The author seems to be trying to justify some interlink between this philosophy and his own. This is not the straight forward translation I expected.

With time and discipline, this sort fo knowledge can be very beneficial to man, but in the wrong hands...Could be used for the wrong purposes.

"Thunder in the Sky" is on the exercise of power based on Taoist principles. How to wield it, how to get it, how to manipulate people, and all the rest.

The book is written at a high level, almost a book of wise facts. I'm sure there are better books with specific knowledge on power; But as a general primer on the subject, this book does a good job.

I agree with the other reader that this book is not a direct translation of the original material...but I'm not an academic or a purist in that sense. I didn't care that there was a lot of Mr Cleary's own wording in places.

Lastly, its obvious that you really need a good scholar on the subject to teach this book to you. There are too many areas where I could tell there was a mountain buried under 1 sentance. But don't let that stop you from reading this book. I would recommend this book as a good starting place on the whole subject of power/management/diplomacy.

This book is exhilarating! Contained therein are two separate texts by Taoist sages on crisis/opportunity management theory; lessons from the masters. The simplicity and concision of this book delivers it's message of harmonious striving as effortlessly and sublimely as a child picks a flower; it's advice is wonderful.

(As I understand it) This book deals with chen forms used in competition. I must say it is quite different from the ch'en style I am learning. Same characteristic silk reeling energy, but in a different, less interesting form.

It's hard to find books on the Chen style. This one is well written and covers as much as you can expect in a book.

this book is useful to the elementary level cos the book has not much 'new' things to the students and/or practitioners. For those who have studied finance would find this book too simple. for those who are interested in hk property market, I would suggest another book, "real estate in hk" ...complied by Mr. Thomas N T Poon., published by PACE

Property Development in H

Maxine Hong Kingston's autobiography is a complex work that takes careful analyzation. To fully understand how she uses this piece to tell her story, one must examine several aspects of Chinese culture. It is an interesting work that requires thought.

An haunting book that details the life of a Chinese American woman who struggles to find herself. Although the non-chronological structuring of the book is rather hard to follow, it is amazing. This book leaves an indelible mark on the mind and pierces the soul. Extremely recommended!

I give it the stars, only because it is the only English translation of the great Shaykh Al Alawi. The BIGGEST mistake of the book, and why oh why did they get away with it was when the story goes how Al Alawi was given the tariq. pg 68 says that he received the tariq in a dream. This is incorrect, and if it wasn't for that I would have given this book more stars! All in all, it was a nice read, there is a photo of him Rahimullah, Is it really him though?? Although it is a biography, at the end there are some of his wonderful poetry, and Mystical sayings to his murid's! That was the highlight of the book, oh and some nice brush ups on Islamic history of that time in the Maghrib area!

Though I don't know much about such things as whether this book is good in comparison to others, I can give my personal opinion. The first half of the book is more or less a biography, which is both entertaining and inspirational for anyone who likes to read about people and their lives...one interesting side note is that they compare his greatness to that of Ramana Maharshi. In any case...the second half of the book is absolutly amazing, and anyone who is new to the language the sufis use to explain universal truths will say "wow" more than once while reading this book...I would read a page or two and it would be interesting, and then I would suddenly read something that shifted me, made me give thanks and put the book down. This book is not for those who see themself as the judge..it is for those who are thankful for being gifted even the slightest desire to want to know and be with God. You will find something useful here. Peace.

book review _Heavenly clockwork_
HEAVENLY CLOCKWORK the great astronomical clocks of medieval china
by Joseph needham

I read the book because of a statement made in a online discussion group: "the chinese emperor suppressed the knowledge of clockmaking."
This did not fit into my understanding, as i have seen very old water clock diagrams on the walls of bell and drum towers in China, in particular, the drum and bell towers in Beijing had a very complete set of sketches of massive water clocks. Although i could not read the legends i understood that the purpose of the drum and bell towers throughout China was to keep time in a very public way.

Now choosing this particular book was not an accident, i have wanted to get into the massive corpus of Needham's work on China, and this was an opportunity to have a minor need driven learning curve. I was not at all disappointed in the book. It is literally an excellent example of how to do science, how to investigate a historical question, how to marshall facts and prove a difficult point.

But the book is not for the faint of heart, or the mildly interested in horology, it is complete, tedious and not a Sunday afternoon light reading. Nor should it be, it is just as the author intended it, a scientific research book on the origin of clock building in China.

