Francis Books

Eugenia Francis has created an easy, entertaining way of teaching the multiplication tables.My nephews loved the circus motif and coloring the animals as they completed each page. With all the tricks, patterns and games, Ensene a Su Hijo las Tablas de Multiplicar (Spanish edition of Teach Your Child the Multiplication Tables) is a delight. Who knew there were patterns and tricks to the multiplication tables instead of endless hours of boring rote memorization I had as a child? Finally, learning the times tables is truly fast, fun and easy!

The essence of mathematics is patterns. Ensene a Su Hijo las Tablas de Multiplicar (Spanish edition of Teach Your Child the Multiplication Tables) enables children to experience the joy of discovering mathematical patterns at an early age. Highly recommended for both parents and teachers.

Charles Curto
Irvine, California

The book has up-to-date information on barriers with clear explanation and good pictures.

This is really a good book, which contains a lot of good pictures. In this book, the explaination is easy to understand.

I am a physician with a personal interest in epilepsy. (I am neither a primary care provider nor a neurologist)

There is much new thinking about epilepsy and many new treatment options available. This book nicely lays out much of that material. Neurologists as well as primary care providers will find this book useful. For primary care providers that treat epilepsy, it will be useful to be aware of the latest thinking. This will benefit their patients in getting them to the best treatment options sooner. For neurologists that read this book, they will come away with a more systematic way of thinking about the scientific basis of epilepsy. Most of the material is likely too specialized for the lay public to get much out of it but there may be exceptions. Those with some technical or health care background and education and a strong personal interest may find some chapters intriguing.

I found the following chapters to be particularly useful and helpful for me:
1) Chapter 2 (receptors and pathophysiology)
2) Chapter 4 (genetics of epilepsy, mutations in ion (sodium, etc) channel components)
3) Chapter 5 "Targets of Antiepileptic Drugs" is particularly brilliant in its explication of how understanding drug mechanism of action at specific targets can help a physician to make an educated choice regarding the potentially best anticonvulsant for a particular patient
4) Chapters 8 and 9 contain a marvelous explanation of interactions of various anticonvulsants and theoretical approaches to minimizing toxicity and idiosyncratic reactions. These may be the most useful chapters in the entire book.
5) Chapter 14 gives a lucid description of the Ketogenic Diet and some of the effects of diet in general on epilepsy
6) Chapters 17 and 18 deal with neurosteroids and neuroendocrine issues including catemenial epilepsy and the effects of stress on seizures
7) Chapter 19 on "sleep and epilepsy" is interesting
8) Chapter 20 on psychopathology in epilepsy I also found fascinating
9) The final chapter on "Arresting Epileptogenesis" was a nice way to point the reader's attention to possible future therapy modalities

I intend to read all of the above mentioned chapters at least a second time.

The other chapters which I have not specifically mentioned above are also very good, including outstanding descriptions of various imaging and diagnostic procedures, surgical options, special treatments, vagal nerve stimulators, and even experimental modes that are not yet ready for clinical application.

For the money, this book is an outstanding bargain. In fact I bought a second copy and donated it to my institution's medical library. Few medical texts are worth reading cover to cover. This book is truly an exception. Most of the chapters held my interest to the last word. In fact, I was "snarfing" up the information just like a hungry puppy dog eats its food.

I highly recommend it for any physician who wants to understand current thinking regarding scientific theory underlying the modern treatment of epilepsy. It increased my level of understanding by at least an order of magnitude.

The co-editors of this medical textbook, Drs. Rho (UC-Irvine), Sankar (UCLA) and myself (UTHSCSA) are among the few clinician-scientists in the field of epilepsy. The textbook aims to bridge the gap between scientific developments in research laboratory (bench) with the insights obtained at the bedside caring for thousands of patients with epilepsy. The textbook is unique in many aspects, including: 1) the selection of contributing authors, who are young investigators or at mid-career, and 2) the provocative nature of their discussion. Authors were asked to describe the scientific foundation of their area of expertise, but also to provide educated insights about potential future developments. The book is divided in six sections: I) Scientific Foundations (3 chapters), II)Antiepileptic Drugs (5 chapters), III) Epilepsy Surgery (3 chapters), IV) Alternative Therapies (5 chapters), V) Other Modulators of the Epileptic State (3 chapters), and VI) The Future of Epilepsy Therapy (5 chapters). Advances in epilepsy have come from many fields in anatomy, biophysics, genetics, molecular biology, neuroscience, pharmacology, etc. We are hoping that this book will educate physicians, health care providers, and investigators increasing their Scientific Foundations to improve Clinical Practice in Epilepsy.

