The story starts in 1969 when, at the age of 44, Bill Stephens went
through a near-death experience that changed him instantaneously
from an agnostic to a spiritual seeker, erased his lifelong fear of death
and eradicated his crippling addictions. He "...exploded into a brilliance
beyond anything I could imagine, and I was immersed in the warmth
and joy of a Living Presence that loved me and accepted me totally."

During the experience, Stephens saw a face in the light that he later
identified as the great 20th century spiritual master, Avatar Meher Baba.
That was the beginning of the author's love affair with God. His
compelling book includes many personal and graphic stories
of the ups and downs of treading the Path of Love by following
the divine footsteps of the Master.

The author has written many previous books about science and the
oceans, marine animals, and undersea research. But this
is his finest work because it comes straight from the heart.

This book is brimful of God's presence. It weaves
His shining light between the sentences,
dancing with the words. The real-life vignettes are wonderful!

I was enthralled, inspired and tickled by the range
of potent, poetic images, intimate and
fascinating life details and real insight into
the nature, direction and synchronicities of
following a God-Realized Master in today's world.

Along with the inspirational material, superb
metaphors, and wisdom, I think the book
fills a significant niche. [Special appreciation
by the way for the material on Repeating God's
Name, tidbits like VP Gore's contact with
Meher Baba, and the light touch in much of the
poetry.] We've never before had published
biographical material about American followers
of Meher Baba that readers can identify with.
I admire the home-movie quality the author
brings to this volume.

Allan Y. Cohen, Ph.D., clinical psychologist;
author of Mastery of Consciousness (Harper),
co-author, Understanding Drug Use:
an Adult's Guide to Drugs and the Young. (Harper)

If you are looking for a comprehensive guide to the native fishes of Mississippi, you need look no further. Not only does this work include all native and exotic species of fish in Mississippi but also extensive biological information on each. This volume should prove useful to not only a well versed field biologist, but also anyone interested in fish.

I have to say up front that I am a bit prejudiced here. Dr. Ross is responsible for my current interest in fishes and I have been looking forward to this book for a while. That being said let me tell you what is good about this book... #1 The keys are outstanding, they are made so that the expert or layman can use them. Key identification points are well illustrated and explained #2 The species accounts are the best I have ever seen. There is excellent information on the biology and conservation concerns of each species. There is also a brief section on the meaning of each scientific name that will be of interest to the professional and beginner. #3 Dr. Ross included an excellent glossary and bibliography that will make further research and understanding easy. #4 There is also a section on the history of Ichthyology in the Southeast US in general and Mississippi in particular.

If you are interested in the fishes of the Southeast US this book will be useful and entertaining. It will be indispensable if you study fishes in any Mississippi river or Gulf drainage. I can remember my first day in class, thinking that we where just going to look at a bunch of minnows. I know better now, and this book will explain why.

I found it very useable and well organized - great pictures! We have been waiting years for this reference!

Fresh and enjoyable read. This book is a great companion to a solid Javascript reference after you have dabbled in some Client side scripting.

A task oriented book that, notwithstanding a small number of pages, manage to break some new grounds and cover a few advanced topics. Not suited for a complete programming novice, but if you have some programming experience and want an intelligent introduction it may be a great choice. Also recommended to JavaScript freaks looking for some refreshing material

JavaScript is one language that all too frequently is taken too lightly by too many people. Harder-core programmers frown at it, while in reality, they more frequently misunderstand it or under-value its powers.
If you need to learn JavaScript, have some programming experience and want an intelligent introduction, this book is what you want.
Unlike many other books I looked at when examining JavaScript, this one is new, is not condesending and has all the information needed to get you going in utilizing JavaScript in your web projects.
JavaScript can provide a very fast alternative to thing that hard-core programmers do on the back end, and can also utilize new technologies, like document manipulations without the use of frames. The book contains an exploration of the Document Object Model (DOM) and its more recent incarnations, and provides examples from people who are at the frontlines and know what you will need when you will venture on your own.
The book covers JavaScript's primitive objects, the creation of object classes, and shows your way through dynamic menus and many other exciting features of the language.
I will not recommend this book to people who come from the design angle of things. It does not explain too much on what is programming or on basics that designers need to know before stepping into the fold.
All in all, I liked this book a lot. In my eyes, it is better than the O'Reilly fare and when matched with a reference cheat sheet (like the one from O'Reilly), it can be all that you need.

