History Books

Great book. As an amateur rock hound, this book gives me lots of pretty pictures to look at. I have most of DK's books in every subject that interests me. They're all a home run in my book. I love this publisher.

Good Rock Hound reference book. References about all of the named materials that one would like to look up.Presents loads of photographs of raw material as well as finished gemstones and cabochons.

If you are not blind this is the book for you. Even if you are blind you could get someone else to tell you just how beautiful the photos in this book are. That is if they can catch their breath after seeing the Photo's. No 99% of the time you will not find the same item in the outdoors that you see in the book. Still if you have the chance even at 1% of finding a specimen that is even close to the photo in beauty it will be worth ten times what you have paid for this book. I have maybe three or four rocks I have found that look as good as the photos in the book. Actually I have three that are better than and one that is as good as the photo's in the book. I keep looking for even more rocks just to find them. Yes for the money I spend on Gas and tires and places to sleep and eat.I could just buy some of these rocks from a rock dealer. Still it is as I have heard and known my whole life. It is not the having it is the finding. A chunk of gold the size of a brick 2X4X8 solid 24kt. Paint it white. Or a tiny little 3 gram nugget that you found on the edge of a stream on a high mountain meadow. "Yes more than 75% of the (3)three Gram gold nuggets have yet to be found, They are still out there waiting for someone to walk along a stream and see them laying there." The day was bright and sunny with not a cloud in the sky. The only sounds were of the insect's buzzing in the grasslands and an eagle calling from a spiral in the blue sky of a Rocky Mountain morning. Which would you rather have. This book will keep you going back to those mountains and deserts and beaches and streams and and and need I continue? My wife and I dearly love this book. We have sat side by side and read and looked at the photos many times now. I know that is not what old folks that are in there late fifty's are supposed to do is it? Such is life.
dray

I am enjoying this book and its the perfect size for a purse or front pocket of bag.

Great Book...full of useful information. The pictures really give you an indepth but brief description of the item discussed. This book is absolutely essential to the amature hobby collectors out there.

This is an excellent text/reference for drawing enthusiasts, or students of drawing. Both the way it is broken down, and uses examples from the masters to illustrate the concepts offer a really solid grounding in how line is used to describe space, shape and tone.

This is one of the "timeless" drawing reference books every artist should look at when he/she needs inspiration. Hale picks some of the most dynamic life drawings by the old masters--Leonardo, Ingres, etc.--and disects them in terms of composition, tone, thrust, etc. He is right on in his suggestions that artists should study human and animal surface anatomy to understand the figure. I found his discussion of light and shadow especially instructive.

More of a philosophical approach to drawing than instructional. But, often i find it enlightening to learn HOW to think...more so than WHAT. A great artist can synthesize his ideas rather than simply comprehend them. This book exemplifies and necessitates this philosophy.

This book is a great addition to the student of drawing's library. The author does a superb job of analyze some excellent examples of classical drawing and elucidates the formal and structural concepts in each. Although this book does not provide very much in the way of "step by step" style technical instruction, it does provide the reader with a way of conceptually approaching a drawing.

The author demonstrates where the great artist used a cylinder, or a sphere to conceptualize a part of the subject's anatomy. He shows how lines are modulated to give varying degrees of tone and shape to the figure. Many of these ideas will stew around in your head as you approach your own drawing projects. Eventually, you will notice that you are more aware of certain parts of the form and that these are being incorporated into your work. Overall, this book is a very interesting and enjoyable way of delivering basic drawing concepts to a student reader.

I like that he has a full page to show the drawing and on the facing page he has a smaller version with commentary. He places capital letters on the drawing so you can see exactly which line or shape he is discussing.

I was one of many young kids in 1977 who was overwhelmed by Star Wars and who spent the next several years writing letters to ILM and John Dykstra trying to get a job! The whole thing just seemed like the ultimate description of fun.
I never got any responses but this book has made me smile allot. I'm learning so much about what was really going on while me and other slobbering, special effects wannabes grabbed our super8 cameras and made our little FX films.
I ended up as a cinematographer and know several others who now have impressive credits in the area of filmmaking...all due to our new found young love of filmmaking started by a little space opera in 1977. I have always wondered if George knows how responsible he is for the start of numerous film careers.
I really have enjoyed this book. Worth the read!

This is a great book, entertaining and intricate, which tells an important story. The guys a DroidWorks pioneered the digital audio industry that exists today. In 1981, I desperately wanted to break into computer music, having studied electronic music and electrical engineering. I visited Andy Moorer at DroidWorks in 1982, who gave me an incredibly generous hour long tour of the headquarters, and showed me the prototypes of their Audio Signal Processor.

