Bailey Books

Very informative and well written. I learned many new things about mandalas. Well worth purchasing.

Unlike most who will ever know the wonder of holding Mandala: Journey to the Center, I was drawn into the work via its text, when first-time author Bailey Cunningham asked for some writing feedback. Following Bailey's progress from the outlining stage through drafts and revisions, I experienced an ever deepening and widening sense of wonder and delight in the world we share. This is a world in tension with itself, spinning and weaving harmony from the interplay of opposing elements: the world inside myself, mirroring the world outside; the world outside myself, showing myself to me. A world of visible symbols, ringing with invisible truths; a world where facts point to something beyond themselves, and where a simple change in perspective decides what is center and what is perimeter. A world where "spirituality" and "practicality" know no dividing line.

Unlike most who return to the pages of the book again and again, finding something new each and every time, the photographs and illustrations were unseen by me until I'd read the complete text - but, oh, what happened then! From a womb of words, the book had come into full life with a body dancing with mind-blowing colors and forms.

I regret the "Look Inside" offered on this page cannot reveal the true colors, sharpness and vibrancy of the images (more than 400 of them!) contained within. I would buy this book for the images alone; they are nothing short of magnificent. (Mandala: Journey to the Center is perfect for gift-giving for this very reason.)

The beauty of the book is magnified by its practical application, however, and I highly recommend this work to educators. The mandala is an excellent tool for integrated studies, and because students can see how otherwise "dry" elements combine to make a meaningful whole, mathematics, physical and social sciences, and even language arts spring to life in the classroom, encouraging learning of these topics simultaneously with furthering understanding of self in relationship to the work at hand.

If there is a definitive book on the mandala, Mandala: Journey to the Center is it. I give it my highest recommendation.

What a delight. I'm so glad I found it - or "it" found me. I have been doing this type of drawing for a number of years, and I have also used it in my classroom. The results with children were phenomenal. Those who participated increased their success levels exponentially. This book would have been wonderful for them to see the beauty that is possible in such a drawing. We used the website listed, but the book would have been great for them to have an actual hands on experience. Wow.

One of the best books I have in my collection now, stunning. There is so much information in here. I'd be obliged if I could change the stars to *5* - when you edit a review, the stars reduce to 1 again ! I had *5* but since then, I would give the book even more if I could !! :-)))

This is a treasure trove of mandalas from both the natural world and the mind's eye of talented artists. I was fascinated by the history of mandalas and the creativity in the richly illustrated mandalas that the book contains -- true eye candy for the mind! This book worked for me on many levels: historical, natural, intellectual and spiritual. It is as masterfully written as it is illustrated. Thank you Bailey Cunningham and DK Publishing for this best book on mandalas!

Overall, I enjoyed this novel. Innowen and Razkili (Razkili, especially, as I'm a sucker for devotion and he has it in spades) are very likable characters and the world created here is dark and interesting. I'll admit it did take me a little bit to get into the book--the initial hook doesn't carry well beyond the first chapter--and I even put it aside for a while, unsure if I'd give it another go. But, I did pick it back up and before long was sucked in--in a way the first several chapters hadn't grab me.

Admittedly, the plot is a bit weak--it's more of a personal quest on the part of Innowen than a true plot--but it still makes the novel work, nonetheless. And the point in which Innowen breaks away and seeks his quest alone--finding the witch who both blessed and cursed him with the ability to walk--the novel slows down considerably. The 3 or 4 chapters that deal with his travel, encounters and seeking the witch could have been handled in about a half of chapter far more potently and effectively. As it was, very little happens during these chapters and it's a long drawn out phase of the book. That said, it is worth getting through for the exciting push towards the end.

I would have liked to see a more definitive declaration between Innowen and Razkili. While you never doubt the love that exists between them, there's very little emotional payoff for all the underlying sexual tension that exists earlier in the book. However, for a quality relationship between two men that does develop into more (if lacking in any clear, 'yes, they did it'), Innowen and Razkili (called Rascal (did I mention how much I liked him?)) have it.

From a writing standpoint, there are some vivid and beautiful descriptions, complicated and compelling relationships, and a fair amount of political push and pull that is clearly done (as political conflicts in novels are too often fuzzy). All threads are tied up in the end, and not in annoying and perfect ways either, which is nice. If I do have to say something outright negative, it's that the book isn't exactly gripping, but I couldn't really put my finger on why. It may have just been due to the weakness of the plot, but you're pulled through by the characters. It's a good read, certainly, but I couldn't call it a compelling one, which is why I gave it 4 stars.

Shadowdance was my first introduction to the world of SciFi & Fantasy. Few books I've read have brought both tears and joy to my eyes. I loved Robin's poetic words to describe ordinary objects and the way the author took me to the dark side of sex and mankind. Robin's character development and use of gay overtones added a beautiful dimension to the fantasy. The love between Innowen and Razkilli gave me, a gay reader, an emotional feeling I could identify with.

