When one of my daughters was choosing her college major, she had a memorable insight. "Students' lack of interest in the hard sciences may be attributable to their limited experience with them in high school. We think we know what historians do,or writers do, but we do not get enough high school math, or chemistry, or physics to imagine a life in those professions." I think that that observation accounts for the high number of people who fall into the "family business." Disproportionately, children of actors become actors, children of lawyers, become lawyers, children of physicians become physicians. The next cut would be friends of children of actors, lawyers, physicians, etc., who have had an opportunity to see into those lives.

In ODYSSEY IN PRIME TIME, Robert Lewis Shayon takes his readers into his life in media. Shayon reminds me of Henry Adams and the Zen master and scholar, D.T. Suzuki, not because their demeanors and personalities are alike, though that may be true, but because they are insightful witnesses of seismic changes in civilization. Adams lived well into the 20th century, but looked back through his grandfather to the 18th. Suzuki was born in Japan, about 1870, and lived to the middle 1960s, i.e., from ox cart to jet. He saw himself as a bridge between East and West, but he was also a bridge between then and now.

Shayon was born about the same time as radio, and has been intimately involved in every aspect of electronic and print media in the 20th century: writer, producer, director, critic, professor. I have known Shayon for more than 30 years, and I have had the pleasure of working with him. That gave me pause, when I thought about writing a review, but I realized quickly that everyone of a certain age and experience knows Shayon. Besides, I knew his work first. That was what drew me to him.

I was disappointed in the first 50 or 60 pages. It seemed to move too quickly, like a television biography that has to cover a century in an hour. But I realized that I had a double agenda. I was at least as interested in what had formed Shayon's character. Born into a poor and dysfunctional family, he "sprang," like the Great Gatsby, "from his platonic conception of himself:" a loving, polished, intellectual, family man, who drinks tea at four o'clock.

Shayon is less interested in his own life story. For the most part, he shows us only the aspects of his life tht relate to the development of radio and television. But the book grows more detailed, as radio and television and Shayon become more important. And I could not put it down, from the end of the Great Depression through the war years and the attacks of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, to his time at the Annenberg School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Over the course of his odyssey, Shayon sums up the story of communications. Radio comes of age with great potential to inform and educate and elevate the public. But advertisers are more interested in maximizing profits. Television has even more potential, and is degraded even faster. And cyberspace offers "virtually" unlimited information and connectivity, but only to those fortunate people who have the means to buy equipment and access.

Some of the hottest new majors for today's college students are in communications and the mass media. But most of the students who sign up for that world have no idea of the costs and benefits and obligations of being in it. The difference between success and failure (personal as well as professional) can hinge on a few decisions. And often we have no one to advise us. Shayon is like the father of your best friend, wanting the best for you and from you, telling you objectively about his failures as well as his success, in hopes that you will profit from his experience. That experience was as varied as it was long. As an eminent critic and professor, he influenced and was influenced (he is a champion listener) by almost everyone who mattered.

If I were teaching a course in mass communications, I would want my students to read this book. If I cared about anyone thinking of choosing that life, I would send her this book. And I am planning on sending my present copy to my eighty-five year old parents, who will enjoy reliving its time.

Brief though it is, _Priniciples_ manages to cover not only the usual topics (sentential calculus, first-order predicate calculus, completeness, decidability), but also: the monadic predicate calculus in relation to Aristotelian logic; second-order logic; set theory and the Fregean concept of number; and the theory of types (logics of higher order). You might say that Hilbert covers the same ground in 160 pages that Russell and Whitehead labor over for 3 volumes. The bottom line: a treat for anyone interested in logic, especially in the period from Frege to Godel.

Best book on IEC 1131-3 out there. User's guide and tutorial. Goes into details of all five programming languages. Lewis was a U.K. expert on the working groups and shows great insights into the power and limitaions of IEC 1131-3. This one's a keeper.

     Members of the online community have many fine books available to them to help sell their products and services online. Many of these books, however, are either too technical or packed with an incredible amount of material too much for the average person to take in. Herschell Gordon Lewis and Robert Lewis have teamed up to write Selling on the Net to offer a reader-friendly guide on selling online that doesn't require a college degree to understand!

     The book covers a wide range issues that online business people must take seriously if they want to successfully market what they have to offer. Factors to consider include establishing an effective online presence, understanding and putting to use effective Website design principles, effectively promoting yourself online, grabbing and keeping attention, tailoring your presentation for the online community, and knowing how to conduct online business.

