I started to read this book in an attempt to get a better idea of the revolutionary and communinistic atmosphere in the Soviet. Maybe it is just me, but I could not finish this book. It is extremely hard to read and not too interesting, in my opinion. I may recommend a different book on Trotsky and the revolution...

This is not a "self-help" book, or a psychiatry book that tries to make you accept things no matter how grim they get in society around you-- unlike other books that popped up when I searched the database for "problems of everyday life." This collection of articles by Leon Trotsky, a central leader of the Russian Revolution in its early years, is much more challenging and interesting.

It was first written for the millions of workers and young people who were inspired to join the heroic struggles to overthrow the Czarist social order in Russia and take first steps towards building a socialist society. Full of a wonderful sense of respect for each individual and the capacities of ordinary men and women to work together to overcome society's ills. Takes up the challenges of illiteracy; real education in sciences, art, literature; punctuality and accuracy in work; of overcoming alcoholism and superstition -- not as an individual escape or salvation but as necessary and possible steps to be tackled in forging a new society.

A sample of the contents: "Vodka, the Church, and the Cinema," "Civility and Politeness as a Necessary Lubricant in Daily Relations," "The Newspaper and Its Readers," "Leninism and Library Work," "Radio, Science, Technology and Society," "Young People, Study Politics!"

Don't miss it!

These articles and speeches struggle against the corrupting and degrading aspects of capitalist culture that remained in Russia after the Russian revolution. Here, Trotsky talks about the importance of fun and amusement for workers freed of moralizing and paternalistic pedagogy. Here, Trotsky explains why young people must study politics, fight for a bigger role in society, and look to world struggles. Here, Trotsky explains the importance of attention to detail, libraries, punctuality, and getting rid of profanity. This is a good book to read today. We all need to the clean out the filth of capitalist culture that has wedged its way into the pores of our everyday life.

Some books take you farther than you imagine possible. I am a lifelong student of Plato. This book showed me aspects of platoninc political theroy that were novel, brilliant, and utterly neglected by mainstream and traditional platonic analysis. Craig has discovered a deep, rich vein of unmined material in the Republic--no mean accomplishment in itself-- and from it unearths the crucial dimension of military theory within Plato's masterpiece. The War Lover hit me like a ton of bricks. I cannot praise Criag's accomplishment enough. The only disappointment is that he did not write more.

Accounting for many issues ignored by most commentary, this book raises a number of significant questions about Plato for anyone wishing to come to terms with the Republic. The book is strongest in its comparison of the two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus. Craig proves adept at revealing the psychology of both interlocutors, and his portrait of Glaucon as not only "erotic", but also as a lover of victory, is compelling. Bloom's analysis is certainly meant to be a "companion piece" (as another reviewer remarked), and although The War Lover is a somewhat less agreeable read in terms of poetic style, it ultimately goes to depths that are left uncovered in Bloom's shorter analysis. One word of warning is that the author seems to leave it to the reader to understand some of his more dangerous points. I cannot help but believe that he has left his more profound claims for the more diligent readers, those who would truly like to reign "victorious" over the text.

A brilliant, difficult book and clearly not for everyone (e.g. see msropg..'s muddled view above). The author takes the able reader into the depths of The Republic and leaves him there to find his way out. A companion piece to Bloom's work, Craig carefully illuminates areas of the cave where shadows are at play and danger lurks. Be careful.

"Almayer's Folly" adequately introduces the theme of culture conflict, an angle that is expressed more fully in Conrad's later works. I would certainly recommend this to anyone familiar with Conrad's body of work, which is not to say that readers new to his work should avoid this novel.

This tale, set in the colonial-era East Indies, narrates the brief rise and slow descent of a man's search for fortune and adventure. Quite simply, the treasure never appears and Almayer is left to ponder what could have been. His woes are intensified by the departure of his daughter, one of his few links to "civilised Europe." Classic symbolism occurs late in the novel, as Almayer erases the footprints of his daughter the day of their parting. While "Almayer's Folly" doesn't reach the heights of Conrad's longer (read: better) works, this effort still captures the romantic essence of the Far East in the classic Conrad style.

