Henry Books

Product arrived quickly in great shape. will do business with them again.
Thanks D

Ok, let me start off by saying that this book is a very important book in my family. Im 21, but this book is one of my first memories. I remember so well seeing my parents reading it, (probally multiple times) and seeing it at my grandfather's house. I never knew what the book was about, I just knew that "The Henry book" was a big deal. In fact, my Grandfather loved the book so much, he bought an entire box of it one time to give out to friends and family. I heard it was a difficult book to get, but Amazon popped up, and is ready and avalible.
I really debated to give this book a 3 or a 4. I wish I could give it a 3.5. I really liked where the book was going. Kind of a "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" for adults. Poor Henry. He kept giving the mouse (society) cookies, when he didn't have enough to give in the first place. I know, I sound like I have been watching too much Billy Madison but it was the best comparison I could think of. This book is a great vacation read. It took me about a late afternoon and a 2 hour car ride to read. Read it before you go on vacation with someone who has read it. Because it will be a big old laugh when you quote, "I wouldn't want you to miss out on the good life." through out your vacation.
I really don't know how to review this book. Parts of it I loved and parts of it I hated. I really didn't know where the author was going at the end. I didn't know that this book was going to go into the end times when I started it off. I relize that the Bible warns us that the Lord will come while we are all distracted, but I was just confused how it pretained to Henry. I guess was warning us not to get so caught up in it all that we forget about the Lord. I only skimmed the end honestly because I felt like the author was coming off like he was better then me. That's an awful thing of me to say, and maybe it's the stubborness coming out in me, but really. I mean, does he really think we are so weak, that we will fall to the evil ways of a credit card? I think it's a book you need to read more than once. I still suggest it.

This book can wake you up! A story that tells a story.

Beautiful!

This book was loaned to me by a friend. I started reading it and could not stop. It was telling the story of my life in a different way. Henry knew the good life and thought progress was going to give him a better life. He had to give up the things dearest to him. Time with the family went by the wayside. A valuable lesson for people who are trying to get ahead. This book posessed me to quit my 12 hour, sometimes 6 day a week job of 17 years. I now make less money, but I also have time off to be with my family. My priorties are now in order and I am happy. I am now like Henry was in the beginning of the book. Sometimes we don't know what happiness is. Money isn't everything and debt will ruin you is some things I personally gleaned out of this book. I strongly recommend it to college age and over.

Henry is me! Not that I ever had it as good as he did to start, but I bought the lies that our great society hangs in our faces like that nice juicy bunch of fresh carrotts....theres nothing wrong with carrotts is there? I have read this little book a dozen times and each time I do it makes me stop and take stock. This is a must own, buy a bunch and give them to people who you truly care about.

Having lived near his restaurant(s) in San Francisco for a decade, I was compelled to pick up this cookbook, now that I've moved away. In contrast to many restaurants that rely on MSG and rude service to attract customers, Henry's food was very spicy and very delicious.

Some of my favorites were the cold chicken sesame salad (surprisingly) and the Onion Cake appetizer. The chicken salad recipe is here and completely rocks, and the Onion cake is here also (really delicious, if you can tolerate wheat). Sadly missing was info on making his delicious "fish balls" dish. I'm currently trying to reverse-engineer this dish.

Icing on the cake... the occasional 1-2 page essays on marriage, death, Feng Shui, gender issues, etc., according to Hunan culture.

Well done, Henry (burp).

I've never eaten at the restaurant (but think I saw it when I visited San Fran years ago). The book is written in simple sturdy english. The recipes are authentic. Best of all, I like the fantastic fables and hearsay of not-so-old China (and personal anecdotes)as related by Chung. Enjoyable to read, even if you never intend to try out any of the recipes.

For those who love to eat or cook Chinese food, this book is a must-have. It details about 50 tasty recipes from Hunan province in China, and is totally authentic. The author has avoided "spicing down" recipes for American readers -- garlic, hot chiles and other Hunan staples are used boldly and creatively, and your taste buds will be crying out for more after trying these gems. In fact, my wife, who is herself Chinese, relies on Henry Chung's book more than the Chinese-language cookbooks she brought from Taiwan. It really is that good.

cheers, Henry, Cheers... From Marty's Special BBQ Pork, to the overstuffed steamed dumplings this book has it all including an amazing recepie for Velvet Chicken. A must purchase.

I have searched for a copy of this wonderful book for over 5 years and have recently found it,it is my most treasured of many cookbooks! I have been a customer of this wonderful actually fabulous restaurant in San Francisco for over 20 years, it just seems to be just as wonderful as before!This book has allowed me to duplicate my favorite hot and sour chicken many times over. what a shame it is out of print, Henry is very much alive and the place still a success. what a wonderful, simple and accurate book,hopefully this book will someday be back in print and I may share it with my friends.

In the book Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, Henry A. Turner argues that Adolf Hitler's rise to power is most evidently illustrated by examining the last thirty days before his appointment to chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Prior to reading Hitler's Thirty Days to Power I had been under the impression that Hitler had a much more active role in securing his position as chancellor of Germany before ascending to Fuhrer. Turner by taking the microscopic approach of only analyzing these thirty days clearly demonstrated that this was not the case. According to the author, Hitler's rise to power was the result of luck, the egos of other political figures, as well as the belief that he could be used simply as a pawn to gain favor of his dwindling amount of supporters. Had any one of these differentiate Hitler would not have been successful in securing the position as chancellor. Turner substantiates his claims through a variety of resources ranging from personal memoirs and newspaper articles from the period to journal publications of modern historians. The information he presented was mostly-well known to the scholarly world, however, the manner in which it manifested was innovative. By using a magnifying glass-like method to examine the month leading up to Hitler's establishment in power rather than the all encompassing approach, Turner gives the generally educated reader, such as me, a better insight to the schematics of Hitler's rise.

Furthermore, the individuals of the text come to life through an intense focus on what propelled them to reach conclusions that allowed Hitler power. The personalities of people like Franz von Papen and Paul von Hindenburg are revealed through these decisions. Turner does not simple state the events that occurred, but rather allowed his reader to envision internal turmoil that was suffered by these individuals in coming to their resolutions. An example of this would be the German President Paul von Hindenburg. Originally he vowed that Hitler would never gain the position of chancellorship. However, numerous overtures made by Papen, a good friend and former chancellor under Hindenburg, combined with the encouragement by his son Otto the President was convinced to allow Hitler the position he so coveted. Turner illustrates throughout the book the difficultly Hindenburg faced in reaching this conclusion. The narration permits the book a novel-like reading often reserved for fiction rather than history. Many other texts compel the audience to feel as if they had read solely the outcome of the events leading up to January 1933 instead of getting a vivid understanding of its cause. Hitler's Thirty Days to Power answers the problem of how Hitler came to power in a compelling and easy read. The narrative and the individuals engage the audience regardless of any negative or positive connotations surrounding them.

