Columbia Reviews

Though I wouldn't call Disappearing Moon Cafe the BEST book ever, I would hardly go as far as to call it the worst. Comparing it to works such as Six Records of a Floating Life is, furthermore, problematic; the distinctions between Chinese literature and Chinese-Canadian literature are far too vast to place in the same category.
I would recommend this book to anyone, though it is definitely a very slanted view of the Chinese-Canadian experience. It does draw out certain important points, however: the divisions between the Chinese immigrant and other races, the effects of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the role of identity, and both family and interracial relationships. It is DEFINITELY a very intriguing read.

How this book could even be compared to Six Records of A Floating Life is beyond me. They deal with two different issues not to mention era's. Six Records was written by a heart broken widow after his wife's death while this one gives a historical account of the Chinese Canadian Experience in British Columbia. It is the furthest thing from "happy" and describing the story as such leads me to believe that Chris didn't read the book. Personally I would describe this novel as heart wrenching at points. The story is intended for entertainment and does not mean it is "everyone's story". Though even the idea of making a story that covers all Chinese Canadian's experiences during this time period itself is highly problematic.

And I do not understand how the book can be referred to as racist either. He says that the book reads like gossip, and maybe it is the extramarital affairs which offend Chris so much. Surely we are not so bold to say that one race is morally superior to the rest and thus would not succumb to doing this. Every culture has and if this is what upset this reader so much, maybe he should think of what type of stereotypes he started with before opening the novel.

That being said, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a terrific read or the subject.

As a student of the first Chinese Canadian history course offered in any Canadian university (University of Alberta), I found Sky Lee's Disappearing Moon Cafe one of the most profound and intellectually stimulating novels I have come across in my life. Though a background in the history of Chinese Canadians is by no means a pre-requisite to this novel, I believe Lee has thoroughly researched the social and political climate of the Chinese in Canada during the time in which her novel is set. Indeed, Lee's ability to integrate factual history with fiction in her narrative is quite remarkable. That she utilizes the theorized union between the Chinese and Aboriginal peoples to both begin and complete her narrative speaks to her creativity and willigness to move beyond simple facts.

I would recommend this novel to any individual seeking to extend their understanding of the Chinese Canadian experience and especially to those local born Chinese who, like myself, are searching for a cultural identity that combines both our cultural roots in Canada and in China. This novel is poignant, reflective and completely deserving of our attention.

I loved the photos,and having travelled the province found it thrilling to recognize sites personally visiting. Leighton has captured the essence of the diversity to be found in his part of the world. I fly fish,so found the Cariboo section intriging!

Douglas Leighton is the bestselling photographer in the Canadian Rockies. I work for Doug's publisher, and I just wanted to let other readers know that this is a pictorial book (a "coffee table book") and is certainly not intended to be a guidebook. It features gorgeous photos of the entire province of BC, with accompanying text.

Doug Leighton is the bestselling photographer in the Canadian Rockies. I work for Doug's publisher, and I just wanted to let other readers know that this is a pictorial book (a "coffee table book") and is certainly not intended to be a guidebook. It features gorgeous photos of the entire province of BC along with short commentaries accompanying the photos.

This is my first taste of Edgar Award winner Ms. Wright's fiction and, if this book is any indication of her talent, then I am certainly going to seek out her other novels. Her spare yet descriptive prose perfectly evokes the gothic tone of the deeds that connect the various characters. The surprises come not in the plot but in the motives and backgrounds of the characters. If there is any criticism, it is that she holds back too much, so that some scenes don't have quite the impact that they should, but this is a minor peeve. I read this right after reading McGrath's SPIDER, and the two novels share a vague similarity in tone and subject matter. Worth checking out.

Since you know who committed the murder and why (as described in the editorial review and very early in the book) there is neither a mystery or very little suspense here. But like her other books in the series, Wright focuses more on character study and the relationships among those affected by the murder rather than lay out a typical who-dunit.

I frankly found the main character, Zoe Strachan, to be the most fascinating feature of the book because her gross inner imperfections contrasted sharply with her outward stunning beauty. The one fault I find with this book, however, is that Zoe is perceived by others and perhaps Wright herself as evil, when in fact many of her actions are driven by acute mental illness. The former has you rooting for the character's demise; the latter has you hoping she gets treatment.

All-in-all, a very good read.

this was an excellent book. i enjoyed reading this book so much. it was supsense full if you like mystery books you'll enjoy reading this.

Salmon , as a species , are no where near to being extinct, as this book would lead one to believe. Can we improve on the way we as U.S. Citizens treat our Environment? Certainly!!! Do we have the will to do it? Who Knows???

