The latest book by Gorodetsky is nearly useless.
The way in which G. interprets for example diary-entries of Dimitroff is absurd and completely misleading. Luckily these diaries have now been published in german language (Aufbau Verlag) so that everyone can read for himself what Dimitroff really wrote - in full - and not just the selective parts Gorodetsky presents.
Also, the way in which Gorodetsky presents the clearly offensive soviet force disposition in 1941 is a bit of remarkable absurdity.

Gorodetsky claims in one sentence to have corrected Suvorov's claims that Stalin was preparing an offensive against Germany. But how? Where is Gorodetsky showing that the numerous arguments of Suvorov are actually wrong?
The next bit of absurdity is that Gorodetsky writes that soviet doctrine was clearly offensive - but of course not in reality.
Another proof of Gorodetsky's fear to provide full documentation is that he doesen't provide the full text of the "Considerations..." from May 15th, 1941 where a preemtive strike against Germany was advocated by the General Staff. Gorodetsky claims that this document was written behind Stalin's back and that it has never been approved. Anyone who knows only a fraction about the great purges of Stalin in the Red Army can clearly see the bizarre absurdity of such a claim. Vassilievsky, Zhukov and Timoshenko would have ended in the hands of the NKVD and would have been executed had they written such a proposal against Stalin's intentions!

Gorodetsky knows that would he provide such important documents with their full text, the reader would reach quite different conclusions than claimed in the book. That's why Gorodetsky most of the time quotes documents that can't be checked by the readers.
One should rather read Joachim Hoffmann's "Stalin's war of extermination" or Albert Weeks forthcoming "Stalin's other war. Soviet Grand Strategy 1939-1941" because there one can find proper documentation and learn about Stalin's real intentions.

The Cold War gave birth to a myth that the Soviet Union was cunningly planning a strike against Germany in July 1941. As a result, some historians had been calling for justification of the invasion to Russia, which Nazi Germany started on June 22, 1941. The logic goes if Stalin was planning an aggression against Germany, Hitler had a right to a preemptive strike against Russia. The creators of the myth use a testimony of a defector from the Russian military intelligence by the name of V. Resun. Under a pen name "Suvorov" he wrote a book called "Icebreaker" where he presented a theory that Stalin in 1939-1941 was meticulously preparing a war against Germany. Therefore according to this theory Russia was an aggressor rather than the victim in 1941.

In "Grand Delusion" Israeli professor Gabriel Gorodetsky shows beyond reasonable doubt that Suvorov's arguments are ridiculous. He presents evidence that Stalin was not contemplating attack on Germany; but in fact was trying to avoid any confrontation with Germany while playing a compacted diplomatic game to limit Germany's political influence on the Balkans, particularly in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. He shows Stalin's obsessions with the Turkish Straits and Bulgaria, which wasn't new, but was an old Imperial policy of Russia for many years. I was surprised to learn how much "tsarist" Stalin's foreign policy really was - there was very little in it related to the communist ideology or "class struggle" theory of Karl Marx.

The failure to understand Hitler's bellicose plans was a result of Stalin's misjudgment of power structure and decision-making process in Berlin. As an extremely suspicious person, Stalin mistrusted everyone, but looks like he believed misleading information presented to him by opponents of Hitler's policy such as Count Werner Von Schulenburg (German ambassador to Moscow, who became later a leading figure of anti-Hitler failed coup) and Ribbentrop. Stalin mistrusted equally both Churchill and Hitler and attributed all warning signals to England's efforts to drag Russia into war with Germany. Also Stalin didn't believe that Hitler would allow Wehrmacht to fight on two fronts. German double agents "Litseist" encouraged this false believe. The Germans succeeded in their sophisticated disinformation campaign, which coupled with Stalin's wishful thinking, led Russians to believe that Germany was not planning to invade Russia at least in the near future.

