Jose Lezama Lima achieved one of the most complex and mesmerizing novels of the XXth century in Latin America. Paradiso is a Bildungsroman (a novel about an individual's growing process) as it is a Kunstroman (novel about the artist). The reader will find many references to Lezama's life, but his work goes beyond a self portrait. Jose Cemi is a little cuban boy who grows up having breathing problems, and grasping the lifes of those who were before him.
His individuality mixes with the other's and the result is a complex narrator, an overwhelming amount of literary, cultural and mythological references, a refined use of the metaphor and a hightened sense of reality. Cemi's world is more than nature... it is supernatural. Cemi attends to the world of death, as he remembers the lifes of his ancestors, as they are told to him by his mother Rialta, and grandmother Augusta. The first half of Paradiso is all about the family... then uncle Alberto's death marks a point of change in the novel. From that moment on, it focuses in Cemi's friendship with two other students: Fronesis and Focion. The three of them constitute a triangle in which homosexuality, love, erotism, unity, mythology and androginy are the main topics. As well as incest.
When this simbolic triangle breaks, Cemi is ready for the epiphany: he meets Oppiano Licario: a friend of his father who promised him, as he was dying, to look after his son (Cemi). Licario also witnessed Alberto's sexual iniciation. He is a poet, and he is the one who can bring Jose Cemi out of the time of desperation into a rythm of reflection and artistic contemplation.
There is so much more to this novel... You can only know what it is all about by reading it. I can here only give you a few pieces. As Lezama believed: only what is hard is really rewarding, and this is particularly true for young people.

I would argue that Paradiso is the best novel of the 20th century. I don't believe this because of the plot; as a matter of fact, I don't really think there is much of a plot here. I say it because of factors that have to do with the author, the time in which he wrote this, and how those elements combined to make this incredible piece of literature.

A little bit of history: by the time Lezama Lima wrote this novel, he was already a well-known writer in Cuba. He and some friends had started a literary magazine, and actually, he was best known for his poetry. When Castro's revolution came to be in 1959, it marked the end of Cuba's literary life. Writers like Lezama Lima could keep writing so long as they wrote nothing controversial, nothing too "out there," nothing that could even hint a thought of anything that could be deemed "counter-revolutionary." And soon after Lezama Lima wrote Paradiso.

Now a little bit about the novel. Consider it, really, a long, endless conversation with many, many asides. It is complex if only because there are so many run-on sentences, so many thoughts and descriptions and details, that it's easy to lose track and just find yourself thinking, period. And I think that's what he was going for. The book covers just about everything: politics, ethics, philosophy, homosexuality, love, religion, etc. I thought when I read it that basically Lezama Lima just wanted to express his thoughts and opinions on everything (I later learned I was pretty correct about that, but more on that in a minute). What this brilliant man had to say is well-worth reading, even today.

But now, let's go back to the time and place when this was written. A few years after Castro came into power, and after he had declared his Communist intentions. With the publication of this novel, Lezama Lima's fate was sealed. As a homosexual man living in a country with a severely homophobic dictator, life had already been getting more and more difficult for him. But when Paradiso came out, he was officially declared "non-person" by the regime. For those unfamiliar with the concept, I will explain that being declared "non-person" essentially means just that: you cease to exist in the eyes of the government. You are erased from the history books, from the record books, you lose your job, people who visit you or have anything to do with you risk losing their government freebies and suffering reprisals. Lezama Lima was no longer a national literary treasure, and the man who up until that moment was considered one of the most respected writers in Latin America, was reduced to nothing.

I had the honor of meeting his younger sister a short while ago. She was sharing the contents of private letters between her and her brother from the years after the publication of Paradiso to those before his death. They revealed so much about Lezama Lima as a person, how he saw life, how he regarded his family (all of whom were in exile and whom he missed terribly). They reveal his gentleness, the tenderness he felt about nature, his family, his memories. And they also reveal the hell that his life had become: the loneliness, the constant vigilance, the pain he felt over what had become of his country.

Being privy to such an experience really only affirmed my thoughts about this novel. He must have known what lay in store for him, and yet it didn't stop him. He still wrote it. When the government demanded that he denounce his own book, the one he considered his masterpiece, his message to the world, in essence, he refused. It simply fills me with awe. For that alone the book is worth reading.

