of his present and his past. We learn about the intellectual predilections of the eigh­teenth-century historian: the values, assumptions, principles, and expectations of one who lived and wrote amidst the events he narrated. We learn from the ways in which he shaped history: his use of language, his sense of the significance of people and events, his narrative style, his use of history as propaganda, as exhortation, and as fiction. As Cohen explains quite clearly, we do not rely on Ramsay to tell us what happened during the Revolution. In most respects we know a great deal more about what happened than he did, particularly since we are now the arbiters of what is significant. We rely on Ramsay not for information, but for the ways in which he reveals the sensibility through which the events of his era were filtered.

History / Asia / Politics / Military

Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States by Jed Babbin & Edward Timperlake (Regnery Publishing, Inc.) is a main selection of the Conservative Book Club.

Are China and the United States headed for war?

Yes, say bestselling authors Jed Babbin, former deputy undersecretary of defense, and Edward Timperlake, veteran defense analyst, in Showdown; the book takes readers from the latest developments in China’s quest to become a superpower to the possible battlefields of what might become World War III.

As Babbin and Timperlake tell it, China is the greatest – and most dangerously ignored – threat to America’s national security. If America does not deter China’s aggressive ambitions, the result could be global war. Babbin and Timperlake unveil China’s aggressive military buildup (more rapid than that of Nazi Germany before World War II) and expose how China is engaging in a new Cold War aimed at expanding its commercial and military reach at the expense of the United States. According to Babbin and Timperlake, China is investing heavily in expensive anti-satellite weapons, cyber-warfare capability, and other high-tech armaments and would not be doing so unless its strategy were to make war – with America as its chosen adversary. Babbin, a former Air Force JAG, and Timperlake, a former Marine fighter pilot, do more than offer expert analysis. In Showdown, Babbin and Timperlake reveal the latest developments in China's quest to become a superpower and map out possible battlefields of what might become World War III. In dramatic Clancy-esque style, they take readers into the field with Navy SEALs and Air Force bomber pilots, invite them inside the war councils at the White House and the Pentagon, and peer within China’s own Politburo in a series of war scenarios. Babbin and Timperlake reveal:

• The unholy alliance between Communist China and radical Islam – and a possible war over Middle Eastern oil.
• How China is infiltrating Latin America – including oil-rich Venezuela – to create an anti-American axis.
• How a Chinese attack on Taiwan could spark the biggest war in the Pacific since World War II.
• The vulnerability of Japan and the United States to Chinese cyber-warfare.
• The likelihood of a second Korean War . . . only this time, the madmen in North Korea have nuclear weapons.

The chapters in Showdown are war game tour d'horizon as seen through the eyes of a group of fictionalized players, among them a Navy SEAL, his Air Force older brother, several presidents of the United States, and the president of China. These chapters read like the fiction they are, but each of them – one at a time, or many in combination – could become fact. Though some of the characters carry over from one situation to the next, the scenarios are not in chronological order because they are discrete possibilities for the future, not an escalating series of crises. The authors go on to map out strategies required to meet the challenge.

[Showdown] reads like a thriller, but isn't meant to be just entertainment – it's an elegantly crafted warning of the looming confrontation with a regime as brutal and ruthless as it needs to be, and as ambitious as any of the twentieth century. Read it for your own good, and buy copies for any of your friends and colleagues who think of china as a market and a glorious venue for the Games. – Hugh Hewitt, nationally syndicated radio host and author of Painting The Map Red

Showdown is an important contribution to the debate on the alarming rise of China and its threatening military buildup. It shows why a future war with China is a growing danger and why understanding the threat is an urgent imperative if the United States is to meet the challenge. This book is must-reading for everyone worried by the explosive combi­nation of a Communist-ruled state reforming economically but refusing to make needed political reforms. – Bill Gertz, Washington Times reporter and author of Enemies

Jed Babbin has done it again. With wit and erudition he has made a compelling case for Washington to watch China with an eagle's eye. – R. Emmett Tyrrell, Editor In Chief, The American Spectator

Stark, acute, convincing, bloody-minded, irrefutable: Babbin and

If you think this is just a boring policy book, think again. Jed Babbin and Edward Timperlake, two insiders who know what they are talking about, offer a thrilling and chilling look at what a war with China might look like. – Peter Schweizer, Hoover Institution Fellow, author of Reagan's War, and with Caspar Weinberger, of The Next War

According to Showdown, America is failing badly at making the investments it needs to meet the military challenge from China. Showdown offers strategies and tactics for the U.S. to respond to the Chinese military threat. Provocative, thrilling, and must-reading, Showdown is a wake-up call for America.

Home & Garden / Animals & Pets

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dressage compiled by Martin Diggle (Trafalgar Square Publishing) 

Dressage has enjoyed a long and colorful history and is today more popular than ever before. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dressage, by Martin Diggle, author, editor, and avid rider for many years, offers general guidance on the development and practice of dressage, both in its pure sense as ‘training’ and in its newer role as a competitive sport. Accordingly, it contains biographical entries of eminent trainers, authors and competitors, past and present, from many countries. It also contains explanations of dressage terms and references to the rules of competition, with notes that the latter may vary in points of detail depending upon the organizing body concerned and the precise nature of the test. The biographical entries are illustrated throughout with contemporary photographs of eminent individuals, older photographs and pictures of personalities from former eras, and a range of drawings and engravings taken from books written by those mentioned within.

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dressage is the first international encyclopedia on the subject. A quick perusal through the fully illustrated pages can provide readers with the answers to thousands of dressage-related questions. Information is presented in alphabetical order and is easily accessed, with an introductory note explaining the best ways to find what readers are looking for.

