I've read a little of this and that about Chinese history and religion, and I needed a book to fill in the basics and the details. This was perfect.

First, the selections included excerpts of almost everything I'd ever heard of: Shang Oracle Bones, the Analects of Confucius and the Confucian classics including the I Ching; Mozi; the Tao Te Ching; Zhuangzi (who famously dreamed that he was a butterfly); Mencius; Xunzi; the Zuozhuan; Sun Tzu's art of war; all kinds of stuff about Chinese schools of Buddhism including the Lotus Sutra and the Flower Garden Sutra and the history of Guanyin and Wutai Shan; Li Po (Li Bo) and Tu Fu (Du Fu); and neo-Confucianism (which was so influential in Korea). In short, this is really, practically the "Eatern Canon" and the selections are deserving of such a label. I was in turns morally and intellectually challenged, uplifted, informed and surprised; but rarely bored and never disappointed.

Second, the introductory essays were exactly what I wanted to know: who might have written it, and when, and who read, and what it meant to them. For all that information, they were still brief and the bibliography was sufficient to help me chase the points that left me curious. An important thing these essays did was to cover the political, historical and social backgrounds (and foregrounds) of the texts, so I learned about Chinese history as well as literature and religion. If that is what you want to do, this book will serve you well.

The binding is excellent, and while the price might look steep I have to say it's a bargain considering what you get.

I didn't read Volume Two, and so I don't know if it is as good. It is certainly a lot smaller!

This second edition of a classic provides an update on a reference recommended for college-level collections specializing in Chinese literature. Sources of Chinese Tradition has been recognized already as a scholarly staple: in its new form Sources of Chinese Tradition has been extended to include the Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin eras of China and includes invaluable source readings on history and literature of the times, from the 18th-century Qing civilization onward.

This book gets a 10 out of 10 from BridgePros. At BridgePros.com we have been lucky enough to review some of the best products about bridges. This book just adds to the list. The information and pictures are wonderful. The book is laid out very well with 15 different tours to take of the bridges. The history of each bridge was researched well with all the source laid out nicely. This book has a great appendix for the bridge novice, including: A summary of the bridges, a covered bridge glossary, and a great explanation with pictures of the different bridge trusses, a section on the bridge builders, and finally a reading list. The book ends with a comprehensive index. This book is the first place you should look to learn about anything on Vermont's covered bridges and how to see them all! This reviewer traveled to Vermont in October 2000 to check out some of the tours listed in this book. They were laid excellent. Very good guide.

This extremely well written book contains a wealth of information and beautiful color photographs about all of the covered bridges in Vermont. The author has also drawn nice maps so that visitors can locate the bridges, which is very helpful. Anyone who is interested in covered bridges should own a copy of this fine book. I find it well worth the price and highly recommend it!

I picked up this book in a wonderful pocket edition in Spanish, which allowed me to read it in snatches. I believe it is better read thus, rather than in one sitting (I can't imagine reading 500+ pages of complex arguments in one go). The author, Count Joseph de Maistre, was a Catholic Savoyard nobleman who was born in the Ancién Régime's twilight and was almost buried by the revolutionary upheavals after 1789. Separated from his family and nearly broke, he endured a long odyssey through Europe, always escaping the revolutionaries just before their arrival into a territory, at last seeking refuge in Saint Petersburg where he quickly became a local fixture, well respected as a very learned man. His learning is visible in the St. Petersburg Dialogues, where he has three characters (the count- apparently himself-, the senator - an elderly Russian nobleman- and the knight -a young French soldier) meet at the Count's dacha for 11 nights to debate all sort of matters. They discuss the nature of Providence, and address the old question "why does the good man suffer, whereas the evildoer thrives?" in a very ingenious way. They discuss the origin of languages, the limits of science, the future of mankind. There is also a very long disquisition in which the Count tears Locke's "Treatise on Human Understanding" to tatters. The writing is wonderfully fluid and a character may talk about an issue for pages on end, but this is never boring because the arguments move forward very quickly. De Maistre was a great polemist and many of his arguments were apparently meant to shock the reader. This will happen at times even when the reader tends to agree with most of the Count's arguments (as in my case). Clearly, after the passing of Gilbert K. Chesterton (1930's) there hasn't been a worthy Catholic polemist willing to take on many of the fallacies of the modern mindset.

