In this third biographical study, Piper gives us three excellent sketches of men who persevered in ministry and righteousness in the face of incredible difficulty. John Newton, the converted slave-trader who penned Amazing Grace, is a model in "habitual tenderness" towards the hurting (most notably the manic-depressive poet William Cowpoer). Charles Simeon is lesser known, but proves to be a powerful demonstration of endurance in the face of almost unrelenting opposition and affliction. His endurance was rooted primarily in his high view of God and his low view of self (what a word for the self-esteem gurus filling America's pulpits today!!). Finally, William Wilberforce, the greatest instrument God used in the abolishment of slavery in Britain, is studied, along with the doctrine which gave him strength and moved him into action (the doctrine is justification by faith). This is a great book and very encouraging. Highly recommended.

Get ready for the reissue of Charles Gatewood's 1975 classic, Sidetripping! Gatewood was begining to explore the edges in the late 60s and early 70s, lurking alongside any events happening on the city streets: protests, marches, fairs, parades, celebrations. New Orleans and NYC provided moist atmospheres for expression, much of that 'caught' here by Gatewood. While on assignment for Rolling Stone in London, Gatewood got to hang with Burroughs and Gysin. That meeting fruited into Burroughs providing the text. To compliment the images perfectly, read the words in your head using Burroughs distinctive, grating rasp.

This book gives great insight in to the true meaning of African American slaves songs. This book also discusses the origin and uses of the songs and provides footnotes for most of the colloquials and variations in dialect for each song.

This is a great historical accounting of the life of an American aviation pioneer. Tex Johnston's life was a colorful mix of barnstorming through the flight testing and air racing of WWII fighters, and finally the experimental flight testing of the Bell X-1 (prior to Chuck Yeager) and the Boeing aircraft when the jet age was underway. The book is a little scant in his accounting of the famous (infamous?) barrell rolls of the 707 prototype over Lake Washington, which is disappointing. Overall, a great book and must reading for any fan of the early years of experimental flight testing.

It is a shame that this is out of stock. I recently read this book and it helped me understand the basic tenets of Marxism more clearly. It does this in an interesting way: a dialogue between three people with varying positions on Marxism and history. Very good introduction to Marxism.

Those interested in the life of William McKinley must read this book. Olcott does a superb job of describing the life of McKinley. While this is hardly a critical biography it is essential reading for those who want to observe McKinley as his contemporaries did.

This book is ostensibly about crime. Specifically the amelioration of crime by a policy of zero tolerance of minor and petty crimes which became famous for the dramatic fall in crime in New York City.

This book has a slightly different focus. Rather than concentrating on what Zero Tolerance is and does, it seeks to place the crime figures and approaches to crime reduction in a broader context of community. The concept of community developed both in these pages and within a wider research agenda supposedly concerned with the development of a civil society in which the state plays a smaller and smaller role has a particular slant to it.

Zero Tolerance is the latest in a line of books from the Institute of Economic Affairs Health and Welfare Unit, now a free standing institute of it's own, CIVITAS, which postulate a decline in morals and behavious which result from a growing tendency in our society to becoming more individualsitic. The model of decency and good behaviour upon which this view is based is a rather idyllic view of the English working class family as portrayed by Norman Dennis in some of the earlier books of this series. Here it's scope is widened to incorporate views on how to tackle crime which involve the wider civil society. Policing in this view is both external and internal and the police forces themselves are seen as a legitimate part of the community, reinforcing the internal rules and moralities forged in the furnace of home and family. Headed preferably, of course, by working father, stay at home mother etc.

