This is the most comprehensive and helpful book I have found on Crohn's disease. It is specific to the disease, not a catch all for all GI problems like most books. There are a lot of useful tips for everyday living and dealing with annoying problems that come with the disease. This book is great for patients, physicians, and other clinicians who work work Crohn's patients. Highly recommended!!!

I am a clinical health psychologist working with patients with a variety of illnesses and I found Dr. Trachter's book to be a comprehensive review of the salient issues facing patients with Crohn's disease. Not only would I recommend this book to my patients, but I found it to be a useful supplement to my own knowledge base regarding Crohn's disease and IBD.

This book is an excellent compilation of both the theory and pseudo-code for number theoretic algorithms. The author also takes the time to prove some of the major results as background to the algorithms, in addition to sets of exercises at the end of the book. The book is too large to do a chapter by chapter review, so instead I will list the algorithms in the book that I thought were particularly useful:

1. Most of the algorithms on elliptic curves. The author reminds the reader that number-theoretical experiments resulted in the famous Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture and the Birch Conjecture. (a) the reduction algorithm, which for a given point in the upper half plane, gives the unique point in the half plane equivalent to this point under the action of the special linear group along with the matrix that maps these two points to each other. (b) The computation of the coefficient g2 and g3 of the Weierstrass equation of an elliptic curve. (c) The computation of the Weierstrass function and its derivative. (d) Determination of the periods of an elliptic curve over the real numbers. (e) The determination of the elliptic logarithm. (f) The reduction of a general cubic (f) The Shanks-Mestre algorithm for computing the order of an elliptic curve over a finite field F(p), where p is prime and greater than 457. (g) The reduction of an elliptic curve modulo p for p > 3. (h) The reduction of an elliptic curve modulo 2 or 3. (i) Reduction of an elliptic curve over the rational numbers. (j) Determination of the rational torsion points of an elliptic curve. (k) Computation of the Hilbert class polynomials and thus a determination of the j-function of an elliptic curve.

2. A few of the algorithms on factoring. (a) The Pollard algorithm for finding non-trivial factors of composites. (The author does not give the improved algorithm due to P. Montgomery, but does give references) (b) Shanks Square Form Factorization algorithm for finding a non-trivial factor of an odd integer. (c) Lenstra's Elliptic Curve test for compositeness.

3. Primality tests (a) The Jacobi Sum Primality Test for a positive integer. (b) Goldwasser-Killian elliptic curve test for a positive integer not equal to 1 and coprime to 6.

The author gives an overview of the computer packages used for number theory, including Pari, which was written by him and his collaborators. I have not used this package, but instead use Lydia and Mathematica for most of the number theoretic computations I need to do.

Cohen (the world renowned expert) starts with the most basic of algorithms (i.e. Euclid & Shanks). He moves seamlessly into Linear Algebra & Polynomials (bedrocks of most CAS). Although meant to be concise, he proves, or sketches a proof of the important results. Finally, the meat of the book, C.A.N.T. One important problem is finding the "class number" (has to do with unique factorization, which we are all accustomed to in Z). A detailed description of the continued fraction algorithm (for finding the fundamental unit), and others made it very enlightening. He then deals with primality testing and factoring, two very important problems, the latter because of RSA. First, a description of the algorithm, then the theory behind it. He covered everything, from Trial Division (Dark Ages) to Pollard Rho to NFS (cutting-edge). Also included are some useful tables.

Of course, CAS information from 1993, won't be that helpful (look in his newest, Advanced Topics in C.A.N.T.).

Excellent. Also try Knuth's "Semi-numerical Algorithms" for a more computer oriented approach.

I bought this book while I was leaving Las Vegas with a couple friends who were "knowledgable" about the game. I read it non-stop for 4 hours on the flight home. What I found out amazed me, not the least of which was that my friends had a lot to learn.

The book provides an understanding of the basic game, all the bets on the table, and a winning strategy that works. Since reading the book, 3 times cover to cover, and playing on my PC, I've played a couple times in Las Vegas, and both times walked away a winner. I fully realize this was part skill, and part luck. But without the book, I would have not had the knowledge to even begin to play smart.

Buy the book - you won't regret it. It provides a strategy for the long haul, not just one lucky experience. It explains everything. And the next time you are at the tables, you'll find out just how silly everyone else is.

While some of the strategies are not complete, i.e., some circumstances are not covered, for the most part, this book gives a quick yet thorough view of what craps is AND how to bet. Many bets in craps are not good investments; he tells why.

If you want to understand something about the nature of Adorno's overall project, read the guy below, sadly cut off as he is in mid-sentence. If your only contact with Adorno is the bitter "Minima Moralia" or the (to me) rebarbative "Negative Dialectics", this is an essential complement. If you aren't interested in radical cultural criticism...er, why are you reading this?

