One of my favorite 5 bookes was Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni. The reason is, is that the worm in the story is very clever and thinks his way out of a sticky situation. That is what I like about authors like Leo Lionni. They can always come up with a great little story that influences so many children in such a positive way.

This Caldecott Honor Book is easy listening for the early child and the young child as a new schoolyear begins. An industrious inch worm is the main character. He engages himself with measuring a variety of birds and lastly outwits the hungry nightingale using his measuring savvy.

Teacher Note: This book can be used to introduce the young child to using standard measurement tools. It can also be used for activities with creative non-traditional measurement activities. For example: Paper clips, hands, feet, craft sticks, shoes, beans, etc. This book can be a springboard to a thematic unit on measurement. It can be extended for study of birds, other nature studies, art experiences, and musical activities as well.

A children's book about an inch worm who loves to measure things and then saves himself by measuring. The book was the 1961 Caldecott Honor book (i.e., the runner-up to the Medal winner) for best illustration in a book for children.

Novelists have always loved artists, and artists have always loved novelists. They love and admire the other's talent, but--most important--they are not competitors. Crichton's love of Johns' work certainly comes forth, and Johns' seemed flattered that a best-selling novelist, and not an art professor, wanted to do a book on him. That mutual admiration underlies why this is such a solid book.

The author well restrained himself from "digging into the painful childhood" that produced such an unusually remote "negator of impulses." He brought out the positive aspects of Johns personality--his ability to laugh at himself and not always to take himself too seriously. "His work is a constant negation of impulses" said the critic..."wouldn't you say so Jasper?" "NO" says Jasper, laughing. Jasper can laugh. That is nice. The author respected his need for privacy in his personal life. He presented a very difficult, complex personality with dignity, humor, and good taste.

Jasper Johns is a very large, and expensive book. It has many illestrations, and lots of commentary. This is a Crichton that has faded into the background, and in some cases can be very hard to find.

I got interested in this case after reading a large write up in the local paper, the Atlanta Journal constitution, which is quoted many times in the book. I like historical books and was really amazed at the semitic overtones in the south during the civil war. As stated by reveiwer C. Ellen, it was written well and put into context with other goings on in that period. Being from Atlanta myself, I could very easily relate to the narative and it held my facination throughout. It told what I beleive to be the complete story and facts as well as being updated for NEW release in 1987 by adding an additional preface. Anyone who is interested in civil war reads, the laws of the time , or who lives in or around Atlanta , will be interested in this book. Over 50 pages of it are dedicated to the bibliography and all facts are well documented. It is a story that is all to reminiscent of famous cases that have arrisen in the past few years. It's a sad commentary on just how far the attitudes of this nation have come in the past 100 years or so. If interested in further information after reading this book, then I suggest trying to contact the Atlanta Journal Constitution for their brilliant account of the incident in the June 11, 2000 addition of their paper. It also gives a partial list of the lynching mob, held in secretcy until this time. A great book to own for any historical book collection.

As a judge, a lawyer and an historian I had heard about the Leo Frank case but did not know the details. Leonard Dinnerstein does an excellent job of relating the story of Leo Frank in a fair and unbiased manner. He also puts the entire affair in a historical context. This would be an excellent read for any student of racism in America and of the New South. It is easy to read and has an excellent bibliography.

Dinnerstein does a beautiful job in eloquently presenting the facts of the famous Leo Frank case. All angles of the case are examined in a thorough, impartial manner. A must read for anyone familiar with the Frank case, and well worth looking into for anyone who loves a good murder mystery.

