I grew up in this small town in Michigan where many of the buildings and homes that Mr. Love describes are still in their original form. The story depicts the impact of major challenges like WWI and racism and relates them to the viewpoint of a small rural farming community. He also describes the impact of the automobile, the railroad, and other late 19th & early 20th century inventions and their impact on this small community and its inhabitants. Amusing and sentimental, I find this book to be among my favorites

I recently moved to Michigan and I stumbled across this book while looking for books by local authors. I thought that it was a charming memoir of a bygone era. I was especially impressed that Mr. Love was able to remember and express clearly the way a small boy thinks!

A wonderful book which can be read by children and adults alike. It is a timeless piece and a true story about a young lad growing up in the hearts of every one of us. The author, reminiscing his own childhood causes each of us to do the same. I have been to Flushing myself and found this story to be authentic and as the author described. If you grew up with steam locomotives, you'll love this book.

I enjoyed this book. Parts were pretty funny. The fat counting is pretty old news now but I imagine it was of more interest when it was written. What a jerk Diana's husband was!! He was really pretty funny though. Chris seemed just about perfect. If not for JoJo, maybe he would have been. Diana did not seem to live a very moral life once she separated, lost weight, and was sought after. A bad example for her kids. But I liked the book anyway.

In the vein of The First Wives Club....
This is an incredibly funny book where a woman who gets dumped by her less than winner husband cause she is fat makes the best of things- get thin- makes a fortune and wins the hunk next door and has some wild sexy affairs along the way-meantime her ex gets his just deserts in the end! The book has explicit sex- but is handled with sensitivity. I really liked the heroine and could feel her struggle and empathize with her. The only thing I found annoying was the harping on the diet throughout ( it is easy to skim and ignore and get back to the story though). This was written in the days of counting fat grams so that is the diet slant here- really funny considering things are all about counting carbs today..... ah well! The book is fun, funny, sexy and made me laugh and smile- esp the very end!Great curl up and read with a glass of wine or hang by the pool book!

i really loved this book. i have read it about three or four times. it really inspires me to be as successful as she was at reaching her goals.

I purchased this title hoping to find a book to give to young men contemplating God's call to pastoral ministry. I was disappointed in what I found. The author does not present clear lines of thought, and tends to ramble in places where a brief summary would be more in order. The book is clearly dated with an overly "clerical" tone that would be unfamiliar to a person considering ministry. The use of the King James Version for Scriptural references would also be a distraction for younger readers.

Still, there are some good points scattered throughout the book that make it worth the reading for an older minister working with ministerial candidates. For the candidates themselves, however, an easier-to-read, more modern presentation would be much more useful. My search for a small book providing a helpful summary for God's call to ministry continues.

This is without question the best book other than the Bible that I have read on the subject of the call to the ministry. It is biblically based and well written. This book is required reading for all ministers in the Enlightened Word Ministries,Inc. of which I am founder and president. However, I have three concerns that I feel need to be considered prior to and during the reading of this outstanding book.

First, it is unfortunate that the author believes that "...men called to preach the Word with authority" "...do not share with the apostles in the inspiration that first delivered Christ's Gospel...." (p. 45). Without question, the anointing provides the same inspiration operating through the Holy Spirit (burden lifting, yoke removing, yoke destroying power of God) today that it did two thousand years ago (cf. Isaiah 10:27; Romans 1:16).