I eventually did break into computer music when I went to work at E-mu Systems in 1983, where I implemented a computer audio editing system. I certainly wanted to have my own system like the astounding machines I saw at DroidWorks, and designing my own was the only way that I would ever get my hands on one. I invented the concept for the program "Sound Designer" and worked closely with Evan Brooks of Digidesign to implement this program on the brand new Macintosh computer.

Moorer and his friends blazed the trail for the whole audio industry, publishing and lecturing extensively on what they had done. Today, tape recorders exist only in museums. All movies, sound effects, and music are produced using digital systems, and DroidWorks showed the way. There were many other people working in digital audio, but few published as much, or were as bold, or had such a broad vision of how far the technology could go to replace the existing technology, or how dramatic the new technology could be.

It was as vivid as a Lucas Film movie, and as futuristic, but it became real.

I am a borderline technophobe whose mind goes blank whenever I am forced to read any computer product user's manual. The brains of the people that write these things are obviously wired very differently than mine. The leaden, sterile word choices and phrases used by this engineering culture make the sense of disconnect even worse.
The good news is that I finally have found an Electronic Moses to lead me to the promised land. His name is Michael Rubin. "Droidmaker" is a remarkable book, bringing the story of computer animation to life, allowing non-technical people like me to understand how this process evolved. The photographs of the people and events involved in the story are particularly well chosen.
This book is required reading for anyone with a basic level of curiosity on how the digital revolution came to be. There isn't another one out there like it

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book. If you have a passing interest in modern movie making, the history of Pixar, or are a fan of Star Wars/George Lucas, you really have to read Droidmaker. The first half, dealing more with Lucas and the history of Star Wars is probably a little more accessible, but the back half, with its detailed telling of the evolution of Pixar and other Lucas-driven technical innovations, is equally fascinating. Oh, did I mention all the stuff about video games? Seriously, this is among the best books I've read in the past five years.

For anyone who is inspired by the use of technology for creation of art, this book is wonderful. I enjoyed learning the connections between computer, film, and sound pioneers, and how they inspired each other.

I bought this book in the 60's in the Time/Life edtion, but didn't get around to reading it until 1995, when I was in Jalalabad, Afghanistan for a few weeks. Of course, that was the perfect setting, but from any viewpoint in the world "Eastern Approaches" is quite close to the perfect travel book. I left my copy in the library of the American Club in Peshawar, trying to save luggage room for Afghan textiles, and I was very sorry to learn when I got home that it was out of print. Now it's back, and I look forward to reading it again while sitting in my armchair. "Eastern Approaches" is a great read, and never more relevant than today.

This is an exciting autobiography, which I have read and reread over the years. Of particular interest is the author's introduction into the SAS.

This book will become a permanent fixture in your library.

Pre WWII, Maclean finagled trips through parts of the USSR where no westerner had previously been, even crossing into Afghanistan from the north at one point. He spent much of WWI aiding Marshal Tito's effort to drive the Germans out of the Balkans. Fascinating stuff, this, eloquently written and he's a damn good storyteller.

This book is of great historical value. The narration is witty and elegant. I would recomant it to everybody interested in European history.

This is a truly unique book and comparable only with Churchill's 'My Early Life' as an adventure history. Some people write adventure books, some people have adventures but Fitzroy McLean, like Churchill, or TE Lawrence, is able to do both. A rare treat and very easy to read.

The first version of the Gita that I read through completely, was a small book written by Christopher Isherwood. A disciple of Swami Prabhavananda (see 'My Guru and his Disciple' by Christopher Isherwood), it was given out by the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in California. In vers libre format, it burnished my budding apetite for genuine spirituality at the time (early 1980's) with new wings. I soared with the loftiness of the message deeply resonating with the glorious descriptions of the magnificience of the Self during those early and halcyon days of my quest.

26 years later, I find a new version of the same holy book. Also by a Westerner, but probably one who understands the Hindu religion and what it stands for, better than most practising Hindus do. Reading this book, got the same lofty feelings to well forth, but this time I sense deep undercurrents of feeling attached to the concepts of this age old treatise, yielding a new dimension and richness to the presentation of these holy truths. Having been born and bred an American, Kriyananda has been able to convey the holy message of this text in a way that is tailored to the demands of a fast paced modern society, going increasingly global every day.

In the early chapters of this book, the allegorical link between the five Pandava brothers and the chakra system is explained. This is relatively esoteric material that has never appeared before, at least to my knowledge. Later on, the Gita is analyzed, stanza by stanza, beginning with a Sanskrit paragraph and its literal English translation, followed by an extensive commentary in each case. In these commentaries, Kriyananda puts down in writing his own memories of his Guru's comments on the various passages of the Bhagavad Gita. For the benefit of those interested in reincarnation, Yogananda had said that he himself had been an incarnation of Arjuna, the Pandava prince, who received the information from Krishna firsthand. That fact could probably be one of the factors that account for the interpretational depth of these writings. Wherever possible, connections to other major religions are cited and the explanations are forthright and lucid. In particular, there is a section on the physical aspects of Kriya Yoga which is the science of breath as taught by Paramahamsa Yogananda and which has only been recently released to the general public. The physiological consequences of a regular practice of this process are explored. This is also material that has never appeared before.

