Classics Books

I really enjoyed this essay. I have always been interested in the freedom of the will problem and I thought that this essay provided a good description of the problem and some very interesting discussion. Schopenhauer writes very clearly and in a manner that kept me interested throughout the hundred pages of the essay. Schopenhauer starts out with a consideration of what is meant by "freedom of the will." He considers the statement that "I can do what I will" to be irrelevant to the question of freedom of the will since he says that "...the will is already presupposed...for it assumes that the will has already been decided." He goes on to say, "The assertion does not at all speak about the dependence or independence of the occurrence of the act of volition itself."

The real question that Schopenhauer seems to be interested in is whether an individual can will what he or she wills; he does not think that this is the case. Schopenhauer arrives at the opinion that "...man's will is his authentic self, the true core of his being...he himself is as he wills and wills as he is" such that, "You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing." He then goes on to talk about causality and what compels the will to act in one way or another (i.e., motives) always coming back to what he sees as a confusion when people use the fact that they can do what they will as an argument for free will. Schopenhauer argues that an individual's statement of "...`I can do this' is in reality a hypothetical and carries with it the additional clause, `if I did not prefer the other.' But this addition annuls the ability to will." Schopenhauer considers the notion of an uncaused cause to be unintelligible and at variance with observation. "If freedom of the will were presupposed, every human action would be an inexplicable miracle--an effect without a cause...here we are supposed to think something which determines without being determined, which depends on nothing, but on which the other depends."

One question that often comes up when talking about the absence of freedom of will is "What then happens to individual responsibility?" Schopenhauer answers this by saying that people are responsible for their own characters and that others judge individuals based on the outward signs (actions) that belie their inward character. "So the responsibility of which he is conscious falls upon the act only provisionally and ostensibly, but basically it falls upon his character--for this he feels responsible. And it is for his character that the others also make him responsible." So then Schopenhauer seems to be saying that people are judged based on their actions and underlying motives since these together show evidence of their true nature.

On a somewhat unrelated note, Schopenhauer's relationship with Hegel seems less than cordial as evidenced by his discussing Hegel's philosophical ponderings as "the emptiest word rubbish and silliest gallimathias [the word means nonsense or gibberish] that have ever been heard outside the insane asylum." For some reason, this passage made me laugh such that I wanted to include it in this review. It makes me thankful that my professional relationships have not yet reached such a level of colorful language. At any rate, I enjoyed this essay very much and would recommend it to others who are interested in a freedom of the will discussion.

For those who are convinced that determinism has been refuted (ie. Popper, Sartre, Kierkegarrd) it is quite obvious that they haven't read this essay because if they had they might put their own presuppositions about the validity of free will into question.
Schopenhauer does a fantastic job at dissecting the concept of the 'freedom of the will' by first showing that it cannot be proven from self-consciounsess. He follows this by meticulously distinguishing between the changes that occur in inorganic objects (cause), plants (stimulus), and animals(intuitive and particularly for humans, abstract motives). He points out that in regards to the automatic organic function of animals bodies, changes occur in the form of a "stimulus" but in willed action motivation is the cause (but not in the mechanical sense that the narrow definition of casaulity implies). Schopenhauer writes, in regards to motivation, "causality that passes through cognition... enters in the gradual scale of natural beings at that point where a being which is more complex, and thus has more manifold needs, was no longer able to satisfy them merely on the occasion of a stimulus that must be awaited, but had to be in a position to choose, seize, and even seek out the means of satisfaction."

Schopenhauer thinks that humans have "relative freedom" but that relative freedom is to act in accordance with the motives that are necessitated by the Will-- which in turn is the determining factor of human behavior. In humans the linkage of cause and effect is of a far greater distance than that of intuitive animals-- causing us to mistakingly exclude our behavior from the law of casaulity-- but in the end 'the Will' still determines actions by what he calls "sufficient necessitiy".

"For he (human beings) allows the motives repeatedly to try their strength on his will, one against the other. His will is thus put in the same position as that of a body that is acted on by different forces in opposite directions - until at last the decidedly strongest motive drives the others from the field and determines the will. This outcome is called decision and, as a result of the struggle, appears with complete necessity."

Unlike Sartre's treatise on freedom, which ultimately collapsed into obscurity and contradiction, Scophenhauer's rightly contends that a fixed essence is inborn (what we would today call DNA). In other words, it contradicts Sartre's saying that "existence precedes essence." For Schopenhauer, neither precedes the other. The two are inseparable. The expression of the essence can change through experience within the environment but the fundamental aspects of it remain instrinsic to the organism (Genes/Biology). Schopenhauer responds to the proponents of absolute free will, who haven't carefully analyzed what it means for the 'will' to be free, by writing: "Closely considered, the freedom of the will means an existentia without essentia; this is equivalent to saying that something is and yet at the same time is nothing, which again means that it is not and thus is a contradiction." So my guess is that if Sartre had happened to stumble upon this particular essay he might have realized that it was he who was in "bad faith" about man being condemned to be free.

It should also be noted that if Schopenhauer is wrong about mans intrinsic nature then all of the social sciences are a fraud and particularly psychology is wrong when it takes genes, biology, and the environment into consideration when interpreting and analyzing human behavior.

The reason people object to philosophical determinism is that it makes morality and personal responsibility a precarious thing. One valuable thing we can adopt from Sartre's ideas is that it is imperative that we take responsibility for our choices. But being that pragmatism is the philosophy of the U.S. and not existentalism, it is more than likely the masses will always assume that Free Will exists because the stability of civil society depends on it. In light of all of this it should be mentioned that Schopenhauer does not think that people can't be morally reformed. In other words he thinks that the expression of behavior can be cultivated. Many people credit Nietzsche for coming up with the idea of sublimation that would later be used by Freud, but it was actually Schopenhauer who was the first speak of the idea.

