I was under the impression this was a collection of essays or articles, but it is a collection of quotes. The quotes aren't bad, but not up to par with what I expected. I nearly gave it three stars, but the quotes are pretty good and would be appreciated if you were looking for quotes (and not essays).

Scott peck has put together this anthology of quotes on the virtues of happiness, courage, compassion, purity, perseverance, courtesy, faith, goodness, love, respect, strength, and wisdom. If you have a natural philosophical bent you will find most of the quotes in this 384 page book to be quite profound. If you have no interest in a collection of quotes then don't buy this book. If you do read on and see what you think of this sampling of quotes found in the book:

CHARITY

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, when alive, would part with nothing.
-Charles Caleb Colton

Charity, to be fruitful, must cost us.
-Mother Teresa

COMPASSION

One cannot weep for the entire world. It is beyond human strength. One must choose. - Jean Anouilh

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat... We must find each other.
-Mother Teresa

GRATITUDE

A thankful heart is the parent of all virtues. - Cicero

Into the well which supplies thee with water, cast no stones. - Talmud

No duty is more urgent than returning thanks. - Saint Ambrose

Wise men appreciate all men, for they see the good in each, and know how hard it is to make anything good. - Baltasar Gracian

HAPPINESS

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. - Helen Keller

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude. - Joseph Wood Krutch

I find my joy of living in the fierce and ruthless battles of life, and my pleasure comes from learning something. - August Strindberg

If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.
-Edith Wharton

COURAGE

Often the test of courage is not to die but to live. - Vittorio Alfieri

What is to give light must endure burning - Victor Frankl

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage - Seneca

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment. - Napoleon I

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Muriel Strode

It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.
-George Christopher Litenburg

Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?
-Frank Scully

This book is wonderful. Dr. Peck's commentary on each section gets one to see these aspects in a fresh way. The quotes are highly thought-provoking and stimulating-each one a gem of insight.

This is typical Arthur. DW is pretty negative about Baby Kate entering the household. At one point she proclaims "Babies are boring" Later she commiserates that everything seems to be about the baby and not about her anymore.

While kids probably do have these emotions, I don't like the book putting words to them or validating them. Whenever I read this book I change the words to be more positive.

Also, it has some nursery rhymes, one of which goes something like "God bless the moon, God bless me". Not something that fits my personal style so I have to change this, too, to "The moon is special and so are you"

Overall, I much prefer the "I'm a Big Brother / Big Sister" books to Arthur. That being said, my 2 year old liked both books and still asks for them now at 2 1/2 even though the baby is 6 months old.

This book is great for younger children who are nervous about the new baby that is going to arrive. There are good pictures and it shows how many kids feel and how to handle the new child. Plus it shows just how much fun having a younger sibling can be.

While the content of this book is very similar to many other good books to help _children_ become _siblings_, it is presented in an entertaining way typical of Brown's Arthur books. The graphics present an understandable and engaging picture for any child who's familiar with the Arthur television show; its style, of necessity is just a little from the books, but not so much the child will not enjoy and follow. A good tool to use as part of your preparation package for your (currently) only child.

Upon reading the horrific review given by "jsolinas", one question begs answer: since she obviously dislikes this author why on earth has she devoted so much time to reading not just one, but all of the books in this trilogy? I found this book, as well as the preceeding ones, to be well written and interesting. As the above-mentioned review illustrates so well: if you don't like this subject matter then of course don't bother reading the book! However, if you do enjoy the subject of King Arthur, Christians vs Druids, Camelot, etc., then you will enjoy this book.

Thank goodness this was a trilogy! It is only unfortunate that it isn't an even longer series. Miles continues her masterful retelling of the Arthurian legend in her third and final installment. I am happy to say she ends as strongly as she began with Guinevere- Queen of the Summery Country.

As a history buff - I relish the chance to find a great historical fiction. Finding a book blending enough history to be intellegent but enough fiction to be entrancing is a rare indeed.
This book (and the entire series) not only delighted me - but has now been passed along to family and friends who lack my love of history....and their delight with the story is as strong as my own.

If you've read the first two books of this series by Miles, keep going!! You'll be glad you did!