I just found and read this book, and I'm completely in awe. It's dark and grim, and yet ultimately uplifting. Bailey's prose is tight and lush. His scenes are visual and intense, and he sustains a level of poetry throughout the entire book that few writers achieve. The magic is subtle and beautiful. No lightning bolts shooting from fingertips here, no fireballs or flashy stuff. In fact, one of the things I like best about this book is that it completely avoids all the cliches of most fantasy. I really like the bronze-age setting, and Bailey's research really shows. But most of all, I like the intensity of the building relationship between Innowen and Razkili. Like everything else about this book, the characters are subtle. They develop and grow as the story progresses. This book is definitely one to keep and reread again and again, and I'm delighted to have discovered this author.

Mixed are my impressions on this most peculiar book: the five stars is homage to the writer's skill and originality.

Set in a world clearly going back to a pre-historical Greece, a fact supported also by the choice of garments, warfares and proper names, this book stands out of the several novelizations of past history because of the supernatural touch in it.

The plot itself is not particularly interesting: the quest of the main character, a crippled boy healed by a mysterious witch, for his past and for his true self. As another reviewer pointed out the plot twists are such as to shame any soap opera writer and this flaw taints the novel so much as to make it very slow at times.

On the other hand we are faced with a most talented writer: his descriptions are minute, detailed to the point of being fastidious. His use of the language is simply beautiful: night and shadow are a constant background but every description he conceives is lyrical at least. Mr Bailey pays much attention to all everyday aspects of life but in a way he manages to sublimate them into poetical images.

His treatment of characters is a subtle one: in a most dark, ambiguous, grim atmosphere which stifles even the most gruesome deaths (and there is a lot of violence in this book, only muted) Innowen and the others slide silently as if afraid to stir the wrath of the rarely mentioned but omnipresent gods of their land.
Only in time we are explicitly told that the deep attachment of Innowen and Razkili is love: though we understand this love to be an extremely passionate one, we watch it on tip toe, fearful of disturbing the hero while he discovers he does not love the witch as he believed before and he slowly comes to admit he cares for his friend and companion of five years. By the way here is a major contradiction: in this world homosexuality is no issue for anyone and still Innowen seems ashamed to love his companion: I guess Mr Bailey wanted this to be a fear to love in general but he omitted any explanation and it looks like he fears his love of men.
Luckily enough he does not forget anything else and though sex between the two is never graphic, well it is never mentioned as such, actually, we look with pleasure at the growing intimacy of their touching.

An original, interesting read suited for anyone (gay or straight) who is at least 16 y.o. provided s/he has some superficial knowledge of history and a love for beautiful writing.

Delightful mind morsel. Innowen and Razkili are very lovable main characters, the plot is thrilling, the beauty of it will leave you floating in a cloud of euphoria for days. My only gripe is, after I finished the book, I lusted for more about the lovers. Dangit, they never did the deed...

The author obviosly has just been a scholor of the Bailey material and has no first hand experience of the realms of creation she speaks about. I found her book very disappointing especially after it had been given 5 stars on amazon.

The author takes the prolific and profound material of Alice A. Bailey's 20th century texts and clearly translates them for the novice as well as the practiced spiritual seeker. Kathy Newburn brings a clearer understanding to a daunting topic. "A Planetary Awakening" invites one to alter oneself "from the inside out" by providing an interior oasis while surrounded by exterior chaos.

Kathy Newburn's "A Planetary Awakening" calls us to action and offers pathways to service and recognition of purpose. It is a call to move from our individual truths towards a larger compelling truth. It was refreshing and inspiring to hear a positive evolutionary perspective versus the doom and gloom that permeates these difficult times. It gives rhyme and reason to "the happenings of the times," and solutions for healing that give birth to "A Planetary Awakening." Susan MacNeil, Ph.D.

Whenever a person who has worked extensively in a field of knowledge stops to write a book about the nuggets that have been gleaned, presenting it with clarity of thought, it is a gift. This book is a gift. It is as if we went up to the author and asked, "so, we missed the last couple of decades that you put into the field, but can you just maybe tell us simply what we need to know? Will you catch us up?" A gift. I am thankful.

Kathy Newburn dedicates her book to a new generation of seekers, and for good reason. Having been a student of the Alice Bailey books for many years, I can vouch for how well A Planetary Awakening introduces the reader to the basic ideas contained in Alice Bailey's many volumes. Newburn's book is well written, easy to read and, best of all, it is very simple to find and do the recommended meditations at the back of the book. If you are a new seeker on the spiritual path, or even an old one, this is a book to read and use.

