I don't have the inner or outer peace to meditate but I still found this book very helpful and inspiring as a daily devotional. It gives very valuable insights about coming to the presence of Jesus whether or not one is practicing the art of meditation.

Father John Main (1926-1982) was an Irish Benedictine monk raised in England who was instrumental in renewing interest in the living tradition of Christian Meditation. His work is being carried on by his friend and successor, Father Laurence Freeman (who provides the introduction to this book). It is edited by Paul Harris (also one of the founding members of the World Community for Christian Meditation, a non-profit organization based on the teachings of Father John). It consists of 365 readings--usually about 2-3 paragraphs in length--from the many books and lectures of Father John. These readings can be used devotionally or for basic instruction on the method recommended by Father John for Christian meditation, which is based on the repetition of the mantra [sacred word] "Maranatha"--which means, translated from the ancient Semitic language of Aramaic, "Come, Lord." The only reservation I would express is that, as rich and varied as these selections are, seekers would perhaps be more completely served in taking up his full published works, e.g. WORD INTO SILENCE. Fortunately for us, his writings are coming back into print (newly published by Continuum). This book is a fine introduction to the thought and teachings of Father John Main. It does come highly recommended.

It is well established that stretching improves agility and quickness of skiers. Resistance exercises strengthen the muscles, but they also shorten them. Stretching makes muscles longer again. This leads to flexibility (greater range of motion in the joints) which allows to get the most out of your training program and helps to ski longer, in better control, with less fatigue. Many books in the past emphasized primarily physical training during off-season period. In the last few years, flexibility and stretches got increasingly large attention. This book is entirely focused on stretches. It contains a well-illustrated 10-20 minute warm-up and stretching routine, and several additional excersises to improve balance. The exercises are very easy, and can be done, e.g., in the morning before work. They help to wake up and to feel better. Additionally, there is a section on warm-up and stretches recommended for the slopes before skiing (partly with the skis on), and a few exercises on skis to improve balance.

The authors emphasize that it is important to do these stretches every day since the result will be nil if you do them irregularly. However, it is not quite clear what kind of progress you can expect if you do them every day. While I appreciate the importance of stretches, I strongly suspect that the result may be rather insignificant if you do these routines every day, but nothing besides them. Stretches obviously work best when they are combined with more vigorous exercise program, such as strength training or aerobics. It is a pity that this book includes very few of those - if it did, it could be an indispensable source for pre-season conditioning. The good part, however, that practically all suggested exercises can be done at home on the floor or standing against the wall, with the equipment which can be purchased at a local harware store, or with no equipment at all.

The subtitle of the book (see the bottom of the book cover) is misleading as it says "flexibility, fitness, and conditioning for better skiing". Flexibility is definitely there, and is very well written; fitness and conditioning - sorry, guys, I did not see much of it in the book. Four stars.

I'm a personal trainer working in a New York City gym and when a client of mine wanted some exercises for his favorite sport, I did a search and found this book. It has been excellent. All I needed to tailor a program for him, and even exercises he can do on the mountain in full gear. Clear, honest and effective. I highly recommend it.

I read this book that I borrowed from a friend 3 years ago. I am a Sonoran native, and I found most of the author's comments accurate. Although I found it a bit pessimistic and cynical at times, I really enjoyed his observations on the present conditions in the state, since most of them are true.

Arturo Wagner Navojoa, Sonora

This is a delightful read, a vivid description of the land, the people, and the culture of Sonora, written by a person who loves it.

A research scientist at the University of Arizona, David Yetman creates a nice balance among history/geography; the human stories of people he meets; and his personal relationship to the land and indigenous people .

The esteem in which Yetman is held, both by Sonoran natives and gringo colleagues, is awesome. He moves easily from intimate conversations with native families willing to share their last tortilla, to sophisticated discussions of politics, agriculture, and drugs with officials in the highest of places. While acknowledging the challenges facing Sonora in light of ecological and social changes, he goes easy when questioning reluctant locals about the drug culture, presumably to avoid putting them, and himself, in harm's way.

Yetman's academic credentials are revealed in the wealth of information about the varied landscapes within Sonora. That he truly enjoys and respects the people he has encountered over thirty years and hundreds of visits shines through and gives the book its personality.

I enjoyed this translation, and I recommend it to anyone unfamiliar with the plays. Its strength is that it is very easy to read in large part because Roche structured the lines as he felt they would have been spoken. He includes some interesting appendices on production, etc, and he has just the right number of footnotes to help us keep up, but not be slowed down.

My beef is that comparing it to other translations I have read is like comparing the clunky dumbed down modern translations of the Bible to the King James Version. Still, the language and the wisdom do sometimes soar together.

If tragedy is, as Aristotle described, the imitation (that is, representation) of great people whose downfall induces a sense of pity and fear in the audience, Sophocles's plays are exemplary illustrations of the genre. The Sophoclean hero suffers, agonizes, despairs because of cruel fate or, more likely, some mistake he or she has made as a result of a character flaw such as pride or anger. Thus the tragedy of "Ajax" is not only that the title character kills himself in shame over having lost out to Odysseus on being awarded Achilles's armor, the ownership of which would have been proof of his heroic deeds in battle, but that his shame might have been alleviated had he known that Odysseus greatly respected his heroism. Similarly, in "Antigone," Creon, king of Thebes, suffers the loss of his wife and son over his stubborn insistence to enforce a law founded on his pride.

