The original interview conducted by Rolling Stone editor and founder Jann Wenner was a revelation when originally printed in late 1970 early 1971. Lennon is an interesting interview subject and Wenner asked all the pressing Lennon/Beatle questions of the day. Lennon unfortunately revealed in his 1980 Playboy interview that most of what he said about his relationships to the other Beatles and particularly McCartney and their songwriting in the Rolling Stone interview was a lie designed to destroy the Beatles myth once and for all. His views on world peace never changed. Lennon was very good at manipulating the media when he had something to say or new product to release. This book is an interesting facet into the head of John Lennon in the early seventies. If you want to relive those early days when it seemed like the world could change if we all just tried hard enough then this book is for you. He was destined to become a Saint and shall always remain one.

People who think this is so great don't really know that much about Lennon. Don't get me wrong, I love'im. But he later publicly admitted a lot of this (which I originally read when it came out in 1970) was lies aimed against bad-boy McCartney. Pretty silly, in retrospect. Of course, the really unfortunate part is his stuff about them only writing separately after the very early Beatle days. Later, in Playboy (1980) he said, "Yeah, I lied; we really wrote most of them (the songs) looking up each other's noses."

At least he later set the record straight. Anyone willing to be reasonable could tell they wrote most of the Beatle songs together because the songwriting of both men fell off pretty dramatically after they went their separate ways.

This is ok as a trip down nostalgia lane but it really misrepresents the history of Lennon/McCartney.

If you don't believe me go to the library and read Lennon's Playboy interview from the Fall of 1980.

Lennon was a great talent and fascinating personality, but could be fairly petty. And interviews seemed to stoke his self-indulgent, whiny instincts.

I can't imagine why Jan Wenner and Yoko Ono brought this all out again. Surely they have enough money by now.

Oh, well, anything Lennon is fun in my book.

John Lennon was many things. Artist including poet, writer, musician, composer, philosopher, author, revolutionary, father, husband, voice of the world...he was all of these things and more.

"Lennon Remembers" is an especially poignant after Lennon's untimely death in 1980. In reading this book, one gets the feeling that Lennon is baring his soul. He calls 1965 his "fat Elvis period," 1965 being the year "Help!" was released. Lennon calls "Help!" one of his few "real songs," and admits that the entire "Help!" collection was done while he was under the infuence of marijuana.

His confrontations with his fellow bandmates over Yoko Ono is painful; his hurt at their refusal to accept her comes through loud and clear. Lennon makes no pretense that to him the Beatles were a band, a concept, a period of time...in one memorable passage in the book, he declared he'd be a fisherman if the opportunity had so presented.

Intelligence and creativity are a part of John Lennon's discourse; throughout the interview those characteristics are glaringly apparent. A brilliant, creative man, Lennon makes no apology for his perceptions. An outspoken, often blunt man, Lennon tells people exactly what he thinks and always has reasons to support his arguments.

This book is really a treasure chest. It is sure to spark one's interest in this gifted, talented man and for veteran fans, it will be a bittersweet experience. Had John Lennon not died at such an early age, one wonders today how this interview would be conducted.

There'll never be another John Lennon. He raised the bar and set new standards in music and his loss was a very painful one.

Since he wrote these stories during the several years he spent in Brattleboro, VT, we of the North Country have a particular affinity for Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books. The most familiar are the Mowgli tales, basis for the very good Disney movie. Mowgli is an Indian infant who is lost in the jungle after Shere Khan (the tiger) kills his family. Bagheera (the black panther) places him with a wolf family that has a newborn litter. Mowgli's new "parents" and Bagheera and Baloo (the brown bear) sponsor him for membership in the Wolf Pack and, much to Shere Khan's chagrin, he is admitted. Mowgli is raised according to Jungle Law, but all the while Shere Khan is plotting his revenge and ingratiating himself with the younger wolves. Eventually, he leads a rebellion against Akela, the pack's aging leader and attacks Mowgli, who beats him away with a burning firebrand. In these and the several other Mowgli stories--there are some prequels--Kipling strikes a nice balance between anthropomorphizing the animals and understanding Mowgli's natural superiority.

