Society Books

I wanted to have this book ever since I saw it: because I wouldve been there to help these people to help rescue all these animals if I could from day one.The photos in this book tell the story so well, its amazingly beautiful,tears have rolled down my eyes every time I watch these amazing pictures.Its the story of what unconditional love can acomplish when you let it happen.There are thousand of moving stories,the one of "dog in boat" was incredible, and the one of the big white dog that recovered that has her picture on the cover.But to me, my very favourite story of all, because I have a soft spot for Pit Bulls and the fact they are often extremely misunderstood by people, is the story of the Pit Bull couple who where together on top of a car hood, and when they spotted the little boat with the people, the male jumped into the water and started swimming towards them.That is my very favourite photo+special story.I vividly recommend this book to everyone, its a jewel!

This is one of the animal books that has touched my heart deeply. Imagine being a pet, dependent on your owner for basic survival, and then suddenly having no one there to protect, feed, care and nurture you. Imagine this going on for days, with no end in sight. That's what these animals went through. Many of these owners didn't realize how Hurricane Katrina would tear into their lives taking everything away from them including their precious pets. Happily, many of these animals were reunited with their owners again, and for those that weren't, "Best Friends" took care of them. However, these animals were desperate.

Whenever I read about the 2 pit bulls trapped on the rooftop of a submerged car my eyes tear up. Who knows how long these 2 dogs were trapped on that roof, but when the one dog spotted the rescuers--who were in a rowboat due to the flooded streets--he was so desperate by then that he jumped into the water and swam the distance to the boat...which was quite a ways from his rooftop... he swam up to the boat, looked into the eyes of the photographer and just begged to be plucked out of the water, rescued and loved. He didn't even wait for them to get to him, he swam across the water just to get to them. I tear up everytime I think about that pitbull's desperation and feeling of abandonment.

Anyway, read the book. And I have to say that Best Friends is one of best organizations I've ever heard of. They do so much on behalf of animals and they are just a wonderful, wonderful organization. Buy the book and visit www.bestfriends.org! It can be a great coffee table book too.

Memories of when people come together to help those in need, no matter how many legs they have. It's great to see the results of human compassion.

Troy Snow and the Best Friends Animal Society, Not Left Behind: Rescuing the Pets of New Orleans (Yorkville Press, 2006)

After Katrina hit, thousands upon thousands were forced to flee New Orleans and leave their pets behind. (The prevailing attitude of "we'll only be gone a few days, we'll leave a big bowl of food and some extra water" is reiterated here.) As the military worked on trying to get the city back into habitable condition and rescue any surviving people in the city, the best Friends Animal Society went to work trying to rescue the pets. Troy Snow, the group's photographer, documented the weeks they spent outside New Orleans, boating into the city every day to rescue animals that had been trapped by the flood. These are not happy fluffy bunny animal pictures, folks. If you prefer to think of your pooches as gamboling in the breeze, you might want to avoid this one. But Snow's pictures capture the dogged (pardon the pun) determination and will to live of the animals, and are a fitting tribute to their ability to survive. ****

Having worked at the sanctuary in Tylertown, MS where many of these animals were taken after the rescues documented in these extraordinary photographs, this book helps one vividly see what so many of these animals went through after the hurricane and before they arrived at our base camp. More can be said by these photos that captured how these beasts survived the days, weeks and sometimes months after Hurricane Katrina, than any written text can state.

I was also pleased to see that one of the dogs we cared for in the Back 40 in Tylertown whom we named "Piglet" turned out to be the covergirl on this book! She was always so happy to see us when we'd approach her kennel and loved to have suntan lotion rubbed all over her belly -- it is really something to see her story in detail before she came to us at Tylertown. The happy ending is that she was adopted by a family and now has a very happy forever home. :)

A must book for anyone who wants to understand why so many black boys and men seem to be targeted by the society for failure, criminality, jail, etc. I highly recommend it and the rest of rhe volumes in this series.

As an educator who strives to find direction on how to break the negative experience in pre K-12 education for a high number of Black male youth, I find this book, along with the other two in the series, to be informative and innovative when it comes to establishing a marker for administrators to use in order to monitor the teacher-student relationship and provide the positive environment that is necessary for all students, especially the Black male youth, to succeed.

This book is a must read for parents of African American boys and boys of color.

