Every so often there is a book that is worth reading simply for the pleasure of the words in it, separate from whatever the author is trying to say or tell the reader. This is such a book. The effect is akin to being immersed in the depths of a symphony of words. Otherwise Peattie does an excellent job of explaining the evolution and development of the earths flowering plants. His writing is easily understood and opens botany to the more or less uninformed reader. Read this book for pleasure or for information. You will be pleased you sampled it. This is my second copy. I lent the first out and lost a friend to the book

In this distinguished history of the plant kingdom, Donald Culross Peattie, botanist and nature writer extraordinaire, imaginatively demonstrates that the fates of all living things are bound together. This is nature writing at its best. In the intervening years since this book was written, scientists have made many new discoveries, but few nature writers have surpassed the stylistic beauty and illuminative insight displayed by the author in Flowering Earth. I recommend it to anyone interested in nature. The thoughts expressed are timeless

This book has the keys to unlock potential that most people can't even imagine. IF you know your self to be a spiritual being this may very well be the book that awakens you to your higher potential.

Paul Twitchell's book reveals practical tools that have helped me have amazing direct experiences with Spirit. How refreshing it is to read someone who gives techniques and information without some mystical mumbo-jumbo. The Flute of God is the real thing for people who want to begin directly connecting with Spirit and to discover our higher nature as Soul. The sections on the creative imagination are simply astonishing.

In the world of the paranormal, we're routinely faced with two voices, the believer and the debunker. In this refreshing take on the world of "ghost sightings" we're given a third choice, a rational voice that balances the previous two with scientific insight and theories that span the gap from quantum physics to metaphysics.

In Paul F. Eno's worldview, "ghosts" can be caused by several different phenomena, from "standing waves" or low frequency sound waves, to time displacements, and from visitation apparitions to parasitic entities. We learn about each of these through actual cases Eno has investigated. Each sighting is taken seriously and examined with an even-handed manner that allows for any possibility.

His hypotheses are well researched and although he is careful to point out that he is not a scientist, his work reflects the findings of some of the greatest minds in "new" or quantum physics.

If you're ever troubled with what seems to be a haunting problem, this book should be your first line of attack. In fact, you may want to keep it on hand just in case. This modern Ghost Buster may not carry around a power pack, but his methods are going to be a whole lot more effective if you are ever face-to-face with the real thing.

In his second book on the paranormal, Paul Eno hits another home run and proves he's at the top of his game as a paranormal investigator and author. Baseball analogies aside, Eno manages to engage and intrique his readers again, just as he did with 1998's Faces at the Window.

In Footsteps in the Attic, he lays out his utterly unique and ultimately convincing view that what we call "ghosts" are really far more complex, and really arise from slips in time and alternate universes. This based-in-fact scientific explanation makes this book stand out among the many Halloween "scare" books on the market now that read more like fiction.

And from the story of a disappearing house to an apparently troubled classroom in an elementary school and his dire warnings about parasites and the use of Ouija boards, Eno tells a far scarier tale than those fiction-inspired haunting stories ever could. This is because everything he writes about comes from his personal involvement in these cases.

For anyone interested in truly understanding the paranormal, or even opening your mind to the possibility of its existence, I highly recommend this book.

This book is fascinating, even for people like me who aren't especially interested in cars. I picked it up at my grandpa's house and couldn't put it down. More than a "car book," Ford Century brings in a lot of the history that Ford grew up in - from hula hoops to hot rods - and reminds its readers how Ford was there for it all. This is a beautiful book, as well, with great images and nostalgiac pictures. I highly recommend it.

Tying in with Ford's 100th celebration is this fine chronicle of this influential name and continuing legacy in so many areas of the past century.

The mobility and culture which has sprung up around the auto is staggering. Here it is captured from following one of the influential figures in all of that: Henry Ford and the legacy he left.

Well done with photos and enough text to provide running history of this giant in industry and society, this will become a collector's item to be given with pride, displayed on coffetables or in libraries.

To reflect back on all those vehicles--- Model T, Thunderbird, Mustang, Edsel, F-150, assembly line. We've all been touched by it. This is luscious nostalgia at its best.