This is a different sort of Leo Strauss book. It's not a lecture given by him, and then edited for publication; rather, it is a transcription of a graduate class at U of Chicago in 1959. Yet despite this distance from Strauss' own hand- it reads as a rich and telling tale about philosophy and the possibilty of it. Strauss mentions early on that even the most average novelist, compared to the contemporary social scientist, produces a better insight to the human condition. Yet Strauss exceeds each craft in the course of this lecture. The amazing richness, touches of braod insight on a variety of topics, historical imagination and speculation, political comment and human awareness which leaks across the page are so satisfying and interesting, the book immediately stands out as significant, enjoyable, important, and worth re-reading as any classic piece of literature. Suspend all preconceptions and just float into this work; take it a page at a time- stop and wonder on the words- a careful reader will have to, for the surprising, unique, complex, complicated and shocking punctuate the work. An example is on page 94, when Strauss comments that Marx realized the bisexual nature of man had to be overcome if true communism would ever come to pass. Bisexual nature of man? What does this mean- how does it relate to Marx? The penetration and insight of Strauss on the material is so deft, it sparks insight to many other Platonic works, contemporary politics and the history of political philosophy. The uniqueness of Strauss' take on the Symposium is so daring, it will undoubtly lead one to reconsider their conception of Ancient Greek history, Platonic cosmology and the nature of mankind. Truly a priceless book.

Symposium is my favorite dialogue and as such I've read a number of commentaries (Rosen, Allen and Dover). This one is very special. Strauss has a reach, a clarity and an elegance that is stunning. Let me give you an example. Strauss claims that Aristophanes' The Frogs was the model for the Symposium. Never thought of that before, but when you think about it, it's obvious. Yes, a very powerful idea. This level is sustained throughout the book. You may not agree with everything Strauss says, but even where you disagree you will find him profitable.

This is a remarkable book. It consists of transcriptions of the lectures given by Leo Strauss in his 1959 University of Chicago course on Plato's political philosophy. The course was devoted to the study of Plato's Symposium, but Strauss of course discusses several other dialogues that he suggests are related to the Symposium. The lectures read differently than the books and essays Professor Strauss prepared for publication. They are somewhat more open; they go somewhat more slowly through the material; they are perhaps somewhat less apparently ironic. But this only begins to hint at the special riches of the access this book affords to Professor Strauss's classroom.

This was a great book--dark, moody, sensitive, but with a grain of hope hidden in it. Reminiscent of Raymond Carver. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection. I hope to read more in the future.

My grade 12 Candadian Literature teacher wrote this book. It is nothing short of amazing, dealing with all sorts of real life issues and problems...from Angus Fell, right to A Thing Like Snow, this book made me who I am today. No joke whatsoever. I read it about seven times, and I'll never get tired of it. It's a feel good book that will make you look at things from a different perspective.

Most of the stories in this book are set in a fictional town called Albion Mines, which is actually the old name for the town of Stellarton (the author's home town). The author cuts through the literary glitz and glamour of "pop" writers to get right to the core of what troubles lie in the heart of a small town in Nova Scotia. The no-frills realism of the book is often gripping, and at times frightening. Though most of the stories end on a dark note, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Reminiscent of New Brunswick writer David Adams Richards as well as world-famous writer Raymond Carver.

This book made the final cut (5 books) for the 1995 Gillar award.

Keep your eye on McKay.

What a wonderful book for children, I think every child should have this book in their library, the book shows what humans should strive for in a good way for children, by having animals as characters.

When Debi Simpson took senior English from Weslake High School teacher Bill Csellak last summer, she wasn't expecting to write a children's book and get it into print.

But she and her mother, Diane Simpson have co-written "Lonesome Leo, The Little Lion," and Csellak has turned small-scale publisher. He recruited his nephew, Erik Abel to illustrate the book.

"The reception overall has been uplifting," Csellak said, explaining that he and the creators recently took it to the Burbank Book Fair, and the book sold well.

Csellak, a teacher at Westlake High since it opened in 1978, calls marketing the book "a phenominal learning experience" for all involved.

The United Association of Conejo Teachers has bought copies of the book to give to each Conejo Unified School District elementary school in honor of the Day of the Teacher.

Erik was recruited late in the effort and had to complete the 15 colored illustrations in two weeks.

The books were only delivered at 4 p.m. the day before the book fair. After sweating out that day, Csellak slept fitfully. "I had a nightmare dream - from selling the books hand-over-fist to not selling any."