Jose E. Cavazos, MD PhD

Written on the road by Tovey while performing with his orchestra, these essays are wonderfully unassuming and approachable. Tovey combines his knowledge with a unique feel to produce definitive articles that are a great guide to enjoying masterpieces of Western Classical Music.

Written on the road by Tovey while performing with his orchestra, these essays are wonderfully unassuming and approachable. Tovey combines his knowledge with a unique feel to produce definitive articles that are a great guide to enjoying masterpieces of Western Classical Music.

The purpose of this book is to suggest how the ethical sense of humans is likely to have developed in the course of evolution. Many so-called Darwinians have seen this development as "merely" another mechanism in the struggle for survival. They have argued that morality, properly understood, is nothing other than a more or less enlightened codification of self-interest, a view that had already been put forward by Hobbes and by Bentham. For Herbert Spencer moral feelings that weaken the human species in the struggle for survival were aberrations to be corrected: on these grounds he thought that the desire to help the unfit poor should not find a place in a proper system of ethics. Man was part of Nature; Nature was "red in tooth and claw"; and this fierce competition was supposed to make for evolutionary progress. (Social Darwinists never really bothered to study animals, or they would have seen that in the natural world cooperation and interdependence are at least as important as competition). Another Darwinian, like T.H.Huxley, was so appalled by this approach to ethics that he removed ethics from the evolutionary process altogether: Man's moral ends, he said, were not those of the ruthless cosmic process.

Mary Midgley rejects both these reactions to Darwin's work: the Hobbes-Bentham-Spencer view because it is reductionist and Huxley's because it is untenable. The thrust of her book is to show that genuine altruism is as much a product of evolution as are other developments; it is partly rooted in our physical instinctual inheritance, but it is also the result of the special way in which humans are conscious of themselves and can enter imaginatively into the feelings of others.

She develops these ideas in the last third of her book, after having devoted the first two thirds to a comprehensive attack on all reductionist theories of behaviour - that is, theories which purport to explain complex human behaviour in terms of something simpler and fundamental, such a purely physical processes. I have not the space to comment on this part of her powerful arguments here.

In the last third of the book, then, Midgley considers how in evolutionary terms our moral sense might have developed. Her starting point is a hitherto little noticed comment of Darwin's: indeed, most people did not seem to know that he had written anything at all about ethics. Darwin had observed that parent swallows follow one of their instincts in joining migrating flocks while being apparently untroubled by the rival instinct not to desert nestlings who are left behind to die. In this case an instinct which is temporarily very powerful quite blots out one which Midgley describes as "a habitual feeling which is much weaker at any one time, but is stronger in that it is far more persistent and lies deeper in the character." The reason why the swallows evince no hesitation or feeling of conflict between the two courses is that their intellectual power is not highly enough developed. It is, Darwin wrote, "exceedingly likely that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well-developed, or anything like as well-developed, as in man." Morality develops when creatures become conscious of the inevitable conflict in their feelings; and in the more highly developed animals the signs of the struggle between opposing impulses are quite clearly observable.

Human thought brings with it a number of characteristics which, if they exist at all in animals, do so to a much weaker degree: humans have a well developed possibility of imaginative empathy with the feelings of other creatures: they become not merely self-conscious but also conscious of others. They care about what others are thinking and feeling, not least about themselves. They understand the consequences of actions. When they have violated what the weaker but deeper feelings tell them, they feel guilt; when they observe others violating them, they become judgmental. They understand the consequences of actions. They want to have some control over their conflicting emotions - not just for mechanically "evolutionary" reasons, but because they value the freedom which may prevent them from being passively swept hither and thither by their instincts like a piece of flotsam on a powerful wave. Having become conscious of their instincts clashing, they want to establish for themselves a system of priorities; and the purpose of a moral code is to establish that system of priorities. The priorities they establish bear some signs of "selfish" evolutionary programming: to put the interests of one's children before those of the needier stranger, for example; but it is the capacity of thought and of feeling (Midgley constantly stresses that theories which set these two in a hierarchical scheme are badly reductionist) which gradually widens the range of creatures towards whom we accept increasing degrees of responsibility.

