After a failed attempt to read "Naked Lunch" I turned to this book to gain some insight into William Burroughs that might aid me with future reading. I did not find that the book went into great detail about Burroughs ideas, except for ones that I find either trivial or even "wacky", like his interest in some aspects of Scientology and Reich's "Orgone Box". In fact, I might have given up on my plans of reading Burroughs after reading this biography; I could have easily concluded that Burroughs was a man who had led an interesting, albeit tragic, life but who, because of his heroin use and open homosexuality, had just become a "trendy" author. I might have concluded that he was a precursor to the cultural revolution of the 60s but of little importance today. Quite frankly I persist in my quest of getting to know Burroughs because of the importance attributed to him by one of my favorite philosophers, Gilles Deleuze, who claims that Burroughs has a lot to teach us about the "society of control". Only my future readings of Burroughs' novels will reveal rather I am right to persist in my study of him.

If this book failed in being an intellectual biography, it certainly succeeded in portraying the world of William Burroughs in an interesting fashion. Burroughs life seems for the most part
a series of tragedies. It appears as though he was molested as a youth and one is tempted - perhaps due to the saturation of "pop psychology" in our day- to conclude that somehow his future misfortunes (and brilliance) were rooted in that event. Subsequently driven from the United States, then Mexico (where he committed the infamous "William Tell" fatal shooing of his wife) he spends the greater part of his life wandering between Tangiers, Paris, London and New York. Oddly enough, he only seems to find some kind ofhappiness at the end of his life in Lawrence, Kansas.

His meeting with the other members of the "Beat Movement", Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, seemed fated, and unlike the others he did not become a "Beat Stereotype but remained authentically himself, behaving in many ways like a conservative midwesterner. Perhaps this authenticity is what appealed to his groupies who could not manage to retain their own identity separate from the various trends in which they participated.

Whether I will find anything intellectually stimulating in the works of Burroughs remains to be seen. Despite his many shortcoming, he was a key cultural force in undermining the foundation of the narrow, cocktail sipping, coutnry club 50s generation.

When I read this book in 1990, or thereabouts, I had only read William Burroughs' book Junky, and I had read nothing by Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg.

After I finished reading Literary Outlaw, by Ted Morgan, I was so fascinated that I read all of Burroughs' novels, and several books by Kerouac and Ginsberg. I also read two more Burroughs biographies, just to get more information on this weird old guy.

Literary Outlaw is just that good.

There are newer biographies of Burroughs by Barry Miles and also Graham Caveney. Nevertheless, Literary Outlaw remains the definitive Burroughs biography written to date.

This is a fascinating biography that reads like a pageturning novel. Burroughs grew up in a privileged St. Louis family, spent some time at a rough ranch-style boarding school in New Mexico, attended Harvard, travelled in Europe, and lived in New York, Mexico, New Orleans, Texas, Tangier, London, New York (again), and finally Kansas. Along the way he became the most scandalous figure in modern letters. His adventures and misadventures are related in this marvelous book.

Literary Outlaw is more exhaustive than either Caveney's or Miles' biographies. Chapters with titles like "Tangier: 1954-1958" and "The London Years: 1966-1973" make for easy navigation. As the book's coverage ends in 1988, there is no information on Burroughs' life in the 1990s, but the essays in the book Word Virus (by James Grauerholz) act as a good supplement, for biographical information.

Morgan did a good job. He wrote a page-turning biography, but not at the expense of Burroughs' literary reputation. Burroughs' value as a writer is challenged throughout, and it holds up. Biographical detail is linked to popular criticism of the texts. There is an extensive section of notes. There is an index.

You can't go wrong with this biography. If you've never read a biography of William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, or Allen Ginsberg, I advise you to try Literary Outlaw. This book is very well written, and is probably the most fascinating biography I have ever read.

ken32

The only book of, or by, William Burroughs that I have read twice. His life was stranger than his fiction.

Just like the distro itself, SuSE Unleashed is a massive volume that explains everything in great detail. Its orginization is such that it also serves as a handy guide for emergencies as well. The CDs that are included come with more than enough programs to enable the beginning Linux user to make that final break from Windows.