The first half of this book dealt with it almost exclusively as a theme - the second half of the book was the consequence of it...which essentially was the crumbling of the realms of Arthur and Guenevere. This made it interesting (and sad) to read beyond the telling of most other versions of the legend I've read. Galahad was a difficult character for me to warm up to - he was a little TOO fanatical, otherworldly and untouchable. I was surprised to find myself very intrigued with Mordred for a change - seeing him as another tragic victim of his mother and deserving of sympathy despite his scheming and ambitious manipulations to achieve the throne. Arthur infuriated me at times - being too easily swayed and influenced by the Christians determined to rule his soul. But this was Guenevere's glorious and tragic story and it was wonderfully told. Her femininity was powerful and proud -the devotion to her religion and culture unwavering under undue pressures - her loves demanding an emotional toll of heartbreaking longing. I can look forward to reading this book again.

The Price of Immortality, swords of life and death series is highly recommended.

This is a very fine novel by Clarke even if some of the science is now out-of-date. The novel is set several centuries in the future. There are essentially two "nations" remaining, Earth (which includes the Moon) and the Triplanetary Federation, which encompasses Mars, Venus, and some of the outer satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. The issue is that in this novel Earth controls most of the solar system's supply of heavy metals e.g. titanium, high-grade iron ore, etc. Therein lies the conflict.
After several centuries of peace, the possibility of war once again looms. Clarke creates the atmosphere for this masterfully.

The story is told from the perspective of an intelligence agent sent from Earth on a counterintelligence mission on the Moon. The storyline does not move at a breakneck pace by any means. Rather, the story moves in a leisurely fashion that gives the reader a fascinating look at what a Moon colony might one day be like. Despite this, the book moves to a climactic ending that is startling and absorbing. This book is an excellent read.

This is a book that might have been made into a movie. Clarke is one of the giants of science fiction. Highly recommended.

Clarke is famous for using a fictional premise as a vehicle for discussing scientific ideas, and rightly so. His ideas are so interesting, and his explanations are so clear that no one minds if the story sometimes takes a back seat to the science. In _Earthlight_, a secret agent visits the lunar colony to find the spy leaking classified material to Earth's other colonies. Clarke uses this premise to explore two main ideas: what life in an established lunar colony would be like, and how a conflict between Earth and her colonies might arise.

Clarke's description of a 200-year-old colony is fascinating. His discussions of the problems created by the hostile lunar environment, and his solutions to them, are clear and interesting. What was surprising to me is that these descriptions, written almost 50 years ago, haven't really dated. There are some anachronisms; all communications are auditory, for example - television wasn't forseen, much less the Internet. But the majority of the ideas are as plausible and compelling as when they were written.

The development of the conflict between the Earth and the Federation of colonies is somewhat less successful. The main reason for the conflict - competition for limited resources - rings true, and Clarke captures the feeling of life during a time of political tension leading to conflict. However, his descriptions of events and motivations feel a little too simple for what we'd expect to be a complex political situation. The concluding battle, employing highly speculative science, is a jarring contrast to the earlier, reasoned discussions of the science behind the lunar colony.

These are nitpicks, however. _Earthlight_ succeeds in the ways most important to Clarke and to his readers. If you're familiar with Clarke's other work, I think you'll enjoy this novel. If you haven't read Clarke before, this novel is a fine introduction, although you would do equally well with his better-known works.

I didn't like this one as much as I did "Tales from the White Hart", but it's still one of those books you just can't put down!

A Fall of Moondust is another one of those personal survival stories in the middle of disaster. Unlike most of the movies made from this kind of story, this one works well. Clarke draws each of his moon carrier passengers well, and better yet, they are believable people. The basic disaster scenario is based on an idea that over the eons, meteors and temperature variations have broken down some of the lunar rocks to such a fine powder that it acts almost like a liquid, which collects in somes places as a hidden 'pool', which our lunar vehicle manages to crash into. Although to date no such dust material has actually been found on the moon, there is no intrinsic reason that it could not exist. Clarke's final resolution of his disaster scenario makes scientific sense, which is probably why Hollywood has not tried to make a movie out of this one. Good reading.

The book is worth reading not so much for the science element but for the characters and situations in it. The plot is a little weak at places but the whole novel still makes for great reading. The story-telling is fairly realistic. Don't expect too much from it - and you will enjoy it.

