Henry Miller Books

i will like to ricieve a copy of this book.

Very informative. Great details. It goes over everything that a person should know.

Response by Marilyn T. Miller. I am compelled to respond to an earlier review. This book was a cooperative work of all three authors but was done under the direct guidance and care of Henry Lee. Crime scene investigation has been one of Dr. Lee's lifetime concerns. This book is the result of that dedication. The other authors owe a hugh amount of graditute to him for their participation in the effort.

I read this book as a required text for a Masters program in Forensic Science. Having read the previous reviews on the book, I was not expecting a particularly good textbook, but I do not believe that the other reviews do justice to how totally worthless this book is. I feel obliged to write a review of my own to balance the scales, as it were.

First off, the comment regarding the numerous typographical and grammatical errors in the book is grossly understated. I cannot believe that this book ever saw an editor's desk. I have randomly opened the book to several pages, and quickly found the following sentences, which I believe should illustrate my point:

- Most importantly [sic] by keeping the suspect away from the scene, any physical evidence found at the scene that originated from the suspect will link the suspect to the scene only at the time of the crime and not from the suspect having been returned to the scene for identification by victims or witnesses. p.53 (grammatical error, poorly written and confusing)

- Access [sic] the type of scene, the boundary of the scene, and the personnel and equipment needed. p 58. (should read, 'assess')

There are others, as well - alas, I have forgotten the sentence I came across while reading for class that contained a minimum of 5 errors. Yes. One sentence.

My most significant complaint, however, is that the book is simply not thorough. This is primarily due to the fact that it appears to have been written for idiots - all the major areas are touched upon, but there appears to be a fear that tackling them in detail would confuse people. So, instead, each technique is mentioned only in passing, leaving the reader with only a very vague overview of what goes on at a crime scene. Any person actually practicing in the field of forensic science is bound to be disappointed by its lack of depth, detail, and 'new' material. This likely also applies to anyone who has read any other books on the subject, whether they are active in the field or not.

For those who are interested in the subject and looking for a much better primer, I would suggest Fisher's 'Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation,' instead. While he does not have the friendly or chatty writing style that Lee has (the only thing going for Lee's book, incidentally), he is significantly more thorough. The book is also more well-regarded in the field, based on everything I have heard. This is not to say that Lee does not have a prominent name in forensics - quite the contrary. But, I would hate to think that anyone would purchase this book on his name alone. He should stick to spoken lectures, at which he is quite excellent.

This book was an exceptional take-home package of crime scene processing information in an easy-to-read format. However, the chosen title for this work is egotistical and arrogant. There are a large number of typographical errors, but the book is actually quite useful. I must say, please wait for the second edition before purchasing this book.

Henry Miller has influenced me more than any other author ever did. I remember the first time I took to reading one of his books -- The Black Spring. I was only about fourteen -- it seems so long ago -- and, instantly, I was "hooked". There was simply no other writer in the past century that could combine words like Miller did. Eventually, I graduated to his more profound, challenging works, and The Rosy Crucifixion is one of them, Nexus in particular. The finest, most chalenging book in the trilogy, it is filled with not only Miller's so own mumbling, but with something much deeper -- philosophical contemplations on everything from the Western world we live in, to art, relationships, society and suffering. Suffering so typical in America, yet very few authors were able to achive its description as fine as Miller did. Along with The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Nexus is the must read for any Miller fan. Immortalizing the one woman who made it possible for him to become "the" writer he is, is only a part of the story, enabling us to pull the thorn from our side and see the world with clearer eyes is the best gift he could have given us. Highly recommended, but please read the entire trilogy. Starting with book three would be like eating the cake first, without appreciating what went to the dough.

I owe Henry Miller a great debt. It was his writing, the way he combined sex and philosophy, that really got me into reading all sorts of different things. Now, 50 years later, I am still impressed by what he has written, and I'm still reading all sorts of different things. What we read becomes a part of us, helps define who we are, what we understand of others and of ourself. So what Henry Miller has written is a part of me and when I go back and reread various things he has written, that helps me remember who I am and that I am still continuing to become who I am.

