Ohio Books

I've just finished COAL MINER'S HOLIDAY after delaying the ending for a few months. I hated to see this excursion end. Kiki DeLancey's style of writing is unique and engaging. She introduces the reader to unknown worlds of labor, strife and the bowels of the earth in one large sweep of pure unadulterated reality. This is a world of coal miners, a world unavailable to the average reader. Their passions and disappointments, their pleasures and personal endeavors are unlike those of the average citizen. I enjoy new experiences, delving into lives that are remote from my journey and learning something new when I read a book and Kiki provides all of these things with vigor and charm. Her stories engage the reader, her characters captivate the reader, and her themes linger long after leaving this particular road. I cannot say that I preferred one short piece over another, or one character more than another, but I can say that I'll be first in line when her next book arrives.

When I began reading the first story in Coal Miner's Holiday, I Loved the Squire, I thought of Hemmingway, mostly because of the stark and sometimes choppy prose. I'm not a huge Hemmingway fan, so I had my reservations, but by the end of the story, I found myself marveling. Delancey is a unique voice, and her stories stick in the mind. As is often the case in good writing, their complexity is belied by the simplicity of their language. It isn't the stuff of MFA programs; it's real, often rough, sometimes down-and-dirty.

These are not all stories about coal miners, although they are set in midwestern coal country. Some, like the trilogy bracketed under the heading "Swingtime" and the marvelous little gem, "Story of the Bread" (My personal favorite; I believe it should be required reading for EVERYONE, period), spring from the author's Greek background. Delancey jumps back and forth in time--"The Seven Pearls," for example, delivers us an oddball prophet in the Hippie age, while Dinger and Blacker is set in and around a speakeasy.

This is great stuff. Buy, enjoy, give it to someone who appreciates fine, quirky writing and very human characters.

Susan O'Neill
Author, Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam

Coal Miner's Holiday by Kiki Delancey is a book of short stories that more closely resembles poetry. She writes a variety of different types of stories with the constant being her use of vivid metaphorical descriptions. The first story is told from the perspective of the main character's thought processes. The accuracy with which DeLancey puts the character's thoughts into writing creates an interesting effect since we rarely think with the same focused coherence that we use to tell stories. The result is that we read two stories at once, what is physically happening and what the character thinks is happening.
Most of the stories in Coal Miner's Holiday are not long narratives involving fantastic or complex plots. Rather they could be compared to snap shot portraits of moments that capture an emotion or mood. These stories are of the colorful characters and personality quirks that arise to make life interesting in small towns of working folks where there is nothing better to do. The artistry the author displays in expressing the nuances of these moments has the quality of works you might find in photographs hanging on fancy museum walls.

With vivid characters and some gallows humor, Kiki Delancey's stories -- set mostly in run down and dying coal mining towns -- introduce the reader to familiar and mysterious human longings. In the hilariously punchlined story *What The Hell* a guy and his old high school sweetheart engage in a long running and doomed from the start attempt to consumate what had never been, even though by the time they can actually find the time to "get together" the woman is 6 months pregnant and the baby in the oven is an active little bugger. The last line (I won't ruin it here) made me roar with laughter. I mean, it's irony or whatever it was was just too good, too funny.

A story in the collection that affected me in quite an opposite way was *Washed,* wherein the simple act of a mother washing her little children is tranformed into a deeply symbolic and sacred act of final devotion and letting go. It's like slap-you-in-the- face sobering and austerely beautiful.

There are so many great stories here that it's hard to choose which ones to include here in this 1000 word max review. There's the Mississipi Review Best Story of the Year (2000 I think) prize winner "The Mystery of George Jones" that portrays a strange boy, wise beyond his years, whose hero worship of George Jones goes way beyond the normal fan club dues and autographed photos of the average rabid fan. Anyway. He emulates the country singer to make himself forget the mundane ordinariness of his life, as kind of a poultice from having to face *it.* It's a great story. And then there's the creepy basket case of the collection's first story *I Loved the Squire* who, it is made clear, is not all there. But whose heart-felt appreciation of beauty (even if it is a floating girl he just knifed) makes the reader sympathize with this murderer somehow. He reminded me of the murderous necrophiliac in Cormac McCarthy's *Child of God.* And the story *Two Strippers* is short and sweet and packs a real punch along the same lines as *Mystery of GJ* in that it's pov character is striving to give order and beauty to an austere world that offers no outward signs of either.

