Giant Pandas: Gifts from China (Rookie Read-About Science)

Customer Reviews:

Pandas! Pandas! .......2004-11-29

Great book for emergent readers of English. Students just like mine!

Tales of Uncle Tompa: The Legendary Rascal of Tibet

Average customer rating:

a fun time
a fun time
Some one needed to do it
For adults only
Uncle Tomba Rules!

Tales of Uncle Tompa: The Legendary Rascal of Tibet
Rinjing Dorje
Manufacturer: Barrytown Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Folklore & Mythology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1886449406

Customer Reviews:

a fun time.......2001-06-02

This book is a good time. My grandmother introduced it to me as a small child mistakenly. Let me tell you, this book is not for children. It tells sutch stories as Uncle Tompa sells penises at the nunnery(ovioously not for the kids). In my openion this book is a riot. I loved it!

a fun time.......2001-06-02

Some one needed to do it.......2000-06-17

With all the super-holy images of Tibet, someone needed to write a counterbalance showing that Tibetans are people too. Rinjing Dorje has done an excellent job of this by retelling the stories he learning in the camps of herdsmen. The author has a sure sense of story in his rendition of the stories and the drawings are well matched to the style of the stories.

These stories may be "naughty" but they are all in good fun and represent the best of a ribald trickster figure - namely Uncle Tompa.

It would be wonderful to have additional volumes of stories of this delightful character.

For adults only.......1999-12-08

I enjoyed the Uncle Tompa stories. They showed a different side of Tibet, the one of everyday people. However, a caution should be thrown in that some of the stories and illustrations are very raunchy, and this book is not a good choice for a younger reader.

Uncle Tomba Rules!.......1998-01-01

I read, and reread, Rinjing Dorje's long out of print collection of Uncle Tomba stories. They present a raunchy, human perspective on real life Tibetans that is a welcome antidote to the holier- than-thou-by-far Tibetan high church that Hollywood is so enamoured with this year.

Monkey: A Superhero Tale of China, Retold from The Journey to the West

Average customer rating:

Best Historic Superhero!

Monkey: A Superhero Tale of China, Retold from The Journey to the West
Aaron Shepard
Manufacturer: Skyhook Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Action & Adventure | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 093849726X

Book Description

If you think Superman or Spiderman has been around a long time, think about Monkey. He has been China's favorite superhero for at least five centuries. He's amazingly strong, he can fly, and he has a few tricks those other superheroes never heard of. And he's always ready to do battle with demons, dragons -- sometimes even the gods. Monkey stars in The Journey to the West, an epic comic fantasy from the sixteenth century. The part retold here is about Monkey's origin and early career -- and the one time he didn't come out on top.

Customer Reviews:

Best Historic Superhero!.......2005-04-22

I loved "Monkey: A Superhero Tale of China"! Although Monkey steals the show, the supporting characters are terrific and round out the story nicely. We tend to read aloud, with sound effects, and the kids had a blast trying to make the sounds of the Dragons!

From May Fourth to June Fourth: Fiction and Film in Twentieth-Century China (Harvard Contemporary China Series)

Average customer rating:

Wonderful pictures and very informative

From May Fourth to June Fourth: Fiction and Film in Twentieth-Century China (Harvard Contemporary China Series)
Ellen Widmer , and David Der-wei Wang
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

History & Criticism | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Chinese | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0674325028

Book Description

What do the Chinese literature and film inspired by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) have in common with the Chinese literature and film of the May Fourth movement (1918-1930)? This new book demonstrates that these two periods of the highest literary and cinematic creativity in twentieth-century China share several aims: to liberate these narrative arts from previous aesthetic orthodoxies, to draw on foreign sources for inspiration, and to free individuals from social conformity.

Although these consistencies seem readily apparent, with a sharper focus the distinguished contributors to this volume reveal that in many ways discontinuity, not continuity, prevails. Their analysis illuminates the powerful meeting place of language, imagery, and narrative with politics, history, and ideology in twentieth-century China.

