California Books

The mental health system can be more confusing than mental illness. We have hundreds of thousand's of people in our mental health system. Most people have come in contact with someone who has been part of the mental health system. Yet, we don't understand mental health.

Jay has written a book about what is possible in mental health. Having a mental illness is not the end of the road. Mental illness is the beginning of a new life. We can understand and live with mental illness.

I am one of the people who Jay interviewed. I am honored to be part of this book. Jay spent time with people who are mentally ill and who are in our mental health system. Nobody has ever explained this system in such a clear way. Nobody has described the day to day bravery that those of us with mental illness have. Mental illness is very destructive and disorienting we can live with our psychiatric condtion. We do have mental health programs that work. We need to inform people of the possibilities of our mental health system. Thank you Jay for educating the public about the successes and possibilities of our quiet but profound revolution in mental health.

A system where people actually do get better rather than get worse

READ THIS BOOK

Moe Armstrong

I was one of Jay Neugeboren's student in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Massachusetts, where for nearly 30 years he has helped develop many writers, such as Bret Lott, Susan Straight, Valerie Martin and others. For the greater part of his career Jay Neugeboren has been a novelist and short story writer whose work has appeared in hundreds of publications including the O'Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. During the past decade Neugeboren has turned to writing nonfiction about mental illness, first with "Imagining Robert" and most recently with "Transforming Madness." His purpose in "Imaging Robert" was to focus on his brother, who for most of his life has tragically and defiantly struggled with schizophrenia and who has at times lived in the most horrible of conditions in locked wards. "Imaging Robert" is also a memoir, a family story in which Neugeboren tells not only of his struggle to take care of Robert, but also deal with the guilt of his own success in light of his brother's continual suffering. In "Transforming Madness" Neugeboren moves a step further and shows the reader something he or she may not have thought possible-how people who have been chronically mentally ill have found ways to manage their illness lead successful lives. The effect of reading this remarkable book is to gain understanding and sympathy for those afflicted with mental illness, and to also experience the joy of watching happiness come to some of the unlikeliest people. Neugeboren shows us that in addition to therapy, support groups, and medications, it is the presence of hope that brings people from affliction and despair into productive living. As a result, "Transforming Madness" is a profound message of hope, and an act of caring that comes by way of long practice.

Yes, this book was very helpful to me. I have been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, as well as with other various disorders, and life has been less than easy with my parents, teachers, co-workers, and even good friends, telling me I need to seek out counseling and medications. Why do these people want me to take a pill that could possibly kill me I kept asking myself. This book has helped me to understand a little more about why I was diagnosed with the various conditions, especially in regards to madness. I have been mad about everything! Anyway, I may not be fully recovered from all the madness I have experienced the last few years (from quitting smoking, my criminal record, and drug abuse), but reading a book about the subject of madness, discovering that perhaps madness has been why I have been diagnosed with such a problem as schizophrenia, that has been helpful. This book does offer some hope to those who have been deemed hopeless. Thank you Mr. Neugeboren!

This book dispells a lot of myths which surround mental illness. Though the vast majority of persons with a mental illness on t.v. are portrayed as violent individuals, there is probably not a larger group of individuals who are less aggressive and prone to feelings of fear than those afflicted with a mental illness. Most people think of schizophrenia as a life-long illness when in actual fact, a large percentage of those diagnosed with this disease make a full recovery. These are just two of the many issues addressed in this outstanding book. The author's writing is clear, concise, and forthright. Included are several stories of persons who live with a mental illness. Their stories are inspirational to say the least. This book is informative, colorful, inspirational, inquisitive, and profound.

Golden Gate Park, partly due to its frost-free situation, has plants not generally found elsewhere in northern California. This book is an excellent guide. All the species are illustrated (although a few of the line drawings are a bit too stylized for my taste), thoroughly described, and locations of specimens in the park are also given. For anyone interested in plants and who visits the Park, I highly recommend it.

Great book. The maps are great, and if you love trees in SF this is the book to help you explore and enjoy Golden Gate Park.

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Trees Of Golden Gate Park And San Francisco is a 'must' bible of detail for any San Francisco resident or enthusiast who wants to know more about the city's urban forest and landscape. Chapters are packed with details ranging from early San Francisco landscape history to the evolution of its parks. The presentation is based on the writings of botanist Elizabeth McClintock, and presents the stories of almost two hundred different trees located in Golden Gate Park. No color photos, but the depth of text and detail doesn't need them; the b/w line drawings are enough.

...that there should be people in my community as to write such a book. Starting with the park's planning phases (did you know that Mr. Central Park himself, Frederick Law Olmstead, recommended putting the park along what is now the Van Ness corridor!), the book quickly progresses to encyclopedic coverage of the trees of the park... Sections from this book are destined to become long and enjoyable walks for us in the near future! Unlike many field guides, very fitting for pleasure reading.

The Ultimate INSIDERS City Guide to Pasadena is so handy I keep it in my car! If I'm looking for parking, restaurants, or services, I pull out the Guide and find them in a flash.

I love this book! As a recent transplant to Pasadena, this has become an indespensible resource for finding everything from a late-night dry cleaner to the best coffee shops to where to tune your radio station to NPR. The maps are very user-friendly and make finding your way around town a snap! I keep one in my car at all times. I wish every town had such a practical guide. Now whenever I have a question, "I just ask Martha." It's almost as good as having her in the passenger seat. Thank you Martha! This book is a life-saver.

