We spend a full third of our life sleeping, but what do we really know about it. Why do we sleep? What causes us to sleep? What happens when we sleep? All these questions remain unanswered, but scientists are working--dare I say it? oh, why not--around the clock to explain why we can't work around the clock.

On the academic side, the latest report from the somnabulent world is Peretz Lavie's The Enchanted World of Sleep. Translated from the original Hebrew with aplomb by Anthony Berris, Lavie's book introduces us to the world of scientific sleep study through one of the original sleep institutes, the Sleep Laboratory at the Technion--the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Prof. Lavie, who is dean of the Faculty of Medicine and head of the Laboratory, is uniquely qualified to give such a historical perspective, because he did his graduate work under Prof. Bernie Webb, one of the founders of sleep research.

It should be noted that what these scientists are studying is the mechanisms of sleep. While dream state is included in this, they are interested in only the fact that someone is dreaming, not about what the dream relates. Such dream studies are the province of psychologists. Prof. Lavie and his collegues are medical doctors who are interested in the physiology of sleep--what happens when people are deprived of sleep through natural (brain disorders, etc.) and unnatural (sleep deprivation experiments, etc.) events. One of the many myths exploded in this book is that a majority of people sleep poorly. Instead, Prof. Lavie proves, people only think they don't sleep well, whereas in comparison studies, their sleep is as even as the next persons. The person's opinion is solely based on a perception that occurs during the first thirty minutes of sleep, and can be easily corrected by controlling simple environmental variables (noise, light, etc.). While The Enchanted World of Sleep is meant for an audience of his peers, it is written as much as a personal memoir, detailing his own experiences with patients at the Sleep Laboratory. The author comparison that I was inevitably drawn to is that of Dr. Oliver Sacks, who also explains some tough medical mysteries by using personal experience.

this book is an easily accessible and enjoyable story of sleep. it will be interesting for scientists and non-scientists alike.

You will not want to stop reading this book. It tells all about the mechanism of sleep, about dreaming and biological clocks. It is easy to read, informative and very interesting. It is very important to read this book to learn about so many myths about sleeping. It will change your life forever! Ron.

You won't want to put this book down. It's an interesting look at WHAT IF? The characters just suck you into the story and bring out all your emotions. Some of the imagery is amazing. You will actually picture what you are reading. And you will be hooked-till the end.

This book kept me up all hours of the night. I could not put it down. This is an excellent book that everybody needs to read. The author has a real grasp of what may be happening in the world today.

I enjoyed reading this book. The plot revolves around the collapse of order in the United States. The author has a rather pessimistic view of human nature, but one that unfortunately seems accurate. It is a real page-turner.

This book, in my opinion, was written from the perspective of a fan. There are numerous books written on music by music scholars (e.g., Early Jazz by Gunther Schuller) which I prefer to this type of writing because the authors ideas are backed up by examples that include musical knowledge and music history knowledge. Heilbut make many statements about the importance of Gospel music as an influence on US pop music that are untrue and not backed up with any facts or examples. I did enjoy the stories about some the key architects of the gospel sound, but the "religious fanatical" perspective of the author turned me off. I know enough about music and US music history to know when the author was getting emotional about a music that touched him personally. This is a problem if the reader is not educated in music and US music history, they may take the many fantastic claims that Heilbut makes about Gospel music as truth.

This was one very informative book that gives the reader a genuine understanding of the origin of Gospel music. It reaches very deep into the life and times of the pioneers of Gospel. Each played their own part into evolving Gospel music to make it what it is today. Makes great reading.

Anthony Heilbut is an expert on the subject of gospel music, one of the most important musical forces in American history. His book is written from the perspective of a scholar, but one with a real passion for the music. There are passages in his book that almost as thrilling as the music itself.

Interesting in a sort of historical way, but even to me (a food-literature junkie) it was a chore to finish.

Jean-Marie Gallois, the hero of this delicious novel, is a young sauce stirrer who aspires to win his high bonnet, the towering white toque that is the mark of achievement of every top chef. After a famous voluptuary swoons over the bitter-chocolate-scented sauce he ladles on her roast goose he is thrown into a three-star kitchen for the most brutal of trainings. Jean will win his high bonnet and the royal bearing that accompanies it - but not until he's had many outrageous adventures, both in the kitchen and out

I started to devour this book, then, afraid to get to the end too soon, I began to pace myself---in order to savor the feast thoroughly. Idwal Jones's prose is totally intoxicating--his descriptions of tastes, textures, perfumes are so vivid you can almost taste the rich sauces, smell the aroma of roasting meat, get drunk on the wines. This is not a novel of events, so much as sensations. Yet all the characters are alive and convincing. Anyone who truly connects with food and its pleasures will be ravished. Makes Proust's madeleine seem poor fare.

