A great way to learn about life in the American wild west arid zone in the early 1900's. The author describes his life experiences with a rich cast of rugged characters who are hard to find these days. If you have either visited or lived in a mining town or been to the Australian outback opal diggings, you'll have extra appreciation for the entertaining detail and perspectives on what really is important in life. One of the better books I have read in a while!

I live in Arizona and picked this book up in a map store. Once I started reading I couldn't stop. The style of Frank Crampton's writing is so descriptive that you feel you are listening to him tell the stories of his life as a hard rock miner in Arizona. This is not a documentary, but accounts told by the one that lived them. One chapter is so graphically described that I could feel the pain of the miners. This chapter is followed by the funniest of any I have read. I have used this book as a guide book of the mines and ghost towns of this area and have found many of them. I've given this book as a gift to many people and highly recommend it for anyone interested in the old west and mining.

Frank Crampton didn't have to become a tramp miner, he chose too. Born well conneced, he gave it all up to discover what it is like to become a working stiff in the western mines. His discriptive writings of the every day workings under ground are so real one can smell the powder after a blast. His experience while being traped under ground in the Bingham Canyon Mine, and being cold boiled,made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The loyalty of his fellow miners to rescue his crew,espically his two old friends who traveled hundreds of miles to help get Frank out can only be understood by a miner of that era. Frank Crampton's drive for self improvement is in it's self a blueprint for any young person to succeed the hard knocks of life. The Frank Crampton's built this country, what a wonderful gift he left us.

Miki Frank's stunningly honest book about the most difficult subject to imagine -- the death of a spouse -- will be of tremendous comfort to anyone who is faced with the sudden quiet and soltitude after a robust life lived fully with a loved one. The author doesn't flinch from considering issues around her own emotional stability once "contact" with her deceased husband is established. In fact, what happens -- and what is detailed so compellingly in this fine book -- is so antithetical to everything the author THOUGHT she believed in beforehand that it is all the more powerful. This book is not for everyone; you have to be in a place of depth and have had a strong love connection of one's own to have it make "sense". If this describes you, this book will move you and keep you riveted. I finished it wanting more, and I certainly hope Miki Frank will return for a second volume. Bravo.

From first page to last, Miki Frank's heartwarming book totally gripped me. I couldn't put it down even at the end of a long day. Through vignettes written after her husband Stanley died, Miki shares the story of her relationship with the love of her life and the pain of her bereavment. Flesh and blood Stanley was larger than life, and much to Miki's surprise, during the first year of their separation through death, he turns up again to engage her in his own inimitable way, to challenge her assumptions, make her laugh as he always did, and share his new world.
This stretches Miki beyond belief, but she can't deny what's happening in their daily rendezvous at the typewriter. Slowly but surely, kicking and screaming, Miki learns to accept that
"Death ends a life but not a relationhip", and a new chapter in their life together begins. A most beautifully written book, full of fun and compassion inspite of the pain, it will also be of great help to those losing a partner or those coming to terms with the possiblity of life after death.

From first page to last, Miki Frank's heartwarming book totally gripped me. I couldn't put it down even at the end of a long day. Through vignettes written after her husband Stanley died, Miki shares the story of her relationship with the love of her life and the pain of her bereavment. Flesh and blood Stanley was larger than life, and much to Miki's surprise, during the first year of their separation through death, he turns up again to engage her in his own inimitable way, to challenge her assumptions, make her laugh as he always did, and share his new world.
This stretches Miki beyond belief, but she can't deny what's happening in their daily rendezvous at the typewriter. Slowly but surely, kicking and screaming, Miki learns to accept that
"Death ends a life but not a relationhip", and a new chapter in their life together begins. A most beautifully written book, full of fun and compassion inspite of the pain, it will also be of great help to those losing a partner or those coming to terms with the possiblity of life after death.

I've already reviewed this wonderful book under the title above. Unfortunately, my name was omitted from the review,despite my request not to be anonymous. I hope this will correct the omission.

This book is breathtaking in its scope and originality. I find it difficult to describe how important it is within a short review. This will just be a sample. The Genius Within is simply the best overview of biology, evolution and intelligence we have.

