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When I say I like all of the book, I mean to say all of the prose section. I hate poetry, sorry for that but I cannot help it. This review here is concerned with the prose section.
The book begins with the only novel Poe wrote, namely "Narrative of A Gordon Pym." (For a complete review of the novel, please click on the blue "a_mathematician" to view it in the proper place). The novel takes one fifth of the prose section, and is followed by a subsection called "Tales of Deduction."
The first short story of that section is "The Gold Bug," an interesting story. As a matter of fact, Doyle based "The adventure of the Dancing Men," a Sherlock Holmes's short story, on it. Then it goes into introducing Dupin the French, the first unofficial detective ever. (For a complete review of the novel please click on the blue "a_mathematician" to view it in the proper place).
Then comes "Tales of Horror," and, oh my, this part is the most wonderful of the whole collection. Even though Poe was the first to write in this genre, there still no one superior to him. I am not sure about HP Lovecraft, but I am sure King is not up to him. Poe can bring the chill to your heart. I heard he used to eat much on dinner just to bring nightmares to his night sleep, and when he wakes up in the morning he would record every single detail of his dreams to use it in his short stories.
The stories I prefer are: "The Black Cat," which ruined the life of a very wretched man; "The Pit and the Pendulum," which speaks about the pains of one prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition; "The Masque of the Red Death," whose story I would not have actually liked if not for the marvelous description, Poe provides, for every single bit of occurrence. "The Fall of the House of Usher," which speaks about the life of a very singular person and his sister (This one is considered by many to be the best short story Poe has every written); and "The Oblong Box," which is exactly what Doyle would have written had he got the idea first.
Then comes "Tales of Imagination." This section was the one I did not like that much. He started with a few very descriptive emotional stories (I would only consider them nonsensical, no offense).
The stories I liked here were: "Manuscript Found in A Bottle," which is a pretty funny story about someone being in a foreign ship without people feeling his presence; and "The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfall," which explores the reasons behind Pfall's wanting to forsake the earth for the moon on his balloon. The latter is more of a novella than a short story.
The next section is "Satirical Tales and Hoaxes." This was the second best section I enjoyed. The best stories were: "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether," which is an insane story, no one could have ever produced such a comedy before; "Some Words with A Mummy," and for those of you who are familiar with the Egyptian novelist Naguib (or Najib) Mahfouz, I may tell you that he had used a similar idea in his first collection of short stories; "The Man that was Used Up," which I can describe with no other word than ABSOLUTELY FUNNY with a very twisted end; "Loss of Breath," is another example for the genius of Poe; "Never Bet the Devil Your Head," HaHa; "The Spectacles," I read this one so long ago and it still possessed its charm with its funny twisted conclusion; "The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq," which was a satirical and wonderful one; and finally "X-ing A Paragraph," which was the best one in the section.
Then come some articles, the best of which were 'Didling' and 'Maelzel's Chess Player.' They were nice to read despite their being out of date.
In the end I would like to apologize for this long review, but you cannot describe - or better yet, review - about a thousand pages in a two liner. I like the book and there is no reason you should not. Poe has affected so many writers, some of whom are: RL Stevenson, AC Doyle, Roald Dahl, HP Lovecraft, Steven King, and so many others, so if you read for any of those you would definitely enjoy this book.
If you never even heard of EAP, shame on you even more!
But if you don't own this book, "you shalt not be suffered to live"!!!!(sorry for dramatizing, but buy this (*) book!!!!!!!! And read it of course, not only buy it and put it on your shelf because it looks nice and when you show it to people, they all say, wow, you got a great collection - they say this, at least one of them says this, because he knows what proud 'n' lucky son you are to own such a beautiful book -> not beautiful because it is thick hardcover edition bound in leather with golden renderings on the pages on golden imprints on the front and back cover.
Legite: (Amazon does not provide pictures for The Complete Works of EAP, and because there are several books in hardcover bearing this title, I do not know which of these books matches the description of the book's design featured in the end, so do not blame me if you buy THIS book because you liked how it does look - if you care for design, take a look around. There has to be some way to retrieve information about the book's design.)
I read Poe's works as a pre-teen child, and some of the stories frightened me so badly that I can remember the details to this day. "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Premature Burial", "The Black Cat", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Tell Tale Heart". All these stories and more will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Poe's longest work, "The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym", proved somewhat tedious, and his poetry isn't the best, but the short stories are great.
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Film historian and authority James Robert Parish has done it again! "The Encyclopedia of Ethnic Groups in Hollywood," like all of Mr. Parish's well-regarded books, is comprehensive, thoroughly accurate and immensely readable. The sheer research is astounding and Mr. Parish uncovers the many fascinating tidbits that enliven film history. This is a book that is a must not only for every film and media library, but also for the general reader and film fan who wants is interested in the careers, lives and place in film history of the many ethnic stars who have thrilled us on screen. Bravo.
Also recommended: The Hollywood Songsters; Hollywood Divaas; and Hollywood Bad Boys
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Don't missunderstand me. I enjoyed this book thoroughly and would highly reccomend it to anyone who lives off the land and who is in close contact with nature.
AW
For the majority of writers on sustainability, the causes of our crisis are greed, overpopulation, consumption, development, and multinational corporations. For them, sustainability is a modern, industrial-era problem. The solutions are political: shift power from the wrong people and organizations to the right people and organizations, or quit logging, grazing, or using chemicals.
