Classics Books


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Classics Books sorted by Average customer review: high to low .

Classics
Little Critter Storybook Collection (Little Critter)
Published in Hardcover by HarperFestival (2005-07-01)
Author:
List price: $11.99
New price: $7.13
Used price: $7.39

Average review score:

great stories, detailed and fun illustrations, but...
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-09-10
My 4 year old daughter loves Little Critter, and I purchased this book along with Just a Little Critter Story Collection. A couple of the stories in this book have become her favorites (one about visiting grandparents and one about a snow day). However, there are a couple of stories in here about transportation that are very, very simple...as though they were originally toddler board books. My daughter gets tired of them very quickly, and so do I. I would have liked this collection better if all the stories had been on the same "level."

Cute as always
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-04-26
I used to collect these books during the 1990's so almost all the stories in this book were new to me and just as charming for my kids. Great stories as usual, great illustrations.

A great book
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-04-20
Little Critter is my 2 1/2 yr old son's favorite. The lessons are great, the stories are great for this age and the pictures are very cute. It's a great book for your bookshelf.

Quality stories for your young child
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-02-08
This is a very nice collection of books that your young child will almost certainly enjoy. Our daughter loves all of the Little Critter books.

Great Stories
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2008-09-29
Mercer Mayer is always the king of great childrens books. My only problem when buying this one was I could not find the story titles in the book listed online. So here they are...
Just a school project
Good for me and you
Just big enough
bye bye, mom and dad
just a snowman
just a dump truck
just a tug boat

Classics
Little Nemo in Slumberland - So Many Splendid Sundays
Published in Hardcover by Sunday Press Books (2005-01)
Authors: Winsor McCay and Peter Maresca
List price: $120.00
New price: $86.40
Used price: $76.11

Average review score:

The largest book I have ever owned and will never give up
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-03-21
To finally have a chance to see Windsor McCay's artwork as it was intended is the treat of a lifetime. The reproductions I've seen in the past reduce the size of the art like watching a 70mm film on a regular TV set.

Nothing is being produced like this anymore. McCay's talent is beyond amazing, it would take a normal artist months to produce one page like he was doing every week. The book is exhausting and I can only read a dozen pages at a time. These are exact reproductions of actual newsprint pages from the time so all the printing imperfections are here but that should not dissuade the appreciation of this comic.

If you are a true drawn art aficionado find the money for this. You will not regret it.

Little Nemo. So may splendid Sundays
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-01-17
Beautiful book.A splendid example of the quality of book production possible to-day. As for Little Nemo, one does not need to be a New Yorker- or even an American-to appreciate the artistry involved.
Chris Hunt, Alnwick, UK

An Extraordinary Work Of Art
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2007-03-26
This is a wonderful book - any digital animator should start here. Some of the frames look like storyboards for the Lord of the Rings films. It is amazing that a work of art of this quality appeared in a popular newspaper - and reproducing it now, at full scale, was a true labor of love. Winsor McKay was a fantastic artist.

I would rate it 6 stars if I could
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2007-02-16
This is the most beautiful book I have ever seen. Having purchased the complete Little Nemo book series in the 1980's I really looked forward to finally being able to see this lovely comic in its original format. When the book arrived today I realised that it was even better than I had hoped for, extremely high quality and of impressive size.

The only drawback is that it does only contain a selection of the story, but I can always read the missing pages in the cheaper old edition. A big applaud for the publisher who dared produce this wonderfull piece of art.

A stunning book
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 2007-04-17
Let's be honest: this book's not cheap. Is it worth the price tag? Without question or hesitation: yes. If you're even contemplating buying this book, I probably don't have to tell you how great the Little Nemo strip was. What you'll want to know is that this book will make you feel like you've never really seen Little Nemo until now. It is a magnificent, absolutely stunning book.

First of all, this book is huge. McCay's work is reproduced at its original size, which reveals his superb draftsmanship in all its glory. If you remember Little Nemo as lovely but kind of cramped, you're not going to believe how open and expansive the strips look here.