I was thrown a bit by the first, say, hundred or so pages of this monumental novel. What was going on with the almost unbearably baroque prose style? The author's very sentences, cluttered and clogged with obscure adjectives, parentheical asides, dangling clauses, incomprehensible imagery, seemed to be undermining the flow of his (admittedly digressive, non-linear) plot. I felt like no one was getting anywhere, which, after persevering for a few hundred more pages, I realized was the point. It would be all but impossible to synopsize this novel's central action--if you can even call it action, for, as in Proust and the Great Russian novels (which served as obvious models, it seems safe to say)--there's a lot more conversing than carrying on. There are great, chapters-long debates on homosexuality, philosophy, and politics. Evidently a voracious and learned reader, Lezama Lima seems to have tried to cram all of his knowledge into this, his one and only novel, which, again, is appropriate considering that the book itself seems to be about the totality of human existence (I'm still riddling this one out.) Once I became used to the style and to the rather lenghty debates, I realized that what I was immersed in was a masterpiece, a book as confusing, messy, overwhelming and beautiful as life itself. I can't say that every reader will warm to Paradiso--it is hard going from start to glorious finish--but I do believe that the book deserves a crtical reevaluation. Let's put it alongside not only Gabriel Garcia Maquez and Carlos Fuentes, but also Joyce, Flaubert, Tolstoy and Proust and see where it stands. I have the feeling it might be one of the more important books of the last century.

I was amazed by the story line, the gripping tale, and the way in which Klasko wove his knowledge of both business and medicine into a compelling story. If Doctors don't get it after reading this book, they never will.

Klasko and Shea take the complex issues of today's managed care environment and present it in a way that is understandable and fun to read. This book is a "must read" for anyone serving on hospital boards!

This book creatively combines science fiction and medicine (which are not as diametrically opposed as one might think). The authors have successfully explained the monumental changes that have occured in the health care industry over the past 15 years in an informative yet entertaining way. I found this book to be thought provoking, intriguing and extremely enjoyable. It really is a "must read" for anyone currently (or thinking about) working in health care. Drs. Klasko and Shea present a realistic and, thankfully, optimistic outlook on the evolution and future of health care. It is a remarkably well written book that will draw readers in and leave them wanting for more. Hopefully, a sequel is in the works!

I've read all the Cheetah Girls books and Shop in The Name of Love is by far the best. When Chanel gets hold of her mother's credit card she maxes it out and acts like she's large n in charge. She also steals and lies to her freinds and mother.
It teaches an important letter to young Divettes in Traing.
Also read Book 1- Wishing On A Star.

i liked this book becuase it is definitely cheetah-licious!i like the fact that they have no profanities and teaches you a lesson. it makes you feel good and like a divette-in-trianing.i also liked this book because i can read it anytime and not get in trouble or feel disgusted. i'm not used to reading non-sci-fi books so this is a surprise for me.i hope whom ever reads this feels the same way i felt.

I love that each of the cheetah girls book are in a different characters voice and that each of the five characters are so different. I'm latina, so I love the character Chanel who is dominican like me! Shop in the Name of Love is in chanel's voice and she is like a lot of chicas in my neighborhood--``adobo down'' as she says. i hope a lot of other chicas like me read the cheetah girls books. they are coolio!

A great book which changed the way we look at poetry produced by an oral tradition. Based on fieldwork by Milman Parry Lord shows the structure behind the improvisation and applies the theory to Serbo Croation epic tradition, Homer and French medieval poetry.

A groundbreaking book which redefined the way we look at oral tradition. Oral-formulaic theory developed on Milman Parry's fieldwork applied to Serbo-Croatian singing, Homeric poetry and medieval French epic. I used the book during research on scottish ballads. Now finally a second edition with a wonderful cd.

Like many graduate students in Classical Studies, I had to read _The Singer of Tales_ in a course on Homeric poetry. What I found in it completely altered my understanding of Homer and of epic, and even today it's almost impossible for me to read the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ as anything other than oral poems. I did a research paper on another book edited by Albert Lord (_The Wedding of Smailagic Meho_), an epic sung by a Yugoslav Muslim and recorded by Parry in the 1930s. The similarities, both in plot and in formulaic style, between this epic and Homer's are unmistakable. I highly recommend this book; it's much more accessible than Parry's collected papers.

This new collection presents original stories which focus on the theme of evolving artificial intelligences and the questions about humanity versus machine which evolve. From the question of whether a clone of Adolf Ecihmann will ever show remorse for Nazi history to the rationing of speech when words begin to take physical form, [Swift] Thoughts is packed from cover to cover with unexpected twists which will delight both seasoned fans and those who are newcomers to Zebrowski's art.

