I loved this book. It is a tribute to the human spirit. Children really understand the underlying theme. Beatifully written.

The main character in this book, Chico, is Hispanic, but his story is universal and engaging. I was delighted when my third-grader, who is a reluctant reader, read this book without stopping. She loved how Chico stood up for himself and solved his problems with Math. The illustrations are wonderful and the story has a terrific moral without preaching.

I just loved this book, and my nephew who is starting a new school this year wants me to read it to him every time he comes over.
This book is beautifully illustrated and has something for all children, especially our growing hispanic population. The main character moves around a lot because his parents are migrant farm workers. What a wonderful story. A must read for 4 to 9 year olds

"A California Dreamer in King Henry's Court" is the story of adventurer Harold Hurgood who journeys back in time from twentieth century London to the year 1535 during the tyrannical reign of King Henry The Eighth and his Tower of London horrors. From chapter to chapter the reader travels along with Hurgood along a circuitous and sometimes dangerous route meeting interesting characters along the way. Who could not forget "John The Large" and little "Annalisa?"

And who could not be amused at times by Hurgood himself as a bard and then a knight, and then not fear for him when he comes to realize his tenuous place as a subject to the tyrant King.

The historical details and splendid dialogue of the time are well researched, from the major events and people true to life down to little things like unwashed boards for plates, and to own a Bible risked the stake.

As an author, Robert L. Plunkett is on a par with the likes of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. "A California Dreamer in King Henry's Court" is a "must have" for science fiction and history buffs. You won't be disappointed.

This is a continuation of the novel Maalstrom by the new writer Glenn Roberts. The literary expression in Selk King takes a leap forward in this sequel, showing striking originality and a passion for finding Truth in strange places. At one point a pack of thieves pause for a Socratic discussion on the nature of justice--just before committing murder. Elsewhere, the protagonist Flores is lectured on the superior philosophy of grubs. The gothic style of Mervyn Peake of Gormenghast fame erupts frequently, taking the reader on sustained flights of fancy in beautiful nets of language. There are many gems.

"The thick-laden dust of the room, the lay of the lines on her face, the peremptory nature of her dull arrogant stare: the whole crushed his soul like a stone. The handle turned and reluctantly, slowly, he restored the mask of nails."

"He snatched the leg. In a frenzy the lips smacked, spraying red grease upon the canvas, and those unfortunate enough to stand near, like water from a sprinkler... Fish threw it in the trees. Disgust, and horror, shone from the face of Stalkin and the other sentinels. The lips rippled and snapped, cleaning themselves of flotsam. A forearm finished the job."

The characters are as original and memorable as anything from Dickens. Fish, the stubby overseer of the docks and slave of the Golden Cyclops. King Kot, the treacherous miser whose "piebald raiment awaits." Macius, the dancing enigma, never quite sure whose side he is on. Overall is the Quest. Flores follows the trail of Amina across a bizarre alien world, piecing together its meaning through "shifting veils" until he confronts the Adversary of Men, and challenges him to explain himself. Which he does, admirably.

The Selk King is a tour de force of the imagination, and destined for cult status. For the first time, pulp fiction has an author who thinks. The genre may not be revived by this work, but it has certainly been transformed.

This book is the introductory shortest book of a five book series. The succeeding books treat each of the elements of mature masculinity (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover) in one volume each.

By far the most intriguing thought in the book for me is the authors assertion that what the problem with this world and men is that there is a overwhelming dominance of boyish, immature masculinity and hardly any mature, male masculinity.
To paraphrase the author: The world is full of boys pretending/playing to be men.

The book begins with a short intro in the difference between immature boy psychology and men psychology and some of their manifestations. Then Mythology and Jungian psychology are used to explain and highlight the King, Warrior, Magician and Lover. For each the author explains and differentiates between their full expression and their 'distorted' hyper-expression and under-expression which are both inferior and negative.

In general the focus was to much on the mythology part of the argument. I would have preferred a more psychology heavy treatment of the subject. But this is mostly a sign of the direction of my current interests. I would have as well wished there would have been more about how the boy vs men psychology manifestations differ and play out for each of the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover quartet.

But maybe more of that can be found in the 4 other books of the 5 book series.

My brother lent me this book, and I was quite prepared to not like it at all - it seemed at first to be one of those sappy men's movement books.

However, once I started reading it I finished it in one long sitting.

The concepts are simple and make sense.

The core concept is that every man has varying amounts of King (representing the ability to bring order out of chaos, and a sort of benevolent use of power), Warrior( the ability to marshal resources, have courage, bear pain, make clear choices based on facts not emotions), Magician (or "alchemist" - concerned with knowledge and skill, and how to use it), and Lover (emotionally connected to others, having empathy).