And there are loads more I haven't even touched on. The characters shine and the settings are depressing. The fantastic dynamic in most of these stories is the character's often futile but dogged attempts to transcend their circumstances and find some diamonds in the pile of coal that life has dealt them.

Good printing and up-to-date grammatical items. For many indonesian dictionaries,they did not indicate the future-tense usage for the word of hedak, while this one, it put it as the first one definition in its lemmata. Very good dictionary indeed.

It's simply the best Indonesian-English dico there is, better than the other alternative An Indonesian-English Dictionary (Hardcover). The lemmata are more current.

let me give an example 'obat:remedy,berobat:to take medicine,mengobatikan:to cre,terobati:cured,bengobat:medicine used to treat,bengobatan:therapy'. so,you see two many variations deriving from the word 'obat'we can multiply similar examples.this dictionary is full with derivations of a great deal is used in sample sentences. a monumental work on indonesian language.

I'm so happy to find this book. This is the most comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary you could find. Highly recommend to anybody!!!

Shelley Pearsall has written an important work of historical fiction exploring the clash of two cultures and how assumptions about our enemies often prevent us from seeing our common humanity.

Set in 1812, the bulk of the story is related in a straight-forward narrative from the "white man's" view as each day two sisters, Rebecca and Laura Carver, climb the stairs to their cabin's attic to bring food to a Chippewa accused of murding a trapper. Interspersed between chapters are the Chippewa's point of view related as poetic interludes.

Using these different points of view, Pearsall is able to suggest that each character occupies a position outside the other's consciousness... as if poetry and prose represent two different worlds... simultaneously revealing not only the differences between each culture's values and perspective but the common ground that each culture shares.

Gradually, Rebecca comes to see these two worlds, not as separate, but as sharing a common humanity. Trusting her sense of justice, she is willing to act to save the Chippewa, even though it means going against her strong-willed father's beliefs and her own culture's code of conduct.

In the end, Pearsall shows us how two very different views of the world can co-exist, even when the occupants of each world are unaware of their connection.

An enormously penetrating tale shedding light on an often overlooked aspect of American history.

Crooked River by Shelley Pearsall is a Historical fiction book based on a true story. It takes place in Ohio in 1812.This book is about a girl named Rebecca who along with her sister Laura experienced the hard, happy and sad times w/ a Chippewa Indian John, Her dad had crossed the Crooked River and brought the Indian back accused of murdering a white man. At the same time Rebecca is helping Laura to take her dead mom's position in the family. During the first days Indian John was in the same house as both girls Rebecca and her sister could not sleep without thinking that Indian john would escape from the attic and kill all of them. As time passed Rebecca slowly began to believe in Indian John's innocence. She felt that horrible things would happen if he really was guilty. Finally the trial came. Was Indian John guilty? Will anybody try to help him? Will he die? Shelley Pearsall is an author that makes you wonder and adds a little bit of mystery to her book. So if you like mysterious and suspenseful endings read Crooked River and find out the mystery behind Indian John's trial.

About halfway through a thorough reading of this book, a question popped into my brain. How many well-known children's books center on an important court case? There must be dozens, right? I mean, a courtroom is a perfect setting for drama. Just ask the audience of "Law and Order". Children's books, similarly, thrive on heightened emotions. Hence, there must be lots of children's fiction out there employing judges, juries, and gavel poundings right? Maybe so, but I was hard pressed to think of a one. The closest story I came up with was Harper Lee's, "To Kill a Mockingbird" and calling that a children's book is bound to offend all sorts of people everywhere. No, at this time I think that "Crooked River" is probably the only children's book I've personally read where the courtroom becomes the center of one young girl's life. I just wish I could figure out whether I liked it or not.

