P Books

OK, Amazon, I'm sorry & I apologize for my obnoxiousness on my previous review for this book. I guess I did go a little over the top! This time I'll just stick with the subject of the book.

My review title says it all, folks. This IS the ultimate tornado encyclopedia; whatever you're looking for on the subject, you'll definitely find it here--and then some.

I'm thrilled to hear that Mr. Grazulis is planning to update & re-publish this book in 2008 (I hope & pray it's not just a rumor!) When he does, I'll be sure to snatch up my copy quicker than a tornado can develop!

Hi! This is the same person who wrote the review "The Best Condensed History of Tornadoes Available." I just got it today( the full 1300+ pages of tornado stats)and have had a hard time putting it down! I had the book Significant Tornadoes 1880-1989 but this is even better. It has almost every single twister, cyclone and whirlwind that has touched down in the US. Thank you Amazon.com and midnightcowboy for the excellent shipping quality and value of service. This is the greatest tornado book available. Fortunately, maybe this book will not be rare and out of print for too many more years (it could reprint by 2008).If you love tornadoes this is your book!

I know folks that this isn't the Big Green Book but it is a very close second. I just received it in the mail today and am loving it... every page! This is a great reference work on tornadoes and a good substitute while waiting for the Big Book to reprint. I just can't see how anyone could pay 800.00 for the Green book version of Significant Tornadoes! That's plain outrageous! The book is scheduled to reprint sometime in 2008, I think. I own Tom Grazulis' Tornado Video Classics series, Flora's Tornadoes of the United States, many storm chasing books and videos, his Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm and now this two volume set. Tom Grazulis is one of the best authors and really does much to grab the reader's attention. Kudos to Amazon for their quick and great service. The paperback binding is a little weak for a book series of this size but this is not their fault. Any paperback binding requires great care. But I would recommend a hardback version if you can find it or when or if the Big Book reprints or not.Anyway the information in this book I would highly recommend to anyone like myself interested in weather, tornadoes or a career in meteorology.

This is a great book of 1400 pages worth of information. But it is not worth 850.00 for that is just a rip off. This book is good for about 150.00 though. There is a ton of information it has by state and shows all Tornadoes that had estimated winds of 113mph and above and all tornadoes that killed anyone. It also has the events written down and a discription like for Instance it would say some thing like this

Lincoln, Missouri 4/17/1880 6K 15INJ F-5 1500yds 75m
Started 10 miles of North of Troy at 1700 and desipated 10 miles south of Troy. Homes were ripped apart and one women was killed as she could not escape the winds the Tornado went directly through the town of Troy and farm after farm and even a inn almost completely vanished from earth. That tornado was just a hypothetical Tornado but that what it gives you

... it is the best book on tornadoes that I've ever read (Arjen and Jerrine Verkaik's "Under the Whirlwind" is a close second - well, not that close, as it's well eclipsed in size by this). It not only covers every F2 and over-/killed one or more-tornadoes in the U.S. over three centuries, and tornado listings and path-maps for every state, but goes into detail on tornado formation, the dynamics of a supercell storm, other wind-related hazards they produce, a detailed, illustrated analysis of the Fujita scale and what damage counts for what ranking - in short, just about everything that counts regarding tornadoes. A must-have for cyclonophiles!

UPDATE - ...

Excellent book, good pictures. I like the grouping by body part and specific classifications of dermatologic disorders.

Fantastic book, I absolutely love it. Lots of nice pictures,the book was much better than I had expected - a great buy!

The pictures were excellent, each disease also had a differential and there were small bonuses regarding pediatric patients. Book is well organized and easy to read. Perfect for a med student, and even for residents

Delivery was fast, and the book was in excellent condition. It was a very good purchase, I was very pleased.

