F Books

I grew up in NC and my grandfather was an avid fisherman. I am learning saltwater pier and surf fishing now and I need something to give some basics, and some specifics about this avocation. This book explains so much about things I have seen my entire life and been curious about but didn't think to ask. I am sending a copy to my sister and mother as well. I think anyone that is going fishing along the coast of the Carolinas must get this book!

This book is about where one can coastal fish in the Carolinas and for what kind of species at different times of the year. I found it to be a very useful guide to plan future surf fishing trips. The author does not give a lot of specifics about rigging tackle. I think Eric Burnley's Surf Fishing the Atlantic Coast provides that information a little better. I plan to keep Goldstein's book in my truck when I am in the Carolinas, and I certainly will look to buy future, updated editions.

This book has lots of great information about fishing in the Carolinas. There is good information on different types of fish and locations and techniques for catching them.

It's pretty cool when the author mentions pier owners, bait and tackle owners, etc. by name. This book is really a must read for folks wanting to fish the Carolina coast!

Highly recommended.

If you're like me most fishing books are way too vague. Titles Like "Surf Fishing" or worse "Fishing the Atlanic" try to be a little help to everyone. This book is a lot of help for a few.

The book reads like a conversation with and old fisherman on a pier or in a tackle shop. The author covers all the bases like where to shop, what to buy, how to rig it up, where to go, how to cast, where to cast, how to set the hook, where to put the catch, how to cook it, etc. This is not the modern "magazine article" style of book, it's an old school how to catch fish book.

Something to consider...
The book is mostly text and some basic B/W images and illustrations. You must be prepared to do some reading before you go fishing. This is not a skim fast and go fishing today book.

If you live in the area or plan to visit, it is a great resource.

I'd have to say this is one of my favorite books on fishing and one of the most complete books on fishing a particular area that I've ever read...even right down to information on exactly where to fish for each species. This book is well written, easy to understand, and well suited to anyone trying to learn how to fish (or how to fish better) from surf, jetty, or pier. Highly recommended.

I have just about every kids yoga book out there. This was a great addition to my library however it is way too expensive!?? I am not sure it is worth $40 although it is a great book.

this book is filled with great ideas and tons of yoga info. i also love Jodi...the author!

I just started teaching toddlers and everything in the book works so well. I have learned so much and my kids are having so much fun! This book is very comprehensive. Jody is passionate about her work with kids! She is a real pro and her work with music and movement is a delight!

Although the title put me off at first normally these kind of books are great in their simple concise explanations so I ordered it anyway.

I have to say it's an excellent book, I normally teach adults yoga and am just branching out into teaching children. However I am finding that I can take information from this book to use in beginners adult classes too as its simple, down to earth, no nonsense explanations of yoga make it a lot easier for students (at whatever age) to understand.

An absolute must if you would like to teach yoga to children.

I thought this book was excellent--I'm using it with my four-year-old, who has learned all 5 yanas and is able to recite them. She loves doing the poses and it really changes her mood when she's grumpy. I only wish there were better pictures. Sometimes it is hard to follow the diirections with no pictures.

I found the basic knowledge for understanding the computational fluid dynamics. If you have "computational fluid dynamics, Hypersonic and high temperature of gas dynamic" and a software for solve linear system and EDO( like Mathenatica), you could make computational fluid dynamic.Also clarify "Time-dependent approach to the steady state","classification of quasi-linear partial differential equations","Implicit and Explicit methods","Boundary-fitted coordinate","Time and space marching".

In my opinion, this is the best book I have read in all my engineering life. The beauty of this book is in the author's ability to exactly understand what the students difficulties could possibly be and also help in removing the difficulties. NOBODY must read any other cryptic CFD book before he ventures into this superlative text. While reading this book I had a feeling of some professor standing in front of me, teaching with love in a simple and clear language. Believe me, you can finish the entire book in one sitting if you have some background in Fluid dynamics since it is downright clear, conveying and interesting.

I personally have not found a teacher better than this book.

This is a very easy book to read. Anderson not only explains the computational methods, he covers the basics and explains the relevance of the equations and terms. This book addresses the needs for people with little background on this subject. I recommend it for any novice interested in obtaining a basic introduction to CFD.

If you want to learn CFD from the beginning, you must buy this book. It is simply the BEST, and I hadn't enjoyed reading a technical book since long time ago.