Second, it is disappointing to see that the author misinterpreted Paul's statement in Acts 20:22 and views ministers as "slaves to Jesus Christ" (p. 62). Paul used the Greek word "dedemai" meaning to be impelled in mind or compelled to do something. Paul was compelled by his spirit and moved by compassion to minister to the saints in Jerusalem. In fact, he was prepared to give his life for this opportunity (cf. Acts 20:24). Although not referenced by the author, caution must be exercised in attempting to apply scriptures such as Ephesians 6:5-6 to the saints of God. For example, in these verses, Paul was attempting to encourage the servants of members within the church at Ephesus to obey and serve their masters as if they were actually "...servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart..." (Ephesians 6:5,6). Therefore, he was not talking to those of us who are free spiritually and beyond the realm of physical slavery. Thus, these verses do not support the idea of Christians as servants of Christ. Further, if we simply concur with Jesus' view of us in John 15:15 ("Henceforth, I call you not servants...but I have called you friends...."), we will know that we are not His servants but rather His friends. Finally, in John 15:13, Jesus stated that "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," as Paul was willing to do (cf. Acts 20:24) and as Jesus did. Therefore, undoubtedly, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we must accept His Gospel and view ourselves as He views us - as His friends, and not as His servants nor as His slaves. In Romans 6:22, Paul does encourage the church's servanthood (Greek - "douloo" to subjugate one's will) to God. However, we must not confuse this subjugation with forced slavery and bondage ("For it is God which worketh in you both to will (to desire to) and to do of his good pleasure")(Philippians 2:13). It is essential to know that we are the heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), as well as God's workmanship (Greek - "poiema" that which is produced such as a poem) created in Christ Jesus unto good works (Ephesians 2:10). Therefore, we are to be followers of God (Greek - "mimetes" imitators or that designed to reproduce the style of the creator) as dear children (Ephesians 5:1). Without question, the Bible teaches that God produces within us the desire to please Him through imitating His system of operation on earth (cf. Matthew 6:10;33), bearing much fruit (making disciples) (cf. Matthew 28:18; John 15:8,16) through the ministry of reconciliation (cf. II Corinthians 5:18), and perfecting His sheep (Greek - "probaton" those who move forward) who make up the church (cf. Ephesians 4:12; Hebrews 6:1). God does not call us to His ministry to make us "slaves" (forced to do something against our will), but rather to be obedient servants of His good pleasure (cf. John 7:17) as modeled by Jesus Christ (cf. John 5:30; 6:38).

The final disagreement I have with this book is found on page 65 where the author calls for "spiritual maturity." The fact is that spiritual maturity is the product of spiritual rebirth, but Christian maturity occurs through the renewing of the mind in the word of God (cf. Romans 12:2). We possess spiritual maturity upon salvation, but we must develop our souls (mind, will, emotions) by enduring tribulations in life (cf. Romans 5:4; I Corinthians 15:58), and increasing our intimacy with the Word of God (cf. Proverbs 3:6; Romans 10:17). This will result in our becoming closer to God (cf. James 4:8) and to the image of His son Jesus Christ (within our soul realm and in our lifestyle)(cf. II Corthians 3:18) .

With regard to relative evaluation, I consider my areas of criticism rather minor in contrast to the overall quality of this book. I would have rated this book a 9 except for the issues I have discussed. The only book on this subject that I would rate higher is my Interlinear Bible, it receives a 10 hands down.

Overall, I highly recommend "Called to the Ministry" as reading it will validate many of the experiences of those who have been chosen by God to publically proclaim His Gospel. For those contemplating a public ministry of preaching and/or teaching, this book will enlighten the eyes of their understanding (imigination). Ultimately, reading this book will either elicit joy in the divinely called or critically challenge the uncertain who require additional guidance.

This book is essential for anyone who is even considering entering the ministry. Clowney asserts that the call of God is both distinctive and clear, dispelling the idea so common today that a calling is some emotional feeling: that a person might be called into some unknown service of the Lord, but one cannot be sure. Clowney devalues such an argument. He also describes the calling to the ministry as personal - we bear God's name and He calls us by our own in love - and as an occupation of service. Clowney approaches the whole subject by an entirely different route than most writers in today's church do. He does not write from sentiment or idealism, but rather portrays things as they are, as they are described in the scriptures. This is a book that everyone who is currently in the ministry or is considering entering it should read. The person who does will be given an enlightenment and direction that few other books today offer.