Short version:
There is great wisdom here. There is much error here. Let the reader beware! Let the reader decide! Instead of this book I recommend:

The Secret Things of God: Unlocking the Treasures Reserved for You

First Things First

Boundaries

Time Power: The Internationally Acclaimed Insight On Time Management System (8 Audio Cassettes)

Nine Things You Simply Must Do: To Succeed in Love and Life

Long version:
This book is a "lite" intro into Psychology of Mind (POM) [aka "Health Realization (HR)"] concepts disguised as a self-help book. My biggest complaint about this book is that the author isn't upfront about this (more on this later). I wasn't familiar with POM/HR so after I finished the book I did a little research. The following excerpt is from Wikipedia:

"[POM]/HR focuses on the nature of thought and how it affects one's experience of the world. Students of HR are taught that they can change how they react to their circumstances by becoming aware that they are creating their own experience as they respond to their thoughts, and by connecting to their "innate health" and "inner wisdom""

As an Evangelical Christian I find much to love and much to love about this - after all the Bible DOES say, "As a man thinks so he is." (Proverbs 23:7), So the problem, as usual, isn't the concept as much as the application. Actually the bigger problem is that the POM/HR movement has untethered this concept from any type of moral mooring. As a result, you end up with moral and cultural relativism to the extreme.

To say, that in the POM/HR world view "Anything goes!" would be an understatement. For example this book treats witchcraft (Tarot Cards), Transcendental Meditation (though it's implied not explicitly named), Native American Religions (Shamanism, again not named), as well as traditional religions as if they're all the same and all of equal value simply because they're "spiritual".

Ditto for moral systems. It's not that POM/HR moral compass is broken, it simply doesn't exist! In fact, the idea of moral absolutes is lightly railed against in many of the stories in this book as "too limiting for the truly enlightened like us!".

Further, even a brief perusal of POM/HR websites would seem to indicate they also adhere to the Post Modern, "We'll tolerate anything except intolerance" and "We don't judge anything except judgment" philosophy. Since the body of empirical data repudiates both positions -- to be fully consistent with them would result in a lawless society -- POM/HR has a long way to go here! Of course if you factor the Infinite Personal God out of the equation (since God is the source and definer of ultimate reality) this "anything goes!" perspective is the only logical conclusion.

The last problem that I have with this book is that Joseph Bailey wasn't completely open and honest about it being POM/HR literature. Let's call this behavior what it is - deception. It reminds me of Marijuana - it's a gateway drug to the much harder, much more destructive toxins that follow. And, "Kid, the first one's free!"

Now the reader may be wondering why since this book is so at odds with the reviewer's core values that he didn't give it less than 3-stars. Well, simply put, it's because despite it's flaws this book could be of great benefit if read with discerning eyes. There ARE diamonds here but they're mixed in fools gold and various and sundry toxics. In the end, I did feel like I benefited from the book because it made me slow down and evaluate HOW I think and act much of the time. BUT it required MUCH care and a LOT of processing and mental parsing to extract the nuggets from the "stuff".

In the end, I'm torn over if I should steer people to this book or steer them away from it. Friend, it's your money and this review explains my experience with the book. So in the end, I will leave it to you to decide if it's worth the penny (plus shipping) that most people are offering their used copies for.

However as a good alternative to this book I would suggest Dr. Henry Cloud's book, The Secret Things of God: Unlocking the Treasures Reserved for You

God bless us one and all!

I had high hopes for this book after a friend recommended it to me. Overall, I was disappointed. My husband read it and felt the same. We both felt the collection of experiences in the book basically just said 'don't worry, be happy' over and over again, but we never found any real inspiration or insight into how to make that happen.

Let's face it. There is a lot of hype on the self-help book aisle. I was very sceptical, but I have to admit that this little book has been personally beneficial to me.

I think that its title is perhaps a bit misleading. This is not a book that describes how to manage one's time so that slowing down is possible through better priorities, goals, and organization. What the book is really about is slowing down *your mind*. I tried the techniques. I sleep at night now. I am able to respond to life's crises more calmly. Anxiety, worry and panic have given way to mental peace.

Bottom line: If you deal with stress and you feel that it is getting the better of you to the point where you think something has got to give, then this book is for you. It is not going to rid you of the complications of life, but it will help you manage, cope, and channel your stress so that you end up ruling it instead of it ruling you.

One of the biggest problems in many relationships is that there simply isn`t enough time to be together. School interferes, work interferes, the chores of real life interfere. It may seem like a lot of that is out of your control, but in reality there may be ways to better manage your time, and get more enjoyment out of the time you do have together. This book is a quick read, has a lot of real-world examples, and in the end gives suggestions that are easy to implement and make a ton of sense. I highly recommend it!

Every once in awhile, you find a book that makes time stand still. One that you can't wait to get to the end but are so sad when you reach it! This book provides the opportunity to shift your personal paradigm and change your experience of each moment, event. I put the principles to work immediately, jumped into one of my typically hectic days and had such a different experience. Invest the time and the few dollars, it is definately worthwhile. Give it to others in your world who are frantic and trying to run faster to catch up..... Kudos & thank you, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Carlson

Pamela runs a Café by day. After midnight, she does tarot readings for various supernatural individuals (a cat, a vampire, a ghost, a werewolf). The reading is the setup for a story of the client's life and problems. Most of her clients are evil whiners of the "I hurt my hand hitting someone" type. But we also have to interrupt their stories four or five times to have Pamela turn over the next tarot card and "predict" the next part of their story, which is if possible even more annoying.

