I would recomend this book for all readers. This book teaches you about Ben Franklin and how he invented magic squares. It also tell you about some of the other things that Ben Franklin invented. Some things are stoves, a special rocking chair, the first library, and much more. Then it explains how Ben Franklin became a clerk of the Pennsylvania Colonial assembly. For many days Ben listened to the other members argus. Then one day Bean started doodling. Ben doodled people, new inventions, and his pet squirrel. The other members were still arguing so Ben decided to do a math puzzle. The math puzzle had turned into magic squares. This is how we have magic squares today.

I came to find that this book can make history fun to learn about and that young kids should read this great book about Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin was always busy. He was a writer, a scientist, an a inventer. in this book you will learn some of Ben Frankiln's inventions. The main idea of this book is to tell you how Ben came up with magic squares. How do you think he came up with magic squares. Find out what some of Ben Franklin's inventions and how and why he came up magic squares when you read this great book Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares!!
Katie

Mr.Murphy , My teacher was the Author of this book! I just know that last month. I think it was a great book, there were a lot of stuff about Ben Franklin. But if you want to study Ben Franklin, don't read it, because there were not much informnation in it, it will just raise you time. But if you want to read something for fun, read it, there were some funny picture in it.

This is the friendliest book on cognitive therapy I've found. Though quite short, it covers all the basics, and without the excessive detail or the repetition of many of Albert Ellis's books. Initially I was surprised that Franklin didn't offer many techniques for learning to think rationally, but I've since come to find this part of the book's appeal, as it makes it feel less like a textbook, and more like simple good advice.

This is an outstanding book, which teaches that how you feel results from what you think. This is the essence of the rational-emotive/cognitive approach to psychology. It teaches how you make yourself afraid/anxious, depressed/worthless, or angry based on how your mind inteprets your environment (or from spontaneous thoughts). It does all this while also being easy to read and grasp. It has delightfully humorous illustrations. (I laughed out loud at the picture of the man being tortured by disco music.) There is also a chapter on the fallacy of asking "What is my purpose in life?" As the author explains, we each create our own purpose. But the main fallacy the book focusses on is the self-worth fallacy, which causes untold suffering to millions. The concept of worth is not applicable to human beings. It is a concept stolen from a different context. Yet people make themselves suffer needlessly over it. Any reader with this or other fallacies (everyone?) will be greatly helped by reading this book. This book can transform your life for the better without anything mystical. After reading it, I now see people differently. Somehow, I used to think that I caused someone to be angry, for example, when they became angry in my presence. I now see that they are doing it to themselves. I cannot "make" anyone angry any more than they can make me angry. There is a lot to digest in here for such a small book. Each chapter is an adventure. This is one of those rare books that I wish I had read years ago because it would have saved me so much grief. I cannot imagine anyone being sorry they bought this book. It has so much to offer between its bright yellow covers. Finally I do reccomend getting the books in the very short reccomended list contained in this book. They are also very good and may bring a different perspective to your situation.

CARL SAGAN, in The Demon-Haunted World, entitled his chapter ten "The Dragon in My Garage." I was intrigued by the main point of the chapter, especially the way Sagan introduced it. Sagan said his approach was one created by Richard L. Franklin in Overcoming the Myth of Self-Worth. I promptly bought Franklin's book and found myself unable to put it down once I had started it. Since then, I have read the book at least six times. I can truthfully say I have not seen the world in quite the same way since reading this eye-opening work. It's rare to read a book that transforms one's entire world view, but that's what this book did for me. After I had read it two or three times, it was as if a mist had been lifted and I could see my personal reality clearly for the first time in my life. I now keep it at my bedside and read from it nightly.

Bensel is perhaps the best in the area of American Political Development. His work his thorough, accurate, and - unlike so many others - enjoyable. He gives a very clear explanation of how the Federal Government gained strength during and immediately after the Civil War.

This books argues powerfully and convincingly that what happened in the US Civil War created a truly new state in America, one that owed little to old republic that preceded it. It also suggests that this sort of revolution from above is probably of broader historical significance in modern history than the more paradigmatic European revolutions (such as in France or Russia).

