I recommend that you do not read the back cover of this book before you read the book itself: it gives away too much and frames things incorrectly as well. And obviously you ought to read this book! Henry Green is a jazzy Jane Austen, more Monk than Mozart. He's got quite the sense of humor. People at parties asked him what he was writing and he'd say, "Nothing." Many of his novels have gerund titles-- _Loving_, _Living_, _Doting_-- but "nothing" isn't a verb. Or is it? Do people "nothing" their lives away? Well I won't attempt to explain the significance of the title, but-- as I gave away-- this really is a book about everything. Through conversation caught in painfully beautiful rhythms, we can learn a lot about the tragi-comedy that is life as we follow characters who seem to be recorded more than created. These are not bad people. But Green's prose doesn't exactly let them off the hook. You might laugh or shudder, or do both at the same time. But something very serious is at stake here. People meet, eat, drink, gossip, are cruel, are insecure, but beyond appetite and role-playing is there anything to it--or is it all nothing? Perhaps you too will be shocked that any author could be as good as Henry Green.

The British writer Henry Green's literary skill went far beyond a comedy of manners, which this book appears to be on the surface. Dense with meaning, "Nothing" is a short literary gem, which forces the reader to read a million nuances into the witty and yet deeply dense conversations which make up the entirety of the book. The story is set in 1948 and follows John and Jane, now middle aged but still reminiscing about an affair they had many years before when they were still married. They both have new relationships, Liz and Richard, but still see each other frequently for meals or for tea. Their respective children, Mary and Philip, are now grown and want to marry. But of course there are complications.

The world that the author creates for the reader is a very British one. The dialogue is precise but filled with hidden meanings, as what is unsaid is often even more important than what is said. There's a wonderful symmetrical balance in each of the conversations as well as in the structure of the book. The characters speak for themselves, with very little description, and, through their words alone, the twists and turns of the story emerge, the sounds of their voices echoing on the pages. The question of what really happened and is happening is always just beyond our reach, and the even though the characters might be moved around like chess pieces at the author's whim, they never do change or gain insight into their behavior. Surprisingly, this is still an amazingly satisfying read, as if is the reader himself or herself who gets to experience their world and gain insight into the inevitability of the conclusion. This book is a delightful read and a real treat. I highly recommend it.

With a little patience, the reader will quickly adjust to the rhythms of one of English literature's most unique, and until recently, nearly forgotten novelists; and in the process enjoy an utterly and unabashedly charming and delightful novel. Years after having an affair that almost ruined their respective marriages, Jane Weatherby and John Pomfret are reunited when their children decide to get married despite questions regarding their possible kinship and the fact that they have almost no money to their name. Afraid that Mary Pomfret and Philip Weatherby are destined for the working-class, Jane and John attempt to stall the development of the wedding plans by having endlessly witty conversations about, well, nothing. This gives Jane -- a shrewd, resourceful widow -- the opportunity to embark on a scheme to lure John away from his current love interest. As the plot advances through discussions filled with misdirections and omissions, Green demonstrates that there is nothing like the spoken word to conceal one's true intentions, yet at the same time reveal everything. One of Green's final novels, Nothing is a worthy addition to the varied tradition of English literature that includes Virginia Woolf and Evelyn Waugh. Fans of Austen, Forster, and Wharton should also be rewarded. Green's masterful description of the novel's centerpiece alone -- an as-if-you-were-there party -- is worth the price of purchase.

OK, if the humor of the title of this review evades you, this is not the "book" for you. If you think the whole situation is funny, then get this book.

Page after page of doodles and notes that blow political correctness out of the water, and made me laugh out loud. This product is fall down funny.

Again, a classic that is out of print. Shame, shame, shame.

Here it is, four years after I first spent a summer reading and re-reading it with my friends (one of whom must still have it!). I've got to read it again. Maybe e-bay?

without a doubt, the funniest collection of drawings and text on the o.j. situation. a comical view into the demented mind of a lunatic!

I found two misprints:

Page 412, last equation on that page, x_2 = -b/(2a). ... : On the right-hand side, there are five terms. Terms number 2 to 5 have to be multiplied by b. In term number 3, replace u^2 by v^2.

Page 417, second of the two equations, r_p = 16 B' B" . ... : The second of the two brackets in the denominator must be squared.

These two misprints occur also in the German original, possibly since 1863.

This is worthwhile for the reasons already cited (so I need not rehearse them), but it is important to recognize that much of it has been superceded or disproved. I hope those prospective purchasers who have found their way here are aware of Juan Roederer's THE PHYSICS AND PSYCHOPHISICS OF MUSIC--very much recommended!

