I admit that my knowledge of Janet Flanner was hazy when I bought this book, my exposure to the "New Yorker" limited to a few issues per year only in the last ten years. That wasn't the selling point for me -- I had read good reviews that this was the memoir of a boy raised in a non-traditional home in the 1940s and that detail fascinated me.

This is a crisply written, completely fascinating account of William Murray's gypsy childhood in the literary circles of New York, Fire Island and Rome. It is a story of becoming a man, of weathering stormy relations with parents, and about his own struggles to make a life for himself as a writer.

There are two generations of literary lives detailed: I was fascinated to learn how much professional writers struggle even after achieving success. Janet Flanner lived in hotels across the world, constantly missing her deadlines; the author himself resorted throughout his 20s and 30s to gambling and part time jobs to scrape by. Even his first two years working as a writer for the New Yorker came and went without him getting an article published. This is the dark side of the artist's life, and one we hear too little of.

My only disappointment with this book -- and it's minor-- is that it is really the story of an artist's life, not the story of being the child of a lesbian. Janet Flanner's role in the author life could just as well be that of a step-father; the fact that she is a lesbian is superfluous. But, maybe that in and of itself makes a point.

A fascinating and well written memoir -- worth reading.

I just finished this book and enjoyed it tremendously. This book appealed to me on several levels. As an American ex-patriate living outside Paris, I could relate to many of the comments Janet made. Although I love France, I will always be an outsider. This book is not so much an homosexual story as it is a love story among these people. It is a testament to how love can endure long distances, different cultures and social constraints. I recommend this book highly to anyone who enjoys reading historically based biographies with a love story intertwined. Besides, I can't resist buying a good book with good photographs.

When I look back on the many books I've read over the past year (easily 50 or more), I can say emphatically that this was one of the best and most memorable. I can remember where I sat (by a fountain) when I began the book, and where I was (at a garden) when I closed its cover for the final time. Murray captured the essence of a very complex, yet loving relationship between two sophisticated, intelligent women. After I finished his book, I yearned to learn more about them, and read a biography of Flanner, Murray's mother's book of correspondence between herself and Flanner, and several of Flanner's New Yorker compilations. A heartfelt thanks, William Murray.

Yes, this is still the standard for studies of the Renaissance. But the book deserves a better edition: especially one with relevant illustrations on the page. The best I've seen is the 1958 two-volume Illustrated Edition by the Perennial Library of Harper & Row: not only are all notes conventiently at the bottom of the page, but over 240 illustrations grace the text, usually next to the mention of the subject. Too bad it is out of print. I hope an enterprising publisher will rise to the challenge.

A better book could not have fallen into my hands! An American professor in Venice recommended it, and after I read it I was only sorry I had not read it before going to Italy. The mystery of its medieval, rather Renaissance cities (Florence, Venice, among others) would have been clearer; even today's Italians' ways and personality. So much a product of Renaissance Italy...and its wonderful heritage from Ancient Rome. I truly recommend this book for Italy lovers, anyone going there soon, or for the sheer joy of reading a good history book. Jacob Burckkhardt is one of the most intelligent, enlightened historians I know.

I was around twelve when my grandmother mentioned having heard a speech delivered by Woodrow Wilson.

For me, until that moment, Woodrow Wilson had been in the same category with Julius Caesar: people who lived a long time ago. But for my grandmother, only Caesar could be in that category: Wilson was an early contemporary of her own. I began to realize that the citizens of the past were real people, that the lives of the past were lives as large and rich and strange as our own.

Everybody who survives high school can remember at least one teacher who made the study of history look like a matter of memorizing names and dates. Such teachers often manage to create in their students a permanent allergy to the study of history. But it has been two hundred years since they could do so with a good conscience.

Voltaire was the first modern writer of history--we might say, the first historian of culture. Chiefly through his masterpiece The Age of Louis XIV, he established the principle that history is not just about who ruled when and who killed whom--that it is about all the aspects of human culture, all the means--arts and entertainment, philosophy and religion and science, as well as economics, politics, and war--by which we seek to create permanent triumphs of mind over the natural forces of chaos and entropy.

We need not fool ourselves: those forces will finally destroy us and all our works. But while we live, we can make life richer for ourselves and for those who will follow us. The writer from whom I first learned that historical writing could be such an enriching force was Burckhardt.

