Alexander Books
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Used price: $46.74

The best on WW2 overall.Review Date: 2008-10-04
Realistic Portrait of WarReview Date: 2008-10-03
That's where this story takes place. I have read few books that convey the realism and horror of war so well, without reservation. This is one.
Eugene B. Sledge, an Alabama boy, heads into War in the Pacific as a member of the U.S. Marines. He lands with the famous 1st Marine Division - 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. His training was concentrated and intense - but still nothing prepares one for the onslaught of Pelilieu. He was a vet when he hit Okinawa where the fighting got even tougher. The image that sticks with me about Okinawa is a Marine who has to head back to get ammo. He slips in the mud and slides down the hill, rising to discover that he was covered in the maggots uncovered by his slid that were gnawing away at the dead bodies in the mud. This Marine, inured to death and destruction, is rattled badly. That image has stayed with me to understand the horror of this generation's sacrifice and their quiet acceptance of Duty.
By the time Sledge hit the hell of Okinawa, he was a combat vet, still filled with fear but no longer with panic.
Bought this for my dad.Review Date: 2008-09-16
Good saleReview Date: 2008-08-23
Satisfaction GuaranteedReview Date: 2008-08-20

Used price: $31.02
Collectible price: $859.95

This is not an end all to architectural problems.Review Date: 2008-09-25
no problemsReview Date: 2008-09-15
Healing Our Industrial Age Review Date: 2007-11-04
Wonderful!Review Date: 2007-10-28
This book provides a near mystical approach to architecture in a very simplistic form that anyone can understand.
surprisingly religious..... interesting, but not believableReview Date: 2007-12-26
I was shocked to find how opinionated and philosophical the book is. I expected the book to look at the history of cities, towns, etc. and describe patterns that already exist (much like the GoF's software design patterns book talks about patterns that people actually use). Instead the book presents a series of ideals about how the world should be structured.
If these ideals came from concerns I could identify with, I would take it more seriously. But instead they attack "problems" which I do not perceive to exist. For example, on p. 43 "The homogeneous and undifferentiated character of modern cities kills all variety of life styles and arrest the growth of individual character." This statement is contrary to my experience. I have met many great characters from cities, and seen profound cultural differentiation emerge from cities (e.g. jazz, abstract painting, hippie culture, punk, you name it). But the authors proceed as if cities killing character is axiomatic. I agree that there is a rural character that is not present in cities. But citydwellers have another type of character which is equally valid.
I have only made it through the first 100 pages. In these pages are so many naive ideas about mixing cityspace and vacant space. I live in Los Angeles so I know about sprawl & I also know a lot about cars -- while they are aiming for less sprawl then LA, they also neglect traffic congestion. They claim that making small roads in places make people reluctant to drive there.... the experience worldwide (worst in Malaysia, I hear) is that people use whatever roads are present, and if the roads are small, they then just end up sitting in traffic. The author's are naive in their structuring of space, nowhere do they cite any hard evidence of how these structures function.
I might make it the rest of the way through.... at least it's an easy read, with so many repetitions in how the models work you can kinda skim through it. I like the spirit of the book, it is reminiscent of P.M.'s bolo'bolo.... but where bolo'bolo comes from a purely emotional position, these authors take themselves seriously and believe what they are saying is objectively true. I give the book 3 stars because it is nice to see someone work through the ideas of bolo'bolo (which was actually written ~6yrs after alexander's book). I would give 5 stars to a book that did so by looking more at actual data of how spaces are utilized, and presented designs that didn't have obvious flaws in them.

A Classic Book With a MessageReview Date: 2008-07-15
The author's theme is quite clear, yet not preachy. Forcing readers to look within and celebrate other's differences while recognizing held beliefs is what rides throughout the book. The theme is revealed through its characters and the setting holds to enforce it. The writer carefully questions the normal human nature. Readers are gently forced to face their own disagreements. A book that has been around for generations still provides the right answers to time old questions. Through its read, it is possible to fantasize of a better world.
Loved it then - Love it nowReview Date: 2008-02-26
leaves you wanting more, but still excellentReview Date: 2007-05-29
Memories from long agoReview Date: 2007-04-08
A gentle, thoughtful gemReview Date: 2007-06-01

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Funny pictures, serious topicReview Date: 2008-11-03
readable historyReview Date: 2007-10-19
Funny HistoryReview Date: 2007-10-10
Then I ordered this book, which has much the same type of humor. I wish it were in color instead of black and white, but otherwise, a fun way to "read" history.
I wish we had this during grade school?Review Date: 2007-06-09
I was so impressed about the presentation that I thought - why isn't there an animated version of this book (and the other volumes)? Wouldn't it be nice for kids to be able to get their history lessons via Cartoon Network?
But then I reached the part about what early Greek women did with their goats and sheep and how the Spartans treated young boys and I thought "well, maybe it's better if it stays in book form".
My only gripe is the lack of an index. Certainly handy when important names and places are regularly mentioned (like any other history book) .
Wow! If only high school/college history had been this fun and insightfulReview Date: 2008-06-03
I recommend these for history buffs and non-history buffs. Really it's just a good read period. Forget that it's history.

