Thomas Gibson Books

The book was in excellent condition and arrived as promptly as one could expect. As of this date I really haven't had a bad experience with any of my book orders. Thanks so much.

Hardy had a life-long fascination with the paradox of memory: how people, events, and even isolated feelings can be buried by time and later resurrected in the fullness of emotional memory. His central aesthetic principle is that of `the exhumed emotion,' which one can wryly interpret as a graveyard variant of Wordsworth's "emotion recollected in tranquillity." But for Hardy, it was a mysterious capability, like his comment that "I am cut out by nature for a ghost-seer." Hardy's aesthetic of the "grotesque" frequently features past lovers as ghosts or elusive phantoms.

In "She, to Him III" he muses on the "souls of Now" who would disjoint / The mind from memory, making Life all aim, / And nothing left for Love to look upon." In this brief phrase, from the start of his career, can be found four of the major themes of his entire life and work: the present ("Now"), memory (past), Life, and Love, all in tension with one another.

The volume contains innumerable poems of unrequited love, regretted love, guilty love, repentant love, etc. etc. One of the great English poets of the 20th century. Ranks with Yeats and above Heaney.

Perfect! What more needs to be said? This collection was delicious and is a treasure for any Hardy fan. Enjoy every bite!!

Considering how depressing Hardy's novels can be, his poems are curiously uplifting, full of descriptive power and a love of rural England. Among his classics are "The Darkling Thrush", "Channel Firing" (great World War I poem), and "The Oxen" (beautiful Christmas poem about nostalgia and faith).

Like his novels, the poems illustrate Hardy's capturing of the past and his sense of something greater than us shaping our lives and our feelings. These are apparent in "Last Words to a Dumb Friend", his lament for his deceased cat. In this, the very home where the cat lived seems to resonate with the cat once he has passed to "the Dim" (i.e., beyond Death):

"And this house, which scarcely took
Impress from his little look,
By his faring to the Dim (NOTE: faring = travelling)
Grows all eloquent of him."

I am often amazed that this wonderful classic is so often overlooked. The author's style and syntax is pure Victorian, through and through with wonderfully convoluted sentences, and indeed, paragraphs. This work, which takes place during the mid 1800s, circa 1840, is the story of a young man in a English Public School (which, unlike in the U.S. is actually a private school to which only the elite can afford to attend) and his adventures at this school. This of course is a boarding school. While not absolute, this work is obviously autobiographical in nature. When this work is read, the reader must keep in mind when it was written, the society in which it was written and most importantly, the attitude of the society in which it was written. I was first introduced to this work well over forty years ago and have given it several reads since that time. I strongly suspect that many young readers of today may find the syntax difficult at first, but if they press on, there is so much to learn from this book. As another reviewer well pointed out, some of the events addressed here are not what you would call "politically correct" by our standards to day in this country, but then we must remember when and where it was written. Any student of the history of literature or a student of our language will most likely be fascinated with this work. I highly recommend.

"Tom Brown's School Days"?, That's junenile fiction. That's a kid running down a merry lane in England with a satchel on his back, right? So wrong. How could this classic piece of little literature have escaped my attention? A stunning book about a boy's life in boarding school in mid 19th Century England, it tells it's adolescence tale with all the discipline of a Cub Scout Manual and whimsy of a comic book. Author Hughes frequently stops the action and intercedes on behalf of himself, commenting on the progress of the story as a teacher might. His defense of boys boxing with hard fists and fractured skulls is so socially incorrect it becomes amusing in it's conviction. Maybe skulls were harder then. A good knock-a-round is good for a boy. But school-yard fights aside, this is an adult piece of classic literature with a deeply moral narrative and a devoted sense of well-being. In it's second century of publication, it is a breath of fresh air.

For the last five generations this has been the book every British parent wanted their sons to read, and Tom Brown is the mold which every parent wanted their sons to fit. He loves his parents. He attends church. He is a good student. He is kind to his juniors and respectful of his seniors. He is a true sportsman, and always plays fair. He is the beloved of his headmaster at Rugby school, Mr. Arnold, and Arnold himself is elevated by his mentorship of young Tom. He has an unbounded future, like Britain herself. Yes, it is an idealistic view of youth, but part of a parent's responsibility is surely to instill idealism, along with everything else.