Joseph Cone's book, "A Common Fate: Endangered Salmon and the People of the Pacific Northwest," tells a story that combines over two hundred years of U.S. history with the prurient facts of salmon and political science. Cone, in unflinching detail, and with a flair for dramatic storytelling, chronicles the ins and outs of the on-going battle to save the Pacific Northwest salmon runs and their surrounding watersheds. The overview of the salmon issue this book provides is astounding. From all sides' viewpoints, from Gordon Reeves, a fish researcher and ecologist with the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the U.S. Forestry Service in 1988, to people like Mike Draper, spokesperson for The Western Council of Industrial Workers and Antone Minthorn, council chairman of the General Council of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Cone weaves a tale that can be described as nothing short of sordid. Elucidating the deceptions, feints and dodges of bureaucratic interests and what motivates them as well as he does the struggles, fears, and hopes of the environmental activists, Cone shows an in depth knowledge of both salmon biology and political policy, all the while moving his story throughout Pacific Northwest and salmon history. Flashback narratives back to the very beginning of Pacific Northwest history with the arrival of James Cook, Robert Grey, on through Lewis and Clark and John Jacob Astor provide a sense of historic perspective on the abundance and exploitation of this incredible fish. Cone chronicles the wasteful days of the Hapgood & Hume canneries, where, after a day's work, if the canners couldn't keep up with supply, hundreds of fish would be shoveled back into the water, wasted. He describes the migrant cannery fishermen and the disputes between gill-netters, those who used fish traps, and the canneries themselves, the strikes and violence associated with them as everyone struggles to take all they can in a living description of human economist Garrett Hardin's essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons." He describes with harrowing precision the two steps forward, one step back dance of environmental policy, as environmentalist minded scientists cross swords with policy makers and industrial advocates, as treaties and alliances are formed and broken again and again over the same ground year after year, decade after decade. He shows again and again the complexity of the issues, the difference between conservation and preservation, and the fact that thus far, in the struggle between fish and man, man has won time and time again, and that time for the Pacific Northwest salmon is running out. Though one review on the back of the book suggests that Cone offers up cooperation as the solution to the salmon crisis, in truth, "A Common Fate" illustrates the fallacy of cooperation between the two sides of industry and environment. The evidence he presents illustrates clearly that, as the industrialists call for a "balance" to be struck, in truth, the salmon are systematically being balanced out of existence. For anyone looking for a clear, concise overview of the issues surrounding the salmon crisis in an easy to read format, this book comes highly recommended.

This book covers many of the studies done on the salmon populations here in the Pacific Northwest. The information comes from many experts, who do not have a political or business agenda...people who truly care about the survival of all the ecosystems involved.

I thought that this book was very informative about things that happen to a maturing girl. This book is about a girl, named Annette, that leaves her home in Canada with her mother. She is half Nootka Indian. While she is there she goes to a school that is called St. Johns Chapel. She is teased and mocked because of her looks and race. She makes a new friend, Katie Danbor, despite it all. Annette feels that she is torn between her Nootka background and her present American. I thought that this book shows what life is really about, it doesn't sugar coat the bad news. It expresses how you have one really good friend and alot of people that you don't like and alot of people that don't like you. It shows the reality about everything. It also shows that some people don't have everything and they are still able to hold there heads up high and make it on there own.

Finding young adult novels which are set in Canada and have an urban First Nations context is extremely difficult because there are precious few. A Woman of Her Tribe merits attention because of its approach to a young person's struggle between traditional and contemporary worlds. Set in rural Vancouver Island and Victoria, the novel deals candidly with a young woman's change into womanhood, and the incredible resonsibility of decisions. Threr are worthy lessons that can be taken from this novel, such as respect for the land, sacred traditions, and the importance of relationships. The story effectively brings to life the tradtional ways of the Nootka First Nations people on Vancouver Island, Canada. My choice is to have older students, twelve to seventeen, read this novel.

it is enteresting and beautifully compose

'The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature,' Edited by Victor Mair, is a very large book of over 1300 pages which offers the reader "a broad selection of expertly translated texts from the widest possible variety of sources." The selection, which seems on the whole to have been very well done, has been arranged in five main divisions: Foundations and Interpretations; Verse; Prose; Fiction; and Oral and Performing Arts. Besides the familiar, readers will find here much interesting material they may not have seen before - for example: extracts from Shang Divination Records, Bronze Inscriptions, wonderful Buddhist stories, and so on.

As for the translations, Mair tells us that almost all of them were done by "professional sinologists teaching in American universities." These lightly annotated academic translations range in quality from the excellent work of scholars of the caliber of Burton Watson and Leon Hurvitz, through to the rather pedestrian efforts of the less inspired, in fairly equal balance. The selections are preceded by an interesting and informative 10-page Preface by the Editor, and a double-page Map of the Provinces of China.

