C Books

I was trawling through a bookshop in Girona Airport(Spain) looking for a book to read on my flight back home (London, UK). Picked this book and thought I would just about manage to get through the first chapter before being lulled off to sleep. How wrong I was. I couldn't put it down.
I could relate to all three main characters and haven't laughed so much in years.
Thanks Patrick Sanchez, I'd never have thought that a man could relate to women's feelings the way you have done.
In my PC (politically correct) world , it was such a refreshing read.

In THE WAY IT IS by Patrick Sanchez, three seemingly different women have much more in common than they think. Issues with weight, love, careers, and self-worth put these women to the test.

Ruby is a woman with a successful career and a beautiful home in downtown Washington, DC. However, Ruby's weight issues plague her day in and day out. Between her mother's constant nagging for Ruby to shed some pounds, to the inner struggles with food, body image, and self-worth, she really has her work cut out for her. As if things couldn't get any worse, she has to take in two roommates to help with the mortgage after her nerdy husband leaves her for another woman.

Wanda is big, beautiful, and loving life. As a plus-sized model, she embraces her size and isn't too shy to let everyone know it. But there is an annoying obstacle in Wanda's way if she wants to make it to the top of the modeling industry.

Simone is a beautiful Latina anchorwoman for DC's local news channel. Coveted by many and very popular with the men, Simone thinks she has everything under control. However, Simone holds a dark secret that could ruin her career and, ultimately, her life.

Patrick Sanchez doesn't disappoint with THE WAY IT IS. He delves deeply into his characters, their quirks, and insecurities and writes from deep within his characters' minds, allowing the readers to walk beside them in their struggles and antics. The result is an outrageously touching and hysterical novel.

Reviewed by CandaceK
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Can this guy get any better? Oh my! He is wonderful!! Patrick Sanchez is one of the best authors I have ever read! The Way It Is is a fabulous page turner of a novel! I enjoyed every minute of it and it was hard to put it down. It is the story of three gals, who by chance became roommates, and the life issues they are dealing with at the moment. The covers of his novels alone will draw you in and never let you go!! Read this one!

This book was funny and poignant. I liked Ruby's character. She reminds me of myself. I complain about my weight all the time like she does. My goal is be Simone's size. Read the book and find out for yourselves. This book gives all the ladies their own voice and I thought that was well done coming from a male author. He knows the women.

Patrick Sanchez has done it again with his second novel, The Way It Is. Each chapter is filled with comedic antics that will keep the reader laughing and looking forward to the next chapter. Mr. Sanchez introduces the reader to three women from three different paths in life.

Ruby Waters is lacking self-confidence, divorced, plus-sized and is saving for the day when she will be thin. She is waiting for the day when she will be thin so she can wear a little black dress that her mother (Doris) has saved from her younger days. She goes to work each day trying to get the courage to talk to the co-worker she has a crush on. Ruby has a three-bedroom house and is in need of a roommate. She puts an ad in the paper and has an interesting time interviewing the interested parties. She decides to have two roommates (Wanda and Simone). Ruby's roommates help her with her self-confidence and she is also able to give others some help in the process.

Wanda is a plus-sized model that knows what she wants and how to get it. She moves in with Ruby and helps Ruby to become a new person. Wanda has a co-worker that wants to take Wanda's place as a model. Wanda finds out a secret about her co-worker that just may change everything.

Simone is a sexy, famous news anchorwoman that is living in style. She moves in with Ruby while her place is being renovated. She likes her men young and does not want a commitment. While Simone looks good on the outside, she has issues of her own that have to be dealt with and soon.

I did not want the story to end and hope that the author will write a sequel. Each of the characters is interesting. Ruby is one of my favorite characters because her issues are real for some people today. I recommend this book and look forward to reading future novels by Patrick Sanchez.

Reviewed by Phyllis
For BBW Reviews

This guide is the definitive guide to advantage. No where else on the planet can you get the information detailed in this book.
If you use advantage, you must have this book!

I was a beginner at database usage, but I was able to pick up the nuances of ADS through the use of this book. It is my main source of reference for questions concerning ADS, and has helped solve many of my problems. ADS is a great resource, and this book is the ultimate companion.