I am presently in my 4th year of a PhD in Astrophysics. While my background in the analytic portion of Fluid Dynamics is strong my understanding of how one discretizes and solves these equations numerically is somewhat lacking.

I picked this book up as a starting point to more complicated methods and found it to be, hands down, one of the best texts I have ever read. It presents the material in a concise, clear, and physically motivated fashion which makes learning the topic incredibly straightforward.

While this book is only a 'kicking off' point for more advanced techniques I think it is a must read for beginners and intermediate users. For the first timer to CFD the book will get you started down the right path armed with all the preliminary tools. For the more advanced user it will put aspects of the topic into an easier to understand light and perhaps shed more light on fundamentals that were presented poorly elsewhere.

I'd give it ten stars, it's allowed me to crack into the code I'm using and really understand why it works as well as having set me down the path to a more advanced level of understanding of CFD.

This book works through some great effects in cookbook style, such that if you follow the recipe, you can great some fantastic results. Although I am using CorelDraw 8 LE on the Mac, and am a beginner when it comes to graphic arts, I was still able to amaze friends and family with the output!

The written style is clear, concise and easily understood, and the side bars are very informative. The color pictures in the center of the book are helpful in defining the target look, and the enclosed CD with electronic "recipes" and results is great.

This is now in my top 10 technical book list!

I absolutely LOVE this book. It's opened up a whole new world of possibilities with Corel Draw 9. By the time I've experimented with all of the tutorials, I'm sure I'll be quite the whizz kid. Unfortunately, I'll have to do it all without any help from the CD. There is no INSTALL.EXE on the CD. Therefore, I am unable to install it. Although I can access its contents through my CD-ROM, using it that way tends to freeze up my system and it's just not worth the aggravation. But the book itself is a real jewel and I truly enjoy reading and learning from it. Shane Hunt's writing style immediately puts the reader at ease. This alone is worth its weight in gold and is a rare and welcome commodity in "How-To" books. Thanks Shane!

This is the best how to book I have ever worked through. It is a must have for Corel Draw 9 and 10 users who have never learned all the hidden secrets and shortcuts to this program. After learning each and every technique in this book, my talents in graphic design have multiplied greatly! I find my self creating amazing graphics I never would have believed possible. Thanks Shane Hunt for writing this incredible book!

After trying several of the web based tutorials I decided to try Shane's book. One of the best things about this book is that it takes an artistic approach in the instruction. I have used what I have learned from this book in all my projects to date. Shane has made me a more creative Corel Draw user. After several years of just using Corel Draw I am now creating on a level I never could have attained before. One should know the basics of Corel Draw before using this book. If you know how to access the menu commands then you should get this book. Highly recommended.

The CorelDraw 9: FX and Design is one of the best books on the market to get the most out of your software package. Author Shane Hunt knows his stuff. He presents facts, tips and creative ideas in a fun and entertaining way. This book is exactly what I needed to teach me the 'how' of CorelDraw 9 and at the same time teach incredible creative tools I can use right away. The Official Guides are fine but this book gives you the tools to think not only 'outside the box' but outside the stratosphere.

The other reviewers on Amazon have done an excellent job summarizing the main points in this book. I will briefly contribute to this discussion by detailing the arguments that stood out to me.

First of all, the book is dividied into two sections: (1) Scientism and the Study of Society; and (2) The Counter-Revolution of Science. The former expounds the differences and peculiar histories of both the social and natural sciences, while the latter seeks to understand the historical development of "scientism", finding its roots in the rationalistic tradition of French (continental) thought.

The first part is the more important section, and should be read carefully. Hayek traces the long escape of natural science from the anthropomorphic thought that characterized the Middle Ages. External events were believed to possess some transcendental reality. Slowly, however, science began to discover explanations of external reality that differed from our common sense perceptions. "Facts", it was argued, are different from "appearances." Note that in this discussion Hayek is not attacking the character of science when it is conducted in its own proper sphere. Science has much to say about the relation of material things to other things (cause and effect, etc.). Scientific study errs, however, when it begins to substitute material explanations for human affairs. There are some phenomena that cannot be explained by their material characteristics. In fact, most phenomena involving human opinions and beliefs cannot be explained by natural science. Hayek gives several illuminating examples to illustrate his case: "words", "sentences", "crimes" "family", "exchange", "money" etc. clearly can only be understood by finding out what people think about these things and not from their objective characteristics.