One of the greatest strengths of this book is that it is a fast read and holds one's attention, even as these eternal truths unfold one by one. This work is unquestionably a labour of love, being Kriyananda's magnum opus after eighty plus books.

In closing, I would like to mention, that like all Scripture, the Bhagavad Gita is only a book. It is a miniscule version of the ecstasy that ISNESS emanates, although one may and does feel whiffs of the same from the reading. The real task of experiencing the ISNESS is, of course, a different story, but this book could be a useful tool along the way.

A very wide and learned man from India once said to me that there 'were as many commentaries on the Gita as there are stars in the sky". Although not quite accurate scientifically, there are literally untold commentaries on what is thought by followers throughout the ages to be God taking shape as a human being during a battle on a field north of Delhi India around 5200 BCE. Whether or not one accepts the spiritual nature of the gita, there's no denying it offers insights into almost every imaginable aspect of human behavior -- be it saintly or demonic.

This rendering was told to Swami Kriyananda by his own Guru, the author of Autobiography of a Yogi, perhaps the most recognized book on yoga and Hindu beliefs in modern times, Swami Yogananda. This commentary is unique in that it provides psychological comparisons to the many seemingly confusing names, events, and thoughts passed from Lord Krisha to Arjuna, his friend and a man about to unleash death on 100,000 of his family members and friends.

A must have for the seeker of spiritual growth or just someone who wants to know more about why people do what they do when they do it.

gary in tampa

An exerpt for the Vaishnava section on Wikipedia website:
"While many schools like Smartism and Advaitism encourage interpretation of scriptures philosophically and metaphorically and not too literally, (Gaudiya)Vaishnavism stresses the literal meaning (mukhya vitti) as primary and indirect meaning (gaua vitti) as secondary: sâkhâd upadesas tu shrutih - "The instructions of the shruti-shâstra should be accepted literally, without fanciful or allegorical interpretations." Jiva Goswami, Krishna Sandarbha 29.26-27" (This is from a Hare Krishna/I.S.K.O.N/Gaudiya sampradayam scripture)

I must say this first,I have been studying the Vedic scriptures since about 96',and, I am sorry to say,I was a Hare Krishna devotee for about four years from 02' to 06'. I was one of the Pujaris or Ceremonial priest in the now defunct Venice Radha-Govinda temple in Venice, Ca. I learned alot of the basic principles of the Vedic religion from them. Outside the elementary principles, much of what they teach is tinged with thier particular sect/cult flavor or doctrine. I.S.K.O.N or the Hare Krishnas believe and see only a historical, surface understanding of the Bhagavad-gita, other scriptures and stories. They critizes,condemn and keep down with fanatical furvor,as I have experienced with them...the notion of a deeper,Intuitive, Spiritual, Philosophical, Esoteric truth to the Vedic scriptures and stories. The whole time I was with them, I felt like I was being intuitively,soulfully,esoterically and philosophically strangled. They believed with the extremism and fanatism of Southern Baptists in the total surface-value,exoteric understanding of the Vedas. I was always chastized and critized for my pro-esoteric/intuitive understanding of the Vedas. Before coming to I.S.K.O.N or Gaudiya math, I always Knew,intuitively and through my own many Spiritual experiences through Vedically-backed meditation as instucted in the Vedas,Yoga-sutras and Tantras, that there was and has always been and always be...a deeper, esoteric, hidden meaning and understanding to the Bible,Gnostic texts, the greek myths, alchemical allegories and symbolism, to the Homeric epics and...to the Vedas,the bhagavad-gita and Puranas. And, come to find out, from Swami Kriyananda and Swami Yogananda and other hindu holy men....this is the proper "Brahminical" or Priest/Yogi Caste understanding of the Revealed scriptures. This is also confirmed in the very scriptures that I.S.K.O.N uses. But, they do not truely acknowledge them. Before coming to I.S.K.O.N and Gaudiya math,I use to love the Bhagavad-gita, and I knew that there was a deeper, esoteric truth to it and other Vedic scripture that ONLY a meditator or some one who had direct experience in Linking and Communion between God and the Soul. The Real Brahmin Caste in India Truely understand this, and Actually, the term Brahmana, means "One who KNOWS Brahman" or one who has attain this Linking and Communion with God or Brahman. This is what Makes a Brahmin...I.S.K.O.N talks about this truth, but, thier understanding of a "Brahmana" is that of the physical caste person performing rituals and even then, they are against them also. Their Translation of the Bhagavad-gita, Sri Isopanishad and other Vedic scriptures are the most Blantantly mistranslated editions of these scriptures I have ever came across. Mistranslated and writen to suit their particular cult/sect slant, flavor and agenda. I read their particular translation 3 times since 02', and, for a time, it has totally turned me off from the Bhagavad-gita...sorry to say. And, it has bothered me that my experiences in the cult I.S.K.O.N or the Hare Krishnas has affected so much that it Burnt me on the Bhagavad-gita. Since leaving the temple on Watseka ave., I couldnt even look at other Bhagavad-gitas with out thinking about the extreme mistranslations of the I.S.K.O.N one and the fanaticsm,extremism and philosophical and physical intimidation of this group. This has really bothered me. Then one week ago, while I was at a barns and nobles, I accidentally came across this book. And, it has been a breath of freash air.This book proves my original intuitions of the Scripture were correct and gives insight to much, much more. It flys in the face of the fanatical, and in certain verses, the absolutely incorrect translations of this group. This book of Swami Kriyanandas has all but disolved the Southern Baptist/Christian evangelistic-like understanding of the Hare Krishnas for the Vedas. And, it is nice that there are others who agree with the Inner-Intuitive TRUTH of the Scriptures. And that there are others who are Free-Thinkers and above Fananticism. This book of Swami Kriyanandas has brought me back to the Bhagavad-gita....like the prodical Son, coming back to his Father.