Robin Williams is only eleven years older than I am, so I guess you could say I grew up with him. Mork and Mindy were primary staple when I was in high school. So when I found THE ROBIN WILLIAMS SCRAPBOOK on sale, I couldn't resist. And in only the first couple of pages, I knew it was a bargain at any price.

Intersperses with the necessary "place of birth" type information, Stephen Spignesi recounts Williams' life from the perspective of Williams' body of work. The book's chapters each represent Williams' work in chronological order as it relates to his life. Written in an engaging, immediate tone, the reader can't help becoming a part of the flow of the text, and the "legalized insanity" of William's life.

As I read, the book's humane, honest, and humorous tidbits that kept my emotions engaged. Learning of Williams' support of actor Christopher Reeve following the accident), his perchance for sexual humor and play, and his favorite joke. Filled with photos, stories of performances, and peaks into his personal life, THE ROBIN WILLIAMS SCRAPBOOK is a fascinating, must read for Williams fans. Very Highly recommended.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes Robin Williams. It is very well written, with lots of great pictures - and not just the ones that you always see. The book deals with a lot of what Robin has done on stage and on television, as well as his movie career. It also has chapters on Comic Relief, several interviews, and even a puzzle.

These are some of the things I really enjoyed in this book:
The highlights from An Evening With Robin Williams and the summary of An Evening at the Met.
The short descriptions of all the Mork and Mindy episodes, and the extensive summaries of the very first episode and the episode called Mork Meets Robin Williams.
The account of Mad Magazine's parody of Mork and Mindy: Shmork and Windy.
The long, interesting interviews.
The comments to each of Robin's movies, from Popeye in 1980 to Hamlet in 1997. First Spignesi says what the movie is about, and what he thinks, then comes what the critics said. Often we also get to hear something Robin said about the movie.
(This review is part of my comment on the book on my homepage.)

Steve's really done a great job with this book. It covers anything and everything you could ever want to know on Robin's work up to "Hamlet." Lots of great photos, too. If you're a fan of Robin, a fan of one of his films, or just like movies in general, this is a fabulous book to have.

Professor Booth's unsurpassed edition of the immortal Sonnets has an exhaustive consideration of all the issues that can perplex a reader, but it may proving daunting to beginning students. Undergraduate students may wish to begin with Katherine Duncan-Jones edition from Routledge (The Arden Shakespeare) or Burrows edition from Oxford. Advanced students in Shakespeare or English literature who intend to continue mining this ore over the years will find Booth's edition a precious resource for their library.

Rather than repeat the fine points in other reviews, allow me just to caution the reader about the change in the publisher's standards of printing (beginning around 2000): the paper gets cheap, and the binding too. I would love to support Yale University Press in its commitment to keep this edition in print. Unfortunately, if you are a serious enough student to value Professor Booth's work, you will be using this volume enough to need a better printing, and I need to encourage you to seek out a used copy of an earlier printing.

SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. Edited with analytic commentary by Stephen Booth. 583 pp. (Yale Nota Bene). New Haven & London : Yale University Press, 2000 (1977). ISBN 0-300-08506-0 (pbk.)

Shakespeare's 'Sonnets' is a deservedly well-loved body of poetry, and there have been innumerable editions. For the enthusiast and student, however, it's doubtful that there could be a better edition than that of Stephen Booth. Originally published in a bulky (and expensive) clothbound edition in 1977, it has now been reissued as a fat though fairly compact paperback that will put it within reach of a much wider audience.