You will not find in this book any arguments about drugs save for the superior tone about how the use of drugs has grown in our society and is therefore bad. This cannot go unchallenged. In a passage devoted to the emphasis on education and development of working men's clubs and institutes the book praises them for their contribution to improving the moral fibre of those who participated. These clubs were segregated against women drinking in the public bar and fought hard to retain that position against equality laws and became more well known for the strong and cheap beers that they sold than for moral improvement. Their innate conservatism was a major contributor to why their customers deserted them and caused the closure of many in the North East of England. While the consumption of this legal drug is condoned, other recreational drugs are the cause of much petty crime. The book ignores the setting of the laws and blithley makes assertions about theft while ignoring the basic point that laws against drugs make them more attractive to the purchasers, more profitable to the suppliers and lead many who consume them to do things out of character in order to get their drugs. I could go on but this would be a book of it's own.

Zero Tolerance is a one sided book. It excludes any consideration of the diminishing role of the church in society as one of a number of relevant institutions, and it excludes any treatment of what changing structures in our society mean for those individuals who have previously been imprisoned by those structures, in particular, for women. The supposed golden age of the working class family is a modern myth, a sociological urban legend, which did not exist for many.

Ultimately, this is yet another attack on growing individualism in our society which begrudges any positive changes and which harkens back to an age which never really existed. The causes of crime run deeper than one parent families and tower blocks. The harsh reality today is that women are valued more by society than they were which is the real reason why female wage rates are increasing while male wages rates decline overall.

Perhaps we should be looking forward and not backward to see how a healthy individualist society might develop.

For those of you who follow my reviews, you know that I felt "Martin Chuzzlewit" was Dickens' worst book. "The Old Curiosity Shop" is better, but not by much. Now on one hand, the story has captivating elements. The relationship between Trent and Nell is well done, and their flight together offers generous amounts of suspense. Images are well drawn, tension is tightened and released at appropriate intervals, and it is unlikely that you will get bored. Swiveller and the abused servant girl provide an interesting subplot. (For any other author, this would have been excellent. But this does not represent Dickens' finer efforts.) Nell does not hit us the way characters like Lizzie Hexham ("Our Mutual Friend"), Amy Dorrit ("Little Dorrit"), Louisa Gradgrind ("Hard Times"), Agnes ("David Copperfield"), or Florence Dombey ("Dombey and Son") do. Kit is handled somewhat awkwardly. The end does not seem to fit. I understand that Dickens may have been trying to make the end ironic, but it just does not seem to fit well. Benevolent characters like Martin and Swiveller are handled fairly well, but we don't really get to know them the way we get to know benevolent characters like Sam Weller ("The Pickwick Papers") or Mr. Micawber ("David Copperfield"). In all honesty, Quilp seems to be the most fascinating character in this book. He displayed pure terror, but he was also funny, and even likable at times! While I was going through this book, I found myself waiting for Quilp to reenter! Gradually, I found myself leaning towards Quilp's side. I could not believe how awkwardly he died. Perhaps while Dickens was writing this, he was not sure of how to end it, and decided not to use too much effort on something that was not his best work. I guess my biggest complaint is that compared to Quilp, the benevolent characters seem dull and flat. (Don't get me wrong. I understand that Dickens loved to make his villains more fascinating than repulsive.) But benevolent characters like Mr Pickwick, Sam Weller, ("Pickwick Papers"), Agnes, Mr. Micawber ("David Copperfield"), Captain Cuttle ("Dombey and Son"), Dr. Manette ("A Tale of Two Cities"), Jo ("Great Expectations"), and John Harmon ("Our Mutual Friend"), have captivating qualities that match those of the villains. Once again, this IS a good book, but it does not (in my opinion) reflect Dickens' better efforts.

The only pleasure greater than discovering a new book
is rediscovering an old friend you haven't read for a while.
Many years ago I read all of Charles Dickens novels, but I
recently had occasion to re-read The Old Curiosity Shop, and
it is just as good as I remembered it the first time.

The story, like most of his plots, depends a great deal
on coincidences, so you have to suspend your scepticism to
enjoy it. Dickens begins by introducing us to one of the
most innocent little girls in literature, Little Nell, and
to her most unhappy grand-father. Quickly we discover that
instead of the old man taking care of the child, she is the
one responsible. We then meet one of Dickens' great villains
- the evil, corrupt, mean, and nasty Quilp - a man, if that
term can be used, who has absolutely no redeeming qualities,
one who finds pleasure in inflicting pain on all he meets.

