Z Books

Inspired by all the 5-stars rating this book got , I had quite high expectations. I was looking forward to find a few original ideas about the very demanding subject of "Spontaneity" as a human source of inspiration, play and selffullfilment.

If you approach this book from this angle, you probably are going to be disappointed.

"Ritual and Spontaneity ..." happens to be just the title of one of 10 chapters of the book. The chapters contain detailed analysis of concrete moments of the psychoanalytic process and the psychiatrist's possiblity to step out of orthodox rules of neutrality.
If that special case of spontaneity is all you are interested in, this book should be enjoyable.

A brilliantly argued, thoroughly reasoned argument for greater use of the symmetry/asymmetry dialectic in contemporary analysis, beautifully illustrated by lengthy and complex clinical examples.

Hoffman has written a suberb book on cliincal theory and process. He not only has a deep understanding and respect for psychoanalytic schools of the past, but he is extending contempory psychoanalytic theory and practice and does so with creativity, humanity and eloquence. The dialectical-constructivist view elaborated upon in this book includes many features. Three features that have particular interest for me are the interplay of the givens of reality and the latitute for interpretive choices, the dialectic of meaning and mortality, and the dialectic between noninterpretive and interpretive interactions. Hoffman provides lenghty clinical illustrations that have had considerable impact on the way I understand interpersonal interactions. I am making this book a required text for my clinical seminar at my psychoanalytic institute. I think my students will benefit greatly from the honesty and talent revealed in Ritual and Sponteneity in the Psychoanalytic Process. I certainly have learned a great deal from reading this book.

Careful, elegant reasoning and diligent research combined with flashes of humor and irony. It is a very clear and readable presentation of a "constructivist" point of view--that the patient and the analyst co-construct reality rather than the detached analyst objectively uncovering the truth; which challenges many basic assumptions about the role and the manner of the therapist.

Hoffman pushes social constructivist thinking into realms where few have attempted to tread. Beyond his uniquely subtle, ironic portrayal of the process of social construction, Hoffman takes on an even greater challenge: explaining why--within our subjective worlds of (constructed) meanings--there inevitably lurks a universal tension over the possibility of meaninglessness, a potential disorder within any sense of order. His explanation pushes constructivism into an existential realm--to the "horizon" where the awareness of the certainty of death (and the potential insignificance of life) exist in dialectical counterpoint with our constructed worlds of meaning. Most dramatically, by moving contemporary psychoanalytic discourse into this region, Hoffman is able to re-frame our understanding of many human dilemmas--from the child's experience of the role of parents to the patient's experience and expectations of the therapist/analyst. Caveat lector: you may never again see many familiar issues in the same way.

While Kebric's book is best read as a supplement, there is no doubt that this is one of the better historical narratives I've ever read. Kebric's book teaches without the tedious dryness of a regular history book thanks to his well-organized and friendly style which reads more like a series of related stories than a history. An abundant supply of original sources compliment the book, many of them interesting and often humorous!

I recommend this book if you want a quick overview of Roman history including a look into the lives of important Roman figures. It's a good quick and easy read.

We used this book as a supplementary text for my Roman Civ. course. I found it extremely interesting and informative, as well as easy to read. Kebric gives portraits of Romans from different eras in great detail. He supplements his own work with passages from ancient authors of the Roman world. This is a good read for anyone interested in the Roman era, and a must read for students of Roman history.

After reading Kebric's "Greek People," I thought I'd give "Roman People" a try as well. Both are well-written social histories of ancient Greece and Rome that look at the daily lives of the people through the eyes of those who were there. Kebric makes liberal use of primary-source material to support his narrative, and he keeps the reader engaged with small vignets about the significant contributions of individual Roman people.

I thoroughly recommend this book.

I was dissappointed somewhat when I first got this book, as I was expecting it to cover the social conditions of one particular period of the Roman Empire instead of being a general history. When I finally sat down to read it, though, I was pleasantly surprised by what a gem of a book this is.