One reason that Elizabethan lyrics are so powerful and memorable, is that they were composed in an age when poetry was still linked closely with music. Elizabethans were often competent musicians, and many of their poems were true lyrics or songs. Often their poems were set to music, and all were probably composed while the gentle plucking of a lute or some such instrument was running somewhere through the back of the poet's mind.

Today we live in an age when composers are no longer giving us real songs, songs that stay in the mind and that can be hummed or sung when for some reason or other they rise into consciousness; songs that are always there when we feel like singing, and that can help cheer us up, make us happy, and refresh our spirit; songs, too, for both light and more thoughtful moods.

In contrast to this true type of song, what we seem to be getting today is little more than words with little or no meaning accompanied by noise, the sort of stuff that a machine could write and probably is writing, and profoundly unmemorable.

Shakespeare's 'Sonnets,' however, bring us a world of meaning. The whole of life is in them - its joys and sorrows, its passions and frustrations and torments - and all expressed in some of the most sonorous and beautiful English ever written, and set to powerful rhythms that deeply penetrate the psyche.

Stephen Booth's edition, after a Preface in which he explains his procedures, gives us not one but two texts of the 'Sonnets,' each of which is printed on facing pages : The Text of the 1609 Quarto (Apsley imprint, the Huntington-Bridgewater copy), and Booth's edited text with modern spelling and punctuation.

Seeing the texts exactly as they were presented to Shakespeare's contemporaries is an interesting experience. Some readers will probably love the antique spellings and typography, other may hate it, but at least we've been given a choice. And having access to the Quarto can lead to a deeper understanding of the poems.

Booth's incredibly full and detailed commentary, a commentary for the advanced student and the scholar, and which "is designed to help a modern reader towards the kind of understanding that Renaissance readers brought to the works," is set in a rather tiny font and runs to over 400 pages. Here, in comments ranging from brief glosses to full-length essays, will be found the answer to every conceivable question we may have about an individual sonnet, and much more besides.

Booth has incorporated four extended essays into his analytic commentary : 1. On explications and emendations of unsatisfactory Shakespearian texts (pp.364-72); 2. On the special grandeur of the best sonnets (pp.387-92); 3. On spelling and punctuation (pp.447-520); 4. On the functions of criticism (pp.507-17).

Following the commentary Booth has provided a list of Abbreviations Used in the Commentary; two Appendixes (1. Facts and Theories about Shakespeare's Sonnets; 2. Excerpts from Book XIV of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'); a detailed Index to the Commentary; an Index of First Lines; and a section of Additional Notes. The book also includes illustrations of two title pages, and the incredible 'literal portrait of a beauty' on page 453.

It will be seen that Booth has set quite a feast before us, and probably one far bigger than many readers are looking for. Those who would prefer to have a version which, though still offering the original Quarto text along with a modernized text, but with a less detailed though equally sophisticated commentary which takes the form of sonnet-by-sonnet essays, might take a look at the far better produced and more beautifully printed edition of Helen H. Vendler ('The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets,' Belknap 1999).

Others might prefer to think of Booth's prize-winning edition as a sort of investment, which perhaps contains more than they presently need, but which they will probably be able to put to fuller use later on. In terms of its content, the Booth seems to me to be unexceptionable. In terms of its physical makeup, however, it leaves much to be desired.

Although it is well-printed, the paper is not of particularly good quality. The fonts used for the 'Sonnets,' though not large, are readable. But the fonts used in the rest of the book are so tiny as to make them tiring to read for any length of time. You will need very good eyesight and very good lighting to feel comfortable when reading this book.

To return to the 'Sonnets,' the fact that their lines stick so easily in our minds, and that the re-reading of favorites will soon see us having memorized, if not the whole sonnet then certainly substantial portions of it, seems to me proof that the 'Sonnets' are real sustenance for the spirit. They help at different times to to fortify our spirit, to clarify our own thoughts about life, and even on occasions to cheer us up.