"Cultivation of reason by cognitions and insights of every kind is morally important, because it opens the way to motives which would be closed off to the human being without it."

Schopenhauer also condemns a moral system that tries to root out the defects of a person's character rather than utilizing sublimation.

For those who consider this type of philosophy immoral because it seems to exclude the possibility of moral responsibility we should remember that in Christianity there is the concept of predesination, and in Islam there is a religious fatalism. On top of that fact, many of the church fathers (Augustine and Luther) didn't accept the notion of free will either.

I highly recommend this book!

Almost everyone agrees that - here, Schopenhauer made a convincing case for denying free-will. Nevertheless, I would argue that if we look back to the influence Kant's work exerted on Schopenhauer, and review Schopenhauer's own remarks about the validity of empirical knowledge, it must surely be that Schopenhauer landed himself in difficulties. On his own reading of Kant's philosophy, and those parts of it which he incorporated into his own work, the 'willing' subject, sensu strictu, cannot be said to exist in space and time, but only to be working through those categories in the understanding.

If time and space are transcendentally ideal - as Schopenhauer asserted, following Kant, he ought to have known better than to locate the 'will' in time and space, when according to his own reckoning, 'time and space are in us.'

Kant distinguished here, between 'will' and 'willkuhr' - that is, the practical difference between the will grounded in the noumenon, and the will seen in its phenomenal or empirical
employment. Insofar as Schopenhauer adopted Kant's distinction between appearance and reality, viz. the ideality of time and space, it surely follows that by denying free-will, Schopenhauer was denying a key element in his own philosophy. In short, his argument against 'free-will' amounts to a simplistic observation - namely, 'your willing takes place in the empirical world. The empirical world is conditioned. Ergo, your willing is conditioned' - as if he had suddenly forgotten everything else said in his philosophy, about the ideality of time and space.

By arguing that 'free will' - in the empirical manifold, is simply comparative or relative - viz., when confronted with choices - Schopenhauer was stating the obvious. In this respect, Schopenhauer's position was not unlike that of certain early Buddhists, who almost made Buddhism into a form of determinism. To do that, they had to advocate a kind of empirical realism, while denying any reality to the 'pudgala.' But in actual fact, Schopenhauer's position vis-a-vis the ideality of the phenomenal world, more nearly resembled the Vijnanavada/Yocacara. What mattered to Kant (and what surely matters to anyone else, defending the case for free-will), is that considered as noumenon (i.e. our unconditioned nature), that which can initiate a new chain of events - in the phenomenal world, is not - in itself, phenomenal.

We are free when we are able do what we want, that is, when we are not somehow impeded from doing what we will to do. But we decide what to do as a matter of causal necessity; otherwise, our actions would be random and senseless. The notion that we have the power to originate the causal chain by an act of will makes no sense; as Schopenhauer says, causation is not like a cab that you can start and stop wherever it helps your argument. As he notes, that point also defeats cosmological arguments about "prime movers" and "first causes." This is a great read, a chance to experience a first-class mind grappling with a difficult and interesting problem. Schopenhauer generally even avoids his usual bitter broadsides and against Schelling and Hegel and the sort of philosophizing they represent, although those are fun to read and generally on target. (He lost another, later prize because his essay in that case, although the only candidate for the prize, was so full of personal invective that the judges refused to make the award.)

Another reviewer correctly notes that Schopenhauer undermines his own argument at the last minute, or tries to, in a strange concluding chapter. There he argues that our feelings of personal responsibility for our actions points to freedom of some kind, a species of argument that he had earlier dismantled. Anyway, this freedom would have to exist beyond the empirical level, as his arguments have decisively eliminated any possibility of freedom there. The position Schopenhauer presents in that chapter involves the idea that we, somehow, choose our own characters at some mysterious point of emergence from the Kantian noumena. No commentator I have read has been able to make sense of it. In any case, it's completely skippable, a brief, tacked-on chapter that makes no difference for the rest of the book, which is very well worth reading.

The title of my review is a little misleading, so I'll be quick to explain. In fact, Schopenhauer does make a good case for determinim in his essay. However, there is something noteworthy I haven't seen in any of the reviews so far: At the end of the well-crafted essay, Schopenhauer -- well -- spoils it all. Having established the truth of determinism, he suddenly tries to justify free will. Yes, that's true. He appeals to a Kantian style idealism to try and convince the reader that we are ultimately morally responsible. He asserts that we have metaphysical free will because we FEEL our responsibility. His proclamation that this free will that we are supposed to have is a mystery is strikingly reminiscient of theistic statements like "God works in mysterious ways". This is just an example to illustrate the failure of Schopenhauer's case for free will. In order to defend his free will, "real free will", Schopenhauer is forced to resort to mere assertions. He can't explain why we have this free will or how it works, hence he calls it a mystery. If you are a determinist it may well be that you will feel a little betrayed or even outright disappointed after finishing the book. I give the book 4 stars nonetheless, because for the most part it IS a skillfully written defense of determinism. Schopenhauer should have laid aside his pen a couple of pages earlier than he did, that's all.

I haven't even bought this Lib. of America edition and I know it is important. I have the Thoreau collection and all I have to say is that these New England writers of that era were critical thinkers and universal in their thoughts. Of great importance is the understanding of true spirituality, which both Emerson and Thoreau embody. Thoreau once said "We are rich in proportion to the number of things we can afford to leave alone."

It is wonderful to have all of Emerson's essays in one volume. Like his great pupil and friend Thoreau , Emerson is a poetic thinker of the highest order. His essays are filled with aphoristic gems . They contain not simply thoughts on different subjects but an organic and coherent way of seeing and understanding the world. They are the work of a genuine American philosophical voice.
There is so much to read here that it is difficult to know where to begin, though I have an especial feeling for 'Representative Men' with its exaltation of great individual human beings .Because he is so poetic and because his writing is so dense with meaning it does not always make for easy reading. But it is firm in principle and great in suggestiveness.
The way to understand where Whitman and in a sense even William James are coming from is to read this work.