The only major flaw that I see with Hitler's Thirty Days to Power is the last chapter of the text. This chapter, "Determinacy, Contingency, and Responsibility," attempts mainly to answer two questions: Should anyone, other than Hitler, be held accountable for the atrocities of his reign because of their involvement in his rise to power and what would have happened had Hitler's reign not existed? The author answers the first charge with the assertion that "although impersonal forces may make events possible, people make events happen." Unforeseeable events might have occurred, but it is individuals like Papen and Hindenburg who are ultimately responsible for Hitler's reign regardless of their original intent. Although others like Hindenburg's son Otto might played a lesser role they still had a significant part therefore they are also to blame. I agree with these assertions, however, I they led me to disagree with Turner's assessment of the public. Turner sees the German public only at fault because of their lack of understand of the importance of their ability to replace their government figures. After WWI, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the throne at the demand and revolt by the general public. At this moment the power the people held was not failed to be recognized. I have a difficult time believing that less than twenty years later this power had all but been forgotten. Instead after reading Turner's text I have come to the conclusion that much like Hindenburg and Papen, the German public underestimated Hitler. Turner asserts that responsibility for Hitler's reign rests on those like Hindenburg and Papen for their underestimation of Hitler, than the general German public should also share the blame.

In addition, Turner's answering the question of what would have happened had Hitler not come to power seems unreasonable. The author suggests that had Hitler not come to power a military coup would have overtaken the government and the atrocities of WWII would have been avoided. It is difficult to make assumptions of what might had happened if Hindenburg or other resisted Hitler's rise to power. No one can say for certain the fate of the government at the end of the Weimer Republic had alternate approaches been taken. In addition, it is difficult to say that the atrocities of WWII would have been completely avoided. There had been for some times a growing resentment for both communism and the Jews. Perhaps, these crimes might have been on a lesser scale in which all of Europe was not involved. However, these atrocities regardless of their extent seemed destined to be committed because of the complacency of the German republic.

Overall Henry Ashby Tuner's Hitler's Thirty Days to Power was an excellent text. It provided a microscopic look into the last thirty days before Hitler obtained chancellorship which eventually led to his dictatorship. This approach was helpful in understanding how Hitler's rise to power. It allowed his audience to witness the key figures involved and their reasoning for being a part of the scheme. In addition, the reader also is provided with the sense that there were several opportunities to prevent Hitler's reign yet they were pushed aside. Furthermore, Turner showed the audience that although Hitler took advantage of the conflict between several key figures in government, it is these individuals like Papen and Hindenburg that are responsible for Hitler. They underestimated Hitler and their large egos led them to believe that they could ultimately control him. Turner's text is valuable to not only the study of history but also as a study for the future. The book teaches the world's governments that we should not underestimate those seeking or holding power. Most importantly, when an individual claims or even more brazenly writes a book on their political goals, like Hitler did with [...], perhaps we should see these claims or writings as absolute truths. Goals which people like Hitler intend to reach.

This well written book is a case study of how luck, personalities, and even simple spite can have major effects. At the end of 1932, the Nazi party seemed to be on the threshold of decline. Its fraction of the electorate was slipping, its finances were in disarray, and there was considerable dissent from both rank and file and leaders of the party. Many were dissatisfied with Hitler's strategy of pursuing supremacy through electoral politics. Some sectors of the party wanted to pursue revolutionary violence, others, like the influential organizer Gregor Strasser, thought that Hitler was throwing away great opportunities by insisting on the Chancellorship instead of accepting important cabinet posts in right wing coalition governments. At the end of January, 1933, Hitler was ensconced as Chancellor, some of his loyal lieutenants, like Goring, occupied crucial cabinet posts, and Hitler was able to initiate the 'back door' revolution that resulted in the Nazi domination of Germany.
Hitler obtained the Chancellorship, in part, because of his obdurate refusal to accept anything less as the price of participation in a governing coalition, a product of his messianic self-confidence. Turner shows well that Hitler was handed the Chancellorship as a result of a series of backstairs plotting involving former Chancellor Papen and members of President Hindenberg's circle, notably his son Oskar. Hitler was greatly underestimated by these individuals, and was underestimated just as greatly by the then Chancellor, General von Schleicher. Hitler does deserve credit for his persistence and his ability to hold his party together but as Turner shows very well, he was phenomenally fortunate and was gifted the Chancellorship because of court politics motivated to a great extent by spite and petty jealousy.
Turner concludes with a nice and concise discussion of a counterfactual alternative to Hitler's ascent to power. As Turner points out, when democracy failed in the inter-war period, and it did so frequently, the usual result was an authoritarian state dominated by traditional conservatives and the military. Fascist movements were present in some of these countries and were incorporated into these regimes as traditional conservatives sought to draw on the popular support mobilized by fascist movements, but in Hungary, Romania, and Spain, the more traditional right/military remained in control. With more capable right wing leadership in Germany, this would have been the probable outcome. The result would have been an authoritarian but not totalitarian state, one that was anti-Semitic but not genocidal. The German state would certainly have rearmed and Turner suggests that the most likely outcome would have been a more limited war with Poland. His speculations are reasonable.

THis is the real, hard to believe story of Hitler's ascent to the corridors of power. Chancellor was the only real job he ever had, other than his military service...and this book charts his rise over all the educated, polished saps who tried to use Hitler, and wound being suckered by him instead. His seizure of power in Germany, thanks to Von Papen and Hindenburg was as unfortunate for everyone else, as it was lucky for him.
If you want to know how Hitler rose to Chancellor in Germany, read this book.

This is a well-written and extensive explanation on the behind the scenes machinations, impelled by personal foibles and vendettas, that led to Hitler's being awarded the Chancellorship of Germany despite his party's never achieving a majority in or at the polls.

The book sets to rest many myths about how German industrialists finagled Hitler's ascension to power and exposes the inner workings and interactions of the multiple parties, politicians, and political hacks that actually, and often inadvertently, coalesced to create the power vacuum which Hitler filled. The book also explains why the Nazis were so interested in obtaining control of Prussia and its security forces. (The reason is that although there were 19 separate federal political entities in the Weimar Republic, by far the strongest political entity was Prussia, which contained 60% of both the total population and land in the country. In addition, the federal government's security forces were almost non-existent but Prussia had a force of some 50,000 men [half the size of the 100,000 man German army] that came under the control of whoever became the Ministry of the Interior in Prussia [who turned out to be Hermann Goering when Hitler gained power]. Not only that but Goering, as Ministry of the Interior of Prussia, then had the authority to deputize tens of thousands of Nazis as auxiliary police to carry out Hitler's goals.)

