I've just read this book a second time and am making a point of recommending it to my friends and to everybody reading here. This is a very crazy novel. In fact it's not so much a novel as a satire of novels. The author gets you interested in the story but there's some kind of gag on every page, so Kelly's book manages to mock every novel-writing convention, in the process of mocking itself. "The Maltese Falcon" is lampooned, as are H.P. Lovecraft's, and to a lesser extent Dickens's work specifically, but the humor ranges widely beyond just these targets. It's sharp but underlyingly good-natured humor. I'll never forget these patently ripe characters: a Sam Spade type, Jake Stalker, who seems to be coming out of the closet, Lucretia Faversham, elderly dowager, in search of rejuvenation while revelling in all the common vices, Veronica Volupturini, globe-trotting golddigger, Haggie the gin-swilling receptionist, Rastus Reilly himself, whose mere description is hilariously unforgettable, and a larger congregation of strangely loveable misfits Kelly describes bluntly as "lowlife swine." They're rather sweet swine, though, and that's part of what makes them funny. One character's impossibly long surname evokes conversational byplay that puts Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" to shame: this alone would make the book worth its price, but the laughs keep coming, from every direction. Bizarre characterization is certainly a strong point. The setting is Boston, Massachusetts, and a treasure-hunting cruise from there to the Caribbean, in the 1930s. Pacing is leisurely at first but the story builds to an adventurous conclusion. The tone can best be described as ridiculous. The writing style parodies numerous styles, as suggested by the subtitle, and manages to do this not just effectively, but fluidly as well: Kelly is a genuinely talented writer. The plot is simply a framework for laughter. The good guys, led by old lady Faversham and her hired gun Jake Stalker, have found out there is an ancient Secret of Eternal Youth, and they're chasing after it, hotly pursued by a fat and skinny pair of archly evil bad guys. I said this was a very crazy book. So if you like Crazy you'll love it. I did, enough to read it all over again, six months after my first reading, and I picked up on jokes I'd missed the first time. A+ for humor.

I was *beyond* pleasantly surprised by Rastus Reilly. Steve takes no prisoners when he parodies Laural and Hardy, Mark Twain, Stephen King, HP Lovecraft, and countless others. This book is funny from page one through the end, and I found myself wishing for more once it was finished! Of course, I drink a lot of beer, so what do I know?

I'll be watching for future releases from Steve Kelly, hope he lives for awhile and doesn't die of liver disorder.

I'm a fan of Stephen King and I had just started reading H.P. Lovecraft's classic horror stories when I came across this unusual novel and decided to give it a try. First I'm going to warn readers who don't like completely crazy humor that they will not like Kelly's book. I do like crazy nut humor so I loved "Rastus Reilly." It's well written it's insane and it's a hoot. Knowing a little Lovecraft will help you enjoy this horror and mystery satire. In some parts of the book Kelly satires the Lovecraft writing style very well and obviously with affection. But you don't really have to know Lovecraft. You do have to be a little crazy like me to enjoy a novel as plain silly as this one. I liked it enough to write my first Amazon review and give this book the top rating but only for nutty humor fans.

Being of Irish descent, I am very particular about hearing Irish stories in recorded form. There are some really good editions out nowadays. But this one is the best. I knew I was in the presence of greatness when I beheld the wonderful packaging, and it just got better the longer I listened to these truly wonderful stories. My favorite is one I've read many times, by Joyce, entitlled "The Boarding House." Here it is transformed into something that is difficult to describe and thrilling to experience. The narrator, who must be Irish, has perfectly deciphered Joyce's intent. He has also given us some of the very finest renditions of Irish stories I have ever encountered. "The Weaver's Grave" comes to life as if by magic. There is wonderful music here and very lifelike sound effects that are very skillfully and gently woven into the fabric of these great works. It is such a pleasure to listen to these recordings, you will be listening over and over again, as I have.