Vertosick extends the neural network model to explain how all intelligent systems work. Intelligent systems include organisms, parts of organisms, and associations of organisms. His basic idea is that any system that processes information to maintain and preserve itself in competition with other systems must be considered intelligent. He shows how general the neural network model of intelligence can be, applying it to metabolic cycles in the cell, to concerted action by communities of cells, both loosely connected in colonies and tightly connected in multicellular organisms. The hard wiring of vertebrate nervous systems is shown to be a special case of this general paradigm.

A key concept is that of the "party network." This is a wireless network like the one formed by conversations at a cocktail party. People spend various amounts of time with each other on the basis of their common interests. The differing levels of affinity between pairs of party goers plays the same role as the connection weights between neurons in a neural network. Each of the people at the party is connected with every other by the network of interactions that take place over time, but some are more strongly connected than others. The mobility of the neurons (people in this case) in initiating new connections (conversations) makes hard wiring unnecessary to the development of network structure in the group. You can show the network in action by having one person introduce a piece of controversial information to one other person at the beginning, then asking each of the partygoers what he thinks about the subject at the end.

The metabolic processes of a cell form a party network of interacting enzyme and substrate systems. These systems are connected through the interchange of substrate and products. The result is a network that transforms a few simple substrate molecules into the vast variety of interconnected macromolecules that defines the structure of the cell. This is an example of intelligence working at the basic level of molecular biolgy.

Vertosick shows how this model works for the combined action of bacteria in overcoming the effects of antibiotics, to the development of effective antibodies by immune systems, to the coordinated actions of social insects, and up through the evolutionary scale to the function of brains and nervous systems in vertebrates.

Evolution itself is seen though the model to be a manifestation of intelligence in organisms that uses genetic variation as a problem solving tool. The genes themselves are not the source of evolutionary change, but the repository of genetic information used by the organism. Vertosick gives the example of cloning to illustrate the primacy of the cell machinery over the genes. If you introduce a nucleus from one somatic cell into another somatic cell, nothing terribly interesting will happen. But if you replace the nucleus of a fertilized ovum with the same somatic nucleus, a new organism will develop, following the genetic blueprint of the implanted somatic nucleus. The developmental initiative comes entirely from the cytoplasm of the ovum, which uses the information supplied by the DNA of the implanted nucleus to construct a new organism.

This is just the beginning of the story presented in The Genius Within. Although I'm familiar with the general outlines of Vertosick's thinking from my own work, I found a new and original idea on almost every page. The result is a synthesis that draws on many scientific fields to produce a unifed theory of life and intelligence. The theory itself takes the form of an extended neural network, robust to the necessary incompleteness of some relatively minor details.

There will surely be quibbles from many who can't see the whole picture, who have turf to protect, or who simply can't tear themselves away from obsolete orthodoxies. (Vertosick deals effectively with some of the criticisms in an Addendum.) But this is a truly revolutionary work. Five star books are fortunately fairly common. The Genius Within is as rare as a royal flush.

Read it and weep with pleasure.

"The Genius Within", by Frank T. Vertosick, Jr. is an amazing, thought provoking book that the author states he wrote so the common reader could understand and presumably enjoy the concepts he shares. I agree without exception that the primary issues he writes about can be understood, but if you really want to understand the detail of all the workings that produce the results, you best have a deep understanding of biology, and a good grounding in chemistry would be helpful as well. It has been many years since I studied either topic, so while I did read the entire book, I don't think I would distinguish myself on a written test on Vertosick's book. Despite my opinion, the work is well worth any reader's time who appreciates a distinguished thinker in his field that is able to share concepts that otherwise would be confined to persons with advanced degrees.

Vertosick states that we, (humans), do not respect life rather we respect intellect. According to the author we suffer from brain chauvinism that results in our making value judgments based on nothing more than our own arrogance and not based on reason. He gives some extreme examples that can easily be extrapolated to human behavior on a larger scale. A person can make a living as an exterminator killing bees, a variety of insects, rodents, etc and be financially rewarded. Incinerate a cat or a dog, and a person will likely face a judge and possibly jail time. We harvest from the oceans countless varieties of creatures who live there and then can and consume them, yet there are groups that feel Dolphins should be protected, that cans of Tuna should be labeled "Dolphin Free". The question is why, there is no argument that can justify the intelligence of one creature over another, and intelligence is not measurable in any species including humans, so why do we judge between fish or swimming mammals? Bees have a complicated society and a very structured way of life, some even produce products that we value. But if a person chooses to eradicate a hive no protestors will arrive on your doorstep.

