An excellent presentation of how one minister's church responded to the search for God's will for a church and its people. It is sure to be helpful in at least some ways for all churches. Seeking God's will is always a first step. He has some excellnt ideas that have been proven in his church and I am certain they will work in most churches today. Revival of the "dead" in our churches is at a critical point. Too many people merely warm the pew. Rev. Wills gives some excellent and detailed steps to church renewal. Well written and easy to put into practice, with God's blessing, of course.

I was moved by this book and immediately gave it to my pastor, just as I did Purpose Driven Church. This book is much more spiritually oriented than Warren's approach, although I think highly of Warren's approach. To think a church the size and denomination background such as the author's would turn to spritual discernment in its council meetings is great. I went to a council meeting in our church the day I finished the book and had a whole different perspective on how much time we spent dicussing the cost of the pastor's car insurance. Not once did we discuss the areas of our church where God was calling us to action. Wills' story is a powerful statement on seeking God's will as a church body.

The Golden Age is another "Elseworlds" examination of comics history. By using such rarely seen characters as Captain Triumph and Mr.America along with the "big guns" of the era (Green Lantern, The Atom,etc.)James Robinson visits a Post WWII America where superheroes are considered suspect, and only those who conform are to be trusted. Using superheroes to comment on McCarthyism may seem to be a stretch, but Robinson makes the story challenging with many twists. The "alternate history" concept gives the author the freedom to take chances, but also eliminates the element of "this can't be happening" suspense. Too many sub plots (Hourman's addiction, Starman's breakdown) get in the way of the more compelling central tale.

Paul Smith's art is a wonder throughout. Shifting from the well-lit scenes of Dyna-man to Paul Kirk's despair, Smith constantly creates visuals that hold your attention and never let you forget the true wonder of this medium; the ability for two dimensional, brightly colored figures to fascinate and entertain.

This was the four-part Eleseworlds tale that put James Robinson on the map and set the stage for his history-spanning Starman series. It furthermore is regarded as the best thing anyone ever did with the original DC heroes since the actual Golden Age.

It's also a lot of fun. Great character play, sharp historic details - with a couple of odd exceptions - and top-notch art by Smith make this a must-read for super-hero comics readers. In addition, it's fairly accessible for newer readers since most of the stars of this comic are not that well-known and thus made accessible for once.

Much has been said about "Marvels" and "Kingdom Come" as being the best comics of the 1990s. But I'd gladly pit this against those, and with its grounding in the real world, it holds its own very nicely.

I'm a huge mark for Golden Age heroes. The major problem with the comic books of yesteryear is that the heroes were two dimensional, completely lacking in personality. They were all upstanding, usually rich, and basically boring, when not in costume. If it wasn't for the creative gimmicks and colorful costumes, the men and women behind the masks were interchangeable. James Robinson's updating of these classic Golden Agers is insightful and refreshing. He takes these legends and creates distinctive, and relatively believable, personal backgrounds for each of them. Yet he does this without diminishing the fun and nostalgia of those earlier tales. While congratulating Robinson, I feel inclined to point out the influence of Alan Moore's Watchmen. While Watchmen may have set the standard for alternate takes on the traditional DC/Marvel universes, Robinson and Smith's work here easily lives up to that lofty standard.

Paul Smith does a great job on the art, subtly employing updated pencilling techniques along with a very distinctive golden age era style. The colors in this book are also great, obviously far superior to the comic books of decades past. My only problem with the art lies with the lack of differentiation between some of the alter egos of these costumes heroes. Since most of these guys basically had the same blonde hair, chiseled features, erect postures, and well tailored suits back in the day, sometimes it's difficult to tell them apart, at least in the early chapters. As you read on, Robinson adds humanistic touches of doubts, addictions, regrets and redemption to enrich the characters well beyond their original incarnations.

This collection covers a complete story arc, which is great, but I must admit that I would love to read more tales of the Golden Age from James Robinson and Paul Smith. James Robinson is easily one of the top 5 to 10 comic book writers out there. Check out his popular, and critically acclaimed, Starman (another update of a Golden Ager) series if you don't believe me.

I finished reading this book only a few weeks ago for a college class I'm in. It certainly wasn't the kind of book I'd pick up just on my own, but I wouldn't say I didn't like it.