I cannot put into words the impact this book has had on me. This is my 4th translation of this text and this one is the best. Originally I started reading the Bhagavad Gita as it has a calibration of 910 (David Hawkins, Power vs. Force. It is a cosmic text which reaching out of the book and touches ones soul. This version is a joy to read. It is a dessert fresh from a tree. It is a day not too hot with gentle breezes. God becomes the companion rather than the gloom and doom king/parent/authority. Many of my friends now have this book just from seeing the joyful change in me.

This book is a must read for all sincere spiritual aspirants, no matter what his/her religion is. This is truly a cosmic text which reaches deep into one's soul. It is a perfect introduction for newcomers to the power and depth of the Bhagavad Gita and for those who seek inspiration daily upon its deep wisdom. The author clearly shows that the Bhagavad Gita is actually deeply allegorical in nature. This book will definitely help the reader to achieve inner bliss if he/she is very sincere about his/her spiritual life.

Swami Kriyananda has produced another gem of wisdom and compassion with this book. If you have nor read the Gita before, this is indeed an excellent recommendation because it is non-sectarian in its approach, compared to some of the books on the Gita out there. This book is simply galvanizing!

Lastly, I would also like to recommend the book The Bhagavad Gita: Royal Science of God-Realization: God Talks with Arjuna: The Immortal Dialogue Between Soul and Spirit (2 volumes) by Paramahansa Yogananda, Swami Kriyananda's guru as well. That book is an equally great masterpiece as well!

This book is a great book on the history of prions. Max easily illustrates how prions are connected to other important diseases such as alzheimers and diabetes. He flawlessly goes from past to present, connecting the two times with the venetian family who has a defective prion gene. It is really amazing that prions don't affect more people. It is also a wake up call for the beef industry in America.

This is a fascinating medical 'thriller', only it's real! it was nearly impossible to stop listening to it and i think anyone who likes medical thrillers or anything related to the medical field, would love this.
The book focuses on prions and their role in disease, especially 'mad cow disease'.

This is a very scary book. The Family that Couldn't Sleep by D. T. Maxd was a very thought provoking study of some of the neurodegenerative diseases that have eluded our understanding. Most of those that the author mentions are truly horrific to the individual who suffers them and to their families. I started my nursing practice on a neurology ward where I encountered many of the maladies the author describes. What was particularly disturbing to me was that years later many of these insidious diseases are as little understood as they were when I first encountered them. The sufferer of ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease" after the baseball player who died from it--still finds medical science unable to offer much more than they did when it was first described. Huntington's Disease still devastates families that carry the genetic misprint. While the treatment of myasthenia gravis has progressed to some degree, that of Alzheimer's disease (the old organic brain syndrome or pre-senile dementia) and Creutzfeld-Jacab Disease (formerly referred to as Jacob-Creutzfeld's) are still in their infancy. The similarity between the latter disorder and Kuru has been known for years, but understanding and treatment elude us. According to the author, even the prion concept has its detractors. If nothing else the author was certainly able to capture the devastation that such disorders cause their sufferers and their families. In my early practice I met a man who came in with mild neurological symptoms; he received a diagnosis of Huntington's, and within months he became a changed person because of the unrelenting course of his disease. He ultimately ended up in a nursing home, more or less "insane." Worse yet was the fact that both of his children had a 50-50 chance of having the disorder or of passing the disposition on to their own children. The heartbreak of his wife in witnessing his decline and than recognizing the symptoms anew in her son was awful.