This same thinking would seem to help explain Genocide. The victims are generally dehumanized, they are treated worse than many animals, and this then makes the mass killing of a group defined as inferior easier for those doing the killing. This is only a single aspect of what is one of the most horrific human conducts, but the logic appears sound.

There are discussions on how the immune system works and how a disease like Cancer continues to outwit all of our attempts to destroy it. He explains why antibiotics can become ineffective in treating infections, just as pesticides become worthless as the intended victims adapt. The method of adaptations differs widely but they all are amazing. After reading parts of the book you will be hard pressed to state that thought is something that our brains have the monopoly on. There are scores of organisms within us that were adapting and evolving millions of years before we developed anything like a brain, or consciousness, whatever the latter word means.

Other areas that I enjoyed were the discussions on DNA; something that many would answer is the key to our existence. The fascinating fact is that much of what we are made of existed and continued to develop long before DNA was created. It is in these discussions that the science gets very detailed and harder to follow, but it is well worth reading and reading again, if only to get a general understanding.

At one point in the book the author said that if he looked at a schematic of a Pentium processor, he would do so with a mixture of amazement and ignorance. For those who have not studied advanced science, reading this book is much like he describes when looking at the Pentium chip.

I have just touched on the very wide array of issues the author discusses, and despite the scientific details that might make you dizzy, the concepts he shares are very worthy of the time you spend, and any confusion you encounter.

This is a very funny book. It's not so much a novel as three
stories linked together. Russell writes about what he calls "the Great Explosion," when ... interstellar travel allows people
to easily escape the Earth. After a few centuries, a Terran spaceship visits a few of this planets to see what's up. All they visit are a...little odd. The first one is a planet of criminals originally deported from Earth. After all the time that has passed, they're still criminals, stealing whatever they
can from the ship. The second planet is full of nudists, hysterical about germs, obsessed with health. The third planet is actually the most famous in the book. It was originally published as the short novel, "....and Then There Were None," and is about a worldful of people who have perfected a system that allows no one to conquer them. Russell writes in a weird,
screwball style that I have never encountered before. The whole
book is very funny, and very much worth reading.

This was one of EFR's great books written well before the current 20 years of SF movies came out. It is an excellent book portraying the aftermath of the Great Explosion of humanity from earth and the attempt to bring them back together. However the independent nature of man shows that it is not that easy. EFR had a humerous style that was easy to read and enjoy. The sooner this book is reprinted the better for a new generation to enjoy the delightful style of EFR.

I too had not read it in years, but it is still a surprisingly profound book, especially the part separated and sold as "And Then There Were None." It is a lot of fun, since Russell is able to write a slanguage no other writer I know of can match; it is stimulating, because no other writer, except maybe L. Neil Smith, has proposed a free society with such detail. It really seems possible.

I am amazed at the genius of Frank Darabont. SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is the type of film that many directors spend their entire lives trying to make. That film alone is worthy of placing Darabont in the top echelon of modern directors. However, with THE GREEN MILE, Darabont has triumphed again. This screenplay is not as in depth as the SHAWSHANK shooting script. Nevertheless, it is still quite informative and is a useful resource for aspiring filmmakers. Transcribing an already successful published work into a successful movie is extremely difficult and rarely happens. However, Darabont has done it twice. A person can learn a great deal about writing just by reading this book. There's no better way to learn than to learn from a master.

I bought this book after I saw the movie. The main reason is because this film touched me deeply. Secondly I collect screen plays. This is a true gem! The film's beauty is printed as an unforgettable story. Screen play is based on Novel series by Stephen King. Excellent screen play!!

