The greatest author, the greatest translator, the greatest edition. What would you need more?
Edgar Allan poe, the master of mystery and terror, translated by one of the greatest french poet, Charles Beaudelaire, who rewrite these stories with his own poetry rather than just translate word for word.
The edition? Simply the best! Best quality paper, and a real leather cover written in 23 carat gold.
The tales? Terrifying.
Bravo, un vrai chef d'oeuvre de la littérature, dans la plus belle édition jamais vue! Vive Gallimard et la Bibliothèque de la pléiade. Et merci à Charles Beaudelaire pour son travail (1856 - 1865) qui reste encore de nos jours.
Chapeau!

What an amazing book! My first visit to Eureka Springs was when I was 5 years old, back in the 1950s. I fell in love with the place and have returned many times over the years. There's very little in print about this unique mountain town beyond a few photos of what it looked like in the late 1800s. But White's book goes beyond trying to capture the antique storefronts and quaint Victorians homes of the historic district, looking instead into the soul of the quirky tourist town. His images, taken by infared photography, seem to capture the quality of life that you don't often actually see as a tourist. Artists, crafters, writers and creative people live tucked away in the hills of town, living real lives alongside 5-star restaurants and excellent entertainment. Some of the most pristene views in all of North America are the backdrop of this beautiful book. I give it a hearty 5 stars and a big thumbs up!

Robert McLiam Wilson attended Cambridge so I should cut the obvious intellectual some slack; however, I can't get past his usage of enormous words every few pages in this book.

The book, overall, is hilarious, well-crafted, witty, and extremely entertaining. It is introspective and thought-arousing. The theme is based on a peculiar friendship set in extremely peculiar times in northen Ireland. The two men in the friendship - one a Catholic, one a Protestant - find themselves looking out at the nightmarish battle plagued streets where they desperately try to find meaning and purpose in their everyday lives. I loved the plot and you will too, but be warned, you will find such words as(get ready):

elocutionary, incongruous, aggregate, bourgeois, desultory, wintry, lissom, quandry, protozoic, copiously, opprobrium, ecumencial, lexical, coquetry, litany, cuckolded, cerebrospinal, pallid, suffused, goaded, pugilistic, volubly, galvanized, reticent, ominously, osculate, and many, many more. Also take note: all of these words can be found in the first one-hundred pages of the book!

Now, before you Cambridge grads barbeque me too bad, please understand that most of us - your everyday bums from your everyday places - don't use words like litany, mannish, proletarian, incongruous, or ecumenicalism in our everyday vocabulary. Most people I know - and there are many - would be hard-pressed to use a word like "mundane, nonchalance, or imperative." Something tells me that Mr. Wilson doesn't use all these words either - although he just might.

A very good read, with our without the huge words. Enjoy!

Jake and Chucky, one Catholic and one Protestant, are best friends. They've both been effected by Belfast's violence but each avoids taking sides, Jake by actively hating both sides and their sectarian BS, and Chucky by enveloping himself in bizarre get-rich-quick capers.

Much of Wilson's writing is wonderful: his description of Belfast's gritty beauty; the horror of a store bombing and its aftermath. But I must object to his unoriginal female characters, esp. Chuckie's American girlfriend, Max. Women who mask adolescent trauma with drug use and shallow sex just are not interesting anymore.

The working class neighborhoods of Belfast are central to Robert McLiam Wilson's new novel, Eureka Street. That's the name of the street where Chuckie, the Protestant protagonist, lives with his mother. The narrator is Chuckie's cynical Catholic friend Jake, who lives in Poetry Street, a name that hints at the book's ambition.

The story that unfolds as these two friends criss cross the city is both a funny enjoyable read and a serious political satire on the poisonous politics of Northern Ireland.

The prominence of the street names is significant, for the novel is partly a paean to Belfast and its people. In the middle, McLiam Wilson briefly pauses the plot to voice a lyrical ode to his hometown. In a typically daring piece of writing reminiscent of the style of the American Thomas Wolfe, he describes how, in the wee hours of the morning, he can sense Belfast's stories in the quiet of its streets, when "all the streets are poetry streets."

Yet if that sounds sentimental, the novel is not. Though written with love, the book is also a penetrating satirical portrait of his troubled birthplace.

