F Books

Valuable insights into the world of the disabled from many angles by a respected professor with progressive spinal cord disease. Highly recommended to persons with disabilities and to the general public who often encounter them.

As a graduate student in anthropology, I came to know and respect Bob Murphy more than any other scholar. Of the texts he wrote, The Body Silent, stands apart in that it says much about the man, anthropology, disability in American society, and life itself. It will deeply touch a wide variety of readers, and for those that knew him, will bring tears to their eyes. As to its impact on what is now known as disability studies, it put the discipline on the academic agenda. As such, it is a seminal text and is a must for anyone thinking of entering the field.

This is one of my books that I bought and put aside to read later. I don't remember how long ago I bought it but I am certainly glad that I gave it a second chance to read it before discarding it. I am now not planning to sell this book, as it is too important a volume on disability in society, and it certainly applies to the bioethical and eduethical work I do on the side of my 'regular' job of teaching and writing.

Murphy is unlike me in that he came upon his disability later in life, while I was born basically deaf and remained that way for the first 13 years of my life before getting a hearing aid at the age of 13. Murphy had to deal with a slow-growing tumor that entwined itself into his spinal cord. Unlike many tumors that can be excised with surgery, his was such that the possibility of removing it also came with the possibility of losing everything else, including his life or the ability to continue to do his important work. Like many of us who have chosen not to take the risk of surgery and who don't believe that to be disabled is worse than to be dead, Murphy worked with and around his progressive disabling and was able to give the world another 15 years of his wisdom in cultural anthropology.

This book is a must-read for any person with a disability, no matter when they became disabled. Murphy had the background of an academic anthropologist, with many years of successful teaching and writing for major journals in anthropology and culture. He had also written major books, one of which continues to be used in most universities on women and gender in primitive societies. So in coming into the genre of disability studies, he brought to the field a first-rate mind and ability to write so others can understand difficult concepts.

Murphy's book is not the usual autobiography that one usually expects, but rather explores disability (specifically his, but he introduces others and also the culture) without a single shard of either self-pity or 'hey, look at me' attitude that is so often written about in media (where the media puts someone with a disability on a pedestal that is unrealistic of the very real problems that those of us with disabilities face daily). He writes presenting his disablement as a fait-accompli, dealing with the problems as they arose...and in some cases, he ignored his health situation to the point of putting him at risk for infection from bedsores because he was too busy teaching. Like Murphy states, that wasn't courage as often as it was just not wanting to take the time to have his physical body get in the way of what he was trying to do. In treating his disablement with this attitude, he did become the courageous person that he presented to the public...and I wish so badly I had had the opportunity to meet him and hear him speak. Like so many others such as Michael Fox and Christopher REeve, Murphy was a non-disabled person whose close encounters with his own disablement led him to become a voice in a minority that has long been voiceless. He died much too soon, but in giving his last fifteen years of work to physical disabilities in society, he has provided us with an ongoing voice. I certainly intend to use his words and his writing in my work in hopes that it will inspire others as it has inspired me.

Karen Sadler

Bob became paraplegiac at a late age, after having enjoyed a long, brilliant career as a professor at Columbia and an anthropologist who, with his anthropologist wife Yolanda, lived among Amazonian Indians and Saharan camel nomads. He was too clever to be overwhelmed with self-pity. This book was written from the perspective that he loved most: what you'd think is true is probably just the opposite. We expect paralyzed people to get better, like other "sick" patients, but the problem is, they don't: they're damaged selves. Hey--just like everybody else. We all have to come to terms with life's damages and our isolation and loneliness as we attempt to cope with it. Who would ever have thought it possible--we can all learn something compelling about our normal selves, viewing life from the wheelchair! Ironically (and this is the kind of twist that styles Murphy's ideas) the disabled are a mirror for the rest of us: "The paralytic is, quite literally, a prisoner of the flesh, but most humans are convicts of sorts. We live within walls of our own making, staring out at life through bars thrown up by culture and annealed by our fears. . . .[that] induces a mental paralysis, a stilling of thought." Murphy has never sold his soul to an illusion: he speaks candidly as a participant observer of his own encounter with symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and transformation. Always the fox, he transcends the smoke screen that our cultural prejudices force upon us, and hears his own body and its message with astounding clarity and patience. This is a book that students read eagerly, in both anthropology and sociology classes, because its message is provocative, and its ethnography is true. It teaches us all to listen to the sound of our own struggles with personal identity and mortality, and to smile with the knowledge that we are not alone.

