Two Belgian friends travel to Las Vegas for a fornight. But their minds never leave their home-town (Ghent), their families and their friends. Their troubles, repressed up to that date, surfaces...

The author (and the translator) have a sound command of the language and a vast vocabulary.

EARTH WORKS by Nancy Hugo is exactly the type of book you give to a new gardener along with an illustrated garden catalog. Hugo lives in Ashland Virginia, just north of Richmond in a Zone 7 setting which borders on Zone 8. Her book is filled with all kinds of gardening advice which she dispenses as a free lance writer for the RICHMOND-TIMES DISPATCH. Her writing is not particularly insightful (Diane Raver), funny (Henry Mitchell), spiritual (Jim Nollman), or scientific (Elizabeth Lawrence, Allen Lacey), but elements of all these aspects are present.

Her strength is her pragmatic advice for the novice. Picure her as the neighbor you wish lived next door to you when you move into your new house. She has gardened for over 30 years at two locations (primary home and vacation home in Buckingham County). She offers advice for Zone 7 gardeners that is comparable to that from the PBS program Victory Garden.

For example, she urges gardeners to grow organic and natural lawns because she is sensitive to the water pollution caused by the runoff from lawns (Americans use larger amounts of pesticides and herbicides on lawns than on food crops). On the other hand, she can take out 28 year-old pines because they are blocking her view and overshading her garden. She offers advice on gardening equipment from tillers to post-hole diggers, how to establish a compost pile, when to clip bushes and hedges, what to do with the needles that fall off the old pines, and which plants to grow for Christmas greenery. She describes her gardening year in month to month episodes, and covers a variety of plants that will do well anywhere in Zones 7-8.

I recommend this book to anyone about to become a gardener.

You forgot the boy scout dropping miscounting standard error

When I was new to French, I saw this and started learning. It helped me on how to get my pronunciation right, and reading at a normal French speed. It helps you in every situation you may bump into in France - from the Passport Control to the Travel Agency! Everything's here! Once you're finished with this, it's best to continue with French In Three Months. I did the same thing and now, I speak French fluently! Bonne chance!

The cassettes give a very good start of learning the spoken chinese. It starts really at the bottom line. Hearing the pronounciation of different native speakers and then pausing for yourself to rehearse what was said, followed by a direct feedback for your own pronounciation. I used the cassetes in my car when driving from and to work and I am amazed by the speed, I learned the basics of Chinese.

This is a highly informative exploration of an architect who is still relatively unknown to the English speaking world. Haring was the father of the modern German organic tradition in architecture, and without a knowledge of his ideas an understanding of the architecture of Scharoun, Behnisch, and Fehling and Gogel - among others - cannot be properly had. This book is written in Blundell Jones' usual highly entertaining and conceptually-focussed way; I was especially impressed by his co-presentation of large tracts of Haring's writings with a helpful running analysis. Impressive also are the startling insights of Margot Aschenbrenner. Also illuminating is the revelation of Haring influences such as Oswald Spengler and Leo Frobenius. Many previously unpublished drawings are included. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in modern architecture, and particularly in 'the other tradition' which is usually represented only by such figures as Wright and Aalto.

IN MY OPINION ART BOOKS MUST BE AVAILABLE IN TWO FORMS AT LEAST. THE FIRST A DELUXE EDITION AND THE SECOND AN EDITION ACCESSIBLE TO STUDENTS AND PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT EITHER CANNOT BUY EXPENSIVE EDITIONS, IN BOTH QUALITY IS A MUST. THERE MIGHT BE A THIRD CHOICE FOR THOSE WILLING TO HAVE A MASTERWORK BY MEANS OF A LIMITED EDITION NOT ONLY IN ITS PRESENTATION BUT ALSO WHITH A PARTICULAR OR BETTER STILL A FOREWORD OR AN INTRODUCTION EXCLUSIVELY FOR THIS ISSUE BY A REPUTED SCHOLAR ON THE SUBJECT.

Adam Hall (a pseudonym of Elleston Trevor-- did he really NEED one??) has written a wonderful-- and apparently OUT OF PRINT!! AAAAHHH!! I HATE THAT!!-- chess-like novel. The main character, Hugo Bishop, is neither a P.I. or a cop in London of the 50's, as the blurb on the book itself says, "he simply shows up to help."

This first work in the series (there are 4 other works, all involving chess, including "Bishop in Check" and "Pawn in Jeopardy"), involves Mr. B. in a bit of a love triangle in the theatre world of London. Nicole Pedley has a genius, animated-- and rather unlovable-- theatrical director husband. She also has a handsome young love who, mysteriously, disappears into nothingness, but seems to be writing Nichole letters... Is he REALLY writing them?? Has something happened to him and someone is extorting her?? And who is this OTHER actress who seems to know Ms. Pedley's lover sooo well...??

