Reviews Books

A heady treatise on altered states of being and how free will plays a role in our time space continuum. I highly recommend this book.

Bergson's works are always inspirational and the remarkable thing is that he doesn't assume anything he always explains what is needed (almost always) unlike the standard treatises on philosophy by other philosophers. It is never that much of an effort to read Bergson and as such it makes his works far more accessible than usual for a philosopher, probably one of the reasons he was all the rage in the early 20th Century, people can actually understand what he was talking about. What is the reason for this ? I think much of it has to do with his unwillingness to separate his insights into distinct pieces as is the norm in philosophy. His essays tend to flow along nicely without being stuck in difficult terminology which must be remembered as you progress, anything such as the word duration which has a special significance in Bergson work becomes part of the flow of the essay rather than being in any way special it is always reinforced through the dialogue. Another interesting aspect is his lack of references to others, possibly a result of the French way of Education which encourages self reliance and expression as much as possible.

In this work, one of his earliest (1887), Bergson introduces his concept of duration which is less of a concept than a real lived sense that is happening in your life right at this moment. But first he introduces the reader to the intensities of psychic states such as beauty, grace, joy, sorrow, pain etc and how a misinterpretation of real lived experience gives rise to a way of philosophy which separates real duration as it is experienced into space-like time, this is also evident in feelings which are modified through the space-like construction of experience. Although this first chapter fails to convince once you proceed onto the construction of the idea of duration you feel on much safer ground, one feels Bergson has seriously studied this phenomenon, not of course just in thought or conceptualisation but, in his own lived experience present at every moment. He goes on to explain the falseness of the spacialisation of time which inevitably leads to the paradoxes of Zeno in ancient days and determinism with its lack of human freedom. He overcomes the usual arguments of determinism by simply just not defining freedom or its prior conditions since this would once again introduce determinism and spacialise duration.

Bergson's work is simply highly insightful of the human condition far more than any dry attempt at it through the usual approaches such as Descarte's or Kant's. He literally lives his work using his own experience to enliven it, I mean literally enliven it, Bergson's work is living in a sense. It is less an argument than a movement through your own feelings and intuitions which then allow you to understand what he is saying, it isn't difficult concepts you can't wrap yourself round. It does occasionally suffer from a lack of clarity wich is an advantage other philosophers have over him but a careful reading will help.

Superb as always.

Bergson, all the rage in the early 1900's, has now been rediscovered,thanks in part to the work of Deleuze et al. Time and Free Will is a great exemplar of Bergson's work and his idea of the duree and the spatialization of time. Bergson presents to the reader an energetic flux which is the precondition of our more vulgar concept of time. With this flux, the past is pulled along by the future and presented to consciousness in the present as a heterogeneous conglomeration, inseperable and uncategorizable. It is this work which inspired the stream of consciousness novelists, especially Proust. But the most remarkable element of Time and Free Will is its demand on the reader to live the duree, to return to the duree and forget oneself in it. The goal is freedom and authenticity and this can only be achieved when letting oneself go, flying like a bird, and despatializing time. This book does not only open the door to phenomenology, but it also contributes in a significant way to french existentialist thought.

