If you want to know things like how the lives of a dikdik & a duiker differ (but you could tell them apart), this is the book for you!

Reduction in price = Something too nice to pass up. Now is the time to consume.

"I do not agree with what you are saying, but I fight for the death in your right to say it." (Voltaire)

Without knowing why, I like Voltaire. I want to learn more of him. I even have seven plays of his, which are so narrowly distributed. Apart from anything he wrote, the man himself was to all ends a jumping soul. He knew how to stir things up. He knew how to seduce or how to aggravate. Yes, Voltaire had a sense of humour. But his social criticisms were important enough to land him in trouble. His twelve month stay at the Bastille was no comfort, though unlike other prisoners he had priviledges of everyday visitors.

On to Candide and Zadig. I never much liked Candide: it was too unbelievable and too episodic. Here, Voltaire shows that all is NOT for the best in 'the best of all the possible worlds.' The philosopher Leibnz, who held that our world is fine, is wrong says Voltaire. So, then, in the book he shows all the misfortune he can muster. But I came to see that Leibniz had meant, simply, that our world has possibility, growth, apparent free will, and a search-for-God. Even though things go wrong, this world is better than one of 'automatic goodness." T. S. Eliot urged the same thing to the behaviourist B. F. Skinner. Surely, then, the world is not so bad. The conditions, yes, but the gift of fighting for a greater good is of itself a greator good. Voltaire seems to have forgotten this, I think. And yet, he did not hate the world. He sneered to his France, but he lived in England for a year or two, where he praised English culture. Imagine a Frenchmen, of noteriety even, praising England, especially in that time! Voltaire had courage and is thus a kind of hero.

But Zadig I like: it had a gentle humour which can be read to small boys. It deals with morality, like the allegory of Adam and Eve do.Another story, called I think 'the Child of Nature' is as well smoothly written. It describes the development of a young man who discovers Christianity on the one hand, and Christendom on the other!

Voltaire has a touch of a poet in him. He can dress up language in clever little ways. One can tell, instantly, that he writes fast and wants to entertain. Some will say this wit not even Shakespeare had (at least not in person anyway).

His technique is satire: he likes to make fun of his enemy via mockery. He does not simply tell us freedom is the way, he goes on and on in bringing home the message that the men in power are laughable idiots.

Voltaire himself was a kind of showboat, with flashes of conceit I suspect. But I would have liked to have met the man. He seems to have known how to live fully.

I hope I have helped.

"The Book of Daniel Drew" is an amusing portrait of "Uncle Dan" Drew, founder of Drew University and well-known nineteenth-century Wall Street schemer.Written from Drew's point of view, the book describes his progress from a circus hand and cattle drover to his rivalry with Commodore Cornelieus Vanderbilt and alliance with Jim Fiskand Jay Gould - a partership made infamous by the attempt to corner the gold market in the mid-1800s.

The book contains interesting tidbits of life in New York City when people still celebrated Evacuation Day, John Jacob Astor's brother worked as a butcher and Madison Square was covered by a pond! The book also explains the bovine origin of "watered stock."

Drew's various schemes, plots and religious inclinations are treated with an ironic humor that quickly reveals him as a sly hypocrite.

Bouck White claimed his book was based on a secret diary discovered after Drew's death. This claim has nver been verified and Drew's family threatened to sue for libel!

Bouck White was a character in his own right. He was a Harvard-educated minster turned political agitator in pre-WWI New York. In later life, he built a "home-made" castle near Albany, New York. He made pottery and talked philosophy with curious vistors. He died in 1951.

"He Who Sells What Isn't His'n
Must Buy it Back or Go to Pris'n."
--"Uncle Dan'l" Drew

For decades, the "sanctimonious and treacherous" Uncle Dan'l was the scourge of Wall Street.

Here is the colorful story, told largely in his own salty language, of his early life as a cattle drover - his discovery of the profit to be gained from "watered" cattle which he later used in watering the stock in the famed Erie Railroad operation - his building of a fortune in Wall Street - his epic struggles with Commodore Vanderbilt and his unholy alliances with Gould, Fisk and Tweed.

The BOOK OF DANIEL DREW has been out of print and virtually unobtainable for many years. It is a real classic of the stock market - a fascinating view of an era in American history and a period when anything went in the stock market - and, above all, an irresistible story of a country boy who grew up with this country and became one of its legendary figures.

If you're looking for a quick read on the trials and tribulations of one of the key inventors of television, this is a good book. If you're looking for either a primer on early television technology or an extremely detailed account of Farnsworth's battle with Sarnoff, you may be a bit disappointed.

However, if there is a future edition of this book, it would be best if it included simple wiring diagrams from the speakers to the amplifiers. Since for beginners, they might not know what to do or how to hook up the speakers afterwards. Otherwise this book would have deserved a 5-star rating.

p.s. To Amazon.com: The shipping schedule is excellent. I received this book in less than 2 weeks from the order in perfect condition.