Vincent Reviews

This is a useful weather field guide because it spends most time illustrating regular weather phenomena. By that, I mean it spends most time on the various types of clouds, "garden-variety" thunderstorms, and ordinary optical phenomena like rainbows, irridescence, halo(e)s, and the like - the kind of stuff you're most likely to see if you glance out your bedroom window of a morning, or . . . whatever. (It's hard not to sound corny there!)Also, the text goes into how such phenomena comes about, which is useful.

There are also useful appendices like the Beaufort scale, and tornado safety rules in the back.

The only drawbacks are, the fact that this isn't a full-color guide: the color plates have been segregated to an insert around the middle of the book, which makes up perhaps an eighth of the book - if that (all other photos - the majority of the book - are in much less detailed and descriptive black and white); also, the illustration of severe weather is rather limited. We don't see features of a severe thunderstorm, or satellite images of a hurricane at its various stages of intensity (or an illustrated discussion of satellite pictures in general - this guide may be from 1981, but satellites existed then!), or the forms a tornado can take, or where one can form - we only have photos of distant, non-severe looking cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) clouds, a view of clouds around a hurricane taken from a plane (which isn't the perspective either a satellite or someone on the groud is going to have), and one photo of a tornado chosen for its historical merit only (it being the "first photo taken of a tornado," near Howard, SD on 8/28/1884 - an older photo, taken near either Garnett or Westphalia, KS on 4/26/1884, has since been found). [Regarding the thunderstorm/tornado images, I realize this isn't supposed to be a NOAA spotter's guide, therefore gospel, but a variety of images helps.]

But if a lack of color doesn't bother you, and you know your severe storms (or they don't bother you, either), this is a good field guide to have.

This book chronicals just about every tv series ever done. It's great.

Williamson reviews classic Hollywood films that interest both international and English speakers. For students of English, Hollywood films are a familiar topic to discuss in class. Also for Americans the summaries and discussions of genres are interesting.

This is a crime story, but it's not a murder mystery. The crimes do include the murder of an enigmatic woman, but the other crimes are betrayal of friends, possessiveness, stealing the physical presence and love of a husband and father, and many more. The story is told from the multiple and constantly shifting perspectives of the major characters. This is one of the appeals of the book, although the central figure, Magda, is interesting enough in her own right. Especially tantalizing is her disappearance for two years. Although her husband cannot bear to ask her why she left, the reader learns enough of her life to form several possible answers. The question you are left with is why she came back. I feel the book rather lets you down here, but the journey is fascinating enough. The narrative style itself helps you slow your reading enough to explore the possible answers to why.

excellent book with good attration for readers

This book shows the first approach to using Gis tecnologies in a archaelogical study in Europe. Many other atents were made before and many others have been made later, but none of them is as good as "Gis approaches to regional analysis: A case study of the island of Hvar". In this short but precis book, Vincent Gaffney and Zoran Stancic make the reader go from a short introduction to Gis and it's uses, to a deep studi of the lanscape an the relation betwen sites and the island. it's a book that should be readed if you want to learn about the uses of GIS in archaeology.

A nicely written, well-thought out complex review of the life and work of Van Gogh. Written with a voice and tone of a purist this anthology delves into the social, theological and psychological effect that this man and his work had on the world of art and the world. Appreciated most by those with a strong vocabulary. Well worth it...

A good book where you can learn about some of the best players of the moment. Nicely illustrated the book depicts the temper of the players and their background.

Phelan's biography of Terence V. Powderly, along with his previous works on William Green and John Mitchell, places him in the premiere rank of labor biographers. His task in GRAND MASTER WORKMAN is to present a revised and much more favorable view of Powderly and his fourteen year (1879-1893) tenure as head of the Knights of Labor. Phelan targets the generations of American labor historians, particularly Norman Ware and Philip S. Foner, who dismissed Powderly and the Knights as a last gap of the utopian traditions of the antebellum years which were unsuited to the economic realities of the Gilded Age. This argument was specifically the case in regard to the rise of the rival and ultimately successful American Federation of Labor (AFL) with its more apolitical craft unionism. Powderly himself was charged with, among other things, being sensitive, vain, naive, and arrogant. Recent studies of the Knights, especially on the local level, have transformed the view of the Knights into that of an authentic working-class organization with a convincing critique of industrial capitalism. Unfortunately, the view of Powderly had not been transformed, until now. Phelan's Powderly is not a pusillanimous utopian but a worthy if somewhat flawed hero who articulated the collective progressive vision of the working masses in the face of the oppression and inhumanity of the industrial capitalist system and its leaders which eventually crushed the Knights. Phelan uses the voluminous archival papers of Powderly, on deposit at The Catholic University of America and available on microfilm, to present Powderly in his own words. The liberal use of quotes, such as Powderly's opinion of his former protege and personal Judas, John William Hayes, as a "Skunk" and a "Pimple," are a special treat and a great insight into Powderly's personality. Although the focus was on labor, Phelan could have written more on Powderly's later career as a government official, first as Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1897-1902, then as Chief of the Division of Information of the Bureau of Immigration, 1907-1921, and Commissioner of Conciliation of the Deparment of Labor, 1921 until his death on 24 June 1924. It was during this time that Powderly became a bosom friend and correspondent of the great labor advocate, 'Mother' Mary Harris Jones, the celebrated 'Miners' Angel.' In conclusion, Phelan's GRAND MASTER WORKMAN is the most definitive and balanced account of Powderly's years in the Knights of Labor but a more complete and detailed biography encompassing the rest of his career is still needed. END END

There are very few good Indian cookbooks out there which are the real stuff and this is one of them. Both authers have considerable proffessional expereince and unlike most others seem to have kitchen tested the reciepes before putting them down. I draw from this collection of reciepes for the sunday buffet at my restaurant with very good results. Wanted to gift a copy to one of our 'Indian-cooking enthusiast' patrons. Too bad it's currently out of print. Balraj Bhasin ( BBhasin@aol.com)

Bombay Curry Company, Alexandria, VA