In a world full of hate, violence, and selfishness, this book helps us remember each other in the best of ways. It helped found the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation and is responsible of Random Acts of Kindness week. The publishers at Conari Press have truly created a timeless work of inspiration and beauty. Go out and commit a random act of kindness yourself!

I listened to this book on tape on my morning walk. I've listened to it many times and it always starts my day off with a positive feeling. It inspired me to do kind things for people - like giving 10 hamburgers to a homeless man with my son. He told his class and many children went out that week and did more kind things so that they could share their kind acts with the class. It had a great ripple effect.

Random Acts of Kindness got me thinking more deeply about my actions and how I influence young people. It inspired me to write a children's book, THE KING OF KINDNESS.

Wow, I've read this series of books hungrily.... in my car at lunch, while home sick in bed, during a snowstorm and power outage by flashlight, and now on a Saturday between chores.
No. 5, Riddle of St. Leonard's brings Bess Merchet back into the storyline as well as her uncle, Jasper & Brother Wulfstan. I was thrilled to see Jasper featured in the plot again, and found the mystery to be very compelling and a little bit dark with the history revealed behind Bess' uncle's life. An excellent book. Owen Archer is an interesting, well-written character. I was also happy to see Melisende featured, as well as Lucie's deceased husband and child mentioned again. Very good writing. Nice length, enough but not too much. Leaves the reader anxious to delve into the next book, no. 6 A Gift of Sanctuary!!

Well written, engrossing plot in an historical setting I found fascinating. Really enjoyed this one, looking for more!

It is often hard to find a book that has all essentials elements done well. This one has excellent plot and sub-plots, characters, setting and action. The story is engrossing, both as a mystery and from a historical point of view. The characters are so realistic one feels that they could be neighbors. Please treat yourself to this book and sit back and enjoy it.

Steve Edwards' book was my first purchase as an avid rockclimber when I visited Santa Barbara in January 2002 to prepare for my transfer to the area. Even before using the guide to locate the local climbing I enjoyed it immensely for the history and personal flavor given by the author.

There is much more to this book than a climbing guide. It is also a personal pilgrimage. Steve experienced a golden era in Santa Barbara climbing that he describes so vividly yet knows has passed forever. His is the passion of a personal life transition that we all go through and there is both joy and sadness in the writing. His obsessive intensity and endurance for physical training is mirrored by an affection for caffeine, alcohol and nicotine that make him such an interesting character. Steve is also a movie connoisseur from his early days running a video shop in the student quarter (Isla Vista) next to UCSB and he blends this knowledge with climb descriptions for occasional flashes of brilliant humor. And I should refrain from commenting on the Reverend Speefknarkle! Steve's defining picture is buffed and honed on "Pieces of You" atop the fantastic Pine Mountain boulderfield.

The book fulfills its primary purpose as a tool for guiding the climber in locating and selecting appealing routes exceptionally well. My copy is already dogeared and marked up with yellow highlights after just one season and it has never led me astray. Only rarely have I disagreed with the grades Steve gives for difficulty and quality but this is to be expected for these subjective ratings.

In summary, this book is a must buy for any climber interested in the Santa Barbara - Ventura region yet it has deeper appeal as literature capturing one man's personal journey through the 90's. How we all wish to turn back the hands of time!

I visit the Santa Barbara area often. So I picked up this book and thumbed through and became intrigued enough to buy it. Not for the rock climbing information (although the personality and names given to each trail had me captivated); instead I became curious to know this philosophical guide writer, Steve Edwards. Formerly thinking all rock climbers were a bunch of daredevils, this guide opened my eyes to the depth of committment it takes to be a rock climber, much less, write a guide! And their love of the earth is more honest and real than most armchair environmentalists. Reading this book definitely helped me grow. I hope you will read it and then go hug a rock - and maybe even a rockclimber!

Whether served up with a tray of Bombay Sapphire martinis (shaken, two olives) or a six-pack of ice cold Oly, let this text be your companion to some of the best and most scenic climbing areas in America! Looking for steep, gargantuan sport routes that make your tendons twitch just looking at 'em? How about classic sandstone slabs with holds so fragile they may break if you merely pass gas? Or maybe you're into divine boulderfields so vast that first ascents are possible until Jesus comes back to spot you? This book has it covered. Steve Edwards has done a first class job of directing you in entertaining fashion to the climbing, history, and lifestyle that Santa Barbara climbing is all about. Read it over coffee and cigarettes not just as a guide, but as fine literature. It's better than 'Atlas Shrugged', and shorter too!