The story is set primarily in Boston and somewhat in New York during the 1880's. At the request of his cousin Olive Chancellor, southern lawyer Basil Ransom comes to visit. He accompanies her to a meeting where the young Verena Tarrant speaks wonderfully on women's rights. Olive is so impressed with Verena, she starts what's debatably a lesbian relationship with her, but Ransom is taken with Verena as well and so a struggle begins between the two for Verena's affections.

I think Henry James does an excellent job of giving complete descriptions of each character and you really get a sense of who they are. Olive comes across as rigid and passionate, Verena as young, full of life and curious and Basil as sexist and determined. Basil uses all his ability to wrench Verena from Olive. As I mentioned, the relationship between Verena and Olive is debatable. There are no sex scenes in this novel, but the implication is there. Additionally, I've learned in the class for which I read this novel that many women during this time period engaged in very intense romantic relationships which may or may not be described as sexual.

There are of course other characters such as Verena's parents and other women's rights activists, but the whole focus of the novel is on this struggle for Verena. It wouldn't be completely unfair to say that in some ways nothing much happens in this novel. It's truly a character driven story. There aren't really antagonists and protagonists in the story, but more just people whom all have faults and are just trying to make the right decisions. Although my description of Basil above may sound like a bad guy and although he's unapologetically sexist, he perhaps is no worse than Olive who sometimes seems to be using Verena, a young woman whose thoughts and feelings are maleable. At its heart, the novel is still a love story. Overall, I'd say this is probably worth reading if you like novels about this time period, about love or if you like this author. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd read another novel by James, but I don't regret reading this.

The astonishing thing about this book -- and a lot of Henry James's writing -- is his insight into the problems of women. This book deals with the problem of independence and freedom. Most of us, let's admit it, love the idea of being swept off our feet by some competent, assertive male. It's a real turn-on. If you don't believe it, check out how many successful professional women secretly read historical romances by the boxload. The problem comes the next morning when he starts to take control, bit by bit, of your entire life. In this book you have Olive, who is not, I think, a lesbian but someone who is very lonely and doesn't trust men and Verena, who likes men just fine, but is, for the moment anyway, under the spell of Olive and her feminist ideology. Are these our only options? Verena Makes her choice, but James notes that the tears she sheds may not, unhappily, be her last.

James after 1898 was too subtle, too often employing apposition to add layers like coats of paint to each observation. Works like The Ambassadors (1903) rely on the reader's powers of synthesis, which can be in turns exhilarating or frustrating. The Bostonians (1885) is an extremely straightforward, dramatic, cruel, hilarious, political, compassionate love story and one of the best novels by anyone. Olive Chancellor is tragic: with so much love behind her cold, horrified stares. Basil Ransom is magnetic, but an educated idiot savant whose passion and will are nothing other than natural talent. Verena Tarrant has nothing but natural talent--she is an organism that throbs with passion like a finely tuned Geiger counter. Whether the private turmoil of sex and marriage finally draw her from the political sisterhood, and what happens to queer women like Olive, are high-stakes, human questions that James presents with sheer drama and almost unbelievable insight.

this, my first novel by henry james, was recommended to me by a trusted friend privy to my affection for the work of austen, the brontes, wharton, bowen and hall. i must admit to having had reservations about a victorian novel with a female protragonist written by a man, but was pleasantly surprised to find that james had depicted the female perspective, in isabel archer, with notable aplomb. i was a little disappointed that, in spite of the book's length, i felt there was a huge leap from the first half of the book, which firmly establishes the young miss archer as a woman intent to never marry and the second half, which finds her rather abruptly married to the third of three men who have made the appeal to her. still, this is a classic work of literature that deserves all the praise it has received. it is far more dense than works by the aforementioned authors and, as such, makes awful subway reading--unless, of course, your train breaks down and there are no crying children or blaring boom boxes in your car.

