Francis Books

If the charming, graceful, and intelligent Appaloosa has won your heart, then make sure Haine's masterpeice has a place on your bookshelf. Concise yet extraordinarily detailed text is complimented by exquisite art depicting spotted horses through time. An amazing peice of Appaloosa literature, and written by one of the founders of the ApHC, no less! Absolute necessity for all Appaloosa lovers.

A magnificent book, full of gorgeous full color photos of ancient and modern artwork depicting the appaloosa. This book is also a well-written history of the evolution of the appaloosa and the attitudes towards the color. For example, did you know that spotted Lippizans and Lusitanos used to be prized and not prohibited? Highly recommend for those who love spotted horses!

Written by one of the founding fathers of the Appaloosa Breed, this book provides a great historical narrative of this colorful American breed. Illustrated with marvelous color prints, it recounts the travels of Appaloosas across the world from early times to the present. A must for any Appaloosa fancier!

Much of Dr. Anthony Stevens' life work has been attempting to connect Jung's theory with the achievements of modern biology, psychology, and sociology and showing the relevance of Jung's ideas to modern science.
In Archetype Revisited: An Updated Natural History of the Self Dr. Stevens succeeds in doing just that. The main premise of the book is that Carl Jung was well ahead of his time, and that Jungian theory, in author's opinion, has been, for the most part, validated by scientific research in the last forty years.
The ideas presented in the book are complex, but their understanding is made easy by Dr. Stevens' impeccable style and clearly presented arguments. In the best Jungian tradition, the author is not shying away from applying theoretical considerations to contemporary mores, which makes for valuable practical lessons, as well as welcome and refreshing commentaries.
It may well happen that this and other books of Dr. Stevens (most notably Evolutionary Psychiatry written with John Price) will be viewed ultimately as what brought Jungian theory out of relative obscurity and into the mainstream of psychology and biological science.
I found this book very interesting and useful for understanding the key ideas, practical implications, and contemporary scientific proof of Jungian psychology. I highly recommend this book to anyone (especially someone with medical or biological background) interested in Carl Jung and his theory.

Insightfully written by Anthony Stevens (a Jungian analyst, and psychiatrist of 30 years' experience), Archetype Revisited: An Updated Natural History Of The Self is now in a greatly expanded and updated edition. Dr. Stevens provides Jungian students and scholars with a thorough exploration and stimulating study of the connections between archetypes of the fields of ethology and sociobiology, while addressing archetypes in practice such as the family, the mother, the father, masculine and feminine images and more. Archetype Revisited is a worthy and welcome contribution to Jungian Studies reading lists and reference collections.

Fabulous! "The findings of the two new disciplines, evolutionary psychology and evolutionary psychiatry, in no way contradict or supersede Jung's original insights into the nature and influence of the archetypes which make up the human collective unconscious. On the contrary, they corroborate and amplify them. They confirm that human experience and human behavior are complex products of environmental and hereditary forces . . . . What evolutionary psychology is studying is the psychic unity of humankind. This is not, as some critics have suggested, a reductive universalism but an attempt to establish those psychic structures and functions, those strategies and goals, which we all have in common by virtue of our humanity. Far from diminishing our uniqueness as individuals and rendering us prisoners of our genes, this perspective enables us to celebrate with deeper appreciation the ways in which people living in widely different environmental circumstances work out variations of great complexity on similar sets of archetypal themes . . . . In the presence of pervasive cultural uncertainty, it becomes a matter of urgency to understand the basic archetypal needs and resources of humankind."

I'm getting my masters in Architecture and this book is a must-have, must-read for anyone designing in the digital age. It's informational and inspiring not only for architects, but anyone interested in using computer technology as a method for design carried through to manufactuing.

We all know that information revolution has totally transformed the society. Architecture is no exception. Relative to industrial revolution's impact on architecture, "what has this recent revolution done to the field?" is the basic inquiry to the book. This book diligently answers to the question. It is extremely informative and provocative regarding digital technologies available for architecture.

As an outcome of a symposium held at U.Penn. in 2002, the book compiles various scholars and practitioners around the world. They grapple with the current technologies available to design and manufacture innovative shapes/forms/spaces that associate with digital aesthetics.

Spearheaded researchers such as Bill Mitchell(MIT), Chris Luebkeman(Arup), Ali Rahim (U.Penn), and Branko Kolarevic (U.Penn, chief editor of the book); and, cutting-edge practitioners such as Jim Glymph (Gehry), Hugh Whitehead (Foster & Partners), Bernhard Franken (Franken Architekten), etc.; both groups provide theoretical framework and actual applications.