Gorodetsky points out that the idea of a preventive war was embedded in the German (from Frederick the Great to Moltke) rather than the Russian military tradition. "Barbarossa" plan was devised to quickly crash Russia in quick 10-week war and to free Hitler's hands to complete his "mastery of Europe". Then he would take care of England without any distractions from the "Soviet Empire". It looked like everything was working just wonderful for Nazi Germany until June 22, 1941 - the beginning of the German invasion to Russia (which by the way started suddenly without any declaration or ultimatum). But it turned out that the Germans seriously underrated the opponent and seriously miscalculated the amount of the effort they would need to crush Russia. Sure, the German might was incredible, but so was German overconfidence. Hitler's disparaging attitude towards Russian "vermin" makes ridiculous the theory of preemptive strike. Gorodetsky shows that this attitude was widespread in the West - Sir Winston Churchill himself was prone to disparaging attitude towards Stalin and the Red Army.

But just before his attack on Russia Hitler was beating Stalin at his own game. Stalin's failure to prepare for the German onslaught, which cost many Russian lives, was a result of his own self-deception and wishful thinking. Although Stalin was very wily, I feel that he lacked formal education to think abstractly and deal with issues like, for example, proverbial German concept of "Drang nach Osten" or draw analogies from history. Although as a Georgian, he was obsessed with history of the Black sea and repercussions of potential German capture of the Turkish Straits. 150 years earlier the Grand Army of Napoleon stood looking across the English Channel - but there was nowhere for it to go - except to Russia. It seems to me again in June 1941 the same gravitational force was pulling 200 idle German divisions to the endless Russian steppes. Where else would these "drunk with success" armies go?

I really liked the book. This scholarly and dry book was not an easy read. But the amount of information looked at is enormous and the quality of analysis is good. Also for the first time the reliance is not only on the German and British sources, but also on the declassified Russian archives. The book de-romanticizes many myths and accounts, including well-known Churchill's history of WWII, which is "persuasive but excessively self-centered and therefore occasionally misleading interpretation of events". I highly recommend this book to everybody interested in reading a non-Disney history of WWII.

Winston Churchill's multi volume history of the Second World War was for many years influential. In talking about the period between the fall of France and the Invasion of the Soviet Union Churchill suggested that British Intelligence came to know of the German plans for Operation Barbarossa. Stalin was given a warning but he refused to head it. Churchill also saw the attack as inevitably flowing from the program which was outlined in Hitler's book Mein Kampf. As a result of Stalin's refusal to accept the warning the Germans were able to achieve enormous gains in the initial part of the invasion. This book is the most recent attempt to examine that period and to explain why Stalin acted as he did.

The book suggests that Hitler's decision to attack the Soviet Union was in fact not something which was cast in stone. Hitler and the German High Command also looked at alternate plans to end the war in Africa by the seizing of Gibraltar. Whilst this occurred Stalin seized a buffer zone in Romania and started to negotiate with Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. It would seem that it was the Soviet Policy in the Balkans which led the German leadership to decide on Barabarossa.

Stalin at all times is portrayed in the book as totally pragmatic in deciding foreign policy. The Soviets in fact had more complete spy networks than the British. Stalin made on fatal miscalculation and that related to his assessment of the power structure in Germany. He believed that the German leadership was split on whether an invasion of Russia should occur. He thought that it would be possible to negotiate and to gain time through some form of appeasement. The reality was that although some German figures such as Ribbentrop were against Barbarossa they had no real power. The German ambassador to the Soviet Union fanned these hopes. He in fact hoped that Germany would not invade and ended up joining the plot against Hitler in 1944.

Stalin realised when France fell that the Soviet Union was in great danger. Not only did Germany have the best army in Europe but the Red Army was in disarray. The purges meant that 70% of serving officers had only been in their positions for less than a year. There were substantial problems in supplying units with ammunition and fuel. The T 34 tank had just been put into production and deliveries were slow.

Stalin hoped that if Germany was to invade Yugoslavia it would set back their time table by a month and delay the invasion of the Soviet Union by a year. Instead the crushing of Yugoslavia only took a few days. Stalin was eager for his army to remain passive and that it not provoke the Germans. He in turn hoped to stall events whilst Soviet factories cranked out munitions and tanks to try to get the Red Army in shape. When the warning came from Churchill to Stalin he was aware of the German preparations. It was viewed by the Russians however as an attempt to embroil them in the war rather than anything else.

In recent years some revisionists have suggested that there was some chance that the Soviets might attack Germany first. The book shows that this could not have happened. Zhukov raised the issue but Stalin was not keen because of the state of the Army. Zhulov himself later suggested that if a spoiling attack had taken place the Germans would have defeated it easily captured Moscow in 1941. A first class book which explains the moves prior to the German Soviet War.