Reading this book revealed unfortunate truths that were not surprising to me at all. Serving as a public educator for over twelve years, it's sad but true as to why young black males at a very young age lose the desire, hope,and will to do better in school settings due to the facts listed in this book and many more since this book was written. I was overjoyed to see that Marcus Garvey Academy, a school that I taught at for eight years under the sincere leadership of Dr. Harvey Hambrick was mentioned. I was honored to read that Dr. Kunjufu took notice to how Marcus Garvey Academy in Detroit, Michigan and other schools assume pivotal roles in contributing to the solution to this horrible epidemic impededed on the futures and lives of young African American Males. Dr Jawanza Kunjufu did a great job at presenting multiple truths and the sad reality of how young black males are unfortunately targeted from the start.
Adra Young
Author of: The Everyday Living of Children & Teens Monologues

This an Dr. Kunjufu's many other books are exceptional in the fact that he details the facts straight to the point. I enjoy his methods of writing without pullng any punches. I wish that I had read this before my son started grade school, but now he is in the 4th grade and he went from being placed in special education, to a 4.0 dean's list GPA. God bless the power of prayer and guidance. Anyone can change their situation. I also just finsihed my Associate in Business, and I am in my Bachelor's Degree program right now for Marketing. Of course I will go on to the Masters programs and Doctorates. Learn for life...

"Please share a priceless thought through literature" "Give God the glory"

Thank You Dr. Kunjufu

Gilda may not be very good at staying out of trouble, but with her quirky and lovable personality she is an expert at getting into the readers' hearts.

I thoroughy enjoyed the first Gilda Joyce book, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to read another one. I wasn't disappointed.

Jennifer Allison has successfully built a story with the perfect amount of complexity. It has just enough surprises to keep you guessing, but not enough to cause frustration.

Loved it!

A calm mystery, yet filled with action. Not violent or bloody, but there is a murder scene.You won't regret getting this book. If you've never read a mystery before, this is the one to start with.Thirteen year old Gilda Joyce attends Our Lady of Sorrows School for Girls in attempt to solve the mystery of Mermaid Lake. Read it to find out what I mean.

A calm mystery, yet filled with action. Not violent or bloody, but there is a murder scene.You won't regret getting this book. If you've never read a mystery before, this is the one to start with.Thirteen year old Gilda Joyce attends Our Lady of Sorrows School for Girls in attempt to solve the mystery of Mermaid Lake. Read it to find out what I mean.

A calm mystery, yet filled with action. Not violent or bloody, but there is a murder scene.You won't regret getting this book. If you've never read a mystery before, this is the one to start with.Thirteen year old Gilda Joyce attends Our Lady of Sorrows School for Girls in attempt to solve the mystery of Mermaid Lake. Read it to find out what I mean.

This book is well written with a touching, gripping, water tight plot. The feelings are so real, the humor is so genuine, I cannot praise it enough.

I came in not knowing much of anything about the music industry...and after reading this book from cover to cover (its a long book), I can say I learned a lot. The book is very easy to read, with real and made-up examples, and simple language. The author does a great job breaking down the rules of the industry. It does not tell you how to run your operation or how to market a hit record...it just lays out all the rules for you to either follow, break, or bend.

The best chapters were about song ownership, copyrights, publishing, royalties, and taxes. Actually, the taxes chapter was really enlightening. You can tell a lawyer wrote this book from that chapter.

I've been in a band for several years, and unfortunately, everyone else that has been in my band has never had the experience of running it as a business. We have been skating by all these years just doing gigs, but now we are planning on releasing a CD and this definitely makes things more complicated. This book has been a godsend. Very informative and USEFUL information. Other music law type books are informative, but haven't been very useful on the level we needed it. You can use what is in this book right away. Its easy to read and understand.

Like all carpenters needing important tools to build a house, this book is the tool for all musicians. It covers all the important music business information and will help cut down unnecessary misfortune for musicians. Definitely a MUST BUY!!!

This offers a great foundation to Music Law. It is clear & easy to read w/ room in the margins for notes. Richard Stim even mentions a few legal loopholes you can benefit from.

You can also recieve free book updates on the Nolo website, which is a cool perk.

There comes a time in a musician or band's career when they get serious about what they're doing and need to start focusing on legal aspects of their endeavors. This book is and indispensable reference for that situation.

The book is written in easy to understand layman's terms. It covers a fairly broad range of subjects, and provides pointers to other resources for more in depth cover of the covered subjects.

One more notable point about the book is the pre-fabricated contracts and legal forms that it comes with. They seem to be solid, could be useful in a number of situations, and are explained thoroughly.

A very nice book, with remarkable trees, however, from the cover I suppose I wrongly assumed they would be beautiful trees. Quite a lot of the book is spent on African trees of a very strange nature, and to my husband's suprise, very little was done on the banyan tree. I was looking forward to large, ancient trees myself. All in all, it is still a wonderful book, it just wasn't what we were expecting.