Not exactly social history, not exactly general history, this book instead considers the lives of various people throughout the history of the Roman state which are either important in their own right (those of important political figures) or else important as indicators of significant trends (e.g. the rise of Christianity).

Perhaps why I like this book most, though, is the author's crips style and lucid reasoning. Conclusions are always supported with reference to original sources, and when these are either lacking or ambigious then clear-headed deduction is used to try to reconstruct what most likely might have happened. A fine example of this is when Kebric argues that Roman incompetence was probably more responsible for the protracted siege of Syracuse than any fantastic siege inventions on the part of Archimedes.

Given how much ink has been spilled on Roman history, I can perhaps give no greater praise to this book than by saying it showed me things I had never seen or thought of before.

Lovely! I wish there were more, and will most likely purchase Seraphemera Books products again.

I bought this gift for my friend, who loves the Goth lifestyle. She and I spent hours coloring, painting, and crafting these remarkable pages. The drawings are very pretty, well done, and over all this is a great way to spend time. Also, the pages are durable. Unlike other coloring books, the pages do not tear up, but they are easy to remove, paint does not soak through them, and they don't smudge.

I thought a goth coloring book was such a cute and unique idea that I just had to buy it. I don't have kids; I got it all for myself. I love it! The drawings are clean, crisp, and pretty enough that you just might want to post them on your fridge when you're done. The drawing style reminds me a little of "Daria." There's also a fun level of self-deprecating snark. (K is for "Keening"; Y is for "Yellow hurty thing"...) There's nothing here that a parent wouldn't want their gothlings seeing, so this would be a fun gift for kids; but it's also a great stress-reliever for adults. I loved the feeling of putting colored pencil to deathly-white page for the first time in years...

There are a variety of gift offerings out there for the Gothy at heart, including oils, makeup kits, journals and whole magazines devoted to the topic. Yet, nothing is so welcome as a novelty item that is gender-neutral, smart, and humorous enough to encompass the spirit of similar products, minus the difficulties selecting things like a scent can bring up. This is a perfect item because it's suitable for younger spooky types as well as older ones, without sacrificing any of the marvelous intent with which it was created. Beautiful, clear illustrations and clever word selections create a unique piece that is nothing short of delightful!

Havent met a kid who didnt love this book and series. Inspire your kids to read or if you are a kid, inspire your parents to get you this series.

This book is captivating, challenging (try to figure out what's up before the ending) and have fun sharing this book with friends!!!

The book was great. The great plot kept me turning the pages and wanting more. I can't wait until #6 comes out.

Dear Amazon Web Surfers We loved the Secrets of Code Z. We thought it was a very suspensful book, and it had a lot of action in it. If you read it at night, you may get a little frightened... but the mystery itself has you on the edge of your seat!! Its filled with excitment and suspence. It gives you the chills but in the end of the book everything is solved and its one of the best thrillers you will ever read! All three of us thought this book was the best we have ever read. It was definatly our favorite books, and we will never forget it! *ever*

My 12 year old son, a reluctant fiction reader, picked up The Secrets of Code Z and couldn't put it down. He finished the novel that night and wants the whole series. I want the whole series because the Orville is funny, the story is suspenseful and books are well-written. It's next to impossible to figure out how to inspire a 12-year old boy to read. I consider this a gift for mothers everywhere.

Mickey Z is one of the best left wing writers (and a great poet) working right now. Everyone should pre-order this book and tell their friends. To put it in a simpler way - Mickey Z is more fun to read then most of the radical but dry books about Bush's war propaganda - and is also far more hard hitting - but as accessible than the troika of mainstream liberals suddenly declaring themselves anti-imperialist In many ways, he is comparable to a Brooklyn version of Paul Virillio - he sees through everything, but instead of writing like a professor of architecture, his style is that of Bukowski filtered through historical materialism. His writing is witty enough for a high school kid who's cynical about politcs but sophisticated enough for seasoned analysts like Michael Parenti.