To more effectively enshrine his protagonist in glory, to place in relief his exceptionalism, to show the depravity of his antognist, and to put a human face on the Devil, Hughes also gives us Harry Flashman. While it was Tom's popularity which created the book's commercial success for the last five generations, my guess is that it will be George McDonald Fraser's references to Tom and Arnold, in his series of Flashman books, which will draw the contemporary reader's attention. Harry cheats and lies; he's a bully; he drinks, and is ultimately expelled from Rugby School for drunkeness. Please refer to Fraser's book, "Flashman," and the rest of the series of Flashman books to see how young Harry turned out. Not so bad actually. The Victoria Cross, highly respected, and extremely wealthy.

Naturally, this is far from Hughes' intent in creating a counterpart to the ideal child, but the existence of such a child as Tom Brown creates a disequilibrium in nature, which requires remedy. The reader will need to decide for himself whether the prototype of good or evil is more compelling. "Tom Brown's School Days" was a book of idealism for young boys at the turn of the 20th century. "Flashman" is a book of realism (okay, of humor, too) for the modern rogue at the turn of the 21st. Read both for the clash of perspectives.

Aztecs Under Spanish Rule is an in-depth study of the evolution of the historical relationship between the Native Mexicans and the Spaniards in Colonial Latin America. The story begins with the cultural differences between the two groups after the Spaniard's conquering effort over the Aztecs, 1519-1521. The social-cultural alterations and reorganizations that took place during the process of their co-existence within the Mexican mesa central from that point until Mexico's bid for independence, in 1821, are the general themes within the topics of each chapter. Gibson begins with a brief historical sketch of the landscape and human occupation of the Valley of Mexico, and each following chapter covering such historical topics as settlement patterns, land use, politics, religion and social structures literally has the potential of being its own disquisition. The author unleashes a flood of data, references and Indian names that cascade over the pages; unless the reader is in firm command of the Mexican Indian terminology, the glossary will become a welcomed reference bookmark. The overall effect of subjugation by the Imperial Spanish over the once Imperial Aztecs is visible in nearly all facets of life. This transformed society becomes the foundation for modern-day Mexico City and the greater Mexican society. The typical form of the chapters is a chronologically based essay. Beginning at or close to the point conquest, and traversing through the next three centuries, stopping at important junctions, at which point Gibson provides connecting vignettes that illuminate this region and inhabitant's path of history. Thus the scholarly Aztecs Under Spanish Rule is not overwhelming and is a quite digestible text that lay persons with interest in Mexican or Latin American history will find most agreeable. Even though the structuring of the chapters and their content is consistent and readable, Gibson's work is essentially a historical text that suffers from a lack of narration. The people and their situations do not come alive; they are presented in a flat, matter of fact manner, negating Aztecs Under Spanish Rule's potential as a page-turner. The most commendable list of primary sources permits the author to introduce an enviable texture, however, the fine combing does not occur, which would have produced a more human connected story. It is hard to imagine that the plethora of letters in the bibliography did not allow for the inclusion of longer, more personable and illuminating quotes. The very strength of each chapter as its own tractate, in this reviewer's opinion, becomes the book's undoing. At the conclusion of each topical chapter, we are back in the starting gate once again. That is not to say that Gibson's work is anything less than exemplary, rather simply that its topical structure somewhat takes away from author's ability to maintain the reader's imagination and focus as the story begins, unfolds, begins then unfolds, and begins and unfolds yet again and again. Once transported back in time, a connection is made, and an anticipation of the unfolding of the story builds. Severing this association repeatedly disconnects the reader from the flow of history. This could however be a matter of personal taste. Gibson states in his preface that he spent nearly twelve and one-half years researching and assembling this extraordinary piece of historical scholarship. His extensive appendixes, notes and bibliography speak well of his not brief dedication in compiling this work. For those aroused by the subject and feel the need to go deeper, this is a great starting point. The selection of maps and plates further illuminate this recommended history of Mexico. Try to remeber as well, that this work really stirred the waters when it came out, portraying the Spanish Conquest as, well, what a conquest is really all about.