This is somewhat of an anamoly in Clarke's canon. At a contrast to his usual philosophical-tinged works, this is an honest-to-goodness thrill machine. Fortunately, Clarke's pen is as mighty as ever, and we are spared the usual, dime-a-dozen, run-of-the-mill action stories of this type that pollute the science fiction landscape. Here we have a suspenseful narrative that is both well and tightly written, while also being scientifically strict. While it is true that the "dust" that Clarke describes does not exist on the Moon-at least not that we know of-it is still very plausible, and there are no leaps of faith that need to be made during the course of this book, in terms of its climaxes and resolutions. This has all the intelligence that you would expect from Clarke. He also did something here that he has not always done, but which was fortunat here because it was essential to the story's being good, and that was including an interesting and believable cast of characters. These are not cardboard cut-outs, and they bring the human element into hard science fiction, which, unfortunately, is often all too lacking. This is a classic. If you are tired of the cornball, cliched type of SF "disaster" story that is all too prevalent and want something better, then look no further.

The selection of poems in this anthology, although it includes many of the great poems of English literature, is very poor. About a third of the book is devoted to relatively mediocre 20th century poetry, written by poets practically unknown now, who will be completely forgotten 50 years from now. The book could be much lighter and hopefully less expensive if it included fewer of these poems, which are not really appropriate in a book intended as a survey of English poetry (that is, poetry in English, of course). There must be better anthologies.

Another annoying thing is that the editors have given glosses to explain the simplest concepts and terms. These glosses interrupt one's reading of a poem, and for people who do not know the words explained, a dictionary would be much more useful.

It's hard to assign an appropriate number of stars to a book like this, since of course many of the poems are great ones. However, as an anthology of poetry this book fails in many respects.

First of all, nearly half of the book consists of relatively mediocre 20th century poetry. The book could be cut in two at the middle, and the first half sold as a meagre anthology of poetry up to the 20th century, and the second as a comprehensive collection of 20 century poems. The 20th century is one of the worst in terms of the poetry it gave to the world. Many of the poets in the second half are practically unknown now, and will have been entirely forgotten fifty years from now. Although the book dutifully includes many of the great poems of English literature and is therefore not entirely useless, the selection is otherwise a very curious one for a book intended as a general survey of English poetry. A large percentage of the poems in this book could be cut out and it would be as good as it is now, only a great deal lighter and hopefully cheaper.

Another irritating thing is the footnotes. The editors seem to have assumed that they need to define and explain the simplest terms and concepts. For example, on page 215, they give a gloss for the word "clod," defining it as "Lumps of earth or clay." That's all very well, but "clod," a common English word, does not require explanation. It's distracting to the reader that knows it to have his attention called to the footnote. One's reading of the poem is thereby interrupted. Anyone who does not know the meaning of "clod" could perfectly well turn to a dictionary.

Are you remotely interested in poetry then you should buy The Norton Anthology of Poetry by Margaret Ferguson(Editor), et al. This book is a wonderfull presentation into world of poetry and presents a wast array of poets, i.e., everyhting Anna Laeitta Barbauld to William Shakespeare. Being a fan of the older style of poetry, e.g., William Shakespeare, John Milton and Geofrey Chaucer, I was happy to see that these parts had the space that they righly deserve. The index is very well developed and it was an excellent idea to pu each poem under the name of poet since otherwise finding a particular poem would have ben almost impossible. The font selected is very easy to read. The only downside is the quality of the paper; being almost 2000 pages long in paperback the quality of the paper is so-so and next time I will buy it in hardcover.

Not an awful book, but it really shortchanges you on exercises and drills. One example is often deemed enough to explain a pattern and in Finnish that's really not true. For example: an early dialogue in the banking chapter gives you a canned phrase for `What is the exchange rate of the pound?' but they don't explain the construct and they don't illustrate how you would ask about the exchange rate of the dollar, franc, ruble, etc. You're left to guess about it, and you'll probably make a mistake somewhere when you guess because Finnish words have lots of little quirks when you put endings on them. It's a shame to get one canned phrase instead of a useful, reusable pattern, but that's how this book works.

Chapters are by topic, like banking, asking directions, travelling, having a sauna, and so on. This also leads to a neglect of pattern and structure, and you get quite a load of unexplained grammatical features from very early on in the book; the dialogues just don't do enough to illustrate the structures.

The exercises are very limited, often of the form `What does x mean' or 'Which of the following means x.' There are also little games like word finds which are of dubious usefulness.

There is a glossary at the back, but it is Finnish-English only.

On the plus side: you get a lot of dialogues; the speakers on the audio tapes are clear and free of annoying mannerisms. You will get lots of practice with basic niceties of conversation and the grammar explanations are easy to understand (just not illustrated enough.)

If you can find / afford it, go with FSI's Conversational Finnish instead; it's better organized and moves at a much more sensible pace. The FSI graded reader is nice for intermediate syntax and vocabulary, too.

