Mark Homer Books

This is a wonderfully stimulating collection of offerings on the interplay between human collectives and the "information age." Inevitably, some insights are more gripping than others--but each essay by the more than fifty futurists (for want of a better term) engaged in this effort is worth reading. While we may think we're frightfully clever and sophisticated when it comes to our "information age," it struck this reader that, in relation to information exploitation, we're at a point equivalent to the mid-seventeenth century in the physical sciences: We've gotten some of the basic parameters figured out, but haven't yet begun to understand their myriad applications. This volume is stimulating, useful, sometimes brilliant, and always worth turning over the page. Very highly recommended for those involved in intelligence, government or the media--as well as for citizens concerned about our collective future. Brain food for grown-ups.

This book is the first of a series of books from the Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity incorporated in Virginia. As with all our books, it is available free online for inspection, digital search, and Creative Commons re-use at no cost.

We are of course very proud of the hard-copy and of being able to offer it on Amazon, and the 55 contributors, all volunteers, hope you will buy a hard-copy both for its ease of hand-eye coordination and exploitation, and to support our work in creating public intelligence in the public interest.

Here are ten other books I as the publisher personally admire, that lend credence to our proposition, hardly original in concept but uniquely documented in this book, that We the People are now ready to self-govern at the zip code and line item level.

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
The Wisdom of Crowds
An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

Book was in very good condition - loved the story - People were believable and strong - the writer keeps you going in the story

Third Josh Thurlow book focuses more on Ready O'Neal, Thurlow's Outer Banks friend and Coast Guard companion, as they get mixed up in the Marine invasion of Tarawa in the Pacific.

Both men also get mixed up in the tale of Sister Mary Kathleen, an Irish nun who escaped from Japanese capture on another island and came to Tarawa to encourage the Americans to come back with her to free her captive island from Japanese rule. But the sister has a secret that drives the story.

Hickam writes in straightforward prose that usually flows well, with just the occasional turn of phrase or wording in the direction of the maudlin or over-dramatic.

The book ends with a resolution of this story, but leaves the key participants scattered and Thurlow alone on an unknown island, begging the beginning of a fourth novel.

Tarawa suffered from more than gunfire, and has yet to fully recover--see The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific for a modern account of what life is like on the island now.

And of course, you'll want to start with the first two books in the Thurlow series to fully appreciate Hickam's characters:

The Keeper's Son (Josh Thurlow Series #1)
The Ambassador's Son (Josh Thurlow Series #2)

I'm a bit astonished at the one-star reviews this book has received. I just put it down after two days of voracious reading and then looked at it, wishing I could start all over again fresh. Maybe it sometimes gets knocked down because it is not truly a World War II genre book. There is a depth to this book that is layered one upon the other as it progresses. It is the tale not only of Josh Thurlow at the battle of Tarawa but really on what happens afterwards as Sister Mary Kathleen, the Catholic nun who shanghais Josh, Ready O'Neil and three vagrant Marines to the Far Reaches. There, the men find a paradise and even tough old Josh finds love and tenderness with a new family while the sister keeps struggling with the great sin that presses down upon her. I found the pages where Josh loses his new family some of the most powerful writing I have ever read. I suppose it is true that readers are as various as writers and not all are meant for one another. Hickam is a writer that seems at time a simple stylist but he is also an artist who paints with an exceedingly fine brush. Perhaps his novels are not for everyone but I am captured by his writing and will recommend him to everyone who not only likes a good read but also likes to put a book down with a new understanding of the truths of life. I will be thinking about Sister Mary Kathleen, Josh, Ready, and even Colonel Monkey Burr for a very long time.

What else is there to say? I very rarely give up on a book and I fought the urge to give up on this book many times. After finishing the book, I wished I had listened to my instincts. It was awful. The one saving grace was that I didn't actually pay for the book, but checked it out from the library.

I've heard Hickam wrote good historical fiction and expected much better. I doubt I'll give him another try. The characters are pathetically simple and some of the scenarios just plain ridiculous. The main character loses his son and wife and takes a whole sentence to say goodbye to them both. Great writing. Great character development. This book was just way too simplistic. This is literature's equivalent of a grade b movie. Look elsewhere.