Secondly, the color reproduction is superb. I'll take the editor's word that a great deal of effort was expended to match McCay's original coloring directions. What I will say is that the colors here are vibrant without being garish. It's really unbelievable that such sophisticated color work comes from a strip that's a hundred years old. I don't think most newspapers today could pull this off.

You really have to see the book to appreciate how incredible it is. This really sets a standard against which the other collections I've seen fall far short. If you can swing the price, you won't be sorry. You might, however, have a hard time finding a place to store it!

Classics
Love, Love, Love: And Other Essays
Published in Paperback by Cowley Publications (2006-04-25)
Author: Charles Taliaferro
List price: $14.95
New price: $6.21
Used price: $6.28

Average review score:

Modern G.K. Chesterton
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-09-05
Reading this book is like sharing a bottle of wine with a remarkably intelligent, knowledgeable and witty friend. It is at times intoxicatingly funny and at other times deeply understanding of the darker mysteries of life. Written in the spirit of G.K. Chesterton, the essays originate with the personal and temporal and take off from there into the realms of the universal and eternal. In this flight they enlighten and inspire. I love, love, loved this book!

Indeed, a Work of Love!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-07
Charles Taliaferro has given to anyone who is lucky enough to pick up this book the gift of a friend. Like a friend, Love, Love, Love will make you laugh in the light-hearted, life-affirming way and subsequently brighten your day. Like a friend, Love, Love, Love believes in the possibility of good intentions, and will strengthen you by that belief.

The book is generous of emotion without sentimentality, and earnestly funny without being in the least bit campy. Charles manages self-effacing comedy while retaining self-esteem. He provides a beautiful example of the delicate but necessary combination of humility and confidence.

The book touches on the epic - like Charles' father's death, compared to Waterloo - and the trivial - a botched class, daily embarrassments - and understands the proportion appropriate to each.

If you stop in your day and take just a few minutes to read one of these essays, you'll return to your world with a better sense of perspective, and probably also a smile - as from a visit with a friend.

All you need is 'Love'!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2006-09-05
The author presents a striking range of experiences, thoughts, observations and profound insights into the human condition. The book never fails to elicit a sense of a personal involvement in our shared humanity through both the simple and complex relationships in which we engage each day. Students of Taliaferro are fortunate to have as a mentor and friend one who can tap into the depths of philosophical wisdom at the same time as grasping the familiar.
The book will resonate with all who venture into its always varied and entertaining essays.

An accessible look at philosophy
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2006-08-01
Charles Taliaferro opens up the remote and difficult world of philosophy in his collection of essays, 'Love, Love, Love.' Proving that the task of philosophic discourse need not be titanic, nor a task at all, the good Professor makes accessible his personal brand of everyday aesthetics, metaphysics, and ontology.

I recommend this book for his fellow university professors as well as beginning students of the discipline, noting that each would benefit from a frank examination of the applicability of philosophy and a respite from the flamboyant rhetoric of other modern texts that, unlike Taliaferro's work, can be nearly indecipherable.

Intelligent writer!
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-06-27
Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for Reader Views 6/06

"Love, Love, Love and Other Essays" by Charles Taliaferro, is a collection of his thoughts on love, life and death. Mr. Taliaferro is a professor of Philosophy. The forty-three essays are written from events in his life.

His essay titled, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was written after a large splinter caused an infection in his arm. "A nurse said, "Your hand looks very angry today." "I don't like thinking of my hand as having an independent emotional life." The compassion of the nurses and his friends impressed him. "The basic act of touching was overwhelming."

