An excellent guide to plug growers. Interesting reading, with information on media, water, ph, and focus in every stage of the plug developing. You can't grow plugs and not hear about this book.

This book provides an overview of racial politics in U.S. cities and detailed studies of New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and other cities by leading experts. Well-edited and well-written, I highly recommend this book.

This is an excellent reference book, scrapbook, and trivia book combined. Excellent pictures.

David Gascoyne's elegantly measured prose provides the reader with the rare instance not only of how a visionary poet reads his contemporaries, but of how he blueprints ideas which provide the instructive dynamic informing his poetry.

Gascoyne's mind is awesome. An isolated spiritual journeyer in a materialistic century, Gascoyne's integrity stems from his belief in visionary imagination as inspired interface between conscious and unconscious worlds. From his first youthfully audacious paper, Gascoyne distinguished between poetry as activity-of-the-mind and poetry as means-of-expression. His powerful affirmation of the superior value of an imaginatively alive poetry over one that simply describes was from the start his inspired credo.

This book is a moving human document of what it means to be a poet, and to survive by that means alone, in a society radically unsympathetic to this calling. Having experienced the defenceless vulnerability of being a committed poet in a capitalist ethos, I find Gascoyne's survival heroic, his courage paradigmatic to the poetic calling.

Although David Gascoyne writes warmly of the darker aspects of T.S. Eliot's psyche, Eliot was in large to prove the prototype of the poet deserting his art for the sanctuary of an editor's desk. Many poets have done an injustice to poetry seeking personal security in acceptable professions. They relegate art to the status of a consuming hobby. How can one be fully open to the possibilities of experience if one's days are given over to immersion in establishment values? Gascoyne is among the best antidotes to this duplicitous trend.

Gascoyne's poetry of imploded mystic hallucination sounded a completely new, revolutionary note in British poetics. He found, for the English language, visionary continents already mapped out by Lautreamont, Rimbaud and the surrealists. He was to encounter madness in the process, often the way for those who pursue the journey to the interior. He says: "I am a poet who wrote himself out when young and then went mad. I tried to write poetry again and succeeded to a certain extent but it is not the same as the poetry I wrote before." Gascoyne's greatness hinges on this tragic concept of burning out.

Collateral with the inspired poetry he was writing in the 30's came the equally eventful prose essays which form the early part of this book, chief amongst them being Gascoyne's preface to his book of free translations Hölderlin's Madness (1938). This particular essay is one of the finest ever written on the subject of visionary poetry. It achieved an empathy for its subject's plight prophetic of Gascoyne's own. At only twenty-two his declarative statement in defence of poetic vision was published. Already he inhabits the great night of the German romantics in which the poet anticipates imagination becoming reality."They are poets and philosophers of nostalgia and the night. A disturbed night, whose paths lead far among forgotten things, mysterious dreams and madness. And yet a night that precedes the dawn, and is full of longing for the sun. These poets look forward out of their night: and Hölderlin in his madness wrote always of sunlight and dazzling air, and the islands of the Mediterranean noon."

To have realised this at such a young age was also an initiation experience into the excruciating social isolation which comes of holding these secrets. Gascoyne was not only set apart from the predominantly social concerns of British poetry in the 1930s, but from the main thrust of twentieth-century British poetry, with its attempts either to repress or sanitise the imagination. "Persistence is all" Rilke was to advise, and David Gascoyne, as poet, has never wavered. The price has been high. Lacking any support structure for his undertaking, David Gascoyne the private man has been broken by his quest. He returned home to his parents in middle-age, broke, ill, conceiving himself a failure in their eyes.

In 1965, his Collected Poems were published. He felt it was some sort of justification for having lived, some vindication of an identity denied him by a capitalist ideology. These are the sufferings inherent in pursuing a poetic vocation, as opposed to writing poetry as an avocation to a career. Gascoyne is one of the few who in every generation are prepared to sacrifice their lives in the interests of poetry. In his "Note On Symbolism" Gascoyne further enforces his conviction that the way to apprehending spirit is through the inner evaluation of experience. He writes: 'Each man must undertake alone and in silence the task of objective and empirical reality's changing and uncertain surface.'