Sophocles portrays "noble" sufferers too. In "Electra," the title heroine plots to kill her mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, but she has a good reason -- revenge for killing her father Agamemnon and bounding her to a life of slavish submission. The title hero of "Philoctetes" is marooned on an island through no fault of his own, and furthermore becomes the target of trickery when Odysseus and Neoptolemus, Achilles's son, show up with the intent to obtain a magic bow in his possession which they need to win the Trojan War. Heracles's wife Deianeira, in "The Women in Trachis," catches her husband in the act of intended infidelity; her reaction is to send him a cloak she thinks is a talisman to keep him faithful to her, when in reality it is poisoned. That Electra's plans are fulfilled, Philoctetes receives sympathy, and Deianeira kills herself in grief shows the range of emotions that lead to the end of a Sophoclean tragedy.

The most masterful of these plays is "Oedipus the King," which seeks to maximize pity and fear in the audience by portraying some of the most tragic circumstances imaginable -- a hero who unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother as was prophesied, and then, to his horror, discovers their identities. Does Oedipus, like Deianeira, kill himself in grief? No, that would be too merciful. Instead, he gouges out his eyes in self-punishment and lives to continue suffering, as an abject vagrant in "Oedipus at Colonus."

In this Signet Classics edition, Paul Roche translates these plays in verse rather than prose, which preserves their poeticality, improves their clarity, and significantly increases the enjoyability of reading them. This is the perfect edition for getting acquainted with one of the great Greek dramatists.

Finding his life wanting and following the advise of an old friend the author determines to return to his spiritual routes in the high country of New Zealand. He prepares himself in a beautiful lowland river valley with several days of intense meditation and observation of thoughts.

Without the intrusion of everyday madness and in the company of only natural entities and by dint of strict discipline he gradually peels back, bit by bit, the cultural mask. He discovers a strong inner voice and rediscovers the voices of angels.

When he gains the physical and mental strength he begins to scale the mountain.The journey is described from both inner and outer perspectives and strongly reminded me of the books by Carlos Castenada without the peyote.

The strength of this book is that it is not just another spiritual "how to" rather a simple diary of one mans journey into himself and a fitting reminder to us all in this inreasingly hyped up technological age to make time for ourselves constantly to reconnect both with our spiritual selves and the natural order...

I'm not the sort of person who enjoys isolation in a non-urban setting for more than a few hours, so I don't much empathise with Hawker's decision to spend 40 days alone with God and Nature.

Furthermore, not many of us would have the time, or the spiritual drive, to want to spend 40 days without books, paper, or any other form of distraction. And in Wellington's Tararua Mountain range, to boot! However, his spiritual pilgrimage did touch me deeply.

Hawker had reached a time in his life when, in spite of having a great family and a successful documentary filmmaking career, he felt hollow inside. He saw himself as the sort of person who needs to work at life full-bore in case others discover how 'unlovable' he really is. He enjoyed people, but also delighted in solitude - though as a responsible family man he'd had few opportunities to experience it. The mid-life urging of his soul gave him the motivation not only to go into solitude but also to strive to hear God's voice.

In the first few days he was forced to stay in one area due to his feet blistering under the unaccustomed weight of an extremely heavy pack, and during that time he discovered some criteria for discerning whether what he was hearing was from God, from his own mind, or from some other source. He lists these criteria in an appendix, and makes no claim that the list is complete, or that he always got it right. (Back in civilization he relies also on other mentors to help him discern.)

It's interesting to compare his idea of what God was saying to him with the series of books, Conversations With God, by Neale Donald Walsch, in which Walsch's 'God' sometimes seems to dismiss traditional spirituality, yet endorses and embraces some new-age ideas. Hawker is more cautious about what he hears, rejoices more when he understands, and revels not only in the extraordinary beauty of nature, but in his deepening relationship with God. And even "God" comes to seem too small a word for the overwhelming greatness he experiences, since not only in one focused moment does he 'see' Christ, but he also gains an increasing appreciation of just how enormously he is loved.

And this being loved isn't just some simple thing: in Chapter 17, Hawker describes how God asked him to describe his life in detail, and nudged him continually, almost provoked him to dig into all sorts of matters and events Hawker had regarded as trivial. In doing so he realised that God is intensely interested in minutist personal components of our lives. Hawker's background is Christian, but his book has the ability to reach beyond the Christian scene, to anyone who feels a mid-life hole in their centre, or is trying to understand the spiritual element of their journey.

Sparta tends to be a jumble of images (a heroic stand at Thermopylae) or words (Molon labe!) for most people so it's nice to see a survey of the Spartan world. Cartledge surveys not only Sparta's impressive martial record but also peers at its unique society. While he's an expert on the subject, Cartledge doesn't communicate his knowledge ponderously, rather The Spartans is written with an impressive clarity and inciveness. Outside of his bizarre little attack on English fox hunting in the appendix (in which he explores Spartan hunting -- animal and human), Cartledge's The Spartans is an absolute winner.

