I took a course with Dale and found out first hand what it takes to make a truly great cocktail--and found out how bad most cocktails in bars really are. This book not only tells how to create really memorable drinks for yourself and guests, it also delves into the history of the various spirits and how they've been combined by savvy bartenders to create classics old and new. I've read through it several times, lapping up classics like the sidecar and DeGroff signature drinks like the Ritz. If you like cocktails, this is an amazing book. Nobody cares about getting the best results like Dale.

First of all, I am just a pretender, and I have no intention of ever becoming a professional bartender. With that said, this is definitely one of the best books I have picked up, and definitely the best bartender book I have ever seen. It contains vivid pictures of everything that Mr. Degroff is trying to explain and he gives great tips on everything from knowing what glassware and alcohols to have in your bar to unbelievable mix drink recipies. For those who do not drink, it even contains an unbelievable non-alcholic drink (the citrius cream). This book also makes a great coffee table book. Vistors that come by cannot keep their hands off of it! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to bartend for fun or professionally.

This book is one of the top drink mixing resources for the home bartender. Mr. DeGroff's approach to bartending is a culinary one; at his bar, taste is king, with restrained but elegant garniture. The book is loosely organized alphabetically by drink name, but there are subsections that deal with drinks thematically. One of my favorite "featurettes" is his idea for a Bloody Mary Buffet, where guests create their own beverages. Little touches like these make this book ideal for the home bartender wanting to throw an elegant occasion.
The elegant layout somewhat masks the thoroughly researched nature of the work-- a look at the bibliography reveals a goodly number of cocktail books that could represent a good history of beverage-craft in the United States.
An excellent book.

Loved the details of submarine life and also work done by the Seals. You could see and smell the submarine in this book. I would love to hear more about submarines and what the U.S. is doing with it's current fleet of boats.

I don't think I have ever read a book that includes so many different aspects of intrigue and action taking place around the world.

Hope this duo writes another.

I don't usually take the time to write about the books I read for pleasure, but this one got to me in a unique way. I really felt I was there, every step of the way on an adventure that surprised and thrilled me. The authors succeeded in hooking me in from the very first, then keeping my attention for the entire book, quite an accomplishment because I'm a very demanding reader of fiction. Congrats to Messers. Wallace and Keith, and I hope they write more together.

This book combines all the ingredients for the perfect page turner. Suspense, great plot and all the submarine details one could want. Wallace and Keith are a great team! Bring on the next one.

These wonderful stories, written by Fraser when he was an officer in the Gordon Highlanders at the end of the Second World War are priceless. There is much sardonic humor and wit here. The characters come and go throughout the book. Each chapter is a self contained story in itself almost. By far the one character who appears most often is the unhygenic pvt. McAuslan. He seems to do for the Scots what some of the WW2 comic characters like Sad Sack did for the GI's. The author, who speaks through the voice of his nom-de-guerre relates many amusing episodes. Some are a little silly at times, and the constant unwashed antics of "Peking Man" McAuslan gets a bit tiring, but this does not take away from the quality or humor of the work.

I like best when Fraser talks about the regimental history and lore of the Gordons when he's taking a break from McAuslan. There are some truly wonderful characters and events related here, all factual enough and displaying the honors and traditions which existed in old Highland regiments like the Gordons. Fraser is at his best when he talks of these traditions and one can see that he relished his hectic years with this famous Highland regiment.

The downsizing of the British Empire and the changes this would wrought in the army as well as the world are the backdrop against which these stories are told. This is not a book about war, but about a time when national service was apart of nearly everyone's life. Some of Fraser's opinions may not be considered PC for today, but this in my opinion adds to the charm of these stories. The war and its aftermath left lasting impressions on those who took part. The Gordon Highlanders are sadly no more, having been downsized in 1994. In this book you will find many funny and amusing tales which made them the fine regiment they once were. Those who have followed Fraser in his Flashman series will find a different style here, but equally entertaining in its own right. The McAuslan stories form part of a number of works that were written about the post war years in Britain. "Tunes of Glory" is another more serious example by Kenneth Kennaway.

