Carving Nature: Wildlife Studies in Wood

Customer Reviews:

Carving nature.......2001-05-20

Let me begin with a disclaimer. I am no carver. I do, however, appreciate carving and sculptures. To my unpractised eye, the amply illustrated book appears to be a great how-to book for the amateur to advanced carver. (Consider also who the publisher is-- the Guild of Master Craftsman...) After drooling over the illustrations in a copy of the book found at my library, I have decided to purchase a copy for a father's day gift. I anticipate my gift being well-used by my father!

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The Genus Lesquerella (Cruciferae) in North America
Reed C. Rollins , and Elizabeth A. Shaw
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0674347757

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A Monograph of the Genus Lesquerella
Edwin Blake Payson
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 141796555X

Average customer rating:
The Genus Lesquerella (Cruciferae) in North America.
Reed C. Rollins and Elizabeth A. Shaw.
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NWXBAQ

Book Description

There is no shortage of stories about the crusades, or of biographies of those who played the leading roles in this, the greatest epic of the Middle Ages. But there has been no book in which we could find, recreated, the way of life, the world view, the everyday social organization of those who tempted adventure. They were kings and paupers, barons, clerks, women, and merchants. Some were driven by their faith, others by the spirit of conquest, and some by a hunger for greatness and wealth.

Régine Pernoud presents for us a living picture in which we can view, first hand, the awe of the Christians as they beheld the Muslim world, the myriad ordeals they sustained while traveling for years in unknown lands, and the remarkable way in which they managed to adapt, to colonize, to erect churches and fortresses, and to abide for centuries in the face of an adversary far greater in number. Here, an unrecognized page in our history finally reveals itself. A great historian and writer brings this colorful period alive.

Régine Pernoud, a renowned French archivist and historian, is among the greatest medievalists of our times, and the success of her books has helped to bring the Middle Ages closer to us. Among her numerous works are Those Terrible Middle Ages! and Women in the Days of the Cathedrals.

Customer Reviews:

This woman was truly a genius.......2006-06-09

This book uses the Crusades and the Crusaders to illustrate how feudal society lived and how feudal man thought. This book is not a narrative of the Crusades proper and does assume the reader has some knowledge of the events.

I found surprising that the culture of "Truce of God" (the restrictions on warfare imposed by the Church and observed by most European combatants) was such an obstacle to raising a Crusading army. Also since the Crusades were not a war of conquest, most Crusaders left when they felt they had fulfilled their vow. For example after the 1st Crusade less than 2500 Crusaders remained in the Holy Land. When you add logistic difficulties, Byzantine treachery, and internal rivalries it is amazing the Crusaders accomplished as much as they did. Most important, though she doesn't gloss over when atrocities were committed, she makes irrefutably evident that, overall, the Crusaders made a positive contribution to life in the region: something you are not likely to read about the Crusades from modern American writers.

Regine Pernoud was a historian unlike any I have read. Her ability to present what it was like to live in medieval society and to think like a medieval person in a manner that a modern reader can relate to is nothing short of wondrous. Her description of places and events is almost poetic. Her historical insight is literally jaw-dropping. If, like me, you imagined that it must have been horrible to live in the Middle Ages this book will give you a different picture.

Her translators also need to be congratulated since they have done a great job transmitting her words of genius.

A thoughtful and unforgettable trip through history.......2004-04-05

In The Crusaders: The Struggle For The Holy Land, renowned French archivist and historian Regine Pernoud focuses upon the human aspect by presenting profiles of those who undertook the Crusades ranging from the kings, to the barons, clerks, women, merchants, and paupers. Whether driven by faith, conquest, or greed, their individual and collective perspectives are vividly described, and providing contemporary readers with a detailed and lasting impression of the shock of Christian perspectives created when introduced to the Muslim world. A thoughtful and unforgettable trip through history that virtually puts the reader in this long-ago era, The Crusaders is an ideal introduction for non-specialist general readers.