It's 1812 and Rebecca Carver has just learned that there's a manacled Chippewa in her attic. Needless to say, the news comes as quite a shock. Till now Reb has lived a pretty downtrodden life. She has an overbearing father, a series of spoiled or ignorant male relatives, and just her older and younger sisters for comfort. Finding an Indian in her attic has done little to improve her life. It seems that her father and some men in the village decided to go out and find the Chippewa that killed a white trapper some miles out of town. They proclaim Indian John (as they have dubbed him) to be the murderer, leaving Carver's daughters to fear for their lives as they sleep in their beds. In time, however, Reb learns that the man chained in the attic may not be the kind of man her fellows have always taught her to fear. A red-haired lawyer named Peter Kelley has known Amik, the prisoner, since childhood and believes fully in his innocence. It will take a trial to prove to Reb just what kind of influence that she, a mere thirteen-year-old slip of a girl, can have over events beyond her control.

Judging the portrayal of a Native American in a children's book is a monumentally difficult task. Often in cases like this one I turn to the Oyate organization (a Native American group charged with determining how popular culture depicts them) to see what their reactions to any given book are. In this particular case, however, "Crooked River" is too new for much outside critiquing. The book itself is broken into two narratives. In one, Rebecca talks about her changing perceptions and disillusionment with the people around her. In the other is Amik's voice. His words are in a different font and are written in a kind of free verse. At the beginning of the book, these words are rather beautiful. "it is the time when the leaves / are small on the trees. / too small / for hiding". But I had a very difficult time deciding whether or not Amik's mode of speech was a creative answer to giving his character a distinct personality and way of seeing the world or if it was an offensive stereotype too often done. He does, after all, revert back to those old clichés of wondering why the whites around him are seemingly deaf and dumb to the smells and sounds around them. It's a moment we've seen in countless books and films. On the other hand, the verse is often rather touching and quite interesting. I'm torn both ways.

The book itself is more than readable. At first it seems reliant on two-dimensional characters. Rebecca is good and therefore she pities the Indian. Her father is bad and therefore loathes Amik. It takes a while to realize but Rebecca's older sister Laura is one of the exceptions to this rule. In her case you have someone good who fears and dislikes Amik and has a hard time overcoming her own prejudices. Amos, Rebecca's older brother, is the same way. Pearsall's writing deftly plays with their thoughts on the matter while making it perfectly clear that early U.S. settlers weren't exactly the saintly explorers so lauded in American stories and songs.

A book can be beautifully written, penned with aplomb, and smart as a whip yet not quite touch the reader. Personally, "Crooked River" was not one of my favorite books of the year. This is not to say that it isn't a worthwhile piece of writing. I simply couldn't get a grip on the character of Amik and all that he was meant to represent. For others, their reactions will be different. Some people will adore this book. Some will despise it. I feel neither of these emotions myself. I simply recommend that you read it on your own time and come to your own conclusions about it. If Amazon.com is good for nothing else, it helps us to proclaim to the masses how much we love or hate a title. I will be eagerly reading all the other responses, "Crooked River" engenders.

CROOKED RIVER is the second novel for author Shelley Pearsall, winner of the 2003 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Set in Ohio in 1812, CROOKED RIVER tells the dramatic story of an unjust trial of an Indian--nicknamed Indian John--who was captured and held prisoner by one of the white settlers. "Indian John" is accused of murdering a white fur trapper. The story is told from two perspectives: prose chapters narrated by Rebecca Carver, the 13 year old daughter of the white man who captured the Indian, and a series of poems narrated by the Indian--whose real name is Amik. As his formal trial draws closer--although the men in the settlement have already concluded his guilt--Rebecca becomes more and more convinced that "Indian John" is innocent. One other man, Peter Kelley, a lawyer, also believes in his innocence. Kelley tries his best to win the case and set his friend Amik free, but the judge and jury will not be swayed. The trial is a mockery. Evidence or no evidence, they want this man to be convicted and hung.

CROOKED RIVER is based loosely on the true story of an Indian named John O'Mic who was tried and convicted of murder in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1812. He was held captive in a cabin and shared it with the white man and his family--there was a thirteen year old daughter. Using this true story as a basis and framework, Pearsall fictionalized the account to show how these people might have felt. Her research was thorough and impressive as her author's note indicates. While CROOKED RIVER is based on a true story, fact and fiction have two different endings. In real life, John O'Mic was sentenced to death--by hanging. "Indian John" was also sentenced to die--however, thanks to his friends he faked his death and was able to escape further west along with the rest of his family.