"It's Waterloo, Baby!", is a reflection on his father's battle with a stroke in "At this point at my parents' home, there is a strange blend of distress, resignation, and family love." I found this stirring. I have faced the same emotions with a loved one. You know that death is inevitable for we are each growing older, however; you are still distressed because you do not want to give up the one you love. "At present, feelings of vibrancy, joy, and peace are difficult for my family. We pray for my father to have as much joy and serenity as possible under the circumstances, and as much faith as possible in a joy that is, in Dorothy Sayers' words, deeper and more powerful than the grave." As my loved one slowly slips away from me in mind if not in body, I reflect on a future without her but know that she has already slipped away in reality.

We all have deep reflections on love, life and death but we do not all share them with the world. That can be a good thing. It is obvious that Mr. Taliaferro is very intelligent. You cannot help but reflect on his thoughts long after reading his essays. However, I did find it difficult to stay focused on some of the essays.

Classics
Lucky in the Corner: A Novel
Published in Paperback by Mariner Books (2003-07-14)
Author: Carol Anshaw
List price: $13.00
New price: $0.55
Used price: $0.01

Average review score:

Great Book
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-01-21
This was a great read. It was beautifully written and there were some spots that I laughed for quiet awhile at what a character said or did. (I've chuckled briefly with other books, but never laughed and laughed as I did with this one.) The characters were all very likable, even in their foibles. The pain of a mother and a daughter who really wanted to be connected but weren't was portrayed honestly. The mother was trying to fill a round hole in her heart with a square peg. It was awful to witness both for her daughter and for the reader. It was that frustrating longing though that eventually brought them together. The tension was savory and the resolution was real. I highly recommend it.

Magnificent!!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2002-09-18
I found this book at my local library under new fiction and decided to try it out as I'm always looking for new authors to read. I'm so lucky that my fingers happened to pick up this book! What a treasure! Anshaw is a funny and sensitive writer. The only problem is that you've got to read this book slowly because there is so much to absorb! I ignored my husband and children for three days!! I can't wait to read her other two novels.......

Magnificent!!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2002-09-18
I found this book at my local library under new fiction and decided to try it out as I'm always looking for new authors to read. I'm so lucky that my fingers happened to pick up this book! What a treasure! Anshaw is a funny and sensitive writer. The only problem is that you've got to read this book slowly because there is so much to absorb! I ignored my husband and children for three days!! I can't wait to read her other two novels.......

Impersonations of sane
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2003-01-02
Fern's relationship with her mother Nora has always been strained, ever since the messy divorce due to Nora's affairs with women. Nora has eventually settled down with Jeanne, but the tension between mother and daughter remains. Fern's best friend drops her baby into Fern's lap and slowly drifts from the picture, and Fern's most stable relationship is with her dog Lucky, but with the dog's health waning, this seems to be ending as well. And when Nora begins another affair, Fern is first to figure it out and leaps at the chance to judge her mother, but as events progress, she begins to realize her mother is human after all. And with Lucky dying, both mother and daughter come to better understandings about themselves and their relationship with each other. "Lucky in the Corner" is full of glorious complexities about us humans, and Anshaw has written this tale in a tidal mosaic, where episodes from the past and present interweave, blessing the reader with all aspects of these fascinating characters and leaving us with a sense of what family (especially those extended families of non-blood relatives) means.

Pleasant to read, yes, but sophisticated and compelling, too
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2006-01-29
I agree with the reviewer who said that this book was "pleasant" to read--it *is* very easy and accessible. But just don't confuse that with simplistic, either in the ideas it offers or the way it presents them. The way in which the main character wrestles with fidelity, with contentment, really, is very believable as it is sketched out. The supporting characters are well-executed, and the arc of the plot is satisfying and illuminating. You're left hanging a bit by the conclusion, but it works. I promptly went out upon reading this and got another of her books--it's that good. (Don't be put off by the cover, which makes the story look flaky and light, a la Diane Johnson/Le Divorce; there's real life between *these* covers.)

Classics
Making Doll's House Miniatures with Polymer Clay
Published in Paperback by Cassell (2000-08)
Author: Sue Heaser
List price: $19.95
New price: $11.43
Used price: $9.95

Average review score:

Making Doll's House Miniatures with Polymer Clay by Sue Heaser
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-01-31
This is a book good for beginner has step by step guide how to make the individual items. IT is a value for money book for beginner.