This is a wonderful textbook for the practicing statistician, process engineer, or anyone who works with data on a regular basis. This book finds the right mix of statistical theory and practical applications of the statistical concepts to process troubleshooting. "Process Quality Control: Troubleshooting and Interpretation of Data" will be appropriate for a course taught to statistics majors as well as anyone in an engineering field, and it will also be a very valuable reference to anyone working in industry who is tasked with using data to make decisions about their processes.

The book is very thorough, covering everything from the basics of visualizing data (histograms, box plots, etc.) through basic DOE and SPC all the way to more sophisticated SPC concepts such as narrow-limit gauging, acceptance control charts, and cumulative sum charts. I cannot think of a topic in basic SPC that is not covered in this text. A great bonus is the CD that comes with the text that includes answers to all of the exercises and an add-in for Excel that performs Analysis of Means, making this great graphical tool for summarizing results of statistical analyses even more practical to use.

All in all, a very thorough text with many examples/case studies that would be useful to anyone in industry in charge of controlling and improving processes.

One of my prize possessions is this book, a copy of the original 1975 edition, signed by Professor Ott himself.

When I first got a job in Quality Assusrance, this was one of the books I consulted in my local college library. I soon found it was the best of the lot for its clear explanations, practical examples and sheer readability. When I came back into QA after working in another field, one of the first things I did was procure a copy of the book from a bookfinder - the 2nd hand copy I was delighted to discover also had Ott's signature!

It is great to see an updated edition is now on sale and that Ellis Ott's name is not forgotten, for he (as far as I can find out about him) is one of the unsung pioneers of Statistical Process Control. Ott is not longer with us, but the co-authors have sensibly decided to update a classic, rather than starting from scratch. The examples in the older book are as relevant today as they are then.

From what I can see, this book sticks to the philosophy of the earlier editions but has modernized its approach in some respects, especially in the notation of Experimental Design and in the use of Excel, which I also remommend as an easy-to-use PC tool. Highly recommended for practitioners of Statistical Process Control.

I recommend that this very well written text belong to every statistician who works in industry. Others such as mechanical, electrical, chemical, etc., engineers and scientists will also find this book to be a valuable reference. The book covers the breadth of useful statistical methods that industrial practitioners would likely encounter. Some topics such as implementing statistical process control, design of experiments with two or three factors, and troubleshooting with attributes and variables data are discussed extensively. Many real life examples from various industries are used throughout to illustrate the statistical concepts. All topics are well referenced enabling the reader to explore more thoroughly their areas of interest. The book also features a CD-ROM for the PC which contains datasets and solutions to practice exercises. An Excel add-in program is included for Analysis of Means [ANOM] of attributes and variables data the results of which are presented graphically.

The book is divided into three sections: Basics of Interpretation of Data, Statistical Process Control, and Troubleshooting and Process Improvement. The first section reviews many basic statistical concepts familiar to most statisticians. The second describes many facets of SPC some of which, such as Precontrol or Narrow-Limit Gauging in Process Control, the reader including myself may not be conversant, but will find useful in their own line of work. The last section describes what are probably underutilized but often very useful troubleshooting techniques. ANOM, for example, is a powerful way of analyzing data from industrial experiments with two or three factors resulting in graphics that can be used to clearly communicate conclusions to managers, to other engineers and scientists, and/or to operators on the shop floor.

I really enjoyed reading this book and am finding it to be a valuable reference to which I refer again and again.

Hank W. Altland Senior Project Engineer, Statistics Corning, Inc.

August 26, 2000

Ed Lee is best known for spectacularly gruesome books like "The Bighead," or sick short stories like "Header." This little chapbook, entitled "Quest for Sex, Truth, and Reality" marks a significant departure for Lee. While the three stories included here still contain Lee's usual warped outlook on modern day society, the stories are much deeper than mere blood and guts tales. The three stories in this booklet are not easy to decipher, but in that respect they mirror our own individual search for truth and reality.