While being "dead satirical," as Chuckie puts it, McLiam Wilson manages also to be very funny. He plays with the routine Belfast absurdities that have developed after almost thirty years of the "Troubles." One running joke refers to the litter of acronyms-used as shorthand for political parties, paramilitary groups, slogans, and curses-that covers the city's walls. His rich cast of characters conveys superbly the mordant comedy of Belfast conversation as Jake and Chuckie meet regularly with their friends Slat, Septic, and Donal. Then there is Aoirghe, the middle-class Irish Republican radical whose name sounds like a bad cough; Chuckie's mother Peggy, a typical working class martyr-mother who in the course of the novel achieves a surprising liberation; and Max, a beautiful American woman who inexplicably succumbs to Chuckie's approaches.

In the novel's second half social satire gives way to sharp political satire. Although he grew up a Catholic in the same part of Belfast as Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, McLiam Wilson has no time for the evasions of Irish Republican politics. In a disturbing chapter he confronts the realities of terrorism and the political fudging of those realities. The chapter is a pure set-up; a new character is introduced but one senses that she is going to be there only briefly.

The predictability of the tragedy that ensues does not detract from the passionate anger with which McLiam Wilson writes. Afterwards the author takes aim directly at Adams (called Eve in the book; no need for too much subtlety) and at his nationalist party, Sinn Fein. That party's name is usually translated as "Ourselves Alone." In a brilliant flight of satirical invention that may well catch on in Belfast pubs, McLiam Wilson plausibly translates it a shade differently, and lampoons Sinn Fein throughout the novel as the "Just Us" party.

To any young novelist Belfast presents a dramatic gift of a subject, but one that is liable to blow up when unwrapped. This is a city where real life holds more drama than fiction and objectivity is impossible; how to address the grim political violence is a consuming question.

In his brilliant first novel Ripley Bogle, McLiam Wilson had wisely used the Troubles only as background. In Eureka Street, he shows himself ready to face the subject squarely. He does so with notable courage and with a fire in his belly.

The thought of a man running naked through the streets shouting with joy over a physical and mathematical discovery is one to warm the hearts of all who value knowledge. When Archimedes experienced this flash of joy, little did he know that his actions would become the genesis of a legend that would last for thousands of years. However, he should be remembered for so much more than that and several of his significant mathematical contributions are explored in this book.
It is really amazing to realize how close he was to inventing calculus 22 centuries ago, which was 18 before Newton and Leibniz. With notation that was minimally expressive, he was able to solve problems using a technique that demonstrates at least a rudimentary understanding of the concept of a limit. While many different problems can be solved using calculus, it only takes one breakthrough solution to demonstrate how it can be applied to so many of the others. It can be plausibly argued that algebraic and decimal notations would have been the tools that would have allowed him to overcome those last barriers. One can only speculate on how that would have changed history.
The book is not exhaustive and no attempt is made to make it that. Ten of his most significant discoveries are presented and the solutions are those of Archimedes, although modern notation is used. While the proofs are generally easy to follow, one is often left in awe as to how he thought of how to approach some of these solutions. The explanations are succinct, yet thorough, which is the signature of a solid storyteller.
Given the answers to the question posed in the title of this book, one can pose another that logically follows. Was Archimedes the greatest mind of all time? If the legends are correct, then the answer is probably yes. However, even if the unconfirmed stories are false, the mathematical and mechanical discoveries should make him a legend for more than one short stint of becoming a 'natural man.'

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

The author's aim is to make what he views "as Archimedes' most mathematically significant discoveries accessible to the busy people of the mathematical community." In this he succeeds admirably. The book is not only understandable by anyone who "recognizes the equation of a parabola," but is also very well written in a style that brings out the beauty of the mathematical ideas discussed, as well as the power of Archimesdes' creativity. As the author points out, the book treats most of Archimedes' mathematical discoveries. The presentation cleverly integrates Archimedes' own writing with the author's modern explanation of the ancient discoveries. Frequently, before a main idea is introduced, a quotation from Archimedes' own writing is presented in which the master reveals his thinking about what he had accomplished in that particular topic.

In addition to providing the scientific community with a detailed account of Archimedes' main mathematical discoveries and an insight into the ancient master's thinking, this book, I believe, can be useful in the classroom in a variety of ways. The most obvious use, of course, would be in designating it as a textbook or a reference in courses on the history of calculus or, more generally, on the history of mathematics. But it would also make an excellent textbook for a course on axiomatic mathematics: the book starts with a few axioms from which Archimedes had developed the theory of center of gravity and used it throughout a good part of the material covered in the book, including the development of the volumes of a paraboloid and a sphere and the theory of floating bodies.

In sum, this is an excellent book that should be within reach of any person interested in mathematics or science.

