I found this book to be a fast and unforgettable read. Castaneda doesn't needlessly embellish nor exaggerate the importance of Che's role in the social upheaval and tumult of the '60s. His is a passionate, accurate (he has culled the documentary bones of the CIA; a true luminary of the the intricacies of FOIA requests!), and fascinating (there are some accounts in there that make me rub my chin and say, "hmmm..." about Che's life and many peccadilloes.) A MUST READ!! Your view(s) of Che will never be the same.

This very passionate work does a good job of clearing up misconceptions and making Che's ideas and philosohy more readily available. Che has become a sort of enigmatic figure in our times and it is disturbing how so many people just plaster his image and "claim" to be a "compa~nero" without really knowing what Che stood for and what he accomplished in his life. This is a very welcome biography on one of the most influential and misunderstood revolutionaries. This book was written by someone who is not only passionate about it, but who is also able to be objective. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about Che.

I was tired of seeing his face on all the t-shirts (as I am a college student) and not knowing just who Che was. Having read Castaneda's book, I now feel that I can say with confidence that I understand why Che's face has become such a countercultural symbol. Castaneda has definitely done his homework in preparing to write this compelling account of Guevara's life and death. The author does not attempt to glorify the revolutionary or to paint him as a villian, but rather provides the reader with details from both camps in order to allow him or her to make their own decision. The Che that emerges is a superb visionary and one of the few truly pure Marxist socialist leaders of the modern era, a throwback to the Bulsheviks of the early 20th century. This book has encouraged me to read more into Che's theories, and is one that I absolutely recommend to anyone, especially those readers who would tend to quickly denounce socialism due to there familiarity only with the corrupt brand practisted by the Soviet and Chinese camps. If only more of us were like Che Guevara in sticking with our convictions no matter what they may be!

Over the past few years, I have explored many Russian phrase books, dictionaries and poetic collections. None of them impressed me like this one! I could not put it down, and was awestruck at the sheer number of useful phrases, from the sweetly innocent to the tastefully erotic. A good lesson in grammar also, and very up-to-date. Simply put, my best purchase in quite some time.

Collaboratively compiled and edited by Marina Frolova and Robert Powers, English-Russian Dictionary-Phrasebook of Love: Words And Phrases To Win Hearts, Stir Desire, And Express Feelings is a vast and extensive 800 page collection of words and phrases to express the desires of love and romance. English entries are listed in alphabetic order, and each entry offers a rendition of the appropriate word or phrase into Russian. Twenty-one appendices offer a wealth of vital and basic information on pronouncing the Russian alphabet, common holidays, and so much more. English-Russian Dictionary-Phrasebook Of Love is a solid, reliable, highly recommended linguistic guide, as well as a useful and "user friendly" reference for learning how to communicate with one's significant other about practical matters as well as matters of the heart.

First off, I couldn't believe that there were enough people who had Russian girlfriends/boyfriends/spouses or whatever to write a dictionary just for them. Hey, but there is - and I am one of them. The book has everything you need. When I first opened it I was disappointed it was all written in Russian. I was hoping that they could write the sentences with english letters - but that was OK, because they give you a great Russian Alphabet cutout page. I only had it for a few hours and I was already learning how to say phrases like "I pray I never lose you" and write out in complete Russian "I would like to be the lucky person in this world who teaches you what kind of magic a kiss can hold." I must note that before this I had never heard or seen Russian with a hint of understanding. For a guy who only knows German and English, this book does miracles in the tough language of Russian. This is definetly a must if your love is from Russia!

Against the Odds

FOR SOLO VIOLIN: A Jewish Childhood in Fascist Italy, By Aldo Zargani Paul, Dry Books: 230 pp., paper
By ALEXANDER STILLE
Alexander Stille is the author of several books, including "Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism" and "The Future of the Past."

