Francis Books

I could not have expected more. This book not only gives you color pictures of all the Rabbits it gives background and market values I have also been able to learn alot of the history and tales behind some of my favorites. I will also be looking forward to the next book

A history book,a guide book,a reference book and price guide what more could a collector want in a book! I continually refer to mine and never tire of reading it. I can honestly say it was money well spent and can't wait for the next edition.

Thank you for producing such a wonderful book. It has been by far the best and most helpful book on Pendelfin.

It will certainly make it a lot easier to collect the more rarer rabbits as I now know what to look for.

It might be nice to have a folder or something similar to store records of rabbits bought and the value - that way you can just add updates when rabbits are introduced rather than having some information stored in Issue 1 and the rest in Issue 2.

I can't wait for issue 2!!!

This book has been a great in helping me collect my bunnies and their value. I can"t wait for the second edition.

A wonderful book worth its price. It gives a lot of deep images with incredible pictures of one of the few remaining true wildernesses on earth. Additionally, the text gives excellent insights of this fragile eco-system in the Amazonian rainforest. Overall, one of those books a nature lover should have on his/her book shelves.

MANU is an absolutely first rate book, with superb photography by Andre Bartshe, an extraordianry talent, and text in both English and Spanish by world traveler and adventurer, Kim MacQuarrie. Mr MacQuarrie and Mr. Bartshe have each lived and explored Peru for several years. They are authorities on the region. Mr. MacQuarrie has also made several award winning films for the Discovery Channel on Manu as well as on Siberian Grizzly bears of Kamtchatka. This MANU book is also a pleasure for its production value. It is a joy to hold and turn the pages. The color process used is excellent and the paper is of the highest quality. MANU is a treasure. Highest recommendation for serious book lovers.

The beautifully photographed book, Manu, is dedicated to Celestino Kalinowski, my father. Sadly, after my Peruvian dad, married my Chicagoan mom, they discovered that they weren't able to handle the vast differences that existed between their cultures. Within a few years they divorced. Celestino remained in Peru; months after I was born there, my mom returned to Chicago, with me.

While I didn't have a chance to see my dad after the divorce, I discovered, about 10 years ago, that he remairried and I have 4 siblings in Peru! My younger daughter visited her new aunts and uncles, soon after this amazing discovery.

While there, she found this book and brought it home to me. Imagine my fascination with the information this massive book contained about my father AND my grandfather! Details about their work and their lives were ones I'd never heard.

Manu is filled with excitement and beauty. Much of it is captured in its pages. I am thrilled to have a connection to the man who did so much for its preservation.

I have read everything that can be found pertaining to the rain forest areas of southeast Peru, as an adjunct to my in-the-field research into the legend of the legendary "Paititi," ultimate refuge of the Incas. The information that writer/film-maker Kim MacQuarrie compiled and put into words for Manu is among the most informative and interesting to be found on the subject in English (or Spanish, as the text is bi-lingual). The author obviously did his homework, and presents the facts and current theories in clear and colorful prose. The book gives a good representation of various ecological zones found within "Manu," from the harsh and frigid highlands, the "alturas," on the west; to the penetrating cold mists dripping moisture onto the dense vegetation of the "ceja de la selva," the "eyebrow of the jungle" that lies just below the highlands, along the high eastern edge of the Andes; down into the eastern rim of the Amazon basin, the dense riot of vegetation that is the "selva alta," the high altitude jungle; and finally down into the endless carpet of jungle that makes up the "selva baja," the lowland jungle that spreads away from Manu ever deeper into the Amazon. The text covers all aspects of the Manu area, from history to archaeology to ecology to anthropology. The photographer Andre Bartschi's photographs, which grace most of the book, are lush and exquisitely sharp, capturing fully the riot of color and feeling that are a part of the Manu experience. This is one "coffee table" size book that is as worth reading as any thriller, with illustrations that are a real "turn on" for anyone interested in the exotic or natural history. An additional interesting and useful feature is found in the fold out "bird's eye view" maps, which help one understand and "feel" the unique topography that makes up this pristine and magical place, Manu.

Best book in the area I have read for some time. The AI chapter is controversial but definitely worth reading. As for the rest, I enjoyed enormously. Don't miss it.

Floridi's book is a technical tour de force that seeks to explore some of the philosophical implications of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in the context of a rigorous and detailed examination of areas of technology such as the digital revolution, databases and hypertext, the internet and artificial intelligence. The strength of the book is his grasp of the technology. Over and over again he demonstrates a remarkable technical proficiency as he discusses areas as diverse as computer architecture, database design, network protocols and many others.

