Francis Books

I've read and reread this book. It is simply stated and yet there is so much helpful information here which can clarify and assist us as we try to integrate and balance the challenge of living as a spirutual being in a human body.

One of the features that I most appreciate in Reflections on Ascension is it's accessability. Thanks to Anina's introduction and practical comments throughout, one can easily recommend this book to someone not familliar with, but open to the concept of Ascension. But perhaps my favorite feature of the book is the light-hearted wit shown by St. Francis and Anina. No doom. No gloom. That we can learn and grow through joy and humor is such a Blessed message. Thank you St. Francis and Anina.

Anina has brought through the gentle energies and wise teachings of St. Francis. The words help to guide me through the ascension process and help me to understand the new frequencies now available on planet Earth. Some of my favorite teachings are: how to relax, unconditional acceptance, how to trust myself, and how I create from my intentions. I'm looking forward to REFLECTIONS II.

Sister Gangloff's ability to choose women with a connection to the day from a wide variety of walks of life is an opportunity to allow the reader to expand their hope in life and living as they begin their day.

The reflection questions help you to pause and apply the lessons of the remarkable woman to one's personal life and living.

What a wisdom there is in connecting to others in the present as well as the past who have faced life with grace and courage.

Shortly after Remarkable Women, Remarkable Wisdom was published I was given a copy by a dear friend. I was so impressed with the concept and content that I decided to use it in my classroom. Focusing on a single, outstanding woman each day seemed to be a perfect way to begin all of my classes at an all-girls, senior high school academy. Each day a different student presents our "remarkable woman" to the rest of her class, thus beginning our studies with inspiration for goals we all might strive to achieve. My students have found this opening ritual to be interesting, informative, and, at times, quite surprising. Sister Mary Francis Gangloff writes about these women with compassion and thanksgiving for the gifts they have shared with the world. I applaud her on her own wisdom in bringing their stories to light and sharing them with all of us.

This truly is a remarkable, wonderful book! Sister Mary Frances Gangloff has collected a treasury of women's stories--from Edith Stein and Georgia O'Keefe to Charlotte Brontë and Susan B. Anthony!--weaving together golden nuggets of their wisdom with Scripture and personal reflections... one for every day of the year! Wow. Her impressive and thorough labor of love is a gift and a blessing to her readers. Don't miss out the opportunity to share this beautiful witness of courage and life with your daughters, your mothers, your friends!

I was glad to actually come across a book that was catered towards people who had a bit of experience with making beats. Most of these sorts of books are always for people who want to start from scratch. It's not like it's a book for experts and beginners can't pick this up, infact it could be useful to most. People with a lot of experience could find something in there worth the buy, and people who are relatively new to the world of remixing, (but really it caters to beat making in general) or have some experience under their belt, should be able to find a whole lot of useful information.

As cheesy as the title might be, this book is quality.

Back in 1999, I started playing with loop sequencing and over the years have assembled a few dozen tracks. I most recently started getting hardware to support my music endeavours, and I stumbled across this book in a bookstore. When I flipped through it, I knew this would be the one as it covered all of the aspects of remixing and editing. Going in depth, arguably its best chapters are on sound design and mixing. I have discovered a new language, and now I can go back to all of my computer music magazines and actually understand what they are talking about. Knowing how to visualize what you are doing to sound made all the difference for me and now I can program my own synths.

The other aspect I really liked about this book was that the tips from real musicians were particularly englightening. Seeing how deep these other musicians go to get their sound inspired me to become more flexible in my approach to writing music.

Definitely a great buy.

I really enjoyed reading Fracis Preve's "The Remixer's Bible". He keeps it light and fun while still giving you a ton of tricks and insight into remixing and sound design. I would recommend this book for beginners to experts. I also really like the history lessons around certain sounds and the gear that was used to make it. I also like the format of the book as its broken up into lots of smaller sections that you can read and then try out.

RQ series(Parthenon Publishing Group inc) are lesser known than other board review books, but offer in depth review in a question and answer format similar to the "Recall" series books, but with multiple choice questions. RQ is a bargain for the number and quality of the questions!!

This book is absolutely, hands down, the best source of anatomy review questions! I loved using it for anatomy and it is hard to believe it is out of print. I can't imagine why they wouldn't keep printing this book. Every essential concept is covered and if you know these questions, you'll ace your written anatomy exams. Very good investment.