Story after story recounts the monotonous themes of sadism, sexual abuse, and domination -- between master and slave, father and adopted son, brother and sister, creator and "living doll", kidnapper and prisoner, stalker and ex-best-chum. It gets seriously . . . boring! "I was too brutal," one pedophile/torturer/rapist/mass-murderer concedes gallantly. Pamela mildly agrees he should have had more perspective. "Love" as domination/ownership/abuse is totally okay so long as it is not "too brutal." The weak are punished for protesting or asserting themselves, but offered sympathy to the extent they are completely submissive (doll), self-abnegating (cat), or repentant of prior assertiveness (werewolf).

The blurb for this comic squeals that it has "a bishonen factor through the roof," but be warned that unless you like watching those "bishonen" strike unintentionally amusing drugged-out hooker poses, or slobbering over scared and skinny young boys, they won't do much for you. Like the "jester" in one tale, most characters resemble soulless dolls dancing to the tune of a bored sadist. The males are devoid of even the smallest spark of masculinity, and the females all seem to be on laudanum, particularly Pamela. I won't reveal what her Ultimate Goal is, but the revelation that her life is a meaningless burden to her comes as NO SURPRISE WHATSOEVER.

Some have compared this to Matsuri Akino's PET SHOP OF HORRORS, but TTC completely lacks PET SHOP's cleverness, horror, and power to unsettle on the one hand, and its well-observed characterization, snarky humor, and deeply felt (if ironic) humanism on the other. Not to mention its ability to keep you awake. One story that attempts a PET SHOP-style clever twist (vampire) succeeds only in being so stupid as to be funny (which was actually a really nice change, don't get me wrong).

If you like Gothic shoujo, you can do better. XXXHOLIC features a similar "shop" setup with a mysterious proprietress and her cursed boy sidekick. But the art is far superior, the proprietress is a strong, vibrant woman who knows how to crack a smile, and the focus is on the boy's growth and empowerment rather than on prurient sadism.

The editorial reviewer who recommends this to tween girls doubtless based this opinion on the first book only, which goes easier on romanticized abuse, has a cute-sprite story which is not exactly typical, and gives us the closest thing to a strong female character in the series. Volume 2 will give you a better idea of what the series has to offer, and is the first to introduce ongoing plot elements (but begins halfway through a story carried over from Book 1).

I picked up this Manhwa because the art was just too beautiful. I didn't even care about the story because I wanted to study Sang Sun Park's drawings to help improve my own drawing. I did enjoy the storyline and I have been scrambling to catch up all the copies up to volume 5. Volume 6 is supposed to release this month, woohoo! The story is about a mysterious and very loveable clairevoyant woman name Pamela who has opened a cafe where she reads Tarot for a host of unusual customers, from vampires to Sidhe (dark fairy folk) and tree spirits. At the same time, Pamela's interesting history is slowly unveiled. I can't tear my eyes away from all of the jaw-dropping beauties (male and female) that grace the pages.

This manga was truly an interesting read. The author, Sang-Sun Park, has a very unique art style, somewhat goth. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. And the story was very compelling, and unexpected at times. It's about Pamela, the owner of the Tarot Cafè. Not only does she run the cafè, but she also helps supernatural beings.

This was the first book I had read by Sang-Sun Park. (She also wrote Les Bijoux, and Ark Angels). I really liked it, and probably will buy volume 2, and maybe one of her other books.
I would definetly recommend this book to you! It is very much worth your money.

If ever I were to name off a more under-appreciated manga series, it would be The Tarot Cafe.

Each manga volume compiles several, separate stories of customers who come in to the cafe to have a tarot reading with the cafe's elusive owner, Pamela. Cleverly interwined within these highly enjoyable, smaller stories is the bigger story - the story of our heroine, Pamela, and the answers to questions such as why is she so elusive? Why does she give these tarot readings anyways? Why does she not accept money as payment and only small marble balls? What is she? In a way, it follows a formula set up by manga series such as Petshop of Horrors: little stories integrated and wound together to create a much bigger story than you or I could imagine.

The little stories within The Tarot Cafe can be absolutely heart-rendering and sometimes hold more impact than a pivotal moment in a linear shoujo series. The characterization is so elusively deep that after reading a volume of The Tarot Cafe, I feel like I've just arrived from a long, full journey. Also it's nice that the manga takes a backseat to damsel-like heroines, because Pamela is anything but.

The artwork on display definitely gives an added advantage. The artwork is so incredibly detailed down to the right-most eyelash. It still awe-strucks me everytime. I have only read perhaps one manga series that could rival such detail, but overall the artwork in this manga takes the cake. Every character is a model of beauty in his or her own way, the concept of which is amazing to see.