This is an excellent book! I'm using it in NP school. It provides a 1-2 page explanation of the skin disorder along with pictures.
thanks

This easy- to- read- page- turner provides new insight into a truly great man. I had admired him for years, but with reservations, due mostly to rumors. After reading this one-on-one report by a man who experienced the good and the bad of Ted Williams, I came away with tremendous insight into a sensitive, caring, loving, beautiful human being. Who knew?? I'm grateful for Richard Ben Cramer's memories of his thought provoking time with Ted Williams, so the rest of us can realize that there was SO much more behind this man than his remarkable life in baseball. I have purchased this book for many of my friends, due to its' uniqueness, and they have all loved it as much as myself. This little book can be read in an evening, but packs a powerful punch!

In a paper-thin volume, Richard Ben Cramer manages to capture the many contradictions of the greatest hitter who ever lived and the last man to bat over .400, Theodore Samuel (Ted) Williams. His book is must reading for any Red Sox fan, and for that matter anyone who wonders why baseball heroes like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Pete Rose, Joe DiMaggio, and Williams lead such dysfunctional lives, often estranged from their own families.

Contradiction: Williams respected authority (never argued with umpires and liked the military life), but he refused to conform to societal customs, e.g. wearing a necktie.

Contradiction: He was an obsessive perfectionist, but often half-hearted on defense or while running the bases.

Contradiction: He was a self-centered loner, but unfailingly generous toward charities.

Contradiction: He resented the Boston sports press, but wanted no publicity for his unselfish work for the Jimmy Fund.

Contradiction: He came from poverty, was poorly educated, yet became a dyed-in-the-wool Republican and establishmentarian.

One thing Ted never lost was his potty-mouth, which he used to rail against the "knights of the keyboard," Boston's habitually self-righteous sports reporters who attacked him not only for his lackadaisical defensive habits but even for his failure to call his mother on holidays (she was a Salvation Army worker who wasn't home, anyway) or stay home for his daughter's birth (she was born two months prematurely, but he was supposed to have known it would happen). The more Ted cursed at his enemies in the press, the more they'd dig up irrelevant dirt to throw at him. Things never improved. He also refused to tip his cap for the fans after a home run, resentful of earlier booing.

So why did Ted Williams enjoy such a renaissance in public aspect, especially in Boston? It wasn't because he changed as a person. On the contrary, as Cramer makes clear, his later life (with his life partner, Louise, whom he settled down with after three unsuccessful marriages), was filled with the same profanity, the same volatile temper, the same need to be right all the time that the younger Ted Williams exhibited.

What happened, apparently, was that the public was no longer exposed to the constant friction between Ted and the press, and so remembered only the good stuff: his .406 batting average in 1941, his home run that decided the All-Star game that year, and the home run in his last at bat in 1960, all of which were replayed via TV highlights regularly. John Updike's dissertation on the 1960 home run helped, too.

Cramer makes us understand Ted Williams. Like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Pete Rose and Joe DiMaggio, he was no scholar. Also like them, he was able to cultivate a specific skill set on the baseball diamond. He became (arguably) the greatest hitter who ever lived. Still, his lack of education and lonely childhood left vacuums in his life...he compensated for the first by having to be right all the time, and for the second by finally admitting to Cramer, "I was a terrible husband and father."

In the interest of full disclosure, the present writer met Ted Williams at two Red Sox fantasy camps.

Richard Ben Cramer wrote a somewhat controversial but well-researched biography of Joe DiMaggio. The major difference between this excellent portrait, and the latter project, was that we see and hear the protagonist in his own words. At times, it is a loud, booming voice full of life, stories, regrets, and accomplishments of one of our sporting legends.

Mr. Cramer does a masterful job weaving this interesting portrayal. This book is rather brief compared to the DiMaggio biography; however, it has more "life." The bulk of this work concentrates upon an interview that took place in 1986. It is written in such a way that the author fades into the background. In a strange sense, the reader feels present. As if we are sitting with Mr. Williams in his living room, and spellbound to imagine what will come next. The sheer force of his personality makes this a very entertaining and informative read.