I thought CROOKED RIVER was a wonderful book. Although Pearsall is not of Native American ancestry, I believe her research was so extensive that Amik's voice was authentic. The poems narrated by Amik are beautiful. To learn that some of these phrases were borrowed from authentic Ojibwe sources--poems, stories, songs, etc--was fascinating. It made the book even "more authentic" than I originally thought. The narration of Rebecca Carver was equally researched. Pearsall read primary sources--diaries, books, letters, etc--from the time period to capture authentic language patterns and phrases of the whites as well. One source in particular that Pearsall used was an unpublished diary of a young girl named Emily Nash.

CROOKED RIVER is an excellent novel, and I highly recommend it to all. I am impressed not only with the novel CROOKED RIVER but with the author's in-depth research into the time period and opposing cultures that provide the background and context for the novel. I am curious to find a copy of her first novel, TROUBLE DON'T LAST, and read it as well.

Fantastic book, it really helps you understand the characters you read about in these classic novels. If you appreciate this era of literature, you will find this book to be a great read as well as inspiring. Will also introduce you to books you maybe havent't read or heard of before.

The dangerous lover has haunted our culture for over two hundred years; English, American, and European literature is permeated with his erotic presence. This book takes seriously the ubiquity of the brooding romantic hero--his dark past, his remorseful and rebellious exile from comfortable everyday living. Lutz traces the recent history of this figure, through the melancholy iconoclasm of the Romantics, the lost soul redeemed by love of the Brontës, and the tormented individualism of twentieth-century love narratives. Arguing for this characterÂ's central influence not only in literature but also in the history of ideas, this book places the dangerous lover firmly within the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, the Modernism of Georg Lukács, and Roland BarthesÂ's theories on love and longing. Working with canonical authors such as Ann Radcliffe, Charles Maturin, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Oscar Wilde, and also with non-canonical texts such as contemporary romance, The Dangerous Lover combines a lyrical, essayistic style with a depth of inquiry that raises questions about the mysteries of desire, death, and eroticism.

The Dangerous Lover is the first book-length study of this pervasive literary hero; it also challenges the tendency of sophisticated philosophical readings of popular narratives and culture to focus on male-coded genres. In its conjunction of high and low literary forms, this volume explores new historical and cultural framings for female-coded popular narratives.

The figure of the dangerous lover crops up in blockbuster movies, pulp fiction, harlequin romance novels, as well as more "literary" fiction and films. He is a staple figure of our collective imagination and his presence seems almost synonymous with romance--excepting perhaps feature films of the romantic comedy variety.

Strange then, that this book by Dr. Deborah Lutz should be the first and only one I've run across to explore and dissect this figure, his character and history.

An academic book of this nature could easily become just an exercise in collating footnotes and obscure material; instead, Dr. Lutz opts for a more meditative, essayistic approach to her subject, something akin perhaps to Didion, Barthes, or Benjamin. The method fits the subject matter well as the dangerous lover could be considered part of our collective dreamscape and therefore benefits from a study that ambles through our cultural sensorium and recollections in a fashion largely informed and choreographed by the character of the dangerous lover himself. What is thrilling about the book is its ability to deal in Heidegger as well as harlequin romance without missing a beat or without making these different literary realms seem incongruous or affected.

While at times the arguments in Dr. Lutz's prose can meander disconcertingly as they render her topic, they are nevertheless guided by a prevailing wind of deep, thoughtful, and studious reflection on her subject--a subject that, whether we like to admit it or not, has an incredibly deep hold on our inner life, whether in our romantic attachments, our sense of self, or our consumption of entertainment.

I found it very well worth the read for its ability to both broaden my understanding of various literary genres, as well as helping me understand aspects of my self and self-development in new and interesting light. Buy it and enjoy!

"The Dangerous Lover" by Deborah Lutz is a Heideggerian romp through some of the darker precincts of 19th-Century sexuality. The sophistication of contemporary cultural theory is brought to bear on the scoundrels, misanthropes and dandies of the Romantic and Victorian periods to plumb their timeless attraction. The brooding, wounded soul has been a staple of English literature from the inception of the Gothic novel in the late 1700's through to the pulpy romances of today. Lutz subjects this figure to a searching analysis, never losing sight of the human pathos that makes him worthy of our fascination.

