Warning: reading this book may be dangerous to your comfort zone, and may result in your church leaders recommending that you seek God's leading somewhere else!

This was the textbook used in the Bible college I attended in the 60's, and it shaped my point of view on missions and church government for a lifetime. It was excellent in reminding us to compare our current practices with what worked 2,000 years ago, and to sort out the cultural imperatives from the denominational imperatives from the Biblical imperatives.

"Roland Allen was an Anglican missionary in China from 1895 to 1903. For a few years afterward he was in charge of an English parish. For the next 40 years he was writing on missionary principles. Much of what he wrote seemed to be forgotten. The present work and a later volume written in answer to criticisms (The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes which Hinder It) are the only two that have been regularly reprinted. Allen himself told his son that his writings would come into their own about the year 1960. In fact that year saw the republication in a single volume of many of his other writings." [From the foreword.]

It is amazing to me that Allen wrote this book in 1912. Even today his radical critique of Western missionary methods is cutting edge, though the biblical principles he advocates are now being embraced more and more by some ministries that are not tradition-bound.

While this book and its sequel (Spontaneous Expansion) address mission work specifically, the principles described do not apply only to how the people of one country do missionary work in another. These books really are about what the Bible has to show us about how to carry out the mission of the church, whether in our own culture, in ministering cross-culturally in our own back yard, or planting churches across an ocean.

If Allen is right in the conclusions he draws about finance (chapter 6), many (most?) church planting efforts may be operating by financial principles that do more to hinder rather than help establish a healthy, self-supporting church.

His observations on the biblical pattern for selecting and equipping elders for local church leadership challenged not only the status quo of the Anglican church of his day, but continue to challenge the practices of most churches today.

In my work as a church consultant, my sense is that (1) most church members, and probably even most pastors, are unaware of the radical differences between our presentday ways of doing church and the New Testament precedents, because they are largely ignorant of the biblical precedents; and (2) even when they become aware of some difference, there is a tendency to assume that those differences are inconsequential. Yet many of the most passionate of today's church leaders look at the church of Acts and long to see God's Spirit at work with that kind of power in the church today.

If we really long to recapture the vitality of the New Testament church, wouldn't it be worthwhile to seek to understand the principles by which it operated? (The "Methods" of the book's title is misleading; "Principles" would be more accurate.) Then we can consider whether those principles might be essential to the spiritual vitality of the church and go about asking how we can apply those principles in our context.

For anyone serious about developing such a biblically-rooted vision of how to go about doing church, I highly recommend this book and its companion volume.

The fact this book was written in 1927 but is applicable to our times is evidence of the Truth it holds. It is not an easy read. It provokes much thought and reflection. I was given the book to read by Mission 21 India prior to a trip I am going on to learn how we can help Christian Indians spread the Word in India. I believe it has helped open/prepare my mind to accept, love and learn from others. I believe as Mr. Allen does that the Holy Spirit can work differently in each of our lives. We all have different gifts to use. This book is also an excellent commentary on many of Paul's letters. Roland Allen insights are Truth based.

I'm not quite sure what to make of good ol' Mousie. Many of "his" recollections exactly mirror stories that Moe Howard wrote about in his great autobiography, MOE HOWARD & THE 3 STOOGES. It's obvious that Mousie greatly greatly enjoyed recounting the highlights of his career, especially if one counts how many times he pats himself on the back during the course of the book. Still, the parts of the book focusing on Ted Healy and his various Stooges are always interesting reading. There's no doubt Stooges fans will get the most enjoyment out of the book.

This book explains about the "lost Stooges that very few know about. Great!

Paul "Mousie" Garner relates a wonderful story of life in vaudeville, working with Ted Healy as a stooge (along with Dick Hakins and Jack Wolf [Warner's father]), Spike Jones, and much more.

Of particular interest is the time he spent with Ted Healy as one of the replacement Stooges in the 1930s. Fans of Moe, Larry, Shemp and Curly will love it!

