In his book, "Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer," Bruce Holland Rogers penetrates deeply into topics at the core of the writing process and what it means to be a writer: procrastination, ADD and manic depression, writing workshops, fear of death, handling rejection and success, and balancing relationships with loved ones.

The result is a book that is unique among all other writing books because it encourages you, the writer, to examine many of your pre-conceived notions about your own writing or the writing process in general. You'll begin asking yourself questions like, "Why do I write?" "How is my opinion of my writing affecting my growth?" "What relationships are important to me as a writer?" Throughout the text, Rogers does a great job of balancing the spiritual aspects of these inquiries with the writer's need for pragmatic solutions.

"Word Work" also explores some of the more basic aspects of the writing life including where and how to work, methods for jump-starting a project, and ways to get away from it all when you need a break. As a dedicated writer and teacher of college writing who has read dozens of books on the subject, I heartily recommend this book to both professionals and budding amateurs who want to grow--not only as writers, but also as human beings.

" Word Work, Surviving and Thriving as a Writer, is an incredibly useful, informative and fascinating window into the world of a true writer. As if looking into the essence of the writer's brain and soul, Bruce Holland Rogers has encompassed every quirk and elusiveness of being more than a surface writer.

This book is extremely useful to those just starting out as a realistic awakening of the writer's daily life, the good and the bad. If you truly want to know what procrastination, routine and rejection can do for your career, then you need to read Word Work. Whether you are a Pig Will or a Pig Won't, you'll benefit from this concise, therapeutic and educational literary self-help."

- Michelle Hall, Writer & Editor for ABP

Word Work is a book about the writing life-not technique or how to become published. The author playfully describes surviving by becoming a lone wolf or a pack member, assuming the pack is the right one for you. Several chapters are devoted to the tireless subjects of writers and their relationships with friends, spouses and children. Packed with humorous examples and antics the author endured, it creates laugh-out-loud moments.Without forgetting the elements of competitivness, frustration and anticipation about publishing, Rogers suggests that the writer envision success and it will eventually happen. It's often choosing the right topics that make the most impact to the writer which, in turn, will imapct his or her readers.
This heartfelt book provides the writer with plenty of valuable strategies to keep on writing...and writing.

Oscar Wilde is one of my very favorite writers. He wrote some very interesting stories such as "The Picture of Dorian Gray". He also wrote very good dialogue. I place him second only to Shakespeare where the dialogue is concerned. Wilde also created well-developed and intriguing characters. I would highly recommend his works.

Whoa! I was totally unfamiliar with the works of Oscar Wilde, until I bought this one on a friend's recommendation. It's huuuuuge, yet incredibly beautiful. Dorian Gray must be one of the greatest stories ever told, his poems are razor-sharp, his letters not less, and every line he comes up with is quotable. If you want to make sure you don't miss a thing, this is the book to get (and try his biography, especially the part about the trial).

Oscar Wilde wrote some of the most brilliantly crafted, witty plays of all time. Get this book and read everything in it! You're really missing out if you haven't read any of his work. His humor is so wicked and will have you cackling evilly at the genius of his dialogue. "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" is also one of the most unforgettable and captivating stories I've ever read. Highly recommended.

The cover image stopped me in my tracks at the bookstore, and I bought multiple copies. The young woman at the checkout counter was mesmerized by the image as well. The illustrations inside equal or surpass the one on the cover.

The images are detailed but not fussy. They are highly evocative of German Romanticism -- very moody, dreamy, somewhat melancholy, with an emphasis on the grandeur of Nature. If you enjoy the illustrations of Maurice Sendak, Edward Gorey, Arthur Rackham, et al., you will like this book.

Like Barrett's artwork, Poole's text tells the classic tale soberly, including the queen's botched attempts to strangle Snow White with silken laces and prick her with a poison comb. There is also more mention of Snow White's mother and father than in many retellings. This version is certainly more in line with magical/mystical/matriarchal imagery than Disney's.

Some of the images -- e.g., drops of blood -- and the story itself may be too intense for very young readers. For me, this book is a contemporary gem and is worth seeking out.

Wonderful illustrations, of course, but also the story includes the incident with the poisoned comb (left out in many editions). A great book for parents looking to replace the Disney-fied version for their children.

