Paper

Susan Carroll and Barbara Swanson's Gorgeous Paper Gifts outlines over twenty projects using paper, showcasing designs for holidays, weddings, gift giving and celebration. Techniques are easy and require a minimum of special equipment or materials.

An amazing collection of gothic horror! One of my favorite books, out-of-print for decades is now restored in a complete edition. Le Fanu is a master of horror, much in the style of HP Lovecraft or William Hope Hodgson (check out Gothic Horror 1 & 2 for the best of Hodgson, incl. "The Ghost Pirates").

Everyday happenings grow progressively stranger, with a heavy sense of dread, until events explode in unimaginable freakishness! Wow! A fantasy escape for those who like dark victorian tales of ghosts, goblins, & demons. Enjoy!

This book was a great investment! The directions are clear and easy to follow, much more so than other papermaking books I had purchased. And I can use things right from my kitchen to make beautiful papers. The sample photos in the book are really beautiful. I highly recommend it to anyone learning to make paper.

Lord Percy Hunterdon inherits them and a Gothic horror of an estate. He's determined to hire a governess of superior caliber, when Jean Morrison (desperately) answers his ad. She has never before been a governess, and when she encounters the dark, dirty castle and the evil dispositions of her new charges, her dreams come crashing down upon her. Almost too suspenseful, when she risks her own neck to save the day.

Disclaimer - I was a student of Jim McCawley's. I think the guy was a frelling genius.

This book, a nearly complete collection of his writings on syntax and semantics up to 1971, most of which had appeared in journals, contains gems from the early days of modern linguistics. Working as I do in computer language processing, I continue to find useful insights in it.

One of the most significant essays is "The Role of Semantics in a Grammar". Although many of the detailed examples and arguments re specific transformations are obsolete, the fundamental principle for which it argues - that syntax and semantics are inextricably intertwined - revolutionary in its day when the Chomsky's concept of "deep structure" as purely syntactic ruled the discipline, remains a critical insight today.

McCawley's incisive style and irrepressible dry wit make his writings more fun than you would expect from serious scholarly work. His honesty and frank amusement at his own mistakes led him to refuse to update anything, instead adding a set of endnotes that point out errors in detail.

I was a student of Milton Kessler's back in the late 80s, and he was quite possibly the best teacher I ever had. Many, many other former students share this opinion (including Camille Paglia). This collection of his poems, already ten years old, is an interesting mix of lyric jewels and objectivist verse.The poet's influences (e.g., Charles Reznikoff and Walt Whitman, to name just two) show through, but make no mistake: This poetry is fresh, inventive, and original. Sadly, Kessler passed away in 2000. One can only hope that this greatly underrated poet will one day achieve the recognition (albeit posthumous) he deserves.

Os Guinness, in this work, presents the Church in America and the problems that beset it. All written in a series of communiques from the enemy "Directorate." It has the same feel of The Screwtape Letters, and a fascinating idea of the way of the "Third Fool" as being the way to break through the present-day irrelevance, bickering, factionalism, marketing, and paranoia that are strangling the lifeblood out of the Church in America. In light of the events of 9/11/01, these suggestions become even more vital, as the Church must get serious about proving and providing a steady, Rock-like foundation amidst the fear and doubt.

Tom Tierney's paper doll books from Dover are wonderful as teaching aids for students of all ages; I use them for college freshmen and sophomores, and my students love seeing the costumes and getting a visual image of the characters and the "look" of the plays. The Shakespeare dolls are amusing because they are Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (as seen in the film version of "The Taming of the Shrew" of course!), but the costumes are lovely and very detailed. I heartily recommend this book for anyone who teaches Shakespeare -- either for class use or as a personal possession!

Great Paper Jets was an odd extra book from the library. As we checked it out, I was thinking - another dumb book eh; they all are. But

I went through the motions because everone in my family was excited. I copied the pages onto heavy stock and we went for it.

The Basics: The Planes look great.

The planes fly well.

The planes are fun to make.

This is the only book on paper planes which of all the ones I have encountered, which is many - actually delivers.

So why buy it rather than just get it from your library and copy it.

Well try it from your library like we did. I guarantee you will want to buy it. Should this plane book go out of print. It will be gone and the trash out there with the glitz but zero content will be all that's left.

We rate it the highest since it is the only paper airplane book that meets or exceeds our expectations.

In teaching my courses, I always try to point out to the students some of the origins of the mathematics that they are trying to learn. Sometimes, it helps them to realize that the mathematics did not always exist, but had to be invented so that humans could better describe the circumstances that civilization created. However, there is no way that I could describe the invention of mathematics as well as Eves does.
The material is split into twenty segments, each of which has its origin in a lecture he conducted on the history of mathematics. Eves also gives the current best estimate for the date at which the invention took place. Events included in the book are the development of the abstractions needed for proof techniques, the Pythagorean theorem, the discovery of irrational numbers, the invention of the extremely efficient Hindu-Arabic numeral system, the development of logarithms and the precursors of calculus.
Every time I read some of the expository material developed by Professor Eves, I grow more impressed with his ability. My first exposure to this book was two decades ago in a math history class and it remains the most readable textbook I have ever had. Now that I read it for enjoyment, I can appreciate it in other ways. Exercises are included at the end of each segment and solid hints for their solution are included in the back.
While most of the time mathematical progress is measured in increments, there are times when it is measured in quantum leaps. Eves captures some of the earliest cases where a new technique was created that substantially altered forever how mathematics is done. And he does so in a manner where reading it is a pleasure rather than a chore.