The Story: The title refers to the name given to an enormous albino sperm whale who is being hunted by Captain Ahab, the ruthless, single-minded, driven master of a whaling ship. Ahab hunts Moby Dick because, in a previous hunt, Moby Dick amputated Ahab's leg in a failed attempt by Ahab to catch the white whale. The story is told in retrospect by a crewman, Ishmael, of the ship, who was a young, somewhat naive man at the time.

This is not a novel for everyone; it takes a patient and persistent reader to tackle the rich but complicated writing style of Melville, as well as the author's penchant for going off on detailed, descriptive tangents. However, the writing style almost becomes poetic at times, and symbolism and metaphor abound. The closest thing to Melville's style I've found amongst contemporary writers is Gene Wolfe ("The Book of the New Sun", "The Book of the Short Sun", "The Book of the Long Sun"). Wolfe also borrowed from Melville the device of telling the story from the viewpoint of young, naive observers, who report what they see with little bias or editorializing, which leaves the reader to interpret the story on his/her own.

To me, this story is a detailed and adventurous tale of obsession verging on insanity. Ahab is so focused on catching and killing Moby Dick that he loses sight of his own welfare and the welfare of his men. He never questions his own motives; he is out after revenge for losing his leg, as well as out to redress the insult of a simple beast not accepting the dominion of Man. Moby Dick's defiance of Mankind's superiority and sovereignty is seen as an outrage, a matter of honor for Captain Ahab to resolve. But, why did Moby Dick bite off Ahab's leg in the first place? Ahab sees it as an act of war by the whale, a refusal to bow down to the Master of the Earth (Mankind). Might it not just as easily be an animal naturally defending itself against a predator (Mankind) invading his (Moby Dick's) domain?

Jay Nussbaum wrote a book called "Blue Road to Atlantis" which is a gem of a story that retells Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" from the fish's point of view. Mr. Nussbaum could make quite a story out of Moby Dick's point of view of this puny maniac who keeps harassing him and trying to kill him.

I'm still reading the book, but this version is quite helpful because in the back it has explanations for Melville's sometimes confusing allusions.

Finally, someone confronts the origins of the Palestinian crisis. This book appeals to rational minds, to those who are not interested in blaming and rhetoric but well-reasoned and documented causes.

There is no political agenda here, thankfully. Shepherd focussed blame on the British for their part in generating enmity, for health policies that did not include education policies, and for playing contradictory games of favorites. She likewise places blame on Arab leaders and Zionist ones as they appear justified by the historical record.

Past 1948, the conflict was rather solidified. It is under British rule that we must seek the origins of the conflict.

This book is a well-written and detailed history of the British mandate rule of Palestine (1920-1947). She is a careful historian who supports her prose with ample references. The tale she tells is a sad one and chronicles the systematic colonial expulsion of Palestinians from their land. Some British were even-handed but the weight of Ms. Shepherd's evidence demonstrates a bias against the Arabs. This is a most timely book because of the continuing struggle of the Palestinians for a fair deal. The facts presented should be considered by Israeli negotiators involved in the so-called "peace process".

I bought Sitti's Secret about 10 years ago in D.C. I have read it to every one of my four children's kindergarten classes, crying each time. It shows the love of family and the misunderstanding of the world. The art work and the deepness of words are outstanding. I just read it to my youngest child's class and the emotions swelled again.

This is an amazing book. While superficially it is a gentle childrens tale about a girl living in two cultures, it is, on another level, tremendously emotive. I am not given to being affected emotionally by poetry or films, but when reading this book to my daughter for the first time, I choked up halfway through and was unable to finish it until after I took a break. It is not sad,but really works at a deep level to evoke long dormant emotions. A truly 'magical' book-great illustrations, too.We have bought twenty or more copies of this book for family, friends, libraries...

Short and sweet. Shows what missionaries really have to face.Please reprint this book. Excellent for Jr. high on up.

Excellent for many young readers who are wanting to "meet" many of the heroes of missions without reading the long and boring stuff. A great teaser. PLEASE REPRINT!!