I discovered the first episodes of The Green Mile in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the last ones in France. I read them. I was moved by strong emotions, practically to tears, and yet I remained unsatisfied. I reread it when it came out in one volume, and I had the same sensation of frustration. The book, the story had two lines and the unity was not clear, the message was not obvious and it seemed to be that there is always a devil somewhere to torture, at times to death, the righteous and the innocent. The two time lines were not really reinforcing each other. The bad nurse of the old people's home was not a real continuation of Percy, and Percy did not have and could not have, does not have and cannot have a continuation. Evil in man is repetitive, but in no way continuing, developing, getting any kind of amplification with time. I have just been listening to a tape about the psychiatric hospitals of the old days (up to the mid 70s in France), and the doctors, the nurses, and even the patients, those who dedicated their whole life to get rid of that institution, compared these asylums to concentration camps and demonstrated how the inmates were reduced to animals, and yet resisting, how the rations (during World War II) where starvation rations meant to slowly kill the inmates by starving them. Doctor Lucien Bonnafé, MD, cannot be in any way stopped in his explanation of this alienation, of this reduction of men to vegetables, especially with the chemical straight jacket. Hitler did not invent concentration camps, and he did not invent eugenics, the cleansing of society of their misfits. He just systematised, industrialised it. But, But, BUT, I finally got to the screenplay of The Green Mile by Frank Darabont. He got that second time line out. He recentered the whole story on Paul, the only one Paul that crosses time. And then the light came out so strong that I was not moved any more, but literally blinded into ever stronger and never before experienced emotions, into unquenchable tears, tears that were a salvation, a redemption, an epiphany that would not ever satisfy and quench my thirst for optimistic humanism. This human world contains angels that can transform evil into good, and it is John Coffey, a black man. He has done that for a very long time, till the one day he gets trapped by his naivete and simplemindedness, because angels are naive, simpleminded and maybe slightly retarded, since then cannot conceive evil. When one does only good things and can only bring good news to the world, he is totally isolated, rejected, and thus he becomes the prey of all evil beings who will abuse him and trampled him down. And yet he is not completely trapped, because he comes to the point when he wants to go, to leave this world, where he can only love and be loved by fireflies. So he is happy when he gets trapped, relieved of this enormous responsibility of making the world better, of killing or repairing evil. Even if it means Death Row. But, before leaving, he gives his good nature to some other beings, even if he cannot give them his powers. Here it is a mouse, Mr Jingles, and a man, Paul. And his gift takes the form of a very long life. The very long life of telling the truth, the truth of God, the truth that killing is ugly, no matter whether it is criminal or judicial. Only life is beautiful, and the story of life has to be told forever and ever, to push death away, even if it is Death Row. This life story has to be told over and over again, just like a mouse will play with a spool forever. And thus, Darabont gets us to a universal lesson, to a unique and eternal metaphor. The writer, the storyteller is forever the one who will bring life to earth, real life, the life of justice, of beauty, of emotions, of truth, of entertainment, of happiness. The storyteller is God himself, or at least his angel, because he nourishes our souls with the desire to know a better world. When are we ever going to have the film, the video, so that we can be moved to frantic tears by the images that will demultiply the screenplay into a real piece of human paradise, in our dreams, in our night, in our daydream, in our sunshine of hope ?

It was my privilege to have known Frank Johnson while serving with him in Vietnam. There were many times we set across from each other on our bunks and thanked God we were still alive. Frank indeed was a warrior and a man of great courage but there was also another side that was warm kind and gentle. A man that would take the time to listen to your problems, to help you when you were down and to support you when you needed a friend. This book is an accurate accountant of places and events that took place as seen through the eyes of Frank Johnson.With great pleasure I recommend you read this book. It is a supreme insight into what it was like for a 19 your old to have been exposed to the horrors of war. Burgess Wetta

This book really gives you the first hand account on what happen day by day to this soldier. What a great history lesson. It isn't soften down by someones memories of the Vietnam War but gives you the actual feelings that happen on that day. I find that when I am reading I get lost in the moment and feel like I am right in the jungle with this soldier. I was only 10 yrs old little girl when this was taking place. I looked up my birthday because I wanted to see what this guy was doing on that day when I was celebrating my birthday. Gave me a strange feeling. Thank you to ALL the war veterans who have fought for our freedom.

