Butler Books

A very well written and researched book. Not only does the author tell the story of the two Queens in WWII. He also gives a nice history of trans-Atlantic shipping up to the point of the Queens construction and to the war. During the war years he tells of the Queen contribution to the war effort and also paints a good over all picture of the war so you can better understand their roll in it. This book is a great addition and read for those who have an interest in this subject.

I liked the way Butler filled in the history of the Queen Mary and
Queen Elizabeth.He also told a very good clear picture of life
we lived aboard ship. On page 92 second phargaph tells of a March
1945 crossing . I was on that passage and well remember hearing
the depth charges explodimg.I still have my white tag and cabin
with number on D deck.To verify my memory I checked my discharge and called our coplit yes he remembered hearing the depth charges.
This tolded of the vital roll these two great ships played in
winning of the war.Many of these things where new to me and I was there.

Most people will know of the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth as a couple of old cruise liners -- many may have stayed at the Hotel Queen Mary in the ship's now permanent home in the waters of California. For a brief time, these ships were converted to military use in World War II to transport troops. On one occasion, the Queen Mary hit the British light cruiser HMS Curacoa, causing the ship to sink with the loss of hundreds of allied soldiers.

Daniel Butler is a great historian and storyteller and he makes the wartime history of these two ships come alive. He doesn't start with the day the decision was made to use these cruise ships for military use. He sets the stage and gives the readers an understanding of the years leading to World War II -- not only giving a political and military background, but also telling us what was happening in the shipping industry that led to the construction of these two ships.

To me the two most interesting parts of the book came when Butler tells about the most significant event of the Queen Mary's tour of duty (when the Curacoa was cut in two by her), and the most mundane (what it was like for a soldier to be transported on one of the Queens). If there is a weakness, it was here. I wish he could have had more first hand accounts from the surviving veterans who had crossed the ocean on their way to war. But of course, there are fewer and fewer such survivors still with us. Butler wrote this book just in time.

This novel marks the end of Victorian conventions, however, it is timeless in that it critiques hypocrisy and fundamentalism that is present in any age. It follows the dysfunctional Pontifex family and eventually focuses on Ernest Pontifex, an idiot savant without much savant. Despite its persisent criticism and cynicism regarding the mores of the day, the alternative the novel presents is a life of leisure with little responsibility (for example, Ernest's children are simply given to another family to raise with little consequence). This book is a very interesting view of the waning Victorian era.

It has been frequently observed that those who write history define it, and so it is with this wonderful novel which is, in large part, Butler's autobiography. Reviewers speak of it as having blown the lid off Victorian society; in fact, it is timeless, ruthlessly dissecting the behavior of several generations of an abusive family where the only rule is "Every man for himself." Those who grew up in that kind of family will find it truthful and insightful, those who grew up in happy families will be perplexed.

As some of the other reviews indicate, this is a book that is likely to offend conventional, especially fundamentalist, Christians. Butler's father was an ordained Anglican priest and he himself came close to being one (opting instead to run a sheep station in New Zealand for five years, an experience upon which he based "Erewhon"). Butler excoriates the hypocrisy and cant of that profession while questioning the Church's key doctrines.

If you can, purchase an edition with Theodore Dreiser's introduction.

Make no mistake, this is a great book. It is, with good reason, #12 on the Modern Library's list of the 100 Best Novels.

I thought this was either going to be a heavy, slow society work, or an erotic, titillating one. If you have read it, you know I had no prior knowledge of Butler's work. This was a scathing, sarcasim filled commentary on traditional family hierarchy and expected life goals in the mid to late 1800's in England, which ended up being an enjoyable read. Doubtless it was atypical at the time - but from today's perspective it is almost the "normal" dysfunctional family.

I also read this book when I was about 10. (I have no idea whose it was or where it came from.) It was fun to read, even for a kid. Some of the brighter or older ones probably wouldn't relate to the problems as their own.

Drawings accompany every humorous essay on such ailments as "Ingrate's Stammer". I thought all these years until now that the book had been written by the Berenstains. Perhaps they illustrated it?

The most important, earthshaking thing to note about this book:

In the introduction or foreword, the author says something to the effect of, "I won't tell you too many ailments, for fear that people will stop having children, and I wouldn't want that. So we'll tell you just a few of them."

At about age 10, I thought this was egregiously sneaky and underhanded. I also thought "Misery must love company". I was forewarned! And....

I decided not to have children.

No regrets there! Absolutely the good, wise, happy, right choice. Let other people find out about the ailments when it's too late! And this book was one of my early warning systems! It has never occurred to me to start speaking and writing of my experiences until now.

It's one thing to be proud of my life choices. It's quite another to have several decades pass before it occurs to me to speak and write about them. This book was so much one of my pivotal experiences that decades later I started searching for it, having forgotten the title and correct author.

