Well, I am currently reading the French version of the play, and thankful for doing so. The english version is so off by literal standards it takes much of the meaning away. The entire cat discussion-that was based on cats and dogs-a dog has 4 paws therefore it is a cat because a cat has 4 paws. It is a very absurd play-but better in french.

This is one of the greatest books I have ever read! It is very subtle and has many double meanings. It's very good if you want to have a laugh, but it's not only funny: It will get you thinking about the world and the people in it, the dangers of conformity.Really worth buying!

One could do worse than to commemorate the installation of George W. Bush as President-apparent of the United States by reading "The Leader," one of the short plays in this collection. (My favorite quote these days: "But -- the Leader hasn't got a head!" "What's he need a head for when he's got GENIUS?") _Rhinoceros_ itself, of course, in its slow-motion documentation of the "rhinozation" of an entire populace, was originally a trope on the rise of Nazism, but could certainly be applied to the gradual rightward shift of the American political spectrum.

The author shows a game and in the same game there are 600 variations. Very difficult to play thru.

As well, the author will gave an example of an opening and after 10 moves claim - both sides even: Why learn an opening to be even, learn an opening to win.

The book is good if you can read the old notation. It left me frustrated from time to time because I'm so used to the new notation (ex. 1.e4)

An excellent book which is not out-dated and for the price an absolute steal. Though some older opening books can be criticized as a tad bit out-date most can still be used today to learn the basics structures of different openings. Besides, the actual variations used in a game works better if it is your own creation rather than a memorized version and this applies to beginners as well as the experts. Excellent for intermediate players, but can also be used by all. If you are not comfortable with descriptive notations, GET COMFORTABLE! You will be missing out on a lot of excellent books (which are usually half the price). Being comfortable with descriptive as well as algabraic gives you the option and the flexibility to buy whatever chess books are out there, especially the best!

Is this book actually pretending to tell the truth about the life of Jesus, over and beyond what the new testament narrates? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care.
...Are the mortal sins imported from Egypt? Or shall adultery be punishable in the eyes of God? Well, in the eyes of the church, yes. And we know this is control. I have never accepted the idea that God could give us tools only so he could forbid us to use them. It's like putting candies in the hand of your own child and telling him that he may not -ever- eat them. What is this? Love and care, or torture?
At least Eugene E. Whitworth had the courage to expose his ideas.
If you don't like the idea that this is another 'truth' about the life of Jesus, why not simply accept it as a daring novel?
Eugene E. Whitworth is offering you HIS truth. This deserves respect.
I'm not knowledgeable enough in theology to give any opinion on how truthful the book may be. But then I'm back to quoting the author: what is the difference between reality and actuality?
...

I have read this book 3 times and will now purchase it again for a 4th reading, since I loaned it and well, you know. But, this book I believe carries so much truth with it that the soul cannot deny it and continues to seek it out, read after, read after, read. I find it to be an amazing amount of wisdom and spiritual teaching, more than I ever got from the New Testament. For me, it is more of the bible, or what I believe they would never print, or allow to be written in the bible then I have seen before. It feels like a channeled piece of work though I do not believe it claims to be so. But, it feels like Christ is speaking to you and telling you his story, how it really happened, and what he really meant when he said and did the things he did.

I read the Nine Faces of Christ many years ago before Dr. Whitworth ever thought of publishing it on the open market. It was and still is considered very controversial. I've read it over and over many times and always find something different. It is an insight into what the "missing" years of Christ were like, and makes one think of what "Jesus, the man" may have been like. It is said that this book may offend Christians. If you are a Christian with an open mind, it is not offensive at all, and makes one think more about our Savior. Many times after reading the book, I've looked in the Bible for various things. Yes, it contradicts the Bible, but you must put it in prospective, it's a fiction book and a "what if..." I feel the book can open a lot of minds to what may have been. The book is an interesting read and can take you places you've never been.

This is a quite good minor classic. Znosko-Borovsky discusses several themes, such as the standard bishop sacrifice on h7 and combinations against the king in the center. A great number of examples are to the point and I was delighted by the examples from Alekhine and Capa. There is clearly something of value for most of us here.
But, in some cases the connection between examples and examples and text are not very clear. There are also a some instances of "... and white/black wins" where the continuation is not too obvious. With my modest rating (ICC Standard c.2000, handle: johanh) I also found a few examples where white/black does in fact not have a clear win at all and may even be lost if the opponent had defended properly. On the other hand it is always a good excercise trying to prove an author wrong. No-one is perfect and that's the beauty of chess!
Spielmann's The Art of Sacrifice in Chess is better though - simpler language, complete games and a more dynamic approach (structure vs. the initiative, sacrifices that win material/ lead to mate vs. sacrifices to obtain the initiative or an attack without being able to calculate to the end, etc.). I found Spielmann's book much more charming, revealing and also modern even though it was printed several years before Z-B's book.

