I had been sober and in recovery for two years ,when i hit a very rough spot in my life . A friend and fellow recoverer gave me this small but huge book of knowledge.It brought me such great comfort and peace that i would dearly love to share it with so many others .

This little booklet finally found me in 1990. A friend shoved it into my hand and said, "Read this. Then we'll talk." The short version of the story is that I have been sober ever since, and the little book has helped me through every crisis since then. I can't tell you how many copies of this book I have personally "worn out," bought and given to others, or just recommended to others in all walks of life, with all sorts of problems. This little book really has answers.

I have this book on tape. The voice takes a little getting use to but after that it is a great little tape. The author is simple and easy to understand. It tells how to deal with life good and bad and how to be closer with God. The tape helps us to remember that life only has to be lived one day at a time and tells us how to get the most of each day.

"Banvard's Folly" is a wonderful book, thanks to the talents of author Paul Collins. As you have probably gathered by now from other write-ups, this book tells the story of 13 people, once prominent, and now largely forgotten. They each earned inclusion in this book because of a grand failure of some sort. In other hands, this material could have been a tool for ridicule; but Collins strikes just the right tone here. While not forgiving his subjects' excesses or blind spots, he manages to tell their stories with a real sense of empathy. It's obvious that a lot of research went into this volume, but Collins never overpowers the reader with it; each chapter just seems to glide along. If history's lesser lights are of interest to you, you should enjoy this.

BanvardÕs Folly is a lovingly-researched tribute to the forgotten, the mistaken, and the discredited. The book profiles 13 historical figures, many of whom were among the most well-known figures of their day. Each, however, pursued his or her genius to a historical dead end, and their reputations and achievements have long since vanished into obscurity. Although each of these profiles is ultimately a study in failure, these ill-fated individuals demonstrate a brilliance, eccentricity, or audacity that is often breathtaking. CollinsÕ subjects may be failures, but they are spectacular failures, visionaries and dreamers who failed with an astounding degree of ambition, style, and verve. Exceptional.

This is a great book. A current trend in popular history is to write histories of great people who achieved success but who are not household names (consider the book "Longitude"); Paul Collins turns this idea on its head by writing the stories of 13 people whose ideas, frankly, did not have a lot of merit, but who were famous in their day.

The title story, Banvard's Folly, tells the tale of the artist John Banvard -- world famous in the 1850s, but utterly forgotten today, whose great moving panorama of the Mississippi River made him rich, but who ultimately was destroyed competing with P.T. Barnum.

Other stories include "The Man With N-Ray Eyes", which relates how a French scientist believes erroneously that he has found a new source of radiation; "A.J. Pleasonton's Blue Light Special", which discusses the 1870s fad concerning the healing properties of light reflected through blue glass, and numerous others, including the story of a Shakepeare forger, a woman's quest to prove Shakespeare's works were written by Francis Bacon and others, and the development of the pneumatic train.

The book is a little sad, because each of the characters really believes in their ideas, even though they are rejected by society. But instead of a happy ending, these stories all end badly for the protagonists -- they end up mocked and forgotten.

The book is remarkable for its scholarship -- researching the forgotten intellectual and cultural history of a previous century is no easy task; but Mr. Collins brings the reader back into the culture of the times easily. The stories are entertaining and very amusing.

The author to that book is Collins, Vincent Paul; not Vincent Paul, Collins. This man was a priest in my town and I knew him personally. The book is still being asked for by many people around here and is still being touted as very insightful and helpful for people who have low self-esteem.

This wonderful self-help guide I stumbled upon years ago and have read numerous times. My copy is highlighted, with pages falling out, but never the less... one of my all time favorites. It's easy to read style, with short sections of only a page or two are wonderful for when you are feeling a little down, troubled, frustrated or angry. It is at those times when reading something uplifting is most beneficial, but your concentration for "heavy" reading is almost non-existant. That is when this book is so ideal.

The book is divided into three parts, Part 1, "Me Vs. Myself", deals with how to live with yourself... how to be happy, how to not let things bug you, etc. It is wonderful... and has helped me out of many bad mind-sets. The book states that there are only three major obstacles to happy living... injurious feelings, overreaction to others and your confusion as to your place in the scheme of things. This section then goes on to explain in simple terms, how to overcome those obstacles.

