Wow! I expected this to be an entertaining book, but I was not prepared for it to be so amazing. These poems are delicate and ponderous yet precise. It really reveals a light and dark side to Alfred Brendel, famous eccentric concert pianist. This is a must for any fan of Brendel, and a must also for a lover of poetry.

This book contains a selection of Brendel's poems first published in German. They are hilarious in either language, and absolutely side splitting for musical people with an off-beat sense of humor. Whether you are still wondering who really killed Mozart, what happened when Brahms bit his finger or Cristo wrapped the Three Tenors - the expert reveals it all!

Something magical connects the five distinct stories which comprise 'The Orange Tree'. They read like the jumbled fragments of a beautiful, disorienting dream. Fuentes offers glimpses of remarkable events - the firey fall of the Aztecs, the sexual death of a fading film star, a Roman siege - and makes their ugliness beautiful. All the while, he weaves a delicate web of connective tissue, turning 'The Orange Tree' into a remarkably cohesive tapestry of Latin American history and culture. Surreal, haunting and elegant, this book reads like a vision.

The Orange Tree is a book of unusual beauty. Fuentes, once again playing the historian, presents a reiteration of Latin American history which is utterly convincing as a piece of pure mythology. This perhaps lies in Fuentes' uncanny ability to assign either perfect charm or horrifying ugliness to so much of what he describes: the spectacular fall of the Aztec Empire; the complex seige of a Spanish city by the Romans; the dreamlike arrival of Columbus to a ambivilant paradise.

The five novellas of The Orange Tree offer the reader voices which seem to speak from beyond life and history. We are presented tales of death and suffering in a context so huge, so ambitious, that Fuentes has destroyed the barriers of history and constructed a reality all his own. The lavishness of his vision is hypnotic.

Read this book with abandon; allow its mythology to consume you.

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I originally purchased this book for a class, yet I have found myself going back to it on many occasions. I helped me become a better writer with its many fine examples of poems and short stories. With excerpts from some of the world's well-known writers, this book provides examples of many different styles and techniques that can be valuable to any serious college student.

Taiaiake Alfred presents a thought prevoking and straight forward critique of today's aboriginal politics. Filled with understanding, insight, and challenging thoughts, he states the facts in a clear and honest manner. This book is a must read for everybody, especially those wanting a better understanding of traditional aboriginal politics and thought.

those in "position" will be wise to read this book. movements and opportunities exist 4 everyone. only with self examination of thought and language will we untangle the knots we have in our tangled minds. the writer does a wonderful job exposing some of these entanglements.

"The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" is abrilliant, riveting and invaluable expose that details the CIA's involvement in drug-running. Through McCoy's analysis, one can follow the CIA's drug-running trail from right after WWII, through the French Connection in Marseilles, to the golden triangle in Laos and Burma and on into Afghanistan.

"The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" reveals the purpose behind the CIA's incolvement in drugs: at least since 1954 in Guatemala, the US has been involved in massive international terrorism throughout Central America. being clandestine, the CIA needed untraceable money and brutal thugs, so the CIA turned to narco-traffickers - like Manuel Noriega (long on the CIA payroll before his demise).

"The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" remains one of the more important, relevant (in light of US involvement in the euphamism called a drug war in Columbia) yet obscure books of the previous quarter-century - a book that ultimately posits the question of whether the CIA, as an instrument of state policy, reflects the values of the American populace. Fascinating reading.

This in-depth academic study researches the central role that opium plays in the economy, politics, and wars of the region. It follows the trial from the highlands of Laos, where the opium is grown and harvested by the Hmong tribespeople, to the Golden Triangle, where it is refined into heroin. Published in 1972, this was the first printed account of the USA's massive engagement in a "secret" war in Laos. It documented the use of CIA helicopters to bring Laotian opium to market in Vietnam (where, ironically, it was sold to addicted US soldiers.) This was done to finance weapons for the army of Hmong highlanders, being led by CIA "advisors", who were fighting the Laotian communists.

There was only one edition of this book; immediately after its first printing, the entire publisher was bought by the U.S. government, and all warehoused copies were destroyed. However, with a bit of luck it can still be found in used bookstores.

I have used this book and Vol 2 in my graduate and undergraduate courses. Having used a variety of texts for teaching and learning about probability and statistics in an engineering context, I would say the two volumes by Ang and Tang have no rivals. Lots and lots of good engineering type problems.

We used this text as the first half of a graduate course in engineering reliability. It presented the concepts clearly and in terms of engineering problems rather than card picking and coin flipping like many other probability and statistics texts. It also provided a thorough treatment of the mathematical basis of the sciences of probability and statistics.

The second volume is also an excellent text, though I have had trouble locating it recently. It treats the issues of reliability and decision analysis in more detail.

"At once meticulously factual and riveting, Alfred Brophy's moving account of a 1921 race riot that destroyed an economically self-reliant, vibrant African-American community clarifies why political action and enforcement of legal and human rights are indispensable prerequisites for black economic opportunity and material progress. Brophy also clarifies why Americans need to find the courage to acknowledge injustices of the recent past and contrive amends to help heal still-unresolved consequences scarring both victims and perpetrators." --Jane Jacobs

"A timely contribution to a variety of important and contentious discussions involving American history, African-American culture, and the problems encountered in attempting to right past wrongs...Brophy reminds us that deadly, cruel, racial violence is not something that only happens 'out there' in the rest of the world but is something that has also happened here in the United States on a massive scale and that just as others out there have fallen short in reckoning with their pasts, so too have Americans." --Randall Kennedy, from the Foreword

"In his timely, well documented and powerfully written book, Reconstructing the Dreamland, Professor Al Brophy vividly illustrates a chapter of America's sordid racist past by focusing on the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921. If we are to transcend the barriers to racial progress, we all must read Brophy's compelling work and use it as a seminal case in our path to avoid conflicts at all costs. Simply put, Professor Brophy's book is the best-written account of the Tulsa riots, and captures the people of Tulsa's resolve to never allow a similar travesty to occur again. Every person interested in racial justice should have this book at his or her disposal." --Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Professor Brophy has performed a great public service by writing a powerful, yet concise book about one of the most deadly race riots in United States history. On May 31, 1921, whites attacked black residents of the Greenwood addition of Tulsa, Oklahoma, burning, looting, and murdering. This book is absorbing, upsetting and fair.

