When the people of the world sinned, and God chose the only righteous man, Noah, to build an ark, all of the animals gathered around. They, however, believed that Noah would only pick best of all the living creatures. The animals began to boast and argue amongst each other. "I am the largest," said the Elephant. "I am man's best friend," replied the dog. They argued and argued.
Noah noticed one lonely bird sitting in a tree. Noah asked the small, white dove why he did not boast. The Dove replied that he believed that everyone has something special, that another doesn't. Though, all are equally created by God.
Noah took all of the animals on the ark, but when he needed a 'messenger' to see if the waters were going down, the one he chose was the dove. The dove is a bird of humility and peace.
I believe that this story is good for those of all ages. It teaches a lesson to all; we are all equally created. People should remain humble.
It is excellently written and has amazing illustrations. I recommend this story to all. It is definitely worth reading.

This simple story teaches a lesson in humility. Although all of the animals in the day of the Great Flood had unique qualities, above all the dove was chosen by Noah to be the messanger of Peace and new life. Demonstrating meekness and humility, the dove did not brag about being "better" than the other animals. Instead she waited her turn, certain that a useful assignment would be found for her.

What a heart warming message for children! The beautiful illustrations add to the magic touch of this enchanting children's book. I would recommend it as a gift for an early reader (up to age 8), or as a story to tell to a smaller child (age 2 to 5).*****

This is a wonderful book in which a wide array of animals try to show why they should be allowed on the ark: the elephant argues his strength should save him; the fox, his cleverness; the donkey argues that he is more clever; the skunk, his odor ... Finally, Noah tells them he is to save them all. But the dove who did not brag will be his special messenger.

This is a delightful book that reader and listener will both enjoy.

With debates about energy at the political forefront in most countries, everybody should read this book before they open their mouth so that they know what they are talking about.

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) had a brilliant career as a scientist, teacher, and writer. Best known for his science fiction novels and stories, he also wrote poetry and nonfiction, and prepared guides to several important literary works

Dr. Asimov has taken a difficult subject and made it interesting and easy to read. Even those who aren't science students will find this book about the universe around us dramatic and entertaining. I just wish there were a way to give this book 10 stars instead of only 5.

As I said, I haven't read the book. However, I saw the movie and knew nothing of what the book version had to say. It never ocurred to me that she,Yentl, had any identity crisis of any kind. She was a woman ahead of her time who just wanted to study the bible with the same freedom that Men had and still have. I am not Jewish, but Christian, and I could well identify with her thirst for knowledge. I don't KNOW what IBS had in mind but I think we all pretty much have to draw our own conclusions.

There is a review on this site, dreamed up by some idiot who saw this movie and book, as being about a transsexual. Said something about mistakes that God made, etc. That person should be shot ! The story is about how women were oppressed, not allowed to study, only to read "picture books". It told of a courageous who knew his daughter had a thirst for knowledge and taught her in secret. When he passed away, she had no choice, she had to get an education....she was a beautiful, intelligent woman, not content to JUST cook and clean house. She wanted, needed to learn. She is to be applauded, not called a transsexual. She was always a woman...never was that in doubt. Meeting her learning partner, falling in love with him, afraid to tell him the truth, that she was a woman, made for an incredible and moving story. YENTL is my second favourite movie of all time. I have seen it 132 times, and know the lyrics to all the songs...and all the dialogue. (I give it more than 5 stars)

Anybody who sees the Barbara Streisand movie should also read this, the original I.B. Singer story. On page one it is made clear that Yentl has "the soul of a man in a woman's body" because "even Heaven makes mistakes." So I think the story is about a female-to-male transexual, not a lesbian or a feminist. I even read somewhere that this originally came out in the same year that Chrisitne Jorgensen had a sex change. (But the other way -- Jorgensen was a man who became a woman.) So I would guess that Singer was trying to explore gender identity with this story.

The focus of the story is not on homoerotic love between two women, but on a person who is born female but feels herself to be male inside, and decides to act out that feeling by dressing and living as a man. An important difference between this story and the Streisand movie is that in the story, Yentl keeps living as a man in the end, saying that "I must remain as I am."

I thought the story was very good in how it dealt with the subject in a very open way. That was surprising for something that was written over 30 years ago.