My anatomy exam scores differed based on whether I did the questions in this book or not (did questions=did well; no time to do questions=barely passed). There are A LOT of questions in this book - which is great, because most concepts repeat and this of course reinforces learning. It also means that you should start the questions ASAP - don't wait until you've finished reading the text, dissector, whatever. Use your text and atlas as references while you start the questions right away!

All questions are in multiple choice format, either in "standard" type A format (A-E, single best answer), or in type K format, which I had never heard of before this book but got used to it fairly quickly. There are no pictures, tables, or diagrams (that's what your text and atlas are for). The thorough explanations are on the right side of the page opposite the question.

I highly recommend this book based on my anatomy experience.

I enjoyed reading this book shortly before I left Japan for the United States in 1973. I was around 30, and the book was a very good introduction (for me) to both RFK and American dream. In 2008, after 35 years later, another man from a quite different background is trying to realize the same dream that RFK had in 1968, but could not realize, due to a unfortunate tragedy shortly after the Convention in California. Barack Obama and RFK share the most attractive character, honesty and courage to change the world.

I do hope Obama will win the November election against John McCain, a very old conventional Republican man, to change both US and the rest of this world with the spirit of RFK which is described in this book.

Robert F. Kennedy was my hero when I was 13 and he still is to this day . I read this book when I was in middle school, it was in the library at school. RFK is my hero because I feel I identify with him.

I loved this book as a child, although it was rather young for me at the time I got it. I loved it because it was an excellent introduction to Senator Robert Kennedy.

The book is beautifully illustrated with very realistic looking drawings. The drawings of the Senator as a boy makes him a child other children can relate to. One can laugh with the little Bobby, watching his friend making a crash landing with a homemade parachute. (Luckily HE didn't try this stunt! Good thing he used a stunt man for this one)! One can cheer for the grown man, the Senator who reached the top of a Canadian mountain in 1965 after a lifetime of acrophobia.

The last part, covering the Senator's assassination is handled delicately, since the book targets a young audience. I enjoyed it as a child. It is not a comprehensive book, but a good introduction to Robert Kennedy is really all it is. It's just a nice little starter book.

I found this novel a delightful and interesting read. The inclusion of Buddhist spirituality, an amazingly international array of characters (even a Chinese Muslim (Uighur) tavernkeeper), and emphasis on the Native American experience, make this novel deeper and more meaningful than most other novels set in the American West. Though the plot is intriguing, the novel is at its best in depicting its colorful and diverse characters (Taylor, buoyant half-Indian, with a passion for music, who pairs up with Sun moon, beautiful Tibetan nun)and settings, from a Digger Indian village to Mormon Utah. Despite its realistic depictions of the racism and violence of the period, the story remains light-hearted and humorous. Sir Richard Burton, Nile explorer and drug addict, was particularly enjoyable. It would have been more interesting if his Sufi beliefs were explored a bit further, but of course he was somewhat of a side character.

Everything about this book kis great. Awesome and *original* story line, interesting historical facts, and wild adventure. This is the first book I've ever read by Blevins, and now I can't wait to order his other books, pronto. If you like historically based novels and unique :-) story lines, this is the book for you.

This book is a first person account of a perilous journey taken across the wild west. What makes this book unique is the company the teller keeps. A half breed of unknown origins is the teller, and he is in the company of a Tibetan nun whom he has fallen in love with, and a spy for the British--who's secretly practicing a 'heathen' religion! If you like westerns...try this one! It's a western with a twist!

i am a huge fan of both f. scott and zelda fitzgerald so it was great to get this glimpse into their personal lives. because their daughter was involved with this book, that gives it even more authenticity and it's like we're being given permission by scottie herself to look at her family's scrapbooks. a very surreal experience!

If you are a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, this book is an absolute must-have! While I own just about everything that is written by or about Fitzgerald, this is perhaps my favorite book to peruse. It is compiled just like a personal scrapbook and is replete with photos of the Fitzgeralds as well as articles (by and about Fitzgerald)written in the 20s and 30s. Much of this content you will not find elsewhere, at least not in such abundance. Bruccoli, America's leading Fitzgerald scholar (as well as Fitz's own daughter, Scotty) did a spectacular job of putting this together. The scrapbook format gives the book an intimate nature and the set up is extremely attractive. Best of all, at just around $20, it is an absolute steal for the price! If you love Fitzgerald, don't go without this collection! It would make a splendid addition to any high school classroom that teaches Fitzgerald or any personal library that celebrates true literary classics.