There are a lot of things I did expect when starting that "novel". A plot was one of them, some of the famous Heller wit another (this book really is unfunny, but keeps winking at you as if you're just a tiny little bit away from getting some cosmic joke it really is about). I didn't expect to be treated to a 326 page long variation of Larry King's obnoxious observations in USA Today, set in ancient Greece and Holland of the 16th/17th century. The chronology is totally mucked up, it seems not because of some artitistic reason, but because it was cobbled together without any sense of structure.

Finally, an author who seriously suggests that some of the dutch provinces are perhaps not even known to many INSIDE the Netherlands (hey Joe: this isn't the US you're writing about) doesn' instill too much confidence about getting his other facts right.

One of the few books in my life I didn't finish (maybe the second half is a LOT better).

PICTURE THIS is a paradox -- a mammoth delight and a monstrous disappointment. It's a startlingly imaginative work in which Heller blends three disparate times in history. Aristotle awakens as Rembrandt applies paint to canvas. When Rembrandt paints his ear, Aristotle hears. As the brush perfects the eyes, Aristotle sees. And always, Aristotle observes.

Heller portrays life in mid-17th century Amsterdam and in the 3rd century before Christ, commenting on similarities to modern living, jumping back and forth between the ages, and tracing the 300-year history of the portrait. It's quite a mix, and that's where the book fails. He just doesn't pull it off.

The book reminds me of a game of checkers played without rules. It's an uncoordinated hopscotch through centuries, filled with distractions, tangents and irrelevant side trips. It's as though he tried to combine several books into one and missed.

Heller's books (CATCH-22, GOD KNOWS, etc.) are unique. Maybe he just tried too hard to be different. The text lacks discipline, organization and the feel for language we expect from master writers. Paragraphs are disjointed, sentences are clumsy and overburdened. Too often they just plain don't make any sense.

"The great seaport city of Amsterdam was then the richest and busiest shipping center in the world. The great seaport city of Amsterdam was not a seaport but is situated a good seventy miles from the closest deepwater shipping facilities in the North Sea." That's amateurish and sloppy. And typical.

Heller's mediocre, journalistic style (reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut's) is inadequate for the job he has cut out for himself. The superb, sensitive and imaginative scholarship displayed in PICTURE THIS deserves organized, disciplined, and equally sensitive writing. It didn't get it.

PICTURE THIS is an enormous and sprawling work. I do not mean large in the word-count (though it's no slouch in this category) but in the scope. The back cover summary promises a "jaunt through 2,500 years of Western civilization" and it certainly delivers that. Unfortunately the result is a mixture of good and bad. At its best, it can be spellbinding, but at its worst it comes across as a fairly boring history lesson.

The book is vaguely centered around a piece of artwork that a Sicilian nobleman named Don Antonio Ruffo paid five hundred guilders for Rembrandt to produce. The painting is that of the Greek philosopher Aristotle contemplating a bust of the Greek poet and storyteller Homer. Using this foundation as a springboard, Joseph Heller jumps back and forth in time giving different perceptions on a number of different concepts. Money, power and art are just a few of the topics that Heller touches on and for the most part, as the expression goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. There are some memorable insights into the role that war, commerce, etc. have played in society.

On the other hand, PICTURE THIS does tend to get weighed down underneath its grandiose pretensions. While much of the book discusses the relation that history has to the concepts it contains, there are far too many passages that are just dry rehashes of historical documents. This is most apparent in the sections concerning the Greek philosophers where, at worst, the book spends several pages just rephrasing the events and philosophies that Plato described in APOLOGY, CRITO and THE REPUBLIC. Although these sections can be interesting (probably even more so to any readers who aren't already familiar with them) they are not always related to the rest of the story. For some of these sections, one would be better off reading the actual texts rather than just the summary of them included here.

The main sections of the book are split between long discussions about the wars of the ancient Greek world and numerous lectures upon the role of money/commerce in the Dutch society of Rembrandt's era. Some of it is extremely interesting. Some of it is stunningly dull. There are some very clever themes that run throughout the book such as the portrait of Aristotle being sentient and able to give a commentary on how different and similar life is in Rembrandt's time to that of his own. As readers in the beginning of the 21st Century, we can are also able reflect upon how their life is similar to ours. Heller is aware of this and lets the narrative play around with this idea, and while it isn't totally successful in every case, it's effective enough to be very powerful.