The first story, "Goddess of the New Dark Age," concerns a washed up writer dying of cancer and his attempt to seek the meaning of reality. He goes to the usual sources one would consider in such a quest, heading down to the university to talk to a philosophy professor. The professor gives him a long, academic rant that is neither illuminating nor coherent. The author turns to sex, finding nothing lurking there that reveals reality. Only when he recognizes that the reality of our time is horror heaped upon horror, the reality of man's cruelty and endless heartbreak, does he discover what is real.

Lee moves down darker trails in "The Seeker," a tale even more obscure than the previous story. A writer wonders into a strange town, encountering several weird people in a local bar while the army searches for something strange in the surrounding environs. A few stomach churning scenes later finds the writer encountering what the army is looking for. What it is and what it means is unclear, but the man discovers the object has bigger plans than corrupting the local townspeople. Lee writes that the symbolism of this story is that the things we seek out because we believe it is the truth often turn out to be something completely different. Hmmm.

"Pay Me" unavoidably deals with the quest for sex. In this pornographic yarn, a man named Smith runs across Lisa, an old school chum, in a seedy bar. She is even more attractive than he remembers, and the two make small talk over drinks for a time. Regrettably for Smith, he soon sees what her job is in this type of bar. The descriptions here are graphic in a tone that suggests certain magazines available only to those over eighteen. Smith and Lisa do spend the night together, resulting in Smith's incorporation into the stage show at the bar. Lee claims this story deals with the biggest fear of the 1980's, namely the shroud of sexual terror that descended over the country due to the AIDS virus.

Ed Lee fans will want to pick this slim book up quickly, since small press stuff tends to quickly fade from view. I do not pretend to understand these mysterious stories, but they are quite different from the usual Ed Lee fare. For instance, I do not remember any rednecks or hillbillies turning up in any of the stories, definitely a rare and noticeable occurrence for this author. Ultimately, it is nice to see a writer in the grue genre attempt to stretch his talents now and again even if he does not necessarily pull it off.

An author finds himself close to death and followed by a ghost that tells him to 'make her real.' So, his quest for enlightenment, to find the becoming mentioned before his terminal illness catches him begins. A town that is going mad, filled with horrific events that consume mind after mind, and a writer that thinks of himself as 'a seeker' journeying through it. Along the way he hears a voice, a voice that tells him not to turn away but to seek out what is real. A man listening to a voice inside his head journeys into a 'seedy' part of town, into a bar offering 'live shows,' finding someone he once loved in the process and also finding that, in time, truth is relative and it all changes. Every truth has a price.

Three stories, one chapbook, and the label out-of-print on all this beast's previous release. That is what this work, by Edward Lee, comprises on its Quest For Sex, Truth, and Reality. It also entails something that's well written in its short, 35-page run, something that reflects upon its author while the main character's ' all reflecting on bits of Edward's internal struggle ' search for something more, and a more meaningful side of the gore writer's persona. Personally, I find this time period in his writing life an interesting one, filled with reflections of what is going on in the author's mind after each tale told, letting you into the painter's mindset as the scene was crafted. To me, that is an important keyhole to sometimes peek through because knowing the author, its knowing something behind-the-scenes.

For fans of Lee's writing, this is something that you'll want to definitely procure because the alternative to picking it up here is paying way too much for the out-of-print volumes of this, his first chapbook. Also, Pay Me, the third story in the book, is also listed as exclusive to the volume, so that makes it a nice find, too. Included herein is Goddess of a New Dark Age, The Seeker, and the before-mentioned piece, evening it out as something that is worth picking up. For anyone that has yet to check out Lee, you should bear in mind that he is a horror creator and incorporates the spilling of internal stimuli to get his message across. If this works for you and you want a tale coated in the renditional imagery of terror, then this is worth picking up.

When I ordered this Necro chapbook, I didn't realize that I'd already read 2 of it's three stories ("The Goddess Of The Dark Age" and "The Seeker" were both in the author's 1st collection of short fiction - The Ushers). Knowing that now, I would still order this book as it is the only place (besides the original out of print chapbook by Tal) to get the 3rd story, "Pay Me". Having just finished Lee's Sex, Drugs & Power Tools, I had to shift gears a little bit as this collecion isn't as hardcore/in your face as S,D&PT. Don't take that the wrong way. If you like Edward Lee, you'll like this collection. Just don't go looking for a header. Be sure to check out the afterword that follows each story (and the picture of Lee smiling at the end). Seek out this chapbook now before it joins the Tal edition.