I cannot think of another writer whose prose reads with as much poetic power as Emerson. The poetic aspect comes from the richness of meaning that continue to manifest as one lingers and thinks about the words Emerson writes rather than anything contrived or artsy. He created many powerful sentences and phrases that still live in the American spirit, and yet, for all the ringing words we love and hold close there are many thoughts and arguments that many people, including myself, find difficult to accept on any level other than being by Emerson.

For all that we love in Self-Reliance and The American Scholar, we still have to deal with his mystic essay on the Over-soul. Many conservative Christians have problems with his Transcendentalist views of religion and Christ. Reading his thoughts on "The Lord's Supper" might be interesting simply because it is Emerson. However, most orthodox believers will not come close to being convinced and today's non-believers will find it difficult to work up the energy to try and figure out what the fuss is about.

His famous essays collected under the title of Nature are fascinating and poetic views of the natural world. At least they seem that way to our more technical age. We see his Enlightenment confidence in reason and man's ability to discover the mechanisms of the Universe. While our science is remains rational, it is not quite so confident that everything can be easily discovered. We have found that for every depth we sound we discover that the bottom is only apparent. Things are deeper and stranger than the thinkers of Emerson's time ever dreamed.

This volume collects his essays and lectures into more than 1,100 pages of fascinating and wonderful reading. His poems and translations are collected into a separate volume also offered through the wonderful Library of America (don't hesitate to support them). The volume opens with a collection called "Nature; Addresses, and Lectures" and contains the eight chapters of Nature plus the four addresses The American Scholar, An Address to the Senior Class of Divinity College from 1838, Literary Ethics, and The Method of Nature. It also has five lectures: Man the Reformer, Introductory Lecture on the Times, The Conservative, The Transcendentalist, and The Young American.

There are then two collections of essays that contain famous titles such as History, Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, The Poet, Manners, and Nature [yeah, I know it can get confusing]. This is followed by a collection called Representative Men. The seven chapters here are wonderful, but I cannot imagine anything like them being written today. The first chapter is titled "Uses of Great Men". I think I can here the deconstructionists swallowing their tongues. Then follows a chapter each for Plato the Philosopher, Swedenborg the Mystic [millions ask, WHO?], Montaigne the Skeptic, Shakespeare the poet, Napoleon the Man of the World, and Goethe the Writer.

The last two collections contain a number of short papers on English Traits and The Conduct of life. All interesting and full of Emersonian insight and beauty of language. The volume concludes with a Chronology of Emerson's life, notes on the texts, other notes, and an alphabetical index of titles (which is particularly useful given the re-use and similarity of some of these titles).

Ralph Waldo Emerson was and is by far one of the most brilliant writers of American Literature. His writings are his collection of thoughts...both wise, and complicated. As if he is writing his deep most private thoughts into a diary meant to be read. You read his essays and lectures, and just feel as if you have just been exposed to something different in your life.

However, don't just take my word for it. After all, I am only sixteen years old. But this book is brilliant.

I think it is probably safe to assert that to read Emerson is to be forever indebted to him. His wording, his clearness of thought, his determination, his warmth... He has all the qualities one could ask for in a writer, and all one could ask for in a mentor. Nietzsche held Emerson's books the closest, and said they were above his praise; Borges added: "Whitman and Poe have overshadowed Emerson's glory, as inventors, as founders of cults; line by line, they are inferior to him." James, the very Whitman, Proust, Frost, have all also praised him sincerely. Judging from other reviews, the love for Emerson hasn't diminished, more than a century after his passing.

For those who are not familiar with his works, it should be noted that Emerson is, without a doubt, a very unique writer. I was surprised when I realized that there is more poetry in his philosophy than in most verse books, yet he is always lucid; and that his poems, although hued by an impressive depth of thought, remain always passionate. He was renown as a brilliant lecturer, and his essays have all the force and immediacy of the oral form. Few people are so rich in memorable aphorisms - one finds a treasure of a quote in every sentence: "A drop is a small ocean"; "We are not built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to stand"; "Whoso be a man, must be a non conformist"; "Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the pleasure which concealed it"...

This was one of the first books the Library of America ever published, and with good reason: Emerson's writings are a Library of America on their own. This volume contains most of his major works, with the usual LOA excellency: beautiful green-cloth binding, a silk-ribbon marker, clear, acid-free, bible-thin paper, a short chronology, and a few useful notes. (No introduction of any kind, also as usual.) In short: a must buy, whether you are new to Emerson or not. My only complain is that this represents only about a half of his actual output, leaving out such important pieces as "The Lord's Supper", "The Fugitive Slave Law", the books Society and Solitude and Letters and Social Aims, his writings on Thoreau, Carlyle, Lincoln, and John Brown, and many other pieces just as revealing as the ones included here - not even counting the 15 volumes worth of journals he wrote throughout his life.

The fact that it's been more than a decade since the publication of the slight Complete Poems and Translations makes me fear LOA has neglected one of America's most beloved authors by giving priority to comparatively minor releases -like those on journalism and film criticism. Why can't Emerson get the same deserved treatment as Henry James, who by the way has now over 12 well-earned LOA volumes published? Just one more book would make this the definite edition of RWE's works; as it is, the huge and expensive Centenary Edition remains untouched as the most comprehensive one available. Furthermore, the "Uncollected Prose" section is no longer included; I can only hope it means they are saving it for a future volume. (It's been 15 years since they took it out, so I'm not holding my breath.)