Great Book will enough the wonder hopefully they have it in the school systems or county systems

Trees are grouped by various, sensible categories that other books on trees might neglect: Giants: Gods, Goddesses, Grizzlies; Dwarfs: For Fear of Little Men, In Bondage; Methuselahs: The Living and the Dead, Shrines; Dreams: Prisoners, Aliens, Lovers and Dancers, Snakes and Ladders, Ghosts; and Trees in Peril: Do the Loggers always Win? and Ten Green Bottles. Pakenham's text is great fun to read, as can be viewed from those sectional titles, and individual tree titles such as "Tie up my feet, Darling, and I'll live forever" for the Bonsai tree that is the In Bondage section.

I suppose coffee table books really shouldn't be considered exceptional items to read - view, yes; read, not so much. This is an exception. Tolkien's Ents are invoked for a handful of trees, and rightly so; geography students who get a core borer stuck and (somehow) get permission to cut down what had possibly been the oldest tree in the world just to retrieve it are warned against; and, of course, it is mentioned that any fool can climb a gum tree. I've read this about six times this year, high time I count it officially.

beautiful book. Bought it as a gift for my brother.
I already have a copy for myself.

In fall 2006, Lansing's forestry department planted a tiny gingko biloba tree between the sidewalk and the street in front of my house.
It had four and a half branches, all oriented in one plane like the candlesticks in a menorah. You could barely roast a wiener with it.
I scrambled into the house for a book I had bought, by sheer coincidence, the previous day -- Thomas Pakenham's "Remarkable Trees of the World."
Yes! There, sprawling across pages 110 and 111, was a gingko nearly 1,000 years old, still living in Tokyo, measuring 30 feet in girth and 66 feet high.
Pakenham, a British historian with Irish wanderlust and a gentle sense of drama, has traveled the world to photograph and research the history and lore of 60 of the world's most remarkable trees.
This oversize book, just now out in paperback, is so relaxed and un-sensational you picture Pakenham walking from tree to tree, a Haydn string quartet playing in the background, not minding the continents and oceans in between. It's a follow-up to another book that's just as good: "Meetings With Remarkable Trees," in which Packenham confined his wanderings to the British Isles. The response to "Meetings" was so warm that Pakenham packed his bags and expanded his search to global proportions.
Pakenham's style is that of a curious, intelligent pilgrim. He pairs generous full-page or double-page images of his subjects with un-fussy, lightly conversational background information. He clearly respects local lore and legend, but doesn't go overboard with it, nor does he bog the text down in scientific details. The result is almost a set of personality profiles.
The images are spectacular -- given the subject matter, most of them can't help it -- but sensitively chosen and framed, with an eye toward the unique setting, mood and attributes of each tree.
It's a low-key approach, but if this book doesn't awaken your sense of awe, nothing can. That little stick of a gingko in my front yard, for example, belongs to a hyper-ancient species/order/family that predates dinosaurs. Its peculiar lineage (it's related to ferns) is betrayed by unique, fan-shaped leaves that have no central fold.
Of course, trees have their own agenda, and don't care whether they get into a coffee-table book or not (it's tempting to think they'd rather not, insofar as books are made of paper). But it was hard not to think of Pakenham's gargantuan gingko as a thundering encouragement for my little tree's stressed-out, brown-fringed leaves and spindly trunk.
For one thing, Japanese Buddhists believe the gingko, not the Bo tree of India, was the tree under which Buddha found enlightenment.
If lore doesn't thrill, Pakenham serves up history and science. For example, a gingko 800 yards from the epicenter of Hiroshima threw up new sprouts even after the atomic bomb hit.
But enough about gingkos. In this book, the reader will meet a panoply of the world's most amazing creatures: General Sherman, a mega-giant sequoia in California that weights 1,500 tons and is probably the largest living thing on Earth; ancient teapot-shaped African baobabs out of a Dr. Suess illustration; the leaning Italian cypress said to have been planted by St. Francis; wind-lashed cypresses clinging to the rocky California coast; great oaks with hollows where 20 people can sit down to a banquet; bristlecone pines now into their fifth millennium of existence.
Some of these magnificent trees are near roadsides or chained off in parks, all but ignored by passersby. The wonder of this book is that it tunes the mind to the low-frequency, centuries-long chords only these creatures can hear. Looking at trees that have lived the better part of a millennium make you wonder whether there will be a California -- the home of a disproportionate number of these giants -- or a Lansing in 1,000 years.
My bet's on Lansing, which is far less likely to slip into the ocean before my gingko grows up.