Compared to the modern day ballplayer, Mr. Williams was indeed a rare bird. He had interesting and intriguing opinions about hitting, fishing, flying jet planes, marriage, lemonade, fickle fans, and the traffic patterns of the Florida Keys. ;-) He is both arrogant and enchanting, if one can imagine such a thing. Mr. Cramer draws out Williams in a way that writers of his own era failed to do. He showed him respect and deference, but like so many of the fish that Williams loved to catch, didn't allow him off the hook on tough subjects. In a way, this interview perhaps was a cathartic exercise for Mr. Williams.

The unfortunate circumstances that surrounded his death made this book quite pertinent. What do we think of him now? The best hitter to ever live, a true American patriot, a lover of the great outdoors, and a man who defined life in his own strike zone.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this excellent work by Mr. Cramer.

This book is deceptively short, yet like Ted Williams swinging at a baseball in his prime --- it packs one hell of wallop! Amazingly, the reader gets a very well-rounded picture of Williams the man, Williams the out-sized legend, Williams the S.O.B. and of course in his most famous guise as baseball's "greatest hitter who ever lived." The last man ever to hit .400 for a season with 521 career home runs to his credit (including one on his last ever time at bat), he was also the only man ever elected to both the baseball and fly-fishing halls of fame. His life was extremely rich and full and reads like it was five lifetimes rolled into one. A fighter pilot during WWII, many argue he may have even forfeited some of his best years in baseball to serve his country.... Considering his well-established contributions to the science of hitting, that's a scary thought! Anyway, if you're looking for a short and breezy read on one of baseball's all-time-greats look no further than this book by Richard Ben Cramer.

Ted Williams lived the kind of irrepressible life that Hollywood tried to invent for its toughest actors; old-skool masculinity personified, he was the finest baseball player of a generation (if not all time), a fisherman worthy of Hemingway's prose, and a lifelong Marine who served his country in not one but TWO deadly wars, the second of which nearly cost him his own life.

He was the eternal paradox, the New England sports hero with the "When Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns" bumper sticker on his pick-up truck, the all-time All-Star outfielder who practiced his swing while playing defense, the surly bane to those in the sports press charged with selling his image to the Boston public, and the eternal cynic who could never fully give himself to the public's adoration because he would always hear the 2 or 3 boos among the thousands of cheers his very presence on the field generated.

This book does a fine job of encapsulating the highlights of Williams' career, covered sparingly among a (then) current interview of the man as living legend approaching his 70's. But the real joy and success of the book is the author's capturing the essence of the magnitude of Williams to the point that you can't possibly help but feel that you are listening to the man thunder away in your own living room, rather than from a far-off house in the Florida Keys (or from the more appropriate peak of Mount Olympus). Most enjoyable to me is the author's penchant FOR PRINTING WILLIAMS' QUOTES IN ALL CAPS (wherein I can't help but read them aloud -and at suitable volume- to my fiancee', much to her dismay).

We have a suitable account of Williams' life after his time as an active player and manager, but before his health began to rapidly deteriorate. It is a full portrait, balancing the more infamous qualities of the man with those that Williams fiercely guarded during his lifetime; that he was, beneath the callous exterior, as warm and giving a soul that baseball would be far more fortunate than it deserves to have as an ambassador today.
It's a joy to read, seemingly almost an afterthought in its brevity, but when considered that it was only ever supposed to be an article for Esquire magazine, it surely ranks among the finest sports writing of all time.

The book is very well written, and easy to read. I enjoyed the Craps and the Baccarat section. It explains the house advantage of various games including Blackjack and some of the poker games to name a few. It includes most if not all Vegas games.

As a casino dealer in Atlantic City I see people play stupid all the time. For the most part it is not because they are not intelligent, but they do not know how to play the games so the house has the lowest advantage over them. Siblerstang does an excellent job explaining how to play with the lowest house edge, but at the same time the book is a little outdated. It was only written in 1997, but in the craps section he talks about Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas as the only place to offer 10X odds in craps. Last time I checked 100X odds is not too hard to find in Vegas, and 5X odds is not to hard to find in Atlantic City. Even with that said the book is more than worth the money. The next time you gamble and stick with what the author says to do and you find yourself ahead more often than behind you will be happy you bought the book. (And remember that gambling is a negative expectation game: You will lose in the long run! Do not gamble with money that you cannot afford to lose!)