Norbert Elais' The Civilizing Process is an explanation of the rise of the modern nation-state, and the process by which state formation engendered changes in the psyches and day-to-day manners of modern citizens. In short, his argument is that the functional complexity of post-medieval Europe went hand-in-hand with a sublimation of man's baser instincts. Upon first glance, the reader immediately wonders about the relevance of findings such as "in medieval society people generally blew their noses into their hands" (126). The dominant explanations for the rise of the modern nation-state have usually been based in economics (Marx, Polanyi, Moore, North & Thomas) and not in the sort of etiquette, manners and social customs that are the key operating concepts in Elias' work. However, Elias makes a convincing case that such customs deserve predominant explanatory weight, being vehicles of social control that lay the psychological groundwork for the nation-state. Such a finding helps political scientists answer the persistent question of why Western political institutions fail when placed into unfamiliar Third-World social environments. Most analysts have chalked this up to unequal economic development, but Elias would probably favor an argument emphasizing the lack of a "civilizing" process in Third-World societies. Such an explanation--like Putnam's reasoning in revealing Southern Italy's "civic culture" to be bankrupt--is admittedly open to criticism of essentialism, cultural determinism, and other postmodern shortcomings, but at a minimum, it certainly alerts us to pertinent, non-economic variables at work in the development-democracy relationship.

Elias selects three comparative cases, France, England and Germany, and performs a content analysis of medieval texts on manners, etiquette, and the transformation of the nobility from warriors into courtiers. These texts are the empirical evidence offered for his key variable, pan-European courtly manners delineated by social structure (classes and "monopolies" of power). The other key variable (it's rather unclear which one is "dependent" on the other) is the rise of the nation-state, which was brought about by an exogenous variable (population growth) as well as two intervening factors: 1) the decline of the nobility relative to national absolutism (both economically and militarily); and 2) the rise of a money economy. Elias shows how centrifugal forces in these societies (mainly the warrior-noble class) resisted the "integration" of absolutism/nationhood, but that these forces in the end were overcome by economics coupled with the centripetal social groundwork of pan-European "civilite" and social customs, leading to an increasingly complex interweaving of social functions. "Society was 'in transition' . . . 'Simplicity' . . . had been lost. People saw things with more differentiation" (61). "Social control was becoming more binding . . . with the structural transformation of society . . . a change slowly came about: the compulsion to check one's own behaviour" (70).

The near totality of Elias' evidence is qualitative, often selected from medieval writings and secondhand observations. Although he means to proceed inductively from these facts, Elias often reads like a deductive historian, especially when positing lawlike generalizations such as "the more or less sudden emergence of words within languages nearly always points to changes in the lives of people themselves, particularly when the new concepts are destined to become as central and long-lived as these" (48). In fact, his entire thesis can be summarized with another of his apparently deductive axioms: "The growth of units of integration and rule is always at the same time an expression of structural changes in society, that is to say, in human relationships" (254). Marxists, of course, would say that such social changes are themselves dependent upon changes in the relations of production, but Elias gives equal weight to social causes as to economic ones. The economy is by no means neglected in his analysis, since he gives currency, demand for property, and population growth prime explanatory roles in his causal process (despite the fact that there is no quantitative evidence given for these socioeconomic correlations, unlike the analysis of the same topics by North & Thomas). However, Marxists would surely have a fit over Elias' assertion that the civilizing process leads to a wholesale leveling of distinctions between social classes (430), as well as his claim that the modern state arose out of a virtual stalemate between the bourgeois and the nobility (327).

On the topic of state-society relations, Elias makes the provocative argument that for the past 300 years, "monopoly rulers" (including, but not limited to, absolutist kings) are mere functionaries, with the real power resting in the hands of their "subjects" (271). "Control of the centralized institutions themselves is so dispersed that it is difficult to discern clearly who are the rulers and who are the ruled" (315). Of course, under an instable balance of power (including today's Third World) the playing field is presumably up for grabs between different classes and parts of the state, but in a developed society, Elias would argue that the internalization of "civilized" norms means that the "strong" state, while resting on a cohesive social order, is not as autonomous from social forces as one might think.