If you like this, also check out the same author/illustrator team's collaboration on "Joan of Arc."

The illustrations are beautiful without being frou-frou, serious without being creepy. Highly recommended for ages 4-8.

This is the well-known story of a princess whose evil stepmother tries to have her killed. The huntsmen could not go through with it and tells Snow White to run away. When she does she finds herself in the company of seven small men. They live in a house very happily until the queen finds that Snow White is not dead. She finds Snow White and tricks her into eating a poisoned apple. Snow White dies. She is awoken from her death by the kiss of a prince and they live happily ever after.
The reason I enjoyed this version of Snow White more than others that I have read was that is was not as much of a fairy tail like story and more of a darker approach to it. The seven dwarfs, for example, are not shown as happy little creatures that sing and dance all day long. They are merely shown as small, kind men. The illustrations in this book are so beautiful even though they are not the bright colors that would usually go along with this story.

From the Mississippi Delta is the memoir of Endesha Ida Mae Holland, Ph.D. - a well respected author, playwright, and scholar with a personal story that both enlightens and inspires. As a civil rights pioneer, Dr. Holland was instrumental in the success of organized efforts to eradicate racial discrimination from her home state of Mississippi.

From the Mississippi Delta is even more compelling because of the circumstances from which this remarkable woman came...to think that a one-time prostitute, thief, and convict could rise to become a Pulitzer Prize nominee, critcally acclaimed author, and tenured professor at the University of Southern California! The fact that Dr. Holland has survived and persevered despite having every possible obstacle placed in front of her - it should make those of us who were born to better circumstances rethink our roles in life.

I was extremely humbled by this autobiography. The sacrifices that Dr. Holland and her peers made as part of the Civil Rights Movement should never be forgotten or dismissed. After being repeatedly exposed to the murderous deeds of those who have sought to paint themselves as the brave patriots and heros of a new world order, I am grateful that there are books like From the Mississippi Delta that provide examples of those who can rightly take on the mantles of bravery, heroism, and patriotism - and bear them with the pride, dignity, and respect that they deserve.

The occasionally encountered graphic material didn't bother me, since the scenes and language in From the Mississippi Delta are non-gratuitous, accurate, and true to life; it would be a travesty to dilute them. I am horrified at the prospect of people being subjected to the conditions and abuse that are described as being part and parcel of young Ida Mae Holland's everyday existence.

In my opinion, any distasteful moments are fully recounted in the text to make sure that we don't forget our past mistakes - lest we give in to the ever-present danger of committing the same errors in the future.

A gripping and well-written account. An absolutely incredible read. Highly recommended.

Aside from being a celebration of the human spirit, Ms. Holland's Memoir offers a fresh, interesting, and unique glimpse into the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. This focus alone, I believe, renders the book meritorious.

Ms. Holland tells the civil rights story from the perspective of individuals born and raised in the muck and mire of Mississippi's lethal brand of white supremacy and racial hatred. Through her eyes, we get a close-up view of what had to be overcome; and, what was required of ordinary folk brave enough to get involved in a situation that could and DID, literally, cost them their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

These unsung heroes deserve national attention and recognition if the story of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States of America is to be told in its entirety.

But, if this isn't reason enough to add Ms. Holland's book to your "must read" list, I believe the author's superior craftsmanship will certainly convince you her work is worthy of the acclaim she is sure to receive once her book gains a wider readership. And, above all, the Memoir is a magnificent read!

Usually, I find it awkward and sometimes unnerving to read books written in a black, southern, vernacular. However, as in the case of Zora Neale Hurston, Endesha Ida Mae Holland writes with such a pure and authentic voice, I found myself falling effortlessly into her rhythm.

I'm a voracious reader and the authors I most enjoy are great storytellers. My current favorite is Barbara Kingsolver, and of course my all time favorite is Zora Neale Hurston. Endesha Ida Mae Holland "puts me in the mind of" both these writers.

She also reminds me of Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes & 'Tis). Like McCourt, Ms. Holland transports you back to her childhood and growing up years with such seamless ease, you find yourself sharing her heartbeat through every single experience she lives to tell about. Almost immediately, I found myself caring deeply about her; I grew to love her mother, her child, her neighbors, her friends; and, I found no strangers among those who populate her world.