Our company (Hudson Medical Systems) has been using the Advantage Database Server in our medical transcription and dictation products for over 3 years now and we could not be more satisfied with its ease-of-use, performance, and cost. I was pleased to see a new book devoted to this remarkable product that explains the unique features of ADS in such a logical and straight-forward manner. We especially liked the dicussion of the new features in version 7.0 that we are interested in. I would recommend this book to any database developer, regardless of their familiarity with ADS, as a great resource when developing applications.

We have been making Point Of Sale Applications since the DOS days and have been through several databases over the time. Advantage Database Server has performed far beyond than we ever expected from any Database Server Software. Programming in Delphi, we found the Advantage Database Server to be the most flexible and powerful Database Server and still reasonable priced. I wish we had have this book from the start. We have used Advantage Database Server for over three years and we have learned a lot by reading this book. You, definetly, need this book if you are looking for a new database server or you are already using Advantage Database Server. You don't want to miss out on this book!!!

Whether you're upgrading a BDE app to a client server database or developing a new single-user or scaleable multi-user app, Advantage Database should be at the top of your list of databases to consider. Native Delphi VCL components, ISAM file formats, free local server, easy installation and maintenance-free design make designing and deploying ADS apps a snap.

Now with "Advantage Database Server: The Official Guide", Cary Jensen and Loy Anderson have made life even easier. Although the Advantage help file documentation makes an excellent reference, it's no substitute for Jensen and Anderson's step-by-step guide to creating an Advantage database, connecting your app to it and deploying your end product.

If you've attended one of Cary Jensen's excellent Advantage Workshop seminars you'll recognize that this intuitive, and easy to read book is based on his well developed course book. If you haven't yet had the benefit of Cary Jensen's Advantage Workshop, you probably won't need it after reading "Advantage Database Server: The Official Guide"!

Whether you're an Advantage expert or rookie this book's a keeper as both an introduction and a reference. If you're looking for a low cost, maintenance free, high performance, scaleable database that you can learn to use and deploy in a day, this book and the included companion CD contain everything you need to get started.

This book is a huge step up from the first edition. It's totally rewritten. I bought it a couple of weeks ago and now it's between the keyboard and the screen. I am continually referring to it.
The chapters on assemblies and reflection are worth the price of the book alone.
I could not ask for more.

This is an excellent reference on C#, the .NET framework, and LINQ. It's not just a rewrite of MSDN, but gives some great insight into how to use the core pieces of the .NET framework for practical applications.

The chapters on LINQ alone are worth the cost of the book. The authors dive deep into LINQ and really give you a good understanding of how it works.

I also like how the authors stay focused on the core pieces of .NET, and don't stray too deep into things like WCF and WPF. There are plenty of good books for that.

I highly recommend this for anyone desiring to learn more about C#, the .NET framework, and LINQ.

I have only read about twenty-five pages of this book, mainly at the beginning of the first chapter on LINQ; so I may have to revise my opinion later on. For now, however, this book is like a breath of fresh air. It gets straight to the point and pulls no punches. Great job!

This is a must have reference book. If you are new to C# maybe you should try first an introductory text (such as the "Visual C# 2008 step by step", or the "Head first C#") but keep in mind that introductory books usually have things spread around ... and as such this "nutshell" text is still essential (not only as a reference, but also for filling-in any gaps/details the introductory books might not mention).

This book is a really great combination between a tutorial and a reference book. What I like the most about it is that it not only explains you how to use the different elements of the C# language and the .NET Framework core namespaces, but it also explains to you how they work in the inside. This gives you a notable insight when you try to understand a strange side-effect in your code.

All explanations are made very clearly and it is very easy to read. The different chapters of the book are arranged by topic, so it is easy to use it as a reference when you can't exactly remember something. It can also be read from cover to cover.

It is, however, not recommended for beginners (as it is stated in the introduction); if you are looking for a programming tutorial this book is not a very good idea.

This C++ core language book is so often used that I thought it may deserve a review.

I own 3 books about C++ and this one became the reference. Only 200 pages (compared to the 1000 pages of another one :) but every useful feature is well explained. Authors payed careful attention in order to prevent the reader to fall in common traps. Lots of examples, always accompanied with relevant comments.