"Don't Confuse Me with Facts".......2004-02-13

This book is a wonderful corrective for two sets of people: (1) Those who idealize the Crusades, the crusaders, and the culture which surrounded and informed them; (2) Those who uncritically villify everything that the folks in the first category idealize.
Pernoud presents the Crusades in all their considerable glory and all their considerable shame. For example, an entire chapter is devoted to the character of St. Louis, the "perfect crusader", who so well embodied everything that was good in the crusader mentality. Juxtaposed to that, we hear of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, the "crusader without faith" who broke into the Thirteenth Century like a walking talking preview of the less gentle times to come -- a herald of Machiavelli, Napolean, and LBJ. As an admirer of the Middle Ages, I had always viewed Frederick II was an aberration -- like an intruder from another planet. But no. Pernoud shows (without a soapbox) that it should not be surprising that a Frederick II should arise -- even in the most civilized of centuries.
Pernoud makes these points, as I said, without a soapbox. He writes sober history -- Jack Webb style. And this sober recital of facts is just what ideologues on my side and on the opposite side really need.

Book Description

The new field of evolutionary developmental biology is one of the most exciting areas of contemporary biology. The fundamental principle of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo") is that evolution acts through inherited changes in the development of the organism. "Evo-devo" is not merely a fusion of the fields of developmental and evolutionary biology, the grafting of a developmental perspective onto evolutionary biology, or the incorporation of an evolutionary perspective into developmental biology. Evo-devo strives for a unification of genomic, developmental, organismal, population, and natural selection approaches to evolutionary change. It draws from development, evolution, paleontology, ecology, and molecular and systematic biology, but has its own set of questions, approaches, and methods.

Keywords and Concepts in Evolutionary Developmental Biology is the first comprehensive reference work for this expanding field. Covering more than fifty central terms and concepts in entries written by leading experts, Keywords offers an overview of all that is embraced by this new subdiscipline of biology, providing the core insights and ideas that show how embryonic development relates to life-history evolution, adaptation, and responses to and integration with environmental factors.

Book Description

This unique collection contains data obtained from clinical samples over the course of more than 20 years. It encompasses 7500 potentially harmful substances, from simple analgesics to designer drugs, and from pesticides to chemical warfare agents. Since these substances are often broken down in the human body, metabolites are also included, so as to allow quick and unambiguous identification of the mother substance.

The 3rd edition gives all spectra in order of their molecular mass, since this has become the prime benchmark criterion for the identification of unknown substances.

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Mass Spectral and GC Data of Drugs, Poisons, Pesticides, Pollutants and Their Metabolites
Karl Pfleger
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MU6QQU

Book Description

The Eastern Mediterranean is the most nutrient impoverished and oligotrophic water body known. The unique feature of the Mediterranean is the presence of an eastward longitudinal trend in available nitrate/phosphate ratios, which apparently induces a west-to-east variation in the structure of the pelagic food web and trophic interactions. In this context the Mediterranean, in particular its Eastern basin, provides a unique platform to study hypotheses related to phosphate limitation of production and the shift between `microbial' and `classical' modes of operation of the photic food web. The present work assesses our current knowledge of the contrasting ecosystems of the Eastern Mediterranean on the basis of ongoing national/international programmes, from both phenomenological and modelling perspectives, and identifies the major environmental issues, on both regional and basin scales, in relation to eutrophication, pollutant transport and system health. The interdisciplinary aspects of marine ecosystems are covered, ranging from marine biology and chemistry to physical oceanography.

