This book explains lots of things that I just didnt understand. I recommend it to everybody!

POWERFUL and very rememberable.

When I saw this title, I thought, WOW! However, once I started reading, I realized I had made a mistake. It took me three weeks to read (do to falling asleep from the constant droning of the author). If you can avoid reading this, good for you. If you want to read about detectives, realize that this profession is mostly dull (this is from experience) and spend your money on something else.

A very interesting and informative read about one of the most misunderstood professions ever. Thompson takes us through some typical days of a modern private detective and soon we realize the old stereotype of a seedy office, bottle of bourbon, fast fists, and a Colt .45 belongs strictly in a '40's detective movie. Thompson points out that the computer is the "weapon" of choice now and it is the staple of the profession. Information gathering is what a detective is paid for and by networking with other computer users and agencies they carve out a living. If you want glamour and excitement, watch an old Bogie black and white. But if you want a true and factual account of what a private eye does and how they work then read this.

Kierkegaard is widely hailed as the "father of existentialism," or at least his ideas are believed to have been seminal to this philosophical movement. Kierkegaard's life was what biographers might call uneventful. He was a theologian who lived all his life in a small town in Europe (Copenhagen) in the early 19th century, died a bachelor at 42, authored many philosophical and theological works, and virtually unknown outside of Denmark in his lifetime and for decades after his death. Yet today his life is studied because he was so influential to the movement in which many other great thinkers are said to belong (Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre, Buber, Camus and Nietzsche). Thompson goes into a fairly good detail of Kierkegaard's life (and Kierkegaard does not always come across as a likeable man). But he falls short when he tries to show us how Kierkegaard's life generated his thought - at least, to people who are not familiar with some or all of Kierkegaard's works. In this respect, Stendahl's "Søren Kierkegaard" is the better book where the biographical material is brief but enough to relate to the good summaries of Kierkegaard's books that follow. Also, Vardy's "Kierkegaard," though limited in scope, offers a good introduction of life and thought for somebody unfamiliar with this philosopher.