     The team of Lewis and Lewis provide readers with plenty of instructions for getting the ball rolling, including helpful information about the Internet and goal-setting to achieve favorable results. Chapters on Website design, tailoring content for online use, and promotion stand out from the rest. Effective transmission and reception of a good sales pitch are definitely necessary to succeed online. Plenty of examples, both good and bad, are provided to aid readers to determine what options and techniques are best for them.

     The authors contribute much in the way of setting up shop online for the average reader. They encourage innovation rather than clinging to a rigid set of rules, growth rather than remaining content. The easy-to-read flowing style, the frequent injection of humor, and a deep sense of personal involvement in the lives of others makes this a good resource to consider. Supplement it with several good HTML and creative Website design books and you'll soon be ready to become an online global business participant!

For approximately thirty years, Wolberg's Technique of Psychotherapy has been the bedrock reference work for psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy. With lavish references, case histories and an intensive step-by-step discourse on psychotherapeutic procedure, this book is essential reading for any student or researcher. It is doubtful if any individual practicing psychotherapy in a professional setting is without a copy.

Robert Jensen's recent book Writing Dissent is terse, pleasantly readable, enlightening and practical. The book is a 'how to' of the kind radicals are awfully in need of. Spearheaded by intellectuals and academicians, the radicals lack works like Jensen's. Jensen shows that smart use of the mainstream media is not a proprietary enterprise of the chauvinistic Right. Radicals too can, believe it or not, use the same media to advance their cause of reason, fairness and justice.

The Right invests immense resources in preparing its warriors to exploit the media and blunt the academia through the likes of the Leadership Institute, the Pioneer Fund, the Heritage Foundation, Accuracy in Media, Accuracy in Academia, etc. Their focus is not critical thinking, profound scholarship or honest dialog, but simple exploitation of jargon, redundancy, spincraft and other tricks to win the battle. Mainstream journalism has been a major alibi in this process.

Jensen combines the rare insight of an ex-journalist, an activist and an academician to tell the inside story of mainstream journalism. What Chomsky and Herman tell us on a macroscopic scale in their propaganda model finds real world microscopic explanation in Jensen's work. Yet, the book is not big on theory, its primary focus remains actual dos and don'ts and how-tos of journalism. Several examples of journalistic pieces Jensen has written and gotten published add to the utility and power of the book.

The book is useful for anyone, though the reader is assumed to be a radical throughout. Whether you are a burgeoning activist looking for practical guidance on whether, how and where to write and publish, or an experienced intellectual looking for ways to write in simple, clear and comprehensible journalistic style, this is the book for you.

A pleasant aspect of the book is Jensen's candid style that is a reflection perhaps of his radical ideology. He forcefully claims that 'any one can write' and that his success as a journalist is not due to a special gift. Journalism is a craft, and anyone can learn it.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most clever and entertaining books yet written. The author's use of language is extremely appealing to the younger readers. These young readers are attracted to this book because of the author's use of many songs. For instance the lullaby sung by the duchess to her child. The Mock Turtle also sang to Alice and the Gryphon a song about the Lobster Quadrille. The author also uses poems that are entertaining and fun to listen to. "You are Old Father William" is one of the many poems. Not only does the author use poems but she also uses commonly known poems and changes the words to fit the character saying them. For instance the Mad-Hatter sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in different words saying "Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky." If this isn't a unique way of writing I dont know what is. Another style of her writingthat is appealing is when she creates a picture, using words in a poem, about the poem. Yhis is used on page 37. The words in the book are nbot hard so the book can be enjoyable when it is being read, not stressful. The author brings animals to life which is an interesting style of writing. This is Lewis Carroll's style of writing. The main character in this book is a little girl with blonde hair named Alice. This child is full of fantasies and dreams, which is what the book is about. Alice is very curious and likes to know every little detail. She thinks she is very smart. For example, when Alice is listening to the Dormouse's story she asks questions like "What did they live on," and makes smart comments such as "They could'nt have done that you know, they'd have been ill." She is also a little bit bratty, especially to the Dormouse when she says: "Nobody asked your opinion." These characteristics pull together to make an interesting main character and to create a fabulous story. The theme of the story is sometimes you need to take a break out of every day life and dream of fantasize. This makes your life more interesting even if you dream about things that will never come true. Alice does this when she dreams about changing sizes and listening to talking animals. Dreaming doesn't hurt anyone except the people who don't do it. If nobody ever had dreams life would be extremely stressful and boring. The plot of the story is all about Alice trying to find the white rabbit, which of course is in her dream. Following the white rabbit takes ALice to interesting places, such as the Courtroom filled with animals, and the Duchess' house, along with meeting interestingpeople such as the Cheshire-Cat and the Queen. This amazing cat hes the ability to disappear whenever it wants to and it always smiles. In the end Alice finds the white rabbit and then wakes up from her dream. This is the plot of the story. The story is effective to the reader. This is so because after listening to such acreative dream and fantasy, it inspires people to take a little time out of the day and be creative and dream once in a while. All the parts of this five star story; the writer's style, the main character, the theme, and the plot; come together to create the overall effectiveness of the story. This is why I rated this book five stars.