In this book Hayek shows that the social sciences are fundamentally distinct from the natural sciences because men can only be understood through their beliefs and opinions. A very important work.

This text is yet another testament to the extraordinary erudition of Dr. Hayek, and his ability to convey that methodological subjectivism (or individualism) is the foremost analytical technique for the several social sciences.

What is discomfiting in this work is the historical support that most of our basic ideas are formed early in our academic careers, and only painfully revised in subsequent years. This is particularly troubling for many trained in the scientistic legacy of Saint-Simon, August Comte, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Hegel. Hopefully, the recrudescent interest in the "economic sociology" of Mises and Weber will free sociology from its scientistic tethers. But I am not confident about that.

Hayek's long-lived philosophical commitment to methodological subjectivism is articulate, and is unmistakably clear in this work. And the Counterrevolution only restates the postulate that social scientists ought not to imitate their more highly paid colleagues in the "hard sciences." And this seems like eminently sound advice for sociologists, and particularly now that the flagship sociology journals are cluttered with, e.g., "religiousity scales," "mentoring scales," and other synechdichocal concepts that are amenable to various measurement scales.

The price of this work is a steal. It must be known, however, that Hayek is an author who challenges readers. And this book is no different.

In this book, F.A. Hayek sets some very important nerves blank.
Social sciences study the relations between men and things and between men and men. Some philosophers thought that social sciences should be treated like natural sciences and that the latter's laws were also valid for the former ones. This `scientistic' viewpoint led to the worst absurdities and aberrations in the history of philosophy.

One of the task of science is to constitute `wholes' by constructing models which reproduce the relationship between some of many phenomena observed in real life. `Wholes' (language, market, morals, money, social processes ...) are not natural `units' like flowers, but refer only to certain structures of relationships which we select because we think that we can discern connections between them. However, for some philosophers `wholes' are more than the aggregate of all constituent parts (e.g. human history, societies, economies) and are subject to relatively simple laws. This viewpoint led to the thesis that the coherence of these large entities must be subjected to conscious control.
As F.A. Hayek remarks, phenomena like language, markets, money or morals are not real artifacts, products of deliberate creation, but the outcome of spontaneous processes. There is a crucial difference between influencing spontaneous processes and attempting to replace them by organizations fabricated by conscious control. Nevertheless, for some philosophers, processes which are consciously directed are superior to any spontaneous ones. Man must have complete power to refashion everything in any way he desires. The outcome of these policies was pure determinism, relativism, totalitarianism, collectivism, compulsive planning.

A few examples quoted in this book:
For A. Comte, `freedom equaled the rational submission to the domination of natural laws. Liberty of conscience was an antisocial dogma and a revolting monstrosity.' `There is nothing good and nothing bad; everything is relative; this is the only absolute statement.'
For F. Hegel, `man cannot change the course of history, which is directed by the laws of the development of the human mind.' `All that is real is rational and all that is rational is real.'
The influence of these philosophers (and others) cannot be overestimated until today.

In this book, F. A. Hayek shows how the 'fallacy of misplaced concreteness' generated (generates) disastrous policies for hundreds of millions of humans.
Not to be missed.

The Counter Revolution of Science was one in a series of books by Hayek to explore the abuse of reason in the twentieth century. Hayek started his career writing technical economics. Books like Prices and Production and Collectivist Economic Planning were meant to settle issues among economists. Hayek's efforts were initially met with success. Hayek swayed professional opinion on business cycles. Hayek also forced socialists to revise their early proposals. Yet professional opinion turned against Hayek during the mid thirties. Why? Had they proven him wrong? Did they fail to understand why he was right?

How was it that intelligent and educated people could not see the strength of Hayek's arguments? Hayek saw that modern collectivism was working to undo the intellectual progress made during the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment. Collectivism was antithetical to reason, and would lead us to a new Dark Age if not reversed. Persons of the left with surely find this absurd, and their revulsion to Hayek's thesis is consistent with his thesis. The Left does not reject reason explicitly, it abuses reason unwittingly. People on the Left truly believe that they are progressive and scientific, but this is a false belief. Socialists and Welfare State Liberals abuse human reason by failing to see its limits.