Although not to be compared with his major works, this is nonetheless a most impressive first novel. Perhaps because he was already well into his thirties when he wrote and published it, the book contains all the major themes that one associates with Conrad. If one has not read any Conrad at all, I would recommend going to his great masterpieces first (VICTORY, NOSTROMO, THE SECRET AGENT, UNDER WESTERN EYES, HEART OF DARKNESS, THE NIGGER OF THE 'NARCISSUS', or LORD JIM). But for anyone who enjoys the work of Joseph Conrad, this book can hardly fail to fascinate.

Most Americans are harboring this dreaded over grown bacteria and it is being overlooked by thier doctors. As long as Americans stay on thier typical diets of antibiotic laced meat, sugar and processed foods they are headed for a condition they would not wish upon thier worst enimies. This book should be read by every one who wants to stay well and those that don't you need not read this very helpful method to prevent future sickness.

I had already been diagnosed with candida albicans when I had the good fortune to find this little book. I read it in one sitting and was released from years of guilt and confusion over my uncontrollable emotions. I learned that emotional instability, among many other symptoms, was due to the candida. I am purchasing multiple copies of this book to give to my family and friends because it is an excellent and easily understood tool to present candida albicans to people who have never heard of it. It is not the definitive work on the subject but it has enough information to get you going. The natural course of curing candida is much more successful than using pharmaceutical drugs and this book touches on that area. I wish that there was more information on curing candida in this book but other than that, it was extrememly helpful and encouraging.

Introductory text explaining the causes and symptoms of Candida Albicans, and Candida Related Complex (CRC). A must read for those experiencing the problems caused by the systemic Candida infection, and for those who want to avoid the long and painful road to recovery.

This book suffers from the basic mistakes that the early books on Flash had. Animation is only taught later in the book and some of the most exciting features are not covered. By the time the reader gets to anything interesting, he/she will have lost any interest or looked for a different book. This is the kind of book that challenges any novice to go beyond the first 30 pages. Some do, many don't. And the book still gets sold. It also helps to sell more Flash books, since the reader will often think the problem lies with himself/herself. Not too bad?

In some quarters of the web design community, Flash is still seen as a great animation tool, but its other nature as a fully-fledged web application environment is barely comprehended.

In other quarters, designers are still using Flash in the most basic way, as a straight-through animation tool, but simple scripting that might nicely spice up an animation remains a mystery, and even tweens are a worry.

For too long in Flash's early days there were too few, in fact almost no, books about it. Then the long drought became a flood, and there are hundreds now. I am not complaining - the era when those who had puzzled out some obscure mystery were keen to show it off but refused to explain it was a frustrating one.

But now, when a designer wanders into a big city bookshop and claps eyes on all those big thick books on Flash, whose titles link Flash with daunting words like Applications and ActionScript, eyes are apt to glaze over to mutterings of "later, later, one day...."

What has been badly needed is an easy introduction to the latest version of Flash, written with clarity and respect, amply illustrated, structured so readers can easily dip in and out to grab some pearl of wisdom that can be applied to the job in hand, and that invites repeated perusal. What we needed has now arrived, and Macromedia Flash MX Express is it.

Designers are visual people, and they need their books well illustrated with screenshots and examples. Flash MX Express includes so many that it has a 2-column layout - one for text and one for images. Illustrations are annotated and captioned where necessary, and there is a reasonable balance between screenshots made on Mac and Windows computers.

An error common in those big thick Flash books is the authors making too many guesses about their readers, skipping over crucial steps on the assumption that "it's obvious, isn't it?" Cych, Mace and Rhodes do not do that there, covering every step of the way through each exercise. You really can jump in and out, grabbing only what you need that day. The authors then gently introduce that designers' bogeyman, ActionScript, two-thirds the way through, and follow it with introductions into components and video, both new with Flash MX.