I really like Alice in Wonderland and its sequel because it is so whimsical. The way Dodgson made fun of Alice so much makes one laugh until tears come pouring down. He based the character Alice, on his friend; a real life Alice. Throughout the book, he constantly makes references to her, or something related to her. For example, when a character asks her the exact day Alice replies May 4th. May 4th is the real life Alice's birthday. Alice walks through Wonderland, and she sees many strange things, but thinks otherwise. If you like poems, you will certainly like Alice in Wonderland and its sequel, for both books contain numerous poems. However, in the book Carroll takes the original poems and creates a parody out of them. Something interesting to know is that all the poems relate to the chapters. These are all minor details, but something to muse over. On the surface, Alice in Wonderland is a book where she meets weird creatures and walks away from them always feeling humiliated, as she thinks she is smarter than she really is. That is most of Alice in Wonderland.

Alice through the Looking Glass is similar to the prequel, yet glaringly different. The whole book revolves around a chess game, and so the character's actions correspond to moves on the chessboard. Alice joins in the game, starts out as a white pawn, and proceeds to move until she becomes a queen. At each square, she meets a new character, but in one chapter, characters from the previous book are in this one too. An important thing to know in this famous classic is that everything is backwards. It makes sense since Alice is on the other side of a mirror, yet she encounters difficulty sometimes in understanding this. But in the end, she manages to become a queen and to checkmate the red king. Both books are very enjoyable, and I strongly advocate both children and adults to read it. Enjoy!! Cheers!!!!! : )

When I was assigned Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass to read for my Victorian Literature class, I was excited. Even though I had heard Alice's Adventures in Wonderland referred to countless times throughout my youth, I had never read the story or seen the movie. I had never heard of Through the Looking Glass, but while reading, I realized that many people who think they are talking about AAIW are actually referring to TTLG. The two texts seem to be conflated in a way that makes them indistinguishable from each other. It is for this reason that I enjoyed reading this edition of the texts. There is only a page separating the two stories, which allows the reader to easily make the transition between them. This small separation also allows the reader to recognize the undeniable connection between the texts and to understand why many people combine them in their minds.
AAIW is about a young girl named Alice whose boring day with her sister is interrupted when a white rabbit runs by her saying, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" Alice's curiosity is aroused, but surprisingly not to a great degree. This is the first hint to the reader that Alice is not an average child, as she seems to believe that a talking rabbit is quite normal. She does become intrigued, though, when the rabbit produces a clock from his pocket, so she follows it down its hole and enters a world of wonder. I loved the story from this point on. It is filled with such unbelievable creatures and situations, but Carroll's writing style made me want to believe in a world that could be filled with so much magic and splendor. There was never a dull moment in the story, and each page was filled with more excitement. I will offer a warning, though. This story is not for those who like a neatly packaged plotline. It is written in a somewhat discontinuous nature and seems to follow some sort of dream logic where there are no rules. However, I enjoyed the nonsensical pattern. Without it, a dimension of the story would be lost. It offers some insight into the mind of a young, adventurous, fearless girl, and Carroll seems to be challenging his readers to be more like Alice.
The second text in this book, TTLG, is again a story about Alice. In this adventure, Alice travels through a wondrous world on the other side of her looking glass. As in AAIW, Alice again encounters absurd creatures, such as live chess pieces and talking flowers. The land she travels through is an oversized chessboard, which gives this story a more structured plot than AAIW. The chess theme provides Alice with sense of what she must accomplish in the looking- glass world, and it provides the reader with a sense of direction throughout the story. Alice's goal is to become a chess queen, so the reader knows that when she becomes queen, the story will be over. However, just because the story has some structure does not mean that it is not just as wild and marvelous as its predecessor. I enjoyed all of the characters. They seem to have an endless supply of advice that people in the 21st century can still learn from. My favorite example is when the Red Queen says, "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" Maybe what Carroll is suggesting is that if we read more nonsensical, unbelievable stories like his, we won't be so afraid to be adventurous and fearless like Alice; so that the next time a white rabbit runs by us, we might just see where it leads us.