Of extreme interest are the two autobiographical essays: "The Most Astonishing Book In The English Language" and "Self-Discharged." In the first of these Gascoyne describes having discovered in the early 1940s at Watkins bookshop an extraordinary book named OAHSPE: A New Bible. Its prophetic contents are subscribed to by a cult called Kosmon, purporting to expound the secrets of the visible and invisible universes. These became inextricably linked to the delusional promptings about apocalypse which eventually led to Gascoyne's confinement. (The poet at one time believed it his mission to break into Buckingham Palace and alert the Royal Family to the coming of a new spiritual awareness.) The consequences of his compulsive actions were to have Gascoyne sectioned, and in 'Self-Discharged' he describes life inside the dystopian precinct of an asylum.

Gascoyne's prose and poetry are of the highest significance, products of an imagination in discourse with the archetypal Kingdom. If both Hölderlin and Rimbaud "believed the poet to be capable of penetrating to a secret world and of receiving the dictation of a transcendental inner-voice," David Gascoyne did, too. The poetry stopped. His continued celebration of the exalted visionary dynamic did not. His later criticism, especially of surrealism, involves a generosity of spirit which is in itself a monumental achievement.

This book represents poetic truth as we seldom encounter it, and as such should be a touchstone for all future poets. A hard-won achievement of a great poet.

I am a big fan of Carol Orsborn's books (including "Inner Excellence at Work: The Path to Meaning, Spirit and Success.") It's great to read her in an informal interview with the folks at New Dimensions. They really capture the flavor of her wisdom and advice. All the authors who are featured make an important contribution to the field of spirituality and business. Read this book!

Perhaps the best study of Confucius' thought available. There is a very detailed study of all the key terms in the Analects, with an emphasis on the capacity of the individual Confucian to use his better judgment in specific situations. In other words Confucius does not recommend blind obedience to the rules of etiquette (Li). The book also includes an in-depth comparison with Western philosophy, even post-modern. One of the authors, Roger Ames, has also recently written a splendid translation of the Analects together with Henry Rosemont. Both of these books are musts for a deeper understanding of the Analects.

In "Waging Business Warfare", David J. Rogers really gets at the heart of competitive operations. He outlines the basics of tactics/strategy, and applies them to the world of business and marketing. His example of the theory of "concentration of force" is some of the best stuff I've read. I'm still searching for his follow-up work and have not been able to find it. In short, a no-nonsense, hard hitting, street-wise guide for those looking to win in business. Highly recommended reading.

It was wonderful, exciting and thrilling. All of Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books are real exciting and once you start you just keep going. If you've read her other books you'll love this one.

I think this book is great. It's the first "Nancy Drew & hardy Boys Super mystery" I've ever read. But I think there should have been more romance between Nancy & Frank. Otherwise this a fantastic book & I highly recomend it!

This book was the first Nancy Drew And Hardy Boys book I read.it was pretty hard to figure out and it was exciting the whole time! I liked the way Nancy and the Hardy Boys met up. I think they should have more creative ways for them to meet. It was a great story!

This book is a rare gem. You can find piles of books with Statistics symbols/equations and hard-core problems, but how many of them really teach you the meaning of what you're doing?

Statistics is a kind of data-compression - you start off with with a bag of data and you extract certain "features" such as averages, standard deviations etc... ...this allows you to say general things about the entire dataset (avg/SD, etc.) or claim associations between multiple datasets with varying degrees of confidence (correlations) or even predict the value of one variable if you know the other (regressions).

The dangerous thing is, if you are not careful about how you "compress" this data or about what you do or don't do with the dataset (like dealing with outliers), your conclusions may be ENTIRELY INVALID! By using specific examples, this book teaches you to look at what are you doing before you do the analysis and then how to look at your results after you do your compression (running statistical studies).

I was reluctant to buy this book at the bookstore at first, but after having read the entire text, I believe this investment was money well spent. If you don't believe me, check it out in a bookstore before you buy the book.

Good luck!

If you are looking for a good (non-technical i.e. not involving higher math) introduction to statistics, this is the book for you. As a TA at Cal (Berkeley..Go Bears!), I worked for Roger Purves (one of the authors of the book) and I taught out of this book. Needless to say, I got to know the book rather well. I highly recommend it.

