{ "intents":[ { "tag": "greeting", "patterns": ["Hello", "Hi", "Hey", "Greetings", "Good morning", "Good afternoon", "Good evening"], "responses": ["Hello! How can I help you today?", "Hi there! What can I do for you?", "Hey! What brings you here today?"] }, { "tag": "goodbye", "patterns": ["Goodbye", "Bye", "See you later", "Adios", "Take care"], "responses": ["Goodbye! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.", "Bye! Have a great day!"] }, { "tag": "thanks", "patterns": ["Thanks", "Thank you", "Thanks a lot", "Appreciate it", "Thank you so much"], "responses": ["You're welcome! If you need assistance, feel free to ask.", "No problem! Let me know if there's anything else I can help with."] }, { "tag": "book_search", "patterns": ["Can you recommend a book?", "I'm looking for a book", "Recommend me something to read"], "responses": ["Certainly! What genre are you interested in?", "Sure, I'd be happy to recommend a book. What type of book are you in the mood for?"] }, { "tag":"Fiction", "patterns":[ "Fiction", "Recommend a Fiction book", "Recommend a book in Fiction" ], "responses":[ { "Book":"Gilead", "Feedback":"A NOVEL THAT READERS and critics have been eagerly anticipating for over a decade, Gilead is an astonishingly imagined story of remarkable lives. John Ames is a preacher, the son of a preacher and the grandson (both maternal and paternal) of preachers. It\u2019s 1956 in Gilead, Iowa, towards the end of the Reverend Ames\u2019s life, and he is absorbed in recording his family\u2019s story, a legacy for the young son he will never see grow up. Haunted by his grandfather\u2019s presence, John tells of the rift between his grandfather and his father: the elder, an angry visionary who fought for the abolitionist cause, and his son, an ardent pacifist. He is troubled, too, by his prodigal namesake, Jack (John Ames) Boughton, his best friend\u2019s lost son who returns to Gilead searching for forgiveness and redemption. Told in John Ames\u2019s joyous, rambling voice that finds beauty, humour and truth in the smallest of life\u2019s details, Gilead is a song of celebration and acceptance of the best and the worst the world has to offer. At its heart is a tale of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, pitch-perfect in style and story, set to dazzle critics and readers alike.", "Rate":3.85 }, { "Book":"Rage of angels", "Feedback":"A memorable, mesmerizing heroine Jennifer -- brilliant, beautiful, an attorney on the way up until the Mafia's schemes win her the hatred of an implacable enemy -- and a love more destructive than hate. A dangerous, dramatic world The Dark Arena of organized crime and flashbulb lit courtrooms where ambitious prosecutors begin their climb to political power.", "Rate":3.93 }, { "Book":"Warhost of Vastmark", "Feedback":"Tricked once more by his wily half-brother, Lysaer, Lord of Light, arrives at the tiny harbor town of Merior to find that Arithon's ship yards have been abandoned and meticulously destroyed, and that the Master of Shadow has disappeared as if into thin air. Meanwhile Arithon and the Mad Prophet Dakar are traveling on foot through the treacherous Kelhorn Mountains towards the Vastmark clans, there to raise further support for his cause. But raising a warhost is a costly business. Is it mere coincidence that Princess Talith\u2014Lysaer's beautiful, headstrong wife\u2014is taken captive and held for a vast ransom by a master brigand? The forces of light and shadow circle and feint, drawing ever closer to a huge conflict. And in the background the Fellowship of Seven Sorcerers and the Koriani Enchantresses watch and plan, and wait.", "Rate":4.03 }, { "Book":"Taken at the Flood", "Feedback":"A Few Weeks After Marrying An Attractive Young Widow, Gordon Cloade Is Tragically Killed By A Bomb Blast In The London Blitz. Overnight, The Former Mrs Underhay Finds Herself In Sole Possession Of The Cloade Family Fortune. Shortly Afterwards, Hercule Poirot Receives A Visit From The Dead Man S Sister-In-Law Who Claims She Has Been Warned By Spirits That Mrs Underhay S First Husband Is Still Alive. Poirot Has His Suspicions When He Is Asked To Find A Missing Person Guided Only By The Spirit World. Yet What Mystifies Poirot Most Is The Woman S True Motive For Approaching Him&", "Rate":3.71 }, { "Book":"The Yiddish Policemen's Union", "Feedback":"For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a \"temporary\" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown. But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life\u2014and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder\u2014right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage\u2014and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears. At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.", "Rate":3.7 }, { "Book":"The Silmarillion", "Feedback":"Designed to take fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings deeper into the myths and legends of Middle-earth The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part. The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-Earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor. Included in the book are several shorter works. The Ainulindale is a myth of the Creation and in the Valaquenta the nature and powers of each of the gods is described. The Akallabeth recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Numenor at the end of the Second Age and Of the Rings of Power tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age, as narrated in The Lord of the Rings. This pivotal work features the revised, corrected text and includes, by way of an introduction, a fascinating letter written by Tolkien in 1951 in which he gives a full explanation of how he conceived the early Ages of Middle-earth.\"", "Rate":3.91 }, { "Book":"Tropic of Cancer", "Feedback":"Miller's groundbreaking first novel, banned in Britain for almost thirty years, now reinvigorated in a new Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition. A penniless and as yet unpublished writer, Henry Miller arrived in Paris in 1930. Leaving behind a disintegrating marriage and an unhappy career in America, he threw himself into the low-life of bohemian Paris with unwavering gusto. A fictional account of Miller's adventures amongst the prostitutes and pimps, the penniless painters and writers of Montparnasse, Tropic of Cancer is an extravagant and rhapsodic hymn to a world of unrivalled eroticism and freedom. Tropic of Cancer's 1934 publication in France was hailed by Samuel Beckett as 'a momentous event in the history of modern writing'. The novel was subsequently banned in the UK and the USA and not released for publication for a further thirty years.", "Rate":3.69 }, { "Book":"The Love of the Last Tycoon", "Feedback":"Depicts the inner-workings of the Hollywood movie industry and its impact on the fabric of American life.", "Rate":3.65 }, { "Book":"The Song of Rhiannon", "Feedback":"A retelling of The Mabinogion in novel form. Manawydon finally unites with Rhiannon - an aspect of the Goddess - but his happiness is shaken by the appearance of the Gray Man, who seeks vengeance against the living and especially against one who would claim the Goddess.", "Rate":4.02 } ] }, { "tag":"Juvenile Fiction", "patterns":[ "Juvenile Fiction", "Recommend a Juvenile Fiction book", "Recommend a book in Juvenile Fiction" ], "responses":[ { "Book":"Ocean Star Express", "Feedback":"Joe and his parents are enjoying a summer holiday by the sea at the Ocean Star Hotel. The sky is bright blue, the sun shines and Joe loves all that the seaside has to offer. But when the fog rolls in and rain falls Joe begins to wish that he was back at home again. Things change, however, when the owner of the hotel invites Joe to share in a magical world, only a few steps away. The loft is black as night but then above Joe's head a thousand tiny stars begin to sparkle and in the distance he hears the chug-chug-chug of a model train. A whole world is soon to open up before Joe's eyes, a world of snow-capped mountains, great deserts, and rocking fishing boats.", "Rate":3.5 }, { "Book":"The voyage of the Dawn Treader", "Feedback":"The \"Dawn Treader\" is the first ship Narnia has seen in centuries. King Caspian has built it for his voyage to find the seven lords, good men whom his evil uncle Mizaz banished when he usurped the throne. The journey takes Edmund, Lucy, and their cousin Eustace to the Eastern Islands, beyond the Silver Sea, toward Aslan's country at the End of the World. Illustrations.", "Rate":4.09 }, { "Book":"Rest, Rabbit, Rest", "Feedback":"Rabbit's schedule keeps him so busy his friends have to trick him into resting.", "Rate":4.01 }, { "Book":"Where the Red Fern Grows", "Feedback":"A young boy living in the Ozarks achieves his heart's desire when he becomes the owner of two redbone hounds and teaches them to be champion hunters.", "Rate":4.37 }, { "Book":"Poppy's Return", "Feedback":"There's trouble at Gray House, the girlhood home that Poppy left long ago. Poppy's family has called her back to save them all\u2014mother, father, sisters and brothers, and dozens and dozens of deer mouse cousins. Poppy invites her rebellious son, Junior, to join her on the long trip across Dimwood Forest, hoping the journey will bring them closer together. But with Junior's skunk pal, Mephitis, and Ereth, the cantankerous porcupine, in tow\u2014sugared slug soup!\u2014Poppy and Junior may be in for unexpected adventure.", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"Diary of a Spider", "Feedback":"This is the diary ... of a spider. But don't be worried \u2013 he's more scared of you and your gigantic shoe! Actually, he's a lot like you. He goes to gym class and has Grandparents' Day at school. But he also spins sticky webs, scales walls, and takes wind\u2013catching lessons. Lucky for him, his best friend is a fly! Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss, the team behind the #1 bestselling Diary Of A Worm, spin a hilarious tale about the upside\u2013down web world of an eight\u2013legged charmer and his unlikely friend, Fly.", "Rate":4.25 }, { "Book":"An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving", "Feedback":"An adaptation of the original story follows the activities of seven children in nineteenth-century New England as they prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday while Mother is away caring for Grandmother.", "Rate":3.7 }, { "Book":"The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents", "Feedback":"Winner of the 2001 Carnegie Medal One rat, popping up here and there, squeaking loudly, and taking a bath in the cream, could be a plague all by himself. After a few days of this, it was amazing how glad people were to see the kid with his magical rat pipe. And they were amazing when the rats followed hint out of town. They'd have been really amazed if they'd ever found out that the rats and the piper met up with a cat somewhere outside of town and solemnly counted out the money. The Amazing Maurice runs the perfect Pied Piper scam. This streetwise alley cat knows the value of cold, hard cash and can talk his way into and out of anything. But when Maurice and his cohorts decide to con the town of Bad Blinitz, it will take more than fast talking to survive the danger that awaits. For this is a town where food is scarce and rats are hated, where cellars are lined with deadly traps, and where a terrifying evil lurks beneath the hunger-stricken streets.... Set in Terry Pratchett's widely popular Discworld, this masterfully crafted, gripping read is both compelling and funny. When one of the world's most acclaimed fantasy writers turns a classic fairy tale on its head, no one will ever look at the Pied Piper -- or rats -- the same way again!", "Rate":4.05 }, { "Book":"The Wee Free Men", "Feedback":"A nightmarish danger threatens from the other side of reality . . . Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle\u2014aka the Wee Free Men\u2014a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men. Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen of the Elves herself. . . . A Story of Discworld", "Rate":4.27 } ] }, { "tag":"Biography & Autobiography", "patterns":[ "Biography & Autobiography", "Recommend a Biography & Autobiography book", "Recommend a book in Biography & Autobiography" ], "responses":[ { "Book":"The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde", "Feedback":"Oscar Wilde had one of literary history's most explosive love affairs with Lord Alfred \"Bosie\" Douglas. In 1895, Bosie's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, delivered a note to the Albemarle Club addressed to \"Oscar Wilde posing as sodomite.\" With Bosie's encouragement, Wilde sued the Marquess for libel. He not only lost but he was tried twice for \"gross indecency\" and sent to prison with two years' hard labor. With this publication of the uncensored trial transcripts, readers can for the first time in more than a century hear Wilde at his most articulate and brilliant. The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde documents an alarmingly swift fall from grace; it is also a supremely moving testament to the right to live, work, and love as one's heart dictates.", "Rate":4.04 }, { "Book":"A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare", "Feedback":"1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen. James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare\u2019s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.", "Rate":4.09 }, { "Book":"Travels", "Feedback":"Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. When Michael Crichton -- a Harvard-trained physician, bestselling novelist, and successful movie director -- began to feel isolated in his own life, he decided to widen his horizons. He tracked wild animals in the jungles of Rwanda. He climbed Kilimanjaro and Mayan pyramids. He trekked across a landslide in Pakistan. He swam amid sharks in Tahiti. Fueled by a powerful curiosity and the need to see, feel, and hear firsthand and close-up, Michael Crichton has experienced adventures as compelling as those he created in his books and films. These adventures -- both physical and spiritual -- are recorded here in Travels, Crichton's most astonishing and personal work.", "Rate":3.95 }, { "Book":"Walt Whitman", "Feedback":"Whitman's genius, passions, poetry, and androgynous sensibility entwined to create an exuberant life amid the turbulent American mid-nineteenth century. In vivid detail, Kaplan examines the mysterious selves of the enigmatic man who celebrated the freedom and dignity of the individual and sang the praises of democracy and the brotherhood of man.", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"How to Make Love Like a Porn Star", "Feedback":"When the stewardess brought me off the plane in a wheelchair, I lowered my head. I was too scared to even look at my father. I didn't want to see the disappointment and horror on his face. All that hate I had accumulated for him over the years, all the resentment against him for not understanding what I was going through, just released with the tears. \"So, where are your parents?\" the stewardess asked me after a few minutes. \"I can't wait here with you much longer.\" I looked up and wiped my eyes. My father was standing ten feet away. He didn't even recognize me. In the underbelly of Las Vegas, a cesspool of warring biker gangs and seedy strip clubs transformed the gawky, brace-faced Jenna Massoli into the bombshell Jenna Jameson. Today, Jenna Jameson is the biggest star in the history of adult movies, consistently ranked as one of the most beautiful women alive. But behind the glamour and the meteoric rise to fame was a path paved with tragedy and heartbreak. As a teenager drawn into a chaotic world ruled by rape, abuse, and murder, Jenna plunged into a downward spiral of addiction, even as she became one of the most photographed women in adult magazines. Determined to overcome this past, Jenna rebounded in the adult-film business, where she encountered sadistic directors, experienced lovers of both sexes, amorous celebrities (from Howard Stern to Marilyn Manson to Tommy Lee), bitter rival starlets, and finally, glory, as she went on to become the biggest porn star the world has ever seen. But her struggle for happiness did not end when the accolades began. For years she wrestled with her resentment at her estranged father, the loneliness of growing up from the age of two without a mother, and her enduring childhood desire to find a man who could give her the security and love she never had. Her unforgettable memoir is many things at once: a shocking sexual history, an insider's guide to the secret workings of the billion-dollar adult-film industry, and a gripping thriller that probes deep into Jenna's dark past. An unparalleled exploration of sexual freedom, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star ventures far beyond the flesh, into the heart-shredding tragedies and adrenaline-pumping triumphs of a woman who has already lived a hundred lifetimes. Always witty and humorous even as she faces the demons of her past, Jenna offers hilarious anecdotes about one of the most controversial businesses in history, and shares outrageous advice, including her ten commandments of dating and sex, how to become a \"suitcase pimp,\" and how to make it in the business as a female (or a male). Add to this never-before-seen photographs from Jenna's private collection and others taken exclusively for this book, and the result is certain to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.", "Rate":3.75 }, { "Book":"The Bradbury Chronicles", "Feedback":"Accomplished journalist Sam Weller met the Ray Bradbury while writing a cover story for the Chicago Tribune Magazine and spent hundreds of hours interviewing Bradbury, his editors, family members, and longtime friends. With unprecedented access to private archives, he uncovered never\u2013before\u2013published letters, documents, and photographs that help tell the story of this literary genius and his remarkable creative journey. The result is a richly textured, detailed biography that illuminates the origins and accomplishments of Bradbury's fascinating mind.", "Rate":4.22 }, { "Book":"The Game", "Feedback":"Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live together in houses known as Projects. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to protect his real-life identity. The result is one of the most explosive and controversial books of the year -- guaranteed to change the lives of men and transform the way women understand the opposite sex forever. On his journey from AFC (average frustrated chump) to PUA (pick-up artist) to PUG (pick-up guru), Strauss not only shares scores of original seduction techniques but also has unforgettable encounters with the likes of Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heidi Fleiss, and Courtney Love. And then things really start to get strange -- and passions lead to betrayals lead to violence. The Game is the story of one man's transformation from frog to prince -- to prisoner in the most unforgettable book of the year.", "Rate":3.74 }, { "Book":"Ulysses S. Grant", "Feedback":"One of the first two volumes in Harper's Eminent Lives series, Korda brings his acclaimed storytelling talents to the life of Ulysses S. Grant \u2013 a man who managed to end the Civil War on a note of grace, serve two terms as president, write one of the most successful military memoirs in American literature, and is today remembered as a brilliant general but a failed president. Ulysses S. Grant was the first officer since George Washington to become a four\u2013star general in the United States Army, and the only president between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson to serve eight consecutive years in the White House. In this succinct and vivid biography, Michael Korda considers Grant's character and reconciles the conflicting evaluations of his leadership abilities. Grant's life played out as a true Horatio Alger story. Despite his humble background as the son of a tanner in Ohio, his lack of early success in the army, and assorted failed business ventures, his unwavering determination propelled him through the ranks of military leadership and into the presidency. But while the general's tenacity and steadfastness contributed to his success on the battlefield, it both aided and crippled his effectiveness in the White House. Assessing Grant both within the context of his time and in contrast to more recent American leaders, Korda casts a benevolent eye on Grant's presidency while at the same time conceding his weaknesses. He suggests that though the general's second term ended in financial and political scandals, the fact remains that for eight years Grant exerted a calming influence on a country that had only just emerged from a horrendous civil war. Ulysses S. Grant is an even\u2013handed and stirring portrait of a man who guided America through a pivotal juncture in its history.", "Rate":3.88 }, { "Book":"Thomas Jefferson", "Feedback":"In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father. Situating Jefferson within the context of America's evolution and tracing his legacy over the past two hundred years, Hitchens brings the character of Jefferson to life as a man of his time and also as a symbolic figure beyond it. Conflicted by power, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as Minister to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. Predicting that slavery would shape the future of America's development, this professed proponent of emancipation elided the issue in the Declaration and continued to own human property. An eloquent writer, he was an awkward public speaker; a reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy. Jefferson's statesmanship enabled him to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase with France, doubling the size of the nation, and he authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, opening up the American frontier for exploration and settlement. Hitchens also analyzes Jefferson's handling of the Barbary War, a lesser-known chapter of his political career, when his attempt to end the kidnapping and bribery of Americans by the Barbary states, and the subsequent war with Tripoli, led to the building of the U.S. navy and the fortification of America's reputation regarding national defense. In the background of this sophisticated analysis is a large historical drama: the fledgling nation's struggle for independence, formed in the crucible of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and, in its shadow, the deformation of that struggle in the excesses of the French Revolution. This artful portrait of a formative figure and a turbulent era poses a challenge to anyone interested in American history -- or in the ambiguities of human nature.", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"Muhammad", "Feedback":"Muhammad was born in 570 CE, and over the following sixty years built a thriving spiritual community, laying the foundations of a religion that changed the course of world history. There is more historical data on his life than on that of the founder of any other major faith, and yet his story is little known. Karen Armstrong's immaculately researched new biography of Muhammad will enable readers to understand the true origins and spirituality of a faith that is all too often misrepresented as cruel, intolerant, and inherently violent. An acclaimed authority on religious and spiritual issues, Armstrong offers a balanced, in-depth portrait, revealing the man at the heart of Islam by dismantling centuries of misconceptions. Armstrong demonstrates that Muhammad's life\u2014a pivot point in history\u2014has genuine relevance to the global crises we face today.", "Rate":4.04 } ] }, { "tag":"History", "patterns":[ "History", "Recommend a History book", "Recommend a book in History" ], "responses":[ { "Book":"Tyranny of the Majority", "Feedback":"At last...the public hearing she was denied...These essays reveal keen powers of analysis applied to some of the most obdurate problems that bedevil electoral politics. Anyone who cares about the mechanisms of democracy should be engaged by her tough-minded explorations. It doesn't matter where you think you stand: it's all here, to argue or agree with. -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Lani Guinier's fascinating book is a prophetic intervention into a public conversation we desperately need to rejuvenate. There is no doubt that her powerful voice will produce good consequences for our nation and world. -- Cornel West, Author of Race Matters Intriguing and desperately needed... -- The San Francisco Chronicle", "Rate":3.82 }, { "Book":"The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement", "Feedback":"A blending of scholarly research and interviews with many of the figures who launched the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s records the events of the movement's tumultuous first decade", "Rate":4.04 }, { "Book":"Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents", "Feedback":"Suggests a theory of presidential power, and tests it against the events in the administrations of the postwar presidents", "Rate":3.79 }, { "Book":"What Went Wrong?", "Feedback":"For centuries, the world of Islam was in the forefront of human achievement -- the foremost military and economic power in the world, the leader in the arts and sciences of civilization. Christian Europe was seen as an outer darkness of barbarism and unbelief from which there was nothing to learn or to fear. And then everything changed. The West won victory after victory, first on the battlefield and then in the marketplace. In this elegantly written volume, Bernard Lewis, a renowned authority an Islamic affairs, examines the anguished reaction of the Islamic world as it tried to make sense of how it had been overtaken, overshadowed, and dominated by the West. In a fascinating portrait of a culture in turmoil, Lewis shows how the Middle East turned its attention to understanding European weaponry, industry, government, education, and culture. He also describes how some Middle Easterners fastened blame on a series of scapegoats, while others asked not \"Who did this to us?\" but rather \"Where did we go wrong?\" With a new Afterword that addresses September 11 and its aftermath, What Went Wrong? is an urgent, accessible book that no one who is concerned with contemporary affairs will want to miss.", "Rate":3.49 }, { "Book":"1421", "Feedback":"Based on 15 years of in-depth research, \"1421\" traces the voyages of an extraordinary fleet of Chinese ships, whose crews actually charted America 70 years before Columbus. Four 8-page color inserts. 37 maps & diagrams.", "Rate":3.59 }, { "Book":"A Crack in the Edge of the World", "Feedback":"Unleashed by ancient geologic forces, a magnitude 8.25 earthquake rocked San Francisco in the early hours of April 18, 1906. Less than a minute later, the city lay in ruins. Bestselling author Simon Winchester brings his inimitable storytelling abilities to this extraordinary event, exploring the legendary earthquake and fires that spread horror across San Francisco and northern California in 1906 as well as its startling impact on American history and, just as important, what science has recently revealed about the fascinating subterranean processes that produced it\u2014and almost certainly will cause it to strike again.", "Rate":3.78 }, { "Book":"Krakatoa", "Feedback":"Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, examines the legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa, which was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogot\u00e1 and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. The sound of the island's destruction was heard in Australia and India and on islands thousands of miles away. Most significant of all -- in view of today's new political climate -- the eruption helped to trigger in Java a wave of murderous anti-Western militancy among fundamentalist Muslims, one of the first outbreaks of Islamic-inspired killings anywhere. Krakatoa gives us an entirely new perspective on this fascinating and iconic event. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.", "Rate":3.87 }, { "Book":"Sex with the Queen", "Feedback":"In this follow-up to her bestselling Sex with Kings, Eleanor Herman reveals the truth about what goes on behind the closed door of a queen's boudoir. Impeccably researched, filled with page-turning romance, passion, and scandal, Sex with the Queen explores the scintillating sexual lives of some of our most beloved and infamous female rulers. She was the queen, living in an opulent palace, wearing lavish gowns and dazzling jewels. She was envied, admired, and revered. She was also miserable, having been forced to marry a foreign prince sight unseen, a royal ogre who was sadistic, foaming at the mouth, physically repulsive, mentally incompetent, or sexually impotent\u2014and in some cases all of the above. How did queens find happiness? In courts bristling with testosterone\u2014swashbuckling generals, polished courtiers, and virile cardinals\u2014many royal women had love affairs. Anne Boleyn flirted with courtiers; Catherine Howard slept with one. Henry VIII had both of them beheaded. Catherine the Great had her idiot husband murdered, and ruled the Russian empire with a long list of sexy young favorites. Marie Antoinette fell in love with the handsome Swedish count Axel Fersen, who tried valiantly to rescue her from the guillotine. Empress Alexandra of Russia found emotional solace in the mad monk Rasputin. Her behavior was the spark that set off the firestorm of the Russian revolution. Princess Diana gave up her palace bodyguard to enjoy countless love affairs, which tragically led to her early death. When a queen became sick to death of her husband and took a lover, anything could happen\u2014from disgrace and death to political victory. Some kings imprisoned erring wives for life; other monarchs obligingly named the queen's lover prime minister. The crucial factor deciding the fate of an unfaithful queen was the love affair's implications in terms of power, money, and factional rivalry. At European courts, it was the politics\u2014not the sex\u2014that caused a royal woman's tragedy\u2014or her ultimate triumph.", "Rate":3.91 }, { "Book":"The Chaneysville Incident", "Feedback":"The legends say something happened in Chaneysville. The Chaneysville Incident is the powerful story of one man's obsession with discovering what that something was--a quest that takes the brilliant and bitter young black historian John Washington back through the secrets and buried evil of his heritage. Returning home to care for and then bury his father's closest friend and his own guardian, Old Jack Crawley, he comes upon the scant records of his family's proud and tragic history, which he drives himself to reconstruct and accept. This is the story of John's relationship with his family, the town, and the woman he loves; and also between the past and the present, between oppression and guilt, hate and violence, love and acceptance.", "Rate":3.96 } ] }, { "tag":"Literary Criticism", "patterns":[ "Literary Criticism", "Recommend a Literary Criticism book", "Recommend a book in Literary Criticism" ], "responses":[ { "Book":"How to Read Literature Like a Professor", "Feedback":"What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey?. Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface\u2014a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character\u2014and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you. In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain. Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect companion for making your reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.", "Rate":3.65 }, { "Book":"The Art of the Novel", "Feedback":"Kundera brilliantly examines the work of such important and diverse figures as Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Musil. He is especially penetrating on Hermann Broch, and his exploration of the world of Kafka's novels vividly reveals the comic terror of Kafka's bureaucratized universe. Kundera's discussion of his own work includes his views on the role of historical events in fiction, the meaning of action, and the creation of character in the post-psychological novel.", "Rate":3.96 }, { "Book":"Letters from the Earth", "Feedback":"\"I have told you nothing about man that is not true.\" You must pardon me if I repeat that remark now and then in these letters; I want you to take seriously the things I am telling you, and I feel that if I were in your place and you in mine, I should need that reminder from time to time, to keep my credulity from flagging. In Letters from the Earth, Twain presents himself as the Father of History -- reviewing and interpreting events from the Garden of Eden through the Fall and the Flood, translating the papers of Adam and his descendants through the generations. First published fifty years after his death, this eclectic collection is vintage Twain: sharp, witty, imaginative, complex, and wildly funny.", "Rate":4.22 }, { "Book":"Every Book Its Reader", "Feedback":"Inspired by a landmark exhibition mounted by the British Museum in 1963 to celebrate five eventful centuries of the printed word, Nicholas A. Basbanes offers a lively consideration of writings that have \"made things happen\" in the world, works that have both nudged the course of history and fired the imagination of countless influential people. In his fifth work to examine a specific aspect of book culture, Basbanes also asks what we can know about such figures as John Milton, Edward Gibbon, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Adams, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Henry James, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller\u2013\u2013even the notorious Marquis de Sade and Adolf Hitler\u2013\u2013by knowing what they have read. He shows how books that many of these people have consulted, in some cases annotated with their marginal notes, can offer tantalizing clues to the evolution of their character and the development of their thought.", "Rate":3.96 }, { "Book":"Teaching a Stone to Talk", "Feedback":"Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings.", "Rate":4.2 }, { "Book":"Holy the Firm", "Feedback":"In 1975 Annie Dillard took up residence on an island in Puget Sound in a wooded room furnished with \"one enormous window, one cat, one spider and one person.