I regestered Four an twenty Black Birds in 1982 with the writers guild. I wrote it My name Is Billy Milligan and was diagnosed with 24 personalities. Hence 4&20 black birds Forgive my spelling but i am livid. Dr. Danial Keyes took 4&20 black birds to write the minds of Billy Milligan

Reading this book consolidated a natural knowledge I'd always had -- it made perfect sense without stretching or pushing or being difficult to understand, and without having a strong background in psychology, psychiatry or personality theory. Dr. Baldwin's book is impressive both in its treatment of the concept of "self" and its readability.

In "Blackbirds" Dr. Baldwin describes a psychoanalytic process of discovering our "selves." (That's right, plural.) His approach encourages us to look at the cast of characters which make up the self, how these characters interact in the "community of the self" and the various roles each character plays in the script we all write for our lives. Dr. Baldwin's personae theory explores the psychological power of literature and theater and how these can move us and enrich us, whether staged in a theater, or in our heads. A facinating look at the psyche that turns inward and outward until there doesn't seem to be a difference between the two; which is, of course, the whole point.

The book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain is told from the view of Hank Morgan, later on known as The Boss. Hank Morgan travels back in time from the 19th century to the 5th century, in King Arthur's Court. Hank learns from a man dress in a knight's armor that it is the 5th century, he doesn't believe that he traveled back in time, he thinks he is in an asylum. Suddenly Hank remembers that the day that he was told also happened to be the same day of the first recorded full Solar Eclipse. Hank finds that he has wandering into a place where they are hanging innocent people. Hank has some fun and tells the people that he will put the world into total darkness very soon, he hopes that if it truly is the 5th century, the people will believe him. Sure enough the eclipse does happen, all the people are in awe. For the rest of the book Hank is then on known as The Boss.
Throughout the whole story, Hank gives King Arthur tips about how to be more successful. Hank goes on a venturous journey with King Arthur and he helps the King train Knights and create a large army. Hank gets a seat at the round table even though he is not a knight. Hank uses his knowledge to reinvent things that were a new invention from his time. After King Arthur dies, Hank must help the empire live on.
I recommend this to people who are 13 or older and enjoy long, very detailed books. There are also some great pictures included in the book, from portraits of Mark Twain to pictures of King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone.

Well, the perfect companion to La Morte d'Arthur...

Twain completely dissects the "good ol' days" of Arthurian Britain by exposing the vicious social practices of the time: white slavery, le droit de seigneur, confiscation of property in event of suicide, the complete lack of impartial justice, the degrading influence of the Church on the mass, etcetera etcetera etcetera...

The Arthurian legends are wonderful tales, but they are a mythic literary production; Twain deals with the brutal reality of daily living in the Dark Ages, and points out that the good ol' days were not so good, anyway.

As for its applicability to modern America, I am not fit to judge. Perhaps it's there. But "The Connecticut Yankee" is a wonderful tonic for those prone to romanticizing the past. Twain seems to agree with Tom Paine that the English nobility were "no-ability", and simply the latest in a series of robbers.

And, of course, the book is stuffed with wonderful Twainisms... My favorite is his observation that a conscience is a very inconvenient thing, and the significant difference between a conscience and an anvil is that, if you had an anvil inside you, it would be alot less uncomfortable than having the conscience.

Twain also mentions the beautiful mispronunciations of childhood, and how the bereaved parental ear listens in vain for them once children have grown.

You'll never look at castles the same again...

