truly outstanding...words cannot describe, just buy it...

In The Weird Tale, Joshi analyses the work of half a dozen writers whose influence on the modern supernatural horror story is either incalculable (Lovecraft, James and possibly Bierce) or else not nearly large enough (Blackwood, Machen, Dunsany). Joshi's central theoretical tenet is that weird fiction is an inherently philosophical mode, since it offers writers the chance to remake the world according to their own rules. H P Lovecraft is the prime example, possessing a coherent and thoroughly worked out philosophy which colours and powers all his best work. Much the same applies to Blackwood, though his mystical and sometimes sentimental author's personality was the polar opposite of Lovecraft's. Similarly, Machen's mysticism (whenever he could keep off his Anglo-Catholic hobbyhorse for long enough), Bierce's misanthropy and Dunsany's unique and complex blend of anti-modernism and ultra-Olympian cynicism all provide Joshi with a lens through which to see their work in its most rewarding light. The only writer for whom Joshi displays little enthusiasm is M R James, primarily because his work never goes beyond the ghastly-revenant plot - however inventively James may manage it at times. Joshi is miraculously well-read, has a sharp eye for the best among frequently voluminous works, and is even honest enough to say when he's talking from prejudice rather than analysis. The Weird Tale brings genuine literary criticism to bear on a genre where literary and critical standards have been debased to a condition rather worse than that of science fiction, and is of vast help in pointing out the works to whose quality writers (and readers) of supernatural fiction could aspire.

Arthur Shay created this memorable photo-essay of WGN-TV in Chicago, showing master control, the TV antenna, the writers, the talent,etc. as they create "Bozo's Circus" and other programs.

The helpers at the hospital help people to be brave and less scared of the machines like the x-ray, and not to worry about being too sick to get well. Karen gets an ice cream after her surgery. Then she gets to go home.

Along the shadowy, cobblestone streets of Victorian London, Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of master-detective Sherlock Holmes, join forces in an unlikely friendship, to solve their own grizzly murder mystery. In this meticulously researched historical novel, Mr. Squires recreates the look, the feel and most impressive of all, the language of the era - no small feat. But beyond all this, the book is exciting and full of surprises from beginning to end. I became completely involved with the characters and simply couldn't put it down.

With wonderful illustrations, this story is a favorite for both my three-year-old daughter and myself. The message of not having to be successful at everything you try is a wonderful one for young children. The idea that being a "good friend" and being loved by others is all that is necessary to give you a "use" in this world is very refreshing.

Voila, the compacted dithers of mutton & larks! Ecco, predicted lathers of metro & lux! Lo, the monastic matters of mirrors & lakes! Zounds, the hermetic spiels of motor & locks! Behold, the gathered deepistles of monachus & littera! Witness the mighty phrasings of miracle lustrum! All hail the bibliotickles, viva the dublintenders, long live the fortunetells of hoy & halloo! Heed the prophetic warblings of minus & linus! Lament the bombastic tangles of mittwoch & letznacht! Observe the respected nightingales, doves & coulombians. Celebrate the valiantimes scattered by freundlich & freud! Three cheers for the bandied ampersands of max & louie, the mingled missives of joyful eremites.

This book is a wheel barrel full of fun and a joy to read.
Diane Greenseid's illustrations blast off the page with her vibrant sun dancing colors and deep perspectives. This parade of fun characters and a story that builds and builds, will have your kids asking to read it time and again!

Each member of a congregation (whether large or small) is challenged to be in mission. Emphasis is placed on empowering the laity. Practical (and workable) suggestions are offered for creating a supportive mission organization and mobilizing the financial resources. Beals offers many beneficial and creative ways to raise funds, to train volunteers, to match people's talents and gifts to specific missional needs, to empower partnership to long-term commitment and create new opportunities.

The title is unfortunate: it gives the impression of a crank book or an overly romanticized "popular science" report. Actually this is a fairly serious scholarly monograph, standing out from the crowd only by being quite readable and nicely illustrated. But it is pretty old book. Maybe it was "ahead of its time" in 1987, but what is its value today, when Science Citations Index says it is mentioned only a couple times a month in new scientific papers. Why would anyone buy it now, years after it went out of print? One reason: It gives the clearest presentation I know of the modern alternative to the then dominant theoretical context regarding "vulnerability" of the heart beat to lethal upset by a single unfortunately-timed stimulus. The conventional view was then (and so remains still in medical textbooks) that a variety of complex mechanisms lead a propagating activation front to circulate through the heart muscle and return to parts previously activated about as soon as those parts have recovered their readiness to activate again. This book does not contradict, but provides an alternative perspective from the viewpoint of abstract topology (all done in pictures without explicit mathematics.) The merit of doing so seems to be that things looks simpler and so some far-reaching predictions could be made about how these lethal arrhythmias get started and how they can be terminated, predictions which seemed implausible in the conventional framework. Most of these were tested and confirmed a few years after publication. Accordingly, much of the theory has since matured from qualitative picture-oriented format to quantitative numerical format that promises improvements in electrical pacemakers and defibrillators. So this old book is still perhaps the most readable introduction to the basic ideas of this newer outlook, which is today maturing into a mathematically more complicated bidomain biophysics. Another thing nicely done in this picture book is the geometry, or, I should say, topology, of vortices in kinds of excitable media other than heart muscle ... mainly a simple chemical solution that has since become popular in high-school and college lab courses, and in numerical models based on equations of reaction and diffusion that one today finds illustrated at innumerable web sites. This book seems to be where much of it started. These vortices consist of something like smoke rings variously linked and knotted. At the time of this publication they were entirely figments of imagination, not yet examined for stability even in computer simulations. Today they are well established among applied mathematicians, and the causes of their stability are widely studied. None but the very simplest have yet been seen in the laboratory, though. Are there any major errors to avoid ingesting and assimilating if you look through this book? Some in the opening pages that describe circadian biological clocks (because some newly discovered features of their dynamics suggested the alternative approach to cardiology) make statements about exceptions to the usual in certain lower organisms, which exceptions have since gone away. On the other hand, it was then merely conjectured that humans would turn out to exhibit all the main features of such clockworks in other organisms, and this has since been borne out. It was suggested that the dynamics of ventricular fibrillation will be mostly figured out by the turn of the century, on the basis of some such concepts as presented here, and this seems roughly true now, but the story has become considerably more intricate. Page 221 reverses "left" left "right" twist geometry. Further nitpicking seems inappropriate in such long retrospect because the main ideas andd questions raised turned out to be fruitful. For a somewhat drier update on 15 years subsequent work in many cardiological and chemical laboratories and in supercomputers with nice graphics, look up the same author's current book here at Amazon.com. There might also be cause to supplement from his website, marley.biosci.arizona.edu/~art. Also search the web (which did not exist back then) under such keywords as "excitable media", "scroll waves", "spiral waves", "Belousov-Zhabotinsky", "fibrillation and singularities" and you will find ever more material including abundant movies.