The Renaissance was indeed the modern rebirth of ancient culture, but what makes it important is that through that rebirth people rediscovered a truth that the ancient Ionians had known and that had been lost sight of for more than a thousand years: that the natural world, and people as part of it, were worthy objects of study and understanding--not just creatures and tools of God. With this discovery, made permanent because it could now be broadcast by the new technology of printing, begins the process of modernity--the process that still continues to increase our world's psychological distance from the ancient and the medieval world.

Whole books could be written on Rothbard the Economist, or Rothbard the Historian. This book is about Murray Rothbard the Political Strategist and Polemicist. And that makes me happy, because it is *this* Rothbard that I personally recall so fondly from the old libertarian/anarchist trenches in the late '60s, early '70s, then again in the early '90s (when Rothbard and I last met).

Raimondo was there in those years 1978-1989 when I wasn't, when I largely fell away from the libertarian movement, and I enjoyed his coverage of those years in this book.

My only real gripe is that Justin sometimes lets his biases unfairly color his book, especially about periods where he wasn't personally present. One example is his "take" on Rothbard's alliance with Karl Hess in the late '60s. Hess was not quite so wooly or nutty as Raimondo paints him; you need only read Hess's writings in Rothbard's own "Libertarian Forum" newsletter from those days to see that Hess was a thoughtful Rothbardian anarchist during that period.

Anyway, thumbs up for Raimondo's biography of the heroic Murray Rothbard. But there are still more books to be written!

Energetic and well-written, Raimondo's biography chronicles the life of seminal libertarian scholar and polemicist, Murray Newton Rothbard (1926'1995). Whether writing economic and historical treatises or squabbling with fellow travelers, Rothbard remained a tireless, happy warrior dedicated to fighting the welfare-warfare state.

Raimondo insists that Rothbard was a "thinker of similar importance" to Karl Marx (p. 157), but Rothbard's undeniable genius notwithstanding, this description seems an overestimation. For the moment, Mises, Hayek, and Milton Friedman loom larger in the firmament. What Rothbard did produce, among his many other accomplishments, was a multidimensional argument for anarchocapitalism. In life, he was a happy warrior on behalf of that as yet unrealized vision. He has been proved correct in his assessments of the signal importance of World War I for constructing the modern state and in identifying Hoover's policies as anticipating the New Deal. Perhaps his optimism regarding the feasibility of a stateless society will some day be validated. In the meantime, Raimondo has written an excellent introduction to Rothbard's life's work.

I enjoyed reading this extensive biography of Murray Rothbard, which is obviously a labor of love on the part of the author. Through this book we follow the notable thinker, economist, and philosopher Rothbard from his roots in the Old Right, through a brief stint in Ayn Rand's Objectivism, then to the New Left, the nascent Libertarian movement during the 1970s, and then back to the Old Right after the fall of the Berlin Wall made anti-interventionism acceptable on the right once again. Through it all, we see that Rothbard's political odyssey wasn't floundering at all but was guided by the two views which he was most adament about, his advocacy of economic laissez-faire and his solidly anti-war position, which got him in trouble with some of the other laissez-faire advocates of his day. Ayn Rand, the New Left, and the William F. Buckley branch of conservatism are treated here with some disdain, which may turn off some readers of various leanings who are unaccustomed to Justin Raimondo's style of polemics. That caveat aside, this book should prove a fascinating read for anyone with the slightest bit of interest in somebody who was (in my biased opinion :) one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century.

I bought this book as an aid to EM theory and Quantum Mechanics. I found little really useful stuff. The series expansion didn't have (1+u)^-3/2 for example, or the curl operator in cylindrical and spherical coordinates. The integral table is limited. The authors should look at books like Dwight, for example, and make sure their coverage is more complete. I am disapointed in it. For the money, it should be much better.

A fantastic summation of neccesary mathematics for any engineer or physicist...the only reason for 4 stars is that it's integral table is a little short.

As an undergraduate physics major, it is necessary to have some sort of mathematical handbook containing tables of integrals, trig identities, differentiation rules, vector identities, etc. As such, I cannot give this book higher praise! While does not contain as many features as the CRC Handbook of Tables and Formulae, or many of the other big famous hardcovers, it makes up for this in many ways. It is compact, lightweight and fits in most bookbags. It contains the tables and rules which will be most used in undergraduate homework problems. Most importantly, it is affordable on a student budget! I carry this with me to study groups and tutoring sessions.