I'm proud to call Mousie my friend, and I'm delighted to see him take this opportunity to share his life with fans and students of comedy.

Read this book!

Awesome.. Scarey... Disturbing...

John Paul Allen takes you through 7 decades, many
lives And one very evil soul!!

Not for the squimish this book is scarey and
disturbing.

You will never let you kids out of your site again.

Like an approaching creature, "Gifted Trust" will circle you and then move in for the kill. John Paul Allen brings to you a novel like no other. When I read "Gifted Trust" an overwhelming fear took hold over me and pulled me deeper within the pages of this dark tale. I can't recall ever reading a book in my life that made my skin crawl until "Gifted Trust" knocked on my door. His words will amaze you and his thoughts will haunt you. He is the Father of Nightmares.

-Kingdom of Shadows Review

Wow! This story is definately scary! I thought I was beyond being scared, but this author really pushes the line and keeps pushing...It makes Hannible look like a character from Sesame St.
I would recomend this book to anyone that likes horror!!
He's got a website that I checked out, and it's great.

This is a very good, practical book. I found it very readable, with just an appropriate level of textual detail in most cases. It's the first book I read which tries to tackle the problem of modelling and understanding Enterprise-level system interactions. If anything, Paul sells it a bit short by tying it to "e-Business", since a lot of the ideas and disciplines can apply to less forward-looking Enterprises who are trying to solve traditional integration problems but who may not identify with the e-Business tag.

The early part of the book discusses the principles of component-based development (CBD), and how this can be combined with process modelling to both help improve the business, and to provide a clear model for the systems needed to support it. Importantly, Paul sees the development of both business processes and systems as something which must happen progressively, so neither has to be the subject of "big bang" changes.

The next section of the book discusses the different types of components, and their role in a typical architecture comprised of both new and legacy systems. Paul then introduces his "CBD Process Framework", a way of defining components and then "provisioning" then by the most appropriate combination of new development, purchasing and re-using existing assets.

The core of the book takes a typical business process (car rental) and develops a worked example of the various business, logical and physical models which are required to define the component architecture. The models are each taken through several stages, corresponding to an evolving e-Business process and a system which is growing incrementally. This is much more realistic than presenting the final model "as is", and allows much better understanding of how the model develops. In many ways this is the part of the book which delivers the greatest real value.

The final part of the book discusses different provisioning and funding strategies for CBD, and how an e-Business team should be structured. There's a lot of good stuff here, which may be very useful to someone new to object- and component-based development. However if I'm honest I found this less useful, since there are better specialist books on this subject and it doesn't hold the interest as well as some of the earlier sections.

As an Appendix, Paul presents descriptions of all the major component technologies, and all the major UML-based modelling techniques. This could be a valuable reference for anyone.

I have one slight reservation on the book's core - Paul follows a convention in which an "interface" is a collection of types, and says that "by convention" the interface includes access to all the types. This is a bit different to the Microsoft model, for example, and may make it more difficult to establish good navigation around the object model, or to support "stateless" models. However, this is something to be aware of rather than something which should detract from what is otherwise a very useful tutorial.

I like this book. The worked examples of developing the e-Business model are excellent, so much so that I now recommend this book to anyone trying to model such things using UML.

...

When I got this book I was was amazed by how thin it was - a mere 230 pages. What made me frown even more, was that on first inspection I determined that only 175 pages was main text and the rest was appendices.

After reading the book I realize that it is above properties that help make it the excellent book it is. The appendices contain information about technologies (which could date quickly) and modeling techniques (which possibly don't become obsolete so quickly but could be supplemented as new techniques become available). This makes it a very easy read for people who are already familiar with the modeling techniques or technologies. It effectively removes the need to discuss too much about the diagrams in the text itself.

The main text moves fast, stays relevant and focused thus yielding a very thin (in typical IT terms!) book. It starts immediately by discussing e-commerce, its business relevance and discussing the issues of aligning business and technology.