However, if you are looking for a slightly more advanced introduction to statistics/probability, I would suggest something along the lines of Probability by Jim Pitman or Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis by John Rice. If you are really serious about probability theory, you might want to try Statistical Inference - by G. Casella and R.L. Berger.

I've just finished studying this book. It's just absolutely delightful. Aftger having taken brain numbing statistics courses in graduate school, this book is like having an expert friend to talk to about the real basis for things. The authors are very thorough in developing baisc statisical theory through examples and practical problems, not to mention interesting and relevant historical background. It's basically a book on learning how to think statistacally, correctly! Common pitfalls togehter with discussions of famous and not so famous goofs and misapplicatinos of statistical methods are throughout the book used (not to poke fun, although it is fun) to develop a second nature in basic concepts. While the book is thick, the reading is easygoing and friendly. It won't take very long for most people to get through it. Concepts are developed progressively on firmly developed and well explained basic ideas. It's as much, if not more, a book on critical thinking as it is on the techniques of elementary statistics. -- Jack Penkethman

After I fell in love with "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451", it only made sense to read "Brave New World." I sat down and began to read it, being immediately engrossed by the incredible idea of mass-human production. I was amazed at the intense physcological and philosophical dialouge, and I was appauled at the morality that exists in this henious "utopia" (and even more so considering how relevant it is to our current society. I told myself I was going to read the entire book that night (and I did), because I couldn't sleep not knowing what happened. I guess Huxley should've ended the book there, because I found myself until 3:00 AM because I actually didn't want the burden of reading this piece of junk hanging over my head.

The book has an incredible exposition, but a weak and eventless body that leads to a not-so-climactic climax and a poor excuse for an ending. It definately lacks the depth, relevance, and eerie prophecy that made "1984" one of the greatest books ever. With Huxley's commendable use of language and obvious literary mind, this could've been great...but it wasn't. After a mind-blowing beginning, the plot is shot in the face and the book reads with the excitment of an grocery store romance novel.

This is a hemmoroid of a doomsday novel...avoid it like the plague.

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World to illustrate how society can go wrong. It was a very good book, and pretty well written. I believe that it deserves four stars. In the book, everyone was pre-conditioned to think what the leaders of society wanted them to think, and to work unconditionally. They are kept happy with drugs and entertainment. It is, in essence, a journey back to the dark ages, where slaves and serfs are plentiful, disguised as the glorious advancement of society.
When Huxley wrote the book in 1932, it was seen as a far-sighted prediction. Now, this horrible future could be awaiting us just around the corner. This book contains many parallels to modern life. Just as in the book, religion has almost been eliminated from public life, and replaced with total materialism. Now, everyone in the industrialized world worships themselves. In the book, every human baby is cloned, grown in bottles, and sleep-conditioned in the ways of society. We have already started down that perilous path. We may have already cloned the first human baby, and DNA engineering is not far off. Will this be the fate of our future? Only time will tell.
Overall, my impression of Huxley's book is that it is a very good work. It is very accurate and reasonably well written, although I believe he stressed unimportant things at times. On the whole, it was a very thought-provoking novel. I had a hard time putting it down.

Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's vision of a future utopia. It happens approximately 600 years in the future from now. The principles of mass production have been applied to human reproduction. There are no parents: everyone is born from bottles. There is no love or hate, there is only eternal happiness. "Everyone belongs to everyone else" is one of the sayings that people are indoctrinated with. However, since happiness is the norm there is no struggle to attain it and no sense of peace with having it. People take Soma, a drug to fight depression, every day just to excape from reality, to make life a little more "bearable". The rigid caste system is enforced by treatements to embryos while they are still in the bottles in which they are grown. The intelligent people (Alphas) are enhanced and the people who will be menial workers (Epsilons) are starved of oxygen and fed alcohol as fetuses to retard their brain and body.

The main plot of the book is how a young man brought up on a Native American reservation adapts from the reservation to living in the "Brave New World". The promiscuity of the society he is thrust into completely confuses him. He doesn't understand the pursuit of pleasure to the exclusion of all else. However, this is all the inhabitants outside the reservation know. The main character is completely confused by the total lack of true emotion that they have for each other.