Perhaps the only real drawback to the book is that the introductory material on the Weimar Republic and its political processes is incomplete, making the transition to the core of the book a bit harsh.

Most people who have some knowledge of the climb to power of the Nazis think Hitler enjoyed an unbroken rise from the Beer Hall Putsch to the Chancellorship.

While true in the main, author Henry Turner in "Thirty Days, January 1933" describes how Hitler's party was waning in Germany and widely believed to have peaked with the last most recent elections in 1932. A good case can be made that it was ready to fall dramatically in terms of popular support and strength in the Reichstag if another election had been called to again try and form a workable governing coalition in Germany at the end of 1932. The Nazi Party's finances were in disarray. They had been seen as a protest vote by significant numbers in the July 1932 election and things had not gotten better under their expanding influence. In the November 1932 election, they lost 32 seats. Local Nazi organizations were in disarray, dispirited and some in rebellion over Hitler's refusal to participate in the government in any role except that of Chancellor. Dues were not coming in and the party could not have afforded another national election. In addition, there was a split at the top of the Nazi Party between Hitler and the administrative head, Gregor Starssor.

Germany was chaotic. No elected chancellor could govern with a majority in the Reichstag. The government was placed in the hands of a presidentially appointed chancellor (Kurt Schleicher) by President Hindenburg. The author compellingly chronicles the thirty day period in which Hitler and the Nazi's political fortunes were saved by: 1. the ineptness of Chancellor Schleicher; 2. the scheming of recent Chancellor Franz von Pappen; and, 3. The age and weakness of national figure President Paul von Hindenburg. Aiding the Nazi's also was Hitler's single-minded pursuit of the top spot of chancellor as well as a fortuitous minor state election which the Nazi's went all out for and were able to spin as an electoral comeback.

The bottom line is that an incredible line-up of weak politicians and unbelievable luck paved the way for Hitler to be named Chancellor by Hindenburg at the end of January, 1933. It is tragic to comprehend how Hitler could have been prevented; arguably should have been prevented by the operation of any kind of normal political environment. That he was able to ride incredible good luck and the stupid machinations of a handful of top politicians who thought they could control Hitler and bend him to their purposes is an interesting story.

This book is likely to appeal students of the Nazi period and will probably not interest the general reader. It literally focuses on the thirty day period with only a general overview of the growth of the Nazi Party in the 1920's and early 30's and a brief "what happened to the players after" section (most murdered by the Nazi state). Still, if you are interested in the subject, this book is pretty good.

THis book is awesome mix of "Don Quixote," "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy," and the "Colloquies of Erasmus." ... With a dash of Rabelais and Boccaccio for good measure.

In other words: playful bawdy post modern meta narrative where carnivalesque stories weave in and out of each other. Ive read a few things by Diderot and this is my fav so far.

I'm a big fan of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa - so its shocking to learn that it leans so heavily on Jacques. I found Jacques to be more entertaining than Sterne's work.

It may be your destiny to read and adore the pithy wit of Diderot. At a time when the novel was new as a genre as a contemporary of Sterne and Richardson, Diderot confronts the religion and philosophy of his day entrenched in the idea that man's fate was written on a scroll on high and that man only acted out a bit part devoid of real choice in his slavery to destiny. Pre-destination did not sit well with Diderot and Jacques is the novelist in this "dog's breakfast" he has served up railing aginst his own genre to assert his humanity and freedom on his picaresque journey to nowhere. "Does anyone know where they're going?" certainly sounds like Beckett who lived in France and may well have read Diderot. Jacques is forced to conclude that people think they are in charge of their destiny when their destiny is in charge of them. What choice does the fatalist really have except to resign to his fate? Because life is a series of endless misunderstandings, it isn't easy to be captain of one's own soul. The epigrams are deliciously well phrased: "Virtue is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it." Or this: "I think there are some very odd things written up there on high." The wicked fable of the Sheath and the Knife is certainly memorable. Jacques is genuinely hilarious in many places and despite Diderot's scathing complaints of the early novel, he wrote wrote an enduring classic beloved because of its pure wit, audacity, irony and uncanny phrasing. I urge you to read this great early novel destined to foretell the promise bound to follow for the genre.

This book is amazing. It will make many of your conceptions of where things belong in the history of the novel fall apart. Not coincidentally, that is one of the points of this book, being an exercise more than a message: that all apparent armatures of order are one more perspective away from disintegration. This book is really quite sneaky as well. In the beginning, the constant references to the inscriptive certainties in the heavens seem silly. But then little explanations come along (like the geneology of Jacques' crazy horse), and the novel heads down a dark, yet very enchanting road, into a fuzz that's every bit as modern as any you've read. This thing alternately looks like Bunuel, Zola, Stendhal, Faulkner, Kerouac. The picaresque, the uncertain narrator, the structuralists, all seem to be swimming around in this amazing book.

Surely many writers and artists from this era (like Goya) depicted the nobles as effete and incapable of carrying out the governance of the most basic requirements of existence, but here, they also appear (in the image of the 'master') as so withdrawn from the world as to be blind. If you take away all the stories that are told, the only thing that's left of a plot here is the master having his horse stolen right from under his nose while Jacques was gone and then Jacques finding it for him at the end in a beautiful, mock sort of deus ex machina.

Two centuries or so before "modern" writers began writing experimental novels, Denis Diderot, the force behind the Encyclopaedia effort, wrote this strange and indeed very "modern" novel in which the author leads a conversation with the reader, asking him where he (or she, of course) would want to go and what to do with the characters and the story. Here we see the author in the very process of creation, exposing his doubts, exploring his options, and playing with the story.

There is really no plot as such. Jacques, a man who seems to believe everything that happens is already written "up on high", but who nonetheless keeps making decisions for himself, is riding through France with his unnamed master, a man who is skeptic of Jacques's determinism but who remains rather passive throughout the book. Fate and the creator-author will put repeatedly to test Jacques's theory, through a series of more or less fortunate accidents and situations, as well as by way of numerous asides in the form of subplots or stories.

The novel is totally disjointed and these asides and subplots blurb all over the place, always interrupted themselves by other happenings. The most interesting of them is the story of Madame de Pommeroy and her bitter but ultimately ineffectual revenge on her ex-lover.

