This kind of thing is delicious fun to read about, though not as well written as its obvious antecedent, The Nanny Diaries. And therein lies the essential problem of the book. Andrea's goal in life is to work for The New Yorker--she's only sticking it out with Miranda for a job recommendation. But author Weisberger is such an inept, ungrammatical writer, you're positively rooting for her fictional alter ego not to get anywhere near The New Yorker. Still, Weisberger has certainly one-upped Me Times Three author Alex Witchel, whose magazine-world novel never gave us the inside dope that was the book's whole raison d' etre. For the most part, The Devil Wears Prada focuses on the outrageous Miranda Priestly, and she's an irresistible spectacle. --Claire Dederer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Most recent college grads know they have to start at the bottom and work their way up. But not many picture themselves having to pick up their boss's dry cleaning, deliver them hot lattes, land them copies of the newest Harry Potter book before it hits stores and screen potential nannies for their children. Charmingly unfashionable Andrea Sachs, upon graduating from Brown, finds herself in this precarious position: she's an assistant to the most revered-and hated-woman in fashion, Runway editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly. The self-described "biggest fashion loser to ever hit the scene," Andy takes the job hoping to land at the New Yorker after a year. As the "lowest-paid-but-most-highly-perked assistant in the free world," she soon learns her Nine West loafers won't cut it-everyone wears Jimmy Choos or Manolos-and that the four years she spent memorizing poems and examining prose will not help her in her new role of "finding, fetching, or faxing" whatever the diabolical Miranda wants, immediately. Life is pretty grim for Andy, but Weisberger, whose stint as Anna Wintour's assistant at Vogue couldn't possibly have anything to do with the novel's inspiration, infuses the narrative with plenty of dead-on assessments of fashion's frivolity and realistic, funny portrayals of life as a peon. Andy's mishaps will undoubtedly elicit laughter from readers, and the story's even got a virtuous little moral at its heart. Weisberger has penned a comic novel that manages to rise to the upper echelons of the chick-lit genre.
Copyright 2003 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Charlie Papazian, master brewer and founder and president of the American Homebrewer's Association and Association of Brewers, presents a fully revised edition of his essential guide to homebrewing. This third edition of the best-selling and most trusted homebrewing guide includes a complete update of all instructions, recipes, charts, and guidelines. Everything you need to get started is here, including classic and new recipes for brewing stouts, ales, lagers, pilseners, porters, specialty beers, and honey meads.

The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, third edition, includes:

• Getting your home brewery together: the basics -- malt, hops, yeast, and water
• Ten easy lessons for making your first batch of beer
• Creating world-class styles of beer (IPA, Belgian wheat, German Kölsch and Bock, barley wine, American lagers, to name a few)
• Using fruit, honey, and herbs for a spicier, more festive brew
• Brewing with malt extracts for an unlimited range of strengths and flavors
• Advanced brewing techniques using specialty hops or the all-grain method or mash extracts
• A complete homebrewer's glossary, troubleshooting tips, and an up-to-date resource section
• And much, much more

Be sure to check out Charlie's The Homebrewer's Companion for over 60 additional recipes and more detailed charts and tables, techniques, and equipment information for the advanced brewer.

Founding president of the American Homebrewers Association and organizer for the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup, Charlie PaPazian avidly brews lagers, ales and honey meads. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Written by the finest writers of the popular CollegeHumor.com website, this book is filled with stories, blurbs, quotes, charts, graphs and illustrations not found on the site. Every author is a recent college graduate from a different university, ensuring that the topics covered in the book are relevant, timely, useful, and accessible for years to come.

The book is divided into quick and easy-to-read sections and is sure to be a winner with bathroom readers everywhere. The only college guide to devote the same amount of pages to "balancing your budget" and "building a bong out of anything," you're sure to learn something when reading The CollegeHumor Guide to College.

About The Author
The CollegeHumor Guide to College was written by an econ graduate student, a stand-up comic, a girl, and two Jews. Also features selected spotlight essays from other CollegeHumor.com contributors.

This focus on facts continues into part 2 of Daniels's guide, where it backs an admirably pragmatic take on beer styles and their importance in home-brewing. Daniels devotes a chapter to each of 14 major style categories, detailing historical origins and modern brewing techniques. He lays a contemporary groundwork by compiling and analyzing the recipes of the National Homebrew Competition's most successful beers. The assumption is that beers deemed representative of particular beer styles in modern competitions serve as ideal models for recipe creation. Among the information provided for each style is a chart showing the percentage of brewers using each type of grain and in what proportions the grains were added. Similar data are supplied for hop varieties, yeast strains, and water treatment. This reverse engineering of award-winning beers naturally benefits experienced brewers seeking to wow judges at the next competition. Yet, even brewers taking their first shy steps into creating their own recipes have much to gain from this kind of practical analysis. Daniels provides the basic tools a brewer of any level can use to formulate recipes with confidence and creativity. --Todd Gehman

Midwest Book Review
Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide To Brewing Classic Beer Styles is more than just a recipe book or merely another "how-to" manual, it is an indispensable guide intended for brewers interested in formulating their own beers based on classic styles, modern techniques, and their own vision of the perfect beer. With more than 200 tables, Designing Great Beers offers brewers knowledge on the essence of various styles, giving them the needed insight to create their own beers including "Six Steps to Successful Beer", "Hitting Target Gravity", "Pilsener and Other Pale Lagers", "Yellow-Red Proportions of Beers, Malts and Caramels", and "Common Hop Varieties and Their Typical Alpha Acid Levels". Designing Great Beers is must reading for every home brewer, microbrewer, and fun armchair reading for armchair reader contemplating the perfect brew.

The format of the book has not changed. A detailed table of contents lists 25 sections divided into chapters. The first, "Fundamentals," explains basic anatomy and physiology, the aging process, fitness, communicating with health professionals, and legal and ethical issues. The others cover specific organs, systems, diseases and disorders, drugs, and first aid. The sections dealing with organs and systems begin with the biology of the system and then explain the symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of diseases that may affect it. There are color diagrams of relevant anatomy as well as an eight-page insert of anatomical charts. This new edition has added material on violence against women, sexual dysfunction, chromosomal and genetic abnormalities in children, and travel health. The drug section now includes information about medicinal herbs and nutraceuticals and their interactions with other drugs. A new section called "Special Subjects" covers medical decision making, surgery, complementary and alternative medicine, amyloidosis, familial Mediterranean fever, and diseases of unknown origin. A series of appendixes contains information on weights and measures, common tests, generic and trade names of drugs, and resources for referrals.

Although it has fewer, less colorful illustrations than the American College of Physicians Complete Home medical Guide (DK, 1999) and lacks the flow charts of The Harvard medical School Family Health Guide (Simon & Schuster, 1999), The Merck Manual of medical Information continues to provide the most current, detailed medical information in a format and language that lay readers will understand at a reasonable price. Libraries owning the 1997 edition will want to update and the others will want to add this excellent resource to their consumer health reference collections. RBB
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved