William H. White (Mark Rutherford) presents a completely honest account of his life in Victorian England. He reveals his struggle to find spiritual security in a world of doubt. At first glance, Rutherford may seem pessimistic, but only at first glance. He endeavors to take a spiritual journey comparable to John Bunyan (who, in fact, shared the same home town as Wm. H. White). Very apt for the modern reader who may find himself struggling with faith in a world of doubt.

The 'Autobiography' and 'Deliverance' of 'Mark Rutherford' is a fictionalized autobiography (in two parts) by the Victorian civil servant and writer W. H. White. White wrote to help people with personalities like his own -- self-educated intellectuals, lonely, oversensitive, depressive, and with poor self-esteem. Fortunately, he never descends into self-pity or sermonizing. His writing has long been admired for its extraordinary precision, poignancy and economy. This makes him one of the best of the late Victorian novelists, and a writer who rewards repeated re-reading.

Dr. Lane's commentary on Mark strikes an excellent balance between historical, theological, and practical issues. He also covers textual variants in the manuscript tradition. I found his brief appendix on the issue of Mark 16:9-20 to be very informative.

Lane also does well with sticking to the gospel of Mark while not diverting his attention to parallel passages in Matthew and Luke. He makes a compelling case for the dating and place of authorship of this gospel. His attention to the "difficult" areas of Mark is probably the highlight of this commentary. His concise and forceful arguments are not overly wordy while still being clearly expressed.

Good commentary, there is much you will learn from Lane's work. If you're studying Mark, this is a great book for you.

"How can you print a piece of your own soul," Dickinson, p. 51

This is the 2nd in the Krull and Hewitt's "Lives of ..." series. The book contains 19 chapters on 20 writers in birth order: Murasaki Shikibu (973?-1025?), Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Jane Austen (1775-1817), Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), Charles Dickens (1812-1870), Charlotte & Emily Bronte (1816-1855 & 1818-1848), Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), Mark Twain (1835-1910), Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Jack London (1876-1916), Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), E. B. White (1899-1985), Zora Neale Hurston (1901?-1960), Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)

This is a perfect book for young adolescents and pre-teens who as they grow and mature frequently feel awkward. Krull introduces us to the idiosyncrasies of the literary. Some of the authors were loners, eccentric, a wee bit peculiar. Michael Jackson's behaviors might seem normal when held in comparison. Some retreated into themselves. Some sought out adventures. Some as adults were unsuccessful at the ordinary.

Some worked at a young age to support the family. Some took daily walks, very long daily walks. Some were not healthy and therefore wrote in bed. There were some similarities and some differences, but they all shared a singular conviction to write and write they each did well.

Hewitt's delightful portraits of the writers are precious. My favorite portrait is of Frances Hodgson Burnett of "The Secret Garden" fame. Her hat is the secret garden.

Given the high price of the book, I was surprised that Krull did not include a list of the authors' books and/or poems and the publication years. END

This book is a fun and informative book. The pictures are filled with humorous meanings and hidden information. The book keeps the reader's attention by keeping the included information short and simple, but also makes sure that the reader gets as much possible about the author. This book is great for kids and students to use as a report source as it is filled with great information. Kids would rather use this book as an information source rather than an encylopedia since the information is easy to understand. Authors in there are some you may not know, ( Murasaki Shikibu) and some well know ones ( Charles Dickens). I am glad I purchsed this book. I really liked the pictures which are so vibrant with color. This would make a great buy.

I must first of all confess that, since reading Huck Finn as a kid, this is the only Twain I've read. I must also confess that the nearest comparison I can give for this book is the writings of William Burroughs!

In his last years Twain several times approached the idea of a story about a mysterious, "satanic" figure who appears to a small community and brings about an anti-religious revelation. This book contains his three attempts, thankfully free of the posthumous bowdlerisation that marred its previous publication.

The middle section is most like "classic" Twain, a semi-comic episode set in the familiar time and territory of Tom Sawyer. The "bookends", however, are set in a vaguely medieval middle-Europe and have a somewhat Gothic atmosphere. The first section is the most scathing, while the last is more like a dream.

The effect of these three substantial fragments being presented together is a remarkable insight into the creative processes of an extraordinarily imaginative mind. This breaking beyond narrative and into the writer's consciousness is the reason I draw the comparison with Burroughs. The result was never meant to be published as is, but nonetheless it is a challenging and haunting work, which provides a unique insight into the writer's mind.

THis is an excellent book! I really liked the main character and the way he love the ourdoors.

I bought this book for my History course and its absolutely Great ! All the main points have been neatly written on the side, which makes reading very easy. If you are purchasing this book, you may also want to buy the Study guide which comes along with it.

This book lets you know all the concepts just by reading it through. I bought it for the history class and this is by far the best book i've ever read in the classes.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER is a good book. The author Mark Twain writes about a boy named Tom Sawyer together with his friends, Joe Harper and Huck Finn, go on awseome adventures.

Tom Sawyer faces a lot of problems and troubles that the average boy takes on. For instance, he faces girls and experiences love; he one day meets a girl named Becky Thatcher and really falls for her. He also faces boys in fights. He likes to tease, is rowdy, and is just plain naugthy. But there are some things that they face that the average boy won't dare take on. Like the adventure to the cemetery where he and his friend witness something and do some detective work. Another is when they all run away to a distant place. See how it all turns out. The last adventure is when Tom and his friend Becky Thatcher gets trapped in a cave with the town's most wanted man.
Read to see how they survive.

This book is interesting. I invite you to read it.

This book, considered one of the classics of American Literature, tells the story of Thomas Sawyer, a mischievous boy who gets in many troubles and adventures together with his friends Huckleberry Finn, Joe Harper, and his beloved girlfriend from school, Becky Thatcher.

Tom lives with his aunt Polly, his sister Mary and his well-behaved younger brother Sid, who always sneaks on him. He is a very playful and imaginative kid, whose games of pirate and Indian sometimes go far beyond the limits of imagination and take a much more real stance.

Mark Twain explores Tom's mind as a child, exposing its dreams and weaknesses, taking the reader back to his childhood memories and making this book a must-read classic for all ages.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is a wonderful book. It is an energetic tale of a mischievious boy, based on Twain's own youth, with some fictional items thrown in. The story follows Tom Sawyer as he goes from antagonizing his Aunt Polly, to searching for treasure, from conning his peers, tohanging out with his best friend Huckleberry Finn. His life changes dramaticaly though when he and Huck witness the brutal murder of a man by a notorious lawbreaker. The lawbreaker, an Indian named Joe, blames the murder on the town drunk, Muff Potter. Can Tom go against his oath with Huck to stay quiet, and proves Muff's innocence? Or will he keep quiet and send Muff to his death, just to safe himself from the murderous Injun Joe? You will have to read the book to find out!
In my opinion, this is one of the greatest books ever written. Mark Twain has a way of describing the intricacies of childhood behavior so that kids know what he is saying, and also at the same time, he can describe the same in an adult, refined, manner so that grown ups can fully comprehend what is going on. If you have not read this book yet, you are truly missing out on a well written classic. This novel has been read for over 100 years, and I believe that it shall be read for another 100 years.

With this novel Mark Twain confidently changed the way Americans read as well as viewed literature. Through the careful construction of the two main characters Huck and Jim, Twain explores the questionable moral values and hypocrisy of society. Against all odds Huck and Jim form an honest relationship that rises above race, slavery, and southern society. Twain's story is told through the voice of boy who has not yet been "sivilized" by society, and is still able to live outside of convention. This novel combines the strong language that Twain has been remembered for, and a message that is as relevant today as it was in the early nineteen hundreds. As a college student who has read this book in middle scool, high school, and college, I can say that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written for all ages and is an important and necessary educational tool.

I read this, since it was my school's outside reading assignment. The printing was so small, that I first thought it would be a boring read. But I soon figured that I was wrong. I found myself slowly slipping into the story as if it was all happening before my own eyes. The characters were very interesting. Especially Huck Finn seemed like a very likable person with a strong identity, wit, and a soft heart. He does not want to sit and let the world rule over him, but instead test his own ideas and proves to the world that he can be better than what the society expacts him to be. And although many say it is a racially biased book because of its frequent use of N word, nobody can deny that it was a commonly used word in the 1800 where the rogue institution called 'slavery' was considered healthy and inevitable. As a matter of fact, this is a book that actually tries to tell the world about the evilness of racial prejudice not promote it. One should read between the lines, in order to acknowledge Twain's subtle attempts. It was a thrilling experience and I recommend people to have for their own!!!!

Mark Twain's classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, tells the story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious.

Though some of the situations in Huckleberry Finn are funny in themselves (the cockeyed Shakespeare production in Chapter 21 leaps instantly to mind), this book's humor is found mostly in Huck's unique worldview and his way of expressing himself. Describing his brief sojourn with the Widow Douglas after she adopts him, Huck says: "After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people." Underlying Twain's good humor is a dark subcurrent of Antebellum cruelty and injustice that makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a frequently funny book with a serious message.

If you are a fanatic of all things Springfield, then nothing I say will dissuade you from reading this book. For the Simpsons viewer or trivia buff, the stance of the Simpsons is secondary to philosophy in this book. If you want to try to understand some philosophical ideas with examples from the Simpsons, then this book is for you.

