The idea behind the book was fantastic-- here finally are the personal lives of the three men whose historical story has been lodged within our literal and social culture. Then there is a fourth. As the cover states, while each story is enjoyable, it is really the fourth man, who never makes it to Bethlehem in time to see Jesus, who speaks the story of Christ. It's been a long time since I've so enjoyed a novel. What's more, it's well-written and creative and yet, it still has a STORY!!!!

The book about the unexpected trials and tribulations in search of the sweetness of life. Tournier has been one of my favorite writers.

Just as The Ogre presents a modern take on the legend of the Erl King, Michel Tournier receates the legend of the visitation of the Magi which has become a major part of Christian culture. Interestingly, as Tournier tells us in the Epilogue, the Magi are mentioned only in the gospel of Matthew and most of what we know of them was created much later. The book is a collection of interrelated tales told in the voices of five Kings including the traditional Magi, King Herod and the fourth King who is Tournier's ingenuous invention. Each King is profoundly affected by the birth of Jesus but it is the fourth King who experiences the most profound metamorphosis. Even though I appreciated the profound philosophic message of the book, it is the style of writing which is so impressive. I read each of the 250 pages in one sitting, unable to put it down. I had a hard time reading the last few pages because of the tears in my eyes. It has been quite a while since I have read anything so powerful!

Each chapter in this book has a different emphasis. Each one stands alone and independent. The chapters span a wide range of subjects, from ecopsychology, to natural entheogens (teacher plants, which induce an altered state of consciousness useful for spiritual journeying).

He begins with an account of his visit with the Lacandones and experience of their Balche, an entheogenic drink. His next chapter uses depth psychology to analyze the Gaian hypothesis. He then describes a vision quest experience in the Mojave Desert before moving on to a discussion of the Veriditas of Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th century mystic. He examines the role of entheogens, then broaches the subject of the psychopathology of the human-nature relationship--also examining the dissociative split within human consciousness between the spiritual and the natural. He goes back in time to contrast the Indo-Kurgan "sky gods" with the matrifocal cultures and their earth deities. He peeks at the wild deities of animistic and shamanic cultures, and then considers how the reunification of the sacred and the natural could impact both individuals and society. He shows how our current situation demands that we move to an ecological world view. Finally, he concludes with a chapter which demands that we root ourselves in our bioregions, commenting that our identity is not simply the ego baggage we have acquired, but that we also identify as beings who exist in a place. Without the stories of our "places," we are set adrift, and cannot forge a sacred union with the Natural.

This book is wonderful and outlining man's relationship with nature. I found it especially helpful while also reading the poetry of William Wordsworth, who holds the man/nature relationship in high esteem. I have already taken pages of notes while reading this and will certainly incorporate some of it into my personal philosophy (especially the materialism chapter... there are hints at Buddhism throughout the book). A great read for any nature or psychology enthusiast.

Word Ninja

I was a bit slow getting started reading this book, but once I began in earnest I got fascinated. It is a systems view of Man and the Environment, asking the hard questions and proposing answers from the psychologists (and common sense) point of view. There is so much management and operations management which is done without regard for the important constraints of the problem, it is getting out of hand. Can industries exist and produce without ruining the earth which supports them? Is there such a thing as a sustainable telecommunications system? Better ask these questions, and answer them, before it is too late.

If you can still get it, it's worthwhile for the support pro. While it isn't the most current or best written book available for support, it's one I wouldn't trade away.

Strengths: problem defining & solving, phone skills, difficult customers.

Please reprint soon!!

Ralph Wilson's classic has a justly deserved reputation as being the King James Bible for computer support personnel. Cogent, witty and engaging. Has sections for external and internal support, and even valuable advice on interpersonal communications techniques when dealing with users. Also provides tips on handling tantrum-throwers and other problem callers.

This is an interesting collection of essays, interviews, and commentaries, which has been well put together by Susan Sontag. The advice to young writers section is particularly amusing as are Kis's thoughts on his self-chosen exile. I recommend reading the Tomb of Boris Davidovitch before hand because much of the book deals with the controversy Kis faced over that novel, as well as his break from the Belgrade literati.

Kis was a brilliant writer, but as these essays show, completely apolitical. He did not have time for nationalists, internationalists, communists, capitalists any of it, which is why perhaps he went to France to live the quiet life of a University Professor.

Considering that she claims to be a friend of Kis and actually put this work together, it is shameful that Sontag insists on putting a political spin on this collection. She actually claims that the 'gingerbread heart of nationalism' section ranks along with, she claims, Andric's Letter from 1920 as early warnings against Serbian Nationalism. As someone who has translated Andric's story, I can tell you that Ms. Sontag should consider re-reading. The Andric story makes the case that Bosnia is a land of ethnic hatred, ready to explode at anytime, which it obviously did. There is no mention of Serbian aggression or nationalism. Nor does Kis ever pay tribute to any idealized multi-cultural Bosnia, Sontag's cause celebre throughtout the early 90's and repeated in the introduction. Enough politics, however.