The book is rounded out with a table of the Principal Chinese Dynasties and Periods, and a Wade-Giles to Pinyin conversion table. Since this information is readily available elsewhere, neither of these tables are really necessary, though Mair is to be commended on his decision to employ a modified Wade-Giles system of transcription throughout the anthology, in preference to the "extremely repulsive" (Needham) Pinyin so beloved by most modern sinologists.

Since Mair felt that they would be "useless and out of place," no Chinese characters (sinographs) have been given for any of the Chinese names, book titles, etc. A far more serious omission is the complete absence from this book of an Index. We are given neither an Index of Names, nor an Index of Titles - not even a General Index in which they could been bundled together. We have not even been given a List of Contributors (there are over one hundred) except on the back of the dust-jacket where we learn that among the non-academic translators are luminaries such as Pound, Snyder, and Rexroth. This makes the book extremely difficult to use.

Locating specific items involves repeated and tiresome searches through the 14-page 258-item Table of Contents. For example, Mair tells us in his Preface that because of its great popularity he has included some selections from Lin Yutang's translation of 'Six Chapters of a Floating Life.' But it will take you some time to find out where they are. And if, as I am, you happen to be interested in a specific translator such as Lin Yutang, since the translators' names are not shown in the Table of Contents, you will have to leaf through all 1300 pages to find their contributions. It will also take you a lot of searching to determine, for example, whether or not Lu Chi's 'Wen fu' (Essay on Literature) has been included in the book. So far as I can see, it hasn't - but I could be wrong. And if it hasn't been included, I wonder why?

The book is stitched and well-printed in a readable font on excellent paper. Anyone who is looking for a comprehensive anthology of traditional Chinese Literature understood in its broadest sense, and in scholarly and exact (though not always inspired) translations with informative notes, will find much that is of very real interest and value in this book. I've enjoyed reading many of the selections, and have benefited from their brief and interesting notes.

And Professor Mair is certainly to be more than commended on his decision to employ the older and elegant - though imperfect - Wade-Giles system of transcription, rather than the trendy and ugly - and just as imperfect - modern Pinyin system. But I do wish the book had included at least a General Index!

The Columbia Anthology provides a fascinating glimpse into the work of traditional Chinese masters and novices alike for those of us who are armchair Sinophiles. The book is broken into genres which satisfies the academic and offers enough raw material to be somewhat overwhelming, hence the difficulty that arises in most anthologies. However, it is impressive in both scope and simple, poignant beauty with revealing insights into the Chinese world of court gentry and peasants toiling in the fields. Somewhat akin to the Norton Series of Western literature, the Columbia Anthology is not a venture to be transversed lightly. But in toil comes the sweeter stuff of dreams and traditional Chinese literature is the world of heavy eyelids drifting into mystical worlds both human and otherwordly. This book is highly recommended but not if you have an appointment to keep shortly after straining your arm dragging this beheamoth from the front porch. Tread lightly into this wonderful world but, dear reader, please tred.

Following in the tradition of Yale's Cardiovascular Health Guide, the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide, and the Johns Hopkins Medical Guide to Health After 50, the venerable Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons offers us this latest addition to the health-obsessed consumer craze for complete home medical references. As expected, this book offers only more of the same: a good name, a lot of pages, and a redundant course in layman's medicine. Given the sheer size and weight of the volume (lifting it is an exercise itself), you would expect the entries to have more detail and, well, more specialized terminology. The diagrams which accompany many of the chapters elicit more boredom than information (save for the psychiatric section's tables, which are rather good), and the overall organization of the book sacrifices content for accessibility. I've seen many home medical guides at the bookstore lately, and this one just doesn't stand out in particular. My honest recommendation is that you look past the University's illustrious name and opt instead for the MERCK MANUAL HOME EDITION (paperback version), which for its small size and affordable price is the best home medical guide for the entire family.

Very informative. I suffer from PVC's and try to get my hands on as much info as possible. I found this book to be very helpful in my understanding more on this condition.

For masochists who can only learn from their own mistakes, this book provides the best way to teach them. Roger Schank's methods create temporary results that can help people react well in a situation but can limit a persons ability to think ahead avoid problems and communicate issues and solutions appropriately.

Schank's "Sink or Swim" approach of leading the learner to failure encourages educators to be clever and sneaky about the way they craft their training. He warns against telegraphing your punches to the learner. His methods manipulate peoples fears to get them to do what he wants them to do. The golden rule of education is to respect the pupil and Schank unfortunately treats learners with more contempt than he claims traditional methods produce.

The good news is there is plenty of useful insight and examples that aren't covered in other books that I know of. I have mixed feelings because I like so much of what he points out that is wrong with most training and education today. I am also in agreement on how he stresses the importance of good stories and examples and I'm in the car with him right up until he locks the doors, floors the gas and steers the car off a cliff.