It's a cute book, reminiscent of "The Innocence of Father Brown" short stories. Quick of pace, swift of wit, and fully steeped in chess lore and thought. It comes recommended from THIS chessist to anyone else who enjoys the game...

... that corresponds with the Catholic Churches Liturgical Calendar. First published in 1955, this book is relevant even today, and it's look gives it an antique look which inspires one to respect the simple and pious attitude that one should bring into prayer. The saints are listed in alphabetical order in the "Contents" listing of the book, and then can be read in chronological order, from January 1 through December 31. Each day has the saint whose feast day is celebrated that day. Details into the saints life is listed, and the length is dependent on how much is actually known about that particular saint. It can range for a paragraph for the lesser known saints (for instance St. Fabias), up to a couple of pages for more predominantly known saints (for instance St. Basil or Saint Thomas the Apostle). Each saint reading is then finished off with a Church approved prayer to each saint which can then be prayed alone or with others. This book is an excellent resource for people who wish to bring a daily reflection into their lives, and the saints, models of virtue and piety are a great focal point for these reflections. The saints can serve as role-models for the lives that we should lead. I think this book does an excellent job of conveying that message. Another bonus to this book is its illustrations of a number of the saints, fitting a face to a story.

True enough, Heidegger had no *real* knowledge of the parliamentary-political processes which led to the rise of National Socialism, long covenanting himself to the historical mission of Adolf Hitler to bring about the spiritual and intellectual metamorphosis of the Germanic peoples, assured of the Fuhrer's status as a true fountainhead of Being, the penultimate expression of Being-in-the-world. "Of this there was no doubt at all in Heidegger's mind - to him alone had been vouchsafed the quasi-mystical vision of the true essence of National Socialism, 'the inward truth and greatness' of the movement; and this knowledge he could never disavow, never, as long as he lived"(135).

It sends us back to the old discussion, reviled by Primo Levi and his peers, of whether any of our belated generation could have had the foresight to universally rejected the Nazi programme, our morality and self-esteem buttressed by such debasing simplifications as Spielberg's *Schindler's List* and its imitators, history as melodrama, the flattering of modern audiences with a contrived moral superiority. After all, if one of the greatest minds of the century could endorse Hitler as a spiritual leader, how can any of *us* ever claim inviolability?

Hugo Ott has given us one of the most chilling historical treatises of the preceding decade. Its subtle cataloguing of archives, anecdotes, documentation and desideratum, is at times grindingly dull and absolutely gripping. We see Heidegger the promising young theology student develop into the mind-blowing author of *Sein und Zeit*(1927), followed by a shattering journey of the fall as he tries catastrophically to adapt his philosophy of Being to the political realm. Isolating himself from his Jewish colleagues, his correspondence becomes increasingly logistical and militaristic, and by this point it is clear that Heidegger has lost all contact with reality. Addressing an assembly of students: "May you ceaselessly grow in the courage to sacrifice yourselves for the salvation of our nation's essential being and the increase in its innermost strength in its polity. Let not your being be ruled by doctrine or 'ideas'. The Fuhrer himself and he alone *is* the German reality, present and future, and its law. Study to know: from now on all things demand decision, and all action responsibility. Heil Hitler!"(164). Before we know it, Heidegger has become Fuhrer-Rector of Freiburg University, encouraging his pupils to greet him with Nazi salutes, and recommending that his mentor Husserl be sacked on account of "political undesirability."

Barely surviving the nightmare of the WWII, Heidegger had another war waiting for him when the French "denazification" commission arrived to get some political payback for the German Occupation. Virtually banished from the academic world, it took many petitions and signed affidavits (from such wary supporters as Karl Jaspers and Jean-Paul Sartre) to assure the French authorities that the confiscation of Heidegger's library (!) would needlessly aggrandize the suffering he had already inflicted on himself and others.

Felix Guattari once wrote that it took a Heidegger for humiliation to ENTER INTO philosophy, that the Heidegger question remains the most outrageous defamation of Western thought since...well, to what can we compare this politico-philosophical shock to the system? Granted, before Heidegger, philosophy was always more or less isolated from the priorities of 20th century political life, but by 1946 the rift had been blown open forever, all future attempts to align politics with theory permanently chastised, despite the sublime efforts of Sartre and Camus to resuscitate the burning effigy of a politicized existentialism.

*Martin Heidegger: A Political Life* is a definitive modern horror story (a real chiller), one of the most overlooked narratives in the wider realm of pre-WWII scholarship. It deserves treatment by PBS or the History Channel, pending the vision of some brave and sympathetic documentary-filmmaker to take it on.