Mr. Murray does an excellent job of proving that "mental equipment" is helpful and beneficial to your game. I truly believe that you can't operate to your fullest physically without aid from the mental side of the game. The only thing that I was less than satisfied with is that he dedicates majority of his book to illustrate how mental equipment is important, but offers little assistance in improving your mental equipment. He uses excellent examples and truly illustrates his point clearly and directly. As for tips on how to improve your mental equipment, he has only offered about 1-2 pages worth of advice. For example, he spends 32 out of 34 pages of the chapter on attentional control, explaining the different types of attentional control, the problems with attention (such as:excessive stress, choking, etc.), and also explains how having selective attention and concentration is highly useful. He goes on to tell you the optimal effects of stress on attention. The only problem with all this is that after illustrating all the problems, and explaining where you need to be in terms of attention control, he offeres little advice to explain how to achieve the optimal attention control. In fact, only 2 pages out of 34 were actual advice on how to improve attention control and find that state of effortless effort commonly called the "zone" by tennis players. But, one must give Mr. Murray credit for writing a book on the mental game as very few books are written on this subject effectively. Afterall, isn't the human mind very complex? My suggestion is to buy the book if you want to learn about his philosophy on the mental game of tennis, but if you want advice on how to improve the mental game, then you might be slightly disappointed unless your satisfied with the 2 pages of every chapter dedicated to specific tips for improving.

Whether you be a beginner, a recreational player, of any age, or a professional tennis player this is a book people at all levels of ability will want to read. It is a great book for anyone who likes to play tennis. Dr. Murray writes very well and his insights on the mental aspects of the game, which are so important, will help all of us play better tennis.

Dear John,

Your book Smart Tennis is very smart. Congratulations ! It was a pleasure for me to read it, to learn many new tips about mental tennis and to understand more about psychology.

I would like to give you my personal comments :

1. I am a tennis player and a management consultant. And I found many similarities between those two worlds : what is good for the tennis player is also appropriate for the management consultant. And it guides me in both sectors. 2. I appreciate the structure of the book and its positive philosophy. It's easy to read and to remember. Your book is my new « livre de chevet ». 3. I completed the test (TMBC) in Chapter 1. My first surprise is that my strength is Imagery and, for me, the most impressive chapter is Imagery. You have focused on new dimensions and it is very practical for me. 4. Your book seems to be complete from the beginner to the professional. But, you know, life curve for any professional is like an Inverted U : growth, top, and decline. What about the time when a professional realizes that he is at the beginning of his decline or really declining ? It's an important question and a painful period for a professional during which he needs psychological support. A question that can be answered, maybe, in your monthly column Mental Equipment ! Or in Smart Tennis II ! 5. I would have a suggestion : your Tennis Mind-Body Checklist (TMBC) could be answered on your Web Site (Dr. John's Smart Tennis Site) with the results and their interpretations. By doing so, it would be both a marketing tool for your book and an easy interactive tool for the tennis player or any other professional ! 6. Your book is so interesting that my wife, Suzanne, who has a degree in translation, thinks it would be a good idea to translate it in French. The market is so big !

I want to thank you for your smart book and for having taken time to read me. I would appreciate your comments.

A fan of your Mental Equipment column and a believer in your philosophy,

Jean-Paul Laberge, M.B.A. Québec, Canada jplaberge@sympatico.ca

This is a great book for students...because it's not heavy! Seriously, the chapters are short and concise,heavenly stuff when you're cramming the night before exams.The writing is clear and focused...it doesn't meander off into extreme details. The illustrations are self explanatory...and the pictures are graphic and gross...like they should be in a infectious disease textbook. Too bad there aren't more of them!

This book covers every medical microbiology topic that is needed for class exams or the USLME. The book is intensely filled with very elaborated information that any medical student needs to pass his or her exams. My study group and I also used the following for class exams and the USLME and found it extremely helpful. I also purchased this book on amazon which is the following:
Microbiology Study Guide: Key Review Questions and Answers by Patrick Leonardi (ISBN: 0971999635)
The questions in this study guide were on target with my class exams and was an excellent reference for the USLME. Buy both books. Most definitely!!

The first thing to understand about this book is that it is a textbook and a difficult one. The difficulty for the beginning student or general reader is not a fault of the authors. Rather it is because medical microbiology itself is a daunting subject full of organisms that can only be seen fuzzily with an electron microscope, if at all, organisms involved in processes and behaviors that are foreign to our everyday experience. Add the fact that most of the material covered here is not part of a non-specialist curriculum either in high school or college, and effectively speaking the untrained reader is starting from scratch.

