I decided to give this book a try a couple months after the passing of my father. His image never appeared to me in the mirror, and I had no success whatsoever for several nights. Then one night after having been unsuccessful at the mirror gazing, I had the most memorable dream of my life. I'm a little shy to admit this, but the dream was lit up by a bright shining light and telepathic communication. It was better than any sci-fi movie. To this day I keep asking mysyelf, "Was it really just a dream?" Anyway, different strokes for different folks. Judging from the reviews, this is a book you'll either love or hate. I enjoyed it very much.

Raymond Moody, one of the fathers of the modern-day metaphysical resurgence continues to share his learned insight through this book, Reunions. Life After Life, Moody's preliminary look into the afterlife was expanded in Reunions by Moody's look into the use of the Psychomantium both historically and currently.

After covering The Nature of Visions in Chapter I, Moody gives a quick and informative review of not only the Greek's use of their underground psychomantiums in Chapter II, Gazing Through History, he also delightfully touches on other gazing forefathers such as the Tungus shamans in Siberia with their copper mirrors, the Malagasy of Madagascar, the Pawnee Indians of North America, the Africans of Fez, and the Nkomis tribe of Cap Lopez to name a few.

After grounding the reader in the history of gazing, Moody shares his own experience in selecting property and adapting a gristmill in Alabama into his own therapeutic psychomantium. He relays personal experiences as well as those of his visitors/patients and left this reader with the impression that the use of a psychomantium, wisely done and well directed, could easily lead to lessening of grief and an increase of spiritual insight. Thank you, Dr. Moody.

I was surprised at the few poor reviews, and can only suggest that people who don't like this well-written, courageous and informative book are those who are consciously or unconsciously afraid of the unknown, don't trust people who aren't, or who need a narrower definition of reality to feel secure. That is fine for them, but this book deserves a more open minded look. It is an unusual topic and as such is certainly not for everyone. But Reunions is well balanced between science and the mystical, and Moody's generous and well thought out suggestions for reproducing the experiences he reports offer hope for those who are interested in what can be a healing if not mind-expanding experience. Moody goes out on a limb here and I applaud him for doing it, and doing it so well. This book should be considered a classic in its field, and one I a glad to have on my bookshelf. I have recommended it to many.

This is the worst of the Plath biographies; lurid, unscrupulous and shallow. For numerous reasons, this biography is unworthy of the attention of any individual with a serious interest in Plath and her work. This biography is virtually devoid of literary criticism; instead, its locus is Plath's sexuality. Rather than treating this subject sensitively, Alexander chooses to crudely fictionalize Plath's experiences, for, one assumes, maximum voyeuristic pleasure. I am also incensed by Alexander's treatment of Ted Hughes and the tragic suicide of his lover Assia Wevill: to paraphrase Janet Malcolm in her brilliant study "The Silent Woman," he eagerly demonizes Hughes to the cusp of libel law. Luckily, Alexander's hateful assumptions about Hughes have been discounted by the publication of Birthday Letters and Plath's unedited journals. In summary, Rough Magic is a poorly-written, one-dimensional portrait of Sylvia Plath not intended for the serious Plath scholar.

Alexander, though he professes in his introduction attention to her work, spends most of his lackluster biography chronicling Sylvia's life - her latest boyfriend or her dizzying submissions to various publications. Based on exhaustive interviews and extensive archival research - especially from Aurelia Plath, Slyvia's mother, who asked not to be identified until she died - Rough Magic (a quote from Shakespeare) probes the events that shaped the life and determined the untimely death of this fiercely talented poetess.

Long on facts, short on criticism, in the end Rough Magic (an apt quote from Shakespeare's Tempest) is shallow (it pales in comparison to my favorite, the Pulitzer-winning Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris). The biography stands apart only in its full-bodied (includes fourteen pages of pictures), decidedly sympathetic view of this emotionally unstable artist; thus, though it tells us more than we have heard before about the marriage between Plath and England's poet laureate Ted Hughes, it does so from her side, portraying Hughes as craggy, possessed with horoscopes and the occult.

Yet because Hughes has never granted an interview about Plath and refuses all rights to quote unless he can vet the work, Alexander resorts to paraphrasing Plath's work, which inherently de-energizes his page but happily makes for an artful restraint on Alexander's part, which allows the harrowing circumstances of Plath's life to speak for themselves.