Making Doll's House Miniatures
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2005-10-24
My son used his sister's copy of this book and loved it. He asked for it for Christmas and I bought it and received it so quickly, I was impressed. I can't wait to give it to him. It looks very impressive to me, also.

This is the most wonderful book
Helpful Votes: 22 out of 22 total.
Review Date: 2003-10-06
I made myself a miniature drugstore since I am a pharmacist and I had trouble finding things like mortars and cylinders. Thanks to this book I managed to make the most beautiful look-alike mortars with pestles and all, also a little turn-of-the-century (last century, of course) telephone. The directions are precise and you can really get what you are looking for (and I had never touched polymer clay in my life!)

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!
Helpful Votes: 25 out of 25 total.
Review Date: 2002-11-30
This book is so full of good ideas for creating items in perfect scale for a dollhouse that I don't know where to start.

How to make your own tools and formers, making dishes and pots that are more realistically thin-walled than the commercially-available items, mimicking china, a ladies' vanity set, a desk set, baskets, metal, wood, flatware, foods, fireplace tools - even the kitchen sink! Way too many different items to name them all. If I was to be forced to give up all my dollhouse books but one, this would be the one I'd keep.

Excellent intro to using the clays - basic information. Trouble-shooting tips along the way.

And her videos are fabulous, too. :-)

Great book!
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2004-03-02
The variety of projects in this book and the step-by-step explanations, make it a great resource for beginners and experienced miniature makers.
I would recommend this book to anyone who's interested in making their own dollhouse miniatures!

Classics
Marianela
Published in Paperback by Andres Bello (1998-04)
Author: Benito Perez Galdos
List price: $7.70
New price: $6.00

Average review score:

Marianela
Helpful Votes: 17 out of 18 total.
Review Date: 2000-04-12
I am a young "Anglo-American" (white) girl living in a Texas/Mexican border town with a 98% hispanic community, and am on my way to learning the language fluently. I read this book in my Spanish class, and nearly died from the beauty of this book! It has helped me along with recognizing and comprehending Spanish along with leaving me a satisfied reader. Someday when I speak fluent Spanish, I will read this to my daughter and am sure it will be her favorite bed-time story. :-)

Marianela - from a student perspective
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2002-05-27
Seeing as though I couldn't get the real Marianela quickly, this one suited quite well, perhaps even better. I had to write a paper on it and the simplified language made mush easier to understand.

un libro bello
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2002-08-03
Pablo, a rich blind boy is madly in love with poor Marianela. Things go smooth until renowned Doctor Teodoro GolfĂ­n offers to cure up Pablo's eyes. Marianela, who thinks she is ugly is afraid that when he starts seeing, he'll see how ugly(on the surface) she really is. Her fears are confirmed when he falls for his beautiful cousin Florentina, who doesn't treat Marianela too well. She is so attached to Pablo that if she doesn't look beautiful for him, she won't be any use to him. A very destructive point of view which she sticks to. It's a tragic ending but it's common in most Spanish-language stories.

La vision siempre es espiritual, no fisica
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2004-05-24
What is the actual implication of this fictitious work? Isn't there a serious, profound and truthful lessons in this love story so down-to-earth but yet so complex?

Marianela, a love story published in 1878 portrays a relationship between a blind man and his guide-- not beautiful a woman, whom he imagines attractive. Loving him she worries that once the man recovers his eyesight realizes she is not as pretty as he thinks her to be.

The author wisely crafts an interesting symbolism between the capacity to see, which is always spiritual and emotional, and on the other hand the human eyesight which can be inadequate, restrictive and misleading.

The implication that runs through the whole story is that adversity is a blessing in disguise, since blindness forces him to be humble enough to perceive the beauty she and others manifest. Once he recovers his eyesight and sees her for the first time with his human eyes, he rejects her.

