Safari in Wildest Africa (Journeys Through World & Natur)

Book Description

Among the sunburned yellow grass of the savannah, two lion cubs play under the indolent gaze of their father, while a short distance away, a pack of hyenas fights over a gazelle carcass. Presenting a realistic, unflinching look at life on the African savannah, this fascinating volume from acclaimed naturalists Christine and Michel Denis-Huot reveals the many faces of this beautiful and challenging habitat. Capturing moments of peaceful harmony and episodes of harsh reality, these exceptional images offer readers a uniquely personal, up-close perspective on life in one of the most intriguing and complex habitats in the world. The Denis-Huots bring to this book the same depth of information and sense of respect and admiration for African wildlife that made their recent publication, Lords of the Savannah, so compelling. With their firsthand knowledge of the African savannah and ability to capture on film moments we would never ordinarily witness, they are uniquely equipped to chronicle the circle of life in a truly wild world. Accompanying hundreds of photographs, the engaging text provides the latest finding on the habits and habitats of the denizens of the savannah, and expresses the authors' fascination with life in wildest Africa.

"Beyond Our Wildest Dreams": The United Democratic Front and the Transformation of South Africa

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"Beyond Our Wildest Dreams": The United Democratic Front and the Transformation of South Africa
Ineke Van Kessel
Manufacturer: University of Virginia Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

As anyone who lived through that decade knows, the 1980s in South Africa were marked by protest, violent confrontation, and international sanctions. Internally, the country saw a bewildering growth of grassroots organizations--including trade unions, civic associations in the black townships, student and other youth organizations, church-based groups, and women's movements--many of which operated under the umbrella of the United Democratic Front (UDF). "Beyond Our Wildest Dreams" explores the often conflicted relationship between the UDF's large-scale resistance to apartheid and its everyday struggles at the local level.

In hindsight, the UDF can be seen as a transitional front, preparing the ground for leaders of the liberation movement to return from exile or prison and take over power. But the founding fathers of the UDF initially had far more modest ambitions. As Azhar Cachalia, one of its core activists, later explained: "Look, when we founded the UDF, we had never in our wildest dreams expected that events would take off in the way they did. What happened was beyond everybody's expectations."

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A VERY NICE READ

Great Team, Lousy Writer

Flawed

East Coast Bias but Smells OK

A collection of falsehoods

The Pivotal Season: How the 1971--72 Los Angeles Lakers Changed the NBA
Charley Rosen
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Show: The Inside Story of the Spectacular Los Angeles Lakers In The Words of Those Who Lived It

The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball

Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era

Wilt: Larger than Life

Madmen's Ball: The Inside Story of the Lakers' Dysfunctional Dynasties

ASIN: 0312325096
Release Date: 2005-01-27

Book Description

An in-depth look at the most influential Lakers championship team-the coach, the players, the season that changed the NBA.The 1971-72 basketball season was one to go down in history. For the Los Angeles Lakers it was a season of records, an incredible championship, and many personal victories-by a team featuring several players bound for the NBA Hall of Fame. For the sport of basketball it was a season of transition, when West Coast style overcame East Coast sophistication. And for the fans, it was simply a season to remember.Charley Rosen, one of the best sports historians in recent years, brings to life all of the memories, events, and spectacles. Featuring an iconic all-star roster that includes Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West, The Pivotal Season is an account of some of the greatest names in the game and their contributions to one of the most remarkable seasons in history. This dramatic narrative credits the Lakers coach, Bill Sharman, who, though virtually unknown today, was the best basketball coach of his time.Photographs and action-packed narrative portray the pivotal 1971-72 season in this memorable book of sports history, which includes a special foreword by Phil Jackson. Basketball fans will be able to relive this amazing story of despair turned to triumph, when the Los Angeles Lakers won a record thirty-three consecutive games, persevered and defeated their archrival, the New York Knicks, won the championship-and in so doing changed the sport of basketball forever.

Customer Reviews:

A VERY NICE READ .......2006-09-24

I REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK CONCERNING THE GREAT 1971-72 SEASON OF THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS. THE BOOK GOES INTO GREAT DETAIL HOW THE LAKERS ASSEMBLED THIS AWESOME TEAM AND GIVES US A NICE GAME BY GAME SUMMARY. I FOUND SOME GREAT FACTS ABOUT ALL THE LAKERS, ESPECIALLY WILT, WEST, BAYLOR AND SHARMAN. I KNOW SOME ARE ERRORS APPEAR IN THIS BOOK BUT OVERALL I REALLY ENJOYED IT. I RECOMMEND THIS FOR ALL LAKER FANS WHO WANT TO READ ABOUT THE FIRST NBA TITLE THIS GREAT FRANCHISE WON. WORTH IT.