The McAuslan stories have been recently gathered together into a triology which is not available from Amazon.com in the States. The book can be ordered from Amazon.com.co.uk and is well worth the extra pennies to do so.
Here's to the Gordons! Long may their memory live!

George MacDonald Fraser served in the "other ranks" of the British Army in Burma late in WWII. Commissioned as a subaltern (2nd lieutenant) following the Japanese surrender, he served as a platoon leader in a Gordon Highlander battalion posted to the Middle East before being "demobbed", i.e. released from active duty. His experiences serve as the basis for THE GENERAL DANCED AT DAWN, initially published in 1970, a first person account by the fictional Dand MacNeill, subaltern of a platoon in an unspecified Highland battalion posted first to Libya, then to Edinburgh, during the period 1945-1947.

THE GENERAL DANCED AT DAWN is a work of wry humor, inasmuch as Lt. MacNeill describes the unintentionally comic situations encountered with his Jocks (men) during garrison life both in Scotland and abroad, mostly the latter. The book is actually a series of short stories, in which a common thread tying all together, besides Dand himself, is Pvt. McAuslan, the dirtiest, most slovenly soldier in His Majesty's service. As described by MacNeill:

" ... he lurched into my office (even in his best tunic and tartan he looked like a fugitive from Culloden who had been hiding in a peat bog) ..."

McAuslan may be the focus of a particular chapter, as when he is court-martialed for refusing an order to enter a pillow fight contest to be held during a gathering of the various Highland regiments. Or, he may make nothing more than a brief cameo appearance, as when he is upbraided by MacNeill for fighting one of the crewman aboard the coastal steamer ferrying the battalion's soccer team on a road-trip against the teams of neighboring British commands - a fight brought on by the sailor's comments regarding McAuslan's unsanitary appearance.

The squalid presence of McAuslan notwithstanding, the central character of the book is Dand MacNeill, whether he's coping with the unfathomable questions of the officer selection board, pressed into command of an overnight troop train from Cairo to Jerusalem through unruly Palestine, mounting the ceremonial guard at Edinburgh Castle, or taking lessons in regimental piping history from the god-like Regimental Sergeant Major. Dand's narrative of military service is of such good humor and wit that it's evident his alter ego, Fraser, remembers his own time in uniform as an enriching life experience, despite the hardships of WWII combat. This positive slant on the book's theme, and Fraser's/MacNeill's fine sense of the ludicrous, make the volume one that I couldn't put down. (I've encountered so-called "thrillers" that were less absorbing.)

Note: THE GENERAL DANCED AT DAWN is currently out of print in the US. However, it and Fraser's two sequels in the McAuslan series, MCAUSLAN IN THE ROUGH and THE SHEIKH AND THE DUSTBIN, are all contained in THE COMPLETE MCAUSLAN, available from Amazon.co.uk. This is a superb volume, worth to an Anglophile every pence spent in postage to deliver it across The Pond to The Colonies.

It is time that you hear "the sub-muckin', the whole cheese, the hail clanjamfry, the lot' about the Scottish Highland Regiment that served in Africa after World War II.

George MacDonald Fraser has written the stories of this regiment and its most infamous soldier, Private McAuslan, in three collections: "The General Danced at Dawn", "McAuslan in the Rough", and "The Sheikh and the Dustbin".

Through the narration by platoon commander Dand McNeil, McAuslan comes alive as the dirtiest soldier in the world, "wan o' nature's blunders; he cannae help bein' horrible. It's a gift."

Yet McAuslan is one of the most loveable creatures in all of literature. He may be grungy, filthy, clumsy, and disreputable, but he tries to do his best. Through his many misadventures, McAuslan marches into the heart of the reader, right leg and right arm swinging in unison, of course.