Helmholtz's Sensations of Tone became an almost instant classic in the study of hearing when it was published in 1863. It combined the physics, physiology and psychological aspects of hearing in an attempt to explain the origins of musical harmony and dissonance. Though not easy reading, it is accessible to the non-specialist. However it also provides an important historical resource for the specialist and helps one to understand the origins of so much of contemporary hearing research. Indeed, in many ways Helmholtz reads more like a contemporary than a long-past founding father. The appendices provided by the translator are helpful as well. Finally, the inexpensive paperback edition from Dover makes this book an excellent bargain.

Henry Friedlander provides a compelling and accurate portrayal of the origins of the Holocaust in the elimination of the mentally ill and physically handicapped. He starts with a description of the origins of German theories of racial superiority based upon social Darwinism which began long before the Nazis came to power. Many German physicians believed that the handicapped were a burden to society and that one of Medicine's chief functions was to be merciful and weed out the lame and feeble and remove them, painlessly, of course. With the advent of National Socialism and coming to power of Adolf Hitler, these doctors willingly joined in the sterilization and euthanistic practices of the Master Race. Gypsies and Jews were the main groups selected but all handicapped were gathered up. The author describes in detail the frustrations experienced by these teutonic genetic warriors because they could not more efficiently kill and maim and remove the untermeunschen. This book is a nightmare which can happen again. The world still witnesses the open genocide of Central Europe and parts of Africa and Asia. While Hitler's bodily presence has been gone for 55 years, his philosophical dementia remains with us. This book is an excellent reminder of science misused and politicized.

As a Deaf person and an activist for the rights of the disabled in education and medical care, I was appalled to find out that the disabled were singled out for sterilization and euthanasia long before the Jews had been. I was even more upset that prior to medical school, I had never even heard of the willing collaboration of doctors and scientists in Germany with the Nazi political machine to rid their race of defective people (it didn't seem to matter when impairment began or how, or these people were educable and able to work). Not to ever dismiss the horror of the Jewish Holocaust and the amount of lives taken, but it is imperative that we remember and we teach that the slope leading to extermination of races began with the ideas of Social Darwinism, natural selection, and survival of the fittest, which were the scientific theories/beliefs used to justify the removal of anyone with a difference. This belief system still pervades society today, when someone like Kervorkian (who only worked with dead bodies) could take it upon himself to decide whether someone's life was of any worth, on the basis of 'normalcy'.

Henry Friedlander does an excellent job of writing and researching into the lives and minds of the doctors and administrators who ran the secret programs that killed first, German children who were born with disabilities, then led to the removal from schools and homes of older children with disabilities to meet their deaths through starvation and drugs, and finally to include adults with disabilities in mass murders. It was on these people that the Nazis perfected their instruments of genocide, and yet, even at Nurenburg their suffering was dismissed as "lives unworthy of life" just because of their disabilities.

This can happen again, especially with the completion of the human genome. NO laws have been suggested to curtail the use of information gleaned from the genome to prevent discrimination of any kind against the disabled. It is of great concern that the disabled community watch opponents of the Americans with Disabilities Act try to get this civil rights act revoked as being expensive, especially since it serves those who many (including Clint Eastwood apparently) feel are not productive members of society. The slippery slope begins at this point, and with these mindsets.

It is imperative that students of medicine and students of science be made to read this book. It is only through education and remembering the children and families whose lives were destroyed that we can avoid allowing this Medical Holocaust from ever happening again. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh

From Euthanasia to Genocide is a very very small step. This book is the best and wisest on the subject. It illustrates exactly how easy it was for Nazis to use the American psuedo-science of "eugenics" to aclimate Germany to "life unworthy of life." How simple to use the idea of "mercy death" to rid society of "useless eaters." The members of T4 were ruthless in their quest to define and rid Nazi Germany of deformed infants, the mentally ill, the deaf, the old, the young, the indigent, the DIFFERENT. No marginalised group was safe.

Of the killing centers, Hadamar is the best known -- a hub, so to speak. Nobody really knows how many people were gassed there. The buses arrived like clockwork, on schedule... Day in; day out.

Significantly, there was little civilian protest until T4 moved on to private Christian instutions. The "euthenasia" program was halted "officially" after several churches protested the gassings of institutionalised patients. (Unofffically, the program went on until AFTER the end of the war!) The members of T4 were absorbed into the killing machine known as the Final Solution. Which, of course, was the goal all along....