August 25 2002
With the gradual passage of those who survived the Holocaust and World War II as adults, we have an increasing number of memoirs of the generation that experienced that time as children. Aldo Zargani was born in 1933 and was 5 when Benito Mussolini passed the racial laws that forced him to leave Italian public schools and cost Zargani's father, a violinist, his job. Zargani was 7 when Italy entered World War II and 10 in 1943, when Italy tried to withdraw from the war and was occupied by Nazi Germany, forcing the Zarganis--father, mother and two sons--to spend a terrifying year and a half in hiding.
"For Solo Violin" is a gracefully written, elegiac memoir of childhood that effectively renders the pain, psychological dislocation and fear of coming of age under the shadow of fascism's racial laws and Mussolini's disastrous alliance with Hitler's Germany. The book is a useful corrective to the many books and articles that have tended to downplay the havoc that Mussolini's racial policies wreaked because they stopped short of the extermination program of Nazi Germany. As Zargani notes, he did not distinguish as a child between fascism and Nazism because by the German occupation of 1943, Italian fascists and German Nazis were working together to arrest and deport the country's Jews.
Zargani paints a number of affecting thumbnail sketches of the many relatives and family friends who were captured and killed. While others have stressed that Italy's Jews had among the highest survival rates of Europe's Jewish population, Zargani notes that between a quarter and a third of those left in the country by 1943 perished, which, given the brevity of the Germany occupation, means that deportation and death were hardly exceptional events.
Because these are childhood memories, "For Solo Violin" is more a series of fragmentary scenes and vignettes than a coherent, complete narrative of the family's experience. Following the promptings of memory, Zargani moves back and forth in time, producing a narrative that is, at times, poetical and finely re-imagined but also, at times, choppy and confusing. This impressionistic approach leaves us, however, with some powerful memories that convey the sense of material life at that time: the excitement and luxury of riding in an automobile in Italy in the 1930s; learning to skin moles and cook chestnuts during the terrible hunger and deprivation of the war; a boy whose only word is "goat"; a poor, illiterate family that lives on hunted cats and small-time theft.
One vignette perhaps best sums up the weird combination of anti-Semitism and generosity that Zargani experiences. After the war ended, the old peasant woman who had helped hide his family asked Zargani's mother: "Please explain to me, Madam, if you don't mind, how nice people like you can eat babies every year at Easter?" The woman had evidently absorbed the centuries of Catholic preaching about Jewish ritual murder and yet it did not prevent her from risking her life to save a Jewish family.

I came across this book on a shelf, and could not stop reading it. I could not believe such events could be written with such humor and poetry; it reminded me a little of "Angela's Ashes" but in that book the boy only faces terrible poverty (as if that could be an "only"); in this book the huge forces of war are out to kill young Aldo and his family and hundreds of thousands of others because they are Jews. The book is told in no chronological order, but the seven years between 1938-45 are relayed a month here, a season or perhaps a harried afternoon there, as one might recall them in passionate memory fifty years after, as the author does indeed relate them. The small intimate and ordinary bits of the lives of the author, his brother and their parents ring against the great tragedy of war: in the midst of running for their lives, they stop at a hospital for a minor test for the children, the young boy in boarding school with almost nothing to eat devours another boy's lard sandwiches sent from home. A young woman appeals suddenly in lacy black underwear, her despair overcoming her modesty in a desperate cry for life..why is this book not better known? It is astonishing.

For Solo Violin: A Jewish Childhood In Fascist Italy is the memoir of Aldo Zargani, a man who survived being a Jewish child in northern Italy during the brutal era of 1938-1945, when the Fascists and Nazis held sway and a deliberate, well orchestrated campaign of genocide was underway. Told from a vantage point of fifty years later, For Solo Violin recalls the wonder of childhood mixed with shocking events of war and murder in this deeply moving, personal account. For Solo Violin is a clear autobiographical testament, recommended for Judaic Studies supplemental reading lists, and a welcome addition to the growing library of Holocaust literature.

GRIFFIN & SABINE is the ultimate gift for the naturally curious. This peek into the correspondence between two people - with letters to open, postcards to read, handwriting to decipher - gives the reader the sensation of having stumbled upon a romantic mystery to which only the individual reader is privvy. The story is nothing much, but the discovery of it is exquisite. The art used to development the concept is engaging and not at all cutesy. Because of its interactive nature, this book feels intimately known, privately owned, a secret kept closed between the covers.

This is a great gift book. If you are looking for substantial reading, skip this, but if you want a diversion, something to explore and take in visually, this book is for you.