From "Ends and Means", The Journal of the University of Aberdeen Centre for Philosophy Technology and Society.

Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction is Luciano Floridi's wide-ranging account of the philosophical aspects of computers, the Internet, and digitisation in general. It is philosophy in quite a broad sense of the term, including both some relatively technical (for an introduction) sections on elementary computation theory, and many observations of a more sociological nature, examining how computer use is changing our ways of thinking and working.

New Scientist, 9 October 1999, p. 59 "Must read... An impressive introductory text. Floridi bravely categorises artificial intelligence, and deals with cyborgs and robots". Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics, University of Reading, UK

This essay attempts and succeeds at explaining why horror literature fascinates our culture. I myself had wondered why people write in this genre,and why is that we can enjoy a seemingly strange area of fiction.

I espically recommend this book to any person who is new to horror,and would like to learn about it. Even thought this book is written in a scholarly manner I think the language is down to earth for most any person to read (One final note: If the author is reading this review,please emai me back!)

The book is an excellent resource for people who love the horror genre. It analyzes the elements of "art horror," in a step-by-step approach. The author strives to explore two questions- 1. why that which we know is not real still frightens us, and 2. why we like to be terrified. The author gives a history of art horror and focuses mainly on the classics (like Frakenstein, Nosferatu, The Shining, etc.) She writes an incredibly in depth primer discussing a very wide range of topics, all in great detail. My main problem with the text is that at times, it is way too in depth, and many times this drudgery is on irrelevant topics. For example, the author spends an entire chapter (80 pages) devoted solely to the purpose of defining horror. From a scholarly perspective, this explanation is great because it defines the art horror genre while leaving no stone unturned, and no gray areas about it. For the casual reader, the text can become dull and redundant. The book was created specially for the education of film students, so I would not recomend it for someone on the lookout for a vibrant and engrossing read.

This essay attempts and succeeds at explaining why horror literature fascinates our culture. I myself had wondered why people write in this genre,and why is that we can enjoy a seemingly strange area of fiction.

I espically recommend this book to any person who is new to horror,and would like to learn about it. Even thought this book is written in a scholarly manner I think the language is down to earth for most any person to read.

This is a philosophical and psychological look at why people love to experience the horror film (and novel). It teaches people how to understand the dynamics of film making and how simple techniques are used to fool our conscious (and unconscious) mind.

John is a friend of mine and therefore it'd be hard not to love his book, because this book IS John and he's pretty amazing. Genuine, humorous and inspiring. But I can also tell you I bought quite a few copies and gave them to people who aren't biased. And guess what. They loved it too.

Being a part-time pedestrian and filling my gas tank only every 8-10 weeks, Dr. Francis's book resonated deeply with me.

I've recommended this book to many people and sent another copy to a family member.

I'm so glad to have found this book!

John Francis writes an important story about the quest of a young man to live ethically in our complex world. Young John gives up using any form of gasoline-powered vehicle and deals with the consequences of his decision. He writes gently and movingly about the criticism and misunderstanding he received as a consequence of eschewing the automobile. Though he does not romanticize his decision, he writes lovingly of the quiet and peace of walking. I was inspired by this book.

Witnessing a tragedy has often been the catalyst that changed someone's life and sent them in a direction that would ultimately be a force for good in the world. Such is the case of John Francis, who witnessed an oil spill in San Francisco Bay in 1971. He was so moved by the consequences of the spill that he stopped using all forms of motorized transportation and began a 20+ year odyssey on foot that took him across America. He became a tirelss advocate for the environment and earned a bachelor, masters, and Ph.D. along the way.

The expression "He talks the talk and walks the walk" unequivocally applies to John Francis, Ph.D.

His writing is lyrical, easy to read and expresses his philosophy as well as his strong and continuing commitment to the environment. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking a story of adventure, commitment, and beautiful use of the English language.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006
"Playing God - Seven Fateful Moments When Great Men Met to Change the World" by Charles L. Mee, Jr.,
This is a very good history book. It takes the events and puts humans in them. It is not just dates and people. it all ends up that nothing we do to learn from history is of any real value. The real value is in making choices and sticking with them and praying that it will all come out okay. It is odd and I am sure that he really did not intend to end up like that, after all, he is a historian.