Whittemore's name kept popping up for me--Rick Kleffel's mentioned him on one listserv, he was mentioned on Rondua, someone else sent me a note about him--so I went on a fact-finding mission, searching the Internet for information about this elusive author. There wasn't much, but one of the hits was the first issue of a newsletter from the Council for Literature of the Fantastic in an article by Jeff VanderMeer on nine neglected works. This was part one of the article, with only five authors covered (Paul Auster, Angela Carter, Nick Cave, Steve Erickson, and Edward Whittemore). VanderMeer concentrates on Whittemore's four-novel suite, "The Sinai Tapestry," and only briefly mentions Quin's Shanghai Circus, his first novel. It sounded like my type of thing, though, so I went on a used book search and had some luck, finding both Quin's and two novels of the suite. Like normal, I start an author from his first work.

Wow. This is certainly a different kind of novel. It has an aura of its time (early 70s), but it is also unique enough to be timeless. To explain it basically, it is a novel of intertwining lives--Quin is a thirty-something American orphan who is approached in a bar by a very strange fellow who has a clue to his parents' identities. This leads Quin to Japan, accompanied by Big Gobi, a large mentally challenged man who also has something to do with Quin's parentage. They meet Father Lamereaux, and start following the thread of the story that incorporates a secret agent network that was responsible for saving untold lives in World War II by affecting Sino-Russo-Nippo relations. As the stories unfold, following one character after another, we are enmeshed in how their lives affected each other, sometimes with two or three degrees of separation. Lastly, there's one character who's not what he seems--in my faux writing terms, a third-person unreliable.

Fantastic literature? In both senses. I was amazed at the complexity of the "plot" (the story, because it is not linear, sometimes defies English 101 terms), and surprised by some of the elements, sometimes strange and grotesque. It's not truly horrific, even though some parts verge on the Clive Barker scale. At one point, the novel recounts how the last performance of the titular circus occurs, in which the performers are detached one by one, and then the ravenous beasts are let loose to feed on the audience. My stomach churned several times during those pages, and I don't think it was my stomach flu causing it to do so. One of the characters is a psychopath who is entirely too believable, making certain sections recall Thomas Harris more than C.S. Lewis. If "The Sinai Tapestry" suite is as good as this novel, Whittemore is definitely unjustly neglected, and should be reprinted.

*Quin's Shanghai Circus* may well be the best espionage novel of the 20th Century, as good as anything Graham Greene, John Le Carre or Somerset Maugham have written. It's a deep, dark, and magical read that does what Kafka tells us books should do: it takes an axe to the frozen sea inside us. And it's all true. Every word of it. Whittemore rules...

Old Earth Books will be reprinting this and the other four Whittemore novels! Google the web for "Edward Whittemore" for details.

Excellent book, even better than the movie, though the movie is excellent too. If you want to read a laugh out loud book this summer, this is the one!

I was born and raised in Newfoundland, but moved away a few years ago. This book brought back the punch of Newfoundland humor in such a way that it left me laughing out loud like a lunatic til tears were running down my cheeks. I always thought that the Newfoundland sense of humor was something that couldn't be put into words...something you had to experience first hand, and even then sometimes people don't get it. Somehow this author has pulled it off. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm greatly looking forward to it. Bravo Edward Riche!!!

A couple of years ago, my sister, who lives in Newfoundland, Canada, sent me this book. I put it aside but several months later I was sick, and picked up the book. I read it straight through in 3 or 4 hours...I couldn't put it down! The story is absolutely hilarious, and just recently has been made into a movie starring William Hurt. I have not been able to find this book in the US until now. I have loaned it to countless friends and they have all loved it. It is truly a good read. Get it!

This is about the third book I've read by Gene Veith and I enjoy his clear writing style very much. This book has a helpful overview of the main genres of literature and their place in the Christian worldview. The real gems in this book are Veith's discussions of Fiction and Fantasy. There would certainly be crossover into the realm of filmmaking for the thoughtful Christian screenwriter. I also found the end chapters on the development of literature throughout history, and how Christians interacted and critiqued the errors of their day a helpful corrective to much of the existential Christian nonsense which tries to pass itself off as "Christian literature" these days. My only disappointment is Veith's repeated use of Madeline L'Engle as a positive example of a Christian author. Certainly, she has some spiritual overtones to her books, but I don't think the worldview she presents could be called distinctly "Christian". The other slight criticism I have is that I would have liked to see Veith give more discussion to developing a model for how Christians can interact with their culture through literature. He kind of assumes too much here.