This international encyclopedia of the dressage world will be of special value to those seeking information on specific points of dressage, especially on the historical development of the discipline and the progress and achievements of many of its key figures. Comprehensive and engaging, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dressage is an essential addition to every dressage lover's bookshelf.

Home & Garden / Design & Construction

The Distinctive Home: A Vision of Timeless Design by Jeremiah Eck (The Taunton Press) 

What is it that makes a house distinctive?

What is it about some houses that makes us long to live there while others leave us cold?

Leading residential architect Jeremiah Eck believes that distinctive homes are a result of a balance between site, floor plan, exterior elements and interior details. Eck demonstrates that distinctiveness and timelessness aren't things that happen by accident – they are a deliberate effort from the moment a homeowner begins to think about building or buying a home. The Distinctive Home shows homeowners how they can achieve a distinctive house and that they do not need the ocean as their backyard or an unlimited budget to enjoy a home that has lasting character.

Eck, passionate advocate for better-designed homes, landscape painter, and principal of Jeremiah Eck Architects, Inc. in Boston, in The Distinctive Home identifies the four key elements that can turn an ordinary house into a memorable home: good sitting, well-designed floor plans, elegant exterior forms, and details that transmit an enduring sense of quality, warmth, and character. While each of these ingredients alone can elevate a house from mundane to noteworthy, when considered together the result is a truly distinctive dwelling place.

The Distinctive Home is arranged by each of these four key elements, with examples of each. Eck roams the country for examples of the distinction he prizes, finding it in Rhode Island beach homes and California bungalows, New England farmhouses and suburban custom jobs, all of which harmonize with their surroundings and within their parts to provide their tenants with daily domestic gratification. At the end of each chapter, Eck profiles a house in detail, showing how the four key elements work together to create a truly distinctive home.

The Distinctive Home is published under the joint imprint of The American Institute of Architects and The Taunton Press. Through this unique publishing partnership, they present the experiences of homeowners and architects who together create well-designed homes of warmth, character, and beauty.

Jeremiah Eck is a gifted architect who has thought long and fruitfully about how people today really use their houses, and about how a house may best be fitted to the land, the view, the sun, and the neighbors while retaining the enduring qualities that make a house a home. – Robert Campbell, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic, The Boston Globe     

This book is a must, not only for the educated client but for anyone who wants to learn how to observe and how to think about the nature of houses. – Alexander Purves, Associate Dean, Yale School of Architecture

Jeremiah Eck passionately endorses the idea of a house as something that can be timeless, have character, be well suited to its site, and, in a word, be distinctive. – Peter G. Rowe, Dean, Harvard Design School

If you enjoy beautiful color photos of uniquely designed homes that are not outlandish, you’ll love reading, The Distinctive Home….most readers will say ‘wow’ upon inspecting the unusual designs and reading Eck’s explanations. This book is filled with ideas for those wishing to build or remodel a home and make it unique….On my scale of 1 to 10, this superb book rates a solid 10. – The Chicago Tribune

Jeremiah Eck's book opens wide the doors of perception for all those who love to design and build houses – architects and clients alike can benefit from Eck's talent and experience. He is a teacher who helps us create houses that speak eloquently about place and proprietorship. Every would-be house builder should read this book. – Robert A.M. Stern, architect and Dean, Yale School of Architecture

Jeremiah Eck delivers a stunning alternative to the bulky residences constraining domestic imagination. – John Stilgoe, Professor, Harvard Design School

Eck’s tone is accessible and friendly, taking homeowners by the hand and walking them through each element. Because of this practical and thoughtful approach to home design, after reading The Distinctive Home, people will not only have a clear picture of what they like, but they’ll understand and be able to communicate why they like it.

Professional & Technical / Medicine

Listening To Speech: An Auditory Perspective edited by Steven Greenberg & William A. Ainsworth (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers) 

The human species is largely defined by its use of spo­ken language, so integral is speech communication to behavior and social interaction. Despite its importance in everyday life, comparatively little is known about the auditory mechanisms that underlie the ability to understand language.

Listening To Speech, edited by Steven Greenberg, President of Silicon Speech and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Applied Hearing Research at the Technical University of Denmark; and the late William A. Ainsworth, former Professor at the MacKay Institute of Communication and Neuroscience, Keele University (United Kingdom), examine the perception and processing of speech from the perspective of the hearing system. The chapters describe a comprehensive set of approaches to the scientific study of speech and hearing, ranging from anatomy and physiology, to psychophysics and perception, and computational modeling. The auditory basis of speech is examined within a biological and an evolutionary context, and its relevance to applied domains such as communication disorders and speech technology is discussed in detail.

The origins of Listening To Speech lie in Stockholm – Greenberg had been asked to organize a plenary session on the "Auditory Basis of Speech Perception" for the XIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences there – this meeting led to discussion with Bill Ainsworth, who had been thinking along similar lines, and then to a full-blown workshop the following year. From the presentations made at the workshop, a certain number were selected for publication in the Springer Handbook of Auditory Research series. These presentations were of a fundamental nature and best suited for publication as an introductory text, Speech Processing in the Auditory System, designed to serve as a comprehensive introduction to the topics discussed in Listening To Speech. Other presentations at the meeting were of a more scientific nature, representing state-of-the-art perspectives on a wide range of topics spanning speech processing, psychophysics, anatomy, physiology, hearing impairment, and speech technology. Many of these served as the point of origin for chapters in this volume.

The original chapters were completed in 1999, but the