Francis Books

This book is out of print and therefore should be very cheap. You'll get a bang for buck with this one!

I am an interior design major and applied the tecniques that are in this book into my marketing plan for my business upon graduation. The book is very expensive; but offers easy to understand selling stradgies and "how-to" build quality partnerships. You can use an interactive web site to study each chapter which is very useful as well!

As intended, this is a very good summary of Semiotics and Structuralism. I discovered the book on the Web and decided that it is worth buying it in book format as an excellent reference to keep around. The book seems to contain more information and seems to have gone through some good editing. My only criticism is about its organization -- maybe Mr. Chandler could have thought of a more narrative organization where one concept gives way to the next, although I am very aware that the subject matter is very complex to control.

I firmly believe that these extremely important "diagnostic" and critical approaches of the 20th century will make (and, I think, are making) a come back. I am mostly interested in creation of contemporary dance and theatre and I read about semiotics and structuralism with a very pragmatic, worldly eye. In that respect, I believe that post-Barthes French thinkers diluted the issues towards pure speculation and inapplicable and frequently unintelligible brain gymnastics and denied their methodological aspects for use in linguistics, anthropolgy, film, etc. I have not been able to deduct practical benefits from the critical movements of the past 30 years either.

I have read maybe a dozen books about semiotics and I must say this is the best yet. It is both easy to understand and surprisingly comprehensive given the topic. His book is so good that I bought the second edition of the book when it came out even though its available for free online. My sister is even using this book for as part of the required readings for a graduate level university course she is teaching and I know she isn't the only professor on the faculty to do so.

This book, a compilation of the lectures Conway presented at the Joint Meetings of the American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America in 1991, is a bit overstated in the title. In particular, the inclusion of the word "sensual." While some mathematicians no doubt get a significant buzz over the quadratic form, (polynomials in several variables where every term has degree two), I doubt if it reaches the point of sexual stimulation. In the first lecture he considers only equations of the form a*x^2 + b*x*y + c*y^2, where a, b and c are integers. While at first glance this may appear to be a severe restriction, that is not the case. For example, by rewriting the quadratic into the matrix form,

| a b |
( x y ) | | (x y )
| c d |

it is possible to work with matrices, determinants, bases, superbases, equivalence of forms, primitive vectors, and norms of the vectors. Tree diagrams are used to represent the bases of the forms, this leads to a large number of successive descriptive operations. By the time you reach the end of the book, Conway has gone through several of the human senses, considering the following questions.

*) Can you see the values of 3x^2 + 6xy - 5y^2?
*) Can you hear the shape of a lattice?
*) ... and can you feel its form?

The title of the fourth lecture is "The Primary Fragrances" so he "covers" four of the five senses.
I found the difficulty to be rather high, there were many times when I had to slow way down and process the material in small chunks. One of the primary reasons for this is that Conway introduces a lot of notations and terminology and it was not always immediately clear to me what he meant. However, I did manage to understand nearly all of it, which made reading it very worthwhile. Once I finished, I found myself surprised that such a "simple" equation led me down so many different mathematical paths.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission

The book doesn't need a review. It's written by John Horton Conway. Enough said. But if you insist on a review, the book (actually a series of three lectures) is a radical new "look" at quadratic forms through visual topographs. The lectures progress with even more ways of sensing quadratic forms (eg "hearing the shape of a drum"), and that's where the title comes from. "The Sensual Form" -- get it? It will change the way you look at QFs. If you need more information on Conway, he's the inventor of the mathematical game "life" and the author of the sublimest, rockingest math books on the planet, dude: Winning Ways, Numbers and Games, etc. He's one of the rarest of birds -- a contributor to the highest echelons of mathematical knowledge who's also great at putting it into readable, learnable text.

St. Francis de Sales covers a lot of the Catholic Church's Marian feast days such as the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the Anunciation, the Visitation, the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, her Immaculate Conception, and her glorious Assumption. He has wonderful Scriptural insight, relating many Biblical passages to Our Lady, especially verses in Song of Songs. Great book for those seeking a greater knowledge about Mary.

Now available in English for the first time, these 13 sermons present a multitude of precious insights on Our Lady as perfect exemplar of Christian virtues. Preached by that great yet gentle Doctor of the Church, St. Francis de Sales moves easily over both New and Old Testaments, especially the Song of Songs. St. Francis shows how Our Lady's Conception, birth, infancy, childhood, Presentation, Annunciation, divine Motherhood, Visitation, Purification, death and Assumption are rich in the "perfumes" of humility, obedience, and charity - as well as in many great and special privileges given to her by God. St. Francis de Sales also shows clearly that Mary, by her holy example of the virtues, is the great Mistress or teacher for every Christian's life. Revealing the Spiritual depths of the smallest Scriptural details, he explains the great value and true meaning of these virtues, so central to holiness of life. Terrific insights! 219pp. PB. Imprimatur.

it was a great page turner that keep you spellbound throughout the whole book.

A very elusive book, The Serpent's Egg is also a rare delight to all who may find it. Stevermer has filled this book with a mysterious object called The Serpent's Egg with strange powers, a murdered hero, an evil duke, and a group of conspirators trying to warn the queen against the duke. Throw in excellent, quirky characters, some good old fashioned swashbuckling, a good handful of letters and sonnets, and a twisting plot...Highly recommended. Also try Stevermer and Wrede's Sorcery and Cecelia, and Stevermer's A College of Magics for more quasi-historical fantasy.

I borrowed this book from the library and ended up buying my own copy. Gives great info on the topic of shamans. You could buy several of the books that are listed but there are parts from articles and journals that are not available. I am enjoying this book very much and plan to use it when I write my Ph.d on shamanism.
You will enjoy every article.