This Book had everything I was looking for.

Trying to implement Samba as a Domain server.
It took me a few hours to read all the related chapters.
And then followed the steps in the book and 2 Hours later my server was up and running.

Some minor parts are out of date. But it is still the most valuable book I looked at for Linux.

This is an ideal book for the advanced SuSE user and the beginner. It provides a firm foundation for beginners, and is an excellent reference for the more advanced users. I must agree with one of the previous comments, the TCP/IP section was simply awesome!

The Ambassador From Wall Street is a fasciating tale of one of the great financial leaders of the 20th Century. As a retired New York banker who started work in 1950 and who held some quite responsible positions, I found the book contained messages for bankers that are as true today as they were in the life of Mr. Lamont, particularly on how to avoid undue risk and how to manage the inevitable messes when they occur. The book seems to have been well researched by the arthor, a Grandson of the subject,and takes us through the many economic and financial developments of the first half of the twentieth century. Its scope allows the reader to have a broad view of the financial world, a useful benefit in this age of globalization. I particularly recommend the book to young students of finance. The lessons learned will enhance their careers.

Alethea W. Hawley's review offers an excellent summary of a well researched account of the life and impact of Mr. Thomas W. Lamont and his importance to the major economic and political powers of his era and why this account deserves a five star rating.

This biography of Thomas W. Lamont, J.P. Morgan's Chief Executive is a thoroughly researched account of the legendary financier during the first half of the twentieth century, when the powerful banking firm was at the pinnacle of international finance. The author, his grandson has written this lively biography based on his independent research and his personal collection of family papers and Thomas Lamont's letters.The reader will become acquainted with the economic and political history of the period, the many crucial world events that were transpiring, as well as a full roster of leaders such as Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Wilson and Hoover, who all sought advice from Lamont. Along with all of the above, the author portrays the luxurious lifestyle of his grandfather, such as commuting from his home to Wall Street by yacht. There are social vignettes such as a house party at Lady Astor's Cliveden, as well as a Lamont soiree during which a Federal judge broke the nose of Walter Lippman's charming wife. The reader is also given glimpses of such luminaries as Charles Lindbergh and H.G. Wells, who were among Thomas Lamont's close friends. John Kenneth Galbraith praised this volume and characterized it as "affectionate and well researched...We are in debt to Edward Lamont for this literate and thoroughly interesting biography." Book List and Publishers Weekly contributed highly enthusiastic reviews, and recommended it for those interested in history, banking and foreign affairs. Written in a brisk and informative style, Lamont interjects his wit at just the right places so as to present a very balanced, straight forward, and informative piece of work.

If you think it's all just casinos and tacky wedding chapels, read this book. Who would have thought Nevada, of all places, had such a rich architectural heritage? Nicoletta covers the history of Nevada, from wickiups to atomic test sites to the latest reinvention of the Las Vegas Strip, and everything in between, with clarity, conciseness, and keen observation. Her descriptions, precise without being dry or overly technical, bring to life not only the buildings but the individuals and communities that built them. I can open this book to any random page and be hooked by a fascinating, unexpected tidbit. The book also contains a helpful glossary of architectural terms, a thorough bibliography, and index. My only complaint is I would have liked even more of Bret Morgan's excellent photographs.

The one and only book on this subject, BUILDINGS OF NEVADA is thoroughly researched and wittily opinionated. It ventures far beyond the familiar territory of Hoover Dam and Las Vegas, to explore boom towns and ghost towns, courthouses and whorehouses.

It will be indispensable for anyone interested in understanding the history and psychology of the Old West. Loaded with helpful maps and photos, it's also a great travel companion for anyone who interested in seeing more of Nevada than the view from I-80.

