The authors take the time to recommend, based on your role, which chapters to read, and it which order. My suggestion -- read them all, front to back.

As someone who loves learning, I was especially drawn to the Composite patterns and discussions regarding the use of packages to provide the implementation of many parts of some patterns.

Prior to the publication of this work, I attended Mr. Adams presentation on patterns and later used the Patterns Development Kit (PDK) that supports the patterns. The session was great; I felt more of an architect/designer and builder than on any project or engagement.

The authors have made a great contribution to systems development by cataloging years of knowledge in a way that helps practitioners make sound design decisions.

Adams, Gamma, and Booch/Rumbaugh are names to remember.

Anyone who has, or is, establishing enterprise architectural standards ought to consider this approach to layering assets i.e patterns.

The book introduces a real insight into reuse! I have read "Objects, Components and Frameworks with UML" (The Catalysis Approach) by Desmond D'Souza/Alan Wills and "Software Reuse" by Ivar Jacobson/Martin Griss/Patrik Jonsson. I struggled with both these books to abstract the basic concepts of software reuse. "Patterns for e-business" helped enormously.

If, like me, time is at a premium but you really need to understand a strategy for reuse...then read this book!

I've come to the point where I won't even begin the conversation without having them read this book. Seriously! Edwards covers ALL the issues in a thurough and practical way.

Strap on your thinking cap, but know it's worth it! I read this book every year and God never fails in using it to refocus my heart on Him.

I bought this book almost a year ago and it collected dust on my shelf because I lacked the level of philosophical sophistication required to attack it directly. Over the past year, I became more acquainted with philosophy and its history, most especially the works of Brand Blanshard and Laurence Bonjour.

I was arguing the case for psychophysical dualism on a website recently. I was already an epistemological dualist, having come to the conclusion that even the best-developed forms of rational and objective idealism were essentially dualistic. This is even more obviously the case if one incorporates the insights of modern physics about the constituents of matter, and its insights into time and space. However, psychophysical dualism, mostly because it is related to interactionist/dualist beliefs about interaction between the mind and the body or the mind and the brain, is associated with mysticism.

To see if I could find anything to make or break my belief in psychophysical dualism, I picked up this book, which I hadn't picked up in a while, having being frightened by such terms as the *cognescendum* a year ago. It was a great joy to read, as Lovejoy carefully laid out the secular and rational case for epistemic dualism and the related psychophysical dualism, while refuting philosophers that are far more famous that he was. Lovejoy explained that illusions and dreams, amongst other factors, created a problem that was best handled by the separation of the physical from the mental and the development of a gradually developed epistemology to make the causal connections work.

Bertrand Russell's realist position was criticized so devastatingly by Lovejoy that Russell because a dualist, with the belief (shared by most epistemic dualists) that the objects of our immediate perception are fundamentally mind-related. The trick, as Lovejoy noted, is to draw the right causal connections from the objects presented in perception to the subject matter of the physical sciences while being wary of the mind's ability to fall into error.

Epistemological monism has been slaughtered. As Brand Blanshard said, _The Revolt against Dualism_ is their 'tombstone'. Anyone wishing to argue uncritically against the bifurcation of mental objects and physical reality should read some philosophy, and then pick up this book. In fact, I might one day make an attempt to make its insights far more accessible to the common reader. However, common people sometimes know far more about these things than some so-called "great philosophers" - they just get carried away by the first philosopher that floats an idea around them.

The ideas in this book are a great antidote to such a problem. Lovejoy discusses a problem of great importance, especially to those who practice any field that involves epistemology.

Highly recommended.

Although this issue of epistemological dualism and distinguishing between perceptions of objects and the objects themselves may seem to be a mere technical problem without any real world significance, it nevertheless is one of the most important issues in philosophy. Confusion concerning the relation between ideas and the their objects in reality has probably given rise to more errors in philosophy than any other issue. All doctrines of philosophical idealism, whether skeptical or mystical in nature, are rooted in the failure to understand the duality between perceptions and the things perceived. The belief in what one philosopher called the "efficacy of consciousness" (i.e., the belief that consciousness can be regarded as a power in and of itself) can also be traced to this revolt against dualism. And so, although the issue of epistemological dualism may be a mere technical problem without any immediate practical significance, it is not without importance in philosophy. If a philosopher is confused or mistaken on this issue, he is likely to be confused or mistaken on a great many others. Hence, the significance of Lovejoy's masterful analysis of the revolt against dualism.

Wasson et al's revelations of the complexity of the myths that surrounded the Eleusian mysteries are fodder for hours upon hours of thought play about the foundations of our culture today.

In pre-Classical times, it is likely that almost the entire population of Athens walked the fifteen-mile distance to Eleusis at harvest time every year in order to drink the 'kykeon' and experience the sense of the mythic reunion of Persephone, the Daughter, with Demeter, the Mother who taught men how to plant seeds and reap the fruit. The Christ, the draw in the psychological game of chess between the Hellenised Middle East and Israel, speaks distantly but clearly of Eleusis in John 12: 20-24 and Cicero, the Roman philosopher, author and statesman who coined the phrase 'bread and circuses' to damn the spectacular politics of his time, was an initiate.

Iktinos, architect of the Parthenon, also designed the Telesterion, the classical-period temple of the Mysteries of which only broken columns survive. However, scattered throughout 'Eleusis' by Kerenyi are bits and pieces of the psychological vocabulary of the Mysteries which with the help of ancient Greek and Indo-European comparative etymological dictionaries allow a reconstruction of the mind of the initiate. For example, 'tele', from 'telos', the full circle, the crown - today, we hear it many times every day in connection with technology; however, at Eleusis 'tele' had a sacral meaning.

Eleusis was to religion in Athens what democracy was to Athenian politics: essential.

'Road to Eleusis' and 'Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter' - read both; and when in Greece, don't miss Eleusis, 20 miles south of Athens on the mainland across the water from the island of Salamis, open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. except Monday when the site is closed.

It is a deceptively simple story, but packed with thoughts and observations which are thoroughly relevant today. And it is written in a style which came BEFORE the present supermediatic hyperbolic overstatement that characterizes most of what we read and hear today.

It is an excellent gift, and an inspirational work, even if you are never planning to cross an ocean. It is in a word, a classic. (And it is wonderful to think about how these places actually were in the thirties, and to listen to proper nautical language and vocabulary which has been washed away by the advent of the jet plane and skidoo.. Bon voyage!

While visiting Ireland two years ago, American Danny O'Flaherty fell in love with the country and its people, who return his warm regard. The murder of his cousin Rose failed to diminish his feelings one iota. To remain in the country, Danny volunteers to teach in an exchange program. He soon begins working in Dublin.

Whenever he can get away, Danny visits his friends in the village of Ballycara. His closest companion, parish priest Father O'Malley wants to confidentially tell Danny something. Before the priest can do that, he is found dead. Danny thinks someone murdered Father O'Malley and his flock wants the American to investigate. His inquiries lead him to accuse an innocent person, but that fails to stop the obstinate Danny from continuing his investigation. After a second corpse is uncovered, Danny uses himself as bait to set a trap to lure the killer into revealing his identity

THE SECOND SORROWFUL MYSTERY is so atmosphere-laden, readers will think they are visiting a rural Erin village. Danny is adorable as he makes one mistake after another, but stubbornly continues to look into his friend's death. Talented Jonathan Harrington cleverly sets up and executes the mystery so that it seems nearly impossible to guess the killer's identity even the author sprinkles clues throughout the story line. No reader of this novel will feel any sorrow as this is a very entertaining amateur sleuth tale.

Harriet Klausner