Papers Books

Is it "impostor" or "imposter"?--that is the question that nagged me while I read The Three Impostors. Which spelling is correct, and which is the imposter/or? The lexicographers need to come down hard on this issue!!

That aside, The Three Impostors is a black diamond of a little dark fantasy, told in hypnotic descriptive prose. The book is structured as a series of stories within a frame story, much like the Decameron or Canterbury Tales, only the frame story has its own plot and is the most interesting of all in The Three Impostors. The sub-stories range from the strange to the macabre, to the frankly paranormal, each entertaining in its own right besides what it contributes to the whole. Moreover, Machen's style glitters with curious flights of thought and characterizations, well nigh as enertaining as the story itself.

What struck me most of all about The Three Impostors is how panoramically influential this short book is, as if it were the whole nine muses of twentieth century literature! The Maltese Falcon owes an obvious debt to the Gold Tiberius. I think the Novel of the Dark Valley is a clear precursor to The Trial, and obviously, Lovecraft derived his whole schtick from the Adventure of the Missing Brother. Machen himself must have been influenced by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published about 10 years earlier, but Machen amplifies and enhances the original, rather than narrowing it.

Altogether, The Three Impostors, however you spell it, was well worth the 150 pages of reading time. Dyson and Phillipps are my new literary heroes! I would recommend the edition from Chaosium, since this includes several other good Machen works for about the same price as the other editions.

This little book is an unexpected but welcome surprise in the world of literature. Jorge Luis Borges wrote the introduction in the Spanish edition that I own. And he was right, few people know the existence of this great mistery novel, otherwise it would be already a classic.

In has the flavour of Dickens and the imagination and dexterity of Agatha Christie.

His name is Arthur Machen.

Arthur Machen can easily be described as one of the writers who provided the foundation to the 20th century fantasy and horror literature. This one is a great collection of horror stories, most of which has a quite Lovecraftian style. If you are new to Machen, and/or like stories with a tinge of "Mythos Horror" in them, you'll definetely like this one.

Horror master Arthur Machen's crowning achievement, a still shocking compendium of interwoven short horror tales. In late 19th century London, a scientist and an unpublished writer join forces as amateur detectives in an attempt to solve a minor but puzzling mystery which ultimately leads to the discovery of a truly diabolical conspiracy. In the course of their investigations, the two men find themselves repeatedly surrendering their attention to a series of seemingly outlandish tales spun by an assortment of eccentric story tellers. The stories, which all deal with imposture of some kind, are only tangentially related to each other, yet offer the somewhat bumbling sleuths important clues to the mystery at hand. Machen builds suspense slowly and methodically, masterfully leading the reader on to a completely unexpected, gruesome climax. Comical, tragic, sophisticated, violent, horrific, and even downright disgusting, THE THREE IMPOSTORS is a classic horror novel of sly deception and wit.

The 1995 Everyman paperback is the only critical edition of this remarkably rich book released to date, offering a scholarly introduction (by editor David Trotter) that carefully details Machen's main influences (chiefly Robert Louis Stevenson) and themes (imposture of various kinds, also derived from Stevenson). A short text summary nicely encapsulates the narrative's various twists and turns. Finally, a section entitled "Machen and His Critics" provides a welcome offering of mostly contemporaneous critical responses to this remarkable book; while many of these reviews were laudatory, quite a few passionately outraged quotes reveal just how shocking THE THREE IMPOSTORS must truly have been in its time.

And this book with show you the way!!!!

Easy to follow instructions with items you have around the house. Successful papermaking from the very first try!

This is one of the best books for a beginner. The steps shown are very easy to follow.The cost for materials is minimum. I was able to make some very nice homemade paper with just the things I had in my home.The book is well worth the money. Happy papermaking.

It is a simple book, but very usefull. As I work with homeless people the book shows us conditions to make paper without money; the material is very easy to find and the way-to-do is very well explained. I liked very much the model of envelope printed in the book and that we can copy in a fotocopy machine. Congratulations for the author.

