I was alternately outraged and amused by Free Minds & Free Markets. I was outraged at numerous losses of freedom and the major media's poor reporting of them. I was amused at how weak the case has become for continued government expansion. For example, Paul Ehrlich predicted worldwide famines by 1975, and former Senator Gaylord Nelson said everybody would have to wear breathing masks in the 1980s -- thus, correctly predicting the fad of oxygen bars. Freedom is a new idea that is sweeping the planet. Free Minds & Free Markets provides an eloquent defense of freedom that is hard to find anywhere else.

While the names of many Irish poets may spring easily to mind, the same is not necessariily true for Scottish poets, whose works can sometimes require a little extra effort from American readers, but whose art makes for equally worthwhile reading. An excellent example is Charles Murray's "Hamewith[Homeward]", a reprinted collection of three volumes of poetry printed between 1910 and 1920. The title volume "Hamewith", contains pieces from Murray's years in Africa, filled with his longing for home, and for those left behind. It also contains many small gems, including a lovely piece on Burns' centennary, as well as many pieces of Latin poetry translated into Scots. "A Sough[sigh] o' War", published seven years later during the first world war, and penned by a more mature poet, is a mix of patriotic verses and saddened reality, where he is at once proud to say:

Auld Scotland counts for something still.

but weary enough of war and the suffering it causes to give touching portraits of the young soldier saying farewell to his wife from the farm's edge, or the fiancee who goes daily to read the lists of:

"Weel, wounded, missin', deid,"

to look for the name of her loved one. Finally, "In the Country Places" written a few years after the war, finds Murray back in Scotland, writing of the seasons and rural life -- and of his own coming to grips with advancing age:

A bonny lass can stirr me still,
As deep her mither did when young,
An' aul' Scots sang my saul can fill
As fu's when first I heard it sung.

In comparing poets, the tone of Murray's works will remind readers of English poets Thomas Hardy or A.E. Housman, and of course the best known Scots poet of all, Robert Burns.

This book is one of the best devotional books on prayer that I have ever read. It will get you thinking in the morning and you will not be able to forget it all day.

I know three of the medical doctors (All members of the Osler Society) who assembled these choice selections uttered and (mostly) penned by Sir William Osler . . who seems to have felt strongly on only one controversial subject = that men seldom did any worthwhile creative work after age 40 and would do well to be "chloroformed" at age 60. Sir William died at age 70. The term "Internal Medicine" was coined in German-speaking Europe during Sir William's post-graduate training years there and he established the definition of the "specialty" at Johns Hopkins. The "specialty" has now out-lived its usefulness but our reverence for the man who contributed more than any other to the art and science of patient care obviously is being passed along to many young men and women who choose to be REAL PHYSICIANS.

CSM, one of the best music journalists writing in England in the 70's and 80's, has collected a selection of his reviews from the music press and put 'em in one easy to read little package. Dip in at random and be entertained by the articulate and erudite Mr Murray. Gasp at his far sightedness when reviewing the icons of his day (including the Clash, The Rolling Stones, Bruce etc. etc.). Cry for the lack of a contemporary writer with Murray's sense of humour, insight, sheer pizazz! I know this book is out of stock but do yourself a favour and order it right now!

Few biographies of computer heavyweights have moved me like this short, 232-page volume. This book is a nicely written chronicle of Seymour Cray and his supercomputing associates. The book covers Cray's entire professional career - from Cray's early days with pioneering Engineering Research Associates until his death (from injuries in an auto accident) in 1996 as he struggled to reinvent the glory days of super-computing with a new company, SRC (Seymour Roger Cray) Computers.

By the way, as a native of Minnesota and Wisconsin, it was pleasant to recall that Control Data and Cray Computing made the area around St. Paul (Wisconsin is just across the river) one of the hottest technology areas for two decades.

Cray was totally absorbed in computing. If you share some of his passion, you will love this. Non-tech types will not enjoy it and will wonder why he did not "get a life."

Seymour Cray carves a special place in the history of computing. No other super computing companies / personalities can rival his achievement (name one that survives more than 3 decades). This book chronicles the life and time of Seymour Cray. It depicts how one man's devotion to attain the highest speed in computing produces a series of remarkable machine. Anyone would wish that the guy is still around building newer machines.

If you have no idea what super-computer is , this is the book that you have to read , after that you will know more than just IBM the next time someone mention about computer .

This book is both chronological and narrative and at the same time concise . It makes it easy for people who know nuts about computer or engineering to understand what went on in the computer industry when it was at an infant stage . Readers thus have a thorough understanding of the industry from its humble beginning to the present and how Seymour Cray and his engineers had contributed to the industry .To put it simply , without Cray Super Computing might have taken a longer time to emerge. This book also reveals the rivalry that went on at Cray Research that eventually led to a split in the company . You will be surprised to find that bringing out a new product takes much more than just a technological break-through.If it is that simple Cray would have beaten IBM many times.

