Celebrity Stew: Food Publicity Pioneer Shares 50 Years of Entertaining Inside Stories of Hollywood Royalty

Book Description

"Celebrity Stew" shares Leo Pearlstein's behind-the-scenes adventures with Hollywood royalty over the last 50 years. The book also highlights over 200 rare and nostalgic photos of many of Hollywood's biggest stars during his publicity campaigns. This includes photos of Steve Allen, who wrote the book's Foreword, Mickey Rooney, Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller, Abbott & Costello, Groucho Marx, Dinah Shore, and many others. The book gives a great overview of the public relations industry, while being fun, educational and entertaining.

Customer Reviews:

An amalgamation of unique and fascinating stories.......2003-01-04

Written by Leo Pearlstein, a food publicity pioneer informally known as the unofficial "king of culinary public relations", Celebrity Stew is an amalgamation of unique and fascinating stories about Hollywood stars and their menus. Encounters with Bob Hope, Steve Allen, Bing Crosby, Danny Thomas, Groucho Marx, Mickey Rooney, Diana Shore, Phillis Diller, Abbott & Costello, and a great many more entertainment industry notables are anecdotally detailed in this veritable treasure trove of wit, wisdom, and brushes with celebrity figures. Also available in a trade paperback format (0971130612, ...), Celebrity Stew is very highly recommended reading, especially for the legions of fans for radio, film, and television celebrities and stars!

Book Description

In this work, Wendy Knickerbocker explores Sunday's professional baseball career to examine the coming of age of an interesting and important character in American sports history. Detail is given to the entirety of his career as well as his playing style. She includes his struggles and accomplishments in his professional career as well as his religious one.

Customer Reviews:

The Best.......2006-10-06

An absolutely great reference book. Its sequel was long overdue. They do underrate 'Car 54' a little, though... (!)

Far better than that "Complete Directory" book.......2003-10-24

Why is it that that "Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows" is now in an 8th edition, while "Harry and Wally" has been out of print for years? The "Complete Directory" is nothing but a dry, boring recitation of shows' premises, whereas "Harry and Wally" is like a roundup of well-written short essays on whether some obscure show would be worth your time. (I refered to it recently when Trio did a special run of "East Side/West Side.") The more classic the show, the better and longer the write-up, too. They also score extra credit with me, as an original series "Star Trek" die-hard, for a great write-up on my favorite series.

I've hoped for years for an updated edition of Harry and Wally. C'mon guys, where did you go? What gives?

Unique and valuable reference work.......2002-11-02

It's a shame this book isn't in print anymore. It's an even BIGGER shame that there was never an updated edition. The book came out in the late 1980s, and so much has happened in television since then. Harry and Wally, if you're out there, how about writing a sequel?

Even though it's more than a decade out of date, "Harry and Wally's Favorite TV Shows" is still a valuable reference work for students of pop culture or just fans of classic TV. It covers a great many series that other TV books skip over, including series on PBS and shows imported from the UK. The idea of giving each series a rating from zero stars to four stars also sets "Favorite TV Shows" apart from other similar books. Better yet, the reviews are usually right on the money.

Harry & Wally's Favorite TV Shows.......2002-07-04

This is one of the best reference guides ever written for all those classic tv enthusiests! It not only has information on shows that had successful runs but those shows that didn't last more than one season or possibly not past the pilot show. It is light easy fun reading and a great book to have in my collection when I ask myself "what was that show..you know with the guy and the girl and that whachamacallit", and you can usually find your answer. If you can find this book used,(since it is out of print and hard to find), grab it and enjoy! Thanks Harry & Wally!

...and my favorite TV book by far!.......2001-06-25

Forget the light-hearted cover and title. No matter who "Harry" and "Wally" are, rest assured they are not "Beavis and Butthead" but two brilliant television critics who I believe have crafted for coach potatoes the best guide to living room entertainment.

Working as both an encyclopedic reference and a highly opinionated tour guide, the book manages to give television history the same sort of readable pop cultural analysis usually reserved for the movies.

