I just finished teaching a two-year adult Sunday-school study of Judges, and I found this commentary extremely useful. Wilcock is able to think creatively about these age-old stories, and often brings a provocative, New Testament sensibility to his applications. He also has a clear, lucid and penetrating style that makes this book quite approachable, and not overly cerebral. Recommended.

Thanks, Joe Smith. I purchased this book on your recommendation above and have found it very helpful. The stories in Judges read like adventure stories. They are fun but you are tempted to consider them just a break from the serious work of the Lord's word. Wilcock is really helping me understand the spiritual meaning behind the stories - to see how they truly are examples of how God works our deliverance for all times and places. How God is faithful to His promises but you can't pin Him down as to how is is going to deliver. If you are interested in exploring Judges - a comparitively little-read work of the Old Testament, I also highly recommend this commentary.

I've just finished teaching a two-year adult Sunday school class in Judges, and Wilcock's book was extremely helpful. He takes a long-range spiritual view, often with a New Testament perspective, of this intricate and tricky Old Testament masterpiece. There were many times when I simply read aloud to my adult students lengthy paragraphs from Wilcock's book. Very level-headed, reverent, and insightful. Highly recommended for those who believe God's Word and wish to study it "with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind."

This book was written by my husband in the late 60's before cookbooks were in vogue. It was a labour of love as he was born and grew up in Indonesia ,was interred by the Japanese and ended up in NZ where we met. During his time in camp he thought about food and how his mother prepared it. It became almost an obsession as he tried to forget his hunger. The recipes are authentic and are carefully written so that they are able to be followed by anyone unfamiliar with Indonessian cooking. His love of all things Indonesian is shared with the reader as each chapter begins with a story or some aspect of interest about Indonesian culture or food.So it is of interest to cooks and readers.It is still worthy of interest today. He died in 1992 still passionate about Indonesia and its food !

The title sums it up. For ease of use and authenticity, this book can't be beat. Mr. Robeau's recipes for Special Fried Rice, Javanese Gado-Gado, peanut sauce (II), and Curried Chicken are the closest I've found to those dishes we so enjoyed in our years of living and working in East Java. His directions are clear and easy to follow, but beware. The food that results from ALL of his recipes is addictive. It's high time for a reprinting of this classic so that more people may enjoy it!

This was a very funny spoof of fantasy and horror, with nods to Burroughs, Lovecraft, and just about everything else. Maureen Birnbaum would make a great film series or TV show. Be sure to catch the new Muffy story in the collection "Chicks in Chainmail."

this book combines humor and science fiction in a way i have never read. a valley girl travels the universe and between her exploits she returns to earth to visit a friend and tells her of the places she's been and and things she's done. this is one of my favorite books---if you can find it--buy it. my friends that have borrowed it often refuse to give it up.

I gave this rather slight book four stars partly I was so ecstatic to find it. As a tremendous fan of William Maxwell, it was a treat to be able to learn a little more about him. Wilkinson is a graceful writer, and talented in his own right, but I found myself skipping the parts about his life in my eagerness to get to more about Maxwell. Wilkinson mentions in passing that this book should not serve as a biography of Maxwell, and it's not one. However, I do hope such a biography is forthcoming. I also hope that this book might spark renewed interest in Maxwell's work, which in my opinion is overlooked and under-appreciated.

"When I was twenty-four I decided that I would try to become a writer," [p7] writes Alec Wilkinson in the opening pages of My Mentor: A Young Man's Friendship with William Maxwell. Young Wilkinson was then introduced to one of the legends of 20th Century American literature, William Maxwell, who would become like a second father to him.
Maxwell (1908-2000) was both a brilliant novelist (his 1937 novel They Came Like Swallows is considered a modern American masterpiece) and a legendary fiction editor. At The New Yorker magazine, Maxwell helped shape a generation of writers by editing such luminaries as J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, John Updike, and Vladimir Nabokov. When Salinger finished the manuscript of The Catcher in the Rye, the first person he showed it to was William Maxwell. [p93] Wilkinson learned Maxwell's lessons well: he would himself become an award-winning novelist and, for the last twenty years, has worked as a writer for The New Yorker.
My Mentor is an engaging literary memoir in three parts about three men: Alec Wilkinson, Wilkinson's father, and Maxwell. Part One is mainly about Maxwell's early life and development as a writer. Throughout, Alec Wilkinson's adoration for his mentor is unabashed. He is to be commended for using Maxwell's own autobiographical writing to tell the story of how his mentor became both a man and a writer. By using Maxwell's own writing, Wilkinson gives us a clear sense of just how accomplished a writer Maxwell truly was.