I read Edwin Silberstang's book a long time ago and I am pleased that his analyses and ideas are still around. This man knows the math of the games and he also recommends usually good ways to play. He understands the gamblers too and knows that most of them are looking for "action" which is really just "more losses."

Any gambling library should have this book.

Author of Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution!

I live in New Mexico where you can't find a table with less than 5x odds on craps at the Indian Casinos. After years of marginal returns, my play is now much cleaner and profitable using Silberstang's techniques (play the line & Come, w/max odds). The dealers love when we arrive at the table. I play on the line for the dealers with 5x odds, along with my bets. (The energy is unmatched when there are at least 4 others at the table hoping you hit your point!). I've run into craps dealers and they confirm off the record that the propositional bets are pure profit "CHUMP" bets for the house.
My husband is a PhD mathematician and agrees with the statitics and odds stated in this well written book.

I purchased this book while attending a wedding in Las Vegas. I saw it in the hotel gift shop and did the touristy thing-- I bought a book about gambling in Las Vegas. I'm glad I did.

Silberstang has written an easy to follow primer on the most common gambling games that you will find in a casino. His book covers the classic table games-blackjack, craps, roulette (both American and European versions), baccarat, and keno. He also explores recent casino additions-Caribbean Poker, Let It Ride, and video poker. Slot machines, casino operation, and credit are even discussed.

Unlike some of the drivel I have read about gambling, Silberstang dispels some of the myths associated with gambling "systems." He clearly explains the games with examples, and gives the odds and demonstrates which bets favor the house (and by how much).

This was an interesting and enlightening read.

Tom Chown's first book, Our Chown Odyssey, is a history of his family, dating back to the 16th century. Wolves at the Door, his first novel, fictionalizes part of that family history. Woven into the fabric of American History, Chown takes his pioneer families out to the wild west in covered wagons, showing both the agony and joy of the constant quest for new ground. Dialogue is down-to-earth and as ragged as real people talk. This is not great literature, but it's a darned good story that will keep the reader wondering what will happen next.

Very enjoyable story of pioneer families. Story tells of both hardship and adventures in a new land. Enjoyed the characters. Nice book for all ages.

I couldn't put it down. Greater appreciation on the trials that early settlers faced as they developed new territories. Author very well creates the feeling of being with the Devon family as they settle new lands. Very enjoyable especially to those of us who are history buffs

I really enjoyed this historical novel--it was "riviting", and very hard to put down once I started reading it. I found myself "lost" in the moment--in other words, I felt like I was actually there as the events unfolded. I found myself going through a wide range of emotions--Mr. Chown really knows how to put you on a roller coaster. Can't wait for his next book!!

After just viewing the movie Wyatt Earp I could easily envision the families Chown depicted in this story -- the tie-in's to Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Doc Holliday were masterfully accomplished. When Chown's Devon philosophizes, I took time to understand and reflect; when the story was humorous -- which was frequent -- I caught myself laughing out loud; and as the families were real, it was often tearful. Coming from the midwest myself, I was drawn in as if it was my own family history. I truly felt my education of American history was deepened and broadened. Certainly, I will be amongst the first to order the 2nd and third installment of this trilogy. My compliments and respect to the author. Well done!Our Chown Odyssey

I searched everywhere for this book, and when I found it, I practicly lunged at it, and it was beyond worth it. Step into the life of the young sleuth, Lili, as she uncovers mysteries by finding the birthdates of the victims and the suspects, so she can use her mothers ring to solve the cases. I love the series; I bought all of the books within a month. Enjoy!