In fact Roger Ebert came to mind when I read Mr. Castleman's and Mr. Podrazik's take one everything from the classics like "I Love Lucy" or half season duds like "The Brady Brides." They clearly love television from a refreshing middle brow point of view and are able to convey that to the reader with both humor and intellect. While the authors do tend to turn their backs on some interesting shows (70's cop shows, in particular, are greeted with a yawn), their reviews of "All In The Family, M*A*S*H, and even "The Lone Ranger" are dead on target and illuminating.

I hope someday Harry and Walter pursuade the puplishers give this out of print title another go around. Besides, I wonder what would these two remote control sages think about other TV obsessions such as "Seinfeld" or "The Sopranos?"

Book Description

No toaster is an island. In fact, as Harvey Molotch demonstrates in this sparkling tour of how things are created, the everyday objects of our life are a delicate and clever intermingling of design, timing and functionality that mirrors contemporary life.
Where Stuff Comes From is about paper clips, post-its, bathtubs, cars and all the other stuff in our lives. It is about how these items were imagined into existence and made a part of the American material culture. From the designer to the manufacturer to the business owner to the consumer, Molotch guides us through the worlds of technology, design, corporate culture and popular culture, giving us a sense of how and why we want stuff. He rolls up his sleeves and goes behind the scenes at trade shows and in design studios to speak with the product-makers who gave us the Nike swoosh and Volkswagen's resurrected Beetle.
A witty and surprising voyage into the aesthetic unconscious of the consumer, Where Stuff Comes From probes the meaning of the objects in our lives and what our possessions say about us. Ultimately, Molotch opens a fascinating window into our economy, society and culture by unlocking the complex strategies behind simple things.

Customer Reviews:

Why some designs remain the same and some are constantly changing.......2005-07-04

Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers, And Many Other Things Came To Be As They Are isn't just a review of invention history: Molotch spoke with product designs, marketers, and everyone involved in making everyday products part of our lives, surveying design options, the psychology behind consumer choices, and more. The origins of each product involve a life and evolutionary process: Molotch explains why some designs remain the same and some are constantly changing.

A must read.......2004-07-20

Harvey Molotch gets network thinking. More than that, he does it. In his book, "Where Stuff Comes From", he shows, with brilliant simplicity, the complex web of interactions that lie behind creation and production of the everyday stuff that surrounds us. This is a book that every thinking designer should read. Actually, it's a book that anyone who cares about the world we live in should read. Sensible, humane and thoughtful, it brightened up my day.

Book Description

Chess Software Sourcebook is the is the first book to focus exclusively on the latest chess-related computer programs. Several chapters review in detail the various types of software available, as well as the pros and cons of commercial programs in each category. Feature comparison tables help you decide which software best matches your specific needs, and screen shots show the graphical interface for each program. Playing live chess over the Internet (including its addictive tendencies!) is also discussed. Other chapters cover opening study, computer handicapping, game analysis, and time-saving tips so you can get the most out of the software you own or plan to purchase.

Customer Reviews:

Good Overview.......2000-07-24

The author of this book gives a good overview of the major chess programs. Not owning any chess software, I was a little confused as with some of his discriptions of the catagories of chess software. I did find that his summaries were otherwise clear and help significantly in choosing programs for myself (novice chess player). None of the descriptions were overly lengthy or technical and the tables were moderately helpful. As of this date, I believe this is your only choice for a comprehensive critical summary of chess software, so if this is what you are looking for, this book will start you in the right direction.

Could be better.......2000-04-01

I bought this book because of glowing reviews. I have found this book to be useful and indeed I have bought software based on what I've read. At the same time I have to confess I think the book could be much better. What the author refrains from doing is critical and comparative analysis. To give one example, ChessBase7 and Chess Assistant 5.0 could be critically compared. To give another example, some of the shortcomings of Bookup 1.6.2 could be described. An author such as John Nunn would have combined both technical virtuosity and chess erudition to give a revealing analysis of the strengths and shortcomings of the chess software currently available.