At the end , one would find Cray a rare genius who given the opportunity would have done much better .Unfortunately the circumstances he was in and his sole interest in engineering alone has limited his success . To me Seymour Cray is over and above Bill Gates and Tom Watson although he was much poorer than these two in the financial aspect . Like Nicholas Tesla , Cray was a better engineer than all his contemporaries but was bestowed with the least honours.To Cray , I salute you !

(This review refers to Volume One only.) Asimov has collected eight stories in this anthology that were influential in his own writing. Asimov read most of these stories when he was about 12 years old, being fortunate enough to devour most of them from pulp magazines that were sold in his father's candy store. As might be expected with any anthology, some stories are better than others, and some have held up better through the years than others. Yet these pieces are not included for comparison to current stories, but to show what Asimov read as a young person and how the works influenced him. Asimov's mini-autobiography alone is worth the price of the book. After each story, Asimov tells how an idea or a concept from a story led to the formation of one of his own works. A very interesting idea. "The Jameson Satellite" is a forerunner of "I, Robot," and "Submicroscopic" is a small step from "Fantastic Voyage." As mentioned by another reviewer, the reader will have to deal with several prejudices from the time these stories were written (especially racial), but overall this book is a great insight into what makes Asimov Asimov.

This collection of early, pulp-style scifi works is a great joy. Asimov's introduction to the stories is exceedingly interesting and helpful. The stories sometimes show flaws or problems in their writing and in their attitudes (while several stories are forward-looking, most show the racism and misogyny common to that time), most of the stories are entertaining and all of them are interesting from a historical perspective. Check it out if you can get your hands on it, it's a great find. I really got a kick out of several pieces, which run the gamut from more reasonable 'conquered man, driven underground, strikes back at his evil alien oppressors' to the completely ludicrous story about the planets of our solar system hatching into giant space chickens. (That last story is meant to be taken seriously, by the way.) A veritable laundry-list of great, long out-of-print authors and some wonderful writing from the early days of popular science fiction.

This book contains the good old stories from the 1930's. There is nothing great here, but it is till worth reading. You can see the evolution of the Science Fiction field by reading the stories in this book.

While his first book, _Losing Ground..._, made an argument that was based on an array of social science data, Murray here employs the mode of reasoning used by classical economists such as Say and Smith: common sense. When you get through his thought experiments, you'll find that you return to them again and again. Quite an invigorating book.

Whenever Charles Murray writes, people listen. His book In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government is no exception. This book gives a wake up call to anyone who has crafted or believed in modern political policy. The main problem the author views with our country's present policy system is the lack of understanding the point of our policies. He brilliantly asserts the reason behind anything the government does is the pursuit of happiness; a main point of the Declaration of Independence.

To read the rest of this review, or to look at others, go to the World Wide Web Book Review at their NEW web address: http://WebBookReview.co

Charles Murray has his own views of what the perfect Libertarian world would be. He isn't asking that the federal government privatize roads, or eliminate the EPA, but he would like to see them do their constitutional duties first and leave other tasks for the market place. His premise is that we should judge government actions not by intentions, but by outcome.

He makes a good case that New Deal and Great Society programs have been around long enough to quantify the benefits, but the numbers indicate no improvement. Also, Murray contends the government has been neglecting their real duties such as national defense and foreign policy to look after the welfare state.

Murray discusses education, the environment, drug policy, discrimination, economics, and responsibility from a fresh point of view. If you are tired of the same old ideas on the evening news, read this book.

You do not need to be a libertarian to appreciate the arguments that Charles Murray makes in this important and lucid book. I would not describe myself as a follower of Mr. Murray's political philosphy, but I have an affinity for many of the points that he makes: government is too large, too inefficent, and often does more harm than good. The author makes a crucial point that freedom is the most important quality that a person owns. That governemnt infringes on this quality is beyond dispute. What Murray may neglect to acknowledge is that other people can infringe on our freedom too. This includes criminals, business monopolies, and racist neighbors. It is always a tricky dilema to ask Washington to affirm and ensure our freedom. You are practically making a deal with the devil. But as the civil rights moment amply demonstates, sometimes authorities are needed to ensure our liberties. What isn't as obvious is the role government should play to ensure equality. Here Murray's arguments are especially powerful. You can certainly have equality without freedom (see the Soviet Union). But is a society where everyone drives the same automobile worth sacrifising future growth - not to mention the political right to question the legitimacy of that ideology? It is an answer that every free society has answered: "No." Communism is an ideology of force, not choice. Even creeping socialism is reversed when free countries see the defects it imposes, as seen in the conservative movements in Britain and West Germany in the 1980s. Freedom is the paramount good in society. Equality is an ideal, perhaps, but should not be coerced by an autocratic government. But along with freedom comes responsibility. That is something that is easily forgotten in American society today. Freedom was not bestowed on us to make any choice we want; it is only worthy when we make the right choice. Freedom is a luxury enjoyed only by responsible people. The challenge for us is to prove ourselves deserving of the society that our Founding Fathers wished for us to enjoy.