Most farmers and gardeners fertilize soil using manure from the many animals except humans. Because of our diet, humanure is unsurpassed in nutrients. Asians have used it for thousands of years. Generations of families using flush toilets have resulted in psychological negativity--the yuck factor. So humanure is mostly wasted and goes into sewage treatment plants or septic systems, causing much unnecessary expense and pollution of groundwater. The most commonsense treatment of humanure is to collect it, compost it, and then use it for fertilizer for ornamentals and those plants that fruit above-ground: fruit trees, tomatoes, peppers, beans and the like. Humanure composted for a year is indistinguishable from rich soil. Van der Ryn provides here the why and the how.

As the world ponders how we will all survive as unpolluted water becomes scarcer and scarcer, eventually one has to ask, 'why do we go to the bathroom in a bowl of fresh drinking water????'

Please don't tell me that it's 'because that's the way we've always done it'.

It's time for this book.

Hopefully, it will be read by people who have the brains and guts and good-natured cleverness to actually do something cool and constructive and environmentally sound about these things.

Most farmers and gardeners fertilize soil using manure from the many animals except humans. Because of our diet, humanure is unsurpassed in nutrients. Asians have used it for thousands of years. Generations of families using flush toilets have resulted in psychological negativity--the yuck factor. So humanure is mostly wasted and goes into sewage treatment plants or septic systems, causing much unnecessary expense and pollution of groundwater. The most commonsense treatment of humanure is to collect it, compost it, and then use it for fertilizer for ornamentals and those plants that fruit above-ground: fruit trees, tomatoes, peppers, beans and the like. Humanure composted for a year is indistinguishable from rich soil. Van der Ryn provides here the why and the how.

With a title like "Toilet Papers" and from a distinguished eco-architect like Sim Van der Ryn, I needed no intro or review to buy a copy of this little, but well researched historical over-view of effluent mitigation and current eco-friendly toilet design.

This book is filled with good line drawings and photographs to depict everything from the historical perspective to the current dry toilets and their construction.

The book starts out with:
"Throughout this book, you will find the word "waste" used to refer to those raw materials-feces and urine-your body passes on to make energy available to some other form of life. This is what you give back to the earth. The idea of waste, of something unusable, reveals an incomplete understanding of how things work.
Nature admits no waste. Nothing is left over; everything is joined in the spiral of life. Perhaps other cultures know this better than we, for they have no concept of, no word for, waste". And under that thought provoking consideration of resource cycles, there is:

"A sound man is good at salvage, at seeing nothing is lost"- Lao Tze, 500 B.C.

The intro is by Wendell Berry, farmer, novelist, poet. He posits that "modern" effluent mitigation is as insane as drinking right from an un-flushed toilet: "It is not inconceivable that some psychiatrist would ask me knowingly why I wanted to mess up my drinking water in the first place". Indeed.

After the fascinating human waste history lessons, we are given a short crash-course on the biology of waste, then it's on to the fruit of the book: dry composting toilet designs and their efficacy. This is in good detail and makes for a complete handbook on waterless toilet design.

Finally, there is the Epilogue and I would be amiss in my review if I did not reveal a little taste of it: [Any technology divorced from the whole of nature tends to produce a condition that poet Robert Graves calls "mechanarchy": the perfection of technological means to produce a chaotic sterile environment. The current technology of "waste disposal" (the term reveals the syndrome) is still fighting a war against nature, built on fragments of 19th century science not yet integrated into an understanding of life processes as a unified, but cyclical, whole."] True enough!
Sim Van der Ryn has produced a gem of proper waste recycling in this informing little book. His website is well worth a visit also.

An informative companion to "Toilet Papers" is "The Humanure Handbook" by Joseph Jenkins- a how-to on safely composting one's excrement back into a nutrient rich amendment for the vegetable garden instead of flushing it away as waste.

I liked this book because it contained funny stories. For example, Tooter handcuffs herself to the sink in protest over a move to a farm. She also walks around the farm with perfume to block out nasty smells. The end is heartwarming. I would recommend this book to people who like funny stories.