Drawing on a wide range of methodologies, from formal analysis to feminist criticism, from deconstruction to cultural critique, the authors demonstrate that the scholarship of modern Chinese literature and film has become integral to contemporary critical discourse. They respond to Eurocentric theories, but their ultimate concern is literature and film in China's unique historical context. The volume illustrates three general issues preoccupying this century's scholars: the conflict of the rural search for roots and the native soil movement versus the new strains of urban exoticism; the diacritics of voice, narrative mode, and intertextuality; and the reintroduction of issues surrounding gender and subjectivity.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful pictures and very informative.......2000-06-11

Widmer and Wang give a wonderful taste of contemporary film and fiction in this book, which would look good on any coffee table or bookshelf of any film connoisseur. It is also a good insight into the art of film in Communist China. Through it, you gain a better understanding of life and hardship in such a volatile period in China's history through the eye of a lens.

Average customer rating:

Science Fiction from China

Manufacturer: Praeger Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Chinese | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Anthologies | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0275933431

Book Description

Despite periods of heavy censorship and political opposition, science fiction has emerged in the People's Republic of China as a popular literary genre. This anthology of stories by six major Chinese science fiction writers is the first such collection to be published in English. The stories are enriched by China's ancient tradition of fantastic literature as well as that nation's fascination with futuristic science and technology, and they provide illuminating glimpses of Chinese attitudes, values, and daily life. Like most Chinese science fiction writers, the authors represented in this volume are engaged in scientific research or the popularization of science. Their work reflects the critical dictum that scientific fiction must be scientifically factual or based on reasonable extrapolations of known fact. Among the themes treated in these stories are people's use of and relationship to robots and clones; peaceful versus military application of technology; futuristic detection and intelligence operations; space exploration and warfare; and personal heroism, patriotism, and responsibility. The stories typically incorporate an optimistic view of science's contribution to the future of humankind. Wu provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of Chinese science fiction together with a chronological bibliography of stories, novels, and related critical works. This collection offers a unique perspective on modern China and a welcome opportunity to explore the Chinese contribution to one of the most popular forms of contemporary fiction.

Average customer rating:

An Important Contribution

Topographies of Japanese Modernism
Seiji M. Lippit
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Japanese | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0231125313

Book Description

What happens when a critique of modernity -- a "revolt against the traditions of the Western world" -- is situated within a non-European context, where the concept of the modern has been inevitably tied to the image of the West?

Seiji M. Lippit offers the first comprehensive study in English of Japanese modernist fiction of the 1920s and 1930s. Through close readings of four leading figures of this movement -- Akutagawa, Yokomitsu, Kawabata, and Hayashi -- Lippit aims to establish a theoretical and historical framework for the analysis of Japanese modernism.

The 1920s and 1930s witnessed a general sense of crisis surrounding the institution of literature, marked by both the radical politicization of literary practice and the explosion of new forms of cultural production represented by mass culture. Against this backdrop, this study traces the heterogeneous literary topographies of modernist writings. Through an engagement with questions of representation, subjectivity, and ideology, it situates the disintegration of literary form in these texts within the writers' exploration of the fluid borderlines of Japanese modernity.

Customer Reviews:

An Important Contribution.......2003-04-01

In this work Lippit considers Japanese fiction written during the late 1920s and 30s, a period that is important both because it was one of the most exuberantly experimental in Japanese literary history and also because it was the period leading up to the protracted period of militarism, ultranationalism, and war. Through close readings of four representative authors, Lippit illuminates key problems of modernity and urban culture and how these impacted upon literary practice. This period has been somewhat neglected by scholars of Japanese literature writing in English, and so by looking closely at the period and the cultural issues at stake, Lippit does us all a great service and helps flesh out the picture of twentieth-century fiction in Japan for an English-speaking audience. He provides a wealth of information and his interpretations are sensitive and textured. His writing is not "lyrical" but it is certainly clear, which is the best thing that one can ask of scholarship written for an academic audience. I highly recommend this book to everybody working in the fields of Japanese literature, Japanese cultural and intellectual history, comparative literature, urban culture, and modernity...Lippit is not a "mickey mouse intellectual" but a dedicated professional who has made an important contribution to his discipline...Kerim Yasar
Columbia University

Er-Lang and the Suns: A Tale from China (Folktales from Around the World)

Average customer rating:

Er-Lang and the Suns: A Tale from China (Folktales from Around the World)
Tony Guo , and Euphine Cheung
Manufacturer: Mondo Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1879531216

Just a Pile of Rice: A Story from China (BBC TV Science Challenge)