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an intriguing novel written by Mark Twain. This is a fantastic book for the high school level reader, but would be entertaining to adults as well. I am a freshman in high school, and I enjoyed many attributes of the plot and writing style. In this novel the main character, Hank Morgan, is mysteriously transported from the nineteenth century in Connecticut back to the fifth century in England. During his time in medieval Britain, he keeps a journal which is what most of this book is. The preface and afterwards are both the narration of Mark Twain who writes as if he has found Hank's journal, and is merely writing it down in a book. As the journal starts out, Hank is introduced to King Arthur and after narrowly escaping death and becomes the country's most powerful advisor. Hank introduces many modern wonders to this feudal society. He is hailed a magician, being able to perform wonderful "miracles" and "magic", when it really is only modern science. It is very entertaining to read about how the feeble-minded people of that time react to these feats. In the end, there is a tremendous battle with many exciting episodes leading up to it. If a reader is partial to battle scenes of high caliber, this is a book for him! Of course, Hank has many other battles as well. Once of his biggest enemies is the Church of England. The big question the reader asks themselves during this book is "Will Hank return to his time and if so, how?". It was exciting for me to ponder this question throughout the novel. During Hank's travels through medieval Britain, he meets many people. The people he meets who think a government ruled by the people in Britain (his ultimate goal) would be a good idea, he sends to Camelot where he has schools set up which teach people about modern governmental ideas. Schools were also set up to teach people how to produce his wonders of modern science. These few enlightened people remain loyal to Hank until the very end. I thought it an entertaining notion that people who were trained from birth to believe in one thing, could realize it's faults and begin to believe another things. I really enjoy this book because it brings a lot about human nature into question. It discusses the vast differences of beliefs, manners, and life styles between one hundred years ago and fourteen hundred years ago. I also thought the differences between classic Arthurian legend and Mark Twain's perspective of the time were very interesting. Hanks training of these idealistic people he runs across plays into the large political aspect of this book. Since Hank's ultimate goal is to transform Britain into a country ruled by the people, he starts factories producing modern goods which greatly changes the lives of the Britons. I enjoyed the descriptions of the people's reaction to these modern products of science thirteen centuries before they would be invented. Throughout the entire book commentary and philosophizing concerning the comparison of the fifth century feudal system of Britain and the nineteenth century democracy of the U.S. by Hank Morgan is common. This political aspect is typical of Twain's works. It gave me great pleasure to read this aspect of the book and to comprehend it's meaning. Through Hank Morgan, Mark Twain is able to depict vivid images in the readers mind. Whether it be a person, scene, or sensation felt by Hank Twain describes it in a way which puts a solid picture in the imagination of the reader. I have not seen the movie of this novel, but I have heard it isn't very well done and it is nothing compared to the book. I believe this is because Mark Twain paints such a realistic picture in the mind of the reader, it is nothing compared to what some director can film. From Mark Twain's great descriptions and writing style to the unique ideas presented, the novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a fantastic novel. There are so many aspects of it to enjoy, and it is just an all around entertaining book. I give this book four out of five stars and I recommend it to any one interested in fantasy, especially if they want a different perspective on King Arthur.

This book is about a man who runs away from his father because the father does nothing but yell at him. This book is one of my favorites, even though I gave it a four, because it had a lot of action and it made me want to keep reading. Although I still think that the orignal was one of the better ones that have been written.

The book "Rip Van Winkle" is about a guy named Rip and his father, Dame, who thinks that Rip can never do anything right. Dame is always yelling at Rip. Dame really got mad when Rip sold part of the family property, so he went away for awhile and met some strangers and started to drink quite a lot of beer. You have to read the book to find out what happens next.

Several of these other reviews are for a different version of this story. The one I am reviewing is an "All Aboard Reading" version. It is definitely written for beginning readers (1st-3rd grade)

This version is a good introduction to the classic Washington Irving story. I do not like the way Rip's wife yells at him to get to work or how Rip is only "maybe...a little" sad when we finds out that his wife has died after his long sleep. Neither Rip nor his wife were the most exemplary characters! :-)

Still, that is the way the story was written and can be a good launch into a talk about character.

A very gentle, caring book for children of about age 8, who can expect to start going through puberty. Covers issues of: why puberty happens, how the appearance of bodies change, hormones, breast development, erections, menstruation, deepening of voice, pimples, masturbation, body hair, wet dreams, and circumcision. This book follows on from, and is in the same style as "Where Did I Come From?". Extremely popular, all children should have easy access to this volume from age 8 onwards.

This is a great book about puberty which is perfect for showing to your child. I will do it when I have some. It goes into good detail and doesn't talk any nonsense. It's very upfront. I mean, it's not like "Oh, your period feels good." It talks about how women might get depressed or groggy, which I think is important for them to know. it talks about erections, masturbation, periods, and even curcumcism (sp?). It also talks about wet dreams and the feelings you may get towards other girls. A great and useful guide.

I am a child therapist. I have used this book with my own children and with clients. It is both factual and humorous (riotous drawings!), allowing a bit of levity for parents and children discussing a delicate subject. Highly recommended.

A good read about N. Bonaparte. It harks back to Swordfish Reef.

Somewhat typical and formulaic, except that it skewers the custodians who foster and exalt serious literature, protecting it against practitioners of what is deprecated as merely commercial fiction.

Did Mr. Upfield feel some animosity toward his artistic "betters"?

Poorly written book with very poor pictures. I hoped to find there much more information than in very compact (but as I now could see much better written) manual of F100. Instead I found unclear "explanations", not finished desriptions and much less technical information than in the manual. (e.g. no errors description at all)
Don't buy it! Read carefully the manual, you will save some time and money.