Ten years ago since the American Disabilities Act went into effect, the disabled still feel that they are isolated from the real world. Former professor of anthropology at Columbia University Robert F. Murphy examines from his personal perspective the life of a disabled person in a world where he was independent and zealous of life. The reader will discover what it is like for a disabled person to battle besides the inability to carry out everyday function we take for granted. The Body Silent is unlike other books written by the disable. The Body Silent is an excellent book full of prose and not journal entries of how fortunate the non-disabled really are. This book (recommended to me by anthropologist Dr. James Trostle) will change your perspective and outlook on how it is like to grow up again and learning how to walk, one step at a time.

This book is brilliantly constructed account of the 24 hours leading up to one of the maximum effort raids on Germany. Large cast of well portrayed character's recounts the incredible courage of the airmen of both sides and the appalling results on the ground.

Only one in three Bomber Command aircrew survived WWII and over 50,000 perished bringing the German war machine to it's knees. There has never been a battle like it. Fought in the middle of the night for 4 years with the prospect of a horrific death ever present night after night.

Imagine going "over the top" in WWI and surviving it, then being asked to do it again the next day. And the next.

Not only that but after the war being branded as murderer's by the very people whose lives you were protecting. The post war government quickly distanced themselves from what Bomber Command achieved, and no gratitude was ever publicly forthcoming for these boys sacrifice.

To this day it still beggars belief.

Though the title implies that this is the story of a single bomber crew over Germany in 1943, "Bomber" goes farther - much farther, only starting with the crew of the heavy bomber "Joe for King". Deighton proceeds to cover the families of the crew, other crew members and their superiors before cutting across the channel to the enemy - night-fighter pilots, their controllers in German air defense, various suspicious characters from across the spectrum of Germany's military - from "respectable" Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht personnel to shadowy types from the "Abwehr" and the SS. We also meet the civilian residents of Altgarten, a Ruhr-area town nobody would think of bombing, but which manages to get plastered all the same. It's mid-summer 1943, when "Joe for King" is sent into the Ruhr as part of a massive night-time raid against the industrial centers of Krefeld. Lacking night-vision goggles, RAF pilots drop their bombs on targets marked by flares left by directing aircraft - in this case, specially equipped Mosquitoe night-fighters. When the marking aircraft for the Krefeld raid is shot down too early, its flares are released over Altgarten. This error is compounded by inherent flaws in RAF tactics (like targeting bombs in the center of cities, where bombs are more likely to hit civilian homes than factories and military installations), and the town becomes the unintended target for the massive strike. "Bomber" is to RAF's wartime bomber command what "Traffic" is to the DEA - a story of massive scale borne by wide cast if characters that never stops growing. Deighton doesn't let something meaningless as nationality get in the way of determining who is good or evil (the Germans get the bombs here, but Nazi genocide also gets prominent mention, with plenty of nasty Waffen SS to remind us why people were fighting). On the British side, we see officers acting less like gentlemen than soldiers. Political correctness is the rule (this is the country that gave us "1984"; "Joe for King"'s commander is suspected of incipient Bolshevism - it's very name hints at Stalin). Those who won't fall in line risk being labeled as LMF (Lacking Moral Fiber) - officially branded as cowards. Though books with such a command of detail normally favor the efforts of those they depict, Deighton is uniformly negative on the subject, a tone reinforced by his many subplots. Lambert, "Joe for King's" rebel pilot, plays the best cricket in Bomber Command - leading his odious superior to compel his participation in an upcoming tournament on pain of getting LMF'd. (Worse - the commander puts pressure on Mrs. Lambert after her husband has departed for the big raid). The bombers fly from Warley Fen, a once verdant field seized from its original owners who now stare at the airfield, mourning for what they know they will never have again. In Germany, ADF is managed by August Bach, an aged warrior preparing to marry his young son's nanny, not knowing how her youthful looks have made her the target of vicious rumors through Altgarten. The pilots of a night-fighter squadron (nichtjagdeschwader), preparing for a feared RAF attack on the Ruhr, are thrown into turmoil when Abwehr and Gestapo appear in search of a stolen classifed memo. The memo, it turns out, details hypothermia experiments on concentration camp prisoners (this may be same memo mentioned early in Robert Harriss' superb "Fatherland"). The corrupt assistant to Altgarten's Burgomeister arranges for the downgrading of the town's remaining Jews (from 1/3rd to 2/3rd "Jewishness" - though these jews are even more likely to face deportation and certain death, they will have greater freedom to marry other jews). Altgarten itself is flooded with profiteers funneling goods looted from conquered parts of Russia and the Netherlands. It seems that war is the only thing keeping the world safe because it occupies all the amoral typed who have to fight it. The only morally just adults are the TENO - the civil safety personnel who dig people out of bombed buildings. Because they are stationed in Altgarten, they get the biggest break: when the raid comes, they have the shortest commute. With so much going on, you just know you're bound to miss something. This is the sort of book that speed-readers hate. You'll probably lose count of all the characters that Deighton throws at you, though this doesn't hurt the plot as much as make the book one you'll want to re-read. Be warned - once you pick up bomber, you'll probably be spoiled for any other novel on the war in the skies over Europe.