Critical Models is a collection of essays, articles and radio talks, mostly from quite late in Adorno's career. I am neither a philosopher nor an academic, and would be the first person to admit that I'm not quite up to Adorno's more Hegelian moments. I'm just casting about for help in an increasingly bland, homogenised, uncritical cultural environment, and the best thing about Critical Models is that it's Adorno being unusually _helpful_.

This is Adorno throwing himself into the task of trying to build a post-war democracy in Germany, not Adorno the cantankerous emigre complaining that doors shut more violently than they used to. He urges the value of promoting the status of teachers, of rooting out and criticising Nazi attitudes (who'd have thought that they'd still be flourishing fifty years on). Adorno is seldom a very approachable writer, but here he's making the effort to communicate to a mass audience, and to a relatively uneducated schmuck like me it's critical dynamite. The spine of my copy of Negative Dialectics may remain forever uncreased, but this one will be carried around.

It is important to point out that Teddie Adorno is spinning in his grave, for the very venue on which I am reviewing Critical Models is itself an example of the fetishized, reified and administered world that Adorno named, and critiqued. However, Adorno's philosophical tradition also includes the catchphrase what is, is right, and would probably view the Internet as more or less a necessary consequence of vast economic forces which it would be simple minded to simply ignore, or negate. And, his "dialectical" logic not only permits us to log on and praise him where praise is due: it requires us to do so.

This collection is of essays written after Adorno returned to the Federal Republic of Germany in the early 1950s. Because culturally Adorno was "very German" and indeed he resented the *Volkische* definition of Germanness imposed by Hitler, Adorno delayed his escape, as the son of a Jewish father and Catholic mother, from Hitlerdom to a dangerous point. He resided briefly in England and somewhat longer in America. Strangely, he did not like England and (given the choice) preferred America, and specifically California, the latter because of its climate.

This collection makes it clear that although Adorno was critical of many tendencies in America he was by no means knee-jerk in his criticism. Adorno enjoyed the very real democracy of American life and the very real empiricism of science as practised here...insofar as democracy and empiricism did not become, as a very different sort of emigre might call it, a shtick, or a number: or, as Adorno would call it, fetishized or reified.

But it is clear from these essays that Adorno would be very critical of changes in America that have occured since my generation, that of the immediate post-war Baby Boom, has taken over the shop. Adorno's work on Fascist tendencies in California, for example, located Fascism in our hearts and at our dinner tables. These tendencies are denied in ceremonies (such as the commemoration, last week, of the bombing in Oklahoma City) which are structured by press and lawyers in a way that fully denies anything like a spontaneous response.

One naturally wonders why it is that people at these commemorations, which memorialize real pain that should never be repeated, have to act in such structured fashions, and it was the structuring of Timothy McVeigh's life by similar tendencies that caused him, in all probability, to bomb the Murragh building.

It was irresponsible to decry social research that located Fascist and authoritarian tendencies so close to home and to expect no incidents such as the bombing of the Oklahoma City building. Adorno's work is a reminder to examine our own environment for barbarism, and Americans who have worked on issues of domestic abuse are in his tradition, even if they would actually find the guy irritating, arrogant and conceited...all of which he was.

Some of the book does require, because of Adorno's arrogance, a knowledge of German philosophy, which is not a laugh a minute by any means. The essay "On Subject and Object", for example, may be completely opaque, even to, and especially to, the "educated" reader if her education is in the typical American university. That's because what we mean by the subject may be divergent from what Ted meant, a difference expressed by our own "catchphrase", "that's subjective."

"That's subjective" means in ordinary usage that "that" can be dismissed, and despite the (laudable) place that mere listening plays in our life, "that's subjective" forecloses listening. Adorno writes from a tradition in which subjectivity is not a sink and instead is a source of value.

The surprising end of "on subject and object" is one in which the mere subject acquires value precisely by being removed from a place of origin: we realize, in the general murk of Adorno's style, that the very reason why we exhibit a false humility about our own subjectivity is that we are delivered a false story about our origins as "the first man", which exalts the subjectivity of a mythical Adam, and makes our own second-hand. Adorno makes the common sense point that given our initial resources (which are inferior, because less specialized, than those of other large mammals) "the first man" was probably the group, in which the "subjectivity" of each member had to be (paradoxically enough) treasured because it was a group resource.

The experience of reading the more difficult essays is one of struggle, and reward, in which one realizes that one's mere failure to comprehend is only in part a product of ignorance: it is one of dawn. This is in contrast to reading the typical American scholarly essay in which the very lack of participation and struggle...and the airy dismissal of important questions as marginalia, drives questions to the zone of the subconscious.

That is, Adorno is outside of the tradition which recast and rephrased problems into such a shape that they could be solved...that their solution was implied by their clear phrasing. Mathematics is an example of this. At its best (and Adorno conceded this in many ways) this tradition is a source of both power and democracy.