Literate readers have read the Gospel of Matthew. In fact, so commonly read is the New Testament by the well-read student of world literature that its message becomes as commonplace, and almost forgotten.

Not satisfied with this, Ruth Rimm and artist Alejandra Vernon have created "Christ: The Gospel of Matthew Beautifully Designed for the Internet Age." Same message: the birth, life, death, resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Sorry for the spoiler, yes, Jesus rises from the dead in this one too. Keeping in tune with the King James Version (1611), Rimm and Vernon have not adjusted the text's original meaning. They do, however, enhance it with beautiful iconic art presented in a print version of a website.

Complete with pull-down menus, links, and all the other symbols of a website, we are treated to an array of beautiful images of Christ. This is no sugar-coated Sunday school version, but one that also shows a beheaded John the Baptist.

As an added bonus is the Book of Ruth, presented with the same flair and depth as Matthew.

Ruth Rimm, like calligrapher Tim Botts The Holy Bible, NLT, Botts Illustrated edition, has developed the font used here. She concludes the book with an essay on why it is important to keep the Bible fresh in its presentation. She shows how, through history and through comparisons to secular culture, this is not just important, but practically mandated.

I fully recommend "Christ: The Gospel of Matthew Beautifully Designed for the Internet Age" by Ruth Rimm and Alejandra Vernon.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

Ruth Rimm and Alejandra Vernon have created a manuscript reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts with a computer technology theme. Here we find unexpected doses of humor as Jesus is pictured holding a cell phone and there is a Bank of Faith credit card. As you turn each page, entire scenes appear with writing over the artwork. All the disciples bring their cell phones to The Last Supper. JNN Live Coverage sections show artwork of various scenes that are of high importance, like the stone rolled away from the grave.

28:7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead....

Ruth Rimm's vision of books as beautiful as they were in the Middle Ages has now appeared in print. Before her books I had only seen one book printed in full-color on every page and I knew in my heart more authors would attempt to give this type of beautiful gift to the world. She also uses a font called Booklady which is very easy to read.

"To set the Gospels in the scenery of your own times is, in fact, the predominant tradition of art." ~Ruth Rimm

Matthew seems a perfect place to start and this book includes the Beatitudes, Parables, Stories of Jesus healing the sick and the story of the Feeding of Five Thousand. The Unabridged King James Version text changes color throughout. The use of color stimulates more brain cells than reading black text on a white background.

You may find a dark purple background with white text or a pink background with a red floral border and red and dark purple text with bold red words underlined for emphasis. The striking colorful display of words is visually entertaining and the underlined/bold words seem to imply a "hyperlink." The author calls them "hyperlinks to the heart."

16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

One of the main advantages to having a Bible in color is that it helps you find verses fast. You can look for the pictures instead of just the words. If you want to find the verses about the woman who anoints Jesus with a precious ointment, it is easy to find the picture of Jesus being anointed. The Story of The Last Supper is also highlighted on two main pages.

The sheer creativity and organization that went into the creation of this amazing book is truly spectacular. Ruth Rimm has shown the way to presenting the Bible in a very pleasing format. I truly looked forward to reading the entire book of Matthew which I can't say would be the case in black and white. Reading in color encourages you to read entire chapters and truthfully, it is difficult to put this book down once you begin reading. Not only are Jesus' words meaningful, the illustrations highlight important moments and add significance to the main occasions in Jesus' life.

My brother keeps asking me if I read my Bible and I keep telling him, yes, I'm reading an illustrated version of Matthew. He has never seen a fully illustrated book of the Bible and while I've tried to explain it is the same as reading the Bible, he may have to see a copy to believe it! This book would be perfect as a beautiful gift for anyone interested in the Life of Christ. The high quality of the binding and paper is impressive. The artwork is stunning and reveals the true beauty of the text.

Highly Recommended

~The Rebecca Review

.Christ is a new concept in showing the Bible: Illustrate the text to make it relevant to people today. With pictorial content, today's version of illuminated manuscripts, hopefully more people will become familiar with the Gospel.

You will find browser-like features with Christian symbols, such as doves facing forward or backward for those directions on a browser. There are also video sections, open buttons and pop-ups for a Bank of Faith card. It's unusual and interesting. Each page varies from the previous one in the browser format, so I found myself looking forward to these faith-friendly symbols.

In fact, it made me wish that my reliable browser came in a Christian version rather than the secular icons that it employs now.