This is a very good book...err...it was when I was five...now I read it again and it's more than a little bland but I definitly recommend it along with the Junie B. Jones books for the littler kids. ;-)

The Library Card is four short stories about kids who never thought they would ever be interested in reading until a "magical and mysterious" library card comes and takes these kids to the library and turns these lazy punks into inquiring minds. This is one of the best books I've ever read. I would recommend this book to anybody!

Have you ever wanted to run away from home? Well, Tooter does - she hates the smell on the farm and will do anything to get away! Tooter won't talk to anybody because she doesn't want to live on Aunt Sally's farm. Aunt Sally likes the silent treatment, but it drives dad crrrraaaaazzzzy! Tooter thinks she's going to croak because there isn't any McDonald's.

Uboat Ace is a excellent book on Submarine warfare in WWII. While you may not like Wolfganf Luff as an Individual one has to admit he was a great leader and example to his men. Found the book interesting and an easy read. Anyone interested in Uboat warefare will enjoy it..

This book is a great read. The writing style is concise, and it makes it easy to get involved with a facinating (and true) story. Wolfgang Luth went on long range patrols to Southern Africa, notched up many sinkings, and was popular with his men. What comes across with this book is the personality of Wolfgang Luth himself. He didn't have a large ego, and is not as well known as other U-boat aces, but through this book seems far more interesting than the others U Boat Captains, and was more successful. He could be laid back with his men, other times encouraging them to get married, or poke fun at himself, was utterly fearless, and other times shot hundreds of shells into ships without reason. The book makes one consider the morality of his actions, and yet also gives a front row seat to an interesting U Boat career, and tragic end. This is a good book.

I have read this book and it is an excellently done story on Kapitan zur See, Wolfgang Luth. This man Took charge of the Uboat U 181 and had an excellent crew serving with him. This book is almost as good as "Shooting The War" by Otto Giese. It held my attention which was fully rivited to the pages as I read them, as Otto Giese's book did to me. This book is THAT well done, and I will buy several extra copies of it to send to all 8 of the surviving U 181 vets. Its a shame that Otto Giese, U 181's 2nd Watch officer under Luth, recently passed away as well as three other U 181 comrades. The living members of U 181 will absolutely love this book and will think of it as a work of art. As I do have the priviledge of knowing all the surviving vets, I know they will enjoy adding a copy of this book to their libraries as they have done so with Otto Giese's book. Soon to be another book on U 181 by vet/friend, Bernhard Trenn.

another u-boat captain book,Luth's u-boat survival of the war depended a great deal on his skill,but there are instances here where you realize there was some luck involved as well. An even better source of luck was that he was assigned a section of the south Atlantic,and African waters where his prey was not often as heavily protected as was were convoys in the North Atlantic.Luth's patrols were mainly "lone wolf" type guerilla attacks on isolated cargo ships,not the suicidal wolfpack attacks that were sure to bring on lots of task force boats.You can't help but draw from the book that the thirty year Luth was a by-product of the post WW1 Versailles Treaty outrage against Germany.His resentment as well as his crew run deep,methodically shinking ships like shooting mechanical ducks at a carnival.Not deliberately cruel but with a firm belief that it's either "us or them".When reading this book it would help to have a little knowledge of the "War Reparations"clause in the Versailles treaty,it would make for boring reading but,it will make the Luth story more enriching.

If you hve a child who is a dreamer, into non-traditional fun, and loves to read, then this book is it. My uncle got it for me when I was 11 or 12, and I devoured it whole. The airplanes are fantastic to build, and they truely fly for a long time. Be warned though, the planes take about 20-30 minutes each to construct and you will need scissors, a paperclip (some models even require rubber cement), and lots of patience for great airplanes. I lost my copy in one of my many moves since being 12 (about 14 years ago) and I bought this book again. It gave me not just hours, but DAYS of fun as a kid.

Every book on paper airplanes will start by saying their planes are the best. When I first bought this book in 1985, I judged the book by it's cover and believed it was going to contain "the ultimate paper airplane". That was almost 20 years ago now, and the cover has never let me down!
I enjoyed these planes when I first got the book, I enjoyed them again when I started to learn to fly real airplanes in High School, I enjoyed them when I was taking physics classes in College, and now I'm looking forward to enjoying them with the next generation of paper airplane flyers.
If there is a better book about making planes that can be folded out of a single sheet of paper, I haven't found it.
A compelling story about inventors and their dreams, clear explanations about the physics of flying, easy directions for folding planes, AND you end up with planes that are fun to fly because they fly so well!