I have heard, as an adult, that people who have bred offspring are sneaky about not telling people who haven't reproduced about the problems. So here it is:

I am giving this book full credit where credit was not due.

I spotted this little-known book in the library at VA Tech
and have been trying to get my own copy ever since.

Numerous humorous drawings are used to enhance the tongue-in-cheek
descriptions of various diseases, such as Vesuvius Bladder.
This disease can be spotted when young male babies
release their bladders while on the changing table.

This book should be turned into a calendar.

When I was a child in the 60s, my parents owned this little book (obviously an earlier edition). Even though it was written for adults and I was only 9 or 10, I literally laughed out loud every time I read it, and I read it many times. When I wanted something fun to read, I could pull out the Dr. Spock book. I have never forgotten it in the 30 years since then and have been wanting to get my own copy for some time now. As with the previous reviewer, I remember well the curse of Vesuvius Bladder, along with other childhood horrors, such as Eddie Arcaro's Ride...I should keep quiet, so that search list for copies doesn't get too long.

I had never heard of this book when I happened to see it in the gift shop of the place where my wife and I were staying for a few days last month in Bar Harbor, ME (one of the most beautiful places in this country!). As a person always interested in unusual historical events, I purchased this book, and I am very happy that I did. It is a well-written, extremely lucid account of the great Maine fire of October 1947, which really devastated that state. By the terms of our current western wildfires, which destroy millions of acres, this was small (only a bit over 200,000 acres were hit), but a lot of the destruction happened in occupied areas, when homes, businesses, churches, schools, and almost entire towns were lost. This book is at its best when it recounts the human aspect of this series of fires, and the author has collected newsprint accounts, in addition to interviewing the people involved at the time. It is a true tale of heartbreak and heroism, and it shows the resolution and sheer grit of the folks from Maine. They are wonderful people, and this book is quite a tribute to them!

An exciting book. Historicaly accurate telling of the great fire in October 1947. It grips you like a work of fiction, but all the accounts are true. The only stories I've heard of this disaster that are in more detail, are from my family members who were there and fought the fire. Great read, and highly recommended.

Mainers are quickly coming upon the 60th anniversary of the most calamitous natural disaster to hit their state - the 1947 fires that burned a huge swath of land and property in the southern part of the state as well as on Mt. Desert Island. The fires struck in October under ideal forest fire conditions: a summer drought that had stretched into autumn and windy conditions. Virtually anything generating heat - even extinguished burnt matches - were enough to start blazes. Fires spread quickly and devastatingly in York and Oxford Counties, where entire towns were destroyed. At the same time, 200 miles down East, another outbreak of fires on Mt. Desert Island destroyed million-dollar summer mansions and threatened the town of Bar Harbor; the famed Jackson Laboratory, a center for cancer research, was reduced to ashes. One big problem in containing the fires was that many of them burned under ground along root systems for days before flaring up again; many fires that looked extinguished actually weren't. Butler presents a detailed and vivid picture of the causes, spread, and resultant destruction of the fires, and also specific accounts of the many fire-fighters, their acts of bravery and perseverance - and terror - battling the blazes. Fifteen people died in the fires and 200,000 acres and many homes were destroyed. Joyce Butler's book is a good account of this natural disaster.

This book does not have an index, but the Contents on pages vii-xiv provide the titles of poems, plays, autobiographical writings, critical writings, and five examples of the prose fiction of William Butler Yeats arranged by volume title (listing about 30 books published from 1889 to 1939, plus eight plays dated 1902-1939). People who just start reading at the beginning of the book have little reason to be aware that there are notes from page 485 to page 566. People who discover the Notes will need to know the order in which items appear in the book to refer back and forth between one and the other. Many dates, magazines, and names of people and places are mentioned in the Notes. There is information about the Irish Republic to explain the poem, "Easter, 1916" which ends on line 80 with "A terrible beauty is born." In the Notes, the poem "The Second Coming" has a rather complex interpretation, including, "All our scientific, democratic, fact-accumulating, heterogeneous civilization belongs to the outward gyre . . ." (p. 503).

Yeats had an interest in the occult which makes his stories seem a bit quaint for my usual fare, but his fame as a great poet is based on much material that is highly intellectual. If this book had an index, I would certainly look up William Blake to see if his name could be found in this book as often as Major Robert Gregory or any other. The selection of critical writings by Yeats contains a few pages on "William Blake and the Imagination." Unlike usual experiences, "But when one reads Blake, it is as though the spray of an inexhaustible fountain of beauty was blown into our faces, . . . but when one reads those `Prophetic Books' in which he spoke confusedly and obscurely because he spoke of things for whose speaking he could find no models in the world about him. He was a symbolist who had to invent his symbols;" (p. 373).

