A very moving tale of a violent segment of our western history that is seldom portrayed. A book that is unable to be put down until you reach the end. Due to some language and content I would not recommend it for younger readers. I have been waiting for the sequel!! How about it Tim?

This collection of letters, by one of South Africa's leading activists, offers a direct view of the experience of a political prisoner during apartheid. Written during the author's 26 years in prison, alongside Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, the books grants the reader the rare chance to grasp the daily hardships these men endured. And yet, given Kathrada's courage, humility and humor, as well as their ultimate political victory, the book is a source of inspiration and hope.

Walter Schindler's book of poems, "The Napoleon House," has pleased me for nearly a decade now. While I wouldn't call Schindler's poems revolutionary or staggeringly original, I would call them friendly, warm, touching, and real. Each poem drips with the feeling that Schindler poured his life into each one, driving himself to find the absolutely right image, mood, and word. This is exactly the kind of poetry utterly missing from the academic poets, who see this sort of heart-on-the-sleeve virtuosity as hopelessly outdated. This attitude is directly analagous to those who believe that sculpture since August Rodin means anything (which, in my humble opinion, it doesn't: obscurity and a refusal to even attempt to communicate with one's society have never made for good art: even T.S. Eliot believed he was speaking to the world, and not his own private circle.) Schindler is attempting to make each poem matter, to make each poem memorable, and to strike the lightning from the heavens with each attempt. He doesn't fully succeed with each try, but who does? Even Yeats and Whitman have their dogs. I especially love the sense of dialogue Schindler has with his readers: at one point, in a little comic interlude, he tells us to go away, find somebody to make love, and to live poetry rather than read it. All in all, a charming, unpretentious book that should be far better known than it is.

This is an excellent book. It covers modern physics from the late 1800's to the 1960's when it was published. The level is a little higher than typical books for laymen, but is definitely not a technical text. The chapters on Electro-Magnetism and Quantum Mechanics were especially interesting and enlightening. I wish I had read this book before taking the corresponding courses in college. It gave me the big picture much better than technical texts with a million formulae.

This book is the answer to your prayers - if you are a first year neurology resident, alone on call during those first few months. Including differential diagnosis and management, although a little heavy in your coat pocket, you may come to regard the added weight as your security blanket.

I first read this book when I was an instructional design student in 1972. Gagne and Briggs' definitions of types of learning and of learning processes are ageless. Even in the era of constructivist ID, this book contributes an important bridge between fundamentals of psychology and the structuring of learning experiences and environments. Where would I be today without 'reverse chaining'? Probably at the end of my leash!

Reflections of an artist mind unleashed, Rauschenberg's images of political and social issues are portayed through scattered images and expressive paint strokes. His use of mixed media portrays an intensity between his paintings and the connection expressed in his life and his surroundings.

This is, at present, one of THE books (in the English language) on understanding the roots of today's headlines. Mr. Roberts takes a scholarly and refreshingly unbiased approach to the tangled history of the two rival Yugoslavian resistance movements: the monarchist and Republican Chetniks of General Drazha Mihailovich, and the communist Partisans of Josip Broz Tito. With the excellent book by Richard West titled "Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia" a reader will be much more informed than by the pedantics of Western left-wing and right-wing editorials and so-called "news reporting" of the past decade.

"Two thumbs up" is the simplest review for this historical analysis of the Mexican War of 1846-48. I read Johannsen's book for a class on U.S. Diplomatic History between 1776 and 1913 and loved it!! Johannsen discusses the image of the Mexican War in Americans' minds, not so much the military history of the battles. We get a better perception of America as a whole in 1846. Americans were living in an age of social and economic changes and believed that commercial pursuits were destroying the republican foundations of the new nation. To many Americans, the war with Mexico rejuvenated republican spirits and showed the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon United States against a "backward," supposedly racially inferior Mexican enemy. This book goes beyond the accounts of critics of the war, who argued that President James K. Polk and others were trying to extend slavery across the continent. We get a better sense of American reaction to the Mexican War and the changes the United States underwent during this era of "Manifest Destiny."

As a writer/storyteller, I was captivated by this review of Ong's life-long endeavor to bring back the vocal word to the culture. Farrel's inclusion of other familiar proponents of the evolution of human consciousness (Buber, Chardin, Cargas) and noted contemporaries such as John Bradshaw, gave this lay person a feeling of comfort among scholarly dialogue. Ong's acceptance of modern technology, such as TV, gives credence to his "ordinary language philosophy." The focus of Farrell's study, is the "feeling/valuing function" of our human consciousness, and also the focus of many psychologists today. Not a quick read, yet a page turner nevertheless.