Macromedia Flash MX Express is one of the best introductions into Flash MX for those new to Flash or who know they have been underusing its immense capabilities and want to dig deeper now. I hope that Friends of ED uses the same editorial team to write further-Express style Flash books in future.

This book can teach authors and publishers as much about producing quality learning references as it can teach you about FLASH MX. Great for the beginner. This book doesn't waste your time with hand holding excersises that take forever to complete. At 333pages you'll be up to speed in no time. Each page is 2 columns one column text the other pictures. So it could be said that this book is actually 116 pages as apposed to the other 400 - 700 page volumes available on FLASH. Get it and Get it today. This book is the only book I would recomend for beginners along with a couple of hours on [the website].

When looking for Native American word lists, this was the first dictionary I came across. I bought it because it was the only one I could find. If I had spent a little more time with it before I checked out I might not have, because this dictionary is not realy just words but entire thoughts and terms. This maybe just a function of the Navajo language or it may be just the way it was edited. If you are looking for a word list this is not the book for you.

Having known only English as my primary language this book helps the laymen learn the basis of translating the Najavo culture and language into English and back again.

Extremely detailed with notations on pronunciation, verbage and usage of slang.

Having know a Navajo Native American for a while, this book helped me understand the subtlties of the Navajo Language and Culture.

Nothing compares to a real teacher, but this book does help. Buy it!

Members of the Navajo tribe have volunteered in the armed forces throughout every conflict since 1868. In WWII, the Code Talkers were able to transmit messages, and despite every effort, the US enemies never broke the complex syntax and complicated tonal qualities. The US Marine force acknowledges that without the members of this tribe the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima and other crucial locations.

The Navajo-English Dictionary was designed to aid Navajos learning English, those desiring to learn Navajo, and to help preserve this rich language. Without "The Sound System of Navajo" section in which Wall and Morgan teach about the pronunciation of the words this dictionary would serve as a research tool, but would not provide a way to correctly speak any of the over 9,000 entries.

The dictionary is formatted strictly with the Navajo words then the English definitions. If you wanted to find the perfect English word, then translate it into Navajo, you will have to search through the book. There are two columns of definitions per page. The Navajo is in bold, and I did not find it difficult to link the words together.

Writers:

The book will help create veracity whether your story is set in the old west, any world war, or current conflicts. Well-researched information allows the reader to suspend disbelief and become part of your story. For historians, this book is invaluable.

Here is a brief dictionary of a few of the words, but I am not able to show the correct grammar marks.

'a' a'a'n -- this is a hole in ground, tunnel, cove, or burrow.

bi -- he, she, it, they, theirs.

Be'e'sh Sinil -- Winslow, Arizona

giinisi -- fifteen cents

ha'adi -- where; where?

There are so many words and phrases, so much beauty and history, that any linguist, archeologist, or scholar will love the book simply for the history that is inherent in this ancient language.

5 Stars.

Victoria Tarrani

The Time Machine is a story of a man who prophesized the future. H.G Wells did a great job of setting up the plot of the story and also added a few action scenes. When the main character had went far enough into the future, he discovered a society of mindless people. They did no thinking, just sat around. He found a library of books which hadn't been touched in perhaps a thousand years. Perhaps H.G Wells has given us an insight to our future, or maybe the book is just science fuction. You can read this novel and make that decision for yourself.

This book is about a man who invented a time machine and he travel into the time to the future.He travel from the year 1895 to the year 802,701. He noticed that the people in that year is totally different from the time he was coming from. The people had the same types of clothes, the shoes and they were little people. He had a really bad time in there because he lost the time machine and other people who lived underground get it but he had to fight for it. When he finally got it, he travel; instead of back, he travel millions of years forward, but he then put the year he want it and he return to the year 1985 where he started from, and then he later travel again but since then 3 years had past and the time traveler hadn't got back....

