Western Books

Well, I can also say that Lon Milo Duquette's "Chicken Qaballah of Of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford" is a good intro to the Caballah and this is a great place to go next for a more in-depth(still accessable) study in the Caballah. Regardie's "Garden of Pomegranettes" is a classic for caballistic pathworkings but this book offeres a simplified version of that. Greer is AWESOME at making Golden Dawn practices easy for the 'less than adept' to access!!!

If you ever wanted to understand the true foundation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, this book is a must have! I cannot recommend this book enough! Mr. Greer's explanations of the magical workings of the Cabala and its relations to the Golden Dawn system of magic are well worth the lofty price to acquire this book. "Paths of Wisdom" sets the stage for Mr. Greer's follow-up book "Circles of Power". If you are an aspiring solitary magician looking for a fresh approach to the Golden Dawn traditon of magic, then invest your money wisely and buy these books. You are guaranteed a well rounded education in the high magical arts.

First off, I must present my biased disclaimer of being a huge fan of John Michael Greer. Few authors in this field have his ability to tackle a complex subject, gather an immense amount of information, sift through the dross, and present it in such accessible and practical fashion.

Paths of Wisdom is no exception. If you own only 1 book on the Hermetic Qabala (as distinct from the traditional Hebrew type), MAKE SURE this is it! Qabala, by its very nature, can be a complex, pedantic, and often dry and confusing study. However, the patient and persistent student will find great rewards. Too often one learns the rudiments while lacking the deep understandings, which can be subtle and paradoxical. This book helps clarify all that. Granted, there's a lot of material here too, and it'll take time to fully absorb all the hidden jewels. But the engaging and lucid writing style makes this anything but a dry reference or "how to" manual.

Greer does not lose sight that to experience the Qabala is to practice and live the tradition each day, not just read and discuss it. Paths of Wisdom is a reminder that Qabala is not a static, pedantic methodology that exists in a vacuum, but a beautiful, living, dynamic system that evolves alongside humanity's aspirations to re-discover our forgotten Oneness. As a valuable tool for personal growth, pathworkings are presented as a freeform, archetypal, and deeply subjective experience based on the Tree of Life's path symbology, and not as the common, predefined, guided visualizations. The incredible and often neglected faculty of the human Imagination is greatly emphasized. The aspects and symbology of the Tree of Life are very well presented. With this book and Greer's equally excellent Circles of Power, the student of The Western Mysteries will find a lifetime of treasures and inspired direction for their sacred journey.

What an unbelievable gem. I wish to the gods this wasn't $8 million used. I can say without reservation that it is one of the best Cabala/Kabbalah/Qabalah book EVER WRITTEN. Why it's no longer printed, the world will never know. JMGreer is planning on expanding it and printing it with another publisher, luckily.

If you ever come across a cheaper copy--or have the extra dough to spend--I recommend this book immensely, for accurate and clearly explained Kabbalah study AND magickal practice. I can't recommend it highly enough. Because most people can't afford this, I second this recommendation with "The Magic of Qabalah" by Kala Trobe and "The Mystical Qabalah" by Dion Fortune. You won't be disappointed with either. Beginner or advanced, all of these both invaluable, accurate and wise.

this book is very easy to read and understand. it brings many of the complex concepts of the qabala, (as understood in the golden dawn) to a level most students can understand. it's like a more interesting version of the golden dawn papers. i'd also recommend Dion Fortune's mystical qabala.

Amid the body count of the "worker's paradise",Hitler's Reich,Mao's revolution and the general idealistic-nihilistic paradigm that defined the 20th century,this book is a great intro to understanding how the utopian folly rears its beastly head again and again.Stove takes on the frauds who've somehow managed to spew out their inanities and call the puke "philosophy".The postmodernists,the idealists and the fuzzy-brained get their proper comeuppances.The unspeakable tragedy is that the Rousseau's,Marx's,Hegel's and their pernicious ilk were ever taken seriously and thus lent a phony air of intelligence and righteousness to the catastropic utopian movements in the 20th century.The religion of idealism has taken a sabbatical for the time being but everything comes back around again.Will the people in the future be wiser than the man of the 20th century and prevent the more gruesome episodes that defined our time in history's grinder?