Diderot confesses to having taken much from Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" and Cervantes's "Don Quixote". This last novel's influence seems obvious at two levels: Cervantes also talks to the reader, especially in Part Two, and also reflects abundantly on the creative process. Moreover, the tone and environment of the book is very similar to the Quixote: two people engaged in an endless philosophical conversations while roaming around the countryside and facing several adventures which serve to illustrate one or antoher point of view.

Diderot's humour is bawdy and practical and the book is fun to read. The exact philosophical point is not clearcut, but it will leave the reader wondering about Destiny, Fate, and Free Will.

Yeah. Believe all the reviews below. This book really is amazing. It would feel like it was written yesterday, if it was more derivative -- but it's fresh! The language is incisive, no waste, and the pacing and structure are brilliantly fluid. It's smart and funny, too, and completely unpredictable, filled with weird offhand bursts of bewildering narrativity. And yet balanced, apparently sane. I truly enjoyed reading it. It's great.

I read "Kings Row" when in high school many years ago. I decided to re-read it and enjoyed it even more the second time. This book allegedly was written about the small midwestern town where I live. It includes everything from first young love and loss to tragedy after tragedy. It is a real page turner. Great read.

There's a great movie, Kings Row, which I adored and after reading the reviews here, I was excited about reading the book. I found it well written but melancholy. For me it dragged on with not enough action and too much psychological meandering. My mind wandered often while reading page upon page of Parris Mitchell's thought processes as he wanders a field sorting out events of his past. It seems his life was destined to be filled with tragedies such as his best friend's amputation of both legs by a vicious doctor and his parents' and grandmothers' deaths. Even his romantic interests had sad demises. In between these tragic events, there are very few positive events detailed of good times that any normal human would experience. The town of Kings Row contains a mental institution vaguely described yet clearly a central location of the story. The entire book seems to be told with a certain hopelessness. Thankfully, it seems Parris' story has a hopeful ending with some resolution. I DO like the author enough to read the follow up novel, Parris Mitchell of Kings Row, in hopes of further resolution. What I gained from this book was the meaning of true friendship and loyalty.

I read Kings Row about 12 years ago and became a huge fan of Henry Bellaman. Kings Row is the kind of book that lives long in your mind and heart. He breathes life into the characters and you feel as though you know them each personally and would recognize them on the street. He knows the pulse of human emotion and the author is a psychologist, a man of spiritual depth and insight, and his words sing. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in what it means to be human and how we fare in terms with the world around us and the inhabitants we come in contact with. I will never forget this marvelous book and have recommended it to many. Beautiful!

I had heard of KINGS ROW since the movie made from this 1940's bestseller featured Ronald Reagan as Drake in what Reagan considered his best role and the famous "where's the rest of me?" scene has been shown on television many times. I found an old paperback of the novel at a used book sale and was not expecting much but was very pleasantly surprised. The book is the story of two young men coming of age in small town Missouri in the years between 1890 and about 1910. There is enough scandal and "the sap of life" (as a New York Times review says on my old copy of the book) to satisfy the modern reader and Bellamann brings the entire town to vivid life as he peoples Kings Row with believable townspeople of all ages and walks of life. The author was sixty when the book was published in 1940 so he was a contemporary of his characters and the book is believed to have many autobiographical elements. At times the book is a bit slow paced and ponderous but Bellamann draws his characters so well and sympathetically that the reader is compelled to keep reading and there are some truly memorable and dramatic events in the story. I couldn't help but think how little has changed in the over one hundred years since the setting of the book and that perhaps the good old days and the people that lived them were not so good after all.

KINGS ROW may move you, stir you, shake you, shock you, stimulate you, reassure you, and inspire you. It is one of the few books that, like a true friend, I will return to often and never forget. It is a wonderful gift that transcends time and place.

Interspersed among the captivating narrative and rich characterizations are succint insightful meditative segments that sparkle like rare jewels and are brilliantly woven into the story.

My personal index of this book includes, in approximate order of appearance: angels, point of view, cage, science, intuition, mysticism, philosophy, struggle, vanity, *shining goal*, place in the universe, the conscious and the unconscious, multiple worlds, rivalry, piano music, control and order, discipline, *tryanny*, conformity, human nature, jealousy, things without faces, qualities, civilization, words versus voice, game, refuge, beauty, ugliness, money and power, mathematics, *design*, friendship.

Broadly and deeply erudite, astutely observant, and poetically articulate. FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, PLEASE DON'T MISS IT. And share it.

Isaiah Berlin is one of the most important philosophers of liberty and freedom in the 20th century.

He is a liberal in the old sense of the word (the 19th century sense). His views on liberty and freedom have shaped many thinkers especially those that came out of the Chicago school. His writings were against "totalitarian" systems in which he had some experience with. He surveys the theoretical meanings of what "liberty" is and provides his own constructs.

He discusses positive and negative senses of liberty.

His views have been cited by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer in Breyer's most recent book, Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution. It is not clear whether Berlin would support Justice Breyer's extension of his views, but I believe Justice Breyer was seeking to define his own "Active Liberty" concept by using the positive aspect of liberty discussed by Berlin.

Isaiah Berlin is a very important 20th century philosopher (a political philosopher or political scientist as well) and this is a very important book consisting of his essays. I highly recommend it.

Liberty is a very precious and rare quality of a living condition.
As I. Berlin states, `The periods and societies in which civil liberties were respected, and variety of opinion and faith tolerated, have been very few and far between, oases in the desert of human uniformity, intolerance and oppression.'

I. Berlin explains clearly that liberty has two faces: a positive and a negative one.
Positive liberty is the answer to the question: who controls? Am I my own master?
Negative liberty circumscribes the area wherein a third person can prevent anybody to make a free choice.
On these bases, a free society can be organized, with 1) absolute rights (not absolute powers) and 2) frontiers, defined in terms of rules, within which men should be inviolable.
For the author, freedom is not an end, but a means to create `room for personal ends', for happiness. He rightly criticizes E. Fromm: freedom is the opportunity to act, not action itself.

Philosophically, freedom has been ferociously contested by the determinists, the defenders of `historical inevitability' (Hegel, Marx, Bacon, Fourier, Comte). The author remarks judiciously that if the world is ruled by determinism, nobody is responsible: there is no free will, no morality, and no justice. Individual choice is an illusion. Determinism represents the world as a prison.
A more brutal kind of determinism is presented by those who believe that there is a final answer, a unique goal, a central principle that governs our life. This principle and its executioners provoked barbarous consequences.