Last year I read a terrible novel about the Battle of the Bulge. For some reason, the cover featured a famous photograph of a US Marine on Iwo Jima! "The Far Reaches" isn't quite as bad: the cover shows a well-known photo of US Army troops wading ashore at Normandy on D-Day, but with a bunch of palm trees inserted in the background. The novel was preposterous; cliches piled on top of sterotypes, incredibly stilted dialogue, and unbelievable characters and situations. A young Irish nun and a bunch of Polynesians on TARAWA? Laughable! Not to give away too much of the plot, the author clearly has little knowledge of the US military, World War Two, the Japanese, etc. (i.e., there are no priests in the USMC). Nor could I imagine the business of several characters simply going AWOL in the middle of WW2 and instantly adopting native families as their own. The central premise --- about the child --- made absolutley no sense given the contempt for Westerners held by the Japanese officer corps of the period. I borrowed the audio version from the library and it was painful to listen to. No more Josh Thurlow for me!

This was a textbook assigned to me in my Classical Mythology course in college. I very much enjoyed working my way through it. It talked about everything in extensive detail and is pretty much what you'd expect of a textbook on Classical Mythology. Rather, I would like to explain why it didn't get five stars. When the authors quote the translations they did of classical works like the Homeric Poems or Greek tragedies, they certainly took poetic license with some of the lines. It was a very mediocre job of translation and you can see a few lines of modern day slang thrown in here and there (ex. "decked out like a corpse"). Decked out? This isn't 2003, this is thousands of years ago for goodness sakes. The other problem is that every once in a while, the authors will slip in their opinions of Christianity and how it is rediculous, though they don't say that in so many words. This is a book about a dead religion, it is NOT about the origins of Christianity and I wish the authors would have remembered that. The comments that they make at the end of certain chapters can be very offensive to the religious Christian. If you can look past these flaws it is certainly a good overview of everything Classical Mythology.

This book is the standard text for several of the Classical Mythology sections at my college. It is an excellent source for both basic and detailed information on Classical myths. Primary texts are quoted, and all parts of the book are easy to read. There is a select bibliography for each chapter. Has a glossary of words that may not be familiar to reader, as well as a glossary/index of all the gods and goddesses with a short summary of who they are at the back of the book for quick reference. Some color picture sections, as well as black and white pictures throughout. Highly recommended as a reference if you are unable to take a class on the subject.

I have a great passion for Greek and Roman mythology. This came about because of my involvment in the Christian Church for ten years. After having lost my faith due to certain cosmological facts that I couldn't reconcile with Scripture, I left Christianity. However I never lost my love for theology, mythology and philosophy. Thus I continued in my reading. Having moved into the reading of the classics I found a new love. While I have not read everything on the subject, to date this is my absolute favorite book that strictly deals with Greek and Roman myth. It contains extensive translations of texts with excellent commentary and insights. The authors deal heavily with the psychological interpretations of Freud and Jung, which I enjoyed. This book is absolutely awesome. GET IT!

This is not a bad book. It is a standard, fairly decent introduction to mythology that's a heck of a lot better than Edith Hamilton. The reason why I give it one star is the price. It is not worth more than 45 dollars. Very few books are, and the ones that are, have hard covers. This is a disgraceful ripoff and there is absolutely no excuse for it. Morford, Leonardson, and especially the PUBLISHER should be ashamed. Yes, the book is well-done, with pretty pictures, but it's SOFTCOVER. It's worth perhaps twenty dollars, maybe thirty at most. It is a very typical example of the utter sliminess of the textbook shell game. Years ago, it once had a reasonable price. Then, when the publisher realized that it was being assigned as a textbook, they raised the price to a ridiculous level, and produced - and continue to produce - more editions so that any old edition you get will be slightly off pagewise. A minor rearranging of contents occurs to justify dupes buying the new edition thus to make the old editions worthless. Take a stand. Do not buy this book. Professors, do not assign it. If your professor assigns it, request that you may use an old version which you will be able to find for five dollars online. The changes in the book are NOT essential enough to justify this gross piracy.
By the way -- I'm a graduate student studying Greek and Roman history, religion, and literature at Berkeley. I believe I am fairly qualified, then, to make this argument. The price of this book is a disgusting shame and should not be tolerated.

This well honed 8th edition is an entrancing and beautiful description of the mythology of ancient Greece and Rome. The emphasis is Greece, naturally, since the Romans based so much of their beliefs on the Greeks. No prior knowledge of the subject is assumed. But the book is not some simple entry level exposition, like some freshman texts.

Instead, Morford goes into a fair amount of detail about what we know. He refers and quotes liberally from surviving manuscripts. So that, even though these are given in English, we get some flavour of looking thru a distant lens at how others saw their gods. Plus, he has kept up with the latest archeological discoveries and their interpretations. Reminding the reader that our knowledge of those times is still incomplete and changing.

The many photos and illustrations also help in giving flesh to the text. Some are of the European perceptions from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Several colour plates are quite lovely. We are looking at the subject through at least two viewpoints. Ours and those.

