a simple little book that neither adds nor detracts anything from the zen "canon." i found myself suffering through an accute sense of deja-vu as i read allen's book. nothing in this book hasn't been said or done before in other "zen for everyday man" or "zen for westners" type books. unfortunately, allen's book falls into the very dualism that he claims to reject from "disfunctional" western thought (i.e. zen thought good, western thought bad). occational attacks and pokes at the west quickly become part of this book's landscape. sadly, by the end of the book the only thing that stands out are the pictures. i would suggest exploring other books on the topic of zen that are less concerned with superflous judgements & dull ancedotes.

Writing from the vantage point of his day-to-day experiences with Zen, Robert Allen offers a collection of short essays that show, in everyday language, how following a Zenlike path can contribute to both inner and outer harmony. Allen uses colorful, often humorous real-life anecdotes, interspersed with lighthearted illustrations, in presenting the way in which following the path has had an influence in his life and in which anybody can use it as a vehicle to personal growth.

This is not the book you want to read if you are looking to undertake a serious study of how Zen and Buddhism work -- there are no lists, no instructions, no dogmas. But that's part of what makes it different and so enjoyable. This is not a dry treatise on Zen philosophy written by a cloistered monk. It's a collection of observations by a regular guy who has done his best to take Zen's lessons to heart and put them to work, even learning from some mistakes along the way when, in one case, his practice got a bit too zealous. All of this makes "Zen Reflections" an eminently accessible book for the rest of us laypeople who also do our best to remain mindful of our practice in the hectic pace of family, work, community, and the rest of modern life, and all the struggles and tests they entail. Implicitly, Allen tells us that if he can do it, then so can we.

Each essay is short enough that it can be read as a meditation to take with you and reflect upon through the day. He does present his share of gentle criticisms, both of certain Western ideas and of Buddhism itself (the latter in relation to its view on sex). But the negative is never accentuated, and Allen always provides a positive spin in the end. And besides, Allen never tries to convince us that his ego and its accompanying leanings of mind still aren't with him. Instead, we get the sense that Zen has taught him to accept himself just as he is, with an eye toward continual refinement, and an important reminder to his readers that Zen isn't something you believe in; it's something you are and something you do. From reading "Zen Reflections," one gets the feeling of having Allen as a comfortable partner on the path who shares our experiences and even some of our foibles -- albeit a partner who may have a bit of a head start on us!

I own and constantly refer to this book and am constantly disappointed. The PHP Developer's Cookbook (nearly identical cover) is a handy book, but don't waste your money on this one. If you need a good basic introductory text on PHP look to the 56 other PHP titles Amazon stocks. The examples in this one are unclear, the treatment of most topics is incomplete. While the introductory chapters provide an interesting overview of PHP's functionality, it cannot be depended on as a faithful reference for day-to-day use.

Just compare its treatment of classes or data types to that in other texts. Or give a careful read to functions that require careful documentation-like formatting of dates. The book just leaves you confused or in the dark. The book doesn't even do a decent job of summarizing the online docs. I wish I had been more careful.

Whether you are a beginner or an advanced developer this is just not the title you want.

Nothing too spectacular here. Basically it is the manual from PHP.net reworded a bit and put in a book. What really disappointed me was that I could find no reference at all to the manual on PHP.net. I really thought they should have included some type of mention in the Acknowledgements section.

On to the book. They do provide a brief introduction to PHP. It is exactly that, brief. It is not meant to be exhaustive as this book is a reference book, not a tutorial.

Before I got this book, I exclusively used the PHP.net manual to look up functions and such. When I got this book, I really didn't think it would be of any use. I have found, however, that by keeping it right there on the desk I do look things up in it. Sometimes it just feels better to look something up in a good old paper book. It is also nice to be able to have the page open and glance back at your code to compare syntax.

Would I recommend this book? It all depends what you plan to use it for. The manual will definitely suffice and will be more current. But, if you are just itching to get a PHP reference manual in a hard copy, this is your choice.

I'm only giving this four stars because the information is freely available elsewhere. Nonetheless, this book is a wonderful reference to have on hand. It's the only PHP book (and I have plenty) that consistently sits on my desk. I find it to be a valuable reference tool for quick lookups, and for finding functions that I'm not sure how to spell.

It's a dictionary--not a tutorial. It doesn't teach you how to write your code (when was the last time you used a regular dictionary to come up with structure and form for a poem? You don't. You use it to look up words.) If you're looking for tutorials, you'd be better off looking elsewhere. If you use PHP day in day out, you might find having a paper reference on your desk to be helpful. Sometimes you just don't want to have to call up another web browser to search php.net, or wait until your DSL provider decides to spring back to life and allow you to search the net for a bit of syntax that has slipped your mind. The price is right, and it's a good reference book to have in addition to a book of tutorials or other learning material.

When the back cover of a book informs you that the author is reputable, rather than the subject is well written - take it as a warning.

This sophomorically written book is not intended for Arts & Crafts devotes, it is meant for tour guides who wants to get an "Ooo!" or a giggle out of a bus load of little old ladies.

