A good read that, at under 80 pages, quickly gets to the point. Based on a lecture series, this book explores public choice concepts with regards to organizations. This is a good augment to North's books on institutions.

William Barker Cushing was one of the true heroes of the naval Civil War. He consistently defied the enemy and the odds, and came back alive. He almost singlehandedly blew up a Southern ironclad (the CSS Albemarle). Coupled with a section on Cushing's brother, Alonzo, who was at the heart of the third day of Gettysburg, this book will excite, entertain, and educate all fans of the Union and the Navy.

I ordered this book thinking its short stories would be about Lithuania by a visitor, perhaps. Instead, the stories, while quite well written, are about the author's experiences in Baltimore, where some Lithuanians happen to cross paths, peripherally, with the author, and about his interactions with Arabs, here and in Africa -- which stories have a decided (I think) homosexual bent. Readers hoping for a travelogue about Lithuania are sure to be disappointed, if not annoyed, and might well ask for a refund.

While this book did not thrill me, my daughter loves it! She has chosen this book over many others time and again to have read to her. It has been over a year since she first saw it, and she still loves it. I run a childcare in my home and the children enjoy it too. The pull up parts on the pages engages children to participate in the story. Even though an adult may not like a story or the illustrations, children are the ultimate judge. The copy I have is a chunky board book which fits well in small hands.

I bought this book because I was looking for something to tell me how some Saints lived their lives - something inspirational. This it did, in it's way. It provides a brief, but personal, summary of the lives of 21 famous and not-so-famous saints. However, it appears to have been written with a children to teenage audience in mind, and so was a bit simplistic for me, as an adult, in places. By the same token, for me, as a non-Catholic, the book was easy to understand and provided useful and thought-provoking insights into sainthood and Catholic beliefs. I would recommend this book mainly to an early-teen audience, but it can also provide a good introduction to sainthood and Catholic beliefs to people of all ages and religious persuasions.

The Mei Ha'Shiloach is not a relatively popular commentary when compared to those commentaries written by other Chassidic masters. It was therefore pleasantly surprising to find an English translation. The translator (Edwards) sticks to a fairly literal translation of the text without offering a whole lot of explanation into the author's meaning. This is great for the passages in which The Iszbitzer (author of original) provides more expansive comment. For some of the passages that are somewhat esoteric or cryptic almost, the reader would have been served by some expansion by the translator. That said, Edwards did a fine job in bringing this hard-to-find but important commentary to the public. He does go out of his way to break the language down so that the comments are understandable by even the uninitiated without going so far as to alienate more experienced readers.

Finally, Edwards does provide some welcome historical context relating to The Iszbitzer in which he refers the reader to the translation of the book's original forward (also provided). Additional objective historical detail would have good inasmuch as that forward was written by the author's own grandson. But that's just being picky. All in all, this is a good addition to one's library.

Joseph Conrad's stories are generally regarded as classic literature, but tend to be difficult to read, especially Lord Jim. It is a story of the downfall of a ship's officer after he wimps out at a crucial moment. Where a less sensitive individual may have found the ability to survive, Jim in haunted by his own inner guilt about the incident. He gradually withdraws from white society.

The novel tends to digress and sidetrack while developing characters, so it is some way into the story before the reader learns exactly why Jim is before a maritime court, and even farther along before you discover what actually happened to the steamer Patna. Jim had a deep desire to do heroic deeds, but an error in judgement makes him a goat. The balance of the novel is on the life Jim made for himself, and on the people he associates with, as told by a narrator.

The novel was first published circa 1900, and reflects the white European attitude towards native populations during that time period.

Is Murphy's Law correct, or are things really going according to plan? This book uses humor to reveal God's hand at work in the complications we confront in everyday life. Some examples in this book: Nothing is ever as simple as it first seems, everything you decide to do costs more than the first estimate, every activity takes more time than you have, it's easier to make a committment or to get involved in something that it is to get out of it, whatever you set out to do, something else must be done first, if you improve or tinker with something long enough, eventually it will break, by making something absolutely clear, somebody will be confused, you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, etc.. I really liked the approach to murphy's law by understanding that God is in control and does have a plan. This is a book that should be required reading for everyone!

This volume is a quite complete course in low speed range aerodynamics. Even if the authors limit themselves to incompressible and irrotational fluid fieds, they present a complete course giving a substantial theorical apparatus with a logically developed computational methods.

The mathematical level is really excellent, since the presentation is thoroghly worked out with detailed explanation of each formulae or passage. The most enticing feature of this tome is the systematic treatment of computational methods with different approaches to them to obtain the full range of solutions. This is achived by implementing additional level of complexity along the process, showing the dependence of each function in numerical modelling.

Altogether, this book is a good start for understanding the computational techniques and the classic theory.

Recreational mathematics nay be a misnomer to some, but to practitioners, it is an addiction. Whether it be creating new puzzles or solving those made by others, the thrill of the chase and the pride in solution make it an interesting and exciting hobby. A precise definition of recreational mathematics is impossible, often being a matter of personal taste. However, there are some areas that definitely satisfy the criteria, and in this book, Joseph Madachy, the longtime editor of Journal of Recreational Mathematics describes them and gives some example problems. Many of these topics have been around for centuries without losing any of their charm.
The logic puzzle is very old, with the riddle of the sphinx being a part of Greek mythology. Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, has been around for centuries. Although the folding of paper to make new designs is covered in this book, origami as it is normally defined, is not. The most famous commentator on magic squares is none other than Benjamin Franklin, the original American polymath. The properties of numbers have been used as a point of mysticism and religion from the time of the ancient Greeks. Although Madachy clearly has a great deal of respect for numbers, he never descends into the farce of numerology. Alphametics, or the expression of an arithmetic expression as a collection of words, is a popular form of problem and can be used as a source of problems for courses in beginning algebra.
Problems and puzzles, whether they be crossword, word search, character shifting or encryption codes, are very popular, appearing regularly in most newspapers and magazines. Which verifies the enormous human capacity and interest in exercising our brains. In this book, there are many problems, all solved, that will generate an increase in the activity and efficiency of your cerebral neurons.