Humanities Books

As any undergraduate student probably knows, most college courses require a textbook; many of which are so painfully long and monotonous that it's really hard to stay focused on the material being read. 'Abnormal Psychology,' on the other hand, was a pleasure to read. Halgin and Whitbourne have presented this subject in a style that's informative, yet clear and concise, and above all...interesting. Included are case studies that accompany each chapter, providing helpful examples of the psychological disorders being addressed (e.g., personality disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, etc.), along with video clips in the cd-rom. In addition, the writing style itself makes for a smooth read. This book is definitely recommended for understanding abnormal psychology (and if you're a student I'd suggest the workbook too).

This book is one of the texts used in the Abnormal Psychology (PSYC 4320) at East Tennessee State University. It is by far one of the best textbooks I have had. The layout is very easy to follow and all disorders are summed up in a box at the end of each chapter that list symptoms and diagnostic criteria. I took my study guide notes for all the tests straight from these boxes and passed the class with a 3.6 (on a 4.0 scale). Each chapter starts out with a story relevant to the disorders being discussed and at the end of the chapter you will find questions pertaining to the story designed to quiz you on what you have learned in the section.

The book kept my attention as I read each chapter and I was so impressed by it that I bought a copy of the book to keep as a personal reference after I finished the class.

Editors Huddle, Orth, and Shepherd put themselves on the line by writing revealing "critical responses" to each of the sixteen "professional" short stories in this anthology. To top this off, they conclude the volume with a student short story (critiqued by a fellow student), then offer one story apiece, with cross-commentary, from their perspective as writing teachers. Thus, twenty stories and twenty short commentaries comprise this useful anthology, representing writers as diverse as Kafka and Chekhov, Carver and Mishima, Reynolds Price and Barry Hannah.

At my organization we create original theater with kids, and when people ask me to recommend a book to help them do similar work, I tell them that this is the only one worth buying. I've been waiting for years for it to be published. It's simply the most honest, most specific, most practical, most inspiring, easiest to read... I especially recommend it for anyone working in a classroom setting (in or out of school). The book more or less takes you through how to get kids to create and perform a piece of theater that matters to them. It follows the process of a high school theater class creating a performance piece, and includes much text from the brilliant teacher, Jan Mandel, and from the students themselves. It begins with community building exercises and progresses through a number of well-conceived steps to the final performance, giving concrete outlines and suggestions on everything from warm-ups, to writing prompts, to the rehearsal process, to how to handle it when teens make fun of delicate subject matter. Buy it! Trust me. Buy it.

ADAPTATION: STUDYING FILM AND LITERATURE is a joy to read. Historically, films adapted from a literary text have won seventy-five percent of all best-picture Academy Awards, so this engaging textbook would interest not only readers taking film courses but also other film aficionados.

The co-authors teach college courses in Film Studies, Literature, and English Composition. Their composition expertise empowered them to write this with exceptional clarity, presenting engaging examples of adaptations from novels, novellas, short stories, nonfiction, and graphic stories (animations).

Too many film-reviewers assume that successful film adaptation emerges principally from fidelity to the original literary text. Not so. "Film is another medium with its own conventions, artistic values, and techniques, and so the original story is transformed into a different work of alike what degree the film is faithful to the text. . . . If a film is based on a text, comparisons between the two are inevitable. . . . We use fidelity not as an evaluative term that measures the merit of films, but as a descriptive term that allows discussion of the relationship between two companion works. To begin the description of the relationship between text and film, we ask you to compare the two in detail and then to classify the adaptation as a close, loose, or intermediate interpretation (page 2)."

Among the several novel adaptations discussed, the book presents a detailed analysis Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird." The discussion begins with a brief summary of the novel and goes on to describe Robert Mulligan's adaptation under the following rubrics: kept elements--setting and situations; added elements; dropped elements--for example, of the novel's sixty-eight characters, forty are dropped.

The novella adaptation presented is Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It," directed by Robert Redford. Short-story adaptations include: Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers," directed by Robert Siodmark; John Cheever's "The Swimmer," directed by Frank Perry; Jonathan Nolan's "Memento Mori," directed by Christopher Nolan with the title "Memento." Both the Memento short story and the adaptation are excellent examples of postmodernist nonlinear narratives.

The stage play adaptations analyzed include Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire," directed by Elia Kazan. The outstanding nonfiction film adaptation analyzed is Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's "All the President's Men," directed by Alan Pakula.

The concluding chapter reviews a failed adaptation: F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," directed by Jack Clayton. The analysis of this failure elucidates many choices the screenwriter, the producer, the director must make as well as the invevitable conflicts among practitioners of different crafts all collaborating to make a film.

I would have liked to see discussion of at least some international adaptations in this five-star book.

-- C J Singh

This is about the third time i have purchased anything at amazon, mostly textbooks, and have been very happy with the service and products. Before, I go online to look for books, I know that I will find the best price and trusted service at Amazon. You have my loyalty, and I still have my Ph.D to finish.

Sincerely,

Abel Garcia

I am currently enrolled in a course entitled The Psychology of the Adolescent Learner at Cleveland State University in Ohio, and this is the required text for the course.

Professor Santrock's text is well organzied; chapters 1-4 provide a solid conceptual framework in childhood development, then beginning with Chapter 5 the text goes into more specific topics such as Family, Sexuality, Culture, etc.

I greatly enjoy the way the chapters of this book are laid out. You are first presented with an outline to let you know where you are headed, then the chapter is broken down into "bite-sized" portions with plenty of definitions. The material is clearly written, concise, and thorough. I would recommend this text to anyone interested in studying about this enigmatic of all stages in the life cycle.

This is an essential book for experienced teachers. There are scores of ready-to-use teaching applications along with psych theories that make this book indispensable for learning how to apply psych theories to teaching. It's especially helpful for special education teachers and includes the patest research from brain studies that I found tremendously useful and informative. I recommend it for elementary and secondary teachers as it has case studies and instructional tips for all levels of schooling and all subject contents.

I needed this book quickly and they provided, and it was less expensive then buying it at school.

John Rees' book is essential reading for anyone who wants a clear yet rigorous treatment of the often misunderstood concept of dialectics in the Marxist tradition. Rees takes the reader from the dialectic's modern origins in the German idealist philosopher Hegel, Marx and Engels'recasting the dialectic in materialist terms through twentieth century dialecticians Lukacs, Lenin and Trotsky. All the while the author clearly explains the controversies and debates that have surounded this idea. He rescues Marxism both from the charge that it views history as inevitable (distortions shared by the Second International and the Stalinist traditions) and that the dialectic is a mystical concept left over from Hegel that has to be gotten rid of to have a true materialist interpretation of the world. The dialectic is a tool for us to better understand the world. The most refreshing thing about the book is that, although rigorous, it is not merely an academic undertaking. Rees throughout the book stresses the idea that theory is useless without practice and only practice can give rise to correct theory. (a very important dialectical concept itself) Rees is a member of the British Socialist Workers Party and years of working in an organized socialist movement gives this book a conection to the real world not often seen in the majortity of academic writing. Buy this book if you want to learn more about the real Marxist tradition freed from its reformist and Stalinist distortions.