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We take many drives to different parts of New England, and go exploring. Often we see something and wonder what it is. Now we keep this book in the car. It has greatly increased our knowledge and appreciation of our new England home.
Since reading this one, we have bought others of the series on the strength of the habitat and other "natural history" information. The authors' writing is clear and engaging and makes the material accessible to the tenderest of tenderfeet.
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The book reads so fluidly that it simply astounds me. The imagery and story of Christian's journey to the Celestial City was breathtaking. But what really nailed me was how unbelievably close to my life Christian's journey follows. I was staggered as I read along, thinking every other page, "I've been there!", or when he meets certain characters like Money-Love and Worldly-Wise saying, "I work with him", or "That's my friend from Chicago!".
I cannot comprehend how Bunyan managed to do this feat, or maybe it's just all of our lives mirror Christian's own as he journeys to God's city. This book helped me in such ways that I can't begin to list them all, it simply pointed me in the right direction, while at the same time letting me see I had the tools and the faith to deal with it from the very beginning. So now as I escape from Castle-Doubt and the Giant Despair, thanks God for giving me that Key of Promise. It's working out wonderfully!
Access to Bunyan's scripture references gives the serious reader the opportunity to better his or her understanding of Bunyan's work while Hazelbaker's references and annotations also compliment the text. Hazelbaker, for example, elaborates on the importance of the seal that a Shining One (an angel) places upon Christian's forehead and on the Document given to him. Hazelbaker also offers his audience a clear and detailed understanding of the "Family" that resides in the palace called Beautiful. The reader will appreciate Hazelbaker's explanation of Bunyan's reference to "the goods of Rome" at Vanity Fair and why it would have been significant to the first readers of The Pilgrim's Progress. Hazelbaker also takes the time to explain to the reader why he uses the word "coat" for "bosom." These are only a few of the many helpful annotations Hazelbaker includes in his work.
In studying Hazelbaker's translation I referred to an early edition of Bunyan's several times. Each time I found Hazelbaker's translation true to Bunyan. Hazelbaker has made special effort to maintain the characteristic qualities and message of Bunyan's original work. In the translation process, he manages to preserve Bunyan's work by keeping himself removed from the text. This is his duty and obligation as a translator. His translation is, in all honesty, unabridged and non-paraphrased.
Of the 215 pages I have studied to date, I have found only one minor word choice in Hazelbaker's translation that I wish he would not have made. He translates Bunyan's "cartloads" with "truckloads" in the Swamp of Despondence episode. Although, by definition, "truckloads" is acceptable, it too easily causes confusion for the modern reader who thinks of pickups and tractor-trailers when he reads "truckloads." This is certainly a minor concern, but I mention it in an effort to objective.
Hazelbaker has done an exceptional job of making Bunyan's beautiful classic more appealing to the modern audience. This unabridged version is suitable for readers from middle and upper elementary ages to adults. I am glad to see that Hazelbaker has taken the time and made the effort to offer his audience a version of Pilgrim's Progress that is not watered-down and compromised. It definitely deserves a place in any library.
John Bunyon's insight on going through troubles and trials is inspiring. He points out that although we may think we are taking the "easy road" off the "Path of the Way" which is uphill, it ends up taking us to a dark, dreary, dangerous place instead. If we persevere with "Faith" and "Hopeful" up the hill, we will eventually reach the top of the mountain in our Christian Journey with God by our side. I highly recommend this book to EVERYONE not just people who call themselves Christians...For it is a book filled with powerful lessons all can learn from.
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He was born in Bavaria seventy-three years ago. As with Karol Wojtyla, he had a full life before going to Rome. As a young man and seminarian he was exposed to the rise of Nazism in Germany. He was a prominent theological advisor during the Second Vatican Council and taught theology at Germany's most prominent universities. He earned a reputation as one of the Church's brightest and most creative theologians.
In an age when Truth has come under unceasing brutal assault, he has become a target of attack worldwide. He is routinely caricatured in the worldwide media as the new Grand Inquisitor, unthinking and dictatorial. This book will discomfit his enemies. It shows a deeply learned man moving carefully and deliberately across all the issues of the "Canon of Criticism," forthrightly defending the Church. It shows a man with a keen understanding of our present age and the ideologies that animate it.
The Roman Church is contemptible to so many precisely because it stands in unabashed reproof of so much of what passes as wisdom today, including the central "truth" of our post-modern era: that only truth is that there is no Truth. This reminds us that the Church is now, as always, a scandal. But it is necessary, Cardinal Ratzinger reminds, us to distinguish between the "primary" scandal and the "secondary" scandal. "The secondary scandal consists in our actual mistakes, defects and over-institutionalizations . . .." (124) The Church is made up of men who are subject to all the frailties to which flesh is heir. But the Church aspires for more. That she occasionally fails should not surprise us. That she aspires for more should inspire new generations of saints. Yet the very idea that man is not naturally good and should aspire for more through self-abnegation is a deep offense to the modern mindset that man is good and is always, inexorably, getting better. This makes the Church an object of contempt and, in time, hatred.