This book definitely has some gems contained within it. Just be warned that there is a lot of padding in between. While it's ultimately a rewarding experience, there are portions of it that are just tedious to read.

I read the reviews on this book and thought that it was perfect. I figured the complaints raised would be addressed in the new edition. So I went to my local bookstore to check it out. The book seems popular because it was hard to find a copy; however, when I did I find a copy I was very disappointed. This is a brand new edition but they reference sites and restaurants that are no longer in existence. For example, try to find the Chicago rib shack. According to the web this place no longer exists and is now a Japanese restaurant. If you need further proof, go to the index and look up Syon Park. The book says pg. 183-4 yet nothing is there. I did find the Syon Park info on pg. 181 but then what's the point of the index??? At this point I threw the book down in disgust and walked out. I'm still trying to figure out what they put into the 2nd Ed????

I subsequently picked up "Fodor's Around London with Kids" which has been useful in planning my trip.

Some good information, and a good source for telephone numbers and things to do that you might not see suggested in other books. You do get the feeling that the author actually lives in London, and he has a good feel for what kids might enjoy and what they will probably find boring, (but that their parents think they should take them to). The second edition was better organized and more accurate than the first.

The restaurant suggestions, however, as another reviewer mentioned, are not accurate. "Kid Friendly" they are not. We went to a restaurant, described in the book as having a menu of "fish fingers, burgers, etc.". We arrived to find not a fish finger in sight. I showed the book to restaurant manager who laughed, and said these, guys never come here, they call up and say "Do you feed kids?" - If we say yes they put down kid friendly. ... London is expensive, and this book won't save you any money.

All that aside, I guess I would recommend this book as a source of things to do, but take the restaurant and hotel reviews with a grain of salt.

We're currently living in London for four months with a four year old, and we use this book just about everyday. As some of the other reviewers mentioned, it's not great for restaurants or hotels, but is well worth buying just for the comprehensive list of places to visit that kids would enjoy. We found this book much more helpful than others that we purchased. Most other books have too much information and list too many places to visit. This one just listed the major sights to see, but includes some of the lesser known places. We love it, but we're also more interested in taking our child to the National Gallery to see Michaelangelo and to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs, then we are in taking our child to Legoland. (And yes four year old children can appreciate Michaelangelo if you explain it to them!)

As a book dedicated to such an historic aircraft there is surprisingly little information about the aircraft. There's lots of writing about the history surrounding the aircraft's development and political struggles, but almost no information about what the aircraft actually did (and couldn't do). The author spends a lot of pages blaming politicians for the cancellation of the aircraft without discussing it's significant technical problems. Compared to what is now available regarding the SR-71, the story of the XB-70 has yet to be thoroughly recounted.

The XB70 has been a great mistery for a long time. Its secrecy was largely due to the great leap in aeronautical science when the technological race between US and former CCCP was at its peak. Designed successor to B52, the XB70 has a troubled story from the start, its fortunes were forever sealed by McNamara's will to terminate the program. The book is about the history of political tribulations at all levels (USAF comands and interservice rivalry plus adverse lobbying in the Kennedy Administration and in the Congress, the last being not enough supportive). A respectable critical survey on program managment is given, providing a chronological description of machinations that overshadowed even the final experimental program.

Many details are covered but always from the historical point of view. The volume does not provide many technical facts and it still lacks a description of the airplane engine and systems, besides a precise perfomance summary is missing. The most important facet is the conversation record of the crash (XB70 ship AV002 and NF104 n°813). If the reader is looking for some Washington politics insight or behind the scene work, the narrative style is remarkable, but if he is looking for technicalities he has to wait for a new release or new bunch of declassified data.

This is a history, not a picture book. While photographic collections are important, they should be supplemented with meaningful history. That is what this book does. It gives previously unreported historical details, along with supporting photography. Other books can supply the additional photographic details. This book has heart. The authors have made sure that the real story is told, not just the official version. Wouldn't it have been nice if they'd been allowed to print everything they know?