It's interesting to point out that the authors deliberately associated digital architecture with smooth forms. Double curvatures deform structure/ skin/ space of the building. The new modes of design and production enables that complex geometries to be part of building industry.

As a reader, the most challenging claim of the book is that the authors
assert (some explicitly and some implicitly) on the new role of an architect. They believe that this new mode of production will revolutionize the client-architect-contractor relationship. Because architects will be the (single) dominant source of information on the three dimensionally morphed shape, manufacturers and fabricators would rely heavy on architects. The authors predict architect would regain absolute power of medieval master builders.

This book provides a great overview of the developing technolgies in digital design and fabrication. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a comprehensive study in the current trends in digital architecture. A series of 20+ articles by designers working in this area of architecture, this book updates the conversation to what is happening today and what is being projected in the future. Great resource!

The Architecture of Oppression has all the hallmarks of Jaskot's articles: brilliant writing, impecable scholarship and surprising wit. It is likely to become the standard work in the field, and would also make an excellent primer on fascist architecture for the general reader.

The Architecture of Oppression has all the hallmarks of Jaskot's articles: brilliant writing, impecable scholarship and surprising wit. It is likely to become the standard work in the field, and would also make an excellent primer on fascist architecture for the general reader.

Really a fascinating book on the architecture of Hilter's so called Third Reich. German engineering and work ethic is legendary and even when used for evil, it is effective. This book give a chilling recount of the era of the Reich and you get a feel for the cold, but elegant architecture of Speer, the Reich's chief architect, it is amazing all that got built in such a short time, but what's really fascinating is what was planned, but never realized. Most of the Reich's building were destroyed during the war, but one that does still exist that gives a real feel for the architecture of the Reich is the Olympic Stadium, it is odd to think that this space that was used as a rallying cry for all German's to conquer the world, is today used for Soccer games and the World Cup, personally I think it should have gone the way of the Chancellery, but alas I was not asked, imagine that.

This book is astonishing. Since purchasing a copy in 1989 I refer to it very frequently, so that the dustjacket is worn thin from use. I'm not aware of another reference to equal it. I'm in awe of the scope of knowledge of the authors in bringing this amount of information together.

The depth of knowledge shown by the authors who emphasize computation of functions is amazing. By presenting their coded functions in concise and easy-to-understand English, as opposed to Pascal, GAT, Basic, Focal, Forth, Fortran, C, Macsyma, or IDL - to name a few I have had to learn - anyone can easily code programs in their favorite language for many decades.

This extensive working reference is as essential as Abramowitz and Stegun and much more illuminating. In case of difficulty, one should find this reference book indispensable.

For someone interested in functions, this book is a must have. The graphics are excellent. The explanations are excellent. The pseudo-code is clearly the product of persons who are not programmers and should not be used. If you write function libraries or mathematical software of any sort, this book is something you really ought to own. But please, code from the formulae. A & S "Handbook" Cody & Waite "Elementary Functions" Spannier & Oldham "Atlas" Each belongs on the nightstand of a serious Numerical Analysis math freak.

Francis Schaeffer in his early life was left to accept agnosticism because of what he was taught by the liberal church. But today he is a warrior for Jesus Christ and a defender of Truth. He says, "the Christian is the real radical of our generation, for he stands against the monolithic modern concept of truth as relative" Schaeffer has come to an understanding that few of us will reach. He brings a new and refreshing perspective in apologetics, backed with powerful arguments; he is able to communicate to the laymen as well as test the Scholar. He tells us, "first I am not an apologete if that means building a safe house to live in, so that we Christians can sit inside with safety and quiescence. Christians should be out in the midst of the world as both witnesses and salt, not sitting in a fortress surrounded by a moat."

In this book Schaeffer again concentrates on the scientists and men who have influenced our thinking. He carries this over from his last book, "He is there and He is not silent". He brings us to the 70's: the "biological bomb" that hit: genetic engineering and manipulation. And the technological change and the moral and religious issues that are raised because of it.

Is government social and human engineering the answer? Some think so. Some thinkers believe environmental conditioning determines our lives. So, we change the environment or change for the better through the government, drugs, or the elite intellectuals----its inevetable. These great intellectual minds think: maybe not today but some day we will reach a true understanding. Who is going to do the controlling? Who is going to determine then? Who will bring us this utopianism? We, as Christians, can not be asleep at the wheel.

Wish you well
Scott

Perfect example of Schaeffer's botched attempt at dialogue with contemporary culture.