Must Buy for Chess Lovers.......1999-12-02

I bought this book a little while ago and was really surprised at how good it was. I already owned some of the programs Dr. Pawlak reviews in the book, but really wasn't using them as well as I could. The book really helped me understand what my programs could do. I have been analyzing some of my games using his approach, and it works.

Product Description

What problems can .NET solve? What architectural approaches does it take to solve them? How do you start using .NET, and how do you profit from it? Get the answers to these questions and more in this entertaining third edition of the popular .NET walk-thr

Customer Reviews:

A Good Introduction To .NET Which Needs An Update.......2006-09-11

This book is a good introduction to various parts of the Microsoft .NET Framework the Microsoft Visual Studio. It covers many of the areas that a programmer using .NET will need to be aware of .ASP pages, Windows Forms, using XML, and accessing databases from the programs among others.

While working through the book, I attended a developer event hosted by Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). The material that I had already worked with helped me with understanding the new technologies that were demonstrated. Since this book covers a good spectrum of the .NET environment, there were no areas of the demonstration that went over my head.

As far as being in need of an update, not all of the examples worked under my VS2005 trial version that I loaded in order to use it with this book. The Simplest Threading Example from Chapter 9 no longer works under VS2005 due to the changes in thread security. The author (David Platt) notes in the text that this may someday occur and it has. There needs to be a new edition of this book so that changes since the previous version of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework can be addresed so that all of the examples work and can be used as reference.

Overall this is a very good book which I would highly recommend. I am coming at this as a Visual C++ 6.0 programmer who is familiar with some of the other technologies in Visual Studio and needed to make the step into the latest version of the developer environment. This book succeeded for me and I think would be a good starting point for others coming from other development environments and languages.

An introduction to .NET programming.......2006-06-11

Several years ago, I took David Platt's class on .NET programming at Harvard Extension School, and there, not surprisingly, *Introducing Microsoft .NET* was one of the main texts for the course. Some of the reviews that I have seen on this site seem to be based on confusions as to what this book is about and who its intended audience is. This book is meant to provide an overview of .NET technology, including the fundamentals of the .NET Framework, the basics of WinForms development, ASP.NET, and XML web services. It's not intended to provide a very detailed account of every feature of the .NET Framework (which could hardly be encompassed in a single book anyway). On the other hand, some reviewers on this site seem to think that this book was intended as just a technical manager's survey of .NET. Unless the technical maangers, referred to, are experienced developers, then that's not correct either. This book is clearly intended for experienced developers (providing plenty of code samples to help them master the subject) who are not terribly familiar with .NET programming.

I also noticed a few reviewers here complaining that this book does not go sufficiently in depth to please them, but please notice that this book in its very title describes itself as an introductory work. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. Indeed, when I took Platt's course, we were told up front that we would require other texts to supplement it, such as Jeff Prosise's *Programming Microsoft .NET* or Jeff Richter's *Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming*. In fact, as I proceeded through Dave Platt's course I gradually acquired a small library on .NET, accumlating texts on C#, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET. Anybody who thinks that they can learn a complex technology like .NET from a single book probably shouldn't be in the business in the first place.

The book itself is lucidly written, with sample code provided to enable the reader to better understand concepts by seeing how they can be implemented in code. The author makes strenuous efforts to provide the reader with the simplest possible examples that he can think of for each major concept. Pedagogically, that is very helpful to the reader.

Please note that this edition is meant to be read by people who are working with .NET Framework 1.1. It does not cover version 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005. Version 2.0 is discussed in Dave Platt's new book, *The Microsoft Platform Ahead*, which I have yet to read. I wouldn't pretend to know whether he intends to come out with a fourth edition of *Introducing Microsoft .NET* that would deal with .NET Framework 2.0.

Very basic.......2005-09-26

Not very detalied. Very basic coverage - seems to be only for beginners.