Also appearing in this collection is a story I've loved since I first saw the Classic Cartoon version--Rikki Tikki Tavi. It tells the story of an intrepid young mongoose and his life or death battle to protect an Indian villa from a couple of particularly unpleasant cobras. Rikki Tikki Tavi has always seemed to me to be one of the great heroes in all of literature.

These are great stories for young and old. For folks who worry about Kipling's potentially imperialist, racist or racialist overtones (see review), rest assured, these tales are free of such themes. They offer an excellent opportunity to introduce kids to the work of a true master storyteller.

GRADE: A

The story of Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves in the jungles of 19th century India, charmed me when I was young no less than it does today. Kipling wrote this to celebrate his love of India and it's wild animals as well as to show again some of his frequent themes of honor, loyalty, and perserverance. While his writing may seem 'dated' to some, to others the truths he includes rise above politics and 'current correctness'. Baloo the Bear, Shere Khan the Tiger, Bagheera the Panther, Kaa the Python were all childhood friends of mine, and reading these Jungle Book stories to your own children today will result in their exposure to such old fashioned concepts as sticking by your friends in adversity, helping your family, relying on yourself. Good lessons then, good lessons now. Mowgli learns the value of 'good manners' early on, learns that 'all play and no work' leads to unexpected troubles, learns that thoughtless actions can have devasting consequences. By showing Mowgli in an often dangerous 'all animal' world, we see reflections of modern human problems presented in a more subtle light. Kipling leads children down the jungle path into adventures beyond their day to day imagining and along the way, he weaves subtle points in and out of the stories, he shows the value of 'doing for yourself', of 'learning who to trust'. All of this in a tale of childhood adventure that's never been equaled. The book is over 100 years old now, and there are terms & concepts from the age of Empire that aren't 'correct' today. Parents can edit as needed as they read bedtime stories, but I've found that children learn early on that the world changes, and that some ideas that were popular long ago did not prove to be correct. Explaining this, too, is a part of parenting. Some of our current popular ideas may not stand the test of time, but I suspect that 100 years from now parents will still read the Jungle Book to their children. And the children will still be charmed, thrilled and instructed in valuable life-lessons.

The Jungle Books are usually marketed as juvenile fiction. True, this is essential reading for children, but it's even deeper when you read it as an adult.

Although "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and "The White Seal" are just as good as the least of the Mowgli stories, it is the various tales of the boy raised in the jungles of India that are - and justifiably - the heart of the collection.

As a baby, Mowgli is found and raised by a clan of wolves and three godfatherly mentors who each teach him about life in different ways - Baloo the Bear, who teaches him the technical laws he'll need to survive; Kaa the Python, the nearly archtypal figure who teaches him even deeper lessons; and Bagheera the Panther, who perhaps loves Mowgli most of all but understands all too well the implications of the ambiguous humanity of the boy he's come to care for.

The stories have it all, from the alternately humorous and frightening "Kaa's Hunting", where Mowgli learns an important lesson about friendship and it's responsibility, to the epic "Red Dog" that reads like something out of Homer, to "Letting in the Jungle" which, without giving anything away contains a disturbing paragraph that's both glaring and a long time in coming if you've read between the lines in the previous Mowgli stories and yet at the same time so subtle you can almost miss it's importance.

If you didn't read it as a child, read it now. If you did, read it again as an adult.

I find this book is so powerful, because I can find any things for a architect want to know from this book. I call this book is the encyclopedia for me. I really want to buy this book, but unfortunately, I am a Australian architect, and we are using metric unit (metre), and it is quite trouble to understand the inch dimension for us. So editor, Could you please publish a "Architectural Graphic Standards in Metric" in the following edition, please.

As an Architect, I had at one time always considered AGS to be the Bible of Architectural priactice, but of course it is very cost prohibitive. I guess they would expect one to just to write it off on his taxes, so it didn't matter if the price was kept high. I think it's usefulness in today's practice however is not as profound because of the wealth of information that is now available from suppliers, manufactures, etc.

A good reference book but of limited use, Its tables of materials is quit limited, especially sections dealing with steel,wood and concrete structural properties. The book tries to touch on all things at the expense of specificity in regards to basic materials and building techniques, The book would be fine for Architectural students but would be of limited use as a reference book for design. Severly over priced.