The only problem with this book is that it has the wrong title. It shouldn't be called a "Christian" guide to literature, but simply a guide to literature. I heartily recommend this book to both my Christian and non-Christian friends.

Mr. Veith clearly explains the importance of literature in our modern society. His description of the different literary forms gave me a new appreciation for some genres that in the past I had avoided. This book is important to both the avid reader as well as some one who would like to develop an appreciation for literature. It is most appropriate for anyone who has an interest in literature, not just Christians.

We live in a time which allows book lovers access to a tremendous amount of literature, but we often need help in sorting through the junk to get to the nuggets of gold. Veith has done an outstanding job of teaching the lover of reading what to look for (and look out for) in books. The author explores how to seek out quality works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry in helping the reader develop a sense of good literary taste. The book also explains how literature has changed from the Middle Ages to the present, but in an entertaining way. Veith's writing style makes sometimes confusing literary concepts easily understood. A very enjoyable read.

This is an essential read, but note the date - written in 1982, not 1998 as stated on the Amazon.com website. It provides great insight into US foreign policy, particularly in South America up to 1982. You can almost begin to identify with the 'retail terrorist' but then it's the 'state terrorist' that emerges as the real problem. It also makes you realize the enormous extent to which the 'american people' have been duped by the covert operations of Presidents veiled in Hollywood style PR.

When I see this kind of well researched content in the New York Times or the Economist, I'll believe we are on the right track!

By accident, I read the "Marcos Dynasty" after this. Enough said!

I was interested in this book some years back, read parts of it, never finished it. One of those sorts
of books, the kind that would be one of 10 - 20 I would have out at any one time while trying to
discover and better understand the world in which we live. Now it is November 28, 2001 and
America has been victim to one of the largest terrorist attacks in history. I decided to look again into
some of the writings on the war on terrorism which actually began long before 9/11/2001.

The Real Terror network is a chilling book. Ed Herman is an expert on terrorism if ever there was
one. Problem is he is not judgmental in his use of the term, as the media then and today tend to
be, so he is brushed aside from the mainstream (certainly have not seen him interviewed on TV
during our newest crisis!). Early on in the book he describes terrorism as the use of violence to
achieve political goals. With this as his starting point, he goes on to examine various activities of
what he calls retail terrorists (ie. small Soviet sponsored, the PLO, Libya etc) vs wholesale
terrorism (ie state terrorism).

Herman's basic premise is that the terrorism carried out with US support in South Africa, Angola,
Cuba, and by Israel far outweigh that carried out by the folks actually branded as terrorists, the
ones we are in the process of "smoking out" today. He goes on to provide a wealth of examples
of US support for terrorism which is documented in a very scholarly way. There is also a very
effective chapter examining the role of the media in defining who we generally think of as
terrorists, by downplaying or completely ignoring our own actions while repeatedly running
stories on enemy terrorism. Basically he is describing the propaganda model he later flushes out
with co-author Noam Chomsky in "manufacturing Consent"
I would suggest that this book be dusted off and read by anyone who has the stomach. It is not a
pretty picture, or an easy read for that matter. It is not overly long book, and I think that if more
people were exposed to truths like the ones Herman outlines, more people would protest, and
likely the world would be a better, at least safer place.