So, you've made it through a year of college-level classical Greek -- Attic, or perhaps one of those texts that starts out with Homeric Greek. Now you're ready to read the Iliad, the single greatest work of western literature. What you now need is a good solid school text, with vocabulary, grammatical appendices, and copious notes. This is the book for you. I used this as an undergraduate years ago and still cherish my hardcover copy. This is a new, paperback edition, presumably the same old standard-issue Benner. I know of none better. I've seen lots of school editions of the Iliad, many pre-dating and some post-dating Benner, but none compare with this edition for overall utility. Is there anything as exciting as reading the Iliad in Greek? It seems curious, perhaps even paradoxical, that a 2700 year old poem is as pure and as fresh as the morning dew, more alive and vibrant than anything that has been written since. For those who are coming to the poem for the first time, you can't do better than to have an old schoolmaster like Benner take you through the best parts of the poem with lots of helpful guidance.

This is a good resource for all the books of the Iliad; however, someone just beginning to read Homer or any original text may need more help than Benner provides. Consider either Iliad I by Pamela Ann Draper or Iliad I by Simon Pulleyn. Draper is better on nuts and bolts grammar and has the vocabulary on the facing page. Pulleyn has the vocabulary in the back of the book, but is better on literary and historical issues. His introduction is excellent: wide-ranging but concise; written in clear, stylish, non-academic prose. These texts cover only Book I. This is a good thing since it allows both authors to limit the vocabularies and Pulleyn to provide a complete commentary on that one book.

This text is probably the best choice for those who have spent a year learning the basics of Homeric (or Attic) Greek and want to experience some payoff for all the hours spent conjugating second aorists and declining endless varieties of third-declension nouns. The selections consist of long excerpts (five books of the Iliad are included in their totality) of the best parts of the Iliad. As a whole, the selections comprise a sort of "Essential Iliad" inasmuch as they convey the scope of the entire poem from the wrath of Achilles to the burial of Hector.
My only gripe with the editors' choice of what to include is with the omission of Hera's deception of Zeus.

Along with the selections is a commentary which helps elucidate those words and phrases here and there that are likely to cause the relative beginner trouble in construing the sense. In general, the commentary is quite good, though it does let the reader down from time to time. It won't, for example, explain to you what the connective particle in line 8 of Book One means even though no beginner will know what to make of it. Thus, a bit more help could have been given, particularly in the area of particles.

In addition to the commentary, there is a vocabulary comprising all the words used in the excerpts. This is a real bonus, since rifling through big lexicons can be tedious, particularly for a relative beginner. Also, all hapax legomena (words used only once) are listed at the bottom of every page of text.

All in all, then, Benner's Selections From The Iliad is a must-have for those who want to expand upon an elementary understanding of Homeric Greek.

I have a great sentimental attachment to Benner's Selections, as it was with this textbook that I first read Homer in Greek. I loved the selections, etc.!

However, as students have later come to me with their Homer reading projects, I've placed this side-by-side with the notes in M.M. Willcock's "Iliad of Homer: Books I-XII" and "Iliad of Homer: Books XIII-XXIV," and it just doesn't measure up. Willcock's work is fresher (1978/1984 vs. 1903), and he gives better and fuller help with Homer's language. (Also, he happens to be the more sensitive reader of Homer's poetry.)

If there's a reason to stick with Benner, it's that it's cheaper and gives excellently chosen selections (grammar overview + text + notes) in one volume, as opposed to Willcock's two-volume format covering the entire Iliad. Also, you've just got to love a book (=Benner) that begins, "This edition of the Iliad includes the books commonly required for admission to American colleges..." Also, Benner has a wonderfully written and complete glossary in the back, whereas with Willcock you need also to buy a good Homer lexicon (that is, Cunliffe's "Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect," which is much better than Autenrieth's brief work IMHO).

Allan Rogers Benner provides us with a wonderfully complete book that would allow anyone with at least a moderate knowledge of Attic Greek to explore the world of Homer in the original (as of 300-or-so BC) text.
The text is set up in such a way so as for a beginner in the Homeric language to work their way through without much trouble: the book starts with an enlightening commentary on the state of the language itself as we have it in addition to contextual and historical analysis. The text itself uses a font which is more than large enough to recognize all of the accents and breathing marks as well as the iota-subscript. He has selected passages from some of the more important parts of the epic, Books I, III, IX, XVIII, and XXII are all even contained in their entirety for example, and there are also passages from numerous other books. Additionally, Homeric hapaxes (words that only appear once) are glossed on the bottom of the page. After the text, there are almost 150 pages of notes to aid in the understanding of trickier passages, and there are also Attic equavilances of archaic Homeric forms. Benner also provides a very brief overview of Homeric language both morphologically and syntactically that is ideal for reference should one encounter an unfamiliar use of an optative, for example. And lastly, and most importantly, there is a complete glossary in the back to avoid the unfortunate shuffling between books often required of beginning classicists.
Overall this book is absolutely ideal for an introductory college-level course in the Homeric dialect, and very well deserves to become the standard such text used. This book is also perfect for someone who would like to work on their own on reading the Iliad in Greek, provided of course they have at least some background in Attic forms and syntax. Benner deserves high praise for his work and efforts, as he has truly produced one of the greatest texts for Greek students at the intermediate level.