A LRRP'S YEAR IN A COMBAT ZONE...This was an excellent book. I just bought the book 2 days ago, and just finished it tonight. I had to read it every chance I got. The hell these guys went through, detailed explicitly in this book, is amazing. The honor and courage that these men showed, went above and beyond the call of duty. Definitely a must read, especially for those who have been in the military, and especially for those who have seen combat...it has certainly brought back memories for me.....

Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881 is the long-awaited final volume by Joseph Frank, Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Comparative Literature and Slavic Languages and Literature Emeritus at Stanford University.

Previous volumes in the series are: Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849; Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859; Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865; and Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871.

It was during the final decade of his life, 1871-1881, that Dostoevsky wrote Diary of a Writer and his greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Many pages of Frank's fifth volume deals with analzying these two works (140 pages for The Brothers Karamazov alone).

With impressive literary scholarship, Frank throws light on the historical, political, economic, social, cultural, and literary setting within which Dostoevsky created his works of art, novels of great psychological depth.

For example, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "Dostoevsky, the only psychologist, by the way, from whom I had anything to learn; he is one of the happiest accidents of my life, even more so than my discovery of Stendhal."

Dostoevsky traced the roots of the evils in Russian society to a loss of religious faith. By "religious faith" he meant specifically the Christian faith of the Russian Orthodox Church. He thought the Roman Catholic Church was a distortion and perversion of true Christianity. (See the harangue Dostoevsky puts into the mouth of Prince Myshkin in Part Four, Chapter VII, of The Idiot.

Of particular interest is Frank's discussion of Dostoevsky's philosophical thinking (framed, of course, within a Christian worldview), such as his ruminations on Russian nationalism, rational egoism, and the freedom of the will, and his grave concerns over the adverse moral and political effects of atheism and nihilism.

Frank soft-pedals Dostoevsky's notorious anti-Semitism, seeking to exonerate his hero as being simply "a child of his time."

Although one finds many things to dislike about Dostoevsky, one cannot help being impressed by his literary genius. Recognizing the excellence of Dostoevsky's art, Frank devotes the lion's share of his volume not to the man himself but to the man's literary production.

While this is surely not the fault of Joseph Frank, one is depressed by the seemingly endless fare of Russian sectarian bickering and murky political maneuverings. One breathes a huge sigh of relief to escape this oppressive atmosphere.

A truly triumphant conclusion to a massive and passionate undertaking. Frank shows the highest standards of scholarship in being objective, fair, yet sympathetic to one of the greatest of all writers. In this final volume, we have Dostoevsky living and breathing the Russian air of his beloved land seething with social, cultural and political issues of the day. An engaged and far-seeing artist if ever there was one. The complexity and paradoxical simplicity of his life presents us a real genius often at odds with the way he would be perceived by many of his readers, yet a humane and sincere human being. Now go back and read the magnificent works he has given us from his pen.

"Dostoevsky : The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881" is the fifth and final volume in Frank's extraordinary biography of Dostoevsky, a remarkable undertaking of more than a quarter century. While every volume has been exceptional and well worth reading, because they share a title and differ only in subtitle Amazon's system tends to muddle reviews of the various volumes together. This final volume covers the last decade of Dostoevsky's life, so don't buy it expecting a one-volume bio of the great writer. If you care about Dostoevsky's work find copies of the first four volumes, read them, then read this book. The series sets a superlative standard for examining a great writer's life and works, but this volume isn't really intended to stand alone, despite a short "story-to-date" intro.

A great book for those who wants to learn about Argentinian way of life and traditions. If you can read it in Spanish Language you'll apreciate it more. Regards.-

Listen, if yer at all like me, you've been looking for a BILINGUAL and reliable edition of this great work for some time. Well, I finally took a chance and got this one, AFTER buying the paperback also put out by State University of New York Press. First of all, this is a totally different translation (and I don't mean to say it's better or worse than the other one, just that they're not the same), it's not just the translation (it's a bilingual edition, with left pages in the original spanish, right pages in english), it's fully annotated (sometimes with the exact same explanations for certain words/passages for the english or the spanish reader, sometimes with particular explanations for just one versus the other, which leads me to believe the editors really gave some thought in their preparation of this volume), it's a beautiful, simple hardcover, it's illustrated (with extremely simple -- could be thought of as bad -- black and white reproductions of the classic Antonio Berni paintings), and it's COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED (which is to say it has BOTH Martin Fierro and the Return of Martin Fierro, which is very difficult to find let alone imagine someone being so kind enough to do). SO STOP BEING WISHY-WASHY ABOUT IT. THIS IS THE EDITION TO OWN. IT'S EXCEEDINGLY {inexpensive} FOR WHAT IT IS. IT'S BEAUTIFUL. REALLY. p.s. the lack of a description is what threw me off it for a while, too. that's why i'm including all of this here. enjoy.