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Good book, but NOT every word Orwell wrote

George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four: Complete & Unabridged
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Octopus/Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | Classics | Comic | Contemporary | Literary
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Down and Out in Paris and London

The Road to Wigan Pier

Homage to Catalonia

Slaughterhouse-Five

ASIN: 0905712048

Book Description

Animal Farm; Burmese Days; A Clergyman's Daughter; Coming up for Air; Keep the Aspidistra Flying; Nineteen Eighty-Four

Customer Reviews:

Good book, but NOT every word Orwell wrote.......2004-07-07

It only contains what the description says it contains: "Animal Farm", "Burmese Days", "A Clergyman's Daughter", "Coming up for Air", "Keep the Aspidistra Flying", and "1984". These particular writings are complete and unabridged, but these are not the complete writings of Orwell.

Of course they're good, but the title is very misleading. Don't be fooled into thinking it's everything he wrote.

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A Clergyman's Daughter

Manufacturer: Penguin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HLKKNO

Average customer rating:

Angry journey

worthy dream

Orwell's weakest novel

A thought-provoking book

Simply average

A Clergyman's Daughter (Penguin Modern Classics)
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Keep the Aspidistra Flying (Harvest Book)

The Road to Wigan Pier

Coming Up for Air (Harvest Book)

Burmese Days: A Novel

Down and Out in Paris and London

ASIN: 0141184655

Amazon.com

At the distance of a half-century, this satiric social fiction is both a treasure and a disappointment. Orwell's wit is priceless--and ruthless--as he describes rural Church of England parish life; the transitory culture of the hops harvest; a brothel's soiled linen; not to mention when his heroine hobnobs with the Trafalgar Square homeless of a bitter winter's night or bullies bored students in a fourth-rate private school: "Last term the girls had behaved badly, because she had started by treating them as human beings, and later on, when the lessons that interested them were discontinued, they had rebelled like human beings. But if you are obliged to teach children rubbish, you must not treat them as human beings.... Before all else, you must teach them it is more painful to rebel than to obey."

Orwell's compassion for Dorothy Hare, ensnared by faith, birth, and gender to toil thanklessly as her minister father's unpaid curate, is admirable, and his evocation, early in the novel, of a woman's consciousness totally subsumed by the mostly trivial demands of others stands shoulder to shoulder with the best feminist fiction. The dialogues between Dorothy and her dissolute middle-aged suitor, Mr. Warburton, concerning human nature, faith, and morality, are smart and fun to read. The problem (and here Orwell commits the sort of sin he denounces in Dickens) is that the novel's plot--Dorothy's picaresque amnesiac travels through the seamy side of English life--feels manufactured for the author's satiric purposes. Orwell never relinquishes his cleverness, or his maleness, to become his heroine, with the result that the reader never surrenders wholly to the fiction. Thus A Clergyman's Daughter, while a pleasure to pick up, is not quite a book one can't put down. --Joyce Thompson

Book Description

Dorothy Hare, the clergyman's daughter of this title, grows up subservient to her tyrannical father. But submission has its limit and Dorothy rebels, or at least her psyche does. She blacks out and reappears as a vagrant amnesiac whose adventures show us life, such as it is, from the underside.

Customer Reviews:

Angry journey.......2007-03-26

Young Dorothy Hare, the daughter of a quirky, tyrannical Suffolk clergyman, lives with her father in a small rural community. Dorothy's life is suffocated by her father, and by the closeness of the community. But suddenly she's projected out of that world and its norms into another Britain in which the "underclass" live in the twilight, and corruption and money dominate to the exclusion of all other values. Orwell takes Dorothy on a Dante-esque trip through the dark side of England.

This is a very disjointed novel, and because of that in many ways it could be viewed as an unsatisfactory work, which Orwell struggles (but ultimately fails) to hold together properly. Perhaps that explains Orwell's later dissatisfaction with it. Yet, within the novel, there are long sections of very powerful descriptive writing on each part of Dorothy's story, in which Orwell tilts at various aspects of the world he lived in: from the cynicism of the Church as exemplified by Dorothy's father; the incestuousness of small town life; the harsh reality behind the image of summers picking hops in Kent; and the horrors of private education, to name a few.