There are numerous upgrades between .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0. Thankfully, this book focuses strictly on ADO.NET and how System.Xml is utilized with it. Not only do you learn about new capabilities, the authors do a good job of comparing new techniques/capabilities with those from .NET 1.1.

You'll want to carefully review the more simplistic methods for asynchronous database calls, XPathNavigator, and notifications. .NET 2.0 is providing you with better and faster ways to work with data. You need to start getting familiar with them prior to the gold release this fall.

This book is a worthy companion to Bob Beauchemin et al's First Look. And that is saying a lot.
David Sussman and Alex Homer have always written like they are trying to communicate rather than fill up another book. Mark Fussell joins the gang in an admirable way.
This book is not a fluffy introduction; it is a pretty dense explanation and reference of this new technology. There are plenty of detailed code examples that serve as a tutorial.
For a couple years now, Dare Obasanjo has been yelling from the mountain top - Use XPathNavigator! Use XPathNavigator. For that matter, so has Mark himself in his writings on the web.
Now with v.2 XPathNavigator is editable. And, as I now understand from reading this book, it is conceptually a `higher' object that the current Xml Dom. Now I get it! Few books will give the XPathNavigator its due as this one does.
Microsoft's Xml Schema objects are pretty complicated. This is so to a great extent because Microsoft sticks pretty close to modeling its objects after the w3 consortium's standards. Now, I understand this thanks to chapter 11. And I was able to do some things with schema that before I haven't known where to start.

There have been some changes to ADO.Net since the books release. Microsoft has wisely chosen do away with some new objects for connecting to the database in a stored procedure.
[...]
There have been other changes too where some new features were just too complicated (Table Value Functions).
This is a bummer, but still the value of this book's 528 pages far outweigh the 4 or 5 outdated pages.

SQL Server 2005 is an extraordinary product. Jump on board, get your seats! This book is your ticket.

This book shows how Microsoft supports XML as one of the core standards for interacting with its SQL Server database and with its entire .NET framework. The book divides into two parts. The first deals with pure ADO.NET improvements. Many of these. Perhaps the most tangible of which can lead to you writing less code, and hence [hopefully] more robust code.

It will depend a lot on the reader, but for me, I found the main thrust of the book to be in the second section. Which concentrates on showing how ADO.NET handles XML. You can see how it can publish relational data very naturally in an XML format. Indeed, the book shows how XML has the expressive power to also represent semistructured data that is inherently awkward to store in a relational database. (Except perhaps as a blob. But that just treats it as an opaque unitary entity, which is of limited use.)

A constant message in this part of the book is showing how System.XML is thoroughly integrated with ADO and with all of .NET. Professionally, if you are dealing with ADO or any other aspect of .NET, you need to bone up on System.XML.

With all of my rave reviews of this series, I probably sound like I work in their PR department, but seriously, I don't. Every single book in this series that I've read is just plain great. This book, as well as their ASP.NET 2.0 title are just more examples of the same killer material they are publishing.

The book splits itself about 60/40 ADO.NET 2.0 Per se and the XML. However, if you're familiar with ADO.NET, you'll know they are interdependent technologies in .NET (no, I'm not saying you can't use XML without ADO.NET but XML and ADO.NET are so intertwined in .NET,it's hard to talk about ADO without XML).

Anyway, there's little in the way of review for the way ADO.NET used to work, and Amen to that. This book is short and too the point and you don't need to undestand pervious versions of ADO.NET to understand what's going on. With that in mind, a long discussion of previous version would be a waste of space. Now, there's no doubt that this book emphasizes Yukon and SqlServer features of ADO.NET 2.0, but it's not in any way limited to that. The subject of Batch updates is very cool (I know I can't wait for 2.0 to be released) but it doesn't take a lot of explaining. MARS and ObjectSpaces get a lot more coverage, but those are the two coolest features that I've seen. Well, that's not entirely true, the bulk loading features and paging are pretty darnded cool too.