How many times have you heard the expression "It has everything in it"? Well, this book is closely related to that phrase. In an original format of postcards and letters, you have to take out of their envelopes, the book reveals to you the mysterious story of Griffin and Sabine. It all starts from a postcard sent to a lonely and strange artist in London, from a woman he never saw before in his life. To all you chat-loving who enjoy the idea of chatting with strangers you've never met, see how it really becomes magical. The book is brilliantly illustrated and you can always go through it again, discovering details you missed the last time. I can give you my word, that finishing it will live you with wide opened mouth, crying for more, and buying copies to your love ones, so that they can enjoy it too

I was given this as a gift from my "extraordinary correspondent" 3000 miles away and it made me appreciate the joys of becoming entranced in the possiblity of love and the tingle of fear that comes when that love is real. Nick Bantock takes us on a journey, through love letters. Letters that the reader can actually remove from their envelope, open and read! For those of you who thought you were too old for "pop-up like books" you're in for a treat! The beautiful artwork only adds to the story. I can't wait to read book #2!

An Indonesian myself, I've been living in Malaysia for 5 years. I consider myself know much about Malaysian and the country itself. Now I've been one and half years away from my move back to Indonesia, and reading this book refreshes my mind and soul very much about what I experienced and realize about the country. It's great for me to see that a neighbouring country is full of visionaries...

First in my native tongue.. beribuan terima kasih Puan Marina Mahathir/Millions thxs Madam Marina Mahathir, and it's such a delight for someone to be bold in her approaches when it comes to "truth", I truly enjoyed reading Ms. Mahathir contribution to our country as well to the whole world, and what our country is all about, again I highly recommend to world wide audience to give a shot at this wonderful master piece. Bravo.. Ms. Mahathir..

This collection of essays on the social values, traditions and norms of Malaysia left me anxious to visit this dynamic country. Marini Mahathir shows how this young country blends the cultures of the Chinese, Indians, Malays and Moslems harmoniously into the Malaysian way of life. Marina gives an intelligent and independent view of Malaysia as it is today. It is not a boring historical treatise but a lively look at what it means to be Malaysian with all the outside pressures to conform to Western values. One gets the feeling that the Malysians are sensitive, spiritual people who care for both their neighbors and their country. Malaysia appears to have cohesion between cultures and races not common in many countries. We in the US could learn a lesson from our Malaysian friends. Yes, Hillary, it does take a village!

This covers many of the important aspects of C#. I like the Good Programming practice and Software Engineering tips very much.

Only problem is the font and the bold highlighting is so much that it makes the book hard to read continuously. Page starts to blur after a while. My other book is a Sams teach yourself C# in 21 days. The text is muuuuuchhh more readable.

After reading "C# Primer Plus", I was looking for a programming book that uses the FCL and VS .NET in earnest, providing a good introduction to Win Forms, ASP.NET, and Web Services. I found that in this book. It's very clearly written, and explains the basic concepts well without much non-sense, unlike "Programming C#".

My main concern is that it's coverage of core C# is somewhat skimpy. Important subjects such as data types, delegates, interfaces, and polymorphism are either not covered at all, or mentioned just in passing. So you are still going to need an in depth book on core C#. I recommend "C# Primer Plus", which I believe you should read before this one. Nothwithstanding some overlap between the two, they complement each other very nicely. This one will smooth the transition from core C# to usage of the bread & butter classes that are included in .NET.

In covering the subject, Deitel and company provide a good overview of not only C#, but object oriented programming concepts, and using solutions that take advanatge of XML, ADO .NET, and ASP .NET. An introduction is provided of the Visual Studio .NET development environment. The 800+ page book includes 152 "Live-Code" programs with C# program code, and over 353 programming tips.

This is a bad book! As much as I am a fan of Yo-Yo's music, and with the wish to learn more about this great person, I really felt disappointed after reading this book. The writer, John Rallo, don't seem to know enough about Yo Yo Ma; his writing style was very deattached, it was written like from the 'fourth-person' or maybe the 'nth-person' perspective. Marina Ma, Yo Yo's mother, had her name as the co-author of this book; but she didn't done any of the actual penning. And whatever little information she had related to Mr. Rallo, was common facts that could be found from old newspaper and magazine articles.

this was a great biography! it was written so that it flows; it's packed with information, but really interesting and intriguing to read. i recommend it for anyone, especially music lovers :) it's an influentially beautiful piece.