Isaiah Berlin's reflections on liberty are profound and still very actual.
Not to be missed.

Berlin's considerable reputation rests largely on his essays. In his chosen areas of political philosophy and intellectual history, he produced no major systematic works. His essays, particularly those in the history of ideas, are long, insightful, and informed by impressive breadth of knowledge and a humane temperament. He was a consistently excellent and sometimes elegant writer. Of all his essays, he felt his most substantial work was the writings on Liberty collected in this volume. The core of this book is the Four Essays on Liberty, which appeared originally as a book of that title about 40 years ago.
How good are these essays? They were written originally in the late 1940s through late 1950s and were directed, at least in part, at issues that preoccupied British intellectuals of that period. The backdrop was the Cold War, and debates about the justification of socialist ideals and the nature of socialism. Most of these essays have not worn well. I don't think there is much original or profound in either the first or last essays of the four; Political Ideas in the 20th Century, and John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life. I suspect most critical readers will find the essay entitled Historical Inevitability to be fairly pedestrian. This leaves the most celebrated of these essays, Two Concepts of Liberty. It is on this essay and some of his best historical studies that Berlin's reputation rests.
In Two Concepts, Berlin developed his famous distinction between "negative" and "positive" concepts of liberty. He particularly focused on how a certain rationalist conception of "positive" liberty can become, though often via a tortuous route, a justification for attacks on "negative" liberty and assault basic human rights. Berlin argues that this conception of "positive" liberty leads to the great crimes of the 20th century. This leads to an eloquent plea for some form of pluralism in regard to ultimate human goals. Berlin develops this argument brilliantly and with a self-assured writing style that is a pleasure to read.
But how good is his argument? As he himself points out, there are circumstances underwhich the distinction between "negative" and "positive" liberty can be cloudy, casting doubt on the utility and reality of this distinction. He is incorrect in assigning blame for all the terrible crimes of the 20th century to the rationalist view of "positive" liberty. This is certainly a fair criticism with respect to Marxism and the great crimes of Marxist states. But does it apply to Fascism and violent nationalism? These movements were marked by wholesale rejection of rationalism and exaltation of emotion, quite different from what he describes as the rationalist wellspring of all the crimes of the 20th century.
Berlin is an interesting and thought provoking essayist but not a major figure in political thought or intellectual history.

I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Berlin in the book is talking about different understandings on liberty. How do liberals think about liberty? Not only liberals think about liberty, many isms do, there are many different ways to think about liberty. Berlin makes a few distinctions on liberty. In "Two Concepts of Liberty," he distinguishes between political liberty and individual Liberty. Political Liberty, democratic liberty having a vote and participating, like in Greek city-state. No limit on power of the government over any aspect of citizen's life, but a citizen has some control over government through his vote. Not all are citizens, women, slaves, etc. Liberals are interested in individual liberty; choose the activities they want to do. A tension between Political Liberty and Individual Liberty. Political Liberty implies that there is majority rule through the vote. Maybe a majority won't impose on people, but that can change through the majority vote. If you have a system that you set up to insure certain individual rights like the U.S. does you protect certain liberties like the 1st amendment to free speech. These rights are taken away from voting on by the majority and to change them you need a super majority. This takes away Political Liberty, so there is that antagonism between both liberties. Unless you are an anarchist, there are certain functions and liberties that must be given up to the government. The more individual freedoms you keep from government the less value Political Liberty has to citizens the fewer things we get to decide.

The famous concepts Berlin distinguishes between are Positive Liberty and Negative Liberty. 1. Positive Liberty means self-control over your own life. 2. Negative liberty means you are free from interference from other people. Other people can't force you to do something. Positive liberty is self-mastery, self-control. Negative liberty means you are free from interference from other people. Others can't compel you to act in a way you don't want to act. At first these sound like two sides of the same coin. What Berlin points out historically is that people who believe in Positive Liberty have taken it in a very different direction than those that believe in Negative Liberty. What they (Positive Liberty adherents) have done is to infer that from each person you can distinguish between what he or she thinks he or she wants, and what his or her better self or true self would want. Therefore, there is this idea that we all might have certain desires that we want but that they are not expressive of our real essence. An obvious case is an addict who has some part of them that really don't want the drug. Even though they put all their time and energy in getting the drug it might be tempting to think that they really don't want the drug. Once they got the distinction between ordinary desires that you are aware of and the desires that you truly want, then the Positive Liberty people are tempted to say that for someone to really have charge of their life to really have liberty than we have to make sure that they are doing what their true self wants to do, not the self that they are consciously aware of, not the self not the desires that seem to them to be strongest. But what the angels of their better nature want, that's real freedom. Even when the person is protesting that that isn't what they want, if you are making them do what their true self wants really then you are making them do good. Kant would be a supporter of this view.

We have two aspects of human nature. The numeral self and nominal self. The numeral self is our true self and is the basis of morality this is why we are morally obligated to do things because our true self accepts a certain kind of law and imposes it on us. We are obligated to obey it because it is a law our true self chooses even though we may not be consciously aware of it, we may have all kinds of desires pulling us in different directions. We are obligated to do it because it is what our true self chooses. Rousseau is very much in this tradition. He says people can be forced to be free. Historically, this is the direction that many people who believe in Positive Liberty go in.

The Negative liberty people tend to say that other people don't tell them what to do. They could have gone the same route thinking about two kinds of selves, and they could say negative liberty is when your lower self doesn't tell your higher self what to do, but that historically hasn't happened. That is not the kind of liberty they have been thinking about. Liberals generally belong to this kind of negative liberty position. The kind of liberty liberals tend to care about is freedom from other individuals or the government. Free to the extent no one tells you what to do, none of this true self-stuff. You are free if other people can't stop you from doing what you want to do. All the different liberals are going to believe that people should have a significant amount of this kind of (negative), liberty. All the critics of liberalism are not all going to want to take all this kind of liberty away, but they are going to definitely say that liberty is not as important as the liberals think it is and that it ought to be restricted in some significant ways.

Berlin says, once you see how the Positive Liberty idea was developed, it turns out not to have the same kind of tension with Political Liberty that Negative Liberty does. Since, you could always have the view what peoples true selves want can be discovered by a kind of democratic process, so that what the majority votes for is what everyone wants, even the minority, they just didn't really know what they wanted. We all really want what is best for our community, as Rousseau would say.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.

Henry Hardy the devoted student and editor of the work of Isaiah Berlin has reedited and expanded Berlin's on Liberty. These essays are at the heart of Berlin's liberal political philsophy. And their most well- known conception is the distinction between 'negative and positive liberty'.
This is the way Wikipedia makes the distinction.