Boy it feels good to finally be done with Henry Miller. And I don't mean just this book - I mean completely done with Henry Miller. No, I haven't read everything by him, but I've read the "essentials" (the two Tropics and the Crucifixion trilogy). And if these are his best books, I really don't want to see what the other ones are like.

My goodness he is tedious. Reading this last installment of The Rosy Crucifixion was like eating the last Pop-Tart in the package. You don't really want to eat it after already having eaten two of them, but you figure you might as well finish the last one so you can throw away the carton. And then about half-way through it you start to feel nauseous.

Henry Miller deserves a fair amount of credit for breaking down barriers in literature that no one really challenged before him. He made it acceptable, even fashionable, to discuss sex explicitly. He made it safe for future writers to be ruthless in their attacks on established societal institutions. And he opened the door for countless pseudo-intellectuals to put their ideas down on paper, even if they weren't trained in the fine art of writing. So with all due respect, I pay my regards to him.

But that doesn't make him a good author. And that doesn't mean we have to read him.

It is tough describing what is that keeps me so attached to this trilogy, specially this book where Miller describes his pain and his feelings in such a straightforward way. I believe it is his honesty and his bravery to say things one would never even dare to think of. Words come and go smoothly, an so my mind when I read this man. Helps opening up.

What strikes me about the Rosy Crucifixion (and Nexus in particular) is that, even at its worst, it is unbelievably striking and poignant. Perhaps it is how human every aspect of this book is (down even to the flaws), it writhes and rears its head like the humanity that created it. Miller is, beyond anything, a man that is mired in the mass that constitutes this humanity and, from that vantage point, is a writer that creates pure genius.
Even though the book is loosely based around his tumultuous years with his wife (referred to as Mona in this trilogy) before leaving for Paris, the reader gets far more than that. Miller uses this concrete platform to churn out ideas on most anything else in existence. His writing is lucid, thought-provoking, and intelligent here, some of the best he has ever created.
Overall, a fantastic summation of the points articulated throughout the Rosy Crucifixion and Miller's own life. This is an absolutely amazing writer at his best, not to be missed!

Amidst millions of words of autobiographical writing, stands this lonely book, or rather a novella, The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder, Miller's one and only composition that drew inspiration "from the blue", as Miller himself put it. However, do not be mistaken...this novella shines with brilliance. Apart from the exceptional writing Miller's readers are accustomed to, this story is far more complicated than any other novella I had read, ever. Auguste, the centerpiece in this intricate work, is the embodiment of human suffering, a man who carries out his duty until the last breath. His duty being to bring a lasting joy to his audience. For Auguste, there is nothing easier than to make his audience smile, for he is a clown, but the brief moment when he on stage, is not what he is after. His aim is far superior -- Auguste's desire is to unite people with endless joy, the kind that comes only through God himself. But this task, this task bigger than any one human, was a difficult one. When Auguste takes his "trick" to a new level, the audience, as humans tend to do when faced with something they do not comprehend, went up against him. Auguste abandoned the circus and took to wandering. Nevertheless, a man can escape his surroundings, but a man cannot escape himself. For Auguste, his shadow was always with him, in him, unsatisfied, longing. And so, after a nightmare where Auguste was faced with end of his life, he stumbles upon a circus on the edge of the town. His past, his shadow, catches up with him and Auguste is given a new chance to fulfill his task -- one of the clowns fell ill and the circus needs a replacement. Auguste agrees, partly because he wants to relieve his old life, partly because he wants to kill his old life off by making his "persona" more famous than he ever was as himself. With great success, Auguste is back in his element, until the clown, whom he replaced, suddenly dies. It is then, that August discovers reality. The reality of himself, the world, the humankind. The reality that joy is much more than the limited experience he allows his audiences within the boundaries of the circus. Auguste dives deep into himself, into the darkness of the world and he finds the light he was searching for all his life, becoming one with it.