I have no doubt that the short story is the hardest to write. With limited space, the point, and there can really be only one, must be relatively obvious, yet complex enough to make an interesting story. Adding in a science fiction theme increases the level of difficulty, as generally, such stories require more explanation of the circumstances. Given that an environment different from the usual is necessary, some space must be used to explain the background of the story.
Despite all these hurdles, it is possible to write quality stories and this collection is an existence proof of how well it can be done. Independent of the length, these are some of the best science fiction stories of all time. They range from puns to the possibilities of interstellar war. I started the book and kept it close so that I could read it during every spare moment. It is one of the best collections of science fiction stories that I have ever read.

This is an excellent book. It runs the gamut of the science fiction genre; from jules verne to starwars, dragons to philosophy. It contains a cross section of literature and authors of both range and caliber rarely found. Many of its stories do not appear to be science fiction at first read; the only common thread among all the stories is the fact that, as Asimov puts in his introduction, "A very honed point." A must read.

I learned about this book when I visited a friend in Germany who uses it as a philosophy text. With the exception of the haunting portraits painted by Holocaust survivors, never have I read such a powerful and vivid story. The visions of church leaders and nazi's painted by Jerry Marcus as "laughing angels" is emblazened in my mind. I wanted to take Zev Segal by the shoulders and shake him back and forth to awaken him, while wanting to learn more through his nightmares. This story has all the elements of a movie that will keep the audience spellbound from start to finish!

Like the main character of this book (Zev Segal), I am haunted by visions of the evil "laughing angels" and the saintly "righteous ones" who call upon Zev (and the readers) to remember the innocent victims of the Church and the Nazi's. This is the only book on the Holocaust that really brings the roots of this dastardly era of history into present-day focus. I did not understand at first why my philosophy professor put it on our reading list - but I do now. It is a story that will stay with me forever.

Isaacs' algebra text is probably the best math book I've encountered so far as an undergraduate student for several reasons.

First, the structure of the book is unique- most introductory algebra books tend to cover groups, rings, and fields in that order. More mathematically mature students, though, can gain a greater appreciation for rings by first understanding modules. Most texts tend to introduce rings first, because the classic examples of rings are easy to understand, and then generalize to modules. Isaacs instead builds upon the composition structures of groups to introduce the topic of X-groups (this is the only introductory graduate text that covers this extensively), so that modules and rings are not only presented at the same time, but in such a way that the reader can see the interplay between the two. This presentation also makes it easier to discuss the Jacobson radical and by the time the Wedderburn-Artin theorems are presented, the reader is familiar enough with the necessary elements of the proof that it actually becomes easy.

Another reason this book is good is because Isaacs includes difficult topics not generally covered in an introductory text, but in a way that they seem to be just a simple extension of the more basic material. For example, at the end of the noncommutative section (the first half of the book), Isaacs proves the algebraic foundation of character theory using the Wedderburn-Artin theorems, showing the module presentation of a representation as well as the classic homomorphism presentation. He then proves the basic results about characters, giving a very powerful tool to analyze the structure of a group.

In a more applied vein, Isaacs proves the steps used in the Berlekamp algorithm in the finite fields chapter, which not only allows the reader to gain experience using the generalized Chinese Remainder Theorem but also to apply it to the study of fields. After covering integrality, Isaacs explains the role of rational integers in character theory and applies it to prove Burnside's celebrated solvability proof, whose statement about groups seems to have nothing to do with integrality, or even noetherian rings for that matter.

While Isaacs covers other advanced topics (for example, Transfer theory in the study of groups, or the Schraier-Artin theorem), the text is excellent because he proves the basic results so clearly. While he doesn't talk about the geometric significance of groups that much, he does talk about groups from a stabilizer-orbit perspective that makes further study of symmetries a lot easier.

The proofs of the Fundamental Theorem of Galois Theory, Galois' proof of solvability, the Principal Ideal Theorem, and a stronger form of Sylow's theorem are particularly elegant, along with the chapter on solvable and nilpotent groups. What makes the book far superior to others, though, is the problems. If you can understand the hard proofs of this book, you should be able to do the problems in easier books (Dummit and Foote, Hungerford) pretty easily. Be warned- the problems are not there to have you "fill in the details" Isaacs left out (because his proofs generally don't leave even minute details out) or to get practice, but to actually prove new results. For example, important topics such as metabelian groups, supersolvability, and the structure of a field with an abelian Galois group are presented as problems.