Ms. Ruth Rimm, the designer, is a fairly new Christian and it was fun to see this book as an example of her testimony for Jesus. I purposely saved this book to read on Palm Sunday. It was a moving experience for me. If you order the book today, chances are you'll have it by Easter.

Being partial to her namesake, Ruth, the book also contains the Old Testament Book of Ruth in less fully illustrated fashion.

One of the nice features of the text was to use an easier-to-read font that occurs in many highly condensed text Bibles.

I always make it a practice to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John on Christmas and Easter. This year, I'll read Matthew using this book. What a nice treat that will be!

The illustrations were done by Amazon reviewer Alejandra Vernon. I highly commend this artistic work. The images capture the holiness of the subject without making the images seem distant or unapproachable. Important scenes are illustrated in ways that will be enticing to all but the youngest and most literal readers.

I also hope that this example will inspire other designers and illustrators to create other versions of the Bible. I am sure the result will be to encourage more readership of God's Word to us. I would be especially interested in a Bible that was designed to work like a visit through a museum exhibition of paintings and sculptures with the Scripture serving as large, easy-to-read, chat labels.

May God bless this book's designer and illustrator.

Here is the ultimate gift book.

Just watch, closely, the face of the person receiving it. You want to light up the eyes of a friend or loved one? This will do it.

All the class, glamour and coolocity (I can make up my own words, it's my review) of a gorgeous coffee table tome in a neat little package.

Inside and out, this is one of the most unique things you'll ever wrap up (or drop into a gift bag, if you're a guy like me).

I'd talk more about the inside which is just as unusual, but my bet is most buyers will be giving this away, rather than keeping it. However, should you decide to treat yourself to something really different, keep it.

You could say that the book itself is a metaphor for God as creator. The diversity and creativity residing in His creation are exposed through the beauty of this book.

A true treasure for book lovers and gift givers alike.

In "Goodbye Gutenberg," Valerie Kirschenbaum argues for replacing the black and white style of book (to wit, the "Gutenberg" approach), with a new way of reading and writing. In her book Kirschenbaum combined the beauty of the illuminated manuscripts of the past with the latest technologies available today to announce "A New Canon" for a new generation of readers and writers. For those who see a computer as being useful for much more than simply writing text, "Goodbye Gutenberg" was a clarion call.

".Christ: The Gospel of Matthew Beautifully Designed for the Internet Age" is one of the first books I have seen to answer that call. Ruth Rimm did the art direction and design, while Alejandra Vernon did the illustrations, and clearly they were inspired by the Bibles in beautiful colors that Christians read and enjoyed for over a thousand years before Gutenberg's printing press ended the glorious tradition of illuminated manuscripts. Rimm and Vernon explicitly intend for their "Gospel of Matthew," the first in a series of designer gospels, to provide "the blueprint for a Renaissance of beautiful books and bibles using the latest computer technologies."

What is key here is that the gospel is presented as a series of double-page computer screens. At the top of pages you will find a menu bar, with "back," "forward," "stop, "refresh," and the other buttons you often find on your own computer. They have fun with these buttons (e.g., the "print" button shows the tablets with the Ten Commandments and sometimes there is a "pray" button), but, of course, none of them are functional. The same applies to the highlighted words that look like they are hypertexts, the video screens, faux and the other computer-like elements that pop up in the design and illustrations.

This conceit is somewhat problematic because it tends to make readers think of how cool it would be to be reading a website or CD-rom where you click on things while reading this gospel. Fortunately there is plenty of time while reading this version of Matthew to get over such concerns and enjoy the way that the apostles pop up on cell phones and the gospel is illustrated. Besides, the designer sees these elements as being extremely relevant to contemporary readers and also as symbolizing usefulness (and presence) rather than simply serving as decorations (however, this is explained in the back of the book, so you will probably not catch all of this the first time through).

Beyond the fully illustrated pages I also like how this book treats each verse of Matthew as essentially its own stanza. This book uses the King James Version, which continues to strike me as the most literary of the extant translations, but which did not make paragraph distinctions within each chapter. Going verse by verse through the gospel is a nice way of breaking down the pace at which it can be read. Sometimes, as is the case with Matthew 27:45 when Jesus says his final words on the cross, there is but a single verse for the two-page spread. Usually the number of verses found is in the teens, organized thematically so that each spread has its own title (e.g., Heavenly Treasures, Faith That Moves Mountains, The Last Supper).