The best thing about 19th century novels is that they take so long to unwind, you know that you are guaranteed a long and satisfying trip into a story. I initially bought this book after seeing the Jane Campion film, (which I actually wasn't too crazy about)but I always think it's a good idea to read the source material. After a few false starts (warning: one needs to devote all their attention to James in order to enjoy him)I finally got into this book, and couldn't put it down. From the great settings of the novel, to the variety of fascinating characters (the liberated Henrietta Stackpole, the sinister Madame Merle, the beloved Ralph Touchett, Ralph's eccentric mother, the flighty Countess Gemini, the deadly Gilbert Osmond, and of course, Isabel Archer herself... James gives characters great names as well) "Portrait" is a great novel not only of self discovery, but self deception. How many of us in this world have liked to have thought ourselevs as free to make our own chocies, and were excited by a future full of "possibility" only to allow something (or usually someone) to get in our way and make us realize just how quickly we can lose our freedom and be in a cage that we need to get out of. (Pardon my bad grammar.) Those of you looking fora Jane Austen type ending, this may not be the book for you, but I think this book is more of a spiritual cousin to Austen than we may think. It all comes down to making choices, and teh effects of those decisions. Throw off any reservations that you may have because this book was written over a century ago, it's as fresh, funny, tragic and riveting today as it was then. (And hey, buy the film soundtrack which perfectly captures the mood of the story for accompaniment..that was a plug!)

The novel Portrait of a Lady is a beautiful. It starts out with a girl named Isabel Archer who goes with her Aunt Touchett to England. Isabel is portrayed beautifully by James in the novel as a curious, independent, intelligent lady. She arrives in isolated Gardencourt where she meets her uncle and her cousin, Ralph Touchett. Soon, she is proposed to by Lord Warburten portrayed as a polite, wealthy, radical gentleman but rejects him because her curiousity expects another, better suiter. Caspar Goodward, her other lover, fallows her to England and is determined to marry her. The two men come in even further in the novel when intrigue and scandel take place. Isabel travels all through Europe but is eventually entrapped and decieved. Drama and intrigue take the stage then. By that time it may sound like some domb soup opera, but really he refines the situations and makes them realistic but still dramatic unlike most stupid soaps. Some parts may seem long and dull because he explains himself so explicitly with huge paragraphs about one subject but it's worth it when your finished. The characters are done superbly with wonderful description. There is much irony, too, but if you immiedietly think irony is funny like some people its not in this novel. Its as a whole a serious novel. The ending is very well done if you think about it. Though,it may seem odd it is as a whole witty and crafty.

I am always pleasantly surprised by the number of people in thetechnical world who take the time to summarize their knowledge andshare it with others. Dick Grier has done a fine job of getting together information that ties serial communications and Visual Basic together. If you are a novice to intermediate user of either serial communications or Visual Basic (in my case, I am a novice VB programmer), the book will provide sufficient info to get you "over the top". Modems, terminal emulators, loggers, GPS interfacing and telephony are some of the areas that are covered. You may find a sample app that fits just what you are trying to accomplish. To facilitate moving beyond the information the book provides, Dick has included a list that covers lots of additional resources for data.

Dick Grier is a proven expert in the field of serial communications and Visual Basic as documented by his peer-support contributions in both the VB Compuserve forum and VB Microsoft Newsgroups over the years. His book, "Visual Basic Programmer's Guide To Serial Communications" is well structured and well written including a serial communications primer, Modem FAQ (and answers), and the ins and outs of implementing data communications using all versions of Visual Basic (2.0 - 5.0) . Coverage includes intricacies (and code examples) of the Visual Basic MSComm control, and discussions relating to the use of the Windows data communications API and Visual Basic. If you are involved in any type of Visual Basic related serial communications development I would highly recommend this book

As an experienced VB programmer, but one with little serialcommunications background I had almost come to a standstill on myproject. I had seen a lot of answers to messages on Compuserve from Dick Grier, so when his book finally came out I bought it immediately. His book breaks serial communications concepts down into components I can track through my program. I was able to fix the problems and get my project in on time thanks to what I learned from this book.

Yes, it's a great novel. Yes the language is rich, the story is subtle, and the psychology is complex. And yet, I didn't like it.

Of course, who am I to review Henry James? Granted, I read more books and watch less television than most of my peers, but still I think I might be too "late Twentieth Century" for this book. Maybe despite my strict avoidance of video games I just can't help detesting the millipede pace of this book. I've never had much affinity for drawing room conversations to begin with, and unlike my father I don't believe that wit must be meted out in tortuous sentences.

But it isn't my background or personal prejudices that make me recoil from "Wings of the Dove". There is something about the deliberate quality of Henry James that bothers me. He knows perfectly well what he's doing with his fat succulent sentences. He won't feed you a meal of lean pork and vegetables. He'll serve you tons of tiny truffles and oil-oozing, crispy skinned duck.