C++ in a core language really answers the questions the beginners have in mind. Concise, pragmatic, the authors are not showing off, they simply remember they were beginners one day and their explanations are exactly what one can expect. Well, I'm so happy about this book (this morning again, I was looking for a reminder about "virtual" functions or a detail about the copy constructor and all my worries were answered with no ambiguity at all) I went straight to to Amazon for a review :)

This book is relatively short, but many people might see this as a good thing, since it is really intended to transition C programmers to the basics ("core") of C++. I believe it does a decent job of this, although there are some topics (such as const) that I think it should cover but, surprisingly, does not. I liked the comparisons between polymorphism in C and C++, and the explanation of virtual functions. The examples are pretty good. There is some great humor in the book, and some parts actually made me laugh out loud. Overall, I would suggest the book to any C programmer who wants to transition to C++. Get this as your first such transitional book, then once you understand the basics, move on to a more comprehensive intermediate level book.

C++: The Core Language is a well written book and a pleasure to read. It appears that that authors made an extra effort to remove unneeded verbiage. I appreciate this because I have so much to read.

The bread and butter OOD concepts of abstraction and polymorphism are well covered. The chapter on templates covers this difficult subject well, however, I would have liked to have seen a little more on template functions.

I came from a Kernighan and Ritche C background (the "C' bible), and this seemed to pick up right where they left off. You could call this book K&R part II, and it is also about the same size. If you want a complete C++ bookshelf, I would also recommend buying (in this order) Effective C++ by Scott Meyers, The C++ Standard Library by Nicolai Josuttis, and C++ in a Nutshell by Ray Lischer.

-ND
www.NicholasDiToro.com

This is an excellent book for C programmers coming to C++ for the first time. I found the writing style and organisation of topics to be very good. The authors describe key object-based and object-oriented concepts first using familiar C constructions and then extend those ideas into the C++ domain. The ease of transitioning from C structs to C++ classes was very good, as was the discussion of subtle points like the copy constructor. Almost all major C++ concepts are described, including inheritence, virtual functions, and even templates.

My only negative criticism is that the authors leave out some important C++ functionality from their view of the C++ "core." They only mention in passing the use of const, considered by many to be vital to good C++ design. Also, since this book was published in 1995, it does not discuss the C++ standard library, which was finalised in 1997. It is therefore missing a discussion of the very useful 'string' class, among many others. Readers should defininitely follow up on these topics.

Regardless of this missing information, this book will give C programmers a solid foundation for using C++.

As an undergrad and passionate dbl major, having read many books in C and C++, this book quickly became my friend. It's a good read for those breaking out of C to C++. This book helped me cope with the shock experienced while I was trying to learn ADTs, BSTs, splay trees, skip lists, multiway tries and extendable hashing in the high level programming courses where if you asked questions you'd look dumb. The information in this book made me feel contiguously good while sitting in class. It also served as another perspective and filled in the gaps that the professor and school text left out. Also, pick up Robert Sedgewick's Algorithms in C++ 3rd Edition, which is also a splendid read.

Enjoy helping computers understand people!

late-

I have known people with Alzheimer's but this book reveals to me the true nature, the depth of anguish, the devastating impact on a family. This book is a must read; it is as educational as it is compelling, poignant, and heartbreaking. Kudos to Dr Zalar for his incredible love and caring. This book has had such a profound affect on me, I pray it will become a movie so it's knowledge can spread nationwide.

Day Is Ending deals with the meeting and courtship of Dr. Zalar and his wife and follows their lives up to his wife's demise at the hands of Alzheimer's disease.
I found her letters that were her keepsakes over the years relating to their relationship and marriage to be inspirational.
This is a very thought-provoking book. I have read it several times and each time I get something new out of it.

This moving book says it all.He was dedicated to his profession,his children and to his beloved wife my dear Aunt Trude.I too hope that this moving book is movie material

"Day Is Ending" provides people with a touching and insightful journey treating and caring for a loved one through a difficult disease. The love between Dr. Zalar and Trude is inspiring and his dedication to her and her humane treatment during challenging times provides guidance for all loved ones who may one day face the same challenges involved in caring for a loved one.

Moving love story of dedication, loyalty, compassion with care. Touching read.

i bought this book when it first came out, but just read it a couple of months ago. this is a really good book. i felt it was a page turner. it was well written and the story had a nice flow to it.

This was the best book I have read in a while. C-Murder is a great writer and I am looking forward to more. I have a 15 year old cousin that is captivated by the street life and I will be purchasing another book for him to read.