This book is extremly helpful getting around and finding the places I need when visiting Pasadena. It is a must buy for people moving to the area or just visiting on vacation.

On a recent trip to Pasadena, I used this book every day to find places and services I needed, including grocery stores, movie theatres, restaurants, shipping centers and the airport bus. It had everything I needed, and the information was thorough and accurate. Author knows Pasadena and thought of everything!

So, you know the Blue State/ Red State version of what it means to be American no longer makes sense, and probably never has, and probably never will. You know either/or; black/white went out of fashion with the Inquisition. You have some sense of America that's far more complex, colorful and incomprehensable than you can ever hope to get your head around. And you like it that way. And you suspect somehow that others like it that way too. Prefer it actually than some washed out, toned down diluted version of what we're told America is like. But this is all just a gut sense, an intuition, an instinctual awareness of the future that half frightens and half thrills you. But you have not yet found the words to talk about it, have no images to point to. Well, then buy this book. Buy it because it will shatter your narrow view of America. Buy it because the words give you a way to articulate what this country is becoming. Buy it because now you have images to point to and can say: Is that not wacky? Is that not wonderful? Is that not the kind of country we wish to live in? Where mental boxes are banished. Where differences are celebrated. Where cultures, religions, beliefs clash in a wonderful cacophony of cultural dissonance and soul resonance. Buy it because you feel more human, less jaded when you're done reading it.

If you reach for a book because you want it to take you into a new world, excite you, surprise you, dazzle you, startle you, then get your hands on "Under the Dragon: California's New Culture," by Lonny Shavelson and Fred Setterberg. Like me, you will want this book not to end, for the richness each page offers. With some 80 stunning photographs reflecting "the American experiment" documented in seven major stories, you can appreciate as never before the complex range of multiculture expressed by this book. You will want to reread and savor stories that you could hardly imagine to be true, yet they are, and they enrich the world around us in the San Francisco Bay Area.

UNDER THE DRAGON: CALIFORNIA'S NEW CULTURE comes from a photographer who captures images of the changing ethnic and social makeup of California's Asian community, presenting a blend of color photos and essays surveying diversity and the changing ethnic makeup of California. From work and school life to celebrations, UNDER THE DRAGON should be required reading for any interested in contemporary California ethnic cultures - and for any California library.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Many of us like to think that we fully subscribe to the "American dream" notion of accepting any and all to our shores, seeking whatever it is that they hope to find here. But deep down, many also feel that we are in danger of losing some of the "old traditional values that made this country what it is." When I opened "Under the Dragon" I expected nothing more than a picture book that would coddle us into feeling comfortable about the many strange cultures that have flooded the country. Well, let me say this book is just the opposite. It may superficially glorify exotic culture, but its outstanding photographs with accompanying text bring home forcefully the idea that it is this very diversity that will keep the American tradition going. With all its warts, this country is still unique in the world, and instead of ending up as a warzone of battling ethnic groups, it will merge into one of the most dynamic and culturally interesting countries the world will ever see, with California leading the way.

this book is filled with information from yesterday ,and is still valued in todays Baja travels.If you can find this book ,I treasure mine as a must for my Baja library.Ray Cannon was a great writer, and a true Baja explorer

This magnificent book covers the life of Ray Cannon,who wrote The Sea of Cortez. It is a facinating and well organized assemblege of the man's colorful life. It took me to a simpler time and a place on earth that was unspoiled. A wonderful book.

The California Outdoor Writers Association awarded the title "best book of the year." It's easy to see why. Kira pays homage to Ray Cannon, who wrote the bestseller The Sea of Cortez which documented the "Golden Age" for Baja. No one could have written a better tribute than Kira, a Baja afficionado whose enthusiasm and affection for the peninsula can be detected on every page. Rare photos and drawings complement the text. This is a beautiful book!

Wonderful photos and you hold in your hand a book that can transport you, via his own words, into the inner circle of an astounding man, Ray Cannon, and the glamorous and mysterious friends he drew around him. He left Hollywood and the big-city life of the movies, where he had money and power, to take up the life of a country fisherman and a writer of essays. But he was never a country fisherman. He was an institution, living the romantic life in a wild, untamed place, among beautiful scenes and unforgettable people who did outrageous things. Great book. Wonderful company. A trip you can take over and over again.

"Untangling the World-knot" systematically explores an approach to the mind-body problem that mainstream scientists and philosophers alike are too scared to touch. The doctrine in question is the idea that, at a fundamental level, all matter may have a mental aspect. Even scholars whose discussion of consciousness leads them to this idea, like Chalmers (in "The Conscious Mind"), allude to it briefly and then hurry on to other matters lest they be taken too seriously.

Griffin reviews the problems with the two traditional approaches to the mind-body problem: dualism and materialism. From his perspective, both of these alternatives make the same error that leads to intractable problems: that is, both theories postulate that matter has no mental aspect. The proposed solution is so conceptually simple as to seem trivial: allow the fundamental material units to carry a mental aspect.

Griffin takes pains to develop a plausible "panexperientialist" model and to distinguish it from "straw man" panpsychist models. For example, his scheme is not just "parallelism" between a mental and a physical aspect of matter. Such parallelism would deny causal efficacy to the mental, if the system's dynamics are completely determined by the physical. Similarly, he revives a crucial distinction (from Leibneiz and Whitehead) between "mere aggregates" and "genuine individuals" to form a model in which "rocks do NOT have feelings," in accord with our intuition. In general, Griffin does a good job of countering the knee-jerk reasons for dismissing panpsychism.