From the introduction: " It is generally allowed that the invention of the mechanical clock was one of the most important turning-points in the history of science and technology. Not only was it the earliest complex device, heralding a whole age of machine-making, but also its regular imitation of the natural motion of the sun and heavens fascinated men and exerted no small influence on their philosophy and theology." The key text which is studied throughout is _New Design for a Mechanised Armillary Sphere and Celestial Globe_ written in 1090AD by Su Sung. The clock was built, a high astronomical clock-tower more than thirty feet high, with sky observation points, moving globes and rings that would be analogous to the same object in the movie "Dark Crystal" with the planets in their various orbits whizzing around the sun.

"To sum up the matter, it is quite clear that one of the reasons why the early Jesuit missionaries were so much welcomed by the Chinese was for their interest in clocks and clock-making, hardly less indeed than for their skill as mathematicians and astronomers. ... In Ricci's time the Jesuit order was capable of attracting for its overseas mssions some of the best minds of Europe. It was a mobilisation of oecumenical idealism something like that which the League or the United Nations have now and then commanded in our own time." pg. 145

It is the 9th chapter: "General History and Transmission of Astronomical Clocks" that i personally found the most fasinating, where Needham takes the details and builds the connections to general thinking and social structures. "Such devices of scientific technology have exercised not a little influnce on the idea that the universe was a great mathematical machine whose workings could be comprehended by exact reasoning. Since astronomy and graphic representation are two of the most ancient of man's arts, it is no wonder that he should want to hold the cosmos in his hand by making a model of it--" pg 179 "This is no accidental feature of mechanical design, but an inherent part of the format of Chinese astronomical theory."pg 180 "The question is also linked closely with the different modes of astronomy in the Hellenistic and Chinese cultures. In the West, a series of happy accidents occurred soon after the arithmetically minded Babylonians had communicated their astronomy to the geometrically strongly-developed Hellenic scientists. These accidents of physical fact and mathematical structure had the effect of directing the best period of genius towards the mathematical analysis of planetary motions rather than to any other part of astronomy." pg 181

I understand that the big question for Needham was why did science develop in the West and not China, given the Chinese invention of all the pieces of what we consider the enabling technology. This book is my first study into the Needham body of writing and i look forward to working through the 12 volume set on Chinese science.

thanks for reading the review, and i hope it inspires you to at least skim the first chapter and chapter 9.

Needham investigates a 11th C Chinese clock

Please do NOT buy this book. Unfortunately, it _still is_ the recommended text for our school's OBGYN rotation, like most schools...but that's b/c the ACOG recommends recommends it...I used it anyway - and it's poorly written, contains about only 1/2 (the really cursory, simple 1/2) of what you will be asked, is woefully short on many OB subjects, and very old on gyn-onc Tx and procedures. It _is_ readable in a 6 wk rotation - but most students will buy this in the 2nd year to go with their pre-clinical courses - to which it is not at ALL suited. The only good point is that it has some 1500 multiple-guess questions in the back which are usefull for step 2... but it doesn't make it worth it, since you can buy the PreTest book, which is much better for exam prep. I would recommend the Lange Basic OBGYN book by Cunningham instead. I'm not even going into OB - but I got ALOT more out of that book than out of the Beckmann text - which I have grown to despise after seeing the other books available. I can't believe so many students are encouraged to waste their money - and worse, their time - on this thing...

This was the recomended text for my Ob/Gyn clerkship in medical school. It was pretty comprehensive yet chapters were short enough that a busy student can manage two or three per call night. It was good preparation for our exam, which at the University of Iowa, was the S.H.E.L.F. exam. This text tackles topics from hydatidiform mole and vestibulitis to hypertension and depression. The scope of this book encompasses not only all subspecialties in Ob/Gyn but also primary care, ethics and anatomy. Because of the nonintimidating conciseness of the many chapters in this book, I was able to overlook the initial lack of interest in OB/Gyn that I took with me the first day of that rotation. I was also able to excel on this clerkship. I still refer to this text on occasion, even as a second year Ob/Gyn resident. Third year medical students would be doing themselves a favor by checking out this easily afforded text. Not only is it an excellent resource, study guide and starter book for me, it changed my life.