By and large, the writers of this book are fans of the show. Although they quote a bit, their quotes are not always correct, and this may detract from enjoyment. For instance, the argument that Marge is an example of the virtuous person was made. It mentions several instances to support this, but the writer of that essay does not address the episodes that show her gambling addiction. Without knowing if the episode came out before or after the essay, I don't know if this is a simple error or not.

Some of the material is quite dense, and the relation to the Simpsons is not direct. The last essay explaining Heidegger and postulating that Bart may be considered a "Heideggerian" has some very complex ideas.

This is not always bad. The essay talking of signifiers and the signified (Roland Barthes) actually made the ideas a little easier to understand. I remember going the S/Z many years ago. Giving me an example from a Simpsons episode was very helpful.

From the subtitle, I thought there would be more Eastern philosophy, but alas, there was not a whole lot of mention. The philosophers covered are primarily Western.

I don't think that I would recommend this to Simpsons fans because they already know that the show is funny and needs to be seen repeatedly to get all the gags. I would recommend this to beginning philosophy students. Have fun!

I have been a Simpsons fan from the get-go. I watched the very first episode, the Christmas Special, in the lounge of my freshman dorm, and I have been an enthusiast ever since. The D'oh of Homer, edited by Irwin et al., is an organic product of the attraction the show has to the brainy among us.

The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh of Homer is compilation of Simpsonian essays written by working philosophers (as far as I can tell, "working philosopher" is an oxymoron) on various subjects. The text is divided among four sections: The Characters, Themes, Ethics and The Simpsons and Philosophers. I would propose a secondary classification scheme as well: (1) those essays that use familiar Simpsons personalities and situations as examples within a discussion of philosophical ideas and (2) those that try to extrapolate philosophical meaning from the show itself.

The chapters that I found most enjoyable where those of the former type, the ones that (re)introduced various ethical philosophies or values of critical commentary using the Simpsons to support their positions. Those essays about Nietzsche, American anti-intellectualism, allusion (a topic especially relevant to the Simpsons), and television's sexual politics were among my favorites.

There were some real stinkers, too. A few of the authors of these collected essays seemed to think that a TV show should present a consistent philosophy, which the Simpsons clearly does not.

Overall, I would recommend The Simpsons and Philosophy. For people who have never even thought about philosophy, this book would, in many respects, be a worthwhile introduction. However, as de Tocqueville predicted, some in our democracy will not appreciate such high browed pursuits, even when directed to a cartoon.

"The D'oh of Homer: The Simpsons and Philosophy" is editor William Irwin's second foray into returning philosophy to its marketplace origins, making it accessible to non-academics through pop-culture comparisons. Like his first, "Seinfeld and Philosophy," "D'oh" is an introductory-level philosophy text compiled of different papers and presentations given by various people in the philosophical field. Arguably, the Simpsons provide a far richer crop of philosophical conundrums than the "show about nothing" (who else would soundly wallop objectivist 'thought' like the "Ayn Rand School for Tots" episode), and that is reflected in the various chapters in the book, covering much of the major philosophical movements (although the moderns are strangely underrepresented).

Topics include whether Homer is an Aristotelian model (he isn't), whether Bart represents Nietzsche's Will to Power (the book says he might, but he doesn't), and if Maggie embodies the Tao (she does, to a certain degree). There are more non-philosophical essays as well, including a great one of gender discourse and sexual politics, and essays on parody and allusion. Unfortunately, due to the short nature of the essay format, these topics are never taken to any great degree of depth, but those looking for an introduction to philosophy will find them to be more than adequate.

As with any scholarly compilation, some of the essays are better (and better-written) than others, and the book's weakness lies in the fact that some of them clunk along at a jagged pace. Some were clearly written for an intellectual audience familiar with philosophical themes and discourse, and some were written for a higher degree of accessibility. That isn't to say that the essays aren't understandable, but the language, prose, and sentence structure of some (especially the more, um, dry examples) could be a real turn-off to those who would otherwise get a lot out of this book.

It's weak, but not too weak to overlook. The only other problem is that the Nietzsche essay works from a VERY narrow interpretation of old Freddy's works, and should be taken with a grain of salt - but that's a personal problem with the book, not a professional one.

Grade: B

I guess I expected that a platform independent standard such as XML would have been better expained using a platform independent language such as java. For the unix/java engineers out there....this book contains much useful information and don't get me wrong, I learned a lot. The question is, would I have learned as much or possibly more if I didn't have to put up with 90% of the code examples written in VBScript? Many examples require Internet Explorer. Content was up-to-date and informative but somewhat repetative (12 authors).

The book covers too many topics and just few are developed in deep while others are superficially introduced because not yet standardized at the time of print. The book claims it covers the following topics: XML, XSLT, DOM, DTD, SOAP, XLink, XPointer, XPath, WAP, WML...and more; but just XML, Schemas, DTDs and SOAP could almost fit the book's size.