The Dialogues is, at its best, worthy of the Socratic dialogues on which it was modelled, although De Maistre is as guilty as Plato of never giving opposite viewpoints enough airtime. He may have been worried about fortifying them, which was opposite to his intention. De Maistre shows that religion doesn't have to be fair, only consistent. The Count, possessed of one of the bleakest views on nature imaginable, lived up to his own somber expectations. Having lived in exile for a quarter century, he died a few years after the Restoration, unable to enjoy the re-establishment of absolute monarchy and absolute religion.

I found the book to be very uplifting in the spiritual sense and very much enjoyed the robust argumentation.

De Maistre is one of the most incisive political philosophers ever to take pen in hand: he was able to predict the social impact of the French Revolution's demented ideas with unerring precision, and he dissects the revolutionary mentality with ruthlessness. The frame of his analysis is one simple principle: man is flawed. It is ridiculous to believe that a perfect social order can be dreamed up and implemented by imperfect human beings. While other critics of the French Revolution, like Edmund Burke or the older (and wiser) Thomas Jefferson cannot fully attack revolutionary principles (because they subscribed to a modified version of them), De Maistre revels in adopting a position diametrically opposed to those principles and ably defends it. He demonstrates not only the fallacy of utopian social planning, but he also refutes the tired chestnut that authority and tradition are stultifying or repressive - authority lends order to chaos, and tradition prevents the wheel of government from being bloodily reinvented every generation by idiotic murderers like Lincoln, FDR, Hitler and Mao. The book is not only a spirited defense of traditional European culture against perverse universalist ideology, it is also a literary masterpiece. Unlike Rousseau's Social Contract or Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, this particular Frenchman (actually Savoyard) wrote in a lucid, engaging and conversational style full of wit and paradox instead of stolid pronouncement. Its literary artifice (it is written as a series of conversations - the dialogues of the title - between a young French nobleman at the Court of St. Petersburg and several interesting companions) is pleasant and reveals the fads and thinking of the times in a playful and enjoyable way. It is rare to find a work which is simultaneously so thought-provoking and so well wrought. Next time you read a blow-dried, boring book by a hack like Garry Wills, remember that 200 years ago political writers still had independent minds and literary talent.

I finally bought it, and I'm more than glad I did. This book is not at all what I thought it would be about --- it is so much more. Initially, I thought it would be another book about the life of St. Francis which, of late, I've been quite taken with. This book, though, has more to do with how we can make our faith real --- how we can really respond --- in light of a needy world around us. This is just what the doctor ordered. I say this reluctantly, but reading a chapter is almost better than going to church. I close this book at night with the understanding that I've got to get out there and DO something; I feel like I CAN make some small difference in this world, and that means so much to me. I'm at that point where I WANT to change, WANT to make sacrifices, WANT to be conformed to what God wants me to be. I want desperately not to be an 'average' Christian who longs for the same dusty, lifeless, rusting things the world does. This book reminds me that Francis, in his life, was not afraid to give up personal comfort and familiarity. When he finally overcame the greatest personal obstacle for him --- learning to love the leper -- he was freed from within, freed from that nasty monster that can entangle so many of us. Reflecting on his unique experience, I am compelled to look at my own prejudices, those things about people that keep me from loving them completely. I can't remember the last time a church sermon so compelled me. I highly recommend this book, and encourage you to grow in ways far outside the box.

St. Francis and the Foolishness of God is not just about St. Francis, but about themes that touch all of our lives. There are reflection questions at the end of each section and an invitation to share stories. I recommend this book for personal and group reflection.

This work is not to be found in the online collection of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Long thought lost, it is in fact extant only in a single 9th century Armenian manuscript, and was discovered there at the beginning of the 20th century. Once again the work of Irenaeus in Greek is lost; but fortunately the Armenian is a fairly literal version, evidently intended as a 'crib' in an era when fluency in Greek had already departed. The work was divided (by Harnack) into 100 chapters for ease of reference. Since Armenian is not a widely-known language of scholarship, the text has been difficult of access to scholars.

This edition is extremely valuable to those unable to read earlier work in German. It has copious notes on the text, a lengthy and useful introduction, and a very readable translation. As is usual with the series, the notes are oriented towards points of philology rather than theology.

Irenaeus puts forward the teaching of the apostles (he knew Polycarp, the disciple of John, personally) on matters disputed by the gnostics, heretics who attempted to corrupt Christianity with contemporary pop-paganism. In so doing he outlines the teaching on God, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, and without using the word gives a splendid outline of the doctrine of the Trinity. While deriding some of the gnostic ideas, Irenaeus concentrates on expounding the apostolic preaching, and on showing that the Old Testament in fact preaches the same deity in three persons as the New.