This author's best book is How to Play Chess Endings from 1940.
Art of Combination is in descriptive notation (not algebraic). Much better is Lev Alburt's book on Tactics for the Tournament Player from 1996.

This book is superb. The only book you will ever need on combinations & attack on the castled postion. Very advanced, recommended for players 1800+ (USCF).

I have taught computer courses for over ten years and have used all four editions of Computer Confluence. This book has at least a half a dozen errors which I have pointed out to the publisher. None were corrected. I have seen the 5th Edition and the errors are still there. Buyer be ware. If the instructor can point out these errors to the students the book is quite useful. It is not suited to self-paced learning without a qualified instructor.

The Computer Confluence book by Beekman is the perfect companion to the International Baccalaureate course on Technology and it's impact on society. You won't find very in-depth information on any specific subject, but you will find well-written, polished overviews on computing and the many ways computers are used.

The text is designed to be mind-provoking and to provide concepts that will survive the status quo of information technology. It is a must-read for anybody who wants a wider perspective on computers and where it is all leading us.

Both multimedia sources that come with the book: the website and the CD are very helpful. A variety of university classes list this book as a required text and the review quizzes that follow every chapter will really help your studies.

I used this book for my "Introduction to Computers" class during my first college semester. It is easy to understand and covers all topics of computers. It discusses the history of computers, hardware, robotics, artificial intelligence, software, and other computer topics. There are also several funny moments in this book. I highly recommend it.

i bought this book after reading several reviews praising it to the heavens and was extremely dissapointed after i read it. i found this a tedious book to read, the plot didn't seem to really go anywhere and the characters were never developed properly. the only reason to read this book would be for the descriptive language it uses, but the "plot" of the book detracts from even this. don't waste your money.

Ode to a Nightingale, which reflects John Keats's mournful state of mind in the face of the beauty and liveliness of nature, inspires the title of this sad but suspenseful book and parallels its melancholy tone. McCabe, like Keats, is in the thrall of nature in this novel, but McCabe's nature is not sentimentalized. Whatever beauty exists is wild, sometimes harsh and even savage, like the reality of life for the farm folk who populate the novel. Nature's everyday challenges are intensified here by the social and political challenges of Ireland in the 1880's: Catholic vs. Protestant rivalries, the upheavals of Charles Stewart Parnell and the Fenians, the assassinations of British aristocrats, the legacy of the famine, and the tenuousness of life itself.

Primarily a domestic drama, the novel describes one day in the life of Beth Winters, a Catholic in a community which is equally divided between Catholics and Protestants. Depicting her cleverness and resilience in the face of her difficult farm life, McCabe focuses on her 25th birthday and the events which have led to the crisis which is the novel's focus--the circumstances of her birth, her abuse by her putative father, and her attraction to Liam Ward, a Protestant firebrand. Full of local color, lively dialogue, sometimes mystifying dialect, and powerful nature imagery, Beth's personal drama achieves wider significance as the characters, confronting issues of life and death, separately reveal the inherent (natural) violence lurking in everyone just below the surface. Political and religious rivalries complicate the personal conflicts between Beth, her father, and her lover, and the suspense builds to a crescendo.

In terse prose which is so restrained that the reader must bring his/her own intelligence to the interpretation of the action, McCabe creates a final scene of devastating power, addressing the violence within us all and making it understandable, plausible, and ultimately shocking. The traumas here are the traumas of real life, the characters are practical and tied to the earth, the prose is unburdened by excessive verbiage, and McCabe's message rings true.

Eugene McCabe's DEATH AND NIGHTINGALES absolutely picked me up and dropped me - the book was that powerful and moving. For a novel set in 1883 in rural Ireland to transport me as a reader so quickly and thoroughly shows me the hand of a master at work. This is an author that I am pleased to have discovered - and one whose work I will actively seek.

McCabe's writing style is as rough-hewn as the characters he portrays - but this is deceptive, because there are many subtleties at work here. His descriptive abilities are staggering - but most of the story is carried along either as conversation or as revelations to the reader of the characters' thoughts. Another reviewer commented that the author's style almost compelled the reader to create the story while reading it - and that's a pretty apt description of the 'work' required of the reader to grasp the monumental achievement of this novel. This 'work' is not toil-in-vain, however - there is a great reward to putting forth a little effort here.

The characters are vivid and real - and the story is one that involves love, family, politics, class struggle and murder. There is a palpable air of mystery and suspense that permeates the story, one that keeps the reader guessing, rapt until the end. There are likable characters whose treachery lurks just beneath the surface, as well as persons who seem to be less than respectable at first glance who turn out to be made of stout moral fibre - and there are those as well who are just as they seem, so I'm not really giving anything away with these statements. There's also one of the most unlikely heroes you're liable to run across anywhere.

I'd be tempted to say that this book is one of the best reading experiences I've come across in the past couple of years - I read this from the local library, but it's definitely one I'm going to want to acquire for my own collection. This is a 'keeper'.