Savory's book shows, in convincing and elegant detail, that those who concentrate on shifting ideology or politics to move toward sustainability are just rearranging the deck chairs. The backlash and the revenge of unintended consequences will continue. If we are serious about this, we must change our decision framework. The way we make decisions, which is usually unconscious and habitual, is the key factor. Savory and Butterfield show us how this works, from start to finish.
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The text is generous in that 5 full practice exams are provided and the grammar overview has many examples of good and bad grammar illustrations.
I also like the fact that several sample student essays are provided so that you can get an accurate 'feel' for the writing quality expected at the various score ranges.
There are flaws to the text that did prove frustrating. It does not have an index. This made locating information difficult at times. I particularly found it frustrating locating the chart to convert the raw score to the scaled score as it isn't even referenced in the table of contents but is imbedded in a FAQ section in the middle of the book. If you have purchased this book and taken one of the tests that scaled score is important to you. It should have been prominetly placed within the text precisely at the location where you would 'have the raw score in hand'.
As I stated earlier this was used as an outline for the course. I had to do considerable expanding of the topics with internet research to get a good feel for the grammar that was covered. Topics are handled with a more conversational tone though plenty of examples of good and bad grammar are provided. If you are expecting a programmed course with formatted lessons you will be disappointed. However, if you have a pretty good grasp of grammar already and primarily need only an orientation to the test design itself this text is quite useful.
The text did do a good job of helping me to realize the test-maker tricks which are designed to trip up the mediocre students. This knowledge accounted for a significant part of the score improvement. A general grammar handbook would never have developed this understanding.
Improvements to the text would have included:
index
grammar review with a little more depth and 'course-styled' structure
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In 350 plus pages you'll begin with a good breakdown of the OSI model followed up with the basics of how to configure the router. The information has screen shots to show you what things should look like.
After that you move in the always challenging world of TCP/IP with routing protocols and access lists. This section has a great deal of information but you may want to check other sources for more detailed information.
You also go into areas like AppleTalk with LAN and WAN configuration, IPX, SAP and basic management of the router including time control. While most of the book is geared towards the beginner all skill levels should be able to find some useful information within the book.
I found that the information seems to be up to date including topics like Network Time Protocol and Simple Network Time Protocol. Overall a very good value for the money.
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I lurked for a while before joining in the discussion and was surprised to find a group of people were reporting out-of-body experiences and lucid dreaming, some on a regular basis. Although I felt that a number of the explanations being offered were rather fanciful, the reports of the experiences themselves seemed genuine. This was fascinating because it meant that a part of the human population were having dream, or dream-like, experiences that others like myself had never known.
I was curious to read more, so I ordered it forthwith via the Internet.
This is a substantial tome which, in paperback, runs to nearly 350 pages, if you include the detailed annotation, extensive bibliography and index, which are the proper appendices of any work which aspires to scientific credibility.
I mention scientific credibility because, unlike some of what is written about this subject, the authors have adhered to the ideal of scientific objectivity. Although written for a lay audience, they examine the research and thinking in this field in considerable detail, and they have been scrupulously fair in giving the various theories due and proper consideration, even those that some might consider more speculative.
In one aspect, though, they have a considerable advantage over other researchers: they have experienced lucid dreams and OBEs themselves.
The human mind and/or brain has been described as the most complex object in the known universe. Imagine trying to discover how a computer works from scratch: there is no manual, no help files and, initially, no knowledge of what it is made from and how it is powered. Even worse, it is associated with baffling phenomena such as consciousness. Imagine how much of a help it would be if you could think as a computer thinks, if you could learn about it from the inside, as it were.
This is especially true of an inaccessible phenomenon like dreaming, the activity of the conscious mind while the body is asleep. Janice and Jay are, therefore, in the rare and privileged position, for scientists, of being able to observe and experiment on themselves, of having a more intimate acquaintance with their subject-matter than is afforded to most researchers.
They have put this insight to the best possible use in this book, which I would recommend as the first choice for anyone who wants to learn more about lucid dreaming, and I can only endorse the words of one of the foremost researchers in this field, J Allan Hobson, when he writes in the Foreword:
"Brooks and Vogelsong are true scientists in both their adherence to value-free description and their state-of-the-art interpretation of their data.
The Conscious Exploration of Dreaming is a healthy antidote to the abundant New Age hyperbole on this important and serious subject."
As in McLeester's book, THE CONSCIOUS EXPLORATION OF DREAMING takes a balanced and fair approach to lucid dream potentialities and dream control, demonstrating that we always control our dreams to some extent through suggestion and that control and dream behavior are highly customized to each dream individual scenario.
The book is largely anti-psychoanalytical and attemps to show that rather than constituting symbolic distortions or affective resolutions, dreams simply are build-as-you go situations which we create in response to random brain activation. There is an existential "throwness" element to them; we are suddenly in Act II without an Act I. If we dream of panicing during a school exam, it's because we actaully "haven't" prepared for the test and we should panic, given the situation. No need to involve the Id and Superego in explaining the story.
I've been researching dreams and lucid dreams for over thirty tears, and this is surely one of the best tracts on the subject that I have seen in that time. Highly recommended.
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