Any book that describes Day Crockett as "the strangest man I ever saw. He had the face of a woman, and his manner was that of a girl" is going to capture my attention. That description appears in "Eccentrics" followed by the qualification that, as the Alamo fell, Crockett "looked grand and terrible, shouting at the front door and fighting a whole column of Mexican infantry."

The authors, who may be a bit eccentric themselves, first define eccentricity, then supply multiple examples arranged in such categories as: The Scientists, Eccentric Childhood, and Sexual Eccentricity (the latter being not quite as titillating as it sounds). They also examine the borderline between eccentricity and mental illness (a fine one) as well as some peculiarities, such as arrested speech development, relating it to eccentricity.

An interesting read, the only latent problem in the book is that, after reading it, you may find yourself looking at some of your acquaintances with different eyes (not to mention yourself.) On the other hand, you might use it as a springboard to finding and developing the eccentric parts of your own character.

I found this book to be fun and rather inspiring. It is grand to read about people who have actually managed to throw off the expectations and limitations of society. I recommend it to anyone who is curious about variations from the standard solutions. Also, I'd like to say that eccentricity offers another take on creativity... one that is structurally different than that provided by the art world. So if you are looking for an alternative foundation for art/writing/invention, you'll find insights between the lines of this book.

At last I can begin to understand my weirdness. Now I know that there is a word to describe my pyschological condition: eccentric. But the authors go at lengths to point out that this is much different from a mental illness. In fact, eccentrics are healthier than normal and show less schizophrenic signs. I would go as far as saying that we are extra sane. (Though my personal theory of pyschology is that *everyone is 'insane') It's not negative at all, in fact (pp.19) "Human evolution needs human eccentricity." Eccentrics, besides being nonconforming, are also commonly scientists or artists--and either or neither are very creative. The researchers let us know that true eccentrics are never acting. They are strong individuals with strange inclinations of their own, which they are not afraid to express. With the study of eccentricity we may finally gain a better understanding of all the revolutionary figures in all walks of history from Jesus Christ to Albert Einstein. However, "for all practical purposes, as far as modern medicine is concerned eccentricity does not exist." Dr. David Weeks and Jamie James have take the first scientific approach to the mutations of social evolution. {i.e., eccentrics} Accordingly I give them a full rating of five stars and recommend this book to every human being.

Poorly designed, nothing more than reprints of selected pages from each issue. If Nest is going to do a book, I want to see a "Nest"-y type book featuring the same wit and creativity that characterizes the magazine, not some self-congratulatory, half-baked reprint. Buy the back issues instead, don't waste your money.

Holtzman is the John Waters of interior design: ironic, iconoclastic, an impresario of the outrageous. His publication is die-cut and drilled (I thought Grant Mudford was going to punch him out for piercing his images when the two met at an LA reception for nest) but never dull. This editor has progressed far beyond conventional notions of good taste, juxtaposing stately homes and prison cells, trailers and Carlo MollinoÕs Turin apartment in a surreal collision of styles. As a minimalist I put down this book with a shudderÑthe riotous excess brought on an attack of claustrophobiaÑbut others may love it. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

Nest has been a true godsend in the otherwise discouraging world of disposable-vehicle-for-consumption magazines. Not only does nest have more visual appeal than the slickest of fashion or design magazines, it also has content: articles ranging from the scholarly to the surreal, but always well-written; photography by the likes of nan goldin and richard barnes. Anyone who is interested in architecture, design, photography, or simply the peculiarities of human behavior- in fact, anyone who is interested in anything at all- would enjoy reading nest.
For those who don't know the magazine, this book is a great introduction to the first twelve issues. And for those who are already fans or even devotees, the book provides wonderful insights into the design and editorial process of the magazine's creators. It also contains material from the first issue, which is impossible to find used.
This book will inform, educate, entertain and astonish you. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

You will find that Straus's method for determining prime form on pages 31-34 does not work. He suggests in the case of a tie to look to the second-to-last number compared to the first, and continue moving right to left until the tie is broken. Try the set [0,3,4,5,8,10,11], and you will find that his method will not result in prime form.

For the most accurate information, Forte is still the best, despite all the problems.

Strangely, I found Straus more confusing than Forte in a number of instances, in regards to the basics.