I defer to no one in my admiration for Stove's work, but this collection of essays isn't quite what I expected. Plato is hardly addressed at all; Hegel gets no more than a few passing mentions and a final cussing-out. If you want to see those icons comprehensively clasted, you'll have to go to Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies". Stove, after a brisk opening fracas with the science history-philosophy brigade (headed by the ubiquitous Popper), directs his fire at targets who, from the point of view of an amateur of philosophy such as me, are of very minor interest: the later Nelson Goodman, Robert Nozick, then a whole necropolis of nineteenth-century British idealists. It came as a surprise to me that late nineteenth-century Anglophone philosophy was almost entirely dominated by neo-Hegelians. Well, back then my ancestors were mostly illiterate farm laborers. Quandoque dormitat Homerus. There's a lot more on these people (some of whom Stove humorously insists were first-rate, but wrong) than I ever wanted to know.

On the continental front, Foucault is noticed and promptly squashed. Derrida, Baudrillard, Deleuze - forget it. It's no secret that these have had more influence on the (loosely speaking) intelligentsia, for good or ill, than a hundred F.H. Bradleys or Nelson Goodmans. I suppose Stove takes it for granted that their productions are beneath contempt, even as examples of 'folly'; but try telling that to the fans. I don't believe this is the answer; it's part of the problem.

If you know Stove's work you'll find the old acuity and acerbic wit going strong. It's worth getting this book just for the final chapter, 'What is Wrong with Our Thoughts?' (forty philosophical ways to go mad). But the book as a whole would have been more effective with sharper target selection. I recommend his concentrated attack on the farrago of modern philosophy of science (titled in its latest incarnation "Scientific Irrationalism").

P.S. Many people wonder if Stove actually approved of anybody. He quite liked Hume. But even one of that master's apercus is dismissed here as 'tripe'!

Amid the body count of the "worker's paradise",Hitler's Reich,Mao's revolution and the general idealistic-nihilistic paradigm that defined the 20th century,this book is a great intro to understanding how the utopian folly rears its beastly head again and again.Stove takes on the frauds who've somehow managed to spew out their inanities and call the puke "philosophy".The postmodernists,the idealists and the fuzzy-brained get their proper comeuppances.The unspeakable tragedy is that the Rousseau's,Marx's,Hegel's and their pernicious ilk were ever taken seriously and thus lent a phony air of intelligence and righteousness to the catastropic utopian movements in the 20th century.The religion of idealism has taken a sabbatical for the time being but everything comes back around again.Will the people in the future be wiser than the man of the 20th century and prevent the more gruesome episodes that defined our time in history's grinder?

If you cannot enjoy reading these essays then your brain lacks something that could make your life a better place to live in. A similar kind of pleasure as that coming from Voltaire or very few other witty iconoclasts.

Inspite of its hardcover, this is a lousy edition, just a quick nearly-photocopy USA reprint of an originally UK-published book. Even the original typos reprinted (e.g., "whatver" on page 51). I fell in love with this book through a Spanish translation back in 1994: the classroom-oriented Spanish edition was a better physical object than this one. For one thing, my Spanish Stove had its pages sewn together instead of just glued together.

Amid the body count of the "worker's paradise",Hitler's Reich,Mao's revolution and the general idealistic-nihilistic paradigm that defined the 20th century,this book is a great intro to understanding how the utopian folly rears its beastly head again and again.Stove takes on the frauds who've somehow managed to spew out their inanities and call the puke "philosophy".The postmodernists,the idealists and the fuzzy-brained get their proper comeuppances.The unspeakable tragedy is that the Rousseau's,Marx's,Heidegger's and their pernicious ilk were ever taken seriously and thus lent a phony air of intelligence and righteousness to the catastropic utopian movements in the 20th century.The religion of idealism has taken a sabbatical for the time being but everything comes back around again.Will the people in the future be wiser than the man of the 20th century and prevent the more gruesome episodes that defined our time in history's grinder?

I've been reading a fair number of these over the past few months. Maybe it"s because I'm finally beginning to understand, but this most recent read is definitely the most complete, straightforward and readable analysis of the application of Lean to Supply Chain Management that I have come across.

And this is a European speaking!!

This book is concise in dealing with the basics and the advanced materials in the subject. Author's language is discernible even for those who are not familiar with this concept.

I am the Corporate Lean Champion for a global manufacturing company. I had heard of the bullwhip effect but did not thoroughly understand it before reading "the book" as I refer to it when recommending it to my Lean students. Streamlined helped me to put a plan together utilizing rate based planning, Lean variation reduction tools, and pull protocols to Crack the Bullwhip effect and drive it out of our organization!

Streamlined is a "must read" for any Lean practitioner, operations Leader, supply chain leader ot MBA student.

I actually got the opportunity to study under Srini and can verify his expertise in this field. I picked up more than a few great ideas in this book that I hadn't seen in the many books I have read on the subject. I would recommend this book to students, managers, and specialist at all experience levels.