When you combine the number of verses printed on each page and the illustration details, reading ".Christ: The Gospel of Matthew" becomes a more leisurely and you could also hope a more thoughtful process. This is even truer if you work out the various elements of the conceit present on each two-page spread. In addition to the unabridged book of Matthew this volume also includes the Book of Ruth, which is presented with only a couple of illustrations. There is also a Testimony section that contains small reproductions from some of the pages of "Goodbye Gutenberg," which shows the connection between the two is obviously closer than I first thought when I opened up this book. It is noted at the end that this book is but a baby step, and we can look forward to see what books are to come from both this source and others.

This is our "go-to" book for very practical descriptions and diagrams of process and procedure. We are planning our new house, and are incorporating elements of off-grid solar/wind power, rainfall catchment, passive ventilation, and high-mass wall construction.

Nothing beats a hands-on experience, and if you can visit either the CalEarth site in California, or the Earthships site in New Mexico, you should. You get a much better understanding of the process of earthbuilding, and also of the finished product. Then, as you begin to plan to build, gather all the information you can. "Ceramic Houses" will give you great information on design principles and on philosophy; the Earthship books by Mike Reynolds give primo information on the plumbing and electrical systems, and in particular on rainfall catchment.

"Earthbag Building" however, remains our mainstay. Hunter gives such good detail, and provides excellent resource lists for materials, and also lovely line diagrams that are very clear and easy to follow. And to truly make her the Queen of Bag Building, if you e-mail her a reasonable question, she answers!

I first checked this book out in the local library. It's a wealth of information, so I went to Amazon and bought two copies. I can recommend it highly to anyone interested in exploring this form of construction.

This is a must book for anyone who is considering to undertake the task of building an earthbag structure. There are many tips and suggestions, the result of long practical experience, that will help the inexperienced builder to avoid many: "if I only had thought of this earlier..." moments.

Earthbag building, a method developped by Nader Khalili, is a wonderful innovation in building. It means that a building be built from materials found on site, even if those materials are too poor for rammed earth or mud brick. I've already used the techniques in this book to detail two public buildings! The trick is now to convince the structural engineer and councils...

This book makes a good gift to those who are planning or are fascinated by alternative house building.

It's a masterpiece for body and soul! One ought to read it to understand more about us before life. Carlito

The general assumption of people of the modern era has been that we must look for and search for and wait for God. The image is of Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot'. God has disappeared and is not part of our lives and we have to wait for God to return. Or if we are real searchers we would not wait, but would make the effort ourselves looking in various aspects of our experience to find the ultimate religious meaning.
But Heschel's premise here is the opposite one. God is actually looking for us. God wants us. I remember speaking with one of the most loving teachers of Hasidism of modern times, the late David Herzberg of blessed memory. When I asked him about the meaning of the religious concept 'Avodat Hashem' service of God' His answer surprised me because it was different from anyone else's. He said it was God's service, God's work what God does to help and connect with us. This is very much like what Heschel is saying here. God is calling out to us ,God is Present as the Kotzker Rebbe says 'wherever we let God in'.
Heschel was a great poetic and religious soul , who feels and teaches God's searching for , and connecting with us.
This is a tremendously inspiring and thought- provoking work.
I will only say one more word. That as a ' poetic thinker' Heschel's meaning is something suggested and sublime, something we cannot be sure we understand.
What we can understand is the underlying tone of holiness throughout this work.

I think Heschel revealed a lot of himself in his works--more than other writers, perhaps. He seems to me to be very emotional regarding his opinions and beliefs. He came from an Eastern European Hasidic family whose ancestor was the Great Maggid of Mezerich. He was a leader in the Civil Rights movement as well as the Vietnam anti-war movement. He was on the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary, JTS, (of the Jewish Conservative movement). This is rather humorous, I think, since he was obviously quite the idealistic Liberal. He had a reputation as a mystic, causing him conflict with other JTS professors. He was a very forceful personality. IMHO he was very much a literary expressionist--putting his feelings into writing. He was also quite poetic--his books include many clever and beautiful turns of phrase. However, much of what he writes comes off as if they are sermons, as if he KNOWS. I respect his views, but don't often agree with them. This book doesn't read like philosophy to me (you can read "Between Kant and Kabbalah" by Mittleman on the Jewish philosopher Breuer, for example). As a scientist, I object to anyone dismissing the contributions of science in virtually any arena. Certainly psychology is a player in anything involving humans. As a mystic, I certainly agree that the Divine is ineffable. But people translate their contact with the Divine into human terms--mostly reflecting their individual propensities, biases, views, etc. That secondary process is psychological/scientific. Indeed, such communications have been compared to radio and television with a transmitter and receivers. Furthermore, research into ESP (Dr. Rhine etc.) shows considerable applicability in understanding the processes involved in communicating with higher powers (e.g. God). In addition, Heschel insists that the Bible be understood in terms of Biblical people. Certainly, such an approach can provide an historical or hagiographical context for the causes that produced beliefs and documents (e.g. The Torah). But, it is essentially irrelevant to today's individuals attempting to apply such beliefs and documents into their lives. It is obvious that praying, studying Torah, putting on Tefillin, etc. excites and completes Heschel, but that doesn't mean they do for everyone--and certainly not identically. He makes the common human mistake of assuming everyone is like him (or should be). I humbly disagree. Nevertheless, he did provide a differing point of view to be considered as well as a couple of good quotes for my collection.:
p. 317: When superimposed as a yoke, as a dogma, as a fear, religion tends to violate rather than to nurture the spirit of man. Religion must be an altar upon which the fire of the soul may be kindled by holiness.
p. 361: Every act done in agreement with the will of God is a mitzvah.
Mostly, however, I have to say (though I'm sure it will upset some people) that I found this particular book very boring. I liked "Moral Grandeur & Spiritual Audacity" better.

