Street

Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world and home to the largest Islamic population on earth. Indonesian Street Food Secrets: A Culinary Travel Odyssey is an impressive compilation of ethic family recipes that are prepared right on the sidewalk by Indonesian food vendors. Enhanced with 230 color photographs of the food and culture, Indonesian Street Food Secrets also includes an accompanying CD-ROM providing hours of movies, sounds and recipes that are customizable for their degree of "hotness" and party size. With its collection of authentic recipes, Indonesian Street Food Secrets will prove to be a unique addition to kitchen cookbook collections and is especially recommended to dining clubs wanting to celebrate the culinary traditions of the Indonesian archipelago!

Although I have never been to Indonesia, nor am I an experienced cook, I found this book fascinating. It really is about the Indonesian culture as it is represented by its food. The photos are outstanding and give the reader a non-tourist view of of this intriguing land. The recipes are easy to follow and the author gives substitute ingredients if the more exotic foods can not be found. I very much enjoyed reading the information sections and can't wait to try some of the recipes.

If you like Indonesian food as much as I do, you'll have to order this delightful book. Keith Miller finds the essence of the complex Indonesian culinary culture and provides all the "how-to-do-it" information necessary to prepare the wonderful foods of Indonesia. The book comes with a CD-ROM that helps explain to techno-geeks what can be found within the pages of the book itself. I guess some people need to see it on a computer screen before they get it. The book itself has great color photographs of all the required ingredients and the various techniques of Indonesian food preparation.

the first
a visual street photography book of new york city
my winnogrand's work set the standard
this is a great coffee table book

I recently took a class in street photography at New York's ICP and Winogrand's work is something I could never even hope to approach. Some of his images are startling, you feel like the crowd is STILL headed right at you and that you must somehow get out of the way. He was fearless in the street and this collection proves it.

As far as I know, this is the only in-print book of Winogrand's photography available. For me, relatively young and new to photography, I am thankful for the opportunity to see some of his photos. They are a revelation. Even a cursory first glance through the book, I was struck at the complexity of the scenes photographed. These photos speak volumes, though I'm not sure what it is they say. In fact, the attraction of these photos lie in their mystery. Repeat viewings will reveal more nuances...so many layers emerge that interpretations will get lost in themselves. Well, that is TRUTH.

Regretfully, the printing quality of this book stinks. The duotone curve they used for this book is all messed up. Many photos end up looking like sepia prints rather than a black and white print. There are few pure, deep, dark blacks in the book. Instead you get this black-brown color which is really ugly and does a disservice to GW's work. True, Winogrand himself said "anyone who can print a photo can print my work" downplaying the importance of the printing process. And while the poor reproductions in this book does not take away from the strength of the photos, I still find it annoying and most of all...UGLY. All I can hope for is another book of Winogrand's work to be published. With all his millions of negatives, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

This cookbook is fantastic! My mom was Italian, and the recipes here are truly authentic. I loved the format of daily recipes, and I spent a week just following along. The stories are wonderful, it is like having a visit back to my old neighborhood of long ago here in Boston. My special recommendations: Joe Red's Chicken Meatball Soup, Bolognese Sauce, BOTH Pasta Puttenescas, Fried Pepper Wet Sandwich, Italian Cheesecake...OH, HECK...JUST TRY THEM ALL !! You will not be disappointed.

I bought this book for my father-in-law who grew up in East New York and loves to cook. He is thrilled with the recipes which he says are simply written and authentic to what he ate growing up there 80 years ago. He also loved the pictures and rememberances of "the old neighborhood." I've never bought him another gift that made him this happy. He's buying a bunch to give to other Brooklyn friends.

I lived across the street from Our Lady of Loretto and went to school with the author, Gerard Renny. This november, my mom Graziella Tirino one of the last true "die hards" finally moved from Pacific St. The recipes and the stories along with the pictures had me thinking back to the old neighborhood and how much fun we used to have. We didn't have much but we had friends, good food and plenty of it. This book and the wonderful receipes are a part of my past and I look forward to sharing it with family and friends. aka Rosetta

Shows you lots of illustrated information & recommendations for upgrading your 90's Mustang 5.0, includes excellent how-to-install pages, useful blue prints for machining, and lots of different aftermarket 5.0 parts manufaturers with their part numbers. This book is a must for 5.0 performance modification projects.