Thinking that the old man has secret riches, Quilp
advances him money to support his gambling habit.
Unfortunately Nell's grandfather never wins, and the debt
grows ever larger. Finally Quilp forecloses on the curiosity
shop that the old man owns (thus the name of the book) and
tries to keep the two captive in order to discover the money
that he still believes is hidden somewhere. While the
household is asleep, however, Nell and her grandfather
escape and begin wandering across England in a search for
sanctuary.

On that journey, Dickens introduces us to a series of
minor characters who either befriend or try to take
advantage of our heroine. He's in no hurry to continue the
main story, so just sit back and enjoy the vivid
characterizations that are typical of any good Dickens
novel.

In the meantime, we follow the adventures of young Kit,
a boy who was one of Nell's best friends until Quilp turned
her grandfather against him. Here we find one of Dickens'
favorite sub-plots, the poor but honest boy who supports his
widowed mother and younger brother. Thanks to his honesty,
Kit finds a good position, but then evil Quilp enters the
picture and has him arrested as a thief!

Of course, we have the kind and mysterious elderly
gentlemen who take an interest in Kit and Nell for reasons
that we don't fully understand until the end of the book. We
are certain, however, that they will help ensure that
justice prevails in the end.

This is not a book for those in a hurry. Dickens tells
his stories in a meandering fashion, and the stops along the
way are just as important for your enjoyment as the journey itself. That can be frustrating at time, especially as you enter the second half and are anxious to see how things turn out. I try never to cheat by reading the end of a book before I finish, but it is tempting with Dickens. At times I wanted to tell him, "I don't want to meet anyone else; tell me what happens to Nell and Kit!" But I know the side journeys will prove rewarding, so I just have to be patient. Anyway, I am in better shape than his first readers; he wrote in weekly installments, so
they had to wait!

If you have and enjoyed other Dickens' novels, you will enjoy this one as well. If this is your first time (or perhaps the first time since you were in high school), you are in for a treat.

This edition of the Old Curiosity Shop is outstanding. It contains all the original illustrations drawn for the book, very helpful footnotes, a chronology of Dickens's life, etc. The book takes the reader on a wild journey through the English countryside with Little Nell, an angelic girl, and her troublesome grandfather, and features a host of amusing characters as only Dickens can draw them. While it was being written in serial form, it was so popular that sailors returning to port in England were known to shout to people on shore to ask what was going on with Little Nell. Today, however, you can miss some of Dickens's nuance and humor if you don't have good footnotes to turn to. The notes in this book explain obscure terms, references to contemporary popular culture, places where the action occurs, etc. If you are going to read this book, this is the edition to buy.