I would say this is "David Copperfield"'s B-side. It is a typical Dickensian book: the life of the Nickleby family from the death of the father until they are rich and happy. One of the most important parts of the book is the study of the horrible boarding schools of Yorkshire, where Nicholas is sent. We can read the dirty intrigues of Uncle Ralph, the adventures of Nicholas and Smikes as travelling actors (a world Dickens came to know very well), the kindness of the brethren Cheeryble.

Definitely, this is not one of Dickens's best novels, but nevertheless it is fun to read. The characters are good to sanctity or bad to abjection. The managing of the plot is masterful and the dramatic effects wonderful. It includes, as usual with Dickens, an acute criticism of social vices of his time (and ours): greed, corruption, the bad state of education. In spite of everything, this is a novel very much worth reading, since it leaves the reader a good aftertaste: to humanism, to goodness.

I read criticisms of this book that it is not one of Dickens' best. For me, it is up there with Great Expectations and David Copperfield as one of his most enjoyable novels (A Christmas Carol is a short story).

The social axe that Dickens had to grind in this story is man's injustice to children. Modern readers my feel that his depiction of Dotheboys Academy is too melodramatic. Alas, unfortunately, it was all too real. Charles Dickens helped create a world where we can't believe that such things happen. Dickens even tell us in an introduction that several Yorkshire schoolmasters were sure that Wackford Squeers was based on them and threatened legal action.

The plot of Nicholas Nickleby is a miracle of invention. It is nothing more than a series of adventures, in which Nicholas tries to make his way in the world, separate himself from his evil uncle, and try to provide for his mother and sister.

There are no unintersting characters in Dickens. Each one is almost a charicature. This book contains some of his funniest characters.

To say this is a melodrama is not an insult. This is melodrama at its best. Its a long book, but a fast read.

"Nicholas Nickleby" is one of the best works of Charles Dickens overall. This novel is about the brave adventures of Nicholas, his sister Kate and their mother. The story begins at about the time Nicholas's father dies and the family has to encounter the struggle of life with no imminent prospects of fortune. At this time they make an appeal to the brother of Nicholas's father, Mr.Ralph Nickleby. From this point on, the parallel developments of the honest Nickleby family and their villanous uncle begin to unfold. With many twists and turns the story is as captivating as any of the author's best books. The tale is characteristically filled with the Dickinsian people such as Mr.Vincent Crummles and his family, in particular the "phenomenon", Arthur Gride, Newman Noggs and others. Overall, this book is a pleasure to read and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in good story-telling.

this book suffers from the lack of a central character to carry the story. young martin chuzzlewit, the book's namesake, only appears in about a quarter of the book. old martin chuzzlewit appears in even less. seth pecksniff and sairey gamp are both amusing, but their characters are not central to the story. jonas chuzzlewit is central to the story, but he doesn't show up until halfway through. without a character to draw the reader's interest, a character the reader can follow the fortunes of, the book wanders. it's not a surprise that the installments of this novel didn't sell well.

the prose is gorgeous, as usual, but the story drags. worth a read, but not if you're new to dickens. best to start off with nicholas nickleby which doesn't suffer from the same defect.

If nothing else, one can come away with images of use in your daily lives. Read this book to understand the hypocrisy of Pecksniff and Mrs. Prigg's interesting friend, Mrs. Harris. These two things pop up as literary references all over the place. Now I finally understand the "Harris" reference in Murder on the Orient Express!

There are all sorts of deceptions and selfishness going on in this book, but by far, Seth Pecksniff is the most perfect character to be found of all Dickens' comic characters. There is a darkness in the profile of Mr. Pecksniff, but he is made to ridiculed, and Dickens does not let a chance pass to ridicule Pecksniff.