This is a superbly plotted panel book in which every story ends with some sort of twist or irony. I write only to correct one error made by an earlier reviewer. Lambert's plane is NOT 'Joe for King', but 'the Creaking Door'. The CO is so out of touch that he mistakes the planes, thereby indirectly saving Lambert's life, much to his young wife's relief. (The casualty rates were horrific for bomber crews.)

It is somewhat amusing that the reviewer made the same mistake.

Bomber follows the progress of an Allied air raid through a period of twenty-four hours in the summer of 1943. It is not for weak stomachs as it shows the brutality of war.

The best fictional account of the "Other Side's" (German) view of being the "attacked". Mr. Deighton obviously has done his homework in showing how one massive,confused attack on a German town in the Summer of 1943 devastates everyone involved from the British RAF planners and pilots, politicians, and even more the German civilian home front, not to mention just about everyone else on the German side,from the SS,Luftwaffe, to the totally innocent on the ground. When the air raid alarms go off in the ficticious German town to the inevitable,terrifying end, mistakes and all, you know you're reading from a master. The ending is as terrible as you can imagine...

My son in-law LOVES this book. It was a gift to him from myself and my husband. He can't get enough of this author and absolutely LOVES these books.

Baxter has done it again. He manages to mix humor with social commentary, kind'a makes you think and belly laugh at the same time. Some of this book is politically incorrect--well, good for it! this country takes itself far too seriously, and it needs a good makin'-fun-of, and Baxter is the man for the job. You don't have to be a buckaroo or farmer, or vet to "get" these poems and short stories. It helps to be human, and not one encased in a shell of narrow-minded political correctness! One story in particular, about the frozen septic tank lid, had me laughing so hard I thought I was going to have a conniption. Moments of side-splitting laughter are intertwined with real stories of real people that are touchingly poignant. Bax hits the mark here. Great job!

A few years ago I awoke to National Public Radio's Morning Edition and to the voice of some easy going, homespun cowboy reading a poem that had me in stitches by the third verse. As I read "Cactus Trails..." I could hear Black's easy voice utter each word. While his departure from veterinary medicine is a loss to that community, it is a clear gain for easy going, common sense, sanity seeking people caught in the cross hairs of our cell phone, pager, eEVERYTHING society. Thanks to Baxter Black's commentary and writings we have an excuse to slow down a bit each day and get in touch with the basics. Will Rogers would love this guy!

Back to basics, the way life IS in America, without all of the Political poles, lies, and propiganda as spread by the media. should be classed as "Must Read"

My husband can't put this book down! Baxter Black's clean and side-splitting "talk" is entertaining for all audiences. My mother, my husband, and my best friend have all loved this book.

As someone that lived through the events depicted, and someone who was enamored with JFK, I found the book quite good. Its a mixture of fact and opinion and is quite successful in bringing the two together.Its focus is on how the legacy of JFK differs from the facts, and how opinion about him was shaped beginningthe day of his death. I found it to be persuasive.

Lee Harvey Oswald was Kennedy's would-be lone assassin. I said "would be lone assassin" because the circumstances surrounding Kennedy's death were a little more outré than those suggested by the Warren Commission. Interested readers should refer to the suppressed out-of-print gem "Mortal Error" by Bonar Menninger.

That having been said, Oswald was as guilty of Kennedy's murder as if he'd fired the shot to the head that killed him and he was the only individual morally responsible for Kennedy's death. He acted as a committed Marxist-Leninist in order to fulfill Marxist-Leninist ends. Those who would argue otherwise are either stupid, ill-informed, or evil (or a combination of the three), and their arguments are a product of their deficiencies.

James Piereson bypasses the conspiracy theorists, musing how fanciful conspiracy theory changed identities after the fifties, becoming a tool of the far left, instead of the far right. This shift was indeed a result of JFK's death, and the change in the appearance of left-liberalism in the aftermath is what Piereson primarily focuses on.

Notwithstanding the Left's control of the news media, the academic theocracy, and the entertainment industry, I'd long wondered how Kennedy's death (largely) at the hands of a committed Communist had somehow merged into a bloody shirt around which the LEFT (not the Right) was able to rally.

Piereson provides as coherent explanation for this development as any. It could have been more concise though. There was no need to fill out his 2006 Commentary article into the size of a small book. By doing so, Piereson allowed his argument to become somewhat repetitious.

