This work does a fair job of exploring the mystery of who Jesus Christ was and is. Premises of Lane's hermeneutic approach load the dice in such a way as to yield a Jesus who is not quite the Son of God as Christians have long understood him to be. This departure from traditional Christology seems somewhat veiled by an appeal to the absolute mystery of God, when Lane argues that even Jesus couldn't have been the perfect revelation of the Father.

This was an enjoyable Regency anthology built around the Christmas season. However, as is common with anthologies the stories were not all equal. The best story was Carla Kelly's "The Christmas Ornament". Olivia and James, were refreshingly unlike the typical Regency couple, especially James, whose shyness and absent-minded professor personality was truly winning. You could just picture a young Jimmy Stewart or Hugh Grant playing the character. Of the five stories this was the one that I wish had been a full-length novel. My second favorite was Edith Layton's "The Hounds of Heaven", which was full of humor and the true spirit of the Christmas season, despite having the least amount of Christmas "trappings" in the group. Again, a charming hero and a sweet and different plot twist. The only drawback for me was that Helena, the heroine, was not fully drawn-out, probably as a result of the limitations of the short-story format. Barbara Metzger's "Three Good Deeds" and Elisabeth Fairchild's "Felicity's Forfeit" were both pleasant Regency fare. Both stories managed to fit a great deal of detail and some originality into their short frameworks. The only story I didn't enjoy was Allison Lane's "Second Chance". The hero, Jeremy, was actually quite attractive, but I could not warm up to the overly dramatic plot, and found Alice annoyingly self-pitying rather than tragic as she was obviously meant to be. It's hard to enjoy a romance when you only like half of the couple. All five stories featured very charming and well-drawn male leads, and in fact most of the stories were told from their points of view, which I enjoy, since I read romances for the heroes. Overall, a nice group, which Regency fans should enjoy, and which does get you in a pre-holiday spirit.

Although a little out of date now, and a little basic, it is a great book for comparing most major colleges in Texas. I found it very informational and even a bit entertaining. It is a great place to start looking when picking a school.

This book was the basis of a "Quantum Mechanics II" course I took as a junior several years ago. Essentially, this book is an introduction to atomic physics. With a minimum of mathematics, it applies Hamiltonian-based quantum mechanics to study a variety of simple problems in atomic physics.

It covers the one-electron atom very well, solving Schroedinger's equation in the usual way (separation of variables into radial and angular components). Great pains are taken to be as detailed as possible which is nice for those with little or no experience in mathematical physics.

It gives a brief stink on the variational technique as a method of calculating the upperbound of the ground state energy. The discussion is not particularly deep.

There is a clear, example-oriented treatment of Rayleigh-Schroedinger perturbation theory (both degenerate and non-degenerate, time-dependent and time-independent). I don't think much emphasis or discussion is given to the limitations of the perturbation theory, specifically, when and why the perturbation expansion breaks down. Still, there is enough material for the student to gain a good appreciation of the method.

There is not a word in this book on the WKB method. Perhaps it sees little use in atomic physics or perhaps because this method is more mathematically sophisticated than many other things and almost without fail involves the evaluation of many unfamiliar and fearsome integrals. There is also not a word on the Dirac delta function.

The remaining chapters cover spin but almost entirely in the context of atomic physics and gives a introduction to many-electron atoms. The treatment of spin is reasonable but limited; focus is on the spin-orbit interaction and the Pauli Exclusion principle. There are many other important topics, such as spin dynamics in the presense of magnetic fields, NMR, and so on.

Overall, what is contained in this book is well-written and worth it's price, but it lacks a lot of material important to a large scale understanding of quantum physics. Liboff is a good choice in this respect.

There are better vegetarian thai books out there (I also bought the one put out by the vegetarian table - liked it better). The recipes in this book just aren't that inspiring. I've recently turned vegetarian and was looking to replace old favorite cookbooks that use meats. The recipes in here seem to have just taken the old meat recipes and deleted the line that calls for meat. Well I could have done that! Other cookbooks get a bit more interesting by putting in new things like vegetables instead of the meat. This is an ok book but I'd use it more as one to augment others rather than a stand alone. One recipe that is interesting is the yellow curry with carrot. I liked that one a lot.

If you have not made an identification of your doll, this book will frustrate you. The book does not provide enough insight into marks for identification. What the book does do is provide a starting point at placing a value on your doll if you have already identified it. It gives limited lists of information on each of the major makers' dolls - the rare.