Maxwell was born in Lincoln, Illinois; his young life changed forever when he was ten years old and his mother died. This traumatic childhood event would shape much of Maxwell's later writing. During the Great Depression, Maxwell moved to New York City where he was hired to work at The New Yorker, then under the editorship of Harold Ross.
Maxwell would spend four decades at The New Yorker, editing other writers' work while spending his spare time on his own fiction. Maxwell befriended Kirk Wilkinson, Alec's dad, after the two met while waiting for a commuter train. Kirk Wilkinson was brusque and outgoing; Maxwell was sensitive and introspective. Their friendship was a marriage of opposites.
The two men, both of whom worked for magazines in New York, drove together to the train station each morning. "Maxwell's dependence on my father," writes Wilkinson, "was practical, and my father's dependence on Maxwell was emotional. He knew no one else like Maxwell-so receptive, so kind, so quick to respond to gestures of friendship." [p6]
It was through his father that Alec Wilkinson found his "second father," William Maxwell: "Because I was afraid of my own father," writes Wilkinson, "I was drawn to someone who was his opposite." [p108] Maxwell served as Wilkinson's writing coach and closest confidante: "Maxwell was privy to every decision of any consequence that I made during the last twenty-five years," Wilkinson notes. [p168] Maxwell taught young Wilkinson about writing, about living, and eventually, about dying with dignity.
Through Maxwell, as described in Part Two of My Mentor, Wilkinson learned the art and craft of writing. They "worked side by side for fifteen years." [p87] Maxwell would read Wilkinson's prose, explain how it might be improved, and then might take out scissors and cut and paste the whole manuscript, rearranging the sentences in order to improve the whole. Wilkinson learned the all-important lessons of simplicity and economy and rhythm. If My Mentor is any evidence, Wilkinson was a stellar pupil. The book is elegantly written; the prose is both accessible and often quite beautiful.
With Maxwell's help, Wilkinson wrote and published his first book about the year he spent as a policeman on Cape Cod. It's a subject that Wilkinson writes lovingly about in the early pages of My Mentor. He was admittedly a lousy cop, smashing up his police cruiser on more than one occasion, but he adored the work and the camaraderie with the other policemen.
The third and final part of My Mentor is about Maxwell's death in 2000, at age 91. Wilkinson visits his mentor's deathbed: "He was extremely thin and frail, and I knew he must be dying, but all I felt was the happiness of being with him." [p150] Maxwell then, in a fitting end to their relationship, reveals how proud he is of Wilkinson.
My Mentor is a marvelous book about a marvelous, transcendent friendship between an old man and a young man. Maxwell's kindness comes across on every page, as does his wisdom. Those unfamiliar with Maxwell's impressive opus will, after reading Wilkinson's loving account, likely find themselves seeking out the master's sadly-neglected fiction. Maxwell was clearly a great man, as well as one of this nation's great writers and editors. Alec Wilkinson was fortunate indeed in his choice of a mentor.

This is a fascinating personal account of the lives of two men who are destined to cross paths during the attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. The story weaves back and forth between a young boy who grows up in Arkansas and a young boy from Japan. The tale is interwined with the political and economic conditions of the times that draw these two lives together in 1941. The Arkansas boy joins the Navy and is serving on a ship in Pearl Harbor. The Japanese boy becomes a fighter pilot. The tale progresses to their inevitable meeting in one of the most famous battles of World War II. A fascinating read for those interested in the personal stories of those who find themselves in the midst of history's most infamous moments.

Stunning perspective from a man who researched his attacker. Stationed aboard the USS Tennessee, Boatman, put aside his rage after the war and found one of the pilots who bombed his ship. He tells of the paths both took in order that they make their appointment in the Pacific. Fascinating insight into the pre-war conditions in the US and Japan that ultimately ended up in war between the two countries.

