Thomas Williams blends intricate prose with real skill for story-telling. His accounts of Leah bring the town to life, filling it with vibrant characters and a tangible spirit of the northeastern United States.

This is one of my favorite collection of short stories. If you like Hemingway's short stories and if you live or like to visit New England you will love these stories.

As well as providing the only available in-depth look at The Master's life, the book includes a poignant account of the author's visit to Sunnybank -- written in purest Terhunese -- and a number of pictures.

The only thorough and balanced biography extant on Albert Payson Terhune. A few minor errors, but eminently readable and much original research. Very difficult to find, unfortunately, but no collection is complete without.

THIS STORY IS FUNNY IT WILL MAKE U LAUGH FOR EVER

Patrick McManus who writes regularly for Outdoor Life magazine brings 5 of his stories together. His humor is mostly about his own misfortunes. This audio cassette features the voice of George S. Irving. George pulls the audience in like a grandfather telling his grandchildren stories around a fire. His voice is very familiar, but I don't know where I heard it before. If you have a friend or relative that enjoys the outdoors this book is for them. The tape includes the following stories:

Nude with Other Wildlife; Summer Reading; Throwing Stuff; The Cabin at Spooky Lake; & Cry Wolf.

Sadly out of print, "The Nympho and Other Maniacs" is more than just a sleazy look at historical tramps. If you can get your hands on a copy, ignore the stares and raised eyebrows. Irving Wallace looks at women who for whatever the reason were considered outside of the norm from their times.

Yes, females who exert their power through sex are discussed. Pauline Bonaparte and the courtesan known as Ninon are two examples. The imfamous ancestress of the former Ambassador Pamela Churchill Harriman, the Honorable Jane Digby and her adventures is a particularly interesting chapter, making the reader race for the biography section of the local bookstore or library to learn more about a women who enchanted men up until her death.

But sex is not the only mania covered. The latter chapters cover little remember figures such as Anne Royall (placed on trial for being a scold), Victoria Woodhull (the imfamous financial "wizard" who was accused of prostitution and ran for President before women had the vote) and the woman who spent her life trying to prove William Shakespeare was only a cover for writers such as Francis Bacon and William Spenser.

Once you'll finished "The Nympho and Other Maniacs", you'll be longing to find out even more about these intriguing women.

I have this book in my library and read it 3 times already. Being a woman I am interested in the lives of other women, especially famous ones who I can live thru surreptitiously only because Mr. Wallace is that good an author. Each life is well researched, but short and to mention a few Aspasia, Lais,Cleopatra, Heloise, Lady Hamilton,Claire Clairmont and Caroline Lamb. The title is deceiving because it is a factual history of these women not merely the author's opinion of a psychosis they had in common and I feel the writer used it to lure a portential buyer or reader as it did me. I only bought it after I skimmed thru it. He is, after all an author of many novels - not a psychiatrist. This volume is well written; a fascinating read and makes a reader want to learn more about these women and their contemporaries. I don't feel it got the credit it deserved when it was first published in 1971.ERIN MARIE SULLIVAN

This book is, without question, the best book on Rorschach interpretation I have ever seen. Highly recommended. Weiner uses Exner's structural summary as the foundation, then incorporates Schafer's psychoanalytic approach for the interpretation of thematic imagery and idiosyncratic contents. Excellent integration of structural summary, thematic imagery, test behavior, and sequential analysis approaches. In addition to translating Exner's often stilted language into much more clinically useful language, the chapter on sequential analysis is worth the price of the book on its own. Excellent case presentations integrating the interpretive principles presented earlier close out the book. A must-have book for anyone who wants to make better sense of all the data provided by the Rorschach method.

This book conveys in a clear language the complexities of the Rorschach interpretation. The case examples provide a very good practice for grasping what is essential. I would recommend this book to anyone involved with the Rorschach interpretation. Will never be without it.