What an exquisite gift of storytelling she has! I certainly hope she plans to write more "from the Mississippi Delta," because her talent is as rich and fertile as her source.

Obviously, I've become a devoted fan of Ms. Holland and her work ~ a designation I'm hoping you and I will soon share.

Who knows, your reading experience with Ms. Holland may inspire you to join me in asking Oprah Winfrey to feature the author and her book on the Oprah Show, as well as making "From The Mississippi Delta," an Oprah Book Club selection.

I was moved to make this appeal to Ms. Winfrey because I believe we all benefit from an increased national and world exposure of brave and talented women like Ms.Holland. These women are profoundly inspirational and deserving of our applause and recognition.

This is an excellent book that captured my attention from start to finish each of the three times I read it. I cannot think of any people in America that would not benefit from reading this very touching and true story of the deep south. The history of the south after slavery is eloquently highlighted in this very moving story by Endesha and should be fireside reading for children of all ethnic backgrounds.

I greatly admire Endesha's strength to overcome the tragedies she experienced, her ability to forgive those responsible and her wisdom to share this achievement with the world. I congratulate Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland on her accomplishments as a strategic survivor, a courageous civil rights activist, a concerned citizen, a stellar scholar and an accomplished author. There have been many books written about the south after slavery, and I have read several of them. From The Mississippi Delta by Endesha Ida Mae Holland, Phd. is the one you must read.

If you start with the Introduction chapter to Red Zone Management by Dutch Holland, Ph.D., you will encounter the color commentary of a crucial moment in a Raiders versus Giants football game, with the Giants in the "red zone." By just reading this first page, you will have discovered the basic concept behind red zone management. However, if you continue with the remaining chapters, which I suggest, you will chuckle at the almost "Dilbertesque" profile of an unsuccessful red zone maneuver in chapter one, and you will become intrigued by the real-life red zone maneuvers of high-profile businesses in the six red zone management game plans that comprise the bulk of the book.

In dissecting this sports metaphor, Dutch Holland has provided us with a well-written and insightful approach to managing the daunting challenges that can decisively determine an organization's future. When faced with the prospect of great gain or failure, seasoned managers inherently know the right approach to be taken. Red zone management allows these managers to use their inherent skills to verify the intent, goals and process of the effort within a structured approach.

By conceptualizing the red zone metaphor as outlined in the book, we, as managers, can develop the specific game plan and team roster needed to attain the desired positive outcome. I was personally very interested in the changing culture game plan, since I believe that this is one of the most important, yet one of the most difficult red zones for any organization. With Holland's suggested game plan, one can visualize how the desired outcome could be reached.

These days, we are constantly inundated with new books on the topic of management. However, Red Zone Management rises above the rest. It should be required reading for all managers, both to familiarize junior managers with the red zone management concept as well as to fine tune the inherent red zone management skills of senior managers.

Red Zone Management is a new creative and comprehensive treatment of a complex and seldom understood subject. Dutch uses a football analogy and setting to capture the readers interest in describing the risk, strategy, complexity and rewards of managing a business in the critical high risk areas of: changing corporate strategies, re-engineering, enterprise solutions, e-business solutions and most importantly and the least understood area of culture change. The book binds the reader to a dual encounter between Super Bowl Participants and business competitors, describing the strategies and risks of playing in the Red Zone. Being an active participant in both arenas at various times, I could not put the book down until I had finised reading it. The book is packed with case histories of business success and failures with comments for why the outcome was as it was.