Wasn't he in possession of real sight while blind than when he was able to recover his sight and to humanly see? Isn't Perez Galdos message, that the capacity to see and understand is mental, emotional and not necessarily physical?

Finally I can say this classic must be understood as a lesson on the spiritual superiority over the evidence presented by the human senses. This emotionally complex story has a symbolism, it will teach a lesson to whoever is receptive enough to its deeper meaning.

Wonderful Story
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-22
I must admit that this book didn't pick my interest when I started reading it in My Spanish AP class in high school. Now after reading it I have to say that this book is wonderfully written and very educational.
Marianela is a girl who lives in The Mines of Socartes, she is the guide of a rich boy who suffers fom blindness Pablo. I loved Marianela's character since the first pages, she is so full of life, so innocent. All her life she lived out of the pity of others but it didn't matter to her. Pablo "said" he loved her and she lived in this illusion where she thought that she would finally be loved and not criticized by her looks.
Then, everything changed when Teodoro Golfin, a miracle doctor gave Pablo his sight. That's when everything changed. When Pablo saw what Marianela really looked like, he just started treating her horribly. Where did all his love go? I have to say that by the end of the book I hated Pablo with a passion. How can someone be so cynical as to tell a person how beautiful she is without really seeing the exterior appearance and then being disgusted by what he sees when he looks at how that person really looks? Sadly that's what happens with Pablo and it would have been better if he had stay blind.
This book bring some things that are really important. True beauty is on the inside, never judge someone by their exterior appearace because you might be surprised. True beauty is not something that you can see or touch, beauty has to be felt.
I highly recomend this book, it will touch your heart I promise

Classics
Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1
Published in Hardcover by Marvel Comics (2003-09-30)
Authors: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
List price: $49.99
New price: $44.73
Used price: $30.00

Average review score:

The title says it all, amazing.
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-08-27
Spider-Man was created in the early 60's against all reasonable ideas. The character broke all of the rules of comics at the time, and continued to for many, many years to come. (The Comic-Code, the Wedding...)

This is a reprint of the first appearance of Spider-Man, the origin, and the first ten issues of the first title, The Amazing Spider-Man, which sets up a lot of the early story arcs and bad guy origins. This is a must-have if you claim to be a fan of Spider-Man. It is one thing to know the story, it is another to actually have read it and this book allows us to.

I know that these volumes are a bit pricey, but you can usually find reasonably priced used ones on here. I got this first edition, a little beat up, for just a couple of bucks. Well worth it for the early writings of Stan Lee as well as the great early work of Steve Ditko!

Spectacular
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-01-26
This is a amazing book filled with full color glossy pages on every page! The perfect way to get your hands on the "originals." These books make great collectors editions. You will want to display this beauty! I purchased this for my husband who loves Spiderman & this is the only way for him to "have" the spectacular story from the very begining. This hard cover book with colorful dustjacket makes a great gift for any comic book fan as long as they don't insist on the real deal.

GREAT!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-09-29
I purchased this collection for my father as a gift. HE LOVES IT!!! He owned many of the original Spiderman comics when he was a child and living on a military base in Japan. When my grandfather was stationed back in the U.S. my grandmother made him leave them in Japan.
This is a great gift for any true Spideerman fans or anyone who wants to get familiar with the actual comics. :)

An Amazing Fantasy for any Spidey Fan!!!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-07-30
An irradiated spider bite, a tragic twist of fate, a poignant proverb; over the years there have been numerous attempts to re-tell or re-interpret Spider-Man's origin. With some of them being successful and others not so much, any Spidey fan's best bet is to actually read the original Lee/Ditko comics in all their grandeur. The Marvel Masterworks series provides Spider-Man fans with this exact opportunity. Important to note - unlike some trades that compile these comics in black & white, in this collection, they are all in magnificent COLOR!

