Having read the criticism by another online reviewer that "Saint Joan" is misleading, I wondered if we had read the same play. So I had a look at this book and the problem is obvious: no prefaces! Shaw's plays are meant to be read with his prefaces and they shouldn't be separated. Shaw himself intentionally wrote in that mode, noting at one point, "I would give six of the plays that Shakespeare did write for one of the prefaces he ought to have written." That's a little extreme, but the point is taken, and I believe that the general reasoning is valid. Shaw's complete plays with prefaces run to six volumes or so. Take that kind of route if you can; you'll be well rewarded with edification and entertainment.

While Shaw may have been a gifted playwright, his "Saint Joan" did an enormous disservice to the subject: the view it presents of Joan of Arc conflicts with the historical evidence on nearly every point, echoing instead the propaganda of her enemies. In truth, her trial was orchestrated by the English and their clerical allies (and even Shaw admits that the Inquisition overturned the verdict in 1456, shortly after the English were finally driven out of Rouen); nor was Joan a "rebel" except in the minds of her political opponents. By dredging up this fraudulent view of La Pucelle, Shaw's play was among the first popular works to undermine the efforts of countless scholars whose research had brought a more truthful view of the issue to light.

shaw liked nietzsche, ok. as long as you are fine with that read away at MAJOR. it is the retelling and literary covering of the Ubermensch. Hilarious, I can just see the protagonist standing cross-armed throughout the majority of the text while the daught beats away . . .

After having read other books on women's running, I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately my hopes were quickly diminished. This book seemed to be all about Joan and what she did to become an olympic champion. This may be good autobiographical material but as a guide to starting a running program this book flounders. Not many people starting out are capable of having knee surgery and running a race shortly thereafter. What little useful information was provided seemed impractical and laden with disclaimers such as, just because Joan did this doesn't mean that everyone can, etc. I wanted to read a book that would give me pointers in starting and maintaining a running program, not Joan's life story.

I've found this book to be an excellent basic resource for female runners. I often give it as a gift to runners that I coach, since Samuelson's advice is wonderfully balanced about running and life. While others find it a problem that training advice is mixed with autobiographical info, I found it neither too dry nor too anecdotal. There aren't many good books about women's running--this is one of the best!

I enjoyed the inspirational aspect of Joan's successes and overcoming injury to achieve those successes. This book also motivated me to train harder and use Joan's advice and training programs. She shows us how to balance training with life and be successful in all of it! I highly recommend it to inspire you and take your training to higher levels.

If you want to be successfull, just attack those who are at the top. This is the phylosophy chosen by the author of this manipulatory book. If you look for truth better choose something else, perhaps Vittorio Messori's book on the same subject. If yopu want to understand, to have a clear view, and then decide and may be judge Opus Dei, better forget the lies and uncorrect thesis that this book try to present as truth. One's perception is strongly distorted by one's own beliefs: this is the comment that any reader of the hugly book can make. The author just want to prove is personal vision of Opus Dei and he just look for everything that can prove his own position. This is how this book has been built.

Read carefully between the lines. Joan Estruch describes very well how Opus Dei is a "chameleon organization"--one among the major sources of its paradoxical regime.

By John Martin, "Leopards in the Temple," The Remnant Newspaper, June 30, 2002:

Grover and Mary Corcoran of Waterford, Virginia know at first hand what a trial it can be to have a voting-age daughter married to a true-believer Opus Dei supernumerary. What seemed to them at first a benign and trustworthy organization took on a different aspect as time passed and connubiality gave way to calamity.

"Our son-in-law," Corcoran writes, "would spend his vacation time at an Opus Dei workshop instead of with his family. Opus Dei also had him attending other spiritual sessions with them a minimum of three times a week. The rest of the time he only had recruitment on his mind. In fact, the only guests invited to his home for dinner were potential recruits.

"Opus Dei seemed to feel perfectly comfortable with the power they had over our son-in-law, and our daughter was constantly pressured to submit to Opus Dei spiritual direction. This became particularly oppressive when she needed hip replacement surgery and was insisting on Natural Family Planning. At the time she could barely walk, let alone cope or carry another pregnancy. [She had already borne two children.] According to Opus Dei, the ordinary teaching Magisterium of the Church, which approves Natural Family Planning, wasn't good enough.

"There were many other intrusions on the marriage....Finally, when our daughter asked her husband if he wanted to save the marriage by leaving Opus Dei, he said, 'Do you want me to leave the Catholic Church?' Members seem unable to differentiate between Opus Dei and the Church." In any case, Corcoran's son-in-law chose not to: "The marriage was annulled on the grounds of Lack of Due Discretion."