By bringing these disorders and the agonies of the sufferers to public attention Max may well spur more intensive research into these many disorders. And it's about time.

This book does a lot to clear up the story of prions, what they are, what they do, how their threat is real. The Italian family who gives the story its title is but one instance of prions affecting human and animal life. The research is impeccable, and particularly interesting is the process by which medical and veterinary sciences came together to begin unraveling the prion mystery. Because, to be accurate, documentation on how livestock has been affected by prion disease had been, until recently, far more complete and detailed than human prion disease.

The author tells the story unemotionally, which is good, but the reading is far from arid or too technical. The human factor -- how scientists competed for the credit, sometimes damaging other professionals' reputations and careers -- makes it even more interesting. All this makes "The Family That Couldn't Sleep" a fundamental work for anyone who wants to understand these proteins better, and also for people curious about the inner workings of scientific research.

You may find yourself staying up all night to finish this fascinating book. Just be glad you don't share the wrong genes with the family of the title.

This account of prion-based spongiform encephelopathic diseases covers a lot of ground: the Italian family of the title suffering from FFI (fatal familial insomnia), the mysterious epidemic of kuru among the Fore tribe of New Guinea, eventually linked to the practice of eating their dead ancestors' brains, the rare genetically transmitted Creuzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD), various animal spongiform encephelopathies, from scrapie in sheep to mad cow disease to chronic wasting disease in deer. All of these diseases share a common feature - they are transmitted by an infectious agent of a kind thought until recently by scientists to be impossible, and the incubation time from infection to manifestation of disease symptoms is remarkably long. The culprits are *prions*, which are a type of rogue protein. The idea that a protein could act as an infectious agent flew completely in the face of scientific received wisdom to date when first introduced and the science underlying this class of degenerative brain diseases is both complex and controversial.

The author's exposition is clear, but ultimately I think he does not do complete justice to the material (which is really fascinating). It may be that his scope is too ambitious - with so much ground to cover, the exposition occasionally lapses into sketchiness. To be fair, there can be no single "right" level of detail that would suit all readers, and D.T. Max generally shows good judgement about what to include to keep the exposition intelligible while moving his story along.

That said, the material related to kuru, cannibalism among the Fore, and the linkage to scrapie, CJD, and mad cow disease has already been presented in the 1998 book by Richard Rhodes, "Deadly Feasts: Tracking The Secrets Of A Terrifying New Plague". I preferred the Rhodes account - his exposition of the science was clearer, and I thought he told a better, tighter story.

However, there's not that much to choose between the two, and Max's book does have the extra material about FFI, which is interesting in its own right. Max does make one misjudgement, in my opinion, which is to include an account of his own illness (he has been diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease which, although it is a neurodegenerative muscular disorder, is neither prion-related nor an amyloid plaque disease). Inclusion of this essentially irrelevant material is a distraction, which just muddies the exposition.

One final criticism is that Max includes an unquestioning discussion of putative geographical "clusters" of CJD cases, based solely on their identification by patients' family members, whom he refers to as "Creutzfeldt Jakobins" (a hideous, tin-ear coinage, which he seems to think is clever). These so-called clusters are almost certainly spurious, based on an incorrect application of the relevant probability models and Max's failure to identify the error detracts from his objectivity as a science writer and contributes to a presentation of disease spread scenarios which are unduly alarmist. The discussion of possible treatment options in the final chapter also struck me as weak, an over-interpretation of what are essentially just anecdotal data. One sees this kind of over-interpretation all the time in the popular press, but I would have expected better from a science writer as experienced as D.T. Max.

However, these are minor criticisms of this well-written account of a fascinating subject.

The Final Frontiersman is the true account of the wilderness life of Heimo Korth and his family. Heimo grew up in Wisconsin but followed a dream to live in the bush in Alaska. Heimo is a "successful" subsistence trapper and hunter in the ANWR where you can freeze at -55 in the winter and the clouds of mosquitoes torment you in the short summer. The sun disappears for over a month in the winter and there is no night in summer. Heimo and his family spend most of the year in the bush where their nearest neighbor is more than a hundred miles away--human neighbor that is; bears, wolves, wolverines, caribou, and many other kinds of animals abound. Heimo is successful in the sense that he and his family survive, all except one. Theirs is a tough life, and Heimo is a tough but likable character.

I enjoyed reading this book. The author, Heimo's cousin, has a direct, clear writing style and a good sense of pacing. The story reminded me in some ways of The Big House by George Colt: "Here is the story of my (extended) family and all my weird relatives" and like The Big House this book could have used extensive editing. We get too much detail about Heimo and his brood, who in fact are not really all that weird or exceptional after all.

