Psychoanalysis, Freud, history and so on might seem as dry as dust to the average reader. Yet this history is well written, gripping the attention of the reader and giving a greater insight into the beginnings of modern psychology and psychiatry. More than one hundred years after Freud's pioneering work in the origins of hysteria it was instructive to learn of the importance of child sexual abuse in his patients. Sadly and shockingly very little seems to have changed since Freud's original work. This history is not only a good read - it makes the reader reflect and think.

I came to this book by chance, a while ago: after bying it, I put it on the shelf, & forgot about it for a couple of years, without reading it. Then, this year, I had to take a course at university about the history of psychoanalysis: & so I dug out Joseph Schwartz's book, & read it in one weekend. I was suprised how freshly & clearly written the book is. Even difficult, complicated concepts are explained in a good way, that makes you want to continue exploring the field of psychoanalysis, after finishing this book.

"Cassandra's daughter" reads like a story with a beginning, middle & end, & not at all like a dry, boring history. From the beginnings of psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud, to today's struggles & questions, Schwartz makes a good case of why psychoanalysis is important & interesting. He talks about what its contributions have been so far, & what kind of contributions it can make from now on. Sure, certain "schools" of psychoanalysis are given less space than others in the book. And it's also true that Schwartz has strong opinions & expresses them clearly, showing his own preferances, & using arguments to support his views: but I don't find this negative--on the contrary, it's refreshing to read a history written from a particular point of view. After all, histories are always written from a particular point of view, even when there's a big struggle towards a so-called "objectivity": Schwartz has no such illusions, & writes making his own voice very clear. It's much more 'fresh' & original this way, since it's one thing to simply & dryly describe the facts--& another thing to try to explain the facts, giving meaning to the story & the events.

This is hands down the best and most orginal introduction to, and review of, psychoanalysis that I have read since Freud's The Question of Lay Analysis! Its bibliograpy is awesome and its weaving together of the strands of classical and modern analysis, sociology, and juicy strands of personal history provides extraordinary vista of psychotherapeutic developments spanning 100 years

Solomon Volkov had a very good idea in putting together this book. Over a period of many years, he sat down with Brodsky and interviewed him about poetry, metaphysics and world events (with a little gossip thrown in for good measure). The result is a thorough and fascinating look at Brodsky's opinions at many different points in time. And the conversations are not just
one-sided: Volkov keeps up with Brodsky just fine, so it's like listening in on a tete-a-tete between two brilliant minds. If you like Brodsky you will love this book.

