Sachs Books

I've paged thru this book hundreds of times for inspiration, and research. I consider this book a valueable asset to any library. It's a fantastic reference source that covers such a wide variety of images. The photos are magnificent.

As a concept designer in the entertainment industry, I found this book to be a wonderful resource for all the underground hideaways that you rarely see. I highly recommend this book!

This review is intended to compensate for deficiencies in Amazon's usually excellent descriptions of books.

This book is the catalog of a traveling exposition of art photographs, taken entirely within Germany, and centered on underground places from historical times to the late 20th century. The bulk of the book, and its main value, lie in the reproductions of 83 color photographs. These are technically superb in selection of subject, artistic composition, and photographic execution. The images focus entirely on structure and underground spaces: nowhere appears a human being. Every image is reproduced in large format, using a top-quality printing process.

The book has two main text chapters, both bilingual in having both the original German, and an English rendering in translation.

Preceding the presentation of the images is an artistic exposition of human responses to underground places and their cultural significance. The underlying material is thoughtful and sensitive, but the English translation seems mechanical and less than fluent.

Following the presentation of the images is an image-by-image commentary on the history and significance of each subject. Here the English text is fluent and delightfully informative.

I love to use them as give-a-ways at my "how-to" party presentations. They also make great gifts. Patty Sachs is so creative. You're going to love this "little" book with the "BIG" punch! I loved and used her "Beatlemania" theme for a special party for a friend who loves the Beatles. We staged the party in the "Beatle Suite" (the Beatles actually stayed her in the early sixties) of The Brown Palace Hotel. We added fab four look-a-like meet and greet entertainers and the party is still the "talk of the town."

I ran across this terrific little book and it saved my party life. It's hard to continue to come up with great party ideas when you have as big a family as I have. Don't want to be out done. When I received Patty Sachs' party book -- I became the 'Queen of Parties'. Everyone wonders why my parties went from dull to DELIGHTFUL! Read it! She's a wonderful writer, too. Fun to read.

The University of Chicago Math Series is excellent as an self-study or in-classroom math series. I prefer it over other curriculums I have used.

Our 14 yr. old (homeschooled) daughter just completed this University of Chicago's Algebra textbook. She found the text complete, thorough, and very easy to follow! She found it to be an almost completely 'self taught' course! She also enjoyed the colorful pictures, extra projects sections, and the interesting sidenotes which included world trivia topics. We have been successfully using the Saxon math text books for all of our lower grade math work thus far, and were somewhat reluctant to try something "new" and different. But right from the start, our daughter LOVED the Chicago math, and welcomed the change. I just wish that there had been a text like this for me, her mother, when I was struggling through Algebra back in the '70's. We would highly recommend this math textbook, and it's clear solution manual to ANYONE studying Algebra! Go ahead and try something different this year!

I read these works for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.
Poetry appeals to human passions and emotions. Powerful beautiful language and metaphor really appeal to emotion. This idea really disturbed Plato, who takes on Homer in the Republic. Plato thought that early Greek poetry portrays a dark world; humans are checked by negative limits like death. Tragedy has in it a character of high status brought down through no fault of his own. Plato says this is unjust. Republic is about ethical life and justice. It starts with the premises that might makes right and then moves onto the idea much like modern religions that justice comes in the afterlife. Plato hates the idea that in tragedy bad things can happen to good people. He wanted to ban tragedy because he found it demoralizing.

Aristotle's Poetics is a defense against Plato's appeal to ban tragedy. Tragedy was very popular in Greek world so Aristotle asks can it be wrong to ban it? Yes, it is wrong thus he decides to study it. Plato says Poetry is not a technç because the poets are divinely inspired. Aristotle disagrees Poetics is a handbook for playwrights. Mimçsis= "representation or imitation." Plato uses it in speaking of painting, thus art is imitation. Another meaning is to mimic, like actors mimicking another person. Plato and Aristotle use it to mean psychological identification like how we get absorbed in a movie as if the action were real, eliciting emotions from us. We suspend reality for a while. Aristotle says this is natural in humans; we do this as children, we mimic. If imitation is important for humans then tragic poetry is worthwhile for Aristotle to study.

