"Have you ever read CENTERING?" a friend asked me. "That book changed my life," she explained, with a knowing smile, "and I'll even loan you my copy." M. C. Richards was a potter, teacher, and poet, and her 1962 book is "a story of transformation" (p. 4). In his Foreward to the 25th Anniversay Edition of M.C.'s "truly subversive book" (p. ix), Matthew Fox writes, "I consider this book one of the great works of American philosophy: it is so cosmological, so feminist (without once using that term), so original, so full of wisdom, so post Cartesian, so nondualistic, so moral, and so fully a part of the mystical tradition of the West that one wonders from what source it arrived in our world . . . This is a prophetic and mystical book. Such books are dangerous. They are the kind dictators burn, churches tend to ignore, and consumer cultures leave on the shelf. For they have the power to awaken, to stir, to disturb, and to transform" (pp. vii-viii).

After forty years, CENTERING remains as relevant as ever. The good news is that it's still in print. M. C. observes that, in our society, "ordinary education and social training seem to impoverish the capacity for free initiative and artistic imagination. We talk indepedence, but we enact conformity . . . Brains are washed (when they are not clogged), wills are standardized, that is to say immobilized. Someone within cries for help. There must be more to life than all these learned acts, all this highly conditioned consumption. A person wants to do something of his own, to feel his own being alive and unique. He wants out of bondage. He wants in to the promised land" (p. 43).

Wisdom arrives through a childlike sense of wonder, or through "centering," as M. C. calls it. "Within us lives a merciful being," she observes, "who helps us to our feet however many times we fall" (p. 8). "Wisdom is not the product of mental effort," she tells us. Rather, it is a state of "total being, in which capacities for knowledge and for love, for survival and for death, for imagination, inspiration, intuition, for all the fabulous functioning of this human being who we are, come into a center with their forces, come into an experience of meaning that can voice itself as wise action" (p. 15). She encourages us to "ride our lives like natural beasts, like tempests, like the bounce of a ball or the slightest ambiguous hovering of ash, the drift of scent: let us stick to those currents that can carry us, membering them with our souls. Our world personifies us, we know ourselves by it" (p. 7). "I sense this," she writes; "we must be steady enough in ourselves, to be open and to let the winds of life blow through us, to be our breath, our inspiration; to breathe with them, mobile and soft in the limberness of our bodies, in our agility, our ability, as it were, to dance, and yet to stand upright, to be intact, to be persons" (p. 12). CENTERING is a "sensual, sexual, trusting" book "full of surprises" (p. xv) you'll want to share with your friends.

G. Merritt

I've read this several times since it was first published in the 60's MC Richards has a lot of insight and some very good things to say to teachers.

This book is a classic! I came across it in the '70's and now, again, when I am old enough to understand the depth of Mary Caroline Richard's wisdom. She truly knows what life-generating relationships are about. The best news about this book is that it is still in print.

This book is perfectly calculated to be read in the street on a hot day, holding the place lightly with a finger as one walks from one superb building to the next. Effortless learning and prose shine on them like a torch. The book has the humility to accept historical Islam on its own terms, uniquely explaining the Arabic texts written on walls already saturated with religious and political meaning. Is there any other guide quite like it and quite as good?

Cairo is one of the great cities in the world, and a walk through its Islamic areas transports you back hundreds, even thousands of years. This guide has been my bible as I've walked and walked and walked on many visits over the years. It illuminates what you see. Almost every block has something of interest, and it is invariably described lucidly in this guidebook.

Enough said -- if you want to walk through Islamic Cairo, you need this book. And if you don't want to walk, the book will make you want to!

Caroline Williams and her predecessors have put together a marvelous guide to most of the Islamic monuments, large and small, in Cairo. The book is divided by sections of the city and Williams suggests several "tours" visitors can give themeselves. I found it a valuable "tour guide" when I was exploring the city and an important reference when cataloging my slides after returning home. With detailed information about the history and finer architectural points of some two hundred monuments, as well as tips for getting around Cairo, this book (or its paperback version, ISBN 977-424-316-2) is a must-have for every Cairo-bound traveller!

I need buy this book but I don't know how. I don't have shopping card. How can I buy this book? Thanks

This book is filled with photos of puppies and dogs in training. The reader will identify with Honey from her birth in the kennels to life with her puppy raisers, her training in guidework and finally, being paired with her blind partner. The book is a great way to attract children's/students' interest in learning about disabilities.

Koala has lots of imformation about koalas. It has cute pictures of little koals. I think it is a really good book. I love to look at the pictures of the different types of koalas. The picure of the koala with the stethoscope on its chest is my favorite.

That's really good! I'm in Taiwan,a country without any koala here If we need for koala datas ,we are hard to find it but this is good

This spiritual and, in many ways, autobiographical work is an eye-opening, heart-awakening, mind-expanding, and imagination-bending achievement.

Some we value for their thinking, others for what they make. But M. C. Richards is that rare one among us who shows us a way by fact of her very presence. All else follows.