This book was interesting but at first a little confusing since I thought the book was about C-Murder. This book goes into the life of a boy playing a man's game in a grown up world. I found myself wanting to know what was
going to happen with the character in the book. I find that I would recommend this book to my friends. It's a must read.

A Letter to My Sisters: The Way Out
I must say I was very reluctant to read this book when it was suggested by my book club president. I was surprised at the content and life lessons shown. I had difficulty wading through the language, but I was not so narrow minded that I failed to see that there was dissapointment, intrigue, love, family failures and many societal failures taking place in the life of the characters.I realize that obcenity and profanity are very prevalent in the life of certain segments of society. I so much wanted the influence of the grandmother to dominate more, but that didn't happen. There was definitely a battle between evil and good taking place. I felt Daquan's pain as he attempted to struggle with the issues life threw at him. The book came to an inevitable end.

In an instant, young Daquan Watson's world was turned upside down. One act of violence has shattered the family life he once knew. Now living with Grandma Mama in The Calliope Projects, Third Ward, a notorious, drug-infested housing projects, it's just a matter of time before the lure of the streets is too much to resist. With death around every corner, will Daquan escape?

And with that, DEATH AROUND THE CORNER heads off into a violent, complicated, gritty and fascinating storyline. Books about the hood appear in a steady flow today and the flow just seems to continue to increase. However, quantity does not make up for quality. DEATH AROUND THE CORNER beats the odds. C-Murder's gripping account of one young man's experiences adds immeasurably to one's understanding of the challenges faced by many of our black youth. Its setting is rich in local color and local characters. DEATH AROUND THE CORNER proves to be exciting, with a jaw-dropping climax. Multi-platinum rapper C-Murder takes a gamble and wins, so does the reader. Maybe he can do for New Orleans literary what his brother Master P has done for New Orleans ' rap scene. Highly recommend. Looking forward to Tru Publishing.

Reviewed by: Toni

"The Divine Plan of the Ages" was written in 1886 by Charles Taze Russell, one of the innovative religious thinkers to step forward in the United States during the 19th century. Other examples would include Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy and Ellen G. White. Russell founded the Bible Students, a movement that much later developed into the Jehovah's Witnesses. However, the Witnesses have abandoned many of Russell's original ideas, so this edition of "The Divine Plan" is not published by the Watchtower Society, but by a independent group of Russelites in Canada. Amazon customers should note that this is only the first volume in a seven-volume work, known as "Studies in the Scriptures". The entire set is available at another product page.

Russell's ideas are really to complex to be commented upon in a short review. Only the bearest out-line of "The Divine Plan of the Ages" is possible here. Anyone who reads the Bible is immidiately struck by real or apparent contradictions, for instance between the Old Testament and the New Testament, or between the Pauline epistles and Revelation. Russell attempts to harmonize the various end-time scenarios with each other, creating a fascinating synthesis of his own. His main idea is that God have offered different kinds of salvation to different categories of people. Jesus came to gather a small minority of really devout followers, who would be willing to sacrifice their humanity to follow him completely. These will be transformed into mighty spirit beings at the Second Advent, seated in Heaven next to Jesus, from where they would rule the world. The majority of Christians, however, while justified by faith in Jesus, will never reach such a high level of perfection. They will be resurrected to an earthly existence during the Millenium. Russell imagined that the Millenium wouldn't be completely perfect. Mortality and evil would still exist, but at a much smaller scale than today, since society would be ruled by the resurrected saints of the Old Testament, and ultimately by Jesus himself. Esentially, the Millenium is a kind of benign theocracy. Thus, Russell harmonizes the more spiritual Kingdom of God of the Gospels with the more political Kingdom of Revelation or the Old Testament, by declaring that they are both true.

One of Russell's more innovative ideas was the notion that all humans, living or dead, would be given a "second chance" during the Millenium. In this way, he solved the vexing problem of the unsaved millions of humans, who according to traditional Christian belief go straight to Hell, for no other fault than never hearing the message of the Gospel. In Russell's scenario, all humans are resurrected during the millenial reign of Christ, and put on probation. If they refuse to accept the Gospel message even then, they will eventually be destroyed. Thus, Russell was not a strict Universalist, but his scenario nevertheless allows for more people to be saved than, say, Calvinism.

