If you think that you can't read classic American Literature because it's all so big and intimidating (i.e., Moby Dick) think again. Some of the short stories in this collection of Melville's "other" work are incredibly well-written insights into human nature. (As is Moby Dick, but I digress).

Billy Budd's encounter with "justice," Bartleby's statement that he would "prefer not", Benito Cerino's exploration of slavery-- these tales are not to be missed. You should read this book as a starter, then move on to the BIG OLD white whale.

Darkly humorous, cynical, horrific and melancholy, Melville's later works are the capstone to the author's deepening discontent with his America. The vision here can be frustrating: Melville conjures up the most painful, soul-searching mysteries, and then refuses to knot them up with tidy solutions. Instead, Melville deepens the moral ambiguity that seeped through the skin of the transitional Moby Dick in full-length works like Pierre and Billy Budd, Sailor. And the shorter works--among them The Piazza Tales, Benito Cereno, and Bartleby the Scrivener--are imbued with such a longing for any kind of graspable meaning, that their readers, like their characters, find themselves in a ponderous state of shock. The human condition, Melville seems to say, is one of isolation, cast adrift, searching alone for a truth that is, and always will be, inscrutable.

I really enjoyed this little book, it was packed full
of interesting facts that are found in the Word of God!
Let me wet your appetite a little bit, do you think a library
is mentioned in the Bible, if so why was it mentioned and where is the reference to it? Here is another one, do you know
that Jesus sang and when He did? Or how about this one, who
dedicated horses to the sun? Interested?
My family and I sat around for hours discussing the words
in this book, looking up the Scriptures and just having a
really great time with all the information we learned.
If you can get a hold of this read I feel you will enjoy it!
Keep it handy, it makes a great conversational opportunity!

AN ASTONISHING "READ".IF YOU BELIEVE IN GOD ORNOT YOU WILL FACE QUESTIONSYOU NEVER EVEN DREAMED YOUWOULD PONDER...

This wartime memoir was discovered by the author's daughter in 1979, following her mother's death. It relates the events of the Nazi persecution in Poland, the suffering and degradation of the Warsaw Ghetto ... and an extraordinary courage and will to survive. Realizing the fate in store for her, Ruth made plans for escape. In the winter of 1943, she and two-year-old Eva were rounded up and crowded into a cattle-car for the fatal journey to Treblinka. A single chance for life remained to them: a perilous jump from the moving train. Their first night of freedom was spent huddling together in a freezing, abandoned dog-kennel, with Ruth licking her daughter's wounds. In their danger-fraught flight for survival, they encountered kind-hearted Catholics who risked their lives to aid a Jewish mother and child. This book is a powerful first-hand account of terrifying times, and a testimony to a mother's courage.

This would have to be one of the few diaries that tells the story of the horror of the Holocaust. Ruth lives through many tough situations, where her quick thinking saves her and her daughter Eva. It paints a clear picture of how people in Warsaw were treated, and how the Germans got rid of the Jews in the Ghetto and in Warsaw. It is rather sad, but it is true. If you read this story, you will learn first hand about the life that Jews lived in the Holocaust. I suggest reading it!

If you find yourself in a situation where the fantastic capabilities of the HP-48G/X are just out of your grasp, and you still need to devote most of your time to class rather than learning how to operate this calculator, then this book is probably for you.

It is lightly documented that the two User Manuals that come with the HP-48GX do assume that you have some level of working knowledge of the terms, and stadards used in advanced HP calculators. It is not necessary to buy this particular book if you are already comfortable with the HP-48G/X and are just striving to learn more about programming or how to answer the question of time.

Jump Start is a good book if you are like me, going to school because you don't know everything already and you certainly don't have all year to figure out how your new calculator works.

The examples the author chose were excellent for my needs. Surely, they won't be for everyone, but as an Electronics Engineering student, what he offered fulfilled the demand I had to gain enough experience on this mini-computer so that I have a positive direction to go toward to learn the specifics of the types of problems I will use it to solve. And clearly that is the authors intent. And that was my goal when I bought this book. I simply needed some guidance.

This book will not teach you Calculus, nor will it teach you all there is to know about the HP-48G/X. What it will do is assume that you are trying to learn the HP-48 series and give you some general problems that are the foundations of many common problems so that you have a broad base of knowledge and a common platform in which to solve them.

One of my favorite examples in the book was that of isolating variables in a complex equation. I needed to know how to do this because frankly, some of the math I do takes like 4 sheets of legal sized paper to write out and I knew there had to be a better way.

The equation he chose as an example has a piece of everything in it and once you learn how to enter in his example, and then isolate whatever variable you want, you have now the power to solve any equation only limited by your ability to enter it into the calculator. And using the powerful Equation Writer, entering in complex equations gave me a sense of security because you can, using the methods covered in this book, actually look at the equation as you entered it, and then convert it to what it looks like in your text book. Probably the HP user manual shows how to do that, but since I could not even figure out how to enter an equation in the first place based on the HP manuals, I will give this author that credit, on my behalf.

Bottomline, if you haven't figured out how to enter an equation, create a subdirectory, move around subdirectories, write basic programs, purge memory, write complex equations, convert anything to practically anything else and solve for any variable....and you WANT to be able to do these things, then you can get that information by reading this book and practicing the examples. If you don't even understand an equation like 2x+3y=4, then you probably won't enjoy this book. It won't teach you anything about understanding math or the problems. It assumes you know why and what you are trying to solve, but it importantly assumes you have no idea how to tell the calculator what you want it to do. In my book, that is a perfect Jump Start.

I give it Five Stars because the author only offers a Jump Start and I certainly got that out of this book.