Richard Bensel uses a systematic methodology first to define state strengthening (i.e. how the state in a nation acquires relative freedom from the society in which it dwells), and then to characterize how it was built in the Civil War years. His main source of information is votes in the US and Confederate congresses, which he analyzes with a gimlet eye to sectional stresses and political economy. This is one case where quantitative methodology helps to make a clear, convincing and powerful argument.

It should also be noted that (contrary to the impression that the other review gives) this book is no shill for the Confederate cause either. As a political scientist with a focus on finance capital, Bensel does not view the Civil War through the lens of a noble crusade to abolish slavery. At the same time, however, he uses the same lens of political economy to look at the southern state-building as well. Ironically, the "Dixie Leviathan" was even more powerful and autonomous than the Yankee one. The small size of the southern economy and the broad popularity of the war gave the Confederate government both the need and the ability to confiscate property and trample states rights far more effectively than the Republicans did in the Union. The old slogans of Jeffersonian small government disappeared and big-government national mobilization became Dixie's order of the day.

As Bensel makes clear, the constitutional order broke down in 1860 because it could not peacefully regulate conflicts in the US political economy. The Jeffersonian republic died, and the issue in the Civil War was never Leviathan vs. limited government, but one leviathan or two. The ultimate irony is that Yankee Leviathan's swallowing up of Dixie Leviathan ended up recreating the conditions of sectional stalemate that still serves to limit the further growth in power of the American state.

Any one interested in American government or the strong modern state as an historical phenomenon, must read and digest this book.

This book blew me away. All the books I'd read on American Reconstruction before this concentrated on carpetbaggers and scalawags, or on issues of equality. This one is different. Bensel looks at Reconstruction as the triumph of the Hamiltonian vision for America. Here the Republican Party, like the Russian Bolsheviks in the early 20th century, dominate the American political-economy with no significant political opposition.

With the Southern Democrats crushed in the Civil War and their opposition to Northern industrial development silenced, the Republicans are able to push forward their agenda of rapid national expansion and heavy governmental subsidies for Northern business interests. Little to nothing is spent on rebuilding the Southern infrastructure or on ensuring equality of opportunity for the freed slaves. Why wouldn't the Republicans live up to their wartime promises of providing land or other economic opportunities to African-Americans? Because if they did, then Northern factory workers would take notice and demand their fair share of Northern industry. This was intolerable to Northern business intersts. Thus, the South becomes an economic colony of the North, while the Republican Party's pro-business attitude helps turn Northern workers into virtual wage-slaves. Bensel's book is dense and difficult to read. Nevertheless, it's mind-opening rewards are worth the effort.

I think this is awesome! Joe and Frank are dealing with a million dollar scandal coming from a computer genius. Frank and Joe are at a college and boy was it hard for them to get in. Only one of them make it in, but the other finds some ways to get in. The most exciting part is finding out who did it. You never would have thought it was that person. WOW!

If you're interested in the cultural landscapes associated with mining, this book is a must. Great stuff on Bisbee, AZ. Fantastic maps show the development of that mining landscape over time.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is well written... even young children could enjoy the stories. Franklin was a remarkable man, he was a man of character. He excelled in many areas as a scientist, inventor, and politician. There are many lies being told about him today to defame his character, and this book will help you understand the REAL man!

Simply put: an essential survey/guide to the 1926-1936 era of (mainly) American sf. Bleiler has read _everything_ published in the magazines during this time period, gives a synopsis of the story, offers historical notes, and quite often comments on the importance (or lack thereof) of the story. David H. Keller comes in for some deadly bone-crushing comments. Bleiler has also tracked down biographical information, going so far as to search Social Security death records. And there's much more, far too much to list here.

Having read a fair number of these stories, his comments are quite accurate (most of what was published by Gernsback is awful dreck, but there were a few important stories published too).

If you have any interest in the this early era of SF this is an essential book for the shelf. And it's fun to read the plot summaries of some absolutely dreadful stories!

Nonminated for the 1999 Hugo for Best Related Book (previously the Non-Fiction category).

As a student of the history of homosexuality, this is one of the best (and cheapest) editions of one of the best nineteenth century sources out there. Krafft-Ebing's work provides a quaint and often humorous reading today, but was largely considered on the cutting edge of sexology in its day and provides a great contrast with the works of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, whose publications are finally in modern translation. This unabridged book is well worth the price.