Great Team, Lousy Writer.......2006-09-13

First off, hats off to Judd Vance for his wonderful review. My comments are similar, there are so many lazy errors in this book that it diminishes a wonderful team.

Page 1 compares the Laker-Buck series of that year to rivalries like Dodgers-Yankees, Hatfields-McCoys, Louis-Schmeling and Michigan-Michigan State.

First off, comparing two good teams that met a couple of times does not make a rivalry. Second, Michigan-Michigan State is a big rivalry? I thought it was Michigan and Ohio State.

Rosen repeats the old cliche that LA anything is style and no substance. What a schlocky and wrong stereotype. I am a born and bred New Yorker and even I think it is a stereotype.

Page 3, if the Bucks double-teamed West and Goodrich, that leaves one man to cover Hairston, McMillan and Chamberlain. Is that ridiculous?

Page 62, Chamberlain and Russell were two vastly different people off the court and on. They were good friends.

Page 247, eastern teams do not play fast-break basketball. I guess the Celtics in the 50s and 60s never ran the ball.

Page 273, the Knicks in the early 70s were not a 1-hit wonder. In 70 they won it, 71 had them in the divisional finals, 72 had them lose to Lakers in finals, 73 they were champions, with the same core team.

It is a shame that this great team received such a careless and slipshod book like this.

Flawed.......2006-01-04

I was looking forward to this book based on my enjoyment of Rosen's book on Jack Molinas (Wizard of Odds). I was severely disappointed and question my own judgment of the Molinas book. There are a staggering number of factual errors in this book that could have been corrected by thumbing through a copy of the Basketball Encyclopedia or any number of websites that include boxscores of playoff games. I wouldn't have done that but for my own recollections that were at odds with Rosen's reports. I now question whether anything in his other books is worth the paper its written on.

East Coast Bias but Smells OK.......2005-09-06

When I heard that Charley Rosen was writing a book about my beloved '71-'72 Lakers, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I love reading Charley Rosen's stuff. I love his "old school" intuitive and theoretical sense of the game, his insider's knowledge of history, his humor, his passion, and his no-BS approach. In recent years, I have read some of his books and have avidly consumed his columns for ESPN and later Fox Sports. He has instant credibility with me. On the other hand, I've always imagined (fairly or not) that he's primarily a New York kinda guy with a malodorous east coast bias. I've always imagined him (fairly or not) to be Phil Jackson's devoted but undisciplined pit bull, with an un-housebroken attraction to the triangle offense and Jackson's dynastic teams. I imagined that he was going to chew my favorite childhood team to bits, and that his analysis would be a bunch of Bull (note multiple meanings). I couldn't imagine Charley Rosen writing a "nice" book about the '71-'72 Lakers (and certainly not about Wilt Chamberlain).

I figured the subtitle of the book had to be a bit sarcastic: "How the 1971-72 Lakers Changed the NBA." Was Rosen serious? As fond as I was of that Lakers team and its profound success, I couldn't imagine it in any way as being transformative or "pivotal." I remembered a team and a group of players that had spent over a generation losing to Boston and (ugh) New York teams. They WERE my childhood heroes, but I always had the sense that they had finally held it together enough to squeek through the toes of giants. Sure, there was the phenomenal 33-game win streak, but there were also all those turnovers, those worn out looks in the eyes of tired veterans who had habitually lost championships, and the ascendancy of young Kareem over aging Wilt (who seemed to be a forlorn but highly effective defender, but not a focus of the offense). I could imagine a book about the "pivotal" 1980 Lakers, because they really did make a significant dent in the NBA, according to my memory. But the '71-'72 Lakers? No way!

Well, I really enjoyed the book. It really did re-create the season, the time, and the place. It did this in a way that allowed me to look at events through adult eyes. It resurrected heroes from that era who do not get their due - Bill Sharman, Jim MacMillian, and more (and predictably, it attempted to take Wilt down several notches). The book was written in a way that I, a west coast Laker guy, can appreciate. So I wholly recommend the book.