Zebrowski is SF's thinking man's writer, a writer who can mix and mingle and weave science, law, humor, and philosophy throughout his stories that range from hard SF to Alternate History to first alien contact. Zebrowski is a modern master of SF and "Swift Thoughts" is a thought-provoking collection of 24 masterful tales... Gary S. Potter Author/Poet

Enhanced with an informative introduction by Gregory Benford, Swift Thoughts is a superbly presented anthology of twenty-four science fiction short stories written by the undeniably talented George Zebrowski. From an alien takeover of one of the Stooges to the strict rationing of words in an era when speech has physical form, to hardcore sci-fi and tales of excitement and pushing human boundaries, Swift Thoughts in an engaging, varied, and enjoyable read for science fiction buffs in general, and George Zebrowski fans in particular!

when this book used to be out of print, legions of ambitous tap dancers - including myself - were searching used-book stores across the country to find a copy. i know some who ended up copying every single page in the lincoln center library. the reason is very simple: there is no other book on the subject that even comes close to gathering this much information on the history of tap dancing. even though historians may argue about some details, the book is usually considered the standard by all the tap pros i know and whoever reads it will have a good understanding of where the art form comes from, what the important issues are, what stages of development tap dancing went through, who the important dancers of different times and styles were, and what the characteristics of different styles and approaches in tap dance are. if you want to know about the history of tap: get this book. otherwise you will find yourself digging through the shelves of rare book stores when it is out of print again.

This is a fantastic book! In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I made my college advanced tap class read it, as well. They were truly inspired by this book and have gained a renewed since of determination as far as entering the field of "commercial entertainment" with an emphasis on tap. Each person has a truly unique account of how it was back in the day, when people actually went to "tap clubs" just like we would go to dance clubs nowadays. What an experience to see this exciting time through their eyes.

This book is wonderfully written with first-hand accounts about show business during the first half of the 1900's. It is not just for tap dancers, but for anyone interested in getting a feel for the way of life during that period. The amount of information I learned about vaudeville, movie musicals, and even black history in America is much more than I expected when I picked up this book. I would highly recommend it to anyone!

we are one private bank (BCM) in morocco please send us a proforma invoice and a if it's possible a commercial catalog describing the contents of th book. thank you

In the early 1970s I was working on practical forecasting methods to apply to the U.S. Army supply depot workloads. Exponential smoothing was the commonly used "automatic" technique (once smoothing constants have been determined) that had great advantages over the informal methods used by the Army. Then someone told me that Box-Jenkins techniques were more general and powerful. I got a copy of the first edition published in 1970 and found that I could read and understand it even though I had little statistical training. I had a bachelors degree in mathematics. I got to appreciate the book even more when I took a short course from George Box, George Tiao and David Pack based on the book. I began to grasp some of the key ideas of stationary and nonstationary time series and learned about model selection, diagnostic checking and estimation. This started my interest in becoming a statistician and gave me the practical side of time series analysis first. I later specialized in it and got a Ph.D. in statistics.

Gwilym Jenkins died many years prior to this edition and Box's colleague Greogory Reinsel took on the task of helping to revise and update it.

It retains its original flavor. It is an applied book with many practical and illustrative examples. It concentrates on the three stages of time series analysis: modeling building, selection, estimation and diagnostic checking and how to iterate the process toward a good solution. The ARIMA time series models are what are considered. The theory of stationary and nonstationary time series is introduced to motivate interpretation of autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation in the model identification phase. Operator notation is introduced and used throughout the book to simplify equations. For me it helped simplify things and illuminate some concepts. But many readers found it difficult and confusing. the book is very systematic and practical. Many of the examples are real examples from Box's work in the chemical industry and his consulting during his career at the University of Wisconsin and also the consulting experience of Gwilym Jenkins in England.

The publishers and some amazon reviewers say that this edition is a major revision. The second edition published in 1976 was criticized for being essentially a reprint of the first. Although there is a new chapter 12 on intervention analysis and outlier detection it mainly is an expansion of ideas already discussed in the first edition. Theoretical results are kept aside in appendices as in previous editions.

This is not an up-to-date text on the theory of time series. It deals strictly with the time domain approach and does not include recent advances including nonlinear and bilinear models, models with non-Gaussian innovations and bootstrap or other resampling methods.