I am not in a position to pronounce on the validity of the origins of morality as Mary Midgley presents them. I would suspect that reductionist arguments cannot be quite as crass as she suggests, were it not for the devastating quotations she adduces from some of their academic exponents. As usual, she writes extremely well and lucidly. She is totally devoid of philosophical jargon; and almost every page has a memorable phrase or striking image, as well as a fine sweep of reference to which a short review like this cannot do justice. It is a deeply humane and attractive book.

In the year or so that I've been acquainted with her work, Mary Midgley has quickly become one of my favorite philosophers (outside of Karl Popper and John Dewey). This here is philosophy for the real world.

As such, she starts with real questions: How does morality fit into the evolutionary schema? Science's answer: game theory and self interest became self-interested cooperation. How does the mind (our first person view) fit into naturalistic accounds of the body? Science's answer: it doesn't, really. The mind is the brain and that first person 'viewpoint' is an illusion propogated by the genes.

If I had to give a brief summation of what Midgley does in this book, I'd say this: she takes on reductionism in all of its scientistic forms. Those who want another evolutionary psychology account of the evolution of morality will not find this book comfortable (that's why the title might be misleading). Rather Midgley comes to pluralistic conclusions that when asked to choose between moral libertarianism and reductionistic fatalism, answers: why not a little of both? Why are scientists so eager to do away with the mind as either an illusion or as merely a 'propogation center' for memes? Answer: because they want a unified physicalist view that can't tolerate anything (like the mind) that doesn't disappear into purely physical terms. But, Midgley asks, does that erase the fact that the mind, despite all the 'explaining away' is still there?

Anyhow, another way this book's title may be misleading is that Midgley's concern lies mostly with the issue of how free our moral agency is. Thus if the reader is looking for a book to answer specific moral questions like: Why do we share? Why do we like doing things for others? Why do we fight? and such, the reader won't find that here. Teh essential questions are: How can we give a non-reductionistic account of the mind in a physical world? and How can any form of freedom be compatible with a world of determinism.

Enjoy.

Augustine M. Casiday has given us an excellent introduction to Evagrius' thought and spiritual program. Casiday, at the moment at the University of Wales in Lampeter, has previously studied under Prof. Father Andrew Louth at Durham University also in the UK.

This volume on Evagrius contains an introduction to Evagrius (39 pages)and the Evagrian legacy after Evagrius' death. A few very helpful remarks help us on our way to engage Evagrius:

"For Evagrius, theology and prayer are mutually implicated in the Christian life; spiritual growth and maturity are necessarily connected to good theology (p. 5)."

And so it is! Yet Evagrius is most often known as a heretic, an Origenist heretic who turned the creative thought of Origen into a rigid (and heretical) system. This opinion has been voiced with particular vehemence by Hans Urs von Balthasar and the heretical view of Evagrius has been confirmed by Antoine Guillaumont's discovery of the S2 version of the Kephalaia Gnostica. The S2, according to Guillaumont, is the unadulterated and blatantly Origenist text and gives us Evagrius as he really is. Guillaumont, in a classic study on Evagrius' Kephalaia Gnostica, has been able to establish a clear and indisputable link between Justinian's 15 anathemas and Evagrius' Kephalaia Gnostica. Yet the anathemas interpret the Evagrian texts out of context and are not necessarily reliable in an attempt to understand Evagrius:

"It is no longer necessary for us to identify Evagrius as 'the Origenist condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council' (as he would have appeared to the eyes of the great patristic historian, Le Nain de Tillemont, for instance). In fact, that is a tendentious claim, regardless of what the various partisans of the sixth century may have thought. No one has yet shown that the condemned beliefs are identical to Evagrius' beliefs, merely that the condemned beliefs draw inspiration from him."