Aged 80, already ill, Henri Bergson (1859-1941) went downstairs to the street (in his slippers and a sleep skirt) to underwrite a Nazi-registration-form, that he was one of the so called unworthy living creatures, a Jew, having no rights, being discharged, honourless, defenseless, unprotected. When in the "Etat Francais" also a Jew statute had been announced, the French government had offered an exception treatment to Bergson, that famous citizen of Jewish birth. However professor Bergson refused receiving such a gift from such hand. 1920, on the occasion of the establishment of the United Nations, Henri Bergson had been a first president of the commission for mental co-operation (when times were to be called still worthy to human beings). 1927 he had received the Nobelprize of literature regarding to his main-publication "Creative Evolution". At the end of his life the public ethic level had been fallen down immeasurably deep. Commissions for "mental co-operation" (1920) evidently had disappeared and instead had been replaced by tanks, execution committees, gasification camps and other genocide methods. The esteem of an human being you cannot measure exactly via empiric sciences (i.e. Nazi biological race sciences). An anthropology of such a bedeviled horizon of course fails his subject. The risk of every empiric, specialized science (i.e. psychology, social and political sciences) is to underestimate human beings via shortened views, operating with the handicap of false subtle ideologies, conceptions, definitions - and the practice to analyze only a small section of time. To seize the "life melody" of a human being, it is not sufficient to emerge ridiculously only one or two notes. The entire "SPAN", if possible from the birth to the end of a biography, - only such a span (the complete melody, not a single note) is able to illuminate the secret of a human personality to a sympathizing viewer. Only via this method you can discover the dynamics, movements, changing spirals, the will to carry through, the persistent believe at the own worth of a person - even if the social associates have lost such a horizon long time ago. Bergson's father had been a music teacher and a composer - considering this fact, the idea of talking metaphorically about "single notes" and a complete "life-melody" touches the heart. The upcoming of the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud surely inspired Bergson - and though there are some mad, too punctual views in this Vienna theories: this specialized science delivered a plenty of hypotheses better than the usual biological ones. Otherwise Bergson inspired a lot of novelists: Marcel Proust or James Joyce, Sartre (his writings about Flaubert) or Nikos Kazantzakis' movie "Alexis Sorbas" (featuring Anthony Quinn as the pure embodiment of "elan vital"). Erik H. Erikson with his innovative book "Identity and life cycle" also is one of the innumerable researchers, who developed knowledge into this advanced direction: the concept of duration, of showing a complete life-melody. A quotation out of a lecture held 1911 by Bergson at the university of Oxford: "Via philosophy we can get accustomed, never to isolate the present from the past. Via philosophy all things gain a depth of field, something like a fourth dimension, which permits to associate the earlier perceptions with the present." In the title of Bergson's book "Creative Evolution" the nature of this unusual human is as crystallizing as in that delivered gesture, underwriting the Nazi-registration-form, just as the inhumanity of German occupiers required. Surely none of them understood the nonchalant irony of this doing (in the spirit of a mind, which never loses a sort of a "BIRDS VIEW"). I like to compare this scene with a fragment of Emile Cioran, another French author; he wrote: "Did you see, how the birds, at first hunting in the roads, suddenly did ascend high above the roofs: to regard Paris in a distance?" This is a remarkable metaphor: visually strong - alike the "LIFE-MELODY", giving a hint to the long time memory of ears ...

David M. Lubin's "Titanic" offers valuable and interesting insights into James Cameron's 1997 Academy Award-winning film by the same title. Lubin, a professor of art at Wake Forest University, brilliantly positions the film within its artistic, historic and cultural context, relating it to art (Frederic Church's "The Icebergs" and "Heart of the Andes," George Caleb Bingham, Jacques-Louis David, among others), literature (Crane, London, Twain, Whitman, et al.), music (Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld," Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde," etc.), theatre (the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, etc.), and even to still photography (Lewis Hines' "Young Russian Jewess at Ellis Island," Alfred Stieglitz's "The Steerage"). Lubin also connects "Titanic" to numerous other films, especially "It Happened One Night" and "A Night to Remember," and filmmakers, including Hitchcock, Welles, Ford and Kubrick. Lubin says "Titanic" is "not by any means an intellectual film," yet his book seems to belie this statement. How could a film that poses "questions about society's divide between rich and poor, the nature of love, the meaning of sacrifice, and modernity's faith in...technological prowess and mastery over nature" be anything but an intellectual film?

For a movie that was almost universally loathed by "high-brow" critics, "Titanic" gets a very lovingly detailed and in-depth analysis courtesy of Mr. Lubin. His analysis is interesting and well-researched without going too overboard or reaching too far for metaphors and artsy-fartsy obscure parallels, as some BFI contributing authors have.