Plato wrote that virtue is knowledge and knowledge is virtue. If Plato's Republic was to succeed, society needed all of its citizens to be like Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. This, of course, was not the case in Plato's time - and most definitely not the case today. The wisdom of Heschel, as he so eloquently expresses in this timeless book, is needed now more than ever.

Heschel did not wait for God to give him grace, because he knew that his actions were more important than words. Heschel felt compelled to act upon his commitment as a citizen and as a Jew. The result being that Heschel's spiritual life set an example for his generation and generations to come.

In Heschel's own words: "Religion becomes sinful when it begins to advocate the segregation of God, to forget that the true sanctuary has no walls. Religion has always suffered from the tendency to become an end in itself, to seclude the holy, to become parochial, self-indulgent, self-seeking... ."

Each page and every word in this great work gives us important wisdom. Heschel challenges us to strive for the ideal but insists that we never forget the realities and injustices that surround us. (Jerry Marcus is the author of three novels: "Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Zev," "The Salvation Peddler," and "The Last Pope.")

When originally published, this book was seen as a breath of fresh air; it doesn't "analyze" religious thougt. Rather, it forces the reader to examine his own feelings towards G-d.

Heschel, often though of as an academic with a Hasidic background, was rather a Hasidic Rebbe with university training. This work, along with his other popular books (as opposed to the scholarly ones) is written in the form of a series of Hasidic discourses at a comfort level to the reader as if he were sitting with the Rebbe at the Third Sabbath Meal and absorbing his wisdom.

The central theme, the centrality of belief in and devotion to G-d, is often overlooked in contemporary Jewish literature; many veiled (and no so veiled) jibes of contemporary religious practice and life are meant to drive home the point that "it's about G-d and man", not about buildings, organizations or other agendas or programs.

Like the Kotzker Rebbe, Heschel's hero and spiritual father, Rabbi Dr. Heschel was able to cut through the gloss, fluff, and veneer to get to the root of man's belief in and relationship with G-d.

This book could save many lives if its truth were widely embraced by the corporate and academic worlds. Bullying must be confronted and addressed as the most dangerous component of potentially lethal school and workplace relationships. Ames has performed a great service with his in-depth research and analysis. His history of slavery including its modern mutated form is powerful and embarassing in its hard truth. I recommend all supervisors take a special day off just to read this book. It might save your life and those around you.

It may not be politically correct or very American, but this book really drives home some of the major problems in American society, well presented and not willing to pull punches, it may be to close to the truth for most americans

This book gives a frightening insight into the harsh policies of corporate America and the so-called "wackos" who rebel.

When you crack open a book entitled "Going Postal," you don't expect to start reading about the antebellum South. But Ames starts by transporting us back in time in service of his provocative theme - that today's rage murders in workplaces and schools are contemporary forms of slave rebellion, indeed the only possible form of rebellion in a society as decollectivized and militarized as the modern corporate United States.

In this highly original and intriguing analysis, Ames ridicules "copycat" pundits who myopically search everywhere but right in front of their faces to explain the wave of workplace and schoolyard shootings that has swept through the United States over the last couple of decades. Hollywood movies, video games, the National Rifle Association, mental illness, bad parenting - the list of potential culprits is endless. But never the "toxic culture" of the institutions that breed these doomed revolts.

Whereas initial news accounts often vilify shooters as almost cartoon cutouts - mentally imbalanced, trench-coated racists or kooks - Ames offers in-depth portrayals, so we come to know them as ordinary human beings oppressed and stressed to the breaking point by a ruthless corporate or school environment. Attempts to profile individual offenders fall flat, Ames argues, because the offenders are potentially anyone. As evidence, he catalogs the widespread sympathy for many of the shooters among their former coworkers and classmates. One would never see such sympathy among victims of serial sex murderers, he points out.

