The Diaries of Adam and Eve is one of my favorite books. It's so gentle, funny, and deeply true I find myself loaning it to friends and giving it as a gift whenever I can. If you've not read Twain since Huckleberry Finn was forced upon you in junior high, this is a wonderful way to start reading Mark Twain's work again. If you've been looking for something to restore your faith in the worth of that whole man-woman thing, treat yourself to this book.

Although Mark Twain uses the story of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis as the framework for these "diaries," the biblical couple and his are two entirely different stories. Having said that, Twain's version is such a touching love story, especially as it is rendered in this recording, it is worth hearing (or reading) without making any comparisons to the first Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

I mention this because a high school student recently inquired with me about Twain's views on religion, and thought that these diaries might shed some light in his beliefs. While I encouraged her to read or listen to Twain's account, simply because of the beauty of the story, I don't think they shed much light on Twain's religious views.

I did find it interesting that Twain's Adam and Eve barely mention God at all. Perhaps that is a notable observation on his views of religion after all.

Twain's tender observations on the nature of men, women and love is what makes this a moving tale. Walter Cronkite's commentary at the end makes one appreciate the story even more.

Even Mark Twain's ephemera charms. This well edited collection of separately written pieces creates the whole that Twain himself might have made. It features his most insightful depiction of a female persona, Eve, who is the one truly engaged protagonist in this glimpse into Eden. She is the seeker, the thinker, and the emotionally active partner -- in short, the whole person. It is no wonder that Eve names the animals and discovers fire, while Adam lolls in a tree and complains about her talkativeness. He is remarkably complacent for a miracle of creation. Twain imaginatively and humorously evokes the naivete and sense of wonder of these two innocents as they discover the world and each other -- learn, even, to recognize that they are human. The fact that God is just a voice, mentioned once or twice, and the Fall is the unfortunate incident that changes their lives demonstrates that Twain was not interested in a religious parable. These diaries are his reflection on the nature of male and female personalities and the bond that draws and keeps men and women together. Though it feels somewhat incomplete, the book is an enjoyable quick read. The editor's afterword recounts the history of these writings and connects the diaries to the author's own personal life, affirming its very personal nature. This is a lovely book to give to an engaged couple, a married couple, or anyone who enjoys Mark Twain's unique genius.

After listening to this series and applying what I've learned I have a few reasons why master copywriter and business consultant Drew Eric Whitman selected the title.

Maybe it relates to the fact that I would have paid $50,000 to him and the 10 other experts that have literally super-charged my business and increased profits. And at that price, it would have been a steal.

Or maybe the $50,000 references what average business owners can add to their annual profits after listening. I know in my case, $50,000 would be a low estimate for the increase in business I expect over the course of the next year as a direct result of listening to this course.

Whatever the reasoning behind the title, in my opinion this is material that every person running or thinking of starting a business should own. It delivers essential business and marketing information (some of which I've never heard before but works almost like magic), and it spoon feeds it to you in such a way that you not only completely understand it, but you're excited and can't wait to start applying it to your business immediately.

I've had many nights where I've only grabbed a few eyefuls of sleep since owning this. But I want to thank Drew Eric for giving me the information and motivation to get in and do something that's responsible for literally putting more money in my pocket while making it fun.

Grady Smith

Who is this Drew Eric Whitman? And how can he help me?

Those were my thoughts as I read his captivating ad for The $50,000 Business Makeover Marathon. I was spell bound. And you will be too.

Being an adventureous sort, as all entrepeneurs are, I decided to take the plunge and purchase it. You know what? It was everything he said it would be, and more!

Drew, if you read this, thank you. We may never meet but you have changed my life and business.

After listening and putting into action many of the tips(lessons, really) I have seen an amazing change in my professional and personal affairs.

I own six other tape programs on sales and marketing and this one is unique. Get it now. While you're thinking about it.

Better hurry. Your competition may already have this.

Yours in Success,
...

I confess to buying too many business tapes. I am also too often disappointed by the quality of the production as well the content.

THESE tapes, however, are fantastic. The speakers are all interesting to listen to - not boring. No fluff. Recorded in a studio, so you can ALWAYS hear the speakers. The topics will be valuable to any small to medium size busines owner or marketing executive who wants to expand and grow their business.

You may have heard SOME of this material before, but you haven't heard ALL of it -- and it's all in one powerful package.

IMHO, it's worth a listen -- again and again.

-Keith Price
Developer of The Magic Bullet
Software to help you write sales letters that really sell.

This book is very engaging and thought provoking. I'm sure the apologists for bigness dislike this book a great deal. Unlike most business and economics texts this book is chock full of references. The apologists for bigness have nice sounding philosophies but they rarely have any real world data to back up their grand ideas. The authors of this book have the facts to back up their argument that bigness, in and of itself, is bad. A very persuasive argument that will be difficult to counter in a rational manner.