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Just a Pile of Rice: A Story from China (BBC TV Science Challenge)
Verna Wilkins , Gill McLean , and Barry Wilkinson
Manufacturer: Tamarind Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Picture Books | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1870516060

ESCAPE FROM CHINA (Trio : Rebels in the New World, No. 5)

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ESCAPE FROM CHINA (Trio : Rebels in the New World, No. 5)
R.A. Montgomery
Manufacturer: Starfire
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books

Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Teens | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0553285157
Release Date: 1990-05-01

The Abacus Contest: Stories from Taiwan and China (World Stories Series)

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The Abacus Contest: Stories from Taiwan and China (World Stories Series)
Priscilla Wu
Manufacturer: Fulcrum Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Short Story Collections | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Multiculturalism | Issues | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1555912435

Average customer rating:

Rubbish

Well-rounded Cookbook

I'm proud to have this book on my shelf and use it

Great book for a new cook

Excellent Cookbook / Wine Suggestions for non-foodie. Buy It.

The Food You Want to Eat: 100 Smart, Simple Recipes
Ted Allen
Manufacturer: Clarkson Potter
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
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Think Like a Chef

Beautified: Secrets for Women to Look Great and Feel Fabulous

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy : The Fab 5's Guide to Looking Better, Cooking Better, Dressing Better, Behaving Better, and Living Better

Off the Cuff: The Essential Style Guide for Men--And the Women Who Love Them

You're Different and That's Super

ASIN: 1400080908
Release Date: 2005-10-11

Amazon.com

Ted Allen, the food-and-wine expert from Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, has written a cookbook for those seeking a solid dish repertoire for everyday cooking and entertaining alike. The Food You Want to Eat offers 100 recipes for the likes of Old School Caesar Salad; Crispy Oven-Fried Crabcakes; Paella with Seafood, Chicken and Chorizo; and Mustardy Barbecued Spareribs. These favorites that live up to the book's title, but Allen also provides some repertoire-stretching dishes like Pan-Roasted Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette and Thai Green Chicken Curry with Vegetables. In his role as cooking tutor, and in asides like The Essentials of Steak, Allen also helps readers to understand how dishes work, and therefore how to cook more easily. A whole chapter that imparts cookout smarts, plus a short selection of easy-to-do meal-finales, which includes Chocolate-Glazed Almond Butter Cake, Warm Spiced Apple Tart, and New Age Floats, round out this useful, photo-illustrated collection. --Arthur Boehm

Book Description

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s food-and-wine connoisseur, Ted Allen, presents a quick-reference cookbook—giving you the food you really want to cook and eat, and the know-how to pull it off with ease.

"With most cookbooks, you could plow through 134 pages of complicated hors d’oeuvres, salads, and the author’s philosophical musings about food before you get to the stuff you actually want to eat. Not here. I’m going to save you the trouble and get to the point right up front.” These first sentences of the book sum up what Ted Allen’s The Food You Want to Eat is all about—the tempting, delicious, satisfying fare you really want on your dinner table tonight, without the fuss and the formalities. Chapters include:

•I Know What You Want to Eat: the essentials of steak, chicken both fried and roasted, warm caramel brownie sundaes, and a luscious mac and cheese that will have you thinking outside the box—way outside.

•Happy Hour: for the kind of parties real people actually throw; no engraved invitations or seating charts, just easy, delicious recipes like crostini, a simple tuna tartare that kicks, the crowd-pleasing spicy Cajun “pigs” in much nicer “blankets” than you’re used to, four incredible pizzas (one for each season), and of course ten perfect cocktails.

•The Cookout: fulfilling everyone’s desire for great barbecued ribs, plus the more adventurous (but even easier) rosemary grilled leg of lamb, and Ted’s secret to the ultimate hamburger.

•Poultry: whether baked, braised, or sautéed, chicken is often what’s for weeknight dinner, and here’s everything from soy-and-honey-glazed roast chicken to “around the world on a chicken breast” with superb ways to liven up those boneless, skinless, tasteless cutlets. Plus a simple (really!) duck, and a turkey that doesn’t demand the traditional Thanksgiving heroics.

