If Brady would spend a little more time examining this module, I feel as though they can make it a little less imposing and a little more readable.

". . . [T]his book does not claim to have a monopoly on the truth of Marilyn's life." The book ". . . aims to be a work of reference and an extraordinary read." " . . . [I]t is only apt for the fans to seek out their own truths about Marilyn."

When stars are alive, fan magazines and television reporters capture endless amounts of information about the person's activities. This context for Ms. Monroe's life comes alive in easy-to-use detail in this remarkably complete volume. Think of an aspect of her life that you want to know. Look that point up alphabetically, and you will probably find it here. For example, I looked up Hugh Hefner, and found that he had published nude photographs of Ms. Monroe and was a fan of her work. To follow that thread, you can also find the photographer who made those images and who published the famous calendar. This reference includes a photograph of the photographer, with the calendar on the wall behind him. Very nicely done!

The references were even-handed in almost all cases, so those who have a point of view about that aspect of Ms. Monroe's life will see the other side. For example, there is a section on her suicide attempts that details when they occurred and the circumstances surrounding each of them.

I was impressed that the book contained details that I never thought I would know. Unless you are a real Marilyn expert, you will probably have the same reaction. For example, there is a section on the movies she considered acting in, but did not. You even get her connections to the Academy awards. She never won one, but she presented. You get a photograph of the outfit she wore that night.

As great as the detailed written references are, I enjoyed the visual references more. There are 170 color and 205 black and white photographs in the book. Many of them are very small, as befits a reference work rather than a photography book. They expose new sides of Ms. Monroe by showing her mood, body language, and clothing styles at various stages in her life. You can see the gradual shift from vibrant young woman, to carefully posed star. The book shows you movie posters, publicity stills, shooting on the set, informal scenes with co-stars, vacations, dates, and family photos. There is even a section containing photographs of the women who have acted as Ms. Monroe in television shows and movies.

If you are a Marilyn Monroe fan, I suspect that you will want to have this book and that you will treasure it for years to come.

After you finish looking up everything you can think of, I suggest you also just read each page. There are many details here that you would never think to look up.

If you just think Ms. Monroe was beautiful, you'll be pleased with the many full-page images of her.

After you finish this book, I suggest that you think about the irony of how someone who provided so much happiness for others was so unhappy herself. What can you do to help people who share her unhappiness?

Give love . . . always!

Steve Hawkins

"This book will explore the attitudes that Jesus and his followers took toward marriage, family, procreation, and celibacy, and thus toward "human nature" in general, and the controversies these attitudes sparked as they were variously interpreted among Christians for generations -- or for millenia, depending on how one counts."

Pagels' book assumes some primary knowledge of early Church history, as Pagels' primary focus is on the different uses of the early chapters of Genesis in reference to the political and theological challenges of the first five centuries of Christianity. Although the six chapters loosely follow the chronology, the focus of the content in each chapter is topical, rather than historical. It's a little difficult at first to read the chapters together into a whole, but the themes that emerge in the early chapters do build upon one another, up to the sixth chapter in which the interpretation of the creation and fall is discussed the most. Some of these themes are the following:

1.Is it better to be celibate or to have a family? Even as far back as the New Testament, the question isn't 100% clear. According to Luke (as Pagels reads it), Jesus' admonition against divorce is absolute, and the "marrying and giving in marriage" is a sign of commitment to the affairs of this world instead of the coming Kingdom of God. In both instances, passages from Genesis (chapters 1 and 6) are applied to make the point. However, Matthew's use of Luke's material here adds some qualifiers to the prohibition of divorce. On a similar note, the differences can't be ignored between Paul's celibacy and lukewarm approval for marriage in I Corinthians and "Paul's" outright advocacy of marriage and family in I Timothy.

2.What exactly is "liberty"? The Christians, when they were treated as second-class citizens under Roman rule, argued for the right not to worship the imperial gods, which many thought were real demons who were the impure product of the "sons of God" and "daughters of men" in the pre-flood times (Genesis chapter 6). The Roman idea of liberty was living under a good emperor, and that the criticism of their practices amounted to a form of treason. In support of this, the idea that all men were created by God "in his image" proved appealing to those in the underclass who suffered in the empire. But when Christianity became the religion of the empire, questions of religious liberty were asked in a completely different context.

3.Is the path to God, or a more intimate relationship with him, achievable through human effort? The gnostics thought so -- they took interpretations of Genesis to extraordinary lengths, some holding that mankind was governed by preexisting forces that were beyond their free will, and that it was the reintegration of the good forces within us through knowledge that made Christians complete. The ascetics also thought human effort brought them closer to God, by rejecting both sexualty and the comforts of the world. Oddly enough, the way that each of these movements were criticized went in two different directions. In repudiating the gnostics, the church fathers argued that Christianity was not about finding a cosmic ebb and flow and the acceptance of suffering, but about a moral freedom to choose a moral life. Two centuries later, the muscular efforts of the ascetic life were made dim by the emergence of Augustine's pessimism about human nature, i.e., that no effort was sufficient to escape our defective natures.

At the end of the formation process, with all of these elements in the mix, we end up with a view of humanity that to the outsider would appear to be the worst of all options: the original sin is perpetuated by the childbirth process, nature itself is defective (with disease and stillbirth cited as evidence), no one can remove the stain of the original sin -- not even converted believers. Pagels explains that this view of mankind, and of the fall, was not only well-suited to a centralized church authority, it also provided the individual with an explanation of why bad things happen in the world.

Whether intentional or not, a good deal of the book is framed in reference to how Christian orthodoxy has been formed in reaction to a crisis -- the Jewish society, the Roman empire, the gnostic subversiveness, and the Pelagian opposition to centralized church rule. While it may seem that the Catholic Church has been the same for at least 1600 years, Pagels' book provides a partial glimpse of how much in flux the first 400 years were in shaping orthodoxy.