Anthony Monday, a high schooler, and his friend, Ms. Eells, find a lamp with wierd pictures at the bottom. When Ms. Eells lights the lamp, mysetrious things begin to happen. A high school Janitor is murdered by a man wrapped in a overcoat and cob webs on his face. Can Ms. Eells and Anthony find out and stop this force before it destroys everyone?

This book was realistic and fun and kept the kids attention as well as my own. A good, fun scare and interesting story with surprises.

I have been reading this book in my spare time, which I don't have alot of, and I really injoyed reading it. You know alot of the time I will get bored reading one book for awhile and put it away but this one I couldn't. I would stay up at night and take my penfalshlight turn it on and read for hours! I plan on reading more of his books!

Being a critic for years, I picked this one up a week ago and listened to it. I think its a follow up to his other longer programs. Being as there is only one other review and its a positive one, I felt it was my duty to step in and let the public how crappy this set really is. I mean, how many programs does he need to come out with? Its like everyone is the one to change your life. Its all the same repeitive stuff. Not only is the sound quality poor, but the cds lack content as well. Just a lot of personal stories, seminar plugs, etc. I still can't beleive morons fall for this stuff. Get it through your head the guy's a phony.

He has way with words, no doubt. Tony Robbins has some heavy duty charisma. No doubt. It even shows in his book. I think he is an alien with some powers or something. You read his book and it motivates you to think you can take on the world. Problem is, that doesn't last long once you go back out into it. Another book I would like to recommend, one that I love, is called, The Little Guide To Happiness. Don't leave home without it.

Anthony Robbins talks about different topics on these audio CD's. Some of these include decision making (a big one with him), using metaphors in our life, living in our technologically-advancing world, and knowing what we want. These are just a few of thing concepts and topics he talks about. I like many things that Tony Robbins writes because he gives us the key to any of the technical stuff that he uses--that we have to take the effort and do it! He constantly talks about not just listening to the tape, and this is important to hear. In these CD's, he discusses his role as a coach, and that is what he is. Not just someone who gives the information, but also reminds us that we have to do something with it.

As for the techniques, I have not been able to take advantage of all of them yet. I think the beauty of it is that I think one of his strategies is to give people many different ways of reaching their goals, becoming happy, and improving their lives and people can choose which ones they like and might fit in with their personality and style.

I recommend this to you if you are willing to do some work in improving yourself. If you just want to listen to the CD's and say, "that's nice" it probably won't work for you.

This book is an excellent new translation of five letters to Charles V, the HRE, four written by Cortes. The first letter, not written by Cortes, seems to have been written with Cortes leaning over the writer's shoulder, for it fits in perfectly with the four Cortes letters, both in sequence and in theme.

The running theme of all five letters seems to be this: Cortes is a great man who works to bring wealth and glory to Charles V, while overcoming amazing obsticles presented by both Indian and Spanish sources.

What can be learned from these letters? Not much that can be trusted, other than Cortes is good at "selling" Cortes to the royal court.

The letters are full of obvious exagerations and vast silences.

Anthony Pagden, Harry C. Black Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, presents his readers with what he feels is the definitive edition of Hernan Cortes letters. Pagden states in his introduction that although his translation was not the first in English, the previous were, "more or less unsatisfactory" (page lxxix). Pagden sticks to the verisimilitude of the letters as much as possible, presenting Cortes' original spellings and place names. The main liberty Pagden admits to have taken, dividing the text into further paragraphs, does not distract the reader or destroy the intent of the work. By using the earliest available manuscripts, the original translations, and numerous primary sources as evidenced by an extensive bibliography, Pagden allows the reader to enter another world, and delve into the mind of the most talked about of all conquerors, Hernan (Hernando, Fernando) Cortes. Five letters are presented for synaptic digestion. However, the first letter presented is actually not written by Cortes. The unknown author speaks highly of Cortes, though. The other letters, penned by Cortes, describes the exact minutiae of what he paints as a perilous journey. What makes these letters so readable and enjoyable is the reader gains an intimate knowledge of the pageantry of the 16th century, and a first-hand account of what must have been clash of Spanish and New World cultures. The letters written by Cortes are revelatory. He must have had either a tremendous memory (the shortest letter is fifty-six pages long whereas the longest is 122 pages) or a fervent imagination. It is not inconceivable, then, and Cortes' prose intimates this, that he was an educated man. The letters also show that Cortes was very deferential - as he addresses his head of state, every few pages Cortes begins a new thought with phrases such as, "Most Powerful and Invincible Lord", "Your Majesty", and "Most Catholic Lord." For the contemporary reader this can be distracting. From the triumph of Conquest, the reader finds Cortes ends as a broken man, literally begging King Charles for monies to pay his increasing debts. Certainly these are not all the letters Cortes wrote to his monarch. What letters presented represent a unique opportunity. Herein lays the thinking of the man who led a handful conquerors and New World allies to bring down an empire. In this respect, the work succeeds brilliantly, for the mind of Cortes leaps out in his letters.
I might have read a different edition than the one advertised, so the page numbers might not match up.