\" For the next two years she asked herself questions about time, reality, sacrifice death, and the will of God. In Holy the Firm she writes about a moth consumed in a candle flame, about a seven-year-old girl burned in an airplane accident, about a baptism on a cold beach. But behind the moving curtain of what she calls \"the hard things -- rock mountain and salt sea,\" she sees, sometimes far off and sometimes as close by as a veil or air, the power play of holy fire. This is a profound book about the natural world -- both its beauty and its cruelty -- the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dillard knows so well.", "Rate":4.22 }, { "Book":"The Writing Life", "Feedback":"Annie Dillard has written eleven books, including the memoir of her parents, An American Childhood; the Northwest pioneer epic The Living; and the nonfiction narrative Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. A gregarious recluse, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.", "Rate":4.03 }, { "Book":"Every Tongue Got to Confess", "Feedback":"Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston collected on her travels through the Gulf States in the late 1920s. The bittersweet and often hilarious tales -- which range from longer narratives about God, the Devil, white folk, and mistaken identity to witty one-liners -- reveal attitudes about faith, love, family, slavery, race, and community. Together, this collection of nearly 500 folktales weaves a vibrant tapestry that celebrates African American life in the rural South and represents a major part of Zora Neale Hurston's literary legacy.", "Rate":3.98 }, { "Book":"Journal of a Novel", "Feedback":"Each working day from January 29 to November 1, 1951, John Steinbeck warmed up to the work of writing East of Eden with a letter to the late Pascal Covici, his friend and editor at The Viking Press. It was his way, he said, of \"getting my mental arm in shape to pitch a good game.\" Steinbeck's letters were written on the left-hand pages of a notebook in which the facing pages would be filled with the test of East of Eden. They touched on many subjects\u2014story arguments, trial flights of worknamship, concern for his sons. Part autobiography, part writer's workshop, these letters offer an illuminating perspective on Steinbeck's creative process, and a fascinating glimpse of Steinbeck, the private man.", "Rate":4.09 }, { "Book":"The Complete Poems", "Feedback":"Contains all of Blake's poetry with full annotation and a glossary of proper names.", "Rate":4.29 } ] }, { "tag":"Philosophy", "patterns":[ "Philosophy", "Recommend a Philosophy book", "Recommend a book in Philosophy" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Presocratics", "Feedback":"Library of Liberal Arts title.", "Rate":4.04 }, { "Book":"The Perennial Philosophy", "Feedback":"The Perennial Philosophy is defined by its author as \"The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds.\" With great wit and stunning intellect, Aldous Huxley examines the spiritual beliefs of various religious traditions and explains them in terms that are personally meaningful.", "Rate":4.23 }, { "Book":"The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell", "Feedback":"The acclaimed novelist and critic describes his personal experimentation with the little-known drug mescaline and explores the nature of visionary experience, in an omnibus edition containing the two classic works The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. Reissue.", "Rate":3.94 }, { "Book":"Plato, Not Prozac!", "Feedback":"If you're facing a dilemma -- whether it's handling a relationship, living ethically, dealing with a career change, or finding meaning in life -- the world's most important thinkers from centuries past will help guide you toward a solution compatible with your individual beliefs. From Kirkegaard's thoughts on coping with death to the I Ching's guidelines on adapting to change, Plato, Not Prozac! makes philosophy accessible and shows you how to use it to solve your everyday problems. Gone is the need for expensive therapists, medication, and lengthy analysis. Clearly organized by common problems to help you tailor Dr. Lou Marinoff's advice to your own needs, this is an intelligent, effective, and persuasive prescription for self-healing therapy that is giving psychotherapy a run for its money.", "Rate":3.39 }, { "Book":"Wittgenstein's Poker", "Feedback":"On October 25, 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, England, the great twentieth-century philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The meeting -- which lasted ten minutes -- did not go well. Their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of instant legend, but precisely what happened during that brief confrontation remained for decades the subject of intense disagreement. An engaging mix of philosophy, history, biography, and literary detection, Wittgenstein's Poker explores, through the Popper/Wittgenstein confrontation, the history of philosophy in the twentieth century. It evokes the tumult of fin-de-si\u00e9cle Vienna, Wittgentein's and Popper's birthplace; the tragedy of the Nazi takeover of Austria; and postwar Cambridge University, with its eccentric set of philosophy dons, including Bertrand Russell. At the center of the story stand the two giants of philosophy themselves -- proud, irascible, larger than life -- and spoiling for a fight.", "Rate":3.75 }, { "Book":"The Making of a Philosopher", "Feedback":"Part memoir, part study, The Making of a Philosopher is the self\u2013portrait of a deeply intelligent mind as it develops over a life on both sides of the Atlantic. The Making of a Philosopher follows Colin McGinn from his early years in England reading Descartes and Anselm, to his years in the states, first in Los Angeles, then New York. McGinn presents a contemporary academic take on the great philosophical figures of the twentieth century, including Bertrand Russell, Jean\u2013Paul Sartre, and Noam Chomsky, alongside stories of the teachers who informed his ideas and often became friends and mentors, especially the colorful A.J. Ayer at Oxford. McGinn's prose is always elegant and probing; students of contemporary philosophy and the general reader alike will absorb every page.", "Rate":3.65 }, { "Book":"The Blue and Brown Books", "Feedback":"These works, as the sub-title makes clear, are unfinished sketches for Philosophical Investigations, possibly the most important and influential philosophical work of modern times. The 'Blue Book' is a set of notes dictated to Witgenstein's Cambridge students in 1933-1934: the 'Brown Book' was a draft for what eventually became the growth of the first part of Philosophical Investigations. This book reveals the germination and growth of the ideas which found their final expression in Witgenstein's later work. It is indispensable therefore to students of Witgenstein's thought and to all those who wish to study at first-hand the mental processes of a thinker who fundamentally changed the course of modern philosophy.", "Rate":4.13 }, { "Book":"The Act of Creation", "Feedback":"The author examines the idea that we are at our most creative when rational thought is suspended-for example, in dreams and trancelike states.", "Rate":4.26 }, { "Book":"The Ghost in the Machine", "Feedback":"An examination of the human impulse towards self-destruction suggests that in the course of human evolution, a pathological split between emotion and reason developed", "Rate":4.01 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Comics & Graphic Novels", "patterns":[ "Comics & Graphic Novels", "Recommend a book in Comics & Graphic Novels", "Recommend a Comics & Graphic Novels book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"How to Make Money Like a Porn Star", "Feedback":"Claudia Corvette. From her tousled bedroom hair to her name\u2013all the porn stars in this world take their names from supermodels and sports cars\u2013she is adult entertainment's prototypical femme fatale. Her life is the collision of countless troubled\u2013childhood cliches and grown\u2013up wet dreams, projected onto her as surely as her videos project their blue light onto lonely men around the world. From its first panel, How to Make Money Like a Porn Star draws the reader into the dark world of girls like Claudia, the men who fantasize about them, and the monsters who control them. In the hands of Rolling Stone writer Neil Strauss and illustrator Bernard Chang, this adult graphic novel weaves together black humor and blacker reality. Like all great American stories, it features humble beginnings, life\u2013changing tragedy, stripping, abuse, implants, fame, addiction, bigger implants, abduction, gunplay, downfall, and even bigger implants. Not to mention a thousand shades of latex and L'Oreal. Part parody, part morality tale, here is the truth about the porn life, its outsized visual splendor captured in a comic parade of doe\u2013eyed centerfolds, its essence distilled in a story that will haunt every reader who has ever wondered where his next fantasy is coming from.", "Rate":3.31 }, { "Book":"Inferno", "Feedback":"As a mad arsonist known as an Enfer scheme terrorizes the inhabitants of Gotham City, a fire at Arkham Asylum is engineered to provide an escape opportunity for its most infamous inmate, the Joker, who comes up with a scheme to launch the ultimate crime wave, disguised as the Caped Crusader himself. Original.", "Rate":3.6 }, { "Book":"Black Hole", "Feedback":"Seattle teenagers of the 1970s are suddenly faced with a devastating, disfiguring, and incurable plague that spreads only through sexual contact.", "Rate":3.83 }, { "Book":"Good-bye, Chunky Rice", "Feedback":"Chunky Rice, a small green turtle, embarks on an ocean voyage, where he meets a shady skipper and conjoined twins, Ruth and Livonia, but he also leaves behind his mouse deer girlfriend Dandel, who sends him letters in a bottle. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.8 }, { "Book":"Will Eisner's New York", "Feedback":"A quartet of graphic works explores the lives and landscapes of the diverse inhabitants of the urban jungle of the Big Apple.", "Rate":4.36 }, { "Book":"Amphigorey", "Feedback":"Fifteen works by the American artist and author provide a journey into a macabre world", "Rate":4.05 }, { "Book":"Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995", "Feedback":"Compiles a selection of Sunday cartoons selected and commented upon by the author.", "Rate":4.71 }, { "Book":"The Complete Calvin and Hobbes", "Feedback":"Brings together every \"Calvin and Hobbes\" cartoon that has ever appeared in syndication, along with stories and poems from classic collections.", "Rate":4.82 }, { "Book":"The Best of Ray Bradbury", "Feedback":"Collects top adaptations of the popular science-fiction author's works, in a fan's compendium that includes \"Come Into My Cellar,\" \"The Golden Apples of the Sun,\" and \"A Sound of Thunder.\" Original.", "Rate":4.07 }, { "Book":"The Marvel Comics Encyclopedia", "Feedback":"Introduces all of Marvel's greatest heroes and villains, with full details about their powers and careers.", "Rate":4.36 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Religion", "patterns":[ "Religion", "Recommend a Religion book", "Recommend a book in Religion" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time", "Feedback":"Of the many recent books on the historical Jesus, none has explored what the latest biblical scholarship means for personal faith. Now, in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Marcus Borg addresses the yearnings of those who want a fully contemporary faith that welcomes rather than oppresses our critical intelligence and openness to the best of historical scholarship. Borg shows how a rigorous examination of historical findings can lead to a new faith in Christ, one that is critical and, at the same time, sustaining. \"Believing in Jesus does not mean believing doctrines about him,\" Borg writes. \"Rather, it means to give one's heart, one's self at its deepest level, to . . . the living Lord.\" Drawing on his own journey from a naive, unquestioning belief in Christ through collegiate skepticism to a mature and contemporary Christian faith, Borg illustrates how an understanding of the historical Jesus can actually lead to a more authentic Christian life\u2014one not rooted in creeds or dogma, but in a life of spiritual challenge, compassion, and community. In straightforward, accessible prose, Borg looks at the major findings of modern Jesus scholarship from the perspective of faith, bringing alive the many levels of Jesus' character: spirit person, teacher of alternative wisdom, social prophet, and movement founder. He also reexamines the major stories of the Old Testament vital to an authentic understanding of Jesus, showing how an enriched understanding of these stories can uncover new truths and new pathways to faith. For questioning believers, doubters, and reluctant unbelievers alike, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time frees our understanding of Jesus' life and message from popular misconceptions and outlines the way to a sound and contemporary faith: \"For ultimately, Jesus is not simply a figure of the past, but a figure of the present. Meeting that Jesus\u2014the living one who comes to us even now\u2014will be like meeting Jesus again for the first time.\"", "Rate":4.14 }, { "Book":"Reading the Bible Again for the First Time", "Feedback":"One of the vital challenges facing thoughtful people today is how to read the Bible faithfully without abandoning our sense of truth and history. Reading the Bible Again for the First Time provides a much-needed solution to the problem of how to have a fully authentic yet contemporary understanding of the scriptures. Many mistakenly believe there are no choices other than fundamentalism or simply rejecting the Bible as something that can bring meaning to our lives. Answering this modern dilemma, acclaimed author Marcus Borg reveals how it is possible to reconcile the Bible with both a scientific and critical way of thinking and our deepest spiritual needs, leading to a contemporary yet grounded experience of the sacred texts. This seminal book shows you how to read the Bible as it should be examined\u2014in an approach the author calls \"historical-metaphorical.\" Borg explores what the Scriptures meant to the ancient communities that produced and lived by them. He then helps us to discover the meaning of these stories, providing the knowledge and perspective to make the wisdom of the Bible an essential part of our modern lives. The author argues that the conventional way of seeing the Bible's origin, authority, and interpretation has become unpersuasive to millions of people in our time, and that we need a fresh way of encountering the Bible that takes the texts seriously but not literally, even as it takes seriously who we have become. Borg traces his personal spiritual journey, describing for readers how he moved from an unquestioning childhood belief in the biblical stories to a more powerful and dynamic relationship with the Bible as a sacred text brimming with meaning and guidance. Using his own experience as an example, he reveals how the modern crisis of faith is itself rooted in the misinterpretation of sacred texts as historical record and divine dictation, and opens readers to a truer, more abundant perspective. This unique book invites everyone\u2014whatever one's religious background\u2014to engage the Bible, wrestle with its meaning, explore its mysteries, and understand its relevance. Borg shows us how to encounter the Bible in a fresh way that rejects the limits of simple literalism and opens up rich possibilities for our lives.", "Rate":4.13 }, { "Book":"Shadow of the Almighty", "Feedback":"The bestselling account of the martyrdom of Jim Elliot and four other missionaries at the hands of the Auca Indians in Ecuador. New introduction by the author.", "Rate":4.39 }, { "Book":"The Dance of the Dissident Daughter", "Feedback":"The acclaimed spiritual memoir from the author of The Secret Life of Bees I was amazed to find that I had no idea how to unfold my spiritual life in a feminine way. I was surprised and, in fact, a little terrified when I found myself in the middle of a feminist spiritual reawakening. Sue Monk was a \"conventionally religious, churchgoing woman, a traditional wife and mother\" with a thriving career as a Christian writer until she began to question her role as a woman in her culture, her family, and her church. From a jarring encounter with sexism in a suburban drugstore to monastery retreats and rituals in the caves of Crete, Kidd takes readers through the fear, anger, healing, and transformation of her awakening. Retaining a meaningful connection \"with the deep song of Christianity,\" she opens the door for traditional Christian women to discover a spirituality that speaks directly to them and provides inspiring wisdom for all who struggle to embrace their full humanity.", "Rate":3.96 }, { "Book":"C.S. Lewis", "Feedback":"Known throughout the world as the intellect behind The Chronicles of Narnia and as the twentieth century's most influential Christian writer, C. S. Lewis has stirred millions of readers through his probing insights, passionate arguments, and provocative questions about God, love, life, and death. Gathered from the mass of his published works -- including The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, The Four Loves, and God in the Dock -- as well as from letters, essays, and less familiar writings, this compendium contains a cross section of Lewis's finest work.", "Rate":4.31 }, { "Book":"The Screwtape Letters", "Feedback":"In this humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils, C. S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better understanding of what it means to live a faithful life.", "Rate":4.22 }, { "Book":"Mere Christianity", "Feedback":"A forceful and accessible discussion of Christian belief that has become one of the most popular introductions to Christianity and one of the most popular of Lewis's books. Uncovers common ground upon which all Christians can stand together.", "Rate":4.32 }, { "Book":"Learning to Love", "Feedback":"Having embraced a life of solitude in his own hermitage, Thomas Merton finds his faith tested beyond his imagination when a visit to the hospital leads to a clandestine affair of the heart. Jolted out of his comfortable routine, Merton is forced to reassess his need for love and his commitment to celibacy and the monastic vocation.This astonishing volume traces Merton\u2019s struggle to reconcile his unexpected love with his sacred vows while continuing to grapple with the burning social issues of the day \u2013 including racial conflicts, the war in Vietnam, and the Arab-Israeli conflict \u2013 visiting and corresponding with high-profile friends like Thich Nhat Hanh and Joan Baez, and further developing his writing career. Revealing Merton to be \u2018very human\u2019 in his chronicles of the ecstasy and torment of being in love, Learning to Love comes full circle as Merton recommits himself completely and more deeply to his vocation even as he recognizes \u2018my need for love, my loneliness, my inner division, the struggle in which solitude is at once a problem and a \u2018solution\u2019. And perhaps not a perfect solution either\u2019 (11 May, 1967).", "Rate":4.5 }, { "Book":"What Christians Believe", "Feedback":"The Essentials Explained Master storyteller and essayist C. S. Lewis here tackles the central questions of the Christian faith: Who was Jesus? What did he accomplish? What does it mean for me? In these classic essays, which began as talks on the BBC during World War II, Lewis creatively and simply explains the basic tenets of Christianity. Taken from the core section of Mere Christianity, the selection in this gift edition provides an accessible way for more people to discover these timeless truths. For those looking to remind themselves of the things they hold true, or those looking for a snapshot of Christianity, this book is a wonderful introduction to the faith.", "Rate":4.2 }, { "Book":"Think on These Things", "Feedback":"\u2018The material contained in this volume was originally presented in the form of talks to students, teachers and parents in India, but its keen penetration and lucid simplicity will be deeply meaningful to thoughtful people everywhere, of all ages, and in every walk of life. Krishnamurti examines with characteristic objectivity and insight the expressions of what we are pleased to call our culture, our education, religion, politics and tradition; and he throws much light on such basic emotions as ambition, greed and envy, the desire for security and the lust for power \u2013 all of which he shows to be deteriorating factors in human society.\u2019 From the Editor\u2019s Note \u2018Krishnamurti\u2019s observations and explorations of modern man\u2019s estate are penetrating and profound, yet given with a disarming simplicity and directness. To listen to him or to read his thoughts is to face oneself and the world with an astonishing morning freshness.\u2019 Anne Marrow Lindbergh", "Rate":4.4 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Drama", "patterns":[ "Drama", "Recommend a Drama book", "Recommend a book in Drama" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays", "Feedback":"Accompanied by two additional plays, presents the classic drama about literature and reality in which six characters involved in their own family drama come to life at a theater in the midst of a rehearsal, insisting that the theatrical company complete their story.", "Rate":3.95 }, { "Book":"The Crucible", "Feedback":"A play revealing the Salem witch trials of the late seventeenth century and the problem of guilt by association", "Rate":3.57 }, { "Book":"The Crucible", "Feedback":"\"Earlier version copyright under title Those familiar spirits\"-- T.p. verso.", "Rate":3.57 }, { "Book":"Death of a Salesman", "Feedback":"The tragedy of a typical American--a salesman who at the age of sixty-three is faced with what he cannot face; defeat and disillusionment.", "Rate":3.5 }, { "Book":"Saint Joan", "Feedback":"One of Shaw's most unusual and enduringly popular plays. With SAINT JOAN (1923) Shaw reached the height of his fame and Joan is one of his finest creations; forceful, vital, and rebelling against the values that surround her. The play distils Shaw's views on the subjects of politics, religion and creative evolution.", "Rate":3.79 }, { "Book":"Faust", "Feedback":"A brief analysis of the development, style, and protagonists of the play is included with Goethe's masterpiece about a troubled man who sells his soul to the devil.", "Rate":3.73 }, { "Book":"Prometheus Bound and Other Plays", "Feedback":"Aeschylus (525;456 BC) brought a new grandeur and epic sweep to the drama of classical Athens, raising it to the status of high art. In Prometheus Bound the defiant Titan Prometheus is brutally punished by Zeus for daring to improve the state of wretchedness and servitude in which mankind is kept. The Suppliants tells the story of the fifty daughters of Danaus who must flee to escape enforced marriages, while Seven Against Thebes shows the inexorable downfall of the last members of the cursed family of Oedipus. And The Persians, the only Greek tragedy to deal with events from recent Athenian history, depicts the aftermath of the defeat of Persia in the battle of Salamis, with a sympathetic portrayal of its disgraced King Xerxes. Philip Vellacott's evocative translation is accompanied by an introduction, with individual discussions of the plays, and their sources in history and mythology.", "Rate":4.1 }, { "Book":"Iphigenia, Phaedra, Athaliah", "Feedback":"Strongly influenced by Classical drama, Jean Racine (1639\u201399) broke away from the grandiose theatricality of baroque drama to create works of intense psychological realism, with characters manipulated by cruel and vengeful gods. Iphigenia depicts a princess\u2019s absolute submission to her father\u2019s will, despite his determination to sacrifice her to gain divine favour before going to war. Described by Voltaire as \u2018the masterpiece of the human mind\u2019, Phaedra shows a woman\u2019s struggle to overcome her overwhelming passion for her stepson \u2013 an obsession that brings destruction to a noble family. And Athaliah portrays a ruthless pagan queen, who defies Jehovah in her desperate attempt to keep the throne of Jerusalem from its legitimate heir.", "Rate":3.85 }, { "Book":"The Wasps", "Feedback":"In 'The Wasps' an old-fashioned father and his loose-living son come to blows--and end up in court; elsewhere Aristophanes milks the clash of generations for all it is worth by sending up the purveyors of new ideas like Socrates and Euripides (the most controversial of the great tragedians). In 'The Poet and the Women' Euripides, accused of misogyny, gets a relative in drag to infiltrate an all-woman festival and find out what revenge is being plotted, with predictable bawdy results. In 'The Frogs, ' written in the darkest days of the Peloponnesian War, the god Dionysus descends to the Underworld to find a poet to bring back: does Athens in her hour of danger need the traditional wisdom of Aeschylus or the brilliant modern cleverness of Euripides? As the great debate proceeds, Aristophanes combines parody with slapstick and political discussion with pantomime high spirit, to produce a hilarious and unique masterpiece.", "Rate":3.95 }, { "Book":"The Oresteia", "Feedback":"A trilogy of plays dramatizes the murder of Agamemnon by his wife, Clytaemnestra, the revenge of her son, Orestes, and his judgement by the court of Athena", "Rate":4.01 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Juvenile Nonfiction", "patterns":[ "Juvenile Nonfiction", "Recommend a book in Juvenile Nonfiction", "Recommend a Juvenile Nonfiction book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Secret Garden Cookbook", "Feedback":"Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden delights in the wondrous discoveries of lonely Mary Lennox as she slowly helps bring an abandoned garden back to life. It also delights in good food and a robust appetite, and the health and strength they can bring. Written at a time when many children were going hungry and even starving, Burnett's beloved story celebrates the magic of fresh air, new milk, homemade currant buns, and hearty, simple fare. Inside the pages of this cookbook are recipes for Mary's favorite foods, in and out of the garden, from porridge to roasted potatoes and eggs, all inspired by The Secret Garden and all adapted by chef and culinary historian Amy Coder from traditional Victorian recipes. Ms. Coder has supplemented these simple, wholesome recipes with fascinating tidbits on Victorian foods and Victorian eating customs. The result is a scrumptious tribute to Burnett's classic novel, a fascinating glimpse into the cooking customs of a historical period that is now long past, and a step-by-step guide to making delicious, tasty treats to enjoy in your own secret garden.", "Rate":4.28 }, { "Book":"Laura's Album", "Feedback":"Though best known as the author of the Little House books, Laura Ingalls Wilder led a full, rich life that spanned almost a century of American history. All through her life Laura saved mementos of her past, including early writings, letters, drawings, and photographs, which have been lovingly preserved in private and public collections across the country. Now, for the first time ever, these photographs, writings, and memorabilia have been gathered together in one incredible volume by noted Little House historian William Anderson. Each gorgeous page of LAURA'S ALBUM is a doorway into the private world of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and offers a unique glimpse of what her life was like. Here is the fascinating true story of this remarkable pioneer woman's life as well as an unforgettable tale of our own American past.", "Rate":4.3 }, { "Book":"Falling Up", "Feedback":"A collection of humorous poems and drawings. Copyright \u00a9 Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.", "Rate":4.34 }, { "Book":"Time For Kids: Butterflies!", "Feedback":"Butterflies There are 20,000 different kinds of butterflies in the world. Many have brightly colored wings. But butterflies don't start life as beauties. Every butterfly begins as a tiny egg that hatches into a caterpillar. Then an amazing change takes place. The caterpillar turns into a fluttering butterfly!", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"The Annotated Charlotte's Web", "Feedback":"Charlotte's Web, one of America's best-loved children's books, is seamless in plot, poignant in its delineation of characters who will live in children's literature forever, and written with a seeming ease and fluency that make the reading as engrossing as it is effortless. The Annotated Charlotte's Web opens the door to the creator's workshop and allows the reader to glance over the shoulder of one of the most exacting and fastidious American writers, watching as he forms his masterpiece.", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"My Little House Crafts Book", "Feedback":"Make the same pioneer crafts that Laura did! In her beloved Little House books, Laura Ingalls Wilder tells of her pioneer childhood growing up on the frontier. Because the Ingallses often lived far away from any stores, and because they had little money, Laura and her family had to make most of their own household items, using whatever materials were available. Now, with MY LITTLE HOUSE CRAFTS BOOK, you can share a part of Laura's pioneer days by learning how to make the same things that she and her family made for their little homes on the frontier. Inside this book are easy, step-by-step instructions for 18 crafts taken straight from the pages of Laura's Little House books. All you need to get started are a few simple supplies, and you're on your way to making fun and useful pioneer crafts that you'll cherish forever.", "Rate":4.05 }, { "Book":"Pioneer Girl", "Feedback":"The pioneer spirit lives on... Readers around the world know and love Laura, the little girl born in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and raised in covered wagons and on wide open prairies. Now Little House fans can learn more about \"Half-pint\" in this, the first picture book biography book of Laura Ingalls Wilder. With a simple, glowing text by noted historian and Little House scholar William Anderson, and glorious paintings by Dan Andreasen, Pioneer Girl is a very special portrait of a writer whose classic books and poineer adventures have made her one of the most popular literary figures in America. This picture-book biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder tells the remarkable story of the pioneer girl who would one day immortalize her adventures in the beloved Little House books. Written in simple, glowing text by noted Little House scholar William Anderson, and illustrated with glorious paintings by artist Dan Andreasen, this wonderful first biography captures the very essence of the little girl called \u2018Half-pint,' whose classic books and pioneer adventures have made her one of the most popular literary figures in America. This picture-book biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder tells the remarkable story of the pioneer girl who would one day immortalize her adventures in the beloved Little House books. Written in simple, glowing text by noted Little House scholar William Anderson, and illustrated with glorious paintings by artist Dan Andreasen, this wonderful first biography captures the very essence of the little girl called \u2018Half-pint,\u2019 whose classic books and pioneer adventures have made her one of the most popular literary figures in America.", "Rate":4.15 }, { "Book":"A Light in the Attic Book and CD", "Feedback":"Last night while I lay thinking here Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear And pranced and partied all night long And sang their same old Whatif song: Whatif I flunk that test? Whatif green hair grows on my chest? Whatif nobody likes me? Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?... To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic is now available in a special edition containing the classic hardcover book and a CD of highlights from his Grammy Award-winning album. Here in the attic of Shel Silverstein you will find Backward Bill, Sour Face Ann, the Meehoo with an Exactlywatt, and the Polar Bear in the Frigidaire. You will talk with Broiled Face, and find out what happens when Somebody steals your knees, you get caught by the Quick-Digesting Gink, a Mountain snores, and They Put a Brassiere on the Camel. From the creator of the beloved poetry collections Where the Sidewalk Ends and Falling Up, here is another wondrous book of poems and drawings.", "Rate":4.34 }, { "Book":"World Studies: Eastern Hemisphere", "Feedback":"Introduces the geography, history, and cultures of the Middle East, Europe, Soviet Union, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.", "Rate":2.0 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Poetry", "patterns":[ "Poetry", "Recommend a Poetry book", "Recommend a book in Poetry" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Slouching Toward Nirvana", "Feedback":"in this place there are the dead, the deadly and the dying. there is the cross, the builders of the cross and the burners of the cross. the pattern of my life forms like a cheap shadow on the wall before me. my love what is left of it now must crawl to wherever it can crawl. the strongest know that death is final and the happiest are those gifted with the shortest journey.", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly", "Feedback":"From the award-winning poet and novelist\u2014a must-have collection of his four previous books of poetry plus a selection of new, unpublished work.", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"Howl", "Feedback":"A special anniversary edition of the first publication of the seminal poetic work describes the background of Ginsberg's famous poem, and discusses literary allusions, and techniques of composition used in creating the controversial work. Reprint.", "Rate":4.22 }, { "Book":"The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni", "Feedback":"This omnibus covers Nikki Giovanni's complete work of poetry from 1967\u20131983. THE COLLECTED POETRY OF NIKKI GIOVANNI will include the complete volumes of five adult books of poetry: Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgement, My House, The Women and the Men, Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day, and Those Who Ride the Night Winds. Nikki self\u2013published her first book Black Feeling, Black Talk/BlackJudgement in 1969, selling 10,000 copies; William Morrow published in 1970. Know for its iconic revolutionary phrases, it is heralded as one of the most important volumes of modern African\u2013American poetry and is considered the seminal volume of Nikki's body of work. My House (Morrow 1972) marks a new dimension in tone and philosphy\u2013\u2013This is Giovanni's first foray into the autobiographical. In The Women and the Men (Morrow 1975), Nikki displays her compassion for the people, things and places she has encountered\u2013\u2013She reveres the ordinary and is in search of the extraordinary. Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day (Morrow 1978) is one of the most poignant and introspective of all Giovanni's collections. These poems chronicle the drastic change that took place during the 1970s\u2013\u2013when the dreams of the Civil Rights era seemed to have evaporated. Those Who Ride the Night Winds (Morrow 1983) is devoted to \"the day trippers and midnight cowboys,\" the ones who have devoted their lives to pushing the limits of the human condition and shattered the constraints of the stautus quo." }, { "Book":"The Canterbury Tales", "Feedback":"'Now as I've drunk a draught of corn-ripe ale, By God it stands to reason I can strike On some good story that you all will like' In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce. A story-telling competition within a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight's account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath's Arthurian legend, to the ribald anecdotes of the Miller and the Cook. Rich and diverse, The Canterbury tales offers us an unrivalled glimpse into the life and mind of medieval England. Nevill Coghill's masterly and vivid modern English verse translation is rendered with consummate skill to retain all the vigour and poetry of Chaucer's fourteenth-century Middle English.", "Rate":3.49 }, { "Book":"The Canterbury Tales", "Feedback":"A retelling of the medieval poem about a group of travelers on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and the tales they tell each other", "Rate":3.49 }, { "Book":"The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, the Florentine: Purgatory", "Feedback":"The most celebrated work of Dante is the Divine comedy--a vision of hell, purgatory and heaven that provides a strangely surrealistic view of medieval attitudes on religious dogma and the price of disobedience.", "Rate":4.02 }, { "Book":"The Divine Comedy & Paradise", "Feedback":"In Paradise, having plunged to the uttermost depths of Hell and climbed the Mount of Purgatory, Dante ascends to Heaven, continuing his soul's search for God, guided by his beloved Beatrice. As he progresses through the spheres of Paradise he grows in understanding, until he finally experiences divine love in the radiant presence of the deity. Examining eternal questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, Dante exercised all his learning and wit, wrath and tenderness in his creation of one of the greatest of all Christian allegories.", "Rate":3.95 }, { "Book":"Li Po and Tu Fu", "Feedback":"Offers translations of poems by the two Chinese writers.", "Rate":4.11 }, { "Book":"Divina Commedia. English", "Feedback":"Detailed notes accompany a modern English translation of Dante's epic poem about a spiritual pilgrim led by the ghost of Virgil through the circles of hell", "Rate":4.02 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Science", "patterns":[ "Science", "Recommend a book in Science", "Recommend a Science book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Modern Mind", "Feedback":"From Freud to Babbitt, from Animal Farm to Sartre to the Great Society, from the Theory of Relativity to counterculture to Kosovo, The Modern Mind is encyclopedic, covering the major writers, artists, scientists, and philosophers who produced the ideas by which we live. Peter Watson has produced a fluent and engaging narrative of the intellectual tradition of the twentieth century, and the men and women who created it.", "Rate":4.27 }, { "Book":"Genome", "Feedback":"The genome's been mapped. But what does it mean? Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers. Questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. Questions that will affect the rest of your life. Genome offers extraordinary insight into the ramifications of this incredible breakthrough. By picking one newly discovered gene from each pair of chromosomes and telling its story, Matt Ridley recounts the history of our species and its ancestors from the dawn of life to the brink of future medicine. From Huntington's disease to cancer, from the applications of gene therapy to the horrors of eugenics, Matt Ridley probes the scientific, philosophical, and moral issues arising as a result of the mapping of the genome. It will help you understand what this scientific milestone means for you, for your children, and for humankind.", "Rate":4.03 }, { "Book":"The Best American Science Writing 2002", "Feedback":"If, as Matt Ridley suggests, science is simply the search for new forms of ignorance, then perhaps it follows that with science's advances come new questions. Will human genetic engineering become commonplace? Will human cloning ever be safe? Are there many universes? How much will the climate change during the coming century? The Best American Science Writing 2002 gathers top writers and scientists covering the latest developments in the fastest-changing, farthest-reaching scientific fields, such as medicine, genetics, computer technology, evolutionary psychology, cutting-edge physics, and the environment. Among this year's selections: In \"The Made-to-Order Savior,\" Lisa Belkin spotlights two desperate families seeking an unprecedented cure by a medically and ethically unprecedented means -- creating a genetically matched child. Margaret Talbot's \"A Desire to Duplicate\" reveals that the first human clone may very likely come from an entirely unexpected source, and sooner than we think. Michael Specter reports on the shock waves rippling through the field of neuroscience following the revolutionary discovery that adult brain cells might in fact regenerate (\"Rethinking the Brain\"). Christopher Dickey's \"I Love My Glow Bunny\" recounts with sly humor a peculiar episode in which genetic engineering and artistic culture collide. Natalie Angier draws an insightful contrast between suicide terrorists and rescue workers who risk their lives, and finds that sympathy and altruism have a definite place in the evolution of human nature, David Berlinski's \"What Brings a World into Being?\" ponders the idea of biology and physics as essentially digital technologies, exploring the mysteries encoded in the universe's smallest units, be they cells or quanta. Nicholas Wade shows how one of the most controversial books of the year, The Skeptical Environmentalist, by former Greenpeace member and self-described leftist Bjorn Lomborg, debunks some of the most cherished tenets of the environmental movement, suggesting that things are perhaps not as bad as we've been led to believe. And as a counterpoint, Darcy Frey's profile of George Divoky reveals a dedicated researcher whose love of birds and mystery leads to some sobering discoveries about global warming and forcefully reminds us of the unsung heroes of science: those who put in long hours, fill in small details, and take great trouble. In the end, the unanswered questions are what sustain scientific inquiry, open new frontiers of knowledge, and lead to new technologies and medical treatments. The Best American Science Writing 2002 is a series of exciting reports from science's front lines, where what we don't know is every bit as important as what we know.", "Rate":3.88 }, { "Book":"How to Build a Time Machine", "Feedback":"Is time travel really possible? Can we break the last cosmic taboo? Yes, says internationally acclaimed writer and physicist Paul Davies. In this highly entertaining and mind-blowing book he reveals how it can be done. Taking us on an astonishing ride into the far reaches of Einstein's universe, this is the ultimate time-traveller's companion.", "Rate":3.82 }, { "Book":"The Fabric of the Cosmos", "Feedback":"From the bestselling author of The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos takes us on an irresistible and revelatory journey through the biggest of the big questions. What is reality? Could we exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? What are the limits of the universe? Brian Greene has made the mysteries of space and time accessible to millions with his acclaimed writings and award-winning TV series. Now he reveals a world more beautiful and bizarre than we could have imagined, where 'dark matter' reigns, space warps and wiggles through eleven dimensions, minute particles dance, fizz and teleport across vast distances, everything is made of vibrating strings and, like an ant on a lily-pad, we may be floating on a sliver of spacetime. Revealing new layers of reality that lie just beneath the surface of our everyday lives, this grand tour of the universe will make you look at the world in a completely new way. 'A must-read' Sunday Times 'Greene takes us to the limits of space and time' Guardian 'Sends the reader's imagination hurtling through the universe on an astonishing ride' The New York Times Brian Greene is well known to many fans as a populariser of theoretical physics. He is the author of the bestselling books about string theory, The Elegant Universe, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, The Fabric of the Cosmos, and The Hidden Reality. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, he has taught at both Harvard and Cornell and has been Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia University since 1996.", "Rate":4.12 }, { "Book":"The Origins of Life", "Feedback":"'I can recommend this book as a thoroughly interesting read' -Biologist 01/02/2002'exhilarating reading... challenging... stimulates the reader to think deeply on the many issues it raises.' -Margaret Ginzburg, Science and Christian belief, Vol.13, No.1, April 2001'...the authors provide a clear-eyed review of a large part of modern biology.' -Scientific American'...the book is well written, stimulating, and full of information nuggets.' -Choice", "Rate":4.11 }, { "Book":"Power, Sex, Suicide", "Feedback":"Mitochondria are tiny structures located inside our cells that carry out the essential task of producing energy for the cell. They are found in all complex living things, and in that sense, they are fundamental for driving complex life on the planet. But there is much more to them than that. Mitochondria have their own DNA, with their own small collection of genes, separate from those in the cell nucleus. It is thought that they were once bacteria living independent lives. Their enslavement within the larger cell was a turning point in the evolution of life, enabling the development of complex organisms and, closely related, the origin of two sexes. Unlike the DNA in the nucleus, mitochondrial DNA is passed down exclusively (or almost exclusively) via the female line. That's why it has been used by some researchers to trace human ancestry daughter-to-mother, to 'Mitochondrial Eve'. Mitochondria give us important information about our evolutionary history. And that's not all. Mitochondrial genes mutate much faster than those in the nucleus because of the free radicals produced in their energy-generating role. This high mutation rate lies behind our ageing and certain congenital diseases. The latest research suggests that mitochondria play a key role in degenerative diseases such as cancer, through their involvement in precipitating cell suicide. Mitochondria, then, are pivotal in power, sex, and suicide. In this fascinating and thought-provoking book, Nick Lane brings together the latest research findings in this exciting field to show how our growing understanding of mitochondria is shedding light on how complex life evolved, why sex arose (why don't we just bud?), and why we age and die. This understanding is of fundamental importance, both in understanding how we and all other complex life came to be, but also in order to be able to control our own illnesses, and delay our degeneration and death. 'An extraordinary account of groundbreaking modern science... The book abounds with interesting and important ideas.' Mark Ridley, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford", "Rate":4.24 }, { "Book":"Six Easy Pieces", "Feedback":"Richard P. Feynman (1918\u20131988) was widely recognized as the most creative physicist of the post\u2013World War II period. His career was extraordinarily expansive. From his contributions to the development of the atomic bomb a Los Alamos during World War II to his work in quantum electrodynamics, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965, Feynman was celebrated for his brilliant and irreverent approach to physics.It was Feynman's outrageous and scintillating method of teaching that earned him legendary status among students and professors of physics. From 1961\u20131963, Feynman, at the California Institute of Technology, delivered a series of lectures that revolutionized the teaching of physics around the world. Six Easy Pieces, taken from the famous Lectures on Physics, represents the most accessible material from this series. In these six chapters, Feynman introduces the general reader to the following topics: atoms, basic physics, the relationship of physics to other topics, energy, gravitation, and quantum force. With his dazzling and inimitable wit, Feynman presents each discussion without equations or technical jargon.Readers will remember how\u2014using ice water and rubber\u2014Feynman demonstrated with stunning simplicity to a nationally televised audience the physics of the 1986 Challenger disaster. It is precisely this ability\u2014the clear and direct illustration of complex theories\u2014that made Richard Feynman one of the most distinguished educators in the world. Filled with wonderful examples and clever illustrations, Six Easy Pieces is the ideal introduction to the fundamentals of physics by one of the most admired and accessible scientists of our time.", "Rate":4.2 }, { "Book":"Genetics and the Origin of Species", "Feedback":"Featuring an introduction by Stephen Jay Gould, \"Genetics and the Origin of Species\" presents the first edition of Dobzhansky's groundbreaking and now classic inquiry into what has emerged as the most important single area of scientific inquiry in the twentieth century: biological theory of evolution. Genetics and the Origin of Species went through three editions (1937, 1941, and 1951) in which the importance accorded natural selection changed radically.", "Rate":4.15 }, { "Book":"The Adversary", "Feedback":"The fourth and final volume of The Saga of Pliocene Exile. Until the arrival of Aiken Drum, the 100,000 humans who had fled backward in time to Pliocene exile on Earth knew little but slavery to the Tanu -- the humanoid aliens who came from another galaxy. But King Aiken's rule is precarious, for the Tanu's twisted bretheren are secretly maneuvering to bring about his downfall. Worse -- Aiken is about to confront a man of incredibly powerful Talents who nearly overthrew a galactic rule. He is Marc Remillard. Call him . . . The Adversary.", "Rate":4.22 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Literary Collections", "patterns":[ "Literary Collections", "Recommend a book in Literary Collections", "Recommend a Literary Collections book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Tree and Leaf", "Feedback":"\"The two works 'On fairy-stories' and 'Leaf by Niggle' were first brought together to form the book 'Tree and leaf' in 1964. In this new edition a third element is added: the poem Mythopoeia, the making of myths...\"--Preface.", "Rate":4.09 }, { "Book":"How to be Alone", "Feedback":"'The Harper's Essay' is reprinted in this volume alongside personal essays and painstaking, often funny reportage. Although his subjects range widely, each piece wrestles with the erosion of civic life and private dignity, and the hidden persistence of loneliness in postmodern America.", "Rate":3.6 }, { "Book":"Small Wonder", "Feedback":"In her new essay collection, the beloved author of High Tide in Tucson brings to us, out of one of history's darker moments, an extended love song to the world we still have. Whether she is contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, genetic engineering, or the future of a nation founded on the best of all human impulses, these essays are grounded in the author's belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth's remotest corners as well as our own backyards, and that answers may lie in both those places. Sometimes grave, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately persuasive, Small Wonder is a hopeful examination of the people we seem to be, and what we might yet make of ourselves.", "Rate":4.01 }, { "Book":"The Curtain", "Feedback":"Traces the author's personal view of the history and significance of the novel in western civilization, arguing that a novel's development crosses international and language boundaries while serving to reveal previously unknown aspects of a reader's existence. By the author of The Art of the Novel. 35,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.96 }, { "Book":"Testaments Betrayed", "Feedback":"Milan Kundera has established himself as one of the great novelists of our time with such books as The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Immortality and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. In Testaments Betrayed, he proves himself a brilliant defender of the moral rights of the artist and the respect due to a work of art and its creator's wishes. The betrayal of both\u2014often by their most passionate proponents\u2014is the principal theme of this extraordinary work. Readers will be particularly intrigued by Kundera's impassioned attack on society's shifting moral judgments and persecutions of art and artists, from Mayakovsky to Rushdie.", "Rate":4.04 }, { "Book":"The Portable James Joyce", "Feedback":"This compilation of the works of the Irish writer contains a variety of poems, stories and excerpts from novels", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"The Portable Dorothy Parker", "Feedback":"One of the most quotable of twentieth-century authors, Dorothy Parker has attained a wide-ranging and enthusiastic following. This revised and enlarged edition, with an introduction by Brendan Gill, comprises the original 1944 Portable, as selected and arranged by Dorothy Parker herself and including all her most celebrated poems and stories, along with a selection of her later stories, play reviews, articles, book reviews from Esquire, and the complete Constant Reader, her collected New Yorker book reviews.\"To say that Mrs. Parker writes well is as fatuous, I am afraid, as proclaiming that Cellini was clever with his hands. ... Mrs. Parker has an eye for people, an ear for language, and a feeling for the lithe things of life that are so immense a part of the process of living.\" - Ogden Nash\"She has put into what she has written a voice, a state of mind, an era, a few moments of human experience that nobody else has conveyed.\" - Edmund Wilson", "Rate":4.34 }, { "Book":"Essays", "Feedback":"Reflections by the creator of the essay form display the humane, skeptical, humorous, and honest views of Montaigne, revealing his thoughts on sexuality, religion, cannibals, intellectuals, and other unexpected themes. Included are such celebrated works as \"On Solitude,\" \"To Philosophize Is to Learn How to Die,\" and \"On Experience.\"", "Rate":4.23 }, { "Book":"Species of Spaces and Other Pieces", "Feedback":"This selection of non-fictional work from the author of Life, a User's Manual, demonstrates Georges Perec's characteristic lightness of touch, wry humour and accessibility.", "Rate":4.28 }, { "Book":"Selected Writings", "Feedback":"Brings together sermons, commentary responses to criticism, and substantial extracts from the \"Summa Theologiae,\" arranged chronologically.", "Rate":3.9 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Business & Economics", "patterns":[ "Business & Economics", "Recommend a book in Business & Economics", "Recommend a Business & Economics book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Paradox of Choice", "Feedback":"The author of The Battle for Human Nature explains why too much choice has led to the ever increasing complexity of everyday decisions, why too much of a good thing has become detrimental to human psychological and emotional well-being, and how to focus our lives on making the right choices. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.84 }, { "Book":"The Innovator's Dilemma", "Feedback":"In this revolutionary bestseller, Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen says outstanding companies can do everything right and still lose their market leadership -- or worse, disappear completely. And he not only proves what he says, he tells others how to avoid a similar fate. Focusing on \"disruptive technology\" -- the Honda Super Cub, Intel's 8088 processor, or the hydraulic excavator, for example -- Christensen shows why most companies miss \"the next great wave.\" Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, The Innovator's Dilemma presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation. Find out: When it is right not to listen to customers. When to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins. When to pursue small markets at the expense of seemingly larger and more lucrative ones. Sharp, cogent, and provocative, The Innovator's Dilemma is one of the most talked-about books of our time -- and one no savvy manager or entrepreneur should be without.", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"The Big Bing", "Feedback":"A corporate mole's-eye view of the society in which we all live and toil, creating one of the most entertaining, thought provoking, and just plain funny bodies of work in contemporary letters. Stanley Bing knows whereof he speaks. He has lived the last two decades working inside a gigantic multinational corporation, kicking and screaming all the way up the ladder. He has seen it all -- mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, the death of the three-martini lunch -- and has himself been painfully re-engineered a number of times. He has eaten and drunk way too much, stayed in hotels far too good for him, waited for limousines in the pouring rain, and enjoyed it all. Sort of. Most importantly, Bing has seen management at its best and worst, and has practiced both as he made the transition from an inexperienced player who hated pompous senior management to a polished strategist who kind of sees its point of view now and then. In one essential volume, here is all you need to know to master your career, your life, and when necessary, other weaker life forms.", "Rate":3.08 }, { "Book":"Built to Last", "Feedback":"\"This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary products or visionary market insights. Nor is it about just having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies.\" So write Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in this groundbreaking book that shatters myths, provides new insights, and gives practical guidance to those who would like to build landmark companies that stand the test of time. Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Collins and Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies -- they have an average age of nearly one hundred years and have outperformed the general stock market by a factor of fifteen since 1926 -- and studied each company in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day -- as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: \"What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?\" What separates General Electric, 3M, Merck, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, Walt Disney, and Philip Morris from their rivals? How, for example, did Procter & Gamble, which began life substantially behind rival Colgate, eventually prevail as the premier institution in its industry? How was Motorola able to move from a humble battery repair business into integrated circuits and cellular communications, while Zenith never became dominant in anything other than TVs? How did Boeing unseat McDonnell Douglas as the world's best commercial aircraft company -- what did Boeing have that McDonnell Douglas lacked? By answering such questions, Collins and Porras go beyond the incessant barrage of management buzzwords and fads of the day to discover timeless qualities that have consistently distinguished out-standing companies. They also provide inspiration to all executives and entrepreneurs by destroying the false but widely accepted idea that only charismatic visionary leaders can build visionary companies. Filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the twenty-first century and beyond.", "Rate":3.98 }, { "Book":"How to Buy, Sell, and Profit on eBay", "Feedback":"A lively insider's guide to starting a successful small business selling items old and new on eBay, written with personal anecdotes, well\u2013kept secrets, and insider tips by Adam Ginsberg, eBay's most successful private salesperson. This is the insider's guide to making money on eBay. Adam Ginsberg is the most successful seller on eBay, moving around a million dollars' worth of merchandise every month. Not only will he impart his personal secrets on how to sell on eBay \u2013learned through years of experience \u2013 and his tips on expanding your small business using eBay as a global market, but he'll also give fun side\u2013notes and anecdotes, keeping the book lively and making it a fun and interesting read. This book will be a must\u2013have for all current and aspiring eBay sellers, all small\u2013business owners, and anyone who wants to learn how to start a million\u2013dollar company." }, { "Book":"Mission Possible", "Feedback":"Explains how to improve one's existing organization while creating a replacement design for the future and why change is necessary to ensure the future of one's business", "Rate":3.42 }, { "Book":"Crucial Conversations", "Feedback":"The New York Times Bestseller! Learn how to keep your cool and get the results you want when emotions flare. When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong, you have three choices: Avoid a crucial conversation and suffer the consequences; handle the conversation badly and suffer the consequences; or read Crucial Conversations and discover how to communicate best when it matters most. Crucial Conversations gives you the tools you need to step up to life's most difficult and important conversations, say what's on your mind, and achieve the positive resolutions you want. You'll learn how to: Prepare for high-impact situations with a six-minute mastery technique Make it safe to talk about almost anything Be persuasive, not abrasive Keep listening when others blow up or clam up Turn crucial conversations into the action and results you want Whether they take place at work or at home, with your neighbors or your spouse, crucial conversations can have a profound impact on your career, your happiness, and your future. With the skills you learn in this book, you'll never have to worry about the outcome of a crucial conversation again.", "Rate":4.01 }, { "Book":"Leadership in Organizations", "Feedback":"This text provides the most comprehensive survey of the major theories and research on leadership and managerial effectiveness in formal organizations with practical suggestions for improving leadership skills.", "Rate":3.68 }, { "Book":"Getting Things Done", "Feedback":"ALLEN/GETTING THINGS DONE", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"Bargaining for Advantage", "Feedback":"An authoritative guide to business negotiation explores the complex psychological factors in each bargaining situation and examines six key leverage points that promote bargaining success. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.94 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Social Science", "patterns":[ "Social Science", "Recommend a book in Social Science", "Recommend a Social Science book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Dead Beat", "Feedback":"Marilyn Johnson was enthralled by the remarkable lives that were marching out of this world\u2014so she sought out the best obits in the English language and the people who spent their lives writing about the dead. She surveyed the darkest corners of Internet chat rooms, and made a pilgrimage to London to savor the most caustic and literate obits of all. Now she leads us on a compelling journey into the cult and culture behind the obituary page and the unusual lives we don't quite appreciate until they're gone.", "Rate":3.41 }, { "Book":"Fear of Falling", "Feedback":"A brilliant and insightful work that examines the insecurities of the middle class in an attempt to explain its turn to the right during the past two decades, \"Fear of Falling\" traces the myths about the middle class to their roots in the ambitions and anxieties that torment the group and that have led to its retreat from a responsible leadership role.", "Rate":3.9 }, { "Book":"Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins", "Feedback":"From the savannas of Africa to modern-day labs for biomechanical analysis and molecular genetics, Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins reveals how anthropologists are furiously redrawing the human family tree. Their discoveries have spawned a host of new questions: Should chimpanzees be included as a human species? Was it the physical difficulty of human childbirth that encouraged the development of social groups in early human species? Did humans and Neanderthals interbreed? Why did humans supplant Neanderthals in the end? In answering such questions, Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins sheds new light on one of the most important questions of all: What makes us human?", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"The Last Dance", "Feedback":"The best-selling textbook in the field, The Last Dance offers an interdisciplinary introduction to death, dying, and bereavement. Integrating the experiential and the scholarly, as well as the emotional and intellectual dimensions of death and dying, the seventh edition has been thoroughly revised to provide the most cutting-edge coverage of death studies.", "Rate":3.77 }, { "Book":"North of South", "Feedback":"When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction. In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fused individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale created one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.", "Rate":3.93 }, { "Book":"Wanderlust", "Feedback":"A cultural history of walking explores the ancient practice, from ancient Greece to the present, delving into Wordsworth, Gary Snyder, Rousseau, Jane Austen, and other cultural and literary icons to show how this basic activity has been imagined throughout history. 17,500 first printing.", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"From Counterculture to Cyberculture", "Feedback":"In the early 1960s, computers haunted the American popular imagination. Bleak tools of the cold war, they embodied the rigid organization and mechanical conformity that made the military-industrial complex possible. But by the 1990s\u2014and the dawn of the Internet\u2014computers started to represent a very different kind of world: a collaborative and digital utopia modeled on the communal ideals of the hippies who so vehemently rebelled against the cold war establishment in the first place. From Counterculture to Cyberculture is the first book to explore this extraordinary and ironic transformation. Fred Turner here traces the previously untold story of a highly influential group of San Francisco Bay\u2013area entrepreneurs: Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth network. Between 1968 and 1998, via such familiar venues as the National Book Award\u2013winning Whole Earth Catalog, the computer conferencing system known as WELL, and, ultimately, the launch of the wildly successful Wired magazine, Brand and his colleagues brokered a long-running collaboration between San Francisco flower power and the emerging technological hub of Silicon Valley. Thanks to their vision, counterculturalists and technologists alike joined together to reimagine computers as tools for personal liberation, the building of virtual and decidedly alternative communities, and the exploration of bold new social frontiers. Shedding new light on how our networked culture came to be, this fascinating book reminds us that the distance between the Grateful Dead and Google, between Ken Kesey and the computer itself, is not as great as we might think.", "Rate":3.96 }, { "Book":"The Columbia Reader on Lesbians and Gay Men in Media, Society, and Politics", "Feedback":"More than one hundred articles, essays, and primary documents cover the formation of gay identity, religious, scientific, medical, and legal perspectives, the mainstream media, lesbian and gay media, and community prospects and tactics--from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's essay, \"How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay,\" to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's \"Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,\" to a 1947 Newsweek article, \"Homosexuals in Uniform\".", "Rate":3.93 }, { "Book":"Mythology", "Feedback":"Since its original publication by Little, Brown and Company in 1942, Edith Hamilton's Mythology has sold millions of copies throughout the world and established itself as a perennial bestseller in its various available formats: hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, and e-book. Mythology succeeds like no other book in bringing to life for the modern reader the Greek, Roman, and Norse myths and legends that are the keystone of Western culture - the stories of gods and heroes that have inspired human creativity from antiquity to the present.", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"Five Patients", "Feedback":"An introduction to the workings of a modern hospital recreates the actual experiences of five patients at Massachusetts General", "Rate":3.48 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Performing Arts", "patterns":[ "Performing Arts", "Recommend a book in Performing Arts", "Recommend a Performing Arts book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Making of Pride and Prejudice", "Feedback":"This book reveals in detail how Jane Austen's classic novel is transformed into a stunning television drama. Filmed on location at Wiltshire and Derbyshire, 'Pride and Prejudice', with its lavish sets and distinguished cast, was scripted by award-winning dramatist Andrew Davies. Chronicling 18 months of work - from the original concept to the first broadcast - 'The Making of Pride and Prejudice' brings vividly to life the challenges and triumphs involved in every stage of production of this sumptuous television series. Follow a typical day's filming, including the wholesale transformation of Lacock village into Jane Austen's Meryton. Discover how Colin Firth approaches the part of Darcy, how actors' costumes and wigs are designed and how Carl Davis recreates the period music and composes an original score. Piece together the roles of many behind-the-scenes contributors to the series, from researchers and fencing masters to experts in period cookery and gardening.", "Rate":4.43 }, { "Book":"The Actor in You", "Feedback":"The Actor in Youenhances the reader\u2019s appreciation of the art of acting by helping them realize that they already possess, in principle, the following skills: the ability to play a role, the ability to fulfill the sense of drama and to structure dramatic scenes, and the capacity to express emotion. Without losing its simplicity, directness, and enjoyable writing style, this revised and enlarged edition has benefited from helpful suggestions by teachers who have used it successfully in the classroom. Drawing exercises and examples from readers\u2019 everyday lives and from well-known films and television programs, Benedetti succeeds in deducing dramatic principles from those experiences and then applying them to everyday life for artistic purpose.", "Rate":3.7 }, { "Book":"Avid Editing", "Feedback":"This text is for beginning to intermediate users of Avid Xpress, Xpress DV, or Media Composer. These digital editing systems offer a tremendous number of tools that open up myriad