The vast majority of citizens of the United States are either unaware or don't care about the magnitude and regularity of the crimes committed by their government in their name. They rather think their government is a "light unto the world" going about its business, wishing nothing other than to be left alone to pursue its peaceful American dream. Whether this is due to the disingenuousness of those citizens or the effectiveness of these spins is debatable. This book is more of a too often obscure but important documentation proving the United States government continues to be, and with occasional competition always has been, the greatest threat to world peace. It serves also as a look into the modus operandi of the mafia enterprise known as America.

Mickey's historical reach encompasses with equal clarity events as disparate as George Washington's racism justifying the slaughter of Natives by labeling them savages and brutes, to the current campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and beyond. Yet his narrative is vivifying rather than ponderous. He touches upon many important U.S. historical epochs to prove even more than what the worst cynic might have suspected: the whole history of this country is conceived and steeped in bloodshed and suffering - and spin. From the arrival of Columbus in 1492 right up to the current imperial crusades in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Israel/Palestine, and, given the nature of spin and the complicity of the corporate media, who knows where all else, U.S. policy has been one imperial aggrandizement after another.

The Seven Deadly Spins are used to turn America's long historical penchant for war, brutality, and ethnic cleansing into something other than what it really is, often its very opposite, to justify it, and allow its perpetuation. Part of the aim of spin is to glorify war as the triumphing of the quasi-religious good, the United States and its actions, over the foreboding evil, the enemy du jour, in the eternal Manichean struggle between the forces of light and darkness. Another part is to sanitize the wanton bloodshed of countless innocents and other atrocities. For the charade to continue, these must be whitewashed as unfortunate accidents, or justified as necessary for a greater good, when they are acknowledged at all.

Vietnam and the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans are the most obvious of many examples of American rapine. Far too many are quite forgiving of these and a long list of like outrages. As Mickey quotes Robert Jensen as saying, "In affluent societies, one should expect a lot of `willed ignorance' from people. If one's privilege is based on maintaining the empire, it's not surprising that some people won't want to know about what the empire really does."

Although the information is available, fewer bother to learn about U.S. complicity in other imperial intrigues, like the assassination of Allende in Chile and the installation of the brutal Pinochet in his stead, for example. Likewise the U.S.-backed Suharto and his multiple genocides in Indonesia and East Timor. The assassination of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 was accomplished at Eisenhower's behest, ushering in four decades of terror resulting in 200,000 murders. Mickey touches upon these shameful but hardly anomalous chapters in American history, as well as countless assaults on Cuba over a century, 32 interventions into Latin America between 1989 and 1934 alone, along with interventions into Grenada, Somalia, Serbia, Kosovo, the Congo, Panama, Russia in 1919, the calculated indifference to the Rwandan genocide contrary to international law, and the reality of the often surreptitious motives animating U.S. policy in World Wars I and II. Michey doesn't so much cover old territory in describing these shameful chapters in U.S. foreign policy as he does detail the perennial spin that is used to justify, slant, and hide them.

Mickey's prose is inimitable, terse, buoying and accessible. We observe along with him the rule in U.S. political affairs, conscious and deliberate, which invariably gives lie to the conventional history. Illustrative is President James Polk unilaterally provoking a war with Mexico in 1946, which, as intended, eventuated in U.S. annexation of what are now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, and part of Colorado. Mickey cites Teddy Roosevelt, enshrined on Mount Rushmore with all that's good and decent about America, as saying, "I should welcome any war, for I think this country needs one." The sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor, probably the result of an accidental explosion of its coal-fired engine, soon served as the pretext for war with Spain. This short war in turn led to the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, and the merciless slaughter of 600,000 defenseless Filipinos.

One of many virtues of this book is the sources from which it draws, and with whom Mickey's writing deserves to be classed: Noam Chomsky, William Blum and Howard Zinn are the most noteworthy. Equally as important voices as Paul Atwood, Mark Zepezauer, Ward Churchill, and Kenneth C. Davis are also cited. All draw a similar picture. As Paul Atwood puts it, "While we claim to be a generous, humane society, I see us as cold-blooded, selfish, increasingly narcissistic and out of touch with a broader reality. Though half the population of the planet goes to bed hungry every night, we Americans are grossly overfed. There is a direct connection between these two phenomena but we are in denial about it."