Rip Van Winkle is a story of an regular man that came in contact with some irregular people that would change his life forever. It all started out one day when Rip decided to go hunting with his dog. Up to this point in his search for freedom, he had lived a sleepy and uneventfull life with two kids and a wife. He was always trying to get out of work and find a way out of doing everything. One day he gets fed up with his life and finds himself out in the woods hunting;There he gets asked by a strange man to carry a keg to a nine pin party. Also during this party he ends up getting drunk and finds himself dosing off to sleep. When he finally wakes up he has a long white beard and twenty years older! He had fallen asleep for twenty years and found that he was now old, grey and still alive. At this point in the story he goes back to the village where he had lived for so long and finds that his wife and friends had all passed away and had left him. He also finds that his daughter got married and was raising a family. She sees him one day and recognizes him to be the man that was once her father. At this point in Rip's life, all he wants to do is settle down and he is satisified to become the village story teller to all who would hear his tales. This is a tale of suspense and just plain old good reading for all ages. It was written many years ago and could speak to all people of all ages and races. I would recomend this book to anyone from my Grandfather to the Queen of England.

Washington Irving's (1783-1859) claim to fame is as a pioneer of American fiction, and he is widely recognized as the "father of American literature." The book that especially propelled him to fame was "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." which contained his two most famous fantasy stories - "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" - both of which are contained in this collection.

But it is not merely his ground-breaking efforts that garnered him literary recognition, because Irving's stories are at the same time characterized by charming and colourful prose befitting a skilled writer. The stories in this collection (the "Puffin Classics" series) are an excellent sampling of his craft. It's not always easy reading - in fact many of these stories would be too dense even for older children. His vocabulary is extensive, and sentences structure verbose and lengthy - a style rather unlike that employed by contemporary writers. But despite this, Irving demonstrates a wonderful command of the English language, and has the ability to create a vivid picture of his setting, characters and events. Particularly delightful is the attention he devotes to describing his characters. And yet his stories are far from mere character portraits - they are exciting and enchanting tales that make the reader eager to find out the outcome.

"Rip Van Winkle" has gained the status of a classic, and is familiar to most children, but likely few have read Irving's original. It breathes an authenticity and air not found in the contemporary abridged versions of the story. Irving presents his tale as the alleged discovered manuscript (complete with postscript) of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker. The delightful story of Rip Van Winkle - who fell asleep in the Catskill mountains after drinking a mysterious brew acquired from some strange little men, and then awoke 20 years later - will continue to please readers old and new. In the course of the story, Irving makes a profound social comment about the changes happening in his America. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is renowned for its chilling tale of the Headless Horseman, and is a Halloween favorite. Actually, however, it is much more than that. It is not so much a spooky tale of a legendary village ghost as it is a colourful tale about two rival suitors. Ichabod Crane is a simple school teacher who is in love with Katrina Van Tassel, and equally in love with the estates of her father, a wealthy Dutch farmer. His counter-part is the powerful local hero Bram Bones, whose affections for Katrina mirror those of Ichabod Crane, and who is determined to put an end to the affections of underdog Crane by a mysterious and elaborate trickery. As is evident also in his other stories, it is particularly fascinating how Irving exploits the supernatural superstitions of the popular mind to create a sense of mystery and fear, but himself gives a naturalist explanation that rises above such popular notions by explaining the supernatural with natural events.

Though lesser known, the other three stories in the "Puffin Classics" collection are equally enjoyable. "The Spectre Bridegroom" is one of the most fascinating tales in the collection. A young man is mistaken for a bridegroom and received into the castle of a wealthy baron as the husband of the baron's daughter. But before the marriage can be consummated, the bridegroom dashes off, and the baron's family hears shortly afterwards that he's been killed. But then who appears again except the bridegroom - or is it his ghost? - to steal his bride and vanish once more! In the end, it is a satisfying tale more of brilliant scheming than of ghosts - although the fearful superstitions of the general public about the supernatural play an important role in the effective execution of these schemes. "The Pride of the Village" is the tragic tale of a young lady whose heart pines in love for an army officer who has deserted her, only to die at his feet when he returns. "Mountjoy" is a wonderful study of an apparently incurable romantic, described by Irving as a "Castle-Builder". When Mr. Mountjoy discovers a delicate footprint on a sandy shore, his passion for metaphysics, creativity and romance leads him to dream up an imaginary beautiful young maiden, and he promptly fall passionately in love with the nymph of his dreams. The air castle he builds and its accompanying romanticism is crushed numerous times, even drowned, but each time is renewed and revived, just when it seems that "the cobweb romance I had been spinning" would be demolished completely. In the end Mr. Mountjoy meets the girl of his dreams, only to discover that his air castles need to be reshaped once more, and in the end, destroyed completely.