Read this work because it tells us a great deal about a wonderful literary stylist, who knew and loved literature. The fact that others would try to co-opt Kis to champion their political philosophies is embarrassing. The book speaks for itself.

Kis is a giant of world literature. This book of biographical pieces, interviews, and essays by Kis allow the reader to see some of the inner workings of that fine mind. His early death was a great loss to literature. What he has achieved, however, will live on forever. I've read A TOMB FOR BORIS DAVIDOVICH perhaps five times, and I'm looking forward to reading it again, and again.

I read Danilo Kis' books " Tomb for Boris Davidovich", "Hourglass" and "Encyclopedia of the Dead". The glory and greatness of this eastern European writer can be comprehended fully only after understanding Kis on the personal level. ""Homo Poeticus" does just that: writer pours his soul to the world by revealing his influences (literary and personal), - and brings reader closer to the great writers of this century such as: Nabokov, Flaubert, Borges, Marquis de Sade...Kis even wrote an essay on the Serbian painter Velickovic. I always respected Danilo Kis' fictional works. Collection of Danilo Kis' essays and interviews made me even more fond of him as a person - and his work. Book's editor, Ms. Susan Sontag, wrote emotionally powerful introduction. Her selection of the work published on this non-fiction masterpiece is absolutely wonderful.

Heidegger's `Introduction to Metaphysics' was banned in Germany until the early 1950s. Why? Some aspects of Heidegger's rhetoric, and certain passages, e.g., "The greatness of National Socialism ... ", lended themselves to Nazism. Written in the 1930s, `An Introduction to Metaphysics' maintains Heidegger's muddled and still unclear association with Nazism regarding his philosophy. His membership in the party still casts a long and many would say daming shadow over his philosophy. However, this work is still fascinating and, when read with Nazi filters, rewarding because in this work Heidegger introduces many of his preoccupations that will dominate his thinking after his turn (`Kehre'), e.g., truth, metaphysics, etc.. I studied it closely for my thesis and what is problematic is Heidegger's equation of the `power of the polis' with truth-Being. Power-truth siding on the power of the state and not the individual of liberalism is what needs attention. He moves radically away from this in later thinking. Heidegger is no democrat, but whether he is a full blown Nazi is up to the reader to decide. A must read for philosophers and historians of the period.

What a great book. I may of read about 4 to 5 Martin Heidegger books & this book flowed because it was easy to read. Well, the first part of the book was easy, got a little lost in the "Being As Thinking" section. His philosophy, minus the so-called...certain influence, helped me give up my Platonic ways of thinking. Martin Heidegger starts off trying to ask the most basic axiom "Why are there BEINGs at all instead of Nothing" goes through a brief history of the main words, tears the words & main question apart, & puts the words & question back together again. Then he explains how BEING turns into BECOMING (how things change), APPEARANCE (how things influence our senses), THINKING (How & what we think about our experience), & the OUGHT (The way things "Should" or "Could" BE). Basic conclusion: Western Philosophy started out correct with the pre-Platonic philosophers asking what BEING was & then after Plato the debate became about mind over matter while losing the original meaning & questions about BEING (Reality). A Must Read!

This translation is a long overdue revisitation of the first of Heidegger's books to appesar in an English version. This short book is an excellent introduction to Heidegger's thought in the 30s. The 30s were his most "Nietzschean" period, and also his most controversial period, because of his support at the time for the Nazi party. The 30s also acquired something of a legendary status among Heidegger scholars because it was then that he was working on his "Contributions to Philosophy". Otto Poeggeler (privileged with access to Heidegger's manuscripts) had been saying for years that the "Beitraege" was Heidegger's most important work, which made many people naturally curious about this work. When it finally appeared (in 1989, an English translation appeared in 2000) it proved to be as daunting a text as "Being and Time". The "Introduction to Metaphysics" dates from the same time, and could well be thought of as a companion piece to the much more challenging "Contributions to Philosophy."

...I still know and love the Fourth Dimension, and here we havea book putting forth a theory that the whole Dead Guys business isn'tmystical-magical at all, but just an example of the activities of RE's (Remote Entities, as Ralphs puts it) who are no longer stuck like bugs in the surface of our paltry three-dimensional cosmic beach ball.

The author begins with a scathing attack on scientism, which I found tiresome. For my money, the "skeptics" have long since proven themselves to be dishonest debunkers and beneath serious concern. I wanted to get on to the good stuff. This begins on Page 39, where Ralphs launches into the book's greatest strength: A qualitative, non-mathematical explanation of what a spatial Fourth Dimension might be, and how it relates to the three within which we here on Earth are imprisoned. Think of a water bug floating on the surface of a pond. The pond's surface is all he knows. If someone thrusts a business card into the water, the bug sees not a rectangular object but a *line,* where the card intersects the water. If someone were to thrust the corner of a cubical solid into the water, the bug would see a triangle (think about it!) and nothing suggesting a cube.