Part 2, "Me Vs. You", is basically about not letting the actions of others bother you. Here we are reminded that it is not the person who has to put up with unreasonable behavior who has the problem, it's the person who is behaving unreasonably who actually has the problem.

Part 3, "Me, Myself and God", is about our relationship with God or a higher power, and reminds us that help is available instantly, at all hours of the day and night through him.

This book embodies the "Live and Let Live" philosophy of life. The author, Vincent P. Collins, has done a wonderful job of cutting right to the heart of injurious emotional issues and presents them in a way that even the most depressed individual cannot help but relate to and embrace. In today's stressful society, almost everyone suffers from some form of depression, frustration, anger, guilt or worry. With that in mind...this book should be required reading!

This book provides the best outline I have ever read, short of the Sermon on the Mount and the book Aloholics Anonymous, to put life in perspective, first to Self, then to Others, and finally with God. I read this book at least once a year and have attended group sessions wherein we go through the book, topic by topic, sharing our experience, hope and strength, one by one. I think that this book should be published by someone. (bluejean2@juno.com or jeanballow@yahoo.com)

I have been looking for a guide like this for years. This book shows great pictures of all the bigger moths of North America including their caterpillars. Loaded with maps and drawings of the cocoons this book is a must have. Don't let the price scare you away.

Very impressive coverage on the Wilk Silk Moths of Noth America. Most known species are shown in exellent photographs,some in the larval stages also. Good range maps and detailed text make this the laymans best friend when exploring and learning about the habitats and life histories of some of our most magnificent moth species. The best book I've seen on the subject period!

For each moth there is a color picture of last instar caterpillar and one or more pictures of the moth. There is also a range map and detailed descriptions of each stage of the life cycle with notes on rearing.
This is a well-written, well-researched, easy to read book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in these largest and showiest of the U.S. moths.

"Move over Ebola -- the cesspool of life has a new Supervirus" --
Glyn Parry

"Far-future adventure and excitment, science fiction as it ought to be" -- Sean McMullen

" ... worthy of sitting on the same shelf with early Heinlein and Norton" -- Don D'Ammassa, SF Chronicle 2003

Three hundred years ago, the Colony starship was launched to colonize the world of Tau Celi but when they arrived, there was no habitable world to colonize. Some of the passengers felt they should continue but those who wanted to return home took command of the ship. They land on what used to be Melbourne and plan to commit genocide on the genetically inferior humans that survived.

Welkin Quinn is one of the first groups of Skyborn sent out to reconnoiter the area and he falls in with a clan of Earthborn who want to unite the people into a cohesive group so they can do more than survive. Welkin learns that the Skyborn have fed him misinformation and throws in his lot with Sarah and her group. Enemies surround them from the Skyborn to the barely human ferals to the roaming gangs of jabbers who work with the Skyborn to destroy the Earthborn.

This is Paul Collin's first book published in the United States and it is easy to see why this Australian author is a hit back home. The story line is fast paced but does not skimp on character development. The hero learns that his ship's elders had an agenda to stay in power when they got to earth. He inserts himself into a group of Earthborn survivors that have a chance of uniting the various disease free factions on Earth if they can figure out a way of appropiating technology only available on the Colony. This is the first installment in what looks to be a great new series

Harriet Klausner

Once again another worthless book. This is what one can expect when they buy a book unseen. I didn't find much of anything very useful.

This book I believe is primarily aimed for those new to sys admin. Even experienced professionals would benifit though because of quite a many tidbits of valuable insight. This mainly though walks you through the many wizards providing usually more explanation that that is given by default with the OS. A new admin under my wing, has been using it and he finds that it provides confidence as he works his way through many of the tasks. Well written book with lots of pictures.

Collins spoke at the CCCC conference this spring and I picked up a comp copy of his textbook. Apparently he's left teaching to write books full time, and if this textbook is any indication, the reading public's gain might be our loss. This is a first year college composition textbook, very progressive and in the vein of Dewey and Freire, with a heavy dose of logical reasoning, critical readings of sources, and media critique (a la Chomsky) thrown in for good measure. It's an activist approach to learning. He even has an appendix on how to use the Freedom of Information Act!