This manga series really has the full package - a story riddled with mysteries but plentiful with enjoyable stories that distract you from any frustrations you might feel with the mysteries, interesting characters which double as gorgeous eye-candy, and glamorously over-the-top artwork. I would reccomend this to ANYone who reads manga, regardless of what genre they prefer, because really, anyone who reads manga can appreciate this series.

When I first picked up this book I took one look at the drawing style and layout of the pictures and put it back on the shelf. I eventually bought the first volume only because I loved Park's other series - Ark Angels

I then read it and was literally blown away. Park's illustrations are the most beautiful I have seen since the Angel Sanctuary series, a mixture of gothic and art nouveau. The detail that she puts in is amazing. Every picture is stylised and lovingly crafted.

The first volume is made up of short stories like Pet Shop of Horrors as described through tarot card readings. Each story is a lesson is love - full of anguish, emotion, sacrifice. For those who have read Loveless, you may love the first story about a cat demon. All characters are beautiful and sexy, but Park shows that beauty on the outside is not always reflected inside. Park pulls of the difficult task of introducing new characters in her short stories and making us care for them.

Each volume gets better and better as it goes on. The second volume concentrates on the story of a werewolf boy and starts to explain the mysterious background of the tarot card reader Pamela. Volume three concentrates on a sultan who has fallen in love with his servant and Pamela's own story. The fourth explains Pamela's connection with Belus. It also has the story of a step daughter confined to an attic by her wicked step mother and the tale of a musician who has promised his soul to a sprite. With so many gorgeous guys this is definitely a manwha for girls to read. However, how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy shonen-ai. If you love it like me then you too will be addicted to this series as Park creates imaginative and heart-wrending shonen-ai stories as well as many other types of love stories.

I loved this and hope you do to.

Perhaps mine is a case of mismanaged expectations, but I found this collection to be a merely average entry in the literary short story genre. The prose is excellent, of course, and some of the stories stand out, but most of them fail to impress, especially at their endings, which, almost without exception, are marked by forced poetry and profundity, as if Trevor felt that the story didn't hold well enough together on its own and needed an expository coda.

Overall, good but not great. Try some of his other stuff.

William Trevor guides us through streets and dank parlors and weakly lighted public places where his characters guard or choose to unravel those darker aspects of living he understands so well. In A BIT ON THE SIDE Trevor has written twelve short stories that could have been written by no one else. His prodigious gifts as a writer make him privy to the musings we all hold in private, knowing that voicing them would doubtless find misunderstanding glances in parting eyes of the people in retreat from our confessions.

Where does Trevor find these thoughts, much less these subtly drawn characters? In lonely corner tables in pubs, in the shy fears of wives of husbands departed in body or in spirit, in expectations of young Irish girls dreaming of better lives in America, or of poor pregnant mothers willing to offer their incipient child for adoption to spare their husband's jobless humiliation?

While William Trevor is a demanding author, one who graces his stories with subtle time lapses or changes that require the reader to be on the alert for the assured nuances of his craft, he is never less than amazing in his ability to paint portraits of people so odd in their ordinariness that ending a short story does not allow us to leave them alone. This is writing of the highest order - challenging, enriching, plangently longing, unforgettable. These are twelve treasures. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, February 2005

Trevor, as usual, writes stories marked first of all by a startling realism of surface. The sights, sounds, smells of the external world are precisely captured and rendered. We see for instance the central female character of "A Bit On The Side" pecking away at a plastic wrapped salad from a nearby Pret a Manger, while her male companion eats a sandwich smelling faintly of marmite with lettuce leaves overhanging its edges. What we know, but the male companion can't, is that the woman continuing to eat her salad actually has no appetite for it. In such a minor detail lies the open sesame to Trevor's art. He takes the reader on a journey into the interior lives of his forlorn characters, showing us that what they reveal to others even in minor matters may be often less than the truth or even the opposite of it. In "Sitting With The Dead," a second example, the central figure Emily tells the visiting Legion of Mary sisters a lot but finally far less about her valuation of her late husband than we the readers are allowed to know. Trevor consistently exposes to his readers, then, that gap which renders people frequently opaque to one another and is in major matters at the core of their ultimate oddity, even mysteriousness. His is artistic fiction of the highest order.

I have read many great short-story collections, but this one is the best I have read in a very long time. A Bit on the Side showcases several of the darkest, bleakest, most thought provoking and haunting short stories out there. William Trevor has delved into human emotion in a way that most short-story writers aren't able to convey in a few pages. Some of the stories touched me, others disturbed me. And that is what I love about this collection. Trevor made me FEEL for the characters. A book is definitely a keeper when the language is so palpable it almost jumps out of the pages. My favorite stories are "Sitting with the Dead," "Justina's Priest," "Traditions," and "A Bit on the Side." I haven't read Trevor's previous efforts, but I will definitely give them a whirl. I cannot recommend A Bit on the Side: Stories enough.