This particular volume, Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol.1 consists of Amazing Fantasy #15 (Spider-Man's first appearance) along with Amazing Spider-Man #1-10. This volume provides a great window to explore the original and definitive origin of Spider-Man with the introduction of his supporting cast, including: Uncle Ben, Aunt May, Flash Thompson, Liz Allen, Betty Bryant, and J.J. Jameson. We also see first appearances by classic villains, such as: Chameleon, Vulture, Doc Ock, Sandman, Lizard, and Electro, along with lesser known foes such as: the Fantastic Four's Doctor Doom, the Terrible Tinkerer, the Living Brain, and the Enforcers. Spider-Man also runs into some allies, with the Human Torch making multiple guest appearances as the webslinger's teenage foil.

Overall, the strength of these stories is Stan Lee's revolutionary concept in re-defining the traditional characteristics of a superhero. Unlike the morally perfect, father-figures that had dominated comic book pages for decades, Peter Parker was a socially awkward teenager who reflected his youth-oriented readers. Reading these early comics, we witness what is to become the trademark of Peter Parker's life: problems. From girl issues to money woes to his physically feeble Aunt May, it is Peter's personal life that remains the emotional core of his stories. While other heroes have the ability to retreat into their secret-identity, Peter's personal life is only more complicated by his newly earned powers and responsibilities. It is this aspect that made Spider-Man the most relatable superhero. Steve Ditko equally contributes to the success of the wallcrawler by making Spider-Man's world stand out with unique visuals, quirky costumes, and greatly depicted battles, particularly the classic showdown with Doctor Octopus.

Like all older comics, there is some dated dialogue that doesn't translate well into the vocabulary of the 21st century. There also is a tendency for Spider-Man and his villains to verbally narrate every action they engage in. However, the joyful and emotionally compelling nature of these stories diminishes these flaws entirely. This is a must have for any old or new Spider-Man fan!

What a Comic book collection should be!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-02-03
That's what I call a great comic book collection! It just covers the earlier adventures of the Amazing Spider-man (#1-10 plus Amazing Fantasy #15) and the episodes'arts and scripts may not be as entertaining as some on the further issuses but still this collection remains a classic of its genre and is functional to the full understanding of the super-hero character Spider-Man.

Classics
Mathsemantics: Making Numbers Talk Sense
Published in Paperback by Penguin (Non-Classics) (1995-03-01)
Author: Edward MacNeal
List price: $16.00
New price: $9.16
Used price: $0.53

Average review score:

An illuminating exploration of numeracy
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-09-24
As an educator with a primary school child, I've read many books on numeracy. This is one of the very best. It's lively, engaging, grounded in theory and practice and clearly reflects a lifetime of reflection. MacNeal weaves in many examples from real life, together with instructive and sometimes humorous and touching anecdotes about his own childhood.

The general semantics of numbers
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-10
As a fan of general semantics, I enjoyed this. What is 2 apples plus 3 oranges? The author uses simple questions like this to illustrate use and misuse of numbers. Most maths teaching ignores the meaning of numbers, but this short book shows lucidly how an understanding of the process of abstraction can help us avoid using numbers irrationally. Recommended, though I suggest reading in conjunction with Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Reality (the most readable book on general semantics).