At long last, a biography of Sylvia Plath written by someone who refused to bow to the editorial demands of Ted & Olwyn Hughes, who unfortunately controlled the late poet's estate at the time. Choosing freedom of speech over permission to quote Plath's work, Paul Alexander has produced an extraordinary biography that reveals the true Sylvia Plath as a girl, woman, wife, mother, and most important, author. With interviews from friends and family who had never before spoken about Plath for publication, this is a book that any scholar of Plath's life and work should not miss.

I think it was a wonderful book to read as it teaches you everyday words and sentences through the whole book and it is easy to understand.

I've just finished Paul Coggle's Teach Yourself German and am generally impressed. However, I'm going to start by reviewing just the last two chapters, particularly the very last. I know he has a lot of ground to cover, so is it too much to ask that the material be spread out a bit more? Prior to the last two chapters, there were three or four light ones that were pretty quick and easy. Then, suddenly, Coggle remembered how much grammar he still had left, so he just crammed it all in there. Words are used without introduction even more than usual, especially in the audio where it is hardest to look them up. Some extra care was definitely needed and lacking.

Now that I've vented, I'll write the review I've been planning in my head for some time. I've found that for the money, you won't do better than the Teach Yourself series. This is the first one I've actually finished, since as my byline indicates, I'm currently living in Germany, but I've viewed others in part. Anything else at this cost with tapes included will probably be a glorified phrase book. And even without the tapes, anything at this price will probably not do much better at grammar and vocabulary. For this reason, I've awarded four stars to this work.

Now, this does not mean it is perfect. For what it's worth, I'm still rather helpless at communicating verbally. Reading is somewhat better, though Kafka is still in the distant future. Obviously, this is not a substitute for advanced university study or training at the Goethe Institute. I would also highly suggest the purchase of a translation dictionary as a necessary supplement, since the limited glossary does not even contain all the words used in the text. Even so, if you're starting out with little or no German experience, or if, like me, you had it years ago and forgot, Teach Yourself German is an excellent investment.

Teach Yourself German (TYG) is a very good reference book. It is much more easier to follow than the comprehensive learning tools--The Themen Neu series.

Many second or third language learners of German use Themen Neu as their main textbook. I recommend TYG highly to them!!

Other than the maps guiding people to the major red light zones of the Kanto area, 90% of the information in this book is pure fiction and/or wishful thinking. All you need to know about night life in Tokyo can be had for the price of a little conversation at virtually any pub or bar in Tokyo. As an aside, the author's unjustly slanderous treatment of the Library bar in Ogikubo caused the owner to shut the doors as hordes of thrill seekers invaded his (up to that time) peaceful little corner bar. If you have purchased this book, don't bother looking for the Library, 'cause it's gone.

If you want a good book, get Nicholas Bournoff's "Pink Samurai" instead.

This book gives some interesting and little known information on, for example, the sex slave industry and the import of foreign prostitutes, the gay scene, and other aspects of Japan's "nightlife". Unfortunately, like many of the men who frequent Asia, the author could care less about some of the uglier aspects of the industry. He doesn't moralize because he basically has no morals.

My main job in Japan was English teaching. I used to ask my students what they thought of places like Kabuki-cho, which is one of Tokyo's better known red-light areas. They would look embarassed and say that when walking through there they felt "dirty". I found this odd, considering that the average Japanese is self-described as being anti-religious, and most of them have no cultural training in Christian morals.

Additionally, when talking to my female friends (including my Fillipina roomate) who had Japanese husbands or boyfriends, the biggest complaint seemed to be the lack of sex or affection in the relationship. One of the women expressed the opinion that most Japanese men were impotent. A lot of news articles in the English press in Tokyo point to the general uptight attitude of the average Japanese toward matters of sex in general.

A lot of foreign men see Japan as a place where men's "needs" are dealt with in a "non-moralizing" fashion. Well, that's pretty true if you are dealing with any aspect of the prostitution industry, anywhere in the world. I can name a number of places in the US, mainly in Nevada, San Francisco, and West Hollywood, and any red light area of any major city, where a man on the make won't come into contact with a single moral admonishment when in pursuit of a good time.