My girlfriend, a fellow Fitz enthusiast, bought me this for my birthday and it ranks among the best gifts I've ever received. This is an amazing and exhaustively comprehensive scrapbook of the lives of the Fitzgeralds. If you're a fan and come away from this without wanting to get your hands on every single thing those two touched...there's something very, very wrong with you. ;) Beautiful book.

Having read Being and Time many years ago, and other, shorter works by Heidegger since, I have found that reading secondary sources is a useful practice. A book like Pattison's is a boon to understanding a major thinker such as Heidegger, whose work can often prove difficult sledding. Mr. Pattison is well-versed in his subject and judiciously limits himself to giving just enough of a founding in Heidegger's mature philosophy to assist the reader's own, further inquiry. The writing is necessarily technical at points, but the author's explication usually makes the contextual meaning of Heidegger's thought readily accessible. I highly recommend this book.

Folks interested in Martin Heidegger's early work can choose among several excellent book-length commentaries and a small library of interpretive works. Heidegger's later meditations on art, poetry, and technology seem to rarely inspire such close inspection. One notable exception is HEIDEGGER'S ESTRANGEMENTS by Gerald Bruns (a great, great book). This new study by George Pattison shows that these later essays stand up very well indeed to sustained intellectual scrutiny. Not overly-ambitious in scope, this little volume is a handy guide to some of the major themes and obsessions of the mature Heidegger. Highly recommended.

Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to THE LATER HEIDEGGER. By George Pattison. 230 pp. London: Routledge, 2000. ISBN 0-415-20197-7 (pbk).

George Pattison is Dean of King's College, Cambridge, and the first pleasant surprise one gets on opening his book is to discover that he is human. What I mean is that, with the growing technicisation of all things today, so many of the books issuing out of academia read as if they were written, not by flesh-and-blood men and women, but by machines - being bloodless, dry, tedious, and obscure. Dr Pattison's book, in contrast, discloses a real person who is clear-headed, vigorous, and eminently fair-minded; who writes beautifully and with a certain passion; who has been concerned throughout to make his meaning as clear as possible to the reader; and who even allows himself an occasional bit of humor.

His book, in short, is a joy to read, and despite the length and complexity of certain of his arguments, so careful is he in preparing the ground, in structuring his exposition, and in his various summings up that you are never in any doubt as to where you have come from, exactly where you are, and where you are going. A good writer will always keep the needs of the reader in mind, and this is what Dr Pattison has done. If only more academics wrote like this!

Dr Pattison's book sets out to describe Heidegger's life and the background to his later works; the ideas of some of the more important of these later works, including 'The Question Concerning Technology,' 'The Origin of the Work of Art,' and 'What is Called Thinking?'; and his continuing importance. The book contains the following eight chapters: 1 - Is there a later Heidegger?; 2 - 1933 and after; 3 - Technology; 4 - Seeing things; 5 - Nietzsche; 6 - The first and second beginnings of philosophy; 7 - Holderlin; 8 - What kind of thinker? The book is rounded out with a section of Notes, a useful Bibliography, and an Index, and is well-printed on excellent paper, bound in a sturdy plasticized wrapper, and, amazingly, even has a stitched spine.

Readers will come away from this book with an understanding of the relationship between Heidegger's earlier and later thought; with a perception that, far from being Nazistic, Heidegger's thought clearly shows signs of an early migration away from Nazism as a movement which had no answer to planetary technology; and with a fairly firm grasp of such key concepts as 'destining,' 'enframing,' 'intentionality,' etc., along with an understanding of such things as Heidegger's hermeneutic procedures, the unusual nature of his thought, and his status as a new kind of thinker. Some background in Heidegger would be useful, but Dr Pattison's expository skills are so effective that, as a non-specialist myself, I found his book hard going in only a few places.

If this book has a weakness, it seems to me to come at the end in the author's discussion of Heidegger's encounter with the East, a discussion whose conclusion left me personally dissatisfied (though I can't claim to be non-partisan). But even here Dr Pattison showed himself to be fair-minded, something it isn't always easy to be. One is left with the impression that, not only is he a thorough and extremely well-informed scholar, he is also very impressive as a person, and I have no hesitation in recommending his interesting, informative, and well-written book to anyone who may be at all interested in the later thought of Heidegger.