The story begins with the planting of A Orange Tree and ends with the the conquest of Mexico. Cortes is a man driven by adventure and the lure of wealth in the new lands. It is however sad that he ends up in love with the place and culture that he finally destroys. The book gives a blow by blow description of the political intrigue of the church, the crown and of course Cortes men. At one point in the book the fighting is so brutal that Cortes is literally hacking the Aztec warroirs to death as steel meets wood in a no contest.Montezouma is perhaps the most tagic figure given that he is a child not a leader. The insights that Cortes rrecordrds give a fascinating account in a true historical sense. It is a book that destroys the idea that conquistidores like Cortes are bigger than life.The book reaffirms a tragic tale with its detail descriptions. A great read for enthusiasts of Mexican history Leigh Collins

Charlotte Rampling, beautiful and tear-stained, has a minor breakdown midway through The Verdict--she's fallen for Paul Newman, the lawyer she's been assigned to seduce and spy on by her boss at the big, evil law firm. James Mason, the suave evil boss, consoles her with a drink and an apothegm: "You don't get paid to do your best," Mason says. "You get paid to win." That scene (expertly written by David Mamet) explains the legal profession in America and provides a summary of Kronman's argument. Kronman, the current Dean of Yale Law, bemoans the extinction of lawyers of sound judgment, prudence, and a concern for a range of interests--the client's, the law's, society's, etc. Lawyers who were actively involved with their community and their country, who were looked to as figures of wisdom, not avarice. But Kronman is more diagnostic than prescriptive. He's right--that breed of lawyer has all but vanished. Still, he provides little in the way of practical suggestions for correcting the problem. And his focus is on the profession and the law schools. His focus should be on the free market. Elite American law schools are catering to the needs of the large firms, which are catering to the needs of their corporate clients. To graduate marketable lawyers, the schools have to create skilled technicians. The hiring partner at a Wall Street Firm wants to know that an applicant has the stamina necessary to put in the hours, and the intelligence and tools needed to grind out competent work. No one is interested in his or her views about what might be a more prudent approach to the client's problem; his or her judgment is not only not demanded, it's unwelcome. Kronman's focus is too narrow. The legal profession has become the law business. Because that's what's demanded by clients, who pay the tab. So I think he should have examined the underpinnings of the free market system, which I favor but which is responsible for the shift in legal education and law practice. Also, how does one teach prudence? How does a vocational school--or perhaps any school--instil sound judgment? Furthermore, prudence and judgment are qualities that, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. Finally, Kronman's assertion that much of the problem arose when the large Protestant law firms started hiring Jews, African-Americans, women, and associates from the working classes and from second and third-tier schools sounds not only wrong, but bizarrely priggish and elitist in all the wrong ways. Kronman, as far as I can tell, has never practiced law for any length of time, nor has he toiled as a judge. He's spent his career locked in the Ivory Tower of academia, and his book is the high-toned result.

Everyone who is an attorney, or wants to be one, will benefit from reading this book. Kronman's 'Lost Lawyer' is the 'Lawyer-Statesman,' an attorney with practical wisdom who practices law as a profession, not as a business. Kronman thinks various pressures have pushed the Lawyer-Statesman from the practice of law, leaving only lawyers who see the law as a means to make money. The book can be arcane, but not too arcane for someone who has been through law school. It should be required reading for all law students.

