This is a superb book for any practitioner working in primary care. It covers all important subjects completely and concisely. I used it to review for my boards with the review book that goes with it and I was very prepared. I highly recommend this text.

I found this review book an excellent source of knowledge and simple to understand. This book by passes all the intricate biochemical details and present the meat and potatoes so to speak. The wisdom of the pearls make this book unique. I recommend this book to any professional in a primary care setting.

This is the most comprehensive and concise medical text that I have ever used....so reader friendly. It has over 70 contributors from all over the country.

Walter Benjamin has progressed over the years from an obscure lesser member of the Frankfurt School to a widely read leading member of that obscure school. Aided by such as Hannah Arendt, who introduced him to a wider audience in her writings (and also to me), readers have come to appreciate Benjamin for the beauty of his writing as well as his sharp insight.

This volume, along with its companion, is an excellent introduction to the style and thought of this man who, while out of step with his times, possessed the insight to give those times an original critique.

Possessed of a lively style and free from the Marxist bagge that weighs down his Frankfurt School colleagues such as Adorno and Horkheimer (I think Benjamin owes much more to Heidegger than Marx), Benjamin will hook any reader who takes the time to spend an hour or two with this book. From here it's an easy step to purchase other Benjamin writings, a step I can almost guarantee.

While his work is as important as Barthes, Foucault, or Derrida, or any other critic of the 20th Century, Benjamin's work has a mystical quality, a kind of enchantment, that resonates much more than any other critic I have read. It is always human and sensitive, even despite his determinedly impersonal tone.

When I think of Benjamin, I think of Emerson's famous line about Hawthorne - that he was a greater man than any of his works betray. The integrity and character of Walter Benjamin shines through his works, and is an inspiration to anyone who takes literature seriously.

This first volume of Bejamin's complete works is very attractive and welcome. Some of my favorite essays are present, such as his essays on children's literature, and the nature of language. I eagerly await the other two volumes.

The Contentious Triangle is a tribute for Harvard Professor emeritus George Huntston Williams. Contrary to what Amazon.com lists in their entry for the volume, the editors are actually Rodney L. Petersen and Calvin Augustine Pater, and it is in honor of his 85th birthday, rather than his 90th. Both the scholarship and the contributors of this book are first rate. Contributors include Jaroslav Pelikan, Peter Gomes, J. Bryan Hehir, Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, Harold O.J. Brown, Heiko Oberman, and Demetrios Trakatellis, among others. This group of internationally repected church historians, church leaders, philosophers and theologians write on subjects that span the history of the church, in the spirit of Williams own overarching perspective of the discipline.

In the preface to his "Life of Lincoln", William Herndon expounded that when writing the history of Lincoln's early life "the whole truth concerning him should be known" and there should be "nothing colored or suppressed." Having set the standard Herndon failed to follow it, for there were something's even Herndon must have felt should not be put into print. Scholars wishing to explore Lincoln's early life beyond the insights offered by Herndon's biography had to turn to examining the letters and notes collected for over a twenty year period by himself and his collaborator Jesse Weik. This often proved to be a daunting task. As the editor's in their introduction noted even though available on Micro roll film specific documents are "very hard to locate" and even if located are "very hard to read." To further complicate matters the index to the Herndon collection prepared by the Library of Congress is "neither accurate nor complete." What Editors Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis have done in their "Herndon's Informants" is to transcribe all of the known Herndon, Weik letters and notes into a readable and properly indexed Documentary Edition. What they have also done is create a masterpiece of scholarship that will be used by students of Lincoln for decades to come. "Herndon's Informants" offers the student the complete Herndon collection, unabridged and un-editorialized. To anyone who has a strong interest in learning more about Lincoln's early life this is just about all that is available and it simply must become a part of your personal library.

An excellent book, finally Banjamin on photography and cinema is available in english. Reading his essay on Chaplin is extremely illuminating concerning the question of the passage from silent film to sound film. His concept of critique, as well as his concept of "making history" lies in this text.

