Francis Books

Dear friends,

Please, for personal reasons, do not publish the previous review of this book even though you can keep the 5 star rate. Many thanks, Gilmar

To everybody that enjoy reading the Stiglitz complains about the IMF mismanagement of country's financial crisis Restructuring Korea Inc. is a better analytical and empirical documented evidence of it. According to the authors much of the Korean crisis was due to the dismantle of the Korean Inc. by the Kim's goverments and the IMF without having a new model to put in place. One of the main thesis of the book is that the Korean economy recovered despite the IMF programme, not because of it. Excellent reading to everybody in the government and private sector of developing countries that did not have a clear picture about "What Happened to Asia" and are still afraid of the possible and probable coming new crisis.

Addresses every aspect of a priest's life and his deep spiritual needs and problems - often neglected in other books. First published in 1946, this book is really something special! Every priest should own it! Recommend it without reserve! Great gift for priests! 251pp. PB. Imprimatur.

Fr. Havey has put much thought and meditation into this little book. I discovered it by chance at a garage sale and I must say I am very, very pleased to have it. I would recommend it to each and every priest - it gives the "ins" and "outs" of the priesthood in a down to earth language.

This book has been a great help with my preparation for my ASCP certification test. I learned so much from this book and the questions were very similar to the questions on the test. The lab I work in has had fun with this book also. I really suggest this book for anyone who has to take the phlebotomy ASCP certification test.

The book was purchased to supplement class information to take the ASCP exam. Each question gives rational for the correct answer and rationals for wrong answers. Very helpful

In 2003 author Jack Zipes translated Beautiful Angiola, the first half of Laura Gonzenbach's treasury of folk and fairy tales told by Sicilian peasants. Now the newly published second installment, Robber With A Witch's Head: More Stories From The Great Treasury Of Sicilian Folk And Fairy Tales , collected by Laura Gonzenbach provides the conclusion of the two volume series with almost fifty new stories about demons and princes alike. In the late 1800s Gozenbach spoke with Italian peasants to gather their stories - but she died young, and many of her papers were destroyed in the 1909 earthquake. It seemed fitting that Jack Zipes, one of the world's experts on fairy tales and folklore, should undertake the task of translating and publishing her life's work: Robber With The Witch's Head is a fitting tribute indeed.

This is the second and final volume of Sicilian folk and fairy tales collected by Laura Gonzenbach, now translated by Jack Zipes. The first volume is titled, "Beautiful Angiola."

Here's my review of the first volume which can be applied to this second volume, too. After all, Zipes' introduction is only slightly revised from the first to accommodate the second.

Here the inexhaustible Jack Zipes edits and translates a lesser known, but arguably very important, collection of Sicilian folk and fairy tales. Originally collected and recorded by Laura Gonzenbach in mid-19th century Sicily, these tales provide a different perspective on the folklore of the time and ours today. Zipes argues that this collection is perhaps the most important collection from the time period, even more important than the Grimms' collection. The tales are unadulterated, carefully recorded to reflect the voice of the original teller. Since Gonzenbach collected primarily from women tellers and was herself female, the feminine perspective of the tales hearkens back to the French Salons albeit at a different class level. Be warned that these tales have not been softened and at times reflect the violence, cruelty, and unfairness of life with clear language; these stories are not for the nursery. Zipes' comprehensive introduction and endnotes (including Aarne-Thompson classification numbers) enhance the scholarly weight of the text, but the stories can be read strictly for the enjoyment of the armchair folklorist.

This collection is especially recommended for readers interested in 19th century folktale collections, feminist folklore and Sicily.

Highly recommended.

If you're looking at this book, you probably already know that Hoek & Bray is the Bible for rock slope engineering... no argument. Wyllie & Mah are simply carrying the torch for the aging masters. Same amazing book. Buy it. As for Amazon, however, I can't say quite as much. I recently purchased 3 books: Terzaghi's Soil Mechanics in hard cover, Wyllie & Mah's (Hoek & Bray's) Rock Slope Engineering in hard cover, and Hudson & Harrison's Engineering Rock Mechanics in paperback (wish I'd gotten hard cover). All 3 are landmark books. All 3 also arrived Saran-wrapped to a flat piece of cardboard and placed in a box large enough to allow it to slide around inside. There was no packing material to prevent sliding. The Terzaghi book was not plastic wrapped (separately from the Saran wrap); the other 2 were. All 3 books appeared (and smelled) wonderfully new inside; but all 3 had covers which were marred to some degree. Yes, I'm picky, but I'm also paying around $200 for some of these books. I don't know whether the slightly bent corners, surface indentations and scratches were the result of Amazon or some previous handler or the publisher/binder, but I was a bit pieved. The books should be delivered to the consumer in perfect condition. I kept all 3, knowing that I would probably inflict more wear and tear on them than what they had when I received them (being an engineering geologist), but I was nonetheless annoyed. I now have a bit of distrust in Amazon. Thanks for taking the time to read my opinion. Enjoy your books!