It is an absolutely fantastic book. The 'making' of Yo-Yo Ma a great cellist is unveiledto the audience. Mr Ma's unrivalled achievements since his youth are beyond doubt. I find it most touching and enjoyable in the mother's memories of events surrounding the parental families in difficult times; and the conversations amongst the Mas, old and young throughout the period. It is a book of love, care and understanding that has been manifested and shared by these fine people in a tri-cultural background.

The book's jacket design is so inviting; however, inside its messages are confusing. This is primarily because of the way in which the material is presented. All text is handwritten, making it difficult to scan and read quickly (for this reader). There are many arrows and much cross-hatching. Reproductions of masterworks are dull and do not convey any of the power of the originals (and these comprise a large segment of the book). The format reminds me of an adventure book in which the reader must track the characters or plot through various segments using maps and arrows. The content is interesting once it is deciphered, but that was the problem: I felt as if I were deciphering a treasure map. Yes, a "treasure" map, because the book does offer good information. I did not have the patience to read it through, and prefer something more to the point with more clarity in the layout. For some reason, I think those who love Tolkein (_Hobbit_ and _Lord of the Rings_) and Adams (_Watership Down_) who want to learn more about painting would probably love this approach. I wonder if that's the case...

This book was excellent. Done in a handwriiten style with many colored drawings, it tells about all media, techniques, and history of art. No matter what your medium is, you should enjoy it!

I have never before seen a book on art like this one. It is a fascinating tour of art history - from prehistory to the modern day, as well as a highly accessible "how to" guide for people of all skill levels who have any desire to create art. The authors are so clever in the way they simplify what otherwise seems to the layperson to be such a complex process. Everyone in my family (ranging in age from 7 years to 77 years) has been enraptured with this book - it is already a family treasure!

This tape is well done. The sound effects create an atmosphere that draws in the listener. The actors are dramatic, but not overly so. The short stories themselves are well written, delivering edge-of-the-chair suspense (or knee-slapping comedy, as the case may be).

As most net surfers are aware the Sci-Fi Channel's web site has included a section devoted to science fiction radio drama...Seeing Ear Theatre. One aspect of which includes originally produced productions cerated especially for the site and which has featured performances by many well-known SF actors as Micheal O'Hare,Mark Hamill,Marina Sirtis,and others. With a few exceptions, a lot of the dramas are based on recent short stories by SF writers such as Terry Bisson, Allen Steele, John Kessel and Gergory Benford. With the release of this audiobook editon(which includes introductions by SF's resident angry young{sic}man Harlan Ellison)now one can listen to these stories anytime you want. The best stories(IMO)are the Three Odd Comedies and The Death of Captain Future (which despite the pulpish-sounding title is a darkly humorous tale set in the future history of Steele's previous works such as Orbital Decay and Clarke County,Space). If you like audio drama-- especially newly produced audio drama...you'll love this collection and you may also want to check out Vol. 2 which should be on sale soon(I know I can't wait).

WOW what a story! Brian Smith could sell this as a short story by itself it is so good IMO. I just wish they sold a hard copy of these writings--not just audio! I have been reading Sci Fi for a long time. This guy is great! Reminds me of 2001, a space odyssey a bit. Worth the price just for this one folks! I noticed there are no other books by Brian Smith for sale on Amazon. What's up with that? He needs to write books, and Amazon needs to sell them--geez, do I make myself clear?

While I commend J.L. Austin's attempt in How to Do Things With Words to liberate language from the metaphysical pretensions that the logical positivists imposed upon it by investing it with a certain phenomenological value, i.e., via the notion of "the speech act," I cannot help but wonder if Austin's reevaluation of the nature of language carries with it certain puzzling implications, particularly with regard to speaker, she who commits the speech act.

Austin's argument concerning the characteristics of a performative utterance are informed by a specific assumption concerning the origin and evolution of language: to wit, that language in its primitive stage was simply a collection of one-word utterances that are inherently ambiguous in terms of their individual senses. Thus, in order to refine the sense of these one-word utterances, a whole array of supplementary parts of speech evolved, and language became consequently more complex and sophisticated (71). In Austin's nomenclature, the force of a given one-word utterance was too diffuse vis-à-vis the context in which it is uttered and thus quite ambiguous from the addressee's position. In other words, a primitive one-word utterance does not provide the addressee any certainty about how she is to construe it. Therefore, the increasingly sophisticated iterations of language indicate an ongoing effort to refine the sense of an utterance, to give the force of the utterance a more specific and unambiguous valence.