Cincinnati is not only a city of social and political repression. Nope. The Queen City of the West also is home to several well-known and skilled writers of mysteries, best among them, Cincinnati Enquirer reporter, Jonathan Valin. This mystery, which I avidly read in 1995 and just HAD to then go visit the real sites mentioned in the book, even if they were set a decade earlier, tells of the disappearance of am attractive teenage girl from what was then Cincinnati's middle and upper middle class Jewish enclave of Roselawn. She ran away from her widowed mother's care one day following school, after spending the last few months going from well-behaved honor student to a disturbed delinquent. The detective, Harry Stoner, follows her trail from Roselawn to a disturbing and-for me at least-utterly unseen conclusion three weeks later. I could not put this book down.

"Day of Wrath," by Jonathan Valin, is a detective's story of his search for a missing fourteen year old girl. The girl's mother, Mildred Segal, hires Private
Detective, Harry Stoner, to find her missing fourteen year old daughter, Robbie. Harry begins his search of the city of Cincinatti and uncovers the evil darkness
that lies in Robbie's world, including the brutal murder of a young boy who ties into her life.

In the span of a few days, Harry already accumulates a list of people who knew Robbie and little by little, he pieces together the puzzle of who Robbie was, why she left, and her connection with the murder of the boy.

Along his investigation, Harry meets interesting and unforgettable characters, such as the sexually adventurous, Irene Croft, a helpful but tormented girl, Annie, and the ring leader, Theo Clinger. The characters will stay with you because of convincing portrayals.

Prior to "Day of Wrath," I had never read a detective novel, but the book is an easy read and you will notice time flies by as Harry takes you with him on his investigation. Jonathan Valin is a very talented writer and I plan on reading anything else he has or ever will write. However, this book is definitely only suitable for a mature audience due to sexually explicit and violently graphic detail.

Harry Stoner uncovers that people are never as they seem. No one could have realized what world Robbie Segal was a part of. She was part of a world that no child should ever be.

The ending will leave you shocked and disgusted and leave you still wanting more.

P.I. Harry Stoner is a fine addition to the literary tradition of Phillip Marlowe, Travis McGee and Lew Archer. He inhabits the street of Cincinnati like a second skin. This story is one of the better ones in the series and it is also one of the darker ones. Stoner's adventures are nevr pretty, but they are well worth the ride for fans of P.I. fiction.

Jonathin Valin is one of the legitimate heirs of Ross MacDonald and detective Harry Stoner is very much in the mold of Lew Archer. Stoner rides the streets on Cincinnati in his Pinto, looking for runaways, armed with nothing but his righteous indignation and his Colt Gold Cup revolver.

Harry's been hired by Mildred Segal to find her 14 year old daughter, Robbie, who has run away from their placid suburban home. Harry, who grew up in just such a place, knows all too well why kids flee Eastlawn Drive & mothers like Mildred. But then, while looking for Robbie's boyfriend Booby Caldwell, he finds the boy's corpse & suddenly, Robbie's disappearance looks more ominous.

He backtracks the kids to a local guitar god/guru named Theo Clinger and a degenerate socialite, Irene Croft. But Croft is protected by a gangster, albeit a hyper-polite one, and Clinger has a Manson family style farm in Kentucky with armed guards. So getting Robbie back is not going to be easy.

Valin hits all the right notes here & with similes like this one, the farm was "a fenced in field with a lumpy dirt access road cutting through it like a keloid scar", you know you're in the hands of a pro. Personally, I believe that this is the best of the modern private eye series.

GRADE: A

"Dead End" is fast-paced. It grabbed me with snappy dialogue and a plot that kept me guessing until the finish.

The author, a retired surgeon, wastes no time serving up the first victim in this suspense-filled police procedural. Set in Northeast Ohio, this book makes for an entertaining and satisfying read. There are unexplained deaths with similarities and it's up to homicide detective Al Maharos to connect the dots and solve puzzle. Along the way he finds that most of the clues all lead to the same destination...a Dead End. Highly recommended.