The book will be useful to everyone interested in the second-century Fathers. In view of the interest in gnosticism in our day, it will also be useful as a reminder to those who choose to forget that those with personal contact with the apostles and their appointees did not regard gnosticism as a legitimate form of Christian belief. Recommended.

Note: the only previous English version of this work is: Robinson, J.A. (trans.) St. Irenaeus: The Demonstration of the Apostolic Teaching. London & New York: SPCK, 1920.

The book begins with forty-four pages of worthy introduction about Irenaeus, his time, the context, the text, and theology overview.

Magnificent look at the rule of faith, and is continuous in its pointed condemnation of Gnosticism, e.g. "so this world too was created by God." Continues from beginnings through the end, with refutation of false teachers, and recommendtion to continue in the apostles' teachings.

Great apologetic which shows Christ as fulfillment of OT prophecy.

I found St. Rita during a hard time in my life when I returned to the Catholic Faith. I think without her, I would still have many more troubles. I think through learning of her and her struggles it has helped me in my own. I ask her for help and I think I get what I need.

If you are interested in knowing about St. Rita then this book is for you. I just got done reading this and the chapter about all the miracles is just mindboggling.

Please read about this great Saint.

The great love and admiration the author has for this remarkable saint shines through on every page. Read of St. Rita's disappointments, severe penances and many virtues as you relive her life as wife, mother and nun. Learn why she is known as a "Saint of the Impossible." An unforgettable story including cruelty, conversion, murder, revenge and miraculous solutions. Wow! 182pp. PB. Imprimatur.

I had an Economitrics course and to tell truth I wasn't sure I could pass it! god know's I tried reading the assigned book, consulting my instructer and reading more books on the subject but all I got was more frustration. until two weeks before the final exam I stumbled onto this book and guess what? I got an A!

I have used the 3rd edition and I think is is a very good textbook for highschool.

"Stopping for a Spell" will probably never be as well-known as Jones' better works, as the three stories are essentially large-print kid novellas. Nevertheless, they show Jones' particular brand of charm and cuteness, focusing on ordinary everyday things that become infused with magic -- and some very annoying houseguests.

In "Chair Person," the family has just decided to get rid of a hideous old chair when bustling Aunt Christa arrives with a used conjurer's set. Her experiments in magic have an unexpected effect when the chair transforms into Chair Person, who is clumsy, stupid, gluttonous, and who recites commercials constantly. How can Simon and Marcia deal with Chair Person?

"Four Grannies" draws on the attitudes of bossy elderly types. Erg and Emily have four grandmothers, two biological and two stepgrandmothers -- and all of them have ways of making the kids miserable. Erg just wants to be left alone to finish his prayer machine. But when one of the grannies gives him a a chopstick that happens to be magical, the prayer machine causes some unique mayhem...

"Who Got Rid of Angus Filch?" features Angus Filch, the houseguest of your nightmares. His wife threw him out, and now his old college buddy's family can see why: He's controlling, obnoxious, complains constantly, torments the dog, jeers at the furniture, watches raunchy TV shows, never pays, grabs the kids by their hair to punish them, and gets up in the middle of the night to set fire to his supposedly contaminated sheets. But the kids of the family receive unexpected help -- from some very angry furniture.

Diana Wynne Jones is in excellent form here; readers who don't like short stories may still like these. The characters are all delightfully realistic, from the reclusive wannabe inventor to the nightmarish grandmothers who don't want kids in the bathroom too long, lest they become "peculiar." All sorts of hilarious situations arise, such as Emily ("Four Grannies") becoming sickening pious, or Chair Person regaling a church group with the fate of the wildebeest.

As these are all earlier short stories of Jones', ranging from the mid-1970s to late 1980s, they aren't very detailed as some of her current books. But the same absurd, sparkling magic is very present. A delightful little read.

This book by Diana Wynne Jones is an awesome book. I have read these stories over and over again. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Harry Potter or any of Jones' other books.

When The Story of an African Farm was published in 1883, the title gave no indication to readers what the complex scope of the novel was really about.