I reread The Origins of Nazi Genocide periodically just to remind myself that ANYONE can be marginalised -- including me and thee.

It's hard to believe that James's theatrical turn of the late 19th century ended with his audience "booing" him off the stage. This novelized play reads quickly and delightfully. I've read more than twenty of his novels, and this was the quickest of them all.

The plot is simple enough (at least for James): two houses, apparently back to back, in Wilverley, a small English village, set the scene. One contains a widow, the other a young married couple. The young wife widows the young husband, and he becomes Wilverley's "most eligible bachelor," except for the fact that he promised his dying wife that he would never marry again, at least not during the life of his child. So somebody has to kill the child, right?

Enter James's genius for character. There's Paul, the huge, infinitely imperturbable son of the wealthy Mrs. Beever; the diminutive and impetuous Dennis Vidal; Tony Bream himself, a remarkably good-natured but insensitive fool; and the powerful Mrs. Beever, whose awful determination cows every one else before her. Like James's best writing, his characters become interesting on their own; his fictions become an opportunity to satisfy curiosity. I think that's what makes this book a "page-turner"; the characters are interesting enough that I want to know what's going to happen.

In the end, I suppose, what makes this book succeed is what would have made the dramatic version fail: James's endless fascination with the workings of the human mind must have become either painfully boring or just incomprehensible to a theatrical audience. However it came about, I recommend it unequivocally.

This book is a novelization of the play by the same name. And you can see the stageplay - the characters are continually coming and going - and there's stage business - all of which I think shows some stiffness - yet about half way through the novel I was startled at how much the characters were real, rounded - I could just about see them - they ached with life - I was always aware of the stage during the novel - the story itself is rather shocking - it's a mystery novel! - it's all very well done - it's short - and it's very psychological

I am impressed with The New York Review's revival of this unexpectedly non-Jamesian title. A truly unique James choice to bring back to life--it's been done so with a cover so compelling (I'm not a tradional James fan) I opened the book which I found locally in a brick and mortar as they are now called, book shop. The internet cannot do justice to the thoughtful sophistication of this book's packaging. (But I can purchase another copy here more easily!) The publisher's comments about the work were also compelling and complimentary to the cover art. The Other House is a mystery, a detective story, a love triangle with more than three angles--a true page turner--with a timelessly human plot and "modern" characters. Anyone thriller fan would be enchanted with it. And turning every page, holding the book, is a sensory thrill. Paper, writing, art--all representative of what any literary rebirth deserves. If it's worth bringing back--do it with quality, I say! They did--along with a whole marvelous collection of equally intriguing books, with well written new introductions. Good choices--the pieces themselves, the introduction authors and the book artist designers. Truly timeless in all ways!

Old Henry is a great childrens book that also has a moral. The moral of the story is that you should not judge a person for how they look, dress, or live but how they are as a person. The neighbor's of Henry in the story do just this and drive Henry to move away. The neighbors end up missing him and feel guilty about how they treated him. A child can learn a lot from the book.

It may not last forever, but this book has momentarily knocked Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio" into second place. "Old Henry" is now my favorite all time book, even after having owned it for about seven years. Oh, I used to read it all the time to the kids, but the moment I realized this book is now, for the time being, my all-time favorite book, is when I sat in the emergency room late one recent Saturday night.

My wife was in another room, discovering she had a broken foot from a slip earlier that day on a basement floor made wet by water leaking in through the walls.

I spend far too much time doing home maintenance these days, mopping up wet basement floors, calculating how the house will be sided or painted, deciding whether topaint or replace a garage door, trimming hedges and yanking weeds.

All of these ridiculous, no-win chores simply chip away at the time I want for reading, writing and drawing. It is not enough that parenthood justly requires so much time and energy -- we signed on for that -- but the treadmill that is home maintenance is a horror for anyone who likes to sit by the bird feeder and read magazines.

I envy, then, Old Henry, who wants only to move in, leave things be, and read and draw while his neighbors are concerned about the length of his grass.

My uncle once explained to me why he barely ever trims his bushes. "I want them to express themselves," he said, comparing his free-flowing shrubs to the neighbors' which were stiff and buzzcut as military sentries.

So I used to read "Old Henry" for my kids. Now it is at my bedside, along with the magazines and feng shui books, all reminders that if I want to nurture my mind, I'll have to give up the landscaping and such, and while the water in the basement must be mopped up lest anyone else break a bone, that we actually do have the freedom to surrendur to nature, let it grow and grow around us, and in that sweet surrendur, curl up defeatedly with a book.