One cultural difference that men find attractive about Japan is that women in Japan (and Asia in general) are brought up to cater to men, at least on the surface. Japanese women find North American and European men attractive because these men were raised in a culture where they were taught that ladies should be treated with kid gloves. In addition, Japanese women, unlike their Korean counterparts, don't really care that much about looks. It's no accident that Japanese women and Western men find each other charming.

The Confucian system puts men over women. Consequently, sex is thought of as something that males shouldn't need to control - it's sort of treated in the same manner as passing gas - it's something that "can't be helped" (shoganai). Sex (for men, at least) is looked upon as a bodily function - it certainly is not attached to romance as it is in the West. So, if unromantic, casual, no strings, mechanical sex is your thing, Japan (and Asia) is the place for you.

This domination by males explains in part the wealth of graphic sex in the Japanese media. A number of American and other foreign men that I worked with complained that the average Japanese male's ideas about sex were "so 6th grade". Most of the sexually explicit material I have seen in the media there certainly does point to a low level of maturity on the part of the creators and their audience.

The idea of "needs" is not extended to women. Nowhere on the planet is prostitution a profession that is considered honorable, nor is a woman who "sleeps around". Japanese women still go to plastic surgeons to have their hymen repaired before marriage, so they can become "virgins" once again.

Clemens and his bretheren see nothing wrong with double standards, as long as it suits their needs, or as Dr. Phil would say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". The tone of this book is a couple of frat boys out on the town, living it up, giving tips on where to find girls that put out. And that's all well and good, because this is a guide to prostitution in Tokyo, nothing more.

The problem with this book is that it takes a small aspect of the entire Japanese picture and pretends that that's what Japan is all about. Well, imagine being a visitor to the US, and spending 90% of your time in places like Las Vegas and Castro Street, or a local strip club. Is that what America is all about? Hardly.

Having been a bar hostess (for a short time) in Tokyo, and having shared a house with a SE Asian bar hostess (whose Japanese visa was obtained by her Yakuza friends), I am somewhat familiar with certain aspects of Japanese "nightlife". If you want a truer look at what goes on in a hostess bar, better to get "Butterflies of the Night", by Lisa Louis.

Humerous and informative, "Tokyo Pink Guide" is a definative study of the current "entertainment" activities commonly available in Metropolitan Tokyo. It not only specifies exact areas and locations, but describes,in detail, protocols and cultural eccentricities. Remember, Japan is predominately Buddhist and Shinto. Unlike Western faiths, the myriad personal relations between humans are not verboten in "proper society". Ergo, life is more casual and relaxed, and without the stigma that we experience in America. I'd love to see a Part 2!

What I thought would be a story about the Beach Boys turned out to be a book of piano music. I have no piano, can't read music, so therefore, it was very disappointing.

A good book for fans of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, and the ill-fated Smile album. Tends to gloss over the darker sides found in the other books but still insightful. Recommended reading.

This is not a typical biography. This book will deal with mostly music made after Pet Sounds and will either pique your interest on them, or go right over your head. If you have most or all the records post Pet Sounds, and love them and Brian Wilson!, then this is a must have book. Paul Williams goes into the asthetics of listening to their music. Where as most average fans listen with a superficial ear to the early hits and instantly relate to the all-American sounds, and sometimes are quick to pass on music made after Pet Sounds. He helps you make the transition from surf, cars, girls, to Siley Smile/Wild Honey, Friends/20+20. From Good Vibrations to Wind Chimes. There is more to this great home turf band than just the early hits and he helps you into that new territory. For those who already are in the know and are happily in the new territory, Paul Williams echoes your feelings. I found myself agreeing, with pleasure, on his accounts of listenings to certain records. The effects and nuances of the music. To my knowledge there is no other book that covers this aspect of the Beach Boys, and to me that is the main fabric of this band. How you feel when you listen is important to Brian Wilson when he songwrites, (as he states in many interviews). Paul W. deftly tells us what comes to his mind and encourages us on HOW to listen. His thoughts were always right on about the music, and in some ways brought my already deep appriciation for the music to a deeper understanding. Paul Williams writes from one fan to another. Like a friend relaying to you his accounts of all that he was fortunate enough to experience when all this music was brand new! A reviewer of many groups of the sixties, yet addicted to the positive music that just keeps coming from the beautiful well of Brian Wilson, the legendary SMiLE accetates, live shows, and to me, his precious thoughts on the records themselves. His was one of the ears who heard what was to be the original release of SMiLE. Includes a great interview with Brian at a later date, and a conversation with David Anderle, record producer. A fresh take from a fresh voice. Nothing redundant. A breathe of fresh air from all the rehashed bios. A must have for any rabid Beach Boys fan. Essential. I have read all the books about Brian Wilson and the band, including out of print biographies. I would say this book is in my top 3 favorite books.