I've read a dozen or so books about the Technique over the past dozen years. I became interested in the ideas behind the Technique after having had lessons with 2 very different Alexander Techers. Both teachers helped me a great deal with a chronic back pain problem I'd had since my twenties (I'm 67 now.) My first teacher was very non-verbal, but his hands-on-guidance was very clear and was able to change my posture quite a bit. My second teacher was far more verbal, and also had very good direction in her hands. She encouraged me to do some reading, starting with "Fitness Without Stress"(my favorite) and then "Body Learning" and most recently the Authorized summaries of Alexander's own four books(most of these you can get from Amazon - but the authorized summaries you have to get by mail from an Alexander Technique Professional Society - you can find out more at the Alexander Technique Bookstore at alexandertechnique.com/books)My sense is that Gray's book is not as clear as the other books's on the Technique I've read, although it does cover the basics.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I am a violinist with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Technique itself is an **invaluable** element of my life and work---and I would say this book is the best Alexander book not written by FM Alexander himself (it's also much easier to read than FM's brilliant but *very* Victorian prose). This would be my Desert Island Alexander book!

Alayne Main writes descriptively (and reasonably well) about her personal experiences and fears while traveling around the world with new husband Alec on their catamaran Madeline. The narration, initially interesting to those that might be contemplating a similar voyage, degenerates into a litany of whines and emotional outbursts that make for somewhat tiresome reading. (Pity me on my trip of a lifetime!) Alayne makes it clear that the dream to sail the globe is her husband's, not hers, and any strength or determination displayed in the journey is rooted not in self-confidence or a bonafide thirst for adventure or experience, but in marital obligation. It's Jacques Cousteau meets Oprah Winfrey on the high seas. Will the boat or the marriage end up on the rocks first? That the voyage is completed successfully -- despite Alayne's plethora of fears, emotional neediness, and lack of mechanical skills -- is a testament to Alec's patience and genuine care for his wife. (One wonders if Alec will publish a companion book of how to still enjoy oneself while cruising shackled to an irrational killjoy.) Overall, the thrill-seeking, wannabe-sailor reader will certainly reconsider any romantic notions of sailing off into the sunset with their spouse or partner, and perhaps contemplate a solo voyage instead.

What a great read! I met Alayne at a sailing show recently and was searching for a book to read. Since I am a frugal person I tend to search a lot before purchasing. I made an exception here because of the intriquing combination of topics.

There have been at least a thousand seminars and books on how to get a reluctant spouse to go live a life on a boat. There is obviously many couples that only have one person who really desires an adventure like this. This can be a strong enough desire to end relationships. Alayne Main, I feel meets this profile. She was excited about the dream, but scared to death of the reality. Everyone I have ever met like this usually gives up, sells a boat,or divorces. However, Alayne did the unexpected,she went! What inspiring strength! She shares her growing experience. She finds adventure,love,passion,and life, just around the corner from the sea of disaster. She shares about experiences that millions like her would miss.

This is not a book about an experienced, born on a boat, person who set sails around the world. That would be dull and boring. Instead this is an inspiringly truthful account of someone who takes unexpected risks to find their true destiny.

Combine this with the fact that it occurs on a catamaran, gives this book a fresh new perspective on sailing around the world. Alayne should not have gone, but she did!

Thank you for the fine book. I could not put it down

Daryl Ball, thisl2008@aol.com

As we have embarked on our own sailing adventure;both my wife and I having read"A SAILING PROMISE", the accounts of Alayne and Alex aboard Madeline.We come away with an insite into cruising that we had never before discovered.The presures and pain of relationships on land are difficult enough;throw in a circumnavigation and the plot thickens.We both found it a solid read that paralleled our own dreams of far horizons and exoctic cultures.From a mans point of view I can only suggest, all skippers read this book to preserve their own sanity ;when we can't quite understand why our fist mates do what they do. It could only have been written by a woman. I'm glad she did.From page one on you are lead along and have a hard time putting it down ,with a need to know what is ahead. We loved it and put it right up ther with Tania Aibe's "Maiden Voyage" another great read.