As such, and whether we realize it or not, they become a kind of word-music that all of us need. So whether you go for the Booth or the Vendler or some other less ambitious edition, my advice would be to give Shakespeare's words a chance to work their magic. You may be surprised at what they can do for you.

134 pages of sonnets - 583 page book!

This is surely the definitive edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets.

I thought I knew the sonnets until I read this - and re-read and read again.

The poems are presented in facsimile with a modern version facing allowing the readers to attempt their own direct reading if they wish. The modern version has a British spelling slant - which I find gratifying!

Mr Booth is painstaking in his scholarship - attempting to give a feeling for the Renaissance reader's understanding of the poems as well as explaining the 'meaning' of the lines. And his attempts are successful.

I cannot imagine a better edition in my lifetime!

The sonnet is one of the more difficult-to-write forms of poetry, with very strict rules on rhyming and lines, and that makes Shakespeare's collection of sonnets all the more impressive. Shakespeare sprinkled his various plays with poetry and songs, but there is something of a different flavor to these works.

Titleless, identified only by numbers, these poems have vivid metaphors and imagery ("let not winter's ragged hand deface," "gold candles fix'd in heaven's air"). The tone of the poetry varies from one sonnet to the next; sometimes it focuses on old age, to love that "looks upon tempests and is not shaken," and simple expressions that can't really be interpreted any other way. Some of it is pretty well-known ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?/Thou art more lovely and more temperate") but most of them you won't have seen before.

Even if you're not normally a fan of poetry, the delicate touch of Shakespeare's words is worth checking into. Fantastic.

This edition of the sonnets is one of the most important and the description on Amazon is misleading - It is actually both volumes 24 and 25 bound together so you get the complete set It's hard to find this book so it is a great find in this version

Shakespeare's amazing Sonnets are compiled here in this wonderful volume, a great addition to anyone's bookshelf. If you love Shakespeare, then this is a must-have book.

This unusual book deals with men and women of various countries and religions, many of them recognized today as saints, masters or noted mystical poets. Some are little known in the West, such as the intriguing Rabia of Basra, a beautiful Iraqi woman living in a brothel who today is accepted as an authentic saint. The brothel was a cover for her real work of saving souls. Another fascinating soul: George Fox, who was beaten, spat upon and jailed repeatedly because he told people they did not need preachers to be saved because God is within every heart. The courage and teachings of George Fox led to a mystical movement known as the Society of Friends, or the Quakers. One of the most memorable parts of this book deals with the great contemporary master Meher Baba, who, while observing silence for forty-four years, inspired a worldwide movement of people who believe that religion is unimportant while God is at the heart of everything and everyone.

Imagine being invited to a party where a dozen great, enlightened souls are sitting around telling stories of their lives! That kind of experience is, in a way, what you may get when you dip into "Souls on Fire." The author has chosen 12 great saints, mystics and masters as the focus for his book, and he has combed the records to gather some of the most fascinating stories about these great souls. He tells those tales with his own unique brand of folksy erudition. The profundity of the stories is matched only by the charm of their telling. What a party! Enjoy the tasty, spicy and refreshing tidbits of love and lore.

Very powerful, a mainline of God's Love ... shooting straight for the heart.

Sources of Indian Tradition is to date the best compilation of primary sources from India's long intellectual, philosophical and religous traditions. It introduces the reader to seminal texts in the Brahmanic tradition, to ethics, metaphysics, and theories of state and society in Jainism and Buddhism, to ethics, treatises on art and culture, political theory and statecraft and philosophical and religious texts in the Hindu classical and popular tradition. It concludes with a look at the Indian Islamic tradition including the writings of Islamic rulers, ulama, sufis etc. Despite some omissions from the compilation (I would have liked a more in depth exploration of Indian epic literature, classical Sanskrit drama and poetry, the Sikh tradition and Urdu poetry), it is readable, engaging, thought provoking and will illuminate your understanding of one of the world's most fascinating civilizations.