Those looking for a cheaper introduction should probably check out the excellent Modern Library's The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which besides a very generous collection of essays has a nice introduction, a selection of poems, and a few important pieces not included here.

To put it simply, if you have any interest in philosophy, literature, poetry, religion, or life, read Emerson. You may not be convinced by his arguments, but there's no point in nodding your way through a book. What remains after you finish reading it is what counts, and few writers can be found whose works are as pervasive and fondly remembered as Emerson's are.

This survey of the literature surrounding birdwatching gathers together some of the most intriguing writings under one cover, exploring the literary side of the observations of Muir, Audubon, and others. These take the form of paragraphs of information which explore sightings and bird ecology.

At last we see the aesthetic side of birdwatching presented with a sensitivity so often lacking in nature writing. Whereas many birding volumes revert to more and more pedantic description, this is a work which, as its title suggests, invites us to experience a little of the ecstacy of flight itself. We study birds because we are inspired by them, but too many birding books concentrate on the study and not the inspiration. In this work the writings of a wide variety of knowledgeable writers--both well-known and obscure--present in often touching prose their first-hand observations of and experiences with a passtime they love. The careful organization makes this a useful reference work, akin to Bartlett's, for those in search of just the right inspirational quote. These are transcendent moments which otherwise might be lost in mouldering libraries, and I have been personally touched by many of the seemingly inconsequential but thoroughly delightful scenes recorded here. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to lift themselves or their friends above what can often be the drudgery of daily life, who would like to remember that birds fly, they are beautiful, and there is something magnificent in that.

The "romantic" birder will enjoy the many written excerpts that Hill includes in her book. The "analytical" birder may prefer something more prosaic. Not sure if you are a romantic birder or an analytical birder?...Read ths book and find out.

This book is awesome. I read it while jammin' on the crete at the Ithaca board park. Love it man. No school, birds rule!

This book offers a wonderful look at the historical roots of bird watching. How refreshing to read truly emotional responses to the experience of learning about birds through observation. The wonderful blend of writings underscores the universality and agelessness of the sport.

This book is perfect for short reads -- great to pick up for a moment, either to refresh oneself or to share with a friend. It is a perfect gift for any bird lover -- I have purchased 6 copies to date!

I have been on a long search for answers to 'why do these bad things happen??'
In this book he writes; "If we believe God is powerfull, we are not convinced that he is kind because, if he CAN relieve our suffering, why doesn't he? The silence of God during tough times strengthens this foundational doubt that God is good."

I have read book after book during the past year none of which offered any peace. This book has opened my eyes to some truths and I feel the beginning of real peace.

I have read this book a couple of times and each time I have gained new insites into my relationship with God. I am presently sharing this book with a group of ladies and we are all benifitting from Dr Larry Crabbs wisdom.

This is one of the best books I have ever read! I have read almost every one of Larry Crabb's books and haven't been disappointed in any of them. This one is excellent. I highlighted so many of the pages and will read it again and again. I 'found' God in ways I had not done so before. I Highly recommend this book!

This is a nice book although a little difficult to read. I think that in order to get everything that the author wants to pass, we need to read it at least twice.

If it were possible for me to read this book every month, I would be so glad. This book is life-changing. It opened my eyes to things in my life that I have struggled with. I have new insights and power to receive God's help and power. I can't recommend this book enough.

Yes!! Merry Christmas to me, and to my kids. I have been hoping for years to find this back in print and I can't wait until my girls are old enough that I can read it to them (without the leather men giving them nightmares!). This is a great book and I highly recommend it to Harry Potter fans and the like. The tale of a young girl and her friends' desperate fight to keep a magic amulet from the clutches of an evil warlord and his army of VERY creepy henchmen. For those of you with young children, be forwarned that this book does have some genuinely scary moments. A fantastic story that would make for a great screenplay (just a wee hint for the folks in Hollywood.... cha-ching!). For the rest of you.......now you can own a classic without paying 80 bucks or more for a ragged used copy. Get it.

This was my favorite book when I first read it aged 11 (over 25 years ago!) in a penguin paperback edition. My recollections are of a magical story that gripped my imagination. This has been out of print too long, it's great that it's back and I look forward to sharing it with my son. It will enchant Harry Potter fans looking for something new.

I loved this as a child - I used to make a point of reading it every year so that I would finish it on Christmas Eve as I found it so magical. A real treasure in itself

I read this book as a child and found it enthralling. I'm now 30 and have just ordered a second hand copy online from a rare bookseller to share with my 12yr old daughter. It comes highly recommended = a very good book and to be honest I can not understand why it is out of print.

The Giant Under the Snow is, without a doubt, one of the best children's books ever written. Yet despite being the equal of Harry Potter, The Hobbit and The Princess Bride, this dark magical tale is now almost impossible to find. The story concerns three school children (Jonquil, Bill and Arthur) who are drawn into a battle between good and evil for the possession of an ancient artifact. Not exactly an original premise, but John Gordon's execution introduces some new and creative elements such as the terrifying leathermen. The background behind the giant itself is an inspired mix of inventive writing and historical research which makes the story all the more believable. Another print run is long over due!

This is a wonderful companion to Julia Child, Paula Wolfert and Richard Olney. It is contemporary without being trendy. His recipes are fairly practical--not larded with recipes for truffles and caviar--and yet are unabbreviated and uncompromising. It will appeal primarily to advanced amateurs and consistently sells for under ten dollars--an amazing value for such a comprehensive and well-crafted work.

I am a big fan of his books after receiving copies of Sauce and Splendid Soups. He brings a fresh approach to the subject and it is written in a style more suited to my learning. I have always been slighly intimidated with the Classic side of French cooking. I hope by the end of the book I will be better aquainted, better versed and better versed.

Bon Appititte.