Margins have numbers every ten lines for keeping track of where the Notes fit into a poem, and it is a rare poem (`The Tower' has 195 lines, within which Yeats brags on page 87, "And I myself created Hanrahan") that has more than fifty lines. A poem on page 101 ends with line 130, and on page 108 ends with line 100. The last page of the poems section has part III of the poem, `The Circus Animals' Desertion,' which ends with a line that I think is famous because I know at least two people who could recall:

I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

Any poem that I associate with Yeats seems to be in this book, but I have not been trying very hard to learn more than bits and pieces at any one time. The story `Red Hanrahan' on pages 460-468 has some card shuffling mixed with magic, bewitching a poor hedge schoolmaster. It is a bit creepy, but the Stories of Red Hanrahan published in 1905 offer a link between the great poet and the culture of the pub that make it easier to understand what popularity was about in the times before television. Further information about culture in those days could be deduced from the section in his autobiographical writings about Oscar Wilde:

"My first meeting with Oscar Wilde was an astonishment. I never before heard a man talking with perfect sentences, as if he had written them all overnight with labour and yet all spontaneous." (p. 295). " `Furthermore,' was Wilde's answer, `I never answered their letters. I have known men come to London full of bright prospects and seen them complete wrecks in a few months through a habit of answering letters.' " (p. 296).

I first fell in love with Yeats poetry (specifically "The Song Of Wandering Aengus" before discovering the rest of his poetry) then discovered his plays and prose. I was particularly taken with his version of some classis Irish fairy tales.

This volume, with over a hundred of his poems, eight plays, around a dozen excerpts of autobiographical writing, a similar number of critical writings and half a dozen pieces of prose, covers a marvellous gamut of this mans work in around 600 pages. It is a good size to carry around with you.

The choices taken are good, all my favourite poems and plays are here, my only regret is that none of his fairy tales are here.

I would recommend this volume to anyone who enjoys Yeats poetry and/or plays and wants a good selection of his work in many fields. It is also the perfect introduction to his work for someone you know who might enjoy this marvellous poet.

Seeing his grave this summer was something that stunned my spirit as much as any experience in my life. As a life-long reader of Yeats, I have many of his poems on my shelf. When I want to read as I walk and have a wide selection, this is the book I choose. I'm purchasing this for a dear friend.

Just before graduating high school, Gil Klanz loses his appointment to the Belt Corporation Naval Academy thanks to a stupid prank. Since the incident unexpectedly involved the Belt Corporation director, Gil finds himself thrust out of BC society and into the harsh world of the non company belters. To add insult to injury, the friend he covered for and the one who put him up to the prank, Vance Turen, ends up with Gil's slot at the academy.

Having once been BC, Gil is not trusted by the belt-born but he can't go back and must earn a place among the outsiders. Gil has heard rumors of BC oppression; now he learns the truth of Belt Corporation policy first hand. Life in near free fall among the belters is a constant struggle but when the few friends he does have start to disappear, (taken by the Belt Corporation) Gil has had enough and joins the revolution.

Ted Butler brings home a coming-of-age story with plenty of space combat action. Although set in the year 2176, the technology of the belters is rather twentieth century, but it is consistent and well thought out. The reader really gets the feeling of life in zero gravity. Other elements are not as believable, like raising cattle on asteroids, and the dialog for Martin (the four year old) reminded me of Elmo from Sesame Street. The introduction of minor characters also leads to a little confusion keeping track of who is who, but it is not excessive.

What Ted does best in this short novel is space combat and there are plenty of action sequences to keep readers satisfied. The fish-skeleton freighter No Body, converted to ship of war, is a highlight of the story and brings home the underdog role of the belter revolution. Anyone who has ever considered taking a stand against oppression will enjoy this book and I recommend it for readers from 10 to 100.

[...]

Once asked how he wrote such great young adult novels Robert H Heinlein explained that he wrote a good adult novel, and made the protagonist 16 years old. Ted Butler has done the same for his new novel 2176: Birth of the Belt Republic. While marketed as a young adult novel it can be enjoyed by anyone who likes a good old-fashioned space opera. Set against a revolution in the asteroid belt in 2176 that is obviously modeled after the American Revolution, he follows the adventures of Gil Klanz, his 16-year-old protagonist, as the people fight the oppressive Belt Corporation for their freedom. There is lots of dare-doing and believable action, including a full-blown space battle.

Author Butler is famous for the "Butler Index," which shows the hidden costs of having your 401k managed by the wrong people. Because he is not selling anything, unlike many others in the pension advice field, his advice is reliable. Well written and "two thumbs up" for this walking "consumer reports of 401k."

A very good overview - but by no means an in depth survey - of establishing and maintaining a defined contribution or benefit plan for a company.

Covered are the compliance issues, changes and ammendments to ERISA, and detail on plan distributions.