William Rodney Allen's Walker Percy: A Southern Wayfarer is one of the finest studies of novelist Walker Percy. While most Percy criticism emphasizes Percy's theological interests--sometimes to the detriment of the works--Allen offers a complex reading that blends biographical research, psychoanalysis, and intertextuality. His readings are mostly unassailable, and he makes a fine case for Percy as not just an important Southern or Catholic author, but an important American author as well, working with and subverting some of the ideas of Twain and Hemingway. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent guide to the art of mixology and setting up a home bar. It shares the same features as "Ultimate A-to-Z Bar Guide" such as the alphabetical format which I find very useful and convenient as quick reference at the bar; and the appended listing of drinks following certain typologies - a great help finding the right drink appropriate to the occasion or what one has in stock. The presentation and layout however is more appealing and inspires neophytes like me to explore more the diverse world of wine and spirits. It is an alternative but will not replace the "Ultimate A-to-Z Bar Guide."

I'll admit that I was impressed with the cover as well as the little green ribbon used to mark pages, but when I browsed the book it impressed me enough to buy it.

This book is chock full of information and recipes pertaining to the past 130 years. It has trivia, origins of liquors and pictures as well as history of drinks that are famous today.

Examples include: did you know that Absinthe was eventually replaced with what we use nowadays called Bitters? Also has origins of liquors (you know "Eau-De-Vie"? No, I didn't, but if you don't either it's the pear-in-the-bottle liquor -- they literally fasten the bottle to the pears before they get too big and the pear grows inside the bottle.)

If you're looking for a guide to help you make that "time period" party just right, this is the one for you. Tells you how to stock your bar properly, glasses to use and drinks for special occasions, such as Wassail for Christmas and tropical drinks from the 40s. You name an ingredient -- they've got a drink for it.

If you're not a social drinker, this pretty much makes a good read. I've literally curled up in bed just browsing the information aside from the recipes.

A must have for the serious bartender-wannabe for authentic drinks and history.

The book does give great interviews and words of Vonnegut, but there is no substantial whole. It is poorly laid out, and makes no concrete assertions or comments on Vonnegut's words.

I read only the part where one person interviewed Kirk in the persona of Kilgore Trout. This made a great addition to this book.

This compilation of interviews with Kurt Vonnegut covers 1969 through 1987. Vonnegut fans may recognize some of the conversations from amongst the known corpous (i.e. the Playboy interview from Foma, Wampeters, and Granfalloons) but by and large these come from quirky sources out of the main stream. The wonderfully casual Robert Scholes interview from 1973 is a delight. Also of interest is the 1974 Greg Mitchell piece written in the manner of Kilgore Trout. By all mean secure yourself a copy of this work. One flaw needs to be noted: With Vonnegut married to the skillful photographer Jill Kremetz, why put a pedestrian AP photo on the cover? Chris Huber

For those in the field of religious studies, this book addresses the argument over secularization with a twist: Secularization actually maintains and perpetuates religion. Most of those who accept secularization's existance claim that it destroys religion. The authors provide persuasive arguements for their theory, and back it up with data organized into easy to use charts. Be aware, however, that their use of maps leaves something to be desired. The data in them is often outdated (not a problem according to their theory) and coclusions are drawn about whole regions based on information from parts of the regions. This is a large tome, and is probably suitable, if broken up into smaller units, for undergraduates in religious studies.

Any medievalist will undoubtedly find William of Malmesbury's Gesta cited throughout the footnotes of other studies. This volume provides a comprehensive commentary and analysis of the Malmesbury manuscripts, equal in every respect to the high standard expected from Oxford Medieval Texts.
Be forwarned, however, that this volume contains only the commentary. Those interested in reading the excellent full-text English translation, or making their own interpretation from the Latin will require the companion Volume I, which for some reason, Amazon does not include in its catalogue listings.