Ms. Pagels is a good writer but tries to cover quite a lot of ground here. As to her basic thesis that the story of Genesis has influenced Western culture and the average Joe is not supremely aware of this, well yeah, and what else is new?

Where this book really shines is when she writes about anecdotal and speculative history : Were the gnostics really far out nutcases ? Why were Christians persecuted throughout the Roman Empire in the first place? Was St. Augustine a bit perturbed about bodily functions?

This makes for some very interesting reding. While others believe persecution came about as a popular backlash within Roman society precisely because of gnostics or more "fringe" Christians making a spectacle of themselves

(And how would you feel if you were at your synagogue or the temple of Diana and someone started 'speaking in tongues' out loud and wouldn't shut up?)

Pagels makes a reasonable argument that the gnostics were the church. Sometimes the majority, depending upon locale.

Furthermore, while Jews were "licensed atheists" to the Romans , getting away with praying for the Emperor's health rather than the obligatory pagan sacrifice to the Emperor's 'genius', the Christians did not enjoy such status and were seen as subversive to a point which we fail to appreciate due to our own prejudice: We assume the majority of pagans didn't really believe all that mumbo jumbo, especially not sophisticates, or Stoics like Marcus Aurelius.

Pagels makes the case that they did believe that the gods embodied 'forces of nature' VERY seriously, and that refusing homage to 'annointed' head of state would be greeted as cheerfully as we would respond to someone spitting on the flag.

As to the entire Augustine vs Pelagius argument, it's a fun ride if you're not familiar with it, what with bribing the Imperial Guards with horses and so on, so I don't want to give too much away. Suffice it to say it was one of the turning points in Church history. Indeed before 500 A.D. It's hard to prove that anyone believed in 'Original Sin.'

Augustine's hero St. Paul, though a kindred soul in celibacy, would have likely found Augustine's conclusions regarding the ultimate depravity of human nature (not excluding baptized Christians) somewhat pessimistic in contrast with Pauls's own 'Good News.'

What is fascinating is the Augustine came to 'Original Sin' as an answer in Theodicy (The nature of evil--or in the vernacular 'Why Bad things happen to Good People'-- )

Given the premises that there is a God and He is Just and children are born retarded, deaf, blind etc. Augustine's logical(?) conclusion is that these innocents are in a sense 'infected' by their parents. That Adam and Eve's sin of disobedience is transmitted through the semen.

Good book about some of our predecessor's ideas and which ones won the fight for Western man. As Pagel notes, the belief that 'All men are created equal' which the founders took for granted, comes from theology not logic. Aristotle would have found it absurd.

I can't wait to see what Alina Adams has in store for the future. It can't come soon enough for me.

The book starts by giving an overview of the common types of classical engineering analysis including, free body diagrams, moments of inertia, stress and strain, beam theory, failure theories and dynamic analysis. After this introduction there is no more mathematics to be found in the book. The next chapter discusses the capabilities and limitations of both h-element and p-element codes. The critical distinction between correctness and accuracy is also made clear.

In part 2 the basic types of modelling are covered with plenty of examples showing how in practical terms the modelling should be carried out. The effect of choosing different constraint systems is clearly demonstrated. There is an extremely useful section on how to build CAD models that are "Finite Element friendly"; something that is rarely discussed in other works. In chapter 8 boundary conditions are discussed in more detail and good use is made of example models showing how different constraint systems affect the answer; sometimes very dramatically. The techniques necessary for a successful part optimisation are covered, from concept design selection through fine tuning to local sensitivity analysis.

In part 3 more complex analysis issues are tackled, including joints, welds & press-fits. Non- linear, modal and dynamic analysis are covered briefly but in sufficient detail for the analyst to get started in these difficult fields.

The final part of the book covers how to choose the correct FEA system for your needs and how to successfully integrate finite element analysis into the design process. Hardware requirements are discussed in general terms. Finally some predictions are made for the future of structural analysis.

I would thoroughly recommend this book to designers and analysts who wish to get the most out of their analysis. It distils many years of finite element expertise into a highly readable book which should be on the shelf of all product designers who use, or wish to use, finite element analysis tools. It should also be read by engineering managers who wish to appreciate the potential pitfalls of FEA, and so fully reap the benefits rather than getting 'pretty pictures'.

Richard Adams has long been my favorite 20th century novelist. His ability to make an epic fantasy feel intimate and utterly believable, in addition to his brilliant imagination, sets him apart from every other fantasy novelist I've ever read.

Shardik is no exception. I just finished reading Shardik for the second time and can't help but marvel at Mr. Adams' genius. The world he describes in Shardik (and again in Maia) is as unforgettable as its denizens.

Shardik and its companion piece/prequel, Maia, are no longer available commercially, but there are still a lot of copies floating around out there that I'm sure Amazon could hunt down for you. Don't miss the opportunity to read this story. Not only will you love it, you'll probably find yourself wishing that Mr. Adams had written even more about the land of Bekla.

Richard Adams has long been my favorite 20th century novelist. His ability to make an epic fantasy feel intimate and utterly believable, in addition to his brilliant imagination, sets him apart from every other fantasy novelist I've ever read.

Shardik is no exception. I just finished reading Shardik for the second time and can't help but marvel at Mr. Adams' genius. The world he describes in Shardik (and again in Maia) is as unforgettable as its denizens.

Shardik and its companion piece/prequel, Maia, are no longer available commercially, but there are still a lot of copies floating around out there that I'm sure Amazon could hunt down for you. Don't miss the opportunity to read this story. Not only will you love it, you'll probably find yourself wishing that Mr. Adams had written even more about the land of Bekla.