McAuslan, outcast that he is, experiences some infamous moments in his career: court martial defendant, ghost-catcher, star-crossed lover, golf caddie, expert map reader, and champion of the regimental quiz game (!). His tales, and the tales of his comrades-in-arms, are poignant at times, hilarious at others. These tales are so memorable because they are based on true stories.

The reader basks in all things Scottish in the stories. The language of the soldiers is written in Scottish brogue, although Fraser says in his introduction, "Incidentally, most of this volume is, I hope, written in English." Don't fret - a glossary is provided. (Reading the glossary alone causes some serious belly laughs.

If you read only one book this year, read this one. And if you know any veterans, give them a copy. It's a volume that the reader will not soon forget.

Cambridge obviously chose the right man for the job (and they've done so more often than not in their wonderful new series of philosophy biographies). Pinkard's biography is a masterpiece. Almost every corner of Hegel's life is dealt with in an interesting way, but I would single out two aspects of this book as being the finest: 1. His strictly philosophical discussion of the period between Kant and Hegel is wonderful. Numerous book-length studies of this period are available, but Pinkard covers the same ground more concisely and far more lucidly. 2. Some reviewers compliment Pinkard's treatment of the early Hegel, which is certainly quite fine. However, there has already been scholarly discussion of the Tuebingen period; ironically, it is always the concluding _Berlin_ period that has received too little attention in biographical sketches of this philosopher. Sure, by then he was world famous and collecting honors and prizes, but I had never received any taste of his Berlin life at all from any biographical summary: nothing but lists of his lecture courses and throwaway accounts of his death. Pinkard takes care of this problem, bringing the late Hegel to life. My only regret is that we can't hire Pinkard to write biographies on another 15 or 20 major figures.

Hey, Cambridge-- when are you going to do Leibniz?

It would be difficult to justify a biography of a philosophy as being essential: if you want to understand a philosopher you should read their works instead. But Pinkard manages to wage an astonishingly battle on two fronts: first, elaborating on his philosophical development with a view towards prominent influences and second, foisting off common misconceptions about Hegel.

So, for part one. Hegel is difficult. It was, as I learned, his distinguishing mark in early years: "more obscure than Fichte!" was something like a slogan. Pinkard does a marvellous job of showing the diversity and complexity of Hegel's experience (the chapters on his university friendship with Schelling and Hoderlin are especially absorbing) and pulling out some of the more unexpected sources of his thought. (Adam Smith and Gibbon and the New Testament, for example.) Ever since Dilthey more attention has been payed to Hegel's early work and for good reason. Moving from this account Pinkard gives excellent insights into the genesis and exposition of Hegel's notoriously difficult "system." Having been absoloutely dumbfounded by Hegel in the past I think this book is the best possible introduction to what Hegel is up to in his Philosophical work. Pinkard in addition to being keen has some serious philosophical chops so he brings out some aspects of Hegel that get overlooked.

As for the second front Pinkard does a great job of countering some of the more cartoonish and absurd pictures of Hegel: the pioneer of German nationalism, the doddering obscurantist, the proto-fascist conservative. Pinkard does a good job showing how the most common images of hegel are thorough characters whose longevity has more to do with the fact that few people actually read or know much about Hegel. I particularly liked the way Hegel's complex political commitments were mapped out and how the more intimate aspects of Hegel the person (his addiction to whist, his love of coffee) were brought out.

I am given to understand that Hegel scholarship is experiencing something of a revival these days, and by my account Pinkard's biography should be at the forefront of any movement. He deserves a great deal of credit for producing a skillfull, well-written and insightful work on an extremely difficult thinker.