I have been studying shamaic cultures for decades, and this was an unusual collection seeing through the eyes of Westerners over half a milenium. It gives me hope that we can rise above ethnocentricity to see that reality is mutable although by way of this book it took over 400 years.

While living in the Bay Area of California we were lucky enough to have a radio station that rebroadcast Canada's CBC radio station. "The Shepherd" read by Alan Maitland was a special on Christmas Eve for a number of years and we made sure to tune in each year. Living now in an area we cannot receive the broadcast we have bought the disk and now have our own tradition playing it for ourselves and friends on Christmas Eve. Makes a wonderful gift and stocking stuffer. Recommended highly.

In Canada people start calling the CBC in early December to ask when they will broadcast the story, "The Shepherd" read on the radio by the late Alan Maitland. I suspect that much of Canada was quiet the last half hour when they just played it on Radio One.
It is a tense & beautiful spirit/ghost story about a young RAF pilot lost over the North Sea on Xmas Eve.
I highly recommend it for its expert narration, as an event for the whole family to listen to, ages 10 & up, & as just a darn good story.

The rest of the stories, each w/a bit of irony or a bittersweet taste, are well done, too.

The Simple Peace of St. Francis of Assisi is remarkable because it actually catches the heart of this incredible saint, his spiritual development, his formation from troubadour to holiness. I strongly suggest this book for anyone who enjoys books about spiritual transformation or St. Francis. You can actually feel St. Francis as his heart widens and grows into perfect joy!

St. Francis is almost untouchable as a saint. His miracles, his link to the common person and his love of animals (all God's creatures) makes him a hugely popular and well-loved saint. This book allowed me to get beyond all the hype and other worldliness of St. Francis. It took me to his heart and let me feel what he felt as his spiritual journey evolved. His love for God and the world was huge.

I now know that St. Francis is most like us, the most human of all the saints. He lived beyond the average but he loved the simpleness and ugliness of life. This book does not ram religion down your throat and it does not put St. Francis on a pedestal that is unreachable. It puts his heart and mind in focus and attempts to give the reader a view of Francis as a friend might see him today.

Wonderfully rich and full of spirituality. You will feel closer to the saint no matter what other books you have read on his life.

Sir Gawain And The Green Knight And The Order Of The Garter by Francis Ingledew (Associate Professor, School of English, Philosophy, and Humanities, Fairleigh Dickinson University) is a scholarly assessment of the Arthurian poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and its relationship to the medieval chivalric ideology that became ritualized in the "Order of the Garter" and other European knightly orders of the period. Professor Ingledew compares Gawain's sexual temptation to the promiscuous scandals of King Edward's court (specifically the king's rumored rape of the Countess of Salisbury) and its narrative recording and denials by Jean le Bel and Jean Froissart. Sir Gawain And The Green Knight And The Order Of The Garter is a work of seminal and careful scholarship that will prove to be a welcome and enduring contribution to English Literature and British History in general, and Arthurian Studies in particular.

In "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Order of the Garter," Francis Ingledew makes accessible to medievalists as well as to scholars of other periods a wealth of learned and deeply informed reflection on the poem in itself and as an historical document and homologue of the political conditions that surrounded and influenced its composition. To enable his analysis, Inglewdew meditates impressively on the proper relationship between literature and history, primarily as empowered by the theory of discourse. Although his style can occasionally become a bit knotty, in general, his prose is fluent and readable. The book recommends itself to readers both for its path-breaking argument on a beautiful and uncanny medieval text and for its fruitful theoretic consideration of the always-problematic meeting of literature and history. The extent and care of Ingledew's research and his brilliant deployment of it to support his arguments together render the book a model to scholars of each field, and particularly to those who bring literary texts together with high politics. Price notwithstanding, this book belongs on the shelves of all those interested either in the Gawain poet or in Ingledew's larger theoretical interests, and cannot be too highly recommended for its breadth, its depth, and its impressive and innovative arguments. In brief, buy this book, high price or no!

Hey...if I ever wanted to justify my sinful urges to have extramarital SEX I would read this book and live by Fletcher's maxim's! LOVE is the justification for all kinds of self gratifying SIN. What a great concept from a trusted source at that. Here is a guy that started out as an Episcopal Priest and died as an anti-christian atheist! Now that's a trustworthy source for ethical standards of righteousness and moral purity!

This is a good book in a way that shows that life quickly becomes too complicated for a few simple rules to work everything out effectively. The intellectual part played by the author seems to be like the "no actor anywhere better than the Jack of Hearts" in the song, "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts" by Bob Dylan, the longest song on the "Blood on the Tracks" album, which has been extremely popular for years. Situations are as different as the verses of that song, and Rosemary is not unusual when "she was with Big Jim but she was leaning toward the Jack of Hearts." Lily "had come away from a broken home with lots of strange affairs with men in every walk of life which took her everywhere, but she never met anyone quite like the Jack of Hearts." The song is more tragic than this book. The book is religious enough to adopt love as its ultimate standard. Love can be a great motivator on a personal level, but the situations that it leads to in sex and warfare can be quite striking, like American troops breaking down doors in the middle of the night because they are trying to find people and weapons that are more dangerous than Hosea's wife. I liked this book because it illustrated that sex might be considered useful in a lot of situations, which was not what I was experiencing in real life at the time. Our society is due for some attitude adjustment on sex and love, and this book clearly thinks love is more important, but people who read it are more likely to be interested in the sex. After you read it, you might know what Bob Dylan meant when he sang, "I know I've seen that face somewhere, Big Jim was thinking to himself."