Other ideas usually associated with Russell are also expounded in this book. Russell denied the existence of Hell and an immortal soul, no doubt because of a literal reading of the Old Testament, some would say over-literal. He believed that the resurrection of Jesus was spiritual. Jesus rose from the grave as a spirit-being, not as a human. This idea, anathema to "traditional" Christians, explains the curious appearences and disappearences of the resurrected Jesus recorded in the Gospels. Also, Russell points to Paul's statements about "heavenly bodies" as proof of his contention. He is not unsympathetic to the plight of the workers, and occasionally lashes out against giant corporations, predicting sharpened class struggles and even socialist revolutions. However, Russell eventually recommends his followers to abstain from politics, instead concentrating on spreading the Gospel and live moral lives. Russell was also a Christian Zionist, believing that Israel would become the most prominent nation on Earth during the Millenium. While it would be a Christian Israel, in other writings he explicitly rejected attempts by Christians to convert the Jews, instead supporting a return to Orthodox Judaism. The rationale behind this is not explained in "The Divine Plan of the Ages". Russell's failed prophecy about the Millenium commencing in 1914 is not included in this work either, but belongs to the second volume. However, the curious idea that God has a body, and is hence limited in space, although omnipotent in power, is mentioned.

Some of these ideas sound vaguely familiar, probably because we associate them with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Others sound odd to us, since the Witnesses rejected them during their amazing expansion through-out the world. In a sense, Russell is the least known of the innovative religious founders of 19th America. Reading this book fills a gap.

A absolute must read , if you want to know the God of Justice and not the God of Just Us.

This book abolutely opened my eyes to the incredible Plan God has as revealed in the Bible! The author lays out beautifully how God has different periods of time which progress toward the blessing of all mankind. There are so many good people today who are not Christians, but the DIVINE PLAN explains everybody will actually have their first real opportunity to choose God when Satan is out of the way in God's Kingdom. Everybody is already praying for His will to be done "on earth as it is in heaven." But this book explains how that will work. And it explains how all the evil in the world is not because God doesn't have enough power or love to stop it. It gives scriptures for everything. It makes so much sense!

This book is the only one that accurately and harmoniously presents the truth of the Scriptures. It lives up to its title, "The Divine Plan of the Ages". It answers all reasonable questions on the Scriptures. A must have and a must read.

It is truly a vindication of the character of God.

As an explanation of the problem of evil, this book is the best ever written. C.S. Lewis made a valiant attempt in The Problem of Pain, but his book is an apologetic of discredited Christian traditions, and as Amazon reviews demonstrate, is unsatisfying at an emotional level.

The Jewish answer is famous, too: "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People." It's conclusion: there are some things even God can't do.

The Divine Plan of the Ages, which was written in the 1880s, was a seminal work that, as Progress and Poverty by Henry George did to the world of economics, turned the religious world upside down. It was considered so subversive that bookstores refused to sell it, and churches organized book-burning parties to destroy it. It's a credit to our day that Amazon carries this book, which has been almost entirely promoted for the last 120 years by people who love the Bible, whose lives were changed for the good by the powerful insights contained in this book.

If you're a Christian who, say, wonders about the controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism, this book is for you.

If you're a missionary who feels like you are trying to sweep back the tide with a broom, this book will revive your faith.

If you're a skeptic who has become disillusioned with the answers offered by Christian apologists, you'll discover that the Bible is more harmonious than you ever dreamed, and the reasonable prospects for the future of mankind are brighter than even Christians have dared to hope.

I read this book at the age of 17 and it changed my life forever, leading me to receive Jesus Christ as the Lord of my life. More than that, it unlocked the simple, Biblical keys that present a victorious gospel, a fair and just God, and a balanced view of what's happening in the global village today.

Spectacular, but not a quick read! If you or someone you know has cancer, then this is a must read. The author did a marvelous job of chronicaling the research path to great discoveries for cancer. Unfortunately, Dr. Folkman passed away last month but after reading this book you will have a better understanding of the legacy of important research he left behind and how it is continuing by the minute

This book is great gives a good understanding of the research community and the search to understand angiogenisis.

This book is a very well done documentary of the trials Dr. Folkman went through to have his ideas on cancer treatment considered. His ideas are now becoming the new approach, offering much needed hope for patients and their families. For anyone interested in cancer, this book is worthwhile.