This next part may be dubious physics (I'm not sure, since bugs aren't really two-dimensional) but Ralphs asks us to imagine a shadow of a tree falling on the surface of the bug's pond. The bug would see a pattern of light and darkness in the pond's surface suggestive of *something*, but that pattern would be immaterial and the bug could skate right through it. Now, suppose a Dead Guy, flying around in the Fourth Dimension, cast a 3-dimensional shadow somehow into our three-dimensional universe, such that it landed in your bedroom at three am. Would that resemble a g-g-g-ghost? Ralphs makes a good case.

Furthermore, he presents a fascinating case study originally described by British psychic Matthew Manning. As a young man Manning had an interesting "relationship" with one Robert Webbe, who lived in the same (venerable) house Manning was inhabiting in 1977--but 250 years earlier. The two "spoke" regularly to one another, though Webbe was quite sure he was going mad, for hearing "onley this voice in myne head." (Manning "heard" from Webbe through automatic writing, whereas Webbe seemed to hear Manning in some purely telepathic fashion--hence the quaint spellings.) Manning actually saw the elderly, lame Webbe on a number of occasions, including a particularly fascinating one where the two confronted one another in some weird time-twist, and Manning actually handed a doll shoe to Webbe, who, befuddled, tucked it in one of his 18th century pockets. Although Webbe was "solid" in appearance, Manning's hand passed right through him when he tried to touch the phantom. (The matter of the doll shoe is harder to figure, though Ralphs tries somewhat gamely.)

As an introduction to the Fourth Dimension, with a saddlebag passel of engaging weirdnesses, the book is great fun. But as good as it is, *Exploring the Fourth Dimension* fails for me, largely because Ralphs barely mentions the quantum nature of reality, has nothing to say about the notion of locality vs. nonlocality, and seems unaware of David Bohm's "implicate order"--which presents the theory that the universe is a sort of hologram. These are key concepts in any attempt to explain the paranormal in terms of physics that mainstream science accepts as "true."

But can any book explain everything and tie it all together? I suspect it can be done, and I'm keeping an eye out for such a miracle text. Until then, the pieces are all over the place, and I encourage you scientifically minded inquirers to pick this one up, as one of those pieces that definitely points in the right--dare we say extradimensional--direction.

Exploring the Fourth Dimension is a book that teaches us to look and think beyond what we actually "perceive" through our five senses. The book can strengthen a believer, or even convert a non-believer.

This is a great book for children who are gifted with an explorative mind. It plants the seeds for growing a broad, worldly mind.

The basic premise of this book is that a physical Fourth Dimension exists (as opposed to a mathematical abstraction.)

This fourth dimension provides an explanation for most paranormal phenomenon (synchronicity, spirit communication, movement of objects through space and time, automatic writing, deja vu, clairvoyance, dowsing, etc.) The human mind has the ability to percieve this higher dimension (at least briefly) but it has to bypass a natural built-in "censor" that evolution has erected to keep us from being distracted at a three dimensional level of perception and survival. Indeed, if we were to totally eliminate this censor our brains might very well be overwhelmed by an all-seeing, all-knowing God-like state that we just are not ready to handle either mentally or spiritually. However, it may be that our higher Self (as opposed to our physical brain) is naturally a fourth dimensional entity.

This is the best book on this subject that I have found, it is a step beyond even Rucker's work.

I don't know if this book really should be considered a book of Classical Mechanics. The reason is that its first 5 chapters (more than 500 pages!) contain almost all the global analysis you'll ever need to know, plus some quite esoteric topics such as a section on general quantization and infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems (with the Schroedinger and Korteweg-deVries equations as examples). Copious figures and reasonably clear notation help the reader to understand the (often hard) topological and geometrical concepts. As a book on analytic mechanics, it seems like killing a cockroach with a bazooka. If you plan to learn MECHANICS with a geometrical flavor, and not GLOBAL ANALYSIS with physical motivations, choose instead the shorter, cleaner and much more inspired book of V. I. Arnold, "Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics". If you belong to the second group, it's a good place anyway.

The rest of the book is dedicated to dynamical systems, including a fac-simile of a paper of Kolmogorov. However, the topics could be trated with less fuss (as, for example, in the marvellous little and sadly out-of-print book of David Ruelle).

Along with a handful of other works this book is a must for anyone interested in geometric mechanics and control. The text provides a rigorous foundation for a huge subject.

All necessary background is self-contained. However, the book is difficult and I would not recommend it as a first learning text. For that I would send you to Frankel's _The Geometry of Physics_.