The Hewlett Packard 48G family of handheld graphic calculators are superb instruments suffering only from a slow processor and what has become famous as a User Guide useful sole to those who already know how to use the calculator. This book will for the most part clarify things so one can use the User Guide although it can do nothing to speed up the calcified and arthritic slowness of this calculators processor.

Unlike some calculators the 48 has NO GUI at all. It also uses the postscript, or RPN, input method which most who deal with maths adore and which befuddles many history majors, dance majors, football players and ilk others. Moreover the 48 dates from the earliest part of the 1990s and has had several O/S tweaks. As a result some of the step by step instructions even in this book may be off a keystroke or two for your particular machine. This volume is, however, a real Missing Manual.

After I bought my first 48 it took 3 weeks of messing with it before I was able to do much more then 2 + 2. That was years ago. Just as beaming parents used to present a slide rule to their young scholar off to engineering school this beaming grand-unki has now presented several plastic packaged H.P. 48g+ each with a copy of this book [that to save from frustration and the English Majors or high school calculator the T.I. 83]

I don't think that Stephen Potter's particularly brilliant style of humour has ever been matched. Lifemanship is the best of the three "manship" books, which all take one-upping to masterful level. Potter has defined the art of taking mundane occurences and examining them so closely as to render them completely absurd while still managing to display the human truth and insight inherrant in his observations.

So you've chanced accross this little review. I have just re-read this book, and it has me roaring with laughter. Basically it is about how to be a complete jerk, told in an english - stiff - upper - lip style. It's a funny book because by the time you read it, you feel you almost know the author, who laughs smugly behind every line - Just brilliant

Deftly written by James P. Blaylock (a winner of the World Fantasy Award and the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award), Lord Kelvin's Machine is a fantastic steampunk saga set in Victorian London. Our intrepid hero, Langdon St. Ives, is devastated by murder and surrounded by mayhem in the midst of an uproar over (and battles to possess) a wondrous machine with the power to travel through Time itself. An astutely told science fiction adventure laced through and through with humanity, reflection, high escapades, drama, and coming to grips with the terrible specter of death, Lord Kelvin's Machine is enthusiastically recommended reading for all dedicated science fiction enthusiasts.

Probably the best thing one can say about this book is that after this he got loads better. This novel shows Blaylock attempting to write a alternate historical fantasy (I think, though it's never clearly said) with a knotted twisting plot while at the same time having a little fun with it. Most of it comes off like he was reading his good friend Tim Power's novels and thought, "Hey I could do that!" but this kind of thing definitely isn't where his strengths are. The blurbs on the back and front tout it as a time travelling novel and it sort of is one of those but you have to get through two other parts with the same characters . . . the main character is a detective/scientist named St. Ives who is trying to stop a diabolical professor, especially after the man killed the love of his life. The title machine comes in early for a totally different reason (and it's never explained how they decide to use it to travel in time) and the science must be parody but it's played dead serious which sort of deflates the purpose. So they're entertaining but don't seem to move any kind of plot forward . . . it's also hard to get a handle on St Ives, all you ever hear is how brilliant he is but you never really see him dedude anything or work hard at it, he just knows everything and Blaylock seems to operate on the idea that if you repeat something often enough people will believe you. The third part, featuring mostly only St Ives nearly redeems the novel . . . after nearly beating it into you that he's at his wits end and is totally depressed and numb, things finally start happening and lots of interesting twists come in . . . unfortunately the ultimate resolution of the book makes you wonder why he just didn't do it earlier . . . frankly this feels like a short story padded out for whatever reason. Maybe Blaylock liked the characters. But honestly if you just took the prologue and the third part you would have a fine novella or the like. After this I think he abandoned the historical fantasy stuff and leaned more towards merging modern fantasy with the viewpoint of ordinary people and how it affects them . . . that he did brilliantly and those are the books you should seek out. (...)

In the context of modern times it would be easy to make these women ridiculous but Giselle Potter respects them and the courage of their choices. The book is a lovely, magical tribute to strong women who triumphantly defied male power and violence.

There is something so lovely about his book-- particularly in the illustrations. I adore the style of Potter. I wish it were more popular.

This is a tremendous book for those of us who struggle with mathematics. It makes complex topics feel like a simple string of easy steps. This book is also a great reference; mine is severely dog-eared and has tabs at all the sections that I use often. My friends who are (in my opinion) expert mathematicians don't care for this book as much as I do, but for the "expert novice" like myself, I find this book invaluable.

One of the topics in this book that I find very useful is the numerical methods section. Excellent for a reference when reading and reviewing numerical data or when generating simple code.

This is an excellent book. I used the first edition in graduate school. I am a PhD analytical chemist who often needs to solve differential equations. I am not a good mathematician, so this book has saved me many times. Since I often use cylindrical geometry (i.e. BESSEL functions required), I am glad that this book even covers Bessel functions.

Scientists and engineers who solve differential equations on a periodic basis should have this book in their library.

Julie Stenken

As a high school youth this book was my introduction to subtlety. And as a kid in Pittsburgh I had much to learn on this subject. One would hope that in today crass atmosphere such ploys are still advantageous but I doubt it. In fact I'll wager that there is not one person in a thousand who can identify this book as the source of the popularity of the word "ploy" although the word is widely used. Read it, it's fun.

Potter caqptures the essence of British humor. He wrote circa 1950 and was a master at capitalizing on observations for the purposes of gaining an edge in the most humorous of cicumstances. The British understatement and preoccupation for the unimportant things in life is the starting point for Potter to describe how life should be lived. From how to decorate ones office, how to walk in a museum, how to properly answer the telephone, to what to wear for golf has been reduced to a science so that the other person will ultimately feel uncomfortable and off balance. If one can possibly think British, then this book may be one of the funniest books ever written.