I want to digress a moment, for Dickens did as well -- there is a section where young Martin Chuzzlewit tries his fortune in America. And there is quite a bit of anti-American sentiment to be found in these parts (a fact which caused emnity between Dickens and the American public until he made his 2nd and final tour in 1870 or so). There are two reasons for this: first, Martin Chuzzlewit simply did not have the sales figures of previous novels. Anti-American books seemed to be "the thing" (just like diet books are popular today) in Britain, so he went for that. Secondly, Dickens had just been on a rather contentious tour of the U.S. in which he had been trying to make a case for international copyright. You see, the U.S. was the China of that day -- infamous for pirating works of people from other countries. Publishers in America had been printing their own copies of Dickens novels at cut rates (because they weren't paying Dickens or his British publishers anything!) When Dickens tried to make his plea for intellectual property rights, these same publishers of newspapers did a hatchet job of Mr. Dickens' reputation. So, basically, Dickens had an axe to grind.

In any case, feel free to skip all the Chuzzlewit in America bits. There is a moment of self-realization for young Martin, but it's not essential. All the essential action is going on in England, and Martin will return to finish business. There's also a pyramid scheme-like scam going on as part of a subplot, so now we've got two things involved in this novel that people think are debates of modern origin: intellectual property rights and bad financial info. Just remember, Napster and Internet stock tips are only the latest manifestation of old themes; at the very least, this book will remind you of that.

With this novel, Dickens left behind the shallow characters that sometimes marred his early works, and developed full-fledged people. Pecksniff and his daughters are marvelous creations that make one cringe with embarassment while laughing at their incredible selfishness. Tom Pinch is another character in a distinguished line of "too good to be true" Dickensian personalities, but he is shown to suffer and grow into a believable human being. The American episodes are biting in their satire, but overall they are on the money. Dickens' contempt for American armchair philosophers and "freedom-loving" slave owners fueled some of his most pointed social commentary. As always, there is a happy ending, but the plot is more complex than anything Dickens had written before. I have read Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiousity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge, and Martin Chuzzlewit ranks right up there with his best.

This is an historical novel set in the Sante Fe area of New Mexico in the mid to late 1800s. It describes the experiences of two French priests (Father Latour - the bishop, and Father Vallaint - his vicar) sent there to establish a diocese. Most of their congregation are Mexicans who have previously been served by the Spanish catholic church, and Native American tribes - some of whom have embraced this new religion but many who have not. The plot line consists mainly of a series of vignettes describing the life of the two priests as they go about their work.

Willa Cather writes in a simple, but graceful style much like the personalities of her two priests. It is worth reading this novel just for her descriptions of the austere beauty of the American southwest. Many great authors have an uncanny ability to write beautiful prose with what appears to be very straightforward language, and Willa Cather certainly fits that category. Some have complained that her characters lacked depth in this novel, and though at times they seem to take a back seat to the setting, I found both men to be rich, real, and well-fleshed out characters. A recommended read.

If I could only have four volumes to read for the rest of my life they would be: Death Comes for the Archbishop, Joyce's Ulysses, a Shakespeare folio, and the Bible.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is a novel of striking beauty, profound debth, and deceiving simplicity. The language employed is the most clear and beautiful I have ever read in prose--it's closer to poetry. The philosophy Ms. Cather espouses is simple enough for the peasant to understand, and too complex for the wisest scholar.

This book just baffles me: it's not a novel, per se, nor is it a biography--it's more like an etching of time and place; of ideas and people who travel through the arid, beautiful dreamscape of New Mexico.

Ms. Cather wrote part of this novel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She got the idea of the novel from seeing a statue of Archbishop Lamy in front of St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, and meditating upon what his life must have been like from her balcony at La Fonda hotel that overlooked the Cathedral.

Ms. Cather spent months in New Mexico and the Southwest, and truly loved this land, which is reflected in her book; she was a woman of faith, which is also reflected in this book, and although not a book about religion, religion nevertheless permeates it. More, this is a book about the beauty of a life lived well, with hard work and faith, and the land which touches all who touch it.

Willa Cather's novels divide into three periods. Her early novels including O Pioneers and My Antonia focus on strong individuals, primarily women, who succeed, if only at great cost, in mastering the American midwest. Her middle period novels such as Luch Gayheart and A Lost Lady also take place on the Nebraska plains. They also feature women as main characters. They emphasize more than do the earlier books a sense of loss and disillusion and the need for the salvation of religion.