I like this book a lot. It is a practical, balanced, to-the-point guide. I have been composing for a long time (14+ years) but I've only been studying it full time for 3 years now, and I found that the book really helped to clarify a lot of my thinking about pitch collections, 20th century harmonies, and 20th century compositional techniques.

RE: The Prime Form debate. There are two methods for computing the prime form, the "Forte" and "Rahn" method. This book uses the "Rahn" method and is perfectly consistent throughout. While this is a minor issue, because it only affect 5 pitch class sets (of 200), perhaps it would be good to add a paragraph about the differences in a future revision to help beginniners avoid confusion.

I found that this book is an excellent text and should be used in all post tonal thoery courses. It is easy to use and very informative. To quote him, this text is "Supercharged with cool stuff".

I was just reading some of the other reviews and was surprised to discover this text is also used for Master's level classes. I'm pursuing my BSIS through distance learning, and this book was used for a recent class. Although I sometimes struggle with reading texts because they are not as exciting as the nearest fiction book, this was surprisingly easy to make it through. I didn't get lost in long paragraphs and obscure explanations. It gets a great big thumbs up from me!

As an adjunct professor of systems and database design, I use Hoffer's text in my master's level courses. It covers a huge breadth of topics in sufficient detail to give students a basic understanding, even if we completely skip the large numbers of case histories. I'm particularly pleased with its illustrations and the manner in which it handles the zillions of disparate diagramming methods available for system design. I'm happy enough with it as a classroom text that I use it as a reference for my day-job as a computer consultant. Strongly reccomended.

I just finished a system analysis & design course with this text book. A through-semester project was also done. Actually, I had a chance to compare severals book on System Analysis & Design. My bottom line for this book is that this book is the one currently most worth to buy. Its throughful and easy-to-understand explanation for each SDLC step, how it's applied in real business situation and all possible tools for each step, such as CASE, JAD, DFDs, E-R diagrams (Flankly, i think ER diagrams of this book need more improvement..) and so on. All are really good to catch out clear concept to understand 'what is the system analysis & design' and 'how it works'. If you want to buy a book delivering clear concepts of system analysis and design and how it works in real business situation. I recommend this book. But, If you want very specific, in-dept or new-kids-on-the-block kind of topics for System analysis & design, I don't recommend.

My son came home literally heaving and very disturbed by the canibalistic story, after the first chapter was read to him in school.
My son is a voracious reader, including the works of J.R.R.Tolkien, however the nature of this story made it highly unsuitable for him. He is nine.

The Boring Book

After Ray Bond turned 18 years old, his uncle gives him $30,000.00 in cash and places it on a vault in a bank. The next day Ray's uncle is found dead, an apparent suicide. Then someone starts following him and calling him. And the threats begin.

I dislike the book because it's boring and confusing. There are too many characters that want the same thing and act kind of the same. Ray is really dumb; he gets mad about everything and acts like a little kid. He treats his really bad and doesn't like to talk to her. Also Ray acts really mean to his girlfriend.

I like this book because it was easy to understand what was happening in it. Some parts of this book had somethings to do with real life. there is one part of the book that i like the most. it is when she had one dream thet her uncle was a skelleton man and she was running away. A rabbit helped her. And lator in the book the same thing happended she was chased by her uncle who was the skelleton man. the same rabbit help her. I like this book because what heppens in the book could happen in real life . Someone can destroy some ones life. When I started reading this book after the first chapter I didn't want to stop reading it because it is so good that I wanted to know how the story was going to end.

Life is torture, all of us die (hard to argue with that one) Hell is inevitable; it's here on earth right now, death is the end, suicide is a comfort. We are very insignificant beings essentially powerless to effect any real change and the best we can hope for is to embrace despair. And then there are the really depressing parts of this book.

However, like Blanche Dubois it's wonderful to depend (or at least be surprised) by the kindness of strangers.

Life is a Siberian concentration camp, but a fellow inmate may give you a flower and bring tears to your eyes in the realization that compassion exists amidst the damned.

Well, this is a fun book to give to anyone who annoys you by telling you to cheer up .

One might keep it by the door in case any Jehova's Witnesses knock, especially if they've been having a good day. It would also make an interesting Valentine's Day gift for your beloved, just in case she's nagging you into a wedding and you'd like to offer the alternative of a double suicide.