Then the book discusses Yukon and the only complaint I have here is that I can't get a copy of it! You'll need Whidbey to compile the examples, but I've found getting a copy of Yukon to be quite elusive so that is somewhat limiting. However, that's not the author's fault in any way. (However, if they want to include a copy of it with the next release of the book, it'd certainly be a nice touch).

After that it moves into the XML realm and it's very very cool. No, it doesn't walk you through creating an XML document. The focus is heavy on data extraction with XML, XPath, XQuery, XmlReader, XmlAdapter taking up the focus of the discussion. Trust me, you'll be dying to play with this stuff by the time you get through the first discussion on it.

All in all, it looks like ADO.NET 2.0 is a larger evolution from previous versions than ADO.NET was to ADO (although ADO.NET is a totally different technology than ADO). If you want to take advantage of these features, you're going to have some learning to do. However, all of the books examples are complete, concise and clear and most importantly, they all work. There's nothing worse than typos and broken code, but it's a lot worse when you are dealing with a technology this young.

Once again, another first rate job by A-W.

This book attempts to look at the evolving technology of ADO .NET version 2.0 that will ship with SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio .NET 2005. It does a very good job of looking at the major technologies and the uses of each of them.

I am looking forward to the ability to use asynchronous database connections and Multiple Active Result Sets (MARS). I can already see where it would make my current applications more performant.

I am also looking forward to the ability to store XML in SQL Server 2005 and use the XPath query engine to be able to select out the parts of the XML that I need. With the XML capabilities built into ADO .NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005 it will be much easier to work with XML data.

I have recommended this book to serveral people. I think it is a must read for consultants and others who need to stay on the leading edge of technology.

At the simplest level, this book has two parts. The part on ADO.NET refers to further enhancements to accessing MS SQL Server on the .NET platform, as well as sundry bug fixes.

The other part concerns how .NET handles XML data management. Here Microsoft has put in a ton of work to handle the latest XML standards, including XML Schema, XPath and XQuery. The entire XML field has been growing rapidly and this book shows how Microsoft is keeping pace. Very reassuring.

Also, as one might expect, Microsoft has added custom enhancements to XML. There are two standard XML parsers, DOM and SAX, each with its well known advantages and disadvantages. With the SAX parser, you essentially add one of your routines to it as a listener for events you specify. Then you run SAX on an XML object. Via the listener, it pushes instances of those events to you. GUI building follows this approach. But some developers find this very awkward and unnatural. To answer this, Microsoft has come up with an "XMLReader" that reads XML objects and pull data into your code in a more intuitive way. Interesting, and this may be useful to some who are new to XML.

The book is more than just two disjoint halves. Basically, Microsoft is weaving the SQL access of ADO every more closely with XML, where the latter can be used as a data viewing language into the SQL. What about the impedance mismatch? Considerable effort has been expended to subsume this into low level details that more developers can ignore.

So for all these reasons, if you are already using .NET and SQL Server, you may want to check out these details more fully.

This was in insightful read for the simpson's fan. I loved it and will be giving it as gifts for friends. HIGH reviews from me.

To put it simply, this book takes all the amusing situations in Simpsons episodes and SUCKS the funny right out of it to make a "philosophical" point.

I am a huge fan of the Simpsons but found this book to be slightly boring and some chapters read more like a text book for a college class. I LOVED the book "The Gospel According to the Simpsons" which I read straight through without putting down. I guess religion just interests me more (hence why I gave this book only three stars). If you love the Simpsons, philosophy, and can follow what the authors are talking about you will love this book.

After all the good reviews, including from Publisher's Weekly, I was expecting a thought-provoking and interesting read. Instead, "The Simpsons and Philosophy" is an uneven, but mostly poor, collection of essays that do not do the television show or the Popular Culture and Philosophy book series justice. Some of the more bizarre entries:

In the essay "Thus Spake Bart: On Nietzsche and the Virtues of Being Bad," the author spends many pages describing the Nietzchean hero only to conclude at the end that Bart does NOT represent the Nietzchean ideal since he is merely defined in opposition to authority. For a book about the Simpsons, it would have made more sense to spend a couple of pages explaining what Bart is not, and the majority of the essay explaining what he philosophically DOES represent.

The essays on allusions and parodies are what one would expect to find in a basic literary commentary, not a philosophy book.