This authors first novel was spellbinding. I highly reccommend this book to anyone that like thrillers, or stories about police work and ciminals. We follow one police officer through his investigation of what starts out to be one murder, but soon appears to be several murders that are in some way connected, but what way? Following the investigation, the officer discoveres that two of them had a definant connection, which made him persue that somewhere, they were all connected. He has help, one officer from another county, a woman whom he becomes involved with in a personal manner as well as professional, and several male officers from his own precinct. He is under pressure to solve the crimes. We follow from the beginning to the end of his investigation, and have a little surprise in store near the end. The characters were strong willed. The story moved along smoothly. And once again, justice prevails. Fantastic story ! Lets have another one Mr. Friedman!

This authors first novel was spellbinding. I highly reccommend this book to anyone that like thrillers, or stories about police work and ciminals. We follow one police officer through his investigation of what starts out to be one murder, but soon appears to be several murders that are in some way connected, but what way? Following the investigation, the officer discoveres that two of them had a definant connection, which made him persue that somewhere, they were all connected. He has help, one officer from another county, a woman whom he becomes involved with in a personal manner as well as professional, and several male officers from his own precinct. He is under pressure to solve the crimes. We follow from the beginning to the end of his investigation, and have a little surprise in store near the end. The characters were strong willed. The story moved along smoothly. And once again, justice prevails. Fantastic story ! Lets have another one Mr. Friedman!

I can only echo the support of the other reviewers. As a former Ohio resident, I grew up with Dick's insightful forecasts. Now every time I return for a visit, I always tune in to channel 8 to catch Goddard. This last visit, I happened upon this book and find it filled with useful information, history, and trivia - even great cartooning! Even if you don't live in NE Ohio, you will learn something from this great publication.

Let's face it! Northeast Ohio weather sucks! Earthquakes? Yeah, we've had them! Floods? Them, too! Hurricanes? Yep, really! And tornados and sunless months that rival Seattle's and of course, lake-effect anythings... BUT...! NOW we have Dick Goddard's Almanac! So while it may be in the 100s or in the minus 20s out there, we can seek comfort that Dick Goddard has said once, not too long ago, it really was a lot worse! What a marvelous work Goddard's given us! It's a true gem in the crown of NE Ohio's premier weatherman! The rest of the world? Suffer your pestilences without clues! We've got The Word from Goddard to guide us through them!

For those of us who must endure the hodge-podge of weather here in NE OH and have come to depend upon and trust the weather guru, Dick Goddard, you'll love his book. Chock full of valuable month-by-month info and stats, as well as loads of interesting weather stories from our area and from around the world. Also contains lots of amusing cartoons by Goddard himself. If you are interested in the weather, you'll be sure and find something of interest in Dick's book. Enjoyable and informative reading.

This book is really excellent. I have my own book and just ordered one for my sister. There is so much history in this book, plus so many other interesting facts and figures that it has to be a must for any weather buff. If anyone wants to watch a good TV meteorologist and you are out of the TV8 viewing area, come up to N.E.Ohio and tune into Fox8 and watch him. He is truely the best.

Excellant reading material.
The author included his reader by capturing the mind, taking you on the journey as his co driver.

The author is a Mennonite, technically an outsider, but by virtue of the fact that the Amish have entrusted him to drive them about in his car when they have a pressing need for such a service, he has an intimate insider's view of the Amish people. I found his accounts to be quite fascinating; short and clearly written, they really give one an appreciation for the perseverance of the Amish people in our modern and technological world. Really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who wants better understanding of what these people are really like.

This is a gorgeous book, written by someone who cares about his subject matter. This book has all the charming qualities that make a great memoir. Butterfield obviously is not a writer, but he jumps into the world and makes this unique subculture familiar and beautiful for the reader.

While showing respect for the views and privacy of Amish individuals, Doyle Yoder captures the beauty, simplicity, as well as the complexities of their lives and cow paddies.

This is a brilliant piece of work by one of the most advanced thinkers of our time. If you are interested and knowledgeable in the field of consciousness studies and you have not read this book, you absolutely must read it. If you are not knowledgeable in this area but are still interested, I strongly suggest you read, "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. It explains some of these ideas in language everyone can understand. It is also a brilliant book! Happy reading!

Jean Gebser does not get the same kind of exposure as Heidegger or Jung, but his thinking belongs to, and organically evolves out of, the tradition of German thinking that began with Goethe and Kant and continues right down through Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Rudolf Steiner, Oswald Spengler and others. And what this tradition of thought has common to it is the notion that there is no such thing as an object that is not conditioned by the phenomenological faculties of the subject. Kant, Schopenhauer, Husserl and Heidegger resolve this problem in various ways, but with each of them, it is the subject, not the object, that is of overriding philosophical importance in our experience of the world around us.