After the introduction the reader is given several of Evagrius' Letters, most significantly 'On the Faith' (previously known as 'Letter VIII' of Basil the Great) and 'The Great Letter' ('Epistula ad Melaniam'). These letters are the only two dogmatic treatises we have from Evagrius' hand. Close reading of these texts (including their helpful footnotes) provide a sufficient basis to understand the doctrinal teaching of Evagrius. It is clearly influenced by Origen, but as mediated through the Cappadocians (Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa). Evagrius has introduced the reader to Nicene Orthodoxy by means of the letters and now Casiday's book moves on to treatises on the spiritual life:
- The causes of observances, and how they compare to stillness
- On thoughts
- A word about prayer

These three texts are placed in the succession proper for spiritual growth. They move from the practical knowledge given in 'Causes' to the more advanced material of 'On Thoughts' to the properly theological subject of prayer in 'On Prayer.'

'Causes' is a text for a novice. It introduces the monastic life. It is concerned with laying the foundation of such a life and gives mostly practical advice and prepares for the work of the gnostic - spiritual discernment. The last of this trio concerns the high point of the Evagrian project - prayer. Prayer is the means by which we meet God (the Father) directly and unmediated through His Son and His Spirit.

Next Casiday introduces us to Evagrius the Scriptural commentator. The full translation of 'Scholia on Job' (which Casiday calls 'Notes on Job') and 'Scholia on Ecclesiastes' ('Notes on Ecclesiastes') and some notes on New Testament texts. These texts are appropriately placed in the latter half of the book - for it is the task of a gnostic to know, contemplate, and teach the Scriptures. Gnosis in Evagrius is not mystical experience per se, but knowledge received from meditating and applying the Scriptures.

The final section of Casiday's book present us treatises of short sayings, most significantly 'To the virgin' and 'On prayer.' The 'Virgin' is addressed to women but contains many sayings which would profit men as well. It is a work aimed at preparation of a gnostic (in the Evagrian not the heretical sense) for prayer. The work 'On prayer' is THE theological work of Evagrius it is the high point of all his works (NOT the Kephalaia Gnostica). The whole of the Evagrian Corpus prepares for this final stage, PRAYER. Prayer is the direct communion of the mind with God the Trinity. All exegesis, doctrine, asceticism, and speculation is a preparation for this - prayer, union with God.

When all is said and done, Augustine Casiday has presented Evagrius to the English public and he presents a complete Evagrius - not entangled in polemics or complicated studies I(such as Bunge and Guillaumont). This book deserves to be read and re-read by patristic scholars as well as average Christians - for Evagrius ( if given the chance) will help all become theologians:

"If you are a theologian, you will pray truly, and if you pray truly, you will be a theologian." (On Prayer, 61).

Evagrius of Pontus was one of the key architects of the Early Church. Trained by the great Cappadocians St Basil and St Gregory the Theologian, Evagrius led an active life in the Church in the Imperial Capital of Eastern Christendom of the time, Constantinople.

However, the worldly life of the city and the privelages of his office somewhat corrupted Evagrius to the point where he got entangled romantically with the wife of a high government official. Warned by a dream and wishing to avoid scandal, Evagrius fled from the city to a monastic retreat run by a wealthy abbess.

Evagrius spent the remainder of his life in the desert, building on the foundations of early Christian monasticism and greatly amplifying and extending it through his powerful and rigorous mind. Evagrius's contemplative techniques led him to an approach to Christian spirituality based on 'Gnosis of the Holy Trinity' which was like 'the calm blue of the sky'. Much like Buddhist contemplation, Evagrius paid great attention to techniques which aimed to still and quieten the mind and fight off the 'demons' and temptations which prevent the mind from acquiring a state of beautiful peace, tranquility and awareness which for Evagrius, represented the union of the mind of the Christian with God.

Evagrius also developed a speculative theology around the ideas of Origen, including the notion the material world was the result of a fall from spirits contemplating God and that at the end of time, all created beings will be restored to communion with God (including the devil). This led to his condemnation at three Ecunemical councils after his death, and the loss of many of his works.

Yet, Evagrius's spiritual teachings, especially those on contemplative methods and human psychology, were transmitted and used extensively by both Eastern and Western forms of monasticism, and influenced later Christian spirituality.

This book contains several extracts from Evagrius's key writings, as well as a useful introduction to this brilliant thinker's ideas.