Mee is a playwright and a historian, among other things, and I found his view and dramatic, descriptive powers to be very useful in re-enacting these events.

I bought the book because of a debate with an intellectual friend about the aftermath of ww ii in eastern europe, thus I was focusing on the chapter on the conference at yalta. It is particulary interesting that Mee subtitled this chapter with reference to the problems of unintended consequences (the inevitability of which is the foundation of the libertarian tendency toward minimalism in government -- and in foreign policy, for that matter).

Not only did the yalta chapter teach me much more about yalta than I expected, each of the other 6 crucial moments were richly rewarding.

The only two quibbles I have are with the sub-title. Being a zeitgeist believer, I don't believe out-of-hand in "great men," even when churchill and roosevelt are involved. Somewhat contradictorily, I don't believe in the idea of "fateful," so much as crucial. And from reading Mee, I believe he would let me edit the sub-title accordingly, once he got to know me better.

Forelle's Filosofy -- http://forellefilosofy.blogspot.com

Mr. Mee is a fantastic writer. As another reviewer remarked, Mr. Mee definitely brings history to life. The meetings described in this book make for great, enticing reading material for junior high school on up.

Mr. Mee is an excellent writer and truely brings history to life. I recommend this book to anybody that wants more than "light reading", has an interest in human-kind and is not a real history buff.

Pollution and the Death of Man is one of Francis Schaeffer's seminal works. It is a profound treatise of a biblical perspective on the environment - insightful, convicting, instructive, reasonable. The book is definitely worth the read.

This is really what I've come to expect from Schaeffer. Piercing analysis. Balanced approach. Faithfulness to the Scriptures. Lucid and colloquial style. Imaginative approach. In this particular work, Schaeffer presents a fantastic case for concern for the environment. He puts forward a balanced view of ecology and shows how it is not contrary to Biblical Christianity, but the natural conclusion of it. The book is a bit dated, but as relevant as it has ever been.

I would love to see every Christian invest the short amount of time required to read this book.

This masterpiece of logical thinking is unequaled in the realm of Christian literature for its conciseness of content and expressiveness of thought.

In this book, Schaeffer discusses the Christian approach to the environment and deals with the all-too-common misconceptions peddled by those Christians who are either ignorant of Biblical truth in this area, or are so intent on distancing themselves from the pantheistic, bleeding-heart, tree-hugging left that they come across as uncaring and abusive.

Nature does play a part in God's plan, and far from being entrusted with it as a no-strings-attached gift - a common misconception of the use of "dominion" in the Genesis account - we have been given the moral responsibility of keeping our surroundings while at the same time utilizing them conscientiously to meet our needs. In ridiculing and minimizing man's God-given duty of stewardship, modern Christianity has severely impaired its testimony and driven many conscientious individuals into the arms of equally erroneous sects - many of them pantheistic. This tendency is as wrong as it is regrettable.

Schaeffer further points out that having been created by the same God, any attempt by man to look down on and misuse his physical surroundings is to pass judgement on the God Who created those surroundings ý and us.

Overall well-balanced and thought-provoking, Schaeffer answers the excesses of extreme Christianity on the one hand and raving nature-worship on the other with a treatise that is as elucidative as it is highly readable. This is required reading for anyone who wants to be convicted and informed of the necessity to appreciate and respect nature within the God-oriented context of Biblical truth.

- Benjamin Gene Gardner

This book was originally written in the early 1970's, as an early response to the rapid spread of anti-Christian environmental books. Now I say "anti-Christian" not in the sense that environmentalism is anti-Christian, but in the sense that Christianity has been getting the blame for the world's environmental ills. In other words, Schaeffer is warning the church to start paying attention to its duties to the earth and environment, because we are getting the blame for pollution and etc...

He rightly points out that Christianity is somewhat responsible for environmental problems, but shows that Bible-practicing churches and members should wake up and see what the Bible really says on the issues. By shuffling the environmental issue back into the corner and ignoring it, we push environmentally concerned people into the Eastern religions and away from Christianity. Since John Passmore's famous book, which blames Christianity's view of dominion (Genesis/Eden) for Western Civilization, and Puritanism for the demise of American ecosystems, the environmental movement has begun rejecting Christianity as a cure. Furthermore, dispensational theology which sees the world as collapsing and being annihilated by Jesus after the Millennium, in favor of building a new Earth, quite strongly implies that we needn't bother with such earthly issues, since the earth will "pass away" no matter how nicely we tend it (rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic). So Passmore and others are somewhat correct, that Christianity has fallen flat on its face in regard to environmental issues. Schaeffer in this book prophetically warns about it, and turns out to be correct.