I consider myself an advanced novice. I bought an F100 and was looking for a book with some depth. This one disappointed. Yeah, it explained the features to a point, but there was minimal guidance on how to effectively use those features.

This book is basically a glorified instruction manual, but that is not a bad thing. The text is easy to understand, the photos are helpful, and the book will last much longer than the original manual. Worth buying, especially for the beginner.

At one point in the narrative the author recommends that you read some of your wife's pregnancy books to get an idea what's going on. That is the best advice this book has to offer. Read another book.

I found most of what was advised here to be dated and not all that useful given the changing roles in modern America. Most men do not need to read hints on how to make canned soup and the recipe for "Tuna Chowder" made my wife's stomach churn when I read it out loud. The entire chapter on what to do while in the waiting room seems superfluous in contemporary society where the husband accompanies his wife during the delivery.

There are some good words of wisdom peppered through the 1950s mentality though. Let your wife know you love her and that she's attractive. Get involved with the process right from the start and... and.....

Sorry. That's about all I could glean from this thing. I just saved you ten bucks.

The author has tried to cover too much ground, with the usual result that much of it is skimmed. You may be able to glean a few good points, but don't put all your hopes in this being your sole source of information, it just can't do it. Not only is it generally flighty but also occasionally ill-informed; "giving a pregnant woman champagne". If it had been a clear-cut comedy book I could respect that, but the chuckles are weak and a few are not even funny being disrespectful to women. I have been a bit harsh perhaps in reviewing this book, if this is not the only book/class/etc the expectant father learns from it is ok as a mild humor book. Hopefully it will prompt the purchase of a more accurate and informative book.

I bought this book for my husband shortly after we learned I was pregnant. I read it first and thought it was perfectly short and direct for the first-time and somewhat-frightened busy father-to-be. My husband didn't read it until after our baby boy was born. At which point, enraptured by our son,he read it from front to cover and tried out all the recipes included during my first couple of weeks home. The recipes are simple, but really, really delicious. He still refers to it for certain dishes. My bet is that he will read it again, but at the beginning of my next pregnancy -- not the end of it!

I have read all of the books in the "American Presidents" series published thus far, and this is a very disappointing entry in an otherwise great series. Tom Wicker is a journalist, not a historian, and it shows. He merely presents a narrative chronology of Eisenhower's presidency, devoting only a few paragraphs to his life before he entered the Oval Office. In what is essentially a long magazine article, you never learn a thing about Eisenhower as a person, and Eisenhower emerges as a two-dimensional figure, not the fascinating man that he was. Worst of all, Wicker is so one-sided in his coverage, he tries to find fault in even Eisenhower's unmitigated successes. This ends up simply a book-length critique. It is blinkered and one-sided, with no sense of perspective or context. There are many better biogrpahies of Eisenhower available. Skip this one.

I thought I'd present an alternative viewpoint to the obviously irate folks who have written so far. While Wicker's book is far from a complete biography (this series -- and I have read all but the TR volume -- was never intended to be THE definitive account, only an introduction of sorts), it does present Eisenhower's presidency in relatively comprehensive terms. I was left wanting more, but one can take this book, armed with a general outline, and pursue the subject further.

As for the negative tone, I am not offended, nor am I disappointed. There have been plenty of fawning biographies written about Ike (check out any Ambrose volume), so it is only fair that we get a different take. Ike's presidency, like so many, had its shining moments, but also its shame. Wicker correctly identifies Ike's weaknesses, including a tendency to overdelegate and of course, a reluctant, weak-willed enforcement of civil rights laws. It is also important to note that Ike failed to take on that era's most poisonous demagogue, Joseph McCarthy.

Writing a hagiography would be easy given our country's worship of military figures, but this is a political biography. The years from 1953 to 1961 were not perfect, and Wicker understands that the leadership must be held accountable for some of that decade's less admirable turns.

Tom Wicker spent thirty years writing on politics for the New York Times. Having worked as a young reporter in the 1950s, he combines memories of actual events with secondary sources to produce a short, lively monograph on Eisenhower's presidency.

Older readers can remember the media Ike: the winning smile, the bumbling answers at press conferences, the incessant golf. The electorate loved him, but contemporary observers were not impressed. They looked on him as a career soldier who despised politics, leaving handling of foreign policy to the slightly frightening John Foster Dulles and domestic policy to no one at all.

Wicker admits that this was once his view but no longer. However, he adds that Eisenhower's growing reputation owes nothing to domestic affairs. Perhaps his major success in this area was the Interstate Highway Bill of 1955, which is still financing our interstate roads. Trivia buffs note: this was the last major Republican program that required new taxes.