Quite simply put, Charles Murray's What it Means to be a Libertarian is the best personal political account I have ever read. With brilliant prose, Charles Murray takes the reader on an intellectual journey into his mind and his political beliefs. This book cannot be passed up by anyone who has ever had questions or doubts about the libertarian philosophy, nor by true Libertarians themselves. I commend Charles Murray for once again coming out with a splendid work which will surely expand the libertarian vision into the twenty-first century.

Mounting a history of that dysfunctional beast known as rock 'n' roll journalism is probably impossible. The field is plagued by self-aggrandizing guru-dom (hallo, Robert "Consumer Guide" Christgau), near-unintelligible academia-speak (Greil "Doctor of Letters" Marcus), perpetual grudge-holding (Richard "I Coulda Been A Contender" Meltzer) and even -- not to put too fine a point on it - death (Lester Bangs), meaning that egos and revisionism hold sway over objective anecdotal reporting. But British author Paul Gorman, despite some comments along the lines of, "this is no dust-dry account... nor it is a chin-stroking debate on 'whither the music press in the digital age?'" obviously wants his version of the rise and fall of the U.S. and U.K. music press from the late '50s to the present to be definitive.

It's not, of course, and the great irony surrounding In Their Own Write is that you'd think Gorman's literary format of choice - the oral history - would be tailor-suited to the subject. There are some loud, boisterous voices jostling to be heard on these 400 pages. To his credit, Gorman conducted interviews with scores of participants, from Meltzer, Greg Shaw and Lenny Kaye to such celebrated UK mavericks as Mick Farren, Tony Parsons and Vivien Goldman, additionally tapping secondary sources for quotes from more elusive personalities including Jann Wenner, Nick Kent and, er, Bangs.

The book's central flaw is the lack of expository narrative linking the quotes; only quirky subheadings break up the topics or eras. With a dizzying array of personalities and oftentimes overlapping time periods to juggle, readers unfamiliar with the original publications themselves (Creem, Bomp, Record Mirror, New Musical Express, etc.) won't get the requisite you-are-there feeling. The quotes read colorfully enough, particularly the segments on the fierce rivalries between the UK weeklies during Punk's heyday. But the book is ultimately no more than a huge box of snapshots dumped onto the floor and then assembled into a more-or-less linear order.

Among the other drawbacks: The U.S. press gets short shrift after its '70s golden era, as if to suggest that Gorman was unaware there was a thriving fanzine underground in the '80s or (more likely) that he feels music writing is a spent force on these shores. There's not a single photo in the book; given the volume and velocity with which many of Gorman's subjects erupt, one would love to see if, for example, NME maverick Nick Kent, depicted along rail-thin, wasted-rock star lines by his peers, fit the bill. (He did by the way: see the photo accompanying a review of this book in the December issue of Uncut.) And the book's general attitude of "gee, we did lots of drugs and got away with murder!" consistently gets in the way of the reader determining how and why the music itself excited and motivated the writers. But hey, at least we know they all worked in "horrible" offices and that respected author Barney Hoskyns was a heroin addict.

In summary, better places to start your own inquiries would be Abe Peck's Uncovering The '60s: The Life and Times of the Underground Press, which provides context within which the music press would emerge and Robert Draper's Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History Book and Jim DeRogatis' Lester Bangs bio Let It Blurt (neither are overviews but have terrific behind-the-scenes material), combined with rock criticism anthologies such as Meltzer's A Whore Just Like the Rest, Nick Kent's The Dark Stuff and Nick Tosches' The Nick Tosches Reader. (There's also a great rock lit archival website [the internet].)

All that said, as a longtime fan of rock-lit hagiography, the book kept my attention riveted -- kinda like driving past a bloody wreck on the highway and you can't help but staring.

Gorman, author of The Look (a serious look at rock fashion) now offers the first serious appraisal of music criticism and its history. Having been interviewed for the book myself, I know from personal experience how knowledgeable he is, and how thorough his research has been. The entire history of rock criticism, from the '50s right up to the present, is presented in quotes from leading participants. Filled with outrageous opinion and balanced judgment, it's as wild and wooly a collection as the collection of maniacs and misfits who write about music for a living. There are some excerpts up on Rock's Backpages, a great site for fans of rock writing at its best.

Hi

I'd agree with Mills critique in but one respect: it IS fascinating, but mainly for the little nuggets which have been dropped in there: The beatles publisher tried to sell their music rights in 1964 because he thought the bubble ahd to burst, Uk critic Charlie Gillett being welcomed by John Lennon in LA, who appeared to know all about him, and the best one - that Danny Fields alleges he and Pete Townshend were boyfriends.

Rolling Stone has now picked up on this and Pete doesn't seem to have a problem (see latest RS), though beware: Fields says he can't remember saying it. Nevertheless, for those who have wondered about the world which informs pete's writing down the years, it's an insight.

So on an anecdotal, "wow never knew that" level In Their Own Write deserves 5 stars.

As an intellectual overview of the music press it doesn't cut it. No Simon Reynolds, William Shaw, Chris Heath, John Harris or any of the real heavyweight stars who have brought a solid critical perspective and opinion to the music press (at least here in the UK) over recent years.

Still and all - it's nice to get the inside dirt once in a while!