This book by Robert Cooke is incredible! Mr. Cooke is able to explain to the average layperson the medical concepts of angeiogeneis conceived by the most under-valued person of our time: Dr. Judah Folkman. Dr. Folkman is to cancer what Salk was to Polio! Personally, Dr. Judah Folkman is my hero! A real hero, deserving of the Nobel Prize....and I don't speak lightly. I am a cancer patient that has recently learned that my cancer (thought was beat) has advanced to my lungs. The ONLY therapy for me is in an ANGIOGENESIS drug therapy program for a drug currently in study and labeled as "PI-88." I am just so confident this drug will work. I am the only patient with my type of cancer cell (adenoid cystic carninoma), so I am a little bit more of a lab rat for this program.

God Bless Dr. Folkman and h is incredible perserverance! His story should be a movie----a tale better than SeaBiscuit! He is my SeaBiscuit!

LHH

Chances are someone close to you has succumbed to the ravages of cancer, while you and the medical establishment could only sit by and watch the process reach its inevitable conclusion. The good news is, for nearly 40 years, Dr. Judah Folkman has been pursuing a cure for cancer -- or at least a way to fight tumors more effectively than chemotherapy or radiation -- that only until very recently has garnered serious attention. Dr. Folkman's theory is called angiogenesis, the process by which cancer cells emit an agent which triggers the growth of blood vessels to feed the growth of the cancer itself. For years Dr. Folkman's idea was basically scoffed at as the flailings of an amateur researcher, but Cooke shows how Dr. Folkman has perservered -- while maintaining his brilliant career as a physician -- and eventually, through a slow accumulation of experimental evidence, as well as the discovery of several antiangionesis agents, turned opinion around. Throughout this engaging and fascinating retelling of Folkman's journey, Cooke also provides an eye-opening account of the workings of academia, medical research, and their relationships to those Orwellian biotech companies you keep hearing about. The science is clear and vivid, the battle to defeat cancer inspiring, and the promise of victory -- thankfully, finally -- just around the corner.

This book is a must for any crazy quilter. I love the size and the fact that it can lie flat open when using. The drawings are large, clear and easy to follow. Even has directions for left handed. The color photos are wonderful "eye candy". This book sparked so many new ideas for me. It is a MUST HAVE.

This is a must have for every stitcher's library. An excellent stitch guide with wonderful diagrams.

Whether you are a new or experienced stitcher this book gives easy to follow instructions for a wide variety of stitches along with ideas to combine different stitches. I have referred to it many, many times on my current project: a crazy quilt. Money well spent!

The instructions were easy to follow and well illustrated. I am a novice at embriodery and this book was very helpful. It gave me ideas on how to proceed in my crazy quilt.

Bought the book as a gift. Recipient was very pleased with the book. It clearly describes the stitches and how to make them. Full of pictures that enable you to visualize the final result and the process of creating those stitches.

A. Schopenhauer and Ralph W. Emerson deserve to be read together. I remember reading these two at roughly the same time and they blew my mind open, splattering it on whatever was behind me. Schopenhauer writes beautifully, with great wit, humor and massive quantities of vitrol all at once. R. J. Hollingdale, famous for his superlative translations of Friedrich Nietzsche's writings, does justice to this collection; it's only a shame that he never translated the rest of his writings, or at least the World as Will and Representation.

A brief passage for those who might be otherwise daunted:

"Dilettantes! Dilettantes! -- this is the derogatory cry those who apply themselves to art or science for the sake of gain raise against those who pursue it for love of it and pleasure in it. THis derogation rests on their vulgar conviction that no one would take up a thing seriously unless prompted to it by want, hunger, or some other kind of greediness. The public has the same outlook and consequently holds the same opinion, which is the origin of its universal respect for 'the professional' and its mistrust of the dilettante. the truth, however, is that to the dilettante the thing is the end, while to the professional as such it is the means; and only he who is directly interested in a thing, and occupies himself with it form love of it, will pursue it with entire seriousness. It is from such as these, and not from wage earners, that the greatest things have always come." pg. 227

My copy is showing age and serious wear; I'd recommend picking up two, you'll be reading this into the dust.
If you enjoy the 'gallant' misogeny and self-sure egoism in passages like those from his essay "On Women" I'd reccomend Max Stirner's "Ego and its Own"--a must for rampant individualists. Another plus: caustic enough to rile the ire of a young K. Marx. Thoreau minus patience.