After presenting "Origin of Marvel Comics" and "Son of Origin of Marvel Comics," Stan Lee decided to forgo "The Return of the Son of Origin of Marvel Comics" and go instead with "Bring on the Bad Guys: Origins of the Marvel Comics Villains." This is actually something of a problematic effort because where as you can simply go to issue #1 of "The Fantastic Four" for the origin of the Fantastic Four, or "Amazing Fantasy" #15 for the story of how Spider-Man came to be, the origin of a super villain is usually tossed off in a couple of flashback panels. That means the results are going to be a bit uneven in this collection.

The goal was to try and focus on the key super villain for each Marvel superhero, which means Doctor Doom for the Fantastic Four, the Green Goblin for Spider-Man, the Red Skull for Captain America, and so on and so forth. For those who want to know specifically what Marvel comics are reprinted in "Bring on the Bad Guys" here is the list of what you will find inside: (1) "Prisoners of Doctor Doom" from issue #5 of "The Fantastic Four" and "Origin of Doctor Doom" from the 1964 FF Annual, both by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; (2) the first fateful meeting of Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, and the Dread Dormammu from issues #126 and #127 of "Strange Tales" by Lee and artist Steve Ditko; (3) three installments of the "Tales of Asgard" from issues #112, #113 and #115 of "Journey into Mystery" telling the story of how Loki became the bad boy of Norse mythology and a full fledged fight between him and the Mighty Thor from #115, all from Lee and Kirby; (4) the Captain America halves of three issues of "Tales to Astonish" by Lee and Kirby telling the origin of the Red Skull; (5) issue #40 of "The Amazing Spider-Man" with the famous confrontation between the unmasked Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, courtesy of Lee and John Romita (Sr.); (6) two Hulk stories from "Tales of Suspense" featuring ol' Greenskin against the Abomination from Lee and Gil Kane; and (7) a confrontation between the Silver Surfer and Mephisto, with artwork by John Buscema (you have figured out by now that Stan Lee wrote all of the stories contained within this book).

As you would imagine the Doctor Doom stories and pretty good, the Spider-Man tale is a classic, and the rest are a matter of choice. The Red Skull trilogy would be my personal choice as the best of the rest. As much as my appreciation for the way Ditko drew Spider-Man has grown over the years I have just never really liked his work on Dr. Strange. In the end, it is Jack Kirby's artwork that dominates the book more than anything else and the thing that stops this from being a truly great collection of Marvel reprints is the fact that the focus on origins effectively prevents Lee from providing some of the greatest stories facing these seminal villains.

Some people here have called the artwork in this book clunky & not very good when compared to the Artwork in Comics today. These people don't know what they are talking about. How do I come to that conclusion? Because I once said the same thing to the owner of a comic book store. Not just any comic book store, but one which dealt specificaly with buying and selling vintage comic books. I remember saying that the Steve Ditko artwork on the first 38 Original Spiderman issues was terrible. I'll never forget..the owner had this incredulous look on his face, and told me that this was "Comic book Art" and not "Let's draw something as realisticaly as possible Art!" With that in mind, I went home and looked at the Steve Ditko Spiderman issues again and came to slowly realize......"I must have been crazy!....He's absolutely right!" For myself, this is part of the genious of "Bring on the Bad Guys!". And this is especaily true of my personal favorites in this book.....the origins of Doctor Doom, Loki, and of course.....Thee Red Skull! What fun they must have had in creating these classics!