However, Austin also maintains that an unintended consequence of this evolution of language is that it reaches a point where it becomes too sophisticated and thereby re-introduces the very uncertainty it was originally intended to mitigate. He claims that the various parts of speech, and the words that comprise them "lend themselves to equivocation and inadequate discrimination; and moreover, we use them for other purposes, e.g., insinuation," and thus concludes that "the trouble about all these devices has been principally their vagueness of meaning and uncertainty of sure reception" (76). In other words, there is a definite yet non-localizable threshold that an utterance must not cross if it is to remain teleologically oriented toward the clarity and accurate construal on the part of the addressee.

The speech act therefore always navigates between the Scylla and Charybdis of inadequately directed signifying force resulting from the primitiveness of the utterance on one hand, and the over-complexity of the utterance on the other. As a result, the clarity of a given utterance depends almost exclusively on the intention of the speaker; she must in some way remain cognizant of the above-mentioned threshold and therefore deploy the force of her utterance in a way that avoids being too diffuse or unmanageably polyvalent. This is not to claim, however, that the clarity of a given utterance is reducible to some Aristotelian mean; rather the clarity of an utterance depends on how well it reflects the earnestness or sincerity of the speaker. This notion of the speaker's earnestness is deduced from the circumstances surrounding the utterance, as well as the utterance's delivery, e.g., the enveloping context, the speaker's particular emphases, diction and enunciation, etc. The addressee thereby "triangulates" the speaker's specific intention through interpreting the above-mentioned features of the utterance. In short, it is absolutely essential to Austin's project that the speaker mean what she says.

It appears then that Austin's fundamental supposition is tautological: the addressee deduces/approximates the speaker's degree of sincerity through the amount of sincerity the speaker conveys in her utterance, which in turn reflects ipso facto the speaker's sincerity (as a subjective condition). In short, the speaker is found to be in earnest because she is in earnest. Only an utterance of the utmost sincerity-what Austin terms an "explicit performative"-carries with it the closest thing to a guarantee in terms of a clear and accurate construal. This further implies that clarity of utterance is ultimately an ethical consideration, rather than a linguistic or grammatical one, because the speaker's responsibility to her addressee obliges her to be earnest and therefore quite literal in her expression (see Habermas on this point). Unless of course the context in which the utterance is made is one in which it is assumed, either through mutual agreement or convention, that explicit or pure performatives are not necessarily expected nor pertinent, e.g., a comical monologue, a play, etc.

Thus, while Austin's argument in How to Do Things with Words is elegantly schematic, it nevertheless implies a somewhat simplistically idealized and unitary notion of the speaker's subjectivity. In other words, Austin's claims cannot adequately accommodate instances of insincerity that, while perhaps unanticipated, are not exactly inappropriate-such as ironical observations on an immediate situation-because such self-abrogation of the speaker's sincerity renders the utterance "infelicitous" almost to the point of being diabolically caustic with regard to the addressee's apprehension.

At many points, J.L. Austin's How to do Things with Words reads more like a linguistic textbook than a philosophy text. Whether you count this as a benifit or a distraction will depend on your disposition (it certainly beats reading Kant), but whatever your views on the subject, the work is a useful introduction to Speech Act Theory. How to do Things with Words examines a part of language that philosophy has traditionaly ignored, what he dubs the performative utterance. There are certain instances in language where to say something is do perform the very act you say, promising being the perinial example. If I say, under ordinary circumstances, "I promise to do x" then I have promised to do x. Using this seemingly magical fact as his starting point, Austin goes reach profound conclusions about the nature of language and philosophy. Though the tasks Austin sets out to accomplish are largely left uncompleted (he himself admits this) the book will give you the grounding you need to pursue other works in the field, such as those of Searle or Grice. Happy reading!

The mysterious force of language revealed by Austin is one of the most important discoveries in the modern language theories.