Lewis Books

I purchased this edition of the "Chronciles of Narnia" to utilize with the literary analysis class I was teaching using Thomas Williams "The Heart of the Chronicles of Narnia." I wanted a text which contained all seven stories that I could take to class with me each day. A bonus plus of this edition is the Narnia Timeline in the center of the book. It is a nice teaching tool to utilize with your students. The "Chronciles of Narnia" were written by C.S. Lewis a professor/theologian who taught at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. The stories consists of seven books, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Magician's Nephew, The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle." The books in this edition are arranged in chronological of the order in which the stories take place. The stories are a delightful read for both children and adults. They are timeless tales of wonder which present Biblical truths.

In the first half of the twentieth century, two drinking buddies wrote vastly different fantasy series -- one a rich fantasy epic, the other a pleasant, sometimes bittersweet children's story.

Obviously, the former was the classic "Lord of the Rings," and the latter was the "Narnia" series. A close pal of J.R.R. Tolkien's and a fellow "Inkling," C.S. Lewis was one of the first widely-read fantasy writers, and "The Chronicles of Narnia" -- despite a few flaws -- is a charming, classic read.

"The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" opens as four children (Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter) are being shipped to the English countryside at the beginning of World War II. While exploring the vast house where they are staying, Lucy accidently ventures into a winter-locked world called Narnia, which is ruled over by the evil White Witch. The king Aslan is about to return -- but the Witch quickly gets a hold on Edmund's soul.

"Prince Caspian" takes place long after the events of "Lion" (though in our world, only a short time has passed). Young Prince Caspian escapes his uncle's castle when his life is threatened, and he finds refuge with the hidden races of Narnia -- dwarves, talking animals, dryads, centaurs and many others. And to help Caspian regain the throne, the two kings and two queens of Narnia are called back...

"Voyage of the Dawn Treader" begins when Edmund, Lucy and their obnoxious cousin Eustace are sucked through a painting into Narnia, where their pal Caspian is now king of Narnia (and an adult to boot). Caspian is heading toward the end of the world to find several knights who were banished, and vanished into the perilous islands along the sea.

"The Silver Chair" heads into slightly darker territory when Eustace returns to boarding school. He and outcast girl Jill Pole are drawn into Narnia, where Jill must perform a task to redeem herself for a stupid act. She must find the dying Caspian's son Rilian, who vanished many years before. The search will send the two children across Narnia with the pessimistic Puddleglum, to carnivorous Giants, creepy underground creatures, and an enemy worse than they could have imagined...

"Horse and His Boy" shoots back in time to the middle of "Lion." Shasta lives with the man he thinks to be his father in a hovel by the sea, but when a Calormene warrior purchases him, he escapes with the man's talking horse, Bree. He meets the escaping noblewoman Aravis (who also has a talking horse), and the two are planning to escape to Narnia and freedom. But in the capital city, there is a conspiracy brewing against the visiting Narnian kings and queens...

"Magician's Nephew" clears up many of the questions about Narnia, Aslan and the White Witch. Digory and Polly end up in very serious trouble when they encounter Digory's weird, slightly nutty uncle, a magician who has created magical rings that send the user to other worlds. The two kids end up in the "wood between the worlds," and venture into a dying land where they set loose the evil Queen Jadis -- who follows them to the newborn world of Narnia.

"The Last Battle" is definitely the end of the series, where Narnia decays slowly into the final battle between good and evil. Humans are destroying the trees and killing the dryads, and a false Aslan is appearing to mislead the inhabitants of Narnia. Old and new friends will band together as the true Aslan prepares to lead them to a new land.

If you don't like allegory (religious or otherwise), then steer clear of the Chronicles. While Lewis's beliefs are presented in a more complicated and subtle manner in his other fictional works, here the parallels to basic Christian beliefs are very obvious. Reportedly even Tolkien, one of Lewis's best pals, found the allegory annoying.

But if you can get past the slightly ham-handed treatment, it's a fantastic read. Lewis reshapes typical mythical elements like dwarves, nymphs, talking animals, centaurs and wicked witches into shape in his invented world. And Narnia is an inviting place -- it isn't always fun or pleasant, but there is always the feeling that the good guys will ultimately -- if not immediately -- come out on top.

Lewis's writing can become a bit precious at times, in the tradition of many British authors writing for children. But he puts plenty of detail and mystery in his stories, sprinkling them with little mysteries and questions that are explained as the story goes on. Where did the lamppost come from, for example? How did humans come to Narnia? And what is the deal with the White Witch?