I find the sections on Engineers particularly interesting. Hayek's views on Engineers are so diametrically opposed to Veblen's Engineers and the Price System that one must wonder why he did little more than mention Veblen in passing. The Counter Revolution of Science is one of Hayek's best books, and that is saying a lot. The Counter Revolution of Science was important in the twentieth century because it penetrated to the core of intellectual problems of that time. We live in a new century now, but the old problem of abusing reason remains. The Counter Revolution of Science should be read by the entire educated public.

Friedrich von Hayek has been one of the most ardent exponents of the dreamy hopes of progress and happiness that supposedly, would be brought by the Industrial Revolution.

When the triumph of the polytechnic spirit as he calls it, covers and comprises the whole of human experiences, in such extent to deny any other value it becomes a new sect and really, all of who maintain this belief become heretics due its own fanaticism. He wants to prevent us about the enormous risk of reducing the science to "scientism."

The rereading of this text is especially helpful in these times in which we are immersed in what we might call an ethical deficit of huge proportions that has underpinned the pragmatism to unexpected places. So the fact to expect the science and technology be by themselves the universal antidote, product of a superficial diagnosis or mistaking cause and effect, sooner or later a double cutting doge weapon.

Two brief examples may witness it: the use of DDT resolved a serious problem but also generated another one. And here we have: how to deal and even conciliate a dynamical vitality in our way of life without damage of our environment; because the imminent crisis of "the greenhouse effect" simply cannot wait any longer and obviously will demand and even affect a wide spectrum of the productive forces, no matter how effective negotiator you be at the moment to conciliate both interests in conflict.

The purchase of the book was easy and its delivery was prompt, even with the Amazon offer of free but relatively delayed delivery.

This is the second book of John Ehlers, a well-established pioneer in cycles and trend analysis for the technical analysis of stock price behavior. It is for advanced analysis, and it is a sequel to his classic book of "Rocket Science for Traders". You do need a math aptitude and some programming experience to get the maximum benefit of both books. John also offers eratta and corrections for minor typos in the formulas as well at his Mesa website.

Those who find this book of interest might also check on John Bollinger's classic book "Bollinger on Bollinger Bands", Steve Achelis' book on "Technical Analysis from A to Z", Steve Nison's book on "Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques", and Martin Pring's "Technical Analysis Explained", Paul Murphy's "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets", and "Technical Analysis of Stock Trends" by Edwards and MaGee. This is not a complete list, but a good start.

Remember that no single book offers the Holy Grail of investment. Stay objective to balancing your background, because investing mistakes can be the most expensive education you will ever have.

This is a book clear and very easy to read, for me as physics research, and to my development is very useful.
Strongly recommended.

The computerization and digital signal processing development let improve classical indicators essentially due to application of modern methods of information processing to prices. Indicators began to smooth better and to delay less. However . First, the prices are non stationary, i.e. the characteristics of filters are varied during the time. Second, as different from technical problems, the kind of a signal and noise distributions for the price are unknown, i.e. nobody know what to filter actually. Third, being filtered by means of Fourier and similar methods prices change the previous values to the addition of the new data: we receive ideal trends under a history data but we can only trade them from right hand to left hand.

Fourier transformation is based on representation of initial series by the infinite sum of sinusoids with a various phase, amplitude and frequency. Recently wavelet transformations was widely adopted in various areas of data processing in which initial series are represented as the sum of some locally defined functions named wavelets. They are constructed by shifting and vertical and horizontal scaling of certain the prototype function. Wavelet transformation, in essence, is fractal that allows the effective using it in the technical analysis. First, it allows to carry out the multiscale analysis of prices, objectively identify trends on various scales by duration and amplitude, separate traders to various groups: scalpers, day traders, swing traders, position traders and long-term investors. The multiscale analysis can be interpreted as the analysis on various time frames. Second, it allows determine noise as the insufficient for reception of the profit amplitude and frequency movement of the prices that effectively allows filter the price series simply subtracting the lowest scale wavelets from it. Third, the additional filtration of white noise without delay is possible. Fourth, long-term trends are defined objectively. Fifth, wavelets do not contain optimized parameters in construct to standard indicators. Sixth, the used wavelets type is adapted to deal with the time ordered data and does not distorted on the last price values. Seventh, the used wavelet transformation is very effective computationally that allows use it in real time for the large massives of tick data. Eighth, it is effective to use wavelets as input data for neural networks and other methods of forecasting and recognition.