Have used this book many times to clarify technical jargon for beginning computer tech students. An outstanding initial reference work for technical trainers. Hope to see it updated soon

Try imagining Stony Brook, where the author of this book is a SUNY professor of philosophy and women's studies, as an intellectual heartbeat away from what took place on September 11, 2001, and this book, which was prepared before the events of that day, gains a bit of weight if it is considered as a sincere attempt to understand such things, although it was written in a philosophical manner which is remote from the intrigue with which such events are planned and executed. Philosophers have often fallen back on their affinity for the familiar, and this tendency may also be found in this book, especially in the attention it gives to current feminist thought, in spite of the churlishness that is occasionally to be found regarding those things which are out of the ordinary in a thoroughly distasteful way, as intentionally destructive acts often appear to be. Though the book attempts to deal with psychologically troubling matters, there are thoroughly feminist moments, which are particularly heartwarming in regard to the innocence of financial planners, whose only connections to the World Trade Center towers were, at their best, in a manner which might previously have been regarded as impersonal and businesslike, and whose expectations implied that the accumulation of wealth through world trade was the sole context in which the activities that are entitled to the most significance in our world might be judged. The best example of such thinking in this book, which is copyright 2001 but reflects the thinking dominant prior to the events of September 11, 2001, is its consideration of the ideas of Patricia Williams on "the metaphor of investment instead of possession to convey social relations and their incumbent responsibility. Imagining a more optimistic future, she says: `What a world it would be if we could all wake up and see all of ourselves reflected in the world, not merely in a territorial sense but with a kind of nonexclusive entitlement that grants not so much possession as investment.'" (p. 155). If there is a bombing campaign, or investment in weapons of mass destruction, or a war against drugs, or two million people in prison in the United States of America, going on right now, all of which are probably being rationalized by just about everybody as steps that must be taken so that we can have such an ideal world, with an economy which would be truly great, but actually, the way that things like this have been going on for the last 10,000 years suggests that, if we keep following our own tendencies on this, outer space might even become the new frontier for weapons which could be this destructive, if anyone with our instincts is allowed to use it to try to defend ourselves. This book approaches reality on a lot of levels, but I may be the only person to read it who could find any support for my views in this book. You can read it for yourself, too.

I bought this book at a time when Nietzsche's works interested me much more than anything that real people had to say about Nietzsche. When I was a youth, a commission had been appointed to try to understand a series of riots, and my reading of Nietzsche was more sympathetic to those who had reasons for trying to demoralize the old order, a motive which I always have read into Nietzsche, than any professor would admit. But I was being ignored, along with my efforts to ridicule people who thought they could outsmart Nietzsche by being more moral or better educated in modern intellectual survival mechanisms. I wasn't talented enough, musically, to be a rock 'n' roller, (this was about the time someone at work told me I could play guitar, "But don't sing,") so it seemed natural to me that college professors weren't astute enough to make their criticisms of Nietzsche stick with me, particularly when rocking out seemed much closer to my escape mechanisms than the loss of self which I could experience by actually understanding Nietzsche in a sense that defied any explanation. I probably bought this book in 1995, when it seemed to be the newest work in the field on Nietzsche's relation to the feminine, and my luck in finding an attempt to plumb the deepest portions of that relationship through striking surveys of the psychological field of thought in this area was great. I believe this book is still in print, an accomplishment which has eluded a number of other works on this topic, and it really is time to start taking this one seriously.

My first great discovery in this book was its discussion of the comedians of the ascetic ideal. A lot of what I learned was in the notes at the end of the book, but Kelly Oliver clearly captured Nietzsche's relationship to the ascetic ideal on page 42 with her description, "Like the plundering soldier, he steals its armor and wears it mockingly, making fun of his enemy. By doing so, however, he is always also mocking himself. . . . This laughter is the only thing that sets the faker apart from the real thing." As a philosopher, Nietzsche definitely mocks himself, but picturing him as a plundering soldier, his laughter appears to be the most real thing about him, and any trouble that I have been in is a sure sign that I am too close to the truth on this point.

The other parts of this book which I could comment on might be considered equally troubling, but the index is helpful in tracking down where this book is really great, and my favorite entry, which might be considered a concept which summarizes the kind of confusion that this book is attempting to avoid more often than not, is metaforeplay.

This is 2001. What you get is a book that is not up to date on cannabis growing techniques and procedures. So make sure that you know this before you buy this book. But it gets worse......let me think back to 1990 when I got this book. I can tell you that it was not even up to date back then. This is a PROBLEM will Mel Frank's books. They are old and dated and not followed up on. Because cannabis growing was somewhat new to these people and because of laws banning cannabis production in the U.S, you can guess that these guys did not have a lot of information to play around with. What you get is the best that they could offer at the time, but unfortunately I would really have to invite you to consider the fact that this writer is just a writer and not a good grower. That is probably the reality of the situation too. Maybe he does a great deal of research or maybe he has tried to do his best, but his words do not work out in practice. This book, much like his other works, contains information that is not correct, not factual and will not help you grow a good plant. What you will get is some very basic information on growing that will cause you to make mistakes. Learning comes through experience but at the same time when people try to sell you information like this, they should at least try to get the basics right. They have not done this and even worse, the book's growing advice is not good.