There's a pretty broad range of characters, from British schoolchildren to talking animals, fishing foundlings to prepubescent kings of Narnia. But Lewis does a solid job with almost all of them (Susan is a bit of a copout -- but contrary to rumor, she does not go to hell). In fact, the entirely made-up kids are the most fascinating -- fiery Aravis Tarkeena and the young Professor are among the best he wrote.

While not quite as well known as his pal Tolkien's work, C.S. Lewis's Narnia series still a fun and dramatic fantasy story. For a bit more insight into the origins of fantasy as we know it, check out "The Chronicles of Narnia."

The book introduced me to Church Universal and Triumphant and from there I did some more investigations. The teaching of the Ascended Masters are ones I have been seeking for a long time but cound not find. I am greateful this book helped me find the organization. Church Universal and Triumphant is not a cult by any means. After reading this book, I attended some of their events and I was very impressed by the work they are doing to help the planet.

For the spiritual seeker who has felt in his/her heart and mind that he/she has found "HOME", yet faced with the controversies of Church Universal and Triumphant... This is the book for you! If you have family or friends who are concerned for your well-being because you are seeking out this church... reading this book will put them at ease. This book is a compilement of interdisciplinary studies from a team of acadmic specialists. The 11 specialists range from a criminal investigator to a psycholigist, including a reverend and a lawyer. If you are ready to take the plunge and pursue a disciplined spiritual life with Church Universal and Triumphant, this is a book you will want to have on your bookself.

Pat Lewis has a light, cartoony style that is very appealing to the eye. The fact that the book is quasi-humor, quasi-scary even makes it that much more fun. Each short story is different, and makes you smile and gross out (just a little) at the same time. But in a good way!

This is definitely worth picking up.

I haven't gotten my copy of this book in the mail yet, though I did pre-order it from Amazon. However, I've been reading Pat's work for a while and he pretty much rules. There aren't a lot of good humor comics being put out right now, in my opinion, and Pat's work stands above most other humor comics I've read in recent years. If you like funny stuff, stuff with monsters, and/or "dames," you should get this. Get it now!

Now I'm taking the time to find/buy the other books in this series because it was so great! I cant wait to read more! I loved it! It was definately different and a lot more interesting than the average "romance" novel and it was so different that you could swear it was a true story. Do yourself a favor and get the whole series.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! Vicki Lewis Thompsonkept me turning the pages, wondering what was going to happen next! Ijust started the next book in the series, Two In the Saddle and I can't wait to see what happens! () Read the book and make your own conclusions! A great read.

Freemasons and Martinists, buy this book, now!!! It is an excellent study of early High Degree Masonry in America which is still active today. The book is Written by two well known and highly respected Masonic scholars. Our story starts off with the character of Robert Benjamin Folger in 1826 and traces it's origin to the character of J.B. Willermoz and the central core of the book which is the Rectified Scottish Rite. The Rectified Scottish Rite, CBCS, or Knights Beneficent of the Holy City is cherished today among those Freemasons who love or long for the Esoteric. Freemason and Mystic, A.E. Waite cherished the CBCS as one of the highest rites associated with the Craft in existence. He loved it. Brother Waite also made a life study of 18th century Kabbalist Martinez de Pasqually and his disciple & secretary, Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, also known as the Unknown Philosopher. Prior to the creation of the CBCS, J.B. Willermoz was initiated into the Elus Cohen at Verailles, France by Martinez de Pasqually!!! As you may know, Elus Cohen is the direct parent of modern day Martinism!!! Elements of Martinist teachings (through J.B. Willermoz) permeate the CBCS ritual contents and this explains Bro. Waite's love for it. I bet you will love it also. Buy the book and find out.-smile- Enough said.

Between 1826 and 1884, Dr. Robert. B. Folger, a physician and Masonic historian, wrote at least three manuscript ritual books, two of which were in an obscure and virtually impenetrable cipher. Folger, who had a penchant for controversy, was concealing the fact that he was trying to import the "Rectified Scottish Rite" (also called the R.E.R. or C.B.C.S.) into the United States. The R.E.R. was well-known as a European offshoot of the mysterious Rite of Strict Observance, which claimed that freemasonry descended from the Knights Templar.