Still, his explanation "works" and a lot of it has to do with the loony widow herself, Jacqueline Kennedy. Piereson tries to contrast the cool detachment that the former Mrs. Onassis displayed after the homicide with the mental unraveling displayed by Mrs. Lincoln. But I'd say that both widows were mentally unhinged in their own way -- Mrs. Kennedy maybe a little more so before the fact.

For the pink-pillboxed ditz to decry that her husband didn't even die for "civil rights" but instead died at the hands of "some silly little Communist" shows incredible ignorance of Cold War realities - especially given that her stupid observation was made only a little over a year after that Cold War came close to exploding into a Mega-Hot One. Jackie was a silly little First Lady.

And "Camelot" was entirely a myth created post-mortem by the loony widow, and Piereson shows how that myth helped change the face of liberalism from forward-looking and optimistic to that of dark, brooding, and vengeful after Kennedy's death. After all, the ORIGINAL myth of Camelot, which Piereson goes into an interesting description of here, does suggest that the good times are over with the passing of the kingdom.

But I think that Piereson is exaggerating the change that he describes - liberalism and leftism have always had their dark sides. Maybe Kennedy's death just brought them closer to the surface. But again, his description of the synthesis is well worth reading.

What's needed now are a second and maybe third part to Piereson's narrative. If the Left misappropriated JFK, so did the Right, in general, and the neo-cons, in particular. Piereson doesn't really discuss that misappropriation. But if JFK wasn't really a closeted Cumbaya-singing Sixties peace activist, neither was he a die-hard Reaganaut. He was a consummate Democratic pol who used what means were at his disposal to try to destroy the Right when he was alive.

So why did Reagan and others successfully assume the mantle of JFK and why did they want to, in the first place? More to the point, what can knowledgeable individuals of all stripes who recognize the fraud inherent in the myth of Camelot do to educate the yokels of its dangers and thereby help create a world without Kennedys?

The premise of this work is that while assasinating President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald put American liberalism in its grave. The contortions that liberals had to go through to avoid the idea that their hero had been killed by a communist transformed them, in the end, from the optimistic, future oriented people they were in 1963 to the hateful and hating maniacs that they are today. The irony is that if JFK were to be brought back to life today, he would shortly be drummed out of the modern, Democrat Party.

There are no guarantees when buying books. We often eagerly anticipate a release hoping it will be a classic but soon discover that it belongs on the ash heap of history alongside the collected works of Marx, recordings of the Back Street Boys, and every single movie featuring Madonna. Occasionally however, we unfurl a package and find that its contents widely exceed our expectations. One such work is James Piereson's Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism.

Whatever the angle or line of rumor, the one thing for certain is that a sizable plurality of Americans agree that Oswald was who he said he was...just a pawn in the game. Piereson's text dispassionately, but skillfully, refutes this thesis. In one of his strongest chapters, "Assassin," he reexamines the facts of Oswald's life. To say that his case history lacks nuance is an understatement. The man who liquidated our 35th President was a diehard Marxist and anything but a shill for the military. Oswald's acceptance of Marxism came in 1953 after he was handed a bill advocating clemency for the Rosenbergs. His allegiance to communism meant, as it does for so many angry radicals, that this alienated and troubled young man would no longer be alone.

The infamous gunman had nothing but contempt for American history and its institutions. He hated the radical right and attempted to kill segregationist, General Edwin A. Walker, six months before he trained his sights on Kennedy. Oswald went to the Soviet Union to savor the worker's paradise but found a bureaucratic nightmare instead. He returned, albeit begrudgingly, to his homeland. The FBI's refusal to take him seriously was a disgrace and a testament to their incompetence; while the media's refusal to consider the possible significance of his visits to the Cuban and Soviet embassies [in Mexico] is a testament to their bias. That he conferred with KGB agent Valeriy Kostikov a few months before taking aim should be of interest to anyone in pursuit of the truth.

Why did Oswald do it? Mr. Piereson's explanation resonates far more than the conspiracies contaminating our public square. His purpose was to get the attention of Fidel Castro and also to preserve the life of the dictator. The Cuban Marxist was the last leader for whom Mr. Oswald had any faith. After he threatened the president in a 1963 interview, the deluded and alienated communist may have interpreted his words in the same manner as King Henry II's deputies. Oswald happily answered the question, "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" by stepping forth to the window of the book depository in Dallas.

By itself, reminding the world of who Oswald actually was is an important achievement, but it is just one of the many rejuvenating and provocative arguments elucidated in Camelot and the Cultural Revolution. His discussion of "punitive liberalism" is potent and completely transferable to the present day. The practitioners of this school deem America--in lieu of its historical crimes--as a land and country in need of punishment. The founding of the new world coincided with slavery, the death of hordes of Indians, and, eventually, the internment of Japanese citizens during the Second World War. The punitive liberal believes that we deserve a comeuppance for what we have done.

