Christopher Lane has a great mystery series. Expect to get your money's worth when you read the third Inupiat Eskimo Mystery by Christopher Lane. It's three hundred and forty two pages full of mystery, espionage, picturesque scenery, native traditions, and great characters.

Ray Attla, an Inupiat police officer, is a terrific lead character. After finding a body Ray would rather go on with his vacation, but, Glen, the local Sheriff and Chaplin, finds there is more to the case than a fall from a lift, so he talks Ray into helping him out. As a professional, Ray stands back and lets Glen take the lead in investigating the death. Once he is drawn further into it after checking with his Police Department, Ray decides he wants some answers as well. Ray is a cautious and understanding husband when it comes to his pregnant wife, Margaret, who has to work during the vacation, and, as a dad, he is patient and generous with his time, although a bit slow to recognize that his four year old daughter, Keera, is sensitive to their native traditions, which supernaturally gives her more knowledge about the recent death and case. Readers will find the secondary characters involved in the mystery plot are just as strong as the main characters and help to strengthen the story line.

In picking up A Shroud of Midnight Sun, I didn't know what to expect. What I got was a pleasant surprise in the discovery of a great mystery series. Christopher Lane's writing genuinely impressed me.

As a lover of "cold-weather locale mysteries" I really enjoyed this outing of Ray Attla. Ray is an Inupiat police officer from Alaska. He goes on vacation with his pregnant lawyer wife and his 4 year old daughter. Throw in lots of Inupiat culture, a dead body, a local sheriff who is also the town minister and Ray's daughter who has an eerie sensitivity to Inupiat ways, and you have an exciting, good read.

Ok, so everyone deals with email daily for whatever reason...and most people I know do admitt they are helpful, they can also be ridiculous sometimes right? So meet Scott Neumann. This book is a composite of responses that "Scott Neumann" wrote to people on many different hilarious topics just to get a response and boy, did he ever! I can't believe people actually spent time on their computer giving "Scott Neumann" a serious reply. Lane Strauss is creative in where he sent our these emails and decided to publish them for our laughter. This book will make you smile and wonder what people are thinking when they log onto their emails and click on "reply". Definitely a book for the information highway.

i found myself hanging on every word...every syllable of every word...every vowel of every syllable of every word--including y. this truly is a masterpiece of epic proportions. if i had to describe the author in one word, i guess i'd have to say...really handsome.

I tried and tried but could not solve the engima the cover blurb alludes to. And I found a rather witty, quite funny, and almost brilliant (sometimes) story in the process.

Maybe a better title would be "Miami to New Jersey With Stops In Between." It's a very funny and sometimes tearful ride, in all sort of conveyances, in all sorts of weather. The hero meets all sorts of people, too, and comes out on the short end somehow every time. You cheer for him and admonish him, too. You just hope that someday, well after the book is over, he'll get himself straightened out. By the way, I haven't the faintest clue what the "enigma" could be.

When I first began this book, I was a bit skeptical. I wasnt sure at all that I could make it through the whole thing. But after a few chapters, I found myself falling in love with Miss Potter. It is a great story, for unlike most biographies I have read, It ends on a happy note. Her final years were much better than her first.

The late Margaret Lane, President of The Women's Press Club, the Dickens Fellowship, the Johnson Society, the Brontë Society and the Jane Austen Society has written this charming little book about Beatrix Potter.

Beatrix Potter's life was a very private one, carefully hidden from the public eye, although she is known and loved by generations of children. Her life began in joylessness and solitude, with drawing as her one fascination.

In the book we follow Beatrix Potter through her sad childhood, her struggle for independence, her illfated love affair and happy marriage, and we learn about how she created all these charming and whimsical characters - Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Tom Kitten and so many more. The book is illustrated with old photographs, and pen and ink illustrations by Beatrix Potter herself. A must for any Beatrix Potter lover.

Britt Arnhild Lindland

This was a fairly good basic intro book for the issues of God/time and God's knowledge/future contingents. While this issue is usually discussed in philosophical journals and in books which cost an arm and a leg to purchase, Craig has brought the issue to the lay persons and scholars alike.

Before I review this book, it must be noted that I disagree with Craig's position. However, I think that Craig has done a noble job in defending his position, and I respect him for that. If I was able, I would have given Craig's book three and a half (3 1/2) stars for my own disagreements with Craig's overall assertions and some of the misunderstanding Craig had regarding certain philosopher's and their assertions (i.e. Aquinas being one which was mentioned below).

Craig's position in this book is that God is temporal (or omnitemporal) due to relations which occurred with the created universe (relations which were not present w/o creation). Craig argues his point based on several elements. First, Craig believes that God cannot remain untouched by the created order's temporality. In other words, according to Craig, God comes into (so to speak) new relations which were not present without the created universe. Second, Craig believes that once time begins at the moment of creation, God becomes temporal by virtue of His real relation to the temporal world. Third, thus God, at least, according to Craig, undergoes some type of extrinsic change due to this new real relation with the created world. These are Craig's underlying assertions regarding God and time.