Each of the 181 anecdotes here relates the tale(s) of a scientist or a discovery, many affectionately humorous, in short passages varying from one paragraph to several pages. There is no apparent order to the anecdotes, nor is there any editorial narrative to bind them together, so this becomes a book for serendipitous browsing. Each passage is attributed, and the book is supplemented by a name and subject index, though these are not exhaustive.

This is an interesting and fun set of disjointed stories, with editorial energies devoted to their selection rather than cognitive cohesion.

If you love science, you love humor, and you are a student of human behavior, this is a book for you. I enjoyed virtually every one of these nine score vignettes.

But these are not just stories. Most are [] tales, in which good tends to triumph over [bad]. Some are about brilliant female scientists who overcome male chauvinism, and other about the numerous afflictions beset upon Jewish scientists in the Nazi era. Several illustrate the intrinsic carnality of science--scientists who experiment on themselves and who revel in human bodily fluids.

The stories are also often quite instructive, in case you are not totally up to snuff in chemistry or physics, and could use a non-technical refresher.

This is one of the top three books I read this year.

Whoops. It's January 5th. OK. If I had finished this book 6 days ago, I would have put it alongside of John LeCarre's "The Constant Gardner" and Lehane's "Mystic River." Forget any naysayers. "Eureka" is a eureka, a great mystery with wonderful conversations that smack of times gone by. An excellent novel.

Growing up on the East Coast, I remember old guys who had fought in WWI. One fellow lived into his late 80's with one lung gone, having given the first one up to mustard gas at Belleau Wood. So there's a 'reaching' aspect of Eureka that transcends a number of years. And we really don't feel it. Diehl is able to interrupt conversations in the past, flash forward, come back chapters later to finish them. Very tricky; very well done.

Diehl captures the chronology swiftly and smoothly. Sometimes he's writing of events a 100 years ago, sometimes 60, sometimes in between. "The bohunk got ironed out in a hit and run." The dialogue is crisp and seemingly accurate. Very timely. Great conversations.

Everyone who reads the reviews knows the plot by now. Honest cop, diamond in the rough, investigating the accidental electrocution of a widow in a 1940 bath tub, with only two things out of order: no will and "100 large in the bank."

A tough WWI veteran about to run for Governor, unanswered questions about the past igniting the future with a 40 year fuse. The quote from Gatsby, 'boats against the current,' is as prescient now as it was then.

Some romance that might be too much but everybody finds someone sometime.

The best dialogue is found in Elmore Leonard. Diehl gives him a run for his money in Eureka. Strongly recommended.

Diehl, who created the excellent Martin Vail series, has spun a truly epic novel in this well-written masterpiece. Not a fan of those "noirish" novels of the forties, I wasn't sure what to expect from Diehl in this one. However, it is a stunning work, filled with excellent characterizations, true plot twists, and some excellent scenarios.
We start the novel out with Brodie Culhane, a young man given a new life by a wealthy landowner in turn of the century California. Brodie becomes our hero, ending up fighting in World War I, surviving and returning to his home to become the sheriff.
Next, we have Zeke Bannon, another policeman in the 40's, who investigates a murder that leads him to the domain of Sheriff Culhane, who is now planning on running for governor.
How could our hero from the first part of the book be such a corruptible character in the 40's.
That's what makes this novel so complex and interesting. Bannon's involvement with Culhane and how they come about "cleaning up" this sordid region makes for one engrossing read.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

William Diehl weaves a beautifully conceived and convoluted tale surrounding homicide Detective Sergeant Zeke Bannon of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1941. Bannon and his partner, Ski" Agassi stumble into an apparent accidental bathtub drowning of a middle aged woman in a middle class L.A. neighborhood. Upon investigation they discover the woman, Verna Wilensky died without a will and with $98,000 in a savings account. This amount accrued as a result of a monthly check for $500, a princely sum in the depression, for about 17 years. Eventually forensics determines that the accident was actually a murder.

Bannon discovers that most of the checks have originated from a town about 100 miles north of L.A., called San Pietro. San Pietro formerly known as Eureka, at the turn of the century had been an open, lawless town replete with gambling, prostitution, and alcohol (despite Prohibition). Eureka was controlled by a group of rich robber baron types lead by railroad tycoon, Eli Gorman, who lived above the town in what was called "The Hill".
The town was kept under control by sheriff Buck Tallman who was adorned in a ten gallon Stetson, fringed suede jacket and a holstered .44 caliber Peacemaker. Tallman used to ride with Pat Garrett and Bat Masterson and knew how to keep chief mobster Arnie Riker in check. Tallman shepherded both Eli Gorman's son Ben and his best friend "Brodie" Culhane.