This book appears to be a 30 year summation of experience from a veteran Ford hot-rodder. Mr. Mathis gives excellent advice on choosing the appropriate parts for a particular combo and it's all derived from hard core experience on the track and the dyno. His down-to-earth approach and plain english really cuts to the chase, this books subject matter is as correct as it gets yet very easy to understand and apply. He also pays attention to the fact that not everyone is made of money and doesn't cater exclusively to the ultra-expensive setups and parts. If you are even THINKING of upgrading your 79-93 Stang then buy this book, you won't be disapointed!

The information and detail covered in this book is the best I've ever seen. Mr. Mathis keeps the information as simple as possible by keeping the text easy to read and understand. The text is very lightnote and often times humorous to those of us who have been in situations he mentions. He covers it all from A to Z. Making very good recommendations for manufacturers and including the order number for the parts. A true "Must Have" for any Stang or Ford owner.

If you are interested in drugs, but you don't know them and you would like to inform about this topic, then that's it the CD you have to purchase. It contains a lot of information not for me, and I stepped page to page curiously. It's very interesting because I can see many pictures in it. It contains information not only on illegal drugs, but alcohol and tobacco. Besides showing narcotic substances, it tries to answer as many questions as possible in this topic. In my oppinion, it's the broadest and most versatile issue, that deals with this theme.

Encyclopaedia on Streetdrugs give me updated information about drugs in a very objective way. It can answer all my questions in connection with drugs and drug abuse. There are inner routes in the Encyclopaedia so I can browse among definitions, topics easily or choose the already constructed routes (for teachers, parents, doctors, police etc.) I highly recommend the product to parents and teachers who wants to protect their children.

I was absolutely ignorant in this issue and I've found this encyclopaedia. I've read it and now I know everything. Not only about the effects and types of drugs, but also about its cultural history, which was really exciting too read about. I recommend it to all of you who wants to know more about this issue.

My 18 month loved the Sesame Street song that is sung by Ernie so she was hooked from the start. Additionally, the illustrations are really beautiful. When I am reading it to her, I catch my 4 year old peaking over listening in. This book is a hit in my house.

This book is wonderful. It is my 20 month old son's favorite book from the moment he saw it the first time. I wish there were more of these Seasame Song books. The illustration is beautiful (I don't care what the paid review says!). Anyone who enjoys singing and/or reading with their child will love this book. Now when my son sees the song being song on Seasame Street he runs to his cabinet and pulls out the book. Its the first book he gets out in the morning and I have to make him leave it down stairs on his way to bed.

My son and husband loved this song from Sesame Street so I was so excited they had a book of it. The illustrations are beautiful and my one year old loves the funny pictures of Ernie. We sing the song as a lullabye and it works like a charm!

My 22 month old daughter wants me to read this book to her every night! If your child is a Sesame Street fan then this little book will be a big hit.

My 17 month old usually has a hard time settling down at bedtime. She adores the Sesame Street characters, especially Elmo, and we read this book just before tucking her in and turning out the light. Elmo and Big Bird and their friends are getting ready for bed, and showing them all sleeping helps my little girl to accept bedtime a little more readily, since anything Elmo does is automatically cool!

My daughter and I have read this book over 100 times, at naptime and bedtime. She seems to never get tired of it, and is now reading it to me! It's a great book that seems to be perfect for a 2 to 2-1/2 year old attention span.

I have mixed feelings about books that are comprised of articles published in magazines before. The main reason is that those articles seldom are detailed enough, because of lenght constraints placed on magazine columns. In addition, the chapters in these books are usually arranged in illogical manner, where stuff about a specific topic is dispersed thorouhg the book. This book avoids those pitfalls, however, and at the same time utilizes the main advantage of magazine column -approach: The book covers a wide variety of topics, in easily approached small portions.