Piereson destroys this emotive reasoning with aplomb. Blaming America for the slaughter of the Kennedy brothers is entirely irrational. The punitive liberal hates everything about his homeland, but becomes outraged whenever this is pointed out to him. For some reason, conservatives allow the left to frame the debate on this issue. Many timidly retreat from coming out and saying that left is unpatriotic. This is puzzling because their anti-Americanism is blatantly obvious. When they gaze at Old Glory "jingoism and vengeance and war" come to mind.

Mr. Piereson's concise account is a tour de force and not merely a historical study. It is a theoretical work which increases our understanding of both the past and present. Of a book we can ask for nothing more.

Over the years, I have heard many Left-wing people explain that it was the Kennedy assassination of 1963 that destroyed their faith in the system, and radicalized their politics. In this fascinating book, author and political thinker James Piereson examines the mythology that surrounds the Kennedy administration, how it was created, and the strange, unhinging effect it had on the American Left.

This book came highly recommend to me, and I can see why. The author does an excellent job of showing how we got from the intelligent Left of the immediate post-War era to the loony Left of today. In the 50s, the loonies were on the Right, finding Communists under their beds, and fighting such devious plots as fluoride in the water. And now we have Fahrenheit 911 and Leftists seeing a "vast Republican-wing conspiracy." Want to know how we got here? Then read this book and find out!

Which book was Dr. Heller & wife promoting on Oprah's show? (so I'll know which one to order) I didn't see entire show , but what I did see was informative & INTERESTING.

I picked up this book while browsing in a bookstore and it changed my life. I started at 153 pounds and my goal weight was 118. I weighed 116 this morning. And I have more energy, am more mentally alert and upbeat than I ever have been. The book is very motivational. The rules and guidelines for the diet are spread throughout the book so you must read all before starting. Only criticisms are that it's wordy and most of the recipes are bland, but I believe it's the best of all the books the Heller's have written.

I picked up this book while browsing in a bookstore and it changed my life. I started at 153 pounds and my goal weight was 118. I weighed 116 this morning. And I have more energy, am more mentally alert and upbeat than I ever have been. The book is very motivational. The rules and guidelines for the diet are spread throughout the book so you must read all before starting. Only criticisms are that it's wordy and most of the recipes are bland, but I believe it's the best of all the books the Hellers have written.

When I began driving a truck I gained 30 pounds in the 1st month. Fortunately I found this book and re-learned how to eat. Doing this diet right is not the easiest thing, breaking food addiction is seldom easy, but if you read this book it will be easier to make happen. I've lost those 30 pounds and more, landing at an ideal wieght that I've never imagined being at again. Good luck, use this book - it's a great resource. Follow where it leads.

This is an excellent, simply written, but well researched, book on the dangers of bad carbs. I found it extremely enlightening and wondered if it was more than coincidental that Dr. Barry Sears, writes in an amazingly similar vein, in his book "Enter The Zone". It seems that more and more scientists, and doctors, are discovering that we suffer from an overabundance of bad carbs in our eating, and it's also imbalanced versus protein and fat intake.I would heartily recommend this book, and for more scientific corroborative data read "Enter the Zone". Combine this with the sensible exercise program outlined in "Body for Life" by Bill Phillips of EAS Inc., and you will do yourself a very large favour.

Catseye is another book based in and around the Dipple slum settlement/camp, or whatever you want to call it. There are only a few options open to those that live here. In Judgement on Janus, the main character there chose one, the young man in this book chooses another, taking temporary jobs to try and get by.

He lands what is basically a pet shop job dealing with exotic animals, who turn out to be far more than they seem. This leads to a dog and his boy sort of escapades, or the other way around.

After reading just about anything science fiction put in front of me for years, I hate to admit that this is my first foray into Andre Norton's work. The characters and the world instantly start out feeling stable and developed so there doesn't have to be any long spots of backstory narrative. All the details fall right where they need to go so the reader doesn't have to do much work. It's like you open the cover and the adventure begins.

I very much enjoyed Troy's plight through a place that's not exactly friendly to his type and how he grew as a man throughout the story.

The action of several of Norton's science fiction novels have begun on Korwar, whose people deliberately chose to make the planet a playground for the rich and powerful of the galaxy. Ironically, this is the best possible protection for Korwar from the interstellar corporations represented by those same people - while they often plunder worlds for natural resources, they won't foul their own nest.

