...Singer explores not only human loneliness but also the human comedy in his short works..the theme of course centers around love, a love that transports you far away, washing you with a tide of emotions...though these tales drawn from the old traditionary school of thought, celebrate the dignity, mastery and unexpected joy of living with moreart and fervor than any other writer...

This classic collection explores the varieties of wisdom gained with age and especially those that teach us how to love....the love that ages and matures...just like old wine tasting even better day by day, year after year and tear after tear...these are tales of curious marriages, of divorces, of love curses, bravery and loneliness...

I'm glad this book is still in print. Although it was written some time ago, and no doubt, professional psychologists have moved beyond its insights, for a layman the book is incredibly useful in day-to-day relating, especially with romantic partners. The basic insights revolve around types of relating (towards others, against them, or away from them) and models of relating (creative, cooperative, adversarial and antagonistic). One of the more disturbing thoughts in the book is that 99% of relations have some elements of sadomasochism! (Of course, sadism and masochism are defined technically in the book.) More important, it explains why. A subtext is that romance isn't what you should be looking for in a stable partnership. Compassion towards self and partner tends to be the dominant message. There is an odd last chapter about a therapeutic game that all readers can attempt to play with their partners. It's a game focusing on verbalising emotions (immature narcissists, however, cannot play). The book would have been better with examples of some couples engaging in the rules of the game, contending with the weaknesses of their dominant means of adapting to reality. Some dialogue of actual people trying to improve their ways of relating is lacking, so the book comes to a kind of abrupt halt. The book sometimes reads as an ad for the psychoanalysis industry. Non-American readers might be wondering what all this business of "talking cures" is all about. There is, fortunately enough, little about Freud, and the author (Rubin) claims little debt to Freud for most of the insights he has. Karen Horne is mentioned numerous times in the text as an important colleague. I read the book in conjunction with a more up-to-date text, Robyn Skinner's _Families and How to Survive Them_, which also explains how family and interpersonal dynamics can be understood with the help of recent developments in psychology. What is needed is a new edition of _One-to-One_ with comments and an introduction by professionals in the field, to let the layman know whether or not Rubin's insights are still useful by their standards (if they ever were). I have no idea whether counsellors find this book useful at all. But in my experience, the book has proven beneficial. I plan next to read Rubin's other book _Reconciliations_. Before reading this one, I also stumbled across Rubin's book _Overcoming indecisiveness_.

Phillip Porter is a recognized expert on the Jaguar XK series. His book, suplemented by excellent photos, details each version of the car with text and photos. For anyone restoring an XK series Jaguar, the photos are a rich source of originality information highlighting differences between the various models. This book is well worth purchasing.

This is another volume in Isaac Asimov's New Library of the Universe, primarily directed toward elementary school children. This book presents beautiful pictures and discussions of galaxies and galaxy groups. It is actually an 1995 updating of Asimov's 1988 "Our Milky Way and Other Galaxies" by Greg Walz-Chojnacki (Asimov had passed away in 1992). Children interested in the stars will love it.

If I was stranded on a deserted island and somehow was given the choice of three books that I could have with me, I think I would pick the Bible, "The Complete Plays of Shakespeare" and "The Collected Short Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer". This collection is an excellent example of the quality and diversity of Singer's talent. There are stories from the present and from the past all containing marvelous characters that amuze, intrigue, and/or mystify the reader. Among the best are "The Admirer", "Sabbath in Portugal", "Three Encounters", "The Adventure", and "Passios". "The Admirer" is a tale about a meeting with a fan of his that turns into a comical nightmare. "Sabbath in Portugal" is a tale of a lonely visit to an alien country where the author encounters a faith that survived the inquisition and an encounter with someone he thought was lost forever. "Three Encounters" is the tale of a young man's innocent suggestion to a young bride and the sucessive corruption that results. "The Adventure" tells of an unusual request and the challenge of if and how to respond. Finally, "Passions" tells of the ability of a simple man to overcome the impossible with the proper amount of focussed passion. All the stories are worth reading. The world's greatest short story writer has produced another example of why he is so revered.

Isaac Asimov used to have a column in the Science Digest magazine where the readers will place before him different questions like "How long will the Sun last?" or "What is the antigravity?" and his task was to make his explanations in very lay terms, so that any one with a very basic science background would be able to understand them. In the book he compiled what he believes are the most relevant 100 questions he answered, or that anyone who is curious about science will ask himself at one point or another. Eventhough it was written a long time ago (1973) the validity of its explanations still stand at least to the general public.

This nifty little book (32 pages, if you include the title page, index, etc.) was originally written by the illustrious Isaac Asimov, and has been revised and updated by Richard Hantula. Crammed full of colorful pictures, this book gives the reader a taste of all of what is known about this double-planet. It is geared toward very young readers, and does an excellent job of informing and fascinating them. If you have a young reader in your life, who is interested in Pluto, then I highly recommend that you get him or her this book!

Presenting Edmund Burke thematically is perhaps the only way to really approach Burke, as Conor Cruise O'Brien or Russell Kirk (Burke's best biographers) would probably agree. So unlike 'On Empire, Liberty, and Reform,' which is chronological, the portable Edmund Burke instead tackles Burke under the themes of America, Ireland, India, and the French Revolution, and a couple other sub-themes, with invaluable commentary. By the end of the book, Burke is better enveloped here than in most biographies, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

This was the most helpful anthology when I needed to write a research paper on seventeenth century religion. It has sections for almost all aspects of life and contains various selections that truly show the Enlightenment spirit!

Newton's "Principia" was the crowning achievement of 17th Century Natural Philosophy, bringing together the works of great thinkers like Galileo and Johanes Kepler. This great work supplied the momentum for the Scientific Revolution and dominated physics for over 200 years. Although it was later demonstrated to have limitations at the atomic level, the principles of Newtonian physics are still applicable to much of our everyday lives. The casual reader may find this book difficult to work through, however. Newton's three laws of motion are not stated in the language that is used in modern introductory physics texts. A good companion to this book is "Feynman's Lost Lecture" in which Richard Feyman demonstrates planetary motion using the same geometric techniques employed by Isaac Newton, but in a more clear, modern style.