While the photos are fair, I found myself wishing I could actually see what they were showing. I guess the little old ladies are use to not being allowed too close, but I'd like to zoom in, please.

Throughout the book, the reader is assured that the author is highly praised by the Governor of California. Perhaps taxpayers should insist their Governor spend his time more selectively.

While specific to the works of Batchelder, the photo supplements leave much to be desired - they are too general (a photo of a tiled room is nice, but a few more detail photos would have been most welcome!) and there are simply not enough of them (especially when compared to works referred in text). Overall, I found the book too big (and expensive) for the content delivered.

Ernest Batchelder's ceramic enterprize grew from a home-based business to a nation-wide enterprize: Batchelder Tilemaker follows his life and works, starting with his 1908 venture into entrepreneurship and his establishment of the 1930s Batchelder-Wilson company showrooms. An outstanding, revealing title surveys his life and artistic achievements.

I was very disappointed in this book. I got it because of the authors Sulieman Allen, LeAnne Howe, and Julian Lang, none of whom are in the book. The writers in the book are all very good, but I really wanted to read more of LeAnne Howe's work!

If you truly want to understand the spirituality of Native Americans, you must read their poetry and fiction, not some white person's weekend workshop going on a spirit quest. Native spirituality is embedded in Indian humor, reflections on nature, and the tears that have been spilled dealing with the aftermath of 300 years of persecution. I laughed and cried as I read such literary treasures as "Old Harjo" and "How Coyote Lost His Manhood." The majority of the these stories are modern, and they show us that Indian literature is richly poignant. The anthology is compiled by Paula Gunn Allen, America's Indian Poet Laureate, and is a wonderful addition Gunn Allen's other fine books.

this book opens with blackwood's great story: the wendigo. B is the master of the setting, noone can create the background and atmosphere like him. a very well written story from Brennan here. and Meloff's story is also an interesting read. derleth is at his best here. i don''t care that much for the guy, have never considered him to be HPL's great successor or anything, but he knows how to write, and i have always considered his story about Ithaqua to be his best contribution. the rest of the stories are well written. i don't think any of chaosium's anthologies contains of so much good writing than this. but good is not great. and the rest of the stories never turns out to be really good. the suspence killed by irrelevant writing going on for too long, mostly. sad. but the book is still wort reading

I bought this book too see what genius is all about. The books first part discusses genius. The second part has a series of tests to gauge your level of genius. Finally the third part are a series of problems to strengthen your mental powers.

I felt that in the first part there were many fallacies. One example is when the author says that genius's who are leaders are not regarded as genius's in the full sense. Clearly, Napolean (who is regarded as a genius) showed more eminence as a winning decisive battles then bach(who is also regarded as a genius) did as writing symphonies. Therefore Napolean was the greater genius. Napolean should not be denied the "full" title of genius just because his is associated with leadership rather then creativity. Therefore the book should have been titled, "The Book of creative genius", (since it only included the genius associated with creativity), instead of it's title, "The book of total genius," (since it did not include the genius associated with leadership.)
The second part are tests to gauge your level of genius. They consist of an intelligence testing section, which doesn't give an IQ score. Then there are tests to gauge your knowledge on certain subject. The rest of the tests consist of creativity, concentration, and personality sections. These can all be cheated on if you are not totally honest with yourself, and the author does not make clear the importance of this in the beginning.

The final part which is called the genius gym consists of a number of challenging problems to boost your brainpower. They were challenging, but I found the techniques in Win Wenger's book "The Einstein Factor," to be much more effective for boosting brainpower.

However the book did make some good points about genius, and the tests can be effective in discovering your genius potential if you are honest with yourself. However if you want to get your hands on a book about genius by a guy who knows what he's talking about get, "The Origins of Genius," by Dean Keith Simonton.

Although the book is very informative as far as being immaginative in Real Estate transactions, Mr. Allen never gives any details of his deals. This book is responsible however for me buying several houses with a little elbow grease and some ideas generatded with this book.

Mr. Lewis and Mr Shreckhise make a good case for the possibility that UFO's and their related occurences are tools of satan. In principle I agree that this is a distinct possibility. Their case however is severely weakened in my mind by their credulous acceptance of all UFO reports as being totally factual in nature. Many of the reports they cite in their book have been shown to be either factually incorrect or downright hoaxes. For example, even the most ardent UFO believer will now admit that Travis Walton's abduction story is a fabrication or that Betty and Barney Hill's account does not stand up to close scrutiny. They also appear to accept as fact that regression hypnosis is a viable method to assist an individual to remember past events even though it has been shown that even if a person claims to have never seen a UFO he can still have the same memories of alien abduction when they are hypnotically regressed. Even though the book is flawed in these areas it would still make a nice addition to a library.