The book particularly impress me by maintaining its business focus throughout. The development of components is tightly coupled to the business process that is being automated (or newly developed). In this respect it propagates an approach whereby a component-based architecture is incrementally developed. The focus continually stays with providing real value to the client.

Management issues (project management, ROI etc) are also addressed in the later chapters in the book and adds significant value to the text especially if read by potential project managers.

In my opinion the book is a must read for any prospective designer/developer/project manager of e-Business systems.

This book is a well written guide that crams a coherent approach to developing e-business systems into 233 pages.

The theme of this book is component-based development (CBD), which I personally found to be an effective way to design complex systems that can be implemented in a carefully managed manner. The concept of an architecture that is based on "plug-in" components is powerful in the abstract. Like many abstractions CBD could have remained as a theoretical approach had the author not skillfully laid out a map to transforming these abstractions into reality.

The book jumps right into aligning business to IT, making a business case for CBD, and how to plan e-business projects using a CBD approach. It then delves into details that clearly show this isn't another book on theory or unproven ideas.

What sets this book apart from many books on architecture is the fact that support and service delivery are interwoven into the approach, which takes architecture out of the realm of "ivory tower". The author's approach is pragmatic and remains focused on business requirements and delivering systems that have real value to end users. As such, this book provides invaluable advice on how to plan for operations, administration and maintenance of systems after they have been released into production.

While business and production issues receive thorough treatment, this book sticks with its theme by providing a realistic framework in which to design an architecture. It then shows how to use the design as the basis of e-business system development and deployment. This is reinforced by the way the book is laid out to support project stages and phases.

I discovered a lot of great ideas between the covers of this slim book making it, page for page, one of the most valuable books in my library.

Who needs this book? Architects and cheif technical officers, of course, but I think anyone who is assigned to manage development, testing and release of e-business systems should also read it. Project managers who are tasked with managing e-business implementation projects might find the information on managing e-business projects to be the difference between success and failure.

I read with intererst the story of the Del Buono family as they fought for services for their son/brother. Barbara obviously has tremendous faith courage and strength. Her husband and children, esp. Mary, are also amazing. As the mother of a brain injured son I also am caught in the maze of TBI--and it is not pretty. Barbara has done a good job describing nursing home situations. Even though Nick's nursing home experience was years ago conditions in these homes, at least in Indiana, for TBI survivors has not changed enough. Reading this book has helped give me the strength to continue to fight for services for my TBI son.

It is an excellent resource which can help us all to deal with the difficulties of life and use them to create a better world where the wounded are cared for with heart, not just hands.

This is quick read, but well worth it. On occasion the editor lacks detail, but the content is very useful for anyone seeking a greater grasp of life as an Oglalas Sioux.

The story of the rediscovery of The Autobiography Of Red Cloud is told in the introduction. Though much edited, the narrative derives from talks between Red Cloud and Samuel Deon, an old trader friend, recounted to Charles Allen, contemporary postmaster at Pine Ridge. The Autobiography Of Red Cloud spans the life experiences of Red Cloud up to 1865-66, the time when the Oglala chose the war path against whites. Written in the third person and otherwise heavily edited, The Autobiography Of Red Cloud tells much of Oglala life and war practices prior to 1865. These reminiscences detail Red Cloud's experience in war with his Tribe's traditional enemies - Shoshones, Pawnees, Arikaras, Arapaho, and Crow. A vivid picture of Lakota plains life at the height of glory days emerges. The high regard for honorable battle with a worthy adversary, the daily and seasonal patterns and activities of the tribe and many daring exploits establish the foundation for Red Cloud's well deserved reputation as war leader. A picture of a shrewd, astute man with uncanny timing emerges. Also delineated like a war bonnet is the habit of command, not always easily held among the Lakota. Another of Red Cloud's demonstrated skills is the ability to analyze a natural setting and then use it to tactical advantage, as well as to predict the plans and moves of his enemy. The sometimes close relationship between enemy tribes is richly described or inferred. To read The Autobiography Of Red Cloud is to have some experience of that 200 plus year old life of the Plains Indians - hunting buffalo, riding and stealing horses, following the game in season, etc. that so briefly held full flower before white settlement took over. In the aftermath even today, it will be a valuable mirror to the world of the culture, the nation, and the man.