As a Titanic Historian and a avid book reader I found this particular book to be a great reference for a person who wants to see life on the great ship. however the book was based upon father brownes photographs and since he took only a few onboard, the book is rather incomplete. but I still enjoyed it and still open it up every now and then.

the pictures helped show me how exactly the life was for the passangers in this great ship.

The 10 for this book goes alot to Father Francis Browne who compiled his wonderful and unique collection of pictures,notes,and letters which he aquired during and after the Titanic tragedy,as a passenger on the Titanic.As Father Browne disembarked at Queenstown,Ireland,he was saved however had several friends aboard the ship and liked to take alot of pictures which he arranged in an album,writing his thoughts about each as he went along.There are a few pictures of other ships but this book is about the first 2 days aboard Titanic as a passenger and the aftermath.To be found in someone's attic,the photo album is a true Titanic treasure.The information is good, however not a wealth of technology as far as the construstion of the ship;this is rather personal which can tend to give one goosebumps....

This "dictionary" is so "highly selective" that it is not all that useful as a reference. If you encounter a word you want to look up, your chance of finding it in this dictionary is near zero.

It should be more appropriately named as a collection of certain less frequently used words. If you read this book from cover to cover, you will probably find that you know many of the words already and, of the ones you don't know, you may retain a few of them.

Well, I am probably not "extraordinarily literate."

Readers beware! You will not write more effectually after reading this book. One reviewer used "between" where "among" was needed, and another misused an apostrophe in "its."

I believe that there are two kinds of people in this world. The first type are people that use language merely as a means to communicate. The second type are people that use language as an artform.

If you are the first type of person; do not buy this book. It will have no use or meaning for you, and you certainly won't find it entertaining. Unless you just have a quirky need to read dictionaries, you won't dig this volume, AT ALL.

If you are the second type of person - the type that enjoys learning new words just for the sake of knowing them; the type that likes being able to say the same thing 15 different ways...then this book is for you.

I love to write. I love to read. I enjoy using words for fun and for creative expression. This book gave me words that I had never heard before and that is, indeed, becoming a rare treasure to find. I'm a huge word geek, and so this dictionary was a perfect fit for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I actually read it from cover to cover like a novel (except that I went through with a highlighter as I read). Words can be used to fill a lot of different purposes, and they can be enjoyed in a much broader way than just coming to understand the definitions. Conveying information is only ONE of language's many functions.

Though the words in this book are not likely to find a place in your daily conversational vocabulary set, they will most assuredly become a part of your poems, your stories, and that file-cabinet of knowledge we all keep way back in the recesses of our brains. I highly recommend this book to all of my fellow wordsmiths and nerd/geek/dorks the world over.

Speaking as one who can usually get up to Wednesdays's NY Times puzzle before feeling inept; these Monday 'easy' puzzles would be totally demoralizing to the novice puzzler.

I think these puzzles are too hard for the user interested in easier "monday" puzzles.

This book of "Wednesday" crossword puzzles from the New York Times is significantly harder to solve than earlier books in the series. As the week goes on each day's puzzles are designed to be harder to solve but I noted a greater increase in difficulty between this book and "Tuesday" as opposed to the differences between the "Monday" and "Tuesday" books. All the books in the series are well-edited and I have found no errors. The book is somewhat awkward to use since paperbooks are not the easiest format for crossword puzzles unless they lay flat.

Coming down from the literary high of I Never Loved Your Mind, I plunged into this book with reckless abandon. I was soon disillisioned, however. As a major Paul Zindel fan (I'm currently working on reading every book and play he has ever written) I can say that this does not stand up. Immediatley after the first read, it's a great book, but in comparison with Zindel's other fare it's just not as good. It's funny, but Eugene is awfully slow as a character. Mahatma, his Indian friend, is a terrific character who would stand up much better in another book. Regardless, although this is a must for hardcore Zindel fans, someone just starting out should really leave this until after I Never Loved Your Mind, To Take A Dare and The Pigman .

If you won't to read a good book then you need to read Amazing and Death Defying Diary of Eugene Dingman. This isn't an ordinary love story. Eugene is a nonentity with a lot of mettle. His apprehension dosen't stop him from showing is true feelings. And you woulden't believe what happens to Eugene it's vehement.

A rather skeptical reader myself, I was reluctant to pick up Eugene's diary. I thought it would contain another outrageous narrator who you can't understand or comprehend. I absolutly hate authors that create narrators who are nothing like teens today. How wrong I was about Eugene! Eugene's Diary is full or honesty and integrity. His diary tells the tale or his original, yet suprisingly normal summer, in which Eugene falls hopelessly in love, craves the attentions of his absent father, learns to tolerate his oblivious mother, befriends an Indian worker, and in turn, learns the difficulty in loving himself. Eugene's sincerity and his promise 'not to lie to his diary despite how terrible things turn out' wins the reader's admiration. More than once I found myself grinning with happinnes and sighing with embarrasment as Eugene went through another 'amazing and death defying' moment. In the end, I think you'll find that Eugene has found love for the right person after all, himself!