Aztecs Under Spanish Rule is an in-depth study of the evolution of the historical relationship between the Native Mexicans and the Spaniards in Colonial Latin America. The story begins with the cultural differences between the two groups after the Spaniard's conquering effort over the Aztecs, 1519-1521. The social-cultural alterations and reorganizations that took place during the process of their co-existence within the Mexican mesa central from that point until Mexico's bid for independence, in 1821, are the general themes within the topics of each chapter. Gibson begins with a brief historical sketch of the landscape and human occupation of the Valley of Mexico, and each following chapter covering such historical topics as settlement patterns, land use, politics, religion and social structures literally has the potential of being its own disquisition. The author unleashes a flood of data, references and Indian names that cascade over the pages; unless the reader is in firm command of the Mexican Indian terminology, the glossary will become a welcomed reference bookmark. The overall effect of subjugation by the Imperial Spanish over the once Imperial Aztecs is visible in nearly all facets of life. This transformed society becomes the foundation for modern-day Mexico City and the greater Mexican society. The typical form of the chapters is a chronologically based essay. Beginning at or close to the point conquest, and traversing through the next three centuries, stopping at important junctions, at which point Gibson provides connecting vignettes that illuminate this region and inhabitant's path of history. Thus the scholarly Aztecs Under Spanish Rule is not overwhelming and is a quite digestible text that lay persons with interest in Mexican or Latin American history will find most agreeable. Even though the structuring of the chapters and their content is consistent and readable, Gibson's work is essentially a historical text that suffers from a lack of narration. The people and their situations do not come alive; they are presented in a flat, matter of fact manner, negating Aztecs Under Spanish Rule's potential as a page-turner. The most commendable list of primary sources permits the author to introduce an enviable texture, however, the fine combing does not occur, which would have produced a more human connected story. It is hard to imagine that the plethora of letters in the bibliography did not allow for the inclusion of longer, more personable and illuminating quotes. The very strength of each chapter as its own tractate, in this reviewer's opinion, becomes the book's undoing. At the conclusion of each topical chapter, we are back in the starting gate once again. That is not to say that Gibson's work is anything less than exemplary, rather simply that its topical structure somewhat takes away from author's ability to maintain the reader's imagination and focus as the story begins, unfolds, begins then unfolds, and begins and unfolds yet again and again. Once transported back in time, a connection is made, and an anticipation of the unfolding of the story builds. Severing this association repeatedly disconnects the reader from the flow of history. This could however be a matter of personal taste. Gibson states in his preface that he spent nearly twelve and one-half years researching and assembling this extraordinary piece of historical scholarship. His extensive appendixes, notes and bibliography speak well of his not brief dedication in compiling this work. For those aroused by the subject and feel the need to go deeper, this is a great starting point. The selection of maps and plates further illuminate this recommended history of Mexico. Try to remember that this work was groundbreaking in its time.

This is a great book that could be taken to the 3 sequel level. It is something that all of us dream of at some time in our lives. To heal with a touch or on the other hand to take a life in the same way. To know what someone is thinking or planning just by shaking their hand. The story revolves around a young man that has grown up under the government's thumb and is now being used by that same government. He rebels and escapes. This book is easy to read and holds your interest. And I might add leaves you wanting more.

As a first time novelist I think the author did very well. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and I had to keep reading to see what would happen next. I believe it is typical of how our government operates in this day and age. It is quickly read and I would enjoy reading more of Rick Gibson's stories, were he to try his hand at another novel.

Until such time as someone tries to fill the shoes of Jean Sammet and write a new overview of programming languages (a major job, that!), the HOPL conferences are the main source of insight into the development of programming languages that, Sapir-Whorf style, have shaped the way we view programming and the problems we try to solve with a computer. Even if someone does take up that task, the HOPL conferences are invaluable, since they provide information straight from the people involved.

This volume of the proceedings of HOPL II is thus invaluable for the student of programming. HOPL I covered the main early languages (Algol 60, FORTRAN, COBOL, LISP, APT, BASIC...); HOPL II covers important languages of more recent vintage (Algol 68, Pascal, C, C++. more recent dialects of LISP). C.H. Lindsey's fine paper on the turbulent development of Algol 68, the best language you probably never used and a major influence on later languages, is worth the price of admission by itself.

I have read many many computer jounrals about the history of computing. Very few resources have put the kind of time and effort that Thomas Bergin has done in his book. Along with assistant editor, RIck Gibson, both men do a fine job collecting the best of the best resources and giving it right to the public upfront. I wish Bergin can do another book or something Internet related because this is truly apart of computing that we do not really have much material on.

My sister-in-law bought this book for my mom to fill out and I found myself buying one as well for my mom to fill out for me. It has such beautiful pictures and is a great keepsake for your most cherished family memories!

