Cole Books

This book is a very insightful read in which Father Basil both outlines the unique identity of the priesthood and also looks at how the struggles with different vices apply to it. He draws heavily from the Catechism as well as papal documents in fleshing out his understanding of the priesthood and he draws also heavily on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas in looking at the different vices. Many Thomistic themes, such as the need for contemplation are prevalent throughout the work and what emerges is a very pastoral guide for understanding human nature and stocking up the spiritual arsenal for those times when one faces various temptations.

Alaska has always had a hold on the imagination and dreams for us in the "Lower 48". The immense size, breathtaking vistas, the immense remaining wilderness, and our belief that we can go there and test ourselves against its ruggedness draw us to it. Just attempting it would teach you something about yourself, about nature, and about life even if you didn't actually score so well in the test. Some go half-way by taking comfortable tours.

Most of us satisfy our longing for Alaska with pictures. This is a fine collection of a couple hundred photos that take us from the time Alaska was purchased and had only 30,000 native inhabitants, through the gold rushes, the role of government in developing the land and economy of Alaska, and into the oil boom that ends with the pipeline built in the 1970s. We see the key cities grow, the kinds of buildings that they had and added over time. The importance of the seaports, and sea life becomes quite clear to us. There are even a few pictures of the terrible earthquake of 1964. I remember reading about that and seeing the news footage on TV as a child.

Dermot Cole, a journalist and author specializing in Alaska, supplies the section introductions and the captions for the pictures. His words help us see the pictures with more informed eyes and help us see them as part of a larger story.

The four sections are:

The Alaska Purchase (1867-1905)
The Territory of Alaska (1906-1919)
Dredging Through The Depression (1920-1940)
The Long Road To Statehood (1941-1979)

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

The authors give a strong explanation of biological evolution, from its earliest unicellular origins to the present. Much fossil and DNA evidence is summarised. Including recent findings in fossil digs from the 90s.

They point out that many so-called missing links are not. For relations between genera, families, orders and classes, the intermediate forms ("links") are often present in the fossil record. Amongst the cases cited are the origins of whales and sea cows.

More generally, the book has numerous instances where transitions found in fossils are explained in terms of limbs or bones developing, or suchlike, so that you can clearly see how one fossil is the evolutionary ancestor of another later fossil. As in the early fishes. Where those who developed jaws with bones were then more able to hunt other fishes; a strong evolutionary advantage. While the move onto land is shown in fossils that had fins with muscles. This allowed for propulsion above water, where the original advantage was to let the fish move around under water, in mud or vegetation.

Geology is also emphasised. Often giving rise to various ore and petroleum bodies found today. Plus plate tectonics is shown to account for the continental drifts and the breakup of Gondwanaland.

Katharine Coles's book, "A History of the Garden" isone full of beautiful, personal poetry that reveals an intelligentauthor behind the scenes, playing with words and situations. Even in her first poem, "Fear of Falling," Coles, playing with the ideas of gravity and death, writes that the night she was born "a moon as full and hot as August scraped the rooftops." The rest of the poem builds on this, drawing on links between gravity, lightness and death.

In a later poem, "Natural Disasters," she describes a "mother's lifelong rage" as the "slow burn of a wire behind an old house wall," and continues to describe the mother's rage internally and externally, building up to an emotional crisis that, surprisingly, doesn't occur.

What the sum of these poems represent is a clear, scientific approach to poetry; it is poetry that uses science to illuminate and compare, but which is not dehumanized by science. Her poems are full of love, for the earth and for the people in it.

Well, my boyfriend really loved this book, and won't rest until he gets me to read it. And everything that he says is good usually does end up being good, so I trust that it is.

This book exposes the criminal character of the Hollywood blacklist and the great heroism of those who resisted it. Lester Cole is also able to show the truth about the Soviet Union and Communism and that the people are being lied to about the history of the Cold War.

This is an important work of Holocaust scholarship that explores the role of the local population and local officials in the genocide of Hungarian Jews. Cole is a wonderful writer whose extensive research has resulted in an important addition to the picture we have of how the Holocaust could happen. It contextualizes the "Final Solution" and shows how its implementation in Hungary owed much to local interests and local initiatives.

If you are reading this review and not by accident you probably should buy this book. Here are the chapters:
1) Classic theory of Hilbert Modular Forms
2) Same theory but using Adelic ideas
3) How to pass from one theory to the other and the advantages of the adelic viewpoint
4) Eisenstein series for HMFs
5) Theta series for HMFs
6) Arithmetic structure theorem and a special values
7) Proof of the Arithmetic structure theorem

They material is well done and is designed for self study. There are unfortunately no exercises which is really the book's only large failing. Finally if you find this book interesting do a search of Garrett's website. There is a lot of material there (amazon has a no link rule so I can't link to it).

These two volumes inaugurated Yale's publication of the complete publication of the letters of Horace Walpole, 18th century conoisseur and man of letters. Letter writing then was an art form, and each of Walpole's letter is an individual performance. Other great letter writers of the period are (in English) Edward Gibbon, the historian, and the poet Thomas Gray, which are also recommended. Walpole, the son of the 1st English prime minister, devoted his life to collecting art, building his home outside London in Gothic Revival Style, and commenting on the literary, political, and artistic developements of the day. The editing job is excellent, if directed more towards the knowledgeable reader than to someone approaching these letters for the first time.

Michael Berke's debut novel, the first of what promises to be a long line of Bobby Cole thrillers, comes roaring out of the gate with crooks being tossed over one's head, jewelry thieves being waylaid in the elevator alcove, and rich matrons making unwanted advances. Bobby and his martial-arts-expert girlfriend Sam take on muggers, pirates, and Russian mafiosi, building to a tense and satisfying climax. Refreshingly for the genre, Bobby is a body guard, not a detective--which means more action and less talking; he and Sam are younger (late twenties?) than most of these heroes; and he plays by the rules and within the law, not "by his own set of rules." Bobby and his friends are well-drawn characters who I rooted for and enjoyed spending time with, and the bad guys are hate-able but three-dimensional, not simply pure evil. The action is exciting, believable, and not over-the-top sadistic like some of today's thrillers. (I'm looking at you, John Sanford!) And the Manhattan locations are interesting and seemingly accurately depicted. (I don't know Manhattan myself.) If you like the action/detective genre, you'll be happy to make Bobby Cole's acquaintance; I know I'm looking forward to his next adventure.