I am so glad I found these...Review Date: 2008-09-13
Third in a series that keeps getting betterReview Date: 2008-09-12
This book takes the form of a standard rescue-the-damsel-in-distress story but Alexander keeps the pace brisk and introduces new characters that will return in future books: Llyan, a giant mountain cat, and Glew, a giant. Dallben and Coll only appear in the opening chapters, but returning characters include wandering bard Fflewddur Fflam, Prince Gwydion, and evil Queen Achren.
I woouldn't say that this is the best book in the series (that would be The High King, in my opinion) but it's a close second.
Not Free SF ReaderReview Date: 2007-09-03
When you decide you need to work on the aristocratic side of a girl, of course you would send her off with a pig keeper and a beast man, wouldn't you?
Because of this, and a bit of a princess triangle, they all end up in a Land of the Giants type scenario, or at least in part.
Here, along with a bit of magic, is a fantasy book where a crow actually comes in useful as a good thing.
Chronicles of PrydainReview Date: 2006-11-06
Good book, good principlesReview Date: 2006-05-05
This books is lots of fun, definitely a recommended read, along with the rest of the series.
Overall grade: A-
Used price: $1.24

An incomparably rich and beautiful novelReview Date: 2008-08-13
Excellent bookReview Date: 2008-07-09
Thinking about health careReview Date: 2008-03-24
The number of the cancer ward is thirteen. An official is to be treated for a tumor at the hospital. He resents the squalor of his surroundings. He consents, nonetheless, to undergo treatments. Dr. Dontsova has three residents. They call her Mama.
The bureaucracy insists that Dontsova dismiss indeterminate cases, cases where there is no improvement. Dontsova is troubled herself by stomach pains. Guilt she feels, though, is triggered by the existence of radiation sickness since she is an oncologist and radiologist. She cleans and shops and cooks for her family consisting of her husband and son.
One evening the male patients have an argument about moral perfectionism. It is claimed that Gorky, Stalin, and Lenin all thought that Tolstoy's doctrine was dangerous. Continuing their discussion, the male cancer patients are happy to think of traditional peasant remedies. Illness levels. The functionary and the exile are similarly situated.
Sickness provides respite from work and citizenly duties. Centers for treatment draw a cosmopolitan mix of people. Many people had lives interrupted in war service. Fairly detailed descriptions of the soviet medical system are given. Shortages of cleaning rags and other dysfunctions are common. Attempts to rationalize procedures and safeguard limited resources slow progress and create inefficiencies.
Oleg Filimonovich Kostoglotov, one of the points through which consciousness flows in the novel, resides in Ush-Terek, a virgin lands territory, and is a topographer but works as a land surveyor. The Ministry of Internal Affairs required that he live there. He was administratively exiled.
Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov, the official being treated, strives to be optimistic as Gorky couseled. He looks forward to the visits of his wife, Kapitolina Matveyena. At first a geologist, Vadim, thought that Oleg Kostoglotov was a rude loud-mouth. (Vadim was collected, proud, and polite.) He saw that Rusanov was a standard sort of bureaucrat. Later Vadim discovered that Oleg was not arrogant. In fact, he was even generous.
Oleg discovered that after the world of the camps, exile could not be cruel. He was thirty-four and now too old too obtain a university education. He felt he could be content in exile if only he had his health. Oleg's good friends in Ush-Terek were a pediatrician and his wife. Oleg admired the chief surgeon at the facility. He had worked in the camps. Oleg picked up this piece of biography through the surgeon's choice of words. Oleg accused Rusanov of not being patriotic, of not having a love for country, but rather of wanting a fat pension.
Someone cites a writing of Lenin that an official should be paid a wage equal to the amount paid to a good worker. An older man tells Oleg that with his history he is fortunate since he has had to lie less. The man, a scientist, had been forced to follow the faulty teachings of Lysenko.
Dontsova had dealt with the ailments of other for thirty years. Now she has been diagnosed. She is to take sick leave and proceed to the Moscow Institute She makes her final rounds. Rusanov is released. He believes that he is cured. Oleg is discharged to recover from the treatment and to return to Ush-Terek. This is a masterpiece.
A masterpiece old-school Russian style...Review Date: 2008-08-20
No one writes a fat, sprawling, old-fashioned Russian novel quite like a Russian. To the ranks of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, you can add Solzhenitsyn and to novels like *The Brothers Karamazov* and *Anna Karenina* you can add *Cancer Ward.* In fact, *Cancer Ward,* like Tolstoy's slim but immensely profound *The Death of Ivan Illych* begins in much the same fashion: a married, middle-aged career man is suddenly confronted with the most immediate and terrifying thing of all: his own mortality.
Although in *Cancer Ward* instead of the self-absorption of bourgeoisie society, the setting is Soviet Russia in the two years after Stalin's demise. It's still a world of repression, imprisonment, suspicion, fear, lies, exile--and, most of all, the ever-lurking presence of death. These conditions are allegorized in the cancer ward itself, in the doctor's who must have faith in their largely ineffective treatment and--all appearances to the contrary--who never tell their patients the truth about their condition...which leads to the absurdity that Solzhenitsyn uses as the title of the first chapter of *Cancer Ward*: a patient sent to the cancer ward assured by his doctor that he has "no cancer whatsoever."
What is allegorized is a people who've been systematically brutalized into the deepest self-denial, terrorized into ignoring the cancer destroying their society.
But for all the allusions--evident or oblique--to the secret police, the Gulag, and the totalitarian state, as well as the impassioned outcries against Stalinism, *Cancer Ward* is about the universal and timeless problems of death, of faith, of freedom, and of how we should live our lives and what might give them meaning.
Like all the greatest Russian novelists, Solzhenitsyn tackles the biggest questions. *Cancer Ward* is a philosophical novel in the best Dostoyevskian sense of the term. Filled with passion, pathos, humor, and heart, as well as a vivid cast of memorable characters to embody every idea, every human emotion, *Cancer Ward* is a masterpiece and Solzhenitsyn a writer rare in our age who still dares to deal with serious things seriously and compels you, by the sheer unquestionable moral force of his conviction, to take them seriously, too.
This is perhaps the best book I've read in recent memory. Don't miss it.
Solzhenitsyn was right; New York Times was terribly wrongReview Date: 2008-08-07