Csellak is looking forward to the summer break when he can concentrate on promoting the book and not "wish I could be 100 people." He may even consider having it republished by a nationally known publisher.

The book mushroomed out of Debi's request for an extra-credit summer school project. Cse! llak assigned her to write a children's story about an owl and a lion.

"It wasn't supposed to be a book. It was a fluke," Debi marvels.

Her mother got interested and says that she and Debi created the story outline in only about 30 minutes. The story relates a baby lion's problems as he tries to make friends with other jungle animals who are afraid of him. A wise owl intervenes, and then Leo is able to make friends.

Simply put, the books message is not to prejudge. As Debi puts it: "Don't be afraid of something you don't know about."

After the story was turned in, Csellak read it to his class and remarked: "This needs to be published. This is fantastic."

Seventeen-year-old Debi describes the book's creation as "mother-daughter bonding." Her mother has always written for her own pleasure and often writes whimsical poems - for exaple, "A Bug Flew Up My Nose."

"My biggest regret was not being able to draw," Diane Simpson said. She just knew what she wanted but couldn't produce it, so Csellak called in Erik. "He pulled it all out - exactly to a tee - all the illustrations I'd pictured."

Debi is not looking for a literary career. She has worked with handicapped children, loves babies and is considering a career as a physical therapist working with handicapped babies.

Erik, a 16 year-old junior at Camarillo High School, works in a variety of media, but especially likes ! sketching. he adopted a motto: "If you can think it, I can draw it." From early childhood, Erik has impressed relatives at family gatherings by drwaing whatever they suggested, Csellak said.

Members of the "Lonesome Leo" creative team aren't ready to drop their little lion. They are working on "Lonesome Leo and Albino Rhino," which is about half-written.

With Csellak involved, Diane said, the publishing project was done soley by an "oral contract and mutual respect."

-Victoria Giraud Daily News

Well, I'm no book-reviewer, but here goes! This book is really a great way to teach your kids about equality. It teaches that just sometimes people are afraid of difference, and that kids should overcome that and treat others equally. How's that for a review? All I know is that my kids love it, and I love them reading it.

Lee Ao did it again! Another great yet enthralling work by Lee Ao, the best Chinese critique writer. Lee Ao does it in a serious cum humorous way, from poems to elite phrases. There isn't a boring page. If possible, get the Chinese version (for those Chinese literate). A highly recommended piece of work.

I've read the original of this book about ten times, and the more I read this book, the more thoughts and after-thoughts occur in my mind. As a Chinese born in Taiwan, This book really inspired me. Not only its depth of historical records and eloqunce of critique are unprecedented in the history of Chinese literature, but the passions, the intellectual's hope for salvation and revolutionaries' struggle to improve China expressed between the lines are set on a trageic stage in a way that is both dramatic and calm, violent and peaceful. You can see the flow of time and the continuation and history when reading this book. And that feeling, is what makes Chinese people and Chinese civilization distinctive. Li Ao is one of the most talented, humorous, arrogant, witty, insightful, and controversial liberal intellctual in the modern China. He has been imprisoned for treason(the accusation was totally groundless). He has been supressed by the maintream media in Taiwan because of his humiliating disclosure of government official's scandals.But he has won the heart of the contemporary readers through his stylish, if not flirting and combative, writings(over 15 million ords and still mounting). The Martyr'sShrine is by far his greatest achievement. He was even nominated to compete for the Nobel Prize for literature. In my opinion he absolutely deserves the prize. To understand this book requires a solid background knowledge in Chinese history and culture. I don't know if the ordinary Western readers are up to the task. However, if you really want to understand China and its struggle of modernization in the 19-20 century, this book is a good start.