French cuisine, despite predictions of its demise by food writers admist inroads of other Western cuisines including Italian and Spanish cuisines, is still going strong. Many people will, have heard classic/haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine, bourgeois/bistro cuisine, and regional cuisine that form the four important strands of French cuisine, and this book has touched on all four of these cuisines.

One important difference between this book and others is it uses 50 dishes as the starting point and teach 4 to 10 more dishes that share either the principal ingredients or are related by techniques. It is, as Peterson himself mentions in the preface, aiming to teach you to how to cook on your own and understanding cooking is not just a mechanical follow-one-recipe process: it is a little like how you learned mathematics in electrical engineering and apply the central methodology into diverse areas like power load flow analysis, calculating a circuit's small signal behaviours, using signal processing in protection relays.

Bear in mind that this book is geared towards big city or middle-sized suburban-area American homes. Duck a l'orange, for instance, is in the American adaptation version. This makes the book a little tricky to be used if you live in Auckland, Sydney, or in London, where the ingredients available will likely be different from what's available in US. For those armchair chefs who want to buy a book that tells how French food is actually prepared in France itself, another book, such as the Konemann publications, will likely be more useful.

By all means this book is not meant to be an exhaustive coverage of France's cookery. , but most books on French cooking tend to cover very small specialized subject areas (Provence's bistros) or are just a thin compendium of recipes (eg 100 recipe in a 200 page cookbook showcased as "Cuisine of France"). If you are interested to build a library of French cookbooks, I recommend the more exhaustive publications of Jacques Pepin, Alain Ducasse's Grand Livre de Cuisine (currently with 2 titles in English, but there are a few more published in the original French), and the ever reliable Larousse Gastronomique, in addition to this book. Otherwise for a tight bookshelf, this book on its own may be what you want for French cooking.

`Glorious French Food' by leading culinary educator, James Peterson may be a true lost classic, in the cookbook world similar to `The Thirteenth Warrior' in the movies or the novels of Thomas Berger, including `Little Big Man'. I noticed a copy on the bargain stacks a few days ago and immediately felt regret for not having done a review of it to help, in some very small way to raise the reputation of this excellent culinary pedagogical text.

I have a very `love / hate' relationship with James Peterson's books. Peterson has a very well deserved reputation as the author of the classic reference, `Sauces', now in a second edition (rare for cookbooks) and his Jacques Pepin homage, `Essentials of Cooking' (for those of you who need your culinary show and tell in full color). He has also done several excellent texts on special subjects such as Vegetables, Salmon, Duck, and Soups. I have reviewed each and every one of these books favorably, yet my experience when doing specific Peterson recipes (except those in `Sauces') is mixed. I am not entirely surprised at this, as I sometimes find his individual recipe descriptions just a bit mixed up, as if his copy editor was taking a coffee break as they were editing that recipe.

Peterson may in this book offer a great explanation for this paradox. He says that his greatest ambition would be to write a cookbook with no recipes. This is not as easy as it sounds, since I reviewed Pam Anderson's book `How to Cook Without a Book' and I found it wanting in several regards. Peterson also says that his greatest compliment is when a reader says they made one of his recipes, but changed it a bit, and it came out very well. All this means is that Peterson is a relatively unconventional cookbook author who is best approached differently than you may approach `The Joy of Cooking' or `Mastering the Art of French Cooking'.

This book, even for its great size (almost 750 pages) is, like Madeleine Kamman's `The New Making of a Cook', a book meant to be read from front to back in an easy chair with no electronic distractions nearby. The first and most important reason for reading this book like a novel is its novel organization. Instead of chapters on Salads, Soups and Stocks, Meat, Poultry, Starches, Vegetables, and Desserts, there are a very neat 50 chapters on fifty of the most famous dishes from the French culinary canon. As you may guess from the size of the book, there is a lot more here than 50 recipes which, with a typical treatment, may take not much more than 100 pages to dispatch. Rather, most of the chapters are really about a family of dishes.

The very first chapter takes twelve (12) pages to cover `Assorted Vegetable Salads', all falling under the rubric of the French word, `Crudites' which, roughly translated, means raw vegetables. In this chapter are nine (9) dish recipes for Celeriac Remoulade, Grated Carrots, Red Cabbage Salad, Cold Cucumbers, Marinated Mushrooms, Baby Artichokes with Walnuts, Shaved Fennel Salad, Tomato Salad, and Parisian-Style Potato Salad. There are also two `pantry' recipes for Basic Mayonnaise and Crème Fraiche. Like the very liberal Chris Schlesinger (`The Thrill of the Grill', `How to Cook Meat', etc) and unlike the very traditional Madeleine Kamman, Peterson is extremely liberating with his advice. He tells us how to improvise crème fraiche and he tells us all the reasons why some substitutes, such as American sour cream, will just not work as well in some recipes. He does not tell us not to improvise. He also follows the party line on the right potato for the right dish, but he also says that you can probably get away with using any kind of potato for any kind of dish, which fits my experience in using a russet for both mashed potatoes (with a good potato ricer) and potato salad, two recipes for which russets are supposed to be inferior to waxy or `all purpose' varieties.

Part of what makes many great cookbooks such a pleasure to read is the extent to which the author introduces their own informed opinion into the writing. Both `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and `The New Making of a Cook' would be great cookbooks without the lively opinions of Julia Child and Madeleine Kamman, but they are much better at getting their subject across than a dry presentation of quantities and procedures. If you think this is unimportant, take a quick look at a few recipes in `The Joy of Cooking' and you will see an ample amount of humor in even this encyclopedic collection of recipes.