Nancy Lorraine Reviewer

I must admit that I skipped some of the chapters about the politics of war so I could focus on the stories of the families. These are the untold stories of WW2: a little Polish girl running up and down the railway station searching for her father; a family sent to a labor camp, doing the most humiliating arduous work. These families suffer, but there are stories of hope and love written in, keeping you interested. The pictures put some faces with the stories too.

Fifty eight years after the end of WWII, the holocaust remains under constant public scrutiny while most other of the almost innumerable atrocities of that great conflict continue to be either ignored or pooh-poohed by those who continue to rationalize them for personal political reasons. Because of the incessant yowling about the holocaust, people tend to forget that many people suffered on all sides during the war. Jews were neither the only victims, nor were they even the war's chief victims.
Of the belligerents, Germany, Russia, and Poland suffered the greatest human and material losses. Of the three, only Poland was blameless in the end for the death and destruction wrought by a war which passed over its territory twice in five years.
Most of us have at least heard about the massacre of Polish officers, professionals, and intelligentsia by the Soviets at Katyn Forest. Had it not been for a fortuitous find by German forces occupying that part of the Soviet Union and the meticulous way in which they handled it, we might today be saying that Katyn was just another one of Hitler's monstrous crimes.
In Katyn:The Untold Story Of Stalin's Polish Massacre, Allen Paul puts human faces on the victims by introducing us to some of them and their families before the war begins and then following the odyssies of the families and their men as both are arrested and deported as war begins and the invading Communists seek to purge Poland of class enemies and those who might in the future oppose them. (One family lives out the war in the German General Government, but the man of the house had been arrested in Lwow by the Soviets and eventually became a victim of the murders collectively known as the Katyn massacre.)
Particularly grim are the chapters which recount how the (male) victims are led to believe they are being repatriated, are prepared a feast, then led away afterwards to their horror and dismay to the killing fields at Katyn. The methodical and inhuman way of dispatch is almost sickening but the real shock comes when the bodies are discovered by the Nazis after they invade the Soviet Union. Most are virtually fused together and partially mummified by being tightly packed at burial, many stacked in the burial pits like so much cordwood.
Shocking, but not surprising given Stalin's treatment of his own people, is the way Polish women and children are literally dumped in the steppes and in Siberia and expected to fend for themselves in the harsh, unforgiving climate.
The families of Paul's focus do eventually make it out after suffering the greatest hardships. The author has met these survivors, of course, and their narratives put some meat on the dry bones of history. Millions of other Polish deportees never made it home.
Allen Paul's book is a chilling indictment, not only of Stalin and his murderous NKVD, but also of US and British diplomacy which failed to take any steps to ameliorate the conditions of Poles who had been arbitrarily arrested and summarily deported. The weakness of Churchill and Roosevelt in the face of Communist demands began with the suppression of evidence of Soviet culpability for Katyn and their failure to support postwar Polish territorial integrity at the Teheran and Yalta conferences. It then continued with tacit support for the postwar dispensation in Poland in which hundreds of thousands more were murdered by Stalin's henchmen, leading ultimately to the Iron Curtain and forty-five years of the Cold War.
You can tell by the tiny number of in-print books on this subject how little historical relevance the Katyn murders are given. I invite you to read this book. It may give you a whole new perspective on WWII and the moral dangers of alliance with the devil.