John Ehlers newest title is sure to make even the brightest of brain surgeons quiver for fear of closing the renal artery prior to completing the operation. Other reviewers may diss this author but his latest book truly reaches for the stars and makes it. The chapters while short, are to the point and exquisitely illustrate the concept being taught. If you are new to trading systems the shortness of the explanations may be too short but for experienced traders and developers of trading systems they are long enough.

Aspects of many indicators are reviewed with fresh insight added for several new systems not talked about in print before. Removing the lag is the traders dream. Many of the indicators shown do work although errata in the code does spoil some of the implementations given. Ehlers has provided for the keener updates on his website that corrects the mistakes, kudos here for doing the right thing.

Overall Ehlers has done it again and this book should be a staple in any traders library. As for the wannabees wanting all the answers and sure fire methods, choose brain surgery as your career option. No one said trading would be easy but Ehlers has given more toolsets that a successful trader can use in a concise to the point book.

I have been trading for nearly 10 years now and have spent countless amount of time and money on books, systems, software and must say this the best book I have come across. With little creativity one can easy adopt ideas from this book to come up with a profitable mechanical system.

This was actually my first experience with Doris Lessing, tho I've heard of her for years. Her picture of the So. African experience was quite revealing but I got a little tired of the analysis of those who joined the communist movement. It seems that though she worked as an activist, she never really
'bought' the doctrine, to her credit. But she seems to have a need to over analyse the motives. It seems to me that most of the people were just trying to improve the social ills of the time and were taken in by the communist rhetoric. The writing was good enough to keep me reading even though I wasn't too happy with the her bohemian attitude; abandoning her children, taking successive lovers.... I respect her intellect but not her morals.
I am not inclined to look for the second installment.

Doris Lessing has led such an interesting life, and writing a diary all the time. She writes of a time completely foreign to me, living a history of the changes in Southern Afica. I find her autobiography a great read, and prefer it to her novels. Interesting and moving, and explains much about her!

This is a hard-hitting piece of autobiography. Lessing looks at her parents and their world of colonial mastery from the point of view of her younger, increasingly disenchanted self. Lessing was gathering steam in those years, to emerge as one of the prominent novelists of the post-war era. In this, the first of a two-volume autobiography, she is beginning to grow critical of her parents, colonialism, white supremacy, men - her husband in particular - and just beginning to flirt for a short time with the great experiment in group-think of the period known as Communism. She falls for it for a time, but not for long. It will take her a while, but she finally emerges along with George Orwell as the most articulate critic of this mindless, toxic form of self-imposed mental slavery. She writes of her fellow-traveling, communist-sympathizing friends as silly people, which strikes me as as good a way to think of them as any. Lessing provides, along with her political autobiography, a lovely evocation of Africa, the landscape and people, about whom she wrote as a young novelist and to whom she has continued to refer throughout her long and continuing career as a writer.

This is a candid autobiography with as main themes love, sex (good sex, as Doris Lessing calls it, is a right for everybody) and politics in South-Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) ruled by a blank minority.
It is a gripping, moving and realistic picture, wherein the author tries to find answers to personal and more general human questions: why was she so outspoken rebellious and, on the contrary, so strictly loyal to the communist movement?
Why are people fighting relentlessly each other, and on the other hand, striving for happiness?
Are the people of her generation all children of World War I? Why was her father a freemason?

This book is written like an irresistible waterfall. Not to be missed.

Under My Skin

Doris Lessing's autobiography traces her political and emotional development from her earliest childhood memories to her growing, overwhelming, disenchantment with provincial (as she saw it) small town life. "Small town" life for her was pre-WWII Salisbury in the (then) British colony of Southern Rhodesia. Salisbury was a complacent capital city of 10,000 white settlers in a country the size of Spain.
Lessing is quick to debunk the myth of the prosperous, close knit, white farming community - poverty was a real fact of life both for blacks and whites. Her most vivid childhood memories are of escaping from the family home and off into the limitless veld. The emptiness of the veld parallels her youthful emptiness and her growing convictions that the communist party represents a real hope for the world.
The book, a masterpiece of autobiographical writing, is brutally honest in parts and wilfully obscure in others. Some of her emotional mistakes are hardly glanced at (leaving her first two children, for example) but others (the joys of being part of a fast, hard drinking sect, embracing radical politics) are wonderfully engaging. Reading her thoughts you could be forgiven for thinking that the "party" was the only opposition to conservative white rule in Salisbury. This is what makes her book so appealing, her supreme skill as a novelist allowing us to enter the heady world of rushed meetings, leftist newspaper deliveries, drinks on the sports club verandah and back in time to find the cook still waiting to prepare supper. Naturally it couldn't last and Lessing is far too intelligent to think that that is all there is to life. The book ends in 1949 as she arrives in London, apprehensive and hopeful in the capital city of her parents.
This is more than a `who-did-what' from a long time ago, times and dates are (probably deliberately) rarely mentioned. It is the personalities and the ideas - most of all the ideas - sliding from youthful enthusiasm to mature realism which fuse the book with life and vitality. `Under My Skin', published in 1992, is that rare thing, a candid autobiography written by a consummate novelist with skills to spare. Doris Lessing is a national treasure.