Used price: $4.50

Classic!Review Date: 2008-07-12
CharmingReview Date: 2008-06-04
It occurred to me one day that I had never actually read the original, and thought maybe I should give that a chance, and am glad that I did. It's a simple and direct story, and proved to be a joy to read.
Wonderful!Review Date: 2008-02-15
one of our family's favoritesReview Date: 2007-01-04
wonderful!Review Date: 2007-01-11
Used price: $11.95

Una obra incomparable.Review Date: 2002-05-09
En ella se puede encontrar un relato sobre las guerras
napoleónicas y la participación de Rusia en ellas, pero también
un retrato de la vida de la alta sociedad rusa de la época. Estas
situaciones tan diversas están narradas con una gran viveza.
Aprovechando el trasfondo histórico de la novela, Tolstoi nos
proporciona también sus visiones sobre la Historia y
el papel que los hombres representan en ella. Estas impresiones
no rompen la narración, sino que la complementan de forma
magistral.
El gran volumen de la novela
puede asustar a algunos lectores,
pero en el caso de esta novela merece la pena: cada página se
lee con verdadero
placer.
Una obra incomparable.Review Date: 2002-05-09
En ella se puede encontrar un relato sobre las guerras
napoleónicas y la participación de Rusia en ellas, pero también
un retrato de la vida de la alta sociedad rusa de la época. Estas
situaciones tan diversas están narradas con una gran viveza.
Aprovechando el trasfondo histórico de la novela, Tolstoi nos
proporciona también sus visiones sobre la Historia y
el papel que los hombres representan en ella. Estas impresiones
no rompen la narración, sino que la complementan de forma
magistral.
El gran volumen de la novela
puede asustar a algunos lectores,
pero en el caso de esta novela merece la pena: cada página se
lee con verdadero
placer.
Una obra incomparable.Review Date: 2002-05-09
En ella se puede encontrar un relato sobre las guerras
napoleónicas y la participación de Rusia en ellas, pero también
un retrato de la vida de la alta sociedad rusa de la época. Estas
situaciones tan diversas están narradas con una gran viveza.
Aprovechando el trasfondo histórico de la novela, Tolstoi nos
proporciona también sus visiones sobre la Historia y
el papel que los hombres representan en ella. Estas impresiones
no rompen la narración, sino que la complementan de forma
magistral.
El gran volumen de la novela
puede asustar a algunos lectores,
pero en el caso de esta novela merece la pena: cada página se
lee con verdadero
placer.
Una obra incomparable.Review Date: 2002-05-09
En ella se puede encontrar un relato sobre las guerras
napoleónicas y la participación de Rusia en ellas, pero también
un retrato de la vida de la alta sociedad rusa de la época. Estas
situaciones tan diversas están narradas con una gran viveza.
Aprovechando el trasfondo histórico de la novela, Tolstoi nos
proporciona también sus visiones sobre la Historia y
el papel que los hombres representan en ella. Estas impresiones
no rompen la narración, sino que la complementan de forma
magistral.
El gran volumen de la novela
puede asustar a algunos lectores,
pero en el caso de esta novela merece la pena: cada página se
lee con verdadero
placer.
Una obra incomparable.Review Date: 2002-05-09
En ella se puede encontrar un relato sobre las guerras
napoleónicas y la participación de Rusia en ellas, pero también
un retrato de la vida de la alta sociedad rusa de la época. Estas
situaciones tan diversas están narradas con una gran viveza.
Aprovechando el trasfondo histórico de la novela, Tolstoi nos
proporciona también sus visiones sobre la Historia y
el papel que los hombres representan en ella. Estas impresiones
no rompen la narración, sino que la complementan de forma
magistral.
El gran volumen de la novela
puede asustar a algunos lectores,
pero en el caso de esta novela merece la pena: cada página se
lee con verdadero
placer.