Is pain God's megaphone?

Lewis ably examines the thorny subjects of pain and suffering in this book. The brief work is at once philosophical, logical, and semi-theological, even though Clive points out in his preface that he is no theologian (We can thank God for that!).

Lewis seeks to answer questions such as "If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?"

No stranger to pain himself, Lewis sheds some valuable light on the subject and on human nature. The book is both a comfort and a discomfort. One wonders how differently Lewis might have approached the subject after the death of his wife, for example.

I found the later chapters, particularly those on Hell, Animal Pain, and Heaven particularly enlightening.

"Pain," writes Lewis in the end, "offers an opportunity for heroism." His words ring true. Those who have suffered, to any degree, will find the book intriguing.

A fine work, I would not recommend that the Lewis neophyte begin with this work, but perhaps "Mere Christianity."

Not the best place to start if you want to see the strongest logical underpinnings of Christianity (_Miracles: A Preliminary Study_, post-1960 edition, would be the best; _Mere Christianity_ would be the most popular and easiest to digest). However, _The Problem of Pain_ (TPoP) does fully address the most popular theological question of all: if there's a good God, then why do we suffer? The question is deep, and the answers here are logically strong (although any serious sceptic of Christianity will probably rankle at them... go read one of the other two books, first!) This is not a book to read if you've just suffered a personal disaster and want to be comforted (although Lewis himself published the final edition of the book just after his wife's death from bone cancer.) It is, however, an essential book for Christians who want to be forearmed in advance when tragedy strikes: remember that strength of will is an intellectual asset that must be developed unless you're a prodigy, and that our reason is our prime (perhaps only) defense against the overwhelming sorrow of our personal tragedies. Lewis' book places the answers squarely within Christian perceptions, and any ideas in the book should be acceptable to members of any denomination. I'll gladly field any questions or comments (or corrections) at the above address, but take note: hatemail will be immediately deleted (so be polite!), and sceptical non-Christians will probably be referred back to one of the earlier books (which I'll also gladly help out on.) As Lewis himself once wrote, "If I _am_ wrong, then the sooner I find out, the better off I'll be." Just remember it works both ways.

While I read this book (in fact, an old, battered version of my mother's) in order to answer some questions regarding pain and why it exists in a universe created by a loving God (if one accepts this hypothesis), Lewis not only convincingly answered those but also dug into topics such as free will and election, clarifying many other not necessarily pain-related questions in the process. I am now convinced (my apologies to all the Calvinists out there) that free will is an essential ingredient to human being and that it is necessary in order for Christian self-surrender to have any sense at all.

I usually don't riposte to other reviews, but I don't believe the reviewer was correct in saying Dr. Lewis chickened out, largely because his concept of innocent children seems erroneous to me. I remember my younger brother was fully capable of scheming before he could even talk. The helplessness of children does not make them innocent.

I fully recommend this book to anyone grappling with problems of pain.

RABBLE IN ARMS focuses on the Northern army during the Revolutionary War, and describes a lot of incidents -- the retreat from Canada most prominent among them -- that are not often taught to today's schoolchildren. It also has a flattering portrait of Benedict Arnold, showing him as a man of action nearly destroyed by the sniping of his inferiors in Congress.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about this era of history; I'll leave that aspect of the novel to the judgement of people who are. As a novel it's very fine. The structure of the book allows us to gain snapshots of the war, which also enables us to access the war -- another way to say it is that Roberts never drowns us in detail. The protagonist is not the hero of the book -- Arnold is -- but by showing him always second-handedly Roberts manages to avoid the "hero pulp" trap. The style is sturdy and workmanlike, and because Roberts doesn't seem to be stretching for poetry it remains readable, while a lot of books from this period have dated badly.