Edward Herman, famous for his iconoclastic studies (e.g. Manufacturing Consent)with Noam Chomsky, published this book in 1982, though its themes very much apply today. Herman shows that the U.S. mass media almost always accept the U.S. government version of events without question, especially in foreign affairs and cater to its propaganda needs. Herman explains why it is that fascist military regimes in the third world from Indonesia to Brazil to Guatemala to Uraguay to the Philipines to Chile that have often been installed and given heavy aid by the United States and murdered and tortured hundreds of thousands of people, often in extremely gruesome fashion, and yet very little coverage has been given to their abuses, despite massive evidence presented by church groups and human rights organizations, refugees and many others, in contrast to the massive daily coverage of the injustices suffered by dissidents in the Soviet block, the official enemy of the U.S. government and much of big business. He examines why it is that, to give one of many examples, Brazillian labor leader Luis De Silva can be referred to at one point by a New York Times editorial as "the Lech Walesa of Brazil" and yet that same paper can devote very little coverage to the gross injustices he suffered at the hands of a U.S. client government and yet devoted massive daily coverage to the injustices suffered by Walesa in Communist Poland. He examines why it is that while unions were being eliminated and union leaders and members being executed by the thousands in Colombia, Guatemala, Chile and elsewhere, the United States government and its allies and the U.S. media, can launch into a hocus pocus of holy horror at the far less murderous repression of the Solidarity union in Poland. He examines why it is that the media, when they deign to look at the terror in the U.S. backed client states at all, almost never attribute its source to U.S. training and supply of the military officials who conduct it, instead asserting that the client state government is unfortunately unable to control the death squads or rogue segments of the military, despite massive evidence that these elements are firmly under the control of the client government and being directed by it, or perhaps implying that the U.S. is an innocent bystander looking helplessly over a country that has no history of democracy, is prone to violence, etc; he examines why it is that the media rarely focus on the nature of the massive U.S. training of the Latin American militaries where not much emphasis is placed on military training but much emphasis is placed on ideological training, ingraining the idea in these already reactionary forces that any sort of reform movement, however mild, that seeks to help the oppressed peasantry, establish union rights, and so on, is by definition part of a hellish conspiracy of the Soviet Union and Cuba to overthrow Western Civilization, and so on. They are taught that communism is completely evil and that the United States and those who ally with it are the forces of virtue and civilization and that since the popular movements (unions, peasant self-help organizations,etc.) are by definition, not indiginous movements seeking to fight oppression and misery inflicted by very primitive oligarchies, but agents of world Communism, any means necessary can be used to eliminate them. They also tend to be taught advanced techniques of torture.

He examines why the extensive CIA-backed and protected terror network of the Cuban exile community (e.g. Omega 7, once described by the FBI as the "most dangerous terrorist organization in the U.S. today" yet never prosecuted or investigated; or Orlando Bosch who escaped from prison in Venezuela after blowing up a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people in 1976, and committing many other crimes) is never examined by the U.S. media. He examines why it is that South Africa's mass murder in its U.S.-backed illegal occupation of Namibia (such as its massacre of over 600 people at Kassinga in May 1978) and murderous invasion of Angola were rarely condemned by the media, though Cuba's perfectly legal responsive military operations on behalf of the Angolan government, with an extremely reluctant Soviet Union in the background, was violently condemned. He examines why it is that the media never has looked into the famous "Operation Condor" began in the mid-1970's on the initiative of Pinochet's Chile which allowed the various intelligence services of the American backed terror and torture regimes (Brazil, Chile, Uraguay, Argentina, Paraguay, etc.) to operate in each other's countries to search for their own exiled dissidents to kidnap and murder, whose victims seem to run into the hundreds at the very least.

He examines, very extensively, why it is that almost all of the U.S. client regimes have instituted economic policies that have resulted in vast increases in malnutrition, unemployment, child mortality, and so on, and great inceases in poverty, yet these regimes are often refered to in the U.S. media as having produced an "economic miracle." He examines why it was that such bizarre terrorism "experts" were given such grave attention in the U.S. media in the 80's, particularly the late Claire Sterling with her methods of scholarship that would make an intelligent ten year old die laughing and her amusing use of the intelligence services of apartheid South Africa and Pinochet's Chile as "sources." Or General Jan Sejna, who according to Sterling fled Czechoslovakia, as the Soviet army invaded in 1968, but who actually left his country after being implicated in a corruption scandal during Dubcek's brief "Prague Spring" government that the Soviets overthrew , with his wild tales of the Soviets training terrorists in his country for worldwide subversion with methods of scholarship and evidence scarcely more compelling than Sterling's.

There is much else in this book that I didn't mention above, including a couple of pages devoted to Israel and what one of its former prime ministers, Moshe Sharett, referred to as its "scared terrorism." Once or twice, as during his devastating critique of the economic situation in the American client regimes, Herman gets a bit too heavy, but those periods are brief and rare.