"Professional iconoclast..."
--New York Newsday

"Political provocateur..."
--Time Out New York

"Acerbic wit and dogged interrogation of accepted wisdom...matches Chomsky in breadth of source material and in the scalding heat of his moral outrage..."
--New Internationalist

"Iconoclastic and bold..."
--Howard Zinn

"Bukowski filtered through historical materialism..."
--Jordy Cummings

"Very similar to the stuff Emma Goldman was saying back in 1898..."
--Chuck Munson, Infoshop News

"...encyclopedic knowledge..."
--Greg Elich

"Has a sharp eye which sees what most miss..."
--Joe Connelly, editor of Veg News

"In the tradition of Zinn and Galeano..."
--David Barsamian, Alternative Radio

"Mickey Z. rocks!"
--Mark Zepezauer

"How can one be so sweet and yet so fierce?"
--Sander Hicks, founder of Soft Skull Press

"You write well; it's too bad you're on the wrong side."
--Peter F. Vallone, Jr., New York City Council Member, District 22

This is a must read for anyone that believes the government goes to war only for humanitarian and defense related reasons. Z in his direct, hilarious style exposes the fraud we call American democracy, through hard facts and clear prose. Buy this book for your relative or friend that wants to understand why you question everything. Mickey is their gateway to dissent.

This book is exactly what parents need who want to be positively involved in their children's education. Williams defines the educational lingo (babble)-- effectively empowering parents to understand what's being taught (or not taught) in the schools. A great tool for any parent who desires to make real changes and improve the quality of education their children receive.

This book opens the door to the problems that plague our public education systems. From reading failure, out-come based education, sex education and other non-academic teachings. This book is entertaining and informative. It empowers parents to go to their schools and take back the classrooms. The list of resources will help with any concern you might have about your child's school and quality of education.

This book is an excellent step by step manual exposing the methods and motives used by the public education bureaucracy.

An outstanding guide to educate the parent and improve education in the public schools. Points out the approaches you can take to make your child's education the best. Extremely well researched with references and websites, including citations to other books on specific problems of public education, such as Outcome Based Education, Goals 2000, etc.

What a resource!! I found so many practical ideas and helpful suggestions in this book. I wish I had this book in my hands when I started my consulting business 4 years ago. The ideas about marketing the business and how to set up a financial system are particularly helpful. Lots of real life examples made the book interesting as well.

What a resource!! I found so many practical ideas and helpful suggestions in this book. I wish I had this book in my hands when I started my consulting business 4 years ago. The ideas about marketing the business and how to set up a financial system are particularly helpful. Lots of real life examples made the book interesting as well.

Small Business Savvy is the most comprehensive book I've ever read on building a business, and the best book I've ever seen on clearing the distinct hurdles a woman-owned business presents.

Rist and Jones take turns exploring the start-up, marketing, pricing, and myriad in-between issues women owners face. Their ability to draw from those who've gone before is key. Not only do you soak up their considerable insights, but you get practical, illuminating anecdotal illustrations of hundreds of women whose successes and struggles are described as a learning tool. You get real, solid action plans instead of vague principles. With the first chapter you know what works and what does not, from real women business owners who've been there and from the authors' knowledgeable advice.

This book is a must-read for any woman considering or already entrenched in owning a business -- men, too. The principles work (I've tried many of them!) and the advice is a business saver and grower. This booke enables me to confirm places in my own business model where I have made right and wrong decisions...and receive direct methods for correcting the wrong ones. Outstanding!!!!

The authors present all kinds of useful ideas that I can implement right now, from bartering for services to collecting money due, i.e.,the nuts and bolts of a business. Tact and sensitivity are strong characteristics of dealing with prople, and I can tell that the authors have had much experience and success in this area. "Common entrepreneurial mistakes" such as charging too little is easy for business women to fall into, since we are used to giving our all to our families; therefore we tend not to value our efforts as much as we should.