This book afforded me a fascinating 12th look at a film I've already seen 11 times, and I feel enriched for having read it. It is scholarly without being boorishly so, and resists the chance to take gratuitous potshots at the flimsiest part of the film -- the dialogue. Lubin rightfully defends writer/director James Cameron's film even at its weakest points, probably because to single out the flimsy and shallow dialogue is to overlook the mastery that went into every other single detail of getting this epic film made. Visually, it is so rich in detail and craft that to malign it for "teen-speak" dialogue is just to be petty. But make no mistake --- Lubin is not playing the cheerleader for the sake of doing so. He is carefully examining the film for its comments on class distinctions, its parallels to art and opera, its classic story structure, and how the timing of the making and release of the film is nearly as significant as the timing of the actual sinking from the perspective of changing cultural and social mores. Or something like that -- Lubin phrases it so much better than I ever could.

To those who would chastise Cameron for the dialogue, let's see how well YOU do writing dialogue while simultaneously juggling the 40 thousand details, large and small, of a project this massive!

Lubin acknowledges the film's flaws but also pays due heed to the elements that work well, and the film is full of them.

Just read the damn book, folks.

Any movie as large (in every respect) as James Cameron's TITANIC, deserves to be understood, not only in the contemporary consumer context in which it was created, but also through the complex philosophical, cultural, and artistic history which served as its genesis. David Lubin's splendid, captivating, and handsomely packaged little book is a rare jewel for any reader interested in popular culture as subject for serious analysis. We come to understand Cameron's film, although cloaked in melodrama and crude dialogue, as a fully realized "synaesthesia," striving (not entirely unsuccessfully) to consume and re-imagine everything that came before it. Lubin, without a hint of pedantry, goes a long way towards revealing the mysterious zeitgeist at the heart of a global blockbuster. This is a marvelous book, and it deserves to be read.

You think you understood this simple (if expensive) movie? Think again. David Lubin demonstrates why Titanic can really be seen as an allegory--about race and class, humanity and technology, and much more--with amazing depth and sophistication. He's an academic but he writes like a journalist, and you'll be amazed at all the fascinating tidbits he comes up with. Plus the book is beautifully produced with dozens of photos from the film to illustrate (literally) the points he's making. Just a great read.

A few years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts about my favorite love songs. I planned to follow it up with a companion piece about my least favorite ones, but quickly abandoned the project because there was no way I could ever narrow down the list sufficiently. There were just too many horrible love songs out there - or so I thought. Tom Reynolds apparently had the opposite problem. In the introduction to this book, he says he asked his friends for suggestions for the creepiest love songs of all time, but everybody he asked named the same song. I won't spoil the surprise, but it's probably one of the first songs you thought of upon reading the title. And he's right, it is creepy. So are most of his other nominees, many of which I'd never heard of until now. Which was a good thing!

One reason why this book works as well as it does is that, while the title had me expecting really bad love songs - and there are some - Reynolds also chooses some he freely admits to liking, but which are nevertheless creepy. As with his last volume, on depressing songs, his commentary never fails to be hilarious no matter how awful the subject at hand is. And sometimes it is pretty awful.

One minor shortcoming is that Reynolds' selection of songs to bash is a bit less convincing than it was with the depressing songs book. In my opinion, he chose a few too many teen pop hits from the past five years or so which nobody over the age of 18 is very likely to be familiar with. His analysis of them is just as funny as it is with the better-known ones, but there's something especially entertaining about seeing so-bad-they're-good classics like "Afternoon Delight" and "I've Never Been to Me" ripped to shreds. It just isn't the same with a song I don't know. His explanations as to why a song is creepy aren't always convincing either. (Jennifer Lopez' "Jenny from the Block" is probably the most narcissistic song ever written, but that doesn't make it creepy.) Finally, I can't resist pointing out that Reynolds missed one very easy target: his assessment of "To Know Him is to Love Him" - written by the indisputably creepy Phil Spector - makes a good case against the song, but fails to mention that the innocent-sounding paean to unrequited puppy love was inspired by the inscription on Spector's father's grave. How much creepier could you get?