Readers used to the easy diet of modern fiction will find the pioneering work of Washington Irving rather tough to chew on. But those who delight in tasting words, biting on imaginative characters and settings, with a few sips of suspense and supernatural in the process, will discover that Washington Irving's stories are just the literary serving they are renowned to be: a classic. Irving won't please all children of the modern era. But children of literature who have acquired a fine literary taste will find that despite the heightened language of his time, Irving is still digestible and enjoyable.

The Rorschach, and also the Comprehensive System (RCS), has been inadvertently criticised - continuosly - although the research associated with the reliability and validity of the method has increadingly accumulated during the years - and in particular in the late 90's. However, as Kubiszyn (?) et al. recently have written, this research is not all that easily found, nor is it for the ordinary clinician particularly easy to read and understand, part of it being so complex and statistically advanced. Therefore, this book - published by Wiley in 2003 - is so important. It not only gives the development and structure of the RCS, nor the strategy of cluster analysis, but the book contains hundreds of well conducted bot reliability and in particular validity studies, aggregated in proper places where the different variables and ratios are described - and this is an immense improvement as compare to the 1993 (3rd) edition. I, who am the person primarily responsible for convincing people in Finland of how well the RCS functions - as well as teaching psychologists to mastery - am extremely grateful for all the additional and well organized research published here. When I wrote a about 20 pages review of reliability and validity for the Yearbook Rorschachiana 2003 this would have bene an assed to have - now I am primarily using it in an RCS educational program (165 lectures)in Finland. I am also producing an excerpt of probably some 50-60 singlespaced pages in Finnish regarding in particular the most important peaces of scientific work, confirming the reliability and validity reseacrh related to the RCS!

As a clinical psychologist who uses the Rorschach regularly and teaches it to graduate students, I have always relied upon this volume as a bible of sorts for all-things-Rorschach. The newest edition is a wonderful updating of the classic. Despite being about the same number of pages as the last edition, this volume packs much more information in, and is written in a more concise and relevant way. Exner has updated some of the historical lore regarding Hermann and the roots of his test, as well as incorporating a full chapter on controversies surrounding the Rorschach. Furthermore, the interpretive section is modeled after the format of the very useful Primer on Rorschach Interpretation, and incorporates all of the recent changes and innovations in the Comprehensive System. This volume could easily be the "one stop shop" for Rorschachers, as it has normative data, administration and scoring guidelines, and a well-organized interpretive section. Who could ask for more?

Graham's book is very well written and goes at an easy pace, while not becoming boring. It is a fertile field of ideas. His commodity buffer stock idea could be a real solution for today's global problems of increasing financial instability and growing inequality. Deregulation has removed almost all government automatic stabilizers. Graham's idea is ultimately an international stabilization policy particulary relevant to the European Union and the Third World.

While this book was written in 1936, and buffer stock ideas have been around for centuries, his monetary forumlation of the buffer stock is a policy still ahead of its time.

Benjamin Graham certainly is one of our century's most important financier and self-thought economist. After the great depression, Graham reenginered his way of investing and his way of looking the world. After suffering the debacle, he made value investing and value thinking the most important things in his life. The book is the proposal for a new monetary system, which uses an index of commodities as it's core backing for the issuance of currency. Graham's idea isn't revolutionary, because as he tells us , the granary system has been used throught men's history. The philosophical foundation of the proposal lies in that the surplus of commodities should'nt represent a disgrace, instead it should represent wealth. As economists know, when there is an overproduction of commodities prices tend to decrease, so why plenty relates to disgrace. If the government stored the surplus of commodities and used the as the backing of the issuance of currency, this problem can be allevianted. The book is easy and fun to read, and shows the genious of the dean of Wall Steet