This is a terrific new book by a Washington Post reporter who followed AOL for the newspaper through its ups, its way ups, its downs and its way downs (now). The most appealing part of the book is that the subject is approached without malice. Klein could have taken a muckraking, expose the crooks attitude, but he did not. Perhaps this is because he spent so much time with "the boys at AOL" during the time he covered them for the Post.
The book appears to be very thoroughly documented and balanced. In the end, however, we are left with one, strong conclusion: AOL cooked the books to get the merger done with Time Warner and continued to cook them as long as possible to keep the numbers up after the merger. They did so, as has been documented previously, by booking phony ad sales when money flowed both ways and counting as revenue money that had not yet arrived.
This book is lively, a quick read and not harshly judgmental toward AOL, even while presenting strong indications that negative judgments would be justified. As at other high flying enterprises in the 1990s, AOL people often used company money like it was Iraqi dinars looted from the central bank. The "expensed" lavish trips and parties and rode their stock options to the stars. Almost every reference to Steve Case finds him in a different city, often other continents. Why work when you can travel in high style?
There is no doubt that a kind of stock and money madness enveloped AOL. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect, for some, will be the revelations about how much money was wasted both by AOL and its stock optioned employees on their own. While the record is shocking, I have a feeling that Klien barely scratched the surface in this regard.
It is clear, from this book and other reporting, that AOL should never have taken over Time Warner, any more than a mouse should try to eat an elephant. AOL was flying high on the combination of its subscriber revenues, temporarily inflated ad revenues and, more importantly, the expectations of investors that the Internet had no known limits (it did). Most of this had to be known Steve Case and his high spending, high flying group at AOL. They went ahead with the merger anyway, at all costs. Turns out, they lost their jobs and, for many of them, their fortunes. This was not a good merger that went bad, this was a merger that should never have even been considered, much less finished.
This book should be interesting to anyone who follows American business, who invested in tech stocks during the gold rush and anyone else who simply wants to learn about human nature and money. Highly recommended.

A review of Simon Schuster's new book, "Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner," by Alec Klein

First, I must issue the following disclaimer: I am the "ageing flower child" in Mr. Klein's new book, entitled "Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner." That said, I think that my perspective as a spokesman for a small ISP from the Midwest allows me an overview unlike anyone else discussed in the book.

Overall, "Stealing Time" has established a standard for reporting on AOL and the AOL Time Warner merger that will be hard to top. If Mr. Klein's original reporting on AOL and the merger is the first draft of history, then his new book represents a first-rate second draft. No other reporter I know has had access to more sources and actors in the AOL Time Warner drama than Mr. Klein. His coverage of the early days of Steve Case and the company that would become AOL was particularly informative for the general readership.

Besides the use of impressionism, the narrative achieves a terseness and non-linear quality that does much to engage the reader. At each stage, one has to reflect on the individual anecdote and where it fits into the historical process of the current state of AOL Time Warner's evolution.

Another strength of the book is the author's ability to provide well-rounded caricatures of all the various players, large and small, who peopled this technological passion play. In particular, I was captivated by the chapter entitled "AOL Versus the World," and not just because I am part of it. The cast of characters described includes the usual suspects for any large merger: dueling CEO's, a panoply of PR types, a motley collection of merger opponents, consumer groups representing various constituencies, large government agencies like the FTC and the FCC, Capitol Hill denizens, the national media, and the American public. Mr. Klein captured it all with an accuracy I can vouch for.

From the beginning of October 2000 to the merger approval on January 11, 2001, the whole notion of inevitability was brushed aside by the revelation that both companies, AOL and Time Warner, were telling the politicians and regulators a half-truth about their plans to allow other ISP's access to their cable's high speed Internet product.

Ultimately, the Term Sheet being sent to ISP's like Earthlink and other applicants was a contract no one could ever sign. It's anti-competitive features helped dramatize the fact that AOL Time Warner could not be trusted to execute their promise of open access. Arguably, they lost all of their creditability once the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communication Commission finally saw it. As I said at the time, "the term sheet was so anti-competitive that Joseph Stalin could barely have improved it."

It was hardly surprising that Time Warner, then the second largest cable company in the U.S., would build an insurmountable barrier to entry. They after all were granted geographical monopolies to all of their cable territories from the start. When Time Warner kicked ABC/Disney off their cable networks out East in May of 2000, they provided a large example of the power such a monopoly has over access and content. AOL itself had perfected the "walled garden" on its Home Page. By controlling the access of its customers to the Internet AOL could drive them to its advertisers goods and services.