One potential source of confusion in Griffin's argument, however, stems from his non-standard usage of the terms "experience" and "consciousness" in which "consciousness" is a relatively high-level construct, so that the "awareness" of "experience" can be "unconscious." This led at least one reviewer to conclude that Griffin's analysis is useless because the "hard problem" of generating consciousness from unconsious matter (in traditional theories) is simply replaced with another "hard problem" of generating consciousness from "unconscious experience." I don't think this criticism does justice to Griffin's proposal. I think the distinction between the panpsychist theory and the materialistic theory can be recovered, or clarified, by reading "low-level consciousness" for "experience," and "high-level consciousness" for "consciousness" in Griffin's exposition.

Griffin's book is refreshing in its open-mindedness and relative fearlessness. He takes seriously several possibilities that most scientists would not seriously consider, such as human free will and parapsychological effects like telepathy or telekinesis--thus he will probably be dismissed by scientific experts who read him cursorilly. Moreover, to address two problems that do NOT get automatically solved by adopting a panpsychist model (the binding or "combination" problem, and the problem of a causally efficacious free will), Griffin resorts to principles of quantum physics. Quantum physics is another from the short list of the most annoying topics to mainstream scientists studying consciousness. This is probably why Griffin does not emphasize his apparent conclusion (in a footnote!) that a quantum coherent state is the only candidate for a neural substrate of a unified consciousness. (Were he to emphasize the role of quantum physics, he would have to stray far from his main topic of panpsychism, to respond to the list of knee-jerk reasons people dismiss the possibility of macroscopic quantum effects in the brain, which is not his area of expertise. The number one objection, as quantified and published by Tegmark, is that the brain is too hot to sustain a macroscopic quantum coherent state. That calculation assumes the brain is at thermodynamic equilibrium, which it is not. A rigorous model by Frohlich shows how quantum coherence can emerge at high temperatures when (metabolic) energy is pumped through a system--it was not considered by Tegmark. A regular laser-pointer shows that by pumping energy through a system quantum coherence can be achieved at room temperature.)

Readers new to the subject may be put off by his extensive discussion of other authors in the initial chapters, but overall this is an excellent, thoughtful book on the mind-body problem from a non-traditional perspective. Of the many recent books about consciousness, most describe variants of functionalism. If you've read one book about functionalism you've pretty much read them all. Griffin's book is clear treatment of a genuinely different alternative.

UNSNARLING THE WORLD-KNOT by David Ray Griffin is a superb, path-breaking book on the mind-body problem, one of the central and most intractable issues in modern philosophy. Called the "world-knot" by Arthur Schopenhauer, the mind-body problem has defied unsnarling from its inception in the 17th Century as a result of the work of Descartes. In essence, the mind-body problem is the question of the relationship between the mind or the mental, and the body or the physical. Is mind as "real" as body, or is it an "epiphenomenon?" Descartes proposed that mind and body are both real, but composed of fundamentally different "stuffs." His dualism, however, creates the difficult problem of explaining how the two different types of stuff can interact with or influence each other. The other major approach is that of the "materialists" (sometimes called "physicalists"), who argue that there is only one stuff, matter. Their view leads to insoluble difficulties by denying the reality of the mind or reducing it to some kind of unexplained "epiphenomenon."

Exponents of these two dominant approaches, modern materialism and modern dualism, have succeeded in spotlighting fatal flaws in each other's attempts but have failed to defend themselves against these critiques. Recently they have begun to admit that mainstream modern philosophy has reached an impasse. Griffin takes advantage of this admission to propose that a solution to the problem can be found with a third version of realism, called panexperientialism. Building on and developing the radical insights of the process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, Griffin approaches the mind-body problem from a new direction and with new tools of thought, and blazes a new way forward.

Griffin's subtitle indicates his focus on the two major domains of significance of the problem, for consciousness and freedom. His book systematically identifies the weaknesses of the dualist and materialist approaches and then builds a substantive alternative to them. In the first seven chapters he lays out seven separate problems which have comprised the "snarls" of the world-knot, and untangles them one by one, so that he can then in the last three chapters provide his panexperientialist solution.

In Chapter 1 Griffin shows that one major snarl has been insufficient clarity about exactly what problem is being addressed. Discussants have often treated two or more of six related problems without sufficiently careful distinction between them, leading to confusion. The most serious impediment to clarity has been the prevailing metaphysical assumption that experience (whether conscious or not) arises out of non-experiencing things.

In Chapter 2 Griffin shows that tendencies in human thought, even philosophical thought, which he terms "paradigmatic" and "wishful-and-fearful" thinking, have influenced the discussion of the mind-body problem because they have not been sufficiently attended to and corrected for. Griffin sketches the origins of both the dualistic and the materialistic paradigms in wishful-and-fearful thinking about the ideas advanced by various schools of "Renaissance naturalism" which held that all entities in nature are "self-moving." For different reasons both the dualist and the materialist camps preferred a view of nature in which matter is essentially inert. Their modern descendants have maintained this metaphysical view without consideration of alternatives, such as panexperientialism.