I think that this book could possibly start at a little more elementary level. This was the first tool I used to learn Finnish until I took classes at a university with a major in Finnish Studies. It presents a lot of the rules of Finnish grammar and vocabulary, maybe too much in each chapter. Just take your time with studying. I think if you study about one chapter per week with a small review and then proceed, you should do well. Go at a faster pace if you feel you can. Finnish is a wonderful language once you learn how it fits together. A few good things is that you don't need to memorize genders(no masculine, feminine, neuter genders in Finnish) such as many other languages have. Also there are very few irregular verbs. So the rules are pretty straight forward once you understand them and that will take time and practice. I don't think Finnish is necessarily "hard", just different from the logic of English and its related languages. For a beginner, I think "Finnish For Foreigners" is better since lessons are divided into small units each with a new topic instead of many topics grouped into a few chapters. Another text/cassette pack is "Mastering Finnish", by Borje Vahamaki. Finnish for Foreigners is rather expensive and harder to come by. If you can't purchase it, try out Teach Yourself or Mastering Finnish. Audio cassettes are also a great help in memorization and correct pronunciation. You can get these courses I mentioned with cassettes if you want to. Best wishes with your language study.

Why bother with the drive, finding parking, walking all over the campus only to find the professor has cancelled classes for the day? This combination of tape and book have been so helpful as I practice learning a language rarely spoken outside the country of Finland. It is a beautiful language, straight-forward and fairly easy to comprehend. I'm certain by using this book and tapes I will better enjoy my upcoming visit to Finland.

I was looking for specific advice about "how to shoot" my kid (photographically). I did not get it. This book REALLY IS just a photo album of the author's own kids. While some people may be able to infer how to achieve great photos of their kids by looking at Mr. Elgort's photos, I needed more "how to" instruction. There is very little text in this book at all and I felt the title was misleading. If you are looking for excellent instruction on how to photograph your children (babies in particular) buy HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH YOUR BABY by Nick Kelsh, a far superior book which I bought after trashing this one.

This is a fantastic book that I return to again and again for inspiration. Granted, there is not a lot of text, not a lot of "how to". But, as with anything one tries to do at a high level, photography is mostly art and not science. You can read lots of books with f-stop measurements, shutter speeds, etc., but those won't teach you nearly as well as looking at good pictures, and taking lots of pictures. Elgort's text provides the basics, all one really needs. By studying this book, you get the same lessons as Kelsh's book: Get Close, Study the Light, and Use Lots of Film. You don't get to be a great music composer by reading books on composition, you get better by listening to music and studying scores. Most "how to" photo books are like reading books on bicycle riding -- this book has you actually get on a bicycle and ride. In addition, Camera Ready is a beautiful coffee table book -- the subtitle "How to Shoot Your Kids" also gets a lot of smiles.
By the other reviews, I can see that this may not be a book for everyone: not for techie photographers, not for absolute beginners, etc. But with a little knowledge, this book can really help you with your most important pieces of photographic equipment: your mind and your eye.

I love photographing children and found this book to be very inspiring. I purchase this book as a gift for every friend or family member who has a baby, and I always receive rave reviews. This book is about inspiration and getting your children to a place where they are comfortable and familiar with having the camera around. This way you will have candid photographs of your children where they are natural and unaffected - by capturing their true essence. ... By following Arthur Elgort's simple advice, my photographs of children have improved tremendously.

Schlesinger writes a book of personal recollections that reads much like a grandfather relating his rich and rewarding life onto his next generation. It is not a hard facts history book, and it will not be remembered as such (regardless of Dr. Kissenger's overly optomistic review on the dust jacket).

There are high points and low points to this book. His experiences at Harvard, worn torn Europe, and the ideological battles between communists and liberals over control of the American left were fascinating. However, we are also privy to every movie, play, book, and cocktail dinner that schlesinger ever attended. It's interesting to gain this perspective, but it gets tedious. This book could have used substantial editing.

I'm a Schlesinger fan, but I skimmed through many pages. Despite these shortcoming, Schlesinger still imparts his genious.

A Life in the 20th Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950 is the first volume of the memoirs of the noted historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. The book examines much of the nation's history in the first half of the twentieth century as well the author's anaylsis of public policy and his impressions of an extraordinary group of writers, politicians, intellectuals, and decision makers. Schlesinger is a name dropper extraordinaire in this volume and his vignettes on the people who crossed his path are interesting and inciteful and at times irreverent and caustic.