My sister-in-law bought this for my mom to fill out and I found myself ordering it as well for my mom to fill out for me. It has such beautiful illustrations and is a great keepsake for your most cherished family memories. If your mom is like mine, she can't remember too far back so this is a good purchase for that reason.

The book takes place in a small town. The main character has gone to start a new life and connect with his roots. He is intelligent and original. I found myself identifying strongly with his feelings. The contrast between the young and the old man was beautifully developed. Definately a good read. I hope we will be seeing a lot more from this author.

I got this as a gift and absolutely love it. It's the small considerate actions that make a difference in life. The examples given are enlightening. I rank this book with up there with my Tao Te Ching, as both give me something to examine inside myself upon reading a page. I plan to get several for coworkers and family members.

The Woodlanders is said to be one of Hardy's more descriptive novels and Hardy is also said to have a love for this part of the country. I thought this was a beautiful passage:

"From the other window all she could see were more trees, jacketed with lichen and stockinged with moss. At their roots were stemless yellow fungi like lemons and apricots, and tall fungi with more stem than stool. Next were more trees close together, wrestling for existence, their branches disfigured with wounds resulting from their mutual rubbings and blows. It was the struggle between these neighbors that she had heard in the night. Beneath them were the rotting stumps of those of the group that had been vanquished long ago, rising from their mossy setting like decayed teeth from green gums. Farther on were other tufts of moss in islands divided by the shed leaves--variety upon variety, dark green and pale green; moss-like little fir-trees, like plush, like malachite stars, like nothing on earth except moss."

And this description of Winterborne as a wood-god really stood out for me:

"He rose upon her memory as the fruit-god and the wood-god in alternation; sometimes leafy, and smeared with green lichen, as she had seen him among the sappy boughs of the plantations; sometimes cider-stained, and with apple-pips in the hair of his arms, as she had met him on his return from cider-making in White Hart Vale, with his vats and presses beside him."

It is said that Winterborne was a creation derived from Hardy's own father.

The book also has the typical Hardy realism and tragedy based on innocence and wrong choices, the unfair position of women, mere chance, or should I say Chance, in keeping with the way Hardy uses it. For me, somehow, the more descriptive nature of the book, while not that descriptive--Hardy is a realist not a romantic, gave the book a hazy, almost somnolent quality that almost distracted from the clarity and meaning of the book. Maybe it was Hardy's intention to have the woods form a kind of shadowy hold over the characters, the readers--there's the strange effect a single tree had on Winterborne's father, and another on Grace. But Hardy's description of the moors in Return of the Native had more power for me. Also, the characters seemed undeveloped to me, especially Grace, who was a main character. Marty seemed more real, though maybe that was intentional as the book ends with her, and poor Grace floated un-fixedly in the non-place between two classes.

I love Hardy's novels and poetry otherwise I may have given it 3 stars. I just read it--it may be I need to ruminate on it for awhile.

The Woodlanders is the eleventh novel by Thomas Hardy. Hardy takes us to an obscure village in his mythical Wessex. The novel portrays the beautiful Grace Melbury a nubile young miss coddled by her parents; eager for glamour and disdainful of bucolic boredom. Grace is courted by Giles Winterbourne a local rustic but cast him off to wed Dr. Edred Fitzpiers the local doctor. The marriage is a disaster for Fitzper lusts for Madame Charmond. He also has a fling with Suke a local girl.
Fitzpiers flees to the Continent while Grace seeks reconciliation with
Winterborne. The couple hope to wed under a newly passed Parliamentary
law dealing with the right of women to obtain a divorce.
All goes wrong. Accidents occur as chance and fortune always play a part in the Hardy world. The novel does end happily which is rare for Hardy.
Hardy knew the English countryside as it moved from spring to winter.
His description of nature is beautifully written. Hardy also knew the south of England as it was moving from the rural nineteenth century to the modern world of the coming twentieth century.
The Woodlanders is one of the lesser known Hardy novels that is well worth your attention. The story is well told with many interesting and exciting plot developments which will hold the attention. Well recommended.

The Woodlanders (1887) is one of Thomas Hardy's finest novels, which deals with doomed love in a gloomy rural "partly real and partly dream" country of Wessex.

It is one of Hardy's favorite and if Hardy liked it, I do to, especially since I have never read this novel....I liked The Return of the Native...

THE BIG 6

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD -1874
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE - 1878
THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE - 1886
THE WOODLANDERS - 1887
TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES - 1891
JUDE THE OBSCURE - 1895

"It would have made a beautiful story," Thomas Hardy said about this novel, "if I could have carried out my idea of it; but somehow I come so far short of my intention."

