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Boeing 1, Airbus 0: Michael Haenggi, Boeing Widebodies (Enthusiast Color Series)

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

The world is full of people who would never imagine that a book about a company that makes commercial airplanes could be riveting. I was one of them until I read Michael Haenggi’s elegantly written (can this man be an engineer?) tale of Boeing’s back-to-the-wall fight for market share against the likes of Lockheed, Douglas, McDonnell-Douglas and the latter-day Hercules, Airbus. Continue Reading »

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Now we’re talkin’!: Reuben Alcalay, Complete English-Hebrew Dictionary, New Enlarged Edition

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

As a poor graduate student, I once inquired of the principal lecturer in modern Hebrew whether I could get away with snagging a mid-priced Hebrew-English dictionary.

I will never forget the condescending—not to say disdainful—look with which she said, ‘Well, I suppose you could … But as a PhD student in Hebrew, I can’t imagine that you can get away without owning the Alcalay.’ Continue Reading »

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the blood of one’s brothers: Gods and Generals (DVD)

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

An almost endearing stiltedness undergirds this fine film’s narrative, as though set pieces have been prepared in order to allow the characters to deliver solemn speeches Though this may appear artificial and even insincere to modern movie-viewers, it is a dramatic technique at least as old as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. What Gods and Generals shares with those ancient poetic ballads is the celebration of the fighting man’s nobility, his rage, and the juxtaposition of profoundly ordinary human sentiment alongside the most inhumane deeds one can imagine. Continue Reading »

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a completely different flight: Flight 93. The Movie (DVD)

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

This fine A&E reenactment of one slice of the confusing events of September 11, 2001 succeeds in showing the combination of ad hoc citizen response and highly professional management that greeted the high-speed unfolding of those incomprehensible events. Continue Reading »

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too hungry for it all: Educating Rita (DVD)

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

This jewel of a film ought to be seen by all who teach, learn, or wish they were doing either.

Julie Walters turns in the Oscar-nominated performance of a lifetime as an Open University working-class student turning up at Michael Caine’s (also Oscar nominated) Oxford rooms for tutoring in literature.

The results are hilarious but – more important – deeply revealing of the pretensions on both sides of the class gap that separates these two stars of this low-budget 1983 production. Continue Reading »

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‘Something relatively devastating’: United 93 (Widescreen Edition)

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

The lives of the crew and passengers of United Flight 93 were extinguished when the Boeing 757 in which they were traveling plowed into Pennsylvania farmland on September 11, 2001. United 93 pays them apt tribute. Continue Reading »

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Is there a Christian mind?: Books and Culture. A Christian Review

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

One of American evangelicalism’s sympathetic critics once asked whether there is such a thing as a Christian mind. For all sorts of reasons—some more than justified—questioners, skeptics, and malnourished pilgrims have produced negative responses to the query.

But perhaps things are better than all that. Continue Reading »

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Great ROI: Matthew Bishop, Essential Economics (Economist Essentials)

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

This badly named but invaluable book is vintage Economist style, method, and theory. If it is not what its title leads one to believe, this is pardonable on the grounds that it is perhaps better than that. Continue Reading »

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Cry, the beloved country! (take two): Leonard Thompson, A History of South Africa

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

2000 was a rough year for publishing a history of South Africa, even one as superbly written and brilliantly researched as Leonard Thompson’s far too blandly titled A History of South Africa. Continue Reading »

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Be da’ man: John Eldredge, Wild at Heart. Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul

August 22, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

John Eldredge launched a new phase of the Christian men’s movement with his 2001 publication of Wild at Heart. Continue Reading »

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