In sum, anyone who wants to appreciate the beauty of algebra and understand more than just the basic concepts should learn it from Isaacs' book. While it is self-contained, one may want to study Herstein's book first and do some problems so that this book doesn't seem as intimidating. After studying this, you should be prepared to answer any basic algebra question on any prelim exam in the country and be sufficiently prepared to tackle more advanced branches of algebra.

If you are looking for a great first book on abstract algebra, this is it! Dr. Isaacs has written a self-contained work that covers the basics of the subject in an easy to read manner. This book assumes that the reader has no previous knowledge of modern [abstract] algebra, though some mathematical maturity is required. It also avoids the twin pitfalls of mathematical writing: "Theorem, proof, theorem, proof,...", and "The details are left to the reader."

Although I took physics in college, most of what I know was learned from books by Asimov. This book is a collection of his essays published in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" where the theme of each is physics. In rereading the essays, I was taken back to the heady days when I needed to learn a great deal of physics in only a few days. This was accomplished by reading Asimov's books and I managed to learn enough to handle the problems.
The collection is well-suited to anyone with an interest in physics or a teacher who wants to introduce the fundamentals of a point without yet delving into the rigor that requires detailed formulas. As always, Asimov has written with a clarity that textbook authors are either unwilling or unable to achieve.
In my many experiences as an educator, I am often asked for "simple" references about various topics. When the topic is science, I always recommend the writings of Asimov and when the topic is physics, this is the first book I suggest.

This book is very readable (except in a few technical spots) and very interesting. It explains some aspects of physics, which are normally very hard to understand, into plain English for the rest of us that aren't physic's majors.

Isaac Asimov has such a delightful wit that even his explanations of archaic terms are fun to read. When combined with W.S. Gilbert's hilarious librettos, it makes one entertaining read. Actually, it makes more than one entertaining read. i have read it several times and still enjoy it.

Writer Martin Gardner once told Isaac Asimov that if he really wanted to have fun, he should find a book he liked very much and annotate it. "Asimov's Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan" is one of the results of that suggestion. This enormous volume contains the words to all the G&S operas, plus extensive notes explaining allusions and words that might be unfamiliar to today's listener. Asimov assumes minimal knowledge on the part of the reader, so this book is useful and entertaining not only for the veteran G&S aficionado but also for the neophyte.

I had to write a research paper on Asimov, Bradbury and scifi. Obviously the first two were easy enough (once I actually figured out what I was doing) but the last topic was a bit more difficult. I mean, you can't really think indepentently on a research paper. Don't ask me why, but always have to rely on someone else's opinion. I could really seem to find anything until I came upon this in my school library. Not only did I find the information I needed, but I found all of Asimov's essays to be fascinating. I wish he was still alive because I found his views on fantasy to be somewhat conflicting with mine (I'm a huge fantasy fan) but alas, I found out to my dismay he's been dead for quite awhile. Oh well, go figure. But I would definetly recomment this book--

This book is s collection of essays from "Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine" by the good Doctor. Normally they relate to science fiction, but Asimov also covers some other topics, normally science related when they are not directly related to SF.

It is a good collection of essays. It gives some good commentary about the field by one of its Grand Masters.

Nice book.

This is a collection of superlative stories from Asimov's Magazine. It's a good place to find stories that began careers. The stories are: Bloodchild by Octavia Butler, only her second story in Asimovs, it won both the Hugo and Nebula; Firewatch by Connie Willis that also won the Hugo and Nebula and started her career; Press Enter by John Varley that also won the Hugo and Nebula, Hardfought by Greg Bear that won a Nebula; The Peacemaker by Gardner Dozois that won a Nebula; Her Furry Face by Leigh Kennedy and my personal favorite, The End of Life As We Know It by Lucius Shepherd. It's a shame this anthology is out of print. All the stories are from the 1980s, but every one of them is still powerful and a good read.

A collection of punchy, enjoyable science-fiction stories from IAsfm's first decade and change, running the gambit from hard science to character-driven to simple dumb fun. Only further reason to believe that the Good Doctor was wise in putting his name on the magazine.