But for all that, it's an engaging and very, very funny read. Anybody who actually listens to lyrics, and has been exasperated with friends who don't, will love it.

With the huge success of Reynold's first dissection of modern music's bad lyrics I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE: THE 52 MOST DEPRESSING SONGS YOU'VE EVER HEARD there was bound to be an encore and this fascinating read doesn't disappoint. In Touch Me, I'm Sick Reynolds tackles those songs about love, but not the mutually consenting romantic love, no these songs are about obsessive stalking, sleeping with kids, sleeping with parents, pleasuring yourself, jilted lovers, bad break ups as well as basically anything else that you'd be serving serious jail time or even get the chair if the lyrics were real.

The amazing thing is many of these songs are highly popular and requested to be played and set the mood at inappropriate places like wedding receptions and graduations. Which means those who request these songs for these occasions are either sick in the head or have never actually listened to the lyrics and do not know what they are actually about.

Most of these songs spent time in the top ten of the UK or US charts (Reynolds tells you at the start of the dissection of each song) and there's also a few you may not have heard of. Even with the ones you've never heard of Reynolds gives a detailed account of what the song is about then tells the reader why it is creepy. For those of us who were not around in the 70's or earlier when some of these songs were hits you'll also learn interesting facts such as I never knew Michael Jackson's Ben was being sung to an injured human flesh eating rat.

Tom Reynolds certainly is a very funny writer, you'll be laughing out loud at many an observation such as on Paula Cole (p145 if you've got this with you) "She doesn't just have issues, she has lifetime subscriptions". On You're Beautiful by James Blunt (p69) being one of the most requested songs at weddings "makes absolutely no sense because it's about a guy who's too stoned to approach a girl he saw for a few seconds on a subway platform and so he just repeats over and over again how beautiful she is but won't ever see her again" On you're body is a Wonderland by John Mayer "he reassures her that he'll never let her head hit the bed without my hand behind it. I'm completely at a loss as to what this means other than the girl is a pillow chasing nut who likes to ram her skull into the headboard" (p92). These are just three examples of the gems of dissection you'll find in here. His dissection of the life of Kevin Federline is also a must read.

The whole book is actually a must read for any fan of music especially the lyrics. Artists who appear inside include Air Supply, Kylie Minogue, The Offspring, The Beatles (and Reynolds recount of a chat room conversation with a Lennon fan nut who blames every bad Beatles thing on Paul is hilarious), The Police, Pearl Jam, Jennifer Lopez, George Michael, Divinyls, Fergie, Christina Aguilera, Sarah McLaughlan, Alanis Morissette, Sinead O'Connor, Eminem, Jewel, Radiohead, Melissa Etheridge and Motley Crue.

Can't wait for the next dissecting music book by Reynolds, if it's even half as good as the first two I won't be disappointed. By the way although it is no doubt a different person a similarly written book by an author of the same name on being a paramedic Blood, Sweat & Tea: Real-Life Adventures in an Inner-City Ambulance is also very, very good!

This is a very funny book. Even if the songs are obscure, the stories can stand up on their own. It will stimulate debate among boomers about woeful contributions over the years. Sorry.... But hands down winner has to be "Havin' My Baby". I dare you to deny it!!

Hillarious, snarky jabs at 52 creepy songs. This includes the weird, the annoying and the icky. People familiar with popular music (from the 1970s forward) will appreciate it the most. There's a certian vindication in discovering a song you've long considered stupid/eerie/scary has made the cut. Includes some obscure but too-weird-to-ignore numbers too.

I was looking for a good read on tropical medicine but also lightweight and easy to pack and carry around. There really were not much options out there that I could find. This one and the oxford handbook on tropical medicine fit what I was looking for. Both were good, but the Lecture Notes I found slightly more useful, easier to find information and a bit more clinical detail. Very wide range of topics listed both by presenting syndrome and by each etiology separately.