Based on the history of reform movement of 1898 in China, the great thinker, historian, and writer of China, Ao Li( who lives in Taiwan) created this fiction. In the story, through the conversations and actions of the elits of Chinese intellecturalists, the author discussed the true thought and spirit of budhhism and Chinese thought of loyalty, patriatism, etc.; and expressed his idealist's thought. This is more a philosophy book and history than a novel. Six months ago when I finished reading this book in Chinese, I said it ought to have an English translation for people who don't read in Chinese. I am glad there is an English translation now.

1909. Strange suicide plague in Vienna. Why do all these people kill themselves, while they have no reason at all to do so? Wouldn't be something - or somebody - else? Warning to impossible crime fans: one of the so-called "suicides" is a locked room.
While he - remarkably - uses Golden Age school's apparatus, Perutz gives here a book that is wholly sui generis. It could be a mystery. It could be weird. It could be both. Mystery fans will be delighted by intricate plotting, virtuoso use of multiple solutions and a totally unexpected ending. They'll also be delighted, along with others, by magistral recreation of a vanished world, quirky atmosphere and characters, and a reflection on time, art and reality. Yet in the end, the book's real nature remains a mystery. There's only one thing to know: it's a masterpiece.

Leo Perutz is a true master of the German tongue, very powerful and strong. But he is also a great storyteller, something very rare in German literature. All of his novels are highly recommended. It is a shame they're mostly out of print. Read them, and start with this one.

Literature is full of great authors that do not receive the praise they deserve, for all kinds of reasons. Leo Perutz is one of them. I can only urge you to try one of his works once, and "The Master of the Day of Judgment" is a good place to start. Its central idea is shocking and original, the writing is crisp and tantalizing, and the book, while short - certainly compared to today's massive thrillers, is surprisingly "finished". Valid excuse to, for once, shout in a review: READ THIS BOOK!!!

Most of my several thousand volume library consists of serious books, works of literature, literary criticism, philosophy, history, theology, political science, and so on. But I also have a shelf or two devoted to "fun" books, books that I pick up and just lose myself in having fun. This is one of my favorite fun books. Not a masterpiece. Probably won't be in print twenty years from now. But the photographs are spectacular! And in just under 300 pages, almost every major city and structure of Europe has been photographed from the air. It is not merely the famous sights and buildings that makes this such a fun book, but some striking photographs of relatively unknown features. For instance, one of the most stunning photographs for me is what would appear to be a gigantic green field in Denmark that has been punctuated by a series of large housing circles, each cut off from one another, and each surrounded by the same green field.

The text has been provided by noted travel writer Jan Morris. The book is largely structured by starting with Italy and proceeding clockwise through the entire European continent, ending with Greece, Romania, and Turkey.

I really can whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone except those who don't like to look at anything. But if you have any interest in the world, in traveling, in Europe, in history, in photography, or in just having fun looking at awesome photos, this book will prove to be an utter delight.

I stumbled upon this title in a competitor's bookstore and was astonished that I hadn't read a review anywhere. With a 1998 imprint and Jan Morris as the author of the text, it doesn't seem like it should be an obscure tome, yet even here on Amazon.com, only one other person has reviewed it!

The photos are designed to provoke a sense of wonder and awe in the reader/viewer, and they succeed aesthetically, emotionally, and psychologically. From the rock of Gilbralter to a dense set of "potato row" houses in Copenhagen; from snowfields near the Arctic circle to Turkey--it's all here, images snapped from blimps, airplanes, helicopters, almost any method by which one might be "over" Europe.

One will not be able to glimpse most of these sites from comparable vantage points on a typical trek across the continent unless one plans to do so in a biplane. The images here are unusual in their breadth and majesty. ... The text is literate and fun. Buy it and marvel.

If you regard this book as just another coffee table book you aren't even half right. This is one of the best photo books I have ever seen. The pictures are outstanding. Nearly every photo takes you to the alter of the church, the edge of the cliff, or the gate to the castle. Not only is it a photo book, but a great travel book. These aren't just descriptions of what to see, but beautiful pictures showing you what you will want to see when you get there. You won't even need to take a camera or change for postcards-- the best pictures are right here. Get this book before you plan your vacation to Europe.