Orwell piles into his targets and hits home by the power of his prose, but gets carried away to the extent that the plot and the story become lost. Instead of reading as a fictional indictment, it becomes in parts a diatribe. However justified Orwell's anger might have been, and however relevant his message is today (for example on treating education as a commodity) it does make the book lose its way.

Yet, this is in no way a book to be dismissed. It has much to commend it. Nonetheless, it can't be classed as one of his better works.

G Rodgers

worthy dream.......2006-04-05

i read this more as an essay and commentary regarding prewar england. themes of church intollerance, school rigidity, classism, bigotry, etc. abound. one can read this literally, leaving the task confused and befuddled. one should read this metaphorically, perhaps as a dream sequence, to fairly appreciate what orwell sought to accomplish. i enjoyed elements of this for the sheer brilliance of observation. life at the hops camp was particularlly sharp. if one appreciates gritty labor struggles and observations of the religiously constrained, this will be a pile of words worth reading.

Orwell's weakest novel.......2004-09-18

A Clergyman's Daughter is George Orwell's second novel and probably his weakest effort of the six. The story follows along a particularly low portion of the life of Dorothy, whose father is, as we might have guessed, the local preacher. But rather than give us a proper story, Orwell has simply placed Dorothy in a number of situations intended to point out the various flaws in British society of the thirties.

In the first portion, we see Dorothy as she goes about her normal life. She's in her twenties, unmarried (and determined to stay that way), and her life revolves around her family and church duties. Her father is a typical cold clergyman with no particular personality other than being ornery and selfish, small of mind and devoid of imagination. Poor Dorothy spends her entire waking life engaged in chores at home, in the church, and in the community. She's pulled in ten directions at once, but puts up with it all without complaint, buoyed only by her faith. Her only diversion is the infrequent visitation she makes to a local middle aged rogue, who spends most of his time trying to seduce her and turn her away from religion. Why she visits him several times a year at all is never made clear.

Then suddenly Dorothy loses her memory, by means never explained, and finds herself wandering down a street in another town with no idea who she is. In time she hooks up with wandering laborers and finds herself picking hops in some kind of work camp. Again, we get long descriptions of the deprived life of the laborer and inequities in British society, but Dorothy just works without complaint. Finally the season is over, she sees an article about her disappearance and remembers who she is, and so she wires home for money. But her father no longer trusts her, so she ends up homeless in London.

Now we get to hear about life on the streets and the various `colorful' characters that make up the hobo community. Dorothy, of course, handles everything without complaint. She doesn't seem to like complaining much throughout the story. She's basically there to observe things for the reader. Here Orwell is at his weakest as a writer. We even get to read twelve pages of conversation fragments among the tramps, all interspersed at odd intervals, and which go absolutely nowhere. Dorothy doesn't complain, but I'd sure like to. It's strange that Orwell makes this so weak considering he lived the life himself once. For a far better account of such things, see his Down and Out in Paris and London. But here we do not get a good account, we basically get preaching.

Next Dorothy acquires a job as teacher at a girls school, one whose purpose is to teach handwriting and little more, while keeping girls at their desks until they're grown and stifling their personalities. Need I say that Orwell comments extensively on British education here? Ironically this is Orwell's strongest portion of the book because Dorothy actually develops some sort of personality and will of her own. She ends up liking teaching and she tries to actually educate the girls in some fashion. She begins to actually think for herself. She drops her faith in God, realizing she's given no thought to religion since her ordeals began and now realizes it's pointless. But in the end, big surprise, her teaching efforts come to nothing. The parents are horrified that their girls are learning things for which they have no use.

Finally, as Dorothy loses her job, her father has a change of heart and she journeys back home. Everything is more or less as before. She plans to continue her life as it is until her father dies and then become an old maid, probably as a schoolmistress at a better school. No return to religious belief, but otherwise a return to normalcy. And why not? Orwell's completed his grand tour of social observations, so there's no reason to keep poor Dorothy in miserable surroundings. She can return home to her original miserable surroundings.