Hegel's philosophical perspective digs deeply into the rhythms of the real, expressing an omnivorous quality that is remarkable for both its sheer beauty and its conceptual power. Whether or not he solved the knotty issues bequeathed to him by Kant concerning the structure and limits of consciousness (I go back and forth on this issue), he certainly probed into the ways in which self-consciousness shapes itself as entwined with history and the self-alienated realms of nature. For me, he is the model of what philosophical query should be. Such ramified query must be couragous, unrelenting, bound by what gives itself over to self-consciousness to live-through, and sensitive to the generic powers of language. In Terry Pinkard's biography we find such a Hegel. He is presented within the context of an unrelenting series of negations that push against his inner philosophical drive. We learn a great deal about how he sharpened his political awareness, both in terms of the French Revolution and its aftermath, and in terms of the always shifting realm of academic politics (as embedded in German State politics). What I especially appreciate is Pinkard's presentation of how Hegel came to know of his Stuttgart provincialism and how he overcame much of it--in particular, his Lutheran distaste for Catholicism. Pinkard pushes us past the normal left-wing vs. right-wing readings of the late Hegel by showing that both aspects were fully operative, perhaps for different reasons, and that his views on Christianity were not career enhancing expressions of Prussian sanctioned Lutheran conservativism. For example, Hegel rejected any hint of biblical literalism, an immortal personal soul, a literal reading of creation, and the notion of a personal god "begetting a son"(p. 589). It is clear from Pinkard's reading that Hegel had a strong, if feared and abjected by him, impulse toward creating a world religion (much like his despised colleague Schleiermacher). In short, Hegel's pro-Napoleonic and emancipatory tendencies remained strong until the end. A psychoanalyst would ask: what drove Hegel toward his pan-logicism? My sense is that he deeply feared madness (consider the dementias of Holderlin and Hegel's sister) and that he sensed the possibility of disintegration within himself (as argued by Alan Olson in his "Hegel and the Spirit," Princeton 1992). His materialized and thickened Wissenschaft of logic provided him with a bulwark against the unconscious (as it was presented by his friend/enemy Schelling in 1808 with his concept of das Regellose--the unruly ground). He likewise rejected Egyptian art because it merely evoked the "measureless," unlike the art of the classical Greeks that found measure (and hence, safety). Yet his desire to devour the world, perhaps motivated by his flight from the unruly unconscious, was the root source for his unsurpassed series of philosophical productions. Pinkard has a muted sense of this divide in Hegel and shows it operating, I think, in Hegel's ambivalence about the Romantic flights of some of his friends. Pinkard has done something quite impressive with this work and many of us now have a much more compelling picture of the fragmented wholeness of Hegel. We see a man on the margins who produced great works which were initially surrounded by silence. We see a justly ambitiuous thinker who had to push against the wall of mediocrity around him to gain contact with the powers who could free him from lowly high school teaching and newspaper work so that he could enter the world of the university. And we see a man who, unlike Kant, reveled in the delights of physical embodiment and the material conditions of the world. Above all, Hegel's work shines through as his profound whole-making answer to his and the world's fragmentary features. Unlike most, his flight from the unruly ground bore positive fruits, even if he left much of the unconscious of nature and the self to be explored by others.

When traslating Patristic Greek, I always consult this dictionary first and nearly always find what I need there. The Complete Handbook of Greek Verbs is also indispensable. For words not found in the Intermediate Lexicon, I consult two larger ones, the "Great Scott" for obscure vocabulary, especially verbs with prefixes, and the Lampe Lexicon for theological and ecclesiastical terms. I am currently engaged in a big project, checking and editing two volumes of translations for the Society of Biblical Literature. I have worn out my copy of the Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon and plan to order another one.

This is the best of the three Liddell & Scott dictionaries for legibility. My copies of the full and abridged editions actually have pieces of print missing!

Some kind of Liddell-Scott Lexicon simply mandatory for any student of Greek. This middle edition is the most commonly used because the exhaustive edition is too large to carry. If you can still find the "little Liddell", though, I suggest you get that, as well. Even this edition is a little bulky to carry around. This lexicon tends to focus on the attic form of Greek mostly, but also indicates Koine, Ionic and Homeric usage. It even tells you how individual sources (such as Xenophon, Herodotus, Plato, etc) use certain words. This is indepsensible, since different authors use the same words to mean different things quite often. I cannot tell you how many times (when I was translating the Cyropaidea for a class) I looked up a word, only to find that Xenophon employed a special meaning to it. It was a lifesaver. Other lexicons/dictionaries would not have been sufficient.