The intricacy of this story, the world in which we live, filled with suffering and joy, the two primary contradicting emotions, is so wonderfully portrayed here. Auguste, complicated like life itself...a man, strong and weak, but above all, vulnerable for he is too human. One of the most fascinating books ever written. Do not be fooled by its size...it will sneak up on you from nowhere, without warning. One of the best works by Miller.

Like all writers who are ultra-realistic, Henry Miller definitely had a bent of surrealism and magic lying underneath his style. Check out such books as The Cosmological Eye to see that part of him in action. Unfortunately, most writers like Miller are never able to effectively embrace this part of themselves. They are too busy trying to get to the "truth" of human life and thereby do not want to be "unrealistic".

The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder is an example of Miller trying to get to realistic truth through unrealistic means. It was originally written as a story to be placed in a collection of circus and clown drawings by the artist Fernand Leger. It was later rejected by Leger, so Miller decided to publish it himself with his own crude but perfectly suited water paint illustrations.

The story is about a famous clown named Auguste who has become a prisoner of his own celebrity. Unlike most entertainers, he wishes not only to delight his audiences, but to bring them to an inner peace hitherto only realizable through God. He is a master of his trade but one day as he is sitting in front of his mirror, he realizes that he has no life outside of his career. This triggers an attempt to flee himself by wandering through the country anonymously, searching for the meaning of life.

While an admirable try, this short fable on the question of identity and purpose is not very effective. Its very brevity defeats Miller's usually rambling and wayward prose. If he had wished he could probably have made a Don Quixote type novel out of this story but Miller probably got frightened from making something so removed from his own experience and the inborn romanticism of its plot. He should have given it a try. This is a minor work. Seek out his Rosy Crucifixion to get Miller at his zenith.

An acquaintance loaned me her copy of this 1958 novel. "Read this," she said. "It's one of my all-time favorite books."

The "everyday world will one day become ours," Henry Miller (1891-1980) writes in the Epilogue to his truly sublime fable. "It is ours now, in fact, only we are too impoverished to claim it for our own" (p. 50). Miller's forty-page novel begins and ends with his clown protagonist, Auguste, smiling (pp. 3; 40), and it will leave you smiling on every page in between. Auguste cavorts through Miller's tale "like a crazy goat" (p. 24), aspiring to "endow his spectators with a joy which would prove imperishable" (p. 5). On his hero's journey, he discovers a very important lesson: "To be yourself, just yourself, is a great thing" (p. 22). This is the central theme of Miller's short, but deeply profound novel. Miller's clown is a "poet in action," an emancipated being "untouched, unsullied, by the common grief" of the world (pp. 46-7). Drifting "unknown" and "unrecognized" among the millions he taught to laugh (p. 6), Auguste lives "in the moment, fully" with the radiance of a "perpetual song of joy" (p. 48).

G. Merritt

I give everyone a copy of this I meet. Henry Miller does more in a few pages than most authors can do in a lifetime. I'm not even going to attempt to write down my thoughts on what all the symbolism means to me. I will just say this. Get 10 dollars out of your wallet and buy a classic. Whenever I am down I read Smile, when I'm really happy I read Smile. The blood trickling down his face.............

This is a very short read but so intriguing that you will lust for the last few words so you may complete the mission. Henry Miller nurtures a childhood fantasy of becoming a clown and uses this vehicle to convey a perspective on life that you will find invaluable. Though short and full of entertaining imagery, the complexity and the symbolism (along with the epilogue) will blow your mind. Godspeed, Mr. Miller!

The issue with most Key Account Managers out there is that they are more focused on maintaining the "relationship" with 1 or 2 players in that account, and then let it grow organically.

LAMP provides the insights on how you can not only defend the account, but also grow it faster by focusing on building strategic relationships with the diverse different players in your account, and feel the pulse of what will be the future business directions that this company will be having, and how you can capitalise on that.

LAMP is multi-dimensional as it handles relationship vs. business; as well as defense vs. growth.
A good companion to this book will be Major Account Sales Strategy

In this age of consolidation, big companies keep getting bigger. For suppliers, losing any large account can be at least dramatic or at worst devastating. Large Account Management Process (LAMP) from Miller Heiman presents a logical, team friendly method of knowing how your company is positiioned in your large accounts, and what needs to be done to maintain or improve that position. Highly recommended.