This is a very good series, despite being so short. I love how the mysteries are incorporated with tidbits of astrology. It's really very interesting and engrossing. Another thing I love is the blossoming romance between Lily and Hiromi is so fun and you'll be screaming for them to get together the whole time. Lily is an astrology whiz who has just taken over her missing mother's job; Spica. Spica is a detective who uses her secret ring to call upon the spirits of each sign to help her solve the murder or mystery. The little spirits are adorable and each has a distinctive personality based on their representative sign. Throughout each book their will be author's notes telling you about the sign being investigated at the time. The mysteries themselves are varied and some (as in later in the series) can be downright frightening! This isn't a book that will scare you, however. It's a story about mystery, lost love, a missing parent, and fun. There are many funny bits to lighten the story up. The art style involves a lot of shading and screen tones. It is very detailed. This is a great series all around and I definitely recommend it!

This is a good series. It's about Lili, a high-schooler who solves crimes with the help of a magical ring containing the spirits of the zodiac signs (Virgo, Scorpio, etc.), who give her clues to track down who did the crime, and how.

The art is pretty good, but not what I would call remarkable. The story is mostly meant for younger kids, so a 10-year-old would probably like it a bit more than a teenager. If you're trying to get a friend of yours interested in manga, (or want to find out about manga yourself) this is a good choice for fans of Nancey Drew and Encyclopedia Brown.

This manga is great! It has comedy, mystery and action. And the art is beautiful. Its too bad that there is not much on it on the web... Cause it never got turned into a tv show, and so it is not known very well :( I recommend that you buy this and introduce this to your friends, make them read it even though they might judge the book by its cover! my buddies say that they didnt like to read this because of the cover T_T! its a good manga!

I LOVE Zodiac P.I.! It's wonderfully written, with a awesome cast of characters and catchy plot! I've read all 4 of the books so many times that I accidently ripped the spine of the 4th volume...oopps.

~The Characters~
Lili (NOT Lily) Hoshizawa is a 13 yr. old astrologist on a search for her mother,Kaoruko Hoshizawa,who disappeared 2 years ago. In the meantime,she busts mysteries under the alias Spica P.I. and leaves the police, along with her own father, scratching thier heads as to who she is. She solves crimes with 2 things: the birthdate of the victim and the help of 12 zodiac spirits who give her clues and guidance from Lili's summoning of her Star Ring.
Hiromi Oikawa,however,is another story. Good-looking,yes, Hiro is also a detective(much to Mr. Hoshizawa's annoyance) and deals with the mysteries in a logical manner. At times, he's a regular pain in the behind. Hiromi is also allergic to girls, including his own sister, Megumi(whose vainity is VERY annoying..I'd like to do nothing more than kick her and Michelle/Sailor Neptune over a cliff. They're so AIR-HEADED...) I find that very funny.......poor Hiromi!!

This books covers everything a wife and mother would inquire about.

I decided to get this book after reading the reviews here, and I'm so glad I did. From the moment it arrived, it has been a true blessing to me (and my family). I was able to apply some of the author's advice immediately. From start to finish, it felt like a frank but sweet conversation with a wise older sister, loving friend, or beloved aunt, mom or grandmother. Thank you, thank you, Lane P. Jordan for this amazingly practical and inspiring book!

I read this book the summer of 2000. In January of 2001 I am teaching an organization class and this book was a part of the inspiration for me to organize my life in all aspects, then go on to teach others these principles with a GOD foundation. This book is great, I suggest that it is read with an "open mind" and be inspired by GOD to be impacted. It is a great source to get organized.

I loved this book~ in fact, I read it all in one night. I hadn't put much thought into caring for my family and our home as a Christian act before I read this book, but I certainly see it that way now! This book was inspirational for me. I highly recommend it!

I love this book. I am pretty organized as it is but it just puts things into perspective and way you should be organized. Being organized does take alot of stress of your life. It is truly amazing!

This is an outstanding book. What I appreciate most about it is its thoughtfulness. Where other books present statistics and give only brief attention to very important topics, this book presents a fair, smart, and thorough account of the World of Admissions and encourages you to sit down and think about things, guiding you along each step of the process.

"Admission Matters" attracted me for a number of reasons--the background, experience and knowledge of the authors is compelling, but moreover I chose this book because as the parent of three with two already in college and the third an applicant now, I was hopeful that I would find new details and advice regarding the competitive hurdles that my youngest will be facing. My hopes were more than fulfilled! This book is an engaging and informative resource that blends just the right amount of humor, candor, anectodal details, encouragement and reality for parents and their college bound kids. It is also organized to facilitate quick reads of sections and question areas of greatest interest. This is a refreshing and valuable guide in the high-anxiety sea of college planning.

