Very much detailed description of each and every turtles and tortoises found in the US and Canada, from anatomy to behavior to breeding. It's a must for any experienced chelonian enthusiast. Although, I would not recommend this book to a novice.

This book is a must have for turtle lovers everywhere. It is a clear and concise reference book for the known species of turtles and tortoises in the U.S. and Canada. The authors are both well known scholars in the field of herpetology. Carl Ernst has written many scientific papers on a variety of chelonian species. His partner, Barbour is also well known throughout the reptile world. Being a professional herpetologist, I feel that this was a perfect addition to my collection of books.

This is a book written by a true master of this path. We can read this book, but we should be careful not to pretend to understand it more than we are capable of doing so. Ruzbehan speaks of things well beyond our mind and imagination. The "Men of God" travel far and beyond and then try to tell us of realities not accessible to us. They use "words" to communicate with us of what they "see" and each one of us can only understand them according to our background and experiences . Scholars are also in the same boat as the rest of us, though they hide their fundamental ignorance behind fancy "terminology's". A blind can never understand the meaning of light and the magnificent display of colors, no matter how hard one try to explain. Light is to be seen. To " know" what Ruzbehan and his like talk about, one has to become like them. As great Sufis like Ruzbehan say " like can only be recognized and truly understood by like". SO when we read the works of these great men, we have to make sure not to over flatter ourselves thinking that we know what they are talking about, because we don't. While there are many who claim that if you join a Sufi club( with no annual fee) you will be able to understand them and become like these great men, be aware that there is no such easy money back guarantee solution. Don't be fooled. We should read these books written by "Men of God" and it maybe that it will awaken something in us. If that happens one will know it, since this knowing is always accompanied by a true and fundamental spiritual transformation as though one has evolved into a new species. If anyone out there gets to such a place as Ruzbihan did, then say a prayer for the rest of us. However, If no observable transformation has occurred within the person, then it is not meant for him /her, but still we should read these books since it is always better than watching T.V.

This book is a magnificent document to the awesome mystical experiences of the Divine which one of the greatest walis [saints] in Islam had; it is very inspirational too for all those already members of a Sufi Order or those wishing to join one. However, a word of caution: I feel that this book is not for the beginner--a person must really have a sound grasp of the shariah and the Sunnah--and what the Sufi shaykhs have said about the importance of these two in real sufism--before embarking on this great book; otherwise the danger, for Muslim readers, is to fall into heresy caused by misunderstanding of concepts discussed by the Shaykh; for non-Muslim readers it poses a danger of introducing Islam at too compex a level, and thereby causing confusion .eg a non-Muslim (or Muslim) not grounded personally in a traditional understanding of sufism might assume by this that Islam encourages an anthropomorphic image of God. To summarise, it is a wonderfully beautiful work but it is not for everyone. To use a sufi metaphor: the wine in these pages is not meant for the uninitiated!

A translation of a traditional commentary would be useful if possible.

As a newcomer to the Northwest, I was delighted and relieved to find the Maritime Northwest Garden Guide. It is a planting calendar for year-round organic gardening and so much more. Growing in this climate is so vastly different from my experiences in the Midwest that sometimes I felt like a complete novice. Month-by-month, the Garden Guide provides a nearly exhaustive list on which seeds are appropriate to sow indoors, sow outdoors, and sow under cloches. Following their suggestions yields year-round produce. It's full of great reminders that January is the time to start planning your crop rotation, February is the time to have your soil tested, March is the month to begin the soil amendments and April is the time to begin hardening off. What? you don't know what "hardening off" means? You really need to buy this book!

This is a great book probably a 5 stars, but the photos are in black and white and because of this I decided to give it 4 stars, there isn't anything on the internal anatomy of turtles as well. But it's a must have if you are seriously interested in turtles

This book provides an excellent key to identify any turtle you may come across and provides consise and acurate natural history information. There are lots of good pictures too. I wish there were books like this for more taxa!

It's probably easier to define what this book is NOT, rather than what it is. It is not a compendium of Sufic thought or Sufi lore, so if that's what you're looking for, look elsewhere. Fortunately, there are any number of other books that can satisfy your curiosity in these areas.
What this book tries to do is perhaps more difficult - sort out the various Sufi organizations worldwide and provide some intelligent guidance on their affiliations, origins and characteristic beliefs. Some may balk at the suggestion of approaching Sufism in this way; however, anybody who has spent some time in the Middle East can confirm that on a day-to-day level the Sufic brotherhoods often act as nothing more esoteric than any other faith-based fraternal organization you may find in the West, and most of their members are far from being spiritual masters.
On this basis the book purports to help the would-be spiritual seeker get his bearings. I would say there is a need for such a book, and anyone interested in Islamic spirituality as it is currently practiced would probably gain much from this guide.

For those studying Islam, Ernst's introduction to the "mystical" tradition of tasawwuf provides a well-rounded overview of the significance of Sufi practices, interpretation, and philosophy. He makes little attempt to solidify the term "Sufism," however, insisting that in orientalist usage it has been a construct of recent origin, with the aim of splitting the more highly respected esotericism from the dry legalism of Islam (partially in attempting to explain the Sufi tradition as an offshoot of other mystical traditions, rather then "native" to Islam). Ironically, many Islamicist reformers (which he traces to some extent from the puritanical 'Abdul-Wahhab, who ravaged shrines of Sufi saints and Shi'a notables in an effort to purify Islam of their perceived taint) attempting to excise perceived extraneous and thus corrupting influences to pristine Islam, have tried to do nearly the same thing. Though I find his post-modernist disavowal to dismiss the fantastical elements of Islamic and Sufi belief as tripe, and his over-reaching aim to find the most congenial face of Islam all too typical, I felt I profited by reading Ernst's book. His PhD training certainly didn't aid him in creative writing, however, and if his stated purpose was to reach those outside of his specialty, his style of writing is an abysmal failure. But I suppose I am just spoiled by those writers who are able to introduce novel angles towards longstanding subjects, who rather than writing merely from a skeletal outline, are able to infuse their pages with chutzpah. In other words, they provide a helping of entertainment with their edification. If he had gone so far as to get out of the library (other than the few short and dull remarks he makes about being present at a few Sufi functions), I thought that he could have interviewed Sufi personalities, fans of qawwali (a type of Sufi music), etc. But I would suppose that would abolish the pretenses of the "objective" scholar, disdainful of mere journalism, living solely in a dimension of pure thought energy, free from emotion of any stripe.

THE SHAMBHALA GUIDE to SUFISM is a virtuoso performance in academic scholarship. The complex difficulties of the subject can be readily appreciated form the fact that the first 30 pages are devoted to an effort to define the meaning of the words sufi and sufism. It is a global misfortune that in our commonly received historical accounts political and religious forces have been conflated, leading Islam and Christendom to regard each other as enemy. Into these dark clouds of mutual misunderstandings Prof Ernst brings his brilliant light. His book needs to be widely read, for the benefit of both East and West; pace Kiplng, in Ernst the twain have met. He has rendered a public service. Star rating: 5X2.