Descartes correspondence is key to understanding his texts. This source book brings to light otherwise untranslated letters from Descartes to his most trusted friends describing his fears and desires for his work. Kenny, as usual, does an excellent job!

The Pushcart Prize is the most wonderful and rewarding annual anthology out there because, for one thing, it's the most fair--as Bill Henderson says in his introduction, there's no money here. You don't have to have written a bestseller or be in with the "New Yorker" crowd in order to be published here. All you have to do is be a good writer. Here is fiction and poetry at its rawest and purest form, from writers who write for the sake of writing, for the sheer love of it. This is a noble thing.

If you enjoy and are blessed with beautiful quotes, then this is the book for you! These quotations by that great "Prince of Preachers" are most definitely in a class by themselves. As a faithful reader of Spurgeon, (having read roughly 18,000 pages of his works) I can honestly say that this is the best gleaning of quotations from Spurgeon's works that I know of. The reader will not be disappointed, for every quote is a jewel!

Ralph The Heir, written late in Antony Trollope's life, is not as well known as his Palliser or Barchester novels, and this is a great shame. To my mind his talents are on display here in all their mature glory; his penetrating observation of human motive and weakness, combined with a raucous, convaluted storyline and a wicked sense of humor. Trollope knows people through and through, and it is no small thing that he refuses here to make even his villain a monster. In true Trollope form, Ralph who is the heir (there are two Ralphs and two heirs) is in embarrased circumstances. Having spent a rather idle life waiting for his uncle to die so that he might inherit (and with the old squire hale at sixty, this will not likely happen soon), Ralph finds himself in debt up to his eyeballs...or perhaps his hand-tooled hunting boots. With a stable of hunters and a fierce riding breeches habit, Ralph must do something, but what? Just what Ralph does, and how it touches the whole pantheon within his circle (and a few decidedly outside it!) gently underlines Trollope's deep concerns for his time: just what is a gentleman? What, indeed, is nobility in man and woman? And how are we so often willfully blinkered by love, loyalty, ambition, and hate? There are several storylines in Ralph The Heir, and the author does not disappoint those who delight in watching him tie all these delicious tales together in almost Seinfeldian fashion. Parliament figures prominently and the election (or rather the attempt at an election) of a principal character is so marvelously portrayed, so wicked, it alone is worth the price of the book. Trollope is a gem. Gentle, kindly in his characters, he truly loves people and when he laughs at them, I rather think he is laughing also at himself. Enjoy this; it's one of Trollope's best.

Philip H. Melanson is a professor of political science and a specialist in the study of political violence. This book is an authoritative expose of brazen official manipulation of the legal process used to cover-up the conspiracy to kill RFK. The numerous glaring and unanswered questions in this case, with the simplistic official solution, caused the author to research for additional unexamined evidence. He spent many years investigating the facts, interviewed dozens of witnesses, law enforcement officials and other sources, and analyzed hundreds of LAPD and FBI files released by 1991.

Philip H. Melanson provides evidence that Sirhan did not act alone, and, the official investigation authorities (LAPD, FBI) covered up evidence that suggested conspiracy (p.4). He was the first author to have access to most of the existing LAPD files on the case. He and his team found that the LAPD had altered, suppressed, and destroyed vital evidence in the case (p.6).

The investigation assumed a "lone gunman" immediately. The trial was only concerned with Sirhan's state of mind (pp.24-25). The number of shots fired, the bullets matched to the wrong gun, were all skipped over. The LAPD's conclusions, its methods and its competence were not tested in an adversarial proceeding. The tapes of Sirhan's interrogations were never released to the defense. The profound discrepancies and conflicts in the evidence were suppressed or ignored by the LAPD and were never addressed by the judicial process.

What made this case so hot that the 1997 Congressional Investigation wouldn't touch it? Will the assassination of RFK ever be reinvestigated by a Congressional Committee? We've also learned a lot since 1991 about the LAPD and the FBI: the Trial of OJ Simpson, and the Inspector General's report on the FBI. (Read "Tainting Evidence: Inside the FBI Crime Lab Scandals" by Kelly and Wearnes.)

I bought this book because I enjoyed the first volume so much (see my review for Southern Pacific's Coast Line.)

However, the second volume might be a bit of a letdown to those expecting something similar to the first volume. Signor indeed covered it all the first time around, and therefore does not attempt to do it again in this volume. Southern Pacific's Coast Line Pictorial is exactly what it professes to be, a companion edition that has some great photos. There are over 600 photographs; 140 of which are in color. Richard Steinheimer fans will like this book as 85 of Stein's photographs made it into the book.

I never did verify if there were pictures reprinted in the second volume that also appeared in the first, but if there were, their numbers were small based on my recollection.

The bottom line is that if you loved the first volume of Southern Pacific's Coast Line, then you should buy this volume too. It isn't the narrative with pictures that the first one is, but it compliments the first book nicely. It's priced high but worth it if you're looking for memories of the SP and its premier passenger line. You can always check out Signature Press' website for the description on this book that Amazon seems to be lacking.

We originally bought this book for our little boy at Toys R Us and he loved it so much that he broke the spine of the book. The soundstory feature makes this a great way to get a very young child more interested in books in general and that takes him/her one step closer to reading. My boy especially likes the page with the cantina band where he can press the buttons and make the different instruments play. If you have a toddler tearing about your house I give this my highest recomendation!

Very surprised that this book is not reviewed much. Has great case-based questions for a majority of the tested topics with detailed and valuable answers that help to distinguish between even the most apparently similar diagnosis. It is question and answer based USMLE Step 2 review at its very best. Because of this book, I passed Step 2 after an initial unsuccessful try using other really dry, boring review books that just took up space on my bookshelf. Keep it simple, this book is all you need for Step 2. Thanks a bunch to Dr. Alario and the whole cast for having written such an exceptional review book.

An excellent outline of the subject, written by a man who certainly knows his stuff.

Trollope covers broad range of life in this wonderfully amusing tale of three very diverse clerks and the career paths they take in Victorian England. He depicts them with depth and sympathy and you can't help feeling sorry for the plights their own follies bring upon them. Trollope knew the life he wrote about from his own eventful and long remembered career as a postal worker! Romance and vivid scene painting combine with social comentary to make Three Clerks a classic worth reading for pleasure as well as for the cultural history education it offers.