This book tells the story of how an urban myth played out in the hands of the two writers. A 1976 Johannesburg Times article about a Burundian boy raised by a band of monkeys fell into the hands of Harlan Lanes. Lane was recognized as an expert on feral children, having recently published a book on Victor of Aveyron, the well-documented feral child of nineteenth century France. When writing about Victor, Lane had naturally had to rely exclusively on the incomplete written records of the time. Given what he could discover from the written records, Lane speculated that Victor was not autistic, as some people claimed, and that his persistent communication and social disturbances had more likely come from a different source. As presented here, the story of a modern boy raised by animals in the wild was an opportunity for a potentially fascinating and awe-inspiring research project for Lane.

The book flips between a travel memoir and an ordinary prose discussion written for general audiences about the scientific research on feral children. As travel memoir, it also flips between the two authors, Lane and Pillard. About the first third of the book describes in detail the preparations for their expedition to Burundi, leaving some readers wondering when they will actually get on with the trip. However, as the book progresses, and it gradually becomes clear that the story is a hoax, and that the boy in question is an ordinary developmentally disabled boy who probably is autistic and had spent almost of all of his life in orphanages, we begin to see that there almost wouldn't be a story at all if the authors hadn't written so extensively about their preparations. After the stories of the pre-trip press conferences and talk show appearances, it almost seems as if the authors had to write the book. Whether the book was written to justify their expenditures and publicity, to satisfy a prior book contract, or to give the public closure to the tale, it's hard to judge at this point, some 25 years later.

What does this book offer us today? As a book for general readers on feral children, it's rather limited, especially since it doesn't contain citations to other work or a bibliography. Perhaps it's greatest value is the honest tale it tells of academics who were originally taken by an urban myth.

Initially worth noting is that the "Editorial Review" remarks at the top of this page do not accurately describe this book. My disclosure which follows, however, could well suggest that my own comments are somehow biased. I was acquainted with Scott on an occasional basis for the fifteen years preceeding his death. I knew an intelligent, self-assured man, who seemed at once intimate and familiar, but at the same time, presented himself as essentially shy. He seemed to almost selfishly withhold even trivial information about himself, the sort of things that once might have turned a quickie with a stranger into an enduring friendship. He simply lacked, or carefully guarded, his personal dimension. The appearance of shyness, however, was starkly at odds with his unconcealed flirtatiouness. Possibly he had his reasons, but you won't find them in his autobiography. An autobiography certainly ought to include at least two things: the whole truth (however painful it might be) must be revealed, and the author should permit the reader to know him well enough to sympathize with, or at least identify with, the author's point of view. From what well was drawn the author's own sense of what he is telling us? I bought the book when published, out of a familiar curiousity, certain also that I would find in it names of other people we knew in common. In that respect it was a gratifying read, tripping over a tasty tidbit here, stumbling across a succulent treat there. My own name briefly surfaced on page 109 (of the paperback edition), and I was delighted to read about the afternoon we met, as seen through his eyes. What will you see given the chance to gaze at the reflection of your own memory? While his recollection of the enccounter (as written) is constructively similar to my own, his sense of the time we spent working together sounded quite different to me from my own gauzy recollection. Although standing together at the same crossroad of time and space, our individual perception, or recall, of the experience was substantially dissimilar. Honestly, I was flattered by his version, regardless of its variance from my own, and so I willingly regard both of our retrospections as faithfully honest and true. Well then, a person might be wondering, what's my real problem with this book? Just this: After two hundred pages of good, though not inspired, prose, I felt like I had slogged through a very long synopsis for what might have been, with a wee bit more honesty and openness, a truly satisfying and informing tale of a man who certainly was in the mix of an interesting milieu, during a culturally remarkable period of time. Chapter after chapter hint that more will soon be revealed, baiting and tantalizing the reader along. But when I reached the end of the book, I had only questions, not answers. His words sometimes radiate a vexatious sense of noblesse oblige (well, felt like it to me, anyway), which in the end keeps Scott, as seen by Scott, at an awkward distance from the reader. Thus, it would be hard for anyone who did not know him, to care much about him from reading his book. Possibly the manuscript was hastened by his declining health, and my thoughts here should not at all be read as ad hominem faultfinding. I admired Scott. He had balls. He left many, many devoted friends and admirers. The book, however, is simply unfinished, and it should have had a strong editor. It nevertheless garnered many favorable reviews, leaving me to wonder if some of the reviewers had actually read the same book as I.