One thing I especially enjoyed in this book was the affirmation of the doctrine in Ms. Kamman's book that in spite of all the butter, pork fat, goose fat, or olive oil in popular recipes, French cooking is NOT about high fat content. Peterson is especially good on fats in general and butter in particular, as he hits all the right notes about cooking with butter. For one thing, he discounts the common practice so popular with TV culinary personalities of mixing butter and oil to raise the burn point of butter solids. He says it simply does not keep the butter solids from going black. He also clearly differentiates plain clarified butter from the Indian staple, ghee, where the butterfat is taken to a darker brown than is done by simple clarification.

I even found something new on my favorite cookbook subject, omelets. Peterson gives two different techniques and clearly differentiates both the method and the cultural differences in French cooking between the omelet and scrambled eggs.

The bad news is that if this book may be in danger of loosing its market, and it may go out of print. The good news is that you should be able to get a copy from our beloved Amazon.com for cheap.

I absolutely love this cookbook. As a culinary student, I wish they had issued this book out instead of my $150 doller culinary workbook. This book is such a wealth of information. "Glorious French Food" is big, but Peterson's writing is so interesting and entertaining that I've taken it to the beach with me many times. I've always felt dishes are tastier when one learns the history behind the creations. As for the recipes, they are excellent. I test them on my boyfriend, who by chance is French and a culinary graduate. He feels the recipes are very accurate and will sometimes admit that some of them are better then his family's dishes. I highly recommond this book, for both fun and serious cooks out there. It's a great gift to give.

No wonder this fabulous work of historical fiction has withstood the test of time. The only copy I was able to obtain was dog-earred with many pages coming loose from the binding. It had obviously been a classroom textbook in earlier days as there were underlinings and pencil comments in a schoolgirl hand all over the margins. I actually found these "annotations" helpful in clarifying some historical references which I would otherwise not have understood. Even absent such helps, however, I would have loved this great history of the Norman invasion and the life-or-death conflict between two men of destiny. The thing about historical novels is that the reader already knows "how it will come out." Interest derives from how able the author is to make past events and long dead people come to life. Ms. Muntz succeeds brilliantly. Even though I knew who the ultimate victor would be here, I still read with avid interest as the story unfolded and found myself rooting for King Harold, knowing full well that he would be vanquished in the end. The tone here is reverent and somber - perfect to establish the mood of impending tragedy and the loss of the old Saxon England. I don't know if Muntz's depiction of the psychology of William and Harold is accurate - how could anyone know the true character of people who lived 1,000 years ago? - but she does a masterful job of bringing these men, their ambitions, their fears and their humanity to vivid life. The dignified writing style and measured pace of the language is hypnotic. There are no flowery flights of descriptive prose here, yet the very austerity of the writing captures the feeling of the time. As with most excellent historical fiction, I was intrigued to learn more about the participants in this pivotal time in Britain's history and have found wonderful resources on the Internet. This book was so good, so gripping, so moving, I have begun to re-read it already, although I just finished the last pages yesterday! No shoot-em-ups here, but something much better. A pleasure to read; a pleasure to recommend.

Not a whole lot is known about English King Harold, the loser of the momentous battle of Hastings in 1066. After all, he was only king for about nine months, and, well, he lost. Not only do the winners write the history, as we know, but they often obliterate the histories of those they vanquished. However, what little is known makes for fascinating conjecture, and this great novel by Hope Muntz gives us a very convincing depiction of what very well may have been.

It is easy to forget that history is made by men, not the other way around, and Ms. Muntz's novel rises above hundreds of others of its type because she understands that things happen in this world because of the characters of those involved. After meticulously painting the complex personalities of both Harold and William--and those who preceded them--their conflict becomes inevitable. What is fascinating is that the outcome of this conflict, this world-altering conflict, was in doubt almost to the bitter end.

What is known is that heirless Edward, Harold's predecessor, promised the throne to William the Norman. He himself was raised by the Normans, was their friend, and was enamored of them. We also know that prior to Edward's death, Harold himself promised to support William's ascension, although there is some debate as to whether this promise was coerced.

How did this come about? Harold would seem to have been the obvious successor. He was by the far the single most respected figure in fractious England, his was the largest earldom in the land, his sister was married to Edward, and, perhaps most importantly, he was English to his bones, unlike the Norman William.

The die was initially cast by a weak and vacillating Edward, who foolishly promised the crown to William more than a decade earlier. But when it became obvious to Harold and the English nobility that he would be the most logical choice, Harold went to Normandy to undo this. Harold, you see, was a proud, powerful, generous man, motivated entirely by his desire to see a united and peaceful England. His mistake was that he naively assumed William's desires for the English were similar, and although unstated, it appears his motive in visiting Normandy was simply to convince William that he was the right man for the job.

But William was far less altruistic, and in fact was unscrupulously motivated by wealth and power. After months of being feted, it became obvious to Harold that William was not going to let him go. When informed that civil strife had erupted in England, Harold determined to leave by using any means at his disposal. Thus the promise--nobly motivated to be sure--but a terrible promise nevertheless, and with his youngest brother Wulfnoth left behind as hostage to it.

There then follows the inevitable. Edward dies, Harold succeeds him to the throne, and William vows revenge. Harold marries Aldyth, sister of an English rival, in order to facilitate peace, but in doing so breaks the promise he made to the mother of his children, Edith, his "hand-fast" wife. Again, a poor, but nobly-made decision.

By this time the reader has been utterly swept up by the empathy he has been made to feel for the all-too-human Harold, and the tragic events we know must follow. Yes, tragedy is the word. The passages in the latter part of the novel are almost Shakespearian in their eloquence and power. On the eve of battle Harold is scorned and reviled by Aldyth, who was jealous over his inability to let Edith go; on the eve of battle his weeping, inconsolable mother berates him for losing her youngest son, the doomed Wulfnoth. Harold goes to his final confrontation tormented by these thoughts.