This is an excellent new text. The field of family therapy has recently embraced social construction theory, emphasizing the importance of language and social environments. Family Scripts applies social constructionist assumptions to various therapeutic situations. The first three chapters introduce notions of social scripting (habitual ways of dealing with life's tasks). The remaining chapters then apply the theory of "scripting" to common clinical family situations seen in therapy, such as death and grief in the family, premarital childbearing, children with disabilities, adolescence, couple therapy, chemical dependence in the family, AIDS in the family, and family violence. This is a sophisticated text for graduate courses or experienced clinicians

This is an excellent new text. The field of family therapy has recently embraced social construction theory, emphasizing the importance of language and social environments. Family Scripts applies social constructionist assumptions to various therapeutic situations. The first three chapters introduce notions of social scripting (habitual ways of dealing with life's tasks). The remaining chapters then apply the theory of "scripting" to common clinical family situations seen in therapy, such as death and grief in the family, premarital childbearing, children with disabilities, adolescence, couple therapy, chemical dependence in the family, AIDS in the family, and family violence. This is a sophisticated text for graduate courses or experienced clinicians.

I love this bartending guide! It is well organized & easy to read. The recipes are clear, concise & they make delicious drinks. This books has all the commen cocktails, as well as some outrageous drinks that are fun to try. An essential addition to any bar.

The author Francis A. Olivo "Fancy Frank" graduated from the Minnesota School of Bartending and has been in the liquor business for five years. Have fun and learn how to make Bloody Marys, Pina Coladas, Iron Butterflies, Kamikazes, Long Island Ice Teas, and old fashions all from scratch. A complete Martini, Margarita, Manhattan, and Rob Roy sections. He explains understanding liqueur tastes. It has a complete drink mixes glossary. Includes safety tips. Common slang terms and much, much, More. However, the thing I like most is how the author takes all the adequate out of mixing drinks. The definition of "Adequate" is coming up to the required standard of or being very well disciplined in certain customs. Well the author makes it very clear. You don't have to come up to any required standard to enjoy making drinks, nor is it the intention of this book to make you very well disciplined in certain customs. The main idea is to have fun and explore new exotic mixed drinks. The author has a great sense of humor and he's got a killer recipe for Martinis and Long Island Ice Teas. Buy the book, just the names of some of these drinks will keep you laughing. Regards The Unknown Critic....

I read this book for the first time back in 1965-1966. I have shared this book with several of my catholic friends who found the book to be exqusided. I have the May 1953 editition. Naturally I had to order the revised edition. Since reading the new edition I find it very, very informative. and I highly recommend it be read by all old and new Catholics. It will answer many if not most of the questions you have about the Catholic Faith. God Bless You!

This terrific book has been in print for over 80 years, and after reading it one understands why "Father Smith Instructs Jackson" has sold over 2 million copies. In dialogue form, Fr. Smith guides a curious, intelligent, but somewhat agnostic inquirer to understand the truth of the Catholic faith.

Since it's original printing, it has been revised to incorporate the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. But unlike other similar efforts, the revisions don't feel tacked-on or interrupt the flow of the narrative. Fr. Albert Nevins was able to capture the style and prose of Archbishop Noll's original.

In addition to being a useful catechism, the book is a solid work of apologetics. Regarding the latter, there's an interesting story to how I acquired the book. I bought it on eBay from a seller who included the word "Bible" in his ID. He sent the book promptly and in the condition promised, but he included an anti-Catholic tract that misrepresents what the Church teaches. When I called the seller's attention to his pamphlet, he accused me of worshipping "saints" and a "pedophile pope"--precisely the sort of nonsense "Father Smith Instructs Jackson" so thoroughly debunks.

If you have a Catholic (or would-be Catholic) friend who is turned-off by traditional catechisms, this is the book for him.

This book is a wonderful introduction to the more advanced ideas of control theory. But it is written with emphasis on classical control and transfer functions (which makes for a good introduction). The problem is that this book is no longer in print. However, the copyright has reverted back to the authors. And they have kindly decided to make the book available for free! Simply do a google search for "Feedback Control Theory", and you will find it.

Essential for anyone who deals with robust control (or wants to). And as noted elsewhere, google the title, you'll find it on the web for free.