He holds up B.F. Skinner's BEYOND FREEDOM AND DIGINITY as the result of what secular humanism leads to and pleads for a return to the good old-fashioned certainties of the Old Princeton brand of Calvinism he learned from his mentor Carl MacIntyre.

Toward the end, he mentions how the (then) newly released film "A Clockwork Orange" will serve to promote acceptance of Behavior Modification. How anyone with an ounch of irony could think that Burgess or Kubrick were trying to promote Behaviorism is beyond me, but then we *are* talking about Schaeffer.

Poor Francis, so concerned with fighting heresy, he couldn't even recognize occasional agreement.

As many of Schaeffer's works are, Back to Freedom and Dignity is not "armchair" reading. This is a scholarly pamphlet for serious students of human thought. Using his impeccable organization and logic, Schaeffer includes and analyzes many quotes from Skinner's work and from other modern thinkers and artists. I suggest it for anyone interested in modern philosophy and for every single English teacher or professor.

I loved these stories. They are sad, and full of life, and don't make empty promises to the reader. Beautifully written, lovely, and touching. I look forward to more stories by Ms. Kane

Choosing my rating for this volume of short stories was more difficult than I had imagined it would be. Kane's prose flows gracefully - seemingly without effort, but we know that's not true. Her stories and characters pour out onto the pages and into the mind and soul of the reader - these qualities led me finally to the 5-star rating.

That being said, these stories are all sad, or about sad people - almost unbearably so. The characters depicted in these tales seem to share in common an inability to cope with the hand they have been dealt by life. There is an angst in each of them that is palpable and aching - they struggle to deal with their careers, their relationships, their families, their emotions, their successes and their failures. There are a couple of stories that deal with the publishing trade - `How to become a publicist' and `Exposure'.

In the latter, a writer finds herself becoming more popular later in life, and struggles to deal with the demands of her public - in particular, the need for a photograph to accompany publicity, the very idea of which throws her into a deep panic. In `How to become a publicist', we are given an `inside' look at the colder machinations of the industry - a young woman fresh out of college, idealistic about her love of literature, seeks a job as an editor and settles for a position as a publicist. Her enthusiasm would seem to make her perfect for the position, but she soon finds herself ground down under the weight of the colder, `practical' aspects of the task - in a rare (for this collection) glimpse of the author's sense of humor, we witness the character announce her disdain for the catchphrases we see so often in press releases and book reviews (mea culpa - I've used plenty of them myself, and I don't even do this for a living). I'm tempted to declare this story `luminously mesmerizing', one of her `favorites'.

I'm certainly glad I read this book - Ms. Kane is immensely talented, and I look forward to seeing further work from her. I just hope that on her next outing she `homes in' on some more positive and uplifting characters or characteristics.

Touching stories that take a simple yet elegant look at humanity's strengths and frailties. Each story finishes "just so", but the reader regrets the end, and wishes there were more to each story, and more stories to the book.

We eagerly await Ms. Kane's next offering!

I rec'd this book about two weeks ago and wanted to read it before I went to the current movie. Mr. Ford has an excellent intro. The page of old and 'new' translation along with the 5 line sequencing allowed me to follow the story much easier. Having footnotes also allowed me to get a better background understanding as the story unfolds.
I have encouraged my wife (a high school library assistant)to order several copies for students at her school.

Beowulf is one of those one-of-a kind art treasures that is unique to the British Isles. Its status makes it difficult to over-praise or over-estimate. To say that it is an essential part of the history and character of English literature is an understatement. It is at the very foundation of English literature.

It is a link between the ancient Britons and the modern world. The ties with Northern Europe are closely embedded in Beowulf and still exist just under the surface of rural Britain. The oral tradition that still lives in the pubs and in the hearts and minds of the British character were formed at the time Beowulf was created and finally transcribed into the written language.

This translation of the Old English to the New English shows how far the journey has been in terms of linguistic distance and how close the distance still is between the storytellers of old and the imagination of today's readers. This book has affected anyone who reads anything in the English language whether they realize it or not. It is a touchstone that should be touched.

This is a spectacular version of Beowulf. It is actually two books in one. The facing page translation is really neat. It makes it easy to figure out the old English version and actually makes reading Beowulf enjoyable.

I particularly like the way the text is laid out. It is set up in blocks which makes it easy to keep your place. There are line numbers for every fifth line, and they are used to break up the text which makes it a lot easier to read. With the translations being separated, but opposite each other, you can read either version without being distracted by the other one or you can read back and forth to figure out what is going on.

This is really a great book. I just wish I had a copy of it when I studied Beowulf in high school. You can be sure that I will have it on hand for my college Beowulf class.