To get a balanced approach that includes the theory for frequency and time domain approaches the book by Shumway, the latest edition of the Brockwell and Davis text and the latest edition of Fuller's text are appropriate. For a graduate course I taught at UC Santa Barbara in 1981 I used the first edition of Fuller's book. Anderson provides a thorough account of the time domain theory. Excellent texts that specialize in the frequency domain approach are Bloomfield's second edition and the two volume book by Priestley. Brillinger's text is also worthwhile for those interested in spectral theory (frequency domain statistics).

Although there are many things that is text does not cover, it remains the classical text on a rich class of time domain methods that are still very practical. This is a text I bought for reference even though I still have the first edition.

Box-Jenkins is THE definitive, foundational text in time series analysis. Mastery of this volume requires extensive graduate level understanding of mathematical statistics. While difficult even for intermediate statistical practitioners, this text is necessary for any professional who examines time series data and well worth the considerable effort to acquire mastery.

I've been saying this Novena for almost 20 years. It has been a source of comfort and strength to me and anyone I have recommended it to. The only place I've been able to find this book in recent years is at Amazon!

This book is a wonderful way to increase our awareness of the power of prayer and to help us realize that Our Blessed Mother always listens to us. I am glad I could finally get another copy!

This is a long Novena. It is 27 days of asking and 27 days of Thanksgiving. My mother has been saying this Novena for years. Not until I was over 30 did I borrow hers. I believe in this Novena. It is very powerful. As the book states, "A laborious Novena, but a Novena of Love. You who are sincere will not find it too difficult, if you really wish to obtain your request."

While the content of this book was excellent, I was even more drawn to the illustrations. Ms. Jones demonstrates poignancy, wisdom, wit, and whimsy in portraying the book's message, always remembering that kids have great sensibilities and that, while words may teach us, viual appeal "sits us down" to be taught.

A delight to the eye.

I read Sugar Was My Best Food to learn more about what it must have been like for my husband when he became a diabetic at age 13. I was so impressed by the honest feelings expressed by the young author, and by the tremendous support he got from his family. Anybody who loves or works with a child with juvenile diabetes should read this terrific book. And diabetic kids should read it to learn how heroic they are and that things will get better with time.

My 9 year old son was just diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. He has never been interested in reading . He received this book as a gift and started reading. He finished it in 4 days and has never finished a chapter book in his life. We need more books about kids with diabetes for him to read. Excellent book.

Now away from Snowglade, Family Bishop must face terrifying new challenges on a devastated world. This book is something of a departure from the Galactic Centre storyline, yet Benford weaves a suspenseful and fascinating story involving a bizarre race of aliens.

The "Great Sky River" series eschews the traditional science fiction device of portraying human beings as creatures apparently inferior to greater alien intelligences, yet having some indefinable superiority. How many stories, particularly as found in "Analog", have you read where humanity or an intrepid human explorer tricks superior (intellectually speaking) aliens by some sort of street smarts or idiosyncratic human trait ? Don't go looking for that smugness here. Fifty years ago John W Campbell challenged his writers to "show him a creature that thinks as well as a man only differently", but Benford has demolished the idea of mere equality in intellectual power between humans and aliens. The mechs and cyborg intelligences in this series are drawn as well as non-human aliens can be, their motivations and capabilities (as well as thought processes) are described without lapsing into merely "jazzing up" human characteristics. Benford's aliens are aliens in mind as well as physique and no reader can fathom their true nature. Benford's humans are hunter-gathers, appropriating technologies and materials they can not create themselves. William Tenn's description of humans as " rats in the walls" is carried to an extreme in "Tides of Light". Family Bishop merely dodges incomprehensible aliens and forces before fortune steers them to the next instalment. Benford has made an elegiac vision of the future, incorporating grandeur like Arthur C Clarke in "The City and The Stars" with a mysterious plot. The aliens are ALIEN and the humans are so different in physical nature amd cultural millieu as to be almost unbelievable. Strongly recommended.

Gregory Benford is one of the few authors who don't betray science in their science-fiction. No Star Wars or Star Trek-like anthropocentrist grotesqueries in his Galactic Centre saga : the human "heroes", led and pushed rather than self-guided through our ruthless Milky Way, are little more than feral hunter-gatherers confronted to all-emcompassing alien plots. And this, even as they are routinely described as using technologies far beyond any cyberpunk gizmo ; in fact, Benford's complex and consistent characters face mind-staggering challenges, their own cultural inheritance being one amongst many. Even the classical galactic-scale plots found in Dune or the Foundation series are utterly reduced to naught compared with the (very) long-term projects of the past and present intelligences competing in Benford's universe. Now go and read this book, along with the five others in the series !