That Anthony lawrence is an acclaimed poet is obvious as soon as this saga begins. The manner in which he has woven and threaded words to create this soul wrenching story is more than captivating, it is an artistry! I couldn't put In The Half Light down once I began reading. It is truly one of the best novels I've ever read. It will take you on a journey that will remain with you always.

For anyone who loved the Radio 4 series this book provides full transcripts of the interviews pschiatrist Dr. Anthony Clare undertook with a host of famous names. This, the first edition, features interviews with successful men and women in and out of the public limelight. Spectacularly interesting and probing questions reveal some of the behavioural traits behind some acutely ambitious people. Notable are the insights we get into the thinking of Sir Jimmy Saville who reveals his dislike of kids and ponderings with Prince Charles on the issue of power. Also included the now infamous interview with Ken Dodd whose reluctance to share his innerself with Clare and the listeners is both hilarious and revealing. With over ten interviews here what is especially noticeable here is the diversity of Clare's technique. Back to back each interview is prefaced by a post-interview comment and analysis. A very entertaining read for anyone interested in what makes successful people tick.

This is a branch of economics whose nuances and subtleties have been debated and redebated ad nauseam, but here is a book which, although now almost 20 years old, has not only not dated in its relevance and importance to the study of this crucial field, provides us with many of the answers for which future generations of authors have been striving.

Not only is this a work of economic genius, but stylistically it ranks among the greatest works of English and world literature, and reading it was one of the greatest pleasures I have known. To the economic and non-economic among you, I cannot implore you too strongly to read this book while you still have blood in your veins, and while your lungs continue to move air in and out of your body.

This is yet another great book from perhaps the greatest economic thinker ever to live. Thank you, Mr Courakis.

If you've read Anthony Downs' Economic Theory of Democracy, this is a must-read! Even if you disagree with Downs, this collection of empirical research and strong theoretical scholarship will make your brain cells dance. I kid you not-- although you may want to have a Ph.D. in Political Science to get the full effects. Especially insightful is Grofman's chapter on reconciling the shortcomings in Downs' predictions about two-party politics with the abundance of scholarship that undermines these expectations. If you're reading this, you know the score: Downs predicts party convergence, (the common metaphor is Tweedle-dee Tweedle-dum politicians) and certain specific outcomes associated with competitive elections in a two-party system. Downs' model (because it assumes fair and vigorous competition for votes, party objectives where winning is the central goal, and certain parameters about the distribution of preferences in the population) doesn't foresee extreme incumbency advantage in the House, doesn't predict why members of opposite parties but from the same state will vote in opposite manners, or why political party appears to have such a strong influence on candidate positions in general. Grofman's chapter raises all the fine points where the Downs theory appears to clash with the evidence. His arguments are written matter-of-factly and his analysis is packed with simple but compelling examples from the empirical literature. Like a good mystery, Grofman's synthesis of the disparities in our theoretical and empirical knowledge of American politics begs for a logical solution. (This is the part that will keep your brain cells up at night.) On a side note, Grofman's careful analysis also clears up some of the misconceptions and generalizations about the Downs model that have grown as a result of people simply not bothering to read Downs in its entirety. Rather than join the choir of voices who immediately would dismiss rational choice on the grounds that Downs' analysis-- or unidimensional analysis for that matter-- is imperfect, or the D.O.D. (Defenders of Downs) who would pretend that the flaws are superficial, Grofman proposes that political science needs to focus on improving its institutional models--and empirical tests. He calls for "institutional richness" --a concept well ahead of its time, but oh, so obvious. Let's look at microsystems, congressional districts, variances in party control, elections, ballots(!), technology, local election laws, demographics, etc. from state to state and community to community. Let's get beyond making generalizations about how elections and politics work in America at the national level and get our hands dirty again. Great book for political scientists, journalists, junkies, academics, and would-be political experts. Some of the chapters are probably a little too sophisticated for the casual reader, but if this stuff interests you, go for it! You can never learn too much, and the best chapters are written so that amateurs can make sense of it all.