Like "Wisconsin Death Trip," this book provides strangely familiar tales of madness, perversion, and death from the 19th century. Part of the fascination of the book is that it was written *before* Freud, and that it not biased by the views of Freud or his critics. As such, it almost reads like the dispassionate report of visitors from another planet.

Much of the subject matter is familiar grist for modern tabloids. And some of it rather amusing, especially the idea that masturbation leads to illness, insanity, and death. As in "Death Trip," this was an age when science was still groping for the causes of many types of mental illness that are still not truely cureable.

It is also interesting to compare modern standards to those of a hundred years ago. Sexual acts that were considered beyond the bounds of decency a hundred years ago even for married couples are likely to be recomended by a minister today. But many stories in which sexual acting out (infidelity, sudden change of sexual orientation) is part of a general pattern of self-destruction seem as relevant and cautionary as ever. The authors are also very matter of fact about transexuals and some very "modern" activities, which psycholanalysts seem to have given wide berth for decades. On the other hand, it isn't clear what has happened to bustle fetishists.

And before we congratulate ourselves on our sophisitication, it is also interesting that Krafft-Ebing found well established networks of dedicated pedophiles, and that a hundred years later we have not solved the problem and barely acknowledge it. Also, they were found many instances of adult female nannies and teachers molesting male children and students, which has only recently been getting much attention.

That some readers still take Krafft-Ebing at face value is testament to the strength of the sexual prejudices that he helped re-formulate at the end of the 19th century. Anyone seeking to understand the ideological basis of present-day sexual prejudices, or the official pathologization of human sexual diversity should become familiar with Krafft-Ebing's seminal work. Anyone seeking to understand human sexuality, on the other hand, should be warned that Krafft-Ebing is more joke than role model for modern-day sex researchers. The book is viewed by historians of sexuality as largely a (very influential) re-formulation of existing folk-lore. Unfortunately, the resulting formulas were used by Krafft-Ebing (a court psychiatrist) and his peers for the purpose of channelling people into either prisons or equally confining asylums. He set a pattern that is still widely used, and that is still viewed with horror by both sexual non-conformists and true scientists alike.

What can I say? It's Benjamin Franklin! One of our beloved American forefathers with so much wisdom, it applies to not only our fellow Americans, but to the worldly human race. This compilation is full of tidbits from his "Poor Richard's Almanac" columns written for the hungry wisdom and logical seeking people back in early America. This is a timeless collection of suggestions and instructions that make perfect SENSE. Buy this and learn about YOUR life and how to make life better for not only yourself, but the others around you.

A wonderful book of sayings that espouse Ben Franklin's views on life. In general, he was an advocate of honesty, hard work, moderation in all indulgences, and being a good person. While these may sound like simple principles, the wittiness and cleverness with which they are presented make them memorable and therefore useful.

Buy two copies of this book -- one for yourself and one for your child when they reach their teenage years. You'll both be better off. My copy is marked up so I can easily find my favorite sayings, and I find myself flipping through it often.

Anyone, whom has any ounce of education, common sense or wit for that matter, should know that Benjamin Franklin should be and is still (even as I write this very moment) considered one of the smartest, wittiest and most cerebral person/scholar/learned man to have live in (or have been born for that matter) in this country. Poor Richards Almanack by Benjamin Franklin is not an exception and is filled with a plethora of witty, funny and educational allegories, poems and short parables, e.g., "Fish and visitors stink after three days". I absolutely loved this book and would definitely recommend it to the aspiring scholar/learned man or philosopher; and I do consider it, i.e., Poor Richards Almanack by Benjamin Franklin to be one of the cornerstones in the intellectual man's library.

