

Photocopy on Top of Photocopy
I love these books!
Nancy Drew Best Buy!Contained herein are the first six mysteries in the series which are among the best in the canon.
There is plenty of adventure and mystery in these stories as you follow along with Nancy and her best friends, Bess and George.
...


A well-written book about "being".
Samuel Hynes becomes a Marine Aviator during WWII.
A lyrical book about the coming of age of a boy during WWII

Brushes over too much
An impressive account
Great Beginnings

DisengagementReview
If you can read only one purportedly academic book this year choose this one. Despite being statistically dense, it reads like a business bestseller - a sort of Tipping Point with meat. Through a exhaustive use of polling and other socioeconomic indices, Putnam paints a compelling picture of a nation fragmenting into smaller and smaller pockets of disjointed individuals. A must read for anyone interested in political action into the next decades.
Synopsis
The basic premise here is that a growing social disconnect can be identified in trends of American public opinion over the course of the last century though analysis of "social capital" activities. Social capital is the connection - and the strength, utility and cohesion of these linkages - between individuals in a society.
Rather than a lamentation on this collapse of civics, Putnam traces polling, voting, memberships and leisure activities to debunk most of the myths that attempt to explain the failure of politics to engage the US public. We still have the same 19-20 hours for relaxation per week and work, with its focal points of 'team' capitalism and heightened customer service does not seemingly translate outside the office. By then bringing in Tocqueville's 'self interest, rightly served' [135] a clear trail of the decline of American civility is clearly traced.
The salient thought roaring through Bowling Alone is that "A society characterized by generalized reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful society, for the same reason that money is more efficient than barter." [21] This is the basic finding that such a simple premise forms the basis of all the political upheavals in America - and with little retinking, Canada - over the past century and of greater importance, since the silent reversal - 'disjunctive pattern of decline' - of civic connectives in the middle 70's.
The criticisms of Bowling Alone hinge primarily on the seeming Ozzie & Harriet lamentation for the good old days [see Mark Kingwell's The World We Want, 2000] when everyone liked each other, but they sorely miss the point of the work. Given that more people bowl in leagues than voted in the 1998 US congressional election , perhaps a look-see at Pleasantville is warranted. Putnam's prescriptions are not 'civic broccoli' or predicated on the ubiquitous they coming to our rescue, but simple, easy to articulate and ultimately deliverable.
Detail
Putnam typifies 2-type of social capital: bonding and bridging which provides a useful distinction in the book. Bonding capital coalesces similar groups while bridging arches socioeconomic groups. This differentiation provides Although this is a subtle distinction it is at the core of the thesis of Bowling Alone. It allows for a plausible explanation of the rise of chequebook participation and the proliferation of letterheads over civic action by individuals. Collective goals and causes have become secondary to personal growth with thin and cool trust.
Putnam's exploration of the causes of this decline follows leads from the number of personal injury lawyers, through television into bureaucratization of community action. He sees troubling social tendencies to 'hire organizations' for community action and the development of virtual social capital consciousness, which must be regarded as oxymoronic at best. These activities become captives of zealot 'dictators' or dilute their effectiveness as they denigrate into gab-feast anarchies. Thus, Putnam questions the effectiveness of the internet as a tool of bonding social capital as it has a tendency to create joy-stick democracy of the paramount individual. This "sociological Astroturf, suitable only where the real thing won't grow." [107]
Thus, although widespread discontent exists, incumbents are re-elected as astonishing rates in America as there are few focal points for the coalescing social disconnect. This raises the specter of niche markets in politics where single issue consumers' end up supporting causes that in effect erode the social cohesion of their communities. This finding is most troubling for today's youth whose values are filtered through the abstraction of the media - and especially by television the "single most consistent predicator" [229] of declining civic involvement - and are tuned out to organized civic action.
Overall, Putnam provides clear and compelling evidence that a catalyst is needed to re-engage Americans in collective civic action to address pressing social and growing economic ills that face the nation. Or in a chilling insight, he believes that we are bottoming out in "drive-by" civics.
Terrific & Penetrating View At American Loss Of Community!This is an absorbing book, the result of Putnam's efforts to expand a short article Putnam had written regarding the observable facts of increasing social isolation and personal disconnection within our culture. Here he employs new data substantiating and extending the details of his original thesis, indicating that on almost every measure investigated, individual Americans are less likely to regularly socialize with their peers, becoming more isolated, more fractious, and less friendly to others than they have been in the recent past. The book is written in an engaging way, and entertains and seduces the reader with amusing (as well as frightening) facts and figures regarding the degree of animosity and alienation individual citizens feel.