I'd argue, "sure." Here in Bring BACK the Bad Guys we witness the origins/first appearances of famous baddies Galactus, The Mandarin, Kingpin, Kang/Rama Tut and others. We are treated to a reprinting of GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS #2, which alone may be worth this book's price since it is virtually impossible to find anywhere. The other reprints are enjoyable (except for Fin Fang Foom's -- what the heck is HE doing in here?), especially a Professor X-Magneto flashback tale.

The five reviews of this book that have come in ahead of minerange from 1 star to 5! The reason is simple, but the people panningthe book didn't explain (or understand?) the problem verywell.

Here's the dope: a Unix shell is both an interactive commandinterpreter, and an environment for writing scripts, which arebasically programs using the interactive commands and some logicalcontrol structures to automate tasks that don't really need to be runinteractively.

The author of this book, Paul Dubois, is of theopinion that neither csh nor tcsh are appropriate environments forshell scripting. I happen to disagree with him, at least insofar as Iteach a little shell scripting in tcsh in my sophomore level softwarecourse. However, his opinion is worthy...making the argument that cshand tcsh shouldn't be used for shell scripting. Dubois recommends shand perl for scripting.

So it boils down to this: this is anexcellent book for learning how to make the most of the interactiveenvironment of csh and tcsh. It's loaded with neat tricks and goodinsights. And it's a particularly good reference for tcsh, whichusually gets little mention in other books.

If, on the other hand,you want a book about shell scripting, save your money: THIS IS NOTTHE BOOK FOR YOU. It has no material on shell scripting.

I've been a csh and tcsh user for many years now, using tcsh on a daily basis. This book taught me even more about my familiar shell. The author makes it clear that his intent is to make the reader more productive in the shell environment, and he provides all the information and examples necessary to do just that.

As noted, this book does not cover csh-style shell scripting at all. If you're looking for a scripting reference, look elsewhere.

If, however, you're looking to improve your overall knowledge of csh and tcsh as far as daily is concerned, look no further. When combined with the manpage, this book makes both an excellent tutorial and reference.

I've seen many books on unix shells, however almost all the other books focus on shell programming instead of actually using shell to work more effectively and efficiently. This book fills the gap (hence the name "Using...". I personally recommend Zsh if you are looking for the most comprehensive shell. However zsh is too comprehensive and there is no book on it. Tcsh shell is an EXCELLENT shell to do your work (type in commands, listing files, and etc). It has all the essential goodies: command line completion, command-line editor, history, and etc. It found it more friendly than ksh and less complex than bash and/or zsh. This book teaches you step by step how to use the shell to do your every day work effectively. The author explains everything clearly which is more than what I can say about many books that just touches a little bit of using the shell as a command interpreter aspect of the shell as if everyone spend more time writing the shell scripts than using the command line. These aspect of the csh/tcsh are the basis for similar utilities in the other shells: ksh, bash, and zsh. I find that even if you use bash or zsh, you'll appreciate the information in the book. The other reason the author didn't write much on programming is because c-shell is less frequently used in shell programming because of the now famous posting of "C shell programming considered harmful", which is also on the book's homepage. If you have the patience to read through the book, you will find it an excellent investment of time. (The only other book I would say this for sure is the "Learning the vi Editor."

The title promises a lot. But it doesn't deliver. This book is muddled and confused. It begins with a rather high browed treatment of the maths behind DSP then goes on to attempt to provide examples in C++. The examples are poor and unclear. The supplied code compiles under VC++ but not under any other platform without substantial reworking.
Over 100 pages of this 500 page book are devoted to a general discussion of the C++ language. Why? If I wanted this type of material I would consult my C++ manual. Here are C++ programmers who want to tell us the do's and don't's of the language, that feel the need to test newed pointers for NULL after allocating and before deleting!
As far as the rest of the book is concerned I found the examples and text unclear, pedantic and frankly quite useless. I will keep my copy only because I want to use the theoretical material. But this material was written for maths graduates - pages upon pages of proofs and derivations that provide little insight into the underlying principles and serve nothing. Hold off and buy something more usable.