Herbert George Wells wrote "The Time Machine" in 1895; it was his first science fiction novel, and has remained one of his best. Churning out a number of popularized Hollywood flicks, and influencing countless other science fiction stories and shows involving time travel, this is one of his best-known books. We see an un-named character, known throughout the text only as 'the Time Traveller,' setting forth in his machine to the year 802,701 A.D., encountering a situation that is far more sinister than the years he has left behind.

Throughout his life -- up to the tragic day that he died -- Wells was pessimistic about the future (relfected throughout his many prolific works). In "The Time Machine," the Traveller himself does not care much for the age in which he lives, so he sets forth into the future, to perhaps see advancements and development in humanity, away from the stupidity of Nineteenth-Century England. Instead, he finds humanity -- or specifically, the descendants of past humans -- worse off than before, having probably grown too comfortable and at ease with themselves, letting intellect and ingenuity to fester. This passivity enabled the Morlocks, underworld inhabitants who watch over the meek Eloi (descendants of humans living on the surface) to enslave them (as cattle, for they are cannibals, as becomes quite clear in the book). Violence and disaster erupt, thanks to the intervening Time Traveller.

The social parodies made clear in Wells' book are brilliant examples of his talent and merit, though they are striking; there definitely were echoing uproars from Wells' parodies made with the Eloi and Morlocks as representing class differences in Victorian (and later Edwardian) England. Questions relating to human progress imbue the novel, as do questions relating to whether or not a world infested with problems truly is worse than a world without any trouble; will the halo-shining Utopia truly come true, or will stagnation ensue, heightening and exacerbating our vulnerability to future Morlock-like forces?

This Modern Library release is a reissue of an interesting 1931 illustrated edition of "The Time Machine," so while it is an excellent read, it is also an interesting historical piece in itself. H. G. Wells, in a preface to this book, called it the work of an amateur (p. XIX), yet he expressed his delight that it had outlived some of his other pieces. Quite simply, this book will continue outliving many others for generations to come.

Knowledge of history is one of the best sources of wisdom there are. Dr. Leon Portilla, a serious anthropologist and historian, recovers here many sources of the history of the ancient inhabitants of what is now Central Mexico. Certainly advanced cultures in some respects (very backwards in some other), but doomed to fall prey to the Conquerors, mainly due to two reasons: the Spaniard's more advanced technology, and the internal dissensions of the Indian cultures. This book is very important because it allows us to understand better the societies that existed before the Conquest. Leon Portilla includes original texts and interpretations of the poems, the philosophy and the cosmovision of the Nahua world. Rigorous and extremelly well-researched.

A fascinating and original book on the life of the 'ancient Mexicans'. The author, Mr. Miguel Leon-Portilla reminds us all that it's important to remember that the Spanish Conquistadors conquered, ransacked and destroyed Mexico for material gains only. The Spaniards robbed the indigenous people of Mexico of their material possessions, their gold calendars, their silver chalices and jade masks. They, however, never discovered or perhaps purposely ignored a whole plethora of cultural and language riches that are now only being seriously studied and understood. Until recently, these indigenous people of Mexico, the great Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, the Toltecs of Tula, the people of Culhuacan and Texcoco were never given due credit for their cultural and spiritual accomplishments. Mr. Leon-Portilla introduces us to the ancient's achievements in writing, in songs and in poetry and discourse. He discusses their use of songs, poems and codices to keep alive their ancient customs and traditions, as well as how they maintained their unique spirituality and vision of life.