Nice concurrence of words and thoughts. Magical reality. All stories were quite fine. I enjoyed 'The Hitchhiker Tale at Anton's Restaurant' the best.
'The Uninvited Guest' with its political statements would have been even stronger, in my opinion, by not being placed in a magical reality - which ended. The issues are too important and too real.

Dreamtime is an apt title for this collection of short stories. The author has a wonderfully natural writing style, and in all but one case the story feels as if the author is right there with you recounting personal stories beside the hearth - indeed, the majority of the stories are drawn from personal experience, as the author tells us in his Preface. The naturalistic style of the writing makes for a perfect medium in which Steiner introduces touches of the dream-like and supernatural. In story after story, the world of the mundane is gradually infused with an atmosphere of intellectual, almost dreamlike fog.

The initial story, The Decoy, is rather atypical of the eleven stories collected here, in that it does not stray into the realm of the unusual. It does, however, show how good can come of seemingly bad occurrences. The sense of dreamlike experience first manifests itself in The Hiker's Tale: At Anton's Restaurant, in my opinion the most effective story in the collection. In this tale, an older gentleman finds himself caught in a sudden snowstorm, only to find a needed respite in the form of a most unusual restaurant.

Two of the stories, The Student Pilot and The Returning Student, share a similar theme; they don't deal with reincarnation per se, but in each case a great man of the past seems to make an unexpected and relatively brief trip into a contemporary but otherwise mundane setting. Canine Fantasies was a story I particularly enjoyed; here, the main character is given an invisible canine companion by a hypnotist, and this supposedly transient spirit eventually becomes the man's best friend in ways few would believe.

Several of the stories are open-ended explorations of extreme possibilities. The Disappearance, for instance, puts forth one possible scenario of The Rapture in the form of a man with whom the protagonist has, he realizes after the fact, a brief but personal connection. Events and personalities coming back together for a seemingly preordained purpose is also the formula for the story The Sea Witch. Phoenix Street is the only story with a real feeling of creepiness embedded within it - in the form of a malevolent old lady who affects a young Harvard graduate student's life, despite the fact the two individuals have never truly met.

A palpable sense of unreality or perhaps hyper-reality is evinced in the story The Uninvited Guest. Here, a stranded traveler wanders into an upscale party of strange characters espousing radical ideas. There would seem to be a context of political philosophy built into this story, but it is hard to say more without giving anything away.

The Pilgrim proves to be the most unusual story in the collection; it offers an allegorically striking and most unusual take on the subject of dying. I would have liked to have seen this story close out the book rather than the much less effective tale Round Trip. This final tale differs from the others in that it is told from the perspective of a third person, and its somewhat depressing account of an astronaut returning to a world forty years in his future (thanks to the conundrum of relativity) casts a dark reflection on the reader's consciousness.

Needless to say, I found Dreamtime a most impressive short story collection. While the author devoted his life to science, he obviously developed at the same time a deep sense of the human condition, with all its fears, desires, and mysteries. His writing style, far from the cold and sterile manner you might associate with a man of science, is in fact vibrant and exceedingly smooth and natural. Steiner chose the title Dreamtime because the word reflects a time of creativity and dreamlike magic, and as such it seems to fit this collection of stories perfectly.

Dreamtime is a term for the magical period of the creation of the world...it grasps the meaning of mystery and mystical wonder. The title "Dreamtime" captures the essence of Robert Steiner's short story collection and gives the correct suggestion that this too is a thing of mystery and mystical wonder.