For the first time, all of Folger's ritual manuscripts have been deciphered in full. This dramatic and important book presents the full ritual contents of the earliest known English-language version of the R.E.R.'s Craft degrees, as well as Folger's complete transcriptions of the Scottish Rite Craft ritual, with its installation and table ceremonies, and all seven degrees of "Egyptian masonry" (Pastophor, Neocoris, Melanophir, etc.), plus extracts from the American Order of the Red Cross and Knight Templar degrees.

My co-author and I place these degrees in their historical context, which occurred during the most turbulent period of Masonic history. Included is the cryptanalysis of Folger's ciphers and biographies of the principals. Folger was a man of curious contradictions; a passionate Mason, he was twice expelled from Grand Lodge, and yet died a Mason in good standing.

"Comparing, Designing and Deploying VPNs" introduces various and the most popular VPN technologies, provides explanation on how to select the appropriate VPNs, as well as how to design and deploy them. The book shows each VPN technologies in details, their capabilities and configurations.

The book starts with defining what VPN is, explaining what various VPNs are available and their comparisons. The first chapter introduces a lot of acronyms such as VPWS, VPLS, L2TPv2/v3, AToM and others). It also provides a summary table of technical consideration for selecting each Site-to-Site VPN and Remote Access technologies and a flowchart of all VPN technologies. Both the tables and flowcharts are very useful for reference before progressing to the next chapters.

The book dedicates the next 6 chapters (about 500 pages!) explaining Site-to-Site VPNs starting from designing, deploying and configuring L2TPv3 based Layer 2 VPN, Any Transport over MPLS (AToM) based Layer 2 VPN, MPLS Layer 3 Site-to-Site VPN and Site-to-Site IPSecs VPN. It provides in-depth explanation on how each VPN operates, many elaborate configuration samples with explanation of each commands used, and some advanced designs and deployments.

The first 6 chapters also have the most typos. For instance, in a couple of page, the author refers to previous diagrams by providing the page number xx instead of the actual page number. However, all of these typos are minor and can be ignored.

The next 3 chapters focus on Remote Access VPNs. They cover the design and implementation of L2TPV2 and V3 remote access VPNS, IPSec remote access and finally SSL remote access (WebVPN). They provide several configuration examples on how to implement the remote access VPNs in several VPN gateways from IOS routers, VPN 3000 Series Concentrators, and the new Cisco ASA 5500 series appliance.

The book assumes that the readers already have an extensive knowledge of IGP routing protocols (RIP, EIGRP, ISIS, OSPF), Quality of Service (QoS) and especially BGP. Without knowing them, readers will find difficulties in understanding the examples given as the book uses them extensively. I recommend readers to read Jeff Doyle's "Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 Second Edition" and "Routing TCP/IP volume 2 as well to understand IGP and BGP routing protocols in-depth.

I liked this book a lot and certainly will recommend others to read this. I gave the book five out of five stars for its good explanations, configuration and examples. The book is very technical but well written and provides a lot of examples that can be well understood. Since this is a CiscoPress release book, all of the hardware design and configuration are based on Cisco equipments.

The book has helped me greatly in understanding the different flavors of VPNs available. The IPSec VPN and Remote Access VPN chapters alone are very useful for the VPN project I am currently involved with and they already justify the purchase of this book.

Mark Lewis, the author, is a CCIE who has real work experiences in Service Provider VPN technologies. I also recommend his other book "Troubleshooting Virtual Private Networks (VPN)".

You would think that a VPN should be a fairly simple thing. But of course it isn't. Over a surprisingly short time various companies, groups of companies, standards organizations and seemingly anyone who wants to can come up with a new set of initials to define something special. Just a few examples include: GRE. AToM, Q-in-Q, MPLS LSP, L2F, PPTP. And of course they all mean something that is just a little bit different. This book starts out defining all these and more.

The second part of the book covers site-to-site VPNs. This part has six chapters, and basically each chapter talks about designing and deploying different types of VPNs. The third part of the book is on Remote Access VPNs, covering situations like the telecommuting worker or the salesman out on the road.

This book is by Cisco press so, as you might expect, it concentrates on the use of Cisco equipment. This is not unreasonable as Cisco produces a lot of VPN equipment. Also as you would expect from a Cisco title, the information is complete and accurate. In this book it is also very well written in a language that can be understood. All in all, quite a good book

This book is the perfect storm of compiler theory books. Forget about the Dragon Book and pick this one up used for 10% of the "D" book's cost. Lewis et al lead you from an exploration of FSMs through PDMs(both D and ND)to CFGs,Top Down(LL(k)) and Bottom Up(LR(k)) grammars.The first 13 chapters of the book are worth the cost alone. Unlike other compiler books this one gives you a deep understanding of how to specify and develop a compiler.They don't gloss over things because they'll be using automated tools(LEX,YACC,etc.) to actually develop model compilers. You're down on "bare metal" here and you'll be the one specifying LL(1) Selection Sets or LR(1) Push Tables.
In short, if you're looking to obtain a detailed theoretical and practical understanding of Compiler design this is the book for you.

