This is a good book for any pilot who's dreamed of flying in Alaska. Helmericks was the real thing and he tells his story with great affection and respect for his fellow fliers.

Harmon Helmericks doesn't just write about flying; he writes about people and place. Mostly he writes about people and he writes so respectfully. He even writes about their foibles without poking fun at them! One of my favorite passages is Chapter 20, 'Kisik,' in which he writes about a Native American couple. He tells a story of two of the world's great people, who he obviously counted as very dear friends. I can't find a mean word about a person in the whole book, and it is primarily a book about people.

Harmon Helmericks spins (no pun intended) a tale of bush pilot aviation at it's finest, from the very beginnings of flying in Alaska. It is guaranteed to make the couch pilot sign up for flying lessons. I did. Hard to put down, a wonderful adventure tale.

Casual readers should not be put off by the academic or esoteric treatment suggested by the title of this book. For _My Friend, My Friend_ serves as a good overall biography of both Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson and describes in understandable terms the transcendental movement as well. The added focus is what each man thought of friendship in general and how it pertained to his relationship with the other. Newbies to the works and lives of these two men would do well to start their education with this volume. Ardent fans of either writer will find they disagree with some of the author's suppositions, though, especially in the discussion of how the men's real lives differed with the public personas they each created. Even so, it's an engaging read.

Harmon Smith has provided us with an engaging story of a friendship between two of America's leading thinkers and writers of the 19th century--Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Friendship was central to the Transcendental Movement, a platonic ideal that never quite materialized, so it is here as Smith puts their lives under the microscope. He captures their humanity in a way no other biographers have, because he is able to separate the mythic "Henry David Thoreau" from the human. The cautions come when Smith turns away from the microscope to record a narrative that often includes his own projections into the minds and hearts of his subjects. Worst of all is his use of the old Oedipal complex of Freud projected onto Henry and his mother Cynthia. There is little to no substantiation for such a supposition, and so one must realize where the book fails to use a wise discretion. It is, nevertheless, a wise and wonderful portrait of a friendship that lasted three decades.

Why are we so interested in the gory details of private lives? Does it really matter? In this case, I would say not at all. Why bother with such questions when you could be reading the juicy details of Thoreau and Emerson's sometimes rocky friendship? The warp and weft of their relationship formed such an intricate pattern over the years that one cannot help but be fascinated.

The authors make a valiant attempt to compile a comprehensive register of Brazilian slang but by its very nature is flawed due to the impossibility to keep up with the rapid pace at which languages change. The authors neglect to include commonly used expressions like "pagar um mico" and "soltar a franga" but is, overall, the impressive result of an obviously tremendous amount of hard work. Despite some inescapable shortcomings the book prooves itself to be one of the most definitive reference guides to a side of Brazilian Portuguese too often excluded by mainstream textbooks.

Beware the temporal snob I always say, as a good colloquial saying never goes out of style. This book is FANTASTIC. I've worked many of the expressions from this book into my conversations with Brazilians and they not only knew what I was talking about, it always produced a great laugh and the question "where does a gringo ever learn to say such things?" From this book I tell ya! CERTAIN (not all) slang expressions do fall from usage, and some new ones are added - does that erase the value of this incredible text? Not for a second. Can you imagine how old our expression "take a hike" is? Or how about "What's up?" (I'm sure it was around before Bugs Bunny said it in 1939) "What's up?" Is as hip now as it was over 60 years ago, as are the expressions used in this book. But it's not about being hip, it's about understand figurative language and being able to express yourself figuratively. That's what this book does for you, and I assure you that as much as people said "that's diesel" 5 years ago, we never needed that expression to begin with (but I doubt we'll ever stop saying "what's up"...case closed). The good ones never die. Buy it! And to you guys who don't like the fact that whatever was said in the latest rap cd isn't in here - deixa de encher o saco, PQP~!

I must disagree with the other reviewer who said this book was out of date. This book is amazing and super-useful. I just came back from a year in Brasil (I returned in January of 2001) and I carried this book everywhere. It was very helpful when it came to reading, drinking and brandishing insults.