Ms. Vernon's book is amazing. As a teen who has needed to work during summers for spending money I have used this book many times to gain an edge over others who were trying for the same position. The information inside is fun and easy to read, and also very complete. Not only does the book cover how to find a job and apply, but it also gives pointers on how to leave a job so that a boss will give you a good recommendation. You can also take some of this information for job applications and put it to good use when applying to colleges and scholarships. All around it is definately the most complete book out there for teens who are looking to enter the job market.

A Teen's Guide To Finding A Job is a complete guide manual for teens seeking employment whether part-time or full-time, after school or summers, evenings or weekends. Youth Career Counselor Naomi Vernon provides a sample Application Form with detailed explanations for each fill-in area; a full size practice 'tear-out" Application Form; three different sample Resume Forms; a sample Cover Letter and Thank You letter with full details of how to write each of them; a 30-second and 60-second dialog exercise; a list of organizations offering Career Counseling Services (including their Internet addresses); important Do's and Don'ts for applications (written by employers surveyed across the nation); a sample Resignation Letter with the proper procedure for teens if they must quit a job; and more! Any teen thinking about working for wages should begin by a thorough reading of Naomi Vernon's A Teen's Guide To Finding A Job.

This is a wonderful book . The pictures work the imagination and the poems are beautiful. The dual language format will intrigue young readers and just may get them interested in a 'different' language. In addition this will expose youngsters to some of Mexico's rich culture. I know several college professors who have adopted this book to use in their Children's Literature and reading courses. Truth be told, I liked it so much I bought it for myself several years ago and have been 'advertising' it ever since.

Being a beginning self-taught student in Spanish with a special interest in Mexican Spanish by way of my residency in Texas, I took a chance on purchasing this bilingual book and was more than delighted by what I found inside. The convenient side-by-side text of the poems and short stories makes it easy to follow the translations and improve language skills. However, the real treasures in this book are discovered slowly, as one peruses the glowing artwork by various Mexican artists in conjunction with the inspiring words that seem to interweave themselves into the pictures. This is a book to sit back and savor during personal quiet time, or to read to your children. The melodic rhythms of both the Spanish and English texts rock the heart and soothe the soul.

Naomi Williams' novel is a finely crafted piece that expresses all the rich heritage of Southern fiction through the person of a female protagonist that speaks to a universal audience. The novel's protagonist, Liza, will captivate all those who have ever felt constrained by society through her deeply rooted desire to breech boundaries imposed on her from without, and the novel's other characters wrap Liza in a rich quilt of human responses to her passionate personality that will speak to all readers, regardless of their age or their background. Williams' profound style evokes character and place so that we can almost smell the thick Lowcountry mud that borders the banks of the "Two Rivers" that shape Liza's life.

Naomi Williams's first journey into published prose explodes in the first description of the South Carolina lowcountry she has committed to memory and experience. As Williams's young protagonist, Liza Marion Brown, searches feverishly for a violet among the daisies, we are seduced into her lifelong quest for color in an insular world of bland expectations and bleak hopes. Clinging to her mother's legacy of butterbeans and Paul Scarlet roses, Liza uses the past to secure a future of dreams hard-fought, but realized. This imaginative, resourceful protagonist will seduce you down her river and into her heart, revealing family secrets, shattering expectations, and renewing your faith in the endurance and intelligence of the individual. If you live north of the Mason-Dixon line, you need to embrace this new emblem of Southern feminism and lay to rest the beleaguered and banal Scarlett as your symbol of all this region epitomizes. Two Rivers is not only an eye-opener -- it is the breath and soul of the human journey.

After viewing Miss Naomi's collection in person, I had to have both books by her. It is a small part of her collection that I can take home with me and enjoy. Both books are a small sample of her collection and due note that this is her collection and not art you will find together anywhere else. You should feel privileged to own both books and if you are lucky, actually meet this outstanding woman.

The first book was wonderful and this one is fabulous. The quality of the photography really brings out the details of the pieces. Some will make you giggle, others will make you laugh, some will leave you speachless. The beauty is that it will touch you. Fabulous! Looking forward to book 3.

This book was incredibly accurate in describing me when I'm under stress. I never knew why, when under stress, I can't seem to keep track of ANY details and I become completely disorganized. Upon reading the book, I found out that people of my personality types (I'm an ISXJ, which means that I fit most of the description for both ISFJ, and ISTJ) tend to lose control of facts and details in their lives, which these 2 personality types are normally pros at dealing with. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of the MBTI types by learning how the types act when under stress (and "in the grip" of their inferior function).