Despite their protection, however, Korwar isn't untouched. During the great war between the Council and Confederation governments (its aftermath appears in several books, such as DARK PIPER), the capital city of Tikil became the site of a refugee camp. After the war, those whose worlds were gone, whether destroyed or traded away at the peace table, had nowhere else to go, so the refugee camp became the Dipple, an unofficial 3rd face of Tikil making an ugly contrast to the expensive haunts of tourists or even the working city of the spaceport and warehouse district. The Dipple is a perennial problem, and CATSEYE follows Troy Horan, brought to this sterile warren as a youngster from the plains of Norden. There are only three options open to a Dipple-dweller: attempting to join the Thieves' Guild (as Ziantha of FORERUNNER FORAY escaped), signing on as indentured labor for a frontier world (as Niall of JUDGEMENT ON JANUS did), or scraping by without sub-citizenship by competing in the very tight casual labor market, as Horan does. Consequently, while the protagonists of FORERUNNER FORAY and JUDGEMENT ON JANUS also came from the Dipple, Troy Horan's story is the first to concentrate on Tikil and Korwar - the other tales leave the planet early in the story.

On the morning the story opens, Troy has incredible luck - the assigner has a job for someone with "knowledge of animals", and Troy's reply that he has that of a Norden herd rider lands him indefinite employment at Kyger's pet shop, which provides exotic pets as status symbols for the rich. Troy's initial worries about the decade separating him from any contact with animals aren't a problem - his initial work assignment to help retrieve some new acquisitions from the port lengthens when an attempted hijack en route puts a full-time Kyger employee temporarily out of action.

But why would anyone try to hijack a shipment of exotic animals bound for a life as pets - even as pets of the Gentle Fem San duk Var, rich and influential though she is? Delivering a fussel hawk and accompanying its first hunting expedition with a Ranger of Korwar (and giving us our first glimpse not only of Korwar's huge unspoiled nature preserves, but of the mysterious Forerunner ruins of Ruhkarv) leaves him with an impression that Korwar's guardians are taking an unusual interest in what is, after all, only a pet shop. After all, it's not *illegal* to convince credulous rich people that their little darlings can't survive without special diets, available from Kyger's. :)

Then the routine of delivering special pet food to a Sattor Commander's beloved kinkajou is disrupted by murder - and Troy covers the kinkajou's odd behavior with a plausible story for the police. He finds himself wondering just how intelligent these animals are - and whether he should ally himself with Kyger, who may provide a permanent escape from the Dipple, or with a certain cats-eye view of the world.

(Ruhkarv, and the disastrous fate of the last archeological team ever allowed in the place, are mentioned in some of Norton's other works - DREAD COMPANION mentions it in passing, while a Zacathan scholar in BROTHER TO SHADOWS attempts an experiment with a revised version of the device that brought final disaster to the Ruhkarv team - but CATSEYE provides more information about Ruhkarv than any other story to date.)

Catseye (1961) is a standalone SF novel in the Dipple universe. When the War of Two Sectors broke out, the Council had evacuated the Horans from Norden to the Displaced Persons center on Korwar. Range Master Lang had volunteered for military service and did not return. Then his wife died of the Cough, a passing illness that was particularly hard on those from Norden. Their son was the sole survivor of the Horan family.

In this novel, ten year later, Troy Horan has only his wide Range Master belt and a few memories to remind him of Norden. Now he is working as a casual laborer in Tikil. One morning, he is offered a job by the mechanical assigner and accepts it. Today he will escape the Dipple for a few hours.

Troy reports for work at Kyger's, a purveyor of extraordinary pets. On his first day, he frustrates an attempt to steal a pair of Terran cats. Supervisor Zul -- a full-blooded Bushman -- is wounded in the attempt and Kyger offers Troy a seven day contract to fill in for the injured man.

During the incident, Troy receives a warning in mindspeech from the cats. Later, he approaches their cage and exchanges a few thoughts. He conceals these communications from his employer and co-workers since he is not really sure what has happened.

Troy has an affinity for animals and does especially well with the fussel hawk, a hunting bird from Norden. He is asked to accompany a customer into the wild to prove the bird's qualities. He will spend three days in the company of Rerne, a high ranking member of the Hunter Clans.

Before this excursion, Troy is sent to a hillside villa to deliver special food for a pet kinkajou owned by Commander Varan Di. Since the Commander had just been murdered, the patrollers warn off his flitter, but allow him to continue after he explains his errand. As he is approaching the villa, the pet runs away from a patroller carrying it out of the building and leaps into Troy's arms.