If you read Hard Times for the sole purpose of being entertained you will probably be highly disappointed. However, if you understand what was happening during this time period, you will realize that Hard Times is in reality, a long commentary. The Industrial Revolution was starting to show its down side. There was rampant poverty and disease, from the overcrowding of the cities. Children of the poor had to work long hours in unsafe factories rather than go to school. The gulf between the haves and the have-nots was very wide. The middle class was only beginning to be a distinct group.
This then was the backdrop of Hard Times. Dickens is making a social and political statement. This is a statement against the mechanizing of society. It starts with Dickens repeated use of the word fact. It is facts that have meaning. Human conventions like feeling, compassion or passion have no meaning or looked down upon as an inconvienent waste of time. If a situation cannot be put down on paper as in an accounting ledger it should not be considered.
This is where the conflict of the book comes in. Which helps humanity more compassion or fact. Is Bounderby a better person than Blackpool? Bounderby, who by his own admission was a self-made man. Untrue as this was he said it enough to make it his own reality. Or Blackpool, a weaver with an alcoholic wife, who was in love with another woman. Facts made Bounderby rich, compassion made Blackpool human.
Louisa presents another conflict. Louisa was educated only by fact. No wonder or inquisitiveness was ever allowed. She was the perfect robot. Doing what she was told when she was told. Just another piece of the machine, however, the piece broke, emotions came out, and they broke down the wall of fact that Mr. Gradgrind had so carefully constructed. Because the feelings have finally been acknowledged things really break down. She finds that not only has she married the wrong man but also the man she did marry is a buffoon whom she cannot respect nor live with.
The reader is left wondering if there is no one who will not be ruined by all the worship to fact. The whelp has certainly been ruined to the point he feels no responsibility to anyone but himself. If a situation can not be used to his advantage then he has no use for it, as a matter of course, he will run when he believes he will have to take responsibility for his own actions.
The gypsies have not been ruined by fact. But only because they live outside of society, they do not conform to the rules of society. These are the people who value character over social status. The gypsies do not value Bounderby and Bitzer with all their pomp and egomania. Rather they value Stephen Blackpool and Cecilia whom can show compassion and kindness no matter a person's station in life.
Hard Times can be used to look at today's society. Are we, as a society more worried about our computers, cell phones, faxes, and other gadgets than our neighbor's well being? Do we only get involved to help others when there is a personal benefit? Or, are we like the gypsies who can look into the character of the person and not worry about the socio-economic status? While Dickens' wrote Hard Times about 19th century England the moral can easily fit into 21st century America

Despite the explicit title, "Hard Times" is not so much an ode to poverty and misery as it is a commentary on the increasing impact of industrialization on the fragmentation of society and on the dehumanization of education. The result, as Dickens implies, leads to lives hollowed by the emptiness of work for work's sake and wealth for wealth's sake.

The setting is Coketown, a factory town befouled by industrial smog and populated by underpaid and undereducated laborers. The novel's most prominent character is one of the town's richest citizens, Josiah Bounderby, a pompous blowhard who owns a textile mill and a bank and whose conversation usually includes some boastful story about his impoverished childhood and the hard work that led to his present fortune.

Bounderby is the commercial projection of Thomas Gradgrind, a local schoolteacher and an extraordinarily pragmatic man who instills in his students and his own children the importance of memorizing facts and figures and the iniquity of indulging in entertaining activities. Gradgrind offers to Bounderby his son, Tom Jr., as an unwilling apprentice, and his daughter, Louisa, as an unwilling bride.

On the other end of the town's social scale is Stephen Blackpool, a simple, downcast man who works as a weaver at Bounderby's mill and slogs through life misunderstood and mistreated. When he refuses to join his fellow workers in a labor uprising, he is ostracized; when he criticizes the economic disparity between Bounderby and the workers, he is fired and forced to leave town; when Bounderby's bank is robbed one night, he is suspected as the thief. So halfway through the novel, Dickens grants his reader an interesting, albeit somewhat contrived, plot element to embellish the narrative.

If this novel contains a ray of sunshine, it is in Sissy Jupe, a girl abandoned by her father and adopted by Gradgrind, whose oppressive educational method nearly breaks her. However, she grows up with her own intuitive sense of propriety, which she uses as a tool to eject a dishonorable character from the novel. Her strong and independent spirit will allow her to do much better in life than Louisa, who withers away in an unhappy marriage, and Tom Jr., whose boredom renders him vulnerable to temptations.

Compared to his other novels, "Hard Times" is relatively short and straightforward and has few characters, as though Dickens felt that what he had to say was so important, it had to be said quickly and bluntly. He is less interested in realism than in making a point, and it's really the poetic power of his prose that enables him to get away with the overbearing sentimentality and often ridiculous caricatures that accompany his poignant human truths.

Dickens creates a novel that virtually revolutionizes literature of the 1800's. At a time where most writers wrote in a stuffy prose full of unrealities and a jaded outlook, Dickens dares to tell with honesty what he sees through his window.