While this book is comprised of articles published mainly in Guns & Ammo -magazine in years 1992 - 1999, the subjects of the columns are so tightly defined, that the shortness of the chapters is not a problem. Grover gets his point across in the pages devoted to a specific subject. There is also lots of details and examples on certain situations. In addition, the columns are arranged in sections by the subject, so you can easily find all the info on specific subject without having to flip through the whole book.

Although the word "firearms" is mentioned in the title of the book, the emphasis is not in surviving an armed encounter. The book covers the field of personal security very broadly, beginning from the security of your home, and ending to wounded shooter tactics. In fact, the book could well have been published in two parts, one concentrating on crime prevention, and the second on combatives. Therefore, this book should interest also those people who are not into guns, and are not interested in getting one for personal safety.

The crime prevention part of the book is exellent. It seems that while there are some books on the market on this subject, for some reason more books concentrate on combatives, than preventing these dangerous situations altogether. Perhaps this is the reason why I felt that the second half of the book was not as good as the first half. The book would have been better, if the magazine columns would have been edited somewhat to get rid of "in this month's column we concentrate on..." -type stuff. And there is some repetition also, which is a bit annoying in book form.

All things concidered, I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in raising their personal level of security.

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in CCW. Jim has excellent experience and knowledge that will be insightful for lethal and non lethal alternatives of personal safety

I have followed Mr. Grover's (Kelly McCann) work through the years and enjoyed most of his stuff. I think what the book gives best is the idea of how to do things and not so much as the physical application. I know that this is debatable but i personally don't thing you can get quality hand-to-hand instruction from a book.

I re-read the book since and really received more benefit the second time. I think with books like this and others like Strong On Defense and Tom Patire's Personal Protection Handbook their is enough quality material for people to read and become more vigilante in their way of life.

Great Book!

I found Jasper Milvain, the "alarmingly modern young man," to be the most interesting character in Gissing's New Grub Street for a number of reasons, the most significant of which is that he evinces what can only be considered a modernist's consciousness in his approach to writing. That is, while it soon becomes clear to the reader that Milvain represents the antithesis of what Edwin Reardon personifies-i.e., the work of literature as an emanation of author's native genius-and thus one of the intercalated plots of the novel involves the incremental success of Milvain as a modern man of letters, and the concomitant gradual abjection of Reardon. In a manner of speaking, then, Milvain and Reardon's fates emerge from a common source, namely some sea change in the reading public's (the consumer's) preferences and tendencies.

Milvain identifies as vulgar the most lucrative market for the product of the man of letter's labor. The vulgarians, or "quarter educated," drive the market (479), and since they have been determined to desire nothing more than chatty ephemera, they have successfully opened an insuperable gulf between material success in writing and artistic success. Reardon's psychologically penetrating novels just aren't in demand. Therefore, there emerges quite an interesting conceptual shift within the nascent hegemony of the quarter-educated as established by their purchasing power: what was once considered healthy artistic integrity has transmuted into a peculiar kind of petit bourgeois hubris, if, in the new paradigm, the writer is more an artisan than an artist. Therefore, Reardon's artistically-compromised and padded three-volume novel, written with no other end in mind than to pander to the vulgar reader, nonetheless achieves only modest success because, the fact that it is indistinguishable from countless other similar works glutting the market aside, his novel is infected from his irrepressible integrity, and thus his novel becomes a strange sort of counterfeit, a psychological narrative masquerading as a popular novel. Reardon thus becomes a sort of Coriolanus among writers.