creative possibilities for the film and videomaker, but are as a result difficult to master. The chapters guide readers through an editing project, while the accompanying DVD provides narrative footage to download for immediate, hands-on practice. The book can be read and studied at home, or while sitting in front of an Avid, following the book's step-by-step instructions. The new edition is updated to reflect the latest versions of Avid software, including an emphasis on the Xpress DV for Mac and Windows. There is also new material on Script Integration, a powerful tool now available on almost all of Avid's products, and a new chapter on how Avid can help the reader create material for current and future widescreen television formats. A beginning text designed for anyone new to the Avid Complete step-by-step instructions assume no prior knowledge Companion DVD contains footage from a narrative scene, so students can begin editing immediately", "Rate":3.83 }, { "Book":"Directing the Documentary", "Feedback":"Michael Rabiger guides the reader through the stages required to conceive, edit and produce a documentary. He also provides advice on the law, ethics and authorship as well as career possibilities and finding work.", "Rate":4.23 }, { "Book":"Introduction to Documentary", "Feedback":"Why Are Ethical Issues Central to Documentary Filmmaking? - How Do Documentaries Differ from Other Types of Film? - What Gives Documentary Films a Voice of Their Own? - What Are Documentaries About? - How Did Documentary Filmmaking Get Started? - What Types of Documentary Are There? - How Have documentaries Addressed Social and Political Issues? - How Can We Write Effectively about Documentary?", "Rate":3.77 }, { "Book":"Looking Awry", "Feedback":"Slavoj Zizek, a leading intellectual in the new social movements that are sweepingEastern Europe, provides a virtuoso reading of Jacques Lacan. Zizek inverts current pedagogicalstrategies to explain the difficult philosophical underpinnings of the French theoretician andpractician who revolutionized our view of psychoanalysis. He approaches Lacan through the motifs andworks of contemporary popular culture, from Hitchcock's Vertigo to Stephen King's Pet Sematary, fromMcCullough's An Indecent Obsession to Romero's Return of the Living Dead - a strategy of \"lookingawry\" that recalls the exhilarating and vital experience of Lacan.Zizek discovers fundamentalLacanian categories the triad Imaginary/Symbolic/Real, the object small a, the opposition of driveand desire, the split subject - at work in horror fiction, in detective thrillers, in romances, inthe mass media's perception of ecological crisis, and, above all, in Alfred Hitchcock's films. Theplayfulness of Zizek's text, however, is entirely different from that associated with thedeconstructive approach made famous by Derrida. By clarifying what Lacan is saying as well as whathe is not saying, Zizek is uniquely able to distinguish Lacan from the poststructuralists who sooften claim him.Slavoj Zizek is a Researcher in the Institute of Sociology at the University ofLjubljana, Yugoslavia. His work has been published in France and in Yugoslavia where, running as aproreform candidate, he narrowly missed being elected to the presidency of the republic ofSlovenia.", "Rate":4.05 }, { "Book":"The Dark Side Of Genius", "Feedback":"This is the definitive life story of Alfred Hitchcock, the enigmatic and intensely private director of Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds, and more than forty other films. While setting forth every stage of Hitchcock's long life and brilliant career, Donald Spoto also explores the roots of the director's obsessions with blondes, food, murder, and idealized love\u2014and he traces the incomparable, bizarre genius from Hitchcock's English childhood through the golden years of his career in America as one of the greatest directors in the history of filmmaking.", "Rate":3.83 }, { "Book":"Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Feedback":"The hilarious, Academy Award-nominated screenplay that features six old friends, three disastrous receptions, a tongue-tied priest, and the role that made Hugh Grant the world's favorite bumbling bachelor. Toasted by romantics and cynics, critics and fans, Four Weddings and a Funeral grossed more than $250 million worldwide, garnered Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, and was unanimously pronounced the romantic comedy of the 90s. Richard Curtis's smart, irreverent, and brilliantly crafted screenplay will delight fans of the movie, as well as screenwriters and film students. From the first spoken line to the last (\"I do\"), it's a jubilant celebration of friendship, romance, and good humor.", "Rate":3.76 }, { "Book":"The Power of One", "Feedback":"This book demonstrates techniques of writing, acting, and directing that encourage the reader to create a personal theatrical experience.", "Rate":3.79 }, { "Book":"Star Wars", "Feedback":"An ultimate Star Wars fan's guide to the spacecraft and vehicles that put Luke Skywalker and his companions in the driver's seat profiles such ships as the Millennium Falcon, the Tie- and X-Wing fighters, and the Death Stars, and has been updated to include new full-color artwork, as well as entries from The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and more. Original.", "Rate":4.1 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Cooking", "patterns":[ "Cooking", "Recommend a book in Cooking", "Recommend a Cooking book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Giada's Family Dinners", "Feedback":"The Food Network host and best-selling author of Everyday Italian presents a collection of easy-to-prepare, flexible recipes for Italian food lovers with a busy schedule, explaining how to put together simple but tempting meals for everyday evening dinners or for special holiday occasions. 400,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.96 }, { "Book":"Small Bites, Big Nights", "Feedback":"Percy is incredibly accident-prone, and holds the dubious record of the most accidents. Percy has had a small rivalary with Harold, however, they are always willing to help each other when in trouble.", "Rate":3.6 }, { "Book":"Everyday Pasta", "Feedback":"Collects Italian cookery recipes that range from classic favorites to innovative new dishes and are accompanied by simple instructions for making fresh pasta and a selection of side dishes.", "Rate":4.09 }, { "Book":"Shakespeare's Kitchen", "Feedback":"A noted food historian brings to life the classic foods of William Shakepeare's world in a series of updated, easy-to-prepare recipes, drawn from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cookbooks, for a variety of tasty dishes that include Grilled Tuna with Carrots and Sweet Onions, Fish Bisque with Chestnuts and Artichokes, and Red Snapper with Caviar, among others. 35,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"What Einstein Told His Cook", "Feedback":"The chemistry professor columnist for the Washington Post's \"Food 101\" presents layperson explanations of kitchen mysteries involving food types, temperature, cooking equipment, and food myths. 30,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.85 }, { "Book":"Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking", "Feedback":"With more than 100 illustrations by Karin Kretschman.", "Rate":4.17 }, { "Book":"I Like You", "Feedback":"Offers a guide to the art of entertaining, furnishing recipes, helpful advice, and offbeat tips on how to host parties with extraordinary flair, covering such topics as unique dishes to serve alcoholics and arts and crafts ideas.", "Rate":3.87 }, { "Book":"Curries Without Worries", "Feedback":"A thorough but accessible guide to Indian cuisine explains spices and seasonings and offers more than sixty-five simple, easy-to-prepare recipes for vegetarian and non-vegetarian curries, roasts, kebabs, and more. Reprint.", "Rate":3.98 }, { "Book":"The McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook", "Feedback":"The authors of The McDougall Program and The McDougall Program for a Healthy Heart present more than three hundred delicious, easy-to-prepare recipes for wholesome salads, appetizers, main and side dishes, and desserts, all of which are meatless, dairyless, and virtually fat-free. Reprint.", "Rate":3.98 }, { "Book":"A Modernist View of Plated Desserts (Grand Finales)", "Feedback":"\"Modernism is simply the result of the extremely progressive evolution of the American pastry industry. With the use of all ethnic influences, creative flavor combinations enhanced by incredibly visual designs is truly the global trend-setter for the millennium.\" Norman Love Corporate Pastry Chef, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company Milk Chocolate-Ginger Mousse with Liquid Chocolate Center Norman Love Corporate Pastry Chef, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Naples, Florida. Mont Blanc Michael Hu Executive Pastry Chef, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York Midnight Macadamia Torte Kim O'Flaherty Pastry Cook, Essex House Hotel, New York. Chocolate and Pear Mousse Ensemble Eric Perez Executive Pastry Chef, Ritz-Carlton Tyson's Corners, Virginia. Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding with Specky Vanilla Ice Cream and Caramel Marshall Rosenthal Executive Pastry Chef, Trump Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino, Atlantic City, New Jersey Butter Pecan Custard Cake Wayne Brachman Executive Pastry Chef, Mesa Grill and Bolo, both in New York.", "Rate":4.24 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Art", "patterns":[ "Art", "Recommend a book in Art", "Recommend an Art book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Romanticism", "Feedback":"A study of the influence Romanticism exerts upon Western culture.", "Rate":3.73 }, { "Book":"The Visual Arts", "Feedback":"This new edition is an authoritative and provides a balanced account of the history of art. It presents art history as an essential part of the development of humankind, encompassing the arts of Asia, Africa, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas-spanning from the primitive art of hunters 30,000 years ago to the most controversial art forms of today.", "Rate":3.82 }, { "Book":"Ways of Seeing", "Feedback":"Examines the social implications and psychological impact of the images and conventions of modern and classical artists", "Rate":3.78 }, { "Book":"For Lust of Knowing", "Feedback":"Includes bibliographical references.", "Rate":3.7 }, { "Book":"The Philosophy of Andy Warhol", "Feedback":"Warhol offers his observations of love, beauty, fame, work, and art and discusses the continuous play and display of his many fetishes", "Rate":3.73 }, { "Book":"The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci", "Feedback":"Throughout his life Leonardo da Vinci carried notebooks in which he scribbled down ideas and opinions as they occurred - personal, domestic, scientific, philosophical, artistic - frequently accompanied by explanatory sketches and diagrams. Surviving manuscripts contain drafts of letters, fanciful fables, rough treatises on the art of painting or the power of water, descriptions of the Medici courts, even jokes. The present selection gives coherence to this rich kaleidoscope of ideas. From it emerges the portrait of a true Renaissance man, whose habit of rigorous enquiry, observation, and experiment, grounded on a philosophic system, led him to conceive of the universe as an organized cosmos corresponding to a work of art.", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"Paul Revere's Ride", "Feedback":"Discusses the events leading up to Paul Revere's ride, and reinforces his importance in the history of the Revolutionary War", "Rate":4.11 }, { "Book":"Theory of Colours", "Feedback":"By closely following Goethe's explanations of the color phenomena, the reader may become so divorced from the wavelength theory--Goethe never even mentions it--that he may begin to think about color theory relatively unhampered by prejudice, ancient or modern. By the time Goethe's Theory of Colours appeared in 1810, the wavelength theory of light and color had been firmly established. To Goethe, the theory was the result of mistaking an incidental result for an elemental principle. Far from pretending to a knowledge of physics, he insisted that such knowledge was an actual hindrance to understanding. He based his conclusions exclusively upon exhaustive personal observation of the phenomena of color. Of his own theory, Goethe was supremely confident: \"From the philosopher, we believe we merit thanks for having traced the phenomena of colours to their first sources, to the circumstances under which they appear and are, and beyond which no further explanation respecting them is possible.\" Goethe's scientific conclusions have, of course, long since been thoroughly demolished, but the intelligent reader of today may enjoy this work on quite different grounds: for the beauty and sweep of his conjectures regarding the connection between color and philosophical ideas; for an insight into early nineteenth-century beliefs and modes of thought; and for the flavor of life in Europe just after the American and French Revolutions. The book does not have to be studied to be appreciated. Goethe's subjective theory of colors permits him to speak most persuasively of color harmony and aesthetics. In some readers these notions will evoke a positive response on their merits. Others may regard them as pure fantasy, but savor the grace and style of their exposition. The work may also be read as an accurate guide to the study of color phenomena. Goethe's conclusions have been repudiated, but no one quarrels with his reporting of the facts to be observed. With simple objects--vessels, prisms, lenses, and the like--the reader will be led through a demonstration course not only in subjectively produced colors, but also in the observable physical phenomena of color. By closely following Goethe's explanations of the color phenomena, the reader may become so divorced from the wavelength theory--Goethe never even mentions it--that he may begin to think about color theory relatively unhampered by prejudice, ancient or modern.", "Rate":4.07 }, { "Book":"The Language of New Media", "Feedback":"A stimulating, eclectic accountof new media that finds its origins in old media, particularly the cinema. In this book Lev Manovich offers the first systematic and rigorous theory of new media. He places new media within the histories of visual and media cultures of the last few centuries. He discusses new media's reliance on conventions of old media, such as the rectangular frame and mobile camera, and shows how new media works create the illusion of reality, address the viewer, and represent space. He also analyzes categories and forms unique to new media, such as interface and database. Manovich uses concepts from film theory, art history, literary theory, and computer science and also develops new theoretical constructs, such as cultural interface, spatial montage, and cinegratography. The theory and history of cinema play a particularly important role in the book. Among other topics, Manovich discusses parallels between the histories of cinema and of new media, digital cinema, screen and montage in cinema and in new media, and historical ties between avant-garde film and new media.", "Rate":3.85 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Body, Mind & Spirit", "patterns":[ "Body, Mind & Spirit", "Recommend a book in Body, Mind & Spirit", "Recommend a Body, Mind & Spirit book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Active Side of Infinity", "Feedback":"\"Ordinarily, events that change our path are impersonal affairs, and yet extremely personal. My teacher, don Juan Matsus, said this is guiding me as his apprentice to collect what I considered to be the memorable events of my life\u2026. Don Juan described the total goal of the shamanistic knowledge that he handled as the preparation for facing the definitive journey: the journey that every human being has to take at the end of his life. He said that what modern man referred to vaguely as life after death was, for those shamans, a concrete region filled to capacity with practical affairs of a different order than the practical affairs of daily life, yet bearing a similar functional practicality. Don Juan considered that to collect the memorable in their lives was, for shamans, the preparation for their entrance into that concrete region, which they called the active side of infinity.\" In this book written immediately before his death, anthropologist and shaman Carlos Castaneda gives us his most autobiographical and intimately revealing work ever, the fruit of a lifetime of experience and perhaps the most moving volume in his oeuvre.", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"Beauty", "Feedback":"Beauty does not linger, it only visits. Yet beauty's visitation affects us and invites us into its rhythm, it calls us to feel, think, and act beautifully in the world: to create and live a life that awakens the Beautiful. Beauty is a gentle but urgent call to awaken. Bestselling author John O'Donohue opens our eyes, hearts, and minds to the wonder of our own relationship with beauty by exposing the infinity and mystery of its breadth. His words return us to the dignity of silence, profundity of stillness, power of thought and perception, and the eternal grace and generosity of beauty's presence. In this masterful and revelatory work, O'Donohue encourages our greater intimacy with beauty and celebrates it for what it really is: a homecoming of the human spirit. As he focuses on the classical, medieval, and Celtic traditions of art, music, literature, nature, and language, O'Donohue reveals how beauty's invisible embrace invites us toward new heights of passion and creativity even in these uncertain times of global conflict and crisis.", "Rate":4.45 }, { "Book":"I Ching", "Feedback":"A translation of the early document of Chinese philosophy with explanatory notes", "Rate":4.19 }, { "Book":"Who are You?", "Feedback":"A noted artist introduces 101 easy-to-follow ways to help readers identify their personal abilities, personality types, psychological strategies, and goals, examining the body, emotions, intellect, and spirit.", "Rate":3.48 }, { "Book":"The Lost World of Agharti", "Feedback":"For centuries, into our time, people have sought to discover the truth of the ancient legend of a hidden subterranean kingdom linked to every continent by a vast network of tunnels and passageways. The people who inhabit this utopia are said to have lived in seclusion for untold aeons, guarding the secret Vril Power by which man and nature can be controlled. This remarkable book records the findings of the many explorers who have sought to learn the truth and attempts to trace the course of the tunnels leading to Agharti.", "Rate":3.79 }, { "Book":"The Everyday I Ching", "Feedback":"Details how to use the ancient Chinese book of divination and discussess how to relate the I Ching's hexagrams to the problems of modern life", "Rate":4.19 }, { "Book":"The demon-haunted world", "Feedback":"Reveals the dangers associated with widespread scientific ignorance, and explains how scientific thought has served to overcome prejudice and hysteria", "Rate":4.27 }, { "Book":"The Occult", "Feedback":"Discusses the parapsychological phenomena which have intrigued mankind through the ages and examines selected individuals renowned for their involvment in the occult", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"Conversations with God", "Feedback":"Presents God's answers to the author's questions concerning everyday life and how man should respond to opportunities and challenges", "Rate":4.17 }, { "Book":"The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore", "Feedback":"The author of Dare to Be Yourself presents a series of illuminating essays designed to assist readers on a journey toward spiritual enlightenment and fulfilling self-discovery. Reprint.", "Rate":4.27 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Travel", "patterns":[ "Travel", "Recommend a Travel book", "Recommend a book in Travel" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Forgotten New York", "Feedback":"Forgotten New York is your passport to more than 300 years of history, architecture, and memories hidden in plain sight. Houses dating to the first Dutch settlers on Staten Island; yellow brick roads in Brooklyn; clocks embedded in the sidewalk in Manhattan; bishop's crook lampposts in Queens; and a white elephant in the Bronx\u2014this is New York and this is your guide to seeing it all. Forgotten New York covers all five boroughs with easy-to-use maps and suggested routes to hundreds of out-of-the way places, antiquated monuments, streets to nowhere, and buildings from a time lost. Forgotten New York features: Quiet Places Truly Forgotten History Happened Here What Is This Thing? Forgotten People And so much more", "Rate":4.18 }, { "Book":"The Lost Continent", "Feedback":"An unsparing and hilarious account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town.", "Rate":3.83 }, { "Book":"Round Ireland with a Fridge", "Feedback":"Have you ever made a drunken bet? Worse, still, have you eveer tried to win one? In attempting to hitchhike round Ireland wich a fridge, Tony Hawks did both, and his foolhardiness led him to one of the best experiences of his life. Joined by his trusty traveling companion-cum-domestic appliance, he made his way from Dublin to Donegal, from Sligo through Mayo, Galway, Clare, Kerry, Cork, Wexford, Wicklow--and back again to Dublin. In their month of madness, Tony and his fridge met a real prince, a bogus king, and the fridge got christened. They surfed together, entered a bachelor festival, and one of them had sex without the other knowing. And unexpectedly, the fridge itself became a momentary focus for the people of Ireland. An international bestseller, Round Ireland with a Fridge is a classic travel adventure in the tradition of Bill Bryson with a dash of Dave Barry.", "Rate":3.79 }, { "Book":"McCarthy's Bar", "Feedback":"An American chronicles his funny, nostalgic encounter with Ireland as he searches for his roots in the countryside and pubs of this beautiful and deceptively simple country. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.79 }, { "Book":"Let's Go Australia 9th Edition", "Feedback":"For over 40,000 years, people have been arriving awestruck on Australia, at the edge of the earth. Researched and compiled entirely by students who know how to see the world on the cheap, this guide contains insider tips and information for the socially conscious traveller.", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"The River at the Center of the World", "Feedback":"The author recounts his experiences traveling along the Yangtze river from the Tibetan border to the East China Sea, vividly bringing to life China's rich cultural history, politics, people, geography, and climate. Reprint.", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"Mediterranean Winter", "Feedback":"Describes an intimate off-season journey along the Mediterranean that covers the area's history, literature, and heritage, describing the mythologies and succeeding medieval civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome while revealing what the past says about today's world. Reprint. 17,500 first printing.", "Rate":3.91 }, { "Book":"Stranger in the Forest", "Feedback":"The author of Motoring with Mohammed recounts his seven-month, three-thousand-mile walk across Borneo, and compares life in the jungle with Western civilization. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.", "Rate":4.1 }, { "Book":"Iceland", "Feedback":"Photographs exploring the grandeur of Iceland's remarkable geography accompany tales of real-life heroes and supernatural beings", "Rate":3.72 }, { "Book":"Neither Here Nor There:", "Feedback":"Like many of his generation, Bill Bryson backpacked across Europe in the early seventies -- in search of enlightenment, beer, and women. Twenty years later he decided to retrace the journey he undertook in the halcyon days of his youth. The result is Neither Here Nor There, an affectionate and riotously funny pilgrimage from the frozen wastes of Scandinavia to the chaotic tumult of Istanbul, with stops along the way in Europe's most diverting and historic locales. Like many of his generation, Bill Bryson backpacked across Europe in the early seventies--in search of enlightenment, beer, and women. Twenty years later he decided to retrace the journey he undertook in the halcyon days of his youth. The result is Neither Here Nor There, an affectionate and riotously funny pilgrimage from the frozen wastes of Scandinavia to the chaotic tumult of Istanbul, with stops along the way in Europe's most diverting and historic locales.", "Rate":3.87 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Psychology", "patterns":[ "Psychology", "Recommend a book in Psychology", "Recommend a Psychology book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", "Feedback":"One of the most important and influential books written in the past half-century, Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a powerful, moving, and penetrating examination of how we live . . . and a breathtaking meditation on how to live better. Here is the book that transformed a generation: an unforgettable narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest, undertaken by a father and his young son. A story of love and fear -- of growth, discovery, and acceptance -- that becomes a profound personal and philosophical odyssey into life's fundamental questions, this uniquely exhilarating modern classic is both touching and transcendent, resonant with the myriad confusions of existence . . . and the small, essential triumphs that propel us forward.", "Rate":3.77 }, { "Book":"Mating in Captivity", "Feedback":"A guide for loving couples who are looking to renew sexual passion in their lives explains how societal taboos and ideals about domestic equality have compromised the healthy expression of eroticism in today's relationships, in a resource that explains how to overcome personal constraints for greater intimacy. 40,000 first printing.", "Rate":4.13 }, { "Book":"DREAM & THE UNDERWOR", "Feedback":"In a deepening of the thinking begun in The Myth of Analysis and Re-Visioning Psychology, James Hillman develops the first new view of dreams since Freud and Jung.", "Rate":4.23 }, { "Book":"The Dance of Intimacy", "Feedback":"In The Dance of Intimacy, the bestselling author of The Dance of Anger outlines the steps to take so that good relationships can be strengthened and difficult ones can be healed. Taking a careful look at those relationships where intimacy is most challenged--by distance, intensity, or pain--she teaches us about the specific changes we can make to achieve a more solid sense of self and a more intimate connectedness with others. Combining clear advice with vivid case examples, Dr. Lerner offers us the most solid, helpful book on intimate relationships that both women and men may ever encounter.", "Rate":4.06 }, { "Book":"Soul Mates", "Feedback":"This companion volume to Care of the Soul offers more of Thomas Moore's inspiring wisdom and empathy as it expands on his ideas about life, love, and the mysteries of human relationships. In Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore explored the importance of nurturing the soul and struck a chord nationwide \u2014 the book became a long-term bestseller, topping charts across the country and selling 550,000 copies in hardcover and paperback combined. Building on that book's wisdom, Soul Mates, already a hardcover bestseller, explores how relationships of all kinds enhance our lives and fulfill the needs of our souls. Moore emphasizes the difficulties that inevitably accompany many relationships and focuses on the need to work through these differences in order to experience the deep reward that comes with intimacy and unconfined love.", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"Social Psychology", "Feedback":"Suitable for introductory Social Psychology classes, this work presents a scientific approach to social psychology.", "Rate":3.98 }, { "Book":"Difficult Conversations", "Feedback":"What is a difficult conversation? Asking for a pay rise, saying 'no' to your boss or spouse, confronting a friend or neighbour, asking a difficult favour, apologizing. We all have conversations that we dread and find unpleasant. But can we develop the skills to make such situations less stressful and more productive? Based on fifteen years of research and consultations with thousands of people, DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS pinpoints what works. Use this ground-breaking, step-by-step book to turnyour difficult conversations into positive, problem-solving experiences.", "Rate":4.07 }, { "Book":"The Blank Slate", "Feedback":"In a study of the nature versus nurture debate, one of the world's foremost experts on language and the mind explores the modern self-denial of our basic human natures.", "Rate":4.08 }, { "Book":"Notebooks of the Mind", "Feedback":"How do creative people think? Do great works of the imagination originate in words or in images? Is there a rational explanation for the sudden appearance of geniuses like Mozart or Einstein? Such questions have fascinated people for centuries; only in recent years, however, has cognitive psychology been able to provide some clues to the mysterious process of creativity. In this revised edition of Notebooks of the Mind, Vera John-Steiner combines imaginative insight with scientific precision to produce a startling account of the human mind working at its highest potential. To approach her subject John-Steiner goes directly to the source, assembling the thoughts of \"experienced thinkers\"--artists, philosophers, writers, and scientists able to reflect on their own imaginative patterns. More than fifty interviews (with figures ranging from Jessica Mitford to Aaron Copland), along with excerpts from the diaries, letters, and autobiographies of such gifted giants as Leo Tolstoy, Marie Curie, and Diego Rivera, among others, provide illuminating insights into creative activity. We read, for example, of Darwin's preoccupation with the image of nature as a branched tree while working on his concept of evolution. Mozart testifies to the vital influence on his mature art of the wondrous \"bag of memories\" he retained from childhood. Anais Nin describes her sense of words as oppressive, explaining how imagistic free association freed her as a writer. Adding these personal accounts to laboratory studies of thought process, John-Steiner takes a refreshingly holistic approach to the question of creativity. What emerges is an intriguing demonstration of how specific sociocultural circumstances interact with certain personality traits to encourage the creative mind. Among the topics examined here are the importance of childhood mentor figures; the lengthy apprenticeship of the talented person; and the development of self- expression through highly individualistic languages, whether in images, movement or inner speech. Now, with a new introduction, this award-winning book provides an uniquely broad-based study of the origins, development and fruits of human inspiration.", "Rate":3.81 }, { "Book":"An Odyssey in Learning and Perception", "Feedback":"An Odyssey in Learning and Perception documents a fifty-year intellectual expedition in the areas of learning and perception--always with an eye to combining them in a theory of perceptual learning and development, a theory that may be broadly applicable to humans and nonhumans, young and old. In the field of psychology, beginning in the 1950s, Eleanor J. Gibson nearly single-handedly developed the field of perceptual learning with a series of brilliant studies that culminated in the seminal work, Perceptual Learning and Development. An Odyssey in Learning and Perception brings together Gibson's scientific papers, including difficult-to-find or previously unpublished work, along with classic studies in perception and action. Gibson introduces each paper to show why the research was undertaken and concludes each section with comments linking the findings to later developments. A personal essay touches on the questions and concerns that guided her research.", "Rate":4.5 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Computers", "patterns":[ "Computers", "Recommend a Computers book", "Recommedn a book in Computers" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Incident Response & Computer Forensics, 2nd Ed.", "Feedback":"Written by FBI insiders, this updated best-seller offers a look at the legal, procedural, and technical steps of incident response and computer forensics. Including new chapters on forensic analysis and remediation, and real-world case studies, this revealing book shows how to counteract and conquer today\u2019s hack attacks.", "Rate":3.68 }, { "Book":"C++ Programmer's Notebook", "Feedback":"Covers all the C++ concepts a programmer needs to know, including variables, operators, pointers, and virtual functions, organized to build expertise one step at a time", "Rate":3.0 }, { "Book":"Java", "Feedback":"Introduces object-oriented programming and important computer science concepts, such as testing and debugging techniques, program style, inheritance, and exception handling. This book includes coverage of the Swing libraries and event-driven programming. It is suitable for introductory Computer Science courses using Java.", "Rate":3.86 }, { "Book":"Data Structures and Abstractions with Java", "Feedback":"Using the latest features of Java 5, this unique object-oriented presentation introduces readers to data structures via thirty, manageable chapters. KEY FeaturesTOPICS: Introduces each ADT in its own chapter, including examples or applications. Provides aA variety of exercises and projects, plus additional self-assessment questions throughout. the text Includes generic data types as well as enumerations, for-each loops, the interface Iterable, the class Scanner, assert statements, and autoboxing and unboxing. Identifies important Java code as a Listing. Provides NNotes and Pprogramming Ttips in each chapter. For programmers and software engineers interested in learning more about data structures and abstractions.", "Rate":3.44 }, { "Book":"Robin Williams Web Design Workshop", "Feedback":"Illustrating her ideas with hundreds of examples, Williams takes her lessons on creative design, highly regarded within the graphics community, and applies them to the Web. Full color.", "Rate":3.78 }, { "Book":"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", "Feedback":"\"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs\" has had a dramatic impact on computer science curricula over the past decade. This long-awaited revision contains changes throughout the text. There are new implementations of most of the major programming systems in the book, including the interpreters and compilers, and the authors have incorporated many small changes that reflect their experience teaching the course at MIT since the first edition was published. A new theme has been introduced that emphasizes the central role played by different approaches to dealing with time in computational models: objects with state, concurrent programming, functional programming and lazy evaluation, and nondeterministic programming. There are new example sections on higher-order procedures in graphics and on applications of stream processing in numerical programming, and many new exercises. In addition, all the programs have been reworked to run in any Scheme implementation that adheres to the IEEE standard.", "Rate":4.45 }, { "Book":"Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams", "Feedback":"\"A Bradford book.\" Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-163).", "Rate":3.85 }, { "Book":"The Non-designer's Web Book", "Feedback":"The top-selling Web design guide returns - completely updated to address the most current browsers, software, and standards!", "Rate":3.65 }, { "Book":"Don't Make Me Think!", "Feedback":"Web-usability expert Steve Krug updates his classic guide to designing intuitive navigation for the ideal user experience.", "Rate":4.24 }, { "Book":"In the Beginning...was the Command Line", "Feedback":"This is \"the Word\" -- one man's word, certainly -- about the art (and artifice) of the state of our computer-centric existence. And considering that the \"one man\" is Neal Stephenson, \"the hacker Hemingway\" (Newsweek) -- acclaimed novelist, pragmatist, seer, nerd-friendly philosopher, and nationally bestselling author of groundbreaking literary works (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc., etc.) -- the word is well worth hearing. Mostly well-reasoned examination and partial rant, Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line is a thoughtful, irreverent, hilarious treatise on the cyber-culture past and present; on operating system tyrannies and downloaded popular revolutions; on the Internet, Disney World, Big Bangs, not to mention the meaning of life itself.", "Rate":3.79 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Self-Help", "patterns":[ "Self-Help", "Recommend a book in Self-Help", "Recommend a Self-Help book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Bad Childhood---Good Life", "Feedback":"Exploring how the past influences the present, the author discusses how to understand each individual's unique coping style and how to tap into the extraordinary quality of human spirit that will create the transition from victim to victor.", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"The Art of Loving", "Feedback":"The fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the groundbreaking international bestseller that has shown millions of readers how to achieve rich, productive lives by developing their hidden capacities for love Most people are unable to love on the only level that truly matters: love that is compounded of maturity, self-knowledge, and courage. As with every art, love demands practice and concentration, as well as genuine insight and understanding. In his classic work, The Art of Loving, renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm explores love in all its aspects\u2014not only romantic love, steeped in false conceptions and lofty expectations, but also brotherly love, erotic love, self-love, the love of God, and the love of parents for their children.", "Rate":4.03 }, { "Book":"The Secret Lives of Men and Women", "Feedback":"Postsecret.com founder Frank Warren is back with an irresistible addition to his bestselling PostSecret series. For The Secret Lives of Men and Women, Warren has selected a never-before-seen collection of postcards bearing the explosive confessions and captivating revelations of men and women everywhere. Created using photographs, collages, illustrations, and more, the handmade cards offer a compelling dialogue on some of today\u2019s most provocative topics\u2014from marriage and infidelity, to parenting, office politics, repressed fantasies, and even abortion\u2014daring us to consider how well we really know our friends, family, even ourselves.", "Rate":4.37 }, { "Book":"Owning Your Own Shadow", "Feedback":"A bestselling author shows how we can reclaim and make peace with the \"shadow\" side of our personality.", "Rate":4.07 }, { "Book":"Who Moved My Cheese?", "Feedback":"Who Moved My Cheese? is a simple parable that reveals profound truths. It is the amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a maze and look for cheese to nourish them and make them happy. Cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life, for example a good job, a loving relationship, money or possessions, health or spiritual peace of mind. The maze is where you look for what you want, perhaps the organisation you work in, or the family or community you live in. The problem is that the cheese keeps moving. In the story, the characters are faced with unexpected change in their search for the cheese. One of them eventually deals with change successfully and writes what he has learned on the maze walls for you to discover. You'll learn how to anticipate, adapt to and enjoy change and be ready to change quickly whenever you need to. Discover the secret of the writing on the wall for yourself and enjoy less stress and more success in your work and life. Written for all ages, this story takes less than an hour to read, but its unique insights will last a lifetime.", "Rate":3.78 }, { "Book":"How to Have a Beautiful Mind", "Feedback":"Despite the modern day emphasis on physical appearance, there is an easier way to become a desirable person rather than dieting or buying expensive clothes. Regardless of outer appearance, if people have minds that are fascinating, creative, and exciting--if they are good thinkers--they can be beautiful. The clear, practical instructions in this guide demonstrate how applying lateral and parallel thinking skills to conversation can improve the mind. The greatest impact is made on others through speech, and by learning how to listen, make a point, and maneuver a discussion, anyone can become more imaginative, more engaging, and more beautiful.", "Rate":3.63 }, { "Book":"All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten", "Feedback":"The Unitarian minister reflects on America and its diverse peoples, everyday wisdoms, kindnesses, and joys, and everyday life's large meanings.", "Rate":4.03 }, { "Book":"Ten Things I Wish I'd Known - Before I Went Out into the Real World", "Feedback":"Award-winning broadcast journalist and NBC anchor-woman Maria Shriver reveals the lessons she has learned that have guided her journey as a career woman, wife and mother.", "Rate":3.69 }, { "Book":"The War of Art", "Feedback":"The Art of War meets \"The Artist's Way\" in this no-nonsense, profoundly inspiring guide to overcoming creative blocks of every kind.", "Rate":4.02 }, { "Book":"Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating", "Feedback":"Provides the support and practical advice necessary for readers to restructure their bad eating patterns.", "Rate":4.01 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Political Science", "patterns":[ "Political Science", "Recommend a Political Science book", "Recommend a Political Science book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Crusader", "Feedback":"Based on extraordinary research: a major reassessment of Ronald Reagan's lifelong crusade to dismantle the Soviet Empire\u2013including shocking revelations about the liberal American politician who tried to collude with USSR to counter Reagan's efforts Paul Kengor's God and Ronald Reagan made presidential historian Paul Kengor's name as one of the premier chroniclers of the life and career of the 40th president. Now, with The Crusader, Kengor returns with the one book about Reagan that has not been written: The story of his lifelong crusade against communism, and of his dogged\u2013and ultimately triumphant\u2013effort to overthrow the Soviet Union. Drawing upon reams of newly declassified presidential papers, as well as untapped Soviet media archives and new interviews with key players, Kengor traces Reagan's efforts to target the Soviet Union from his days as governor of California to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of what he famously dubbed the \"Evil Empire.\" The result is a major revision and enhancement of what historians are only beginning to realize: That Reagan not only wished for the collapse of communism, but had a deep and specific understanding of what it would take\u2013\u2013and effected dozens of policy shifts that brought the USSR to its heels within a decade of his presidency. The Crusader makes use of key sources from behind the Iron Curtain, including one key memo that implicates a major American liberal politician\u2013still in office today\u2013in a scheme to enlist Soviet premier Yuri Andropov to help defeat Reagan's 1984 reelection bid. Such new finds make The Crusader not just a work of extraordinary history, but a work of explosive revelation that will be debated as hotly in 2006 as Reagan's policies were in the 1980s.", "Rate":4.2 }, { "Book":"Homegrown Democrat", "Feedback":"The humorist and radio host examines the \"politics of kindness,\" offering a series of nostalgic reminiscences, meditations, and observations on the core values of the democratic ideal.", "Rate":3.96 }, { "Book":"A Preface to Democratic Theory, Expanded Edition", "Feedback":"For this fiftieth-anniversary edition, Dahl has written an extensive new afterword that reevaluates Madisonian theory in light of recent research. And in a new foreword, he reflects back on his influential volume and the ways his views have evolved since he wrote it. For any student or scholar of political science, this new material is an essential update on a gold standard in the evolving field of democratic theory.", "Rate":3.62 }, { "Book":"The Intellectuals and the Flag", "Feedback":"Calls upon intellectuals on the left to once again engage American public life and resist the trappings of knee-jerk negativism, intellectual fads, and political orthodoxy. Gitlin argues for a renewed sense of patriotism based on the ideals of sacrifice, tough-minded criticism, and a willingness to look anew at the global role of the United States in the aftermath of 9/11. [Publisher web site].", "Rate":3.59 }, { "Book":"Seeing Like a State", "Feedback":"Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields.", "Rate":4.19 }, { "Book":"The Communist Manifesto: Marx", "Feedback":"This is an edition of The Communist Manifesto with related documents. A 30-page introduction traces the trajectory of Marx's thought from the 1840s onward and provides background on the political, social and intellectual contexts of which the Manifesto was an historical product. Accompanying the Manifesto are 8 additional documents that show the evolution of and influences on Marx's thought over time. A Marx-Engels chronology, questions for consideration, a bibliography, illustrations, a glossary of terms and an index are also included.", "Rate":3.54 }, { "Book":"American Government", "Feedback":"This bestseller in American government has been aggressively revised to provide the most in-depth and current coverage of the 2004 elections, the beginnings of the second George W. Bush administration, and the ongoing wars on terror and in Iraq while also providing expansive new coverage of our system's Constitutional roots. Written with the belief that students must first understand how American government developed to fully understand the issues facing our nation in the 21st century, O'Connor/Sabato offers the strongest coverage of both history and current events on the market today. The new edition provides deeper coverage of both history and events today by exploring the Constitutional roots of our system and how those roots are relevant and often challenged today. The authors also continue their commitment to currency and student-relevance by providing up-to-the-minute coverage of the new Bush administration, the ongoing war in Iraq, etc.", "Rate":2.95 }, { "Book":"Essentials of American Government", "Feedback":"The Essentials edition of the number one book in American government continues to provide the most current and engaging introduction available for the course and contains an entire unit devoted to Texas government and politics. Like the comprehensive edition, this nuts-and-bolts version was written with the belief that knowledge of the development of American government is integral to fully understand our current political system. \"Essentials of American Government: Continuity and Change\" is a student-friendly text offering a strong historical perspective that highlights the evolution of government and engages students with examples relevant to their lives.", "Rate":3.5 }, { "Book":"The Collapse of the Common Good", "Feedback":"In pursuit of fairness at any cost, we have created a society paralyzed by legal fear: Doctors are paranoid and principals powerless. Little league coaches, scared of liability, stop volunteering. Schools and hospitals start to crumble. The common good fades, replaced by a cacophony of people claiming their \u201cindividual rights.\u201d By turns funny and infuriating, this startling book dissects the dogmas of fairness that allow self-interested individuals to bully the rest of society. Philip K. Howard explains how, trying to honor individual rights, we removed the authority needed to maintain a free society. Teachers don\u2019t even have authority to maintain order in the classroom. With no one in charge, the safe course is to avoid any possible risk. Seesaws and diving boards are removed. Ridiculous warning labels litter the American landscape: \u201cCaution: Contents Are Hot.\u201d Striving to protect \u201cindividual rights,\u201d we ended up losing much of our freedom. When almost any decision that someone disagrees with is a possible lawsuit, no one knows where he stands. A huge monument to the unknown plaintiff looms high above America, casting a dark shadow across our daily choices. Today, in the land of free speech, you\u2019d have to be a fool to say what you really think. This provocative book not only attacks the sacred cows of political correctness, but takes a breathtakingly bold stand on how to reinvigorate our common good. Only by restoring personal authority can schools begin to work again. Only by judges and legislatures taking back the authority to decide who can sue for what can doctors feel comfortable using their best judgment and American be liberated to say and do what they know is right. Lucid, honest, and hard hitting, The Collapse of the Common Good shows how Americans can bring back freedom and common sense to a society disabled by lawyers and legal fear.", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"Manufacturing Consent", "Feedback":"Examines the political role played by the media in shaping events, assesses the relationship between the media and the corporations that control and finance them, and discusses the fine distinctions between news and propaganda.", "Rate":4.24 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Family & Relationships", "patterns":[ "Family & Relationships", "Recommend a Family & Relationships book", "Recommend a book in Family & Relationships" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Mars and Venus Book of Days", "Feedback":"Provides daily reminders of the differences in behavior and communication styles of men and women", "Rate":3.54 }, { "Book":"Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus", "Feedback":"Rediscover the most famous relationship book ever published Once upon a time Martians and Venusians met, fell in love, and had happy relationships together because they respected and accepted their differences. Then they came to Earth and amnesia set in: they forgot they were from different planets. Based on years of successful counseling of couples and individuals, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus has helped millions of couples transform their relationships. Now viewed as a modern classic, this phenomenal book has helped men and women realize how different they can be in their communication styles, their emotional needs, and their modes of behavior\u2014and offers the secrets of communicating without conflicts, allowing couples to give intimacy every chance to grow.", "Rate":3.54 }, { "Book":"Smart Discipline(R)", "Feedback":"Larry J. Koenig, Ph.D., creator of the hugely popular Smart Discipline\u00ae seminars, explains his simple, dramatically effective system to help children follow the rules at home and at school. It is easily tailoredto differences in age, temperament, and the needs of children with ADD/ADHD. Positive results usually are seen within a few days. Best of all: instead of nagging, parents can use Dr. Koenig's powerful esteem-building strategies to affirm their children's strengths. The Smart Discipline system: Gets kids to do what you ask, the first time you ask Stops fighting, bickering, and disrespectful language Ends hassles over homework, chores, messy rooms, and bedtime Instills positive self-image and builds confidence. . . and much more!", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"How to Talk to Anyone : 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships", "Feedback":"\"You'll not only break the ice, you'll melt it away with your new skills.\" -- Larry King \"The lost art of verbal communication may be revitalized by Leil Lowndes.\" -- Harvey McKay, author of \u201cHow to Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive\u201d What is that magic quality makes some people instantly loved and respected? Everyone wants to be their friend (or, if single, their lover!) In business, they rise swiftly to the top of the corporate ladder. What is their \"Midas touch?\" What it boils down to is a more skillful way of dealing with people. The author has spent her career teaching people how to communicate for success. In her book How to Talk to Anyone (Contemporary Books, October 2003) Lowndes offers 92 easy and effective sure-fire success techniques-- she takes the reader from first meeting all the way up to sophisticated techniques used by the big winners in life. In this information-packed book you\u2019ll find: 9 ways to make a dynamite first impression 14 ways to master small talk, \"big talk,\" and body language 14 ways to walk and talk like a VIP or celebrity 6 ways to sound like an insider in any crowd 7 ways to establish deep subliminal rapport with anyone 9 ways to feed someone's ego (and know when NOT to!) 11 ways to make your phone a powerful communications tool 15 ways to work a party like a politician works a room 7 ways to talk with tigers and not get eaten alive In her trademark entertaining and straight-shooting style, Leil gives the techniques catchy names so you'll remember them when you really need them, including: \"Rubberneck the Room,\" \"Be a Copyclass,\" \"Come Hither Hands,\" \u201cBare Their Hot Button,\u201d \u201cThe Great Scorecard in the Sky,\" and \"Play the Tombstone Game,\u201d for big success in your social life, romance, and business. How to Talk to Anyone, which is an update of her popular book, Talking the Winner's Way (see the 5-star reviews of the latter) is based on solid research about techniques that work! By the way, don't confuse How to Talk to Anyone with one of Leil's previous books, How to Talk to Anybody About Anything. This one is completely different!", "Rate":3.78 }, { "Book":"Love and Saint Augustine", "Feedback":"Editors Joanna Vecchiarelli Scott and Judith Chelius Stark make Hannah Arendt's important early work accessible for the first time. Here is a completely corrected and revised English translation that incorporates Arendt's own substantial revisions and provides additional notes based on letters, contracts, and other documents. \"A revelation that may force us to reconsider the traditional interpretation of Arendt's work\".--KIRKUS REVIEWS.", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"Think Like a Guy", "Feedback":"A whimsical but practical guide to the modern world of dating etiquette explains what turns guys off and on and offers helpful suggestions designed to insure that a woman always has a selection of men hanging around. Original. 25,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.15 }, { "Book":"The Mystery Method", "Feedback":"\u201cOne of the most admired men in the world of seduction\u201d (The New York Times) teaches average guys how to approach, attract and begin intimate relationships with beautiful women For every man who always wondered why some guys have all the luck, Mystery, considered by many to be the world\u2019s greatest pickup artist, finally reveals his secrets for finding and forming relationships with some of the world\u2019s most beautiful women. Mystery gained mainstream attention for his role in Neil Strauss\u2019s New York Times bestselling expos\u00e9, The Game. Now he has written the definitive handbook on the art of the pickup. He developed his unique method over years of observing social dynamics and interacting with women in clubs to learn how to overcome the guard shield that many women use to deflect come-ons from \"average frustrated chumps.\" The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed shares tips such as: *Give more attention to her less attractive friend at first, so your target will get jealous and try to win your attention. *Always approach a target within 3 seconds of noticing her. If a woman senses your hesitation, her perception of your value will be lower. *Don't be picky. Approach as many groups of people in a bar as you can and entertain them with fun conversation. As you move about the room, positive perception of you will grow. Now it's easy to meet anyone you want. *Smile. Guys who don't get laid, don't smile.", "Rate":3.71 }, { "Book":"The Black Veil", "Feedback":"The author weaves together past and present and family legend as he shares his personal story of dealing with depression, and his search through his family's paternal lines to find clues to his melancholy.", "Rate":3.06 }, { "Book":"Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall", "Feedback":"A lighthearted but insightful guide to raising adolescent children shows parents how to deal with teenagers living in a faster-paced, less morally certain world than the one they knew. Original. 50,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.94 }, { "Book":"Your Child's Self-esteem", "Feedback":"Discusses the ways in which parental attitudes shape the child's concept of himself and offers guidelines for creating positive relationships", "Rate":4.26 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Language Arts & Disciplines", "patterns":[ "Language Arts & Disciplines", "Recommend a book in Language Arts & Disciplines", "Recommen a Language Arts & Disciplines book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Elements of Style", "Feedback":"The only style manual ever to appear on the best-seller lists offers practical, fundamental advice on improving writing skills, promoting a style marked by simplicity, orderliness, and sincerity", "Rate":4.2 }, { "Book":"The Language Instinct", "Feedback":"In this classic study, the world's leading expert on language and the mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about languages: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it envolved. With wit, erudition, and deft use it everyday examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution like web spinning in spiders or sonar bats. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America.", "Rate":4.05 }, { "Book":"Three Genres", "Feedback":"Three Genres gives students a basic introduction to fiction/ literary nonfiction, poetry, and drama and helps them to develop their creative skills in each area. Each genre section is self-contained and includes complete works as examples along with helpful advice about how to draw on the variety of techniques they use. The style is informal, practical, and positive. Minot encourages student to draw on their own experiences and develop skills on their own.", "Rate":3.65 }, { "Book":"Why I Write", "Feedback":"Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves\u2014and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives\u2014and destroyed them. Now, Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are. Penguin's Great Ideas series features twelve groundbreaking works by some of history's most prodigious thinkers, and each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-drive design that highlights the bookmaker's art. Offering great literature in great packages at great prices, this series is ideal for those readers who want to explore and savor the Great Ideas that have shaped the world. Whether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittily dissecting the English character or telling unpalatable truths about war, Orwell's timeless, uncompromising essays are more relevant, entertaining and essential than ever in today's era of spin.", "Rate":4.03 }, { "Book":"The Read-aloud Handbook", "Feedback":"Explains the importance of reading aloud to children, offers guidance on how to set up a read-aloud atmosphere in the home or classroom, and recommends titles to select.", "Rate":4.4 }, { "Book":"Moral Politics", "Feedback":"In this classic text, Lakoff analyses the unconscious and rhetorical worldviews of liberals and conservatives, discovering radically different but remarkably consistent conceptions of morality.", "Rate":4.03 }, { "Book":"How to Write a Damn Good Novel", "Feedback":"Covers characterization, plot, theme, conflicts, climax and resolution, point of view, dialogue, revision, and manuscript submission", "Rate":3.85 }, { "Book":"A Writer's Workbook", "Feedback":"Provides a series of warm-ups and practical exercises for aspiring writers that address such issues as fear of failure, dyslexia, writer's block, rewriting, and related matters. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.71 }, { "Book":"How to Write a Damn Good Mystery", "Feedback":"Edgar award nominee James N. Frey, author of the internationally best-selling books on the craft of writing, How to Write a Damn Good Novel, How to Write a Damn Good Novel II: Advanced Techniques, and The Key: How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth, has now written what is certain to become the standard \"how to\" book for mystery writing, How to Write a Damn Good Mystery. Frey urges writers to aim high-not to try to write a good-enough-to-get-published mystery, but a damn good mystery. A damn good mystery is first a dramatic novel, Frey insists-a dramatic novel with living, breathing characters-and he shows his readers how to create a living, breathing, believable character who will be clever and resourceful, willful and resolute, and will be what Frey calls \"the author of the plot behind the plot.\" Frey then shows, in his well-known, entertaining, and accessible (and often humorous) style , how the characters-the entire ensemble, including the murderer, the detective, the authorities, the victims, the suspects, the witnesses and the bystanders-create a complete and coherent world. Exploring both the on-stage action and the behind-the-scenes intrigue, Frey shows prospective writers how to build a fleshed-out, believable, and logical world. He shows them exactly which parts of that world show up in the pages of a damn good mystery-and which parts are held back just long enough to keep the reader guessing. This is an indispensable step-by-step guide for anyone who's ever dreamed of writing a damn good mystery.", "Rate":3.97 }, { "Book":"Better Than Sex", "Feedback":"An odyssey through the American electoral process provides insights and observations on the 1992 presidential campaign", "Rate":3.76 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Humor", "patterns":[ "Humor", "Recommend a Humor book", "Recommend a book in Humor" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"What Would Machiavelli Do?", "Feedback":"What Would Machiavelli Do? He would feast on other people's discord He wouldn't exactly seek the company of ass-kissers and bimbos, but he wouldn't reject them out of hand either He would realize that loving yourself means never having to say you're sorry He would kill people, but only if he could feel good about himself afterward He would establish and maintain a psychotic level of control He would use other people's opinions to sell his book!", "Rate":3.46 }, { "Book":"Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies", "Feedback":"A hilarious compilation of witty anecdotes and trenchant essays on the mysteries of grammar and punctuation takes a poke at self-appointed language experts as it discusses such topics as predicate nominatives, colons and semicolons, quotation marks, prepositions, hyphens, and more. Original.", "Rate":3.78 }, { "Book":"The Deeper Meaning of Liff", "Feedback":"Presents a dictionary of such items as \"Tingrith,\" or the feeling of aluminum foil against your fillings, and \"Ahenny,\" the way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves.", "Rate":3.93 }, { "Book":"Yiddish with Dick and Jane", "Feedback":"Jane is in real estate. Today is Saturday. Jane has an open house. She must schlep the Open House signs to the car. See Jane schlep. Schlep, Jane. Schlep. Schlep, schlep, schlep. In text that captures the unque rhythms of the original Dick and Jane readers, and in 35 all-new illustrations, a story unfolds in which Dick and Jane--hero and heroine of the classic books for children that generations of Americans have used when learning to read--manage to express shades of feeling and nuances of meaning that ordinary English just can't deliver. How? By speaking Yiddish, employing terms that convey an attitude--part plucky self-assertion, part ironic fatalism. When Dick schmoozes, when Jane kvetches, when their children fress noodles at a Chinese restaurant, the clash of cultures produces genuine hilarity.", "Rate":3.91 }, { "Book":"A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", "Feedback":"In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction, including the bestselling Infinite Jest.", "Rate":4.27 }, { "Book":"Anne Rice's the Vampire Lestat", "Feedback":"Lestat recounts the story of how he became a vampire in eighteenth-century France", "Rate":4.19 }, { "Book":"Does Anybody Have a Problem with That?", "Feedback":"Brief essays from the television series offer a humorous perspective on politics, celebrities, feminism, education, beauty pageants, President Clinton, and social issues", "Rate":3.49 }, { "Book":"The Straight Dope", "Feedback":"Answers questions about animals, the human body, religion, history, science, politics, technology, language, music, money, food, television, and movies", "Rate":4.19 }, { "Book":"I Am the One that I Want", "Feedback":"In a humorous look at her own life, based on her one-woman Off-Broadway show, the popular comedian describes her childhood education, her teenage years on the comedy circuit, and her battles with weight and substance abuse.", "Rate":3.69 }, { "Book":"Aches & Pains", "Feedback":"Takes a humorous view of medical care, hospital stays, and convalescence.", "Rate":3.54 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Health & Fitness", "patterns":[ "Health & Fitness", "Recommend a Health & Fitness book", "Recommend a Health & Fitness book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"YOU: The Owner's Manual", "Feedback":"Outlines steps to achieving overall physical health, addressing each area of the body in a series of chapters designed to challenge popular myths while informing readers on a range of dietary, exercise, and therapeutic concerns.", "Rate":3.82 }, { "Book":"The 3-Hour Diet (TM) On the Go (Collins Gem)", "Feedback":"More Than 600 New Options! Imagine eating your favorite foods every 3 hours to finally get the results you've been searching for. NO calorie-counting, NO carb deprivation, and NO skipping sweets. Based on the revolutionary principles of Time-Based Nutrition\u2122, this pocket guidebook will give you the slimming secrets you need to enjoy fast food, restaurant meals, gas station gourmet, and much more! Visit www.3hourdiet.net for your free personalized weight-loss profile.", "Rate":3.08 }, { "Book":"Rainforest Home Remedies", "Feedback":"Rainforest Healing from Your Home and Garden Find alternatives to chemical anti-depressants and painkillers in your spice rack. Learn about natural anti-itch salves for insect bites. Soothe and relieve envy, grief, sadness, and fear the Maya way. Rid your house of negative energy with a Maya cleansing ritual. Try the easy-to-make bronchitis remedy.", "Rate":4.12 }, { "Book":"Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?", "Feedback":"The authors of Why Do Men Have Nipples? continues their hilarious look at the world of health with an all-new compilation of zany questions about unmentionable body parts, bodily functions, embarrassing body oddities, and more. Original. 