I thought that this book was really good. I think that it will help kids understand how you should never judge people because that is what they did in the book. The neighbors judge Henry because he moved into a house and he did not fix it up so his neighbors cleaned his yard for him and was running him out. The neighbors did what they wanted but when he left the neighbors started to miss him. It shows that with him gone there was something special the people liked about him.

Henry Baum's Oscar Caliber Gun is a teriffic insight into the mind of a psycho -- who goes too far (or does he?). The story is told from the perspective of Ray, who is a disgruntaled 20-something that bounces from job-to-job, relationship-to-relationship and is fed up with the celebrity driven culture that we live in. It follows Ray's actions, as he slowly downspirals and his behavior becomes more and more dangerous to himself and others. (I don't want to give too much away)

The story, which is fast paced, is interesting, because although Ray is obviously nuts, the reader (or at least I did) empathizes with why he acts the way he does and supports his crazy actions.

I loved this book and couldn't put it down. It was a great action adventure and unique insight into the downfalls of celebrity-driven culture.

Once you start reading you can't put it down. Strong stuff.
Henry Baum is the real thing. It would make one hell of a motion picture. Can't wait to see what else this writer does. A natural. I gave it the highest rating and highly recommend it.

WhenI read this book, I was amazed at how the character,Ray, even though he was pshychotic, had thoughts so similar to mine.And though I didn't sympathize with the character, I was on his side. We could all end up like Ray... H. Baum has a lot of good novels in his future. I can't wait!

Phil Sheridan lacks a worthy biography, but this is the best around. It focuses on the post-Civil War period but ( I think)
could have done more to save the General's reputation from that of a 'bigot and Indian hater'.

For example, the unfair ascription of the so-called proverb 'The only good Indian is a dead Indian' is not challenged, I wonder when it ever will be. From my own limited research, I have found the first recorded public use of this phrase by a Montana politician in 1868, one year before Sheridan is supposed to have uttered similar words. Further, Sheridan's brother Mike also traces the phrase to Montana, saying 'some fool' ascribed the words to Sheridan. Finally, we only have the hearsay evidence
of a single witness (ie someone told someone else who wrote it down), written down 20 years later, that Sheridan used the words at all.

There is of course the larger accusation, that whatever Sheridan said, this is how he felt. Hutton effectively refutes that charge, I only wish he had come out and roundly stated it somewhere in the book. Sheridan shared the objectives of his contemporary humanitarian critics - he wanted Indians to settle down on reservations and adopt white ways, or just live of the bounty of the government. Where he differed was how he treated 'hostiles' or recalcritant Indians. Sheridan believed in waging war on the Indians just as he had made war in the Shenandoah Valley - devastate the enemy's resources, limit his power to make war by depriving him of supplies, with the added extra of rounding up families to be taken to where they white soldiers could watch them.

In essence, Sheridan was given a dirty job, and did in the only way he knew. But he had no especial hate for the Indians - he was not a Himmler figure, as some have made him out. He was fair to Indians who kept the peace. For example, he adjudicated in a dispute between Indians and cattlemen who had leased reservation land. Despite his personal feeling about development, he came down firmly on the Indian side, and thanks to him, the cattlemen were given 3 months to remove their herds, which humbered hundreds of thousands head of cattle.

Sheridan also sponsored early efforts to study Indian lore and customs, and was instrumental in preserving Yellowstone National Park for the nation.

In short this man was not a saint. He had glaring defects - for example, he aggressively defended subordinates even when they were in the wrong, he looked after cronies in the Army and outside. But he was totally uncorrupt in a corrupt age (his personal fortune was quite small at the end of his days, even though he could undoubtedly had many opportunities to enrich himself illicitly). Also, one feels that someone who said "If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd live in Hell and rent out Texas" can't be all bad! Right or wrong, he had a certain spirit, that Little Phil!