I came to Schopenhauer's work reluctantly, having been put off by two things: first, his well-known belligerent attitude towards women (misogyny is an understatement); and second by Nietzsche, who - despite an early infatuation with Schopenhauer - later turned against his "mentor" (of sorts), claiming his work lacked any ethical applicability.

Yet, as an avid reader of philosophy in general, I found myself repeatedly drawn towards Schopenhauer through various resources. After putting my prejudices aside, then, I have to say that I consumed this volume with great enthusiasm and found Schopenhauer to be one of the clearest, most articulate philosophers in the Western tradition. He was, in a word, a genius.

Sure, the "Buddha of Frankfurt" (his nickname) was not saint, but Schopenhauer himself would have been the first to admit it. That said, I think the chapter on women and Nietzsche's complaints should be kept in mind, but not used to disallow the rest of his brilliant methaphysical writing.

I want to mention here, too, that the introduction by R.J. Hollingdale is outstanding and helpful. I have read Kant, but I still found his summary of philosophy leading up to Schopenhauer to be a refreshing and lively review (compared, say, with the dull, unhelpful introduction by Dave Berman in Everyman's edition of The World as Will and Idea). It is hard to sum up Kant's thought in a few pages, but Hollingdale does a great job, I think.

Finally, I don't think you need to have read Kant to understand most of the ideas presented in this text. Also, I have to concur with Schopenhauer's university philosophy professor, G.E. Schulze, who told the young thinker to stick with ONLY Plato and Kant - but to that small list I would now add the name Schopenhauer.

I highly recommend this text for both beginners and experts in the field -it is THAT good...and it just might change your whole perspective, if not your way of life. Amazing!

What shall I say of Schopenhauer? I've read much of his "The World as Will and Idea," but I like his "Essays and Aphorisms" better. The "Essays" state all of his major ideas but in a more enjoyable and palatable form. His magnum opus explicates his philosophy more completely, but I was bogged down by his incessant treatment of Kantian transcendentalism, which contextualized his work and gave it legitimacy within his time period.

But I would argue that Schopenhauer is known for his pessimistic interpretation of existence, and his intellectual and artistic reworkings of Vedantic and Buddhistic philosophy. He was able to enmesh Kantian and Eastern idealism within a conernful way of life within the world.

One delights in Schopenhauer's verbal abuse of life, Christian metaphysics (not Christianity itself), and optimisms of every kind. He has a way of reducing cherished sentiments and ideals to the absurd mechanisms of control and torture: the systems of human existence.

Read the "Essays" if you want to be challenged, if you want to have some wicked fun, and if you wish to consider your own existence within a definite and different (but not necessarily definitive) framework.

This is a brief compendium and collection of Schopenhauer's expository writing, suitable for a quick introduction to many of his ideas and most famous sayings. Few philosophers were as clear and concise in their writing as he was, and this little book contains many of most quotable and trenchant passages. The Schopenhauer neophyte as well as the more experienced reader will find much to reflect on and to entertain here.

Personally, I like Schopenhauer despite his overall downer message, although his philosophy and metaphysics, which is which is called absolute voluntaristic idealism, hasn't faired that well in the last 100 years, although when I was in college 30 years ago he seemed to be popular among the students I knew who were studying philosophy.

There are several reasons why Schopenhauer's thought is still important. An idealist like Kant, he kept Kant's distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal, between the mental and external representations of reality. Kant's defense of idealism, that some ideas or at least mental processes are innate, is still relevant in modern brain science and neurobiology and in Chomsky's theories in linguistics, especially in regard to Chomsky's ideas about language learning and acquisition, in which there is support from brain science for a built-in facility in humans for language, and possibly an innate syntactical generator component to language ability.

Although innate ideas probably don't exist in the way that Kant envisioned them, modern brain science has supported his theory that the mind or brain is actively involved in the organizing and structuring of the data from the senses, and that we couldn't make sense of reality if we didn't have inborn aptitudes and capabilities to do that.

Schopenhauer emphasized the importance of Eastern philosophy and the validity of its introspective methods, while maintaining his overall empirical approach. His moral and ethical philosophy is based on compassion rather than on practical and reasonable considerations like Kant's. He was probably the first important western philosopher to give credit to Zen and Buddhist thought, while remaining faithful to the empirical principles of science.