Mr. Leon-Portilla also introduces us to important indigenous people such as the great orators and poets Nezahualcoyotl and Cuauhtitlan. To great leaders such as Cuauhtemoc, Itzcoatl, Tizoc and Tlacaelel and to wise men such as Tecayehuatzin and Tochihuitzin. The latter, as Mr. Leon-Portilla states... wise men of Anahuac - Valley of Mexico, like their Greek counterparts, also contemplated mans very existence and the meaning of life. This is a great book for anyone wanting to learn a side of 'the ancient Mexicans' we are not told about in school in the U.S. It gives us a different and unique perspective of what happened in Mexico before the Conquest and a few years after the Conquest.

after reading this book, the condition of my back has deteriorated to the point that i can no longer stand, sit, nor lay without a stabbing pain traversing the entire length of my contorted spine. the book, though highly technical, gives no practical solutions for the man or wo-man with back pain. mr root, thank you... for nothing

I have a dog-eared copy of this book and I've bought it for every friend I know who has back pain, and they have all benefited from it. Dr. Root does NOT talk in technical language, contrary to what one reviewer said. He talks in a comforting tone as if you have just walked into his office. And you follow him through all the conditions and into the last section -- which most of us considered the most valuable -- and that is the exercises. I've read lots of books with back exercises, but the way Root has organized these, selected them and divided them into stages you can advance to (or not), is the most helpful I've seen. The first section (A) of exercises done seriously for a period of months got me from a frustrating series of set-backs onto a relatively pain-free existence, after the initial pulling of my back. Everytime I slip, I refer to my Root book again. I recommend everyone have it on hand.

Not only have I read this book, I refer to it quite often . . . Dr. Root has performed back surgery on me, and twice on my brother. He is both a brilliant surgeon and a compassionate individual who really understands what a patient needs to hear and how to communicate (both orally and in print).

In my eyes, he can do or say no wrong. Prior to my being treated by Dr. Root I couldn't function and now I am living my life - actively (with reinforcements from his book).

Good-bye to back pain and thank you Dr. Root!

So, when did Maya Angelou received the Nobel Prize for literature? pg.129

Enter into this fascinating world of women who are desperately in love with books. They are a diverse group of personalities who were at times ignored, banned and reviled by the public for their use of the written word.

Brenda Knight provides us with some intriguing and entertaining profiles of women in the literary scene. They are listed in seven cateogories which include prolific pens, those whose books were banned, women who wrote from a a different spiritual point of view and other interesting facts about women in the field of literature.

Did you know that women were responsible for writing the Bible under the "guidance" of Jerome? Are you aware of the prolific amount of prose penned by Barbara Cartland, Margaret Mead and Edith Wharton? These are just a few tid bits of information that will encourage you to read more.

I enjoyed this book and discovered quite a bit of information about women who love books that I didn't know. This book does suffer from one main fault and that is its mis-statements of facts or getting the facts wrong. For example, she says Maya Angelou received the Nobel Prize for literature which is false. She wrongly identifies Richard Wright as being a part of the Harlem Renaissance movement in her profile of Zora Neale Hurston. Margaret Mitchell did not endowe a medical chair for African-American students going to medical school. Under cover she provided funds for them to attend.

Such mis-statements of facts may make you gun shy of trusting the other "facts" given about women in the book world. Don't be. Do your own exploring and checking and see what you can find. Knight is just a catalyst. I am surprised that women who edit books are missing from this group but that's another book to write.

Portray after portray of women writers, from expected Sapho to not so expected Barbara Cartland & today's news J.K. Rowlings are presented in this fantastic book, nice to look at with its fantastic layout & nice to feel the weight of in the hand. The authors are revealed under imaginative headlines like "Ink in Their Veins", "Sisters in Crime" and "Women Whose Books Are Too Much Loved"...
You get thrilled and mused while reading about those female writers. Brenda Knight writes tremendously well - she has knowledge and she knows to share it with us in an entertaining way!
As a European Editor, publishing this book in my own language, I am very proud to present some female writers (like Anne Rice and Maya Angelou) for the first time to my countrymen.
This is a tremendous gift to buy to a friend who also love books too much (or to oneself!).