This is a wonderful book. You could loose yourself for almost a whole career here - because this book tries to explain virtually the whole of the subject, right up to all the twentieth century contributions.

Photographs of mathematicians from Gauss and Legendre right up to the most venerable living mathematicians are included in a picture gallery at the front of the book. This is excellent.

The book requires as a beginning, all the material regarding the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formulations of mechanics - which means you won't have a clue about what the book is saying until you have got somewhat beyond the second year at university. Then the authors start discussing topology, and the ideas which are necessary to re-formulate ideas in quite different clothing. This is very hard - the reader really needs to know about very hard mathematics. Ideas about point set topology are essential because the subject matter encompasses chaotic behaviour and the many body problem. Newtons equations (and this surprises many people) lead to large systems of non-linear equations - and the general theory of the solution of such systems leads almost inevitably to poincare point sets, winding numbers, and so forth. The theory of integral operators (see Kranoselsky, et al) has long been couched in these terms.

Get this by all means, and prepare to have a hard journey ahead.

I should mention that many parts of the book are quite readable and the authors go out of their way to reach the reader as far as possible.

It's actually a physically large book, it would be probably better to get the hard back edition if it's available.

I had the read Ellison's Invisible Man for AP Literature- and after struggling through the first five unbearably long chapters- I made a decision- To through th book out the window!!! Save yourself the agony of reading this "great" work of American literature- buy the cliffs notes- they have all of the info w/o the boring stuff!

I thought the book The Invisible Man was a good book.It was about a man who had bandages all over him. Some people thought he was very ill and tried to doctor himself.Others said they would hearsounds coming from his room. One rainy day, a family owned a hotel. He asked if he could stay in one of the rooms,and he asked if they would not come check on him.

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I have to say, I actually get a better feel for prices just by going on ebay and searching through completed and current items. That will tell you what people are really paying for things today. The problem I had with this guide is that it hardly ever had the item I was looking up. It had similar items but in many cases, the specifics really matter if you want a real price. I also don't know who pays some of the prices listed in there. It is an interesting check though if you're able to hit on something you're actually interested in finding in there

This was one of the first books I bought when I started collecting and flea marketing. Turned out to be a great investment, one that I update with every new edition by the Kovels.

If you're an avid garage sale goer, this is a good piece of reference to keep in your car before you spend too much for an item that really may not be worth as much as you are hoping.

The "Antiques Roadshow" mentality has everyone thinking that they have treasures when they really have just a bunch of very old junk. On the flip-side, some things you might just think are junk could really be treasures after all.

Readers should keep in mind that this is a price guide, not a price rule. In other words, an item is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. An item may be listed as having a value of $400 (for example), but you may be hard-pressed to find a buyer (even on an on-line auction) who is willing to pay more than $50.

Kovel's is a pretty awesome guide as long as you keep that in mind. A price guide is also no replacement for real-world experience, training and study. Memorizing the contents of this book will not make you a candidate to be an appraiser for Christie's or Sotheby's... but if you are an amateur collector or have been collecting for years, it's a great reference to have at your fingertips.

Thanks to many years of hard work and fighting for the right to study love and sex as a scientific topic, Elaine Hatfield has brought us an objective, cross-cultural look at love and sex. Richard Rapson's contribution is to add balance by providing us with the historical perspective. Together these two authors manage to give us a interdisciplinary perspective on love and sex among various cultures. Any serious student of psychology, history, anthropology, sexuality, and many other areas should add this book to their list of books to read!

I enjoyed reading this book a lot. It tells about love and sex from a cross-cultural perspective. However, it mainly emphasizes the initiation and dissolution of relationships, and does not attempt to dissect what actually goes on during them. It is most certainly NOT a self-help book.

I found the book to be biased somewhat against traditional Christianity. Nevertheless, traditional religion needs to be rethought. Yet it is somewhat unfortunate that those who are so sensitive to other cultures are less sensitive to traditional Western culture.

My comment is more in response to the first persons review of this book. It is called Love and Sex: Cross-cultural perspective for a reason. To learn about the traditions of love and sex from an other cultures perspective. Not just the puritanical ridden minds of some westerners and Christians. When the above reviewer said the author was "somewhat biased against traditional chritstianity" I had to roll my eyes with contempt. Christianity is not the end all tell all for human behavior. I believe that the western culture gives themselves to much credit and likes to pat themselves on the back and sometimes shun other cultures for not living up to their standards of morality. Some may say that the greatest achievement of western culture is Christianity. I disagree, in many ways Christianity has lead to horrific consequences. Murder, war, the opression of women and minorities, and many more to numerous to mention. So, first reviewer of book I hope you keep in mind that there is no right way to live or believe and to open up your mind to different perspectives and to not think with ethnocentrism.