This is a fine book, but not quite in the 5-star league. Let me elaborate. The book is divided into three parts: general topology, the theory of Banach and Hilbert spaces, and Banach algebras. The first two parts lead, by way of synthesis, to the last part, where some interesting but elementary results are proved about Banach algebras in general and C*-algebras in particular. I might mention, for example, the Spectral theorem for compact self-adjoint operators, the Stone representation theorem, and the Gelfand-Naimark theorem.

I can attest from personal experience that the book is well-written; indeed I worked through it chapter by chapter. But today there do exist a plethora of other treatments that can at least rival this text in lucidity, organisation and coverage. For example, for general topology, there is an excellent text by Willard titled 'General Topology',as well as Hocking and Young's old 'Topology'. Both of these go much further in the realm of point-set topology than Simmons. Similarly there are any number of well-written texts on functional analysis that cover the subject of Banach spaces, Hilbert spaces and self-adjoint operators very clearly. Indeed in some respects I feel the Simmons book was inadequate by itself and needed to be supplemented by a text on linear algebra; self-adjoint operators -- and by implication, the Spectral theorem -- need to be seen and manipulated in the finite-dimensional version before one examines their infinite-dimensional generalisation. The Simmons book is a bit weak here; one needs to be playing with matrices.

These are, however, minor quibbles. The book can be recommended to a junior- or senior-level undergraduate.

In the author's words in the preface, the dominant theme of this book is continuity and linearity, and its goal is to illuminate the meanings of these words and their relations to each other. The book, he says, belongs to the type of pure mathematics that is concerned with form and structure, and such a body of mathematics must be judged by its high aesthetic quality, and should exalt the mind of the reader.

The author's attitude can only be characterized as magnificent, and, if one is to judge his utterances in the preface by what is found after it, one will indeed find perfect evidence of his delight in mathematics and his high competence in elucidating very abstract concepts in topology and real analysis. Indeed, this has to be the best book ever written for mathematics at this level. It is a book that should be read by everyone that desires deep insights into modern real and functional analysis.

After a brief and informal overview of set theory, the author moves on to the theory of metric spaces in chapter 2. His emphasis is on the idea that metric spaces are easy to find, since every non-empty set has the discrete metric, and that metric spaces are good motivation for the more general idea of a topological space. The Cantor set, ubiquitous in measure theory, dynamical systems, and fractal geometry, is constructed as the most general closed set on the real line, i.e. one obtained by removing from the real line a countable disjoint class of open intervals. Continuity of mappings between metric spaces is defined, and also the concept of uniform continuity, the latter of which is motivated very nicely by the author. Then, the author takes the reader to a higher level of abstraction, wherein he asks the reader to consider all of the continuous functions on a metric space, and turn this collection into a metric space of a special type called a normed linear space, and, more specifically, a Banach space. Thus the author introduces the reader to the field of functional analysis.

A lengthy introduction to topological spaces follows in chapter 3. The author motivates well the idea of an open set, and shows that one could just as easily use closed sets as the fundamental concept in topology. And, most important for functional analysis, he introduces the weak topology, and shows how to obtain the weakest topology for a collection of mappings from a topological space to a collection of other topological spaces. The reader can see clearly that the weaker the topology on a space the harder it is for mappings to be continuous on the space.

Compactness, so essential in all areas of mathematics that make use of topology, is discussed in chapter 4. It is motivated by an abstraction of the Heine-Borel theorem from elementary real analysis, and the author shows how well-behaved things are on compact topological spaces. Some important theorems are proved in this chapter, namely Tychonoff's theorem, the Lebesgue covering lemma, and Ascoli's theorem.

Recognizing that the only functions able to be continuous on a space with the indiscrete topology are the constants, and that a space with the discrete topology has continuous functions in abundance, the author asks the reader to consider topologies that fall between these extremes, and this motivates the separation properties of topological spaces. Chapter 5 is an in-depth discussion of separation, and the reader again confronts function spaces, and their ability (or non-ability) to separate the points of a topological space. Spaces that allow such separation to occur are called completely regular, and this property has far-reaching consequences in analysis and other areas of mathematics. The Stone-Cech compactification is discussed as an imbedding theorem for completely regular spaces, analogous to one for normal spaces.

The intuitive idea of a space being connected is given rigorous treatment in chapter 6. Certain pathologies can of course arise when discussing connectedness, and the author shows this by discussing totally disconnected spaces, remarking that such spaces are very important in dimension theory and representation theory. Indeed, computational and fractal geometry is much harder to study because of the existence of these spaces.

Chapter 7 is important to all working in numerical analysis, wherein the author discusses approximation theory. The Weierstrass approximation and the Stone-Weierstrass theorems are discussed in detail.

A slight detour through algebra is given in chapter 8. Groups, rings, and fields are given a minimal treatment by the author, discussing only the basic rudiments that are needed to get through the rest of the book.

Banach spaces make their appearance in chapter 9, with the three pillars of the theory proven: the Hahn-Banach, the open mapping, and the uniform boundedness theorems. These theorems guarantee that the study of Banach spaces is worth doing, and that there are analogs of the finite dimensional theory in the (infinite)-dimensional context of Banach spaces. The theory of Banach spaces is very extensive, but this chapter gives a peek at this very interesting area of mathematics.

Banach spaces with an inner product are considered in chapter 10. These of course are the familiar Hilbert spaces, so important in physics and the subject of a huge amount of research in mathematics. The presence of the inner product allows constructions familiar from ordinary finite-dimensional vector spaces to carry over to the inifinite-dimensional setting, one example being the transpose of a matrix, which is replaced in the Hilbert space setting by a self-adjoint operator.

As a warm-up to the infinite-dimensional theory, finite-dimensional spectral theory is considered in chapter 11. The famous spectral theorem is proven. Then in chapter 12, the reader enters the world of "soft" analysis, wherein topological and algebraic constructions are used to study linear operators on spaces of infinite dimensions. Putting an algebraic structure on a Banach space gives a Banach algebra, and then the trick is deal with the spectrum of an element of this algebra. The reader can see the interplay between algebra, topology, and analysis in this chapter and the next one on commutative Banach algebras. Indeed, the Gelfand-Naimark theorem, that essentially states that elements of a commutative Banach *-algebra act like the functions on its maximal ideal space, has to rank as one of the most interesting results in the book, and indeed in all of mathematics.

This book was recommended for our analysis course (final year at Adelaide University). It helped me pass the course but more importantly, gave me an interest in metric spaces and topology. The book is an excellent communicator and nearly 20 years after I have read it I am looking out for a secondhand copy!

Very interesting. This woman has led a very difficult life, but she never seems to lose her spirit.

I read Coal Miner's Daughter sometime in the 80's when I was a teenager and I liked it and thought it was a wonderful book and I also like the movie based on this book and the movie's soundtrack and of course I like our Loretta Lynn CD too. I highly recommend Coal Miner's daughter be read by any Loretta Lynn fan and even if you are not a Loretta Lynn fan or a country music fan you may still like this book. I didn't really even know who she was until I read the book and saw the movie and I didn't listen to country music but only listened to Rock music, but now I like Loretta Lynn and Country is one of my favorite types of music. (I still like Rock Music too!)

This is a very touching book, you can't put down once you begin to read it. The life-long story of Lorreta Lynn is powerful and
breath-taking. The words in this book are not fancy, but candid, convincible and colorful, it is the true life of Lorreta Lynn that wins the heart of millions people.