"He defined negative liberty as the absence of constraints on, or interference with, agents' possible action. I am more "negatively free" to the extent that fewer opportunities for possible action are foreclosed or interfered with. Positive liberty he associated with the idea of self-mastery, or the capacity to determine oneself, to be in control of one's destiny. While Berlin granted that both concepts of liberty represent valid human ideals, he believed that as a matter of history, the positive concept of liberty has proven more susceptible to political abuse. He argued that under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel (all committed to the positive concept of liberty), European political thinkers were frequently tempted to equate liberty with forms of political discipline or constraint. This became politically dangerous when the relevant ideals of positive liberty were, in the course of the 19th century, used to defend ideals of national self-determination, imperatives of democratic self-government, and the communist notion of humanity collectively asserting rational control over its own destiny. In this way of thinking, Berlin contended, demands for freedom paradoxically become demands for forms of collective control and discipline - those deemed necessary for the "self-mastery" or self-determination of nations, classes, democratic communities, and perhaps of humanity as a whole. There is thus an elective affinity, for Berlin, between positive liberty and political totalitarianism."

Another of Berlin's major essays in this work deals with the conception of 'Historical Inevitability'. Here he is most fierce in his critique of Marxism with its posited inevitable stages of history. Something of a great man himself, Berlin was a strong champion of the idea that great individuals shape human events, and introduce novel transformations of reality.

A third center of Berlin's thought has to do with his 'pluralism' his sense of the differing ideals and values different societies have. His pluralism however is what he called an 'objective pluralism' as he thought that there are certain values such as 'individual liberty' which should prevail in all societies.

Ultimately though he claimed that both for the individual and for society 'ideal ends' often conflict, and that perfect realization in action, is therefore impossible. Life for Berlin moral decision for Berlin thus has a tragic element of incompleteness and contradiction.
In this sense of our limitation deriving from our own ideal ends and actions, Berlin 's thought ultimately corresponds to arguments concerning the limitations of Mind which have been made in modern thought regard to a wide variety of other areas of human inquiry, from theology to mathematics.

The only book of, or by, William Burroughs that I have read twice. His life was stranger than his fiction.

I have never written a review for amazon.com before but I had to add my two cents to the few reviews listed here. This book changed my life. I was already familiar with Burroughs' writing and had read several of his books before I found Morgan's excellent biography. I've read this lengthy tome several times, but I remember the feeling after I finished the first reading: I was inspired to write, write, write. The book cleared up my writer's block and has continued to do so every time I read it. His life really was as strange or stranger than his fiction, and it reminds me always to write what I know. I can't believe this is out of print. Highly recommended to all writers and all fans of biographies.

After a failed attempt to read "Naked Lunch" I turned to this book to gain some insight into William Burroughs that might aid me with future reading. I did not find that the book went into great detail about Burroughs ideas, except for ones that I find either trivial or even "wacky", like his interest in some aspects of Scientology and Reich's "Orgone Box". In fact, I might have given up on my plans of reading Burroughs after reading this biography; I could have easily concluded that Burroughs was a man who had led an interesting, albeit tragic, life but who, because of his heroin use and open homosexuality, had just become a "trendy" author. I might have concluded that he was a precursor to the cultural revolution of the 60s but of little importance today. Quite frankly I persist in my quest of getting to know Burroughs because of the importance attributed to him by one of my favorite philosophers, Gilles Deleuze, who claims that Burroughs has a lot to teach us about the "society of control". Only my future readings of Burroughs' novels will reveal rather I am right to persist in my study of him.

If this book failed in being an intellectual biography, it certainly succeeded in portraying the world of William Burroughs in an interesting fashion. Burroughs life seems for the most part
a series of tragedies. It appears as though he was molested as a youth and one is tempted - perhaps due to the saturation of "pop psychology" in our day- to conclude that somehow his future misfortunes (and brilliance) were rooted in that event. Subsequently driven from the United States, then Mexico (where he committed the infamous "William Tell" fatal shooing of his wife) he spends the greater part of his life wandering between Tangiers, Paris, London and New York. Oddly enough, he only seems to find some kind ofhappiness at the end of his life in Lawrence, Kansas.

His meeting with the other members of the "Beat Movement", Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, seemed fated, and unlike the others he did not become a "Beat Stereotype but remained authentically himself, behaving in many ways like a conservative midwesterner. Perhaps this authenticity is what appealed to his groupies who could not manage to retain their own identity separate from the various trends in which they participated.

Whether I will find anything intellectually stimulating in the works of Burroughs remains to be seen. Despite his many shortcoming, he was a key cultural force in undermining the foundation of the narrow, cocktail sipping, coutnry club 50s generation.

The late William S. Burroughs was one of the most compelling and frustrating writers of our times. For every work of dryly humorous genius like Junky and Naked Lunch, there were dozens of frustrating, obscure works that seemed to be more the product of Burroughs' infamous heroin addiction than his own imagination. As others have stated, to truly understand much of Burroughs' work, one has to first understand the man himself and, to my knowledge, there is no better resource than Ted Morgan's long, detailed, but never boring biography. In Literary Outlaw, we get the details of Burroughs' seminal friendships with such future literary icons as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and we also explore the most controversial aspect of the man's life -- the shooting death of his wife, Joan. (After shooting her in the head, Burroughs claimed they were simply playing a game of "William Tell.")

If just for this information, this book would be a valuable resource but Morgan goes further. He details Burroughs' life after his fame as one of the original beat writers faded. He explains what was actually going on in Burroughs'head when he created the later works that left so many readers not only confused but often rather angry at this man they'd previously clutched to their own artistic souls (perhaps a bit too quickly, as Morgan reveals with an unflinching candor).

The Burroughs who emerges in this book is neither the decadent bohemian of the literary imagination nor the devil incarnate that so many of his critics imagined him to be. Instead, William S. Burroughs comes across as nothing less than the Forrest Gump of modern literature. Somehow, this quiet, rather reserved midwesterner manages to pop up at just about every important underground cultural event of recent history -- often, it seems, just by chance. In Literary Outlaw, Morgan not only gives us a revealing look at the usual suspects -- Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, and the other Beats -- but also draws sharp portraits of figures ranging from Terry Southern to Dennis Hopper to James Baldwin to John Houston to thousands of others. Some are famous, some obscure, but all prove to be as fascinating as Burroughs himself.