To read "Wings of the Dove" is like encountering a cookbook that decided to include as much of the delicious fatty foods as possible. Of course its a rare meal and quite wonderful in its way. But some how, it made me a little nauseous at the end.

First things first, it is a very nice novel, but very hard to follow. Personally speaking, sometimes I couldn't get very exactly what Henry James was trying to say, but I could understand the situation as a whole and be able to move on.

As everybody knows, Hery James is not an easy writer. His appeal is very difficult and complex although it doesn't read very old-fashioned. The story is very interesting and timeless, because it deals with passion, money and betrayal. The books follows Kate Croy and her beloved Merton Densher when then both get involved - in different degrees and with different interests- with the beautiful rich and sick American heiress Milly Theale.

Most of the time, the book kept me wondering what would come next and its result and the grand finale. But, that doesn't mean I was fully understand its words. As I said, I was just feeling what was going on. As a result, i don't think I was able to get all the complexity of Henry James. Maybe, if I read this book again in the futures, it will be clearer.

There is a film version of this novel made in 1997, and starring Helena Bonham Carter, Allison Elliot and Linus Roach, directed by Iain Softley. Carter is amazing as always! Kate is a bit different from the book, she is not only a manipulative soul, but, actually, she is a woman trying to find happiness. One character says of Kate, "There's something going on behind those beautiful lashes", and that's true for most female leads created by James. Watching this movie helped me a lot, after finishing reading the novel.

I've carried on a love-hate affair with The Wings of the Dove for more than 20 years. In that period of time, I started the novel (the same beautiful little Signet paperback edition) at LEAST 15 times and could never get past page 30 or so. But it kept nagging at me to read it. Last summer, I plowed through its dense prose thicket, and I felt as though I were peering through a glass darkly. Several times I felt like tossing it aside. I've studied Enlish and literature all my life and yet I had one heckuva time with those daunting banks of prose. But I'm glad I read it. It's masterful. Worth all the effort. Those scintillating scenes in Venice. Nothing like them! I just read The Golden Bowl, another difficult but rewarding book. There are astonishing scenes in it, like when the husband of the busy-body watches her in a pensive mood as if she were in the middle of a lake, coming closer. It's just an extraordinary scene! I love early James too, like that perfect jewel of a book, Washington Square. Sometimes, great as the late books are, I really do think they lose something of the wonderful clarity James achieved earlier. There are still a few scenes in Wings and Bowl, for instance, in which I have NO IDEA what James was trying to express. Talk about super subtle! But do make the effort, folks, they're incredible books.

I've seen some reviews that criticize the book for being too stream of consciousness and others for not being s.o.c. enough. The fact is, for the most part it's not s.o.c. at all. (See the Chicago Manual of Style, 10.45-10.47 and note the example they give...Joyce knew how to write s.o.c.). A better word for A Portrait is impressionistic. Joyce is more concerned with giving the reader an impression of Stephen's experience than with emptying the contents of his head. What's confusing is the style mirrors the way Stephen interprets his experiences at the time, according to the level of his mental development.

When Stephen is a baby, you get only what comes in through the five senses. When he is a young boy, you get the experience refracted through a prism of many things: his illness (for those who've read Ulysses, here is the beginning of Stephen's hydrophobia - "How cold and slimy the water had been! A fellow had once seen a big rat jump into the scum."), his poor eyesight, the radically mixed signals he's been given about religion and politics (the Christmas meal), his unfair punishment, and maybe most important of all, his father's unusual expressions (growing up with phrases like, "There's more cunning in one of those warts on his bald head than in a pack of jack foxes" how could this kid become anything but a writer?)

It is crucial to understand that Stephen's experiences are being given a certain inflection in this way when you come to the middle of the book and the sermon. You have to remember that Stephen has been far from a good Catholic boy. Among other things, he's been visting the brothels! The sermon hits him with a special intensity, so much so that it changes his life forever. Before it he's completely absorbed in the physical: food, sex, etc. After it he becomes just as absorbed in the spiritual/aesthetic world. It's the sermon that really puts him on the track to becoming an artist. One reviewer called the sermon overwrought. Well, of course it's overwrought. That's the whole point. Read it with your sense of humor turned on and keep in mind that you're getting the sermon the way you get everything else in the book: through Stephen.