What Gebser tried to do in this book was to give a kind of phenomenological grounding to the human being's experience of the world not in terms of Kantian categories, but in terms of various evolutionarily derived structures of conscious which the human bears within itself. That is to say, earlier consciousness structures, such as those of tribal man or literate man of the high Bronze Age civilizations, do not just disappear, but sleep latently within the psyche as valid experiential modes unto themselves. Certain life experiences will activate and call forth these modalities, and once the consciousness structure has been activated, it actually changes the very physics of the experiences which the subject has. In the Magical consciousness structure, for example, space and time are a point-like unity in which there are no dimensions, since the world is intricately interconnected through magical pathways like the songlines of aboriginal Australia. Magic actually, really does work when this consciousness is activated (hence the reality of synchronicities and the like). The rational consciousness structure has its own laws, too, and the structure of its interior is that of a three dimensional world in which time and space are radically distinct from one another, and in which the subject and the object are locked into a fierce opposition. Magic is invalidated within this highly differentiated structure, which is evolutionarily late, since this consciousness is something that always evolves in late phases of culture or in the history of civilization generally speaking, just as the intellect does not function fully in accordance with its own powers until one reaches maturity.

Gebser's philosophy is a wonderful antidote to Jungian typology and formulae, since he creates a kind of philosophical architecture out of the collective unconscious, while leaving the theory of archetypes behind. Gebser, however, is no Jungian, and despite his having taught at the Jung Institute in Switzerland, never was one.

Gebser's philosophy also evolved as a kind of antidote to the pessimism of Spengler's vision in The Decline of the West. What Spengler missed was the advent of the aperspectival epoch that began to emerge during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Whereas Spengler experienced the decline of European culture forms--such as the abolishment of perspective in painting, or the leaving behind of Newtonian physics in Einstein--Gebser realized that what was really going on was the transcendence of the Rational consciousness structure and the emergence of a supra- (not ir- or non-) rational consciousness in which the laws of the Mental structure were in process of being relativized to a specific experiential domain, just as Einstein's physics relativized the applicability of Newtonian laws to a specific domain of validity. Thus, the Decline of the West is really about the Decline of the perspectival (i.e. late rational) consciousness structure, and this is where Gebser's philosophy begins. (Perhaps not coincidentally, it is also where Marshall McLuhan saw a shift into the electric modality of culture; indeed, McLuhan and Gebser have a great deal in common when one looks closely at their ideas.)

In short, if you are interested in the development of Western, and particularly Germanic philosophy, then you cannot afford to ignore Gebser. Academics may do so for some time to come, since the spiritual implications of his Integral structure makes them uneasy. And what also repels academics about Gebser is the fact that he has been taken up by New Agers like Ken Wilber (who, as is so often the case with Wilber, thoroughly misunderstands him) and Richard Tarnas, with whom academics want absolutely nothing to do. And who can blame them? The New Age kitsch of such "thinkers" is a mediocratization of philosophy and all it does is sully the image of such true geniuses as Rudolf Steiner and Jean Gebser in the public's perception.

Try Gebser. You'll like him. But you shouldn't try reading around him with "substitute" works by Georg Feurstein or Ken Wilber. These thinkers are not good representatives of Gebser's thought, since they bring their own private agendas to bear upon him, and end up distorting his ideas. To really experience the dazzling brilliance of this man's mind, you must read his dense prose for yourself. Preferably with a strong cup of coffee in hand.
--John David Ebert,
author of Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society

Hans Gruenig has given an excellent overview of Gebser's monumental work. My review offers a sort of color commentary to augment Gruenig's words. The Ever-Present Origin, which has a generic-looking cover, is an extraordinarily rich survey of art, science, culture, and symbolism from an author who achieved more than scholarly excellence. In a letter written to Georg Feuerstein, Gebser acknowledged achieving satori (see the Feuerstein book cited by Gruenig). A transcendent consciousness shines through this book. One of its highlights is Gebser's scholarly survey of the evolution of soul. Gebser's vision was formed in part through his friendship and acquaintence with many of the leading people of his time, including Einstein, Picasso, and Jung. Although he taught for awhile at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, he asserts an independent vision. An essential Gebserian contribution is his subsuming of the scientific worldview. That worldview crystallized with the linear perspective geometry of the Italian Renaissance, a drawing technique that artificially separated subject and object. Gebser convincingly demonstrates the emergence of an integral consciousness where the time and space of "objectivity" no longer offer an adequate description of our world or personal experience. This book is a masterpiece, written in simple, somewhat repetitive language. It is quite readable, though a bit awkward in translation.