Of course, it is easy to become so enthralled with reading through the entertaining list of particulars he enumerates than to pay heed to the burgeoning shapes and images lurking beneath the data; i.e., concerned readers should engage themselves in locating all this information usefully within a meaningful social context. Increasing social isolation and the progressive breakdown in what sociologists call social cohesion are not new phenomena, but have been steadily eroding the social fabric and our feelings of connectedness to one another for over a century. In fact, at the turn of the 20th century both Emile Durkheim and Max Weber were warning of the social dangers associated with the rise of a rational, secular and materialistic social milieu. Reading other recent books such as Sales Kirkpatrick's "Rebels Against The Future" or Philip Slater's classic 1970 book "Pursuit of Loneliness" give one a much better grounding in how the degree of social isolation and civil alienation are related to what is happening in the larger social surround individuals find themselves in.
In essence, the kinds of isolation detailed so well in this tome are the result of the long-term corrosive effects of materialism, with concentration on capital acquisition and gaining more wealth and more affluent lifestyles. Indeed, if one reads the recent book "The Overworked American" by Juliet Schor, one gets the distinct impression that many Americans are so focused on "getting ahead' that anything interfering with this obsessive reach for greater material security gets short shrift in contemporary society. There should be no confusion about the nature of the problem that confronts us; we have no community because we have no culture left. The revolution of scientific change and technical innovation has systematically swept away the web of meanings we once had to integrate and make sense of all this. All we really have today is a mutual acquisition society, based primarily on our mutual lust for material goods and minimally constrained by the skeletal rules and regulations civil society sets for the nature of the material quest. This is a terrific book. Read it.
Can You Handle the Truth?I read Putnam's article by the same title in college and it left a lasting imprint because it crystalized my feeling that Americans are no longer involving themselves in civic and community life. His new book expounds on this depressing thesis and explains, in tremendous detail how Americans no longer value civic engagement or regard relationships with neighbors as worthwhile. He cites declines in participation in public clubs such as the Shriners and Elks clubs as well as more informal social gatherings like poker playing and family dinners. Using statistics and time diaries he plots indicators of civic engagement from its peak in the early 1960's and its subsequent decline thereafter. The greatest casualty throughout this transformation is in social capital, a term which predates Putnam and describes the emotional and practical benefits of personal relationship.
Putnam shows that civic clubs that have shown growth in membership since the 1960's have mostly been in massive national organizations whose membership is nothing more than people on mailing lists who pay an annual fee. Furthermore, religious organizations, whose members participate in their communities at greater rates than non church goers, are beginning to change their focus from civic participation to only tending to the needs of their church members.
The affects of this disengagement have impacted our health, democracy and safety. Putnams points out an axiomatic principle that as people associate with one another in various capacities, whether it be at the kitchen table, the sidewalk, the card club or the PTA, people form relationships that provide a pool of friends who can be relied upon when time are hard, the dog needs to be walked, or the poor elderly woman next door needs her home painted. Each relationship is an asset, the accumulation of which can be called one's "social capital."
Putnam does not place the blame for this on one source, but cites the entrance of women into the workforce, high levels of divorce, and urban sprawl among others as possible contributors. His most damning remarks are reserved for television. According to Putnam, no single technology has had such a damaging effect on America's civic and personal relationships. I enjoyed his attack on TV on a personal level because I decided 5 years ago to throw away my television and have never looked back.
Certainly, Putnam's concerns are not new. He admits to this and provides the reader with an excellent look at the Progressive Era when American's decided to solve the vexing problems of an industialized urban society by forming civic clubs and actively involving themselves in their community.
This is not a particularly fun book to read. In summary, it details how Americans have become spectators on life. The recent success of "reality based" television programs only illustrates how we have traded the potential richness of personal relationships for a false reality on our television screens. Life is about personal relationships, and it is sad to see how Americans have avoided these relationships.
Putnam is not all gloom and doom. As with everything, hope abounds. After reading this book, one should only be encouraged to find ways to involve himself or herself in their communities and invite the neighbors over for a BBQ. This is an important social commentary, and I encourage all to read it.