This is an amazing book, a must for anyone with any interest in the Beats, American literature, world history, or who just wants a chance to relive a truly fascinating life. Be warned though -- Burroughs was both very open about his homosexuality and his drug addictions. Morgan, to his credit, doesn't shy away from detailing these aspects of Burroughs' life. Also to his credit, Morgan neither condemns nor celebrates. In short, prudes need not apply. For the rest of us though, this is a valuable book to be cherished.

When I read this book in 1990, or thereabouts, I had only read William Burroughs' book Junky, and I had read nothing by Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg.

After I finished reading Literary Outlaw, by Ted Morgan, I was so fascinated that I read all of Burroughs' novels, and several books by Kerouac and Ginsberg. I also read two more Burroughs biographies, just to get more information on this weird old guy.

Literary Outlaw is just that good.

There are newer biographies of Burroughs by Barry Miles and also Graham Caveney. Nevertheless, Literary Outlaw remains the definitive Burroughs biography written to date.

This is a fascinating biography that reads like a pageturning novel. Burroughs grew up in a privileged St. Louis family, spent some time at a rough ranch-style boarding school in New Mexico, attended Harvard, travelled in Europe, and lived in New York, Mexico, New Orleans, Texas, Tangier, London, New York (again), and finally Kansas. Along the way he became the most scandalous figure in modern letters. His adventures and misadventures are related in this marvelous book.

Literary Outlaw is more exhaustive than either Caveney's or Miles' biographies. Chapters with titles like "Tangier: 1954-1958" and "The London Years: 1966-1973" make for easy navigation. As the book's coverage ends in 1988, there is no information on Burroughs' life in the 1990s, but the essays in the book Word Virus (by James Grauerholz) act as a good supplement, for biographical information.

Morgan did a good job. He wrote a page-turning biography, but not at the expense of Burroughs' literary reputation. Burroughs' value as a writer is challenged throughout, and it holds up. Biographical detail is linked to popular criticism of the texts. There is an extensive section of notes. There is an index.

You can't go wrong with this biography. If you've never read a biography of William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, or Allen Ginsberg, I advise you to try Literary Outlaw. This book is very well written, and is probably the most fascinating biography I have ever read.

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After reading Stuhlmann's poignant introduction, it was impossible for me to read any further. Stuhlman included a few lines of the correspondence between Henry Miller and Anais Nin. After reading just these few lines and seeing the depth of love between these two people, I felt that reading their letters would be like taking a photograph that steals the soul of the subject.

Maybe later I will be able to read their letters, but not now.

("No, if I have not written about Louveciennes it is only because I am not writing history, I am making it. I am so aware of the fateful, destined character of this Louveciennes...What I was thinking tonight is that Louveciennes becomes fixed historically in the biographical record of my life, for from Louveciennes dates the most important epoch of my life." -- Henry Miller. We all have a Louveciennes. Mine was Pateley Bridge.)

Big fan of these two, but more of a Henry Miller fan personally. The letters bring Henry Miller out of his fiction/novels and bring him into the realm where Nin was in writing her Diaries. Good for that reason, two lovers but volatile ones. Testing sexual boundaries is a touchy thing, after all.

Forget Nin's works of fiction, the journals, letters, and life are truly worth experiencing over and over again for their honesty, passion, and viewing the internal turned external for our benefit. Everyone knows of Miller's and Nin's relationhip, through "Henryand June" if anything, but it is through this work that we see them less as romantic figures and more as humans capable of the idiocy, devotion, and prolongation of things we should all end and just don't for whatever reason. This is a great buy if you are a lover a letters. Reading "Fire" is a must, however.

Like many others, I have been fascinated with and frustrated by Anais Nin for many years, since reading the first volume of her expurgated diary in 1977.

This volume of letters enables the reader who has already read other versions of the Nin-Miller story to form additional conclusions about what might actually have happened. Because the letters were sent into the possession of others, they were less subject to the constant revision and reinvention that bedevils all attempts to determine objective facts about the mercurial Nin.

If you are not already an amateur historian of literary trends of the 1930's, fear not. The letters are worth reading as an introduction to Anais Nin and Henry Miller as well, for they depict a real-life romance conducted by two who absolutely relished the game and were highly articulate in dramatically different ways.

Whatever you may think of her writing, Anaïs Nin was definitely a femme fatale. Henry Miller was, he claimed, the "happiest man alive." Together, Nin and Miller created a literary language for sexual fulfillment; she in a diary whose original form still remains unpublished, he in novels banned in both the United States and England until court cases in the early 1960s permitted their publication and turned Miller into something Nin had already achieved: the status of a cult hero.

Nin and Miller met in Paris in 1931. Miller, an aspiring novelist, wanted to meet the banker's pretty wife who had sung the praises of D.H. Lawrence and whose books had been deemed "pornography" outside of France. Neither Nin nor Miller, at that point, had published much. Their mutual interest, as they freely admit, was in sex and in each other and, consequently, they began a long affair.

It was during this affair that both Nin and Miller produced their finest writing--the writings that would eventually become Nin's two diaries and her novel, House of Incest, as well as Miller's Tropic of Cancer and Black Spring. Each believed in, and nurtured, the others genius and Miller wrote that Nin's diary would take its place "beside the revelations of St. Augustine, Petronius, Abelard, Proust and others."

Miller, only forty-one, but already somewhat down-and-out, fascinated the twenty-nine year old Nin, whose vague yearnings filled the many pages of the diary she had been keeping since the age of ten. "He's a man who makes life drunk. He is like me," she mused. Nin and Miller, however, were not alike. One of their most essential differences was a difference typical between men and women--Nin censored herself, while the world censored Miller.

Published in 1963, Nin's diary caused a literary sensation. It was begun as a letter to her father, a man who abandoned the family when Nin was only ten, and it remained intensely private. Revised into frequent distortions, the diary was a record of a compulsion to conceal as much as of a quest for feminine fulfillment. A mixture of fact, fantasy and calculated lies, Nin's editor asserts that the diary nevertheless presents a "psychological" truth. Kate Millett hailed Nin as "the mother of us all" and the women's movement immediately embraced her writings. Author Erica Jong said that no woman had told "the story of women's sexuality" more honestly than had Nin.

Despite the praise, if we read between the lines, while still observing Nin's frenetic whirl from bed to bed, we come to realize that she was really never satisfied. Her insatiable appetite aside, Nin was, at heart, a prudish libertine. Her childhood molestation by her father, whom she, herself, seduced as an adult a year after meeting Henry Miller, seems to have contributed greatly to her private inhibitions. Although she flitted from bed to bed she sadly confessed, "I am hellishly lonely." Instead of sex, Nin longed for "what I give Henry: this constant attentiveness."