Itsuki writes about pain, sometimes eloquently, as in his narrative of The Dalai Lama , sometimes verging on obscenity as in the story of the mother whose terminally ill child is gasping for breath and Mom observes that "The gasps seemed like labor pains. . .the mother cheered her daughter on in death . . .Hurray!"

It's weird but Isuki's advice at times sounds like a self-help book turned upside down yet equally hoaky. Instead of telling us to smile and look on the bright side because it'll make us feel good, he tells us to weep and look on the dark side because it'll make us feel good.

This ain't profound but it sure sounds elevated as soon as he brings in Amida Buddha.

An entity which, from what I can gather exists in the archetypal Platonic realm (unlike Siddhartha, the Buddha, a human who actually lived) yet whose Presence is far more Real to his followers than a mere flesh and blood being.

Amida is the Buddha of Ultimate Compassion, and-- though there is no hope, really-- intoning his mantra 'Namu Amida Butsu' puts us in touch with compassion, frees us from the futile desire to escape our doom and best of all----

--Well I'm not sure. According to Itsuku, Zen was for the aristocracy who had time to enage in 'self-salvation' unlike the peasants who had to rely on 'Other Power' (Amida) and followed The Pure Land Sect.

(Actually I doubt it was that simple, having met a Korean Zen master who began each day by prostating himself 106 times and invoking Amida's help. It seems a human need to ask for divine compassion. Likewise I suspect that even the bravest of Stoics would have snuck a prayer to Zeus now and then.)

It seems the peasants believed they would be reborn into a paradise, a "Pure Land" unlike those intellectual Zen types who sought for Enlightenment a la Siddhartha while they still had breath to fight.

But Itsuki rejects this interpretation of The Pure Land. There will be no paradise or re-birth, you'll just be a kinder person and take refuge in Amida's light while you spend time in your own hell of a Siberian prison, etc.

I'm not sure as to how this reinterpreatation of The Pure Land sect came about. Judging by Itsuki, it does appear to be normative today. Perhaps the original was considered too primitive and literal ( by intellectuals, of course) or perhaps it cheered the peasants up too much, thus blinding them to the truth that Suffering is All, etc.

Well, it's an interesting book, though I believe the point was better articulated in C.S. Lewis' masterpiece "A Grief Observed"
not because Lewis was a Christian, but precisely because he had -- unlike Itsuki--a happy childhood. Consequently he was fairly optimistic, sure of his religion, and in late in middle age found true love-- only to have his wife die horribly of bone cancer--whereupon his world and his faith came tumbling down.
Lewis's attempt to cope with having egg on his face after a lifetime of naivete, and his brutally honest soul searching strikes one as far more poignant than this gloom and doom autobiography.

Oh, and BTW, 'Sad To The Bone' really is the title of a section in Itsuki's book.

In the final analysis, while Itsuki's philosophy embraces pathos and sympathy for our fellow sufferers endorsing a lofty charity towards all, given his metaphysical premises arguably loftier concepts would be rendered meaningless.

There is absolutely no room for heroism, triumph or, in the classical Western sense, tragedy.

Have a nice day.

First of all, it should be noted that this work is NOT a 'beginner's book' on Shin Buddhism. While there are parts which address the 'mechanics' of this school of Mahayana Buddhism, the real fact is that Itsuki's work is more directed to those who have already accepted the Nembutsu-faith as their own, or to those who wish to see the impact which that faith can have on those who are sometimes in the deepest and darkest places in their lives. As such, "Tariki" succeeds magnificently and powerfully.

Often very bleak and dark in places, "Tariki: Embracing Despair; Discovering Peace" is a sobering examination of how faith in Amida Buddha as held by those of the Shin faith can be both an anchor and a comfort to those in grave infirmity, grief, or facing death. Since much of the tenets of Shin deal with "resolving the question of the afterlife", it is natural that the book dwell in such heavy territory for much of its material. And while Itsuki does concentrate on such darker issues, it's important to note that...as would be appropriate for Buddhism in general...ultimately one comes to a realization that the duality between the 'dark' thoughts and the 'light' ones is really false. In this, Itsuki creates a very interesting and thought-provoking 'map' of the harsher aspects of life and how this harshness can be resolved through faith in the "other power" of Amida Buddha to unfold these experiences as ones of personal power and meaningful depth.