Read the book but don't forget Rosen's east coast bias. He wrote the book to solve a mystery (and perhaps to tap in to the HUGE market of Laker fans). Because west coast basketball wasn't a blip on Rosen's radar until 1972, Rosen wanted to know more about the California team that brought home a championship for the first time. Well, fair enough, but I had to laugh at what Rosen considers to be "pivotal, transformative" part. In fact, the east coast "bias" was at the heart of what made the season "pivotal" for Rosen. Until 1972, "Hollywood" basketball was perceived (by Rosen and folks on the east coast) as glitzy, emotional, superstar-laden, lazy, fake basketball that wasn't effective and didn't measure up to NBA standards. The basketball "universe" was on the east coast, nowhere near L.A. Never mind that UCLA dominated college ball, or that the Lakers very nearly beat the Celtics a few times. Those California guys didn't measure up in the NBA. According to Rosen, the '71-'72 was "pivotal" because they made all those east coast dudes pay attention and acknowledge "Hollywood" basketball. According to Rosen, Coach Sharman's goal as coach was to "alchemize tinsel into gold and thereby establish Holiywood as the center of the basketball universe." Really? "West coast style overcame east coast sophistication." You get the sense that Rosen and Woody Allen look at the west coast through the same eyes. What "changed everything" in Rosen's world is that the those east coast guys had to recognize that the west coast actually existed.

A collection of falsehoods.......2005-09-01

This is a story that needs to be told, as this fabulous team is not given enough credit since their single-season victory record has been eclipsed. Unfortunately, the wrong guy is telling it.

Charley Rosen, is simply not a good writer. I had never heard of him until I read this book. Since then, I have read some of his articles on Fox Sports website, and I am more convinced that he is a lazy sportswriter, who won't look up facts and lets no truth stand in the way of his spreading his pompous erroneous ideas. No factoid is too big to ignore nor any truth too difficult to discard in his attempts to spread venom.

It is obvious quickly that Rosen is no fan of Wilt Chamberlain and worships Jerry West and Bill Sharman. Don't get me wrong, Wilt had his faults, and West was phenomenal, and Sharman should be in the hall of fame for his coaching, but I will present four passages to prove how much of a vendetta Rosen has:

Page 14 :
"Indeed, the Lakers were in firm control of the game when Chamberlain committed his fifth personal foul late in the third quarter. Coach Butch van Breda Kolff immediately sent Mel Counts, a lanky seven foot jump shooter, in for Chamberlain.
Unfortunately, one of Chamberlain's most cherished personal records was his never having fouled out of a game. So when van Breda Kolff called for Chamberlain to reenter the fray midway through the fourth quarter, the big man refused, mumbling something about an aching knee. Infuriated by Wilt's monumental selfishness, van Breda Kolff vowed to keep Chamberlain on the bench and win the game, and the championship, with Counts.
As the game raced toward the wire with the Celtics relentlessly eating into the Lakers' lead, Chamberlain approached his coach and asked to return to the action. But the always stubborn van Breda Kolff refused, and Chamberlain sat on the bench for the duration."

Now, let's analyze the outright falsehoods of this passage:

#1) Wilt did not leave the game in the 3rd, but rather, there was 5:13 left in the 4th quarter.

#2) The Lakers were not "in firm control of the game" when Chamberlain left. They were down by 9 points.

#3 & 4) Wilt did not leave because he picked up his 5th foul, nor did he refuse to reenter the game when asked. He left because he went up for a rebound and when he came down, he banged his knee. After hobbling around on the court, he went to the bench to get topical spray applied. Wilt said, "They helped me off the court, and i just needed a breather for a second. Butch put in Mel Coutns for me, but after a minute I said I was ready to come back in. Butch ignored me." Van Breda Kolff even said, "Wilt was hurting and you could see him limping. I put in Counts, he hit a couple of shots and we made the comeback...Wilt told me that he was okay, but I said we'd keep things as they were. He told me a second time he wanted to go back in, but I told Wilt the truth. I said, 'We're playing better without you.' Earl Strom, who officiated the game, said, "In a sense, I respect Butch for making one of the dumbest moves any coach has ever made. You just don't try to win a title with Mel Counts when you have Wilt Chamberlain, but...He always was his own man and he would coach his own way." [All quotes taken from Tall Tales, by Terry Pluto.] For the record, Chamberlain played 43 minutes, and shot 7-for-8, scoring 18 points and pulling down 21 rebounds. Counts was 4-for-13 shooting with 5 points.

#5) The Celtics did not relentlessly eat into the Lakers lead with Chamberlain on the bench, rather, L.A. cut Boston's lead to 1 point.

There - five outright errors in one short passage. This is not obscure information. This can be found in many different books and articles. Rosen decided research was not needed, since he found his own brand of fiction is more entertaining, at least to himself.