Well, why do that? First of all, because the material itself--how viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other infectious organisms enter the body, replicate, and cause disease--is fascinating and of immediate relevance to our lives. Second because (to my knowledge) there is little or nothing else available to the general reader that goes beyond a sketchy introduction to the subject. One is forced to read a text book. Fortunately this is a good one and it is thorough.

The text covers the range of infectious disease from viruses to tapeworms. The amount of technical information presented is daunting, and the sheer expanse of terminology a challenge (why is there no glossary?). The text is lavishly illustrated with photos and electron micrographs of the pathogens, as well as numerous schematic drawings showing how microorganisms cause disease, how they replicate, their chemical structure, their morphology, etc.

The instructional schematic drawings I found less valuable than the electron micrographs, but I suspect for the student of microbiology it might be the other way around.

What you'll get out of this handsome book depends on how much time and energy you are able to devote to it. I started reading this in the hope that I would, perhaps by osmosis, pick up some feel for life at the micron level, and I did. Obviously if I had been able to study the text with the help of an instructor, I would have learned a lot more.

The entire book is very short and can easily be read by anyone in just a couple of days. By the end I was thinking to myself "that's it?". In all those pages, this is all they can come up with, after all the years of experience? The book could have been a little more deep and went a little further. To be really honest, I could pretty much describe to you what the entire book tells us in just a few sentences. I guess I don't know what I was expecting. All of this to me is common sense information most everyone already knows. Like, if you want to swim, you've got to just jump in the water. I wouldn't expect anyone to agree with me, but this is just one person's opinion. I'm sure it might be very useful for some people.

This is a very good & new contribution to the American self-help tradition of 'conquering shyness' ... But there are other approaches that might be considered by shy people -- approaches which actually dare to question the anti-shy ideology of American popular culture. Three I see on Amazon currently are: "My Shyness, My Self" ... "The Gift of Shyness" ... and "The Highly Sensitive Person" ...

Shy people, and friends and family of the shy, might want to explore these books for their "shy-positive" outlook. Self-acceptance and a proper understanding of individual temperament are, after all, among the criteria for positive mental health.

This book get 5 stars from me. It is very well written and offers great advise on how to work through this crippling disorder that affect so many. As a mother of child who suffers from selective mutism, I appreciate the authors touching breifly on this issue in the book. I love the authors' sense of humor as well, throughout the book. I will recommend this book to many others.

Since I have read a lot of praises about this book I bought it and was astonished to find out that the font size is so small that I have needed a good magnifying glass to have been able to read it. Its other disadvantage is that it's lacking the English-Latin part, so what then, if someone needs to translate from English to Latin s/he should buy another dictionary. It's not a good bargain and I would not recommend it to anyone.

I ordered this dictionary after reading the reviews. I agree with the reviewer from Little Rock; the dictionary is very useful and contains a wealth of information on Latin words. It has been a great help for me in translating poets like Martial and Statius. I have difficulty understanding why the reviewer from Israel did not know this was a Latin to English only dictionary; the title clearly explains the purpose of this book. Also, the entries are a standard dictionary size font; they are not unusually small. Unless you want to buy a copy of the Oxford Latin Dictionary... then this dictionary will suit the needs of translating from Latin into English.

As a teacher of Latin for over 30 years, I highly recommend this dictionary. It is the most complete resource for the money available!! Since serious scholars do not need English to Latin transfers, this should not be a concern. Not only are the number of English meanings for Latin words of large and complete extent, but there are quotations from ancient writers to support how the Latin is used in context. My students from grades 7 through graduate school have used this dictionary with success. The only better one is the large Lewis-Short hardback dictionary.

I have been in fundraising for years and am always looking for additional resources. While the "Dummies" series are good generally, fundraising is too important to be treated superficially.

This book is another fine work by the folks at "For Dummies" - It is a great, basic strategy guide to fundraising. Beginners will find this book useful in all aspects of thier fundraising start-up and operation. It includes great tips on organizing your operation and making it grow.