The book "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court"starts out with a man named Hank Morgan getting hit over the head witha crow bar during an argument. He awakes to find himself in 600ADCamelot where he gets taken captive by a knight and is to be burned at the stake. Hank tells everyone he's a magacian and uses a solar eclipse to his advantage to be freed from death. He becomes good friends with the king and goes on many adventures with him. Hank tries to modernize civilization but in the end fails miserably. I absolutely hated this book. It would go for pages on end where you wouldn't understand a single word they said. Many times they would attempt to throw in humor but... This book was VERY unrealistic with warping through time and having a solar eclipse fall right on the day of his execution. In conclusion, this book was a waste of my time and and will probably a waste of yours too.

I am a fan of most of Mark Twain's works; his wit and charm are unsurpassed, and are ultimately what makes his books worth reading. However, although the book contained elements of these traits, I felt it read more like a technical manual for modernizing a backward people. This made it a tedious read.

I read Connecticut Yankee and found it quite good. However, instead of reviewing the book per se, I would like to post a rebuttal to the views posted by the person from Minnesota and the person from Tibet.

The Minnesota person claimed that reading this book was a complete waste of time and furthermore that there were long passages that seemed incomprehensible. I can see how this might be true for a person of finite literary sophistication, so I'm going to assume that the reader must have been a high school student who tackled reading beyond his/her level of understanding, patience, and appreciation. The book is rich with historic accuracy about medieval life and every page is packed with subtle, humorous digs at both 6th century ignorance as well as criticism of his own 19th century attitude toward progress in the industrial northern states from where our protagonist hails. Obviously, the reader from Minnesota missed the point.

The reader from Tibet accused Twain of having anti-religious views. Twain's criticism was not of religion; it was of the church's hypocritical practices in _both_ the 6th and 19th centuries. It is still true today. In chapter 10, Twain writes: "Everybody could be any kind of Christian he wanted to; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But...I was afraid of a united Church; it makes a mighty power, the mightiest conceivable, and then when it by-and-by gets into selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means death to human liberty, and paralysis to human thought."

When was this more true than in the middle ages, when the Catholic Church orchestrated Crusades, was genteel in an age of feudalism, and later killed infidels in their inquisitions? It's clear that Twain simply doesn't wish to have a sectarian bias influence secular affairs; our First Amendment supports Twain's point of view.

You'd do best to disregard those other reviews, which hold Twain responsible for their own lack of understanding and appreciation of his novel, and read the book for yourself. It will be well worth your time.

If you are looking for a biography of James Madison, look elsewhere. Rutland's subtitle, "The Founding Father," makes it clear what this book is about: Madison's participation in the creation and passage of the constitution and the Bill of Rights. Although it does cover most of his life, the focus is definitely on Madison's role as founding father.

The book deals with the major issues of Madison's political life, often in too minute detail, but does not satisfy the biographical aspects of his life. There is absolutely no mention, for example, of Madison's birth date, or even the year he was born in! Further, the book failed completely to engage me. I set it aside for weeks at a time before I finally finished if off, despite its modest size.

I picked up this book because I was to attend a conference on Madison and wanted to know something more than the murky recollection I had from school of this less well known "founding father." I was fascinated to learn how it came to pass that after initially opposing the Bill of Rights Madison was the guy who actually got it through the first Congress. The early years were interesting, but this book rather quickly turned into a rather bewildering discussion of the ins and outs of trade with Europe and the problems that led up to the War of 1812--which sounded like a totally forgettable incident in American history. Madison was by and large an untalented president--his greatest achievements were complete by the time he was 30--the Bill of Rights and, before then, the Federalist Papers. Maybe the book went downhill with the career of its subject, but I thought the writing could have been a lot clearer and a few sentences of background information each time a new subject was introduced would have helped this book alot.

not like Jefferson & Hamilton or celebrated like Washington & Franklin. My fellow reviewers seemed disappointed in this as a biography. But it was not Mr. Rutland's goal to write a personal story of Mr. Madison's life although his later years were covered quite well. I am glad however, I took the easy way out by listening to the audio version (unedited). As if I was in Mr. Rutland's class as he was giving a lecture. The years after The Revolutionary War, The Federalist Papers, The Constitution & The Bill of Rights, are the real meat of this book. Madison's behind the scenes leadership in Congress was consummate. If we do not appreciate how important he was 200 years later, it seems that he contemporaries did. To his sorrow he was, with Jefferson, responsible for creating the two party system we now operate under. That he wanted to heed Washington's advice against the party system is evident. But he found this advice quickly outdated. As a result Washington, & to a lesser extent Adams were the only unaffiliated presidents in our history. Happily, none of this two-party stuff is cluttering up our Consititution. As Secretary of State under Jefferson & President on his own he was unremarkable. Any one could have mucked things up as well as he did. Indeed his best years were his early years. What seemed to me remarkable was the love, respect & friendship that existed between Madison & Jefferson all of their adult lives. It was an alliance of two great men that never wavered & recreated the "republican" type government of ancient Greece. Mr Rutland was obviously impressed by this relationship & alludes to it several times. I appreciate biographies that teach me something about history I didn't know. How great is this book? Hard to say. But it fit the bill.