Here is Rosen's account of the legendary "Willis Reed" game 7 in 1970: "Chamberlain, clearly intimidated by Reed's dramatic display of courage, was rendered passive and impotent." (p.15) Reed had 4 points and 2 rebounds. Chamberlain had 21 points and 24 rebounds. The Knicks' Walt Frazier, a guard mind you, had 39 points and 19 assists. Either West got burned or his coach lacked the faith in him to defend the hot hand. Do you see this mentioned? No. What Rosen also neglected to mention was that when Reed went down in game 5, the Lakers collapsed on Chamberlain and Rosen's idol Jerry West took only 2 shots the 2nd half, missing both, while the Lakers committed 30 turnovers, trying to force the ball into Wilt, rather than taking the open shot.

In another passage (p. 116), Rosen says after the 1970 finals, Chamberlain and Bill Russell never spoke again. Rosen obviously missed the Bob Costas interview with the 2 of them at the 1997 All-Star game, in which Russell made a public apology, and he must have missed the 1999 (2nd) retiring of Russell's number, in which Wilt was invited and attended, despite being in bad health, 5 months away from his death.

In another passage (p.136), Rosen is writing of Coach Sharman's ponderings about his player's ability to handle the pressure of winning the title. He writes, "West would probably be pressure proof...that left El Foldo (Chamberlain) himself.

Let's analyze this joke:

#1) Number of Championships at that point in time: Chamberlain 1, West 0.
#2) West had lost in the finals in 1962, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, and 70, 4 times losing in game 7. West never defeated Russell in the post-season. Chamberlain had (1967).
#3) West's only championship came after Chamberlain joined the team.
#4) In the 1972 post-season, West went cold in the conference finals against Milwaukee and in the finals against the Knicks. In the Milwaukee series, West shot 31-for-101 in 4 of the games. In the Finals, West shot 38-for-117, while "El Foldo", the Finals' MVP, averaged 21.6 ppg and 23.2 rpg, playing with a broken arm in a soft cast.

Furthermore, Rosen writes a chapter where he introduces each of the players, and when you read it, you can sense he really loves white basketball players, while taking digs at black players, with the exception being Columbia educated Jim McMillan. He also takes digs at Kareem Abdul-Jabbar throughout the story, while he loves the Knicks, namely Jerry Lucas, Dave DeBuscchere, and his buddy Phil Jackson (whom he co-wrote a book about).

The story of the Lakers is an interesting story, but with so much romanticized fiction tossed in, it detracts from the story and makes you wonder how much is true and how much is made up. The worst part, is it's a darned shame because so few books are written about this team, unlike, say, the 1970 Knicks.

Book Description

There is a world of difference between reading Japanese that has been especially concocted for students and reading real Japanese-that is, Japanese written for native speakers. The concocted variety might be called schoolmarm Japanese: standard to the point of insipidity, controlled to the
point of domestication, restricted to the point of impoverishment. Read Real Japanese provides the real thing-essays written by lively authors, meant to be enjoyed or pondered over.

Here are essays informed by the writer's personality, transformed by the message, moving with the flow of the whole, and shifting with the rhythm of paragraph and sentence. For students needing help, this has been provided in vocabulary lists and notes on usage. The vocabulary contains the English
equivalents of the Japanese text. The notes deal with subtler matters: with grammar, nuance, idiomatic usage, and the tricky little things that particles do. Whether for pleasure or for serious study, you are sure to find something of interest and value as you read real Japanese.

The featured writers are Yoko Mori, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Machi Tawara, Shoichi Nejime, Momoko Sakura, Seiko Ito, Banana Yoshimoto, and Haruki Murakami.

Customer Reviews:

Making the leap to authentic text.......2006-04-30

The leap to authentic text is a challenging hurdle, but a necessary one to achieve. Text books are usually made of carefully calculated dialogs and passages, designed to teach a grammar point rather than transfer information. However, once you have reached a certain level you want to go beyond that and into the real thing. That is, after all, why you are studying the language.

"Read Real Japanese" can help ease this transition, providing a guided tour through a few short stories of some of Japan's most prominent modern authors. Murakami Haruki ("Wind-Up Bird Chronicle") and Yoshimoto Banana ("Kitchen") are familiar with most students of Japanese, and it is a true pleasure to read their writings in the language in which they were written.