Answers the question "how should I be working with field sales."   Contains tables, worksheets, lists, and step-by-step approaches with examples.   The problem will be getting an entire sales and marketing team to adopt it. Even if they don't, after reading this book, you may find you relate to your sales force in a different, more productive manner. The only reservation I have about this book is that for the concept to be truly effective, an entire work team must complete the training described in the book. I know from personal experience that, when a work team completes the training, it works, and works well. The book, as well as it may be written, cannot substitute for the group training. If it did, I would rate it a 10+.

LAMP is the best book I have read about Key/Large Account Planning. Most salesreps and hates the planning process and struggle with their plans. This down to earth approach helps a salesrep to organize his work in developing his account plans in a straightforward and pragmatic way. Instead of focusing on history, LAMP is targeting the future and helps you to align your resources through action plans.

The first chapter of this book was like reading an unauthorized biography of all my short comings in managing my largest accounts. Even as a top five performer, I still felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants. This book set out a course for improvement that has changed my professional career forever. If you manage large global accounts this book should be your bible. Mine is still drying out from massive highlighter use!

An excellent book that allows herbal medicine to be seen with clear eyes.

Ancient Herbs, Modern Medicine should be read not only by lay people who are interested in alternative methods of treatment but also by professionals in the field of medicine. It explains very clearly the theories of traditional Chineese medicine and also gives examples of how this ancient system can be succesfully used in combination with alopathic-so called "modern medicine".

Nancy Deville has a rare quality to explain very clearly even the very difficult questions. Therefore also the non-native English reader will definitely not only understand but also enjoy and profit from the book.

Ancient Herbs, Modern Medicine should be read not only by lay people who are interested in alternative methods of treatment but also by professionals in the field of medicine. It explains very clearly the theories of traditional Chineese medicine and also gives examples of how this ancient system can be succesfully used in combination with alopathic-so called "modern medicine".

Nancy Deville has a rare quality to explain very clearly even the very difficult questions. Therefore also the non-native English reader will definitely not only understand but also enjoy and profit from the book.

What a fantastic book! Extremely informative, very well written and very comprehensive on the fascinating subject of combining Chinese & Western medicine. This book has revolutionized how I take care of my body, mind and overall health. It is a MUST READ for anyone even remotely interested in health and well-being. Such an easy read that I didn't realize I was learning along the way. Ten thumbs up.

What you begin to notice when reading this book is the constant reference to a particular website, which has the same name as the title. And at this site you can BUY all the ancient remedies touched on in the book.
This book is an extended pitch for the website, folks.
Please, look elsewhere.

Incredible book. I am in sales, and our success as a team depends on our ability to understand and concpetualize the customer's perspective and viewpoint. There are a number of pitfalls we all tend to run into - even with the best of intentions. This book helps point out common mistakes made by the best in sales, and why some deals appear to fall through when you thought everything was going well. This book came highly recommended from a source I trust, and it's been worth the time out taken to read it.

"Conceptual Selling" offers a sound and useful approach which should improve results for any salesperson. The authors do a fine job of laying out their philosophy and walking the reader through each step of their customer-focused sales process. This process is neither earthshaking nor mindbending. Instead, it is off-center enough to be innovative and intuitive enough to seem real, even before you implement it for yourself.

Readers looking for alternatives to hard-sell, "close-of-the-week" approaches will consider "Conceptual Selling" a welcome find. The authors do a good job of including check lists, work sheets and high-level summaries of key points and processes. The result is a book you can quickly put to good use and a resource you can easily return to time and again.

The only flaw in the book (the reason for four, instead of five stars) is that the writing was too often overdone and repetitive. To their credit the authors present their concepts clearly. However, it seems they felt the need to oversell a concept which is all about not overselling. Fortunately, the concepts and useful tools they present more than overcome this modest shortcoming. I highly recommend this book.

Although I'm not in sales this is a timely book for me. I have had a lot of problems getting management to take my proposals seriously. This book has opened my eyes to all the mistakes I made in my approach.