Outside of philosophy his thoughts have had a major impact on psychology and the arts. He was the most important influence on both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, and he also had a great influence on Freud and Jung, and on writers and composers from Wagner to Tolstoy. During the 20th century, Schopenhauer's reputation faded and the importance of his work has been to a great extent overlooked, but recent books show that his importance is being rediscovered and reappraised.

I have to include this brief passage on his thought, since it's excellent, which I obtained from the biographies section of Bluepete website.

"Schopenhauer's system of philosophy, as previously mentioned, was based on that of Kant's. Schopenhauer did not believe that people had individual wills but were rather simply part of a vast and single will that pervades the universe: that the feeling of separateness that each of has is but an illusion. So far this sounds much like the Spinozistic view or the Naturalistic School of philosophy. The problem with Schopenhauer, and certainly unlike Spinoza, is that, in his view, "the cosmic will is wicked ... and the source of all endless suffering."

I have a personal anecdote to recount. My college roommates and I used to read Schopenhauer at night to each other over a couple of beers, and we found his acerbic, trenchant style and sharp wit a delight to read, and this book is perhaps the best example of his prose in that regard. One Schopenhauer quote I still remember after 30 years is: "Intellect comes from the mother; character from the father," which might say a lot about his family life and how he grew up.

Schopenhauer is also famous for quotes such as:

"The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom."
(from his Essays, Personality; or What a Man Is).

"I have long held the opinion that the amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity and therefore be regarded as pretty fair measure of it."

"To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties."

I have to include my favorite quote on marriage here, although it isn't Schopenhauer's, and I don't know where it came from, although it echoes his sentiments: "Marriage is the institution where the woman loses her the name and the man his solvency."

His dyspeptic view of life might have been fostered by his delicate digestive system. He would spent many minutes poring over the menu before ordering his food in the cafes where he usually dined, because a wrong choice "could send his nerves ringing for days," according to one comment I read about him. Whatever the source of his pessimism, Schopenhauer seemed almost embarrassed and ashamed to be in a human body, because he did not seem to find much good in humans or human society. No doubt he would have preferred to be a higher, more intelligent species than humans, if such exists somewhere else in the universe. But Schopenauer didn't seem to think that intelligent life existed here. :-)

Whatever the current fate of his reputation, Schopenhauer was a uniquely gloomy intellect who contributed much to several areas of philosophy. And not the least of his virtues is that he was a true cynic and pessimist--surely the most accurate view of life, after all. :-)

Schopenhauer's father committed suicide. Son Arthur had been very devoted to his father Heinrich Floris. The high-sensitive son could not deal with the fact, that his mother Johanna had preferred to talk with Goethe in her Weimar Literary Salon instead of helping her husband, getting more and more depressed as a salesman in Hamburg. A typical, later on dialogue between mother (at that time a famous novelist) and son, fresh university lecturer: "One still will read my writings, at a time, when your books are out of stock and only one copy can be found in a lumber-room." Mother thereupon sneering: "The whole, complete edition of your writings, my son, still will be waiting to get an order to be shipped..." (the reviewer fears that his own frizztext-book might have to suffer the same fate). "The World as Will", as too much inconsiderate will-to-live - in such a way Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 - September 21, 1860) experienced the whole human being. With persistance and arrogance, with brain and bile, suffering and bitterly, but with sensitivity and empathy as well he wrote - trying not to get overwhelmed by disgust. He had a deep neurotic aversion against women (surely involved by his mother). Once he pushed in anger his charwoman down the stairs backwards. But this female individual offered resistance very intellectually: She successful called a judge and Schopenhauer was sentenced, to pay a pension to her - all her life long. But exactly this evil bile encouraged him, on the other hand, to fight against mother Johanna and Goethe, against Hegel and diverse money-lenders. However just opposite to his choleric, hot-tempered way of life, his philosophical theory proclaimed to be calm as a Buddha. He adored Eastern Vedic (Buddhist) Scriptures. He adored enjoying art as a way out of the more mediocre and less passionate masses. The summary of his philosophy finally is the reference to the noblesse to demand nothing; this German philosopher's hope is, that "willing" might be silenced. 150 years and some wars later we all should agree. "To be vulgar is nothing else than giving the leading role in our consciousness to the will and not to the cognition." This tiny book is still able to help today's readers to climb not a meditative, but a thoughtful level. And still it is not out of stock in the most nations ...