...In a letter to New Oxford Review, Corcoran said something that Opus Dei's supporters and apologists would do well to ponder: "Opus Dei is not a conservative organization, it is a chameleon organization. Opus Dei people are conservative when they are among conservatives, but liberal when among liberals--whatever serves Opus Dei's purpose of garnering influence, favorable publicity, money and power."

The purpose of Joan Estruch in writing this book is to describe Opus Dei accurately in its development as a religious organization, especially in the context of the recent history of Spain. In the scholarly search for truth, the author adopts an interpretative framework that is historical-sociological. Historical, because it derives from historical documents. Sociological, because it treats a social group as an object of study.

Since Estruch's approach is secular, he is free from the religious ideology that characterizes accounts for and against this controversial Roman Catholic organization. He thereby achieves a remarkable balance. In this respect, the book is unique.

His method is dialectical. First, it is to consider the pro-Opus Dei account of historical facts, the "official version." Second, it is to bring in the "non-official version," including the anti-Opus Dei literature. Third, it is to evaluate all the evidence. He uses several metaphors to describe this process, in particular, Father Brown, the detective protagonist of G. K. Chesterton's novels, who tries to construct a coherent picture despite important pieces missing from a large, complex puzzle.

The fruit of this approach is the author's conclusion that "the entire history of Opus Dei seems to be a succession of paradoxes" (p. 260). Hence, the title.

It would seem that the fundamental paradox is also suggested by the title, that Opus Dei is populated by people who are both "saints and schemers." Sanctity, of which honesty and forthrightness are constitutive, is supposedly incompatible with scheming, which in the case of Opus Dei means the use of deceit and trickery to advance the ends of the organization. Estruch locates the origin of this paradigm shift, the "sanctification of scheming," in Bl. Josemaria Escriva's experience of curial politics in the Vatican in 1946.

But the author contends the more essential paradox of Opus Dei is that it is both "reactionary" and "innovative." It is reactionary in fiercely adhering to Roman Catholic doctrine as elaborated by the Pope and his agents in the curia. It is innovative in being highly adaptive to modernity in economics, politics, the mass media, and cognate areas.

This paradox, the author believes, explains the singular compatibility between Opus Dei's brand of Roman Catholicism and capitalism. A similar relationship between religion and society was originally explored by Max Weber in his book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and it is this parallel that originally led Estruch to undertake this book.

Yet to me, the core paradox of Opus Dei is what the author describes in page 19, that the history of Opus Dei according to its apologists denies any type of internal evolution, "to the point of pure reification." Estruch convincingly presents overwhelming evidence that Opus Dei is not divinely born in perfection but is rather a creature of time and place, and moreover, that it evolves and continues to change. It is this paradox that accounts in part for the claim of "slander" on the side of Opus Dei when its self-image is incompatible with its critics' reports of historical facts.

It is this aspect of delusion--this denial of truth--that possibly captures the problematic kernel of Opus Dei. Indeed, Estruch suggests that it derives from Bl. Escriva when he says of the founder: "He was sincere in the sense that he was the first to believe whatever he said and whatever he did; he was the first to believe his own propaganda" (p. 68).

Thus the book is outstanding in that it illumines institutional paradoxes.

But the book is illuminating in other important respects. It creates a plausible portrait of the all-too-human Bl. Escriva; it links Opus Dei spirituality to the religious character of Spanish society and culture; it shows that the rivalry between the Jesuits and Opus Dei arises from turf encroachment and historical slights. And more.

While the academic style of Estruch asks the reader to plow through at times rather involved writing, the book is nonetheless rich in insight, a mine for the intellectually curious.

I have already opined that by taking the standpoint of the social scientist, Estruch generates notable credibility. In objectivity and quality of interpretation, the book is better than Robert Hutchinson, Their Kingdom Come (1997).

However, the author's scientific approach does not tackle Opus Dei in terms of its religious ideology, which represents the very raison d'etre of the organization.

Therefore, while Estruch makes a quantum contribution to understanding, he provides little, perhaps even very little, in the way of critique. This weakness is significant because it would appear that it is the ethics of Opus Dei that is on trial in the press.

Good book. Five stars.