This is a very interesting book by Yale's Law School Dean, Anthony Kronman about law schools, legal teaching, the practice of law, Courts and the governing principles of law firms nowadays in the United States.
The central idea is that the modern American legal profession is in a crisis, a crisis of morale. Disguised by the material rewards of the profession, the downturn has been brought about by the demise of the traditional set of values that until recently played a definitive role in the aspirations of American lawyers. According to the author, previous generations of lawyers conceived their highest aim to be an attainment of practical wisdom about human beings and their affairs- that anyone who wishes to provide effective and real deliberative counsel must possess. This wisdom was perceived as a result acquired only by becoming a person of good judgment, and not merely an expert in technical matters of the law. The cultivation of this character virtue, was an important professional ideal, and contributed fundamentally to the perception that lawyers had about the intrinsic value of their work. And it is this ideal which is now dying in the legal profession. Lawyers find it increasingly difficult to attribute intrinsic fulfillment to their profession. Mainly, as the attention shifts to other means (material, metalegal, etc.) for fulfillment, lawyers cultivate less the traditional values and are ill prepared to provide sound legal and political advise. So, Kronman embarks in a journey to restate the original ideals of what he calls the lawyer-stateman. Therefore, in the first part of the book, he seeks to define and defend more demanding standards of professional excellence. In doing so, he dwells with some complex philosophical issues involved, in simple terms. In the second part we get a more practical and sociological analysis of legal institutions and their cultural dynamics: the current shape of the Courts, legal schools, legal firms, and other institutions involved.
Why should this book be read by all lawyers and students? Because it provides a clear diagnostic of most of the shortcomings of the profession and clues to possible solutions.
Anybody involved in the legal profession as a lawyer, cannot avoid the sensation of looking at a mirror when reading: "The fascination with moneymaking that pervades large-firms practice today tends, in a subtle but significant way, to unsettle the delicate balance between sympathy and detachment in which practical wisdom consists"..."a culturally reinforced preoccupation with money makes it more difficult to sustain the kind of self-forgetfulness required to deliberate for and with another person on his or her behalf"..."this demands that he temporarily suspend his own interests, for only by doing so can he clear an effective space in which his client's interests may be entertained with real feeling".
And in fact, as Kronman states, many modern clients are primarily concerned with making money, and this goal can distort the lawyer's advice by not telling the client that the option that yields the most money, is not the best one overall. The lawyer who is a believer of the money making process and shares his client concern for money, can find it difficult to avoid mistakes in its own deliberations......

The title of this book makes you think it is full of nice, full page portraits. But it is just pages from Beard's scrapbooks, and it looks like a scrap book. Torn articles and photos are pasted down, with Beard's scrawls in the corners sometimes describing what the subjects are, sometimes not. He ruins a neat photo of Mick Jagger eating a giant lollipop on a boat by smearing red paint on the photo. Beard seems to think such paint smearing on his photos (that he does more than once) will give these photos a Jackson Pollock type of value. Afraid not. This book should have been titled "Scrapbook." Then those of us who wanted nice portraits wouldn't be disappointed, and those who wanted the "wild" experience of paging through a disorganized mess that is the product of a disorganized mind, would know where to go.

Peter Beard's genius stems precisely from his ability and willingness to extend the traditional concept of "portraiture" to realms heretofore untapped. His portraits, like his life, are vivid, eclectic, filled with artifacts and raw passion. Not for the timid but what art is? Think Francis Bacon with a Nikon. And Incidentally, in reply to the first reviewer who complained about this book, it's not ink he smears on his photographs, it's blood (sometimes his own). This book is a masterpiece.

Unlike another customer review, I find Beard's "reworking" of his photos to be the freshest element of his work. For those who are only comfortable with "studio" or traditional photography, a warning. Beard's work will always test your endurance, and the rewards are great if you stick it out.

This a good and comprehensive study of the greatest fighter jets of all time. It covers every detail from the birth of this jet to the end of its production. The only complaint I have on this book is the lack of colour pictures and the not so good quality b/w pictures. I hope this can be revised in future editions.

A good book about a great plane. It does not cover every thing and any thing about the F4 but its close to it. More about its deployment and employment rather than technical specifications- you could say it like an autobiography of the F-4 and not an operations manual.

Okay, so I'm biased. I used to love to look at these big, ugly, loud beasts as they tore into the sky using nothing but sheer power. 5000 of them were built over the years, and a design that originated in the 1950s is still being used as a front-line fighter in some countries. This book is exhaustively detailed and packed full of photos, covering all aspects of the Phantoms illustrious career. I do not have the updated edition, but the one I have is very detailed, so I have no fears that the new edition can only include more detail.

(MALS-41, supporting VMFA-112 F-4S Phantoms, USMC 1988-1992)