Comprehensive view of Wm. de Morgan for the interested person. It covers a huge period in English ceramic art. This book has hundreds of his pieces or designs and tells his chronology as an artist. I will not lend it out; this is the ultimate compliment.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition of de Morgan's work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1989, this book contains the complete collection of William de Morgan's original pottery and tile designs and drawings that was given to the museum after his death in 1917. With just about 20 pages of text of the total 256 pages, it is nearly all photographs with over 50 pages in color. De Morgan began working with William Morris in 1862, but after ten years he set up his own studio making tiles, vases, bowls and other domestic ceramics. His designs, inspired by brightly colored Middle-Eastern, Hispanic and Italian Renaissance pottery are beautiful. The forms of his vessels seem, for the most part, somewhat stilted but ocasionally they become organic enough to be satisfying to the modern eye. However his use of decoration is without equal except, perhaps, in some Hopi work. This book will be of interest to ceramic artists in particular, but any artist, art historian, or collector will enjoy it.

This book is simply the best for your bookcase if you are a voice dialogue designer. I would strongly recommend it to novice and expert alike, especially for those learning VoiceXML for the first time, or working with it day to day.

Grounded in hours of human-computer experiments, and a multi-disciplinary approach to user interface design - this book is a rare combination of a careful ear for human language and dialogue, extensive engineering experience, and pragmatic knowledge of the strengths and limitations of current voice recognition technology.

The second edition has brought it bang up-to-date. It cuts through the hype that has always surrounded each successive generation of voice technology - focussing always on the building of robust useable interfaces which work with the user rather than against them.

This book is so well organized and articulated it's bound to be of value to anyone doing ASR application development. My own experience in voice response runs from end-user representative to application designer and I found every chapter enlightening. In this second edition of Bruce and David's ASR style guide, I believe the end users will find the new sections on voice portals and managing your voice talent of particular interest. And all users should take particular note of the expanded discussions of usability testing and performance reporting.

I found the first version of How to Build a Speech Recognition Application so useful that I actually took the time to compared the new edition, page for page, with the original. That was a relatively easy task, because the authors retained the original section numbering wherever possible. My comparison showed that the original guidelines have been substantially updated, based on continuing research and the hands-on experiences of both the authors and other acknowledged experts. In addition, I believe the new sections and expanded discussions of critical design considerations are going to prove valuable to both novice and seasoned developers.

In short, developing effective telephony dialogues is a complex, rapidly evolving and downright expensive task. Given that reality, every development team ought to have at least one copy of this landmark style guide.

What a wonderful book this is! I love W. S. Maugham. I first read his short stories in college and "Home" has never left me. Maugham's words are a great comfort to me and this biography about his life and his experiences are absolutely fascinating! Reading biographies is a hobby of mine, sometimes I do not get passed page 30 due to the horrible boring words of the biographers, but this book is an absolute delight. It is a must read for ALL Maugham lovers.

"Maugham" remains the quintessential biography of this enigmatic figure. The most complete and thorough examination of the life and tramas and adventures that made up the life of the man and the writer. As Morgan states, Maugham is the most popular writer of serious fiction that England has produced since Charles Dickens. Weather that fiction is literature or not remains to be seen by his fans and by his critics the discussion has been put aside forever. Somerset Maugham is barley mentioned in acadamia. But Maugham had a genius for story telling (Max Beerbohm) and he told more than two hundred of them in his plays, novels, essays and most admirably in his short stories. As Alexander Freere said, I you don't think he can write, read "The Outstation" or "The Alien Corn" and then sit down and write a better one. His barroom fight scene in "The Moon and Sixpense" is superior to anything by Hemmingway and it was written six years before "The Nick Adams Stories" or The Torrents of Spring" were published. Maugham's story is so fantastic that it is no wonder he was such a good friend of Churchill's. Churchill, of course had an equally eventfull life. Maugham was as famous a playwright in the teens and the twenties as Neil Simon, but he was also a Doctor an ambulance driver on the Western Front and a spy who was given the assignment to try to squelch the Bolshevik Revolution. All in a twenty year span during which he wrote ten unsuccessful novels and "Of Human Bondage". He was also the first great world traveller author with the possible exception of Conrad. Maugham went nearly everywhere one could expect to travel during the days of World Wars and steamships. He wrote about his travels in short stories that are still widely read by many of my fellow travellers along with the first guru tripping novel,"The Razor's Edge." Somerset Maugham's Villa Mauresque on the French Riveria was the place he entertained royally. He was a great instructor to his chef and an innovator of cuisine. He was at various times friends with Henry James, Virginia Woolf, H.G. Wells, Noel Coward and Graham Greene, but the reason this book influenced me more than any book I have ever read is the additional cast of characters that I was unaware of before reading Morgan's book. Writers like; Arnold Bennett, Lytton Strachey, Aubrey Beardsley, Ruppert Brook and scores of other people whose work I am now familiar with because of this biography. This book has been critized by many fans for being too rough on the writer. Labeling Maugham a women hater, cheap, anti semetic, cynical, bitter at being considered a second rater and a promiscuous Bi-sexual who became exclusively homosexual after the age of forty to almost a pornographic obsession. In other words, only being able to enjoy anonymous encounters. All this criticism is unfounded. Morgan paints a sympathetic balanced portrait of a painfully sensitive human being who lived through a time that is difficult to judge. I can count myself as Somerset Maugham's biggest fan and I love women. I have travelled to many Maugham spots on the globe: Tahiti, Capri, Trivandrum, Pagan and Haiphong. I even visited his home in South Carolina and his writers cabin. This is a Great Book.