William Trevor is surely one of the most talented current writers of fiction, and a remarkable master of the short story form. And we find him at his best in "A Bit On the Side." His work is subtle, disquieting, unnerving, with a distinct tendency to transmute the fictional world he's constructing, that you thought you understood, into something quite different: and he does it right before your very eyes. Some of these stories are set in the United Kingdom, some in Ireland, as befits the work of an Irishman resident in the U.K.; a man never quite at home anywhere.

He gives us a woman waiting at a theater bar for a blind date she's going to regret meeting; a private midlands boys'school where nothing is as it should be; a hotel waiter who takes his job way too seriously.

And in his title story,of which we have certain expectations based on the world as we know it: well, he just turns them upside down. His people are sometimes kinder than you might expect, often nastier, but seldom what you thought you were getting.

With all the concern about civil liberties and national security, it's important to point out there's special challenges on both sides between leaders who want increased authority for security measures and those who would protect individual privacy in the process. Here's something different: an alternative which suggests American openness is the root of America's ills - but that MORE openness will thwart threats and increase security. Author Bailey is an information technology expert specializing in security and privacy issues: his The Open Society Paradox: Why The 21st Century Calls For More Openness-Not Less makes for intriguing social analysis.

One of the silliest books I have ever read, a major disappointment. Billed as "truly original" and "a new perspective" it is in fact a simple rehash of administration reasons why Americans should give over what is left of their privacy and anonymity piece by piece whenever someone waves the flag and shouts "terrorists are everywhere, we must stop them." The author is a state department consultant and seems to fill every chapter with tidbits of how al Qaeda used the fact that American have freedoms as a reason to erode them. Short-sighted conflict of interest and tunnel vision at work.

This book was recommended to me by a guest speaker I had in my Technology/Terrorism/National Security Law class.

It was well written, and well argued. One of his points seemed to be that people get privacy and anonymity mixed up. I agree with this. People do get this mixed up, anyone who thinks there websurfing is truly private is mistaken, anyone can see you walking down the street. Its because people do not know you that makes you think you are granted privacy, when really you are just anonymous.... I did not agree with him though that we need more openess. I would prefer to have more liberty and actual privacy even if it meant more terrorist attacks or whatever is the fear of the day. The data collection industry is very scary and is a serious threat to everyone's privacy. For the opposite side of the coin read "No Place to Hide" by Robert O'Hara. I am not done with this one yet (another recommendation by the above person) but I agree with his premise alot more, so far.

Overall though I would agree this is well done book, that makes you think about the issue. I would recommend it.

Scott

The book is enlightening. Many people feel that we have to choose between freedom and security for our future. The author argues that we can have both - freedom and security. The author calls this "The Open Society Paradox."

The driver's license is the identifying card that almost everyone uses to exist and navigate in our society. The driver's license is the ticket to acceptability in our society. Bailey explains that getting a paper driver's license is too easy and therefore it is too easy to switch identities.

The author argues for a secure biometric national ID card. He calls this the technologies of openness. He downplays the severe loss of privacy that this would cause. Bailey believes that with this secure national ID card we can be both free and secure. I do not think that he makes his case. He believes that giving up one's privacy does not endanger one's freedom. He is wrong about this. He says openness is coming and we can not stop it.

Political Issues (C-Span 354/1)

I picked up this book intrigued by the title. There is no question in my mind that the balance of openness vs. security is a major question of the time. Today we are seeing more and more people calling for ever increasing security. The paper yesterday said that a new requirement for a drivers license will be to present four forms of ID. Where is a sixteen year old supposed to get four forms of ID?

There is a big flack about issuing drivers licenses to illegal migrant workers from Mexico. Do these people say that we want these people driving without a license. A drivers license is (perhaps was is a better word) supposed to be proof only that the person understands the little driving book. That's good if someone is to drive a car.

This book recognizes the problem of more government control, but says that the constitutional protections are sufficient to say that the Government won't run amuck. In view of the Patriot's Act and the Drug laws that says the carrying of 'significant' amounts of cash is presumptive of drug purchasing intent, I'm not so sure.

The author also puts his faith in an ID card with embedded biometric data. I have one of those. It was issued by the passport people and at selected airports a kiosk would let me come into the country without having to stand in the passport line. After 9/11 they stopped using these machines. Evidently the Government decided that measuring the biometrics of my hand was less secure than having an immigration person ask me a few questions.

A very interesting contribution to the story of our time, I'm just not quite convinced yet.

For a Bailey school book, this one is pretty good, but not that good. At least it has someone besides Liza who figures out what the grown up is. Bailey school kids books would be good if they didn't all follow the same pattern. The most frustrating thing about a Bailey School book is that they never give you the climax. One minute they're telling you about how one of the kids is getting cornerd by the grownup, and the next there telling you about the week after that!!!! It is sooo anoying!