Steve Heiman and Bob Miller pick up where they left off with the successful, seminal work on strategy sales called Strategic Selling with a similarly valuable book called Conceptual Selling. Sales today is not about tips and techniques - buyers have become quite sophisticated and expect more than product and service pitches from sales people. Conceptual Selling lays out a logical, approachable process that can be taught, coached, and repeated. What more could you ask for?

When it comes to wrtiting with style, itensity and telling the whole truth, Miller is the best America has to offer. ALL his books are worth reading for the nuggets of honesty and intent...

I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in getting into Miller. There are many great examples of his works, without the commitment of an entire book. Henry really has a handle on what it means to be human.

if it was written by henry miller, it was written from the heart, making it a great work, automatically.

a little turgid but still a good bio of an interesting character. interesting to watch someone on the cutting edge become so quickly politically incorrect during his lifetime

At a certain moment in my life, it seemed that many many writers I admired were talking about or recommending Miller. I decided to give his books a try. The first thing that I ever read was Gliding into the Everglades, a little book of essays. I actually liked it, and felt encouraged to pick up the Tropics books. Which I loathed.

Don't get me wrong, I had taken my history of literature courses. I understood the boost that Miller gave to personal narrative and the influence that he undoubtedly had shown. I just didn't want to read anything else by him.

And there I remained-- until about a year ago. On a whim, I saw the Ferguson biography and decided to buy it. I was curious if it would make me look at Miller differently.

The answer is: not so much. It *has* influenced me to go back to his essays and give The Air-Conditioned Nightmare a try. However, it did not improve my opinion of his novels, nor did it make me like him at all as a person. It doesn't help that both June and Anais Nin were the kinds of women that I deeply dislike. (Actually, as a writer, Nin is one of the authors I actually like much less than Miller. I typically love diaries of every kind, but I find her self-indulgent crap completely unreadable.) Hystrionic, manipulative and not very clever-- Miller seemed to choose women to turn into muses that were the very opposite of the type I wanted to read about. So in that sense, it was an explanation (of sorts) for my gut level reaction to his work.

Ferguson is a good biographer. I thought that he maintained an excellent balance between detail and readability. He seems fair and respectful to Miller without being adoring. His prose is skilled without being obtrusive. Based on this book, I would be interested to read his biography of Knut Hamsun. Recommended.

Robert Ferguson has written a spectacular biography on legendary writer Henry Miller. Ferguson, unlike other Miller biographers (such as Mary Dearborne, Alfred Perles), relates the details of Miller's life & works without personal bias or an angle. Although a very tough task, Ferguson is able to distinguish reality as it happened from reality as reported by Henry Miller (which at times is filled with bald-faced lies, such as claiming to have met Emma Goldman although she was not allowed in the city when Miller claims to have met her) most of the time. While some fans of Miller will not like the work because it "spoils the mystique of a legend", others will, I'm sure, agree that this is a thorough, fair and accurate biography about a man who tried very hard to erase the tracks he made in life with all new marks created by semi-autobiographical romances. And dang good ones at that!

This very well written biography of Henry IV of Spain builds upon the earlier work of William Prescott, and provides an excellent insight to the life of both Henry and Isabella, his half-sister. He is careful to stay within the bounds of the information provided by his research, yet writes with a skill seldom found in works of history. One of the few works covering the period in English.

Before this book by Townsend Miller, practically nothing of historical value had been written about Henry IV of Castile, the step-brother of the famous Queen Isabella of Castile (who "unified" Spain by her marriage with Ferdinand of Aragon and the Conquest of Muslim Granada). Although this work is of great historical importance since it brings to light a neglected but neglected period of Spanish history before Isabella, Miller's obvious goal is to write a "personal drama" of this hapless individual. This is clear from the very first line:

"It had been a difficult delivery, and the foreign Queen of Castile lay gushing blood all that icy afternoon in 1425, her moans drowned out by the storm which beat upon the casements: do not expect, should a midwinter journey take you there to Valladolid, a land of sunshine and mild flowers..." (pg 3)

Henry IV himself seems to have been a well-meaning and good person. However, to the horror of Spain, he was obsessed with his menagerie (sometimes to the point of ignoring decision making), he promoted street scum to the level of high ministers (who took outrageous advantage of him), he was unable to produce a male heir despite having two wives, and most of the time absolutely incapable of effective personal rule. The Spain he left was less centralized, the nobility more powerful, and engulfed in a civil war between supporters of his daughter (perhaps his) and the soon to be victorious Queen Isabella.