Definition of tragedy- "Through pity and fear it achieves purification from such feelings. This is a famous controversial line. Katharsis= "pity and fear" thus the purpose of tragedy is to purge katharsis. Katharsis can also mean purification or clean. There is a debate if it means clarification, through which we can come to understand katharsis. Aristotle thinks tragedy teaches us something about life. Tragedy is an elaboration on Aristotle's idea that good or virtuous people sometimes get unlucky and in the end, they get screwed. Tragedy shows this so we can learn to get by when life screws us. The whole point of tragedy is action over character. Action is the full story of the poem like the Iliad. Character is only part of the action.
Aristotle distinguishes between poetry and history. Poetry is concerned with universals, history is concerned with particulars.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

Joe Sachs' translation of the poetics is brilliantly done. It must be the closest English can come to Aristotle's original words.

I read this book to my class of high achieving 3rd graders in 1990 (when it was new). I loved the fact that San Francisco is our locale. (The school was on the SF Peninsula.) It initiated all kinds of discussion, especially about the homeless. It might not be very realistic, but it appealed to their sense of adventure and it was nice to have a boy and a girl as the protagonists. I'm glad I was able to find it again here (had even forgotten the title) and will purchase it for my grandkids.

For an out-of-print book, this book is absolutely perfect! (Too bad the publishers decided it wasn't printing enough copies!) It will tangle you up in a mystery about two 11-year-old twins who don't want to be separated after their parents get a divorce. I could NOT stop reading this book even after the end and I had to read more! Hopefully Ms. Sachs will do a sequel!

Reviewed by Susan Pettrone for Reader Views (9/06)
From the very first paragraph, it is clear that" Ben Zakkai's Coffin" is one of those books which pulls you into the storyline by mixing interesting, realistic characters with a little suspense, a pinch of romance, and of course, the murder of a mysterious, beautiful woman. Add in a detective that is more persistent than a dog with a bone, and you have a book that holds the reader's attention from the first page until the last.
The storyline of "Ben Zakkai's Coffin" is easy to follow. Herman Bachrach, a seemingly simple photographer, becomes involved with Diana, a breathtakingly beautiful woman, only to find he is the prime suspect in her murder. Confusion reigns in Herman's life - his religious identification, the relentless pursuit by detective Sheehan who is convinced Herman is hiding something; and the demands by his boss Gabe Cohen to go to Switzerland and "finish" the job Diana began. Everything becomes more convoluted as Herman discovers the real reason behind the trip and the mysterious package he is instructed to deliver.
Cohen asks Herman to find Schtarker, and give the seemingly innocent bundle to him. This seems simple enough, until Herman discovers Schtarker is a man with an unbelievable past. Herman is at once faced with the history of his people, as well as events so horrifying, that Herman is hit full force with the importance of the package and the one word message he has delivered. And if that isn't enough to shake Herman's soul to the core, the response he receives opens his eyes to his heritage,and who he is - all at the same time.
"Ben Zakkai's Coffin" is a book that I truly enjoyed. Though it is a mystery of sorts, it also is a book which dug deep into Herman's character, opening his eyes to what the world had been, and at the same time, for what it is today for the Jewish people. It is a book that leaves the reader satisfied that the mystery is solved, but also somewhat saddened when reminded of the past that caused this upheaval of Herman's life in the first place.
I strongly recommend "Ben Zakkai's Coffin" for readers of all ages. Along with the requisite beautiful woman, it gives deep insight into human nature and Herman's discovery of where he fits within the world around him. And to me, what Herman learns at the bedside of Schtarker is enough to make even the most seasoned reader pause, take stock of life, and wonder what mysteries may quietly lay hidden deep within others around them.