Typical MS. More gloss than substance........2005-09-14

I purchased this book at a Microsoft "technical" training day. In typical MS fashion, and just like the day itself, the book tends to gloss over details and provide little real information.

If you know nothing about .NET then this book might be ok for you. But you can find loads of free information on the internet, either from the MS site itself, or from one of the excellent developer sites such as [...].

If you are looking for in-depth details then this is not the book for you.

Basically disappointed.......2005-07-29

I have significant experience in the embedded world (programming in C and assembler) and now I need to learn the .NET architecture. Hence my interest in Platt's book.

I suppose different people learn and convey information in different ways, and some will find Platt's approach helpful. I did not. Through most of the book I found myself scratching my head trying to figure out what he was getting at, and then disappointed at the end of the chapter that he hadn't really told me much useful information. I found myself reminded of sitting in University listening to brilliant Professors who are enamored with the funky little quirks and details of some new concept, but are unable (or unwilling) to convey the basics of how it actually works.

Be warned that this book does not deal with .NET v2.0, and most of the code examples on his website will not convert to the new release. That can be very frustrating. If you are running the VS2005 beta, you may want to get a different book or hold off until the next version of this one.

On a minor note, I found myself rolling my eyes at the author's constant attempts at humor by referring to other groups of techies as "geeks". I don't think he was trying to be insulting as much as funny, but still--it comes across as a little lame. Once or twice is humorous. Dozens gets simply annoying.

Amazon.com

Disturbing and controversial, this work is based on 300 of the more than 1,400 taped interviews with Holocaust survivors preserved at Yale University's Fortunoff Video Archives. It's disturbing because of the survivors' graphic retelling of the starvation, torture, brutalization and cannibalism that occurred in the Nazi death camps. It's controversial because, instead of focusing on the bravery necessary to endure such horrors, Langer's book delves into the psychic wounds that 50 years after their infliction remain unhealed. "We have these double lives," said one survivor. "We can't cancel out. It just won't go away." Holocaust Memories won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism for 1991.

Customer Reviews:

holocaust.......2005-06-07

this book really moved me in how no other book has. i now have an appreciation to those who suffered in the holocaust and to hope and prevent something like the holocaust to occur again

Should be included in any Holocaust library.......2002-01-25

Lawrence Langer is well known for his cataloguing and interpretations on the Holocaust, but it took quite a few pages of this book for me to really "get" what he was saying. (I believe the first negative reviewer never "got" it. It's a difficult abstract concept, I fully admit that.)

Given that knowledge, and warned that you must enter the book without a preconceived negative notion about a split type of self, this book becomes fascinating. The details are quite dramatic, and it becomes progressively easier to see the point of the self splitting in order to survive the realities that simply can't be absorbed by the human mind. Fascinating work, and a book you won't want to put down.

could have been said in half the amount of pages.......2001-10-17

The material is first-rate but his writing style is horrid. His five-part typology of memory doesn't make sense since he is basically repeating the same theme for each type of memory in each chapter. The underlying theme is about the destruction and shattering of the self. Very poorly written and bad organizatino of his material. There are much better and clearer books on the Holocaust! Don't bother with this one!

Vitally important text for Holocaust studies.......2001-04-30

Lawrence Langer's landmark study of the oral and videotaped testimonies of Holocaust survivors is essential reading for anyone interested in Holocaust and Genocide studies. I found the book most interesting-- and most troubling-- for the way Langer describes the narratives which the survivors use to describe experiences that are, literally, beyond any kind of known literary conventions. Langer suggests that the traumas of these events are so shattering that the survivors still are struggling for ways to evoke their experience, to bear witness in a way that other people can understand. At the same time, their narratives are part of a struggle to make these incomprehensible experiences bearable. The efforts of suriviors to articulate their experience is not only meant to provide a historical record of a terrible moment in history, but also to give the surivors themselves a way of framing their experiences so they can live with them.

What is most wrenching about these testimonies, is, perhaps, the sense that these experiences will never be fully evoked. The stories which the survivors tell are just that-- narrative structures designed to impose a certain comprehensibility to experiences which are beyond understanding.