I have adopted "streamlined" for an advanced topics in management course on lean supply chains. The challenge of finding a book that goes beyond the abstract concepts to more detailed and parctical steps for implementation has been greatly alleviated by "streamlined." Dr. Srinivasan provides the reader and the student in particular with a very well thought out and written text. My students' initial worries about the rigor and difficulty of the subject matter were quickly mitigated after reading the first few chapters.
The 14 principles provided me, the professor, an organizing framework for the delivery of the course, the assignments and the term project. The students and myself found "streamlined" to be very interesting, thought proviking, and useful.
This book is a must-read for any faculty member regardless of their discipline as the topics covered cut across all functional areas of business and provide a much-needed integrative approach.

Enthralling, entertaining, educational, and thought-provoking, "The Symposium" is one of Plato's classics. A group of men gathered at a dinner party in ancient Greece discuss the topic of love. Each man offers his view or definition of love, and the results are all different, engaging, and full of symbolism. Although it is a short book, one must not read it once and put it away; it ought to be be read again and again just to compare to what is "picked up on" each time. One thing always puzzles me: I will never know why Plato included the doctor (his name escapes me at the moment) have a bout of hiccups during someone's speech. I have never come up with a satisfactory answer - nor has any one I know, either. Nevertheless, this is an excellent read that I highly recommend for anyone - student and nonstudent. Enjoy!

The Symposium of Plato is a profoundly thought-provoking, entertaining and inspiring piece of philosophical writing. It is very short, yet infinitely more substantial than many longer works.

We are in Athens, 416 B.C.E. The scene is a banquet at the house of Agathon, who had the day before celebrated the victory of his tragedy. By the end of the party, seven men - and one absent but central woman - will have presented their views on the nature and meaning of Eros, or love.

There is no difficulty in keeping the characters distinct in our minds. Plato has great fun contrasting the opinions - and verbal styles - of tragic poet, comic poet, politician, physician and the rest, allowing absurdities and profundities to mingle freely. Socrates is very appealing, saint-like, yet utterly down-to-earth, playing his usual role of a 'philosopher' - one who 'knows only that he does not know' - always in passionate search of the truth, but catching only revelatory glimpses of its perfection.

Phaedrus gives the first speech, praising lovers' (especially homosexual) passion and loyalty, which makes them perform mighty and heroic deeds. Pausanias differentiates between virtuous, or spiritual love, and common, or bodily love. Virtuous love between men should not be primarily about sex, but about improvement and education of the soul. Eryximachus, the doctor, makes a mostly irrelevant (and boring) speech, claiming nature's contrasting elements illustrate the need to balance the healthy and unhealthy aspects of love. Aristophanes then delivers a brilliantly memorable speech, hilarious and poignant by turns, telling of how humans were once two-in-one, back to back, with two heads, four arms and four legs, with three combinations of sexes, male/male, male/female, and female/female. Their strength and speed made them threaten the gods, so Zeus cut them in half, leaving them to search forever for their other halves, and through love attempt to regain their original oneness. Agathon then gives an over-the-top, ecstatic speech, praising love as the youngest, most graceful of the gods, saying he brought order to heaven itself, 'empties men of disaffection and fills them with affection', etc, climaxing with the suggestion we all follow in love's footsteps, 'sweetly singing in his honour'.

It is then Socrates' turn. He performs for all conversations that took place between himself when much younger and Diotima, a 'wise' woman from Mantineia, to whom he had gone for instruction in the highest truths of love. In sum, the lesson is that love is the desire for the everlasting possession of the good and beautiful, which brings happiness. We crave immortality, in order to be happy eternally. We love our offspring, artistic works, laws and institutions, because they are all attempts to achieve an immortal name. These, Diotima claims, are the 'lesser' mysteries of love.

The 'greater' proceed from the 'lesser' in ascending steps. From one beautiful body the lover creates 'fair notions', then he sees all bodies are similar and equally worthy of love. From bodies he proceeds to the beauty of the virtuous mind, then the beauties of institutions and laws, climbing from there to the beauty of the sciences, until, after much growth in wisdom, he reaches the vision of all creation as beautiful. The final step is to rise to the contemplation of unchanging, eternal, absolute beauty itself. To spend your life in union with perfect beauty allows you to bring forth 'real' things, not 'images' and 'be immortal, if mortal man may'.