"Simpsonian Sexual Politics" makes several claims that I, as a feminist, found astonishingly off-base. The authors' believe that Marge is merely the descendant of many domesticated sitcom mothers, completely missing how that representation is used to undercut and subvert that traditional image. Among their claims is that the Simpson home is a bastion of "moral serenity" except when challenged by the public moral decay of Springfield -- to anyone familiar with the character of Homer Simpson and his antics (lying, cheating, hypocrisy, etc.) that claim is utterly laughable. The authors also describe Marge as "asexual" though they admit she has a "satisfying sex life" -- one can only assume that since Homer's and Marge's active and imaginative sex life is one of the shows' ongoing jokes, that the authors describe her as asexual because her sexual assets are not on display for general consumption. A curious contradiction in a feminist essay.

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed the Buffy The Vampire Slayer book in the same series, I expected the same caliber of analysis for The Simpsons but was sadly disappointed. Ironically, one of the essays in this book refers to Buffy with the shockingly false claim (typical of this book in general) that BTVS is "strongly committed to a black and white distinction between right and wrong as only teenagers can be." In fact that show is well-known for dealing with moral ambiguity -- and the far superior Buffy and Philosophy book has the insightful and edifying essays that this book fails to provide. In the future, I'll be far more cautious about spending money on books in this series!

It's been said by many great men that everything everywhere has the capacity to teach us something. Even fools can be instructive. We may not like the teacher, but that doesn't devalue the lesson.

Well, The Simpsons is a teacher that virtually anyone could love. One of America's most subversive and enduring shows, it has long been recognized that The Simpsons is much more than a child's playground of primary colors. This is a show that marries incisive wit with low-brow sight gags, obscure cultural allusions with puerile puns. It's a mine of meaning, dressed in a Just A Cartoon coat.

"The Simpsons and Philosophy" takes the extended exploits of Homer and company (up to the 12th season) and digs out as many nuggets of intellectual gold as there are to find, and it turns out there are a lot. Maggie's silence, Bart's bad-boy-ness, sexual politics, hyper-irony, the nuclear family, and what little Aristotealian virtues (if any) there are to be found in Homer himself: they all spark insightful and shrewd debate.

The book, however, should've been called "Philosophy and The Simpsons." There are a few essays where the show is the foreground of the philosophical thought that is dissected and analyzed (such as Irwin and Lombardo's brief treatise on allusions, or Wallace's Marxist evaluation of the show's almost unclassifiable sense of humor), but most of the essays treat the show as a source of convenient syllogisms to help bolster ideas that seem almost beside the point (among these, most acutely, is Jolley's closing essay on the nature of thought -- a dry, thoroughly technical affair that has almost nothing to do whatsoever with Groening's funny, yellow family).

Because this is philosophy (and philosophers) we're talking about, don't expect the sort of amusement to be found in a half-hour block of the Fox television show. It might even be worth pointing out that "a-muse," defined by its roots, means "un-thinking." Although The Simpsons has the versatility to appeal to a broad spectrum of brainiacs and boobs (although not in equal measure, I'd argue), this is certainly a thinking person's book, and to those with patience, an appetite for profundity, and the understanding that wisdom can even come from fools like Homer, well, it's bound to inspire thought of your own.

The practice of mimesis, the reworking of ancient Greek literature, was a popular pedagogical method in the Greco-Roman world. When the Roman writer Livy composed the Aneid, he not only created a sequel to Homer's Illiad, which established the mythic lineage of Rome, but also wove Homeric themes and plot devices into his epic, Latin poem. Not as obvious to the untrained reader, Mark's gospel is much sublter, yet richer in it's reworking of Homer's twin epics, the Illiad & the Odysey. MacDonald does a thorough job, examining the ancient Greek texts, side by side with whole passages from Mark's gospel. The obvious parallels are stunning to say the least!

MacDonald's book can get very tedious towards the end where he recaps much of what was covered previously, however, the pure genius of his discovery warrants the repetition. My only other encounter with a similar concept regarding the gospels was the Stoic Seneca's reputed authorship of a drama-passion play of Jesus, possibly performed in Rome and possibly witnessed by the authors of the Synoptic gospels, Mark, Luke and Matthew. The theory of Senecan authorship of a Jesus drama is very compelling, especially when you consider the smilarities between Stoic morality and Christianity. More fascinating is the analysis of the passion of Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, as specifically written for an ancient Roman stage production; Once again, it all becomes undeniably obvious that the passion of the Christ, is a mythical reworking of earlier Pagan sources. [..]

[...]