The author presents this work as a meditation on the meaning of wilderness and a vital but disappearing American way of life, but he never manages to infuse these issues of wilderness and the struggle to survive with a sense of metaphysical profundity. Heimo's work and life all come off as somewhat mundane, if exceptionally lonely and uncomfortable; even deprived and brutal (Heimo kills large numbers of furbearing animals for a living). In the end, the author failed to communicate why Heimo would choose such a life, or what about it is attractive. I got the sense that neither the author, nor Heimo's family, nor Heimo himself understand Heimo. He remains a discomforting enigma.

Like The Big House, The Final Frontiersman is most interesting as an exploration of family and what it means to be involved in this most natural and troubling human institution.

There are not very many people I would like to meet, but Heimo and his family are at the top of my list. Fantastic story of some extraordinary folks.

Really painted a good picture of what life was like living in the cold Alaskan wilderness.

It is hard for me to realize that Heimo and his family live even today in the manner in which they live.The hardships they overcome daily as part of their everyday living shows the will that some people have and develop.I recommend this book highly and it has also made me realize that I am not so tough as I thought I was.

This story grips you like an Arctic winter. It is hard to put down as Heimo Korth lives a storybook life subsisting 28 years in back country of Alaska as a trapper and frontiersman. James Campbell takes you through Heimo and his family's incredible story. If you have any sense of life outdoors or appreciation for living off the land, this award winning book is for you.

Heimo and his family did it their way and Campbell's book celebrates their courage, difficulties and successes.

I've read Alexander Schmemann's For The Life of the World twice now; his Journal as well, put together by his wife nearly two decades after he died. There's just something special about reading the accounting of one man's view of authentic Christianity when it comes through the eyes of one who has lived inside a sacramental worldview his entire life. This is the first book I give friends who ask, "What do you mean by "sacramental Christianity?".

How can you not love the heart and mind of a priest who writes with such dear antipathy for religiosity, for a sometimes puffed up and detached clergy, or the occasional cold hearted ethnocentric laity we all encounter or embody from time to time. And all this from a man who always seems eager to judge himself first, never laying off his true love for the historic Church. He seems always able to see the goodness and hope of true Church community while working amidst the often disappointing churchiness so many of us find off putting.

He understood. He remains one of the finest men of the cloth in recent memory, a simple family man and mentor of priests (Dean, St. Vlad's) a married Orthodox clergyman in love with life through every leaf and flower and sunrise and lit home visible through an urban subway while passing by.

Schmemann writes of the mystery of love, as one who made love to a woman. He writes of the Eucharist and the Divine Liturgy as one way too connected to the earthiness of the planet to have absentmindedly levitated behind the iconostasis as did our dear St. John Maximovich. He writes so well about worship and time and death and mission as one who arose with contentment most mornings no doubt and yet without the saccharine sweet view of a "let's hurry up and get to heaven" inch deep Christianity we too often see in America.

This man had depth of soul well reflected in the way he saw walking with God. It was always all about life for Fr. Alexander. Life given as a gift to and for the world.

Schmemann delivers an overview examining the sacraments of the church from an Orthodox perspective. He begins with the sacraments of the Orthodox Church to lead readers into the understanding that for the Christian all of life is sacramental and filled with Christ. This is the best insight from this book...that in Christ Heaven has come to be present in believers and in the world. Sacraments are not a separate, distinct event in the Christian life but are indicative of the fullness of the Christians entire life and being that are filled with Christ's Spirit.

The Life of the world is Christ's life present in the world through his Spirit dwelling in believers and moving through all things. By his death and resurrection, Jesus has reconsecrated the world for God. For the Christian, there is no such thing as the secular versus the sacred. Christ dwelling in us makes all we do and are sacred through his death and life.

Schmemann discusses the Eucharist and Baptism in depth while also discussing the sacramental view of time and mission. He elaborates on marriage and love, death and the witness of Christ in the world.

This book will help all Christians, not just Orthodox ones, better comprehend the meaning and power of sacraments and to live a sacramental life in Christ.

I was disappointed with the Appendices that were previously published articles that I did not think added to the book's message or theme.

A Must read for anyone willing to find the true Christianity. Reveals and explains the Orthodox Church the true and holy one settled by Christ and continued by the apostles and having no modern changes of faith or trends. The same true and holy faith as in the first centuries worshiped by the apostles.

This is my favorite book on Christianity. Less than 150 pages - yet it is rich in meaning and application. I have bought several copies of this book as a gift for others who might be interested in the meaning of Communion and the purpose of Worship. My original copy of this book has almost every word underlined. Fr. Schmemann's writing style is warm and very insightful. A truly great book - I'd say one of the classics of Christianity, like C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity," it should be in every Christian's library and read at least once a year!!