In the past while being involved in a major merger, my company successfully utilized the principles described by Dutch. The results were that the whole was greater the the sum of the parts--a success for the shareholders

Red Zone Management is based on a football analogy for the last 20 yards that lead to a touchdown. This is make it or break it time for a team. According to the author, Dutch Holland, businesses are increasingly facing their own red zones. For a business what constitutes are red zone? It is activities that can lead to extraordinary profit or loss. These situations fall outside the scope of daily business management. Here is a list of red zone situations:

Changing competitive strategy

Mergers and acquisitions
Reengineering work processes
Implementing enterprise solutions (ERPs)
Implementing e-Business solutions
Changing culture

What are the types of behaviors that cause red zone initiatives to fail? Here is Holland's list:

Lack of high quality executive support
Lack of comprehensive and detailed up-front planning
The organization is too narrowly involved
Inappropriate delegation for critical leadership responsibilities
Undisciplined and incomplete project management

Red Zone Management covers the general topics of the red zone in the first half of the book. Each business red zone gets a chapter in the second half of the book. Each of these chapters covers a company that failed in this red zone and one that succeeded. In addition each of these chapters covers the roles that senior management needs to play for this particular red zone.

If your company is in the red zone or will be in one soon this book can tip the scales in your favor to succeed in the red zone.

Rosas life story is amazing how she puts every detail on how the blacks were treated(like dirt!) If you want to know more about the amazing story of Rosa Parks, who refused to move on the bus for a white man,and did a fifty-six mile march to Montgomery, with a whole bunch of other blacks who were tired of getting treated like they were.If you want to know more about this amazing life of rosas buy this book immediately!!!!!!!!!!

The title of my book is "Rosa Parks:My Story".The story takes place in the South.The most interisting factin the beginning of the book is that rosa lived through racism.When Rosa was going to school predjuced people would throw things at her.At the end of my book the most important fact is that she wasan activist in the N.A.A.C.P.Also she worked toward ending racism, and she is still living today.

Rosa Parks: My Story is about this lady named Rosa Parks. She refused to move to the back of the bus. She went to jail because she refused to move to the back of the bus. Rosa Parks was born February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee and was named Rosa after her grandmother, Rose. What I liked about the story was that she had the courage to stand up to the white people and policemen. What I didn't like was that the police had to take Rosa to jail, but they didn't want to. They said it was wrong.

Aldrich Ames' met with the author for several sittings after he was jailed and without the government's permission. That was just one more offense in a career of treason, drunkenness, slough and almost revolting passivity. Yet this man not only sent as many as 25 agents to their execution, he also spared no information to his KGB handlers. At times, he would be rooting for our side by day and by night he would have reversed and treacherously divulged everything he had previously learned.

Of course the answer is how? Despite the agency's superiority in resources and technology, they retain a dangerous and imbecilic "he's one of us" mentality. Ames repeatedly failed to follow protocol. He was spending money like a madman and while there were a few who were convinced of his guilt, the amount of time and the ultimate leakage that occured with every day was shameful.

Interestingly or not, the CIA has satellites that could zero in on Brezhnev as his dacha while he was being detained-but when it came down to getting the goods on Ames, they were more like the Keystone cops. Stealing trashcans, going door to door as salesmen, til someone called the cops and all of the vaudeville that one associates with those types of blunders. The book is far more flattering to the 'bureau,' who took full honors for the arrest even though there had been an agency team that had first fingered Ames and his wife.

The underlying issue for me was a) how the nature of espionage seems to be more about getting moles than about truly gathering intelligence and b) the astonishing lack of effective ways to figure out if someone is working for the other side. All of which, indicts or acquits the nature of being human in a world of frightening homeland security and total information awareness. Getting the info is apparently easier than managing it and logically acting on behalf of the constitution- not an ideology. There has been nothing discovered that has solved that problem. I really enjoyed reading this book and having some insight into diplomacy and superpowers and flawed characters all over.

Excellent book. Well investigated and written. Once you start, it's hard to put it down.

I really enjoyed Pete Earley's book "Hot House" about Leavenworth Prison and this book is every bit as good. An excellent combination of detailed research and captivating writing. Much more in depth than "Killer Spy" by Peter Maas (which was not a bad book, but tells more of the FBI's role in the investigation).

In preparing our list of Christmas books to share with others, we had to search far and wide on amazon to find this particular book, a paperback edition of the classic Night Before Christmas.

This is the book I've used for years when reading this story to my own children, passing on Tasha Tudor and other illustrators. Why?

Although we can find the same poem and pay a lot more, with award winning illustrators, the illustrations provided by Douglas Gorsline are surely the best. They are quite colorful, and offer details little children love looking into...cats lie sleepily on the window sill, we see an overview of the town, the presents spilling from the open sack are intriguing and plentiful, and Jolly St. Nick is -- well, quite Jolly (as you can see by looking at the cover!)