3rd in the series, I am hooked on Amelia!You are also reacquainted with Radcliffe Emerson(her husband, intellectual equal, and true partner). Their son, Walter Peabody Emerson (known as Ramses) comes along with them on the dig where he acquires a highly intelligent Egyptian brindled cat whom he promptly names Bastet after the Egyptian cat goddess. Ramses is extremely precocious, very funny, singularly stubborn, and always trying to find the loophole in his parents' edicts. He is a great contribution to the cast. We still get to see the great relationship between Emerson and Peabody (as they affectionately refer to each other) as well as their interaction with Ramses.
Amelia doesn't seem like a very demonstrative mother, but her love for her son is there. She's the kind of person who takes for granted that her family knows she loves them and prefers to show it through actions instead of words. (In the latest couple of additions to this series, we see her affection come out into the open more.)
Once again, Peters provides an intriguing mystery along with more great information on the early days of Egyptian archaeology and Ancient Egyptian culture. I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 because I got lost a couple of times and had to go back and trace some of the story elements more than once in order to follow what was going on with the mystery. However, that does not mean this wasn't a great book.
Amusing mystery series with an Egyptian setting
The Mummy Case by Elizabeth PetersOh how I wish Peters hadn't let Amelia's son Ramses grow up so quickly. In later books, his character(while interesting) has evolved into the standardized tall, dark and handsome leading man beloved of all historical mystery writers. But oh, what a fiendishly (not to mention, hysterically funny) atrocious little boy he is in these early books. I love his lisp! I love the way Peters sets his longwinded conversations with the lisp in tact. If you read them aloud, they're even funnier. What a deranged little genius. And speaking of deranged, what about his father, the most famous archeologist of his or any other time, Radcliffe Emerson? I love Amelia, I really do, but one of the main reasons I read and reread these books, is the inspired lunacy of her husband. Whenever I'm depressed, I pick up The Mummy Case or one of the other early Peabodys and I'm sent back to turn of the century Egypt and the intrepid Amelia and her zany family. DON'T
read these for the mysteries, although there certainly is one in every book, instead read these for the ingenious characters and the inspired lunacy of plot. This is satire in its best form. Fun. Fun. Fun.
I'm wondering if Elizabeth Peters now regrets setting these books in 'real' time. I believe she should've held on to the earlier years of the Emersons a bit longer. I'm also wondering why this wonderful series hasn't been snapped up by Hollywood.
If I could, I'd option them myself.


please!
GOOD BOOKFrom the first chapter I noticed a difference in the way I looked at life .
Wonderful , Enlightening!My favorite book of 2000!


Laymen Beware
This is a great book
Time: Why is it so important?