This has to be one of the most interesting books I've yet read on Jungian/Briggsian personality type dynamics, and probably one of the most accurate as well, when it comes to predicting how a certain personality will react when under stress. Actually, that is the central topic to this fascinating book: how different, normal personalities react in different ways to external stressors, which vary, as well, by the 16 different types.

What's fascinating is to see, for example, that as an INTP, my stressors are radically different than they would be for an ESFJ (my polar opposite). What I find to be stressful, someone of another personality type would find to be the ideal situation in which to find him/herself. My stressors include: routine work, having my space intruded on at work, situations that involve lots of forced small talk, deadlines, inefficient paperwork and excessively (to me) emotional situations. And yet, someone else might find precisely these kinds of things heavenly.

I found typical INTP (related, ISTP) reactions to highly stressed situations to be very true for me as well. From the bitter cynicism, to blowing up emotionally and completely losing control, to losing complete touch with logic, I've seen every one of these behaviors in me when I'm pushed to the max, and am forced into the depths of emotion. Sometimes I don't stay there very long, in fact, I honestly hate being there, exactly as Quenk mentions.

What's even more interesting about this book, is that the behaviors are culled from Quenk's experiences and interviews with hundreds of different individuals from all personality types. While each person's reaction is very slightly different within the explorations of the sixteen types, it's very easy to see some very common patterns. Quenk does this in a very well thought out and a thouroughly researched manner.

My one (VERY) small gripe with the book is that there appears to have been a template used for each of the personality type chapters, because the introductory paragraphs to each subsection of each chapter are identical. But, with the sheer wealth of information in this book, it's really almost irrelevant. I've learned a lot about how to handle my "grip" and stressed behaviors a bit better, and to understand others' stressors as well.

A wonderful book, and a must-read reference for everyone!

The years 1936-37 were decisive in the struggles of working people to defeat fascism and prevent the holocaust that was called World War II.The Great Depression was devasting the working people round the world. In this book, the co-leader with Lenin of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Leon Trotsky, exposes the Moscow witch hunt trials, through which the bureaucrat-dictator Stalin ( NOT a communist ! ) began the process of the final rubbing out of communist opposition to his regime. The civil war in Spain raged and was in its crucial phase: would the workers and peasants of Spain defeat the fascists through revolutionary means or would the coalition of liberals, "democratic" socialists ( read: pro-capitalist "socialists" ), Stalinists, and sadly, anarchist leaders who sold themselves and their powerful unions to the reform-ist coalition - the Popular Front-open the gates to the fascists, making World War II inevitable ? How could working people help out the fight of the Chinese people against in Japanese invasion of 1937: the opening guns of World War II? How to build a revolutionary leadership, both in the countries mentioned above, around the world, and in the U.S. itself? In this valuable book and two others-"The Spanish Revolution" and "Leon Trotsky on China", also published by Pathfinder Press, the great revolutionist poses these question and attempts to answer them in terms of action. As world capitalism sinks into a new depression, and as world imperialism, Yankee imperialism in the first rank, drives us working people towards fascism and a new world war, those who fight for a new and human world in the streets and on the strike picket lines need this book BAD.

This volume begins with Trotsky's writing on board the ship Ruth the Norwegian government used to deport him to Mexico. His "In Socialist Norway," is a humorous well-written account of how the Social Democrats who ruled Norway in the thirties, buckled under to the pressure of native fascists and Stalin to first restrict Trotsky's right to defend himself against the slanders of the Moscow trials, and then placed him under house arrest until he was invited to Mexico. I found his analysis of Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Stalin himself, in his articles written in Mexico explaining the Moscow trials to be interesting studies in how personal character is a factor in revolutionary leadership and retreat from that leadership. Also very interesting is the correspondence and proposals Trotsky wrote around building the commission led by American philosopher John Dewey that investigated the Moscow trials. As always with all of the Trotsky Writings Volumes, there is a week-to-week, sometimes day-by-day, chronicle of world events, and of Trotsky's struggle to build a revolutionary movement.