If anyone wonders how Custer could have been so driven to relentless pursue Sioux and Cheyenne to the Little Big Horn one must understand his mentor Phil Sheridan. As Hutton points out, Sheridan aggressiveness from his men and he could inspire them to such great lengths that one Union Soldier at the battle of Five Forks shot through the primary artery in the neck starts to seek medical help only to be blistered by Sheridan. Although mortally wounded, the young man turns to continue to attack and then immediately collapses to his death. The picture of the angular red haired cadet Sheridan at West Point looks just like the devil and his temper was evident there as he almost bayonets an upper classman that chews him out on parade. Sheridan applies his aggressive nature to the Indian campaigns such that if he is unable to capture the Indians (typical), he systematically destroyed their way of life by eradicating anything they needed to exist. Whether its buffalo, horses or village food stuffs, Sheridan essentially does to the Indians what he did to the Virginia Shenandoah valley during the Civil War where he or Grant made the comment that "a crow would have to carry rations if it flew over the valley" after Sheridan got through. Sheridan's effective Indian campaigns were often fought in the winter when the Indians had less food and were less mobile. Custer and Terry's campaign was desperate from the start since it started in the summer when the opposite was true. Hutton demonstrates Sheridan's black and white side and his Victorian views when Sheridan refuses to trade six horses for a captured white woman because he imagined her to be too sullied by the Indian braves and thus unfit for civilization. Hutton states in his introduction that he hopes that his daughter never has to meet a man like Sheridan which if he were your enemy it would be a relentless challenge without rules of war.

It is time we had books that celebrate the great HEROES of freedom like Grant Sherman Sheridan ect instead of the cowadly likes of Quantrill and his gutless backshooting ilk who would have run from a Blue Coat drummer boy or a Federal Army nurse!
It is about time that Americans honored those who stood and fought for freedom and WON. This book is a fine start.

The Andrew Lang collections are well worth it. I read them when I was a child (bless that library) and when I saw them for sale I couldn't resist. The stories have retained their freshness and it is interesting to see similar themes dealt with by different cultures.

These would be great for parents reading to their children or for children looking for something interesting and fun to read.

Definitely worth it!

I was at the library with my father and mother when I first saw this book. I looked at all the colors and decided by pink being my favorite color. I read the whole book in gaps between 2 days and at bedtime. And I was so amazed at the mermaids, princesses, and fairies and all the wonder that a few days later I took out the orange, green, and crimson fairy book just so I could dwell in the land of fairy tales for a few more weeks! Im a young girl of fourteen, and I love fantasy stories. The Pink fairy book is my favorite because it was my first, but the whole collection are my favorites and I recomend them to boys and girls (There are plenty of stories boys would like too) and adults! (for they are just as interesting) I love art, and the pictures by H.J ford are so amazing and attractive, I stared at them for hours!

I am a teacher and I read many stories from The Pink Fairy Book to my class. They were amazed that there were so many more wonderful fairy tales that they had never seen on cartoons. I recomend this to all teachers and parents to read to treir kids.

This is one of the best one-volume references on the American presidents I have come across. While some general biographical material is provided, such as how each man spent his formative years, each section is mostly devoted to an over-the-shoulder look at the key figures of his administration, with benefit of historical hindsight, as they grapple with the issues and problems of the time. Particular attention is paid to distinctive qualities that set each president apart from his peers and to key decisions and actions that made a lasting difference to the country. This is more than a mere presentation of facts: we get a definite feel for each man's style of leadership and even his vision for the nation.

With each section written by a different contributor, there is bound to be some unevenness of style and tone, and there is. Generally, each presentation is scholarly and disinterested--although by no means dry--and free from excessive praise or condemnation, but for two exceptions that somewhat detract from the work. The most egregious of these is the section on Franklin Pierce, which is filled with personal gibes and, to a much lesser degree, the section on Calvin Coolidge. This is particularly surprising in light of the fact that such controversial figures as Andrew Johnson, Warren G. Harding and even Richard Nixon have been handled so professionally. But otherwise there is little to fault.

With only 15 to 20 pages devoted to each administration, obviously many difficult decisions had to be made on what material to include and exclude. Yet, it is the insight that went into these decisions that is one of the high points of this book; indeed, there is more than enough material to satisy most history buffs. However, those looking for obscure facts or trivia about each man, except when such details are directly relevant to the central issues of the time, are best advised to consult full-length biographies. Extensive references, including a list of such biographies, have been provided at the end of each section.

This book has a short (15-20 pages) biography of each president
through Bill Clinton (remember, it was published in 1996); obviously,
it cannot give as full a history as a full, comprehensive biography
could. But for many of the presidents, it is almost impossible to find
a full, comprehensive biography, and for those interested in those
presidents, this work is invaluable. Also, each chapter has an
exhaustive bibliography, so those interested in learning more are given
the names of books, many of them out of print, to look for.

A must for any presidential history buff.

This book is an excellent source for presidential research. As an AP American History student, this book is an INVALUABLE resource. It discusses all of the major events of the presidency with some detail. This saves a lot of secondary research which can delay completion of a project for days.