In the "Black Lace Laboratory," as Miller's apartment was dubbed, Nin and Miller conducted literary and erotic experiments, prompting Nin to write him a thinly disguised warning to herself, "Beware just a little of your hypersexuality!" Toward the end of his life, unable to write about women except as prostitutes, Miller claimed not to know what the sexual revolution was about, saying that he had always loved and honored women. Nin agreed, saying that Miller was a romantic, rather than a rake. At eighty, Miller confessed that far too many people engaged in sex without love.

Basking in the warmth of Nin's caresses, her skilled editing of his work, and the material possessions she lavished upon him, Miller wrote prolifically and with a rare genius. Eventually, his romance with Nin faded (or warmed) into friendship, but the legacy of their literary teamwork remained: In 1974, Nin was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. The Los Angeles Times names her Woman of the Year in 1976, the same year Henry Miller received France's Legion d'honneur. The 1990 movie, Henry and June is a chronicle of Miller's affair with Nin, which later became a triangle involving Miller's wife, June.

Nin and Miller have become cultural icons. Nin is the focus of women's study courses as well as being included in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Miller and his work need no comment. Although both Nin and Miller were pioneers of free speech and sexual freedom, and both helped to forge a new literature and a new culture, the ultimate emptiness of their lives, with its attendant lack of depth and meaning point to the futility of their attempt to wrest security and happiness from sexuality alone.

I read this to my 7 year old in 2 nights. He is not a reader yet, and finding reading material is a challenge in that the things that he can read himself are too simple to interest him. We have two kittens which he loves, and he could identify with the kitten antics in this book. The story-line kept him interested - although he occasionally wanted to flip ahead to look at the next illustration to anticipate the action. The pictures are wonderful, and this is a warm story. When we finished my son asked if there was another book in the series that we could read!

Bonnie Boadicea "Bo" is a little kitten born into a family with a loving mother and father, but not to kind owners. She is the runt of the litter, and doesn't eat much due to her small size. Her father loves her, and to make her feel special gives her a big name, but calls her "Bo" for short.

One day it is time for the kittens to leave their mother, and the nice warm house. They realize that they are going to be hurt unless they escape from Mr. Withers, who was supposed to take them to the pet shop. So all the kittens run in different directions, and are soon scared, wet and hungry.

Bo meets a nice sailor and gets into all kinds of mischief with him on the boat he works on, and is soon a sailing cat with a nice home and a kind owner.

This is a must read children's book that anyone, young or old, would enjoy.

I read this book aloud to my 6 year old daughter and she loved it. My 12 year old niece happened to be here at the same time and would also chide me into reading "one more chapter". I have a hard time finding stories to read aloud to my daughter that are at a lever that she can enjoy. This was excellent and I'm sure will be read again and again in our family.

The CD/book edition of _Little Bo_ is a must for young children. Julie Andrews Edwards reads as well as she sings. This edition adds much to the written text. The CD can be used as a series of short readings. The conclusion of each chapter is accompanied by gentle music that tells the child or parent that there is a natural break. The author researched the book well, and the portions of the book that take place on a fishing boat during a severe storm are very plausible. Henry Cole's soft drawings do much to convey the flavor of the story.

Bo, the kitten, and her siblings were sent away during a snow storm by the owner because their sire was an alley cat. Bo finds a friend in Billy Bates, a sailor aboard a fishing boat. Bo survives a severe storm and the dislike of the boat captain. Billy and Bo leave the boat to find new lives for themselves.

As a child I fell in love with the actress Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Still an outstanding actress, I enjoyed her recent Princess Diaries, I am continually amazed at her abilities. If singing like a nightingale and acting weren't enough, she has also proven to be equally talented as an author! My eleven year daughter bought Little Bo two years ago with her hard earned allowance money. She couldn't put it down then and frequently goes back to enjoy it over again. She is currently reading it to her five year old sister who can't wait for bedtime now since she so enjoys her bedime story. The only problem is that their eight year old brother runs off with it at the most inopportune times thus wreaking havok! He thought if he could sneak away and read it in hiding no one would tease him. Boys who are almost nine are only supposed to read cool stuff, you know. He, too, found Little Bo irresistable and no longer even tries to hide it. I'm beginning to wonder if Mary Poppins wasn't really a fictional character at all but a chapter in Julie Andrews life. Don't stop now Ms. Andrews. We love you!

The Alvin Fernald books were in fact made into movies for the Wonderful World Of Disney. They are Alvin the Magnificent, The Wiz Kid and The Mystery of Riverton, The Wiz Kid and the Carnival Caper. I just wanted to let any fans know. The bad news is that none of them have been released on video or DVD. But how knows, maybe Disney will get smart and release them.

The Magnificent Inventions of Alvin Fernald is coming back in print in 2006! For those who have enjoyed this book and its companion books over the decades, Bethlehem Press is bringing it back! You can find out the publishing dates, etc., at www.bethlehembooks.com and it will be available here through Amazon as well. There is a such an enduring universality of the themes of the Alvin books, that this series will just go on forever...and deservedly so.

This is the one that started it all for me. The most exciting book about a smart kid you will ever find. It's been overdue ...for a long time.

I am 45 years old... my 44 year old brother came over and talked about how this book changed his life. He read it as a kid and became an inventor of sorts himself... a perpetual tinkerer. He wasn't sure of the name and I found it for him and ordered him a copy as well as my 9 year old son. It took some insistance to get by boy, Nick, to read it. He couldn't put it down and when my brother came over to visit he quized Nick on select parts of the book. They both smiled and laughed. Having read it myself I can tell you it is a most wonderful book. Buy it! Your kid will remember it always.

This is the first title in an outstanding series of Alvin books by Clifford Hicks. Sadly, they all seem to be out of print.
The Alvin books were my favorites as a kid. I checked them out from the library repeatedly and devoured them. As a 10 year old, I wanted to hang out with Alvin and Shoey. The books are full of laughs, adventure, and great storytelling. They take us back to small town America, before kids had to deal with grownup problems.
If you have a kid, buy this book for him. Buy it used, buy it on Ebay, buy it at a used bookstore! The other titles (all very good) in the series are ALVIN'S SECRET CODE, ALVIN'S SWAP SHOP, ALVIN FERNALD FOREIGN TRADER, ALVIN FERNALD MAYOR FOR A DAY, and ALVIN FERNALD SUPERWEASEL. All are great. Another great series if you like the Alvin books is the Mad Scientists Club books by Bertrand Brinley. Check them out.