How poor is being poor? What is the struggle to escape from being
poor? How Lorreta Lynn became a country music diva from a coal miner's daughter? From this book, we share the life of Lorreta Lynn with our own, we see the souls and dreams as well as day to day lives of many ordinary people, especially the humanbeing under poverty.

Lorreta Lynn was born into a very poor coal miner's family in a remote Kentucky hillside. Her father had little money to feed Lorreta and her family, one Christmas, her Daddy had only thirty-six cents (!) for Lorreta and her three brothers. The work was very hard for her Daddy, he had to crawl on his hands and knees to work inside the ream of coal, of only three feet high. Until seven years old, Lorreta always wore flour sack her mummy sewed as dress. However, with her unyielding spirit and unceasingly struggling, Lorreta went on and up, became the queen of country music and a millionaire.

I didn't know the name of Lorreta Lynn until I watched the movie"coal miner's daughter", this movie led me to this book. The movie is fantastic, but this book let you know more and think more.

Either you like county music or not, either you are poor or rich,
this book is absolutely good, inspiring, touching and unforgetable.

This book is truly a masterpiece and will delight all readers, from the inveterate George Harrison fans to people just becoming familiar with his works. Leng has a real flair for written expression and research. His extensive knowledge of Eastern music and how Harrison incorporated Eastern styles into his music enrich this work. Leng offers extensive coverage to people who influenced the late guitarist such as Klaus Voorman, an artist who had known George since the inception of the Beatles and who later drew the 1966 album cover for "Revolver," pianist John Barhman and Ravi Shankar, the man who taught George to play the sitar.

Leng plainly respects the intelligence of his readers and his writing is clear, clean and crisp. There is no extraneous matter. Leng has a gift for piquing the interest and curiosity of readers. In reading this, one wants to know more about John Barham and the other people who influenced George Harrison. Leng's work is expansive; he excites interest and curiosity in an almost "ripple" effect form; each person named in his book "interlocks" in the way they influenced George Harrison. It is this approach that maintains readers' interest. Leng has researched his information well and his respect for George and the many people who influenced him and his art comes through plainly in this work. I like the way Leng accepts and acknowledges George, warts and all and the musical analysis he provides in this work.

The writing's on the wall - try some, buy some and please try and buy this book! This is a superior work!

Simon Leng's book not only provides wonderful insight to George Harrison's music, but manages to do so in a thoughtful, informed and unbiased manner. Leng's knowledge of Indian music and its application in Harrison's work is particularly welcome in light of the many critics, Iam MacDonald in particular, who overlooked Harrison's talents in their haste to credit the Beatles' success to the genius of John Lennon. In addition, Leng refutes much of the criticism heaped on Harrison's work in light of commentary given by musicians who toured with Harrison and documentary footage of live performances. Even so, Leng never excuses all of Harrison's shortcomings nor forgets to acknowledge his indebtedness to other artists.
This is a very enjoyable book, and one could only wish Leng had been able to include material on Brainwashed and the Concert for George given in his honor at Albert Hall. The inclusion of drawings by George's longtime friend and fellow musician Klaus Voorman are a wonderful addition. Read this work near your stereo, and have ready George's "I, Me, Mine" for additional reference.

I agree with the praise given this book by other Amazon reviewers, but would like to add a few points. First, Simon Leng discusses Harrison's musical relationship with pianist, composer & arranger John Barham, ranging from George's first interest in the sitar through their work on Ravi Shankar's "Chants of India" album. I would like to read more about Barham. Secondly, the book gains quite a bit from Klaus Voorman's involvement. Voorman is the artist and bass player who met the Beatles in Hamburg, produced the covers for "Revolver" and the Anthology CDs and played on Harrison's early solo albums. Voorman also contributed two nice sketches of George for this book. There are extensive quotes from others, including Doris Troy and David Bromberg (the latter of whom, although very insightful, may be quoted a bit too much considering his brief acquaintance with Harrison). This book may be the best available work on George Harrison.