Through Phillip Yancey, Dr. Brand relates the most amazing comparisons of the human body and the body of Christ. I have read all four of their co-authored books over and over. And, after reading any of the books they have written together you will better understand your relationship with Jesus Christ.
One of my favorite stories out of this book was about a doctor in a POW camp in WWII. This prison was in the middle of a filthy steaming swamp and many of the POWs were dying from severe disentery. As, the doctor looked around the filthy place he just knew if he had clean water to give these men, he could save their lives. He looks up into the coconut trees all around them and remembers that the water inside of unripe coconuts is 100% clean and pure. So his team fashions make shift IV's out of the coconuts and the clean water from coconuts grown in a filty cesspool of a swamp, saves the lives of dozens of men. This shows that even though we live in a world that is sometimes filthy and corrupt, through the filter of the Holy Spirit we can have purity in us to pass to the dying souls around us.
There are many other wonderful comparisonsare in this book.
I also highly recommend the other books by these two great men..."In His Image", "Fearfully And Wonderfully Made" and, "The Gift of Pain".
I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have.

Dr. Paul Brand, co-author with Philip Yancey of Fearfully & Wonderfully Made and In His Image, has written a very down-to-earth book that explores the analogy between physical and spiritual hunger. In 18 chapters and 220 pages, the veteran missionary surgeon shares his thoughts on how we satisfy our bodies and souls with nourishment. Sprinkled with quotes, drawings, and anecdotes, this lively book takes a gently exhortative approach to spiritual growth, stimulating the reader to ponder and act upon the need for maturation of the soul.

Architecture is not about appearance but function. This excellent book examines the environment: wind, sun, water. It explores human's needs. It dwells into the tie between humans and the environment. The environment is both necesary for life, and can cause death. As such a home should act like a second skin: keeping out harmful agents, and allowing the necessary agents to come in. This book is not only an overview of architecture, but includes an interesting outlook on philosophy, art, architectural evolution, movement, and human pcychology. This book is informative, easy to understand and a fun read. It's good.

M. Grillo jogs my perceptions of design--and life--out of tired ruts. This book is filled with wonderfully illuminating illustrations, many in surprising juxtapositions, like a farmhouse roof facing prevailing winds next to an inverted ship's hull, a shark beside a jet plane, a cloverleaf in Stockholm by a cut-away of the human heart. He SEES, and in his warm prose tells us what he sees and why it works.

He book not only explains elements of beautiful design but touches aspects of healthy thought. In his note to a young designer, he advises: "Do not be afraid: either of your ideas, no matter how wild---or of the ideas of others, no matter how disturbing. Fear is the motive power of all intolerance."

I can remember pouring over the pictures in this book,using my book light,long after the final lights out call from my parents. I traveled back in time, imagining dinosaur growls and prehistoric seashells. By day, I would wander the acreage on my Grandma's farm, scouring the weedy earth for the slightest hint of ancient rock or dinosaur footprint. I wanted my school-age children to enjoy the imaginative art of archeology and paleantology and immediately remembered my favorite book, Fossils: A Guide to Prehistoric Life. I was delighted to see that it was still in print with the same exciting drawings. I immediatley ordered my copy! I then decided to order a copy for my kids! This is a great book that will encourage your children to look beyond the video games and satellite channels and into the fascinating world of the ancient past.

This little guide is the best choice for beginners and children. Book gives the reader an idea about what a fossil is, where and how they can be found, and some information about major fossils. All the pictures are hand drawn illustrations, so that they are not very detailed but still OK for kids and beginers. (I liked it when I was young!)

If you have to get a review of this book from Amazon, you will find it considerably too technical and mathematical for anyone without graduate level economics. Nevertheless, it is one of the ten most important economics books books of the(previous) century

Samuelson's "Foundations" may be the most important book on mathematical economics ever written. This remarkable book thoroughly treats every area of modern economic theory -- from international trade to portfolio theory -- in an elegant and concise manner. Every equation derived is done so methodically, without the logical leaps that typify most technical textbooks and monographs. Altough the mathematics of the book are what gives "Foundations" its great authority (see Samuelson on "The Apotheosis of the Calculus"), Samuelson's prose is lucid and engaging. This book is absolutely essential for any student of technical economics. But it did leave me wondering: does economics really lend itself, as physics does, and as Samuelson posits, to the most technical applied and theoretical mathematics? But no matter....