"[T]he primary scandal consists precisely in the fact that we stand in opposition to the decline into the banal and the bourgeois and into false promises. It consists in the fact that we don't simply leave man alone in his self-made ideologies." (124) Substitution of transitory political ethics for Christian ethics leads to despotism, the exaltation of a mere man as God: Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Min. "We can say with a certainty backed up by empirical evidence that if the ethical power represented by Christianity were suddenly torn out of humanity, mankind would lurch to and fro like a ship rammed against an iceberg, and then the survival of humanity would be in greatest jeopardy." (227) "For this reason . . . the Catholic Church is a scandal, insofar as she sets herself in opposition to what appears to be a nascent global ideology and defends primordial values of humanity that can't be fit into this ideology . . .." (124)
"[I]f we give up the principle that every man as man is under God's protection, that as a man he is beyond the reach of arbitrary will, we really do forsake the foundation of human rights." (204) The sacred tradition of the Church is arrayed in defense of the dignity of mankind. Contrary to fashionable caricature, the Church is not an ossified tree, subject to being felled by the latest gale. It changes, but slowly, deliberately, organically. "[T]here are various degrees of importance in the tradition [of the Church] . . . not everything has the same weight . . . [but] there are . . . essentials, for example, the great conciliar decisions or what is stated in the Creed. These things are the Way and as such are vital to the Church's existence; they belong to her inner identity." (207-208) As to its essentials, its First Principles, or everlasting verities, the Church is powerless to change even in face of popular demand.
Bringing to mind Edmund Burke and G.K. Chesterton, Cardinal Ratzinger reminds us that "the Church lives not only synchronically but diachronically as well. This means that it is always all - even the dead - who live and are the whole Church, that it is always all who must be considered in any majority in the Church. . . . The Church lives her life precisely from the identity of all the generations, from their identity that overarches time, and her real majority is made up of the saints." (189) Our present age cannot cavalierly discard the wisdom of this great communion of the living and the dead, of one hundred human generations of the Church, confident that it has somehow achieved superceding wisdom. Instead, it must, as must all generations, submit to the essentials of the Church, to revelation and the Church's sacred tradition. "Every generation tries to join the ranks of the saints, and each makes its contribution. But it can do that only by accepting this great continuity and entering into it in a living way." (189) The Church does not need additional "reformers" of institutions. "What we really need are people who are inwardly seized by Christianity, who experience it as joy and hope, who have thus become lovers. And these we call saints." (269)
This is not easy for any generation. It places a break on volition. It posits that man's every impulse is not virtuous. Intrinsically, it asserts that man is not God, that man must prune his impulses, as he would an overgrown plant to prepare it to bear fruit. "[P]eople don't want to do without religion, but they want it only to give, not to make its own demands on man. People want to take the mysterious element in religion but spare themselves the effort of faith." (212) This is New Age faith, not the faith of the Church and her saints. "If the willingness to be bound is not there, and if, above all, submission to the truth is not there, then in the end all of this will simply remain a game." (235)
It is often heard today that if only the Church would make priestly celibacy optional, ordain women and "reform" its doctrine to accommodate other contemporary demands, that she would flourish as never before. These cavils ignore the central truth of any true church - that its communicants come to it and submit to the truth it professes, a truth beyond editing by plebiscite. It also reveals a stunning lack of critical intelligence. "These issues are resolved in Lutheran Christianity," Cardinal Ratzinger notes. "On these points, it has taken the other path, and it is quite plain that it hasn't thereby solved the problem of being a Christian in today's world and that the problem of Christianity, the effort of being a Christian, remains just as dramatic as before." (181) Why should the Roman Church make itself a clone of Lutheranism? "[B]eing a Christian does not stand or fall on these questions [and] . . . the resolution of these matters doesn't make the gospel more attractive or being Christian any easier. It does not even achieve the agreement that will better hold the Church together. I believe we should finally be clear on this point, that the Church is not suffering on account of these questions." (182)
Cardinal Ratzinger is forthright in his pessimistic assessment of the time ahead. "The danger of a dictatorship of opinion is growing, and anyone who doesn't share the prevailing opinion is excluded, so that even good people no longer dare to stand by such nonconformists [i.e. Christians]. Any future anti-Christian dictatorship would probably be much more subtle than anything we have known until now. It will appear to be friendly to religion, but on the condition that its own models of behavior and thinking not be called into question." (153) The Church must attorn to the zeitgeist in this scheme. These themes are explored in Michael D. O'Brien's "Children of the Last Day" novels.