Used price: $12.37

Sometimes a Wee Pinch of Reality is NiceReview Date: 2008-04-20
But I think she just expected too much of the reader after that. Would someone in the 18th century really hire a woman who was visibly pregnant to be a housekeeper if there were rumors circulating about her? Especially since she had no references, other than, presumably, having a housekeeper when she was growing up? Most servants back then weren't married at all, much less "widowed" and pregnant. Who would have taken care of the child while she worked? And wasn't it unwise of her to be employed by someone who made it clear he wanted her sexually?
Then there is the issue of Larson not coming out and saying "Hey, it's me." If this was because he was angry, he would not have pursued her. It just didn't make sense, and it went on too long. I felt that she was asking a bit much of my imagination.
I Couldn't Put It Down!Review Date: 2008-02-27
Widowed and pregnant, she discovers a hidden treasure in a deeply scarred man who loves her like she's always longed to be loved. I read this book in two days. I simply couldn't put it down. What a wonderful story of faith and restoration. I can hardly wait to read book 2.
My MIL read it and said, "I don't know how anyone could ever say a bad thing about this book. It's the best book I've read in years."
I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!Review Date: 2007-11-20
A New Writer to Add to My FavoritesReview Date: 2007-10-15
Loved ItReview Date: 2007-09-19

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Collectible price: $10.00

Panther in the SkyReview Date: 2007-10-19
gripping, memorable TecumsehReview Date: 2007-03-08
Wonderful Study on the IndiansReview Date: 2006-03-17
Thoughtful, exciting, and moving novel Review Date: 2006-08-31
Like other great Indian leaders before him (Pontiac, Joseph Brandt) and after (Crazy Horse), Tecumseh dreamed of uniting the Indian tribes and throwing back the white encroachment, carving out the space for the Indians to continue to practice their traditional way of life. He had many obstacles to overcome, not all of which were caused by the whites. In general, Indian societies were plagued by short-term thinking and an inability to grasp the big picture of what was really happening to their world. A number of Indian leaders were great tacticians, scoring big victories and then scattering while the whites regrouped and came relentlessly on. Only a few leaders were able to think strategically enough to actually slow the white advance. Tecumseh was one of these military geniuses.
The novel works as history, but it also works as a great story. Thom creates a sense of grief and regret about the loss of the Indians' world, but he doesn't whitewash the Indians. Tecumseh's brother, The Prophet, is depicted as a charlatan, and there are some brutal scenes of the torture that the Indians inflicted on their white captives. This low and cowardly behavior is a source of great despair for Tecumseh, who wants to elevate his people to a higher spiritual plane.
In a few spots in the book, Tecumseh appears too good to be true. I had a hard time believing that his goodness would have caused his arch-enemy, William Henry Harrison, to question the righteousness of his own cause. But overall the character of Tecumseh comes off as admirable but very human as he wrestles with spiritual questions, doubts, and vulnerabilites.
Good bookReview Date: 2006-09-27
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