Semantics of Mathematical Evaluating
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-05-27
Edward MacNeal (1994) an airline business consultant, introduces Mathsemantics (Science of Mathematical semantics) as an extensional (factual evaluating) language for proper evaluating. Showing via job application tests taht maths incompetence often results from semantic mis-understandings; like any language, requiring familiarity.
What Jean Piaget (1926) found in children. Alfred Korzybski (1933) showed persisted via an education in Aristotle's (c. 350 B.C.) 'intensional' ('subject-predicate', false-to-facts 'universalizing') linguistic structure ('logic'), reversing the empirical evaluating order (event-perceiving-insight-formulating), consequently allowing 'identifying' 'meanings' (words) with perceivings, etc.
Whilst our mathematical education mostly fails to solve these semantic problems, involved in applying numbers to events. For example, we may expect that calculations have only one answer, despite measuring involves approximating (rounding-up, etc) involving estimates (probabilities). Further Greeks like Parmenides (c. 480 B.C.) did not accept zero as a number, 'reasoning': "non-being could not be, because it was a logical impossibility". Thus unsurprisingly, many tend to round-up to 1 rather than 0!
Infact Kurt Godel (1940) found no mathematical system can be complete-nor-consistent. As Korzybski (1933, 1936) asserted: "map is not the territory...is not all the territory...is self-reflexive (speak of map of map, etc)".
Korzybski (1933) asserted that by extensionalizing to events, we find context. However MacNeal continues that units (unity) entail convenient 'categories' representing events despite that a name tells us nothing-about-nor-is-the-thing. MacNeal argues that we cannot do without 'addition', suggesting that we can 'add' different changing things under combined units: "2 apples + 5 oranges = 7 fruit".
Yet MacNeal the General Semanticist (Korzybski (1933), Science of values, hence evaluating), avoids the fact that events, abstracting processes, etc., are not 'additive', involving Korzybski's (1933) non-elementalistic, functional (non-linear-asymmetry-non-additive), more-or-less emergent wholes. As Korzybski (1933) argued water, having new emergent characteristics, is not the 'sum' of an oxygen atom 'plus' two hydrogen atoms.
Therefore,

C = A + B

becomes,

C = f (A, B)

Let alone that 'classifying' entails 'identifying'.

A truly superb book!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2005-04-07
I teach British literature and love Scott, Austen, Wodehouse, and Hardy. I thouroughly enjoy the murders mysteries of Rex Stout and Dorothy Sayers. So why am I reviewing a book about math? Because it is one of the finest books I have ever read.

This book bridges the gap between the right and left brains. While its subject matter includes some advanced concepts, they are expressed so articulately that they are accessible to virtually everyone.

This is not a book for educators or students alone. Everyone should read it.

Common Sense on an Uncommon Topic
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2003-10-30
The author is "an expert" - someone who knows something and can explain it to and/or use it for those who can't - or just don't - on their own.

I am a high school math teacher and community college and high school computer teacher. MacNeal THRILLED me with his insight into something that may be part of the problem with education the way we do it. Look for his connection of Piaget's work on the development of children's and adults' abilities through necessary stages with the Chinese language and with the teaching of math.

I have had more successes with some of my students because of MacNeal and his book.

Classics
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Published in Hardcover by Handprint Books (2001-10-01)
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
List price: $18.95
New price: $7.58
Used price: $3.27
Collectible price: $75.00

Average review score:

Treasure Trove for American Families Everywhere!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-12-19
My dad gave the kids this marvelous rendition of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. The captivating illustrations and gravings by Christopher Bing are incredibly emotion-evoking. In fact, I had to stop reading several times due to the lump in my throat. The ending is the best ~ a true gem for American families everywhere to treasure for years to come.

Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff and Sahm I Am: Tales of a Stay-at-Home Mom in Europe, lives near Munich, Germany, with her husband and two children.

Brought the poem to life
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-04-14
This is my child's oppinion of the book."I recently memorized this poem for school and found it quite boring and I did not want to learn it at all. But then after I learned it I read this book and saw all the pictures and I really started to appreciate that I learned it. The pictures really made the poem come to life and I really wish I had the book while learning it. Now I have it memorized and I am hoping to get a copy of the book!"

Makes History Fun!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2005-09-24
This book is a gift for a home schooling mom like me, who frequently fell asleep in my history classes in school! It really evokes the excitement, mixed with fear that must have been present at that time in history. Longfellow perfectly captures the passion and determination that gripped these "patriots". In addition, the illustrations are fantastic - true art.