We live our everyday lives shrouded in monotony, going about our business as if our existence was the most natural and unquestionable one, yet what our souls calls "home" has actually been created in an extremely complex and all-encompassing process of perpetual change.

In this very ambitious book, Norbert Elias examines both how our consciousness has been transformed by society, and how society itself has "progressed", that is, what mechanisms have propelled the transformation of our western civilization from a violent and unrepressed, autarkic existence, to our infinitely interdependent, specialized and pacified modern nation-states.

By first exploring and analyzing historical documents, the author let's us experience with much detail how human's relations with others have been transformed, how our manners and behavior have been modelled by a changing environment, illustrated by the most diverse situations like table manners, attitude toward those of an inferior condition, hygiene, and sexuality.

It is like glancing at our collective youth, oddly familiar and intimate, yet repulsive.

Elias then meticulously articulates by what forces feudalism eventually gave rise to ever more centralized and interdependent forms of government and the corresponding specific changes in human behavior and attitudes.

A couple of interesting ideas in this book specially relevant to current debate: how society's transformation isn't the design of anyone or a "conspiration" of sorts, but a process that obeys its own laws; how our form of government is very deeply dependent on all classes and peoples, thus enjoying very little freedom for gratuitous action; and how war isn't necessarily the opposite of peace, but the opportunity for ever larger zones of pacification to emerge.

All good lessons to re-learn today, specially by the Left, with its visions of evil conspirations and it's stubborn insistence on perpetuating strife and conflict by opposing lasting resolution by means of war.

This is one of the most important books I have ever read. Norbert Elias ingeniously and persuasively provides a way to understand the evolution of Western societies and personalities from the Twelfth Century to our own time.

He provides an organizing principle for understanding how and why life and people were different in different periods of Western history. Until I read Elias I could only guess at what life was like in earlier eras by inferring from social, economic, and technical conditions. Elias provides a clear and reasonable way to look much closer.

I strongly recommend this book.

I would agree that the Belfrey does not belong in the book but it has hosted a couple Ryder Cups. The yardage illustrations were well done and give the reader a lesson in course design.

This is a good book. The text is fine although I would quarrel with the inclusion of the Belfrey. The stroke-savers drawings are very detailed and handsome. Perhaps better for someone who has already played the course to help relive old memories

This is a good book. The text is fine although I would quarrel with the inclusion of the Belfrey. The stroke-savers drawings are very detailed and handsome. Perhpas better for someone who has already played the course to help relive old memories

This book is written for the "layman" in regards to the physiology behind the sport of cycling. As someone not familiar with VO2 max or heart rate training or even different methods of training, this book is perfect.

As someone with an Exercise Physiology background, however, this book was nothing more than a reveiw of everything I have learned. I was looking for something more physiologically based.

I read Serios Cycling from Ed Burke and realized that there is more to cycling than mere racing. Being a "new" cyclist at the age of 43 I had great difficulty to match the "older" cyclists that have been cycling competatively for the last 25 years. This book helped me to see what is all the preparation work behind the scenes. Mere fitness is not enough. You tend to hit the wall during training rides and feel confused because you are still not there. The understanding of how muscles work and what they need to continue performing at extreme levels of endurance made me to adapt my diet and pre-race preparation to ensure maximum energy, nutrition and oxygen are available to the working muscles to perform at their best. It was a complete mind change but today, less than three months since I bought this book fellow cyclist are questioning if I use steriods. They could not believe the improvement! The book is well laid out to explain the basic as well as the advanced detail of the body and mind and how to overcome those stages where you seem not to progress at all. If you are serious about cycling, get this book. You'll see what I mean!