As time passed Brodie Culhane left Eureka to become hugely decorated Marine war hero in World War One. He came back to eventually take over Buck Tallman's law enforcement duties in San Pietro. Tallman is ultimately killed in a wild shoot out with four gangsters in a high class bordello. Aided by a multitude of battle experienced war buddies, Culhane becomes the big wheel of the county and is now primed to run for governor of California. Culhane is unfortunately the central suspect in the murder being investigated by Bannon.

Diehl diligently takes us through the plethora of layers of Bannon's investigation, revealing 20 year old secrets until the true nature of the crime is revealed. The book is marvelously authored and a classic 1940's period piece.

Jeanne Bendick has written a thought-provoking book for children that explores inventions that made the invention of the automobile possible. History of the automobile and science/mechanics are neatly combined; humorous cartoons of a tortoise and a hare add a light touch sure to appeal to youngsters. The cut-aways, illustrations, and clear textual explanations help the reader understand the parts of a car and how they work. The reader has the feeling that he/she could identify a problem and invent a solution to it.

Written in 1848, Eureka, one of Edgar Allan Poe's last works, propounds his theory of the creation of the material and spiritual universe. In his preface, Poe says "...it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead." However, a reader would find it hard to consider Eureka a poem of any sort when the author spends three-quarters of the work expounding, through philosophical proof, a scientific belief in an essay format. Poe's belief is that "Gravity exists on account of Matter's having been radiated, at its origin, atomically, into a limited sphere of Space, from one, individual, unconditional, irrelative, and absolute Particle Proper, by the sole process in which it was possible to satisfy, at the same time, the two conditions, radiation and equable distribution throughout the sphere-that is to say, by a force varying in direct proportion with the squares of the distances between the radiated atoms, respectively, and the Particular centre of Radiation."

As a scientific or philosophical discourse on astronomy, Eureka is a work ahead of its time. Poe went step by step using undeniable comparisons, similar to a geometric proof, to conclude with the aforementioned statement. He begins by proposing his theme that "In the Original Unity of the First Thing lies the Secondary Cause of All Things, with the Germ of their Inevitable Annihilation." He means that through the only Ultimate Principle-the Volition of God, the Universe was created. Within this creation there is an inherited yearning to return to the Original Unity. Poe further explains his theory which is extremely similar to the Big Bang Theory. During creation, the Will of God produced a reaction within a finite space, causing the Original Unity to separate and disperse (or radiate). After the force of creation, "Gravity", an equal but opposite force began to exert itself. This force, proven through Newtonian experimentation, is now contracting the universe back into the "One" or "Original Unity." That is how Poe explains the existence of Gravity along with the dispersion of galaxies, stars, planets, and moons.

But as a literary piece, most readers would drop the book within the first ten pages. Poe's diatribe succeeds in alienating the modern reader through his references to seemingly unknown astronomers and physicists from the 18th and 19th centuries such as Laplace, Comte, Dr. Nichol, Mädler, Lord Rosse, and many others. The usual motifs found in his short stories and poems are missing within the pages of Eureka. What is retained is his compounded clause sentence structure and his sense of self-worth. In many instances, Poe describes scientists' discoveries as being correct, but driven by instinct instead of reason, unlike his own. Interestingly, throughout his essay, he uses the words Divine and God very often. It leads one to believe that since this is written at the end of his life, that maybe he has begun to fear what is to come. Yet this uncharacteristic Poe disappears in the last page in which he states that "Man will at length attain that awfully triumphant epoch when he shall recognize his existence as that of Jehovah." Here Poe, the short story writer, returns as the curtain falls, letting us all know that there is no God but the Unity of ourselves, which of course includes himself.

A good fast read!! In " Harry Froim" Henin has created a modern era "Sammy" (What Makes Sammy Run - Budd Schulberg). Frankly I loved the explicit sex scenes. Henin has made good use of his deep understanding of U.S. Army protocol, and his in- depth knowledge of Northern California lumber industry. If the reader enjoys a novel highlighting the depths of human cynicism, insincerity, greed, lust and scheming, One Joy = Two Sorrows is great entertainment. Enjoy!

It was a really busy week, but I still found myself picking up this book three or four times a day until I finished it!

The words/dialogue given to the characters sounded unrealistic, but it was consistently so, so perhaps it was an artistic choice. It's certainly forgiveable, either way.

The characters are strong and likeable, even when there's nothing to like about them. In the end, some of the characters get what's coming to them and some of them don't. It's fulfilling as well as realistic (to a degree, anyway). I also liked how the intertwining of the American family and the Chinese family that has served them for o these many years was sculpted.