If you like spooky things then you should read "Witches don't do backflips". This book is in the series "The baily school kids".
I like this series because it has lots of books with adventures,mysteries,
and tall tales. I am totally in love with this series because all it's
books are short and can be read in about an hour. I've been reading
these books since 2cd grade and now in 5th I love these books and
i will read them for the rest of my long life!GO BAILY SCHOOL KIDS!!!!!!! :)

You should read Witches Don't Teach Gymnastics because it is magical and exciting. It's magical because when Liza left her gym bag she had to go back to the gym, and then she saw Ms.Brewbaker making a position. It's exciting because when Eddie, Melody, Howie, and Liza find out that Ms.Brewbaker is an actual witch. You should read this book because it is wonderful and amazing

My personal opinion of the book is that it's a very entertaining book, funny, mysterious, and fun to read because it keeps you wanting to know what is going to happen next. I gave this book five stars because it is a very good book. I hope you like it!!!

There are some weird grownups in bailey city. But could the new gymnastic teacher who cast rythmes that come true really be a witch? The Bailey School are going to find out!

The stories are a mixed bag but well worth a look. All I really want to add to other readers' comments, though, is that the book was poorly proofread -- it is riddled with typos. If as a collector that kind of thing bothers you, you should be aware of this.

As a writer and a long-time fan of fantasy literature, I was thrilled to see this collection. Overall, the quality is good. This is a solid, entertaining read. But more, it is a ray of hope for an under- and often mis-represented group of people in genre literature. Hopefully, with the publication of this collection, and it's companion science fiction anthology, we will be seeing more gay and lesbian representation in the "mainstream" markets.

As a writer and a long-time fan of fantasy literature, I was thrilled to see this collection. Overall, the quality is good. This is a solid, entertaining read. But more, it is a ray of hope for an under- and often mis-represented group of people in genre literature. Hopefully, with the publication of this collection, and it's companion science fiction anthology, we will be seeing more gay and lesbian representation in the "mainstream" markets.

Because of its diverse bouquet of erotic undercurrents, BTL: Fantasy is especially adept with wry, bittersweet fantasies - not the swords-and-sorcery type, but touching tales with a modern-supernatural slant. There are all sorts of uplifting motifs here - getting over midlife crises (Antieau's "Desire"), revisiting childhood places ( Thrower's "The Home Town Boy"), dealing with the deaths of friends (Shepherd's "Gary, in the Shadows") and loved ones (Silverthrorne's "The Sound of Angels"), release and spiritual freedom (What's "Beside the Well"), turning back the clock on painful memories (Verona's "Mahu"), and so on.

As far as the subgenres represented in this volume, you'll find very few traditional hack-and-slash stories ("The Stars Are Tears," "Magicked Tricks," and "In Mysterious Ways" being the only three, and they're all comedic). Especially numerous are gritty-dark-urban-modern fantasies along the lines of Don Bassingthwaite's "In Memory of," a tale of two vengeful dragon-brothers vying for fragile human lovers in a city setting. Also numerous are fringe stories that don't quite belong to any single genre because they have so few fictional elements - Matter's "Water Snakes" is an example.

Unfortunately, the settings aren't a very original lot: many stories are set in generic urban environments; there are a couple bare-bones Oriental stories; even the purely imaginary settings (such as the one in Sherman and Kushner's "The Fall of Kings") didn't strike me as especially original.

The writing, however, is uniformly good, if totally unexceptional, fitting well with the characters that behave interestingly but almost never transcend their two-dimensionality. The sexual elements hardly ever seem over the top (though Sheppard's "There Are Things Hidden from the Eyes of the Everyday" is just too much), even if most stories do seem identical from this perspective.

Together with its science fiction counterpart, I consider BTL: Fantasy a quintessential resource for alternative genre fiction.

Sigh. There are so few fantasy novels and stories with interesting gay and lesbian characters (especially lesbian). In a perfect world, this volume of short stories might only be mediocre, but because it's one of the only anthologies of its kind, it's downright wonderful!

There's a wide variety of stories here; my only complaint is that there are really no "classic" fantasies, by which is mean epic, Tolkienesque, etc. This volume was followed by science fiction and horror volumes, and frankly, I think that several of the stories in "Bending the Landscape: Fantasy" should have been included in either sci-fi or horror. There were too many stories which took place in the present day and merely had supernatural elements; some of these were quite good (especially "Water Snakes" by Holly Wade Matter), but they weren't what I expected from a collection labeled "Fantasy."

One great aspect of the collection is the diversity of writers: there are gay men writing about gay men characters, lesbians on lesbians, lesbians on gay men, and straight men and women writing about both gay men and lesbians. It just goes to show that any author can play with gender to create rich, interesting characters and plots.