Milvain, on the other hand, is a sort of Henry Ford among writers; he reveals his particular genius when offering advice to his sister Maud about how to write religious works for juveniles: "I tell you, writing is a business. Get together half-a-dozen fair specimens of the Sunday school prize; study them; discover the essential points of such a composition; hit upon new attractions; then go to work methodically, so many pages a day" (13). In other words, Jasper has managed to streamline and to mechanize the writing process. He studies previous works, abstracts formulae from them, isolates the elements of these formulae, and then deploys and rearranges these elements to give his own writing a patina of originality. By treating writing as an exercise in manipulating formulae, Jasper exchanges "authenticity" (whatever that word means anymore) for the convenience and efficiency of not having to grapple with his own potentially mutable and recalcitrant genius. Jasper did not invent writing, just as Ford did not invent the automobile. But like Ford did with automobile manufacture, Milvain discovers those aspects of writing that lend themselves to mechanical reproduction. Thus he is able to capitalize on his time and effort, and effectively becomes the very machine Reardon believes himself to be but never actually becomes because of his lingering notions of artistic integrity (352).

Also of interest is the fact that Albert Yule is a sort of synthesis of Milvain and Reardon. Like Milvain, Yule attempts to streamline his own literary production by delegating some of the labor to his daughter Marian. However, like Reardon, Yule clings to the superannuated notion of the necessary individuality of writing: "[h]is failings, obvious enough, were the results of a strong and somewhat pedantic individuality ceaselessly at conflict with unpropitious circumstances" (38). In other words, Yule fails to recognize the obsolescence of the lone, learned genius within the realm of literary production. A market of vulgarians who demand occasional literary confections simply does not expect Works of individual genius. Moreover, even if they were in demand, works of individual genius are too ponderously inefficient to keep pace with the rate at which they are consumed. Therefore, Yule straddles the either/or proposition personified by Reardon and Milvain: One may preserve his artistic integrity and write "for the ages"--hence Yule, Biffen, and Reardon's fetishization of Shakespeare, Coleridge and authors of classical antiquity--and starve in the process, or one may write "for the moment" and actually turn a respectable profit.

The shadow of Charles Darwin indeed looms large over the events and characters of New Grub Street. The growth market brought about by the advent of the "quarter-educated" vulgar class, and their discretionary income coupled with their callow aesthetic sensibilities and truncated attention spans, represents a nascent economic, if not ecological niche, for certain social creatures to occupy. However, it's not simply a matter of being able to adapt one's skills to the tastes of these consumers. One must also be a prodigious enough writer to keep pace with an equally prodigious rate of consumption. Individuals like Milvain and Whelpdale are adequately adapted to this niche in that they satisfy the demands of this niche in terms of both content and output. Reardon panders to the vulgar taste only grudgingly and after long resistance and thereby cannot meet the production demands of this niche. Biffen absolutely refuses to pander at all. Alfred Yule does attempt to pander, but his mode of literary production is too inefficient to meet production demands, and he is also largely ignorant of vulgar literary taste. While more in touch with the vulgar reader than her father, Marian Yule is as inefficient in her literary production as her father. Therefore, each of the characters named above are equally maladaptive, albeit for various reasons, and thus their extinction by the novel's end strikes the reader as somehow inevitable. Whereas Milvain and Reardon's widow Amy are left to come together as the triumphant niche occupants and thus reproduce themselves in their offspring, should they decide to produce any.

George Gissing's 1891 novel, "New Grub Street," is likely one of the most depressing books I've ever read. Certainly, in its descriptions of literary life, be it in publishing, or in my own realm of graduate scholarship, the situations, truths, and lives Gissing portrays are still all too relevant. "New Grub Street" itself points to the timelessness of Gissing's portrayals - as Grub Street was synonymous, even in the eighteenth century with the disrepute of hack writing, and the ignominy of having to make a living by authorship. One of Gissing's primary laments throughout the novel is that the life of the mind is of necessity one which is socially isolating and potentially devastating to any kind of relationships, familial or otherwise. "New Grub Street" gives us a world where friendship is never far from enmity, where love is never far from the most bitter kinds of hatred.