Instead of profiling the individual rebels, Ames profiles the institutions. Shootings, he argues, happen in corporate environments rife with alienation, surveillance, mandatory unpaid overtime, and humiliating and degrading layoff rituals, where managers consciously harness fear to increase worker stress and insecurity. Sites of school shootings, meanwhile, are brutal environments where students undergo horrific torment only exacerbated by Zero Tolerance crackdowns.

This book is meticulously researched and brilliantly argued. It's too bad that Ames couldn't find a better publisher, because the technical quality is extremely poor and the copy editor must have been on an extended coffee break. I understand that his first publisher bailed after 9/11. But the typos, overly small text, and poor binding are all minor, superficial flaws that should not stop you from buying and reading this fascinating book.

PS: Coincidentally, and unbeknownst to me at the time, the latest rampage was underway, at Northern Illinois University. Although some other shooters have left written explanations or made posthoc statements (all included in Ames' book), this case is unusual in that killer Steven Kazmierczak co-authored a scholarly journal whose prophetic thesis almost exactly parallels Ames'. For more on this, you can see my blog entry of Feb. 14 (Valentine's Day), at forensicpsychologist.blogspot.com.

Mark Ames must have had some hardened life. He gets it right on the money when he describes the institutional torment that leads to destructive behavior. In the end, when the institution takes everything including truth, compassion and dignity, the rational response is rage, murder and rebellion.

This is a well-researched book, put out by someone who spent a lot of time researching and documenting the pattern. Ames' unlikely connection between slavery and the working man is made convincingly, with slavery occasionally being the more humane of the two.

I left government service recently, after watching three supervisors fall prey to love-hate dependency-based work relationships. All of them eventually succumbed to rage. I spent time speaking with other office employees, both former and current, who lost their emotional balance and faded into oblivion, whether fired or effectively incapacitated. I had to read this book to understand the dynamics behind this less-than-rare phenomenon. Ames' validation is a double-edged sword. What is frightening is the notion that this oppression occurs frequently, but is never documented until someone commits mass murder. Ames notes in his book that rebellion occurs with great infrequency, as the unknown is always more frightening than the known, however unpleasant.

"Going Postal" is a must-read book, although it is less gory than it is reflective. Ames is an excellent historian and consolidator of relationship dynamics. His ability to interview his subjects and pick up on the details -- sometimes even humorous in a macabre way -- makes this a facinating documentary.

This is a great reference guide for those involved in industrial automation. If you have not installed or maintained an Industrial Ethernet installation yet, you will soon and this guide is a perfect overview to get you started as, well as a handy reference for the "expert". This book has already helped me solve one "real world" problem and has become part of my commissioning/troubleshooting kit.

Industrial Ethernet is the hot topic in industrial automation domain. In P.R.China, the research of it started just a few years ago. The book is very good guideline for all the researchers and engineers to research industrial ethernet.
I do value this book.

Yirong Yang

This is a great book. Like the size - perfect for job site references. It always gets passed around! The material is well presented. Perry does an excellent job of providing "need-to-know" information in an extremely easy to follow format. I would strongly recommend this pocket guide to automation and control engineers and technicians. Buy this book - I guarantee it will find a spot in your tool pouch!

I must Thank and congratulate Perry for coming up with such a nice Guide. He has made a wonderful contribution to help everybody with his 'complete' work on Industrial Ethernet.

Two years back I had handed over around 25 SCADA projects to respective maintenance teams. I wish I could include this guide in the 'Hand-Over list' to the guys who are responsible to keep the huge plants running 24x7. As of now, I am going to call them up personally and recommend this work.

While discussing the advantages of this book, Somebody argued that all this information and much more is already available on the internet, provided some body cares to search.
I replied to him in a one liner: 'When you need to put off fire, you dont start digging a well to fetch water'.
This book is THE source you can depend on, when you need it.

The text is pretty lucid, and the result is that the jargon terms appear natural to a reader. I strongly recommend this book to anybody who deals with Industrial Ethernet in any way.

Perfect Work! A must have!

This book has become one of the few reference guides I keep in my toolbox. Being a former computer network technician (now PLC programmer and technical support) who is very familiar with ethernet, I can say this book contains vast amounts of information organized in a very logical fashion. It's written so even without a PC background a reader can understand everything clearly. There are examples and many tips to follow. It's well worth every penny.