The patrollers are upset at finding the pet rummaging through the Commander's papers. Troy points out that the kinkajou is a very imitative animal and his probably copying his master's habitual routine. While he is talking to the patrollers, the kinkajoy is pleading with him in mindspeech to take it away from the estate. Eventually, the patrollers tell him to return the pet to Kyger's shop and they fly away.

In this story, Troy finds that a pair of Terran foxes can also talk to him in mindspeech. He even overhears a conversation between the animals and their master. He begins to suspect Kyger of some form of espionage. Then Kyger is murdered and Zul tries to kill these animals. Troy steals a flitter and flees into the wilderness with the five Terran animals.

Troy and the animals are followed by Kyger's associates and the flitter is forced down in the 'accursed place' of Ruhkarv. Now they are hunted not only by Zul and his men, but also by the rangers of the Hunter Clans. They travel deep within the alien ruins and find much to fear therein.

This story is a precursor to the Beast Master series. Although Fors has mental communications with the great hunting cat Lura in Star Man's Son, this tale depicts a team of human and animals. Unlike Storm Hosteen's beastmaster team, however, Troy's group is more accidental than intentional. But it is still a combined force against their enemies.

Highly recommended for Norton fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of human-beast teamwork, future cultures, and high adventure.

-Arthur W. Jordin

I won't go too much into the plot, as another reviewer here has done so quite excellently. However, I want to point out that Catseye was published for the Young Adult market and so can be read by both children, young adults and adults. I originally read this novel as a child and it still remains one of my favourite Andre Norton books.

Far, far into mankind's future, when humankind has spread out into the stars from the original planet of Terra and encountered other races...Young Troy Horan is a refugee/displaced person due to war, living the shadow life of an unwanted, non-citizen in the Dipple camp. His world and past life has gone forever and he has no future. The elite and powerbrokers of the galaxy, gathered on the pleasure planet of Korwar, prefer to ignore the unpleasant truth of the Dipple under their noses.

One day, Troy has the unbelievable luck to secure some temporary day work in a luxury pet shop. While there, he stumbles on a mystery that could cost him his life, and he goes on the run with the special sentient luxury pets he has discovered he can communicate with in the petshop.

Who can Troy trust? He and his Terran animal friends hold a dangerous secret, and various interested and powerful parties now set off in pursuit of Troy and his friends as they escape into the highly protected nature wilderness that comprises most of Korwar, and finally into the mysterious, forbidden and sealed ruins of a previous race which existed on Korwar. The ruins are officially sealed for a reason - can the escapees survive their pursuers and what lurks within?

Language and content are appropriate for children/young adults. In addition, the writing and plot is at an extremely high level, appealing to adult readers as well. Some themes are environmentalism, power, war, refugees and animal rights. One of my favourite SF books still, as an adult reader. Also one for cat lovers.

I found this book to be very intriguing and suspenseful. It completely captivates you from page one. Stolen moments from my family were rewarded by discovering the multi-faceted characters and feeling as if I had stepped into their world and personally knew them. Sadness and mystery are woven into the lives of each character ... absorbing the reader so that they feel like they must get to the end. Once there, long kept secrets are unveiled and a surprise ending leaves you on the edge!

A definite page turner!!! Bill Reina is able to get into the hearts and minds of his characters that takes his reader on a journey of excitement, lonliness, and love. It is not until the surprise finale that you realize the ride you have been on and wish would never end. Bill, I'm hoping for a sequel!!

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading great novels. From the first page to the last, I could not put it down. The way the characters were developed really allowed me to connect and grow with them as the book continued. The twists and turns throughout the book kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next, and the suprise ending capped off the book leaving a lasting effect on the reader. This book is definitely an easy read, full of excitement, and not one dull moment.

The novel is full of guessing, events that take place lead to many different possible outcomes that are not so predictable. The author manages to have lives so eventfull, full of excitement, and drama that is so intense however it still stays within the realm of possibility. The characters in the book are both flawless and have great flaws. The flaws that they have are brought out by the author to increase the charaters personality. It makes them so real you start to think you actually know the person. When infact doing this makes them perfect characters. The novel is full of morals of life and you will be stunned at how well anyone can relate to some of the events in the story. Caverns is a great book to read, enjoy, and learn from.

I thought this book was truly insightful. Any reader will be able to relate to some aspect of this book whether it be love, betrayal, self exploration or drive. From the minute I picked this book up and read through the opening chapters I was hooked. I was able to relate to the many aspects of the book in regards to soul searching and career drive. From the opening and CAG stock to the Cayman Islands, this book had my full attention. I read the 480+ pages in just 2 days. I recommend this book to anyone who wonders about things larger than themselves and what lengths people will go to in order to show love or cover things that they may have done in their past.