If you wade into the book,"Conversations with Joseph Brodsky," by Solomon Volkov (Free Press, 1998,) more or less by accident, as I did, prepare for immersion in deep waters. I was only peripherally aware of Brodsky's work, his background as a major Russian Jewish writer, emigree, and later Nobel Prize winner and American Poet Laureate based on reading his short poetic volume,"Watermark," (Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 1992.) Based on this work alone I should have been prepared for the depths of thinking, the force of personality, and the scholarly mind that earned him his esteemed position and global reputation as the,"Lone Wolf of Poetry." Brodsky is, if nothing else,like one of those rare gems we find originally mined from and cut to shape on Russian soil, but later ending up here in the United States, much to our cultural enrichment. Once here, in this setting of freedom, they seem to shine even more brilliantly than they ever could in their homeland. Clearly, poetry is Brodsky's realm, and yet in Volkov's meticulous rendering,(the book represents a compiliation of more than fifteen years of purposeful dialogues with Brodsky,) it is evident that Volkov uncovers the man, his life experiences, and his force of personality in a manner that perhaps Brodksy, with his grand sense of irony would appreciate, perhaps even take perverse pleasure from reading. Hearing Brodsky literally thinking out loud, as this book allows us to do, adds a deeper dimension to an understanding of his life's work, and passion. Tragically, Brodsky suffered an untimely death by heart attack Jan. 28,1996 at the age of fifty-five. The reason I say perverse appreciation, is that Brodsky, in his conversations, claims that a poet's work alone should speak for him, that one needs no further digging into the poet's personal life in order to grasp the significance of his writing. Among the many topics Brodsky thinks out loud about are some perhaps unexpected ones. For example, his love for the poetry of Robert Frost, W.H.Auden, and Robert Lowell, as well as his love for the great Russian Poets, Anna Akhmatova, Pushkin, and Marina Tsvetaeva. I found myself scrambling for my long buried volume,"The Poetry of Robert Frost, (Holt Rinehart and Winston,1969) to find the poems Brodsky discusses," Servant to Servants," and " The Wood-Pile." Even as I am reading his commentary, I have to remind myself that Brodsky is quoting these American poems from memory, improvising freely like a brilliant jazz soloist, a John Coltrane taking off in counterpoint to the questions Volkov poses to him. It's a brilliant duet in dialogue form. As such, if you love literature, and poetry, and know of Brodsky's work, or even if you have never heard of Brodksy, but would like to know more about Russian writers, this book is a treasure chest filled with literary gems. Also, it needs to be emphasized that in great measure, it is Solomon Volkov's remarkable ability to stimulate and challenge Brodsky on issues that makes the dialectic so vital. Clearly, Volkov's depth of knowledge, common Russian upbringing, and his own aesthetic sensibilities serve to bring out the best in Brodsky. Towards the end of the book they get into an intense dialogue about their homeland, in particualr, St.Petersburg, a city that looms very large in the background, much like the Chorus in Greek drama. Here the discourse becomes deeply personal, going far beyond the academic realm of literary works, and anecdotes about other writer's lives. St. Petersburg is an area that Volkov knows something about, as evidenced by his recent book,"St. Petersburg: A Cultural History." In the heat of their discussion Brodsky suddenly takes off on an inspired solo: "...in as much as Petersburg is a city by the sea, so the notion of freedom-perhaps phantasmagorical, but very powerful-inevitably arises in the consciousness of anyone living there. In this city, the individual is always going to strive to reach beyond because the space in front of him is not limited or delimited by land. Hence, the dream of unlimited freedom. This is why I think that in this city it is more natural to reject the whole existing world order..." It strikes me as particularly painful that this volume is the last, unless Volkov compiles a 2nd companion volume based on his records. No more chances to raise the hand to ask the master to explain what he meant when he said such and such. As was his wish, we now have to read his poems to figure it out for ourselves.

The Talmud tells of four great sages who entered paradise,Rabbi Akiva, Ben Zoma, Ben Azzai and Elisha ben Abuyah. Of the four, one died, one went insane, and one "cut the shoots". Only of Rabbi Akiva is it said that "he ascended in peace and descended in peace." The Talmud gives very little further explanation of this legendary visit to paradise. Howard Schwartz has researched this legend and created a mythical travelogue of the journey. His novella takes into account Talmudic and other scholarly literature regarding this legend and interweaves other common themes of Jewish mysticism. I enjoyed the story immensely, especially the way it brought together numerous pieces of Jewish lore and legend, some of which were already familiar to me, but among which I had never seen a connection. The story is accompanied by an introduction and detailed "Thematic Commentary".

Para todos que estan buscando una manera de mejorar su vida y tener exito, este libro es definitivamente necesario. Fue el primer libro para mi que me ha hecho pensar que la magia del exito realmente se encuentra dentro de mi, que yo tengo control de mis circunstancias. Este libro ha ayudado tener mucho exito a muchos de mis amigos, y estoy hablando de muuuuucho dinero y estilos de vida que unos suenan en tener (por eso lo lei!) Schwartz explica como usar lo que tenemos cada uno, y como utilizarlo para nuestro propio exito......Les deseo muchas felicidades en tomar la decision mejorar su vida y leer un libro que les va ayudar por muchos anos.......

General things of Pharmaceutical Suspensions, Stability of this dosage form. Quality assurance of Pharmaceutical suspensions

Very compelling story. Seems like taken from a dream. It's amazing how much can a human being endure, and it is equally amazing what level of cruelty and sadism can man invent.

I started writing perl around ten years ago, and at the time my perl looked a lot like the c code I wrote in 1990.. or the FORTRAN code I wrote in 1975! And so it was for many years.

But this book, more than any other, helped turn me into an actual perl programmer. It covers the basics- things like 'use "$_" implcitly whenever possible, but don't refer to it explicitly if you don't have to'. There's a good description of slurp mode. And it covers those neat little tricks, like using:

($a,$b)[$a<$b]

to return the greater of two scalars.