William, in an enemy land and with dwindling supplies, knows he must force the battle with the weakened Harold immediately, and does so by ravaging the countryside, knowing that the good Harold can not abide the suffering of his poor peasants. Again, we see actions motivated by character.

And then there is the battle itself, the horrific, day-long, bloody, hate-filled clash, the ebb and flow of which is recounted here in vivid, realistic detail. Both men fight valiantly, but in the end, a mortally wounded and practically blind Harold is informed that his brothers are dead, and that the Normans have broken through the right side of his line.

The first part of this novel can be a little daunting. There is a large cast of unfamiliar, inter-related characters, with names like Leofwin, Alfgar, Siward and Gytha. But once the narrative begins to focus on Harold and William, the going gets a little easier, and the book becomes a powerful, irresistible force. This is truly a magnificent piece of work, the memory of which still haunts me weeks after finishing it. It will likely do so for many weeks to come.

I can only agree with the other reviewers when they eulogise over this book. All the characters, not just the two main ones, are 3-dimensional and you really feel that you are there with them. A beautifully written book that deserves to be on everyone's reading list.

This story emcompasses the life of Harold who starts out as an earl and eventually becomes King of England. His genius and his shortcomings are intricately portrayed by Ms. Muntz. The novel has an old world flavor to that at times is enchanting, and at others tedious.

It also showcases Duke William of Normandy as a shrewd, calculating future ruler of England. He uses Harold's faults as well as his virtues against him whenever possible.

Although the writing is somewhat archaic, it is a genuine retelling of this famous man, who would be King and for a brief time was just that. This book is out-of-print, however, if you can locate it it is well worth reading!

This was a very detailed and flowery retelling of the battle for England in 1066. The cast of regulars is all included - Harold Godwinsson, his brothers, mother and sister, Edith Swan-neck, Aldyth and her brothers along with the entire Norman roster under William the Conqueror. Is the book good - absolutely. Is it great - no - not in comparisson to Housecarle by Laurence J. Brown or Gildenford and the trilogy by Valary Anand. I found the book a bit of a slow read. The language is in a more dated style and just didn't flow well. Also, the author re-tells details over and over and over. If I had to read one more time about the broken oath between Harold and William I would have packed the book away. I find it a bit insulting for an author to feel it's necessary to tell the reader the same thing incessantly. I GET IT ALREADY!!! Was the book thorough - definatley - perhaps longer than necessary. Good points - I liked the ending. It made me think much better of William and Willaim Mallet than the endings of other books on the saga. I also liked strong references about Harolds early illness and William's visions - these men both believed God was on their side. It's hard to say who was right or wrong - which is perhaps why the "what ifs" of this story never cease to thrill me.

What a joy it is to see this book again. Many, many wonderful books were read to me and my sisters as children in the 1950's. But this delightful wacky tale, so full of movement and warmth, remains the most beloved of all. Thanks to the publishers for reprinting it and to those who wrote of their own memories.

This reissue of the 1950's golden book "The happy man and his dump truck", is a wonderful tale about a friendly man who takes some farm animals for a ride in his truck. Each time he sees a friend he tips his hat and his dumper giving the animals a slippery slide. The illustrations are colourful and fun. Is also a good introduction to farm animals and the sounds they make.

My son is now 45 years old and still remembers me reading this book over and over and over to him as a child and him reading it back. It was one of his favorites. Ironically, he is now a carpenter and owns his own truck. I just ordered the "collectible" version and will be giving it to him as a surprise for Xmas. I think he will really treasure it and tell his kids about it.

This is very old fashioned. The story is that man gives farm animals a ride in the back of his dump truck. He make the dumper go up and the animals slide down. Wheeee! My son gets a kick out of this as it combines his two favorite things: slides and trucks. There are not too many words on each page. The style of writing is very simple.

This book is probably politically incorrect, though, as the animals don't wear seat belts and they get into a unknown man's truck. (I would prefer their farmer be the driver of the truck.) If this bothers you, you shouldn't buy this book.

If you're looking for a cute, simple story for a little one, by all means buy this book! It is just so cute - how the animals all get to take a ride in the happy man's dump truck. The pig goes first, and gets a great slide down the back of the truck whenever the man tips the dumper when he sees a friend. Then, all the other farm animals hop on and the happy man takes them for a long ride. They look as if they're laughing when they slide down the back of the truck whenever the man tips the dumper. This is such a cute, simple story and one that needs to be shared to the next generation. It's very well loved in our house and particularly makes a nice gift for the child that loves dump trucks. Highly recommend!

... I reread Heart of Darkness because my "guys" reading group included two who had not ever read it. The story stands up far, far better than I would have guessed. Conrad is really superb, and this shortish novel could well persuade new readers that "literary" stuff is worth their while. I had forgotten how subtle, how grown-up Conrad's expectations of his reader are. Truly quite marvelous.

With trepidation, I splurged on the Norton edition, even though I am pretty hostile to English-Professor post-modern posturing and nonsense. I am glad I got it, however. The wealth of historical documents help make the then-contemporary setting come real. The big surprise for me was Chinua Achebe's fine essay. While "bloody racist" is still over the top, Achebe has a case of some importance, and argues it well. It is even a comfort to find that the knee-jerk responses by assorted literature professors are indeed just as much postie poo as I had expected. (It's always a pleasure to find that one's unexamined prejudices are warranted after all.)

A particular pleasure for me was talking about the book with my daughter, who has taught it to her honors high school English class. She has developed views, and I learned really quite a lot from listening to her. Book, $11.90; my time, $free; finding out your daughter has deep insight and can teach you, PRICELESS.

In short, wonderful story and useful edition.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Buy this edition, it is the best with great critical essays. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

I'll be honest - "Heart of Darkness" is a great, great work of literature, but I don't love the writing style, and it is not a pleasure to read (for me at any rate).