In Chapter 3 Griffin explicates the failure of modern philosophy to distinguish between two kinds of common sense, "soft core" and "hard core". Soft-core (or weak) commonsense ideas are those held to consciously by some people, which are often shown by science to be false. Hard-core (or strong) commonsense notions are those that all people assume in practice, even if they may deny them consciously. Science cannot show hard-core commonsense notions to be false, for they underlie all human activity, including science. Whitehead, Griffin shows, pioneered a rigorous distinction between the two types of common sense in his "metaphysical rule of evidence", which he defined as the imperative "that we must bow to those presumptions which, in despite of criticism, we still employ for the regulation of our lives." Griffin argues that this means "that the ultimate criteria for theoretical thought [including science] are those notions that all human beings inevitably presuppose in practice, even if and when they deny them verbally" (p. 18). Among the hardcore commonsense notions denied by scientists and philosophers in the debate over the mind-body problem are "freedom and the reality and efficacy of conscious experience." He concludes that "soft-core common sense should never be allowed to trump the hard-core variety" (p. 21).

In Chapter 4 Griffin argues that discussants of the mind-body problem have not achieved sufficient clarity about the formal and substantive "regulative principles" that should be exemplified if a theory is to be considered a serious candidate for acceptance. An example of a "formal" regulative principle is adherence to the distinction between hard-core and soft-core common sense. An example of a substantive regulative principle is "that a theory should be compatible with the evolutionary origin of human beings" (p. 22). Because most of the debate has centered on details of proposed theories, rather than on the regulative principles underlying them, much confusion has resulted and there has been a general failure to make progress. To correct this serious situation Griffin, in the bulk of the chapter, proposes eleven formal and six substantive regulative principles that should govern the discussion of the mind-body problem.

In Chapter 5 Griffin argues that there has been insufficient clarity about the data to which an adequate theory must do justice. "One reason that contemporary theories of mind vary so greatly is that different theorists are presupposing greatly different ideas about the kinds of data to which a theory must be adequate. Data that one theorist considers fundamental, perhaps devoting a hundred pages to defending, will be dismissed in a sentence by other theorists, if mentioned at all. ... But the formal principle of adequacy [introduced in Chapter 4] should lead us to resist systematizing until we have tried to assemble the various kinds of data that need to be unified" (p. 33).

Griffin then lays out the types of data that need to be assembled before adequate theory construction can begin: I. Hard-core commonsense notions, which include: 1. The reality of "the external world"; 2. The reality of efficient causation understood as the real influence of one thing (or many things) on another; 3. The reality of the past and the future and therefore of time; 4. The reality of our conscious experience with its emotions, pains, pleasures, perceptions, purposes, decisions, memories, anticipations; 5. Bodily influence on conscious experience; 6. The unity of our experience; 7. The efficacy of conscious experience for bodily behavior; 8. Freedom, in the sense of self-determination; 9. Our awareness of norms. II. Evidence for the evolution of life in general and of human beings, especially the human brain, in particular. III. Evidence for the dependence of (at least some) conscious states on brain states. IV. The apparent capacity of the mind for nonsensory perception, including perception of mathematical and logical entities, values, norms, principles, forms, counter-factual possibilities, memories, transcendent religious experiences, telepathy, and clairvoyance. V. Altered states of consciousness. VI. The apparent capacity of human experience to exert extraordinary causal efficacy, including placebo effects and the power of mental attitudes to contribute to physical illnesses, hypnotic impacts on the body, faith healing, stigmata, effects of meditation and biofeedback, and psychokinesis.

In Chapter 6, Griffin argues that it is seldom realized that the mind-body problem is rooted even more deeply in the "Cartesian intuition" about the body than in that about the mind. According to Descartes, "matter is completely different in kind form mind. Matter is spatially extended, mind is not. Mind has temporal duration, matter does not (in the sense that it can exist at an `instant', not requiring any temporal duration to be what it is). Mind has an `inside,' consisting of thoughts, desires, feelings and volitions, and thereby has intrinsic value; it is something for itself. Matter is all `outside' and is therefore devoid of any value for itself; ... Matter exerts causal efficacy only by efficient causation ... mind exercises final causation or self-determination" (p. 46-7). Although they differ over Descartes' ideas of mind, both dualists and materialists in the mind-body debate accept these Cartesian characterizations of matter. They assume that most physical things are not also mental. "It is precisely this assumption ... that creates the insuperable problems of the various dualisms and materialisms alike" (p. 47).

In Griffin's usage, the term "dualism" refers to ontological dualism. "This doctrine contains a double thesis: (1) that the mind is an actuality numerically distinct from the brain ... and (2) that it is ontologically different in kind from the entities of which the brain consists." By "materialism", Griffin refers to materialistic monism, "which contains the double thesis (1) that all actual things are material and (2) there is no mind or soul in the sense of an actuality numerically distinct from brain. In fact, it is a threefold thesis, because the statement that `all actual things are material' must be specified to mean that at least most actual things, certainly the fundamental ones, are devoid of any experience" (p. 47-8).

On the basis of these careful distinctions Griffin then proceeds in the bulk of Chapter 6 to lay out in detail the problems inherent in the two approaches which have confounded a solution. In this exceptionally incisive overview of all the relevant literature from both camps he identifies three problems unique to dualism, seven problems unique to materialism, and four further problems both approaches share. Griffin's trenchant critique cuts through masses of confusion and questionable assumptions, notably loosening the world-knot.