I will be reading this book several times. It's packed with information on how to maximize your training session, off-season training advice, nutitional info, how to cope with jet lag, ad infinitum. I recommend this book to all who take this sport seriously.

Before I hit "one click" I could not remember why I had never bought this book before. After all... I love to see the photo comparisons of the city.
But... as soon as I opened the book, I remembered why.
The book was published in 1976.
All of the "now" pictures were taken no later than 1974.
So much has changed in Manhattan since 1974... that the "now" views are unfamiliar in many circumstances.
The old photos are facinating... and the commentary interesting... but I still feel the need to take my camera out to all those sites so I can get the perspective I truly wanted.

A nice retrospective of New York the way it was. However, the "now" of the title is somewhat misleading as many of the "current" photos are well over 25 years old! The cover photo of 59th and Lex is a good example of the "now" photos not being up to date. The bank building depicted on the North West corner of 59th and Lexington Ave, was torn down about a decade ago and has been replaced with by the contemporary International Plaza office building. Nonetheless a nice collection of photos from all over Manhattan.

Brilliant concept: the authors found 19th-century photos of Manhattan and returned there in the late 1970s to take photos from the exact same vantage points. The side-by-side results are horrifying--what a beautiful livable city New York used to be! Life was not better 100 years ago, of course, but architecture sure was.

Dover--bless them!--has a whole series of Then & Now books on Boston, Phila., Washington, and other cities. There should be more: where's San Francisco? London? Paris? Local photogs should get snapping and send proposals to Dover Press.

This is my first book by Edmund White and probably my last. His stories are marginally entertaining & I suppose the they succeed on some level, but they so strewn with French phrases that can only be known by a French speaker or a Francophile that one begins to wonder who Edmund is trying to impress? The same goes for his conquests, always trying to impress with his prowess and his internationalism. In short, if you can stomach pretention at a party you may be able to stomach this. I can't, there are too many good things to read.

I don't feel that these stories are riddled with "pertention" like others have said. As a matter of fact, it is the frankness of White's writing that gives his characters the ability to be both relatable and divine. His descriptions of Greece and Texas create a world so striking in your mind that you want to give him the Oscar for Best Cinamatography despite the fact that this is a book and not a movie.
Amazing stories about life, love, and rejection from both. If you have read one of his novels (which you should do first) and enjoyed them then you will be able to read these with great pleasure.

Edmund White's published output seems to grow yearly. This multi-talented writer has added scholarly biographies, shared research, and new novels to his resume since publishing this book of short stories SKINNED ALIVE in 1995. And it is because of this expansion of his scope of writing that it is refreshing to make this mini-retrospective excursion into White's gifts.

Some will argue that his stories are too self centered, that his Francophilia gets in the way visually and textually. The stories is this collection are not at all limited to his expatriate status - our own American In Paris. The spectrum described by his characters is much more than that. White is not afraid to mix his own history with that of his characters and in doing so he validates what might otherwise seem like far-fetched tales. "My Oracle" is a simple story about an aging HIV exposed man taking a trip to Crete and how he rediscovers passion and being alive - a state all but discarded by his ruminating on the terminal drought of his experiences at home. Here is a buffed middle aged male longing for resurrection and he finds it in the simplest way. His other stories ask us to glimpse mortality and vanity and make some sense of it. White has some difficulty ending a short story; we're left with a feeling of lack of resolution. But maybe that is part of this superb writer's talent. "You, dear reader, finish the thought". This is a collection that deserves revisiting on a regular basis, when life changes rise in your path.

I first read this book after having exited the anguish of a doubting Christianity into the calm of a composed agnosticism 40 years ago.

I return to this book again and again and probably re-read it every 3-4 years. Never missing an opportunity to recommend it.

It reads like a thriller. The story unfolds inexorably to its inevitable climax, from the scholarly peace of Oxford where Campion was a foremost scholar of genius in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, to its ultimately savage and bloody end on the gallows at Tyburn.