This collection offers stories of great variety, from an odd summer job of being a decoy for muggings to the consequences of space travel. All of the stories contain some sort of oddity, lending them all an air of the "Twilight Zone." Each is a short, satisfying episode of fiction that will be sure to please its readers.

Robert Steiner is a storyteller with a gift for description. He grabs the reader's attention from the first word and offers tidbits of uniqueness to carry you through to the end of each tale. "Dreamtime" is an interesting and enjoyable read that touches on the paranormal but also demonstrates the very human qualities of its characters.

Review by Heather Froeschl of BookReview.com.

What is a dream? Is it merely that state achieved during sleep when fleeting images only half remembered later trace their way through your mind? Or are there other dream states? How about an alternate reality? Could one stumble into something so extraordinary and so beyond the common frame of reference that it constitutes a sort of waking dream? Author Robert Steiner seems to think so. He compiled eleven short stories outlining his belief under the title "Dreamtime." The author, a Harvard graduate who worked as a research scientist at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, has written a series of tales that evoke memories of such writers of the supernatural as William Hope Hodgson and even, in a certain narrative way, Clark Ashton Smith. Not all of the stories delve into the paranormal, but all of the stories do give the reader a decidedly eerie sensation of "not quite rightness" that only the masters of supernatural fiction manage to achieve. You won't find a lot of monsters from beyond time and space or fabled lands on other planets in "Dreamtime." What we do get is something far more sinister and far more personal. This is one creepy set of stories.

The first story in the collection, "The Decoy," doesn't exactly set the tone for the rest of the book. Don't get me wrong; it's a great story. But it doesn't expose us to the bizarre like the rest of the tales do. In this one, a young man ready to head off to graduate school decides to take a most unusual summer job in Italy helping the authorities there crack down on street criminals. Why he would be perfect for the job only emerges in degrees: it seems that his physical appearance is so repugnant that the Italian cops think he looks like a dupe of the type criminals love to victimize. He's actually quite intelligent, of course, which is another trait the police are looking for. Needless to say, he works wonders busting up packs of pickpockets until an encounter with a particularly ruthless gang of Russian thugs changes our young hero forever.

The next story, "The Hiker's Tale: At Anton's Restaurant," is more conventionally weird, if that makes any sense. A man decides to take a long hike to a dinner party only to run headlong into a dangerous snowstorm. He sits down on a stump to rest--never a good thing to do when it's cold and snowing outside--only to resume his trip a few minutes later. He stumbles over a brightly lit gentleman's club/restaurant in a place he never noticed on previous excursions. Invited inside by the friendly personnel, he sits down to partake of the inn's fantastic menu only to wake up suddenly in the hospital, a victim of frostbite and extreme exhaustion. Was it real or only a dream of a warm, welcoming place conjured up by an injured mind and body in order to sustain itself?

The next four tales share a similar trait in that we are seeing people or animals emerging from some other place or time to affect characters in the present day. "The Student Pilot" introduces us to a mysterious man who shows up for flight lessons even though he seems to know everything about flying airplanes. His identity, strongly hinted at toward the end of the story, makes us wonder whether what we are seeing is a case of reincarnation or something more eerie. The same can be said for "Canine Fantasies," a truly odd tale of a man hypnotized into thinking a phantom dog follows him everywhere he goes. Is it the recalled spirit of his childhood pet or a merely a hallucination? Problem is, this spirit helps the main character out in a big way on several occasions. "The Returning Student" eschews pilots and dogs in favor of a university teacher's encounter with an enigmatic student resembling one of our most famous authors. In "The Disappearance" the author treats us to yet another reappearing historical figure, this time a figure straight out of the Bible.

For something darker and scarier, turn to "Phoenix Street," "The Seaside Witch," and "The Uninvited Guest." The first involves a Harvard graduate student stressing out over finishing his thesis who disintegrates into a nervous wreck after glimpsing the visage of an evil looking woman glaring at him from the window of a house. "The Seaside Witch" involves a strange case of two individuals meeting again years after a chance encounter. The witch appears only briefly and in a way that doesn't set off alarm bells until the end of the story. My favorite story, and one that will definitely stay with me for some time, is "The Uninvited Guest." Some poor wretch caught in the fog pulls up to a house filled with chattering people throwing out very grim political opinions. This story made me think of Jack London's "The Iron Heel." The last tales include a science fiction story, "Round Trip," about an astronaut returning to earth after a forty-year excursion among the stars, and a delightfully optimistic look at the afterlife called "The Pilgrim."

