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--Connie Vines, AKA Addison Murrary, award-winner author of "Whisper upon the Water," "After the Rain," and "Rachel and the Texan."....
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Amazon.com seems to have no record of it, but I found an old paperback reprint of this book under the title, "A Man Never Dies." Probably also out-of-print.
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So there I was in the neighborhood bookstore and I see a brand spankin' new Barzun reader. Since I read in tangents, the format seemed a bit scattered but I bought it, knowing that I would always, no matter what tangent I was on, find something of interest in this volume.
I couldn't have been more right!! I've had the book for, maybe, nine months now and I'm STILL finding, savoring and rereading these excerpts. So many topics covered- from baseball to Berlioz, crime-fiction to higher education, race to romanticism. These days, whenever someone writes about so many subjects, there's always a suspicion that we, the readers, will find ourselves slighted- how can one person actually EXCEL in so many areas and still retain quality and grace. Barzun is a stunning example of someone who can and if you're anything like me (not reading all the way through, but reading each exerpt as it strikes your fancy), this book will rank on your 'most rewarding purchases' list
Is the book too small? I don't know -- perhaps any such compilation of Barzun's extraordinary & humane writing would be too small, too exclusive. These essays are (presumably) Murray's choices, & I have no quarrel with them per se. But where are other long-treasured & fascinating Barzun essays, such as "James the Melodramatist" or a thoughtful (& negative) critique he wrote decades ago on Eric Partridge's "Usage & Abusage"?
I begin to see that, in fact, a complete collection of Barzun's written work -- all seven or eight decades of it -- is called for. It would, of course, require numerous volumes. "A Jacques Barzun Reader" is an excellent start. I am happy to learn from the dust jacket that Michael Murray is writing a biography on Barzun.
A minor cavil with Murray's method: He chose not to footnote or otherwise indicate his alterations to Barzun's original text for a fairly sensible reason. However, I found myself wondering just which passages or what information was omitted from the reprint of various essays in the book.
It is especially valuable since some of Barzun's most famous commentaries (for example, on baseball) are now out of print and hard to find. Buy this book, you will profit from having it on your bookshelf!
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For Vallee, UFOs are real, and the people who claim to have seen them and even to have been abducted by their occupants are, for the most part, serious and responsible persons who are telling the truth. But as to just what UFOs are and where their occupants come from, Vallee honestly admits that he doesn't know. He does not, however, think that they are spaceships carrying "Space Brothers" from an advanced galactic civilization who have come here to miraculously resolve all human problems, and to help us clean up the mess that we have made of the planet and our lives. But he is seriously concerned that so many people, and not just UFO cultists, are beginning to embrace such a naive and simplistic salvationist belief. In this belief he detects the beginnings of a religious movement which could end up sweeping away existing institutions and lead to very grim consequences for mankind, not the least of which would be the loss of all freedoms.
People to day are tired of the lies and coverups and corruption of government. They are tired of the arrogance and hypocrisy and evasions of official science. They are tired of the wastefulness of the military. They are tired of the depredations of big business. They are ready for change, and many would be only too happy if a tall, handsome, and golden-haired "Space Brother" were to land on earth with the message: "Follow me, and all will be well."
In his thorough investigation of the UFO phenomenon, Vallee seems to detect a pattern. UFOs have made complete fools of our governments, which seem to have nothing meaningful to say about them; of our military, which cannot catch them; and of official science, which cannot provide any explanation of the advanced science at work behind them. All three authorities are furiously pretending that UFOs do not exist, while desperately wishing they would go away. It is, Vallee feels, almost as if we were being conditioned by UFOs to despise earthly authorities of every kind, and to ready ourselves to embrace a new Alien leader or 'Messiah.' But where would this 'Messiah' have come from?
For Vallee, the occupants of UFOs, although they might be Aliens, could just as well be humans, humans who have somehow acquired an advanced technology, humans pretending to be Aliens who are following an agenda created by a secret cabal of "Manipulators." The ultimate aim of these "Manipulators" would presumably be to topple the existing world order and take control themselves, an act not without precedent. If the Christianity of the ancient world, a religion of despised cultists and the uneducated lower orders, could sweep away the Classical world of Greece and Rome, destroy its finest achievements in thought and art and science, and plunge the world into a barbarism from which it has not yet completely emerged, what is there to prevent a new cult, the cult of an Alien and miracle-working Messiah, from doing the same?
'Messengers of Deception' seems to me to be a book that everyone should be reading. The UFOs have not gone away. And Vallee clearly demonstrates that the UFO cultists he has studied, people who "believe" that UFO occupants are good guys, benign Aliens who are here to help us, tend in their thinking to be naive, racist (alien blood is superior), fascist, puritanical, and hostile to human freedom. The dangers of their belief system should be obvious to anyone, and Vallee feels that the continuing refusal of official science to undertake an honest and serious investigation of the UFO phenomenon can only serve to increase the dangers.
Vallee's thesis is, to say the least, startling, and I haven't really been able to do it justice here. He is a well-qualified, thoroughly objective and sensible person, and he has brought forward much interesting evidence to support his case. His book is thoroughly researched, well-written, well-illustrated, and well-documented, and, apart from certain rather abstract theoretical speculations towards the end, is both gripping and easy to read.
UFOs are real. Their occupants are real. But are their occupants Aliens? Or human "Manipulators"? Or an alliance of Alien and human "Manipulators?" Who knows? But whatever they are, it is doubtful that they hold quite such a high opinion of humans as cultists would have us believe. Perhaps, as Jacques Vallee says, "we will get the visitors we deserve."
The deception goes further than the oft-contradictory message of the aliens: many on Earth are willing messengers of deception as well. The information gap caused by scientific, military, and governmental refusal to seriously consider the phenomenon's true nature have caused all manner of charletons and manipulators to fill the vacuum created by the willful refusal to acknowledge the reality of UFO incidents.
Many of Vallee's fears have already come to pass- the leaders of the Heaven's Gate suicide cult are chronicled nearly twenty years before their mass death. Vallee's observation that whoever is able to eventually control the UFO phenomena may well be coming true before our eyes, yet tragically most are unwilling to see the truth objectively.
This is a complex book that really needs careful reading more than once. If you do this, you'll never look at the UFO phenomena in the same way again.
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The Silent World is easy and enjoyable to read. Most of the photographs are hard to see compared with the vast amount of underwater shots available today. However, when you consider the time period these photos were taken combined with the daring of these early pioneers, you can't help but be impressed.
This book produced an enjoyable influence on my life and I am sure it will on anyone willing to learn about the early history of underwater exploration.
All in all it is a good read for individuals interested in the history of exploration of new worlds by this sensitive innovative explorer. Not to be missed are the numerious accounts of early ship wreck exploration. My copy was published in 1953 and includes some of the earliest published color underwater shots. Highly recommended.
enjoy books with great illustrations. This one is fun...
absolutely delightful! I love the ghosts with binoculars and
MacGhost is marvelous. Kids of all ages will find themselves
smiling as they read.