After Stephen decides he doesn't want to be a priest, the idea of becoming an artist really starts to take hold. And when he sees the girl on the beach, his life is set for good. That scene has to be one of the most beautiful in all of literature. After that, Stephen develops his theory of esthetics with the help of Aristotle and Aquinas and we find ourselves moving from one conversation to another not unlike in Plato (each conversation with the appropriate inflection of college boy pomposity). In the end, Stephen asks his "father" to support him as he goes into the real world to create something. I like to think that this is an echo of the very first line in the book. The father, in one of many senses, is the moocow story. The story gave birth to Stephen's imagination and now it's the son's turn to create.

This is such a rich and beautiful book. I suppose it's possible for people to "get it" and still not like it, but I really think if you read and re-read, and maybe do a little research, the book will open up to you the way it did to me.

"A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is James Joyce's autobiographical novel, first appeared in book form in 1916. After over 80 years it is still read and studied all over the world highlighting the place it has received in literature. It portrays the early and teenage life of Stephen Dedalus. This is the same character who later appears in 'Ulysses' (1922) as a matured adult.

Joyce walks us through the life of Stephen Dedalus in five stages written in a third-person narrative. Anyone interested in Joyce's intellectual, spiritual and physical journey of life should read this great classic which is the prelude to 'Ulysses', one of the best novels ever written in the 20th centaury.

As Ezra Pound correctly predicted 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' would "remain a permanent part of English literature" for centuries similar to the place 'Ulysses' has reached in literature.

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN does not so much solicit deep thoughts and great emotions so much as it wrings them out of the reader. To finish this book is not to feel uplifted and encouraged for Stephen Dedalus, but to feel that at least he has made progress and knows enough of his strengths and weaknesses that he may make something of himself. Is this not possibly where we are left at the end of all great coming-of-age novels?

Joyce takes us through five stages of Stephen's youth. As a boy in 1890's Dublin he hears his father arguing that Irish nationalism has been sold out by the Catholic clergy. Soon Stephen's hands are "crumpling" beneath the paddle of an unjust priest. He becomes a leader in his class, an intellectual in a world where many believe: "If we are a priestridden race we ought to be proud of it. They are the apple of God's eye." Later Joyce spends eleven inimitable pages on these apples explaining in colorfully exhaustive detail what it would be like to be baked in a hellpie (for God is loving but God's justice is harsh). Five pages on the physical tortures of the eternal fire, and six more after a break about the mental tortures--Dante himself would be impressed. Fear of hell scares Stephen sufficiently enough to repent from his teenage brothel-frequenting phase. He goes to rather interesting extremes of devotion, even considering the priesthood as a vocation. But his questioning nature is even too intellectual for the jesuits and he discovers another path for himself at and after college.

Joyce writes poetic, often urgent prose: "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to create life out of life!" becomes one of Stephen's clarion calls. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN should be read by anyone looking for one of the best tales of intellectual, physical and spiritual awakening we have. Its beauty is best savored slowly. The rhythms might be difficult to pick up at first, but it really won't take very long until you will have a hard time putting the book down.

I have been teaching calculus at a university for over 20 years. I was on the adoption committee to select calculus texts. I had heard that the Stewart text was a national best seller, so I volunteered to review it. I was startled. I can see now reason why this text is widely used. It is even more difficult to believe that its author has had any classroom experience with honest-to-goodness calculus students. The writing is rambling and obtuse. The design is not helpful and blends prose with examples. The art is irregular, some art is small and some is huge, some topics that cry for graphs have none and some that don't need graphs have several. I have used several other texts and it appears that the author used a cut and paste technique to create this text, taking liberally from other best sellers. After a careful review of this "popular" text, I felt obligated to write this review. Someone needs to point out that the "emperor is not wearing any clothes!"

This book was a required text for the Vector Calculus course. The style and content are fine in the first chapters (Ch. 12) until I needed an alternative viewpoint. I was amazed how straightforward was the material which I couldn't understand from Stewart's book. The author rambles from one point to another, intersperses easy topic with advanced instead of building on what has already been explained. Moreover, in many cases he just gives a senseless definition and only after several pages (sometimes chapters) illustrates the essence of the principle and its application to the real world. Despite the obvious drawbacks, the book has two pluses: accurate (solvable) exercises and good intros to each chapter. Nevertheless, it is still hard to get used to applying the topics covered after a single reading, so the former positive moment doesn't help much. If you want an intuitive approach to calculus, get Thomas/Finney's book Calculus and Analytic Geometry (I used 1990's edition).