In this second biography of Larry Fine(The first book to recall Mr.Fine's life was:"A Stroke Of Luck!".Larry's memiors.Which are sadly out of print.)"Stooge In The Middle"looks at the life and career of one member of "The Three Stooges"from the viewpoint of Larry's brother former druggist:Dr.Morris Feinberg.The book looks at his childhood in Philadelphia,Pa.to the accident in his father's jewelry store that introduced him to violin playing lessions(an early form of physical thearpy).Which became his introduction to show business.First as a Charlie Chaplin imitator at local amusement Parks , as a member of a Duplicate version of Gus Edwards' vaudeville kiddie act:"Fun In Hi Skool!"and as a member of several comedy teams:EG:"Fine And Dandy"and "The Haney Sisters & Fine!".Before he married one of the Haney Sisters(Mabel Haney) and he was accepted a job as a performer and MC at The Rainbow Gardens Nightclub in Chicago,Ill in 1925.Where Larry first met:Ted Healy,Moe And Shemp Howard and he was invitied to join "Ted Healy And His Gang!"(The original name of Mr.Healy's act).The book goes onto to look at the boys'difficult relationship with Mr.Healy(Whose drinking,obnoxious pranks and his pay inequity forced the team to part company with Healy.Following some turbulent years working in vaudeville,burlesque,nightclubs,Broadway musicals and some work in the movies).The book relates how Larry almost signed the trio to a contract with Universal Pictures for some feature length comedies.But Moe's deal with Columbia Pictures was signed first.Making Larry's Pact with Universal invalid and The boys began their 24 years with The Studio that featured Hollywood's Stature Of Liberty like symbol.And their other projects that kept the team in the public eye after the unfair dismissal from Columbia Pictures and Larry's years of retirement,following the stroke that forced him to leave the group.For those..who want to read a pleasant and engaging biography of a truly funny and nice man.That has no hint of scathology in it? This is the one book to have.Kevin S.Butler.

Moe Howard often said that Larry was probably the best actor out of all the Stooges. Few can deny Larry was the unsung Stooge who never got much of the spotlight from Moe, Curly, et al. This book, written by Larry's younger brother, traces the natural born entertainer's life from birth until his tragic death. I wouldn't call this hard hitting, as the author was not a professinal writer but a loving brother, thus many of Larry's financial problems due to gambling are glossed over. But I can forgive that. In an era of trashy, tell all celebrity books, this is a breath of fresh air. It's a quick read and loaded with photographs spanning the entire Stooges' career. This is a must have for any Stooge fan.

I have been watching the stooges since the late 50's, and have always liked Larry. I enjoyed watching his reactions to different situations. This book is enjoyable and pretty informative to boot. Larrys little brother Morris gives an insiders view of Larry, from early childhood to his untimely death in 74. If you are a stooges fan, then definately get this book, you will not be sorry you did. It is a welcome addition to my stooges library. Quick reading and lots of pictures, plenty of information . A must read for all stooges fans.

This is one of the few good books focusing on component based development. The best thing about the book is that practical examples from the realworld are used for ellaborating concepts. Although not a book for learning UML, the examples help in understanding how to apply UML. One of the things I found lacking in the book is chapters about design patterns. I think a second edition addressing components in relation to patterns should be made. In all a good resource for System architects and project leaders undertaking a project adopting a component based approach.

The version I read is Kemp Smith's version, the old folk from Cambridge. I read it because I took a course in late Modern Philosophy. Before I get into this book, I want to give the fellow readers three suggestions.

My first suggestion to the readers is that I do not believe anybody can have a basic comprehension of this book if he/she does not take a course in Kant at the university. So, if you really want to know about Kant, take a Kantian philosophy course.

My second suggestion is that the best version to read is the original text in German. If you do not know any German, just like me, you would have a pretty hard time. The most important thing to do for the readers who read it in English is to crack down the complex sentences of Kant. As Kemp Smith points out, Kant tries to express so many ideas in the fewest sentences that the language allows .

Third, you must read it. As a philosophy major, I find that Kant is the only philosopher who truly convinces me. His Critique of Pure Reason alone gives me hope.