My personal favorite in the collection was Tanya Huff's "In Mysterious Ways." This and her other stories about the theif Terizan are also collected in "Stealing Magic," another difficult to find item. But if you're looking for a light, fun story, you just can't beat Tanya Huff. "The Fall of the Kings" by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman" also stands out. The authors have recently lengthened it into a novel by the same name. It's a male-male love story set against a backdrop of a Renaissance-like university. "Beside the Well" by Leslie What (which is illustrated on the cover) was another favorite. It is set in ancient China and has a very mythological feel to it. The protagonist takes a stand against her evil mother-in-law and horrible husband by passionately allying herself with the spirit of her husband's first wife. "In Memory Of" by Don Bassingthwaite is my final favorite. It moves easily between the present and past, chronicalling the loves and jealosies of two strangely long-lived brothers. To say anything more would spoil the great suprise ending.

So, if you're gay, lesbian, bi, trans, or just a straight person looking for something different and you ever see this book for a reasonable price, don't hesitate to buy. It is by far one of the most original fantasy anthologies I've read. I just hope that we'll someday see more explorations of diverse sexualities in fantasy literature.

Literature textbooks like these are quite worth the price that you're paying for. First, it lacks the visual colorful photos of another textbooks and focuses in on literature. I am glad to see Philip Roth's story, Conversion of the Jews, to be included in the short story section. Primarily because Roth writes novels, his short stories are few. he should be in the anthologies because he is one of America's foremost writers and most American particularly New Jerseyans don't know who he is. In 2005, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Anyway, I picked this book up at a yard sale. This book is filled with tremendous assortment of authors, writers, and poets like Somerset Maugham, John Updike, James Thurber, William Faulkner, Katherine Mansfield, Toni Cade Bambara, Edgar Allen Poe, Katherine Anne Porter, Jamaica Kincaid, Margaret Atwood, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kate Chopin, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Anne Tyler, Stephen Crane, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., John Steinbeck, Shirley Jackson, Alice Munro, Leo Tolstoi, Raymond Carver, Anton Chekhov, Flannery O'Connor, Ambrose Bierce, Jorge Luis Borges, Willa Cather, Langston Hughes, Franz Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Joyce Carol Oates, Frank O'Connor, Tillie Olsen, Edith Wharton, William Carlos Williams, Charlotte Bronte, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, William Butler Yeats, Robert Frost, Thoeodore Roethke, Countee Cullen, Anne Bradstreet, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, John Milton, William Wordsworth, W.H. Auden, John Betjeman, Thomas Hardy, JOnathan Swift, William Blake, Robert Grave, John Donne, Herman Melville, Wole Soyinka, Lewis Carroll, Wallace Stevens, E.E. Cummings, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Oscar Wilde, Jean Toomer, John Keats, Walt Whitman, H.D., Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath, Denise Levertov, John Ashbery, Ben Jonson, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Paul Simon, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Aphra Behn, A.E. Housman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alexander Pope, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Olson, Louise Bogan, Anne Sexton, and so many countless other authors, writers, poets, playwrights, etc. that makes this book nearly perfect for a classroom without all the notes and nonsense that clutter some textbooks.

I'm using this for a Lit. class. There's a good collection of works here.

I had to pick this up for a college course...it has an excellent sampling of various literature written in different styles and at different time periods.

Whether you want to have a collection of short stories, poetry, drama, etc, this book deserves a place on your shelf.

Thanks, Doc Staley.

I picked this book up for a class, expecting to be perfectly bored. Instead, this book woke up my sleeping love of learning and literature. The book is easy to understand and contains MANY great stories and poems in it. It also has a great glossary and index was well. It came with an additional feature, MyLiteratureLab, which is an accompanying web page. That is also very helpful indeed.
This book is so good, there were even people at work wanting to check it out!

I wrote to complain about the 7th edition of this standard anthology because the editors had removed one of the world's truly great short stories, Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych," from the volume. I must now eat my words because the editors have replaced that work; I am pleased to say that I once again endorse and use the work. I wrote about the 7th edition; the Tolstoy restoration, I think, occurred in the 8th edition. I am writing now about the 9th edition, which is certainly strong and useful; I know the editors shouldn't try to please everyone.

I do not, however, retract my comments about the use of pop songs to teach poetry; I think the section on "pop" is a major flaw in the work. One person complained (in this space) about my wanting to restore Tolstoy to the textbook--from his comments, I gathered that the person thought Tolstoy (1828-1910) was an American writer, rather than Russian; he kept speaking about "multiculturalism" and "international literature" as though Tolstoy did not represent a "diverse culture." Frankly I think that all the currently popular songs (rap or rock or something else) represent a perverse culture rather than a diverse culture. The same person implied his disgust at "humanism" and "liberalism," labels that I would be proud to wear.

It does matter what is included in a textbook for introducing literature at the college level. I think the current edition of Kennedy and Gioia is a good, solid work. (And if someone is incapable of distinguishing between "poetry" and "verse," I have nothing further to say.) The student essays remain, but I will not quarrel with that. But let me see: if I were a carpenter and teaching students to build a house, would I show them examples of dilapidated, poorly-constructed ones because that is the extent of their current ability, or would I show them a house that was constructed by professionals?