Reader reviews on the 4th edition are split (see below), but I liked this book in the calculus class I was taking at University of Massachusetts. The breadth is good (almost too much for a two-semester class), the content well presented, and, yes, many problem sets are well done (although I learned to hate related rates problems in the first semester). Students will need some additional materials, however: (1) the Student Solutions Manual (James Stewart, 4th ed.) which gives the answers to all odd-numbered problems (Brooks/Cole guards its teachers' answers and reserves the even-numbered ones for the teachers' edition). (2) The CD/ROM Journey Through Calculus (Win 98/2, Pentium II or >) was helpful in the first semester, but less so in the second. Most teachers require use of a TI-86 calculator, so you will need not only the TI manual sold with the calculator, but also (3) Single Variable Calculus 4th ed., James Stewart ("Calclabs with the TI85/86"), which was annoying because the sequence of button-pushing was not all that clear, and the correct answers to problems are not given (so you have no way to check)--but you need the book to figure out the TI-86, which is not intuitively obvious.

I sometimes wonder: what other calculus books are out there? And how much of a market share does Brooks/Cole have, with this integrated set of materials?

This is a fun book, hard to put down, and is comparable to a romance novel or a so-called "chick flick"--with unfortunately about as much depth. If you are a Feynman fan or a Physics fan or someone who is considering Physics as a career--this book is 5 stars. What the author omits one can can figure out,if you already know quite a bit. I dropped out of Physics as I preferred reading about the great Physicists to working through the problems in the Electricity and Magnetism or Quantum Mechanics texts, and did not have the feel for all those waveicles.

Since my brother was for a time a theoretical Physicist I heard much of the Feynman folklore. Gleick captured the folklore quite well. But the power and influence of the famous lectures given by Feynman to Caltech freshman and sophomore Physics students(known simply as Feynman's Lectures)was understated. During the last half of the 60s and through the 70s it would be hard not to find Physics Graduate students at the elite Universities (Chicago,MIT and so on) intensely studying Feynman's lectures as preparation for their PHD comps. This is so well known that the conceitful dream of other introductory text writers such as Samuelson in Economics, is to have the same role in their field.

The real shortcoming of the book is that it is a 90% solution. It would be interesting to have compared him with other Physics theoreticans--as a group. They are quite similar in many ways. You look at the famous and not so famous in that area and they have a set of commonalities. They will have self-taught themselves Mathematical subjects and found those challenges less exciting than understanding the physical world. In fact,that is the rationale of their existence, at least for a time. They all need to be do-it-themselfers. Many are great puzzle solvers in other contexts. They almost all had a certain kind of nurturing to encourage them to develop their talents along the way. The author leaves the false impression that these are special characteristics of Feynman. They are not--he is special enough in his achievement.

The title genius in that already extremely intelligent group goes to those, like Feynman's fellow Noble recipients for developing Quantum ElectroDynamics (QED),who learned the regular stuff/theory so well they were smart enough to figure out difficult solutions for the problem that was implicit in the prior theory. The rarer type of genius is the Feynman treated the problem as if he had figured out just enough to know what the problem was and used novel means (now known as Feynman diagrams)to solve the problem--ignoring the powerful but obscuring technology developed by those who came before and developing new more usable tools.

Despite its originality Feynman did not regard the QED in the same light as his discovery (independent initially of his fellow Cal Tech professor Gell Mann)of a theory of weak interactions. But he regarded his Lectures in Physics as his great contribution--no where could you get that from Gleick. A very interesting oversight was that Gell-Mann suffered writers block but was emersed in the standard literature. But Feynman often worked things out but would not work them out in publishable form but when they were forced to work together they did very well indeed. This relationship should have been explored in more depth. I wondered did Gell-Mann serve as the filter to let some of the standard work or not?

The late great contemplative Thomas Merton kept himself cut out from the news while in the monestary except that which was shared with him by friends such as the Berrigan brothers and James Forest. Did Feynman have similar friends or associates who informed him of problems out in the Physics world he might be interested in? Feynmann appeared to have few lifelong friends beyond family if you listened only to Gleick, but some of his sometime collaborators seemed to have been friends, but not of long standing.

This book generates more questions than answers and adds too little to the knowledge of Feynman but synthesizes quite well. Good work, well written but not up to the clarity or completeness standards of the subject.