Here I should give you some ideas about the content of the book: All the things we can experience by our sensory faculty (eyes, ears, nerves..etc.) are not the reality of things themselves but their phenomenal appearances that occur in our mind, since all of our knowledge is derived from our experience, and our experience presupposes space and time.

Mathematics, for example, is derived from experience. According to Kant, we do not know "5+7=12" by born, until someone tells us the concepts of "5", "7", "+", "=" and "12". And we learn "5+7" functions to be "12". And we apply this to other numbers.

This experience presupposes space and time. When I tell you the number "5", you, the idea of "5" and me are all in space; when we talk about a thing, the pre-supposition is that it is in space. And in this process, your mind experiences two mental events: "not knowing 5" and "knowing 5". And from the sequence of the two mental events, we derive the idea of time. All our experience presupposes space and time, hence, it follow that we derive all our knowledge from space and time. Therefore, the definitions of space and time, says Kant, is beyond the possibility of our knowledge.

However, Kant opens the possibility that there might be some creatures, such as Martians or other non-carbon-based organisms, having different sensory faculties that are not limited by space and time, and they can truly see the reality of things themselves, when we human beings can not.

Therefore, in phenomenal world, the appearances of world that our sensory faculty is able to perceive, we seemingly do not have free will or evidence of the existence of God. But in noumenal world, that is, the reality of the world, God might exist and we might have free will, even though we can not perceive it in this phenomenal world. And that is how I find the hope of life from Kant. Finally, I must admit that I can only understand about 5% of this book. But you intelligent readers, the people of wisdom and good reason, I believe, will understand more than I do.

You can evidently tell from the title of my review that I liked the book. The Critique of Pure reason is a pretty important work screaming to be read by any curious person. The reason I like the book is because it is one of, if not the 1st book, to address the concept of human cognition. In this context, Kant discusses the possible, the necessary, time, and a few other very significant details of our human, corporeal existence. Yes the book is long and tedious but shows Kant's genius in developing a framework of human cognition (previously called 'the understanding' by some classical writers). If Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' doesn't begin to demonstrate, objectively, how the clever cognitve apparatus known as the brain weaves its fantastical web, then you were reading it upside down.

Among the many ideas put forward in this opus what stood out as the main thesis to me was the distinction between a real idea and a transcendental one; hence Kant's transcendental idealism. Humans have ideas of course, we have experiences, this is how we live in this world, by our ideas and experiences. Other thinkers, like Locke, would have our ideas be the results of our experiences. Not quite sayeth Kant. Some ideas are completely exclusive of experience. These are the tranascendental ideas, ideas that transcend experience. They're really not worth much, they might be, you can't (no pun intended) tell. Although transcendental ideas can arise independently of experience, they can only be verified by experience. Such an idea, the distinction between ideas proper and transcendental ones is the key idea here. The ultimate verification of either type of idea by some experience is why Kant is known as the father of the scientific method. Verifying ideas by experience is another term for what we now call experimentation. Not that Kant invented experimentation, but that he codified it (well really others did too, like Francis Bacon, but Kant gets the laurel).

Ideas help us to interpret the world, transcendental ones are apt to lead us off on paths we don't really want to go down, and for good reason. Cognitively, we might deduce far into the future and conclude that events meet somehwere up there on the horizon. Or we could reverse this process, looking back into the past, like we do with the 'big bang' concept. From where we are in the present, looking far into the future or far into the past, what we appear to see may look like a unity. Well maybe and maybe not. The meeting of events way off up or back there are simply impossible to confirm by experience. In such a case we are left to rely on circumstantial evidence, as with the big bang. For example, there is no overwhelming evidence that what astronomers call the universe actually represents the universe as it is. There are bits of evidence, like ubiquitous microwave background radiation and predominant red-shifting, but the idea of what the universe is in actuality is a transcendental idea; there is simply no empirical way to confirm the existence of such a thing as the universe. Within such cognitive phenomena Kant is our sage.