But it is not quite as hard as its reputation, and it is every bit as important. If there is one, "Heart of Darkness" is the definitive statement on European colonialism, especially in Africa. The symbolic meaning of the story is powerful and unanswerable.

The Norton Critical Edition of any book is usually the best - (not always: with Shakespeare I generally prefer the Signet Classics, and for "Pride and Prejudice" at least the Longman Cultural Edition is the best) - and "Heart of Darkness" is no exception. Like so many other books, you haven't understood this until you've understood what has been said about it. The NCE gives the best collection of critical essays available for someone new to the book.

Let me recommend a couple of easier reads for people interested in the genre of literature about colonialism. First is Burmese Days, which is one of Orwell's better books. It is a much more literal, tangible look at the realities of colonialism, and should probably be read before "Heart of Darkness." The other is The Quiet American (Viking Critical Library), which is less critical of colonialism, but still a very good look at the motivations of various people involved. I am very critical of "The Quiet American," but it is still among the first books that anyone interested in the literature of colonialism ought to read.

Daytime scents of nightmare horrors. Man and his insane ways - bushman, postman, commoner, who to blame? Unless you are familiar with the background of this stunning novel do yourself a favor and get the Norton Critical Edition. For a century Conrad's novel has drawn raves and rage. Each is left to decide where the sanity line lies, to the right or to the left. Upriver or downriver? Riveting every page of the way.

One of the must reads in literature. Probably my favorite novel ever written. The short length is decieving. It is not a novel to be blown through without thought. The themes of this novel resonate more in our day and age than ever before. Literary greatness.

I liked the book because I am a history major but some parts are hard to get through. It is a classic however and is a great stepping stone to use when reviewing ancient history

Cornelius Tacitus knows perfectly what the cardinal human characteristic is: `From time immemorial, man has had an instinctive love of power.' And, `the reward for virtue was inevitable death.'
His book is a mighty illustration of the ruthless fight for the top spot: emperor. The ambitious and the wealthy fight one another without mercy. `The truth is that revolution and strife put tremendous power into the hands of evil men.' The vanquished are brutally slain.
For Tacitus, the most important factors in the power struggle are money (`money was the sinews of civil war') and control of the military (`the lesson that an army can create an emperor'). If you could `reward` your soldiers, you could win. However, the legions were not interested in war itself only in looting, plundering, raping and enslaving. `The men wanted campaign and set battles, as the prizes here were more attractive than their normal pay.' The victims were innocent peasants, women and children.
Overall, `Italy found it hard to put up with such hordes of infantry and cavalry, and with violence, financial loss and acts of lawlessness.'

While the `Annals' contain more human touch, the `Histories' are nearly completely centered on military, diplomatic and tactical manoeuvres, followed by terrifying and merciless violence after the battles (`the fury of the soldiers').

This for mankind severe and pessimistic book is a must read for all those interested in the lessons of history and for lovers of great classical literature.

Every now and then a pivotal moment in history is witnessed and recorded by a master communicator. The mid-first century of Rome was such a time and Tacitus was such a communicator. The Histories will forever be a benchmark of good history with its observations on human nature and behaviour along with their impact on history. The historian will do well to read Tacitus not just for the historical lessons but for his approach to history as a record of human activity. While observing and commenting on the human element in history, Tacitus avoids making moral judgements and remains as objective as possible in the midst of turmoil, wars, and rumors of wars. His beloved nation and people were suffering under the barbarity of fratricidal war yet he remains above the madness and records the events with passion tempered with objectivity. His example is one that has remained difficult for others to follow.

A word on this translation in particular - I found Mr. Wellesley's translation very readable and poetic. He seems to have captured the literature value of the text as well as the content. Well done.

Tacitus Histories deals with the turbulent year 69AD the year of four emperors. Tacitus eye for detail which allows us to understand the personalities of Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespatian and their motivations and ambitions in this trully chaotic time in Rome's history. The sinister role of the Praetorians in these events is faithfully accounted. I found I could not put it down! Very readable compared to the Annals. The translation is first rate. The work is also supported by numerous foot notes and maps. Anyone interested in this period of Roman history must read this book.

Reading Tacitus' Annals I oft remembered Thucydides' account of the Peleponnesian wars. An important theme of the latter work was the corrupting effects of prolonged war on the morals and intellect of the Athenian people, who were ultimately degraded so much that they voted the destruction of the people of a small island just because they had chosen to remain neutral. Tacitus, on the other hand, seems to have dedicated himself in this work to examining the corrupting effects of absolutism on the Roman people after the fall of the Republic. He shows how absolute power brought out the worst traits in the character of rulers like Tiberius and Nero, who grew more and more tyrannical with every year on the throne, and how members of the illustruous Roman senate and other sections of the Roman political society turned into a horde of spineless sycophants, informers and debauches. There were still a few honourable individuals, but as Tacitus shows in an endless series of judicial and non-judicial murders, most of these paid the price of sticking to the ancient traditions of liberty and honour with their lives. Tacitus also deals at length with the relations of the Romans with the subject peo-ples. I may be wrong here, but it seems to me that in such passages Tacitus draws a parallels between the fate of these enslaved peoples and that of the enslaved Roman people -the first a slave to the Romans, the second a slave to the emperor and his bureaucracy made up of ex-slaves. Many subject peoples rebelled and some like the Cherusci under Arminius (towards whom he does not seem averse at all) could successfully preserve their liberty against the in-trusion of the Romans. Those Romans who dared defy the tyrant on the other hand, and especially those who could wisely remain independent and yet stay alive, were far fewer, Tacitus seems to imply. Insofar as it demonstrates how closely liberty (including liberty of thought) and morals are intertwined, this work is still relevant today as a central work of liberal humanism.