The book is a little long (557 pages). The parts concerning his early boyhood, books read, movies seen etc. can get tedious. However, his account of his trip around the world at age 16 with his father, also a noted historian, is facinating.

Schlesinger is an unabashed anti communist, New Deal style liberal. His first great book, The Age of Jackson, won the Pulitzer Prize. In it, as in later works, his sympathies, along with Jackson, lay with the working classes as opposed to the bastions of capital, aristocracy and monopoly. Schlesinger sees a pattern of similarity of reform between the Jacksonians, the Progressives of the early twentieth century, and the New Dealers. (His later books on FDR and JFK are exceedingly sypathetic treatments of his subjects as liberal realists.) This well researched and well written book is still used in college classes today. I read it in a graduate course on the age of Jackson in the late sixties.

After World War II, Schlesinger became one of the leaders of the non -communist left. His book, The Vital Center, written in 1949 was an appeal to liberal democracy, in opposition to the twin totalitarian systems of fascism and Stalinism. At the close of the present book, he states that his philosophy is still consistent with The Vital Center and he would make few changes in it even after fifty years.

In short, A Life in the 20th Century is a good read for history junkies. Schlesinger has been at the forefront of history and history makers and his insights on people and events are always enlightening and entertaining. I look forward to the publication of the second volume.

As a Schesinger fan, I found this book a delightful insight into the life of the best living historian. The book was very well written, and as a current college student, I found his account of his college years particularly interesting.

I would especially recommend this book to anyone interested in either twentieth century history or twentienth century American culture.

First, of all I must say that this book is a godsend. I've been trying to piece my way through the Oeuvres Completes for some time now, and having Jugurtha, the Prologue and some of the other earlier texts from 1866-1870 in English is a great pleasure. Possibly the only thing necessary now is a translation of Akakia Viala and Nicolas Bataillet's 1949 "La chasse spirituelle", which is in some French editions. However, despite the wealth of new material which Mason's translation gives us, I find it is still lacking when compared to Fowlie's. The decision not to print the original French texts on the facing page was a great error, and despite some very excellent renditions of the poems (particularly Memoire), Mason still does not have Fowlie's sense to leave the poems as they are and let the words speak for themselves. However, alongside Louise Varese's translations of the prose & of course Fowlie, most probably, this will come to be seen very shortly as one of the three indespensible Rimbaud translations that we have available in English.

Having been an avid reader (and admirer) of Rimbaud for the past 6 years, I have to say that I prefer these translations to Fowlie's and countless others. I'd like to qualify that statement by frankly admitting that I do not like the translator. His introduction is arrogant, prickly, and self promoting. Mason seems bent on convincing us that every image ever created of Rimbaud, the passionate and vicious young poet from Charleville, are all simply projections and fantasies. While I've obviously seen this from many translators concerning many figures, Mason pulls it off with more pretentiousness than usual. "I don't want the reader to come away with his or her own Rimbaud," he says. As if that were possible:as if it were not part of the creative process to take away our own impressions of a poet or artist. Truth be told, there is very little ambiguity as regards the interpretation of Rimbaud's life: it was a vicious search for the absolute through any means necessary, sadly abandoned through poetic burn out. Mason's form of analytical pomposity is nothing other than the desire to destroy the passion inherent in Rimbaud's life and works by casting doubt on his memory and talent. That said, the translations are catastrophic and deserving of praise, "The Drunken Boat" in particular. The poems speak for themselves. In short, listen to Rimbaud, not Mason.

Some unnamed reviewer up above claims "There have been no fully satisfactory translations of the brilliant modernist forerunner Rimbaud." Whoever wrote that clearly didn't read Wyatt Mason's new translation of Rimbaud's complete works very carefully, because it's a lot more that satisfactory: it's beautiful. While the Wallace Fowlie translation (the blue one) is dependable, it's nothing more than that. It's good if you read French pretty well and need some help. But if you want to try to experience Rimbaud's poems in English as Poems, Mason's work is the only time I've found myself reading along and finding that he's caught both the meanings of words and the feeling of the poems (my mother is French, so I have read Rimbaud in the original). Mason's introduction is also, far and away, the best brief essay on Rimbaud's life and art imaginable, and it also talks really interestingly about translating poetry, and how he's gone about it. This is also the only edition available in English that contains everything Rimbaud wrote. The others, even if they say they're complete, don't come close. Neither do the other translators. I can't recommend this book enough.