In Chapter 7 Griffin begins to present his case for panexperientialism, a third form of realism or naturalism which has been ignored or dismissed without substantive discussion by most modern philosophers. "In spite of widespread agreement (especially by nondualists) that `mind should be naturalized,' the two fundamental features of mind, experience and self-determination, have generally not been taken to be fully natural. This has led to the false conclusion that dualism and materialism provide the only realistic options (with `realism' understood as the view that the physical universe really exists, independently of human perception and thought)" (p. 7). Griffin calls the long debate between dualists and materialists a "family quarrel. It is a squabble, apparently interminable, among those who have accepted early modernity's absolute exclusion of all experiential features from the basic units of nature. ... [T]he way forward ... would seem to be obvious: Let's try out the version of realism that is excluded from the family, ... panexperientialism." (p. 77-8). Panexperientialism is "the only form of realism that truly regards the mind as natural" (p. 79).

After documenting the systematic exclusion of this robust form of realism from the modern debate, Griffin presents nine reasons for philosophers to consider it more seriously, and then surveys common objections to the doctrine which have caused it to be summarily dismissed. The concluding section of the chapter, "Are We Incapable of Radical Conceptual Innovation?", addresses the widespread modern position which has resulted from the failure to unsnarl the world-knot, which is that the human mind is simply incapable of providing a constructive solution to the problem. Griffin locates the roots of this intellectual demoralization in modern philosophy's restriction of all perception to sensory perception. This restriction is arguably false because it ignores proprioception (perception originating in internal receptor cells) and nonsensory perception (obvious, well-attested examples of which are telepathy and clairvoyance). Griffin's detailed discussion of perception shows that it is has been premature to deny that there is a way to unsnarl the world-knot. "[I]n fact ... Whitehead has already blazed the trail" (p. 115).

Having loosened all the tangled strands of the problem, Griffin is ready to move forward along the promising path provided by panexperientialism. In Chapter 8, the key chapter of the book, he presents an exposition of Whitehead's thought, which he views as "an extended solution to the mind-body problem" (p. 119). He begins with Whitehead's "fallacy of misplaced concreteness," that is, the "error of mistaking the abstract for the concrete." This error occurs in the dominant modern view of nature as "simply located" matter (i.e., without essential reference to other regions of space-time), that can exist at an instant (i.e., without duration), and with no intrinsic value. The fundamental units of nature, in this modern view, are "vacuous actualities," completely devoid of experience. They are, therefore, "totally different from our conscious experience as we know it immediately" (p. 120). The primary paradox of the mind-body problem, how our experience could arise out of such fundamental natural units, only arises because of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

Griffin then goes on to demonstrate that just as it is necessary to overcome this fallacious view of matter to understand the mind, it is also essential to have a correct understanding of mind, especially the status of sensory perception and consciousness, to overcome the fallacious view of matter. Whitehead contended that, in Griffin's words, "we can generalize from our own experience to understand what matter is in itself" (p. 124). Griffin lays out six dimensions to this task of generalization: 1) the status of human experience in nature; 2) the status of consciousness in human experience; 3) the status of sensory perception in human experience; 4) the spatializing nature of sensory perception's presentational immediacy; 5) implications of the bodily origin of sensory perception; and 6) information about nature derived from direct "prehension" of our bodies.

Griffin then elaborates a series of nine "subjective universals" utilized by Whitehead's analysis, which are meant to apply to all subjects, "understood as momentary occasions of experience, from the human level to the actualities studied by physics" (p. 151). The subjective universals only apply to genuine individuals (whether simple, as a subatomic particle, or compound, as a human being), not aggregational entities without subjective unity, like rocks or computers.

He then reverses the direction of generalization, from the entities studied by physics to our minds. Here he discusses Whitehead's understanding of the world studied by physics as composed of spatio-temporal events, with inherent duration (there is no such thing as "nature at an instant"). Apparently enduring things are really temporally ordered societies of events. Whitehead generalizes this physical insight to, in Griffin's words, "our own stream of experience, concluding that the apparently continuous stream actually comes in drops, or occasions, of experience" (p. 157).

This understanding allows a solution to the fundamental philosophical question of how efficient and final causation are related. Thus the "vicious dualism" of two sundered stuffs dissolves; the only valid dualism is that which distinguishes between the subjective and objective modes of existence of each actual occasion. "Qua subject, an actual occasion enjoys duration; qua object for later subjects, it is purely spatial, with no duration left. We know ourselves from within, as having duration, and other things from without, hence as devoid of duration. To translate this epistemic duality into an ontological dualism between two different kinds of actualities ... is to commit a category mistake" (p. 161).

In Chapter 9 Griffin takes up the hard-core commonsense notion that is most often denied, freedom. He lays out five principles that are presupposed in the standard denial of freedom by materialists, and then argues in detail why they should be rejected, utilizing Whitehead's concept of the compound individual, "in which there are experiences of a higher and more inclusive type that give ... experiential unity. ... The idea that human behavior must, against all appearances, be as determined as that of a billiard ball has arisen because of the assumption that their respective organizations are analogous. Given a panexperientialist ontology, however, in which more complex experiences can be emergent out of myriad less complex ones, we can develop a position consistent with those principles we presuppose in practice", specifically, the hard-core commonsense notion of freedom (p. 186-7).

Griffin then examines the question of whether there is a higher-level form of compound individual than the human being. Is there a "cosmic mind?" Is the universe actually one compound individual? One of the questions answered by the notion of a cosmic mind is how abstract entities or possibilities, revealed by nonsensory perceptions, such as logical, mathematical, ethical and esthetic forms, could exist. The influence of the mind of the universe would be a fully natural part of the normal causal processes of nature. "This is a broader naturalism than that of materialism, to be sure, but it is a naturalism. As a broader naturalism, it can be more empirical, because it can accommodate types of data that from a materialist standpoint would require either supernaturalism or a priori denial" (p. 206). Panexperientialism's broader naturalism can also accommodate nonsensory perceptions such as telepathy and clairvoiyance. Griffin concludes the chapter with a defense of his claim that moral responsibility implies metaphysical freedom.