This is thee book I was looking for! It a way for me to start my quiet time with God and I absolutely love Stanleys notes on different scriptures. I love the way the old testament and the new are compiled...that way you're reading a section from the old & new testament and a chapter from the gospels. I recommend this book!

As all Pastor Charles Stanley's Books, Preaching..... are clear, easy to understand, and speaks the Truth clearly.
This is an easy day to day bible to use that you can read thru in one year in segments of the OT, Psalms, Proberbs, & NT in an easy to accomplish with additional study notes added.
I do recommend another bible to use if you need one to take to church or bible group study, as this particular bible is broken in group of OT, Ps, Pro, & NT segments on a day to day basis.

This daily bible is fantastic. It gives you the opportunity to read all portions of the bible, new and old testament. It also includes Dr. Stanley's own writings on subjects that are of concern for our daily walk with the Lord.

This is an OUTSTANDING devotional Bible. EVERY day you get a slice of (1) the Old Testament, (2) Psalms/Proverbs, and (3) the New Testament. Additionally, you get all the Life Principles, notes and explanations, highlighted promises, etc. It has added a whole new perspective to my morning quiet time. Instead of reading someone else's commentary on the Word, I am reading THE WORD.

This book makes you WANT to be faithful to your morning quiet time, devotional, and evening "last thoughts before bed" time. I absolutely love it. It is just one more example of how the Holy Spirit has used Dr. Stanley to bless believers and draw them into closer relationships with their God.

BUY IT...READ IT...GET COPIES FOR OTHERS AS GIFTS!!!

For over eight years I worked in a Christian Bookstore. Reading and becoming familiar with many, many study Bibles, I approached the Life Principles Bible as just another good study Bible. It isn't! It is the best of the best! In this Bible Dr. Stanley has explained in detail each of the thirty principles that have guided his own life. He shows over and over throughout the Bible how these same principles have guided the people of the Bible and ultimately how they can guide your life. Highlighting the promises in the Bible and footnoting the outstanding verses, his Bible is simple to read and very understandable both for the new Christian and for the seasoned Christian. This Bible will be the most valuable study tool you have ever purchased! It is simply beyond comparison.

I am really into geometrical and prism shapes...they have an unspoken pull on me...the main challange for me when I color them is to balance somehow the color hues and tones with the geometrical segments of the design...so in the end to be able to get something stunning...the main drawback is when I let myself think too much about what goes with what...I like complex designs, they are more challanging...I use this hobby as a form of active yoga meditation(shutting off my mind while I focus on the design)...all in all, this coloring hobby is the simplest and effective way of gradually developing an inner sense of order, harmony and discipline...

Recovering from back surgery, I knew my artistic mind needed a more relaxing, yet retain a stimulating art media to keep my interest. This book does it! Mandalas do have spiritual or rather meditative foci that can help increase healthy thinking as one heals, but the FUN I have had using my professional color pencils, watercolor pencils and a bit of charcoal, chalk, and pastels on the quality paper in this book have really taken my mind off my pain. The mandala images are all on one side of the paper throughout the book, so no bleed through and as I mentioned, the paper quality is not cheap newsprint common of other coloring books. Since getting this book (and a few others!!), I have recommended them to several family members and now they are checking out this great way to relax and use their right "side of the brain" in more ways than one. One additional component of this book are the several pages of blank circles at the book's end where YOU can design your own meaningful mandalas...something many self-help instructors and counselors encourage people to do.

This book is definitely worth every penny and is one of the best of the adult coloring books available. I also wish retirement centers would provide this type of quality art books for residents to provide healthy mind stimulation and possible growth and/or mainttenance.

Though I've just begun using it, I bought the Mandala Coloring Book to aid me in relaxation after hectic days and before bed. It is intriguing, to say the least. While coloring the intricate designs, I'm not able to think of much else, making it easier to wind down and "turn off" my head.

If coloring calms you and you like art this is the book for you.

I found colored pencils worked best for getting into some of the tiny lines and tight corners of these mandalas. I found coloring them to be almost medatative.

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.

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.

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.

While none of Hayek's theses were new (except to those discovering his perspectives through his writings for the first time), they have become, due to his reputation and prolific writing, central to any education in the social and political sciences. The most important insight, in my opinion, offered by this work is the collectivist mentality at the heart of modern social "sciences," which attempt to analyze human behavior and its consequences (political and otherwise) in terms of defining collectives/groups -- where it is all-too-easy to make inaccurate or false (projected) assumptions about the nature of groups and behavioral characteristics being "analyzed." That is, "scientific" approaches can be, and have been, particularly in the social and political sciences, exploited to defeat reason/common sense by structuring inquiry along projected/desired lines that may bear little substantive relationship to underlying social and political phenomena.

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.