If you ask the cannabis growing community about writers like Mel Frank they will tell you that they got the book, read it, tried it and then went to seek help from someone who knew what to do. This has been the backbone for major complaints that the growing community has had about this book. That it seems to have been written by somebody who does not grow, or does not grow well and that is the bottom line about this book.

When you read reviews from people who are praising this book and other Mel Frank books you might consider the fact that they have never actually applied his words to practice or have seen what proper well produced cannabis plants look like in reality. Mel Frank is very popular among 16 year olds who show this book to their friends, and really that is the books market. It is for teenagers who like to read books about pot. If you want to learn how to grow cannabis and are serious about growing a nice plant or two in your garden or indoors, then find something else other than this book. This book will not give you a proper grounding in basic cannabis growing.

If you read Ramarom's review, you might notice that it is overly critical and does not offer any alternative works to support his/her viewpoints. You can also click on Ramarom's link to read his/her other reviews. They are uniformly critical. They all maintain that the books are out of date and would not be used by a sensible grower. However, Ramarom does nothing to inform the reader of how to find quality books. Rest assured, Mel Frank's books are fine, his methods sound. I don't know what Ramarom's agenda is, but it does not appear to be to help growers.

A more apt title would be the marijuana grower's bible. You would imagine that a weed would lend itself to cultivation, even by the most stoned and inept among us, but its not so simple. Mel Frank, God bless him, has laid it all out for you, so you can start and produce quickly, avoiding the pitfalls that any novice would make. If the subject interests you, then this book will enthrall you.

Was kind of boring and didn't hold my interest and the titles are not all that original have seen them all before!

Unfortunately, it's the lead story that I couldn't even finish. Patricia Oliver is capable of a better effort. The next three stories (Carla Kelly, Edith Layton, & Patricia Rice) were amusing regency stories with the usual impediments to romance: relatives and misunderstandings. The fifth story, by Anne Barbour, was interesting, but I felt that I had read some of the scenes before. In fact, in one scene the dialogue came straight from Georgette Heyer's "Cotillion".

Overall, enjoyable stories for fans of regency romance.

I had to write a review because I disagree with the previous reviewer. The two stories she chose to belittle are my two favorites in the anthology. I can't imagine why she had any trouble reading "Something Old" by Patricia Oliver. Sure, most of us have read many stories in which the heroine is a young girl who has a painful experience at at ton gathering. But this time the girl has the extreme bad luck to fall in love at first sight with a cad who doesn't even notice! Ten years later they meet again. Is this a second chance at love? "And a Six Pence for Her Shoe" by Anne Barbour is a wonderful love story. The heroine waits for her fiance to return from war. She quarreled with him just before he left. Will he give her a chance to prove her love is true? The other stories were fine, but I found them less memorable. Read this anthology and see if you don't agree!

Julia Kristeva is one of the most rigorous academics of the 20th Century, and if you haven't already read extensively in philosophy, psychology, late 19th-century literature, and linguistics, this book will prove very difficult.

The introduction is fascinating, and provides an excellent overview of Kristeva's thought. It also includes useful information on some of Kristeva's contemporaries and influences. However, diving into the primary source readings is no easy task. The reader is immediately bombarded by obscure references to Freud, German words appropriated from Hegel and (unexplained) applied to semiotics and linguistics in complicated ways, and references to classical and late-19th-century literature that assume a great deal of prior knowledge on the part of the reader.

For those of you who have never heard of, for example, Mallarme, have never read Hegel, and are relatively new to psychology, there are a few interesting things for you. As I said, the introduction is excellent. Also, Kristeva's discussion of love and depression is beautifully written and BRILLIANT - you'll find that her writing stirs your most private memories and emotions in ways that no other writer can. But you'll also find that 70% of the book is frustratingly incomprehensible. Kristeva is sometimes easy to read, and sometimes impossible. It depends on the passage.

For those of you who do have substantial prior knowledge, this reader provides an extraordinary selection of Kristeva's work, and it's a great way to gain a broad (and often relatively deep) knowledge of the whole range of Kristeva's work.