A drunken Alcibiades bursts in at this point, and gives a rambling, often funny, speech about his love for Socrates and how he - a very beautiful man - was spurned sexually by him. He describes Socrates' near-supernatural control of himself, totally above the effects of pain and pleasure. The book ends with a description of Socrates' companions all falling asleep as dawn breaks (after all-night drinking) and his going about his usual day.

Throughout the Symposium, Plato makes it clear that sexual relations are not the best thing at all for 'lovers'; they who wish for the highest happiness must seek to grow in virtue and wisdom and become increasingly detached from earthly pleasures. This is the origin of the phrase 'Platonic love'. Women were not considered their intellectual and spiritual equals in Athens at the time, so men of sophistication had to look to each other for emotional sustenance.

What then, we may ask, can the Symposium offer human beings today who are not interested in purely mystical/intellectual living and prefer the sexual and emotional satisfactions found in personal relationships?

A great deal, I believe. In his introduction Benjamin Jowett states that Plato 'is conscious that the highest and noblest things in the world are not easily severed from the sensual desires, or may even be regarded as a spiritual form of them'. In other words, earthly pleasures and transcendent ones are inextricable. Plato used words such as 'good' and 'virtue' to describe freeing oneself from the world of the senses, by using our reason to choose correctly who - or what - to attach to as we move through life. If we choose correctly, be it friends, sexual or lifetime partners, we strengthen our sense of inner freedom, until finally we experience it at the deepest, mystical level - the profound shift in consciousness that Plato was pointing to as the highest good - which in and of itself is morally and values-neutral.

The genius of Plato is that he communicates the total commitment required to attain perfect freedom, and the moral obligation of all human beings to strive for the happiness it alone can deliver.

Plato's "Symposium" will always be read because there will always be people who question the nature of Love. Agathon's dinner party is the scene of a conversation between a small group of men, who go around the table offering their views on Love. What does Love mean to us to-day? Reading over the responses of the dinner-guests and their host, we find the same range of answers in Ancient Greece that we are likely to find now.

Phaedrus and Pausanias are utilitarians and materialists. Phaedrus looks at love between people and a proto-Burkean love for government and state. Pausanias complicates the argument, saying that there are two different kinds of love, one which is common and one which is heavenly - yet still oriented towards the real and the tangible. Eryximachus is a proto-Swedenborg, trying to reconcile or harmonize the two kinds of love.

The jewels of Plato's "Symposium" are Aristophanes and Socrates. Aristophanes gives us the profoundly moving depiction of Love as a fundamental human need, a desire for completion. For a writer of comedy, whose aim as an art form is forgiveness and acceptance, Aristophanes's explanation is no surprise, though its depth is amazing. While women are generally discounted throughout the "Symposium," not only does Socrates, as we might expect, completely astound his audience (both inside the book and out) with his progressively logical and ascendant view of Love, but he also does it through the voice of a woman, Diotima. When we realize that Socrates is a character in this fiction, and that his words originate in a woman, the egalitarianism and wisdom of Plato the author truly shines forth, like the absolute beauty he claims as the ultimate goal of Love.

Was Plato a feminist? I don't know. I do know that the "Symposium" is a tremendous book. I picked it up and did not stop reading it until I was finished. The style of the Penguin translation is smooth, with a lighthearted tone that can make you forget that you are reading philosophy. Plato's comedic masterpiece in the "Symposium" is the character of Alcibiades, who provides the work a fitting end. Get the "Symposium" and read it now. You cannot help but Love it...in a Platonic sort of way.

Perhaps the most "literary" of all Plato's works, "Symposium" is the story of a dinner party gathering of great (and a few not so great) minds, whom engage in a discussion in praise of eros, or passionate love. It is considered literary because it is highly metaphorical, it's characters are drawn well and in some cases unforgettably, and it succeeds on many levels. It is not uncommon for Socrates to elevate the subject of discussion in any given dialogue to that of our earthly existence, and how we should go about it. Perhaps shocking to readers unfamiliar with the Greeks is the prevalence of homosexual love, particularly with young boys. But, if nothing else, this is an insight into ancient culture. And the absolutely magnificent speeches given by Aristophanes and Socrates remain profound and beautiful to modern readers, regardless of whether or not the other speeches are unpalatable to some. Also, Alcibiades, drunken, hilarious rant is not to be missed. Read in a single sitting, this work is almost sublime.