In the last chapter, Griffin makes the nature and adequacy of the panexperientialist position clearer by means of a detailed critique of "materialistic physicalism," as articulated in Jaegwon Kim's influential Supervenience and Mind.

David Ray Griffin's UNSNARLING THE WORLD-KNOT is a magisterial contribution to philosophy, written with verve and style. This already-lengthy review has only been able to touch on some of the highlights of this rich, epoch-making book. Deep insights and delights await the reader on virtually every page. All serious seekers of an understanding of reality should read it.

The "mind/body problem" is a perennial debate among scientists and philosophers alike, demarcating thinkers into two camps: the "dualists" who conceive of the mind and body as separate things (concerned with determining how they interact), and the "materialists" who believe that the body is all there is (concerned with determining what/how consciousness arises from inert matter.)

The book takes a fresh approach by pointing out that the "either/or" dichotomy results from Descartes' conceptualization of the mind and body as made of different "substances." Materialists, zealous to avoid unscientific "supernatural" notions, postulate that matter is all there is, but then must describe how matter can produce consciousness which we all obviously have - it is an undeniable primary fact of our awareness. To the extent that they deny the reality of something that obviously exists, just to remain faithful to their worldview, the materialialists' paradigm is necessarily incomplete.

The author points out that part of the problem is rooted in the fact that our study of the mind and of matter occur in separate ways - the study of matter is done by physical manipulation of the world around us, while the study of our consciousness is done primarily by introspection of our own mental states. The "bridge" between these two modes of analysis must be developed.

The author presents his own philosophical synthesis that perhaps all aggregations of matter have varying degrees of "experience," with more complex living beings' "experience" (stored information) attaining the status of self-awareness, (animal consciousness, etc.), all the way up to human sentience.

This is a very dense, thickly-written book, which is why I gave it four stars - I think it could have been edited to explain the ideas a bit more clearly. However, it contains an interesting new perspective for future deliberations regarding this fundamental aspect of our existence, and anyone who is interested in the scientific analysis of consciousness would do well to read it.

We live in a world where common sense often is at odds with contemporary theories about mind, body, spirit, consciousness, and freedom. In addition, there are many who feel that our fragmented ideas about the nature of reality underlie the psychological fragmentation which produces incredible psychic distress in a vast number of psychotherapy clients.

Our current conceptual architecture has created a house where the mind, the body, and the spirit each has a separate room without adjoining doors or even widows. Yet our common sense tells us that these are simply different facets of the same reality. What is needed is a new conceptual architecture which can support this deeply felt sense of the unity of reality.

Griffin's latest book goes a long ways toward articulating this new conceptual architecture in a manner that is generally clear and persuasive. Citing both empirical research and numerous contemporary and historical philosophers, he offers up a number of compe! lling arguments which aim at resolving once and for all times the paradox of how mind emerges from a seemingly material or physical universe.

Drawing from his extensive background in the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead's, Griffin makes it clear any number of times that the process cosmology is able to bring physical dynamics and mental dynamics together into each and every core unit of reality.

This is a radical idea which works its way into the reader's consciousness from any number of points of view. For example, most scientific analyses of reality, and the philosophies which build upon them, exclude anything to do with mentality. This means that mental elaborations of direct physical experience are banished from consideration. This, in turn, makes it impossible to clearly understand how mind is in any way connected to the natural world. Whitehead's Process Philosophy, however, understands the physical and the mental as integral aspects of every component of! reality. This alone, if at least tolerated, makes it much ! easier to have an appreciation of how mind can be a part of nature.

Secondly, by reversing the emphasis of the above, Griffin shows how mind also can influence the body built by nature. This challenges the complementary assumption of most scientific analyses of reality, namely that mentality either does not exist, or if it does, it is at best an epiphenomenon without efficacy in the real world. Whitehead's perspective is that all of the events which constitute what we call mind have a physical component and therefore are capable of being causally efficacious in the real world, just as all of the so-called physical world has at least a low-grade mental elaboration of the physical experience.

Thirdly, Griffin shows how the idea of a presiding mentality of the level of the human mind is foreshadowed for many millions of years in the kind of organization to be found in cells, organelles within those cells, and even down to macromolecules, ordinary molecules, and atoms. Whereve! r there is "behavior [which] seems to require a central agent with an element of spontaneity or self-determination," one has the potential for a presiding event which has emerged in response to the necessity of providing organizational unity and flexibility of response (even if very minute). The human mind, while unique in some very important respects, is not at all discontinuous with the natural world.

If there is any significant criticism of this book, it might be that the issues and dynamics of spirituality are not as vigorously developed as the other major themes. The Whiteheadian perspective supports this fully integrated discussion. However, for purposes of this book and its primary audience, a fuller discussion of spirituality could well have been an unnecessary impediment to an already challenging work.

Overall, Griffin's arguments are numerous, varied, both complex and direct. Even the most committed materialist or dualist will find something disturbing ! in this work, will encounter some argument or appeal to dat! a which cannot be easily dismissed. For those of us wishing to be systematically persuaded that we live in a single reality that includes atoms, consciousness, and spirit, his systematically developed book is very helpful.