There's not a lot of insight to be found here. Orwell's observations can be found elsewhere, and in better form. His non-fictional works are far better and conveying his opinions. I mean, the guy actually lived an interesting life. He was homeless, and he did work at lousy jobs. He fought in wars. So read something autobiographical for a more honest sounding account of life. For fiction, all of his other works are superior to this. Burmese Days is clumsy, but has a plot. His later works show greater sophistication. A Clergyman's Daughter is just so much fluff and but for its famous author would surely be long forgotten by now.

A thought-provoking book.......2004-05-17

'A Clergyman's Daughter' by George Orwell (1935)

A clever portrait, through five chapters (with sub-chapters), of the young adult life of Dorothy Hare and those she comes into contact with.

As the book opens, Dorothy is the religiously-obsessed, oppressed and overworked 27 year-old spinster daughter of the Rector of St Athelstans in Knype Hill, Suffolk. The story of her life over the next eight months unfolds and develops from there...

This book is excellently written and is an enjoyable read from start to finish: writing of high quality touching on many of the usual themes that concern George Orwell, such as rural life, religion, education, poverty, humanity, London life, loneliness, struggling within life, human nature, greed, selfishness, etc: themes which tend to run through most of Orwell's various writings in one form or another.

Orwell cleverly changes the setting and nature of the book entirely, between each of the five long chapters, making the book in fact five separate and different phases within eight months of Dorothy's life within a book, thereby keeping the reader interested throughout by the use of clever shifts in the setting of the story through to the end, to avoid any risk of boring the reader.

We are left, at the end of the book, to decide what we think about Dorothy, having seen how she has negotiated what has happened to her in the interim and the choices she makes about her future life having regard to those events.

4/5

Simply average.......2003-06-23

A clergyman's daughter, a plain girl, Mysterisously disappears with the town hoodlum and then loses her memory. This is the story of her life after this occurrs. It is not all I had come to expect from Orwell but it is an enjoyable book that keeps you reading for more. Read only if you are a die hard Orwell fan and then only if you are willing to accept a so-so work. Otherwise you can read it but don't expect to be blown away.

Average customer rating:

Wonderful book

The Clergyman's Daughter
Julia Jeffries
Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0451146115

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful book.......2004-06-02

Jessica is a impoverished parson's daughter who marries the younger brother of Graham Foxe, the Earl of Raeburn, after being threatened and almost attacked by the disapproving earl. When her husband Andrew tragically dies, she flees, but is evenutally located by Graham, who is shocked to find that she has given birth to a daughter. He forces her to return home to raise his brother's child.
The quality of this book is in the excellent writing and depth of characterization.

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The Clergyman's Daughter
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Harcourt, Brace and World
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000MZUOAO

Animal farm ; Burmese days ; A clergyman's daughter ; Coming up for air ; Keep the aspidistra flying ; Nineteen eighty-four

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One World?

Animal farm ; Burmese days ; A clergyman's daughter ; Coming up for air ; Keep the aspidistra flying ; Nineteen eighty-four
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Secker and Warburg : Octopus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 0706405676

Customer Reviews:

One World?.......2002-05-12

Since each of Orwell's books have sufficient reviews (raves), I won't bore you with repetition.

I was suprised that this compilation (officially called "The Complete Novels") is not officially available on Amazon.com. If you'd like a single book with "all" of Orwell's novels, it is available via the Amazon.co.UK site. Nothing fancy, just the stories. The only drawback is that the print font is smaller than in most books. For most, this will not be a problem, though.

Be careful: although called "The Complete Novels", it doesn't include "Down and Out in Paris and London" or a couple of his other books. Maybe they weren't considered novels.

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A CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace And Company: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0436350106

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A Clergyman's Daughter
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Folio Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000V2KPZM

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The Clergyman's Daughter
Julia Jeffries
Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000GSKW54

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A Clergyman's Daughter par George Orwell
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Penguin books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000RC7RX4

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