It's not a book for the absolute beginner. But once you've written a few programs and start wondering why your perl doesn't look like that written by the perl gurus, this is the book to get.

The day I got this book, I turned to page 1 and started reading. Two hours later, I had made it only to page 80. Why? Because this book is DENSE and FULL of tips and tricks that will expand the horizons of the intermediate programmer. I spent a lot of time studying the numerous examples in order to soak up all the information that was being presented.

I've been programming with Perl since 1992 and teach it at a community college. And yet with every turn of the page, I learned something new. Examples:

Making regular expressions more efficient

Using map() and grep()

How to call a subroutine from inside a string

Great stuff! The techniques I've learned from this book have been incorporated into my new Perl scripts and they are shorter and faster than ever before.

I can't lavish enough praise on this book. Authors Joseph Hall and Randal Schwartz should be commended. If you have been using Perl for some time and want to hone your skills, get this book now.

"Effective Perl Programming" is a *very* useful book, well-written, with transparent examples. It is recommended for intermediate and beginner programmers. My scripts indeed started to run (and look) better after using just several of the numerous techniques described in this book! "Effective Perl Programming" occupies the niche left previously empty in the Perl literature.

It is different from its closest counterpart, "Perl Cookbook", in the following aspects. "Effective Perl Programming" describes a smaller number of very highly versatile techniques. Also, the small format, modular structure and clear style of "Effective Perl Programming" allows one to read it anywhere, in addition to using it as a great desk book.

I have this book for an undergrad intro to pharmacology paper, as advised by lecturers. It is also the set text for next year. This is a very good reference book, however I think for my purposes, it is a bit too advanced. It's organised very clearly, and I found it quite useful for writing an essay. But I think to get the best use out of it, the reader should be at a more advanced level of study, or someone like a graduated professional using it as a reference. Overall, I think it is concise and easy to read, with a broad range of types and uses of grugs. Each chapter is set out under the same format: therapeutic overview, mechanisms of action, pharmacokinetics, relation of mechanisms to clinical response, side effects & problems & toxicity. I'm not very familiar with other pharmac texts, but this was recommended as the text for further study as well. I have a friend at 2nd year med school, and she found it "good but a bit dry to read".

While possibly a bit advanced for undergraduates, I've found this book to be the single best references for people who already have some background knowledge, who need to catch up with advances in the field and don't have the time to read 1800 pages of small print. I'd recommend it for researchers in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industry, and clinicians (including residents). Unlike some references that present a lot of undigested material, the authors aggressively keep up with developments, speak with unambiguous voices, and synthesize the facts very clearly. The quality across the book is remarkably consistent, which is a tribute to the tight editorial control that appears to have been exerted. (Goodman & Gilman, by contrast, is quite uneven.)

An easy and maths free introduction to the world of A.E. However, some of the more silly and irrelevant cartoons might distract the reader.

All in all, not a bad introduction to A.E. (In fact a damn good place to start discovering relativity). My grouse is that it does not cover all of A.E.'s works. The treatment of relativity touches the tip of the ice-berg only, so to speak.

Still, it really makes you want to read more about A.E.'s works, at least for this reader.

This book is about the Theory of Relativity and a bit about how it was developed. The author done a wonderful job in teaching it in a very easy way and also showing the details of the theory (not being only superficial), like equations etc. You see, the deduction of the equations he done in a great way that everyone can easily understand (it's not like the appendix in the Einstein's book about relativity which I never understood). Of course this "deduction" is not formal, but it helps a lot to understand how it works and how they got to the theory.

Einstein for Beginners acts more as a visual representation of Einsteins work. An easy to read format for anyone interested in knowing Einsteins theories without the mind-boggling formulas. I would suggest this as a place to begin. A nice read, although the theories one still needs to comprehend. The author, Joseph Schwartz puts it in a perspective that both challenges and educates. Highly reccomended!

A nice collection of artists, with some great examples of what they can do. But....
Paper stock is poor and some prints are a bit blurry.

This is a great artbook, featuring many famous furry artists. I love the art, and look at it regularly. If you're a fan of Michele Light, I recommend it.

This book started my physical collection of furry publishings, and still remains the best singal pice I have. Not only is it perfectaly published, but contains excellent examples of anthropomorphic artwork. Its my personal bible.