I was delighted to find out that not only were F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories being narrated on audio cassette, but that one of the performers was none other than Robert Sean Leonard. Scottie is by far one of my favorite American authors. It takes an incredible talent to condemn the life you live in your literature, and when I think how he strived for excellence but fell victim to society, I can't help but pity him. His writing is so delicious to read as well. He has such wonderful similies and metaphors, and is so descriptive I can taste the wine, feel the rain and see the stars. The Jazz Age is one of my favorite time periods and F. Scott Fitzgerald captures it perfectly. You see the glittering side but then the glitter gets tarnished as it must. What is even better about this audio is that one of the narrators is none other than my favorite actor, Robert Sean Leonard (better known as Neal in Dead Poets Society and Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing among other films). His voice is wonderful to listen to, even if you're not a fan of his acting. It's perfectly clear and flowing and it reminds you of listening to your parents reading you a bedtime story. The tape itself leaves you feeling as if you've been on an emotional rollercoaster. There's a nice beginning, then it peaks with conflict, the resolution, and then the end finishes as calmly as it started. Yet you've gained something from it. Fitzgerald has some incredibly phenomenal themes in his work. The odd part is that I usually don't like getting audio books, but I certainly reccomend this audio of The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald" It's worth every penny.

Surely an icon in the annals of American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald produced a body of work which epitomized the Roaring Twenties. It has been said that his dominant influences were "aspiration, literature, Princeton, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, and alcohol." Nonetheless, his writing possesses an urgency, a bite, unrivaled by his peers.

Collected in this superb audio are nine of his early stories performed by accomplished actors. Broadway/film actress Blythe Danner reads "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," a narrative inspired by a lengthy letter Fitzgerald wrote to his younger sister, Annabel, in which he offered advice on how she could become popular with boys.

"The Jelly-Bean," read by Dylan Baker, takes place in Georgia. Fitzgerald credits his wife for her expertise in helping him write a portion of this tale involving crap shooting, saying "as a Southern girl" she was an expert at this endeavor.

The talented Peter Gallagher reads "Head and Shoulders," the first of Fitzgerald's story to appear in The Saturday Evening Post.

Also found in the collection are "The Diamond As Big As The Ritz," "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong," "The Ice Palace," "Benediction," "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," and "May Day."

This is an exemplary combination of memorable prose and oral presentation, a remarkable listening experience.

I first became acquainted and fell in love with the work of F.Scott Fitzgerald when I read a hardback copy of The Great Gatsby in my early 20s. Since then, I have read Tender Is The Night and This Side of Paradise, so when I discovered this collection of stories by my literary hero, I floated up to the cieling. My favorites include The Diamond As Big As The Ritz and Bernice Bobs Her Hair, and anyone who has not already been introduced to Fitzgerald, either in English class at school or while browsing in a local bookstore, it's not too late to change your mind, and it is my sincere hope that you will love this man's work as much as I do!

This book is beautifully written and an easy read for clinicians as well as clients. In a very straightforward yet well researched manner, the authors excel at addressing issues related to eating, self-esteem and the fallacy surrounding "diets." Via poignant case examples and theoretical applications, this book is an outstanding resource that should be on every therapist's (and client's!) shelf. In addition, this book pushes clinicians to be aware of their own internalized ideas and issues related to weight. Highly recommended!

"Beyond a Shadow of a Diet" is an important guidebook for clinicians and therapists. The book summarizes and clinically pre-packages the so-called Non-Diet approach to helping clients manage their compulsive overeating. The Non-Diet approach, also known as physiologically attuned eating or "intuitive eating" (Tribole & Resch) or normal/natural/naturalistic eating (Craighead), is premised on the notion that people can be entrusted to self-regulate their eating on their own without the exoskeleton of dietary restrictions and constraints. As such, the book offers a highly humanistic path towards non-disordered eating.

The book, to my knowledge, is the first truly comprehensive non-diet approach guidebook for clinicians. "Selling" clients on a non-diet approach to managing compulsive eating is not simple clinical task. Most clients seeking assistance with weight issues have been heavily propagandized to believe that diet is the only way to recover control over their eating.

Matz and Frankely do a nicely nuanced job of highlighting the intricate complexity of helping clients shift from diet mentality to non-diet mentality. And (!) they begin this process on the clinician's side of the couch - in their second chapter, entitled "The Therapist Trap," the authors guide clinicians through an evaluation of their own (therapists') attitudes about the diet paradigm. This isn't merely a clever narrative angle at educating providers and clinicians about the pitfalls of dieting. Instead, it is an important reality check of the unconscious biases that might unwittingly inform clinical decision-making.