Townsend Miller's treatment of the subject is slightly suspect since he seems to be very interested in making his work as readable and sensationalist as possible, however, since no other works exist of any note this is the best available and worth the purchase. This is definitely for the casual reader who loves a flowing, narrative, vivid history and the even the historian (who like myself might have SOME qualms about the tome's historical veracity).

If you are a writer, a muse or something in between, this book may fascinate you for more than purely scholarly reasons. It is an unusual approach, and in some ways it could be an especially helpful one. The two words I have are: cautionary tales. The things that we dream of, sometimes they are not such good ideas.
If you like this book, or this topic, there are of course many other books about writers and the weaknesses of flesh and spirit, however you may especially like _What Lips My Lips Have Kissed_ about Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Even though not all readers are seduced and not all writers are compulsive, when a peculiar chemistry occurs between reader and writer, the written word is made flesh and creates strange bedfellows. Frances Wilson has connected the dots and produced a unique and astonishing study of this perhaps unholy alliance.

Beginning with the famous courtship of Elizabeth Barrett by Robert Browning as a kind of contrast/control because of its relative wholesomeness, Wilson goes on to explore the more pathological literary seductions of Anais Nin and Henry Miller, Laura Riding and Robert Graves, Osip and Nadzheda Mandelstam, and W.B. and Georgie Yeats. The Brownings were more normal and sane, according to this author, because they achieved the "...transition from a love of one another's words to a broader love beyond the literary."

But the dynamic of the more pathological literary seductions are different for all. Anais Nin and Henry Miller were possessed by words. "Henry saw the English language as a part of his body" while Anais "...believed words were speaking HER rather than the other way around." They both wrote constantly and compulsively and their sexual involvement with each other was defined by their writing.

Laura Riding, on the other hand, was "la belle dam sans merci." She and Robert Graves together created this mythic persona of Laura and they both fed upon and nurtured it in their writing. They did not "...live to tell the tale so much as tell the tale in order to find a way of living." In other words, they wrote themselves into existence.

For the Russian husband and wife team, Osip and Nadzheda Mandelstam, life was a Gulag Archipelago. Osip was tormented by the poems that he heard as a buzzing in his brain until he wrote them down. But he had to memorize them rather than write them because he was so constantly subject to arrest and imprisonment. So his wife, Nadzheda, contained them within herself, committing them to memory much as Brandbury's characters in *Fahrenheit 451* memorized whole books because the written word had become illegal. Osip and Nadzheda completed one another to such an extent that their separations were torture to both.

W.B. Yeats and his wife, Georgie, also wrote together on an intimate level, but in this case, Georgie received her husband's creative thoughts by automatic writing. She was his conduit; his writing hand was her hand. She wrote constantly and feverishly to such an extent that their authorship was blurred and defined by one another.

In all these latter cases, there was at least one third party in the equation. For Miller and Nin, there was June (Miller's wife). Geoffrey Phibbs and Nancy Graves were present in the Graves-Riding duo. Laura Riding was "...endlessly getting rid of the third party in the way of her relationship, whilst she needed this third party in order to have the relationship in the first place." For the Mandelstams, there was the poetess, Anna Akhnatova, and for W.B. and Georgie Yeats, there was Anne Hyde (who had died in the 17th Century but who appeared in Georgie's automatic writing).

If you're not a reader of literature, you probably won't be reading this review anyway, but if you're an inveterate reader and all of your heroes are writers (not cowboys), this book will absorb and fascinate you with its engaging style, scholarly research and in-depth psychological profiles.