Also, in this book, Craig rejects Einstein's interpretation of the Special Theory of Relativity (STR). Note, I did not say that Craig denies STR, rather he agrees with the Lorenzian interpretation of the theory over and against Einstein's interpretation. You can read why Craig believes this, since he details it in several chapters of this work.

I believe Craig's overall assessment of the issues is misdirected and wrong in several areas. First, He univocally predicates to God relations which occur between one human and another. This predication occurs via God's new relations with the universe. However, if God is a necessary being (which I think Craig would agree that God is), then any properties predicated of that Being must be predicated necessarily. However, if God is omnitemporal (as Craig asserts) then these properties must be predicated necessarily. By Craig's univocal predication, he does not predicate of God necessarily as he should. This is so because Craig declares that God "changes" from a being who is eternal to a being who is omnitemporal. This is, via Craig's view, an ontological change in God's nature and this is, I believe, metaphysically impossible. Either God is necessarily eternal or God is necessarily omnitemporal. He cannot move from one state to the other and remain a necessary being.

Another problem I had with this book was Craig's misunderstanding of Thomas Aquinas' assertions about God and real relations. In chapter three (3), "Divine Temporality," part II. "Divine Relations With the World," Craig asserts, "Thomas [Aquinas] escapes the conclusion that God is therefore temporal by denying that God stands in any real relation to the world." This could not be more inaccurate and wrong. Aquinas does not deny that God stands in any real relation to the world. In fact, Aquinas declares just the opposite. Aquinas asserted three types of relations: one where both terms are ideas, one where both terms are real, and one where one is real and one idea. That which is created, according to Aquinas, is really dependent upon God, but God is not really dependent upon the created. Thus, they are related as real to an idea. God knows about the relationship of dependence but He does not actually have it. The relationship between God and the world is very real, but God is not dependent in that relationship. In other words, Aquinas is only denying dependent relations between God and the world, not all real ones. Aquinas treats this issue in the Summa Theologiae, 1a. 13, 7, ad. 2. (Also, for an easy explanation of this issue see Norman Geisler's book titled "Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal" I briefly summarized this position based upon those two works).

Overall, Craig's book is pretty good, but it is wrought with several problems. I appreciate Craig's work to bring this issue to the non-philosopher, so to speak, but I would recommend reading Craig's book in light of Brian Leftow's book titled "Time and Eternity," and Paul Helm's work titled "Eternal God." Both of these books are available here at Amazon.com.

This book is actually a condensation of four of Craig's technical works: Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity; God, Time, and Eternity; The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination; and The Tenseless Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. As a result, some of the issues in this book may remain difficult to those new to the subject, especially the treatments of the Special Theory of Relativity, tensed facts, and the extent of the present. Nevertheless, Craig explains these about as well as could be done in the space available.
The book is divided into five sections. First, he considers arguments in favor of God's being timeless, focusing on those originating from divine simplicity and immutability, relativity, and the incompleteness of temporal life. He concludes that only the last holds any weight. Thomists are likely to find Craig's rather brief dismissal of simplicity and immutability frustrating (W. Norris Clarke has argued that immutability is the best argument in favor of timelessness), but Craig's point remains that we have even less reason to think that God is simple or immutable than we do to think he is timeless.
Section two considers arguments in favor of divine temporality: the impossibility of atemporal personhood, divine relations with the world, and divine knowledge of tensed facts. He rejects the first, but considers the other two to be powerful arguments in favor of God's being temporal.
However, the defender of timelessness still has a way out if he adopts the static theory of time. Thus, Craig devotes the next to sections to the nature of time. In arguments for and against the dynamic conception, he considers the ineliminability of tense from language and our experience of tense. Arguments against include McTaggart's Paradox and the so-called myth of passage. Section four is arguments for and against the static conception: relativity theory, the mind-dependence of becoming, spatializing time, the illusion of becoming, the problem of intrinsic change, and creation out of nothing. Craig concludes that the dynamic conception of time is superior, and thus, God is temporal.
However, this leaves unresolved the question of whether God is temporal without creation. Thus, section five considers arguments for and against the infinitude of the past. Craig makes a very strong case for the finitude of the past. But if time began, how can God be temporal if he never began to exist? There are two options: the first, which Craig argues against, is that temporally before creation, there was an undifferentiated moment, a now with no temporal metric, which was followed by our time with its metric. God existed in this primal before, and now is in our time just like us. The other option is accidental temporalism, the position that God is timeless without creation and temporal with creation. This must not be construed to be saying that God has two phases, a timeless and a temporal, one being temporally before the other. Rather, they are not temporally related to each other at all. Craig gives the analogy of the Big Bang singularity not being before time, but lying on the boundary of time. God's timeless existence may have been something like that.
This is an excellent book, being both thorough and persuasive. Any defender of divine timelessness must attempt to answer Craig's detailed arguments against their position.
In response to the previous reviewer, it must be pointed out that his argument is clearly ridiculous. By no means must we predicate all of God's properties necessarily. This leads to all sorts of obviously false conclusions. For example, God possesses the property of knowing that I will read a book after finishing this review. But if we must predicate that property to God necessarily, then I have no free will. God's necessarily, rather than contingently, knowing that fact requires that I not have the ability to not read that book. If I am free, then God knows that fact contingently. But if he knows it of necessity, then I am not free. Worse, such a position removes God's freedom as well. For example, God possesses the property of being the creator of this universe. But if he possesses it necessarily, then he couldn't have chosen not to create, or to have created a different universe. It is completely theologically unacceptable to say that God could not have created a universe that lacked, say, Pluto, or Alpha Centauri, rather than ours. Thus, if all of God's properties must be predicated necessarily, then that constitutes good grounds for thinking that the concept of God is incoherent. This is not to say that God is not a necessary being. Of couse God is. But being necessary means that God could not fail to exist. In other words, God exists in all possible worlds. But since God is free, he must possess some properties contingently, since there are innumerable possible worlds he could have created.
In conclusion, Craig's position has yet to be refuted. Accidental temporalism wins the day!