This was an excellent and thought provoking book. They challenge the assumption that big is better by showing fact after fact after fact that proves otherwise. The best part of the book is that, unlike most management, business, and economic texts, it isn't just theoretical philosophizing with no basis in reality. Every chapter is laden with dozens of references to real world events and published facts. If only the Bigness apologists had so much evidence it would be easier to take them seriously....

I found this in the Rizzoli bookstore and had to slit the shrinkwrap to see what the book was like. Then sat down in a soft chair to browse through it but after a half hour decided it made more sense to just buy it and read it at home. Not disappointed. The book covers everything in great detail - lots of text - with pictures of hotels from the Chilean Andes to London and Paris and New York. A "must have" for people interested in travel and hotels and architecture.

WOW! I have a copy of the 1980s version of Rutes and Penner--this is a totally new edition, all new photography, etc.--and consider it the 'Bible' for hotel design. But the new edition is twice as big and full of current examples and information. It has 32 pages of gorgeous color photos of great hotels and resorts from around the world. The text is in three main sections: Hotel Types (downtown, resorts, conference centers, luxury hotels, casino hotels, etc.); Design Guide (planning and design information for all areas of the hotel); and Development Guide (feasibility, programming, future trends). In addition, there are lots of appendices and sidebars from such people as Ian Schrager, I.M. Pei, Robert Stern, and John Portman. I've looked at other hotel design books in the stores and there isn't anything that is so complete or current. There are other books on boutique hotels, with lots of pictures, but nothing with this global coverage of all types of lodging properties. With well over 400 pages, this book will be the new Bible for hotel design. I can't imagine a better choice for anyone involved with the hotel development, architecture, or interior design.

This work by Walter Pater, published in 1873, as
a volume of collected (previously published) essays
along with an essay on "Winckelmann", a Preface, and
a Conclusion was [and perhaps still is] an extremely
influential work of aesthetic criticism. The volume
helped shape [influence] the perceptions, the
attitudes, and the approaches of many youthful readers
in the late 1880's and 1890's. It is very interesting
to read, immensely engaging to consider and muse about,
but also offers cautions to the overenthusiastic,
easily influenced [or persuaded] disciple.
This volume consists of an Introduction [by the
editor, Adam Philips], a Preface [by Pater], 9 chapters,
and a Conclusion (in this particular edition
by Oxford Classics there is also a chronology, a
Selective Bibliography, an Appendix titled "Diaphaneite,"
and Explanatory Notes in the back. The chapter titles
(after Pater's Preface) are: Two Early French Stories;
Pico Della Mirandola; Sandro Botticelli; Luca Della
Robbia; The Poetry of Michelangelo; Leonardo da Vinci;
The School of Giorgione, Joachim Du Bellay; Winckelmann;
and Conclusion.
* * * * * * * * * *
What's the problem here? Well, unfortunately, Pater
is not completely reliable as an objective perceiver
or critic. He tends to be a bit eccentric in his
individualistic perceptions and interpretations of
the art works, but he goes ahead and defends this
approach in a very "modern" sounding fashion --
which seems to include a bit of "situational perceptions,"
subjective impressions of perception and response,
and subjective criticism. Which makes for extremely
engaging [sometimes irritating] reading, but leaves
something to be desired as far as objective and
judicious thoughtfulness and truthfulness. Pater
seems to believe that it is acceptable to "bend"
or even create facts to further his own it-pleases-
me-to-think-that-this-is-or-should-be-so desires.
We know that we are on a slippery critical slope
[though it will sound all too familiar to modern
ears and modern apologetics] when the editor Phillips
informs us: "In Pater's first published writing, his
essay on Coleridge of 1866, he had suggested that --
'Modern thought is distinguished from ancient by its
cultivation of the "relative" spirit in place of the
"absolute" ... To the modern spirit nothing is, or
can be rightly known, except relatively and under
conditions." It doesn't take much time to realize
that such a critical position is going to lead to
an end-position of aesthetic, critical, and moral
relativism ("You can't tell me I'm wrong, because
there is no one set way of seeing, analyzing,
believing, or evaluating."-- the spoiled, indulged child's
self-justification for the validity of its own
ego supremacy and authority against that of any
parental or adult restrictions. Such a position usually
means a lack of any meaningful in-depth self questioning
or objective evaluating of personal motives, and a
welcoming of lack of restraints in the pursuit of
pleasure and non-self discipline. And this, of course,
is the critical negative refrain that often comes
against the decadent followers of Pater's credo.]
The second fall-out effect of Pater's evaluations
and pronouncements is that some of his disciples
[self-styled] went farther than even he was willing
to approve with their hedonism and purposefully
shocking lifestyles and "decadent" behaviors and
aesthetic appetites.
But it came from statements like this, which Pater
may have meant one way, but which their subjective,
individualistic perceptions took another way: "The
aesthetic critic, then, regards all the objects with
which he has to do, all works of art, and the fairer
forms of nature and human life, as powers or forces
producing PLEASURABLE SENSATIONS [caps are mine], each
of a more or less peculiar or unique kind. [We value
them --he says] for the property each has of affecting
one with a special, a unique, impression of pleasure.
Our education becomes complete in proportion as our
SUSCEPTIBILITY to these impressions increases -- in
depth and VARIETY."
Let the perceiver and the critic -- and the
experiencer -- proceed with extreme caution and good
judgment.
* * * * * * * * *