When 13 year-old Julie Edwards Miyax Kapugen runs away from an arranged marriage, she gets lost in the vast and lonely Alaskan tundra. This begins the extraordinary journey of Miyax and the wolves she befriends. While struggling to survive in the harsh Arctic winter Miyax experiences something few humans ever will. She lives as one of the pack, eating from the wolves kills and communicating with them in their language of barks, yips and tail wags. Soon she grows to loves them as she would her family. But when she learns that her father, the great hunter Kapugen, lives on, she decides to go back to him. Struggling to adjust to this new way of life, she learns that the Eskimo way of life is dying, even in her father. Then hunters endanger her wolves, and Miyax must choose between her pack and her father. This engaging trilogy includes Newbery Medal winning Julie of the Wolves, and its sequels, Julie and Julie's Wolf Pack. They are written by celebrated wildlife biologist and author, Jean Craighead George. Miyax's epic quest to find where humans belong reminds us of our beginnings, and of the creatures with whom we share this world.

I bought this pack of books, and I think these are some of the greatest books I've ever read. I've read too many... and none are the best, but these are some of my favorites! Julie Edwards/Miyax Kapugen is stuck on the tundra. She learns by watching a pack of wolves the language of them. She becomes a member of the pack, led by Amoroq. They give her food and she travels with them. She becomes friends with Amoroq's pup, Kapu, and when he is the new Alpha, Julie helps the pack stay strong throughout all three books (Julie of the Wolves, Julie, and Julie's Wolf Pack). I highly recommend this to anyone that respects animals and nature. We should all appreciate them!

I love animals.. and am interested in wolves most. I am eleven years old and these books are so interesting! I learned all about a wolf's life and their own language. I strongly recommend all three of them!

This tome purports to explain why GWB is a talented leader of the American people and the world.

In fact, it demonstrates conclusively that the American people suffered a collective fit of halluciantion when they voted this incompetent man into office.

The book has some nice information about Crawford, Texas and the Bush's dogs -- but it does not tell us anything about the psychology of the Boy Emperor. Perhaps this is becuase the BE has no particular psychological nuance to display? Perhaps.

Leadership, as Fred Nietzsche once opined, is about breaking the rules when others think that rule breaking would be a mistake.

Bush's "leadership," as noted by the author, consists of learning the rules and efficiently applying them with charm and gingerly worded disinformation. Then again, maybe the book isn't half bad. I learned how to be manipualtive and nice at the same time.

There are so many wonderful leaders out there and many books about what they do. Oh yes, this book is about what Goerge W. does but most important for me, it tells step by step how I can be disciplined like he is and develop my personal core values and hold people accountable, etc.

If you want to enhance your ability to lead - read this book. Mine is covered with notes and I bought one for each of my staff!

I am an avid reader of biographies and this book provided a biographical sketch of President Bush's lifestyle and then used that foundation to show how his management skills transformed his life. I grabbed a pencil and highlighter half-way into the first chapter and began writing in the margins. I liked this book because I could open to any page and find a nugget of information with a down to earth example. Some of the examples were just real funny and actually made me laugh out loud.

Then after reading the first few chapters, I realized that this book was not about President Bush's politics (although there was some strategies revealed) or about his faith (although his personal convictions are the heart of his core values) or even about his IQ level (his emotional intelligence is recognized as highly intuitive). This was a book was about how an average person can become the leader they want to be.

I finished the book quickly from a purely biographical point of view and now am going back over each chapter to concentrate on the leadership competencies and how I can learn from the examples. The authors know what they are talking about but they also made it real easy for the reader to put into practice the lessons that need to be learned.

After reading this book, I also came to appreciate and admire President Bush and how his personal discipline is one of the timeless principles of his leadership. I am glad that I read this book at this time in history.