Cather's late style is exemplified in Death Comes for the Archbishop, written in 1927. The protagonists in this book are primarily men. This book is a historical novel and takes place in the American Southwest, with Santa Fe as the center beginning in the 1850's and continuing through the end of the 19th Century. The heros of the book are two Catholic priests, Father Jean Latour and Father Joseph Vailant who have been friends from their youth in the seminary in France. They are sent to New Mexico to bring Catholicism to the developing American territory. The novel is based on the letters of priests and missionaries in the area at the time together with Cather's own experiences and the work of her imagination.

The novel is full of descriptions of the landscape of the American southwest, its distances, bleakness, deserts, frost, wind, cold, and Pueblos. There are descriptions of the people in the area at time, particularly Mexicans and Indians. Kit Carson also has an important role in the book. We see a great deal of the two protagonists as they struggle externally to bring the teachings of the Church to life and internally with their own hearts and spiritual development.

The novel is static and episodic in character. It doesn't have much in the way of a continuous plot. Its theme is the development of America and the role of religion and the religious life in its development. In a letter to the Catholic magazine Commonweal written after the book's publication Cather emphasised her desire to write about of the importance of religion in America, particularly the development of the American Southwest. She believed that there was a tendency to focus too much on economic pressure as the moving factor in American expansion and focused on one of the religious traditions which shaped our country, and was a particular force in the Southwest.

Cather herself was not a Catholic but her book shows a great deal of sympathy and I think understanding of this particular faith. I think Cather properly focused on religion and its role in the United States and that today, as in her day, we tend, to our detriment, to shy away from considering religion in this manner.

The story of the inner lives of the priests, of their friendship, and of their contrasts to each other is poignantly and well told. This is a book that deserves its place as an American classic.

Most people know this book is a classic -- but it's unfortunate that it's thought of as a book about investments, when investments are really only a small part of the phenomena Mackay covers. We have all heard about Dutch tulips a million times over -- it is therefore much more interesting to read Mackay's chapters about popular slang expressions, or about superstitions, or about quack medicine. There are great micro-histories here about the comings and goings of fads, both those contemporary to Mackay and those that preceded him.

While Mackay's points about the irrationality of crowds are useful for the investor, these "lessons" about Dutch tulips and other financial manias are cliches today. You need not read this book to find out about them. This book's true value lies in its comprehensive history and analyses of other fads, hoaxes, and "manias," most of which have, fittingly enough, been forgotten today.

This is it. If you want to know how many times the world has been gripped by madness then look no farther than the reprinted edition of MacKay's classic. Written in that wonderful Olde English style of the early 19th century, MacKay takes us on a tour of the world's most horrifying manias - up to about 1840 anyway.

I particularly liked the chapter on witchcraft and witch hunts since it told me everything I'll ever need to know on why seemingly intelligent groups of people band together to banish or murder innocent members of society - just because they are different. Another engaging chapter deals with millennialism - the fear and dread that grips society at the end of each millennium. If you thought the end of the last one brought turbulence, you should read what happened a thousand years ago.

This book is often quoted by stock market pundits and talking heads as if it were a treatise on irrational behaviour in the financial markets. In fact, it is much more than that. It deals with irrational behaviour and mass stupidity in all walks of life. Five Stars.

Goodness knows how many times this book has been reprinted, but it is a classic, it recounts many of the strange and popular freakish and delusional things that crowds have got up to over history. Tulip-mania, witch-hunts, fortune-telling, south-seas bubble. Its fun, fascinating and easy to dip into for a quick read as each chapter is really independent of the others. I re-read parts of this recently having just read Elaine Showalter's very controversial recent book "Hystories". Showalter's book is as much about modern psychological 'hysteria's' (as she calls them) - things like Recovered Memory Syndrome, and Ritual Abuse accusations which she seems to liken very much to popularist crowd behaviour . And while you may or not agree with her, I think it is interesting to read her book after this one. Still if you just want a bit of light read, then this book is definitely right up there - and it is always so much more fun and comfortable to be able to laugh gently at the patent ignorance of these poor deluded historical crowds!