Ted also delves into chapters on an array of fantastic salads that are a far cry from rabbit food; pastas featuring Italian classics like a great ziti with sausage and your basic pasta with red sauce, as well as easy Asian adventures such as cold soba noodles with sesame-peanut sauce; seafood for everyone who’s afraid to cook fish; meats that range from an amazing marinated grilled pork tenderloin and killer chili to a classic pot roast and osso buco; vegetable recipes that will make you love broccoli in a whole new way; and desserts for after dinner—and breakfasts for after after dinner.

This is the debut cookbook from one of the most engaging, most entertaining people ever to wield a spatula, filled with the incredibly simple, delicious real-life recipes for The Food You Want to Eat. In a word, mmmm.

Customer Reviews:

Rubbish.......2007-08-16

I got this as a gift and prompty regifted it after a read-through. First of all, Ted Allen has virtually no qualifications for calling himself an "expert." The only thing worse than having to read his book (which by the way has one of the worst cookbook titles of all time) is having to watch Ted Allen on television. He is a tasteless, unfunny dullard. Buy anything, ANYTHING else but this book.

Well-rounded Cookbook.......2007-03-30

Ted Allen, one of the Fab Five from "Queer Eye" on Bravo, specializes in food and wine. He's released a cookbook of delicious recipes that aren't impossible to reproduce. I'm basically the worst cook ever, but my husband and I successfully navigated through recipes for burgers, parmesan crisps, and new age floats. Ted includes social tips as well. At a cocktail party, put food and drinks on opposite sides of the party to encourage movement. I love this cookbook!

I'm proud to have this book on my shelf and use it.......2007-01-02

Designed to be `Smart, cool, easy food' recipes.

I had the privilege of meeting this author during a special dinner at the Joseph Ambler Inn in Pennsylvania. Besides being a very down-to-earth man, he also has put together a book of 100 recipes that really are very simple. Though I wasn't a fan of the small typestyle used for this book, the contrast in colors between the ingredients and the directions, made it a little easier to see. Every section had some facts or history to tell you what was coming up and each recipe had a personal story or reason for that recipe. Throughout the book, I could not find any ingredient that wasn't readily available at every grocery store. I also liked that many areas had a little `more information'. Sections like `How to buy fresh fish' or `what is organic food' or even `the trouble with buying scallops'. These areas help the beginner, and sometime the more seasoned cook learn something new for their kitchen. The book did not break my cardinal-rule, and keep all recipes on one or opposite pages. The evening I met Mr. Allen, I also had the opportunity to try several recipes from his book including Fennel Salad with Shrimp & Baby Arugula Fresh Orange Vinaigrette, the Halibut Braised with White Wine & Mushrooms, and the Red Wine Braised Short Ribs. The fennel in the salad was light in flavor but added a refreshing taste to the salad that was filled with the arugula, red onions, olives and blood oranges and perfectly cooked shrimp. The finishing flavors offered a nice peppery after-taste. The halibut was very tender that separated with my fork but I didn't think the sauce had a lot of flavor. The Braised short ribs were incredibly tender with meat that just fell apart with flavors that burst on my taste buds and lingered in my mouth. Other recipes in the book include Saucepan Macaroni and Cheese, Rosemary Marinated Olives, Tuna Tartare that kicks, Spicy Asian Slaw with Sesame and Sweet Red Pepper, Warm Spinach Salad with Bacon and Figs, Sesame-Peanut Noodles, Rosemary Grilled Leg of Lamb with Honeyed Yogurt, Pan-roasted Salmon with Sweet Tomato Vinaigrette, Cauliflower Puree, Warm Spiced Apple Tart and a variety of mixed drinks too.

I'm proud to have this book on my shelf and use it.

Great book for a new cook.......2006-11-10

I bought this book for my son and he has really enjoyed it. The recipes not the usual hamburger and mac/cheese. These are good recipes for people who like more sophisticated food but can get intimidated by long recipes.

Excellent Cookbook / Wine Suggestions for non-foodie. Buy It........2006-06-01

`The Food You Want to Eat (100 Smart, Simple Recipes) by foodie `Queer Eye', Ted Allen fits the mold of several other `celebrity non-chef' cookbooks where fame rests more on culinary journalism or TV presence or both. Never having seen a `Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' all the way through, my best exposure to Mr. Allen's culinary acumen has been as a judge on the Food Network's `Iron Chef America', and Mr. Allen gives much thanks to his fellow judge, Jeffrey Steingarten, Iron Chefs Bobby Flay and Mario Batali, and culinary commentator extraordinare, Alton Brown. Flay, Batali, and Brown have returned the favor by providing laudatory blurbs to adorn the cover of this book.