This book has all the insects of the world! Here in Africa we have many insects so I like to know which kind are what by looking at this book. I want to be an entomologist when I grow up, so this book gave me a step ahead from beginning to learn entomology. The pictures are excellent positions to capture the texture of the insect. This is the book you wantto know what kind of insects those are you see every day!

Anthony Crouch has done a great job. It's a challenging book specially for students of related fields, enables them to get to know themselves, their motivations and concerns. At the same time reader learns a great deal about different methods and theories of counselling. As a clinical psychologist, I recommend this fantastic book specially to psychology and counselling students .

Win employees' loyalty means win everything

This really is a very nice book, with fabulous photgraphy which makes the book worth every penny of its price. The book was written just before the admission of women to its school, and therefore focuses on it being an all male school.

One of the things I loved about this book is how contemporary it is. Normally when I have picked up books on military colleges, the author spends pages and pages going on about the schools hisotry and its early formation and those who were involved in it. A miniscule amount of time is spent looking at the lives of cadets and how the school is structured (such was the case with Drawing out the Man, a historical book by a VMI grad). Fortunetly this is not the case with the Institute. The book looks at the lives of Rats (first year cadets) as it is right now and their transitions through the school.

This book has also taught me how far VMI has come. VMI is not afraid of positive making positive changes. Unlike another somewhat infamous military college. VMI will shed some of it more archaic traditions in order to be welcoming to others (There were several shots of multi-ethnic cadets). The school has seemed to shed some of its old emphasis on worhipping the Confederate Old South. And has now turned into a school dedicated to educating young people and building them up with character and fortitude. Which in my eyes is what makes this school truly great and unique.

I am too old to attend VMI now, but if I could I would quickly enter.

Rah! Rah! VMI

An exellent book on an important subject-worth picking up.

In this uniformly excellent volume, Hugo A. Meynell mounts an argument for the existence of God as an explanation for the intelligibility of the world.

This argument is not the same as the recent (though also interesting) case for "intelligent design" mounted by William Dembski. Meynell's case is more general, and applies even in the absence of any evidence of such design (though of course such design is consistent with his thesis).

Meynell argues, basically, that (a) it is ultimately incoherent to take the "real world" to be anything other than what we get to know by right reason, and that (b) the existence of a necessarily-existing intelligent Creator is the best explanation for the intelligibility of that "real world." My short summary does not do it justice, but those are the (very) bare bones of his cosmological argument.

Meynell's exposition is extremely thorough. He begins by considering, and curtly dismissing, the common claim that arguments for God's existence are unimportant. He then spends a chapter considering standard arguments and counter-arguments for God's existence before setting forth his own argument.

The meat of that argument is in chapter three, in which he argues at length for the claim I have summarized briefly above: that the "real world" is an intelligible, coherent system which we come to understand through the proper use of reason. Chapter four then passes to God as an explanation for such intelligibility.

Meynell then closes with a cleanup chapter of "paralipomena" ("things left out" of the discussion to that point) and a two-page conclusion summarizing his argument. An appendix deals with A.J. Ayer's arguments against theistic belief in _The Central Questions of Philosophy_.

Meynell does not deal with the "presuppositionalist" view that all such arguments are question-begging, but it must be acknowledged that, strictly speaking, his argument is not _deductively_ valid. However, it does not need to be; what he is actually doing is setting out the absolute, axiomatic presuppositions of reason itself -- and this process is not deduction. (A full reply to the presuppositionalists on this point would take us rather far afield, but we may note briefly that the presuppositionalist argument collapses all reasoning into deductive logic -- a move I do not find terribly credible.)

I could probably manage to disagree with Meynell here and there if I tried. For example, he is at great pains to make clear that his view does not amount to "idealism," but here I think he is relying on a more restrictive view of "idealism" than I would prefer to take. (Nicholas Rescher remarks somewhere that any philosophy denying the existence of unknowable things-in-themselves not susceptible to reason is at bottom a form of idealism; I concur. Meynell seems to be rejecting only _subjective_ idealism, a rejection in which I happily join him.)

Be that as it may, overall this is _the_ best book I know on the argument to an intelligent God from the existence and axiomatic efficacy of human reason. It deserves to be reprinted and widely read by philosophers and theologians of all stripes.