This small-to-medium sized text is perfect for folks who need a quick and pertinent Tropical Medicine reference. I have found that it nicely complements the Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine (OHTM). OHTM is smaller, yet touches on a broader array of disease. Lecture Notes on Tropical Medicine gives more depth, with emphasis on diseases unique to the tropics. Both are excellent and highly recommended.

This book is very useful in my practice as a general practitioner and Travel Medicine Specialist. It gives brief but concise up to date information about Tropical Diseases. I still use other refernces in addition for up to date information about diagnosis and treatment, but find this book as a good quick 'first stop'. The photographs, though interesting, are few and not particularly relevant for my practice in New Zealand.It is the course textbook for the Travel Medicine paper through Otago University.Good value for money.

I have used every edition of this book since the first one came out as a single author edition by Dr Dion Bell. The book has only improved as the years went on. This book is not encyclopedic but has the information most needed when dealing with diseases of the tropics and developing world. Even if you have a larger more encyclopedic text you should have this one. This book is ideal for the physician or other practitioner going to the tropics for the first time and who may not have the time for more exhaustive study. Of all the medical texts I have used over the year this is one of the best!

J'ai ete ebloui par la lecture de l'Eloge des femmes mures, mqis le recueil d'essais de Vizinczey m'a emerveille davantage. J'y ai trouve une definition de la litterature des plus judicieuses. "Il y a fondamentalement deux sortes de litterature. L'une vous aide a comprendre, l'autre vous aide a oublier; la premiere vous aide a devenir une personne et un citoyen libre, l'autre aide les gens a vous manipuler. L'une s'apparente a l'astronomie, l'autre a l'astrologie." Quelqu'un l'avait-il jamais mieux exprimé? La critique brillante et sauvage de nos coqueluches litteraires m'a fait bien rire. L'auteur sait evoquer la joie unique que l'on ressent a la lecture d'un bon livre. C'est difficile de croire aue l'auteur est etranger. Je n'avais pas lu Stendhal depuis le lycee et l'essai de Vizinczey m'a fait realise combien j'avais manqué! J'ai recommence la lecture de le Rouge et le Noir et c'est bien plus drole que cela ne l'etait a 16 ans.

Vizinczey's passionate essays remind us of why we read literature. His articulate enthusiasm for great writers will inspire and invigorate you- and it will also surely make you seek out the best in literature (which, of course, includes Vizinczey's own two novels)

Vizinczey shares his views on a variety of topics from the works of fellow writers to ills of society, to rules for living for young writers. His essays and books(In Praise of older Women, An Innocent Millionaire) have always captivated me because of his riveting views and open criticism of human shortcomings. A refreshing quality is his strong commitments in an increasingly non-committal society where everything is slowly turning grey, and where most questions are responded to with the phrase: "It depends..." His style is powerful with masterfully wowen sentences that hold the readers attention from the first word to the last letter. The essay "A Writers Ten Commandments" is definetely a keeper. It offers rules of living to budding writers that can be applied in a much broader sense to life in general. If you want to read a good book, be entertained, amused,learn a little and mostly make some sense from this rapidly moving and changing "human scene" of ours, than Truth and Lies... is a must read.

We hear nowadays numerous comments on the fate of reading in our schools and universities. The ubiquity of digital technology, the lack of silence, concentration, and solitude, and the substitution of books by videos and compact disks are considered by some critics as the main reasons for the gradual decline in the habit of reading.

In addition, the various programs of study often fail to awaken in the students a genuine and lasting interest in serious texts. Notwithstanding the claims of some academics, it is not the pedantic literary scholarship that makes them turn to the great novels. They come to appreciate masterpieces thanks to the repeated invitations delivered to them in lively lectures and absorbing essays. Students need enthusiastic and intelligent teachers and writers who are able to show that novels, plays and poems are sources of inspiration and wisdom and, above all, contain answers to their most disquieting questions.

Stephen Vizinczey is one of these writers. His Truth and Lies in Literature is not only a collection of beautifully written essays and incisive reviews but also a strong contender for the best introduction to literature that I have ever read. I would recommend this book to all my students. I am convinced that it would stimulate many of them to become passionate readers, ones who would "grab" (Vizinczey's verb) any classic that they could lay their hands on.