This book is rather well written. I have read both the C++ and C versions. The contents of both books are more or less the same, just the difference in the C language used. Source Codes provided compiled neatly without and need for modification, which is really cool. However, the image files provided are really puzzling. The book says the images are in a DSP data format. So far I can only get the programs to work on the 2 images (.dat) provided. I tried using other .dat images from the net, and many other formats, including monochromatic raw images, but it wouldn't work. Another reason I only gave 3 stars is because the book doesn't provide any online help or an email of the authors. Personally I feel that this book is more for professionals who is already trained in DSP.

Lots of practical code examples. Practical filtering routines and example code.Includes a general introduction to C /C++ concepts frequently used in DSP algorithm development. A good introduction to image processing is included. The DSP function library and sample code is perhaps the best part of the book.

One only has to compare the nicely reproduced dust jacket photo to the print of it in the book to see the amount of detail that is lost in the rest of these images. Even the thumbails in the back next to the writeups show more detail than the muddied out larger vesions in the book. Brassai's images are so great that even muddied up like this they are worth looking at, but what a shame the publisher didn't do better. Shame, shame, shame.

This book is very important. Paris By Night by Brassai is a book that is central in the history of photograhy.It has been a great inspiration for many photograhers (and others).
It is a shame, that this edition is very badly printed (loss of detail).
I am sorry to say, that therefore the book is too exspensive.
I bought the book anyway. Why?
Because I wanted to have it on my shell. To study it. And because it reminds me of the first time, twenty years ago, when I saw some of the pictures from Paris By Night, and found that photograpy could be a great art.

It is possible that the latest edition has failed to explain why the format for the images is appropriate. I have the 1987 Pantheon edition. The new edition looks like a fairly exact copy of my 1987 copy by Pantheon. That book takes as its model the 1933 first edition. The images are matte because the original and the Pantheon are heliogravure prints, a matte process. (It is also likely that Brassai's original prints lack the hi-gloss sheen common to modern magazine printing and plastic-coated photographic paper. I have nothing but pity for those who cannot appreciate such a process and yearn for something like today's glossy magazines.) The quarter-inch gloss frame arond the images is a feature of the Panthon edition, as well (and the '33?). This new book looks (on superficial viewing) like a faithful effort on the part of the publisher. Now- someone offer an A to B comparrison, please.

It is interesting to read Three Views on the Rapture but I'm convinced that none of three views is biblical. I am a Postmil and I believe that the Bible gives enough evidence that the Great Tribulation already happened during the period 67-70 A.D. during which period the Lord unleashed His vengeance on apostate Israel. John himself, in writing Revelation, specifically mentioned that the Tribulation was SOON to take place and the TIME IS NEAR. Moreover, the message of Revelation was specifically addressed to the SEVEN CHURCHES WHICH ARE IN ASIA. These 7 churches existed during the 1st century and suffered greatly in the hands of Apostate Israel. Finally, John mentioned about the great temple which was in Jerusalem that was to be handed over to the Gentiles to be destroyed. History shows that this actually happened. No rapture took place during this tribulation period because it was the will of God for the true Church to endure the sufferings as He himself suffered in the hands of the Jews. Nowhere in the history of Christianity has the Church suffered so horribly than during this period prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

The format, three predominant views of premillenialism set side by side intrigued me. I was a little bit disappointed because all three scholars are from the same school, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I was also slightly disappointed because the book is quite dated, going back to the an early 80's prophecy conference. A lot of prophetic viewpoints have changed since then, which affect interpretations and schools of thought in eschatology.

But, overall I was duly impressed. Feinerg, Archer and Moo are fine conservative scholars, and each make an impressive case for their stance as to the timing of the premillenial rapture. In my opinion, Archer stands out among them, and does an excellent job of setting forth the mid-tribulational rapture.

Not a great eschatology work, but an adequate synopsis of widely held views. I agree with the other reviewers that it is not for the novice, but for someone already familiar with premillenialism and end-times prophecy. It's a read and pass-on, no permanent place on my shelf kind of book.

The most exciting thing about this book is the way that the contributors can disagree about this topic and yet not let it hinder their fellowship or their love for one another. I have seen schools and churches that would not allow more than one view to be taught because it would "cause confusion and division." This book blows that idea out of the water. Regardless of where you end up in your own view, every believer should mirror the attitude of these gentlemen. It's not a watershed doctrine, so let's talk about it and then go have a cup of coffee and share our love of the Lord!