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Plato's "Symposium" is the story of Agathon's dinner party where conversation takes place with a small group of men, who recline, eat and drink around a table offering their views on Love. This story is an amazing account of how intelligent and yet so different a culture the men from ancient Greece were compared to our society today. Each speaker has this most amazing ability to tell two stories at the very same time, an creative artistic movement of what love 'is' in each and every story. applying and , metaphorically. intertwining a cultural, mythological story of the gods, giving far deeper meaning. In addition to this, the love relationships and sexual nature of these men also permeate an entire cultural feel to the story, enveloping a radical differentiation from our de-mystified and de-enchanted world back into a once existing world of substantial meaning and profundity.

Phaedrus, speaks first and relates how love is the greatest good, the beautiful, is shameful of ugly things and how only lovers are willing to die for one another.

The second speaker, Pausanias, applies two types of love, one Aphrodite, a common base love working at random with men's feelings, for money, for loving physical bodies, boys, men and women. The other type of love, from a much younger goddess, being a higher type, the heavenly, who only loves other men and boy love, but this is not physical body love but from affection of the mind of virtue and wisdom..

Aristophanes has the hiccups, so it is Eryximachus, a doctor, who speaks third, applying the idea of love as a double love; "for bodily health and disease are by common consent different things and unlike, and what is unlike desires and loves things unlike." p.82 The god of art was said to implant love as a healing art, all such love guided by this god. "It is quite illogical to say that a harmony is at variance with itself or is made up of notes still at variance." "So love as a whole has great and mighty power, or in a word, omnipotence ."

Aristophanes, the comic writer, gives a moving account of Love as a absolute human need, a desire for completion to the point of each person once shaped differently being cut in half, taking our current shape, in need of the other to complete the whole of what we once were. "For first there were three sexes, not two as at present, male and female, but also a third having both together," and they were violent, strong and forceful and would even attack the gods. So Zeus and the other gods held a meeting and decided to cut them in halves and make them weaker. From then on, they were sexually drawn to one another, both heterosexual and homosexual, reasons all due to the way of the cutting of the halves.Lesbianism and boy to man love is freely spoken of and justified according to this story of the gods. His moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. For Socrates found such a romantic explanation of love as untrue to what love really is and what love contains, as it does not contain all the beauty and good.

The fourth speaker, Agathon gives a moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, it is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. "For all the gods are happy . . and love is the happiest of them all being the most beautiful and best . . the youngest of gods." In his speech, love is every good, virtuosos and beautiful thing.

The last speaker, Socrates, found such a romantic explanation of love to be untrue, for what desires good, virtue and wisdom is only something that does not contain such, something lacking, and therefore lacking it desires such things. Love only desires what it lacks. Love is neither beautiful nor ugly. "To have right opinion without being able to give reason is neither to understand nor is it ignorance. Right opinion is no doubt something between knowledge and ignorance."

It is so interesting how common and free sexuality and homosexuality were, how each man present commented on the beauty of the young men in their glory of youth. Alcibiades, jealous of Agathon, also a young beautiful male, makes a moving speech how Socrates refused his love and how other like young men, also were moved with his amazing wisdom and prose.

While women are generally discounted, and the bonding of affection in male love was considered a higher love by Pausanias, Socrates explanation of love, by far the most profound, was one he received from a woman named Diotima. Here, as another reviewer has stated, shows Plato's the egalitarianism and wisdom, like that of the beauty and ultimate goal of Love.

Later a group of men crash the party and the drinking really gets started. Some leave, while Socrates stays all night, never loosing integrity from his drinking and leaves with all his integrity.

I'm doing research on the hope of writing a romance novel based on a story my ex-husband told me about how his grandfather came to America. I found this book fascinating. It gave me a real feel for the time and the place. And unlike many history books, it wasn't boring.

Fred Morton certainly lived up to his reputation in this novel about the waning days of the "Imperial City of Vienna" and all the different personages inhabiting the Empire [Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky] during these turbulent pre WWI years. Excellent for history buffs such as myself or anyone else for that matter who enjoys a good read about the declining days of Empire and the effect of the Great War on European Aristocracy. Also interesting to note that Franz Ferdinand's three surviving children [daughter and two sons] were taken in by a friend after their parents murder by a Serbian Terrorist [not family as they were morgantic children due to their mother's status] and all eventually found themselves sent to a concentration camp [Therienstadt] when Austria was gobbled up by Germany during the Nazi's rise to power..as they did not possess "Imperial Status" Dont hear too much about this in any books. Eventually they were liberated by the Allies and their property restored to them. Sophie outlived both her younger brothers living to the ripe old age of 91. Her desendents live today in Konopiste; the Palace of Arch Duke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie Chotek.