Leslie Pennington

"The marriage -- if you will -- between television and the wedding ceremony has been a long and happy union," the press material for this book begins. Published in June 1999 by HarperCollins' fairly prolific TVBooks imprint, this fun guide holds its biggest value in its black-and-white photos -- there are a lot of them. Most of them are full-page shots. The book is arranged by decade and delves into the more-political motivations for some of the TV weddings it highlights: ratings gimmick, narrative device, show revival, new plot direction, etc. An airdate is given for each wedding, as well as a thorough "back story."

After reading this book, I was reminded how happy I am to be one the countless thousands whose parents let them watch more TV than was good for them.

TV Weddings is a hilarious look back at the tv weddings of the past few decades; I really enjoyed it. I have given the book to many of my popular culture obsessed family & friends. It's a great gift & a great read.

This book reviews the many weddings that have occured between main characters on all of your favorite TV shows. The author does an excellent job of recreating the episodes and the fun of the TV weddings. It's a great look back at some TV classics, bringing up a ton of memories (I had forgotten how funny 99's wedding headdress was!).

aight y'alls i aint playin' when i be sayin this book is the bomb. shoo, i'se be cookin' ups a storms ups in my kitchens with thems resepees. thems fired mens are crispy like my chinkens.
i'se didn't realizes that them shows on tv was so funny and mades me feel good and i'se cried me some tears, yo.
anyways, goods readin' and keep writin' these guides.

before i read tvtherapy i was just a poor sap cluelessly watching television. this book is such a great guide for someone like me who knows nothin' about the healing qualities of television.
i've discovered the joys of picking the right shows to set my different moods.
thank you bev and jason for enriching my life.before i read tvtherapy i was just a poor sap cluelessly watching television. this book is such a great guide for someone like me who knows nothin' about the healing qualities of television.
i've discovered the joys of picking the right shows to set my different moods.
thank you bev and jason for enriching my life.

Sparkling with slick prose, and some downright funny quotes from a variety of TV shows, TV Therapy picks out perceptive aspects from your favorite TV shows that will have you watching them again with fresh eyes. With the food and drink recipies, you'll have culinary company that adds more dimension to the experience, whether it's burritos for dinner, or cocktails and party platters with friends.

This is the third book that I own from the Cinematherapy series, and it's wonderful. Like most people in New England, I'll be spending more time indoors as the weather gets colder and the book is packed with reviews of just about every TV show neatly arranged by type, in addition to some very creative recipes for the novice and seasoned chef alike.

There are some very funny TV quotes peppered in here and there and i can't forget to mention the drink recipes that will take care of the winter blues.

This book is a must for any TV buff.

If you want a comprehensive book for the NCETM, this is it..expensive
but worth it, It is strictly a Q AND A but every question you can think
of is listed here..I got this for the muscle section and went over the
other body systems as well and feel prepared for the exam,,

This volume was extremely interesting. It contains information that every massage therapist should know. Some of the NCBTMB test questions were straight from this book. I found it extremely helpful in my passing the test the first time.

This guide was an excellent resource in getting me to understand and remember various diseases a massage therapist needs to be aware of. I passed the NCBTMB exam yesterday with HIGH in each category and these guides helped A LOT in preparation!

If you can answer the questions from this book with confidence, you can pass almost any clinical part of massage therapy exam. On the other hand, simply by knowing the clinical pathology, you may not be able to pass either the NY State Board or the National Certificate exam.

I don't think you need to understand every single detail in this book in order to pass either the NY State Board or the National one. (See my other comments on selecting study material if you are interested).

The knowledge provided from this book is far more than as a licensed massage therapist require to know. It's good to know more. But don't be scared if you do not do well on those questions in this book. From my limited experience, I think the exam authorities want to prepare us (massage therapists and body workers) to provide SAFE and effective massage therapy to the public. We are not trained to be a MD. Please don't blame yourself if you are not so good as the nervous system, for example. But you have no excuse for not knowing soft tissue. Massage therapists should be the expert of soft tissue.