The best book I read so far. As an admission consultant, I think it covers the basic information that parents and kids should know. I even met her in person this year. There is one little problem about this book - it is two years old. So new things happened within these two years have not yet been covered, such as the SMART grant (new for year 2007).

As a high school senior, I've been having the usual problems with finding a college that I feel is right for me, and then actually going about the process of applying. Not only was this book helpful in answering nearly all of my questions, but it is written in an interesting, friendly manner that I found heartening in the midst of a process that has been incredibley stressful! I recommend this book not only to high school students but their parents as well - my Mother read it and she loved it too!

This book is clearly written and an excellent guide for the high school student and parents.

This is a very interesting and readable account of scratch building a model sailing ship. I found the descriptions of the simplfications made in constructing the model to be very interesting and this increased my appeciacion for the complexity of both the model and the original vessel. The book is also very informative on what the possible pitfalls and problems one may encounter when building such a model..things that would not otherwise have occured to me. I cannot praise the fold-out line drawings enough, excellent! This book comes highly recommended!

WOW! That was the first thing I said after opening Amazon's box containing this book. The book is a substantial size, nice and thick and the binding quality is excellent. What a masterpiece. The numerous amounts of fold-outs are excellent, full of great info on the Victory. There are a number of glossy pages with lots of pictures of the original and the model HMS Victory. The figure list is very usefull as are all the other lists to make finding your way around very quick and easy. The other reviewers have accurately depicted the content; I felt that the rest needed recognition. If you are at all like me and don't mind spending the money you will understand this next statement. Buy two, one to keep safe in your bookshelf and one to wear out during its extensive use. BUY IT you will for sure enjoy all 283 pages. Michael

This is a great book, but it's meant mainly and despite the title, for the modeler of the great flagship of Lord Nelson. There are very few details relating to any of the other ships of Nelson, but the Victory is covered like no other book...

Details abound in this marvellous book by an author steeped in his subject. I felt as if he had been on the ways at the time of building and relating his opbservations, but from the viewpoint of an educating master of this complex subject. I thoroughly enjoyed every page and can use the details provided to better my own modeling skills. If you enjoy detail and want to read about it from the pen of a master of his subject, buy this book today!

I recieved this today.. it's a must for the modeler and a wonderful read even if your not. It's a bit pricey, but worth it so far. If you can find it used then make sure all of the fold out plans are intact as I feel they are a major part of what make the book so facinating.

The idea is on the mark, if not repetitious, yet Bankei lacks humility in the recounting of his story and those he has met. It was this, I'm not sure if I should call it arrogance or simply over-confidence, that bothered me.

Essential for the library of all Zen students. And a fascinating read for anyone interested in Zen, eastern religion, traditional wisdom, or just fresh perspectives on the nature of life, death, reality and the human condition.

If you are looking for some straight talk on Zen, Bankei dishes it up raw.

Pure blood and guts Zen from page one right through to the index! Peter Haskel has done us all a great service by providing this lovely translation of the Zen teachings of this popular, no holds barred Zen master. Thank you Mr. Haskel!

Not a lot to add to what's already been said in previous reviews - besides the fact that Bankei is (or has been) grossly under-rated. He is refreshing - after the institutional Zen claptrap and posturing, which leaves us stranded in the same old gunk we hoped to extricate ourselves from. Still, I would qualify a few things. Bankei did not claim to have originated anything startlingly 'new' - with his notion of the 'Unborn Mind.'It is there in the teachings of the early Chinese masters.

Again, some worry that Bankei didn't recommend 'striving' - or didn't 'strive' himself - but, his biography makes his questing mind clear. Hakuin - for example, didn't altogether approve of Bankei. Yet Bankei might be said to have had a 'natural' koan, insofar as his deep questioning sprang from the failure of Confucian teachers (and whoever else he could find) to explain what "brightening the bright virtue" (mei-toku) actually meant.