There is an historical theory, or perhaps it is no more than a bon mot, that empires at the end of their power and political influence spend their last energies on a showy efflorescence, like a century plant. The prime examples would be 18th century Venice and early 20th century Vienna.

In "Thunder at Twilight," Frederic Morton presents a gossipy and apparently frothy portrait of such a bloom, told as a tragic love story. Like a good Mozart opera, there is a subsidiary, comic love story as well.

The tragic lovers are Franz Ferdinand, crown price of Austria-Hungary, and his wife, Sophie Chotek. Because Sophie was not royal, merely a countess, the archduke could not marry her as consort but only as a morganatic wife, and their children would not be in line for succession to the throne,

The comic lovers are Emperor Franz Joseph and the Widow Schratt, who also could not marry but who were so proper that they did not even make out.

The villain is Montenuevo, first court chamberlain, epitomizing the sclerotic empire that after rolling along for 800 years had almost seized its gears.

There is a huge supporting cast: Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin; Freud and Jung; the mad general Conrad von Hotzendorf and the crazed Serb Apis, etc. etc.

With an eye on the weather and the changes of seasons and in a flurry of adjectives, Morton leads them all toward a doom. This is one of the few reviews of the period that treats Franz Ferdinand as anything more than a stage prop.

In fact, in Morton's interpretation, the archduke is practically the only sensible man in the empire, full of fierce words masking a desperate attempt to keep Austria out of war with Russia. Sophie plays the calming influence who steadies her hotheaded lover.

Morton rightly calls Franz Ferdinand's policy appeasement of Serbia. It could never have worked. As we know from a further century of bitter experience, the South Slavs can neither govern themselves nor be governed

Conrad, though incompetent, was right. Serbia needed to be crushed. The problem was, Austria could not do it unless Russia stood aside; and Russia, another dying empire, was as full of aristocratic nitwits as Vienna, and had its own ungovernable Slavs (and Germans, like Lenin).

As hardcore history, "Thunder at Twilight" is too light, too consciously melodramatic. But it is great fun to read and seems to get the big picture more exactly right than more ponderous tomes.

A college professor recommended this to me so I read it in about a day. It is very interesting how Morton weaves history into some sort of a novel that's very easy to read. Inspired by the death of his uncle in World War I, Morton writes about the history and the climax leading up to the very moment when the Crown Prince Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated by a Serbian terrorist youth.

Morton explains the nasty relationship with the Hapsburg Empire (that includes Austria) and the lower Slavic nations and the growing animosity between them. This is a great book for history buffs. My only complaints are that there aren't any citations in the book and that the friendship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud don't seem to have anything to do with the story itself.

This is a favorite of mine, all the info about the Fin du siecle, Rudolph, and why we went into World War 1, and why some young people don't make it somehow!

Amazing and amazingly entertaining book, very very higly recommended. I dont have anything to add to the info of the book itself, go for the editorial reviews.

This is a fantastic book. It was interesting from beginning to end. It tells in realistic detail the life of Andrew Garcia in the wilderness, his life with Indians, and his life with his beloved In-who-lise. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about life in the wild, about life with Indians, and about the other side of the story of the tragedy of the American Indian. The episodes about a bear invading his camp and about the murder of John Hays were remarkable. This is one book I was sorry to see end.

an excellent book for history and western america buffs, as well as pure entertainment. garcia's linguistic ability is not perfect, so don't take the translations of Indian names/words as truth, but an excellent, entertaining read. I couldn't put it down and wished it was longer when I was finished.

I was hooked on this autobiography from the moment I opened it to see if I might like it. The first page has the following: "Montana, 1878 - Andrew Garcia left the army at 23 and went out with a party of traders to make a living among the indians in the Montana wilderness. Soon he acquired the name "Squaw Man" and an indian wife - the first of three. Indians, frontiersmen, traders, trappers and the "Boys in Blue' - all were part of his "paradise" between two worlds and two eras of History in the old West. This is his story, discovered in a dynamite box in the cabin where he died at the age of 88."

And after the first paragraph of the introduction I was hooked: "In 1948 I found the manuscript from which this book was written. It was stored in dynamite boxes, packed solid in the heavy waxed paper that powder comes in - several thousand pages of legal-sized paper, both hand writtena and typed. Also in the collection were newspaper clippings showing Andrew Garcia at meetings of the Society of Montana Pioneers through the 1930's........"

Magnificently edited. A wonderful adventure story, wonderfully written and very readable, about one man's unusual life, which, in retrospect, in many ways was very priveliged... a way of living which could never be duplicated..