Conspicuously absent was mention of the Holocaust from this book which follows the life of an American Jewish GI following WWII. That's okay, but it just seemed odd.

Probably not an IMPORTANT work of fiction, but a good one.

I never read "science" books. I bought the book because when I think "breakthrough thinking" I think about transformational work. I was pleasantly surprised to find out a lot of cool things about problem solving that I had never considered before.

Yes, he gets scientific in the end, and the book doesn't quite flow, but, on the other hand I gained a perspective on why my life sometimes goes through bumps and spurts, and have gained valuable information in my daily troubleshooting life.

I have read many books on problem solving and breakthrough thinking. This is by far the most accessible. David Perkins is co-director of "Project Zero", an educational research group at Harvard Graduate School. He has a PhD in mathematics and artificial intelligence from MIT, so he is very qualified to be writing on this subject.

Perkins covers a lot of ground in this book and manages to explain his theory of problem solving from many different aspects using varied problems and examples.

The title refers to Archimedes and his breakthrough discovery of the displacement of water to calculate volume. This is the first example, which is drawn from this near mythological event. Perkins continues to delve deeper into how breakthroughs in thinking occur.

He outlines a series of steps that he believes are key to breakthrough thinking. These are abstracted from many different examples of breakthrough thinking. (Long Search, Little Apparent Progress, Precipitating Event, Cognitive Snap, Transformation).

From certain aspects this is the easy part, defining a set of steps that seem to be common in breakthroughs. The interesting part for a reader will be, can Perkins describe a series of steps that can define how the mind can actually achieve breakthroughs? Defining the steps always seems reminiscent of seeing the instructions for tying a bow tie, steps 1 to 4 seem reasonable, and then suddenly in step 5 you have a tied bow tie. But how do you get from step 4 to step 5 is always left a mystery that needs to be worked out. Obviously with a little fiddling, and knowing the end result, tying a bow tie, is a breakthrough that most people can achieve. But how to get from precipitating event to cognitive snap (or Eureka) is a little trickier to define. Is there really a series of steps to achieve breakthroughs?

Perkins spends the rest of the book, delving deeper and exploring this subject. He tackles some of the common pitfalls of thinking that can hamper someone's ability to solve a problem. Breakthrough problems by their very nature need to breakthrough current assumptions and thought patterns. Perkins uses the analogy of the Klondike gold rush to explore the principles further. How do you find a small amount of gold in a large area? Perkins feels this is analogous to finding solutions to breakthrough problems. He describes some common pitfalls, using this analogy (Wilderness of Possibilities, Clueless Plateau, Narrow canyon of exploration, Oasis of False Hope).

Perkins uses many puzzle examples throughout the book. Some of the puzzles are old, but still useful to explore. He defines the different kinds of puzzles, the ones that can be solved by a linear progression of thought, and then the second kind that needs a breakthrough in thinking (not always on a large scale), this is where linear logical progression will not reveal the answer. He uses the pitfalls as defined and shows how each of them can side track the puzzler from finding the solution.

At first, the nature of the Klondike analogy, seems to be too contrived and can be off-putting. But Perkins manages to demonstrate the different aspects of breakthrough thinking using it. The book is filled with puzzles that will be fun for anyone who loves puzzles. Perkins explores many aspects of thinking, delving into artificial intelligence and evolution. Sometimes I felt that some of the chapters were probably irrelevant, but on the whole, this book is very cohesive and manages to follow through a logical progression through the many facets of breakthrough thinking. It is very accessible, and its simple nature, could be mistaken for lack of substance. But there is a lot of information, and the reader will learn many techniques and can actually put together a set of steps to "help" them solve problems. Obviously it is not going to give a step-by-step manual to come up with the next "Theory of Evolution" but there is a lot of information here that can be used practically to help solve puzzles, and help solve real world problems. Perkins never succumbs to boasting that this is an exhaustive set of principles to achieve breakthroughs in thinking.

This is a very rewarding book, but if you are looking for a "how to" guide, you will not find it here. But you can extract many helpful insights from this book that will help you solve problems.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested on breakthrough thinking.

Note: This is published in paperback under a different title "The Eureka Effect"

Note: This was initially published in hardback as "Archimedes in the Bathtub"

The other two reviewers missed the whole point of the book. This is a well balanced book of problem solving theory, and practical examples. "The Klondike", is a good model to explain why people have trouble solving difficult problems. Yes, I have found some of this material in other books. However, I think this is presented in a more understandable and cohesive manner. I do agree with the other reviewers the book does not end well. But the first 80% is money well spent.