This book is a good starting point for anyone who needs to create a compiler, parser or scanner, but didn't read anything about compiler design theory yet. This book is completely self-contained and assumes only the familiarity with programming languages and the mathematical sophistication commonly found in juniors or seniors.

The material in this book has been taught for several years in one-semester first-year graduate courses at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., the State University of New York at Albany, and many other institutions. The bewildered looks of students in these institutions have motivated the authors to do several rewrites of the materials. That's why the book is pleasant to read and easy to understand.

The book contains a good introduction to state machines and all modern grammars, including, but not limited to, LALR(1).

Since the book doesn't cover code generation, but only lexical and syntax part, it is still actual since published 1976. For example, the most popular nowadays LALR(1) grammar, supported by Yacc and Bison, is a core of the GNU compiler and many other commercial compilers. But the book itself is tool-free, it explains the background that never expires, rather than bothering the reader with the tools which may exist today and vanish tomorrow. The example of such book with a mess of theory and tools is "Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" by by Alfred V. Aho.

The book "Compiler Design Theory" is embracing, neat and actual.

Libraries carrying the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, whether they be school libraries or public lending libraries, will find THE WORLD OF NARNIA a perfect reader's guide to the settings, characters, and social and religious concepts of Narnia. From the mythos and history behind C.S. Lewis' creating to insights specific to each book in the series, this reader's guide offers up plenty of food for thought which students in particular will find engrossing and insightful.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The Complete Idiot's Guide to The World of Narnia by James S. Bell Jr. and Cheryl Dunlop is an encyclopedic study of the different aspects of this imaginary and mythic world created by C.S. Lewis. It includes the pertinent facts of Lewis life and what influenced his writing. The book has excellent information about myths and fairy tales and how they relate to Narnia. There is discussion of the morals Lewis is teaching through story. And the characters and their relationships of the humans and the Narnians are explained, as well as the map of this imaginary world. Literary illusions and hidden truths are pointed out. This guide will help adults and children navigate the wonderland of Narnia and its related books.

This book does what it purports to do, analyse convention. It is writtin the the spirit of Quine and Carnap's style of philisophical analysis, and is a fantastic book if you are familiar with thier work (especially Carnap's "Meaning and Necessity" and Quines "Word and Object" and "From a Logical Point of View" all of which are avialable). There is a significant amount of game theoretical explanation in the first part of the book and would be a great as an example of what game theory is capable of doing (besides the usual economic and biological examples). A great book by a great philosopher and a great writer.

What is the role of rationality in understanding the nature of conventions? Prior to Lewis, philosophers mostly considered conventions to be determined by "agreement," and thereby consigned their study to game theory. For David Lewis, conventions are social regularities, and hence do not reduce to issues in pure interactive epistemology. This shocking, anti-methodological individualist conclusion, is shared by Thomas Schelling, whose key notion of "salience" and "focal point" equilibria, inspired Lewis's emphasis on precedence.

The idea that I conform to a social practice because I believe everyone else will, and I believe everyone else will because everyone else did so last time around, or even since time immemorial, is prima facie highly plausible, but it suffers from the same problem as inductive inference, which surely works in the real world, but does not follow from some principle of logic or rational inference. There just happen to be "natural kinds" in the universe, such as solid bodies, for which inductive inference works, while other entities that we can freely construct in our mind but do not exist, violate the principle of inductive inference (such, for instance, as Nelson Goodman's famous concept of the color `grue').

It is striking that Lewis's basic explanation of conventions in terms of precedence is meant to apply only to pure coordination problems, but in fact almost never does Lewis use any property of a pure coordination game other than the fact that an equilibrium is a strict Nash equilibrium (Nash is not cited in the Index). Informally, Lewis discusses additional properties of coordination problems, including the notion that a shift of strategy by a single player makes all worse off, and the notion that agents are close to indifferent as to which of several equilibria is actually chosen. But, as far as I can see, Lewis' remarks apply to the far wider class of games with multiple strict Nash equilibria. Lewis think that the absence of "substantial conflict of interest" is important in his analysis, but in fact, there is no point at which this assumption is formally deployed to achieve some conclusion.