John M. Daniel's VANITY FIRE tells of a publishing firm which burns to the ground, leaving a body and a total loss. For Guy, it's the end of a career and a lover - and possibly the beginning of a new career and encounters with two strippers. It's a Faustian arrangement that blends the irony and terror of murder with a pact that could rescue or condemn Guy in this excellent mystery.

Diminutive Guy Mallon runs a small press firm with his partner Carol Murphy in picturesque Santa Barbara, California. Guy agrees to accept payment from Fritz Marburger to publish singer Lorraine Evans' novel. Fritz, a pushy and shady character, lets it slip that Lorraine's novel might be autobiographical, and the news media swarms her. Upset, Lorraine decides she wants out of the deal.

Guy is left facing debt and paying the rent on a huge warehouse, not to mention the stacks of unsold books. Then his warehouse burns and a dead body is discovered inside it. This is all told to us tongue-in-cheek by the crusty, affable Guy. And how can you not like Guy? He owns an enviable collection of first-edition poetry volumes and has a big heart to boot. But his judgment sometimes isn't the wisest or most practical. A briskly paced mystery, VANITY FIRE is more of a caper about Guy working his way out of a jam with the help of his many equally colorful friends. A fun read.

Guy Mallon is perfectly content running his small publishing company with his business partner and lover Carol Murphy. Trouble comes to the happy couple when retired businessman Fritz Marburger offers to pay them to publish his young lover's book. The author is fancy jazz singer Lorraine Evans. Once Carol and Guy read it, they believe they have a hit on their hands. Marburger is Lorraine's agent and together they set up a publicity scenario where the singer appears on Oprah and does a spread in People.

When Lorraine nixes the People article and refuses to go on Oprah, sales plummet. The warehouse that Guy rents from Marburger to store the books inside also has a tenant, Roger, who is running a POD scam and making a fortune. Carol leaves Guy who in order to avoid bankruptcy; he goes in on the POD scam with one of his authors. The warehouse burns down and all his books are gone. The police determine the cause of the fire is arson and a body is found in the ruins. Roger has disappeared and Guy intends to find him and earn back his self esteem that he lost by dealing with a criminal.

John M. Daniel has written an adrenaline racing, heart bumping crime caper that has so many interesting plot twists that readers really don't have a clue who besides Roger is the antagonist. What this reviewer likes about VANITY FIRE is that nobody can predict what will happen next. This leads to a one sitting reading to find out how Guy's problem all turn out.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Beverly Pechin for Reader Views (7/06)
"Vanity Fire" is truly a suspense novel that as you piece together the facts, you will always come up short. Never ending guessing evolves into utter surprise as you read into the lives of the characters and think you know the answers. The key word here is Think. Fortunately for us, Mr. Daniel knows how to keep you drawing conclusions but never finding answers.
This nonstop thriller will seriously challenge the best of mystery solvers. "Vanity Fire" is a well-written piece of literature that truly would be a wonderful addition to any mystery and thriller collector.
Guy and Carol think all their dreams have come true as they are suddenly blessed with an offer they can't refuse that will put their tiny, lifeless publishing business into the headlines with a best selling novel and a financial backing. But is the dream for real or does it come with unthinkable consequences?
Peppering the story with absolutely wonderful characters, so well described that you know exactly the type he's talking about, you will enjoy seeing some of the most interesting people you've met in a long time become fully engulfed in a rather "scorching" situation. Combining mystery, business, romance, murder and some pretty good disappearing acts, you will come up drawing conclusion after conclusion only to read a few pages further and go "I can't believe it!" as your intuitions are quickly put back on the shelf to rest.
Excellent writing, wonderful characterizations, and an even more intense plot than some of the best mystery writers of today's literature have been able to bring out. Highly recommended for anyone that just can't seem to find a book they truly can't "figure out" before the end, because I guarantee that what you think is happening, definitely is not!

This is an easy read, and a surprisingly thoughtful, careful, and broadly informative book. It dives deeply into the endless, diverse difficulties of modern life in Venice, but with excellent historical context. Its history of Carnival, and its revival, for example, is the best I've read. It's blemished by two or three uninteresting pages of symbolic/semiotic analysis, but these minor problems are vastly overwhelmed by impressive reporting, review and research on important issues of the day.

A must for the regular visitor of Venice. Davis and Marvin show clearly how the historical center and the outskirts (!) are sacrifized to the needs of mass-tourism. They describe how the the city is transformed sytematically into a historical theme-park in which the remaining locals have only a stage-role. And 'resistance is useless': the inhabitants are able to slow, not to stop the process.
The book predicts an ominous future of this cultural heritage site. Food for thought.

As an inveterate traveler, I usually find that books about places I have visited leave me sorry I read them - travel guides are often so filled with tourist hype or stereotypical portrayals or out-dated analysis. But, this is not a travel guide: it is a thoughful and well-researched critique of Venice as both a tourist city and a (struggling to remain) actual city.

Over the years I have related to Venice in three ways: a member of the day-trip brigade (with two children in tow); a more serious tourist making a five day stay of it; a long-term (six month) resident in one of its working class neighborhoods. From all of those perspectives, this book speaks to my experiences.

But, more than a souvenir of my times there (see the excellent discussion of the role of souvenirs in a tourist city), this work has opened my mind to other ways to see my beloved city. I now see the city and its people with new eyes, for the authors' critical eyes and ideas challenged me to experience Venice once again anew.