I really like this book and plan to give copies to friends as Christmas gifts.

Where else can you find a picture of a 20 foot mosquito? As long as Minnesotans can fry up a limit of bluegills as the sun sets late on a hot summer day, we should feel secure in our abilty to defeat the Saracens.

Small Town Minnesota A To Z by Minnesota native Tony Andersen is an engaging and nostalgic look at a wide variety of small-town communities in Minnesota from Argyle to Zumbro Falls. Most of these distinctive Minnesota communities have fewer than 1,000 people. Full-color photographs and an engaging text written with wry humor and replete with candid, anecdotal stories of conversations and adventures with small-town folk make Small Town Minnesota A To Z an engaging and refreshing tribute to an outstanding Midwestern state, as well as a less crowded, less hyper, and less pressure-intense way of life.

The photos and stories are amazing. I wish I could write somthing that would do this book justice, but I guess that's why Bill Holm wrote the forward. His words describe perfectly the beauty of this book.

What a unique book! At times the writing flows just like poetry, ...."A forest thick with pine and poplar was interrupted only by the ribbon of road and clearings of shimmering lakes..." and other times it feels like a talking about fish stories with a friend in a local cafe..."My trusty rod and reel were packed in the trunk, just in case." If you've never been to Minnesota, or don't have a concept of what 'Small Town Minnesota Nice' really is, then pick up this book. And if you've ever visited a small town in Minnesota, or anywhere, read this book to feel welcomed back again! I truly couldn't put it down from Argyle to Zumbro Falls!

this book has some great patterns and the instructions are clear. however as someone very new to this type of sewing i found it a little bit difficult. i am sure with practice my animals will start to look like the ones in the book.

I searched for a long time in bookstores, libraries, and even online before I found the perfect patterns, and this book has them! Experimenting with materials and eye positioning to create different looks also gives you much more when it comes to your "collection." The only complaint I would have is that I can't find more books by the same author for other animals, 'coz I sure love the results from the patterns she has in this one. Really a wonderful book for anyone who wants to sew nice-looking stuff toys.

Just imagine how happy I was when I got my copy yesterday. Sometimes we don't believe the cover of a book, but Soft Animals A to Z is really great. I especially like the zebra, unicorn, and ostrich. My son asks me for the monkey. All of the 26 animal toys are lifelike. And you'll be surprised to see even xiphosura, armadillo, and iguana are included. Step-by-step illustrations are helpful. With this book, I could make great toys for my niece and nephew.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in soft toy making! This book contains an animal for every skill level, all you need to know is basic sewing. The instructions are well thought out and very easy to use. There is also such a variety in animals that you are sure to find one to make for every member of your family. If you are looking for that perfect book to get you started, here it is!

Although very popular in its day; Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" was later viewed to be superficial and saccharine. Where as Walt Whitman may have spoken with more of an organic American voice, Longfellow drew upon English Romantic models and looked to Norse and especially the Finnish epic or "edda" "Kalevala" for inspiration.

Not with standing; Longfellow's saga is pure New England Renaissance; touching upon values and aesthetics characteristic of Longfellow's circle: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Emerson and Thoreau.

The nature-painting of the "Song of Hiawatha" is outstanding; the poetry is full of quotables; and the over-arching message is profound.

A book for generations. Mine was published 1898 and given me by my mother whose father(b.1875) gave it to her. It goes to the heart of the Indian race, a people susceptible to mythology and magic as their last great hope. Read it with an open mind, imagination, and for its beauty.

"The Song of Hiawatha" is the best book I have ever been exposed to. Every time I hear the wonderful rhyme of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, I begin to think of what this land was like before the Europeans conquered it. It is a wonderful tale of peace between nations and a great book to read to children.

An undying tale.. legend... song... Wonderful poetry, the language is simply astounding! I have read the russian translation by Bounin, which was as remarkable as the original.