This book is not a light read. However it is a fascinating read penned by one of Europe's hidden philosophical treasures: Jean Gebser. The Ever-Present Origin is a translation of _Ursprung und Gegenwart_, a book which was published in German in two parts around 1949 and 1953. The central contribution of this book is Gebser's analysis of the history of culture -- mainly but not exclusively Western culture -- in terms of the predominance of different modes of consciousness. Gebser details five structures of consciousness: the archaic, the magical, the mythical, the mental, and the integral (or aperspectival). His theory seems to be that these structures unfold in a sequential but non-linear fashion (i.e. in quantum increases in the self-transparency of consciousness), and have different kinds of characteristic ways of experiencing self, other, and world. With each leap, the previous structures of consciousness are superceded and yet retained in a subordinate fashion. Meanwhile, the other structures lie largely latent and untapped. VERY briefly, the archaic is instinctual and primitive. The magical is tribal and involves participation mystique. The mythical is imaginative and often involves seeing through complementary polarities (darkness and light, good and evil). The mental is analytical, dualistic, and skeptical of the other structures of consciousness. And the integral structure allows for a re-membering of all of the structures of consciousness without the problematic reification of their respective "worlds". The integral or aperspectival structure additionally involves going beyond the previous four structures in something akin to Buddhist or Christian (a la Meister Eckhart) enlightenment as understood in terms of the perennial philosophy. If you're looking for an easier read, Georg Feuerstein's introduction to Gebser (titled _Structures of Consciousness: The Genius of Jean Gebser_) is a good place to start. If you're looking for a place to continue similar explorations, much of Ken Wilbur's work is largely based on synthesizing Gebser's theory of structures of consciousness with other developmental models. [I give Wilbur and A for effort, but I am very skeptical about a number of his syntheses.]

I sent Financial Basics with my nephew to college. It's a very practical money-management guide for students that generously uses student stories to illustrate the author's points. Most impressive to me is the section that reminds students that their credit rating, good or bad, will follow them after college graduation. She provides contact information for credit rating companies so students can view their own credit history.

I'm a graduate student, and I got "Financial Basics" as a resource for a project I did last quarter. My project centered around measuring college students' financial awareness and proactiveness.

Book was an easy, non-threatening read. I started and finished "Financial Basics" during a 2.5 hour plane ride.

Great thing about the book is that you don't necessarily have to be a student (or former student) to benefit from the advice Knox presents. Everyone interviewed for the book had differing financial situations and education--from the financially clueless to the overly stingy and everywhere in between. Instead of trying to fit everyone into one black-and-white financial solution, she gave easy-to-follow, general tips on money management, credit card responsibility, and savings.

I am a professional financial advisor and have had the opportunity to work with many clients in their 40's and beyond who haven't mastered the basics presented here by Knox. How I wish they had this book 20 years earlier to get them started on the right path - the time lost really hurts. The money management lessons are timeless, straightforward and essential for everyone, especially young adults striking out on their own. The writing is special - stories that help students relate (and make them want to keep reading). The lessons are doled out gently and casually, not more preaching. All-in-all, an excellent resource. I plan to give it to my clients' kids as they hit high school.

Also available in a hardcover edition (0814290785, $39.95), Financial Basics: A Money-Management Guide For Students by certified public account, financial planner, and former university administrator and teacher Susan Knox shares hard-learned lessons about managing money when in college. Practical solutions to common money problems faced by students and family, as well as flexible money-management tips, tricks, and techniques for readers accustomed to handling their money in any of a variety of styles fill this solid, information-packed resource. An absolute must-have for any young adult entering the complex world of financial matters, especially when attending school far away from home.