If, as I would claim, I love Venezia, then I would also want to engage my heart and soul in the challenge they pose for the future of the city: not the worries about "sinking into the sea" but the worries about becoming "lost in the tourists."

And did you know that tourists have been coming here for over 500 years (yes, fellow Americans, that is before any tourists invaded North America), and that tacky souvenirs have been available for at least 300 years? Lots more to know as well as ponder in this work.

If the City of Venice (Italy) ever decides to build a model of Las Vegas, will the model include a little replica of Las Vegas' Venetian Hotel, itself a model of Venice? It's the kind of question I might address to the authors of Venice: The Tourist Maze, this entertaining and rewarding account of what may be the most touristed city in the history of the planet.

You might suppose there is nothing new in a critique of Venetian tourism. Venice first licensed tour guides in 1219 (and right there is a factoid I did not know until I read this book). Any number of others have left accounts of tourism in Venice, and quite a few have left accounts of accounts.

Davis and Marvin do a creditable job of trying not to replow old ground. There's almost no mention of Mary McCarthy, Jan Morris, Viscount Norwich, and other visitors who have done so much to inform and entertain. There's only a bit of Henry James; almost none of Proust and only a glancing reference to that most famous of all sex tourists, Thomas Mann's Gustav von Aschenbach. Instead, they give their primary attention to tourism as an activity, from the standpoint alike of the provider and the consumer. You might almost call it an account of "the enterprise of tourism," except this makes it sound, misleadingly, like yet one more business book.

There is a whiff of the lamp about the presentation, although it never gets overpowering: the chapter on the gondola is called "the floating signifier," which is, I guess, the kind of joke you are bound to get when academics try to have fun. They say they "take advantage" of a notion of one "Appadurai" (who?), although he never makes it to the bibliography. A more obvious progenitor is Dean MacCannell, whose "The Tourist" is one of those rare books to make fancy theory both interesting and plausible. A still better source, though surely unintended, would be the trdition o;f the mystery novel, where the hard-boiled detective sees the great city from the underside (indeed I am a little surprised that they don't say a word about Donna Leon, the Arthur Conan Doyle of the Venetian murder mystery).

But forget about the theory: some of their best stuff is the nuts-and-boats practical. There is an admirable sketch-history of the gondola and its monster offspring, the vaporetto. And I particularly liked their discussion of the economics of the "artisan." They explain that Murano glass "works" because the craft is showy and dramatic, but that Burano lace-making does not "work," because the craft is not showy, and because real Burano lace is prohibitively expensive. Papier-mache masks work especially well, because the price is right, and the technology is accessible to any schoolchild. By the way it appears that those fancy designer masks (confession: I have one on the living room wall) are no part of the tradition of Venice: masks at the /carnevale/ were for the most part mass-produced.

The climax comes, inevitably in a discussion of the other Venice, the Venetian Hotel at Las Vegas (but why can't I find it in the index?). They provide an entertaining account, appropriately fascinated and appalled, of the Venetian as the private obsession of Steve Adleson who has lavished on it (so they say) the sum of $1.5 billion. They seem not to have noticed that from a business standpoint, the Venetian seems to have been a rousing success. If tourists still flock to the real Venice, they seem to descend at a comparable rate on our little Venice in the desert.

Its neat to see pixs of San Fran back in the days. I love this style, the pictures are large and the calendar dates are still big and clear.

Love the historic photos. The calendar area could be larger. Overall, a wonderful product.

Just some of the reasons why I love San Francisco were in this book,the picture book was well done ,such an unique city and the photos told so much of its story

Compiled and edited by Peter Bernen, Vintage San Francisco is an absorbing presentation of black-and-white historical photographs of San Francisco taken by members of Moulin Studios, especially California's premier photographer Gabriel Moulin (1872-1945). These images range from the ruin left by the Great Quake of 1906, to images of the glorious Golden Gate. A few simple quotes about this grand city embellish the captivating images. Vintage San Francisco is an excellent and inspirational photographic tribute to one of California's most historically important and influential cities.

George Francis' provocative book, VIRGIN, is a sensual mystery story that focuses on interactions between one man and two women. It is a tribute to Francis that he is able to galvanize the reader's interest and take them completely by surprise at the end. The book has the ring of truth, and one can easily imagine the dialogue that thickens the plot and transfixes the reader. It is one of those tales that is hard to put down once started.

Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology
Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco

Virgin is a beautiful love story. Yes, it's racy, but "racy" fits the personality of the characters and their circumstances. From the very first chapter it shows what excellent writing skills Francis has. I tried savoring each chapter because I didn't want it to end. I must admit, I cried at the end. But there is closure; it was a good cry!

Marjorie Stampfl, editor (retired)

George Francis tells a story of a young man who is jailed for crimes he
did not commit, and is retold through the eyes of the Sheriff's
daughter, who falls in love with him. While it is a work of imagination,
the story is based on historical events. VIRGIN takes place at
the close of the 19th century, and can be viewed as a work of romantic
historical fiction. While I find the telling itself to be candid and
forthright, it's the moments of inner-reflection of the characters that
reveal the true heart of the author.

Kent Fillmore,
College Professor
Vancouver, Washington

George Francis takes us through the heart and soul of a complex character, whose intellectual and romantic exploits intersect with the early days of California's Monterey Peninsula. But then the promise of this brilliant and handsome young artist crashes to an unexpected conclusion. Francis introduces us to a plethora of interesting characters and exciting episodes. It's a tale with film potential.
David Donnelly, Ed.D.
McCall, Idaho