El proyecto crítico de Ricoeur en el último estudio de La metáfora viva va como sigue: el discurso filosófico posee autonomía respecto al discurso poético. La metáfora, por tanto, pertenece exclusivamente a ésta última. La confusión que existe entre metáfora y filosofía, o que la filosofía para poner en marcha su discurso metafísico debe usar metáforas, se debe a que, por un lado, se supone un paso directo entre el funcionamiento semántico de la metáfora y los conceptos metafísicos de la filosofía; y por otro, que cierta comprensión (Heidegger, Derrida) del discurso mixto entre ontología y teología (ontoteología) es el que posibilita dicha confusión. Esta es la parte crítica de su proyecto. Sin embargo, es la restitución crítica de lo metafórico o simbólico en el seno del discurso filosófico lo importante: "Debemos considerar una modalidad totalmente diferente de implicación de la filosofía en la teoría de la metáfora... Apoyándome en los estudios precedentes, espero mostrar que la problemática de la metáfora muerta es derivada, y que la única salida es remontar la pendiente de esta especie de entropía del lenguaje mediante un acto nuevo de discurso. Sólo esta reviviscencia del enfoque semántico de la enunciación metafórica puede recrear las condiciones de una confrontación vivificante entre modos de discurso plenamente reconocidos en su diferencia. A esta vivificación mutua del discurso filosófico y del poético (el de la metáfora simbólica) queremos contribuir en las dos últimas etapas de nuestra investigación." (Ricoeur, 1985, 346s). Esta vivificación del discurso filosófico es que se vuelva él mismo con una fuerza simbólica de innovar conceptualmente. De esta manera, la filosofía trata de reanimar las metáforas muertas o conceptos para descubrir nuevas significaciones de los grandes problemas filosóficos. Podemos pensar que el desarrollo de la historia del pensamiento pertenece a esta resignificación metafórica de los conceptos y por lo tanto el campo del saber filosófico sería simbólico: "La articulación conceptual propia de la modalidad especulativa (i.e. filosófica) del discurso encuentra en el funcionamiento semántico de la enunciación metafórica su posibilidad." (Ricoeur, 1985, 400). La confusión, sin embargo, de que la filosofía sea solamente metáfora y más aún, el logos filosófico como la metáfora de metáforas hace que un estudio sobre aquello que llamamos metáfora sea también metafórico. Así llegamos a lo que Ricoeur llama "paradoja de la autoimplicación", es decir, para hablar de la metáfora sólo podemos hablar metafóricamente. Ricoeur apunta que el discurso filosófico mantiene frente al discurso propiamente metafórico de lo poético una autonomía: "La imaginatio es un nivel y un régimen de discurso. La intellectio, otro nivel y otro régimen. Aquí encuentra su límite el discurso metafórico... la intención significante del concepto sólo se separa de las interpretaciones, de las esquematizaciones, de las ilustraciones cargadas de imágenes (la metáfora), si antes se dispone de un horizonte de constitución, el del logos especulativo." (1985, 407)

The problem is not that fiction shows itself to be a necessity for speculation (Ricoeur admits that it does) but that the distinctiveness between the fictions of art and the fictions of discourse/philosophy has been muddied by the exhaustion of both sets of metaphors. In other words, had we a language full of vital and living metaphors, we would then more easily recognize the distinctiveness of poetic and philosophic metaphor. He shows how Heidegger both acknowledges the distinction and then, in his attempts to step forward, slides down into the muddy waters where the distinction is lost. As a consequence, the later Heidegger shows the way only by his effort, not by his accomplishment.

Ricoeur published this in 1971. He uses Anglo-American philosophy of language extensively. I particularly enjoyed his ability to blend work in aesthetics beginning with Aristotle's Poetics down to some living philosophers who I did not know had published in that area. For instance, he locates in Nelson Goodman's reliance on "expression" in art (what we'd usually call 'style') a transcendent dimension (a 'more' than the sum of the elements in a work of art) as parallel with what in discourse might be called intention (I forget the exact word he used). But again, discourse then has its version of a transcendent dimension that communicates as the sense of the whole -- if a thinker manages to pull that off.