300,000 first printing.", "Rate":3.56 }, { "Book":"And The Band Played on", "Feedback":"An examination of the AIDS crisis exposes the federal government for its inaction, health authorities for their greed, and scientists for their desire for prestige in the face of the AIDS pandemic.", "Rate":4.39 }, { "Book":"The Hot Zone", "Feedback":"Describes how a strain of lethal virus showed up in 1989 at a Virginia laboratory, and relates the efforts of a military biohazard SWAT team to identify and contain the virus", "Rate":4.11 }, { "Book":"The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment", "Feedback":"Relates the impact of trauma on the body to the phenomenon of somatic memory. The book illuminates the value of understanding the psychophysiology of trauma for both therapists and their traumatised clients. It progresses from relevant theory to applicable practice.", "Rate":4.27 }, { "Book":"Feeding the Hungry Heart", "Feedback":"Describes the experiences of compulsive eaters, examines their obsessions with both food and thinness, and tells how to change one's attitude about eating. Reissue.", "Rate":3.97 }, { "Book":"The Evolution of Desire", "Feedback":"David Buss updates his classic study of the origin of human mating behavior with fascinating new research.", "Rate":4.07 }, { "Book":"Why is sex fun?", "Feedback":"Why are humans one of the few species to have sex in private? Why are human females the only mammals to go through menopause? Why is the human penis so unnecessarily large? There is no more knowledgeable authority than the award-winning author of THE THIRD CHIMPANZEE to answer these intriguing questions. Here is a delightfully entertaining and enlightening look at the unique sex lives of humans.", "Rate":3.71 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Children's stories", "patterns":[ "Children's stories", "Recommend a book in Children's stories", "Recommend a Children's stories book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Beware, Princess Elizabeth", "Feedback":"A matter of life and death - and the Throne of England", "Rate":3.88 }, { "Book":"I Wish that I Had Duck Feet", "Feedback":"A boy imagines what it would be like if he had such things as duck feet, a whale spout, and an elephant's trunk.", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"Oh Say Can You Say?", "Feedback":"Tie your tongue in terrible knots as you try to read aloud. Nonsense rhyming story.", "Rate":4.01 }, { "Book":"Fairy Tales", "Feedback":"A collection of thirty original fairy tales introducing such beings as the fly-by-night, the rainbow cat, and the wonderful cake-horse.", "Rate":4.23 }, { "Book":"Party Shoes", "Feedback":"Near the end of the Second World War, Selina receives a parcel from America that contains a beautiful party dress and shoes. But her excitement turns to sorrow when she realizes she'll never have a chance to wear the beautiful dress, until she and her cousins decide to organize a pageant.", "Rate":3.64 }, { "Book":"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Feedback":"The abridged adventures of a French professor and his two companions as they sail above and below the world's oceans as prisoners on the fabulous electric submarine of the deranged Captain Nemo.", "Rate":3.76 }, { "Book":"Five Go Adventuring Again", "Feedback":"The Famous Five--Julian, Dick, Anne, George, and Timmy--are determined to find out who is responsible for the thefts at Kirrin Cottage and the discovery of an old map and a very unusual hiding place point to a suspect.", "Rate":4.01 }, { "Book":"Five Go to Smuggler's Top", "Feedback":"This is one in a series of Famous Five reissues, illustrated with the original drawings, in full colour by Eileen Soper.", "Rate":4.05 }, { "Book":"Five Have a Mystery to Solve", "Feedback":"The Famous Five investigate the creepy stories surrounding Whispering Island and discover they are not alone.", "Rate":3.9 }, { "Book":"Where's My Cow?", "Feedback":"Sam Vimes tries a variation on the usual bedtime story he shares with his son.", "Rate":4.11 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Education", "patterns":[ "Education", "Recommend an Education book", "Recommend a book in Education" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Savage Inequalities", "Feedback":"National Book Award-winning author Jonathan Kozol presents his shocking account of the American educational system in this stunning New York Times bestseller, which has sold more than 250,000 hardcover copies.", "Rate":4.24 }, { "Book":"The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics", "Feedback":"The writings of more than 60 authors including Isaac Asimov, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Pierre Curie, Primo Levi and James Gleick, are represented in this volume. Each expresses a perspective on the Sciences.", "Rate":4.12 }, { "Book":"Me Talk Pretty One Day", "Feedback":"David Sedaris moved from New York to Paris where he attempted to learn French. His teacher, a sadist, declared that every day spent with him was like giving birth the Caesarean way! These hilarious essays were inspired by that move.", "Rate":3.98 }, { "Book":"Common Ground", "Feedback":"Winner of 3 different awards, this is a story of the busing crisis in Boston.", "Rate":4.27 }, { "Book":"Chomsky on Democracy & Education", "Feedback":"This volume draws together a range of Chomsky's writings arguing that the goal of education is to produce free human beings whose values are not accumulation and domination, but rather free association on terms of equality.", "Rate":3.93 }, { "Book":"SCHOLASTIC SUCCESS WITH 4TH GRADE(WORKBOOK)", "Feedback":"416 bright, colorful pages that give kids practice in the skills every 4th grader needs to be successful. Includes addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions and decimals, problem solving, number concepts, reading comprehension, writing, grammar, maps, and lots more. For use with Grade 4.", "Rate":4.57 }, { "Book":"Lila", "Feedback":"Describes a voyage down the Hudson River undertaken by Phaedrus and a troubled companion, who provokes a philosophical crisis as the philosopher-narrator wrestles with essential questions of morality", "Rate":3.78 }, { "Book":"The Chosen", "Feedback":"A professor of sociology at the University of California presents the findings of his survey of admissions at Princeton, revealing a century of exclusion that cuts to the core of the American experience, while raising important questions about the stratification of higher education in America. Reprint.", "Rate":4.06 }, { "Book":"Uncle Shelby'S Abz Book", "Feedback":"Writing for an adult audience, the popular children's book author presents a humorous satire of alphabet books.", "Rate":4.37 }, { "Book":"Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons", "Feedback":"With more than half a million copies in print, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is the definitive guide to giving your child the reading skills needed now for a better chance at tomorrow, while bringing you and your child closer together. Is your child halfway through first grade and still unable to read? Is your preschooler bored with coloring and ready for reading? Do you want to help your child read, but are afraid you\u2019ll do something wrong? Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a complete, step-by-step program that shows patents simply and clearly how to teach their children to read. Twenty minutes a day is all you need, and within 100 teaching days your child will be reading on a solid second-grade reading level. It\u2019s a sensible, easy-to-follow, and enjoyable way to help your child gain the essential skills of reading. Everything you need is here\u2014no paste, no scissors, no flash cards, no complicated directions\u2014just you and your child learning together. One hundred lessons, fully illustrated and color-coded for clarity, give your child the basic and more advanced skills needed to become a good reader.", "Rate":4.15 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Medical", "patterns":[ "Medical", "Recommend a book in Medical", "Recommend a Medical book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"As Nature Made Him", "Feedback":"Tells the story of a man whose botched circumcision as a baby and subsequent surgical alteration to a female was mistakenly used as an argument for the success of such procedures.", "Rate":3.97 }, { "Book":"Goodman & Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, Eleventh Edition", "Feedback":"The undisputed leader in medical pharmacology, without equal. Updated to reflect all critical new developments in drug action and drug-disease interaction. This is the \u201cdesert island\u201d book of all medical pharmacology\u2014if you can own just one pharmacology book, this is it." }, { "Book":"The Coming Plague", "Feedback":"An exploration of the battle against microbes, based on research in virology, molecular biology, disease ecology, and medicine, examines the current outbreak of infectious diseases and outlines what can be done to prevent the coming plague", "Rate":4.17 }, { "Book":"Alcestis", "Feedback":"At once a vigorous translation of one of Euripides' most subtle and witty plays, and a wholly fresh interpretation, this version reveals for the first time the extraordinary formal beauty and thematic concentration of the Alcestis. William Arrowsmith rejects the standard view of the Alcestis as a psychological study of the egotist Admetos and his naive but devoted wife. His translation, instead, presents the play as a drama of human existence--in keeping with the tradition of Greek tragedy--with recognizably human characters who also represent masked embodiments of human conditions.", "Rate":3.83 }, { "Book":"Manic-Depressive Illness", "Feedback":"This long-awaited second edition of Manic-Depressive Illness will exhaustively review the biological and genetic literature that has dominated the field in recent years, and incorporate cutting-edge research conducted since publication of the first edition. Drs. Frederick Goodwin and Kay Redfield Jamison have updated their surveys of psychological and epidemiological evidence, as well as that pertaining to diagnostic issues, course, and outcome, and they offer practical guidelines for differential diagnosis and clinical management. This book will be a valuable addition to the libraries of psychiatrists and other physicians, psychologists, clinical social workers, neuroscientists, pharmacologists, and the patients and families who live with manic-depressive illness.", "Rate":4.39 }, { "Book":"The Man Who Tasted Shapes", "Feedback":"Uncovers the strange medical mystery of synesthesia, a condition in which people can taste shapes or hear and smell colors, and suggests that everyone has synesthetic powers.", "Rate":3.88 }, { "Book":"Awakenings", "Feedback":"Describes the author's work with institutionalized patients at Mount Carmel Hospital and the dramatic effects of the drug L-DOPA on twenty patients suffering from encephalitic Parkinsonism", "Rate":4.09 }, { "Book":"The Truth About The Drug Companies", "Feedback":"A physician and former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine provides an explosive critique of the pharmaceutical industry, detailing its dangerous influence on medical research, education, and physicians; exposing the reasons behind the spiraling prescription drug prices; and proposing a program of vital reforms. Reprint.", "Rate":3.94 }, { "Book":"Leaps of Faith", "Feedback":"\"Elegant and literate\" -THE TIMES OF LONDON \"The kind of book that both skeptics and believers would do well to read\"- SKEPTICAL INQUIRER \"An urbane, original, convincing rebuttal of paranormal and supernatural notions\" -NEW SCIENTIST \"A lively, entertaining book... Humphrey has set himself a larger task than simply explaining why people believe in parapsychology: the task of explaining why it is irrational to believe in it.\"-NATURE", "Rate":3.76 }, { "Book":"Anesthesiology Review", "Feedback":"Review text for anesthesiology residents. Comprehensively covers essential knowledge and includes all topic areas found on the ABA/ASA exam. Includes new discussions on cardiopulmonary bypass, off-pump coronary bypass, and automatic internal cardiac defibrillator procedures.", "Rate":3.64 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Nature", "patterns":[ "Nature", "Recommednd a book in Nature", "Recommend a Nature book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Sense of Wonder", "Feedback":"First published more than three decades ago, this reissue of Rachel Carson's award-winning classic brings her unique vision to a new generation of readers. Stunning new photographs by Nick Kelsh beautifully complement Carson's intimate account of adventures with her young nephew, Roger, as they enjoy walks along the rocky coast of Maine and through dense forests and open fields, observing wildlife, strange plants, moonlight and storm clouds, and listening to the \"living music\" of insects in the underbrush. \"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder.\" Writes Carson, \"he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.\" The Sense of Wonder is a refreshing antidote to indifference and a guide to capturing the simple power of discovery that Carson views as essential to life. In her insightful new introduction, Linda Lear remembers Rachel Carson's groundbreaking achievements in the context of the legendary environmentalist's personal commitment to introducing young and old to the miracles of nature. Kelsh's lush photographs inspire sensual, tactile reactions: masses of leaves floating in a puddle are just waiting to be scooped up and examined more closely. An image of a narrow path through the trees evokes the earthy scent of the woods after a summer rain. Close-ups of mosses and miniature lichen fantasy-lands will spark innocent'as well as more jaded'imaginations. Like a curious child studying things underfoot and within reach, Kelsh's camera is drawn to patterns in nature that too often elude hurried adults'a stand of beech trees in the springtime, patches of melting snow and the ripples from a pebble tossed into a slow-moving stream. The Sense of Wonder is a timeless volume that will be passed on from children to grandchildren, as treasured as the memory of an early-morning walk when the song of a whippoorwill was heard as if for the first time.", "Rate":4.39 }, { "Book":"The Great Ape Project", "Feedback":"With such assertions throughout, it is no wonder that The Great Ape Project has been embroiled in controversy even before its American publication.", "Rate":4.06 }, { "Book":"Dominion", "Feedback":"Argues for responsible action in the treatment of animals, challenging popular conceptions about animal feeling and awareness and profiling a safari convention, factory farm, and the works of top writers.", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"The Dragons of Eden", "Feedback":"The well-known astronomer and astrobiologist surveys current knowledge of the development of intelligence on Earth in various forms of life and explains his persuasion that intelligence must have developed along similar lines throughout the universe", "Rate":4.17 }, { "Book":"The Control of Nature", "Feedback":"The Control of Nature is John McPhee's bestselling account of places where people are locked in combat with nature. Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strageties and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking is his depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those attempting to wrest control from her - stubborn, sometimes foolhardy, more often ingenious, and always arresting characters.", "Rate":4.24 }, { "Book":"Coming Into the Country", "Feedback":"An account of a kayak and canoe journey through the Brooks Range wilderness, impressions of urban life and political activity, and portraits of people in the bush make up a study of contemporary Alaska", "Rate":4.22 }, { "Book":"Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes", "Feedback":"A collection of essays answers questions about key scientific concepts, focusing, in particular, on Darwin's theory of evolution, natural selection, and its impact on biology, natural history, and modern science", "Rate":4.1 }, { "Book":"Eight Little Piggies", "Feedback":"In the sixth volume of essays from Natural History magazine, a science writer discusses environmental spoliation and the massive extinction of the Earth's species.", "Rate":4.09 }, { "Book":"Demonic Males", "Feedback":"Draws on recent discoveries about human evolution to examine whether violence among men is a product of their primitive heritage, and searches for solutions to the problems of war, rape, and murder", "Rate":4.02 }, { "Book":"Hope is the Thing with Feathers", "Feedback":"Presents the histories of six extinct North American birds, how they were killed and who attempted to protect them, and discusses what can be learned from these losses to save today's endangered wildlife.", "Rate":4.21 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Adventure stories", "patterns":[ "Adventure stories", "Recommend a book in Adventure stories", "Recommend a Adventure stories book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Master of the Game", "Feedback":"Kate Blackwell is an enigma and one of the most powerful women in the world. But at her ninetieth birthday celebrations there are ghosts of absent friends and absent enemies.", "Rate":4.11 }, { "Book":"If Tomorrow Comes", "Feedback":"One of Sidney Sheldon's most popular and bestselling titles, repackaged and reissued for a new generation of fans.", "Rate":4.04 }, { "Book":"Murder in LaMut", "Feedback":"Available in the U.S. for the first time, this is the second volume in the exceptional Legends of the Riftwar series from \"New York Times\"-bestselling authors Feist and Rosenberg.", "Rate":3.7 }, { "Book":"The Reverse of the Medal", "Feedback":"In this book, Jack Aubrey returns from his duties protecting whalers off the South American coast and is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make investments in the City on the strength of supposedly certain information. From there he is led into the half-worlds of the London criminal underground and of government espionage - the province of his friend, Stephen Maturin.", "Rate":4.41 }, { "Book":"Oh, the Places You'll Go!", "Feedback":"From bang-ups and hang-ups to lurches and slumps. Dr. Seuss takes a hilarious look at the mishaps and misadventures that life may have in store for us.", "Rate":4.35 }, { "Book":"Illusions", "Feedback":"In the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders ... until he meets Donald Shimoda - former mechanic and self-described messiah who can make wrenches fly and Richard's imagination soar... In Illusions,the unforgettable follow-up to his phenomenal New York Times bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull,Richard Bach takes to the air to discover the ageless truths that give our souls wings- that people don't need airplanes to soar ... that even the darkest clouds have meaning once we lift ourselves above them ... and that messiahs can be found in the unlikeliest places - like hay fields, one-traffic-light midwestern towns, and most of all, deep within ourselves.", "Rate":4.15 }, { "Book":"Airframe", "Feedback":"The twin jet plane en route to Denver from Hong Kong is merely a green radar blip half an hour off the California coast when the call comes through to air traffic control: 'Socal Approach, this is TransPacific 545. We have an emergency. ' The pilot requ", "Rate":3.7 }, { "Book":"Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator", "Feedback":"Mr. Willy Wonka might be a genius with chocolate, but Charlie and his family don't trust his flying skills one bit. And right now, he's at the helm of a giant glass elevator that's picking up speed and hurtling through space with Charlie and the entire Bucket family stuck inside! Roald Dahl's uproarious sequel to \"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory\" is certain to delight and entertain a new generation of readers. \"From the Hardcover edition.\"", "Rate":3.66 }, { "Book":"James and the Giant Peach", "Feedback":"James's aunts call him names, beat and starve him and make his life a misery. If only his parents hadn't been eaten by an escaped rhinoceros, he wouldn't be in this mess. But one day he meets a man who gives him a bag of magic crocodile tongues and so begins the adventure of his dreams.", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"From Russia with Love", "Feedback":"Agent 007 raakt bij zijn werk in Moskou onder de bekoring van een knappe medewerkster van de Russische geheime dienst.", "Rate":3.89 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Games", "patterns":[ "Games", "Recommend a book in Games", "Recommend a Games book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Final Fantasy\u00ae Origins Official Strategy Guide", "Feedback":"Offers walkthroughs, area maps, strategies, equiptment, and character profiles for both games.", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"World of Warcraft Atlas", "Feedback":"BradyGames' World of WarCraft Atlas includes the following: Complete resource detailing each area of this expansive MMORPG. Maps are provided for every area including all regions and major cities. Each illustration shows critical locations and characters such as NPCs, enemies, mobs, shops, merchants, flight points, entry and exit points from regions and where they lead. As an added bonus, cross-referenced indices of all information are also provided for ease of use. Platform: PC CD-ROM Genre: MMORPG This product is available for sale worldwide.", "Rate":4.08 }, { "Book":"Killer 7 Official Strategy Guide", "Feedback":"BradyGames' Killer 7 Official Strategy Guide includes the following: Detailed walkthrough for the entire adventure. Area maps that pinpoint critical items. Boss strategies to defeat every enemy and ultimately, Kun Lan. Character profiles for all 7 personalities that comprise the \u201cSmith Alliance\u201d. Game secrets, puzzle solutions, and more! Platform: PlayStation 2 and GameCube Genre: Action Game This title is available for sale in North America only.", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"Juiced", "Feedback":"BradyGames' Juiced Official Strategy Guide includes the following: Track Maps: Each map is broken down to give you the best chance of winning. Full Car List: Get all the stats on all the hottest rides! Crew Management Tips: Get the best crew and learn what it takes to win! Rival Crew Challenges: Discover the ins and outs of every challenge and get the best strategy to crush rival crews! And More: Racing schedules, part listings, pro tips, crewmate data, and showoff tricks! Platform: PlayStation 2, Xbox, & PC Genre: Sports/Racing This title is available for sale worldwide.", "Rate":0.0 }, { "Book":"Dragon Quest VIII", "Feedback":"Provides helpful hints and strategies for playing the PlayStation 2 video game Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. Includes: how to master every spell and ability in the game; character info; a bestiary; side quests; map; item lists; a fold-out map; and much more.", "Rate":4.14 }, { "Book":"Castlevania", "Feedback":"BradyGames' Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Official Strategy Guide includes the following: A complete walkthrough of the entire game. Detailed maps of every area. In-depth listing of unlockables, items and weapons. Expert strategies to defeat every boss. Extensive bestiary. Game secrets revealed! Platform: PlayStation 2 Genre: Action/AdventureThis product is available for sale in North America only.", "Rate":3.7 }, { "Book":"The Bard's Tale", "Feedback":"A legendary series returns . . . and gets the game guide it deserves! \u00b7Combat tactics, puzzle solutions, Bard leveling tips, and more! \u00b7Fully labeled maps of every area! \u00b7Complete stats on weapons, monsters, and tunes! \u00b7All unlockables and secrets revealed, including extra dungeons, bonus art, movie and song galleries, and Cheat Mode! \u00b7Overview of the original Bard's Tale series! \u00b7Extensive interview with the inXile production staff!", "Rate":4.17 }, { "Book":"Elder Scrolls IV", "Feedback":"Find Your Path! \u00b7Detailed maps for every part of the world and every major city, plus special maps for every key section of the main quest. \u00b7Specific chapters on how to create your character and maximize your abilities and skills. \u00b7Over 400 full-color pages packed with information on everything you need to know about the massive gameworld of Oblivion. \u00b7Walkthroughs for every quest in the game, including the main quest, all faction quests, as well as miscellaneous and freeform quests. \u00b7Sections on various gameplay systems including stealth, combat, magic, spellmaking and enchanting, alchemy, and more. \u00b7Detailed bestiary chapter to help you best deal with the denizens of Tamriel and Oblivion. \u00b7Includes new chapters on Knights of the Nine and Oblivion downloadable content.", "Rate":4.31 }, { "Book":"Player's Handbook II", "Feedback":"This follow-up to the \"Player's Handbook\" is designed to aid players and provide more character options.", "Rate":3.75 }, { "Book":"Random House Crossword Megaomnibus", "Feedback":"his new series contains crosswords slightly less taxing than those in The New York Times. Originally published by United Feature Syndicate, these crosswords have appeared in many of America's highest-circulation newspapers.", "Rate":0.0 } ] ] }, { "tag":"English fiction", "patterns":[ "English fiction", "Recommend a English fiction book", "Recommend a English fiction book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Mystical Paths", "Feedback":"1968 finds Nicholas Darrow wrestling with personal problems. How can he marry Rosalind when he is unable to avoid promiscuity? How can he become a priest when he finds it so difficult to live as one? And can he break his dangerous dependence on his father?", "Rate":4.23 }, { "Book":"Glittering Images", "Feedback":"It is 1937, and Charles Ashworth, a Canon to the Archbishop of Canterbury, is sent to untangle a web of self-delusion and corruption at the episcopal palace of the charismatic Bishop of Starbridge.", "Rate":4.07 }, { "Book":"The Treason of Isengard", "Feedback":"Fantasy-roman.", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"The Wanderer", "Feedback":"It has always been a pleasure to me to watch the flowers and insects in their struggle to keep alive. When the sun was hot they would come to life again, and give themselves up for an hour or so to the old delight; the big, strong flies were just as much alive as in midsummer. There was a peculiar sort of earth-bug here that I had not seen before--little yellow things, no bigger than a small-type comma, yet they could jump several thousand times their own length. Think of the strength of such a body in proportion to its size! There is a tiny spider here with its hinder part like a pale yellow pearl.", "Rate":3.96 }, { "Book":"The Reality Dysfunction", "Feedback":"In AD 2600 the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp. But now something has gone catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it \"The Reality Dysfunction.\" It is the nightmare which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history. 'Absolute vintage science-fiction. Hamilton puts British sci-fi back into interstellar overdrive' \"The Times\"", "Rate":4.14 }, { "Book":"The Dark Half", "Feedback":"Written by the author of CARRIE, 'SALEM'S LOT, THE SHINING and CHRISTINE, this novel features Thad Beaumont, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has developed a lucrative thriller-writing alter ego named George Stark. He stops being fun so Beaumont wants to kill him.", "Rate":3.76 }, { "Book":"Nightmares and Dreamscapes", "Feedback":"A collection of horror stories.", "Rate":3.93 }, { "Book":"Three Complete Novels", "Feedback":"Combines three masterpieces from one of Britain's most popular novelists into one beautifully bound volume, which contains A Room With a View, Howard's End, and Where Angels Fear to Tread.", "Rate":4.2 }, { "Book":"Strata", "Feedback":"Fantasy-roman.", "Rate":3.49 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Music", "patterns":[ "Music", "Recommend a book in Music", "Recommend a Music book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"A Hard Day's Write, 3e", "Feedback":"A lavishly illustrated, rollicking account of the real people and events that inspired the Beatles' lyrics. Who was \"just seventeen\" and made Paul's heart go \"boom\"? Was there really an Eleanor Rigby? Where's Penny Lane? In A Hard Day's Write, music journalist Steve Turner shatters many well-worn myths and adds a new dimension to the Fab Four's rich legacy by investigating for the first time the ordinary people and events immortalized in the Beatles' music and now occupying a special niche in popular culture's collective imagination. Arranged chronologically by album, the book breaks new ground by exploring how private incidents influenced the group's writing and how their music evolved. Turner reveals that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was really a drawing by Julian Lennon of his childhood friend; Bungalow Bill was an all-American tiger hunter; Doctor Robert was a New York 'speech doctor'; and much more. A longtime Beatles admirer, Turner tracked down and interviewed the real-life subjects of the songs, probed public records and newspaper archives, and spoke in depth to the people closet to the Beatles to unearth tales that have never before been made public. The result is a book that chronicles an untold story of the Beatles themselves. Illustrated with over 200 photographs, A Hard Day's Write is a visually alluring and highly entertaining journey to the land stretching just beneath your conscious mind, mapped out with strawberry fields, fool-topped hills, and long and winding roads.", "Rate":4.18 }, { "Book":"Midnight Riders", "Feedback":"In this riveting tale of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, Freeman brings to life the turbulent career of the original Southern rock band. This history includes the band's blues roots, their wild early days on the road and their recent resurgence.", "Rate":3.98 }, { "Book":"A Day in the Life", "Feedback":"Uses the archives at Abbey Road Studios in London to trace the development and impact of the Beatles' music, and offers insight into the band's creative process and the influences that shaped them", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"Fourth of July mice", "Feedback":"Four energetic mice enjoy a parade and other festivities on Independence Day.", "Rate":3.23 }, { "Book":"Mozart's Don Giovanni", "Feedback":"Don Giovanni has been called the greatest opera ever composed, an almost perfect work. Along with \"Aida,\" \"La Boheme,\" and \"Carmen,\" Mozart's masterpiece is one of the most often performed operas. The work is so admired that when the Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini was asked which of his own operas he liked best, Rossini unhesitatingly replied, \"\"Don Giovanni.\"\" This Dover edition contains the standard Italian libretto of \"Don Giovanni,\" side by side with a complete new English translation. Convenient and portable, it also includes an informative Introduction, a complete List of Characters, and an easy-to-follow Plot Summary. All repeats are given in full, so you can follow the text as it is sung, without losing your place. With this inexpensive, handy guide, opera lovers can appreciate every word of Mozart's brilliant comic drama in the original Italian or in modern English. An ideal companion for reading along with a recording, a broadcast, or at the performance itself, this superb volume is a first-rate aid to enjoyment of one of the world's most celebrated operas. \"", "Rate":3.93 }, { "Book":"Michael W. Smith", "Feedback":"(Piano Solo Personality). Our piano solo folio features all 12 tunes from the first instrumental CD by this multi-million-selling CCM artist. Recorded in Ireland and released in 2000, Freedom includes the songs: The Call * Carol Ann * Cry of the Heart * Free Man * Freedom * Freedom Battle * The Giving * Hibernia * Letter to Sarah * The Offering * Prayer for Taylor * Thy Word.", "Rate":3.8 }, { "Book":"The Walrus Was Paul", "Feedback":"A guide to the hoax that Paul McCartney was killed in an automobile accident in 1966 and replaced by a look-a-like", "Rate":3.73 }, { "Book":"Fargo Rock City", "Feedback":"Empirically proving that\u2014no matter where you are\u2014kids wanna rock, this is Chuck Klosterman's hilrious memoir of growing up as a shameless metalhead in Wyndmere, North Dakotoa (population: 498). With a voice like Ace Frehley's guitar, Klosterman hacks his way through hair-band history, beginning with that fateful day in 1983 when his older brother brought home M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce's Shout at the Devil. The fifth-grade Chuck wasn't quite ready to rock\u2014his hair was too short and his farm was too quiet\u2014but he still found a way to bang his nappy little head. Before the journey was over, he would slow-dance to Poison, sleep innocently beneath satanic pentagrams, lust for Lita Ford, and get ridiculously intellectual about Guns N' Roses. C'mon and feel his noize.", "Rate":3.8 }, { "Book":"Deluxe Encyclopedia of Mandolin Chords", "Feedback":"This encyclopedia is designed to provide mandolin players with a wide variety of chords in different voicings. This book is intended as both a starting point of learning chord voicings and patterns, as well as a dictionary of common mandolin chords. Each key section includes the first position scale for that key, as well as the chord formula and notes for each chord. If you want to learn to be a bluegrass rhythm player it helps to have a guide or 'map' to take you through the initial learning stage. This book provides a small but powerful set of starter chords used in this style of music. Once these chords are learned, you'll be able to jam with other musicians in no time. These are the same chords used by greats like Bill Monroe, Doyle Lawson, David Grisman and hundreds of other bluegrass players in this genre. While there are only a few chords presented in the \"map\" section, they form the foundation of bluegrass mandolin and with them you can play literally thousands of songs in every key. Chords are presented by key.", "Rate":3.83 }, { "Book":"Moonage Daydream", "Feedback":"David Bowie and Mick Rock collaborate on a vast album of images of onstage performances and backstage antics during the life and times of Bowie's stage persona Ziggy Stardust. 12,500 first printing.", "Rate":4.3 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Sports & Recreation", "patterns":[ "Sports & Recreation", "Recommend a book in Sports & Recreation", "Recommend a Sports & Recreation book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Slider", "Feedback":"Each summer, on the fields of glorious Cape Marlin, off the New England coast, the nation's best college players gather to play the most important baseball of their lives. Jack Faber is a young hotshot pitcher with an unhittable slider and a rocket for a fastball. He plays for the fabled Seapuit Seawolves and dreams of making the Big Show. But a new coach, the scowling Bruno Riazzi, a former pro catcher, resents the kid's celebrity status and decides to knock him down a peg or two. And he stops at nothing to make it happen. Humiliated, Jack loses his lifelong art, and with it his passion for the game, as well as, mysteriously, his ability to throw. A devastated Jack Faber is released from the St. Charles College roster. But the Seawolves coaches won't give up on him. They bring Jack back to Cape Marlin, determined to help him rediscover his lost talent. He finds himself again under the summer sun, coaches and old friends standing by him. But in the end it will be up to Jack. Based on a true story, Slider celebrates the national pastime, a game that can break grown men's hearts -- as well as make them whole again.", "Rate":4.18 }, { "Book":"Touching the Void", "Feedback":"Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death. The next three days were an impossibly grueling ordeal for both men. Yates, certain that Simpson was dead, returned to base camp consumed with grief and guilt over abandoning him. Miraculously, Simpson had survived the fall, but crippled, starving, and severely frostbitten was trapped in a deep crevasse. Summoning vast reserves of physical and spiritual strength, Simpson crawled over the cliffs and canyons of the Andes, reaching base camp hours before Yates had planned to leave. How both men overcame the torments of those harrowing days is an epic tale of fear, suffering, and survival, and a poignant testament to unshakable courage and friendship.", "Rate":4.21 }, { "Book":"23 Days in July", "Feedback":"Taking place over twenty-three days in July and across more than 2,100 miles of smooth blacktop, rough cobblestones, and punishing mountain terrain, the Tour de France is the most grueling sports event in the world. And in 2004, five-time champion Lance Armstrong set out to achieve what no other cyclist in the 100-year history of the race had ever done: win a sixth Tour de France.Armstrong had four serious challengers who wanted nothing more than to deny the man the French call Le Boss from achieving his goal. The major threat among them was the only other former Tour de France champion in last year's race, Germany's Jan Ullrich- The Kaiser. But when the race was over, Lance Armstrong once again wore the yellow jersey of victory.", "Rate":3.67 }, { "Book":"A Walk in the Woods", "Feedback":"Traces the author's adventurous trek along the Appalachian Trail past its natural pleasures, human eccentrics, and offbeat comforts.", "Rate":4.06 }, { "Book":"The Best American Sports Writing 2003", "Feedback":"Includes articles chosen from magazines and newspapers on topics ranging from bullfighting to basketball, baseball, and boxing", "Rate":3.85 }, { "Book":"The Last Shot", "Feedback":"Dreaming of a college scholarship and escape from the neighborhood, the talented Abraham Lincoln High School Railsplitters see basketball as their only hope, but the reality of SATS, the NCAA, and college recruitment are tough to overcome.", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"The Best American Sports Writing 2006", "Feedback":"Includes articles chosen from magazines and newspapers on topics ranging from bullfighting to basketball, baseball, and boxing", "Rate":3.75 }, { "Book":"Three Nights in August", "Feedback":"The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Friday Nights Lights chronicles a three-game series between baseball rivals Cardinals and Cubs, focusing particular attention on the stars of the game, Albert Pujols, Sammy Sosa, Mark Prior, and Scott Rolen. Reprint.", "Rate":3.87 }, { "Book":"My Favourite Year", "Feedback":"Roddy Doyle\u00bfs account of the Republic of Ireland\u00bfs triumphant journey through Italia \u00bf90 is just one of the many first-class pieces in this anthology of original football writing. Contributors include: Roddy Doyle, Harry Pearson, Harry Ritchie, Ed Horton, Olly Wicken, D.J. Taylor, Huw Richards, Nick Hornby, Chris Pierson, Matt Nation, Graham Brack, Don Watson and Giles Smith. \u00bfA new kind of football writing developed \u00bf passionate, disrespectful, self-mocking, yet steeped in personal bias. In book form, young writers such as Nick Hornby and Pete Davies became to the New Football Writing what Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson had been to the New Journalism\u00bf Terence Blacker, Sunday Times", "Rate":3.69 }, { "Book":"The Boys of Everest", "Feedback":"Traces the mountaineering achievements of Chris Bonington's team over the course of four decades, citing the contributions of some of the group's most famous members while recounting how numerous climbers lost their lives, in an account based on journal entries, expedition accounts, letters, and interviews with team survivors.", "Rate":3.86 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Detective and mystery stories", "patterns":[ "Detective and mystery stories", "Recommend a book in Detective and mystery stories", "Recommend a Detective and mystery stories book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Spider's Web", "Feedback":"A new 'Christie for Christmas' -- a full-length novel adapted from her acclaimed play by Charles Osborne Following BLACK COFFEE and THE UNEXPECTED GUEST comes the final Agatha Christie play novelisation, bringing her superb storytelling to a new legion of fans. Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, is given to daydreaming. 'Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?' she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the drawing-room of her house in Kent. Desperate to dispose of the body before her husband comes home with an important foreign politician, Clarissa persuades her three house guests to become accessories and accomplices. It seems that the murdered man was not unknown to certain members of the house party (but which ones?), and the search begins for the murderer and the motive, while at the same time trying to persuade a police inspector that there has been no murder at all... SPIDER'S WEB was written in 1954 specifically for Margaret Lockwood and opened first at the Theatre Royal Nottingham before moving to the Savoy Theatre in London on 14 December 1954. With THE MOUSETRAP and WI", "Rate":3.83 }, { "Book":"Murder in Mesopotamia", "Feedback":"An archaeologist's wife is murdered on the shores of the River Tigris in Iraq... It was clear to Amy Leatheran that something sinister was going on at the Hassanieh dig in Iraq; something associated with the presence of 'Lovely Louise', wife of celebrated archaeologist Dr Leidner. In a few days' time Hercule Poirot was due to drop in at the excavation site. But with Louise suffering from terrifying hallucinations, and tension within the group becoming almost unbearable, Poirot might just be too late...", "Rate":3.89 }, { "Book":"Death in the Clouds", "Feedback":"A woman is killed by a poisoned dart in the enclosed confines of a commercial passenger plane... From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No.2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.", "Rate":3.8 }, { "Book":"Appointment with Death", "Feedback":"A repugnant Amercian widow is killed during a trip to Petra... Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her. With only 24 hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he'd overheard back in Jerusalem: 'You see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?' Mrs Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he'd ever met...", "Rate":3.86 }, { "Book":"The Big Four", "Feedback":"A ruthless international cartel seeks world domination... Framed in the doorway of Poirot's bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man's gaunt face stared for a moment, then he swayed and fell. Who was he? Was he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what was the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life to uncover the truth about 'Number Four'.", "Rate":3.59 }, { "Book":"The Hollow", "Feedback":"Lucy Angkatell Invited Hercule Poirot To Lunch. To Tease The Great Detective, Her Guests Stage A Mock Murder Beside The Swimming Pool. Unfortunately, The Victim Plays The Scene For Real. As His Blood Drips Into The Water, John Christow Gasps One Final Word: Henrietta . In The Confusion, A Gun Sinks To The Bottom Of The Pool. Poirot S Enquiries Reveal A Complex Web Of Romantic Attachments. It Seems Everyone In The Drama Is A Suspect And Each A Victim Of Love.", "Rate":3.79 }, { "Book":"The Mysterious Mr. Quin", "Feedback":"A mysterious stranger appears at a New Year's Eve party, becoming the enigmatic sleuthing sidekick to the snobbish Mr Satterthwaite... So far, it had been a typical New Year's Eve house party. But Mr Satterthwaite - a keen observer of human nature - sensed that the real drama of the evening was yet to unfold. So it proved when a mysterious stranger arrived after midnight. Who was this Mr Quin? And why did his presence have such a pronounced effect on Eleanor Portal, the woman with the dyed-black hair?", "Rate":3.72 }, { "Book":"The Listerdale Mystery", "Feedback":"A selection of mysteries, some light-hearted, some romantic, some very deadly... Twelve tantalizing cases... the curious disappearance of Lord Listerdale; a newlywed's fear of her ex-fiance; a strange encounter on a train; a domestic murder investigation; a wild man's sudden personality change; a retired inspector's hunt for a murderess; a young woman's impersonation of a duchess; a necklace hidden in a basket of cherries; a mystery writer's arrest for murder; an astonishing marriage proposal; a soprano's hatred for a baritone; the case of the rajah's emerald. All have one thing in common: the skilful hand of Agatha Christie.", "Rate":3.55 }, { "Book":"Hercule Poirot's Casebook", "Feedback":"Here, for the first time in one volume, is the complete collection of fifty stories about Hercule Poirot.", "Rate":4.3 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Fantasy fiction", "patterns":[ "Fantasy fiction", "Recommend a book in antasy fiction", "Recommend an antasy fiction book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Jimmy the Hand", "Feedback":"Jimmy the Hand, boy thief of Krondor, lived in the shadows of the city. Though gifted beyond his peers, Jimmy is merely a pickpocket with potential--until he aids Prince Arutha in the rescue of Princess Anita from Duke Guy du Bas-Tyra, and runs afoul of \"Black Guy's\" secret police. Facing a choice between disappearing on his own or in a weighted barrel at the bottom of Krondor's harbor, Jimmy chooses the former. Forced to flee the only home he's ever known, Jimmy finds himself among the unsuspecting rural villagers of Land's End, where he hopes to prosper with his talents for con and thievery. But Land's End is home to many who tread the crooked path--and to a dark, dangerous presence even the local smugglers don't recognize. And suddenly Jimmy's youthful bravado and courage are leading him into the maw of chaos . . . and, quite possibly, to his doom.", "Rate":3.95 }, { "Book":"The Mad Ship", "Feedback":"Fantasy master Robin Hobb delivers the stunning second volume of her Liveship Traders trilogy, returning to the timeless city of Bingtown, where pirates now plague the coasts and the dreaded slave trade flourishes. Althea Vestrit doesnt have time to be afraid, for her familys newly awakened Liveship, Vivacia, has been seized by the ruthless pirate Kennit. So Althea hatches a bold plan. But to carry it out, she must recruit a Liveship that has already slain two crews -- and is said to be insane.", "Rate":4.24 }, { "Book":"Lirael", "Feedback":"When a dangerous necromancer threatens to unleash a long-buried evil, Lirael and Prince Sameth are drawn into a battle to save the Old Kingdom and reveal their true destinies. Suggested level: secondary.", "Rate":4.3 }, { "Book":"The Fellowship of the Ring", "Feedback":"In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit, Frodo Baggins, is entrusted by the wizard Gandalf with an immense task: he must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Crack of Doom, there to destroy the Ruling Ring of Power, the only thing that prevents the Dark Lord Sauron's evil dominion.", "Rate":4.52 }, { "Book":"The Phantom Tollbooth", "Feedback":"For Milo, everything's a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he's got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a tick watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason! Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it's exciting beyond his wildest dreams!", "Rate":4.21 }, { "Book":"Queen of Sorcery", "Feedback":"A magnificent epic set against a history of seven thousand years of the struggles of Gods and Kings and men - of strange lands and events - of fate and a prophecy that must be fulfilled! THE BELGARIAD Legends told of how the evil God Torak had coveted the power of the Orb of Aldur, until defeated in a final battle. But prophecy spoke of a time when he would awake and again seek dominance over all the world. Now the Orb had been stolen by a priest of Torak, and that time was at hand. The master Sorcerer Belgarath and his daughter Polgara the arch-sorceress were on the trail of the Orb, seeking to regain it before the final disaster. And with them went Garion, a simple farm boy only months before, but now in the focus of the struggle. He had never believed in sorcery and wanted no part of it. Yet with every league they travelled, the power grew in him, forcing him to acts of wizardry he could not accept. THUS CONTINUES BOOK TWO OF THE BELGARIAD", "Rate":4.14 }, { "Book":"Castle of Wizardry", "Feedback":"A magnificent epic set against a history of seven thousand years of the struggles of Gods and Kings and men - of strange lands and events - of fate and a prophecy that must be fulfilled! THE BELGARIAD It had all begun with the theft of the Orb that had so long protected the West from the evil God Torak. Before that, Garion had been a simple farm boy. Afterward, he discovered that his aunt was really the Sorceress Polgara and his grandfather was Belgarath, the Eternal Man. Then, on the long quest to recover the Orb, Garion found to his dismay that he, too, was a sorcerer. Now, at last, the Orb was regained and the quest was nearing its end. Of course, the questors still had to escape from this crumbling enemy fortress and flee across a desert filled with Murgo soldiers searching for them, while Grolim Hierarchs strove to destroy them with dark magic. Then, somehow, they must manage to be in Riva with the Orb by Erastide. After that, however, Garion was sure that his part in these great events would be finished. But the Prophecy still held future surprises for Garion - and for the little Princess Ce'Nedra! THUS CONTINUES BOOK FOUR OF THE BELGARIAD", "Rate":4.17 }, { "Book":"Eric", "Feedback":"Eric calls up a demon to grant him three wishes - but what he gets is the Discworld's most incompetent wizard ...", "Rate":3.75 }, { "Book":"Dark Lord of Derkholm", "Feedback":"Can the Wizard Derk and his family of human and griffin children save the world from the depradations of the evil Mr Chesney?", "Rate":4.12 }, { "Book":"The Master of Whitestorm", "Feedback":"Everyone knew that there was no escape from the slave galleys of the Murghai: once chained to an oar the only release is death. But Korendir refuses to recognize impossibilities and aided by his rowing companion, Haldeth, he leads a desperate but successful revolt.", "Rate":3.91 } ] ] }, { "tag":"American fiction", "patterns":[ "American fiction", "Recommend an American fiction book", "Recommend a book in American fiction" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The One Tree", "Feedback":"Volume Two of Stephen Donaldson's acclaimed second trilogy featuing the compelling anti-hero Thomas Covenant.", "Rate":3.97 }, { "Book":"Assassin's Apprentice", "Feedback":"Fantasy-roman.", "Rate":4.15 }, { "Book":"Girls' Night in", "Feedback":"'Girls' Night In' features stories about growing up, growing out of, moving out, moving on, falling apart and getting it all together. So turn off your cell phone and curl up on the couch: this is one 'Girls' Night In' you won't want to miss.", "Rate":3.26 }, { "Book":"They Do it with Mirrors", "Feedback":"A man is shot at in a juvenile reform home - but someone else dies... Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion which doubles as a rehabilitiation centre for delinquents. Her fears are confirmed when a youth fires a revolver at the administrator, Lewis Serrocold. Neither is injured. But a mysterious visitor, Mr Gilbrandsen, is less fortunate - shot dead simultaneously in another part of the building. Pure coincidence? Miss Marple thinks not, and vows to discover the real reason for Mr Gilbrandsen's visit.", "Rate":3.75 }, { "Book":"Survivor", "Feedback":"\"Tender Branson, the last surviving member of the Creedish death cult, has commandeered a Boeing 747, emptied of passengers, in order to tell his story to the plane's black box before it crashes. Brought up by the repressive cult and, like all Creedish younger sons, hired out as a domestic servant, Tender finds himself suddenly famous when his fellow cult members all commit suicide. As media messiah he ascends to the very top of the freak-show heap before finally and apocalyptically spiralling out of control.\"", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"Bagombo Snuff Box", "Feedback":"Before the Golden Age of magazines drew to a close half a century ago, a young PR man at General Electric sold his first short story to one of the doomed publications. By the time he'd sold his third, he decided to quit GE and join the likes of Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Faulkner, and try to make a living at $1500. With four major magazines running five stories each week and smaller ones scouting as well, it was a seller's market, and Vonnegut was published regularly by The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Argosy and others. For this unusual collection, Vonnegut has selected twenty-four of his favourite stories never published before in book form and has written a new preface for the occasion. Vonnegut scholar Peter Reed, who unearthed the old publications, contributes an introduction. The stories bring us to the beginning of a literary voice that is sure to last forever. BAGOMBO SNUFF BOX, the missing pieces of the master's oeuvre, is a ready made classic for Vonnegut fans new and old.", "Rate":3.72 }, { "Book":"Sabbath's Theater", "Feedback":"Once a scandalously inventive puppeteer, Mickey Sabbath at sixty-four is still defiantly antagonistic and exceedingly libidinous. But after the death of his long-time mistress, Sabbath embarks on a turbulent journey into his past. Bereft and grieving, besieged by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him most, he contrives a succession of farcical disasters that take him to the brink of madness and extinction.", "Rate":3.85 }, { "Book":"Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour", "Feedback":"\"Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters\" and \"Seymour\" are now reissued in a trade paper edition.", "Rate":4.12 }, { "Book":"American Psycho", "Feedback":"An international bestseller and true modern classic Patrick Bateman is twenty-six and works on Wall Street; he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath. Taking us to a head-on collision with America's greatest dream \u2013 and its worst nightmare \u2013 American Psycho is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront.Celebrating 40 years of outstanding international writing, this is one of the essential Picador novels reissued in a beautiful new series style.", "Rate":3.82 }, { "Book":"The Hunters", "Feedback":"Two short novels by the author of The Last Life.'A Simple Tale' tells the story of Maria Poniatowski: her childhood in the Ukraine; her incarceration in a Nazi prison camp in Poland; and her life as an emigrant, working as a domestic in Toronto. Maria is now old, but not yet retired; her sole client is the ancient, demanding Mrs Ellison. Maria reflects on all that has happened, on her relationship with her family, with Mrs Ellison, with the country she left behind and the country in which she lives. 'A Simple Tale' is a moving story of a life and a century.'The Hunters' is the tale of an American academic doing research one summer in London, and the odd and disconcerting relationship she (or he?\u2013the narrator remains a nameless and ungendered voice) develops with her downstairs neighbour, Ridley Wandor. Messud vividly captures the sweltering ugliness of London in the summer, and the sinister aspects of its grimmer quarters. 'The Hunters' is a mysterious story\u2013powerful, haunting and accomplished.", "Rate":3.4 } ] ] }, { "tag":"True Crime", "patterns":[ "True Crime", "Recommend a True Crime book", "Recommend a True Crime book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Black Dahlia Files", "Feedback":"In 1946, Elizabeth Short traveled to Hollywood to become famous and see her name up in lights. Instead, the dark-haired beauty became immortalized in the headlines as the \"Black Dahlia\" when her nude and bisected body was discovered in the weeds of a vacant lot. Despite the efforts of more than four hundred police officers and homicide investigators, the heinous crime was never solved. Now, after endless speculation and false claims, bestselling author Donald H. Wolfe discovers startling new evidence\u2014buried in the files of the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office for more than half a century. With the aid of archival photos, news clippings, and investigative reports, Wolfe documents the riveting untold story that names the brutal murderer\u2014the notorious Mafia leader, Benjamin \"Bugsy\" Siegel\u2014and the motive\u2014an unwanted pregnancy resulting from Short's involvement with the most powerful figure in Los Angeles, Norman Chandler. But Wolfe goes even further to unravel the large-scale cover-up behind the case. Wolfe's extensive research, based on the evidence he discovered in the recently opened LADA files, makes The Black Dahlia Files the authoritative work on the murder that has drawn endless scrutiny but remained unsolved\u2014until now.", "Rate":3.84 }, { "Book":"The Best American Crime Writing 2006", "Feedback":"A sterling collection of the year's most shocking, compelling, and gripping writing about real-life crime, the 2006 edition of The Best American Crime Writing offers fascinating vicarious journeys into a world of felons and their felonious acts. This thrilling compendium includes: Jeffrey Toobin's eye-opening expos\u00e9 in The New Yorker about a famous prosecutor who may have put the wrong man on death row Skip Hollandsworth's amazing but true tale of an old cowboy bank robber who turned out to be a \"classic good-hearted Texas woman\" Jimmy Breslin's stellar piece about the end of the Mob as we know it", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"What the Corpse Revealed", "Feedback":"An expert in forensic medicine presents sixteen cases drawn from scientific files all around the world to show how technology and forensic science combine to find the answers to many crimes that seem unsolvable. Reprint.", "Rate":3.79 }, { "Book":"Abandoned Prayers", "Feedback":"On Christmas Eve in 1985, a hunter found a young boy's body along an icy corn field in Nebraska. The residents of Chester, Nebraska buried him as \"Little Boy Blue,\" unclaimed and unidentified-- until a phone call from Ohio two years later led authorities to Eli Stutzman, the boy's father. Eli Stutzman, the son of an Amish bishop, was by all appearances a dedicated farmer and family man in the country's strictest religious sect. But behind his quiet fa\u00e7ade was a man involved with pornography, sadomasochism, and drugs. After the suspicious death of his pregnant wife, Stutzman took his preschool-age son, Danny, and hit the road on a sexual odyssey ending with his conviction for murder. But the mystery of Eli Stutzman and the fate of his son didn't end on the barren Nebraska plains. It was just beginning. . . Gregg Olsen's Abandoned Prayers is an incredible true story of murder and Amish secrets.", "Rate":3.78 }, { "Book":"Into the Wild", "Feedback":"Using the true story of a young man, who in 1992 walked deep into the Alaskan wilderness and whose SOS note and emaciated corpse were found four months later, Krakauer explores the obsession which leads some people to explore the outer limits of self, leave civilization behind and seek enlightenment through solitude and contact with nature.", "Rate":3.97 }, { "Book":"In Cold Blood", "Feedback":"A special anniversary edition presents Capote's masterful account of the senseless 1959 murders of four members of a farm family in Holcomb, Kansas, and the search for the killers, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith. Reissue. 10,000 first printing.", "Rate":4.07 }, { "Book":"Death's Acre", "Feedback":"A leading forensic anthropologist traces his sometimes grisly work at his Tennessee \"body farm\" lab and cites his contributions to the investigations of several murder cases as well as his theories about such famous cases as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the mystery of the headless corpse. Reprint.", "Rate":4.18 }, { "Book":"The Stranger Beside Me", "Feedback":"From the perspective of the former policewoman, crime writer, and unknowing personal friend, tells the story of Ted Bundy, a brilliant law student executed for killing three women, who confessed to killing thirty-five others.", "Rate":4.14 }, { "Book":"Lines and Shadows", "Feedback":"The true story only Joseph Wambaugh could tell. A band of California cops set loose in no-man's-land to come home heroes. Or come home dead. Not since Joseph Wambaugh's bestselling The Onion Field has there been a true police story as fascinating, as totally gripping as Lines and Shadows. The media hailed them as heroes. Others denounced them as lawless renegades. A squad of tough cops called the Border Crime Task Force. A commando team sent to patrol the snake-infested no-man's-land south of San Diego. Not to apprehend the thousands of illegal aliens slipping into the U.S., but to stop the ruthless bandits who preyed on them nightly--relentlessly robbing, raping, and murdering defenseless men, women, and children. The task force plan was simple. They would disguise themselves as illegal aliens. They would confront the murderous shadows of the night. Yet each time they walked into the violent blackness along the border, they came closer to another boundary line--a fragile line within each man. And crossing it meant destroying their sanity and their lives. Praise for Lines and Shadows \"With each book, it seems, Mr. Wambaugh's skill as a writer increases. . . . In Lines and Shadows he gives an off-trail, action-packed true account of police work and the intimate lives of policemen that, for my money, is his best book yet.\"--The New York Times Book Review \"A saga of courage, craziness, brutality and humor. . . . One of his best books, comparable to The Onion Field for storytelling and revelatory power.\"--Chicago Sun-Times", "Rate":3.79 }, { "Book":"In a Sunburned Country", "Feedback":"The author takes readers on a tour of the land Down Under that goes far beyond packaged-tour routes.", "Rate":4.07 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Foreign Language Study", "patterns":[ "Foreign Language Study", "Recommend a Foreign Language Study book", "Recommend a book in Foreign Language Study" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Easy French Reader, Second Edition", "Feedback":"The fun and easy way to quickly enhance your French reading skills Easy French Reader is based on the premise that the best way to learn a language is to start reading it, immediately. Suitable for raw beginners to intermediate-level language learners, this popular title features engaging readings of progressive difficulty that allow you to rapidly build your comprehension. Find out what unfamiliar words and phrases mean with the book's helpful glossary Discover the nuances of French language and culture as well as the country's history through engaging texts Get a feel for authentic French society with readings from contemporary literature", "Rate":3.84 }, { "Book":"Practice Makes Perfect: Italian Verb Tenses", "Feedback":"Practice makes perfect Italian verb tenses goes beyond other verb books to coach you in when and why verb tenses are used. In addition to an array of fully conjugated verbs, you will find clear and concise explanations that pinpoint why specific tenses work in given situations as well as plenty of engaging examples and numerous skill-building exercises. This is the ideal reference/workbook for beginning to intermediate Italian language learners whose goal is to learn to speak and write Italian with fluency.", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"The Franco-Prussian War", "Feedback":"In 1870 Bismarck ordered the Prussian Army to invade France, inciting one of the most dramatic conflicts in European history. It transformed not only the states-system of the Continent but the whole climate of European moral and political thought. The overwhelming triumph of German military might, evoking general admiration and imitation, introduced an era of power politics, which was to reach its disastrous climax in 1914. First published in 1961 and now with a new introduction, The Franco-Prussian War is acknowledged as the definitive history of one of the most dramatic and decisive conflicts in the history of Europe.", "Rate":4.05 }, { "Book":"Life Is a Dream/La Vida Es Sue\u00f1o", "Feedback":"Presents a bilingual version of the classic seventeenth-century Spanish play about an imprisoned prince who is returned to the outside world.", "Rate":3.98 }, { "Book":"Jungle Love Level 5", "Feedback":"The kiss was just amazing. I knew instantly that Ian was the one for me. 'You're lOvely,' he said. 'Absolutely lovely. But I can't do this. Not until I've broken things off with Caroline. It just wouldn't be fair.' On holiday in the Caribbean, Lisa and Jennifer are both attracted to Ian. And Ian likes both of them. But what about his girlfriend, Caroline? And then there's Pete.", "Rate":3.37 }, { "Book":"Entre Amis", "Feedback":"Entre amis is a performance-oriented program designed to expand students' interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational communicative skills by presenting and rehearsing situations similar to those they will encounter in real life. Based on a progressive approach, Entre amis features thorough coverage of all four-language skills with a strong emphasis on oral communication. The language presented and practiced is always embedded in a French cultural context.", "Rate":3.52 }, { "Book":"Merde!", "Feedback":"Explains the meaning of French slang expressions, idioms, epithets, and colloquialisms", "Rate":3.95 }, { "Book":"Merde Encore!", "Feedback":"Explains the meaning of French slang expressions, idioms, and colloquialisms, and identifies common French gestures", "Rate":3.94 }, { "Book":"Tibullus", "Feedback":"The work of the Latin elegiac poet Tibullus (c. 55-19 b.c.) is characterized by an artful, witty \"simplicity,\" and it relies on repetition, ambiguity, irony, and paradox for its effect. His poetry appealed to his countrymen in his own time, as it still does to students today, and this textbook is designed to explain and enhance that appeal. The commentary presented here is limited to the sixteen poems which comprise the first two books of the corpus Tibullianum, that is, to poems authentically by Tibullus. The notes focus on the needs of students approaching Latin elegy for the first time, but they will also prove useful to the more experienced student of Latin or to scholars in other languages. The editor has tried to balance matters of fact with occasional fresh interpretations. One introduction records what is known of the poet's life and discusses the rise of Latin elegy. The meter of the poems is explained, and Tibullus' style is examined.", "Rate":3.67 }, { "Book":"Latin Via Ovid", "Feedback":"Using an introduction to mythology by the master storyteller Ovid himself, the authors have prepared a unique teaching tool designed to achieve proficiency at Latin in one year at the college level, two years at the high school or intermediate level. The volume provides students with imaginative, connected reading, beginning with introductory prose versions of Ovid's simple myth tales and progressing to the rich poetry of Ovidian Latin (with appropriate teaching aids) within forty lessons. The grammatical approach is traditional, but the central emphasis is on reading. In each chapter the reading appears first, followed by the vocabulary, the grammar, exercises, and etymology relating to the vocabulary. The exercises begin with a group of questions in Latin (based on the reading), to be answered in Latin. Each tale is preceded by a brief discussion in English of the story and its mythological significance. The myths retold by Ovid and the attractive format are conceived to impel the student into acquiring the skill to read the author in the original language. For additional complimentary materials on this topic, please see Latin Via Ovid Audio materials (available via downloadable flash drive and cassette tapes) by Norma Goldman and Jacob E. Nyenhuis and the accompanying text Practice, Practice: A Latin Via Ovid Workbook by Norma Goldman and Michael Rossi.", "Rate":4.38 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Science fiction", "patterns":[ "Science fiction", "Recommend a Science fiction book", "Recommend a book in Science fiction" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Gravity", "Feedback":"Emma Watson a research physician has been training for the mission of a lifetime: to study living organisms in the microgravity of space. But the true and lethal nature of the experiment has not been revealed to NASA and once aboard the space station things start to go wrong. A culture of single-celled Archaeons, gathered from the deep sea, begin to rapidly multiply and infect the crew - with deadly and agonising results. As her estranged husband and ground crew at NASA work against the clock to launch a rescue Emma stuggles to contain the lethal microbe. But with the contagion threatening Earth's population, there are those who would leave the astronauts stranded in orbit, quarantined aboard the station.", "Rate":4.04 }, { "Book":"Traitor", "Feedback":"From the depths of catastrophe, a glimmer of hope. After the capture of Coruscant, the mighty heart of the New Republic, a stunned galaxy fears that nothing can stop the Yuuzhan Vong. Still, that crushing defeat produces one small miracle: Jacen Solo is alive. Yet he can scarcely imagine himself in stranger circumstances. The young Jedi Knight is in the care of Vergere, a fascinating creature of mystery and power, her intentions hard to fathom, her cruelties rarely concealed. But this master of inscrutable arts has much to teach the young Jedi...for she holds the key to a new way to experience the Force, to take it to another level - dangerous, dazzling, perhaps deadly. In the wrong hands, the tremendous energies of the Froce can be devastating. And there are others watching Jacen's progress closely, waiting patiently for the moment when he will be ready for their own dire purposes. Now, all is in shadows. Yet whatever happens, whether Jacen's newfound mastery unleashes light or darkness, he will never be the same Jedi again...", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"A Second Chance at Eden", "Feedback":"This novella and six stories are set in the same universe and time-line as the Night's Dawn trilogy.", "Rate":4.02 }, { "Book":"Stranger in a Strange Land", "Feedback":"Epic, entertaining, Stranger in a Strange Land caused controversy and uproar when it was first published. Still topical and challenging today, the story of Valentine Michael Smith, the first man from Mars to visit Earth, is in the great tradition of stories that endure through the power of the author's imagination that stretches from Gulliver's Travels to 1984", "Rate":3.92 }, { "Book":"Visions from Nowhere", "Feedback":"The first novel in the series, \"Return to the Planet of the Apes, \" in which astronauts, out of their time period, become involved with a society dominated by apes.", "Rate":3.23 }, { "Book":"Time Quartet", "Feedback":"Blending magic with quantum physics, Madeleine L'Engles's novels have mesmerized generations of readers. Rediscover these well-loved classics in our exclusive 4-in-1 omnibus edition. A Wrinkle in Time / A Wind in the Door / A Swiftly Tilting Planet.", "Rate":4.35 }, { "Book":"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Feedback":"Retells the adventures of a French professor and his two companions as they sail above and below the world's oceans as prisoners on the fabulous electric submarine of the deranged Captain Nemo.", "Rate":3.88 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Law", "patterns":[ "Law", "Recommend a book in Law", "Recommend a Law book" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Organized Crime", "Feedback":"Dispelling current myths regarding organized crime, Lyman and Potter\u2019s fourth edition reveals a truer picture of organized crime and criminal activity today. Providing scholarly treatment and a social perspective, the authors explore the concept of organized crime, the historical foundation for its evolution and development, and the current status of criminal groups in today\u2019s society. Offering timely and respected research, this edition includes a thorough examination of drug trafficking, new sections on emerging organized crime groups, updated case studies, more coverage international groups, updated statistics, graphics and more! Presents a broad view of organized crime that incorporates more than just ethnically- driven, pop-culture stereotypes. Incorporates two parallel themes\u2014organized crime consists of many different groups and corrupt individuals in public office, business etc., contribute to the continuation of the problem. Uses thematic questions (What is organized crime? Is there really a Mafia? Is terrorism organized crime? Do political machines still exist?) to promote higher-order thinking skills and a critical examination of the topic. Synthesizes volumes of historical data and archives to present the most salient aspects of the organized crime problem. References information and reports generated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pennsylvania Crime Commission, the National Institute of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Statistics and well-known researchers in the field. Law enforcement professionals and those interested in a scholarly treatment and a social perspective of organized crime.", "Rate":3.83 }, { "Book":"Antitrust Law, Second Edition", "Feedback":"When it was first published a quarter of a century ago, Richard Posner's exposition and defense of an economic approach to antitrust law was a jeremiad against the intellectual disarray that then characterized the field. As other perspectives on antitrust law have fallen away, Posner's book has played a major role in transforming the field of antitrust law into a body of economically rational principles largely in accord with the ideas set forth in the first edition. Today's antitrust professionals may disagree on specific practices and rules, but most litigators, prosecutors, judges, and scholars agree that the primary goal of antitrust laws should be to promote economic welfare, and that economic theory should be used to determine how well business practices conform to that goal. In this thoroughly revised edition, Posner explains the economic approach to new generations of lawyers and students. He updates and amplifies his approach as it applies to the developments, both legal and economic, in the antitrust field since 1976. The \"new economy,\" for example, has presented a host of difficult antitrust questions, and in an entirely new chapter, Posner explains how the economic approach can be applied to new industries such as software manufacturers, Internet service providers, and those that provide communications equipment and services. \"The antitrust laws are here to stay,\" Posner writes, \"and the practical question is how to administer them better-more rationally, more accurately, more expeditiously, more efficiently.