Janet Ashby has provided translations of the text, piece by piece, allowing you to check your personal translation against her professional work, as well as being a quick reference to unknown kanji, vocabulary and grammar. This is an excellent resource, not only for comprehension but also for seeing how some tricky Japanese grammar can be properly ordered into English.

The only drawback of "Read Real Japanese" is that Ashby has unfortunately chosen to give her translations in romaji rather than hiragana. Quality Japanese learning aids always reinforce hiragana rather than romaji, and anyone at the level necessary to tackle authentic text should have no trouble with kana.

Excellent intermediate - advanced text.......2004-09-28

Another fine title from Kodansha's bilingual series (also check out the wonderfully titled 'How to Sound Intelligent in Japanese') - this is indeed better for intermediate readers, and features an intriguing selection of essays by contemporary Japanese writers/ culture vultures.

This is an excellent stepping stone toward the ultimate goal of reading written Japanese quickly and effectively. Even advanced students will probably find many of the concepts and phrases contained within of great benefit. It is also useful for people who are looking for stimulating Japanese writers, to get a taste of some of the best contemporary authors, before exploring in depth.

The explanations and translations are uniformly excellent - this is a must-have for anyone serious about reading Japanese fiction in the original language.

Book Description

Digital Prepress for Comic Books is the ultimate reference used by professionals throughout the industry. With over 200 pages, 300 color illustrations, and detailed instructions, this manual will provide the answers and solutions you will need to successfully print a magazine. Whether you are planning to publish your own comics, or want to provide the best reproducible art possible, this item is a must-have for your professional library.

Customer Reviews:

Rough.......2006-11-04

I was quite disappointed by this book, I was expecting something with more professional level content. It's all very amateur however, the artwork used in the examples is sub-professional at best.
I was hoping that the book would deal with some of the specific Pre-Press issues relating to comics artwork, but the chapter there was frustratingly slight. You would be much better to buy a a more general pre-press book.
The quality of the packaging and printing were also quite poor for a book that cost this much.

Digital walk-through.......2006-07-16

This is a very informative and well presented, step-by-step guide to self-publishing. It covers all the complicated printing process and colouring stuff in a clear manner. Highly reccomended.

A Specialty Use of Photoshop.......2005-09-01

This book is on how to get your comic book ideas from out of your head onto a disk that you can take to a printer and get him to produce the comic book for you. The advent of powerful personal computers has meant that the hand drawn, hand lettered, hand colored prints from the past no longer are what the printer wants. Instead the book now goes to the printer on a disk.

Doing the work on a computer means software, and the author uses Photoshop. Most of the books on Photoshop are on manipulating photographs. Here the emphasis is on producing the art work for comic books. Photoshop obviously can do both, but the techniques and the particular tools used are different. For one thing there is a lot more information here on the printing process, including inks and paper.

While the author uses Photoshop, which is the professional software used throughout the industry most of the techniques could be used with less expensive software packages, or you might try buying an older version of Photoshop through eBay.

"Quark Xpress and Photoshop Four Comic Books".......2005-02-02

This book is more a specialized "how to" manual for specific software than a "definitive guide" for computer owners who want to make comics.

It is assumed by the author that the reader has three programs: Photoshop, Illustrator, and Quark Xpress. No other programs are ever mentioned, if you use anything else, this book was not written for you.

The author provides excellent information about how printing in color works, his hints on getting your colored artwork to look good on paper (as opposed to on your monitor) make "Digital Prepress for Comic Books" a worthwhile investment.

The book is, however, plagued with childish spelling errors--"there" instead of "thier," "use to" instead of "used to" etc. Considering the cost of the book, it could have benefitted from a proofreading.

If you read something read this!!!.......2003-08-12

Ok I'll be brief because my written English is not so good. If want to actually print your comics and you own or have access to Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop then this book is very useful to you. The book explains pre-press procedures so that you can understand how to get the juice out of your work. Now, the information is very technical so I wouldn't recomend this book to people that are not really interested in taking comics seriously. There is a fair amount of lettering tips in Illustrator and a huge amount of information about improving your scans and "retouch" your work in digital format. It also contains a chapter on Quark Xpress to achieve a good composition (having worked in comics myself I know this chapter is important).

Bottom line: If you are an independent comic book artist with a small staff and you want to do the pre-press yourself then this book is a must. If you are only interested in the area of color and lettering then "maybe" you should get this book, it will definitely help you, thats for sure. Please also note that this book will not teach you how to pait using Photoshop but it will show you how to balance and work with color FOR PREPRESS.

He could have used another penciller for the examples but thats just my opinion. :)

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