The story is an "abridged version" - I'm not sure about other parents, but we read this on Christmas Eve, and we only have so much time and energy. Everything we remember from the classic poem by Clement Clarke Moore is in this version.

(From "'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse" to "He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!" In between we have everything, from the names of the eight tiny reindeer, to a belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly, including dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky".

In other words, don't be scared off by 'abridged'!)

Perhaps a hardcover edition might be more appropriate if you're giving a gift (unless you're giving to more than one child), but this book is one of the best offers we've found!

A classic done simply and inexpensively!

We have an inexpensive paperback version (see our reviews) of this classic poem, and we said that's enough for us. That was before we looked through this beautifully illustrated (by Bruce Whatley) edition of The Night Before Christmas.

The lyrics are the same, from book to book, but the fanciful illustrations in this one are enough to engage adults and children as they read this book together.

The perfect gift for any family whose Christmas tradition includes reading this classic!

This beautiful book was in my family as a hard cover edition for many years and was a Christmas Eve tradition for my four sons when they were growing up. It's poor battered body disappeared some time after the last of my little ones went off into the adult world. I am so delighted to see it back again, though this time as a nicely affordable soft cover. Clement C. Moore's enchanting story poem already provides an atmosphere filled with warmth and joyful expectation and with the addition of Tasha Tudor's quaint, nostalgic water-colors from an antique New England the Christmas magic is complete!
The winter landscapes fill our senses and Tasha's own gray tabby cat and Welsh Corgi welcome us into this charming world.
Tasha's Santa that you will meet in this book has been portrayed as the poem describes him...a right jolly old elf. He's not that much larger than the corgi and his team really consists of eight "tiny" reindeer. His pointy ears and his Eskimo mukluks add to the delightful ambiance of the book. He dances with the toys and with the happy animals and we can truly believe it will be a happy Christmas for all.
I hope this book becomes a Christmas Eve tradition for many, many more families.

I was introduced to An Old-Fashioned Girl when I was in fourth grade, and I must have read it hundreds of times since. Now that I am in college, I've read Plato, Aristotle, Dante, and other famous authors. But none of these authors have impacted me as much as this classic by Louisa May Alcott. This book gave me the confidence I needed to hold true to my values, and whenever I am tempted to give in to peer pressure, I just think about Polly and her bronze boots. I love this book, and I'm sure I will continue rereading it until the time I die. A definite classic that leaves you feeling warm inside!

This is a touching book that shows girls simple lives are the best kind of lives. A girl named Polly visits her cousins' at the city. Polly is modest and simple looking girl, compared to Fanny who flirts with all boys and receives flowers from them,and Polly, detests and is ashamed of flirting. Polly isa kind-hearted girl who is always trying to help others including Tom who tries to madden her every second, but Polly manages to find a weak spot in his heart. As Louisa May Alcott always has a twist at the end of the book, this one is no exception. You will be touched to the core of your heart when you read this book , it makes iron into water and steel into liquid. Hope you enjoy it! Cheers! : )

Polly, a poor, old-fashioned girl from the country, comes up tothe city for a long visit with her friend Fanny. Over the basicframework of country mouse/city mouse, Alcott embroiders extensively, adding the themes of peer pressure, societal pressure, riches and their relation to happiness, the rights and proper roles of women, love, 'proper' behaviour vs. right behaviour, and vice-versa. But the story reads like a story, not a dissertation on philosophy. Polly is very human, and her family, though less-well drawn, is collectively a very human family. Tom, Fanny's brother, is the star of the book. "An Old-Fashioned Girl" is filled with humourous incidents, the number of which increases as one grows older. I first read this book when I was seven. I loved it then, when I only got a small part of it. I love it even more now. Those readers who dislike Alcott's moralizing will not love this book, but they will find it better than, say, "Little Men." Ignore the character of Grandma, through whom Alcott voices most of her morals, and concentrate on Polly and Tom, and even the most cantankerous reader would surely, if grudgingly, admit that this book isn't half bad.