What is really true or false in this world? If you still think the idea of objective reality is feasible then this treatise by the father of the scientific method must not be missed. Don't be fooled by the ethical implorings of Kant's 'The Critique of Practical Reason.' That's an entirely different book. 'The Critique of Pure Reason' is an atheist's dream. After Kant thoroughly exposes the idea of the absolute being as transcendental pish-posh, he does attempt to backpedal some by imploring the faithful to remain vigilant, but too late; he has already pounded the stake into the withering heart of a deity who Nietzsche [my paraphrase] would later lament the passing of. One can never hope to aspire to even a modicum of philosophical being, indeed it's hard to imagine even beginning to think critically, til they've read this work. Buy it, suffer through it (then read Schopenhauer), and maybe, just maybe, you'll have a chance.

Many people have trouble reading the Critique of Pure Reason, and it truly is a very difficult book. But the fact is that it does all make sense, not just in some facile verbal way but logically -- and once you're used to certain idiosyncrasies (especially the old-fashioned scholastic terms and the seemingly artificial organization of the text), you'll be well able to find out for yourself what Kant's points were, and whether or not he really made them. So I won't talk about that here, I'll just give you some tips to help you get started with a minimum of pain and bafflement:

1. Read the Prolegomena first, or at the same time. That book, which is both clear and SHORT, is Kant's own account of what the Critique was meant to accomplish and what prompted him to write it. If you read the Prolegomena and think he's barking up the wrong tree, put off the Critique... until you change your mind. (The last bit doesn't apply to people taking a class, of course.)

2. Kant's lecture notes on Logic can also be useful because they show how he believed philosophical thought should be organized and expressed. Regardless of whether you take his so-called "logical method" seriously, no one denies that *Kant took it very seriously*, and once you can recognize it in the Critique, many passages become much easier to follow.

3. Don't expect a profound spiritual or aesthetic experience. I value this book as the first really satisfying rational explanation of why the world makes sense (turns out it has to!), but I won't claim it's any good as a guide to meditation, as a substitute Bible, as poetry, or even as prose. Contrary to his reputation, Kant is an excellent writer, but he's not trying to take you to a higher level here, or even to entertain you. At all. See also point 6, below.

4. Choose your text with care. Abridgments are tempting, but every sentence of the original is there for a reason. Make sure your translation includes the texts of both the first and second editions (Meiklejohn doesn't). Of the two translations I've read, I can recommend Kemp Smith's often loose rendering (St. Martin's Press) over the scrupulous but stilted Wood-Guyer (Cambridge), and both over either alone; but I've heard good things about Pluhar's Hackett translation too.

5. Don't skip the Introduction. Key points are made there, and key terms defined. The first time I tried to read the Critique I skipped to the first chapter of the main text (Transcendental Aesthetic) and it was like running headfirst into a brick wall. (It *is* all right to ignore the Prefaces on a first reading.)

6. Whichever parts you read, read every word. It's possible to skim through one of Kant's arguments and get an accurate feeling for the meaning, but the details of the argument do matter, because he very often appeals to them later on -- and also because, unlike so many other writers on the same subjects, he is trying to *prove*, not to cajole or enchant. Emphasis is important too, so you must read for context: does he mean "*synthetic* unity of the manifold", "synthetic *unity* of the manifold", or "synthetic unity of the *manifold*"? It's not that the concepts are different, but the author is pointing out something different about the concept depending on where and how he uses the phrase. Take the phrases, sentences, paragraphs out of context and they all sound like the same kind of hollow, pretentious, narrow-minded nonsense. I have found that the best way to preserve the logical connections is to READ ALOUD.

7. Question everything you read. You'll usually find that the statement was justified earlier (or, in some cases, will be explained in the next paragraph). Not only is this the safest way to read a book of Western philosophy, but it is the best way to *restore* the logical connections of the text once you have lost track of them, which will often happen.

There's more I could say, but that's plenty to be going on with. Best of luck!