There are any number of incredibly moving, visceral works on the Holocaust, but The Ruins of Memory stands alone as a unique, and terrible study of how, on an individual level, the Holocaust shatters the self. It is hard reading, but it is also essential reading.

you can't loose the opportunity of reading this book.......2000-09-25

I have read many many books of the holocoust many of them have been very moving but this book is excelent , to be honest i couldn't stop reading it, if you are interesting in this kind of books this is the one that you should buy, even do is amazingly sad, is absolutely and 100 % realistic. When i finish it i felt so weird, I actually felt like a was there,in that time,with those people,with those families and finaly into their community. as a secret between you and me,I could't stop crying to. with the other books that I have read before I kind of have an idea of what was living in that time but this one made me completely understand their pain and sufferings, is realy cruel what those people did to their community. so to be short I highly recommend this tittle, and i hope you enjoy it as much as i did.

Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory

Average customer rating:

Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory
Lawrence L. Langer
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORRNEA

Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins Of Memory (First Edition)

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Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins Of Memory (First Edition)
Lawrence L. Langer
Manufacturer: Yale Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORIEPC

Book Description

Adeeb Khalid offers the first extended examination of cultural debates in Central Asia during Russian rule. With the Russian conquest in the 1860s and 1870s the region came into contact with modernity. The Jadids, influential Muslim intellectuals, sought to safeguard the indigenous Islamic culture by adapting it to the modern state. Through education, literacy, use of the press and by maintaining close ties with Islamic intellectuals from the Ottoman empire to India, the Jadids established a place for their traditions not only within the changing culture of their own land but also within the larger modern Islamic world.
Khalid uses previously untapped literary sources from Uzbek and Tajik as well as archival materials from Uzbekistan, Russia, Britain, and France to explore Russia's role as a colonial power and the politics of Islamic reform movements. He shows how Jadid efforts paralleled developments elsewhere in the world and at the same time provides a social history of the Jadid movement. By including a comparative study of Muslim societies, examining indigenous intellectual life under colonialism, and investigating how knowledge was disseminated in the early modern period, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform does much to remedy the dearth of scholarship on this important period. Interest in Central Asia is growing as a result of the breakup of the former Soviet Union, and Khalid's book will make an important contribution to current debates over political and cultural autonomy in the region.

Customer Reviews:

Widely Relevant to Modern Islamic History.......2003-10-02

Adeeb Khalid's work is essentially a chronicle of the ill-fated Jadidist movement of the late 19th and early 20th century, which eventually met its demise during Soviet expansion. The basic thesis that this book puts forward is that Uzbek identity was not merely one which arose as a result of Soviet nationality policies starting in the 1920's but, rather, had its roots in pre-Soviet Central Asian intellectuals such as the Jadidists. This Jadidist movement, moreover, did not arise from Western sources but mobilized ideas recieved from cultural exchanges with other Islamic lands which were the filter through which Western ideas about modern and progress where encountered and are thus to be seen as yet another branch of the Islamic modernist movements of the period.

Particularly strong in this work, and what accounts for it broader significance beyound Central Asian history, is the account, applying the theories of Bourdieu, of the passage of Islamic learning from the pre-modern to the modern period and the concomitant transformations that it implies and the new dynamics which subsequently ensue thereafter. These analyses within the first chapters of the book are surpass even the examination of the 'ulema'in Timothy Mitchell's COLONISING EGYPT.

Average customer rating:
The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform : Jadidism in Central Asia (Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies)
Adeeb Khalid
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PS54BC

Average customer rating:

Too Much Gloss

Great Overview of Many Science Topics

A great survey of science .