Like many alchemists, Schank really believes in his methods to turn base metals into gold and is unyielding in his opinion that all other methods are worthless. He uses only the worst case examples of traditional training methods to reject the educational establishment while using the most idealistic examples to promote why he is the only one who can teach people anything. Thank god, he was there to help Enron communicate issues better to their employees. See the case study on page 44 "e-learning at Enron".

Schank's basic philosophy is that people can only learn from their own failures. He states, "Real thinking never starts until the learner fails." This is a serious flaw. Not many of us would survive if it were true. Learning from our own mistakes is how we keep from falling behind but learning from others mistakes is how we move ahead. And this is what traditional education methods can accomplish, if they are done correctly.

Schank states that "Small children are failure machines, failing hundreds of thousands of times before they learn." He seems to think this is okay and that's the way it should always work. But, most children don't need to be run over by a car to learn not to play in the street. Most children don't need to poke an eye out to learn not to run with scissors.

Schank continually refers to flight simulator training as the ultimate way to educate because pilots are immersed in a completely realistic three dimensional environment. But flight simulator training is just one part of a larger effort that pilots go through. If he would bother to follow up on this a little more, he would find that the FAA and the major airlines discovered a big problem, some time ago, with too much reliance on simulator training.

The problem is that people don't like being set up to fail. When this happens they begin to blame the computer training and don't take responsibility for the failure. The significant changes that have been made include providing more preparation of presentational information and guided practice before pilots enter the flight simulators.

Schank brags throughout the book about how people get through his training courses and graduate classes without learning anything new but that they know how to do something. Well, that just doesn't fly in most of the world. The reason you teach people a certain process and test for knowledge instead of just how to do something is because people tend to take short cuts that may seem productive in the short term but can get other people killed or in trouble. Schank's programs teach people to figure their own way to accomplish a goal. Who cares how they get there? Well sometimes, the Justice and Treasury Department care how you get there, often the news media care how you get there and usually your co-workers care. Ask the ex-employees of Enron whether they care.

Schank couldn't find any psychological research to support his theories, so he made up his own and refers to his own books for support. If you read a broader selection of books than what he recommends, you'll find that most research supports that people consider motivation to be a personal responsibility while they perceive de-motivation to be the responsibility of the system or person they work for or learn from. This means you can pump people up or scare them for a short period of time but ultimately people motivate themselves. However, they are quick to blame the system if you trip them up.

Schank's entire methodology is based on artificially imposing failure on people, to motivate them to learn. When you set someone up to fail, you may teach them not to repeat a mistake but they will become increasingly resistant to this form of training and will begin to blame the system for their failures.

Schank's psychology and methods are at odds with human nature but while Schank rejects all traditional methods of training and education, like multiple-choice tests and Instructional System Design (ISD), I can't reject all of his experience. Overall, he is too extreme and dangerous for me, but like all good agitators, he provides a unique perspective and makes some good points because he has so passionately pursued how to educate people.

Reading this book has been good for me if only to provide a backdrop and comparison to what I am currently doing. Writing this review has helped me deal with the snow storm that people like Schank stir up. There is actually a great deal of valuable information (knowledge) in this book on real corporate case studies, using stories, examples and gathering content that you won't find elsewhere. I just recommend being very careful how you apply it.

E-learning expert Roger C. Schank describes the secrets of a good e-learning program. He emphasizes using e-learning to train in-house employees, although his methods could work in any setting. Schank clearly establishes the basic principle that makes e-learning work: learning by doing. He outlines methods using scenarios and simulations that permit the learner to put new ideas into practice immediately. He's a little too fond of failing and trying over as a learning method, when one might learn just as well by studying others' failures and successes. However, he supports his approach with education-based examples that demonstrate how children learn, along with an inside look at IBM and GE programs. Visuals in the book show the computer screen in a teaching mode as displayed to the user, so you see how your e-learning material should look, whether on a Web site or on a local intranet. We from getAbstract recommend this solid hands-on instruction manual for training and development managers, and for those who are building e-learning experiences.

Excellent history of a little-known and fascinating chapter in early American maritime and trade history on the Pacific coast. Kendrick's and Gray's expedition helped spark Jefferson's interest in the west; their exploits were precursors to Lewis and Clark. Lively and full of interesting anecdotes, particularly of Kendrick's activities.

Scofield digs deep into hard-to-find journals and letters from the voyages of the Amercian fur trading vessels Columbia Rediviva and Lady Washington. His colorful descriptions of the meanderings of the two boats paints a vivid portrait of life aboard a trading ship along the mostly-uncharted coast. Most impressive here is Scofield's insight into the men who pressed on with arrogance and greed to find fortune in the Otter fur trade circle of the late 1700's.