I am Catholic. I began reading Orthodox theology about five years ago, after experiencing the Orthodox liturgy in the most dramatic and sublime manner possible: at Pascha vigil. It simply blew me away. In thirty years of weekly mass attendance I had never seen anything remotely approaching what I encountered that night.

That unknown beauty both crushed and liberated me. It revolutionized my worldview.

I began reading everything I could on ecclesiology, Church history, liturgy, and Orthodox apologetics. For Orthodox thinkers I dug into Lossky, Fr. Meyendorff, Elder Ephraim, Archbishop Kalistos Ware, the Philokalia, Pere Clement, St. Gregory Palamas, the Desert Fathers, the Cappadocian Fathers, St. John Climacus, Solzenhitzen, so on & forth. It was all utterly amazing. I had had no idea.

This book though, is a standout even amongst such rarified company. Schmemann is simply stunning. From the first page he piles insight atop insight. I've given my copy of the book away, so I haven't got it in front of me. Still, from memory I can tell you that he takes and reveals to you blatantly obvious truths about the sacramental life that have been right in front of our noses all along. That all of creation is in fact Eucharistic, rent with power of the Resurrection. You will never approach the chalice with the same mind again, once you've read it.

Orthodox theology and spirituality is most often like this: limpid & fierce, uncompromising. Very bracing, in a culture as decadent and corrupt in it's thinking as ours.

Shamefully, only the very best in contemporary Catholicism - both in terms of liturgy and theology - can touch or exceed the Orthodox average.

That said, the tragedy of historical Orthodoxy is that has been unable to make an apologetic case for itself in the so called West. Ground as they were for so long under the heel of all those Arabs, Turks, Tartars and communists. Maybe those persecutions preserved the "East" from modernity, and are the reason the flame burns so clean, particularly in the Russian, Arab & OCA parishes I've visited? God scourges those he favors, after all.

The yoke is mostly cast off, though. This seems to me to be an Orthodox moment. Can they get their act together, throw the bushel basket off their lamp, and engage the world? If the Orthodox are the Catholic Church of the Creed, as virtually every Orthodox I've talked to has insisted, I demand nothing less. (Heh. Demand! Quelle cheek, huh?) Heretics are swarming the West. So where's our Tome of Leo? Where is it? Is there a bishop to equal Athanasius in the East? Or are the Orthodox going to succumb to secularism, now that they've slipped the Communist & Saracen yokes? Will rationalism, relativism, sloth, lust and avarice do them in too? Will suburbia demand organs and pews, shorter liturgies, prefab iconography, the abrogation of feasts & fasts, & the rest? Or will Slavic ferocity save them?

No matter, all irrelevant, it seems. Orthodoxy isn't even really on the cultural radar screen. The Orthodox take on Church history is just incomprehensible here, mostly because people have never heard any of it before. The categories and data are for the most part utterly foreign. Is this excusable?

Or is it simply as it was in Noah's time, foreordained that no one should care about the Ark? But didn't Noah warn the people, anyway?

Or are the Orthodox anointed with the Sign of Jonah? And is the West Nineveh?

Or are they - God forbid - simply petulant xenophobic schismatics with nothing relevant to share?

In any case, this book - as well as everything else I've read by Schmemann and other Orthodox authors - needs to become part of our common discourse.

The time is ripe. The harvest is now. We all need to be Orthodox. Just as we need to be Catholic. Not all Roman, but Orthodox Catholics.

Which isn't necessarily to say that there isn't a Petrine charism or primacy of power in the Church, as per Isaiah 22:15-25.. Nor is it to say that ultra-montagne papists don't have a hard historical lesson or fifty to learn along the lines of the Donation of Constantine affair.

Let there be polemics! Catholic Answers & Co. all need more of a challenge than shooting poor 'fundamentalist' fish in a barrel. Please! Help them! Their apologetics are sooo boring. Spot them 1 Tim. 3:15. The rest of their apologetic directed at the prots is sheer redundancy. Let's get down to nuts and bolts and excavate the meaning of that verse. It all boils down to that.

The significance of the primacy is already planted firmly on the table. John Paul did that. Benedict is now throwing up huge signals, too. No one I heard remarked on the most interesting thing about his oh so terribly scandalous Regensburg speech. That quotation was not arbitrary. A pope does not accidentally quote Orthodox (Imperial!) sources.

I just know that all can be resolved and forgiven, if we only submit to each other in love and (re)adhere to our tradition. If the Arians were vanquished, why not our schism? As Paul re-embraced Peter? Forget Vatican III. Why not Nicea III?

I'm sure the Turks will accommodate us ..

The Harvest awaits. The gates of hell shall not prevail.

SS. Cyril & Methodius, SS Benedict & Anthony, SS Augustine & Athanasius,

Pray for us.