I met Scott O'Hara, and a friend, now long dead, had a brief affair with him. In the flesh he was much more handsome than in his movies - a real voluptuous Germanic beauty. I asked my friend what he thought of him. What he said summed up my thoughts exactly: "He's a lost boy." What I also sensed was a deep suppressed anger. Which was surprising. Because he was immensely charming and sunny. I didn't know at this time he was HIV positive, and I believe this was the root of it. What he doesn't speak of in his autobiography is the emotional devastation his diagnosis must have caused - his statements about the validity of unprotected sex don't just read as glib or high idiocy: to me they read as dishonest. Especially after he casually relates the months of agony he'd been through with various symptoms. But to admit as much would have been 'Failure' to him. He was not only charming and handsome and well hung, which was more than enough to provide him with a easy ride in life, but he was also rich.Not surprisingly he had immense self-confidence. He had star quality. It was easy to be dazzled. But at the end of the day, , although he would never have wished to admit it, his life, and his book, is a melancholy tale.

I think the other reviewers must be groupies or simply amazed that a porn star can write in a half-way literate manner. The early history is interesting, but the rest is repetitive and boring. The personal philosophy seems self-serving and, frankly, superficial. The videography will be helpful to die hard fans and porn collectors. The poetry is, at best, sophomoric.

I thought I would give this book a 'second chance' so I am slogging through it again. I won't deny that Rose Wilder Lane was a complex person, BUT I really don't think that Laura Ingalls Wilder was as much an untalented ogre as this book would have us believe. I do believe that Rose was a terrific EDITOR, but I don't believe that she 'wrote' Laura's books, or that Laura couldn't write. There is plenty of evidence out there that Laura was a very adept writer. For instance, her columns and articles for the Missouri Ruralist (Rose was off in Albania at the time Laura wrote most of these, so how could she have had a hand in them? ); Laura's beautifully descriptive letters to Almanzo in "West from Home" (WHY would Rose have to write Laura's personal letters for her?). Further, as a reviewer below stated, Rose's own published works, aside from her short stories, leave much to be desired.

As far as her personal life, Rose seems to have been a very depressed person who was seldom happy in her life, and blamed it on her mother. A better book, I think, is "Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder" by John Miller - better written and far more enlighting, in my opinion!

Many earlier reviewers of "A Ghost in the Little House" complained that this portrait of mother and daughter was unflattering, and biased. They missed the point entirely. This is not a book about Laura, it is a book about Rose. And Rose, whether justified or not, was often angry and unhappy with her mother.

William Holtz is a scholar who painstakingly reviewed thousands of pages of personal letters, memoirs and books, gathered over Rose Wilder Lane's life, to compile a portrait of a complex and intellegent woman years ahead of her time. Readers looking for entertainment and a light read, or insight into the fictional character Laura, were doomed to be disapointed. Those interested in a creative, volatile and sometimes manic depressive woman, who's ideas still impact today's society, won't be. In fact, Rose's ideas on freedom and human rights were very advanced and her writings are still a key part of the Libertarian party platform.

Frankly, any serious writer who has been edited can see and appreciate Rose's hand in her mother's work. The Little House books were written for children, with an amazing time twist that increases the complexity of the plot and writing so that the reader grows up with the character. Still, these stories cannot logically be compared to Rose's own work which was meant for adults. Further, Rose's books are very much written to sell, and have a decided flavor of the times in which they were published.

A great fan of the Little House books, I recently renewed my love for them by reading them to my daughter. I also renewed my curiosity about what happened "happily ever after." As I read "A Little House Sampler", I immediately suspected that Rose, a skilled writer, had a hand in the Little House Books, but I pictured a loving collaberation between mother and daughter. And it left me with only more questions about Rose: Why did her marriage end? Did she have children? Did she write the great American novel? William Holtz' biography "A Ghost in Little House" answers all these questions and more. It is an in depth and living portrait of Rose's life as she encounters excitement and adversity. It seems that Mama Bess and Manly are not exactly Laura and Almanzo. All are flawed in some way, but I find that I can still love the Little House books and the true story. Of course, to my daughter, I repeat Rose and Mama Bess's assertions that every word of Little House is true American history.