This book, by the editors of the Washington Post, does a good job of describing the events which led to the deadlocked 2000 Presidential election. In addition to detailing the paths which led to the deadlock, the book discusses all the post-election issues in a very readable format. Surprisingly, the books editors seem only slightly tilted towards Gore (especially considering it is the Washington Post, which is noted for its liberal bias), so no matter who you voted for, there is much to be found here for anyone with an interest in contemporary politics.

Two things struck me while reading this book, the first is that I doubt there is a book out there that is truly balanced and not somewhat biased. The second thing was that Gore really got the shaft, not so much by the recount wars, but by the election official that came up with the Butterfly Ballot. In the history of the USA this decision ranks up there with new Coke and the XFL, what a mistake. As far as the reporting in the book it was not bad for a review of all the articles they had in the paper, but it did not really dig into the particular issues very deeply. I wanted more detail and behind the scenes with both the candidates. I also wanted more details on the court cases; I felt like the sky-high overview of the issues of the cases did not do such an important issue justice.

In reading the book I think a little bit of a democratic bias comes out, just a little, but enough to notice. I also thought it interesting that they had far more details of the Gore group then the Bush camp, it follows the perception that the Post is somewhat liberal in its views. The book is an overview that came out almost 10 minutes after Gore hung up the phone on the second concession call so there are a few more details out now that they did not get in the book. Overall it is a good effort and a readable book, but not the end all be all on the subject.

Deadlock: The Inside Story of America's Closest Election is a workmanlike and emotionless recollection of the events surrounding the most controversial election of the past 100 years. It is a well organized, easy to follow and not visibly biased view of the relevant events leading up to and following the November 7 Presidential election. Seemingly accurate and double checked to a fault, reading this book left me with the impression that I had just read an excellent 275 page newspaper article and not much more. With almost no humor, lacking any sidebar comments, it is a book Joe Friday would be proud to call his own. While I am a Texan and Bush supporter, I much preferred Jake Tapper's Down & Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency. I guess this means that like most people, when push comes to shove, I'd rather be entertained than informed. I do regret this intellectual weakness and like some of the votes in Florida I may change. But probably not in the next 36 days.

As someone just beginning to read books about finance and investment, I found this book interesting but repetitive. Perhaps it is important to keep drumming in the same messages: (1) the odds of beating the market by timing purchases of individual stocks are very low; (2) the asset allocation of your portfolio has more impact on your ultimate success than which stocks (mutual funds, whatever) you choose. While I did find the arguments compelling, I also heard them the first time and didn't need to see them again on every page. Fortunately, the book is short (certainly price per page quite high), therefore the repetition comes to an end before too long.

This book is based on a famous article written by Mr. Ellis in 1975, "The Loser's Game," that showed why professional money managers are unable to beat the market averages in 90 percent of the cases. In fact, the harder they try, the more likely they are to lose by increasing trading costs and mistiming their trades. The first two editions of this book were aimed at providing solutions to that dilemma for professional money managers. Mr. Ellis provides consulting advice to such professional money managers, and is in a good position to know what he is talking about. This edition is aimed at the needs of the neophyte individual investor. It is especially timely as we near the end of 2 decades of almost continual bull markets for equities.

The beauty of this book is that it is simple and easy to understand. Ellis designed it for anyone who has a genuine interest in getting good investment results, is willing to develop an appreciation for market fundamental, and has the discipline to pick an approach and stick to it.

In various chapters, the book describes why professionals do so poorly, and how the individual can have the same problems if not careful.

The key points of the book are that you need to establish your long-term investment objectives in writing, and with the expert advice of professionals, determine a well-reasoned and realistic set of investment plans that can help you achieve your objectives. You should set your asset mix at the highest ratio of equities you can afford financially and emotionally for the long-term. However you do this, don't try to beat the market. That's a loser's game. He emphasizes not making mistakes, not losing money relative to the market, staying in the market, and realizing that your real problem is beating inflation rather than the market. In general, doing less will be doing more. Avoid speculations, shifting funds continuously, and paying too much attention to near-term performance.

A good companion book for this one is John Bogle's recent one, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, that articulates many of Ellis' points in more detail and more graphically. As a historical note, Bogle writes in his preface to Ellis' book that he was inspired by Ellis' original article to make Vanguard's first indexed mutual fund in 1975.