It is time for the faithful, Cardinal Ratzinger says, to form "vital circles." [T]here are great, vibrant new beginnings and joyful forms of Christian life that don't figure much statistically but are humanly great and have the power to shape the future." (143). "Particularly when one has to resist evil it's important to not to fall into gloomy moralism that doesn't allow itself any joy but really to see how much beauty there is, too, and to draw from it the strength needed to resist what destroys joy." (69)
In his autobiography "The Sword of Imagination," the novelist and historian Russell Kirk writes, "Not by force of arms are civilizations held together, but by the threads of moral and intellectual belief. In the hands of the Fates are no thunderbolts: only threads and scissors." Throughout this book, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger demonstrates that he understands better than, perhaps, anyone e
In the more "liberal" circles, there's apparently a tendency to villify Cardinal Ratzinger as some kind of "right-wing", closed-minded fringe type. Having read this book, I find that claim hard to believe: whether one agrees with his views or not, it is hard to see the Cardinal as anything other than a thoughtful, intellegent and learned man.
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After my first experience, I can attest that these are, indeed, the most important.
Our next videoconference event is scheduled in a few days - and I think our company is now much better prepared, thanks to the helpful, practical tips in this book, Smart Videoconferencing This book emphasizes the significant differences that exist between a face to face meeting and a videoconference. There is a paradox involved, because the videoconference demands both greater care and professionalism, while, at the same time, there is the necessity for a sense of relaxation and authenticity. I can tell you that our first event lacked both of these qualities - and our company lost some business as a result. Now, I think I we can avoid the mistakes we made last time.
I highly recommend this book for anyone engaged in videoconferencing when the stakes are high.
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In "Mind Over Matter", Thorgerson explains in some detail the concepts and techniques behind the creation of some of the most evocative and memorable images in the history of Rock and Roll. With stories and recollections dating back to the band's foundations in the mid-sixties, Thorgerson goes piece-by-piece through most of the band's catalogue, recounting not only how he and his team created the images, but also detailing what they are meant to represent and how they relate to the music.
The book features beautiful color reproductions of the band's album covers, lyrics layouts, and CD booklets. (All but two Floyd albums-- "The Wall" and "The Final Cut"-- are included ; these are omitted because Thorgerson was, in his own words, "temporarily relieved of [his] duties" for these albums.) But the biggest treat to the serious fan are the reproductions and discussionsof lesser-known images, such as a tour promo and program from 1975, and artwork specially conceived for the 'deluxe' boxed set "Shine On". Also included are the designs for the remastered and repackaged CD releases of the Floyd's albums, as well as some art which was apparently created just for this book.
As a full-sized coffee table book, "Mind Over Matter" is gorgeous to look at. Thorgerson's text, which is witty and insightful, makes for a good read. All in all, no Pink Floyd fan should be disappointed.
Storm Thorgerson, mastermind behind most of Pink Floyd's album artwork, has compiled almost all of the rare, unusual, interesting, and familiar pieces. It also includes stories on how they (the art) came to be (which, by the way, sheds a light on the innovative genius of the band). It goes from the early years of Syd Barrett to the post-Waters era. This book is a must for any Floyd fan, especially one who is interested in the history and progress of the band.
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"Simplified Strategic Planning" presents particularly clear, explicit guidance on selecting a corporate focus amid operational chaos and the temptation to serve all comers.
I highly recommend this book for managers at businesses of any size. It will inspire a discipline and sequence--and therefore a useful result--in planning.
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This book is probably more important than any other technical programming book written to date. The reason is drivers can crash the computer and poorly written drivers do it on a regular basis. With Windows NT becoming the worldwide server operating system of choice it is very important that drivers work and work well. This book not only discusses all phases of driver development, but teaches the audience correct methods of developing robust drivers. In a matter of weeks you will learn techniques and kernel programming practices that normally take years to develop.
The granularity of the book is well thought out and will serve the kernel programmer well. If you have been given the task of developing a bus master DMA driver simply turn to chapter 17 and you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about DMA with examples! If you just want to learn about how NT manages memory turn to Chapter 3.
This book will become the de-facto standard for NT device driver development and must have on any serious developer's bookshelf.
Technical Reviewer
Mike Barry
Sr. Vice President-Development/Engineering
T/R Systems
This book is surprisingly clear. Chapter after Chapter, It is such a joy for me to get answers to some questions which perplexted me for a long time. :)
Strongly recommended!
David
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