The first problem with this book is the cover. It depict the two names of God and the prophet intertwined together, like two equal entities, creating a sense of unity. This design tells a lot about Sufi thought, which elaborates on man's journey towards his Creator until he reaches the final state of unity, at which point he becomes at the highest state of being. And thus he is looked up to by others in 'subordinate' stages as a person through which God communicates with them. To any devout Muslim, this is pure heresy. One of the main objectives of Islam was to purify faith from the 'other' in man's relationship with his Creator. The second problem with this book is its preset assumption that Sufism is an Islamic concept. For anyone familiar with the everyday life of the prophet and his companions, it is clear that they had no time to sit and meditate over which 'station' of knowledge or literal advancement towards God they were at (in fact, they never viewed themselves as being the best or the most knowledgeable, knowing that whoever thought of himself as such had probably claimed authority over matters known only to God). There were more important things set down from God for them and subsequently, for all muslims. Those were clearly set out and, to find out about them, all you have to do is just read the Quran. The prophet had a mission to humanity and his companions followed in his footsteps. They were to accomplish it exactly as God had ordered them, there was neither the desire, nor the room, to come up with man made ideologies and to distract themselves from God's clearly defined commands. Those people were NOT saints, for Islam does not acknowledge sainthood. If they were all a group of mystics, their minds would have been too clouded with problems of knowledge and existence that no civilization would have been built in the first place. As the case is with most Sufi readings, reference is hardly to the companions of the prophet or to names like Ibn Qayyim, Ibn Taymiya, Malek, Abu Hanifa, or Shafei. It is in the writings of those that a reader will find the fulfilling spiritual aspect of Islam. All that readers find, however, is 'saints,' or mystic scholars whose writings, as known to all Muslim scholars, sharply deviate from the teachings of Orthodox Islam found in the Quran and in the sayings of the prophet (pbuh). Finally, it is important to note that the often praised Sheikh Ghazali, considered by Sufis as the founder of Sufism and, to whom reference is indeed abundant in many Sufi texts, had himself changed much of his ideas near the end of his life and had in fact complied more closely to the teachings of Orthodox Islam.

This is a very well researched and written introduction to the Islamic science of tassawuf--which is the Arabic word usualy translated as sufism.

As Dr. Lings shows--and he later converted to Islam as Dr. Abu Bakr Siraj ud Deen--Sufism is an integral part of Islam; a part which has always been accepted as the heart of Islam. As a famous Sufi [Islamic saint who has reached the highest spiritual station] once said, "Shariat is the body and tariqat [another name for Sufism] is the soul".

This book looks at the origins of Sufism, its historical development, its branching into various brotherhoods, its importance in Islamic history as well as the various aspects of sufi methodology and worship. Most importantly, this book puts Sufism where it belongs: at the heart of Islam and it shows that Sufism is not, as some have argued, extraneous to the Islamic belief. In other words, though it has some similarities with other mystical aspects of other religions, it is totally a product of Islam and it's orthodox teachings. There is no such thing as a non-Muslim Sufi.

This book is thus a superb introduction to the inner-mystical--aspects of Islamic worship and the best one i've seen so far in English for the beginner. Highly recommended.

One of the most unusual of the stories of the second Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton), this is Peter Ling's adaptation of his own TV serial.

This book varies slightly from the original version: on TV, it followed on directly from 'The Dominators' with a volcanic eruption on the planet Dulkis. In the novel, the TARDIS crew are present at the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (an era far better explored in the audio play 'Fires of Vulcan'). Using an emergency unit that pushes the TARDIS out of reality, the travellers find themselves in a white void where something tries to lure them out...

They find themselves in a strange land, populated by characters from myth and literature. And the ruler of this land has plans for the Doctor.

While the story is OK in this novelised form, the original story is so striking that this effort pales in comparison. Watch the video, and perhaps read this book as a second choice.

In purchasing this book, I was expecting to find something similar to the second volume of the Norton Anthology of American Literature. Unfortunately, I found this book to be far inferior. It has works by some of America's most highly commended authors, and has some great short stories. However, the excerpts from authors' longer works seem to be lacking; there should either be longer excerpts or more poingnat scenes should have been chosen. The anthology spends far too much time describing eras, and not enough in inserting major works. Some of the breakdowns/characterizations of the peices included are awkward, and tends to underrate the authors by putting them in sectionss that degrade their work.