It is a spanish editio

You don't have to be a native to love and get to know New Orleans. This is worth a read.

Are you the type who can get lost in your memories as you wander through an old antique or curio shop? I'm not talking about an expensive rare furniture shop, but rather the kind that reflects the possessions of the average person of each era. Turning the pages of old magazines, seeing old records, lunch boxes, tools, cookbooks, toys and other items can bring back so many memories and makes the era instantly become alive again. If you have any history with or interest in New Orleans, Frank Schneider's book will bring back more memories than you could gather in a dozen curio shops. Through his historical vignettes, the book will touch all of your memories, emotions, and senses - and "Gawd," it's funny too!

A wonderful book with a positive attitude.Historically and culturally accurate and presented in a witty and engaging style, the book is a real treasure. The author captures the heartbeat of a generous, unique city with all its mystique and is a most enjoyable reading experience.

This abridged version of Maimonedes thoughts covers about one quarter of the complete book with the same title. The selection by Guttmann concentrates on Maimonedes' attempt to bring rational Aristotelian philosophy in accord with classical Jewish literature. Thus, allegorical reading of the anthropomorphic features of the biblical God is urged for a better understanding of the hidden meaning and to bring it in conformity with reason. Other main aspects covered deal with Prophecy, Providence and the way to a godly life. It is the latter which struck me as most interesting because the dedication of every moment of one's life to God (except when engaged in mundane duties which ought to be kept to a minimum) is precisely what one finds in the Bhagavad Gita except that the name of the Deity is Krishna rather than Yahweh. Apart from the name there is absolutely no other difference. If we are serious in believing that there is only one God in control of the universe this should not be disturbing because all nations are entitled to use their name for the Deity which encompasses all. Yet Maimonedes insists that only through contemplation of the Jewish law can perfection be achieved and one finds some rather derogatory remarks about those who think otherwise. Although Maimonedes emphasizes that the way to God is through humility, tolerance of the views of others will not be found. Furthermore, while intellect and reason are extolled Maimonedes has no difficulty accepting oral traditions of biblical stories, especially in regard to Abraham, Jacob and Moses, which have not only no corrollary in the Pentateuch but are at times at variance with it. Thus, the imaginative faculty and the rational faculty, as Maimonedes called them, and which distinguish the human being from animals, did not seem to find complete harmony in his view of the world and may leave some of us still perplexed.
The introductions to the book by Frank and by Guttmann are very helpful in setting Maimonedes' work in its appropriate context. For the student of comparative religion this is a useful introduction to medieval Jewish philosophy as it originated in a Muslim milieu and which is still held in high esteem by some modern theologians.

Rambam knocks me over. This is an amazing work. This is one of the most important books in any language. This translation by Pines is excellent, clear, simple, unobtrusive, and has just the right small amount of clarifying notes.

The Guide clearly should be studied with others. I would like to discuss each chapter with other people as we read (and maybe re-read) them. My email address is my firstnamelastname at yahoo dot com.

This is volume one of a two volume set, so be sure to get both volumes. Volume one contains two interpretive essays, one by Leo Strauss and one by the translator, the former alone making this translation worthy of purchase, according to the Times Literary Supplement. Maimonides' work itself is an intentionally tangled web of reason, not to be undertaken by the casual reader; such a reader will leave disappointed with its obscure style. Maimonides assumes a great deal of Scriptural knowledge and a familiarity with the most important commentators of his time. Nevertheless, for those willing to put in the effort both in learning the fundamentals of religion and in exploring an almost endless maze of logic, Maimonides will provide a sumptuary feast and sketch the outlines of his view of philosophy and faith.