It's faults are few. A sidetrip to the Sac nation could probably have been cut with little damage to the main narrative -- it feels like padding. The final climax seems like it could have been played out on a much bigger scale, but this may just be attributed to changes in taste. (A lot of classic "swashbucklers" are not action-packed in the sense that a modern reader would understand the term.)

And in some ways the distancing that works so well for Roberts also hurts him, in that nothing in the book is ultimately engaging the way the best of Dumas, say, is. Still, a very interesting, readable book.

I enjoyed every page of this great book at age 14 when I discovered it at the public library in my hometown. It truly made history come to life. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the northern campaigns of the War for Independence. There are some historical errors as well as a hero worship of Benedict Arnold. However no one can deny that Arnold was the driving force in the success of the northern army at the Battle of Valcour Island and the next year at both battles at Freeman's Farm.

The historical characters jump off the page like Arnold, Daniel Morgan, Horatio Gates, Philip Schuyler, John Sullivan, and James Wilkinson. We get some insight into their character and thinking through Roberts' accessible writings style. Roberts builds on his previous novel of Arundel by utilizing many of the characters such as Cap Huff and Steven Nason of that fine book. His narrator is a Maine sea captain Peter Merrill who enlists in Nason's company in early 1776 and follows his travails including a long captvity with western Indians after Valcour Island. We meet up again with Marie de Sabrevois who works her nefarious schemes on the gullible brother of Merrill. How that all turns out is the underbook of the whole novel.
But the real story is the that of the Northern Army who after 2 years of disease, retreat, incompetent leadership, limited food and clothing supplies and military disaster showed amazing resilience in 1777 and defeated the British at the critical phase of the war. Do yourself a favor and read this great book. You'll enjoy every page.

I have read "Rabble In Arms" several times and have liked it better each time I (re)-read it. Many years ago as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy I wrote a paper about the naval battle of Valcour Island, fought by the Continental northern army under Benedict Arnold against the British on October 11, 1776. While Arnold's small fleet was defeated and almost totally wiped out, the strategic importance of the battle cannot be overstated. This is because Arnold succeeded in forcing the British to forego until 1777 their plan of moving down Lake Champlain and Lake George to link up with another force moving up the Hudson, cutting New England off from the rest of the Colonies. When the British did move south in 1777, they were defeated and forced to surrender at the Battle of Saratoga, and it was this battle that convinced the French to join with the Revolutionary forces to fight against the British. Kenneth Roberts' history is exact, and in fact his researches made clear some very fundimental but unknown facts about the Battle of Valcour Island. This is an outstanding book!

This text covers every important aspect in the field, from experimental techniques and basic concepts to reviews of immunology, cancer, and developmental biology. I used it as a reference in four different undergraduate classes, and have prepared for several job interviews by reviewing the relevant information in this book. The illustrations are all relevant, the organization is excellent, and the prose is so well written that I take the book off the shelf and read it for fun. A new edition would be useful - some of the more speculative information is outdated - but this is still the best textbook I own.

Well, considering that this book got me through a full year of molecular and cell biology as an undergraduate, I'm pretty fond of the book. Especially considering that the second half of the year was taught by two people who had never taught a class in their lives before. Reason for the five stars is that this is an INTRODUCTORY level textbook written about 7 years ago. Even considering that, it's thorough enough and comprehensive enough for an entire year. I wasn't expecting work done last year to be included and I wasn't expecting that it would delve into the intricate details of photosynthetic reaction centers or the latest in optical methods in single molecule dynamics. If you want that kind of detail, go to the journals or specialized texts. However, for those undergraduates undertaking a full year of MCB, I can't recommend this text highly enough. And if you're looking for prokaryotic information, I'd go pick up a copy of Prescott, Harley, and Klein's "Microbiology."

Most people, when commenting about this book, tend to compare it to Lodish's Molecular Cell Biology. I own both, and I must say that they are quite similar in their content but different in the way of explaining concepts. Although Lodish's book is a little more up-to-date, it's just a matter of time until a new edition of MBoC is published. In fact, a great number of concepts are clearer in Molecular Biology of the Cell... and vice-versa. About the book, it is the authoritative text of molecular biology for beginners and a reference guide to all fields of cell biology. The chapters concerning the structure of the cell and of the organelles are amazing and include in-depth explanations. It also comprehends the best revision chapters on macromolecules compared to Lodish's. The team of authors was accurate to compose one of the best books in molecular biology for students of all biological and biomedical sciences.