Again, this is no "starter" book for those wishing to learn more about Shin Buddhism; for those seeking that sort of information, I would suggest either Rev. Taitetsu Unno's "River of Fire, River of Water" or Dr. Ken Tanaka's "Ocean". But after absorbing the teachings set down in one or both of those, returning to Itsuki's book for a sober look at how those teachings affect and ground the lives of Shin Buddhists is a must.

Hiroyuki Itsuki provides a lucid and powerful explanation of Pure Land Buddhism in the Japanese tradition and supplements it with the lessons derived from his own suffering. Mr. Hiroyuki is to be commended not only for providing a spiritual essay with universal implications but also for drawing upon his own difficult experiences in a relevant, helpful manner that deftly avoids sentimentalism and self-pity.

Hiroyuki describes his childhood as the son of a Japanese teacher in occupied Korea before and during World War II. When Japan was defeated, Hiroyuki's world fell apart. After losing their home and belongings, Hiroyuki's mother died, his father became an alcoholic. Ultimately it was the then thirteen year-old Hiroyuki who cared for his siblings and dragged them to safety in South Korea. The trauma of these experiences and others caused Hiroyuki to develop a very negative view of life. The significance of this development, which was clearly missed by one reviewer, is the fact that Hiroyuki's negativity is not nihilistic. Instead, Hiroyuki argues that when we accept the negative facts of life (primarily that we will experience loss, pain, sickness, old-age, and death) we are better able to lead a positive life. Hiroyuki goes on to describe the Buddha as "the ultimate negative thinker" and explains how the Buddha gave up His life of wealth and privilege in order to comprehend and then address the suffering that comes with existence.

In explaining the differences between Zen and Pure Land Buddhism, Hiroyuki addresses the common misconception that the latter is based on blind faith. Zen, according to Hiroyuki is a religion of action that involves meditation and other exercises while Pure Land Buddhism simply requires a simple belief in and verbal acknowledgement of the Amida Buddha. This belief is not an attempt to find the Amida Buddha, for according to Hiroyuki He has already found you and has reached out to you with countless subtle mechanism that can include the kindness of complete strangers and the pages of Hiroyuki's book. Hiroyuki refers to these countless mechanisms as the "Other Power" and contrasts them with the "Self Power" associated with Zen. According to Hiroyuki, the practice of Zen involved time and activity to perform self-development that was simply not available to anyone beyond Japan's privileged classes. Pure Land Buddhism appealed to the commoners because it did not require developing the "Self Power" of Zen. Instead they merely had to believe in and acknowledge the "Other Power" of the Amida Buddha's commitment to save them. More to the point, the Amida Buddha already had saved people; they simply needed to wake up to this fact.

If Hiroyuki's writing only focused exclusively on the suffering and despair of his personal history then readers could justifiably find his negativity appalling. But Hiroyuki contrasts these experiences with the surprising kindness of strangers and other positive experiences that he eventually came to attribute to the "Other Power".

Ultimately, "Self Power" and "Other Power" are parts of the same thing. "Other Power" is faith, and it is also a required foundation for "Self Power". Hiroyuki convincingly argues that you cannot practice any form of self-development without a faith to precede it. Hiroyuki draws a parallel between the two schools of Zen Buddhism and the differences between Catholicism, which stresses salvation though one's works and Protestantism, which bases salvation upon faith alone. Hiroyuki concludes that the relationship between faith and action are universal to practically all of the world's religions and cites a recent accord between the Vatican and Lutheran council that acknowledges the primacy of belief in Christ and the importance of supplemental good works in His name.

So why do we need negative thinking to have a positive life? Hiroyuki argues that if we are driven by optimism alone then we are fooling our selves and are only going to suffer in the long run. When we acknowledge the normalcy of suffering, we are better able to cope with it. We are also more likely to appreciate and less likely to be fooled by the cycles of our own happiness. For me the most interesting part of this Hiroyuki's thinking is that fact that it is an equal blend of faith in human salvation and deep existential courage. Hiroyuki also gets right to the spiritual heart of religion rather than its alienating social and political elements.