What was new to me (in addition to the recent scholarship on classical sources he used) was his thought. My impulse is to compare him unfavorably with Heidegger, by belittling Ricoeur's academic philosophy to Heidegger's existential declaration of the human condition. But he's just as good, in his own way. And while I could complain about his predisposition to work from within the respectable tradition of our western Judeo-Christian civilization (hence he remains 'God's' spokesman), he does not denigrate but uses the outstanding accomplishments of those for whom that tradition has become alien.

Ricoeur's Rule of Metaphor is the missing link for anyone truly interested in getting at the roots of semiotics, semantics and hermeneutics. For the student of Western Civilization's grammar and logical structure, it provides a genesis of postmodern critique.

If you want a good chuckle this is the book for you. One of the chapters is "Statistics is a Chancy Business" with a wonderful drawing of Wall Street, giving a historical timeline. One section gives us statistics to help us understand the real world. For example, "Did you hear about the statistician who drowned while wading in a pond with an average depth of six inches?", or "Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital".

I wrote and published this review in The Journal of Irreproducible Results, the science humor magazine, vol. 48 #4, November 2004:

If you like JIR, you'll love Science Askew. Science satires, cartoons, puns, and parodies range from chapter-long tales down to punchy 1-liners.

Among the rules of the lab:
* Experiments must be reproducible; they should fail the same way each time.
* Experience is directly proportional to equipment ruined.
* Teamwork is essential; it allows you to blame someone else.

My reaction upon reading most of the articles was "we should run this item in JIR!". But we reprinted an entire chapter in the last issue, and we published 2 of the articles (by the illustrator, retired geologist John C. Holden) in the 1970s, and the whole thing is already in a nifty package - this book.

From the computer expert's glossary:
* On-line: The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer.
* Machine-Independent Program: A program that will not run on any machine.
* Documentation: Instructions translated from Swedish by Japanese for English-speaking people.

Simanek and Holden include fuel for debunking pseudoscience, and teaching students the distinctions. Ever the teacher, Simanek takes several opportunities to "talk straight" and point out legitimate science lessons. The pair of articles arguing opposing sides of the DHMO "controversy" afford chuckles, as well as stimulation for student exercises. "Di-Hydrogen Monoxide", of course, is H2O.

What engineers say and what they mean by it:
* "Test results were extremely gratifying": It works, and are we ever surprised!
* "The entire concept will have to be abandoned": The only guy who understood the thing quit.
* "The designs are well within allowable limits": We just barely made it, by stretching a point or 2.

Holden contributes many clever and witty illustrations. Several other authors appear too, along with some items that have circulated worldwide on the Web which could not be traced to their original authors.

Some of Simanek's Laws of Statistics:
* Anyone who trusts in statistics is taking a chance.
* When 2 lines of a graph cross, that must be significant.
* Once human subjects find out what you have discovered about their behavior, they begin to behave differently.

There are no important typos, and the trivial ones won't distract or confuse anyone.

Among the "do-it" 1-liners:
* Professors do it absent-mindedly
* Cosmologists do it with a bang
* Logicians do it symbolically

Institute of Physics Publishing produced this book extremely well. The type is clear, the illustrations crisp, and all the parts are where they ought to be, except that there is no index. The paper is very high quality. The binding is excellent, comfortable, tight, and ought to last a long time. That's essential for this book, because the owner, friends, students, visitors, and everyone else lucky enough to happen upon it will dip into it time after time.

Despite excellent achievements by the authors and producers, this book has not been reviewed or advertised as much as it merits because the publisher refuses to send out many review copies, advertises very little outside its own periodicals, and discourages retailers.

Science Askew belongs in academic libraries, both for amusement and to stimulate classwork. Scientists, doctors, and educators will love this book. And it makes a splendid gift for anyone with technical knowledge and a sense of - or need for - humor.

This book is one of those rare books that has a lot to offer, including amusing puns and deep philosophical ideas. And it is just a nice book to own. The type style and quality paper make it very attractive. Simanek's wit and Holden's illustrations complement each other nicely. The focus farm where the sons raise meat is a pun that is hard to top. The warning about Dihydrogen Monoxide(by Dan Galvin) and the Hazards of solar power(by Donald Simanek) have great pedagogical value for one and all. As Donald and John say, the book is "An Almanac of Scientific Ephemera."
WARNING: this book is not written for the scientist only. There are no academic degrees required to enjoy and appreciate this book. A careful reading of the book is probably as rewarding as any science course you will take. In fact, as with most good writing, a good course could be built around this publication. I dare you to put it down.