Not the only book to have on the pension industry - but if you work in the field, one to include in your pension library!

This profusely illustrated text will give residents in radiology the basic anatomy needed to form a solid foundation for a complete radiologist.It however does not contain tables for easy reading and review.
The pictures are explicit and help to further reinforce understanding of the text.

A very well organised and profusely illustrated text which provides information on anatomy as related to and conventional radiology and more sophisticated radiological forms of investigation like the magnetic resonance imaging. First year residents would find the book useful as it provide the basic anatomic knowledge needed in making diagnosis. This book is a must for radiologists!

Thoughtful and scholarly, yet readable, history of religion in US history and its ups and downs.

Awash in a Sea of Faith is a book of its time. The intellectual and historiographical context of Jon Butler's revisionist history of religion in America is found in the camp that Jack Greene, Keith Thomas and David Hall have been preparing for some time now. This trend, which Butler perfects, is marked by a strong skepticism toward the influence of Puritanism in American culture, toward the major claims of American Protestantism, toward the basic dogmas of traditional American religious history and by a desire for historical and geographical egalitarianism. A pervasive skepticism is not the only component at the foundation of Butler's approach. His historical logic is partially guided by a continuous dialectic between the sacred and secular, elite and popular, the barren colonial landscape and the rise of sacred structures, orthodoxy and occultism. Considering the large and long religious historiographies in North America, Butler's approach starts with profoundly untraditional premises and assumptions. It should not surprise us, then, that Butler would arrive to untraditional conclusions. After all that is what revisionism is- to change the way we perceive history and to challenge some rusty assumptions. His main argument, that the Christianization of America came through a process of syncretism, would have not only alarmed Protestant leaders in the 19th century, but would also have worried religious historians in the 20th century. In his presentation of European Protestantism and its journey toward the America continent, Butler emphasizes occultism as a transforming force in religion and society. In doing this, he ignores the strength of the anti-idolatry Protestant movements that "cleaned out" many churches, the close relation between modern empiricism and Protestantism with its emphasis on the "Biblical evidence," and the influence of effective preaching on parishioners.

Considering that the word "holocaust" in the post World Wars is related with the Nazi's massacre of the Jews, Butler demonizes American Protestantism for its missionary zeal and for its emphasis on civil obedience among the African Americans. By doing this, Butler completely disregards the humanitarian impulse in their behalf, which was equally syncretic. And by assuming that African American ideology was secular before 1760 he contradicts his conclusion that "Slavery's destruction of African religious systems in America . . . . constituted cultural robbery. . . . of the most vicious sort." If we still ignore this contradiction, his analysis of the African-American mass movement into Protestant Christianity cannot explain how would the unsophisticated African religious systems could have been a match to Protestantism and to the complex life in American Slavery.

In revising the Great Awakenings Butler take luster out of these movements by emphasizing its conservatism and downplaying its egalitarianism. But here Butler's assumption falters in logic. He presumes that increase social status for the clergy and increment in church authority always meant conservatism. In the American religious context, where pluralism was the main characteristic, more leveled status to clergy, and more authority to non-state-churches (dissidents) meant egalitarianism- particularly compared with the European religious experience. Furthermore, by indicating that itinerant ministers opposed settled ministers selectively, he is not only ignoring their significance, but is also ignoring social forces that would naturally motivate the Itinerants to seek support and sympathy from some settled ministers while ignoring others. Curiously, Butler's analysis of American revivalism is distinguished by a robust defense to the Anglican Church, and a downplaying of dissent's strength and growth-, which is also a revision in traditional American religious history.

Throughout his entire book, but especially on the Antebellum Christianity, Butler always defines the practice of Alchemy, the curiosity for the gothic and the secret, and the believing in dreams and miracles as indication of spiritualism and witchcraft. Defining these religious experiences, which some orthodox leaders, have seen with suspicious eyes, may belie Butler's position of standardization-a secularized Protestant mainstream. At this point the reader would wonder why Butler includes the practice of alchemy with the believing in miracles, since science (to mention only two) was not as clearly define and not as evenly spread as it was a century later, and miracles have always been regarded as part of Christian beliefs. It may be that Butler needs this combination to highlight his point of Protestants' lack of purity and imprecision, which would have been impossible otherwise. Perhaps inexactitude is inbuilt in certain aspects of the study since Christianity is itself syncretic, thus invalidating any model of Christianity detached from "its" culture and historical setting.

The animals are so cute - my daughter got it for xmas and loves it so much!

This is such a great toy / book for the 6 and under kids. The pieces stay securely in, and each center puzzle piece is shaped like the animal you are putting together. Puzzles are of: Ducks, Kangaroos, Elephants, and Penguins. My 4 year old can almost master each page and has not lost interest.