Collins builds this around a series of snowballing exercises -- recursive is the word, I guess -- that very nicely guide students from thinking about an issue that individually concerns them to becoming knowledgeable on that issue, and in the process picking up all the basics of research, writing, and revision skills. He has a final chapter on how to apply this knowledge to joining social service and activist groups, or things like service learning, though I do wish there was little more of "how do you enact the solutions you're arguing for?" The book's subject matter really does beg that question, and the book stops just short of answering it. But maybe that's too much to ask from a composition textbook.

It's frustrating how bland most comp textbooks are, how little they treat students as active community members with real concerns and uses for research. This book is a great corrective for that. (One caveat: its layout could use some work -- it's hard on the eyes at times.) If you're a progressive / cutting edge sort of comp instructor, you'll really like this. If you're looking for a more standard textbook, though, you might find it too provocative and political.

"Paul Collins has successfully created an apocalyptic action-packed nightmare, escalating some of our worst present day fears into the not so distant future." Nita Kambouris, Australian Book Review.

"Cyberskin is strangely compelling and enjoyable contemporary science fiction, built around an off-kilter view of a world we may already inhabit." Michael Shuttleworth, The Sunday Age.

"... Paul Collins deserves the title of 'Father of Contemporary Australian Genre Fiction ... Cyberskin has a wicked satirical setting ... it's a blazingly-paced techno-noir adventure." Robert Jan, Zero G, 3RRR.

"Cyberskin is a highly creative - albeit at times disturbing - adventure that draws in the reader." Corinne Hotchkin, The Gazette.

"Action-packed, hard-edged and exciting, this is Travis McGee in cyberspace all the way." Terry Dowling, The Australian.

"It's got it all. Good plot, interesting characters and a morbidly fascinating setting. I'd certainly recommend it." George Ivanoff, Frontier.

"Overall, CYBERSKIN is a great read. It's all those things other reviewers have said about it ... Slick... inventive... hard-edged... disturbing... morbidly fascinating... a blazingly-paced techno-noir adventure." Peter McNamara on radio

Forthcoming reviews:

"Cyberskin is way cool: this is cyber-streetsmart fiction that zooms along at the speed of light. This is tough, incisive thriller fiction." Van Ikin, Sydney Morning Herald.

"Paul Collins' Cyberskin makes Bladerunner seem positively emaciated. Hard driving cyberpunk novel with a filmnoir backdrop". Colin Steele, The Canberra Times.

Past reviews

"Australia is not the science fiction capital of the world; in fact we are probably not even on the map. This unfortunate fact would change if we could produce more writers like Paul Collins". Michael Hanrahan, Australian Book Review.

"Edgy, strange, disconcerting, alarming, as speculative fiction is supposed to be. Collins writes the definitive well-crafted, dangerous story". Kerry Greenwood, The Age.

"Collins has a penchant for the hard-boiled hero, a lineage derived from Hammett and Chandler". Colin Steele, The Canberra Times.

I love the WONDERFUL book "Tennis Confidential" by Paul Fein: great! I like especially the Memorable Interviews with Pete Sampras, John McEnroe and the immortal Champion Arthur Ashe. A schemer course among personage, men and myths of the Tennis Planet. An excursus sober, moderate and always elegant, by a very professional writer and... confidant. The best tennis book I have read. Thanks for living, Paul! --- A tennis webmaster.

Paul Fein's new book, Tennis Confidential, is a wonderful book filled with interesting facts, great interviews and profiles, accounts of his choices for the 10 greatest matches, and intriguing discussions of tennis's current and past controversies. I bought the book on a Friday evening and spent most of the next two days reading it. I found it completely engrossing.

The book is divided into 6 major sections: Portraits of the Stars, Memorable Interviews, Topical Trends and Burning Issues, The Great Controversies, 20th Century Retrospectives, and The 10 Greatest Matches in Tennis History. This collection of articles, many of which won journalism awards, runs the gamut of the current players such as Venus and Serena Williams, Andre Agassi, and Pete Sampras, to the stars of the late 1970s and 80s such as Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, and Jimmy Conners to several of the games legends such as Rod Laver, Arthur Ashe and Bobby Riggs. Yes, there are some players missing, mostly due to space limitations, I suspect. I would have enjoyed profiles and/or interviews with Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, Martina Hingis, and Monica Seles on the women's side. On the men's side, Ken Rosewall, Stefan Edberg, Bill Tilden, and Don Budge. However, he writes about several of these players in the section on the 10 greatest matches, so perhaps I'm just greedy.