At first glance the book does look old. It looks like it might be xeroxed pages from a typewriter, but after a couple moments with the book all my friends were trying to steal it from me. It made me feel local so much faster than any other book, tape or video I had packed in my arsenal. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

There are 79 fascinating original essays in this collection that were gathered together over a period of ten years from public figures who give out their advice, wisdom, and reflections on life. The book is chuck full of insight from people like Quentin Crisp, Bette Davis, William S. Burroughs, Katharine Hepburn, and others. Joe Dallesandro, star of Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey's late 60's cult films, "Flesh, Trash, and Heat" offers some excellent advice in his essay. He states, "The negative aspect of beauty in our culture is our obsession with it - like when a person becomes bulimic or anorexic because they want to look like a celebrity or a model in a magazine. He further states, "Beauty is fun, it has its place, but don't mistake it for self-worth". In other words we need more than beauty and good looks to feel fulfilled. We need to look inside ourselves and find inner beauty and true meaning in our lives. Once in a while we should forget the "me" and lend a helping hand to others who need us. Good advice.

You may not agree with all of the advice being dished out in these essays, but it is a fascinating look into the lives of these famous and not so famous individuals, and the way they think. It will also make you think a little more deeply yourself, and provide you with plenty of interesting advice to digest and compare with your own beliefs. Harmon has done an excellent job in bringing these people's thoughts into our own thoughts. This is a book I certainly will read again!

Joe Hanssen

This book is filled with advice from a wide array of writers, artists, philosophers, photographers, poets, critics and even a sexologist.

I came across this book by fluke one day, and it turned out to be one of the most rewarding books I have ever read. After reading this, I felt uplifted, inspired and viewed success from a new angle. If you are a person obsessed with chasing the almighty dollar, I would not recommend this book. It only gives advice on the things in life that truly matter.

This book was created in order to give advice to the young, the people who are just starting out. But yet, I believe it to still be a useful tool to those growing older, for a person is never too old to learn or to grow. If you want things to change, it is best to start with yourself.

I will leave you with some sample pieces of advice given by the writer Lucius Shepard:

"Just because you're living on the edge doesn't mean that you don't have to do the right thing.

Run like hell if you have to, but try not to hurt anyone.

If you get ahead of the game, let some of your money loose in the world where it can do some good, and chances are that good thing will come back around.

Make sure you know whomever you have to trust.

Take the cash and flush the credit cards."

In the unbelievably commercialized world we live in, this book comes as a breath of fresh air telling college graduates how they should think as they head out into the world. Since most of the advisors are artists, their advice isn't likely to help you make a lot of money! However, I firmly believe that artists hold the key to the future because they alone refuse to buy into the dominant cultural/political system (in this case, mindless consumerism) and seek ways of framing new modes of thought. For this reason, this book should be read by anyone discontented with sheer consumerism and searching for a better way to live. What's especially telling is how many of these artists suggest that we stop watching TV!

For the author, the irony of democracy is that many "non-elite" members of society are politically apathetic and are therefore more prone to reject such democratic ideals as civil rights, women's rights, etc...

The book is full of simple equations like this that for the most part go by the reader without any justification.

A particularly funny if not disturbing example is the author's conclusion that somehow "the wealthy, free countries [non-communist] also have the most equitable distribution of income." Yet one only has to ask the textile worker in El Salvador who makes 60 cents an hour making ...shoes that this is not true, or look to our own state of affairs to see income distribution is looking more like an hour glass every year...P>But that's the way democracy works in the most "wealthy and free" country in the world.

Now that's ironic, but not the way the author intends.

I read this book for an introductory political science course in junior college and I enjoyed it so much that, although I was not planning to be a political science major, I decided not to sell this book back to the college. This textbook is a thorough , well-written, and well-organized study of the basics of American democracy (or republicanism, if you will). The authors are brutally honest in their overview of the American democratic system. The irony of democracy?: "Elites-not masses-govern the United States" and, my favorite, "that democratic ideals survive because the masses are generally apathetic and inactive" (the masses breed intolerance, you see). Among the fifteen chapters is one entitled "Elite-Mass Communication: Television, the Press, and the Pollsters," which I found to be very interesting.

This book came to my attention as I was studying for my BA in Political Science and has been one of the the foundations for my political perspective ever since.

Some of the other reviews really don't get it, but it is really pretty simple and pretty disturbing

1. this is a republican form of government, not a pure democracy

2. any move towards a pure democracy usually comes at the expense of liberty, which is why our founding fathers set the system up as they did

3. the average guy on the street, if given the chance, would be motivated to actually vote away the bill of rights most likely because he is an ignorant product of government schooling. this is the most disturbing fact in the book and supported with more than adequate research - that our democracy actually has more support within what are commonly called elite groups than it has among the "common" man

4. despite what the left wing pundits say, having a multiplicity of players in the political game (including corporations) is a desirable thing because the competing elites tend to check and cancel each other out. This is called the theory of democratic pluralism.