I highly recommend Dennis R. MacDonald's book and would also urge that readers would explore the Senecan theory as well; Together with MacDonald's research, it's bound to make comfortable Christians extreemly uncomfortable, that's if you can get them to read past the title page. I tried getting a few Fundie Christian friends to explore these ideas and open up their minds, but I was predictably unsucessfull. If they will not accept modern science in lieu of the Genesis fairy tale, then Dennis R. MacDonald will seem like Satan's pen name for sure;>

I found this book very interesting. I think this book is well written and researched. Dennis MacDonald makes a strong case that Mark used a number of scenes from Homer's Odyssey and Iliad. But to assume that Mark is just writing an account of Jesus' ministry based on the Odyssey and Iliad is to miss the what the Gospel is really all about. I would recommend reading Horsley' book, "Understand Mark at Story" to get inside what the Gospel is really all about.

If we were to count all of the examples MacDonald gives to demonstrate that the author of Mark used Homeric epics as literary models, they'd number around 100. Explaining all of these instances away is, as the author demonstrates, hardly possible.

What I found particularly fascinating about this book is the way Homeric literary models explain characteristics of Mark that were otherwise enigmatic. For example, why did Jesus intend to pass his disciples by when he was walking on the water? For that matter, how did Jesus see his discples on the boat at night when he was on top of a mountain? Why did the Roman centurion call Jesus the son of God? MacDonald answers these questions and more.

I originally wondered why this book costs so much. After reading it, it appears to me that there are at least two reasons. First, MacDonald's contributions are revolutionary. His research is no doubt extensive. In other words, this book is valuable. Second, perhaps charging $40+ limits the amount of people reading the book exclusively for the purpose of debunking it. I'm sure MacDonald is aware people will criticize his conclusions, but the price helps makes sure those people who are legitimately interested in New Testament scholarship--not just apologetics--will read it.

So if you're one of those people interested in New Testament scholarship, I don't think your view of Mark will be the same after reading this book. Don't miss it.

Very well written and totally unique perspective.
The reader would do well to brush up on Homer's Iliad and Oddysey before delving into this one (although the author does provide very brief summaries in the Appendix).

Good companion with The Jesus Puzzle and The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man.

Highly recommended.

MacDonald's book on Mark and Homer recalls (to my mind) Darwin's "Origin of Species." How so? Well, just as Darwin used inductive reasoning based on observation to suggest family resemblences and lineages among species, MacDonald does the same with Mark and Homer. In other words, MacDonald suggests that Homer functions as a kind of literary South America to Mark's literary Galapogos. MacDonald is saying, in essence, that some of the "birds" (stories) on Mark's literary island evolved from some of Homer's "birds" (stories). MacDonald then takes the reader carefully through his evidence, noting family resemblences, and he does this thoroughly. It is an extremely impressive achievement. After reading MacDonald's book, I read the first ten chapters of the "Odyssey" to see if I could imagine Mark really drawing on Homer in generating at least some of his stories about Jesus. I read Robert Fagles highly praised translation. I imagined myself as Mark living in a Greek city, meditating on news of the recent destruction of Jerusalem, and opening the Odyssey for solace or distraction. To my delight and surprise, I could see Jesus in the opening description of Odysseus and could imagine an author making connections and contrasts between the two characters. Odysseus is described in the opening of the Odyssey this way: ". . . many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home." And he is opposed by "blind fools" who might have escaped destruction if they had listened to him. Homer's poetic quality suggests (at least to me) a resonance with the Christian aspiration, and the author of Mark may have had a similar experience, provoking his imagination, and ultimately his pen. It certainly struck me, for example, that Penelope's suitors resemble the way Jesus' opponents talk. And Circe's dialogue with Odysseus recalls the Gadarene demoniac's dialogue with Jesus. Also, Auolus' bag of winds unleashing a storm could certainly have been Mark's inspiration for his own story about Jesus and his discples in a storm. Lastly, I noticed at least two places (in the first ten chapters of the Odyssey) where gods walk on water. There is certainly something going on between Mark and Homer, and MacDonald has done an admirable job teasing out relationships.

This book, by far and away, is THE BEST for the collector of Homer Laughlin colourware. It has an amazing amount of detail and answers almost every question a person could ask about the dishes named in the title. Measured line drawings are an invaluable help for both the novice and seasoned collector. And it is quite a treat to see photos of nearly every piece in all glaze colours. I found the price guide to be a major improvement over most, as each piece is priced individually by colour.

Readers are treated to a wonderfully accurate history of the dishes. Several rumours that have circulated among the collecting community over the years are laid to rest. The fact that the authors had access to both Frederick Rhead's journals and the HLC modeling logs resulted in a book that is sure to become "The Fiesta Bible".

It is quite refreshing to be able to consult a reference for information, and know that it is factual and free of some author's prejudice and innuendo. This particular book sets a new standard for what collectors' books should be. A MUST BUY!!!