Regarding the controversies and burning issues, he writes about the problems with the advancing technology in racket manufacturing, and the effect these advances have had in the power game, especially in the men's game. He also discusses such critical issues as the role parents (especially fathers) have taken in developing their child's game. He deals with most of the famous "Bad Dads, " only really missing the recent addition of Jelena Dokic's father. He talks about the need for the Grand Slam to be accomplished in one calendar year, why we should keep the let serve rule, the use and possible misuse of the tiebreak rule, the ranking system problems, why Wimbledon should remain a grass court tournament, the problems that occur with letting teens play early and often, the issue of equal pay for men and women, and the effect that more black players could have on the game, including the inherent problems in attracting and keeping black athletes in tennis.

I don't have any complaints about the book. There are several items I might have liked to read about, but I fully recognize the limitations and choices one needs to make in such a work. One extra I would have enjoyed is a brief player update after the original profile and/or interview. Although most of these are from 1997 on, there are few from earlier that an update would have been nice. For instance, there are two interviews with the late Arthur Ashe. Many people who have become interested in tennis in the past five years or so, may not have much of a sense of his contribution. The interviews help in that regard, but it would have been nice to have a brief obituary about his death. The same would have been nice in regards to Bobby Riggs and Ted Tinling who have died since their interviews were done.

Also, to no surprise, there are several matches I would consider in the last few years that could rank among the best. One, in terms of historical importance, would be the Bobby Riggs/Billie Jean King "Battle of the Sexes" in the Astrodome in 1973. This match helped to put women's (at least American women's) tennis on the map. In a period where the women's game is so much more vital and interesting than the men's, this match's importance cannot be overstated, even though it was nearly 30 years ago. Also, there have been three great women's matches in the last three years that I would place somewhere: the Graf/Hingis French Open Final in 1999 (I thank Paul for reminding me of this one), the Clijsters/Capriati French Open Final in 2001, and the Hingis/Capriati Australian Open Final in 2002. But these are quibbles on my part.

All in all, I found this a wonderful read. I had a lot of trouble putting the book down. Anyone who appreciates tennis and good writing cannot go wrong in purchasing this book. I am a big fan of tennis and there aren't a lot of great books available. Through the years, there have been some, but not nearly the wealth as there is for baseball. Do yourself a favor, buy it, read it, tell others. Let's encourage those who write and write well about tennis. I'd love to see more by Paul Fein, and will be looking forward to more.

If you like Tennis, its stars and the whole package, you will definitely enjoy this book. The book starts off with a series of portraits of great players, followed up by unique interviews, which are both fun and enlightening to read. We get close to the Williams sisters, Sampras, Arthur Ashe, Jimbo, Guga, etc. After this, we move into some more serious issues with entries concerning burning issues, such as "Bad Dads" in Tennis. Lastly, the book hits the sweet spot with stunning accounts of some of the greatest matches in Tennis history. This writing is short and concise and makes the matches come alive. I was 13 years old when Borg beat MacEnroe in 1980 and I felt the special vibes again just reading the two page description in Fein's book.
- If there ever was a Book on Tennis which manages to bring the sport alive, and make you a little bit smarter at the same time, this is it.

Nowadays Andy Warhol's 15 minutes truism is rendered mundane by the endless parade of incongruous celebrity imposed by today's incessant Media spectacle. This book brings the idea that we are very likely mistaken in our estimation of contemporary fame profoundly to life. The fact that some of the greatest artist our culture has produced labored in obscurity among their contemporaries is a familiar one. This eye-opening book explains why this is so.

By focusing on the past when Media was not so omnipresent we see that the random and ever changing quality of popular tastes always pertain. Through his re-telling of these 13 now obscure curiosities the author achieves valuable insight into the sometimes ludicrous, often venal whims and fancies that propel some issues and their advocates into the vanguard of the public mind.