Even after the merger approval, AOL Time Warner was caught denying advertising placement to other ISP's for dial-up and DSL services at the exact time their ad revenue was shrinking. In all of history, no monopoly ever gave up its coveted position willingly.

AOL, on the other hand, had fought long and hard for ISP Open Access to all cable companies' high speed Internet infrastructure before their merger announcement of January 10, 2000. In fact, Steve Case gave a speech in San Francisco, CA about Open Access while at the same time he was in secret negotiation with Time Warner. To combat charges of hypocrisy, AOL and Time Warner issued a "memorandum of understanding" on February 2000 that supposedly guaranteed access to all interested ISP's. The trouble was that the memorandum was unenforceable and the term sheet for access was a draconian nightmare no one could sign. Open access became, as a participant in the negotiation between the two companies, "our huge bugaboo."

AOL certainly revealed their willingness to play fast and loose with the truth. They would do anything to get the largest merger in U.S. history done, especially since it would give AOL privileged access to the broadband technology they so desperately needed.

Like many other Internet companies, AOL had used aggressive accounting practices for reporting marketing expenses, whereby they became a depreciable asset instead of an immediate expense of doing business. Upon reflection, this was one of the first examples of a company without an ethical compass.

We all should have worried when Steve Case told the media in the euphoria of the merger announcement: "We want to be the most respected company in the world."

Thank goodness, Mr. Klein did his job as an investigative reporter by uncovering much of the unseemliness; and now, he has done his job as a business storyteller by revealing many of the truths about the largest debacle in the business history of the U.S.

This book outlines many of the problems in the infamous AOL/Time Warner Merger. It gives many examples that are common even in small mergers. Having worked for the CFO of a public company, I can relate to a number of these issues. The book illustrates why this merger was doomed from the start. An interesting read.

i remember reading this in 8th/9th grade and it was my favorite book at the time. it screams "authorized book" in it's brown - nosing, but who cares? it taught me a lot about my then favorite band and got me into stuff like glenn branca.

As a Sonic Youth fan, I thought this was a great book, full of interesting anecdotes, cool background information about the NY No Wave scene and rad photos. It has all the data you'll ever need to you about Sonic Youth up to their release of Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star (1994).

The background on the different circumstances of each successive album is worth the price alone.

A fun read.

Foege does a great job of describing Sonic Youth from its beginnings in the early 70s until 1995. Being I was barely able to walk when Sonic Youth first formed, and not even a fan until 1995, I was eager to learn about the beginnings of the group. Seeing where the band, especially where Thurston comes from is a great way to understand their music. It also does a great job in describing the influence Sonic Youth had on the music world.

Yes, 200 some pages hardly does justice to Sonic Youth. But being that there is no other biography on the band, I'd recommend that any fan picks up a copy of this book... I think I've read my copy three times.

It was with excitement that I waited for this book to arrive. By the time I had finished it, I felt deflated and misled.

Although I am not trying to discredit Mr. Newald, his story seemed to ring very hollow to me. Several things left me saying "huh?", not the least of which were his numerous references to "other" information he had, but preferred not to share in this tome (saving it for another book, perhaps?). These pieces of information were related to his experience "there" and suspicious activity "here" after he was returned home.

For being gone,and usually conscious, for a period of 10 days on another planet (and/or in another time)the book is very short, only 193 pages.

This book may be superb for the neophyte, but those with a lot of UFO reading under their belt may very well be left feeling as I did: "Huh?"

Alec is honest, and this can be easily discerned immediately. This is the first book he's ever written, but it is pleasure to read. Why? It's not about "style". It's about honesty. He has succeeded in applying the simple principle of honesty in relating the FACTS about what he experienced and his own reaction to it. And what AMAZING facts. I will not go into any details, I will simply say this: I am so glad I found this book, and read it, because I now know things I never knew before, about a subject which our "leaders" don't want us to know anything about. This is perhaps among the top 2 of, say the 25 books I have read in this field. Thanks Alec, you lucky son of a gun.

Well I've read a few of these types of books, this one is different mostly because the author does not make to many judgement calls, does not pretend to be an expert or know what this is all about, I like that about the book. If the terrestrial after events really did happen, and I'm sure it would not take to much work by someone to prove that part one way or the other, if they did happen, it makes for great back up to an amazing event. Makes you wonder if the author knows more than he's telling! I think the last part about future technology is an eye opener and not a bad guess.