You gotta have this book if you're a Bruce fan. Great history and old photos. Great back stories and nostalgia. I was a bit dissapointed with the reproductions - both in terms of relevance and also the quantity of them, but all in all it is well worth the money. I mean, people actually paid $50 for the Madonna book a few years back. Puh-lease.... there is only one BOSS!

I recently took my 10 year old to a Springsteen concert and he is hooked. At his urging we went to the local library to see if they had a book on the Boss..we found this one and he loved it so much I ordered it..the great thing about it was that I loved it too !! Nothing better than something you can enjoy with your kids. I give this a thumbs up !!

My daughter got this book for me for X-Mas,
and it's the neatest thing !
Great chronological history of Bruce and his
various bands, along with the cool artifacts
placed throughout the book, including 2 great
posters !
Great bargain and must-have for any fan of the Boss !!

It's one of the greatest gifts you can give a Springsteen-fan. It holds the hole story from start til today and includes som replicas of tickets and posters

I bought this book not knowing what to expect. Talk about a labor of love. I highly recommend Greetings From E Street to any serious Bruce Springsteen fan. It's chock full of nifty things and some good information, as well. I was very pleased with this book. It has replicas of tickets, backstage passes, concert posters, and other memorabilia. The writing, which is fine, is secondary to the entire package. Just a real treat. If you have a die hard Springsteen fan in your house, he or she would love this book.

Dianne K. Salerni is a true genius. She knows how to capture her readers' attention and hold it . . . to the point of distraction! For me the best part of a story is characters so real I get to know and like, dislike or alternate between the two. High Spirits has this in spades - the Fox sisters are truly engaging as are the many supporting characters in the book. The twists and turns of this story are riveting. Just when you think oh, I know where this is going, she throws you a curve ball that has you on the edge of your seat unable to stop reading, despite any responsibilities that await. Please, please, please write your next book right now!!!

I found the Fox sisters to be a revelation not only to the reader but to the spirit world. The book is well written and entertaining as you follow the girls from something unplanned to profession. I was quite amazed at how their lives not only changed others, but put them in positions of control and in some cases danger. I would recommend this to anyone who loves history. Even though it could be described as a "teen book" it is for anyone of any age.

High Spirits is an excellent book, and Dianne Salerni has an incisive ability to get into the characters' minds. Her characters were actual people, true, but she has a way of taking them out of the past and sitting them right down next to us, making it feel as if we are seeing their story firsthand.

High Spirits actually seems to be two books in one. The first half is the history of the Fox sisters and how they became famous spiritualists, believed to be able to communicate with the dead. As their fame grows, so too does their infamy, and they must deal with nonbelievers and detractors, some of whom are willing to resort to violence. This lends itself to some harrowing, suspenseful moments.

The second part of the book is a romance, as Maggie Fox falls in love with a man who loves her in return, but is unable to find the courage to make his feelings public. Meanwhile, he demands that she give up her life of spirit rapping, which angers her family to no end as it is their sole means of support. Torn between betraying her family or losing the man she loves, a man who makes these demands yet is unwilling to commit, Maggie rides an emotional rollercoaster. We sit by her side at all times, through the constant ups and downs, not knowing how the ride will end.

It is an enjoyable ride, nonetheless, and one well worth taking.

I can't wait to read more of this author. Very well written and informative at the same time. I couldn't wait to look up the Fox sisters and Elisha Kane on the internet while only halfway through the book. Even knowing the ending I couldn't put the book down. Much better written than most of "best sellers" I have recently purchased on my kindle.

High Spirits: A Tale of Ghostly Rapping and Romance is a novelistic treatment of a real incident from American history, the story of the Fox sisters, whose childish pranks of communicating with the departed were taken seriously first by family members, then neighbors, and then the community, ultimately growing into a genuine phenomenon. The resulting movement, known as spiritualism, became quite the rage from the 1840s until after the Civil War. Traces of it are not unknown today.

By the time they reached young womanhood Maggie and Kate Fox had achieved near-celebrity status. The proceeds from their appearances financed their blue collar family and allowed them access to the highest circles of society in New York City, Philadelphia, and so forth. Maggie, in particular, developed a relationship with Elisha Kane, an adventurer and explorer whose exploits earned him his own corner in history and fiction.

For this reader, however, the history is not ultimately the point of the book. The story is a rewarding and entertaining study of two sisters, their family, and their acquaintances, as they grow and develop and mature (or fail to). The author has done a splendid and totally convincing job of filling out their lives and personalities and putting real flesh on the bare bones of history. The romantic relationship between Maggie Fox and Elisha Kane is especially well depicted, for example. Good historical fiction is capable of putting us not only in other minds but in other eras, and High Spirits does this beautifully. One can read all the history one wants of the position of women in Victorian society but this book can show us what it actually felt like.

In addition the story is masterfully written and edited. All in all this is a first-class novel.