This book is not much larger than a paperback. I am 25 with perfect vision and I still feel I should use a magnifying lense with this book.

The Complete Works of Irish poet Oscar Wilde, which is published by Collins, is a must for a private library. It is an excellent book even if you only want to check one of Wilde's witty quotes - and there are plenty. The book includes Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which caused a fin-de-siecle scandal about a century ago because of its underlying homoeroticism. There are also all his famous plays which he wrote and was loved for by English society such as The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband as well as Lady Windermere's Fan. In addition, there are stories, poems (such as The Ballad of Reading Gaol - the jail he had to go to for his affair with Bosie Douglas), essays, and letters such as De Profundis. This newly illustrated centenary edition also incorporates recent revisions to the text, which probably only experts will spot.

Oscar Wilde was a self-described man of paradox. He was, simultaneously, a man very much of his time, and also very ahead of his time. He was a highly moral man who wrote clever epigrams about how good it is to be wicked ("Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.") He was a happily married man who happily loved his two children but also led a gay life on the side and wrote hilarous satires of love and marriage ("Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.") This huge book, which contains practically everything that Wilde ever wrote, shows the man in all his glory. After the introduction by his son, we are first launched into Oscar's stories. His one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is a classic and a masterpiece. A devastating moral tale, this one deserves to be in everyone's library. His shorter pieces, however, are of a more questionable quality. Consisting mostly of moral ancedotes dressed up in the thinly-veiled guise of fairy tales for children, these works are the least exciting part of Wilde's oeuvre and of this book, and seem to lean heavily on his oft-spouted crutch of "Art for Art's sake." After the stories, we meet Wilde in the guise he was destined for: that of a dramatist. His play were an integral and ackwnoledged part of his genius, and their influence upon modern drama was enormous. His type of high, farcial "drawing room" comedy has left a permanent mark on the stage. It is easy to see how even the modern Hollywood sitcom sprung from these plays of Wilde's. However funny and biting the satire may be, though, the high point of Oscar Wilde's plays was always his epigram-laced dialogue - whatever the plot may be. Probably the finest - and most biting - aphorist the English language has ever produced, Wilde is probably quoted - whether people realize it or not - more often than any other source in the language, aside from The Bible and Shakespeare. The Importance of Being Earnest and Salome are his ackwnoledged masterpieces, but other plays - such as A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband - are very good plays as well. He also has some very fine and underrated less original works, such as The Duchess of Padua that are quite well worth reading. From here, we move into Wilde's poems. Although, as he himself admits, they sometimes contain "more rhyme than reason", there is no doubting that Wilde was a master of language, and a fine poet. He won the Newdigate Prize for Poetry while at Oxford, and his "Ballad of Reading Gaol" is one of the finest poems in existence. What's left are his essays and letters. The most famous of them - indeed, one of the most famous letters ever written - is De Profundis, his strangely moving and tragic love/hate letter to Lord Alfred Douglas from prison. This is a shocking and immensely moving piece of work, and deserves to be read by one and all for its unique look into the human psyche - particuarly that of a man under intense suffering, and possibly on the brink. The letter is fascinating, and should put a different spin on Wilde than many people inaccurately have of the man - he was obviously of a very high moral character. Several interesting essays are also included - among them are The Critic As Artist and The Decay of Lying, two masterful pieces of Plato-istic dialogue, putting Wilde's severe wit and intimidating intellectualism on full display for all to see. One may wonder how much he actually believes of what he writes, but what he writes is brilliant. Another interesting essay is The Portrait of Mr. W.H., in which Wilde puts forth an interesting and unique theory about Shakespeare's sonnets. Also, while Wilde was not generally known for his political opinions, it is quite interesting to read his essay on political and social reform, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, as well as two letters he wrote about proposed reformations of the prison system.

All in all, this is a collection of masterful writings from one of the most tragically overlooked and underrated writers in the whole of literature. As another reviewer has pointed out, while Wilde rarely gets the credit he deserves for his work - and is often ignored, overlooked, or simply dismissed - his works are also widely and frequently plagarised - not to mention quoted legitimately - and were obviously extremely influential. You owe it to yourself to read the man's writings if you are not familar with his works; I guarantee you you won't regret it.