Reading this book had a deep effect on my life. When it was first given to me I only had a vague idea about Montana. It was somewhere up there. I started reading it and it shocked me. The writing was not quite proper grammatically correct english you see, it irritated me so much that I stopped and put it away. But I had been hooked and I went back to it. This second time around I just could'nt put it down and wish it did'nt end. The dream of Montana became stuck in me.

In 1980 I had the good fortune to find my way to Bozeman and by an unimaginable stroke of luck I even met Ben Stein the editor of what had become my favorite book. Tough Trip Through Paradise is very much also the work of Ben Stein. Ben had gone through the original found writings to form the book. Andrew Garcia and Ben Stein are now gone. But the remains of the story are still here with us. The site of Fort Ellis just east of Bozeman has been excavated and located. The building where Walter Cooper outfitted Garcia is still here on Main Street.The Musselshell still flows.If you take a trip to the Big Hole Battlefield monument you'll see the markings of the battle. A photo of In-Who-Lise hangs in the museum but there's no connection made with the book.

Somehow Andrew Garcia and Ben Stein were able to conserve the essence of the 1870's and take us to that time. Not by telling us how it was but by making us feel it. This was their genius. It just seeps into you. Sit, read and just let yourself experience those times. The west as it was, the indians, and others who played their part will be changed forever in your mind because you will have been there.

An incredibly moving glipse of an ordinary man's effort to live -- not just survive -- in the rugged wilds of the Montana West. As life unfolds, the biographic tale reveals a deeper, more spiritual quest for quintessential American values: truth, fairness, and peace -- in life and in love, among many different people from many diverse cultures. An odessey encompassing a tableau of Native American peoples, and an equally complex canvass of European settlers, French trappers, and a stalwart Texas-bred Mexican-American Westerner as hero. Literally too honest and good a story to be mere fiction. I read a dog-earred, creased, many times read borrowed paperback copy. I'd really like to own my own hardback, and a bunch of paperbacks to give as gifts to many others.

This is one of the best series that I have ever read. It is a must see but beware, once you pick it up you will not want to put it down.

This was a great book with lots of reality in it. As someone who lives in this area, it makes it so real that you almost think you can go find their desendents (you can find close enough ones anyway!). Ingeborg and Kaaren face so much and come through all the more human and enjoyable as they face the prairie's hardships.

The grueling life of this Norwegian pioneer family made me so thankful for all the blessings in my modern life. They had so few material possessions, worked so hard, endured such hardships, but yet maintained their faith in God, the most important possession anyone can have. I've read all of the books of this series, but this one stands out above them all.

An entertaining read, and the author has done her homework on the life and times of people in the late 1800's. This descriptive story is about Norwegian emigrants/pioneers on their way to farm land in the the Red River Valley of North Dokota. The details of life back then are so vivid and I have fallen in love with the characters. Couldn't pick up he sequel fast enough... Enjoy!

Two young couples, each with a small child, migrate to America from Norway around 1880. They have no end of hardship and heartache. Their journey to homestead land is filled with pain. Even after they arrive, they have absolutely no idea the misery and heartbreak they will face their first full year there. It is a wonder they survive with their sanity - or do they?

This is Snelling's first book in the series Red River of the North. I am well into book two already.

A friend gave me this book to read and I haven't been able to put it down. I have done extensive research on my family geneology and my maternal Great-Grandparents were some of the very first settlers in the Dakota territory. I have documentation that matches the book content so Lauraine Snelling did her research well. I, being raised in Minnesota and my Mother born in Fargo brought back so many memories about the Bjorkland family traveling through Alexandria, MN (where my Mom's aunt lived). These settlers lived through some unbareable times and they had to be very strong to survive it. Don't judge the writer about all the deaths as that actually did happen back in those times. They didn't have the medicines and doctors we have today and they died from the simplest illnesses and injuries. I can't imagine how they survived those winters. I know it got brutally cold (30 and 40 degrees below zero). Can you imagine living in uninsulated dwellings through those temps.

I am very anxious to read more books of these series and will recommend them to anyone.

I purchased this set of books for a family member because I enjoyed them so much myself. Our family has connections to Norwegian pioneers in the Dakotas so they were even more meaningful to us.
Exciting and realistic, the stories show the trials and the courage of the early emigrants as they struggled to establish their homes in a new land. Uplifting to see how their faith in God helped them through their ordeals, and also how important the strength of family and friends were to them.

I enjoyed this series very much. Lauraine Snelling has a very good way of introducing new characters to the main story line that continue to make each book very enjoyable and the people believable.