A man as brilliantly lucid as Richard Feynman deserves a biography equally brilliant and lucid. James Gleick achieves this. And though Richard Feynman is painted in human tones, the reader still experiences the mystique which surrounded this legend of science.

Some of the most enjoyable sections of this book deal not with physics or biography, but Feynman's philosophy and refreshingly rational worldview.

This book is a testament to the power and beauty of a great intellect, in its all its humanity.

My only reservation with this otherwise astounding book is that it was, at times, a bit too glowing and not critical enough. Feynman is presented as a scientific hero, but as we all know too well, even heros are not without their faults. As for these, as Feynman himself said, "it does no harm to the mystery to know a little about it."

There are many books by and about Feynman. The quality of Gleick's research and writing makes this book more comprehensive than any other biography on Feynman and this book also explains many complex physics ideas and concepts in simple language. This book energises the lover of physics and bestows the ability to understand high level concepts to the layman. By all accounts this is what Feynman was about and this book is essential reading for both physicists and couch-scientists. Incidentally the only people I've met who don't like the book are physicists who don't like Feynman all that much! For everyone else, enjoy. I have 3 copies and I'm keeping every single one of them!

If you are looking for a readable historical journal of the crusades, it doesn't get any better than this book. If you are looking for a historical research paper, with the reference section twice as long as the actual text, look elsewhere.
Reston does a wonderful job in narating the historical events in vivid detail. I really enjoyed the side stories; about the assassins, the early life of Richard and Phillip in southern France etc. His narration of various battles is very interesting, you almost live through the events as you read them.

After reading this book I read a couple of other books (Amin Malouf etc.) to verify his facts. Reston tells the story as it happened, even though he injects dialogs and personal interpretations every now and then. But in my mind he never compromises the truthfulness of the "big picture".
Many reviewers are unhappy about Restons treatment of the subject, but to me it is obvious that the book is not an exhaustive historical manual. It is a easy reader on the third crusade, which preserves the actual events in their entirety, spiced by personality portraits and a few personal interjections of local culture. The homosexual inclination of Richard is not a made-up theory, many events of the time (Richards visit to the church in Greece on his way to Jerusalem, his personal life etc.) strongly support it. All respected historians acknowledge the humble and kind nature of Saladin. I also disagree that he portrays the two pivitol characters, Richard and Saladdin, as balck and white. While he admires Saladin for his character and morality, he is also very appreciative of Richards' bravery (facing the Muslim army alone in an ambush, and later riding his horse across enemy line challenging them). The only fictional additions are perhaps where he inserts dialogs etc., but I will accept those in the interest of preserving the readibility of the book.

Not many history books deserve to be called 'page turners,' but Warriors of God certainly qualifies. The author used some of the dramatic elements of fiction in his writing, without sacrificing historical accuracy. (The only bias I could find in the book was anti-French!) Saladin and Richard are are fully developed individuals, and Mr. Reston often imagines what they might have been thinking during a given situation. This is not the realm of the historian, but it did not detract from the history. He often quotes from the Koran and the Bible, which is entirely appropriate concerning a time period based, at least on the surface, on religious differences. The book is also spiced with Mr. Reston's wry wit. I found this to be an engaging story and part of the important historical context for today's world of tension in the Middle East.

This is it. Reston has taken an important piece of history and its main characters, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, and brought them to life. With clarity and detail, we are taken into 12th Century Middle East and European politics surrounding Jerusalem. At the same time we also learn new facts exposing a critical component of the conflicts gripping the same region today. The Third Crusade was sparked by the actions of Chatillon, Price of Kerak, a European stronghold in the Middle East. Despite a peace treaty, Chatillon attacked a camel train belonging to Saladin. When the European King of Jerusalem demand Chatillon make restitution, Chatillon replied: "Just as he is the lord of his land, I am the lord of my land. I have no truce with the Arabs." As Reston writes, "Chatillon's treachery had elevated Saladin prestige throughout his empire and made his cause righteous...A chain reaction began." Change a few words and this could be written about the conflict in the Middle East during the last year.

From this starting point the book just gets better with an understanding that only an experienced historian can develop and a storytelling that only a gifted writer can produce. Reston has proved himself both. This is a worthy companion to his earlier books, Galileo, A Life and The Last Apocalypse.