I bought PERSECUTION AND THE ART OF WRITING because I wanted an easy approach to whatever contribution Leo Strauss might be able to make to the understanding of political philosophy, and the idea that writers might be persecuted is fundamental to my understanding of what separates social thinking from what a philosopher might be capable of. The second chapter, which covers the topic "Persecution and the art of writing," is only from page 22 to page37 of this book. The Introduction attempts to provide a basis for understanding all the essays in this book "within the province of the sociology of knowledge." (p. 7). The final chapter, "How to Study Spinoza's THEOLOGICO-POLITICAL TREATISE," is the culmination of a series of articles, which first appeared in 1941, 1943, and 1948, that is primarily concerned with understanding the works of a few philosophers in a manner which might be helpful "for a future sociology of philosophy." (p. 7).

The particular work of Spinoza discussed was an attempt "to refute the claims which had been raised on behalf of revelation throughout the ages." (p. 142). Studying the Treatise is primarily philosophical because "the issue raised by the conflicting claims of philosophy and revelation is discussed in our time on a decidedly lower level than was almost customary in former ages." (pp. 142-3). Later it is admitted that Spinoza's own age did not have Spinoza's books to discuss. "The only book which he published under his own name is devoted to the philosophy of Descartes." (p. 152). "But Spinoza, who wrote for posterity rather than for his contemporaries, must have realized that the day would come when his own books would be old books." (p. 153). My own understanding of Spinoza is not helped by the fact that the longest quotations, in note 2 on page 143 and note 19 on page 153, are in latin. Note 13 on page 149 quotes Carl Gebhardt (Spinoza. OPERA, vol. II, p. 317) in German. I thought I was going to be able to understand it best when Strauss wrote, "To ascertain how to read Spinoza, we shall do well to cast a glance at his rules for reading the Bible." (p. 144). Philosophy itself might demand that the most modern conclusion on that effort would be: "For the same reason it is impossible to understand the Biblical authors as they understood themselves; every attempt to understand the Bible is of necessity an attempt to understand its authors better than they understood themselves." (p. 148). In the case of the Bible, the idea of revelation offers the consolation to people who never wanted to be considered its authors that the book was written by someone else, as the angel who dictated the Koran to its prophet is the ultimate target of the book THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie in the most modern comic edition of this conflict. The only escapes which Spinoza would offer is "to potential philosophers, i.e., to men who, at least in the early stages of their training, are deeply imbued with the vulgar prejudices: what Spinoza considers the basic prejudice of those potential philosophers whom he addresses in the Treatise, is merely a special form of the basic prejudice of the vulgar mind in general." (p. 184). Given the facts of life for most people, this seems to be particularly bad news for the political, which could use a few intellectual connections.

An excellent text, Strauss explicates on his views of how philosophers in times of persecution will "hide" their most stunning and important ideas "between the lines" of their works. In this way, the authors avoid death, and also provide the deepest insight to only those intelligent enough to find it in the texts. Pay special attention to Strauss's chapter on the "Guide for the Perplexed:" not only is it an interesting read, but one can see Strauss himself using some of the same techniques that he claims authors of the past used. It's all a matter of trying to understand what he truly wants to tell us.

The title essay is a masterpiece I read once a month in the course writing journalism by day and reading of political comedy by night. By day it is extremely helpful keeping my job in a political environment not particularly conducive to complete freedom of expression at times. By night, coupled with Strauss's superb "Socrates and Aristophanes" is has proved a wonderful tool for unveiling meaning in Aristophanes, Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Hasek, Garcia-Marquez, Kundera and the rest of the European comic tradition. I think his idea of a literary criticism "between the lines" based on ancient rhetoricians would be an extremely useful study for younger graduate students to follow - whenever such studies become possible again. The rest of the essays apply the theory of reading between the lines in interesting limit cases of persecution of political philosophy. They may lead the general reader to try such authors as Maimonides and Spinoza. Can't speak for specialists, not being one.