Speaking of covers, this book has the distinction of sporting a clear vinyl protective cover over its usual trade paperback. This gimmick encourages us to think of the book as less pervious to foody smudges on the book's pages as we make the luscious recipes contained herein. I'm sorry to say I believe the effort may be wasted, as it makes it more difficult to have the book lay flat, open to a particular page, which is a far more useful physical attribute of a cookbook. Well, the thought was there. At least it does seem as if the paper on which the pages are printed are just a bit more robust than your average trade paperback meant for nothing more strenuous than reading.

The titles of the book sets us up to expect a book of recipes for comfort food, trendy food, and easy to make food. My hero Alton's blurb offers the opinion that Mr. Allen has succeeded in both offering recipes for desirable dishes and in telling us the proper way to make these recipes. To a great extent, I have to agree with AB, with the comment that while Alton Brown gives us some of the ultimate foodie books, Allen's book is specifically NOT a foodie book. In that regard, it is much closer to what I understand his role on the `Queer Eye' show, where he and his colleagues give advice on living to people who are neither foodies, fashionistas, or any other flavor of obsessive / compulsive behavior.

I am happy to say that in fact, Ted Allen's book is better than several recent efforts by Food Network faves such as Giada De Laurentiis or Dave Lieberman. I agree completely with Alton in that these are indeed the kinds of recipes the average person will like to make on Saturday or Sunday or a holiday on the grill. He opens with a few `top ten' recipes for macaroni and cheese, roast chicken, grilled steak, braised short ribs, fried chicken, and caramel brownie sundaes. His procedures for these and all his other recipes are thoughtful and not necessarily `quick' versions, but then he didn't promise us fast, he only promised simple. For example, the fried chicken recipe calls for an overnight marinade in buttermilk. This is a step used by all the best southern cookery writers I've read, so he is off to a very good start. He also recommends frying in shallow oil rather than deep oil, exactly as recommended by our mutual mentor, Herr Brown.

Allen's next chapter is on antipasto, which he mistranslates as `before the meal' (I told you this wasn't a foodie book). The recipes come almost entirely from the Italian cuisine, and I am certain Allen is betting on the fact that you don't already own a good Italian cookbook (I told you this wasn't a foodie book). The very best thing about this chapter is the recipe for four seasonal and very respectable 100% made at home pizzas. Allen seems to make no mistakes and even gets the amount of yeast right, plus good advice on adjusting the amount of yeast and instructions on kneading the dough. The pizza recipes alone are worth the price of the book.

The chapter on drinks is a bit less impressive in that he provides recipes for both old standards and `new' drinks. If the drink recipes are `new', how do we know we really want these? I would have been happier with all old standards.

The third chapter is on pasta and rice. Very nice. The fourth chapter is on grilling. This will save your buying a 500 page Steve Raichlen `bible'. The fifth chapter has a few seafood recipes, but true to the book's title, they are all, like crab cakes, high on the hit parade. The sixth chapter is on poultry and has one of the more interesting sidebar sections on how to buy chicken. This chapter ends with one duck [...] and one turkey [...]. Both items are nearly as common as chicken nowadays. The meat chapter stays true to form with recipes for meat loaf, rack of lamb, chili, and osso buco. The chili recipe is typical in that while it is a very common dish, the procedure is better than average in calling for diced rather than ground beef. A+ on that one Ted. The vegetable chapter has a very nice range of techniques, including my favorite style of veggie dish, the potato gratin. The last chapter offers extra points I always give for a general recipe book that includes breakfast dishes. These recipes are excellent, except that they simplify the omelet just a bit too much and they make us go out and buy challah for French toast, when the whole object of French toast is to use up things we already have. Tsk, Tsk.

One thing the book does share with Giada's weaker book is that we get a slew of pics of luscious Mr. Allen rather than his luscious dishes. I don't think these were aimed at the straight guys.

Overall, this is an excellent first or only cookbook for the occasional cook. The recipes are easy to understand, the sidebars are all useful, and the choice of recipes fits the book's objective. Well done, Ted.

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