This book has changed many lives in a very
peculiar way: although its evaluations are
quite wrong at times, particularly the chapter
on the School of Giorgione(if you care, check
out the edition with an introduction by
Kenneth Clark), Pater's Renaissance still
shines with the very same light that made it a
cult among Victorian youngmen.

The "gemstone flame", the pervasive feelings
of which Pater invited us to share have not
vanished (in spite of the attempts of the
so-called modern art), and the book's
invaluable lesson is that you simply
do not need a fancy objet d'art to see
what true beauty is all about.

So basically this is what I have to say: if
you have ever derived aesthetic pleasure from
anything at all in life, you should read this
little book tomorrow. If you never felt any
such pleasure, you must read The Renaissance
right now, or you'll simply let the good
things pass you by. I mean it.

This is one thorough, authoritative tome on Fortran90. It is about as dry as one would expect of a reference manual, and yet it is not exactly succinct. I guess its wordiness is an unavoidable consequence of Fortran's longevity (backward compatibility with earlier versions of Fortran requires many a lengthy explanation).

All I can saw is wow! These were true stories about people God touched, healed and blessed. I really hope you read this book and feel about it like I did.

In 1982 I found this book at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, Colorado and I treasure it!! It works beside my copy for Ancestral Roots of 60 Colonists Who Came to America by Frederick Weis. My family documented our pedigree to Anne Dudley Bradstreet through our Hazen bloodline, so upon finding these books we were able to document Anne back to the barons who signed the Magna Charta and many other Royals.. How interesting history has become to us!! Someday I hope to buy both these books for my five grown children...and a couple grandchildren. Dorothy Sherwood Bevard

I am an experienced user of Fortran 77, who is returning to Fortran after several years absence. I qualified as language lawyer for Fortran 77 and could quote chapter and verse of the standard.

The new syntax for Fortran 90/95 is fairly straightforward. I need to no how the new elements of the language inter-relate. For example, when assumed shape arrays are used in a subroutine, an interface definition is required. I tried reading this book before attempting this and could not find the requirement. Even after learning this experimentally and from another book, I still can't locate the requirement in this book. I have had similar experiences with other syntactical inter-relationships.

This book contains a lot of information on Fortran 90/95, but I can't recommend it either as a tutorial or as an advanced reference. Unfortunately, there are no other good alternatives in print and this may be the best of the bunch.

This book covers the complete FORTRAN 95 language definition. The author apparentely intended it as clarifification of the ISO/J3 standard. And that's just what it is. This book even reproduces the complete official F95 grammar in one of its appendices. It has a more-than-complete index, which helps you find what you're looking for most of the time. Don't expect examples in this book; there aren't any.

If you're new to programming and you wish to learn FORTRAN, don't buy this book. You cannot learn the language from it, unless you already have a lot of programming experience in F77 or other languages. If you want to know all the capabilities and limitations of F95, or if you're going to write an F95 compiler, this book has got to be the number one book on your wishlist.

This is not a textbook, but it is an important reference for the Fortran 95 programmer. It covers the features inherited from Fortran 77 as well as the new features in Fortran 90 and 95.

After reading the back cover and introduction of this book, I expected a rather harsh portrayal of neoclassical economics. This book does not end up being too crtical of the Chicago school. Of course there are a number of strawmen in this book, portions where the expert is portrayed as an out of touch academic oblivious to the effects of his theories. Perhaps my greatest criticism of this book is that it does not adequately exlore the "sovereign's charter" - the government maintained monopolies. The authors refer to the concentration in the airline industry without really considering the effects of regulation that excluded foreign airlines from domestic routes. In addition, the authors do not seem to commit enough attention to the availability of substitutes for virtually any commodity or service. Even if the major airlines offer fewer flights from a particular airport in the long run smaller air lines will establish routes. If not, there are alternatives like high speed rail. At the exteremes, one could consider technological advances like teleconferencing and electronic data exchange reduce the need for certain forms of business flights. Overall, however, the book only takes a few hours to read and introduces the major debates of this subject.

This is the same topic the authors have tackled in their other books, this time presented in a somewhat screenplay-ish format. Once again it is an argument between theory and evidence. As you read the discussion between the lawyer and the economist you wonder why the economist always retreats to theory in the face of evidence. It would interesting to hear a Chicago economist's explanation of the facts Adams and Brock bring to bear.