The main strength of the book is the wealth of practical guidance that it offers clinicians for both anticipating and neutralizing conceptual resistance from clients. Towards this end, the authors hand-hold clinicians throughout the book with offering a running sub-section entitled "presenting the concept." In addition to highlighting various subtleties of transitioning - or shall we say, detoxing - clients from diet mentality, the book offers numerous case vignettes and clinician-client transcripts for processing clients' ambivalence as well as clients' abuses of the proposed strategies. In similar vein, the book skillfully assists the clinicians in making sure that the humanistic position of entrusting the client with self-regulation is not misperceived by clients as a permission to over-indulge.

Perhaps, the biggest accomplishment yet, in my opinion, is the fact that the authors manage to avoid radical non-dietism, to coin a term. While they unequivocally condemn dieting, they also - rather wisely - acknowledge that "there are clients who are uncomfortable with some of the guidelines suggested by non-diet experts. As social workers, we are trained to `start where the client is.'" (p. 98). In this truly enlightened Harm Reduction thinking, Matz and Frankel model willingness to be clinically flexible and not pedantic about treatment protocols.

In sum, "Beyond a Shadow of a Diet" is - beyond a shadow of a doubt - an invaluable clinical tool.


Pavel Somov, Ph.D.
Author of "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time" (New Harbinger, 2008)

American women and girls (and, increasingly, men and boys) are bombarded with messages about ideal bodies and acceptable weights, "good" and "bad" foods and the health risks of "obesity." Toss in the wealth of other stresses related to contemporary life and a recipe for disordered eating is born.

The disordered eating often takes the form of socially sanctioned and even professionally encouraged dieting and weight-loss behaviors. At the turn of the millennium about 116 million Americans (55% of the adult population) were dieting, supporting a $50 billion weight loss industry.

Matz and Frankel cite evidence that dieting is hazardous to physical and emotional health. For instance, dieting and dieting-related weight cycling (yo-yo weight loss & regain) increases risks of cardiovascular disease & Type 2 diabetes, eating disorders, depression, and shame. Meanwhile, the health risks of anything but the extremes of fatness (or thinness) have been greatly exaggerated by the diet-pharmaceutical-medical industries in a campaign to persuade the public--and funding agencies--that a dangerous epidemic exists for which the only hope for cure is expensive weight-management-oriented products, programs and research.

Most research purporting to link "obesity" with health risks and increased mortality is actually inherently flawed in its failure to control for the effects of chronic dieting and weight cycling--not to mention the stress of fat stigma, prejudice and discrimination-- as well as almost always confusing correlation with causation. (Exercise physiologist Glen Gaesser, Ph.D. provides an excellent critique of the "obesity" related research in his 2002 book Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health, published by Gurze Books.) In Beyond A Shadow of a Diet Matz & Frankel also point out that the health risks associated with being fat actually decrease with age, which is the opposite of what one would expect if "obesity" were truly a degenerative disease.

Matz and Frankel document the damage dieting and other weight-focused attitudes and behaviors can do to physical and emotional health, including ways they contribute to compulsive eating. They offer strategies to help clients identify ways in which uncomfortable feelings are channeled into "bad body" (or "fat body") thoughts and sensations, for which dieting or other forms of restrictive eating or weight-loss behavior are grasped at as possible solutions.

They point out that grasping at weight loss as a solution is no more a healthy (or potentially successful) strategy for truly fat women (or men) than it is for those who merely think they're fat, or who are just a few pounds over the societal ideal. And this, I think, is an important addition to the clinical literature. While many girls and women who are of average weight are encouraged to embrace and accept their bodies as they are--even with a little pudge here and there--attitudes toward body acceptance often change when a very fat (or "supersize") man or woman walks into a therapist's office. Even, sometimes, when the therapist is experienced with the treatment of eating disorders, he or she may erroneously assume that all fat people are compulsive eaters of that their fatness stems from emotional issues.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of Matz & Frankel's work is their unhooking weight (and fatness) itself from eating and emotional issues. They point out that compulsive eaters "come in all shapes and sizes," including large people who do not eat compulsively and thin people who do. Whether a person is actually fat or erroneously thinks she's fat, they point out, the treatment of choice is the same: Teaching attuned (intuitive) eating in which one learns to recognize true hunger, to identify the foods one is hungry for, and to eat them when one is hungry for them, regardless of one's body size.

For people who have become alienated from their natural appetites (and appetite regulation) due to the externally focused eating of dieting/weight management practices, learning or relearning natural eating and appetite regulation is tremendously liberating.