Professor Brophy's work is meticulously researched and heavily footnoted. In addition to investigation of the riot by in-depth research of the available legal materials that were generated by the riot, Professor Brophy has relied heavily upon the news accounts and editorials of the two largest black newspapers in Oklahoma at that time, the Black Dispatch in Oklahoma City, and the Tulsa Star in Tulsa. These two newspapers displayed stunning activism and fearlessness in criticizing the actions of whites who committed criminal acts against blacks during the riot, and at other times during that time period. It is interesting that blacks, who had been aroused by recent lynchings of blacks in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, had vowed to forcibly resist further lynching. The Tulsa Riot itself was set in motion by black concern over the arrest of a black who had been arrested for allegedly attempting to rape a white female elevator operator, and was accelerated by white violence in response.

If this murderous event had occurred today, the City of Tulsa would have been liable under civil rights laws. The city issued special deputy badges to virtually anyone who asked for it, regardless of background or qualifications. Some of these "special deputies" were undoubtedly the main criminal actors in the riot, and city law enforcement officials did little, if anything, to stop their crimes. The city's use of these unqualified whites as law enforcement officers, who burned, looted and shot black residents of Greenwood, make an excellent case for reparations for those victims of the criminal activity in Tulsa who are still living and who were affected by the riot.

This book sheds great light on a terrible event, and is highly recommended.

David W. Lee
Edmond, OK

In his other books, and especially in Process and Reality, Whitehead's prose can be so dense as to discourage all but the most determined readers. But Religion in the Making, while occasionally technical, is Whitehead at his simplest and most elegant. Reading this book, written just three years before P&R, will show people who have been exposed to "process theology" that Whitehead's own beliefs about God were really much more simple and poetic. The great Cambridge-Harvard philosopher's spirituality boils down to a single sentence in the midst of Religion in the Making: "Expression is the one fundamental sacrament."

It's good to have this work of Whitehead back in print. This is an excellent contribution to our understanding of religion. Judith Jones gives a fine introductory essay showing the metaphysical roots of Whitehead's concept of religion.

This was my favorite book when I was ten years old (I'm now 38!). I recently dug it out of my cedar chest and pored over it with satisfaction -- it really was as lovely, compassionate, adventurous, and lively as I remembered. I am entirely delighted to see that it is available through Amazon. I intend to get copies for a few special kids in my life -- the contemplative and imaginative, the odd little loner who might identify with the young artist who is the main human character of the book, the frisky mischievous ones who will delight in the adventures of the squirrel characters. The story is about a young man, learning to oil paint, who is a little alienated from other youngsters. He likes to roam alone in nature, he understands the language of animals, and he meets the ghost of a Native American man who suffered a terrible sorrow in the colonial era. He makes friends with a family of squirrels taking up residence in an unused summer cottage, and sympathizes with their squirrel's-eye view of life. As the young man paints a beautiful piece of Maine coast island scenery and struggles to recover a rosary for the ghost, the squirrels face their own struggles in the form of skunks and weasels determined to destroy them. They enlist the help of a skunk-eating owl and soon all is well. The young man recovers the rosary and finds a friend in a kindly priest who recognizes his artistic talent and vision.

What appears to be a nature story at first glance, becomes a mystical look at the island's past involving Native-Americans and colonial settlers. This book, authored by Alfred Noyes, best know for his narrative poem, "The Highwayman," is on the Catholic Junior Great Books List for 5th grade.

Dr. Price gives an excellent account (and photos!) of the rare spitfires that you can't find in other books. Great reference for modelers and other enthusiasts. I particularly appreciated the many photos of the "Speed Spitfire" and many interim prototypes not typical to any mark number. (I am referring to the second edition -- the author added new material that had come out of the woodwork after the first edition.) The author is also kind enough to caption photos with the plane's code so that a modeler need not wonder what number is hiding behind a fuel truck, mechanic, parked plane, under a shadow or whatever. Money well spent.

This is by far the most detailed Spitfire book in my collection ( and I have quite a few! ). This excellent work gives a very comprehensive, mark by mark history of the Spitfire's development. Each chapter details the development of a given variant, including the background to that marks genesis, descriptions of combat, and overall impact upon the air war. Moreover, Alfred Price's eloquent text makes for a thoroughly enjoyable read and never makes his subject "dry". Greatest of importance, the appendices following the chapters give by far the MOST detailed performance information I've yet seen in any Spitfire tome ( or any other book on combat aircraft ). The data includes not just the common "top speed" and "rate of climb" information which is so often quoted, but also gives the top speeds and rates of climb at varying altitudes, as well as the critical "time to height" data up to the planes service ceiling. Detailed combat comparisons with various Axis & Allied types are also included! This is the sort of information which the dedicated aviation buff always desires to see in a book of this sort, but all too often we are dissapointed. This is the big exception! An absolute MUST have for any fan of the Spitfire in all it's many guises! The general and WW2 aviation buff should not miss out on this work either. Truely Outstanding!