The rather long title says it all. It's a nice collection of transistor radios, their descriptions, price estimates, and hundreds of (mostly black and white) photos. Lots of good history here, along with tips for collectors. Not as fancy as some of the others, but a classic, and another must-have.

Excellent book with good coverage of every set I could find. Easy to follow and I particularly enjoyed the history section about the beginning of the transistor age. Very nice book!!

I admit to a bias. Helen Dore Boylston was a cousin of my grandfather's and I've been feeling terribly cheated since I read this book because I never met her. The story is remarkable. Two young women decide to drive from Albania to Paris. Their adventures are not, perhaps, quite as colorful as one might hope, but their daring and imagination in deciding upon such an voyage make your realize that Laura Ingalls Wilder really raised one heck of a brave and free daughter. I'd recommend it to anyone who's read the Little House Books or any of Helen Dore Boylston's books about Sue Barton.

Rose Wilder Lane- Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter- and Helen Dore Boyleston- author of the Sue Barton - were friends and traveled by car from Paris to Albania during the 1920's. This book is basically excerpts from their diaries and provides some wonderful insight into their lives and is great just because it is surprising in the way that people you never imagined were connected are.

In this book Gary Lane reveals a reliable opening system against the Sicilian. It has potential for kingside attacks and leads to middlegames where White has an easy plan. I also bought 'Winning with the Closed Sicilian' also by Lane many years ago but this is a completely new product.
I have won many games with this opening system because I can follow a basic plan without having to remember lots of moves.
A great book.

The Closed Sicilian is a good way to beat the Sicilian Defence. It is easy to understand and there is always a big chance to attack. I have played it on the internet and won games against players rated USCF 2150, which is three hundred points higher than me!! Mr Lane includes lots of fantastic games by White although I am not sure if I can remember everything.
A great book if you want to beat the Sicilian.

I like the Vienna because it helps me to win! There are fantastic attacking lines such as the wonderful sounding 'Frankenstein-Dracula Attack' and I am in a quieter mood I can play 1 e4 e5 Nc3 Nf6 3 g3 to play safe, positional chess. There are eight chapters and seventy-seven annotated games that help to understand the opening. The English master Gary Lane knows what he is talking about and I love the ways he shows 'tricks and traps' for people playing colors Black or White. There are lots of strong US players who have successfully used the opening such as Benjamin and Shabalov that is good news. The introduction offers a repertoire for players of different standards and styles. Thankfully, there is an excellent historical background, which makes a change from other publishers that I won't mention. It says on the back of the book that Lane has already written twelve books and judging by this effort I want more of the same thing.

To this 7-book author, a high school chess coach and tournament chess player this book provides the best format for a chess-opening book I've ever seen. The games are clear examples of the opening lines and the book's layout makes the material easy to digest. This book will help you win more games as you turn games away from the heavily studied Lopez lines. You will learn about the positional lines of the Vienna as well as the fun-to-play Vienna Gambit 3. f4, which this book makes appear much safer than the King's Gambit. I am so impressed with this book that I'm looking for Lane's other books.

This book is an excellent guide for new Yorkie owners. It discusses all the practical things you need to know before purchasing a Yorkie, including feeding, grooming, training, and health. It is well-organized and very readable. A new Yorkie owner will probably want to also purchase a longer, more detailed book, but this one is a great starter -- enough info to take good care of your Yorkie, but simple enough to avoid confusion and information overload.

I sell Yorkie pups to people for pets only. I give one of these books to every person that buys a puppy. I have been told over and over how useful and informative it is.