5. told you it was easy, now comes the hard part ending the influence of the teacher's union on national politics

The book is nice, but there are other sources which have been around for awhile which are just as good. The author talks of the Paschal Mystery...over and over and over. Granted, this is a part of our lives as Christians, but she didn't "invent" it. It just seems if you're not following her writing and theology, you're not being a good Catholic christian and don't know how to worship. However, I still use the book from time to time.

Living Liturgy has multiple uses. Preachers can use it for both background on the readings as well as contextualizing those readings within the Liturgy...a reality often lost sight of. Living Liturgy--unlike other resources--understands the value of the **appointed psalm** within the Liturgy of any given day. The psalm is often the key to the gospel....

Above all, Living Liturgy helps me to make the connection between PASCHAL MYSTERY and the texts of any one Sunday. The questions provided in the side-bars can be used by anyone, not just for the groups mentioned. ...great for Lectionary based bible sharing groups.

My parish's Liturgy Planning Committee recently switched to using this book and we all love it! It includes text of all the Sunday readings including the psalms, and it has great ideas for liturgy planning, catechesis, and could even be used by small faith groups for prayer and study.

What I don't like:

There is no errata for this book, so when example it does not work - you will loose time until you find out what is wrong, your code or if there is a typo in the book.

Very short explanations for the examples. The Author should make a bigger effort to explain what he is doing.

He uses some techniques in examples - but he does not elaborate them. Example: He uses in one example (page 109) "GetTickCount" but there is no explanations for what GetTickCount does. There are many situations like this in the book where the Author does something (uses some methods or properties) - with no explanations.

What I like:

Subject! This is the only book that I found on this subject.

This book is an essential addition to every beginning and/or intermediate Delphi programmer's arsenal.

After a long struggle to fully understand the power of the TClientDataSet, this reader experienced what could loosely be referred to as a religious experience after reading chapters 3, 4 and 7. These chapters alone make the book worth many multiples of its price.

Although I would like to see a new, updated edition, this is still a great book on llama packing. It is concise and easy to read. It even comes with some good recipes.

I've read every book on llama packing that I could get my hands on. This one gets my nod. It is more concise and well-written than other texts on the subject, and deals with the details of food, equipment, and pannier organization quite well. The pack-trip checklist at the end of the book is well conceived. This book is probably the most up-to-date of the books on the subject, but it does have one bit of outdated information: it states that llamas can begin to carry packs at the age of two, when in fact the new consensus is that they should not begin to carry significant weight until at least the age of three-and-a-half.

This German-born Martin Luther was the most prominent of all the Sixteenth Century reformers (as well as counter-reformers). His life became his religious struggle. Though he won some and lost some, he became a symbol of religious defiance to his adversaries, and an anchor-point to his disciples.
This book did not detail us on the reason why some of his co-reformers parted ways with him; but I did enjoy the time I invested on reading it.

I picked this up at a Christian book store for half price. This is an abridged book in a series on famous Christians (mostly Protestant). The author, who is clearly sympathetic with Luther's cause, devotes more attention to Luther's personal relationships and political struggle than to his theology. However, this is probably appropriate for the intended audience (the book store located it near the young readers' section). I can't compare the book to others since this is the first I've read on the topic, but I've personally found it to be an enjoyable read.

Having completed my thesis on the function of sleep and dreaming, I have read extensively on the subject. While I tend to lean more toward physiological neuroscience perspectives on the functions of our dreams, I am very open-minded and believe that our dreams surely serve a psychological purpose as well. I picked up this book expecting something more than I got. I was presented with a poorly written and gender biased first chapter(for example, when talking of one of Cayce's clients "She turned to the woman's world of family and relationships..." Granted it was written several decades ago, but still...) Honestly, I'm avoiding finishing the book. I am sure Cayce himself was a very talented dream interpreter and helped many people but Harmon Bro does not do him justice here.

I can't say enough about this book: it's detailed, balanced, scholarly yet a pleasure to read, penetrating...

I've had vivid dreams all my life, but was stumped when it came to interpretation. This book (a GREAT read if ever there was one) gave me the skills needed to accurately interpret not only my dreams but those of my family and friends, too. I can't say enough good things about this book, and the author's knack for economy in expression. Once you've read this book, you'll have the skills to immediately sort out dream images. An unexpected side benefit was a dream interpretation that enabled me to increase my personal net worth by 500% in less than three months!