Aljaz Cosini, a Tasmanian river guide, is trapped under water, his body wedged between rocks in the Franklin River, into which he has dived in an effort to save a reckless rafter. "I have entered the realm of the fabulous, of hallucinations, for there is no way anybody stuck drowning could experience such things," he thinks, as many generations of his family history pass through his mind. As this remarkable narrative unfolds, it alternates between Aljaz's dying, first person memories of his family's past and his objective, third person observations about life in contemporary Tasmania. Through Aljaz's memories, the reader learns the sad history of the island, a former penal colony for the most hardened criminals, the site of total genocide for the aboriginal natives, a remote colony with little hope and no tolerance for differences. A bright boy, Aljaz himself has intentionally failed everything in school, because "by failing, Aljaz begins to fit in with people...there is a camaraderie amongst the ranks of the fallen....They expect to be failed, to be unemployed, to be pushed around, to know only despair."

This is a story of abject hopelessness, the misery of Aljaz's family continuing through the four or five generations we meet during Aljaz's final moments and culminating in Aljaz's own predicament. The author does not even hold out the hope that Aljaz himself will be rescued, choosing to confirm the death in the book's title, before the reader even opens the book. What unites the generations (and keeps the reader going) is the clear and abiding respect for nature we see throughout the book--for the power of the river, for the unique animals of the island, for the stories and myths of the old people--and the belief that there is a unity of man and nature. And Aljaz experiences the ultimate unity with nature in his death in the river, as he becomes one with the sea eagle who "carries the spirits of the ancestors."

The characters one meets in this book are memorable, as they survive the best way they can. The tales of nature and the mystical moments that Aljaz experiences are vivid and uplifting, a fitting contrast to the reality of life. The action on the river is realistic and exciting, and there is a thematic unity which connects the generations of the past with the action in the present. It may be self-defeating, however, to create a novel in which the reader is asked to become personally involved with a main character whose death is foretold from the outset. Though that confirms and reinforces the point the author is making about the hopelessness of Aljaz's life, it certainly makes this novel a depressing ride for the reader.

Richard Flanagan has an almost unexcelled capacity to weave historical threads into his fiction. In line with many writers of the Australian scene, he deftly conveys his awareness of the Aborigine condition in this story. Despite his name, Aljaz Cosini, born far away in Trieste, yet manages to return to his ancestral homeland. Ancestral roots bear little, if any, sway on our monotheistic world. In other cultures, however, forebears are the foundation for existence, a tradition widespread and of extended duration. Flanagan's awareness of that cultural milieu is forcefully portrayed in this story of a man's final living moments.

Flanagan's method is subtle. We mourn for the drowning guide as the story opens. His fate is clearly inescapable. Strangely, he condemns neither his situation nor the river that is taking his life. The attitude is far from fatalism, however. His circumstance is opening a new realm of Aljaz' awareness. As he confronts the inevitable, Aljaz comes to perceive his ancestral roots. Visions arrive of events he could not have witnessed, yet bear no skein of fabrication nor the supernatural either in Aljaz' mind or in Flanagan's depiction of them. There are no deities or spirits here. Aljaz resents that at first - "visions ought be given you by divine beings, not ... marsupials and their mates". Yet these visions are events from the reality his ancestors experienced. They are also of those real people - his father, grandmother, and most importantly, his former girl friend and the child they lost. Flanagan accepts the Aborigine view of children - love them intently, but if they are lost, long-term grief is too debilitating a luxury. The white world didn't understand this view when they first encountered it, and it remains enigmatic even now. Aljaz meets death calmly after a tormented life, but it's not release from suffering he gains, but a fuller understanding of who he really is. He is joining with a lost heritage.

Describing Flanagan's style as "powerful" is frail praise. "Formidable" might be something of a start. This is not a book to rush through, or if done, one to turn back to again. Flanagan wants to confront you with the realities of history and become aware of the long-term effects of lack of cultural awareness. These aren't lessons acquired at one sitting. He knows there are deeply set roots underlying behaviour and this book is attempt to reveal some of these to us. He has accomplished this effort with vivid imagery and exemplary characterisation. We must applaud his effort with enthusiasm. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

perhaps i found this book enjoyable because i have been a river guide and also because i enjoy magical realism. the sense of time and space throughout this book captures not only a family history but the essence of a river itself, and being caught up in it. as i began reading, i found myself hating the main character for his apathy towards his own life. i resented that i would have to wait until the end of the book for him to finally end his miserable existence and drown. but then as i read on i wasn't so sure what i wanted for the main character. a very satisfying read.