The way that Bible Scripture and Godly lessons are weaved throughout each book, makes these books not only "good reading" but "good for your soul" books too.

Once I started I just couldn't stop reading. She writes in a way that you can see what she describes, and feel what the character is feeling. I have read all 6 in the series, plus the 3 in the Return to Red River. Can't wait for the following books that are to follow. You won't regret buying this series.

I bought this set of three books, and couldn't do anything but read, until I finished them!! My father imigrated to North Dakota from Sweden in 1905, and the book is so real, it brought back so many childhood memories, even though it is set 20-30 years before. The isolation and the harshness of the freezing temperatures of the winters was so very real, even though we were a family of ten children.But the love and respect that families had for each other made all the hardships worth while, and this love will stay with me forever. My grandchildren have a great heritage, and ask me many questions, as their life in California in the 2000's is so very different. The land my father homesteaded is still in our family, and is now in the 3rd generation. It has increased to over 2000 acres, and still sustains the Nelson family, and the 2 generations who live on the land.We had lots of Indian graves on the land ,and our father taught us to respect, and never disturb them. The Indians were still around when he first arrived from Sweden. What an adventure back in time!!!! Can't wait to get the continuing series!! Thanks, Ms. Snelling!!!

This is the book, in this format, my mother read to me 50-plus years ago, and it is still as good. I recently purchased four copies. One each for two adult friends who are very ill. Both responded with uplifted spirits. One each for two young women who will be welcoming new "Young" ones soon.
Please note "Disbobedience" was set to music in the '60s by, I believe, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree is still warning his mother "not to go down to the end of town unless you go down with me ..."
"Vespers", at the very end, not only brings back memories of your own and your children's innocent childhoods, but also contains a very important message, "Oh, I quite forgot/God bless me."
And God bless you and those with whom you share this book.

One day, I found one of these poems running around in my head 40 years after I first began reading them to my boys when they were very young. As my older son took possession of that copy some time back, I had to order a new one for my 67-year old self just to get the lines absolutely right. It was worth it. My only regret is that I have no grandchildren to drum them into. Charming, literate and comforting.

This is one very good book and can be enjoyed by people from 2 to 92. I've read it to senior citizens as well as my grandchildren. The subjects are universal. The rhyme and rhythm are delightful.

My copy of this book is 51 years old and has my grandmother's autograph. Talk about a lasting gift! I love books as gifts, and this is my all-time favorite.

I had to read this for a little while before I got to a poem I really liked. The first 10 or so poems just seemed incomplete to me. "Independence" caught my eye first. In very few words it pretty much tells us adults that our kids are going to do what they want, despite all the things we say. It's followed by the wonderful poem "Nursery Chairs" where a child pretends the chairs in his house are different things. Then after "Nursery Chairs" is another strong poem, "Market Square" where we learn that there are things all around us in nature that we don't need to get from the market.

"Disobedience" is another interesting poem. It's kind of a role-reversal story about a kid whose mother disobeys his orders to stay away from the end of town, and she gets lost as the result of her disobedience.

"Spring Morning" emphasizes the beauty of nature to us, saying, "It's awful fun to be born at all." Next is "The Island" which has a wonderful closing message that screams, "God made it all - FOR US!" to me.

And there are so many other joyous poems in this quick read too. There's "Jonathan Jo," "Rice Pudding," "The Wrong House," "The Dormouse and the Doctor" (which has some terrific rhythm), a very touching "Little Bo-Peep and Little Boy Blue," "The Invaders," "If I Were King," etc., etc.

But perhaps my favorite poem in the collection is "Halfway Down" which is about nothing more than sitting on stairs. Man, if someone can take such a simple act and make it so astoundingly wondrous, then that person truly must be one of the greatest writers ever.

I got exactly what I thought I was buying. This is a really convenient way to have a textbook, because you can just stick it in a three-ring binder and take it with you! Also, you can just take a few chapters if you want, or the whole book! The pages are a little thin, but it's a wonderful educational textbook. As a B.A. in psychology, I would recommend this book to anyone looking to have a great learning experience and a textbook that doesn't cost a fortune.

The book was in excellent condition mater of fact it was new. I was very please with the time of shipment.

The Seller was great - item shipped in a timely fashion and the looseleaf version is much easier to work with than regular hardcover texts.

The book is easy to read and it gives great examples to better understand the concepts. I would recommend this book.

The book treats many cases and reaches high level of coverage; it is very helpful, that in practice one can find many similarities, since the cases are very realistic and explained in depth. My opinion is, that it is valuable because it is applicable.