New Everyday Science Explained: From the Big Bang to the human genome...and everything in between
Curt Suplee
Manufacturer: National Geographic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Biotechnology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Reference | Science | Subjects | Books
Biotechnology | Bioengineering | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Biotechnology | Biological Sciences | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
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New How Things Work: From Lawn Mowers to Surgical Robots and Everthing in Between

Book of Inventions (National Geographic)

Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries : All the Milestones in Ingenuity From the Discovery of Fire to the Invention of the Microwave Oven

Marshall Brain's MORE How STUFF Works

ASIN: 0792273575
Release Date: 2004-02-01

Amazon.com

The New Everyday Science Explained updates Curt Suplee's coffee table classic with 21st-century answers to many of the most common science questions, and quite a few uncommon ones. Why is the sky blue? How can we get rid of body fat? Why do we get sunburned? Is light a wave or a particle? Organized around general principles such as "Matter and Motion" and "The Chemistry of Life," this is an ideal family reference book, genuinely appropriate for both adults and children. And because it's from National Geographic, it's full of amazing photographs--a tightrope walker, red blood cells killed by malaria protozoans, a monstrous traffic jam--chosen to help explain scientific fundamentals. Within each larger chapter are 15 or more two-page spreads focused on a single idea. With just two to four paragraphs per topic, Suplee manages to clearly communicate the facts in a chunk that's easily digestible, even for science-phobes. For parents who want to be able to help with the homework, students who need a quick reference, and browsers who love National Geographic-caliber knowledge and photos, The New Everyday Science Explained is a delight. --Therese Littleton

Customer Reviews:

Too Much Gloss.......2006-02-01

Just too much gloss and not enough information. Where's the Beef?

Great Overview of Many Science Topics.......2004-11-10

Curt Suplee attempts to explain science in short excerpts beginning with the first section, Matter and Motion, through the fourth section focusing on The Chemistry of Life, which ends in a brief description of how and why we dream and how we age.

Obviously the fields of science are far too broad to have any depth of explanation in a book this short. However, as an introduction to the numerous fields of science this book is an outstanding beginning. This book would be most valuable for the aspiring young scientist in late elementary school through middle school. A child may review each of the fields covered in this book, which encompasses physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, chemistry, and medicine, and determine whether science truly is for them, and, if so, which field of science.

Even adult readers will find this book to be a great refresher for many of the topics covered in classes long gone. Suplee manages to explain a facet of each of the topics he covers enough to provide a basic background, and yet does so in a way that does not talk down to readers.

Since this book is a National Geographic book, you know that it will be filled with incredible photography to match each of the subjects. There are pictures of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in 1940, shown in such a way that it captures what happened in just two photographs. There are photographs of Mars and the stars, and even a rusty car. Photographs of cells and the brain are also provided. Even an excellent explanation of the bad effects of poor nutrition and what happens when you eat too much fat.

This book is a good general science book that could help provide the start of a research project. Others may use it as a coffee table book, particularly in the hardcover edition with the dust jacket on it. A casual guest will be impressed with your scientific interests and your appreciation of good books.

A great survey of science ........2004-11-05

Curt Suplee really opened my eyes to the chemical and physical science I encounter everyday. The book is full of beautiful photographs and simple and amusing illustrations in addition to Mr. Suplee's excellent prose.

Book Description

Bringing together contributions from forest officials, wildlife experts, academics, and activists, People and Protected Areas explores ways to understand conflicts between wildlife conservationists and the people who have historically been the strongest conservationists--traditional forest and wetlands dwellers. The contributors to this book focus on India's vast network of national parks and sanctuaries (known as protected areas), which not only contain a significant part of the country's surviving ecosystems and wildlife but also serve as the homes and livelihood base for several million people. Working toward a cooperative solution, the chapters explore the possibilities of involving local communities in wildlife conservation efforts by evolving mechanisms for joint or participatory management of protected areas. Both the principles of participatory management and a number of specific proposals are examined. The first book-length study to discuss the sociopolitical aspects of conservation in India and outline an important and concrete method for resolving conflicts between indigenous communities and conservationists, People and Protected Areas provides essential reading for ecologists, environmentalists, and all those engaged with conserving India's wildlife and biodiversity.

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