The anti-heroes of "New Grub Street" are presented to us as the novel begins - Jasper Milvain is a young, if somewhat impoverished, but highly ambitious man, eager to be a figure of influence in literary society at whatever cost. His friend, Edwin Reardon, on the other hand, was brought up on the classics, and toils away in obscurity, determined to gain fame and reputation through meaningful, psychological, and strictly literary fiction. Family matters beset the two - Jasper has two younger sisters to look out for, and Edwin has a beautiful and intelligent wife, who has become expectant of Edwin's potential fame. Throw into the mix Miss Marian Yule, daughter of a declining author of criticism, whose own reputation was never fully realized, and who has indentured his daughter to literary servitude, and we have a pretty list of discontented and anxious people struggling in the cut-throat literary marketplace of London.

Money is of supreme importance in "New Grub Street," and it would be pointless to write a review without making note of it. As always, the literary life is one which is not remunerative for the mass of people who engage upon it, and this causes no end of strife in the novel. As Milvain points out, the paradox of making money in the literary world is that one must have a well-known reputation in order to make money from one's labours. At the same time, one must have money in order to move in circles where one's reputation may be made. This is the center of the novel's difficulties - should one or must one sacrifice principles of strictly literary fame and pander to a vulgar audience in order to simply survive? The question is one in which Reardon finds the greatest challenges to his marriage, his self-esteem, and even his very existence. For Jasper Milvain and his sisters, as well as for Alfred and Marian Yule, there is no question that the needs of subsistence outweigh most other considerations.

"New Grub Street" profoundly questions the relevance of classic literature and high culture to the great mass of people, and by proxy, to the nation itself. For England, which propagated its sense of international importance throughout the nineteenth century by encouraging the study of English literature in its colonial holdings, the matter becomes one of great significance. The careers of Miss Dora Milvain and Mr. Whelpdale, easily the novel's two most charming, endearing, and sympathetic characters, attempt to illustrate the ways in which modern literature may be profitable to both the individual who writes it and the audiences towards which they aim. They may be considered the moral centers of the novel, and redeem Gissing's work from being entirely fatalistic.

"New Grub Street" is a novel that will haunt me for quite some time. As a "man of letters" myself, I can only hope that the novel will serve as an object lesson, and one to which I may turn in hope and despair. The novel is well written, its characters and situations drawn in a very realistic and often sympathetic way. Like the ill-fated "ignobly decent" novel of Mr. Biffen's, "Mr. Bailey, Grocer," "New Grub Street" may seem less like a novel, and more like a series of rambling biographical sketches, but they are indelible and lasting sketches of literary lives as they were in the original Grub Street, still yet in Gissing's time, and as they continue to-day. Very highly recommended.

"New Grub Street," published in three volumes in 1891, is George Gissing's grimly realistic exploration of literary life in 1880s London. While it is a remarkably vivid novel, it is also an accurate and detailed depiction of what it was like to be a struggling author in late nineteenth century England, "a society where," as Professor Bernard Bergonzi points out in his introduction, "literature has become a commodity, and where the writing of fiction does not differ radically from any other form of commercial or industrial production."

"New Grub Street" is the contrapuntal narrative of two literary figures, Edwin Reardon, a struggling novelist who aspires to write great literature without regard to its popular appeal, and Jasper Milvain, a self-centered, materialistic striver whose only concern is with achieving financial success and social position by publishing what the mass public wants to read. As Milvain relates early in the novel, succinctly adumbrating the theme that winds through the entirety of "New Grub Street":

"Understand the difference between a man like Reardon and a man like me. He is the old type of unpractical artist; I am the literary man of 1882. He won't make concessions, or rather, he can't make them; he can't supply the market. I-well, you may say that at present I do nothing; but that's a great mistake, I am learning my business. Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius, who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skillful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets. . . . Reardon can't do that kind of thing, he's behind his age; he sells a manuscript as if he lives in Sam Johnson's Grub Street. But our Grub Street of today is quite a different place: it is supplied with telegraphic communication, it knows what literary fare is in demand in every part of the world, its inhabitants are men of business, however seedy."