While Mary Ellen Mark and husband,Martin Bell,were filming
their haunting masterpiece,Streetwise,in 1983,Mary Ellen was
also busy taking snap-shots of the runaways...and what a worthwhile effort this was!
Anyone who viewed the film will recognize most of the photographs of the Seattle runaways found in the same-titled book.
The Streetwise kids lived in a sad world of uncertainty.Many had fled from abusive homes.
Mary Ellen developed a closeness with many of her young subjects,including Dewayne and Lulu.Dewayne hanged himself in 1984,and Lulu died in a fight with a man in 1985.Mary Ellen has dedicated her book in their memories.
Like every other work that she has ever created,this book is a keep-sake.I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the film documentary and in the author`s work.
Jeffrey Bryan,White Oak,NC

While Mary Ellen Mark and husband,Martin Bell,were filming
their haunting masterpiece,Streetwise,in 1983,Mary Ellen was
also busy taking their snap-shots...and what a worthwhile effort
this was!
Anyone who viewed the film will recognize each photograph of
the runaways of Seattle found in Mark`s same-titled book.
The Streetwise kids lived in a sad world of uncertainty,many
having fled from their abusive homes.They searched for love and
happiness in a place which offered neither.
Mary Ellen developed a kin-ship with many of her young subjects
including Dewayne and Lulu.Dewayne hanged himself in 1984,and
Lulu died in a fight with a man in 1985.Mary Ellen has dedicated
this book in their memories.
Like every other work that she has ever published,this book
is definitely a keep-sake.I highly recommend it to everyone
who is interested in the documentary film and in Mary Ellen Mark.
Jeffrey Bryan
White Oak,NC

Someone gave this book to Bob Dole after '96; I hope Al Gore gets a chance to read it, too. What I took from the book is that on many occasions, America dodged a bullet by not being governed by a clearly unqualified loser. In other cases, we should consider ourselves unfortunate that the loser wasn't the winner.

Originally written in the 1940's by the late Irving Stone, the book is woefully in need of an update by a prominent historian who can add Dewey, Stevenson, Goldwater, Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Dole and Gore. And I agree with the previous reviewer: the inside of the dust jacket is fascinating--if you can find one of these rare hard cover copies.

This is a book about losers. By losers, I mean the men who came in second best in the political arena where winner takes all; specifically in the race to become President of the United States.

The book, published in 1945, consists of twenty biographical sketches of losers of presidential races from Henry Clay in 1824 to Thomas E. Dewey in 1944. THEY ALSO RAN, as well as giving biographical data on each of its subjects, includes a history of the times in which each of them lived, ran, and lost; and social, economic, and political backgrounds of each era. Using these twenty men as focal points, Stone gives us a fairly comprehensive picture of the political history of the United States from 1824 to 1944.

Now, I am going to do something that I think is rare, if not unique, in these book reviews. I'm going to devote most of the rest of this review to the dust jacket. Across the dust jacket there is a graph consisting of 21 lines ranging from minus ten (-10) to plus ten (+10). In case you're wondering, the twenty-first line is the zero (0) line in the middle. Stone refers to this zero line as "the danger line," i.e. a candidate in the negative zone may well do more harm than good if he wins the presidency. The graph rates the winners and losers of twelve elections according to Stone's estimation of each man's "ability and worth to the nation at the time of the election." The candidates are represented by silhouettes having their heads at one of the lines. For clarity and consistency, the winners are in white and the losers in outline form. It is interesting to note that the lower ranked in some years are sometimes ranked higher than either the winner or loser in other years.

Some interesting evaluations:

Highest ranked winner in any year: Abraham Lincoln (+10) in 1860. His opponent, Stephen A. Douglas had a (+1) ranking.

Lowest ranked winner in any year was Warren Harding (-9) in 1920. His opponent who lost the election was James M. Cox who was rated at (+3).

Most evenly rated election: 1928 when winner, Herbert Hoover and loser, Alfred E. Smith were both rated (+5).

In three elections the winner fell into Stone's "danger zone." These were: 1856, James Buchanan (-1); 1872, Ulysses S. Grant (-5); and 1920, Warren Harding (-9).

Of the twelve elections on the graph, according to Stone's ratings, the man more valuable to the country at the time the election was held won six times and lost five times. In the twelfth election the candidates were considered evenly qualified.

It is my opinion that Stone's research was good, and that he was as politically unbiased as was humanly possible. I would find it interesting if someone with Stone's credentials and even-handedness were to write a sequel covering the elections from 1948 through the court decided election of year 2000. Any takers?