Each one of these attributes has many good qualities; they can turn negative however, in both active and passive ways. The book cogently explains the symptoms of this - this was the part of the book that made me think the authors knew what they were talking about, in that I saw myself and my co-workers in some of the examples.

I first read this book when it appeared in the early '90s, when the Men's Movement was everywhere (how long ago that seems). I have come back to the book many, many times for guidance and insight, finding relevance in different portions as I have aged, changed jobs, and faced new challenges. There is a reason why this book remains in print: it's an intelligent, clear, and well-grounded examination of the primary facets of men's selves and how men can use this understanding to improve their lives. The authors discuss each of the title's four archetypes in turn, explaining both the positive and negative aspects of each one, and how each can interact with the others. A particular strength is the authors' ability to describe each archetype in a vivid, three-dimensional (yet concise) way that enables you to *see* the archetype at work in yourself and others. I would recommend this book especially for readers who may be turned off by self-help works that are either too simplistic or too mystical. And, as other reviewers have pointed out, much of it would appear to be of interest to women as well as men.

Niklaus and friends do a great job especially with the foundational period of the Alliance, probably because that was such a fascinating time. The Alliance started to "settle in" in the 1920s, and from then on, the tale can get dry with the exception (of course) of some of the great missionary stories, particularly those from the war years. Those who know the Alliance today and study this history may have some questions: why aren't many (if not most) Alliance churches still emphasizing divine healing like we used to? The Alliance used to have healing homes; Alliance fellowships used to hold healing services. By and large we don't do these things today -- but cannot God also miraculously heal today like he did then? I am grateful that my church does anoint with oil and pray over members who seek God's miraculous touch after communion, but as a denomination we've lost the focus on this that we once had (actually this was addressed by a recent Alliance Life article).

Yet this is not even really a quibble with the book. What you will come away with when you read this is this feeling: Praise God for the incredible work He has done and is doing.

The title of this book is misleading--there is nothing elementary in this book. Flipping through this book one will probably become intimidated by sheer volume of "difficult math". This book might be of great help in a graduate level Fluid Mechanics course, but the definitions, derivations, and concepts in general are too difficult for an undergraduate. If you have a good instructor, he or she will probably be able to simplify things for you, otherwise the book will teach you nothing. Many of the problems/examples, however, seem to be simple enough and can be solved using simple equations, so one wonders why the text goes in to so much detail using esoteric mathematics. If you are an undergraduate, and your instructor makes you buy this book, be sure to get some sort of supplementary outline book, or else you will probably be lost.

this is a generally good book. of course, but as textbooks go, this is worth it. the material is as clear as can be, so that makes it a little easier to deal with an otherwise tough subject.

This book has good stories and bad stories. No, there is no bad written story. There are some stories very difficult to believe, like "Death to the Easter Bunny!" By Alan Ryan. At least, I can read another Stephen King, "Nona". But it is not enough to get a 10. Paulo Sunao

Well this book is a mixed bag. Some of the stories I really liked and were really well written, yet others I just didn't like at all. I loved the chilling story of "Canavan's Back Yard," and I thought "The Rubber Room" was an interesting tale of a paranoid man thinking Jewish people had a conspiracy against him. Also, "Out Of Sorts" is a clever werewolf story. And as other have mentioned, "Down Among The Dead Man" is an excellent WWII vampire story (while that may sound bizarre, it is written so well you won't even notice just how odd this seems). However, like I said, I did not like some of the other stories. Like "Death To The Easter Bunny," for example. I just found this story repulsive (if you've read the book, you'll know what part I'm talking about.) And "The Crazy Chinaman" also seemed very out of place in this book. But in this book, the good outweighs the bad. I would recommend this book to fans of horror in general or fans of any of the authors.

This is a reprint of the Dodd, Mead Gallery of Horror from the early 1980's. There are a number of stories which stand out but "Down Among the Dead Men" by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann in particular. This is a story you will not soon purge from your subconscious. There is also the classic "Canavan's Back Yard" by Joseph Payne Brennan which is one of the master's best. Seek out other collections from Jospeh Payne Brennan, he is one of the unknown masters. This is a collection which deserved to be reprinted although they marketed it as if it was a new collection. Highest marks!