The story could be seen by some as one of undoubting faith. By others, perhaps, as a story of a scholar obligated by an absolute intellectual integrity and then driven helplessly, to his destiny, by an academically remorseless logic after his conclusion of the fallibilities of the reformation.

Whichever view one takes Campion was a hero in voice and in deed. His life was a poem. His writings those of genius - his ringing words still echo.

Evelyn Waugh, a convert himself, tells a story as good as any fiction but far more compelling and sobering because of the true biography that it is.

If there is a fault to this book, it is that it is too short. Waugh writes this work of history as one would a novel. However, there is plenty of historical detail. Nonetheless, in an effort to make the book more readable, Waugh has left out the footnotes and endnotes.

That being said, it is probably the best book we presently have on St. Edmund Campion. Edmund Campion was well known amongst Elizabethan circles, including Queen Elizabeth herself. He was lauded for his intelligence and wit and no one could match him in debate.

Edmund gave up what looked like a promising career in academics to become a Catholic. He studied at the College at Douai and became a Jesuit. However, at this time, it was like trading one acadamic pursuit for another.

Edmund was doing quite well at a professorship in Prague when he was called to go to England to minister to the Catholics who had not forgotten their faith. He was not sent as a spy but as a minister to the faithful.

This Edmund did. He did it so well, traveling about in disguise, that he eluded capture for some time. In the end, Edmund comes to a martyr's death (I leave it to Waugh to explain the details).

I judge a book, mainly, on whether I have attained anything good from its contents. Waugh's telling of the story of Edmund Campion has moved me. St. Edmund Campion died as did Christ, asking the forgiveness the very men who were to so cruelly slay him in front of a jeering public.

I'm very pleased I was able to find a copy of this book for my library. Most importantly, I'm very happy that I was able to learn something about this great saint. Your effort to do the same will be well worth it.

Waugh's details of Campion's European whereabouts gets a bit tedious but once Campion returns to England you can't put the book down. Waugh leaves you thinking which queen rightfully deserves the adjective Bloody.

The collection is very interesting, in that one gets a sense of Zizek's theoretical perspective and methodological tendencies across a range of texts. It also forces one to reconsider Lacan's work. Unfortunately, the book itself is riddled with typographical errors. The publisher should be thoroughly embarrassed by this.

Slavoj Zizek, one of the greatest minds of the late 20th century, is well repersented in this excellent collection of essays. His points of view on everything (women, philosophy, and culture) come through loud and clear. The integration of psychoanalytic, marxist, poststructural, and postmodern critiques is refreshing and his treatment of Lacan through examples from pop culture is particuraly wonderful as it aids those that are new to the subject matter (great teaching tool!). A must read for anyone that wants to get a closer look at the spectre of today's somewhat frightening culture.

In his preface and his original contributions to the selections in this reader, Zizek offers a clearer statement of his position [and of his interpretation of the later writings of Lacan] than in any of his other books. His voice is one which one must engage in dialogue if one is to both appropriate Marxism, psychoanalytic theory and post-structuralism and then move beyond them. He acknowledges post-structualism's accent on contingencies and the limitations of human conceptualization and theorizing while also accenting the irreplaceable roles that imagination, fantasy and idology play in our psycic and social lives. He accents the need to critique ideology and to work through our fantasies so that one can non-reductively acknowledge the uniqueness of ourselves and what we encounter and the ejoyments present in such encounters. He writes so that one can see in the antagonisms present in current forms of neo-capitalism, sexism and racism the grounds for hoping for worthwhile accomplishments in seeking to lessen the domination and oppression they are causing. This reader provides an excellent beginning point for thinkers who want to join cultural and psychoanalytic analyses in a project of social action, and who along the way want to enjoy Zizek's marvelous use of film and literature to exemplify his theoretical points. A must reading for serious students of the current social and cultural world.