Written by South African governess, Olive Schreiner, the book's crux ran along the controversal: the oppression of women, feminism, the existance of God, anti-imperialism, the bizarre transformation of one the novel's characters (not Lyndall) into a transvestite. It goes on and on. The novel was written when the belief of agnosticism was in the early stages of being in 'vogue.' Also interesting, Darwin's Origin of the Species had been published for some time, and the theory had rooted itself in many areas of society.

This was not the traditional Victorian novel that was written in the old English 'bonne bouche' manner on par with Jane Eyre or Emma. The prose of the novel has a broken up fluidity to it; it is not grandiloquent; it is in fact, quite brutal, edgy. As Elaine Showalter writes in the excellent introduction to the Bantam Classic edition, "Readers expecting the structured plot of a typical three-volume Victorian novel were startled by the oddity of African Farm, with its poetic, allegorical, and distinct passages, and its defiance of narrative and sexual conventions." With that clearly explained, it is not a surprise that it shocked old, priggish Englanders with their stiff upper lips and staunch, conservative manners, nor is it shocking that the Church of England called the novel "blasphemous."

African Farm details the lives of three key characters: Waldo, Em and Lyndall. The latter character is the one who seems to bring up the key issues that made the novel controversal. Lyndall is always described as 'little,' 'delicate,' 'like a doll,' 'a flower.' However, she is the one who refuses to marry (with one minor exception to the rule) until a social equilibrium is established between men and women. She desires equality between the sexes, and is willing to suffer for it. And she does, more than what is expected. Odd as it may seem, but considering the period in which the novel was written, the character of Lyndall really had to be physically 'feminized' in order to make up for her strongly held convictions of being a 'total' woman and not 'half' a woman.

If any person reads the novel, the character of Lyndall needs (from my view) special attention, for she questions the values of men, women who accepted the standard, religion and the social hierarchy in which she was born. Her questions seem like cartels, challenges. Why can't she have a job? Why can't she be educated or independent without the stigma 'weirdo' unflinchingly attached to her? Why must she be dubbed 'strange?' The reader must always ask why when reading this book. The three characters, Lyndall especially, endure a lot of hardship, a hardship that mirrored the very author's life, i.e. her cold and distant upbringing, the religious retraints placed on her life as well as the life-clenching grasp that old norms had on women of that period. African Farm was Olive Schreiner's liberty, her freedom from the societal choke hold.

In conclusion, the novel is not one of grace and patrician dogma. It is not a book of nice ladies and gentlemen sitting under the African sun near exotic, wild flowers sipping tea and participating in intellectual banter. No, it is an underscored work of literature where ideas of human aspiration and ecumenical desires are explored under a blazing sun and burnt, sandy plain.

...it would be awfully short-sighted to say it was. I came across Olive Schriner by accident which goes to show that quality is not always given the profile it deserves. But now I'm going to rectify that. Olive Schriner is a genius. This book should be right up there with Woolf's 'Mrs.Dalloway' and Hesse's 'Glass Bead Game'. Read it - that's all. You can't get to the end of your life without doing so, and since that can come at any moment read it NOW.

I liked this book very much because it reminded me of the times when my dad reads or tells me bedtime stories. This book has a very good message and it makes you feel happy, which is nice before you fall sleep. The illustrations are also very nice and colorful. I am happy to see a new Porcupine book. I still read the first book "How Little Porcupine Played Christmas" every Christmas, but in this book the Porcupine is older. This book will be a nice Christmas present,especially for children who like to listen to nice bedtime stories.

One of our family's favorite holiday stories is Joseph Slate's "The Little Porcupine Who Played Christmas", and so I was surprised and delighted to come across a new book featuring our old friend, "Story Time for Little Porcupine".

Like children everywhere, Little Porcupine is reluctant to go to bed every evening, and like parents everywhere, Papa can only get him to settle down by telling stories. The tales he tells are porcupine legends that explain the origin of the sun's rays, what a sunset really is, and where the stars come from.

A good children's book should not only entertain, but should also encourage youngsters to exercise their own imaginations. Mr. Slate's latest offering meets both criteria admirably. You'll find your audience hanging on your every word, and you may discover that Little Porcupine's curiosity will have your own little porcupines looking with greater interest at the world around them.

Jacqueline Rogers's illustrations are the perfect complement to Mr. Slate's narration. Her depiction of the sun as the Big Porcupine and the moon as a sly coyote are a must-see.

Looking for a gift that will be a continual source of pleasure for your kids? You won't go wrong with "Story Time for Little Porcupine."