It is not full of statistics and charts, this is a philosophical book with deep insights by a great Christian thinker. It is interesting that only in recent years, thirty years later, do people finally decide to read it! It should be required reading in seminaries, and attended to by anyone in Christianity who believes in Christian stewardship of the world.

This book is fascinating. This book is about cat nutrition and what is important for cats.

Cats never ate cooked foods through the thousands of years of regeneration. Their natural selection process was based on their lifestyle and the foods available to them. Raw.

Humans have always eaten a variety of foods - cooked, fermented, salted, dried, raw. This book should not be used as proof as to what is best for humans. Humans evolution process was based on varied foods and varied storage/fresh methods of preparation.

THis book is about cats and what diet is best for their bodies to remain as they were created over the millions of generations. Should only be proof that a health organism is entirely effected by the dietary choices and food sources. Best dietary choices for each animal (human included) should be based on the history and evolution of THAT species.

Pottenger's nutrition studies of cats clearly indicate the importance of quality nutrition. They also help understand why people in our society have such problems with poor health, given the poor quality food that they consume. The book is relatively easily understandable, as long as you don't put extensive effort into trying to understand the content of the tables of data.

This book was an easy read for anyone interesdted in nutrition and a good overview of the famous pottenger studies. It provides basic guidelines and good foundation information. the further reading recommendations are helpful and interesting. I recommend this book to anyone starting out in nutrition or for those of us that are continuing to tweek our practices.

Pottenger's Cats is a classic in the science of nutrition. Dr. Pottenger discovered quite by accident that cats degenerated unless they were fed raw food. In his 10-year study of 900 cats, he found the optimal diet for his cats was 2/3 raw meat and 1/3 raw milk plus a little cod liver oil. If either the meat or the milk was cooked, the cats degenerated. And if both were cooked, the degeneration was much worse, and the cats could no longer reproduce by the third generation.

Some of the problems Pottenger found in the cats fed cooked food were: heart problems; nearsightedness and farsightedness; underactivity and inflammation of the thyroid; infections of the kidney, liver, testes, ovaries and bladder; arthritis and inflammation of the joints; inflammation of the nervous system with paralysis and meningitis. And in the third generation, some of the cats' bones became as soft as rubber. Lung problems, and bronchitis and pneumonia were also frequent. Moreover, the females became irritable and even dangerous, and the males became passive and lacked sex interest.

Do many of these conditions sound familiar? Pottenger, of course, realized that his cat studies didn't apply entirely to humans. He believed nonetheless that his findings for cats did have relevance for humans, and in his sanitarium he fed his patients much raw food, with considerable success. Weston A. Price reported in his book, "Nourishing Traditions" that all of the people's he studied worldwide included much raw food in their traditional diets and were almost entirely free of the degenerative diseases that are rampant in our junk food society, such as tooth decay, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, digestive disturbances,etc.

If you want to stay healthy, you owe it to yourself to read both Pottenger and Price. Their eye opening photographs alone will make clear to you that you need optimum nutrition if you want to be optimally healthy.

This book doesn't seem as well known as it should be. I think it gets lost between some famous special relativity books on the one side and standard advanced texts on the other. But it's really a uniquely tight, transparent, thoughtful piece of teaching.

The unique position of this book is it succeeds as an introduction to general relativity and cosmology that is *fully honest*-- eg, quantitative-- and at the same time understandable at the undergraduate level. The typical drill of a standard text is to first inculcate you with very general (and abstract) tensor math power tools, and then to clothe ("hide"?) the physics in that. This book, on the other hand, demonstrates the surprising amount of low hanging fruit that you can satisfyingly consume before or without all that. Put the general case aside for the moment, and look at some basic cases, straight-on. It is satisfying because those simple models apply to some systems you will probably care about. Eg, the fabric of the entire universe as a whole, for one-- that's the "cosmology" part. There is a lot of fundamental intuition that becomes transparent, and which you will probably retain because it is simple and specific.

The only minuses: I wish it were cheaper (not that the teaching isn't worth it). I also wish for an update: It would make a really interesting read to apply the basics to recent observations, like the "accelerating universe" problem (or is it just a layer of cosmological smog between us and them dim supernovas?...). However, the cosmological constant: it's there. So this book is absolutely the straightest, shortest path to bringing any curious reader up to speed on fully enjoying cosmological sightings in the news.