When this book came out a couple of years ago it was the first and only book on designing speech recognition systems. It was very valuable then, but now more books are available that cover the same information and more, for a lot less money.

Developing speech applications is not easy to master. Even with VoiceXML becoming more widely adopted, there are a lot of intricacies that that a developer must understand. This book will provide you with a solid foundation to become an effective speech application developer.

The book did very well in presenting the limitations of the current speech recognition technology (dialog design, large vocabularies, promtp design, etc.) and made suggestions on how to overcome such problems in specific situations.

Author, Bruce Balentine's goal with How to Build a Speech Recognition Application is to produce the Strunk and White of speech recognition. An electronic musician and composer, Balentine was a pioneer in the speech recognition field. The text's examination of the problems of navigation from human perception to machine recognition give comprehension to even the layman. The book is well organized and structured with the +,/,- system which allows a novice to follow. According to linguist, Dr. John White, the first chapter could stand alone as a treatise on the dynamics of the human speech interface with the machine.

I am interested in stories of older persons who languish in nursing homes. Morgan's book tells these stories of older persons that would never see the light of day if he hadn't recorded them. We lose a library when an older person dies and their stories die with them. These FAITH STORIES FROM THE NURSING HOME preserve incredible stories of people who live outside the city walls, and often are perceived as lepers. It needs to be read by anyone interested in human beings.

I have served as a chaplain in a Nursing Home and the unheralded heroes/heroines are the nursing assistants. Grossly unpaid, usually unappreciated, they do the "dirty" work that others avoid. Morgan's book is one I recommend to CNAs, so they can realize the value of their work as a ministry, not just a job. Many have told me that it helped affirm them, create a feeling of value in what they do, and make them feel more appreciated. For that reason it is a book caregivers need to have.

I work with nursing home residents and often find myself trying to explain our work to family members. They don't seem to understand that good things happen here, as well as some of the bad things. Morgan's book shows the flip side of nursing homes....that it is a place of joy and courage, as well as a place of pain and suffering. I recommend this book to family members so they can get a better picture of what we do for this growing population of older people.

I bought this book thinking it also had the cassette with it. It does not. Customer reviews which write about the cassette are followed with a note from Amazon that it is a review for the "Hard Cover" edition.

If you notice right below the reading level for this item, it says "Hard Cover". So I thought that this was the edition that includes the cassette. It does not.

The book seems great otherwise, but you MUST know French and be able to read music though. It is difficult to know what tune you should be singing in if you can't read musical notes.

My 4 year old niece who doesn't know a word of French learnt to sing a long after a few days. My 3 year old son loves to listen to the songs, and reading the book while listening to the music. The book is pleasing for children will lots of illustrations. We also use the book to talk about what's on the pages and can spend a long time just reading it! This is a great gift idea.

My 9.5 month old son lights up the minute I press play. We dance and bounce to these adorable songs while I am learning the words. I am very amused that he enjoys this cassette more than the ones I have with children's songs in english.