I'm an engineer working in the field of dams and hydropower.
Many professionals in our field consider all the books written by prof. Hoek the reference books for rock mechanics.
This book is an very good update ( including many more case histories ) of a classical text.
I strongly suggest it at least for all the professionals.
If you're a student in rock mechanics you might also read Hoek's course notes ( that can be downloaded from prof. Hoek's site ).

This book prints the most important primary sources about the Roman army and its activities--inscriptions, papyri, excerpts from Vegetius--with helpful commentary and context. Fascinating in its concrete detail, this is the perfect antidote to the overly schematized generalizations about the army that one finds in more popular accounts.

An excellent way to supplement the standard book on the Roman army by Wilkes, Campbell's reference book makes available at reasonable costs some primary information about the army. Here we have the political and legal views along side those of the commander and common soldier. A great resource for graduates and undergraduates.

Antony Kamm has developed a solid reputation for being able to synthesize masses of material and make it understandable to the reader. This book is no exception, taking the reader from the legends of Rome's founding to the last pseudo-Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and the roughly 800 years in between. Nor does Kamm ignore the details of daily life, education, sex and marriage, food, money-lenders, games, and more that made up this rich and unique culture. A fine place to start, as shown in his title of THE ROMANS: AN INTRODUCTION.

Kamm has written a compulsively readable and highly instructive volume on Ancient Rome. He is a talented writer and a great teacher.

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.

From locating and keeping key employees to managing time and understanding how a manager or owner's role should work, this is packed with tips ranging from financial concerns to hiring and firing effectively, providing specific keys to understanding how businesses succeed and fail.

As a professional organizer, I'm always interested in learning new efficiencies. This book offers more, page for page, than any of the current "best books on business" found on the best seller's lists. Francis makes her points briefly and succinctly in a conversational style that keeps you interested. Not only does she describe easy-to-understand techniques, she offers forms and worksheets to put her methods to work. I recommend this book to anyone who's serious about making career, business and and life as efficient and stress-free as possible.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was one of the twentieth century's most important philosophers and one of its best-known free thinkers. Raised in a religiously liberal home, Russell abandoned liberal Christianity early on seeking a "religion of reason." Although he ultimately abandoned that as well, his views on religion remained complex.

This collection of Russell's writings on religious is organized by biographical accounts; religion and philosophy; religion and science; religion and morality; and religion and history. It contains most of Russell's most important work on the subject, such as the famous essay "Why I Am Not a Christian." I was disappointed however that it doesn't contain his famous debate with Fr. Copleston.

The introduction by Professors Greenspan and Andersson is excellent. The editors acknowledge the importance of Russell's work in this area, but also his weakness as a historian of religion.

As a freethinker, Bertrand Russell recognized that his approach toward religion was "somewhat complex" (p. 3; see also, "My Mental Development"). Over the course of his life, Russell's attitudes toward religion evolved from an attempt to "preserve religion without any dependence on dogmas," to a more polemical stance (p. 3). Like Freud, Russell searched for the roots of popular religion in psychology, and found that the purpose of religion is to give respectability to the passions of fear, conceit, and hatred (p. 11, see also, "Has Religion Contributed to Civilization?"). The writings Russell scholars Louis Greenspan and Stefan Anderson have collected in this volume are representative of Russell's "uncompromising opposition to religion" (p. 12), and offer an excellent passage into Russell's thoughts on the subject of religion. Greenspan and Anderson have organized Russell's writings into five sections, revealing the chronological development of their subject's thoughts on religion.

Russell believed that the only way to obtain liberation from suffering was to abandon any hope for private happiness, and to burn instead with a passion for eternal things independent of the ruin of the physical universe (pp. 20-21; see also, "The Free Man's Worship"). For him, true wisdom meant knowing all, loving all, and serving all (p. 69, see also, "The Essence of Religion"). Among present-day religions, he considered Buddhism the best because it focuses on the question of what Man is, rather than what the universe is (p. 74; see also, "The Essence and Effect of Religion"). In his his seminal essay, "Why I am not a Christian," Russell advocated standing up and looking the world "frankly in the face." "A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage," he wrote; "it does not need a regretful hankering over the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time towards a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create" (p. 91).

This intellectually stimulating collection of essays will appeal to readers interested in the subject of religion, and to those looking for an introduction to the philosophical, historical, critical, and private writings of Bertrand Russell.

G. Merritt