At its worst, however, and especially as applied to Adorno's own field of social research, this tradition makes people into objects precisely because it has to ignore the philosopher's tendency to delay, by questioning everything. The most obscene consequence of this is the political poll and its unstated influence on our elections.

Like Adorno's longer works but more accessibly, Critical Models rewards reading, and rereading: the very density of his style provides, in terms that would make the guy shudder, good value for the dollar...precisely because, as

the book tells the reader exactly what it should, the history of each man and the lives. in and and out of rock and roll, that they led up to that point. if you are a true CSN fan this book is a must read.

An outstanding accomplishment by author Zimmer. He takes you backstage, in the studio and to the homes of CS&N, and provides a remarkable, authentic picture of life with the gang. The author seems invisible, a stellar achievement, and the inside world of the pop music business and the artists that make it work come to life. The section on how Nash "stole the girl" from Stills, and their reaction, is priceless. I was able to make contact with the author, Dave Zimmer, who works for MCA records, and he says a new edition of the book will be out sometime in '99, in time for a landmark tour.

I would like to thank Amazon for finding this book it's the kind of book you'll read again and again. Read Revelation with Daniel by Harry Ironside. If your not born again you'll will be. Thanks again Amazon for finding it.

Ironside is marvelous in his commentary on Daniel. His interpretation of prophecies are very sound as well as his interpretation of the whole book. The part of the book that is amazing is the personal application which he draws from the very rich pages of the book of Daniel. A masterpiece in biblical interpretation.

Henri Nouwen authored thirty five very inspirational books on the challenges of living life. Nouwen, a man often unsettled in his own life, offered a Jesus-centered perspective of his journey. This small book is a wonderful daily reader that draws on many of Nouwen's books. A great start to the day... or just the thing for a quick reflection along the way. Well worth the few dollars. Highly recommended

Daniel J. Maloney
Saint Paul, Minnesota

As I look at my copy, the pages all have highlighting, half are dog eared and all are folded in two after the third reading. Even some of the folded ones are also dog eared for still future reference. Charges Ringma, with the help of Nenri Nouwen's writings presents a captivating series of 180 "reflections" on the meaning of Christian spirituality. Nouwens's belief was when any human reveals his most vulnerable areas, he reaches all other persons at a very deep level. This book is an outstanding and moving example. Another belief was solitude, when used to increase our spirituality, is much more than just the current fad of seeking self development, but is the primary source of knowing how and where God desires us to apply Christ's teachings in our daily life. Then in each "reflection", he deals with all the personal conflicts one experiences in seeking solitude, experiencing solitude, hearing God's desires and when we then confront the realities of our personal lives. But mostly this book is looking on the personal spirituality side. See also Ringma's "Resist The Powers" which extends and expands in a remarkable and personal way our responsibility as a Christian in today's world (I'm only half way thru this already dog eared book)

I read this book almost 33 years ago (in the fall of 1968), as one of seven books required for a Humanities class taught at Santa Rosa Junior College by Rabbi Tripp (sic?). I was astonished by the significance of James H. Breasted's thesis, the empirical support for his argument, the cogency of his presentation, and the truly impressive quality of his engaging, erudite, and entirely engrossing style of composition. In brief, Breasted argues (and substantiates with his close attention to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and other forms of evidence)that a truly moral conception of the human condition (and the foundations of conscience)emerged first in Egypt, profoundly influencing the Hebrews, who proceeded to moralize the universe. Breasted traces the dawn of conscience to Egypt. Through the (great many) years since then, Breasted's work has repeatedly come to mind, both for the significance of his thesis and the quality of his writing. Because of this, I decided to check with AMAZON.COM to see if Breasted's wonderful book is still available. It was with great surprise that I found that Philip Myhre has written a (properly adulatory)review of this great book only a little more than a month ago, and that his home town is practically next door. Since this indicates that others might seek out this valuable book, I add my assessment: Read this book. You will not forget it.

If you only read one book about ancient Egypt this is it. The morals, the thoughts, the heart of the ancients are hear on display. It is a book published long ago but the content is as fresh as if it were published today. If you are interested in Egyptian thought and the incredible civilization and culture they produced, this is a book that must be read.

Wow! Once in a while a book comes along that is so satisfying that one wonders if you really read it. I can't praise the author enough for bringing to life the life of Maine 100 years ago.

BOOK REVIEW

A Day's Work: A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860-1920, Part I, annotated and compiled by W. H. Bunting. Sponsored by Maine Preservation, Tilbury House Publishers, 132 Water St., Gardiner, ME 04345, 1997. 380 pp., oversize, paperback, $35.00

This is a wonderful book, so don't let the title drive you away. You must read halfway through that forbidding title to find out that it's about Maine, farther yet to learn that it's photographic, and "Part I" leaves you dangling. I would have called it Maine at Work, 1860-1920: Photographs and Text; the rest is superfluous--and I have added the word "text" because the text is just as delightful as the photos. I am writing this review because it's a book that people who love Maine shouldn't miss.