\" This fully revised classic will continue to be the standard work in the field.", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature", "Feedback":"Essays by revisionist historians, scientists, and cultural critics explore the connection between nature and American culture, analyzing how it is packaged and presented at places such as Sea World and the Nature Company stores", "Rate":4.16 }, { "Book":"One L", "Feedback":"Newsweek calls him \"an extraordinarily canny and empathetic observer.\" In bestseller after bestseller, Turow uses his background as a lawyer to create suspense fiction so authentic it reads with the hammering impact of fact. But before he became a worldwide sensation, Scott Turow wrote a book that is entirely true, the account of his own searing indoctrination into the field of law called ... The first year of law school is an intellectual and emotional ordeal so grueling that it ensures only the fittest survive. Now Scott Turow takes you inside the oldest and most prestigious law school in the country when he becomes a \"One L,\" as entering students are known at Harvard Law School. In a book that became a national bestseller, a law school primer, and a classic autobiography, he brings to life the fascinating, shocking reality of that first year. Provocative and riveting, One L reveals the experience directly from the combat zone: the humiliations, triumphs, hazings, betrayals, and challenges that will make him a lawyer-and forever change Turow's mind, test his principles, and expose his heart.", "Rate":3.66 }, { "Book":"Crime And Punishment In American History", "Feedback":"A history of the criminal justice system from colonial times to the present argues that the evolution of the criminal justice system has reflected transformations in American culture, economics, politics, and social structure", "Rate":3.89 }, { "Book":"Knowledge And Decisions", "Feedback":"With a new preface by the author, this reissue of Thomas Sowell's classic study of decision making updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Annointed, Sowell, one of America's most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making\u2014a gap that threatens not only our economic and political efficiency, but our very freedom because actual knowledge gets replaced by assumptions based on an abstract and elitist social vision f what ought to be.Knowledge and Decisions, a winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize, was heralded as a \u201dlandmark work\u201d and selected for this prize \u201dbecause of its cogent contribution to our understanding of the differences between the market process and the process of government.\u201d In announcing the award, the center acclaimed Sowell, whose \u201dcontribution to our understanding of the process of regulation alone would make the book important, but in reemphasizing the diversity and efficiency that the market makes possible, [his] work goes deeper and becomes even more significant.\u201d", "Rate":4.38 }, { "Book":"The Science of Sherlock Holmes", "Feedback":"Praise for The Science of Sherlock Holmes \"Holmes is, first, a great detective, but he has also proven to be a great scientist, whether dabbling with poisons, tobacco ash, or tire marks. Wagner explores this fascinating aspect of his career by showing how his investigations were grounded in the cutting-edge science of his day, especially the emerging field of forensics.... Utterly compelling.\" \u2014Otto Penzler, member of the Baker Street Irregulars and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop \"E. J. Wagner demonstrates that without the work of Sherlock Holmes and his contemporaries, the CSI teams would be twiddling their collective thumbs. Her accounts of Victorian crimes make Watson's tales pale! Highly recommended for students of the Master Detective.\" \u2014Leslie S. Klinger, Editor, The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes \"In this thrilling book, E. J. Wagner has combined her considerable strengths in three disciplines to produce a work as compelling and blood-curdling as the best commercial fiction. This is CSI in foggy old London Town. Chilling, grim fun.\" \u2014John Westermann, author of Exit Wounds and Sweet Deal \"I am recommending this delightful work to all of my fellow forensic scientists.... Bravo, Ms. Wagner!\" \u2014John Houde, author of Crime Lab: A Guide for Nonscientists \"A fabulously interesting read. The book traces the birth of the forensic sciences to the ingenuity of Sherlock Holmes. A wonderful blend of history, mystery, and whodunit.\" \u2014Andre Moenssens, Douglas Stripp Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Missouri at Kansas City, and coauthor of Scientific Evidence in Civil and Criminal Cases", "Rate":4.22 }, { "Book":"The Ethics and Politics of Asylum", "Feedback":"Over the last two decades, asylum has become a highly charged political issue across developed countries. This book draws upon political and ethical theory and an examination of the experiences of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia to consider how to respond to the challenges of asylum. In addition to explaining why asylum has emerged as such a key political issue, it provides a compelling account of how states could move towards implenting morally defensible responses to refugees.", "Rate":3.55 }, { "Book":"Sex and Reason", "Feedback":"Explores the complex history of human sexuality from ancient Greece to modern Sweden and contends that, although sexual drives and orientations are biological in nature, much of individual sexuality is determined through self-interested choices.", "Rate":3.9 }, { "Book":"Summer for the Gods", "Feedback":"Provides a modern perspective on the legal and historical influence of the 1925 Scopes trial, the landmark case about teaching evolution in the classroom", "Rate":3.9 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Young Adult Fiction", "patterns":[ "Young Adult Fiction", "Recommend a Young Adult Fiction book", "Recommend a book in Young Adult Fiction" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Midnighters #2: Touching Darkness", "Feedback":"This is the second book in New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld\u2019s Midnighters series. As the Midnighters search for the truth about the secret hour, they uncover terrifying mysteries woven into the very fabric of Bixby\u2019s history, and a conspiracy that touches the world of daylight. This time Jessica Day is not the only Midnighter in mortal danger, and if the group can\u2019t find a way to come together, they could lose one of their own . . . forever. Touching Darkness is the second book in the Midnighters trilogy, from the New York Times bestselling author of the Uglies series." }, { "Book":"The Queen of Attolia", "Feedback":"Discover the world of the Queen\u2019s Thief New York Times-bestselling author Megan Whalen Turner\u2019s entrancing and award-winning Queen\u2019s Thief novels bring to life the world of the epics and feature one of the most charismatic and incorrigible characters of fiction, Eugenides the thief. Megan Whalen Turner\u2019s Queen\u2019s Thief novels are rich with political machinations and intrigue, battles lost and won, dangerous journeys, divine intervention, power, passion, revenge, and deception. Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, Marie Lu, Patrick Rothfuss, and George R. R. Martin. The brilliant thief Eugenides has visited the Queen of Attolia\u2019s palace one too many times, leaving small tokens and then departing unseen. When his final excursion does not go as planned, he is captured by the ruthless queen. The Queen\u2019s Thief novels have been praised by writers, critics, reviewers, and fans and have been honored with glowing reviews, \u201cbest of\u201d citations, and numerous awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Newbery Honor, the Andre Norton Award shortlist, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. Discover and rediscover the stand-alone companions, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, A Conspiracy of Kings, and Thick as Thieves, all epic novels set in the world of the Queen\u2019s Thief. A Booklist Top 10 Fantasy Books for Youth ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age Parent\u2019s Choice Gold Award A Bulletin of the Center for Children\u2019s Books Blue Ribbon Book \u201cThe Queen\u2019s Thief books awe and inspire me. They have the feel of a secret, discovered history of real but forgotten lands. The plot-craft is peerless, the revelations stunning, and the characters flawed, cunning, heartbreaking, exceptional. Megan Whalen Turner\u2019s books have a permanent spot on my favorites shelf, with space waiting for more books to come.\u201d\u2014Laini Taylor, New York Times-bestselling author of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone novels and Strange the Dreamer \"Unforgettable characters, plot twists that will make your head spin, a world rendered in elegant detail\u2014you will fall in love with every page of these stories. Megan Whalen Turner writes vivid, immersive, heartbreaking fantasy that will leave you desperate to return to Attolia again and again.\"\u2014Leigh Bardugo, New York Times-bestselling author of the The Grisha Trilogy and Six of Crows \u201cMegan Whalen Turner proves to be one of the brightest creative talents. With each book, she continues to add new levels and new luster to her sparkling imagination.\u201d\u2014Lloyd Alexander, Newbery Medalist and National Book Award-winning author of The Chronicles of Prydain \u201cReaders will be spellbound.\u201d\u2014Kirkus Reviews (starred review) \u201cTurner\u2019s storytelling is so sure that readers will want to go along with her\u2014and discover whatever it is that Eugenides will do next.\u201d\u2014Publishers Weekly (starred review) \u201c[An] intense read . . . thoroughly involving and wholly satisfying on all fronts.\u201d\u2014The Horn Book (starred review)" }, { "Book":"Hexwood", "Feedback":"Strange things happen at Hexwood Farm. From her window, Ann Stavely watches person after person disappear through the farm's gate -- and never come out again. Later, in the woods nearby, she meets a tormented sorcerer, who seems to have arisen from a centuries-long sleep. But Ann knows she saw him enter the farm just that morning. Meanwhile, time keeps shifting in the woods, where a small boy -- or perhaps a teenager -- has encountered a robot and a dragon. Long before the end of their adventure, the strangeness of Hexwood has spread from Earth right out to the center of the galaxy.", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"Twilight", "Feedback":"With 160 million copies of the Twilight Saga sold worldwide, this addictive love story between a teenage girl and a vampire redefined romance for a generation. Here's the book that started it all. Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife-between desire and danger. Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilightcaptures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite. \"People do not want to just read Meyer's books; they want to climb inside them and live there.\"-Time \"A literary phenomenon.\"-The New York Times", "Rate":3.59 }, { "Book":"Cirque Du Freak #10: The Lake of Souls", "Feedback":"\"If you step through after Harkat, you might never come back. Is your friend worth such an enormous risk?\" Darren and Harkat face monstrous obstacles on their desperate quest to the Lake of Souls. Will they survive the savage journey? And what awaits them in the murky waters of the dead? Be careful what you fish for...", "Rate":4.19 }, { "Book":"Gossip Girl #1", "Feedback":"The wickedly funny first book in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that inspired the original hit CW show and the new series coming to HBO Max's Spring 2020 launch season (alongside hit series such as Pretty Little Liars and Friends). Welcome to New York City's Upper East Side, where my friends and I live, go to school, play, and sleep--sometimes with each other. S is back from boarding school, and if we aren't careful, she's going to win over our teachers, wear that dress we couldn't fit into, steal our boyfriends' hearts, and basically ruin our lives in a major way. I'll be watching closely... You know you love me. gossip girl", "Rate":3.51 }, { "Book":"Gossip Girl #3: All I Want is Everything", "Feedback":"The wickedly funny third book in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that inspired the original hit CW show and the new series coming to HBO Max's Spring 2020 launch season (alongside hit series such as Pretty Little Liars and Friends). It's Christmastime and Blair and Serena are best friends again, and up to their old tricks--partying hard and breaking hearts from Park Avenue to the Caribbean. Blair's mom and Cyrus are having their honeymoon in Salt Key. And when school lets out for the holiday, Blair, Serena, Aaron, and company head down there to blow off steam after their midterm exams. In between pina coladas and topless sunbathing, Blair and Serena plot revenge on super-jerk Chuck Bass. Everyone jets back to NYC for Serena's New Year's party, during which Nate and Blair may or may not finally go all the way...and Serena may or may not be discovered to be the secret fling of Hollywood's hottest young leading man.", "Rate":3.55 }, { "Book":"The House of the Scorpion", "Feedback":"This modern classic takes on an iron-fisted drug lord, clones bred for their organs, and what it means to be human. Winner of the National Book Award as well as Newbery and Printz Honors. Matteo Alacr\u00e1n was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patr\u00f3n, lord of a country called Opium\u2014a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt\u2019s first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster\u2014except for El Patr\u00f3n. El Patr\u00f3n loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself. As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patr\u00f3n\u2019s power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacr\u00e1n Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn\u2019t even suspect.", "Rate":4.1 }, { "Book":"First Meetings", "Feedback":"Welcome to the Enderverse. When \"Ender's Game\" was first published as a novella twenty-five years ago few would have predicted that it would become one of the most successful ventures in publishing history. Expanded into a novel in 1985, Ender's Game won both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novel. Never out of print and translated into dozens of languages, it is the rare work of fiction that can truly be said to have transcended a genre. Ender's Game and its sequels have won dozens of prestigious awards and are as popular today among teens and young readers as adults. First Meetings is a collection of three novellas-plus the original \"Ender's Game\"-that journey into the origins and the destiny of one Ender Wiggin. \"The Polish Boy\" begins in the wake between the first two Bugger Wars when the Hegemony is desperate to recruit brilliant military commanders to repel the alien invasion. In John Paul Wiggin-the future father of Ender -they believe they may have found their man. Or boy. In \"Teacher's Pest\"-a novella written especially for this collection-a brilliant but insufferably arrogant John Paul Wiggin, now an American university student, matches wits with an equally brilliant graduate student named Theresa Brown. It is many years since the end of the Bugger Wars in \"The Investment Counselor.\" Ender's reputation as a hero and savior has suffered a horrible reversal. Banished from Earth and slandered as a mass murderer, twenty-year-old Andrew Wiggin wanders incognito from planet to planet as a fugitive. Until a blackmailing tax inspector compromises his identity and threatens to expose Ender the Xenocide. Also reprinted here is the original landmark novella, \"Ender's Game,\" which first appeared in 1977. Fully illustrated, First Meetings is Orson Scott Card writing at the height of his considerable power about his most compelling character. THE ENDER UNIVERSE Ender series Ender\u2019s Game / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind / Ender in Exile / Children of the Fleet Ender\u2019s Shadow series Ender\u2019s Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston) Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston) The Swarm / The Hive Ender novellas A War of Gifts / First Meetings", "Rate":3.83 }, { "Book":"Tom Clancy's Net Force: Virtual Vandals", "Feedback":"Here comes a Clancy first: a new series of novels for young adults starring a team of troubleshooting teens--the Net Force Explorers--who know more about cutting edge technology than their teachers!" } ] ] }, { "tag":"Photography", "patterns":[ "Photography", "Recommend a Photography book", "Recommend a book in Photography" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"Dreaming in Pictures", "Feedback":"\"Lewis Carroll was the pen name of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and other beloved children's books. But before achieving fame as an author, Dodgson was a prolific and sophisticated photographer, acutely engaged in the art world of Victorian England. This beautifully illustrated book is the first to examine Dodgson's photographs not as the sideline of a celebrated writer, but as the creations of a serious photographic artist - and to demonstrate their importance to the history of photography.\" \"Dreaming in Pictures: The Photography of Lewis Carroll is published in conjunction with an exhibition organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and traveling to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the International Center for Photography in New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago.\"--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved", "Rate":4.01 }, { "Book":"The Illustrated Story Of O", "Feedback":"\"...I was convinced that Story of O was going to revolutionize the book trade, that I would sell hundreds of thousands of copies across the world, and that moral attitudes would change overnight. The audacity of this novel seemed to me to be liberating rather than provocative. I perceived the promise of a new freedom. And I expected to cause a shock.\"--Jean-Jacques Pauvert, from the Introduction When Story of O was first published in 1954 in Paris by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, it narrowly escaped censorship by the Department of the Interior and eventually became the most widely translated French novel in the world. It describes in cool, elegant language the experiences of a young woman as she willingly enters a dark maze of perverse sexual practices within a clandestine amoral society. Revelling in pure fantasy, its theme is total submission through love to excesses of sadism and masochism, and the bond of \"ownership.\" Now Doris Kloster, a photographer specializing in issues of women's sexuality and power, has realized a long-standing dream. She has created a photographic representation of one of the most famous and controversial erotic novels ever published. The result is another sensation. The Illustrated Story of O presents over 50 superb images which mirror perfectly the intense eroticism of the novel. Shooting entirely in Paris and its environs, Doris Kloster has succeeded in matching characters, locations, costumes and props to the original descriptions. And each magnificent color photograph is accompanied by a short extract from the novel. In addition, there is a Preface from Doris Kloster herself and an Introduction from Jean-Jacques Pauvert, the original publisher of the novel. The Illustrated Story of O presents a rich visual feast that will delight fans of Doris Kloster's work, and appeal strongly to connoisseurs of the darker excesses of sexuality. It is destined to become a classic collector's edition.", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"Geisha", "Feedback":"Looks inside the private world of the geisha to capture this unique icon of Japanese traditional culture, following the geisha's training, preparation for a performance, and role in Japanese society", "Rate":3.89 }, { "Book":"In Focus", "Feedback":"A collection of nearly three hundred photographs from \"National Geographic,\" representing the work of more than one hundred fifty acclaimed photographers, captures portrait images of people from around the world.", "Rate":4.25 }, { "Book":"National Geographic Society", "Feedback":"In this celebratory volume, award-winning author Bryan brings the Society's legacy to life with stunning photos and dramatic accounts. 444 illustrations.", "Rate":4.12 }, { "Book":"The Camera", "Feedback":"Ansel Adams (1902-1984) produced some of the 20th century's most iconic photographic images and helped nurture the art of photography through his creative innovations and peerless technical mastery. The Camera--the first volume in Adams' celebrated series of books on photographic techniques--has taught generations of photographers how to harness the camera's artistic potential. This time-honored handbook distills the knowledge gained through a lifetime in photography and remains as vital today as when it was first published. Along with visualization, image management, Adams' famous Zone System, and other keys to photographic artistry, The Camera covers 35mm, medium-format, and large-format view cameras, while offering detailed advice on camera components such as lenses, shutters, and light meters. Beautifully illustrated with photographs as well as instructive line drawings, this classic manual belongs on every serious photographer's bookshelf. \"Adams is a clear-thinking writer whose concepts cannot but help the serious photographer.\" - New York Times \"A master-class kind of guide from an undisputed master.\" - Publishers Weekly Over 1 million copies sold.", "Rate":4.19 }, { "Book":"The Negative", "Feedback":"Ansel Adams (1902-1984) produced some of the 20th century's most iconic photographic images and helped nurture the art of photography through his creative innovations and peerless technical mastery. The Negative--the second volume in Adams' celebrated series of books on photographic techniques--has taught generations of photographers how to use film and the film development process creatively. Examples of Adams' own work clarify the principles discussed. This classic handbook distills the knowledge gained through a lifetime in photography and remains as vital today as when it was first published. Anchored by a detailed discussion of Adams' Zone System and his seminal concept of visualization, The Negative covers artificial and natural light, film and exposure, and darkroom equipment and techniques. Beautifully illustrated with photographs as well as instructive line drawings, this classic manual can dramatically improve your photography. \"Adams is a clear-thinking writer whose concepts cannot but help the serious photographer.\" - New York Times \"A master-class kind of guide from an undisputed master.\" - Publishers Weekly Over 1 million copies sold.", "Rate":4.4 }, { "Book":"The Print", "Feedback":"Ansel Adams (1902-1984) produced some of the 20th century's most iconic photographic images and helped nurture the art of photography through his creative innovations and peerless technical mastery. The Print--the third volume in Adams' celebrated series of books on photographic techniques--has taught generations of photographers how to explore the artistic possibilities of printmaking. Examples of Adams' own work clarify the principles discussed. This classic handbook distills the knowledge gained through a lifetime in photography and remains as vital today as when it was first published. The Print takes you step-by-step--from designing and furnishing a darkroom to mounting and displaying your photographs, from making your first print to mastering advanced techniques, such as developer modifications, toning and bleaching, and burning and dodging. Filled with indispensable darkroom techniques and tips, this amply illustrated guide shows how printmaking--the culmination of photography's creative process--can be used expressively to enhance an image. \"Adams is a clear-thinking writer whose concepts cannot but help the serious photographer.\" - New York Times \"A master-class kind of guide from an undisputed master.\" - Publishers Weekly Over 1 million copies sold.", "Rate":4.37 }, { "Book":"Photography's Other Histories", "Feedback":"Richly illustrated with over 100 images, this volume explores the role of photography in raising historical consciousness from a variety of geographic, cultural, and historical perspectives. 128 photos.", "Rate":3.73 }, { "Book":"Posing for Portrait Photography", "Feedback":"Jeff Smith teaches surefire techniques for achieving flattering results, detailing the principles of posing the entire body - head, shoulders, arms, hands, bust, waist, hips, thighs and feet. With an emphasis on creating images that will sell themselves, readers will learn to correct common figure problems and design poses that look natural, crafting images that clients are sure to love.", "Rate":3.38 } ] ] }, { "tag":"Architecture", "patterns":[ "Architecture", "Recommend an Architecture book", "Recommend a book in Architecture" ], "responses":[ [ { "Book":"The Old Way of Seeing", "Feedback":"Demonstrating the ideas that make great architecture possible, an architectural critic charts the course of the art, showing how architects lost their sure course around 1830 and explaining how to recapture the basics that can improve our visual environme", "Rate":3.89 }, { "Book":"Color Drawing", "Feedback":"Stunningly updated, totally redesigned, practical, and ready to use This new edition of Michael Doyle's classic Color Drawing is the ultimate up-to-date resource for professionals and students who need to develop and communicate design ideas with clear, attractive, impressive color drawings. In an easy to use, step-by-step approach, this comprehensive guide presents a total system of color design drawing that encompasses approaches to sketch communication as well as more finished presentation drawing. Totally redesigned to provide quick, easy access to key information, this Second Edition covers the basics of color phenomena, media, techniques, and approaches to illustrating materials necessary to communicate design ideas. With nearly 400 new color illustrations, it contains a new section on color and design principles for creating more sophisticated presentation drawings and offers innovative ideas for the reproduction and distribution of finished drawings. Color Drawing features: * A complete body of illustrated instruction that demonstrates the development of design ideas from initial concept through presentation drawing * Finely honed explanations of each technique and process * Faster and easier ways to create design drawings * Methods for combining hand-drawn and computer-generated drawing techniques This remarkably versatile volume is both an illuminating textbook and a completely reliable self-teaching tool, as well as a handy quick reference. It is an excellent guide for students at any level and an unparalleled resource for design professionals.", "Rate":4.22 }, { "Book":"The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World", "Feedback":"A survey of the world's great ancient wonders from the Great Temple of the Aztecs, to the Nazca lines of Peru, including answers to how the architecture was created and for what purpose.", "Rate":4.02 }, { "Book":"The Devil in the White City", "Feedback":"The Chicago World Fair was the greatest fair in American history. This is the story of the men and women whose lives it irrevocably changed and of two men in particular- an architect and a serial killer.The architect is Daniel Burnham, a man of great integrity and depth. It was his vision of the fair that attracted the best minds and talents of the day. The killer is Henry H. Holmes. Intelligent as well as handsome and charming, Holmes opened a boarding house which he advertised as 'The World's Fair Hotel'. Here in the neighbourhood where he was admired and liked by all, he seduced, tortured and murdered young women, incinerating them in the furnace he had built in the basement of his hotel.Spicing the narrative are the sad, charming and funny stories of a supporting cast of historical characters including Buffalo Bill, Scott Joplin, Theodore Dreiser and George Ferris, the steel tycoon whose mammoth wheel became America's answer to the Eiffel tower. The interweaving and juxtaposition of these two men's different 'missions'- one good and one evil- provides the core to a non- fiction suspense drama of the highest order.", "Rate":3.99 }, { "Book":"The Gardens of Emily Dickinson", "Feedback":"Explores how Emily Dickinson's devotion to gardening is intertwined with her vocation as a poet, demonstrating that more than a third of her poems allude to her flowers and how her love of gardening shaped her choice of metaphors.", "Rate":3.86 }, { "Book":"Suburban Nation", "Feedback":"Three members of the Founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism give voice to a growing movement in North America to put an end to suburban sprawl and to replace the automobile-based settlement patterns of the past fifty years with a return to traditional planning principles. Reprint.", "Rate":4.08 }, { "Book":"Pictures Showing what Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow", "Feedback":"Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (1973) has been called a modernFinnegans Wake for its challenging language, wild anachronisms, hallucinatory happenings, and fever-dream imagery. With Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow, artist Zak Smith at once eases and expands readers' experience of the twentieth-century classic. Smith has created more than 750 pages of drawings, paintings, and photos--each derived from a page of Pynchon's novel. Extraordinary tableaux of the detritus of war--a burned-out Konigstiger tank, a melted machine gun--coexist alongside such fantasmagoric Pynchon inventions as the \"stumbling bird\" and \"Grigori the octopus.\" Smith has said he aimed to be \"as literal as possible\" in interpreting Gravity's Rainbow, but his images are as imaginative and powerful as the prose they honor.", "Rate":4.1 }, { "Book":"New York 2000", "Feedback":"\"Featuring insightful discussions on the development of Battery Park City, the rebirth of Harlem and Times Square, the creation of the cultural precinct around the new MoMA, and the reclaiming of the waterfront along the East and Hudson Rivers as recreational parkland, New York 2000 documents ongoing commitments to innovation and renovation and celebrates the achievements of internationally recognized architects, including Sir Norman Foster, Cesar Pelli, Richard Meier, and Renzo Piano.\" \"The survey of organized geographically, beginning in Lower Manhattan and moving north through Harlem and to the outer boroughs including the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Woven throughout is commentary on the repercussions of September 11, 2001, New York 2000 is a thorough study of how a world-class metropolis preserves, showcases, and constructs an architectural heritage that endures over the course of two centuries.\"--BOOK JACKET.", "Rate":4.47 }, { "Book":"Glass House", "Feedback":"The Glass House, designed by celebrated architect Philip Johnson as a personal retreat, is an icon of modern architecture. A crystalline box set in a serene New England landscape, the house is now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which will open it to visitors in April 2007. Johnson used his property near New Canaan, Connecticut, as an architectural laboratory, adding nine additional structures over a forty-year period. Among them are the Ghost House, a chain-link tribute to Frank Gehry, and the witty, bright red Gate House. Glass House is a unique presentation of the Glass House complex in words and photographs. Compiled by eminent critic Toshio Nakamura under the sponsorship of YKK AP Inc., the volume features a specially commissioned suite of photographs, taken throughout the four seasons, by renowned architectural photographer Michael Moran, including cross-processed images and images taken with infrared film. The deluxe graphic presentation, with distinctive paper stocks and foldout pages reproducing Johnson's original drawings, was conceived by designer Michael Rock of 2x4.", "Rate":4.0 }, { "Book":"Design Like You Give a Damn", "Feedback":"Citing a harrowing lack of adequate shelter and utilities for nearly half the planet's population, a compendium of innovative architectural projects from around the world features more than 80 ideas designed to address specific urgent needs in desperately underprivileged areas.", "Rate":4.11 } ] ] } ] }