Books for the general reader tend to be written in a very chatty and friendly way; the authors are often non-experts in the field and, although interesting, these books may contain errors ultimately due to the authors' understandable lack of knowledge in the field. At the other end of the spectrum are books written by experts for experts such that the text is essentially unintelligible to the general reader. Finally, there are many books that fall, to varying dregrees, in-between these two extremes, that is, the friendly writing style and the expert author, and this book is clearly one of them. The author is a well-respected expert in ancient history with specialization in ancient Spartan history. Readers get the benefit of expert knowledge presented in a most accessible manner. The prose is clear and written in a very engaging professional style. The author clearly states his references and often adds his own views on various matters - definitely a plus. I cannot imagine a more thorough history of ancient Sparta in such a short book, i.e., on average, there is so much information per page that I, for one, would benefit by reading it again. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in ancient Greek history - it does not disappoint.

This book is "The Thinner Aquinas," a targeted text specifically focusing on Aquinas's political and ethical writings.

Incluced are obvious selections from Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologica (Five Ways of God's Existence and Essay on Law), but also included are excerpts from "De Regimine Principum."

There are hidden treasures in the back, excerpts from backgound sources and essays that influenced and were influenced by Thomisitic thought.

This book is geared towards a poltical scientist and poltical philosopher. For the theologian or the philosopher, however, I would reccomed Penguin Classics "Selected Writings."

PS--Nice picture on the cover!

This is a truly excellent selection of Thomistic writing, both by the Angelic Doctor and his critics and modern-day followers. It is not only comprehensive on the subject of Aquinas's politics and ethics but it is a good introduction to Thomism and natural law theory in general. Mortimer Adler's spanking of Bill Moyers on the subject of objective ethics is worth the price of the book just by itself.

STALLION IN THE STORM is an excellent book. Anyone who loves mystery and animals will love this book. I recommend readers should be ages 8 and up. Fantastic! Great! That's what I say about this book. Ben M. Baglio the author, has made two series that I've read some of, ANIMAL ARK and ANIMAL ARK HAUNTINGS. This is one of his ANIMAL ARK HAUNTINGS. This book is a type of ghost story, crossed with a mystery story. The setting is mostly Folan's Stables. Folan's Stables is in the country and is a racing horse stables with a yard for racing in. The main characters are Mandy and James. Mandy is an animal lover and can't stand animals in danger. James is an animal lover too, and to show it, he has a black Labrador retriver named Blackie because he's black. He also helps Mandy rescue animals in danger. Dr. Adam Hope is Mandy's dad, also a doctor at Animal Ark, and the temporary horse vet at Folan's Stables. In this book Folan's is having trouble. The horses are unsettled and get all jumpy at races. "She didn't even have a chance to run." This is what Mandy said when a horse didn't want to run a race. Could it be because of the mystery incident that happened at the stables? Or are the stables haunted? And why is the owner ignoring the stables? Find out by reading the book.

Mandy and her best friend James are very excited when Mandy's father promises to take them with him to visit Folan's Racing Stables, but when they get there they realize something is very wrong. Many of the jockey's that ride at Folan's think that Tibor, a stallion who died in a race is haunting the stables. It's now up to Mandy and James to find the truth and save Folan's.

This was a great first book to a wonderful series. I recommend this book to any fans of the Animal Ark or Animal Ark Pets book series.

This is a good book,it helped me a lot,I think it will help you too. Also this book has all the tips you need .This book's descriptive language will help us all .This book deserves 4 stars.

Lead your "Away Team" to victory in the most tactically efficient way possible with this informative guide

Noted astronomer Patrick Moore hurls planets, comets, and meteors into the minds of young readers with this colorful, engaging book. Useful as both a reference and a factual reading book, The Starry Sky progresses from the familiar earth to the abstract universe, focusing on our Solar System, the stars, and other galaxies in between. The book provides a spectrum of information, ranging from physical characteristics of celestial bodies to the historical background of common constellations. Moore successfully explains complex phenomena using comparisons and everyday observations; for example, he relates the burning of meteors by friction to the heat of a worked tire pump. He also urges readers to experiment in order to understand concepts. Moore maintains a serious, yet entertaining tone, providing a factual text that also fosters astronomy as a hobby and encourages children to consider other forms of life and our possible future inhabitation of the Moon and Mars. Paul Doherty's illustrations, both encircled by main text and captioned, serve as visuals for ideas children are likely to construct from the text. When Moore mentions Mars' two moons, an illustration depicts a Martian horizon based on this idea. Captions provide extra tidbits of information and descriptions of both drawings and photographs alike. Appropriate for children ages six to ten, younger children will enjoy the pictures and cohesive, story-like text this book offers, while older children will love learning about planets, the life of stars, and the rest of their universe.

I would like to thank Patrick Moore and his artist Tom Doherty for bringing the stars to life in this excellant childrens book. Since my son was born I have taken a picture of him and his Dad reading it each and every month on the 12th.