Hard Times has yet a misleading title. It gives one ideas of harshness, depression, poverty, and social decline--although the actual reality of then-London, still not something you would choose to read. However, Hard Times has as much depression and poverty as any of Dickens' other works. It is just in this case that Dickens chooses to remind the world that in the deepest despair there is beauty yet to be seen.

Dickens was a strange author. In his supposedly inspiring books, you get an overdose of sadness, and in his depressing books, you find beauty. It is this case with Hard Times.

It is a poor, honest man's search for justice in a world where only the rich have merit. It is a girl's search for true love while battling the arranged marriage for money. And lastly, a woman's search for recognition against her favored, yet dishonest brother. It is these searches that at last come together and become fufilled. And, while at the same time telling a captivating story, it comments on the then--and still now--presence of greed and total dishonesty one has to go through for money.

The title of this review sums up Hard Times. Its beauty comes from the pure searches for truth, the sorrow comes from the evil the characters most overcome to get there, and the honesty is both the truth with which Dickens portrays life and the the overwhelming truth that these protaganists create.

Holly Burke, PhD.

Clinical Psychologist, Abnormal Psych. Professor

Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins Inst.

The so-called Philadelphia Experiment, the actual rendering of a navy destroyer invisible to the naked eye but having its crew suffer horrible effects, has been a fascinating ghost that roams on the realm of believability. The authors of this book make a good case for there being an actual experiment conducted in the Philadelphia Navy Yard under the auspices of Albert Einstein during 1943 to render a U.S. destroyer invisible to radar. However, the reader must beware of believing too much data form "scientists involved in the project yet wanting to remain anonymous". People, for whatever reasons, can and do lie. This could be no exception. With that being said, though, it appears that there WAS some kind of strange experiment that occurred. What that experiment exactly was and what the effects were on the crew of the ship will doubtless remain a mystery until whatever government files on the project are released. Do read the book if you have any interest at all in the possibility of humans vanishing from existance or burning for 18 days.

This is a good book for anyone who isn't familiar and is new to the subject of the Philadelphia Experiment. Both Moore and Berlitz did a fair job, but they left out a lot of information. I guess since this book was first published in 1979 this was before the knowledge of Montauk was made public. There is no mention of Nikola Tesla and his involvement in the experiment nor Alfred Bielek, but he does mention Eric Neumann and T. Townsend Brown, who were heavily involved with the project. Believe it or not Einstein didn't have much to do with the project. But Moore does give a hint of Tesla's involvement, even though the book doesn't mention Tesla by name. On page 125 it reads:

"...a man went to the Navy and said, in effect: 'You want camouflage, gentlemen! Give me a ship and I'll show you perfect camouflage.' When this man went aboard the experimental ship, he was carrying a BLACK BOX."

Tesla was well known for his mysterious Black Box. Plus, Tesla was the head scientist of the Philadelphia Experiment. The main reason why the experiment went crazy was that Tesla himself sabotaged the testing by detuning the equipment which resulted in Tesla no longer leading the project and making Neumann the head scientist of the project.

Eventhough this book is a "watered down" version of what actually took place in August 13, 1943, overall, this book is enjoyable to read.

The book, if approached as a work of fiction, is mind-bending. Just think, the United States having discovered the mystery behind Einstein's Unified Field Theory, where combining electromagnetic forces with gravity produces properties that allow time/dimension travel! The author(s) make fine attempts to substantiate many of the claims that are a part of the legend of Project Rainbow, but I found the evidence, as a whole, lacking. The day someone comes out with a book, giving me a complete bibliography (and footnotes with each piece of evidence), exact names, ship logs, dated newspaper articles (with newspaper of origin), and mathematical basis for the event, I will have reason to believe the Philadelphia Experiment took place. But tying the incident with aliens and UFO contact? A little far-fetched.

Nevertheless, a higly-recommended book for those interested in what many believe really happened during World War II, at a now-abandoned navy yard on the Delaware River.