Grasp a solid knowledge on muscle insertion and origin, action and related diseases. You will do well! Good luck

This is a must have for the A and P section of the test. I used this and passed with 4 high markings out of 6 as a result. I also bought the other guide like this. The other guide went over assesment and application.

951 questions and answers!! This book was essential to my passing the NCBTMB the first time. I learned a great deal from this book and well as from Volumes 2 and 3. I was surprised at the number of test questions about Traditional Chinese Medicine. This book provides a great deal of information on that topic.

This was a great book to use in preparation for the NCBTMB exam, even though some of the questions were a little TOO esoteric (5 questions on hyoid muscles? Come on! How often does one massage the THROAT? And the bulbospongious and levator ani? Yeah, right! I massage those every time - NOT!) Even so, it helped me focus on what was for me the most difficult and challenging part of the exam and to find the "holes" in my knowledge. Questions arent' mixed up, but are in order, so it's possible to review a system, take the questions, correct, then review again. HIGHLY recommended!

I only ordered volume 1 of this set of 3. I felt that this area is where I needed to review the most. The book is a little less than 1000 questions and answers. I felt that it was extremely helpful and I would recommend it to anyone taking this exam. I passed on the high end of 4 out of the 6 sections of the exam! I wasn't sure at first about purchasing because of the amount but I took a chance and now feel that it was well worth it.

Absolutely incredible book for lay people and chiropractors and anyone interested in the upper cervical spine. Case studies noted are awesome! Thoroughly recommend it to anyone with an interest in this particular area of the spine...bit of chiropractic and medical terminology to overcome if you are a layperson reading it, but a stimulating book all the same.

This book would have to be the most comprehensive gathering of literature concerning Upper Cervical Specific Chiropractic (UCSC), ever. You may need to know everything that has spawned in the literature since Dr BJ Palmer's controversial assertion that the upper cervical spine is the only place chiropractors will find a subluxation. You may just want to casually look up a paper written on the upper cervical spine's influence on health. The book is designed for either type of study. In fact, the beauty of this book is that you don't have to read it so much as refer to it. And for the busy clinician, that's all we can realistically expect.

UCSC is a specialty within chiropractic. As Dr Dan Murphy, DC states in the introduction, for a third of chiropractic's century as a profession "the predominant practice of chiropractic involved primarily the upper cervical spine". Yet, as the Australian experience reflects, it is very few in this country indeed that refrain from directing forces to areas other than C1.

This book is incredible . Everything I have encountered in my own endeavour to seek out anything scientific supporting what BJ was zealously advocating all those years ago, without any apparent evidence, is here. Any low-level writing, such as that of general digest publications, is tolerated well because the reader can look at references instantly to find out how to mentally categorise each opinion. This is a unique format; you don't have to sift through a reference list at the end to see if it was written in this decade, or if your scientific nemesis wrote it! Older papers are listed first, and editorial comment is distinctly defined from abstracts and text. What an enormous gap it fills on my bookshelf.

The only thing this book has not done is to explain the extremely limited uptake of UCSC amongst chiropractors in - and outside of - the USA; which, in turn explains the aching lack of research into large populations undergoing upper cervical chiropractic care, and it's impact on public health.

Yet, does it not make far more sense to discover the intricacies of the articulations of the skull base before any other region is attempted? If you answered yes, this book is for you. If "no", you still need to own it as a complete "chirocentric" literature review of the topic.

Dr. Erickson's work is exemplary! I am a psychological researcher and have found his book invaluable. His editorial comments are very well written. The future of Chiropractic Orthospinology is in good hands - literally.

Dr. Eriksen's book is a significant contribution to the profession. Don't be misled by the title--this book is a must read for all chiropractors--not just upper cervical specialists. It provides the "intellectual ammunition" to respond to those who claim there is no scientific evidence to support subluxation.