This is perhaps the most comprehensive and complete book on the theory behind the innumerable inventory models. More interestingly, it is an extremely well written for a technical book and the lucid style makes readin interesting. I am using the book as reference for research and this book provides a good b/g and development of different models: both stochastic and deterministic.
However, due to the mathematically moderate to advanced treatment of the subject (calculus, probability and some linear algebra and stochastic processes would really help), the audience for this book is definitely those with some background in math and/or engineering.
This book is not for those looking for a formula to plug in values (although it does give those too), it is for those who are keen on understanding the underlying 'logic' of inventory policies and systems and how they have been developed. Anyone in Industrial Engineering, Operations Research, Management (with quantitative inclinations) and professionals will find this an extremely good book.

This is a great reference book for Operations Research and Management Science professionals. Covers most of the classical inventory theory models. Highly recommended.

Could Friedrich Nietzsche actually have a hero? For those familiar with his works, the answer to this question would not be an easy one, for the reason that Nietzsche's writings are so honest as to be almost obscure. It is not common in literature or philosophy to find an author so willingly an exhibitionist. It is as though Nietzsche were himself trying to figure out who he was in his writings, and he never hesitates to reveal his thoughts. But maybe exhibitionist is not the right term to describe Nietzsche, as such a characterization would imply that he needed another's look to justify himself. But it seems as though Nietzsche was not writing for another, but for himself, feeling perhaps that his self-analysis was best done on paper.

The author addresses this book to the readers of Nietzsche's works who are "victims" and have swallowed the bait, and consequently "carried along by the flights of his thought". She makes sure immediately to caution the reader that the expression "heroic individualism" is not found in any of Nietzsche's writings. But the equation "individual = hero" holds throughout his works. The author does a fine job of extracting this mathematics of individuation from the the writings of Nietzsche. One finishing the book, one carries away a deeper appreciation of the playful seriousness of Nietzsche's philosophy and his admonition to do philosophy while always looking in the mirror, and seeing one's own reflection, not someone else's.

Nietzsche was always celebrating, according to the author, the death of gods, and his project was to inspire a passion for greatness in a world without gods. But idols are to be smashed, and the grandeur of man is not to be found in a divine origin. It is making use of the dynamism of the flux, and the achieving of fame, and not its achievement, that is true heroism. The hero is a "dragon-slayer" who must achieve in life the highest value, and it (life) is never to be squandered. Caution though must be ever present, lest one use heroism not as a stimulus to self-development but as a means of avoiding it. "Sentimental dirge" and Wagnerian romanticism must be rejected.

The great man does not seek the admiration of the many, as the author again characterizes Nietzschean heroism: "go silently through the world and out of the world". The temptation for recognition must be avoided; one must not succoumb to the illusion of fame. The golden calf is not to replace the true self as the object of worship. Glory is always self-administered.

So how rare or common today is the hero of the Nietzschean type? Well, quite common...thousands...maybe hundreds of thousands. They are to be found in dance, in science, in literature, on the battlefield, behind the counter, sitting in the classroom and also standing in front of it, in the laboratory....indeed everywhere....the 21st century has no paucity of heroism.

This short book from Princeton University Press (only about 200 pages) is popular scholarship at its best. Thiele cuts through the many difficulties of Nietzsche's work to present, in prose accessible to any bright undergraduate, the essence of Nietzsche's project: the creation of a self that gives a noble and passionate answer to the question what it means to be fully conscious, fully human, fully engaged in creating one's values and one's life. I've been reading Nietzsche for some ten years now, and had lately begun writing about what makes him so fascinating--when Thiele's book made my own effort unnecessary. If you want to know (1) why Nietzsche looms large in the modern mind and (2) whether you want to read him yourself, this is the place to start