This is a fine quality coffee table type book, with heavy paper and nice color reproduction. If you are an advanced collector who owns every book about Fiesta as well as every piece of Fiesta, you will want this book.

If you are a new collector who has absolutely no idea what any thing is, have no assortment of Fiesta to look at as you read and have no spatial visualization skills, you will want this book because it very pedantically gives every measurement every which way so that you can figure out that your plate that measures 9 5/8 inches is ... surprise commonly called the 9" luncheon plate, and not some "rare, unknown, experimental" due to that extra 5/8". In fact, if you are given to such flights of imagination, especially when pricing your items for sale, please buy this book.

If you are the average collector who falls in the middle, who has seen a set or two of Fiesta, or owns some already, who knows the difference between a bowl and a cup, the tried and true Huxford book, also out at this time in a new edition at about ... and in stock at ..., is the more standardly used alternative, and the one that all but the most novice collector would probably find the better value.

This is the definitive text on Fiestaware®, Harlequin® and Kitchen Kraft. It was written for collectors by collectors (the combined efforts of the Homer Laughlin China Collectors Association.)

The book has insightful, smart and readable text that was reviewed by experts for accuracy. Each piece is illustrated with gorgeous, professional full-color photos, scale line drawings and details on its manufacture.

Homer Laughlin gave the authors unprecedented access to the original journals of Franklin Rhead, the original designer behind Fiestaware® and Harlequin®, and it shows.

This is more of a textbook than a guide. I find myself using it constantly. For Fiesta and Harlequin® collectors there is no equal.

Given all the hype that has been sounded off about this book, I guess my expectations were far too high. I expected something that would make me throw away my Snyder book for the pictures, stop constantly using my Huxford for the information and become enraptured with this one... sorry folks. I found the "one item to a page" thing a little too overdone and self important. Really, MORE information on LESS pages at a LOWER cost would have been much preferred. At 39.95, it is unlikely that I will buy the next (inevitible) edition...- I mean, just how many photos of a single item, followed by a line drawing of the same item, do you need to see?... Huxfords have always kept prices at around $20 per each edition update.... at $40 I would rather buy a piece of Fiesta than (a second edition of) this book. If you can, buy it used or borrow it.

If you are a beginning collector of Fiesta, Harlequin or Kitchen Kraft, this book will be an excellent source of information, particularly with regard to colors, dimensions and marks, the most commomly asked questions. If you are a more advaned collector, there is still a wealth of information to be found in this reference. The inclusion of dimensions for each piece is a subtantial improvement over most collectors guides to dinnerware. An absolute must own for the Fiesta or Harlequin collector!

I got this book from a friend and after reading a few chapters I checked the Amazon reviews to see if "it was just me" or if this book was horrible. I was surprised to see it had even 3 1/2 starts. Then I read the reviews carefully...

Just days after the book came out, there was a rush of excellent reviews, most of which where only a few sentence long and lacked any detail. Then reality set in. People who really read it, universally hated it. -- And gave detailed examples why.

Now, I'm not going to say the original reviews where astroturf... but read them in order and watch the dates. Then consider you have a book with 14 authors all of whom use the internet and know the power of good Amazon reviews...

Things just don't add up.

This is definitely a good book for developers having good knowledge of ASP and XML and how to integrate XML in ASP. I just loved this book. People who say they don't like it, they have not read the book I am sure. Its sure worth the money!

This book was a real dissapointment.

I LOVE wrox ASP 3.0 Ref and ADO 2.6 Ref. Maybe Wrox should have taken that approach with this book -- instead of trying to act like this book can in any way teach anything about XML.

The examples in this book are horrid, they aren't in depth enough, and more importantly, don't even correspond well with each other.

Too many of the chapters jump into the middle of a subject, then try to work back to the beginning and then forward to the end.

Trust me, I've read the first 5-7 chapters of this book and finally got so sick of all the ambiguity that I went out to the MS Site and learned more in 30 minutes there than I ever could have with this book.

Some of the case studies in the back are nice, and this book would have made a great reference (had they gone that route), but it is a horrible book to learn how to integrate XML with ASP.

Save your money.

Excellent! for ones who are pro to ASP and need to intergrate XML with ASP! A must buy!

I'm a big fan of the WROX publications (for ASP in particular), but this book was a disappointment. The writing was choppy - as you might expect from a book with 14 guys on the cover. The examples were cryptic and raise more questions than they answer.

The author(s) seem to me to be attempting to impress us (and each other) with their knowledge of the subject rather than really trying to write a digestible explanation of ways to utilize XML in an ASP environment.