Gissing brilliantly explores this theme through the lives of his characters, each drawn with stunning depth and verisimilitude. There is, of course, Reardon, whose failure as a novelist and neurasthenic decline destroys his marriage and his life. There is also Reardon's wife, Amy, a woman whose love for Reardon withers with the exsanguination of her husband's creative abilities. While the manipulative and seemingly unfeeling Milvain pursues his crass aspirations, he also encourages his two sisters, Dora and Maud, to seek commercial success as writers of children's books. And intertwining all of their lives are the myriad connections each of the characters has with the Yule family, in particular with the nearly impoverished Alfred Yule, a serious writer and literary critic, and his daughter and literary amanuensis, Marian.

It is Marian--struggling to reconcile the literary demands and expectations of her father with the desire to lead her own life, struggling to escape the claustrophobic world of the literary life--who ultimately, pessimistically challenges the verities of that life while sitting in its physical embodiment, the prison-like British Museum library:

"It was gloomy, and one could scarcely see to read; a taste of fog grew perceptible in the warm, headachy air. . . . She kept asking herself what was the use and purpose of such a life as she was condemned to lead. When already there was more good literature in the world than any individual could cope with in his lifetime, here she was exhausting herself in the manufacture of printed stuff which no one even pretended to be any more than a commodity for the day's market. What unspeakable folly! . . . She herself would throw away her pen with joy but for the need of earning money. . . . This huge library, growing into unwieldiness, threatening to become a trackless desert of print-how intolerably it weighed upon the spirit."

It is Marian, too, who ultimately becomes the romantic victim of Milvain's aspirations, the powerful language of Gissing's anti-romantic subplot twisting into almost gothic excess as he extends the metaphor of London's fog to Marian's sleepless depression:

"The thick black fog penetrated every corner of the house. It could be smelt and tasted. Such an atmosphere produces low spirited languor even in the vigorous and hopeful; to those wasted by suffering it is the very reek of the bottomless pit, poisoning the soul. Her face colorless as the pillow, Marian lay neither sleeping nor awake in blank extremity of woe; tears now and then ran down her cheeks, and at times her body was shaken with a throe such as might result from anguish of the torture chamber."

"New Grub Street" is deservedly regarded not only as Gissing's finest novel, but also as one of the finest novels of late nineteenth century English literature. Grimly realistic in its depiction of what it was like to be a struggling writer in late nineteenth century London, it is also remarkable for its historical accuracy and its literary craftsmanship. If you like the realism of writers like Harding and Zola, then "New Grub Street" is a book you must read!

Never Street is an excellent addition to the Amos Walker series. After a client turns missing, Amos must investigate, leading him into the seamy underworld of blackmail and betrayal and one man's obsession with noir film.

While I liked Never Street, I am not a big fan of 'old movies,' which I felt was an underlying theme in this installment. Film Noir is a genre, I think that is much better 'viewed' than read about. Overall, another light, entertaining read with plenty of puns and snappy comebacks, sure to delight fans of the rest of the series.

After a seven year absence, tough guy Detroit private detective Amos Walker returned in 1997 with "Never Street." I'm a huge fan of P.I. fiction, and Walker is one of the best around. He doesn't work the streets of Detroit so much as he INHABITS them. "Never Street" is longer and more complex than any Walker story up until that time as Amos tries to find a missing video producer and noir film buff who appears to be acting out his fantasy of sisappearing into one of his movies. For any fan of classic film noir, this is a MUST read. As a mystery, it reads reasonably well, although is not nearly as good as the best of the Walker series (novels such as "Sugartown" and "The Glass Highway"). Walker novels suffer a bit from too little reliance on supporting characters. Reappearing cops John Alderdyce and Mary Ann Thaler make a brief turn here, but only in the background of the story. Walker does have a rare romance this time out, and that helps give the story a bit of a lift.

Overall, fans of Amos Walker should enjoy this entry in the series. His is a welcome return.

If, for some reason, you must read books that are well written, with tough talking, wise-cracking, good intentioned, interesting, likeable private eyes who live in the atmospheric pages of a master crime writer, then you must read this book. Great fun for lovers of the hard-boiled genre. Read all of Estelman's Amos Walker series and you'll be have something to measure all the rest by.