This is the review published in Northern Express Weekly:
Review by Nancy Sundstrom, Northern Express Weekly, Aug. 29, 2002

Ben Zakkai's Coffin by Harley L. Sachs
Express readers look forward to the regular columns of Sachs, the Houghton, U.P. resident who had also produced a number of audio books, including "Threads of the Covenant," "The Search for Jesse Bram," and "Conspiracy."
He has proven himself to be a sharp-witted, imaginative crafter of mysteries, and this time, his protagonist is Herman Bachrach, a hard-boiled provocateur whose lack of religious conviction doesn't prevent him from becoming entangled in a complicated web of deceit and greed centering round a Holocaust vendetta over stolen gold by a Swiss bank from Jewish depositors.
In a style that evokes Chandler and Hammet, Bachrach meets a femme fatale names Diana who lures him into a murder plot that quickly becomes messy and names him as a suspect. Bachrach makes a trek to Switzerland as he attempts to clear his name and stay one step aside of a growing list of foes, especially an elderly war criminal, who would just as soon have him out of the way.
His discoveries as he does so are anything but predictable, which is what elevates this from the slightly formulaic compromises of such a tale. There is a deliciously old fashioned noir sense about this engaging read, and one hopes there will be more installments with the Bachrach character.

An evocative memoir of the author's stay [1953-6] in what's now Northern Cyprus. Much of the landscape was still as he described it when we visited Belle Pais, Famagusta, Kyrenia, and Nicosia, the Tree of Idleness and other sites on our hiking trip to Cyprus in 2001. His adventures in buying and maintaining a house rival those of Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence"written many years later. The peaceful interludes in the hills are marred by foreshadowing of the political turmoil and tragedies that would engulf Cyprus in the following decades, leading to the departure of Durrell and other foreign nationals. Some of those towns and even cities remain ghost towns to this day. Once hard to find, this book has now been deservedly reissued.

I wouldn't want to spoil the thing by saying too much, but it was a very interesting read, aside from being intensely pleasant. There's a certain delicacy, about death, and strife, and the drinking of wine. Durrell is well spoken and well informed: you might think, like I did, that the story of Cyprus isn't politically relevant. But I only thought that because I'm an ignorant American, and because I had yet to read this lovely book.

only few women like their breast.
this incredable book help women deal rationaly, with the most
common breast related complain.
your self image will improve your breast may turn from disliked to loved

ob gyn from los angeles

What I like about Nili Sachs' book is how she has mined the English language for all the double-entendres in reference to the female torso, we don't think twice about using.

If you are at all troubled by your feelings of imperfection or what your mammalian glands are for or why or how Western societies have so many contradictory taboos about female body images, then this exploration of how half a dozen women, coming together for group therapy about their shame & misery, will not only absorb you, it will bring quite a degree of healing, especially as there are exercises to do...& lots to think about.

Twenty years in the making, through Nili Sachs' work with hundreds of women, BOOBY-TRAPPED gives you both sides of the therapy -- the thoughts & struggles of the group(of all ages of women), as well as the affects on their therapist.

Rebeccasreads recommends this one for its insights & humor, bravery in facing breast cancer, crippling body loathing, lifelong numbness & the perception that the quality of relationships depends upon size.

Dennis Miller's book "Eddie Sachs: The Clown Prince of Racing" is a must read for anyone who ever rooted for (or against) Eddie in the good old days of USAC championship racing. While not a literary masterpiece, the book is rich in content because the author has included quoted anecdotes from many of Eddie's contemporaries, and of course from Eddie himself. The reader will get a clear idea of what racing was like in the 50s and 60s - not all that glamorous and exceedingly dangerous.

Eddie Sachs must have been quite a character. This excellent book reconstructs not only the life of great race-driver, but also an era in which things were not yet completely spoiled by money, managers and advertising.

I bought "Bear" for my son, now 7. We have enjoyed other Eyewitness videos over the years. "Bear" is among the better subjects for the Eyewitness format -- it gives folklore from different cultures about bears and their significance (including President Teddy Roosevelt and the Teddy Bear), it provides information on their most unusual qualities (in this case, their hibernation vs. other animals), and cautions against modern-day myths (bears are wild animals that do attack, and are not sweet like Teddy Bear). Some of our other favorities in this series are "Fish," "Dinosaur," "Volcano," "Shark," and "Arctic & Antarctic."

BEAR- by DK Eyewitness publishing is one of the best childrens bear videos that I have seen in a long time. It is accurate, factual, the quality of the production of the video is excellent and most important, it keeps the attention of the viewer. DK Eyewitness should be congratulated on this production.