Berry's book is definately one of the more accessible yet rigourous treatments of this fascinating subject.

It assumes a sound knowledge of Special Relativity and a good command of Calculus, Differential Equations and Vector Algebra, but without the onerous use of tensors and as such it is a serious book for the Physics student rather than a popular presentation of science.

All of the fundamentals are covered here: an outline of cosmography, distance and velocity measurements, the rationale for General Relativity based on a critical assessment of the shortcomings of both the Newtonian model and Special Relativity, the Principle of Equivalence, Curved Space-time, geodesics, Gravitational Waves, Black holes, and Cosmic models.

The author makes excellent use of diagrams and the discussion of the physical principles is balanced by a careful presentation of the mathematics.

A highly recommended book!

This was an excellent book. We used it in my intro course for Astrophysics. This book is not a "pop-culture" overview of the expanding universe, but rather explores the mathematical and physical explanation for the structure and state of the universe. Expect to spend a fair bit of time on each page, and each paragraph. Though straight forward writing and math, the ideas and implications are mind bending.

It is quite difficult to think on the scale of the universe, but this book boils it down to the relevant observations we can make and the equations that might explain them.

This became my Cosmological Bible.

This was an excellent book. We used it in my intro course for Astrophysics. This book is not a "pop-culture" overview of the expanding universe, but rather explores the mathematical and physical explanation for the structure and state of the universe. Expect to spend a fair bit of time on each page, and each paragraph. Though straight forward writing and math, the ideas and implications are mind bending.

It is quite difficult to think on the scale of the universe, but this book boils it down to the relevant observations we can make and the equations that might explain them.

This became my Cosmological Bible.

I like the way this book explains constructs

This book provides an interesting theory of the mind via labels (constructs). His notion of dilating our perceptual field, which leads one to better psychological health, has led me to dig deeper into my own mind. It has also allow me to begin to develope my own theory of the mind. Thanks George

Kelly's personality theory is based on an underlying philosophical position which he called "constructive alternativism" (3). According to this view, "We assume that all of our present interpretations of the universe are subject to revision or replacement" (15). Kelly focused on "man-the-scientist" (4): "Might not the individual man, each in his own personal way, assume more of the stature of a scientist, ever seeking to predict and control the course of events with which he is involved?" (5). The "Fundamental Postulate" of his theory states "A person's processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he anticipates events" (46). This occurs as a person construes or interprets, evaluates, makes sense of, observed regularities in what is going on by noting similarities and differences among events. Thus an organized system of constructs is built up, significantly embodied in language, that provides a basis for prediction and control. Problems may result from the limitations in a person's system of constructs, combined with resistance to changing them. Kelly's approach is presented as a series of postulates and corollaries. Although presented somewhat technically and at a high order of abstraction, he writes clearly and sometimes memorably. For example, noting the theme of his book he writes, "...man, to the extent that he is able to construe his circumstances, can find for himself freedom from their domination. It implies also that man can enslave himself with his own ideas and then win his freedom again by reconstruing his life" (21). Kelly wrote at a time before concern with non-sexist terminology was formulated and can be forgiven for his lapses in this regard. The resonance of his formulations with those of Korzybski and Whorf seems remarkable and provides an example of the inter-theory corroboration that Korzybski found so valuable.

Yes, I must admit it, I am a bit biased. George Kelly is my intellectual great-grandfather. That is, I trace my intellectual heritage through my mentor, Brent D. Slife, through his mentor, Joseph F. Rychlak, to his mentor, George A. Kelly. As such, I am quite biased in this review of Kelly's book on Personal Construct Psychology. That being said, I still believe that this is an excellent book. Kelly provides a wonderfully divergent perspective on personality from the more Lockean perspectives that have prevailed in psychological theorizing. Kelly is quite thoughtful and presents a very thorough, well conceived theory that attempts to address, in a rationalistic, telic perspective the personality of human beings. Still, as a truly new theory, Kelly introduces new terms that may be difficult for some to understand initially. Furthermore, as a new theory, which reintroduces final causal theorizing, which conceives of humans as being determined by their goals, purposes, and ends (instead of linear, deterministic theorizing that conceives of humans as determined by their past), while refreshing and, from my perspective, essential for psychology, it may be difficulty to integrate this theory into their already generated linear conceptualizations. I recommend you read this with an open mind and attempt to think more freely from this divergent perspective offered by Kelly.