I had this book as a kid, and the planes in this book are the best that I have seen. This is a must have to any paper airplane enthusiast

If you have any interest in paper airplanes, beyond the simplicity of tossing one around for a few minutes on a slow day at work, this book is for you. Forget the flimsy loop-the-loop planes that you used to make as a kid. This book will really show you how to make the *ultimate* paper airplane, with some interesting variations as well.

The concept behind the aerodynamics of this plane are so profound, it has been awarded patents, and several college graduates received scholarships researching and writing about it. Definitely a must read.

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This is a great book. It's a definitive reference on the somewhat obscure subject of Victorian Trade Cards, but for those of us who love them, it's a feast. It is crammed with illustrations, broken into categories, and contains history and collecting tips. The pricing information is somewhat out of date, due to the impact that online auctions have had on these collectables (some are more expensive, some less, as auctions make them more available.) If you're at all a fan of this genre, don't hesitate to buy this book!

Vastly illustrated and very informative. Although the majority of this book is pictures (very nice ones at that), there are some very interesting facts and historical information about the victorian card craze. Because there are in excess of 100,000 different cards in existance, don't expect to find every card in here or the current market price. It is just a matter of time before a more extensive guide is published, (I would still recommend because of the great illustrations!) The only problem I have with this book is the layout which can be annoying if you are trying to find info on one of your cards. You have to search through several sections of the book. (e.g. Jackson's chewing tobbaco card in the "Exploration and Travel" chapter instead of the "Tobbaco" chapter). More expensive cards are usually only discussed in the chapter rather than illustrated, which I find kind of strange(Maybe he didn't own any of those to get the photo?).

The beautiful 224 page, 8 1/2 x 11" softbound book contains more than 500 full color, sharp, large photos. '98 values. There are 70 topics ranging from angels, baseball, dolls, expositions to Uncle Sam, women, wringers and washing. There's plenty of background information on each topic. A useful glossary of terms is provided. A must for tradecard collectors. Fascinating to read and refer to.

If you find this book lying on someone's coffee table, don't pick it up--you'll be hooked! I am not an aficionado of trade cards, but I found this book to be endlessly fascinating. Cheadle wisely keeps his writing to a minimum, letting the illustrations speak for themselves-- page after page. I know of no book that is more intriguing just to page through. Henry Kort (kort@ainet.com)

As a mother of two young children, I rarely get too involved in a book. But this one I couldn't put down. The story alone is compelling enough, but unlike other biographies, this one reads as well as any novel. This is a story of survival that is a must read.

I couldn't put the book down. Extremely well written and simply a chilling story. I hope it is adapted for the bigscreen.

A truly moving and inspirational story, combined with a plot that does not let you stop reading makes this novel a must have for everyone. As a story about such a tragic event in human history, this book explores an often ignored aspect of the Holocaust by putting a human face to history.

This is a fantastic novel, I couldn't put it down. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

Many years ago, I read this book. For years afterwards, whenever I had a situation, and worked it out.... I would think "I wonder what my Guardian Angel thinks?" I still think about my guardian Angel. Just recently I taught my granddaughter, who is 5 years old about her guardian Angel. She now thanks God for her Angel in her prayers.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested, they won't be disappointed.

As a former student of Dr. Miller I dove into this book with great anticipation. When I asked him to sign the book his reply was simple: "Could you identify the Gloria in your life?" My answer was yes.

A must read for every young man.

David Shelton
SWBTS Class of '96

Three intresting and enlighting accounts for anyone looking into the Christian faith.
Insight that comes from these stories will strenghten the walk of any who will commit the time to read them.

All are well written move quickly and provided quite an enjoyable experiance.

Three intresting and enlighting accounts for anyone looking into the Christian faith.
Insight that comes from these stories will strenghten the walk of any who will commit the time to read them.

All are well written move quickly and provided quite an enjoyable experiance.