I am a casual user of the UNIX OS, trying to learn something about Unix administration. In the first 2 chapters (!) of the book, the author tells us about how grand you will become as a UNIX administrator and its associated immense responsibility. We are even told about some interpersonal skills and psychology needed for the job. You can browse these 2 chapters in about 1 hour, not having learnt at the end of it any UNIX administration whatsoever. You are suggested, very helpfully, told to write down this or that important number in "a paper, or a post-it note or whatever". Then the third chapter comes, with the installation of the OS (the author admits it is an old version, but this is presented as a positive feature, as if life is not complicated enough), and immediately, almost entire pages of output are shown. Only parts of this output are explained, and in a very casual mode. I suspect that, if my knowledge was superior, I would find this book outdated and cumbersome. As a beginner, I have not read more and I will look for other books.

This book should have an addition to it's title. "In Your Dreams" This book is just awful. Please don't waste your money on it. If you are a total beginner, you will be lost from the start. If you are an accomplished user trying to move into administration (as I am), you'll find that there is no meat in this book whatsoever. It is padded with the authors philosophies about administration rather than with any real information. The end of the book is just a meaningless collection of junk added for thickness purposes. Unless you are a UNIX administrator before you begin reading this book, you WILL NOT be a UNIX administrator when you finish.

Uhh, "Sams teach yourself UNIX system administration in 21 days" is a nice book with some content about older or more advanced systems such as Sun OS, IRIX, AIX. I find this book a bit complicated, since i personally do not work with Operating Systems like these. This book is 100% for advanced UNIX system administrators with expirience. I give it 4 stars, because i found it very interesting and knoweledgable about older Operating Systems, i think i will definately need this knoweledge some day. Oh and the part where author explains how you should behave in front of your boss is very nice also. In other words i would recommend this book to anybody who's absolutely insaine about UNIX like systems, definately should read.
P.S.
(You definately won't understand a thing if you finish whole book in 21 days)

As a working EMT, I have no idea what world the authors are living in. The stories are all "dumbed down" to match about a third-grader's understanding, and many don't even make sense to someone with the slightest bit of medical training. I honestly don't believe there is any way that the authors ever ran a real call.
If you really want to know what it is like on the streets, stick to Peter Canning's series.

I can't belive people actuallt enjoyed reading this. this is terrible. I'm an EMT in one of the top rated systems in the world. This book, is not the best I've read. Although Pat and Ed are outstanding EMT's, they make the job sound like you just drive there, get on-scene and be a cowboy. I disagree with the reputation they give all public safety personnel.

In the contrary to what some of the reviews say, I must say that this is a superb piece of writing by the authors. Being an EMT and an instructor, I would rate their skills, knowledge and professionalism as outstanding! I've also read their other books, all of which are of equal great quality.
Other books on this subject that I have enjoyed are: Trauma Junkie and Peter Canning's books.

Taking a break from the daily bookstore grind, Claire decides to get away from it all and drafts her daughter Caron to accompany her on a mystery murder weekend at the Mimosa Inn. Her boyfriend Peter Rosen (an investigator with the Farberville police department) scoffs at the whole idea of solving a pretend murder. This only makes Claire more determined to take part in the mystery murder weekend and become the person who solves the murder.

To complicate matters, Lt. Rosen shows up at the Inn shortly after Claire, who is positive he is only there to show her up. Clues are dispersed to the mystery participants up until the point when the murder victim turns up murdered for real.

With a situation like this, it's a given that Claire will try to out-sleuth Peter, and only get herself in harm's way. And with Joan Hess's comic flair and skillful plotting it turns into a pretty interesting read. It's the kind of book you want to read when you just want to get away from it all for a bit. Actually I enjoyed the book so much; I grabbed her A Diet To Die For from my bookshelf as my next book to read. (Also reviewed today on Amazon.)

Here's an intriguing tale in the "traditional/cozy" mystery genre. Claire Malloy drags her reluctant teenaged daughter, Caron, to a murder mystery weekend at the Mimosa Inn. Claire, bookstore owner and amateur detective, is determined to solve the mystery and win the prize: champagne. It's not that she wants to outwit the charming and disarmingly sexy local police detective, Pete Rosen. It's just that...well....The game progresses until, suddenly, the "victim" turns up dead. Really dead.

This is an early Hess mystery -- the second, I think, and her devil-may-care style is just developing. MURDER AT THE MIMOSA INN is unpretentious and good entertainment, almost as much fun as actually attending a murder mystery weekend.