In this carefully structured and precisely documented book, Robert Muchembled, a professor of history at the Université de Paris-Nord, traces the development of obéissance over the course the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The focus of the text is crime, punishment and social order in the comté of Artois and its capital Arras, with frequent examinations of the nearby Low Countries, France and the United Provinces. Muchembled also includes a significant amount of quantitative evidence which successfully meshes with the text. It is clear that Muchembled aims to explore how a small, privileged ruling class was able to coerce loyalty and submission from the masses for such a long period. At the same time, one uncovers a multi-faceted thesis which asserts there is a strong link between punishment and the development of the centralized absolutist state. Using the longue durée technique of the Annales school of social history, Muchembled shows the long term shifts in power. First, one witnesses the shift from private vengeance to legal recourse and subsequently, one observes localized justice yield to the supremacy of royal authority as a result of the local power structures inability to provide satisfactory security. Over the course of the period 1450-1520, Arras undergoes a frightening crime wave and a simultaneous increase in destitution. At the same time, the local power structure or échevinage is not able to cope with these events. Muchembled argues the échevins' failure to maintain a sense of order and security forces the people to turn to royal power. The bourgeoisie becomes progressively more inclined to cede the sovereignty of their city to a wider authority in order to gain greater security. The next major shift in power from the local level to the monarchy occurs during the years 1580-1640. This period is dominated by a fear of witchcraft and heresy. The King is viewed as God's appointed leader on Earth, therefore witchcraft is the antithesis to royal authority. The religious connection serves to cement the legitimacy of the royal justice system according to the author. Justice becomes the real and visible presence of monarchical power. Muchembled persuasively argues that there is a link between crime and punishment, and the consolidation of royal power. Also, the book is well written and uses smooth language which facilitates critical reading despite the abundance of complicated statistics. However, there are many confusing points in the text where it is very challenging to determine if the author is making claims about Arras, Artois, the Spanish Netherlands or the whole of France. At the same time, Muchembled frequently strays from the structure of the book. For example, in the chapter devoted to the years 1580-1640, Muchembled gives an unusual amount of attention to events that occurred in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This creates an unnatural break in the flow of the book. Muchembled is undoubtedly an excellent authority on early modern Artois and its environs. At the same time, his assertion of a link between the people's desire for security and the development of absolutism is equally cogent and interesting. His longue durée approach with an emphasis on a small yet dynamic geographic area also lends legitimacy to his claims. He also provides an excellent reminder to the modern reader that absolutism was not totalitarianism. Despite the dramatic shifts in power, the absolutist state never fully infects the life of every citizen. Regional differences and customs remained. Le Temps des supplices: de l'obéissance sous les rois absolus is a formidable work of social history. It portrays in detail the path from sovereign cities to the absolutist state. In addition, Muchembled shows the shift from regionalized power structures to a system where power diffused from the center to the periphery and the King served as the centerpiece. However, the keystone to these changes is the development and evolution of crime and punishment. The bourgeoisie's desire for security is paramount to the advent of centralized states and absolutism.

The book "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court"starts out with a man named Hank Morgan getting hit over the head witha crow bar during an argument. He awakes to find himself in 600ADCamelot where he gets taken captive by a knight and is to be burned at the stake. Hank tells everyone he's a magacian and uses a solar eclipse to his advantage to be freed from death. He becomes good friends with the king and goes on many adventures with him. Hank tries to modernize civilization but in the end fails miserably. I absolutely hated this book. It would go for pages on end where you wouldn't understand a single word they said. Many times they would attempt to throw in humor but... This book was VERY unrealistic with warping through time and having a solar eclipse fall right on the day of his execution. In conclusion, this book was a waste of my time and and will probably a waste of yours too.

I am a fan of most of Mark Twain's works; his wit and charm are unsurpassed, and are ultimately what makes his books worth reading. However, although the book contained elements of these traits, I felt it read more like a technical manual for modernizing a backward people. This made it a tedious read.

I read Connecticut Yankee and found it quite good. However, instead of reviewing the book per se, I would like to post a rebuttal to the views posted by the person from Minnesota and the person from Tibet.

The Minnesota person claimed that reading this book was a complete waste of time and furthermore that there were long passages that seemed incomprehensible. I can see how this might be true for a person of finite literary sophistication, so I'm going to assume that the reader must have been a high school student who tackled reading beyond his/her level of understanding, patience, and appreciation. The book is rich with historic accuracy about medieval life and every page is packed with subtle, humorous digs at both 6th century ignorance as well as criticism of his own 19th century attitude toward progress in the industrial northern states from where our protagonist hails. Obviously, the reader from Minnesota missed the point.

The reader from Tibet accused Twain of having anti-religious views. Twain's criticism was not of religion; it was of the church's hypocritical practices in _both_ the 6th and 19th centuries. It is still true today. In chapter 10, Twain writes: "Everybody could be any kind of Christian he wanted to; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But...I was afraid of a united Church; it makes a mighty power, the mightiest conceivable, and then when it by-and-by gets into selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means death to human liberty, and paralysis to human thought."

When was this more true than in the middle ages, when the Catholic Church orchestrated Crusades, was genteel in an age of feudalism, and later killed infidels in their inquisitions? It's clear that Twain simply doesn't wish to have a sectarian bias influence secular affairs; our First Amendment supports Twain's point of view.

You'd do best to disregard those other reviews, which hold Twain responsible for their own lack of understanding and appreciation of his novel, and read the book for yourself. It will be well worth your time.