Chapters don't follow a very logic thread and it doesn't deal enough with very relevant subjects. Wrox probably planned to make this book the XML bible but I think they are far from the target.

The XML declarative language, with its adaptability and expressive power, is continuing to become the language of choice for reporting and classifying information. XML is a formal grammar that captures the syntactic features of a document type definition, and its properties, syntax, and applications are discussed effectively in this book. It covers XML as formalized by the W3C and the authors show how to use XML in Web-based and database applications. Readers who have developed applications in HTML will probably view XML as somewhat more abstract, since the visual representation of the content of a document is not emphasized in XML. Readers are expected to have a background in HTML, JavaScript, Java, and ASP in order to read the book. Although XML can be learned by reading the W3C specifications, these documents are frequently difficult reading, and this book makes the learning of XML much easier than reading these specifications. They include the W3C specifications for XML 1.0 in an appendix to the book for the interested reader. The book is a little dated, since the W3C has been updating XML specs since the time of publication (especially with regard to schemas), but there is a 2nd edition coming out soon.

In Chapter 1, XML is introduced as a mark-up language and its inherent extensibility emphasized. This is followed by a detailed treatment of XML syntax in the next chapter, with emphasis placed on the hierarchical nature of XML. The authors do include a discussion of Processing Instructions (PIs) for users who want to use XML in this fashion.

Document Type Definitions (DTD) are the subject of Chapter 3, where the authors communicate effectively how DTDs formal grammar is used to specify the structure and permissible values of XML documents. The formal DTD structure is discussed, and the principles behind writing DTDs are effectively outlined. They also discuss the problems with using DTDs.

Data modeling with XML is discussed in the next chapter, with information modeling via static and dynamic models treated in detail, and the authors carefully distinguish these two approaches. The actual designing of XML documents is given a nice overview as well as the role of schemas in XML. This is followed in Chapter 6 by a discussion of the (tree-based) Document Object Model, which overviews how XML documents can be accessed by various programs. Some helpful examples are given on how the DOM can be used to create an XML document programmatically. An alternative way of processing an XML document is discussed in the next chapter on the (event-based) SAX interface. The authors outline in detail the benefits of using SAX rather than DOM. In Appendix B the reader will find the Internet Explorer 5.0 XML DOM 1.0 W3C specifications. In addition, in Appendix C, the specification for the SAX 1.0 interface is given.

The shortcomings of DTD are addressed in terms of XML Schemas and namespaces in chapter 7. Since this book was published, XML Schemas have reached W3C recommendation status as of Nov 2000. The authors give a good overview of namespaces and schemas, with helpful examples. This is followed in chapter 8 by a discussion of how to link and query into XML documents using the XML information set, XLink, XPath, XPointer, XML Fragment Interchange, with XLST covered in the next chapter. For database applications, the authors outline the differences between relational databases and XML documents. A very detailed treatment of how XLST transforms the source document is given, and the authors compare XLS and DOM transformations. An Internet Explorer XSL reference is included in one of the appendices of the book.

More details on the relationship between databases and XML is the subject of chapter 10, wherein the authors show how to store XML and how data can be communicated between different servers using XML. The issues involved when moving data from RDBMS to OODBMS or from Oracle to Sybase, are discussed by the authors. This is followed by an interesting discussion on how to use XML as a distributed component model for server-to-server communications via XML-Remote Procedure Call and Simple Object Access Protocol.

E-commerce applications are discussed in the next chapter, with EDI and its improvement via XML. The business markup language cXML , which allows business to business electronic commerce transactions across the Internet, is also treated in detail.

The authors then finally discuss how to render XML documents more readable and pleasing for the viewer in the next chapter using the style languages CSS and XSL. The discussion is really interesting, for the authors dig a little deeper into the foundations of style languages. The discussion of style languages as rule-based languages is particularly illuminating.

The next chapter is very interesting and its inclusion is actually very surprising, namely a discussion of the Wireless Application Protocol. The authors give an introduction to the Wireless Markup Language and WMLScript. The book ends with four useful chapters on case studies for data duality, distributed applications, a book catalog information service, and SOAP.

There are many applications of XML in many different areas, such as CellML (proprietary) used in cell biology, CML (Chemical Markup Language) for molecular chemistry, IML (Instrument Markup Language) for control of laboratory equipment, BSML (Bioinformatic Sequence Markup Language) for gene sequencing, and MathML for formatting of mathematical equations. I find XML an extremely powerful approach to information reporting and I am currently developing a package called NMML (Network Modeling Markup Language) for use in reporting results in simulation and mathematical modeling of networks, and FMML (Financial Modeling Markup Language) for use in reporting results in the modeling of financial instruments. This book, along with the W3C specifications, has been a tremendous help in the development of these applications.