Steiner has written some real gems here. He definitely has a knack for creating delightfully bizarre environments in the space of a few pages. His writing style works well too: you get the sense rather quickly that this is an author who ponders over each and every sentence to make sure he gets everything just right. He might have worked in science as a career, but his talents extend far beyond the laboratory and the microscope.

Robert Steiner named his collection of short stories from the Australian Aborigine "Dreamtime"--that world of the past, present and future that is a spiritual mystery. The title is apt--each story, whether set in this world or some other takes place in that nebulous region between life and death, between real and imagined.

The stories reminded me a bit of Edgar Allen Poe, but without being so bitterly dark. In a way, reading these was a bit like listening to "Hotel California" (but I mean that in a good way!)

There is a story of an unremarkable-looking young man who signs up for a stint patrolling the tourist areas of Rome. The work is not exactly without dangers, and he finds that even the darkest situation can yield some unexpected benefits. There is a story of a man who finds an abandoned mansion in Pennsylvania. The guests are captains of industry and society dames, but the uninvited guest finds out that they are far more dangerous than their conversation. A student in Cambridge, Massachusetts learns about the residue that pure evil can leave behind. And a professor in a third-rate college has a star pupil who is as elusive as he is brilliant. Who is the old guy that sits in on the classes, aces the exams but won't sign up for a campus ID and eludes security with the ease of a cat burglar?

The stories are enjoyable--reading this is like telling ghost stories around a campfire, but as if you had very literary camping friends, indeed. I enjoyed "Dreamtime" --once picked up, it's hard to put it down. If you like fantasy-horror on the light and fanciful side, this will appeal to you.

I couldn't put this book down -- from beginning to end the narrator takes your breath away with her dazzling descriptions of the remote and beautiful Driftwood Valley; the accounts of the valley in dead of winter, covered in twenty feet of snow with wolves singing mournfully and stars and northern lights dancing in the sky, brought tears to my eyes. The physical hardships and hair raising adventures she shares with her husband and their animals, her descriptions of the native people and wildlife, fascinating commentary on wilderness survival, and most of all her heartfelt love of the land itself, are nature and adventure writing at their best.

I read this book after finding it in a box in my parents attic at the age of ten. I have been trying to remember the title or author for years so I could read it again! This book is a magical read for anyone familiar with the ebb and flow of life in the wild. It inspired me to move to the Pacific Northwest and I am now planning my own trip to the Driftwood Valley. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys spending time outdoors and reading about nature! Top notch!

I am pleased to see this book has recently been reissued. I have an old, but treasured paperback copy. The author is observant of, informative about, and acutely responsive to the environment she describes. Having experienced winters in that region I would say she is especially adept at rendering the harsh, but radiant winters.

This book is an amazing journey into the frontiers of nature, exploration and science in the 1930's.

I have an autographeed copy the ©1946 edition of Driftwood Valley. I had the privilege of growing up in the same rural Pennsylvania town as Ms. Fletcher. When I was a teenager, I was employed by Ms. Fletcher to clean house for her one summer while she was away. She is a very nice woman with a remarkable background. She has set aside a nature conservatory in Northeast Pennsylvania which is open to the public. She has always been active in protecting the environment and wildlife. I re-read Driftwood Valley every couple of years and just love the adventure and challenges of this true-life story. What made it even more exiting for me is that the author was from my hometown.

IT IS A GOOD BOOK FOR ALL CHILDREN AGE AND HELP OUT TEACHER TO UNDERSTAND THE CHILDREN HAVE BEHVIOR.

I needed this book for one of my classes and it's an amazing book. I hardly recommended for someone who's study Early Childhood.

really easy book to follow good tips and points for teachers

i find that the book touches on many of the subjects that our professor teaches us, also between chapters they are not too long which makes reading and understanding much better. Being in the teaching field this is a good tool and resource for my classroom.

I was looking for a book to help me face a few challenges in my classroom during my first year of teaching kindergarten and I really enjoyed this book.
It gives helpful background knowledge, current research on best practices and new theories, as well as well-thought-out direct instruction for dealing with challenging behavior in the classroom of young children.