Sunnye Tiedemann (aka Ruth F. Tiedemann)

Joan Hess, creator of the Maggody series, introduces a new slueth in this amusing romp. Claire Malloy is wonderful as the bored bookstore owner looking for some excitement in her life. Claire's daughter Caron is every mothers' teenaged nightmare. The book provides a great introduction to this series of amateur detective fiction at it's funniest.

I thought the author would assume that people buying this book already know the basics of web design and other common sense issues, such as knowing to "proofread your resume" (there actually was a section on this). Instead this book is completely book is completely basic and boring. I was hoping it would be really specific by giving advice such as how important it is to learn Java. Not sure who it was written for because who would buy a book about being a Webmaster if they didn't have a clue?

.

That one word (DUH! ) sums up the content of this book.

If you are dedicated to having your intelligence insulted, then its trivial, elementary, superflous, and mostly irrelevant information is eminently for you.

hello! this book is the simple. and I am interested in field of the webmaster.

Don't waste your time or money with this book. A superficial treatment of a complex subject. Book is filled with technical inaccuracies.

Like so many of the others, this author tries to explain a highly technical subject to non-technical folks and fails in the attempt. The book is filled with technical inaccuracies and leaves the non-technical reader scratching their head after reading a chapter. It's almost as if Ms. Van Tassel had this stuff explained to her by a technical person that either didn't want to take the time to do it right or didn't know the subject.

Joan's book covers a lot of territory, and is a great way to understand the other sides of the industry for someone who is deeply involved in only part of it. While no book covering such a complex and quickly changing subject is perfect, Joan's is the best of breed in an area with few alternatives. It is written in an easy to understand manner and an enjoyable style. I was surprised to note that the only negative reviews posted here were both written by the same person, under two names, and were flames without substance. Joan's award winning book is the best way I know to broaden one's knowledge of this field, and her columns for the Hollywood Reporter and Price Waterhouse Coopers... are an excellent way to remain current.

We have red this book both in Turkish and English we found out that the orginal of the book is perfect but on all of It's Turkish translations we are faceing lots of difficulties especially on figurs and formulas.That's because the printing quatity. Most of the figures and formulas are unreadable.We wish that the writers of the the book would tell the publisher(GUNES YAYINEVI LTD.) what they have to do in all ways.These unforgivenable problems couses deap damages on the books sciencetific value.If you would like to contact us for more information we would'd be happy to give any help you need. e-mail:dogankeskin@hotmail.com

I have had this text for an intro to organic class this last semester, and using the old version for the class was easy since it hasnt changed in the new revsion. I hate to say it but it is well written except for the structure of the molecules since they are all in letter format, why couldnt they revise the new edition with line angle drawings the ink cost is the same.... it makes it that much harder to read with the current typewriter style samples

This is a fine text. The authors have broken down a rather difficult subject into easily digestable units, which helped my understanding of the whole. You should also use the companion CD. This is a great tool for visualizing the 3-D structure of complex molecules. I bought this book and have refered to it many times. Do yourself a favor and buy this great text!!!

A PC primer disguised as fiction. I'm all for left-wing politics and social responsibility, but not when it's couched in bland prose and communicated by dull and mildly annoying characters.

What a shame when "feminist" literature becomes all feminist and no literature. Joan Drury gives us a dazzling array of all that's politically correct (and provides one handy punching-bag character to epitomize all that's not) while only occasionally venturing into the area of compelling mystery or quality prose. Lucky thing that not all liberated women are as one-dimensional and self-congratulatory as hers--if they were, I might prefer to strand myself on an island with a crowd of John Birchers instead.

When Tyler Jones receives an invitation to spend the weekend getting reacquainted with her five college buddies, she accepts immediately. Their rendezvous will be on an isolated island in Puget Sound owned by the family of one of her friends. As they arrive to be shuttled out to the island, a fierce storm breaks over their heads. By the time they reach the island, it is raging. It doesn't take long for the storm to cut off telephone communication with the mainland. When Tyler is walking her dog, she discovers a body that at least two of her friends know and dislike. Suspicion threatens to turn friends into enemies as the weekend progresses. Almost as disconcerting is that Tyler learns that she really doesn't even know the women she's spending the weekend with. As each new revelation reveals someone new her, Tyler works on solving the murder and keeping them all alive. The author is an award-winning author, and she proves why here. This is a book you'll want to savor on a rainy night in front of fire. Each character is finely drawn, with each having likable - and unlikable - characteristics. You're sure to find yourself hoping it wasn't Teddie, or it just couldn't be Grace, or please don't let it be Rachel. By the time you finish this book, you'll find your self searching for Joan Drury's other books.