I have been summering in Maine for about forty years. The mountains and the skies and the rockbound coast make one constantly aware that Maine is different--the most northern and most eastern state in the USA, with a thousand of miles of shoreline and huge expanses of forest wilderness. Its wild geography has shaped its people and determined how they live. Vestiges of the past are everywhere, from the old docks and windjammers and lighthouses to the barns and sawmills and huge piles of firewood. If one wants an understanding and a feeling for those old times, this book is for you.

William Bunting's fascination with these historical photographs is communicated through the text. He has spent decades immersing himself in local history, and he not only explains each photo but goes behind it, delving into the history and significance of what is shown. If you want to know how to make hard cider, see p. 150 opposite the superb photo of the farmyard with a pile of apples by the old barn. The complex process of logging in the wilderness and getting the logs downriver to the mills and eventually by ship to market is followed through many photos with descriptive text (see pp. 34-44, 86-88, and more). Many buildings in Boston and points south were built of Maine granite; here you can see the granite cutters and the ships and men that carried that heavy cargo to market. Would you like to know and see how in the old days lobster fishing, seining, dip-netting, and canning were done? Or railroading, hunting, or harvesting ice? They're all here, and much more.

Start reading at the Introduction, a fine evocation of Maine today in relation to the past, and a convincing demonstration of the value of photos as historical documents. You will also discover that the author raises cattle and is a bulldozer operator, which doesn't quite explain his mastery of local history (this is his third book) but puts him closer to the down-to-earth people in the pictures. The introduction takes you directly into the text; there are no breaks or chapter headings. Bunting explains that the book is like "taking a journey," one that he took himself--and fortunately it has a good index. I began by looking up the places I know best: Waldoboro, Boothbay, Edgecomb, Casco, Bath, Damariscotta, but the book is a trap--once in, it's hard to get out. You go from photo to photo and from text to text.

The content of the pictures and text is absorbing, but I have said nothing about the aesthetic quality of the photographs. These old black and whites, from the days of heavy cameras and glass plate negatives, have a crispness and wealth of detail rarely seen in today's polychromatic action photos with artificial photo-effects. Many of them were taken for the purpose of making a record, and they project an authenticity that makes the viewer a participant. They have the grip of reality. The photos are worth the price of the book, and the text multiplies their value.

A Day's Work (Part I) focuses on many economic aspects of life in Maine in the late eighteenth and early twentieth century. The author, or annotator and compiler as he calls himself, says that some topics will appear in both volumes, but Part II will emphasize the pulp and paper industries, cotton textiles, coopering, axe manufacturing, etc. Perhaps he's waiting to sit down with the photographs and see where the journey leads. If it's anything like this one, it will be worth waiting for.

Herbert S. Bailey, Jr.
Fearrington Post 248
Pittsboro, NC 27312

This book, besides being an invaluable first-hand account of the Armenian Genocide, is actually quite readable and entertaining. Written by an American missionary living in Turkey in 1915, it is an insightful chronology of the events that unfolded in his town, Harpoot. The great thing is, Riggs is an American and quite unbiased. Turks and Armenians alike in many ways annoy and befuddle him. But he knows the country well, and describes that it was quite obvious that there was a centrally-planned massacre going on. The book is written in so much detail--of how the deportations and massacres unfolded--that it is hard to believe that there are some who question the existence of the Armenian Genocide. This is probably the best primary account of the Armenian Genocide out there, because it's not told through the eyes of one survivor, but through the eyes of someone who saw all of the events unfolding before him. This book is must read for historians and experts on the subject and is certainly a "thorn in the side" for revisionists who claim that the wholesale massacre of Armenians didn't take place.

I hate to say this about a book that deals with massacres, but this is a funny, sad book. The author has no love for Armenians or Turks. He just tells it like he sees it. I had to laugh when the Turkish officer beat up the Kurdish conscript for defecating on the street, and the Kurd snapped to attention, saluted and resumed the squatting position. Turns out that he didn't speak a word of Turkish. Turks are from Mars and Kurds are from Venus?

On a more serious note, this is great storytelling. We get to know the people Rev. Riggs knew. We get to learn their terrible fate with him. We see him desparately trying to get the bigshots he plays cards with to spare the lives of the condemned race. I've read quite a few memoirs, and this is definitely the best.

The book is apparently taken from an archive that includes numerous other reports about the Armenian massacres. The rest of the reports are shorter, and they are compiled in James Barton, "Turkish Atrocities."