India has one of the richest and most intricate cultures in the world. Imagine a book that compiled all the ancient sources of this culture into a single volume. This book is as close to that ideal as possible. This volume covers India from pre-historic times until the mid 18th century. It includes selections from the Vedas and the Upanishads, foundational Hindu texts; selections from important Jain texts; and selections from early Theravadan and Mahayanan Buddhist texts. It them embarks on an elaborate discussion of Hinduism, organized on the four goals of life -- *dharma*, *artha*, *kama*, and *moksha* (the section on *moksha* contains selections from the *Bhagavad Gita*, other scriptures, and the writings of mystics & saints). The last section of the anthology is a detailed treatment of the Muslims period in India, from the 13th to the 18th centuries. Overall, this is an invaluable sourcebook for anyone who wants to know more about the history of India.

Having read this book cover to cover many times for several research papers, this book contains more than enough information for even the diehard fan of Indian history. Hay has compiled the best of the most significant Indian and Pakistani leaders, both Hindu and Muslim alike to make sure the reader can attain a complete picture of Gandhi and Nehru's India. This is one of my all time favorite resource and reference books on India and I recommend it to anyone interested on the subject.

"All that Makes a Man", By Stephen Berry is the first installment of what should be a notable career for the young historian. As far as first books go, this one delivers the goods and never allows the reader's interest to wane. This is the story of the average men and women caught up in the maelstrom that was the Civil War, as told from the Confederate perspective. Berry provides insight into the motivations and pressures of southern manhood. He crafts a story that begins with the linking of manhood and patriotism in the formulating period of the rebellion, the love for woman as being central to a soldier's will to continue the struggle, and finally the reclamation of manhood and love to disengage from the humiliation of a losing war effort. By using the letters of the soldiers, the author provides evidence to support his claim that men do everything for the love of a woman, especially during the hyper-masculine victorian era. "All that Makes A Man" is recommended for anyone willing to penetrate deeper than oft repeated Civil War battlefield history to learn more about the reasons so many were willing to sacrifice everything.

All That Makes a Man really humanizes the Civil War. Too many histories of the conflict lament only the mangling of so many bodies. There is no sense of the abrupt end to so many life stories. By going back into the antebellum period, the author makes sure the reader knows the generation who fought the war BEFORE they got killed. By the time they do start dying you have a much better sense not only of how it happened but of what was lost. It wasn't that bodies died or hearts stopped beating; it was that somebodies died and all their hearts contained -- emotions, memories, promise -- was poured out like water. If you want a different perspective on the war, I highly recommend this book.

I bought the paperback edition in late July 1985 and,beleieve it or not,I have read it more than a hundred times over and over again.It's an astounding story, many clues are given while you read the book on how E.T. can solve his problems. The keen reader can easily predict the outcome of the plot.The way the author connects the two realities, one on the Green planet , the other on Earth is nicely blended through the introduction of the telepathic beam, naturally off course, 'cause et's a little mixed up.This gives way to many funny situations. The book can be read at many levels; Et's worried about elliot becoming grown up.According to et's point of view, people on earth grew up to become violent so his mission now is to save his friend.This is a great message of peace. I think the book is not indicated for children too young, to which I advise reading the illustrated storybook instead.To conclude I always ask myself why in these years Kotzwinkle didn't write a sequel to this book due to its open ending.In an interview, spielberg said that his movie ET is a "gem the way it is" so a sequel was not necessary 'cause it would currupt its magic.I think a new adventure for ET would be great indeed!!

This novel is a joy to read. It leaves off where the movie ended, starting with E. T. watching the Earth slowly disappear out of the porthole of his spaceship. Kotzwinkle has a wonderful imagination and provides a heartwarming tale about growing up, memories, love, friendship, and best of all - adventure. This is a great read. It should be made into a movie. I give it a 5!