The prose occasionally suffers from what I'd call journalism. As I read the first story I wished the author had been able to breathed greater life into the facts presented. In the hands of someone more ambitious some of these tales might stand more clearly as metaphor or epiphany. Of course they might just as easily have lost their focus on the valuable idea that contemporaneous enthusiasms are almost inevitably misguided. And in hindsight most, like the delightful story of Psalmanazar, could not be improved upon.

Don't ignore the further reading supplement. Finding it somewhat dry at first I almost did. It's interest lies in the gathered details presented of how one finds such obscurities.

We pay plenty of attention to winners in history, but there have to be even more losers out there. Losers who may have been clever, may have been original, may have dreamed the big, impossible dream, and worked hard on their paths to fame and riches, but because of mere fortune, or cupidity, or bad choices, found the path did not lead to success. Failure just is not interesting, or at least most failures are not. But some are, and Paul Collins tells about some amazing ones in _Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck_ (Picador). Collins has done good research to bring us these funny true stories and has a dry, sharp style that is a delight.

The title tale is about John Banvard, who in the 1850s 'was the most famous living painter in the world, and possibly the first millionaire artist in history.' Why haven't you heard of him before now? Because time swallowed him up. Banvard sailed down the Mississippi and sketched all he saw on the 3,000 mile voyage. He then painted what he had sketched, producing the biggest picture ever, said to be three miles long. The panorama was rolled up, and he displayed it on stage as it rolled by, while he gave narration and was accompanied by piano waltzes he had commissioned. His performance pieces were slow at first, but became a sensation, as he played Boston, New York, and then London, where he impressed the royal family and Charles Dickens. Banvard spent time in London museums, being taught to read hieroglyphics; he then sailed down the Nile to make another panoramic painting. He was troubled with those sincerest flatterers, imitators; he had made a huge fortune, but his invention was so popular that scores of other panoramas were on tour. He decided to set up, instead, as a museum keeper, his huge display of curios in a massive New York building, described as the best museum in Manhattan. In this, he was in competition against P. T. Barnum, who was by far the most capable promoter, and Banvard returned to the frontier where he was once again a poor and unknown painter. A few panels of his many paintings are all that remain of his work.

Here you will find the astonishing story of Englishman William Henry Ireland, born in 1775, who because his father never thought much of his writing, started forging plays by Shakespeare, and created a literary sensation. We read also the sad story of Delia Bacon, who was one of the first lunatics to write profusely on the theory that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare, but was a front for a collaborative effort by Walter Raleigh, Edmund Spenser, and Francis Bacon. A lighter note is the story of Robert 'Romeo' Coates, whose beyond-hammy acting brought down the house, when his Romeo died not once but three times. There is a chapter on Blondlot's N-rays, probably the most famous incident described in the book, an incident of scientific self-delusion. There is one on John Cleves Symmes, an Ohioan who did everything he could to convince his countrymen about the holes at the poles of the Earth which would lead to its hollow core. There's one on A.J. Pleasanton, who shined blue light on everything imaginable and improved it.

And more. Collins has done an amazing amount of research into long-lost books and pamphlets to bring us these astonishing instructive stories and amazing cautionary tales, the sorts of tales that the proverb 'Truth is stranger than fiction' was coined for. He has wry comments within his storytelling which makes reading his words great fun, and the stories are incomparable. Losers were never so fascinating.

Perhaps writing a book about failure, anonymity and obscurity is tempting fate ever so slightly - it would almost seem ironic if this book was a runaway success. Yet, it deserves to be; Collins crafts a book in which we empathize with the characters: we genuinely want their lives to be successes, despite knowing that ultimately, they wont be. At times, I felt like screaming at the book 'No! Don't do it!'

Painful as the 13 (not coincidentally chosen, I'm sure) stories are, they make compulsive reading. My favourites included the one about a visionary man who intended to build a pneumonic public transport system in New York City, and the story of the medical powers of blue light.

There were, of course, some chapters that I didn't find as arresting - not because they weren't well written, but because they weren't on subjects that I am interested in - however, curiously enough, when I gave it to my mother to read, she found the chapters that I didn't like as much the MOST interesting.

This is Paul Collins's first book, and I just hope that it doesn't wind up being his last, because the overriding feeling at the end of book was of wanting more, and what better indicator is there of a good book?