The point is, we ought not to adopt arbitrary views about the place of a questing 'doubt' - in Zen practice.Bankei asks why we should saddle ourselves with an arbitrary 'doubt.' But that's it, the 'doubt' should not be artificial. Bankei had his own doubt, and without it - he wouldn't have been driven to dis-cover the 'Unborn Mind.' We must allow ourselves that privilege.

There are two books in English based on translations of Zen Master Bankei teachings, both pusblished in 1984. "Bankei Zen" is the title of the book written by Peter Haskel who behaved both as translator and editor under the supervision of his teacher Yoshito Hakeda. Haskel assisted the reader organizing the text and adding headings here and there to paragraphs, dialogues, anecdotes, poems. Also he added technical notes highlighting biographical and historical circumstances. These headings focus the attention of readers in their efforts to find their way throughout Bankei teachings. "The unborn" is the title of the book written by Norman Waddell, just a translator. His book becomes the forest of words. One Dharma Talk after the other and, here and there, also some highly interesting biographical and historical notes. However, Waddell produced a revised version in 2000 and included only minor changes to translations to very specific paragraphs. However no mention is made to Haskel's book on the same subject and author, similar texts. Under section III, other works in the bibliography section this reference to Hakei's book is conspicuously absent. Within the community of scholars the standard is mentioning books written by other authors on the same subject and basic source. This is not the case of Prof. Waddell at Otani University in Kyoto. His approach is below standards; competitors in the field must be mentioned after what is acceptable and recommened within the scientific and academic community. His silence is highly suspicious in the updated version of 2000 because experts in a field cannot ignore the state of the art on the subject and should not cold-shoulder the work of other experts in the same subject. Haskel's translation has been tailored to readers making their best to find out their way around a genial and easygoing Japanese Zen Master of the 17th century. Bankei is the antidote for those suffering an overdose of Dogen and Hakuin teachings and comments.

Bankei (1622-1693) is considered the third of the great Zen philosophers, along with Dogen, founder of Soto, and Hakuin, the spiritual renewer of Rinzai.

Unlike the gifted Hakuin, his approximate contemporary, and the peerless Dogen, who was the author of many unmatched numinous speculations on the human condition, Bankei founded no Zen sects and left no lineage. And unlike both Dogen and Hakuin, who wrote for a literate and sophisticated audience of aristocrats, priests, monks, and samurai, Bankei was a populist, who brought Zen into the lives of everyday people. His audiences consisted of farmers and tradesmen as well as the intelligentsia of early Tokugawa Japan.

The key to understanding Bankei is his idea of enlightenment through living in the "Unborn Mind." The Unborn Mind, according to Bankei, is the natural state of human consciousness prior to the imposition of those layered striations of family and social and other conventions that make up the personality. Letting go of those encrustations, Bankei taught, was the key to returning to the Unborn Mind.

Bankei, whose teaching style was highly idiosyncratic and fluidly geared toward individual audiences, reads at times like a 17th century Albert Ellis; at other times Bankei sounds like a feudal Dr. Phil as he provides commonsensical advice on a plethora of mundane subjects like the raising of children and getting along with neighbors; still other writings evidence a keenness of intellect to match Dogen and Hakuin, but with a humanity that those more esoteric philosophers simply lack. Then too, Bankei's Zen has a curiously 21st century feel with its admonition to recognize the personality as a construct. By careful selection among Bankei's writings, Peter Haskel has brought Bankei to life with a fine appreciation for the depth of the man's mind and the expansiveness of his spirit.

Like the Baal Shem Tov, who brought speculative Judaism down to the level of the toiling classes in Judaic Eastern Europe, Bankei brought Zen practice and the concept of the enlightened mind to Japan's country-dwellers. Hence, the Buddha Mind became the province of anyone who sought to find it, not just the privleged few.

One third psychologist, one third village elder, and one third Zen master, Bankei was an ultimate democrat of the human spirit.