An amazingly beautiful and creative book.
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2004-01-03
This book comes alive when you open it and are allowed to step back in time with the wonderful backbeat of Longfellow's great American poem about the "the British are coming", and awakening of the people from Boston to Concord by Paul Revere. This is the beginning of America! Right before the "shot heard round the world" folks. A poem that shaped America not only in the eyes of Americans, but the rest of the world. Longfellow's poetry was simple genius. The art of Christopher Bing is outstanding. This exceptional book has the kind of creativity I would like to see more of in Children's Literature. A unique book that can be found on adult bookshelves as well.

What a treasure!
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2003-02-20
You know this book is special as soon as you touch it. You realize that the look of leather on the cover is just that, a look. You flip through the pages and find a scrapbook, complete with worn and mildewed pages, enhanced with token mementos that look so three-dimensional you must trace them with a tentative finger. A letter from Thomas Gage to Lieutenant Colonel Smith is tucked inside the front cover; the Deposition of Paul Revere is stuck in the back. We find a map of the British plan and a corresponding map of the Middlesex Alarm, including Revere's actual route. This is *not* just a casual recitation of the classic poem. The words proceed on faded sheets while Bing's illustrations hint at period woodcuts. No explanations are necessary within the text. Notes are saved for the end, and they reveal the minor inaccuracies in the Longfellow version (one of the biggest being that Paul Revere was captured outside of Lexington and that his companion Dr. Samuel Prescott was the one who made it all the way to Concord). A gift for any age ... especially for those of us who can chime off part of the rhyme but forget the whole story.

Classics
The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook
Published in Hardcover by Kingfisher (2001-04-15)
Author: Joyce Lankester Brisley
List price: $13.95
New price: $7.89
Used price: $6.85

Average review score:

I grew up with this book!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-11-10
I loved this book when I was little. I don't remember how old I was or where I first saw it, but I remember checking it out of a library several times. I knew it wasn't a new story, with the tattered cover and discolored pages, but I loved that there were never any problems in it and that the little girl lived so differently than I did, in a time before mine. I was looking for another childhood favorite and was thrilled to find this one! I remembered the story almost perfectly when I looked back in the excerpts. I can't wait for my own 3 year old to read it...

All kids should read this one!
Helpful Votes: 10 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2001-01-10
What a sweet book! I'm 23 and always pre-read any books that i intend to give as gifts to the various kids i know. Usually i find that they eventually turn into scary stuff which isn't too good for the younger ones. When i read this story book i went out and got six copies, one for each of the young children i baby-sit, age ranging 3 to 9, even the 9 year old loved it. There is no violence, no bad language and is a wonderful way of showing young children how people lived in days gone by without taking on a lecturing tone. You know what, even the two young boys liked it!:-)

Must buy!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2006-03-14
Don't rule this out for your older children...I just bought it for my just-turned-8yo dd after starting a library copy of it and all of us (including 10yo brother) being enchanted (he actually suggested buying it...said it was a "classic"!)! It reminds you of simpler times... the wholesome joys of childhood. It probably is best for 8 and under but we found it absolutely charming!

Memories of a childhood
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2001-07-12
I was amazed when i came across this title in my search. I got both the Milly Molly Mandy books as a gift when I was little. I had to wait to read them as i couldnt read very well when i received them. The became my favourite books and I still have them packed away somewhere to this day, dog-earred and with torn covers. I never tired of reading the same stories over and over again, wishing that I could have adventures like Milly Molly Mandy.

Bridging the generation gap
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2002-01-31
This book was the first I was able to read myself, at age 4. It had been my mother's book as a child, and I still have her copy. I was amazed to see that it is still being printed and is still so popular. Somehow I thought it was unknown to most people (my little secret!)

My own granddaughter is now old enough to read about Milly-Molly-Mandy, so I will purchase the new edition for her. She looks just like Milly-Molly-Mandy! Also, it is fascinating to learn that the stories take place in Holland, not England. My sisters and I still use the phrase "little-friend-Susan" to describe the perfect friendship!


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