Lewis's genius, and there is no doubt but this book is a work of genius, lies in his success in linking the non-individualist concept of "precedent" with standard game theory and interactive epistemology by exploring the following argument. Suppose each agent is rational and hence takes an action only if there are grounds for believing this is the best action to take. Then, I cannot expect that everyone else will do x simply because each argues that that's what everyone else did the last time the occasion arose. Rather, everyone else will seek rational grounds for doing x. My rational grounds for doing x is that this is optimal for me providing I expect everyone else will expect everyone else to do x as well. This type of reasoning of course leads to an infinite spiral of i believes j believes k believes l believes, and so on, for all finite sequences i,j,k,l,...

Lewis concludes, for conventions to work with rational agents, it must be "common
knowledge" that people are rational and have rational grounds for doing x. Lewis's task in the middle section of this book is to explain how common knowledge, which is a naturally infinitary concept, could possibly come about in real life. Lewis also supplies an answer, or at least a sketch of an answer.

It is crucial that Lewis does not attempt to describe how a convention (or any other Nash equilibrium) might come about, but only why a rational agent would obey a convention (or a Nash equilibrium) once it has been attained. The issue of how social regularities are instituted in society is a deep and unanswered question, going far beyond the issues dealt with in this book. I believe we need gene-culture coevolutionary theory to answer this question, but that is another story.

It is interesting that game theorists generally acknowledge Lewis as the first to study the concept of common knowledge, but completely ignore his theory of how a state of affairs, call it A, could become common knowledge. The Achilles heel of classical game theory is precisely that it is totally dependent on the concept of common knowledge, but gives absolutely no conditions under which a state of affairs A might become common knowledge. Lewis provides an answer, but this too goes beyond methodological individualism, and depends upon non-rational properties of being human.

When is an event common knowledge? For concreteness, suppose Ann and Bob are sipping tea and Carl runs in the room, hand dripping in blood, and exclaims "I've cut myself.'' If Ann and Bob are of normal intelligence and in possession of their five senses, the event A, that Carl has claimed to have cut himself, is common knowledge for Ann and Bob. Ann knows it. Bob knows it. Ann knows that Bob knows it because she saw Bob in the room looking at Carl and listening to him. For similar reasons, Bob knows that Ann knows that Bob knows it, because Bob saw her looking at him when Carl made his announcement. And so on.

Lewis' argument is on p. 52, and goes like this. What is it about A that explains the generation of these higher-order expectations? (1) Ann and Bob have reason to believe that A holds; (2) A indicates to Ann and Bob that they each have reason to believe that A holds; and (3) A indicates to Ann and Bob that Carl claims he cut his hand. Lewis shows in some detail how these three statements imply common knowledge of Carl's claim A. Lewis' argument is laid out in detail and with great clarity in a brilliant paper by Cubitt and Sugden, published in Economics and Philosophy (1993). These authors conform to Lewis' limitation of his argument to games of pure coordination, but there is nothing in their argument that limits its application to such games. All strict Nash equilibria of repeated games could be analyzed similarly.

Ultimately, the "reason to believe" in (2) cannot be explained in purely individualist or rationalist terms, but rather requires that humans recognize certain basic symmetries of the form "if I have rational grounds for believing x, then so do you." This fundamental symmetry lies in the realm of human nature and human psychology, is probably lacking in many other species, and is itself the product of gene-culture coevolution is humans. The bottom line is that Lewis (and Cubitt and Sugden) begin to give us a handle on linking human rationality with human sociality, which is a quite different thing.

Although Percy's output was prodigious compared to some literary greats, his six novels and two major non-fiction works leave his still-growing network of fans looking for more. "Conversations with Walker Percy" meets that need. While the biographies of Percy are helpful, there's nothing quite like hearing it straight from the author in this series of interviews. I finished the volume feeling ready to tackle his novels again prepared to look for gems I'd missed the last time around.

This volume (and its companion, More Conversations With Walker Percy) offers a fascinating and compelling glimpse into the mind of Walker Percy and a valuable study of the development of his literary and philosophical convictions as his career progressed. Though Percy's funny satirical piece "Questions They Never Asked Me" would seem to indicate that he found interviews dull and repetitive, the best pieces here clearly demonstrate the pleasure he took in discussing his ideas with an interested, engaged interviewer.