In thinking about the advice here, I'm not sure that everyone needs professional advice to come out in the right direction. If you decide that you primarily want to pursue indexed mutual funds, there is little need for advice, for example. But if you do opt for advice, be sure you watch out for vested interests in the person giving the advice.

Also, the book doesn't do enough to address the conflicted feelings that people have about money. If you don't address those, you won't carry through on your discipline. I suggest that you read any of the excellent books on that subject and do the exercises in them.

I also suggest you find the calmest, sanest person you know who is good with investments (but is not an investment professional) and ask them to review how you are doing annually. This will help you keep your discipline. A parent, spouse, or good friend could be an appropriate choice for this role. Share this book with them first, so they will know what you are trying to do. Then explains your ideas, and spell them out on paper. Chances are you will outdo what you would otherwise accomplish.

Good luck in outperforming inflation!

Donald Mitchell

Coauthor of The Irresistible Growth Enterprise and The 2,000 Percent Solution

(donmitch@fastforward400.com)

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a book for insitutional investors...or individual investors. This is a book for every type of investor out there, and those who aim to correct their mistakes and start indexing their portfolio, because it's nearly impossible to beat the market, especially on a consistent basis. Ellis is one of Wall Street's great minds and his strong, fundmanetal-based ideas are relayed into this book. This is truly an investment classic for every serious investor.

This is probably the best treatment of Classical Mechanics I've ever read, though, as with anything, it could use some improvement. My only gripe is the usual one with texts like this: There are few if any specific physical instances of formulations that so often serve as a watershed of understanding in physics. For example, in the derivation of the Langrangian, and finally the Hamiltonian, no point for point physical example (say, with a central force like gravity) is offered. It would be nice to see a step by step description of how the Riemann sum over time of the difference in kinetic and potential energies changes as different paths are chosen. I did this and it was beautiful and incredibly enlightening. Once you can _see_ that kind of behavior, you're powerful! It is then easy to generalize to any abstract system. But all else was excellent. If you really want to learn Mechanics, you must start with Goldstein. Recommended preliminaries: Stewart's Calculus; Schaum's Linear Algebra; Halliday, Resnick and Walker's Fundamentals of Physics and Symon's Mechanics.

Even more then 30 years later, this book is still the standard in mechanics for graduate courses. Working through it will give an excellent understanding of mechanics. However, due to its age it falls a little short on some areas such as relativity. It woudl need an overhaul here. Yet, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, so it should not be misunderstood here. What is needed here is an update on more recent developments in relativity and this is the primary reason why I couldn't give it a five star. Also, if one studies Goldstein first, then working on Jackson's Electrodynamics poses relatively little problems since the mathematical level is effectively the same as required in both books. Nevertheless, starting with Goldstein will be easier then with Jackson.

I read the first printing of the third edition.

Cons first.

Some material has been deleted: the discussions of stability, some historical notes along the discussions, correspondence between HJ and Schrodinger Eqn, etc. The nice further references and notes to various other books in the end of each chapter has been omitted, the same thing happen to the extensive bibliography. A lot of typos appear in this new edition. And still no attempts to include advanced mathematical methods from differential geometry, except when discussing SR. Also, no attempt to include some worked examples. The discussions on classical fields has been shortened, a regret if we remember the need to leard classical fields before step into quantum fields.

Pros.

The book became more accessible, in fact some undergrads might be able to cope with this, either after Marion-Thornton or somewhere in the junior-senior year. The discussions on SR use the standard -2 metric instead of the awkward ict. Several discussions on one-forms and GR appeared. More problems. Also there is a new chapter in nonlinear oscillations

Suggestions.

If you want a modern book on classical mechanics check also J.V. Jose and E.J. Saletan, Classical Dynamics: A Contemporary Approach ... it offers roughly the same material PLUS advanced treatment with geometrical methods and differential geometry, and there are extensive discussions on nonlinear dynamics and classical fields. I recommend some instructors to adapt Jose & Saletan for their class, since it is cheaper, more modern, than Goldstein.