"I wish you had never thought of educating me," Thomas Hardy's protagonist tells her father at one point in this novel, "because cultivation has only brought me inconveniences and troubles" (pp. 232-33). Hardy (1840-1928) wrote his eleventh novel in 1887, before his better-known masterpieces, TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES (1891) and JUDE THE OBSCURE (1895), and a year after THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE (1886). Set in the "partly real and partly dream country" of Hardy's Wessex, in the "sequestered" forest community of Little Hintock (located "outside the gates of the world," p. 6), a place where "loneliness is not so very lonely after a while" (p. 83), THE WOODLANDERS is about doomed love, betrayal, and social restraints, and like Hardy's other work, it succeeds as a satisfying story of a romantic disaster in Hardy's cruel universe. The novel tells the sad tale of a woman, Grace Melbury, forced to choose marriage between two suitors of different social statures, Giles Winterborne, a local woodlander with a gentle, virtuous nature, and Edred Fitzpiers, an ambitious doctor and a scoundrel. Influenced by her well-intentioned though meddling father, Mr. Melbury, who only wants his daughter to "marry well" (p. 89), Grace's decision ultimately leads to disastrous consequences and, in the end, to a lonely woman worshipping at a dead man's grave. Once again, we discover the course of love is never happy in Hardy's universe.

Rather gloomy for a Victorian romance novel? Well, yes. But reading Victorian fiction does not get any better than reading Thomas Hardy's extraordinary novels. Returning to Hardy's brooding, melancholy fiction after my first encounter with his novels more than twenty five years ago, I am re-discovering Hardy's brilliant ability to convey familiar, primordial truths through his fiction, making him worth reading again and again.

G. Merritt

Hardy classified THE WOODLANDERS with his Novels of Character and Ingenuity, which category included his very best novels (TESS, THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE). This 1887 novel is so bizarre, however, that you might feel it belongs more properly with his Romances and Fantasies. In the secluded rustic community of Little Hintock all manner of things are a-brewing: simple Marty South has a thing for cider-merchant Giles Winterbourne, who has been promised for years to marry well-educated Grace Melbury, but Grace's father marries her off instead to philandering Edred Fitzpiers, who has a thing for local wealthy widow Felice Charmond. In this circle of desire all manner of things can go wrong--and, this being Hardy, of course they do. Some of his wildest plot contrivances (including two bizarre scenes wherein the Widow Charmond must convey crucial information to Grace, and Fitzpiers even more crucial information to Grace's father) occur without the redeeming Shakespearean scope of a novel like THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE which allows you to overlook the wackiness. Still, even if this is lesser Hardy, it's still Hardy, so the novel has such poetically gorgeous evocations of landscape and character as to make everything worthwhile in the end.

As a children's minister, I have purchased several of these and put them in our "Bible Bucks Store" (our good behavior program). The Pre-K thru 2nd grade kids love them. The New Testament disguised as an activity book jammed packed full of fun ideas and real life applications--what's not to love?

As intriguing and as eye-candy fetching as the format is, I can't recommend this edition of the New Testament, nor could I drive myself to buy it for my kid. The tone of the commentary and side-bars is so blatantly evangelical that a child is likely to think that most of his classmates (kids aged 7-11!) are on the path to hell, plus we all need to get out there and convert the whole wide world, without any respect whatsoever for the complex cultures and belief systems found on this wonderful planet. My kid MIGHT be inclined to tune into this edition, once he gets old enough -- but I'm not ready to abandon him to Pat Robertson's interpretation of Christianity quite yet. (No, as far as I know, Robertson is not involved with this publication. But you get the idea.)

My girls love this bible, they can take it anywhere. They love the additional activities too.

As a children's pastor, I highly recommend the Magnify - New Testament. It's interactive layout is perfect for this next generation. Before we can expect a child to hold the truths found in the scriptures, they first must understand and interact with the scriptures in a way that creates ownership. Magnify is a great tool to accomplish this.

I got this bible for my 8 year old son. He is not much of a reader, but was truly wanting to get into God's word. What happened was that he began losing interest because it became somewhat boring for him. This bible has helped to spark the desire for His word and also gives interesting facts and tid-bits that cater to his curious, but not always attentive, mind. Highly recommended for the younger child that doesn't have the natural desire for reading much of anything.