Evidence of hasteThe first thing that will strike many college students and graduates is the almost complete absence of etymologies. A few of the more interesting ones are highlighted with the heading WORD HISTORY; for example, this is one of very few sources that make clear why the Dutch for "the cage" appears in English as DECOY. A few other etymologies appear with the heading ORIGIN. For the most part, you won't find any. It would seem that such information would add a lot to many entries, such as UBUNTU, TRIFFID, GROK, TOHUBOHU, and thousands more. One consequence is that the usage note for ESKIMO refers to a deleted etymology. Granted, the etymologies in most competitors have a lot of fluff; they'll show two of numerous older spellings of "dog" before implying that the trail grows cold in Old English; a simple " More than a dozen pages are blank. This is certainly a surprise, since most publishers allot their lexicographers however many pages can be printed affordably for the intended sales price, and they scramble to squash the available material into what seems to be too small a space. Larger Oxford dictionaries would provide plenty of material for filling these pages up. No doubt Roger Staubach is pleased to have an entry, and would be even more so if his name were spelled correctly. It's unclear whether users would expect to find anything about him in a dictionary, but this one tries to include a lot of currently famous sports and entertainment personalities, and users might enjoy this feature. Cal Ripken makes an appearance too, but since the entry hasn't been updated, his 2001 retirement is unnoted. The space devoted to Perry, a tennis star from the thirties, might have been better devoted to Commodore Perry in a college dictionary, and there are many similar examples. Unnecessarily in my opinion, an illustration for skyscraper has been edited to remove the World Trade Center. There are quite a number of illustrations, many adding little besides a break in what some readers might consider monotonous text. Whoever drew the picture for hyperbola has little appreciation for asymptotes. Every country comes with a large map, showing very few cities other than capitals, and mostly useless. The result is that the Northern Mariana Islands are shown with greater detail than in the National Geographic Atlas, while most of the largest U.S. cities appear on no map whatever. It's unclear that dictionary users expect maps, and those that do will probably look elsewhere. Inevitably a new work has slipups here and there, of them possibly attributable to the abridgement. The entry for the noun SHANKS' MARE reads "used to walking"; you need the complete entry from NOAD to make any sense of the definition, which in itself is more of an explanation than something that can take the place of a noun. The symbol for SECOND didn't survive intact. The entries for GOODNESS and SAKE disagree on the punctuation of "for goodness' sake". Only the illustrative citation for Spartan hints that its metaphoric usage is now usually uncapitalized. And the spelling Stonehendge appears. At times one feels that one is the first human to be reading certain entries in their current form. Information for REIS, BO, SH, ADELGID, etc., is present, but not anywhere you are likely to look. On the other hand, "Sly" is cross-referenced to Stallone. Kudos to Oxford for its sensible treatment of the spelling or usage of such entries as miniscule, flout/flaunt, plaintext, back seat, hopefully, disinterested, under way, supercede, they, and dozens more. Hopefully a future edition will have something to say against the spelling KI for the word pronounced CHI and now usually spelled QI. And hopefully we won't have to wait long for the Second Edition of this dictionary, a more patient and careful abridgement of NOAD. Except for price and portability, nearly all the pluses of this work are found in NOAD, while most of the minuses mentioned above are not in NOAD. For now, if you can afford only a college dictionary, I would have to recommend one of the others.
A good, portable dictionary for those with a good vocabulary
Good choice for college

insightful but dramaticUnfortunately, Dr. Putnam's vision of therapy involved a lot of drama and such techniques as sodium amytal interviews, which are rarely if ever used anymore. In dealing with child abuse survivors, there is already the potential for drama due to the difficulty in handling trauma that many people experience. I think it's unfortunate that this treatment method added to that by advocating fairly aggressive memory recovery techniques.
This book is a very useful source for understanding dissociative disorders, but I am glad that the vision of therapy has changed since its publication.
Validating and Helpful
INFORMATIVE AND HELPFUL -- GREAT BOOK!Dr. Putnam provides a thorough and in-depth journey into the therapy and recovering process of someone with MPD (or DID). Whether you're a doctor, a friend or family member of a multiple, someone recently diagnosed or a seasoned veteran, I think you will find many useful things within this book.