Wicker joins two generations of historians in condemning Eisenhower's refusal to speak out against McCarthy or in favor of civil rights. All agree this was politically astute but morally deplorable.

The 1954 Supreme Court decision on segregation came as an unpleasant shock to Eisenhower, but he was in good company. Most northern officials were lukewarm (an admirable exception was attorney general, Herbert Brownell). Holding racial views similar to Lincoln's, Eisenhower disapproved of mistreating Negroes but believed their capacities did not measure up to those of the white race. Wicker's discussion spends more time on Chief Justice Warren than the president, but it's an eye-opener. Legend gives Warren credit for the decision, but this is wrong. He didn't join the court until the case was nearing its end. On his arrival, it was already 5-4 in favor of desegregation. His accomplishment was convincing opponents to switch their votes. Such a controversial decision required unanimity, Warren pointed out. A split Court would encourage southern resistance, bringing disorder to the country and casting doubt on the Court's legitimacy. Good patriots all, they switched, including the hidebound southern racist, Stanley Reed. Does anyone believe this could happen today?

Among America's long line of political scoundrels, Joseph McCarthy stands out for sheer vulgarity. Many supporters in the Senate including Richard Nixon thought he was slightly creepy. That his wild accusations of rampant communist subversion ruined many careers without turning up any new spies was public knowledge. The New York Times and Washington Post pointed this out. Conservative Time Magazine heaped ridicule on him.

But no elected official dared cross McCarthy. Contemptuous in private, Eisenhower took care never to make his feelings public although newspapers regularly found hints between the lines. The Senate censure in 1954 happened only because of McCarthy's increasingly insulting behavior and a modest decline of anticommunist hysteria. It was a slap on the wrist, and McCarthy remained in charge of his committee, so no one can explain why he suddenly fell silent. Wicker has no explanation, and he concludes with the usual regret that Eisenhower failed to take a courageous moral position.

Historians always attack politicians for refusing to take courageous moral positions, forgetting that doing so is invariably disastrous. Perhaps the greatest example is Lincoln's emancipation proclamation in September 1862. Although a feeble antislavery gesture, it was unpopular in the north. Democrats happily pointed out that Lincoln had converted a war for the union into a war for the Negro, and they crushed Republicans in the election two months later.

Foreign policy is almost entirely responsible for Eisenhower's improving reputation. Even those of us who remember the 1950s forget how close World War III seemed. Many national leaders and several of the Joint Chiefs wanted to get on with it as soon as possible. America's foreign policy seemed in the hands of elderly secretary of state John Foster Dulles, a pugnacious, evangelical who had been lecturing foreigners on American virtues since the Wilson administration. He made almost everyone nervous with enthusiastic talk of liberating eastern Europe, regaining China, and using atomic weapons if provoked excessively. It turns out Dulles was firmly under Eisenhower's thumb, and this rhetoric mellowed as years passed. The president himself was far more peaceable than anyone thought at the time. He gets enough credit for ending the Korean war but too little for refusing to strike back at China's threats to Formosa (his military advisors were raring to go). When he aborted the English-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956, he was not reading opinion polls. Americans generally approved the invasion.

Most impressive of all, he kept the military firmly under his thumb. Despite the usual 1952 campaign rhetoric about defeating communism, Eisenhower held the defense budget level when he wasn't reducing it. His finest hour (although no one thought so at the time) came after Russia launched Sputnik in 1957. His announcement that orbiting a satellite was not a big deal produced universal dismay. Editorials denounced his short-sightedness; cartoons pictured him with his head in the sand. His poll ratings dropped to their lowest. Despite additional Russian space spectaculars, he did not change his mind, quashing all efforts to launch crash military programs. John F. Kennedy spent much of the 1960 campaign denouncing the administration for underestimating the communist threat, cruelly starving the armed forces, allowing the Russians to achieve military superiority. JFK was a far more aggressive cold warrior than his predecessor.

Like all volumes in the excellent American Presidents series, Wicker's is a quick read: 140 pages. Unlike the others, it's not really a biography. Eisenhower's greatest accomplishment was his meteoric rise to command in WWII after twenty years of obscurity. Winning the presidency was easy by comparison; after all he was the most popular man in the country. Wicker admits this, but he skips over the early life. As an account of his presidency, it breaks no ground but the author's anecdotes and outspoken opinions make it a lively addition to the definitive biographies.

Peter Arthurs was a proverbial hanger-on to the point he must be considered an ungrateful parasite. The book is a libel against
Brendan Behan who was the source of many funds for this unemployed and uneducated merchant seaman. Behan, no doubt, had his problems but Arthurs capitalized on them.Without Behan, there
would be no author Peter Arthurs.