When I wrote "25 Fundraising Secrets - Raise More Money, Guaranteed," I intended it to be a compilation of strategic stips and "secrets" to fundraising for political campaigns, charities and non-profits. "Fundraising for Dummies" provides an excelent companion to my book by giving you step-by step fundraising instructions to get you started, before you move into the secrets that help you expand and succeed.

In case you've been trapped on a desert island for the past several years, IDG books has been publishing "Dummies"-themed books on every subject under the sun and moon, from Windows 2000 to sex. Fundraising for Dummies is a typically informative, easy-to-read, and useful guide to fundraising for nonprofit organizations.

With 28 chapters in five parts and appendices of checklists and how-tos, the book has loads of information for novice and intermediate fundraisers alike. In fact, it's also a pretty good reference for board members and volunteers involved in fundraising activities.

There is a chapter devoted to predictions on the future of philanthropy in the U.S., with one-paragraph explanations of brief statements, such as "E-giving Will Grow." Most of these predictions are obvious to nonprofit-sector experts (and especially those of us who participate on CharityChannel!). However, I must admit to being intrigued by the idea that "Nonprofits Will Rule!", meaning that, as more for-profits become regional and national in scope, local nonprofits will assume increasing local community leadership influence.

As good as this volume is in its general approaches and many helpful tips and techniques, do not mistake this book for a thorough treatment of the subject or any of its components. I was alarmed by its breezy assertion that nonprofit board service

"...is not as risky as serving on a for-profit board. Nonprofit board members are protected personally from liability in any legal action against their charitable organization..."

Haven't the authors heard of the IRS and Intermediate Sanctions? And, since nonprofit corporations are state-chartered (like their for-profit brethren), wouldn't liability vary from state to state, as well as depending on the facts and circumstances of each case? I would imagine that the D&O liability insurers would like to address this before the second printing!

One benefit of this book I found is one which I'm not sure is intentional. Grant writing is given short coverage in the appropriately-numbered Chapter 13 of the book, thereby providing two subtle reminders that grants are but a minor part of fundraising success.

Any reader interested in the subject will learn much from this book, as long as they don't take its accounting and legal advice too literally.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1 -- Gearing Up to Raise Funds

Part 2 -- Getting to Know Your Donor

Part 3 -- Using Your Fundraising Tools

Part 4 -- On the (Fundraising) Campaign Trail

Part 5 -- The Part of Tens

Index

This biography gives an accurate account of the basic events of Edwards' life, but the potential buyer should know that he is writing from a distinctly Christian perspective, which, in this case, results in a rather uncritcal interpretation of some of the more ambiguous events under consideration. For example, saying that the Great Awakening was really a direct, divine intervention in the lives of men, while it may indeed be true, leaves too many legitimate historical question unanswered. Why did it occur in N England, Wales Northern England and Germany in particular? To what extent was it linked to the diversification of N. England society and the corresponding erosion of the clergy's political power? Moreover, while Murray's critique of previous biographers' religious skeptism is well taken, he dismisses their work too quickly. For example, in his attempt to discredit Perry Miller he actually mis-quotes him (p xxi), putting words into Miller's mouth that aren't anywhere to be found in Miller's book. Murray also places within the same quotation marks two excepts that are 132 pages apart in the original book. Murray's assertion that Miller's interpretation "has long since been abandoned as untenable" simply isn't the case. Admittedly those in the school of Miller, avowed atheists, necessarily interpret Edwards in a way that Edwards himself would not have appreciated, but Murray's biography could have benefited from some of there hard-nosed, prying investigations into N. England family rivalries and political power-plays. I think most Christians would also appreciate it.

Jonathan Edwards is maybe the most exciting historical Christian to study (except for Luther. Part of this explanation is the fact that history shows us a much differnt picture than the modern stereotypes show us. Murray is to be commended for his standard setting work on Edwards. Murray is very warm and doctrine centered. As periodical "Christian History" said of Murray's work, "this is the biography Edwards himself would have most appreciated." (Spring 2003).

Final Analysis

This book is long, complex, and well researched. It is not bed time reading, but rather, Sabbath reading as it will stir one's thoughts to the Lord. Murray pulls no punches as he shows his view of Edwards: This man saw more of the glory of heaven and the terror of hell than any modern Christian ever will. Murray's aim is that after reading, Christians will then take up Edward's works and discover the glory for themselves.

Mark Noll said it well -- this is the only biography in which Edwards would recognize himself. Lets Edwards be Edwards. Thsi will be THE classic Edwards biography for generations to come.