I like whales really much. I have been studying whales for about 3 years. I am most knowledgible about the the giant creatures of the sea: like the blue whale, the bowhead whale, the right whale, the grey whale, humpback, fin whale, minke whale (all baleen whales), and the rest are toothed whales.

I liked "Baby Whale Rescue" because they saved a whale that was stranded without its mother for a week. I knew JJ from TV News, Seaworld, and from watch his release to the sea.

The ending of this book has such a twist, that most children I've read this book to don't seem to get it. Actually, only a handful of parents seem to realize what just happened. But that doesn't detract from the fact the story of one incredibly hungry hen and one slowly starving fox is one of the more entertaining children's books to come out in 2001. The illustrations fit the story well, as does the use of repetition throughout the hungry hen's story. While I'm sure the fun twist can be seen coming a mile away, I won't ruin it here for people who don't read reviews. Needless to say, whether you're reading this to one child, or an entire classroom full of chilren, this simply told story entertains them all.

The most complete, and user-friendly abdominal MR book currently in print. Excellent images and well-written text. Covers nearly everything from the diaphragm to the pelvis. Highly recommended, both for residents/fellows and practicing radiologists. Includes protocols and a chapter on specific imaging stratagies for MR imaging of the abdomen and pelvis.

My daughter loves this series, and she's only 15 months old! The pop ups are sturdier than you'd expect, but we have used some scotch tape. These books have taught her animals sounds (farmyard) and many other things. I'm sure this one will help with her colors.

I bought this book for my son when he was 18 months old. He fell in love with the vibrant colors and pop-up creatures immediately! At 27 months he still asks for the "parrot" book regularly. We love this book so much we buy them for our friends' children and have completed our set of Snappy Pop-Up books with the other four.

My 10 month old niece enjoys this book at least 3 times a day...and has ever since she was only 3 months old. Although, she has about 25 excellent age-appropriate books, this is her favorite! The pop-up paper is sturdy, and the illustrations are bright, clear and simple.

The eyes of University Presidents and Vice-Chancellors all around the world light up as they think of those hundreds of millions of potential students out there, just waiting to pay money to study at their Universities - "If just 1% of them came here.... $$$$!!! Information Technology via the Internet and on-line delivery of our courses - will that provide the answer?" As Universities (and other educational institutions) rush to establish a presence in the "virtual" education market, often building Internet classrooms that in many cases resemble the "Field of Dreams" model - "build it and they will come" (they don't, and won't, of course) this book is a welcome steadying contribution.

Let me declare an interest before going any further - I am the author of a chapter in this book. That said, the book provides a serious collection of research articles aimed at making some early sense out of this fast-growing area. It is important to remember it is early days yet and much of the research conducted to date, and the practice, is preliminary - a problem compounded by the rapidly changing technology.

While most of the chapters in the book paint a generally optimistic picture, there are many problems, pitfalls and dilemmas identified. These range from restrictions and difficulties involved in state financing of education, through the difficulty of authenticating student work and testing of students, technological limitations, special dedication and skill attributes required in students, the suitability of some courses to remote delivery, to library strategies. This suggests that at least in the eyes of these practitioners (and most of them are) it will be far from plain sailing. Somebody needs to tell those Presidents!

There are several chapters that provide guidance in (very early) "best practice" and these present a useful if somewhat disjointed guide for those considering running such courses. Perhaps a future work could attempt to establish a "best practice" manual, although as the courses come to conform to a standard blueprint the competitive edge will blur.

For academics the book identifies many areas for additional research. These include further work in the potential take up of on-line education by both students and Universities, the influence of the isolation effect, measurement of learning achievements, and interaction of students with the technology.

Overall the book offers a very good collection of experience and research. There is much more work to be done and many more experiences to be had. Uninversity management (and many academics ) will push to move ahead - there could be a lot of fallout, but in the end is it just possible this could be the University of the future? For a small percentage of students - maybe.

This book provides an outstanding range of ideas, research, and insights into distance learning programs. The book is enlightening about how to improve distance teaching and learning, the design of these programs, their successes and failures, and how they are impacting institutions of higher education,

This book is designed and written for higher education institutions which are considering or are engaged in distance education as a new education communications channel. The book's greatest strength is that it contains perspectives from many different individuals who are actively involved in distance education. The topics cover many different areas such as: defining distance education, implications for higher education, attraction of online distance education, future of distance education, faculty perceptions of distance education, teaching effectiveness, strategies for success, service providers for distance education, quality assurance issues, success factors, and many others.

Those in higher education will often adopt a new technology without fully investigating the potential and cost of the technology. This book has an excellent section on the benefits and disadvantages of using distance education. It is noted that distance education is not a panacea but it is another useful technology that can be used to enhance learning and meet needs of students who are not able to attend a traditional class-learning environment.

The reader was very impressed by the excellent end of chapter references. This will allow anyone who desires to investigate more fully the issues raised in the book to do so. The chapters dealing with various distance education delivery models and implementation will be useful to those who wish to move forward with this technology in their organization.

The reader highly recommends that those interested in distant education take the time to read this book before they embark on distance education. The book will help to minimize "re-inventing the wheel" and thus save time, money and effort.