yes the DBI as it is called in the Wilhoit house is the bestest book ever (after the Bible of coarse!). i have been meandering arround his office and old students have come in and told him what a great book this was!!! Buy it!! I come in like a billion languages (Korean, Chinese, and English)
~Juliana Wilhoit

This is a very extensive, yet concise topical dictionary that explores the countless metaphors and images so prevelant in the Bible. It is amazing how much God used symbolism to represent Himself or His promises, and most people (including the OT Jews) never caught it.

One point of interest to me was the meaning behind the lampstand God had Moses contruct. Most people overlook the details God gave concerning it's construction and what it referred to, but not this book...

If you are a fan of the IVP series that includes such volumes as "Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels," "Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments," "Dictionary of Paul and His Letters," you will thoroughly enjoy this reference book.

I really had no clue as to how important biblical imagery was before i read many parts of this dictionary. Biblical imagery isn't just for Catholics anymore! Biblical imagery is so important to the bible because the bible is wrapped up in imagery.

Why does God refer to His followers as sheep? What was the significance of the prodigal son getting a robe, ring and sandals when he returned home? How are various metaphors used in scriptures? How does Old Testament imagery relate to New Testament writings? All these are questions that many of us have entertained and are answered in great depth in this dictionary. I don't remember what course this book was necessary for in bible school, but I am sure glad that I got my hands on it.

If you are a preacher, pastor or a leader in the church you need to get your hands on this book too. Biblical imagery is too important for us to be ignorant of. God uses imagery to emphasize points or principles and we need to know what He is saying instead of being confused at why such a figure would be used to tell a parable or story.

Starman: Sins Of The Father is the perfect book for people who think comics are infantile and insipid, because it proves they are idiots. The protagonist, Jack Knight, is a refreshing change of pace from typical comic hero. As the son of the legendary hero Starman, Jack has no desire to take his fathers place as defender of Opal City, and is content to run his "antique" shop(He sells 1950's Hawaiin shirts, old comics, vintage transistor radios, etc.) But Fate intervenes and Jack must become the new Starman to save his city, his Father, and himself. Mature without being vulgar, sentimental without being sappy, and all around well written, Starman: Sins Of The Father is a must have.

Sins of the Father starts James Robinson's Starman series with the death of a Starman. David Knight, the oldest son of the original Starman, is murdered by the son of his archenemy The Mist. Forced to take on the role of hero is Jack Knight, Starman's second son, who has no interest (or so he thought) in becoming the next Starman. This series takes a fresh look at superheroes, showing how a callow young man can grow into the role of hero. Robinson takes the idea of the new hero and shows the reader all his faults; the fears he faces, and his anger at events outside his control. Despite these factors, or in spite of them, Jack Knight becomes Starman. This is as good as superhero comics get.

Re-reading Sins of the Father (the first of the many Starman collections), I'm struck by what a jerk Jack Knight is. Yeah, he's not a typical hero. He has a smart-mouth, and I remember when collecting view-master reels, old t-shirts and records were far more important to Jack than fighting crime. But it's amazing just how much he did grow up in the series.

Starman is about many things. It's about a man -- Jack Knight, son of a retired superhero, brother to a hero that's just been murdered. It's about the Starman legacy -- not just through the Knight family but the unrelated heroes who have used that name. It's about Jack's home Opal City, a city which doesn't exist on any real world map but with in a few pages, becomes a real as any city you know. It's about the junk that Jack collects. Little snippets of history. Dealing his father's greatest enemy who is out for revenge, Jack has to put aside his junk collecting business and fight crime. And deal with the far worse emotional burden of Jack coming to terms with his own family.

For decades, Starman was pretty much a cypher. A costume, a "cosmic rod" (or gravity rod, as it was once known) and very little else. But within this collection, writer James Robinson and artist Tony Harris have given the Knights a history, home and supporting cast as rich as Batman or Spider-Man.

Yes, there's lots of action. But the real heart of the story is emotional. Jack is a very real character, his concerns and feelings are true to life -- even if you or I can't fly.

The shadowed, angular, highly stylish and stylized art of Tony Harris perfectly complements this story.

Jack Knight doesn't wear his father's red and green tights. He favours antique WW II anti-flare googles and a worn leather jacket decorated with a Crackerjack sheriff's badge and an zodiac star design. Jack's a very modern guy, but one obsessed with things of the past. (Although oddly he intially rejects his own personal history.) This book charts a new direction, but also celebrates superheroics.

So, I think it will appeal to those who both hate and love superheroes.

There can be no more powerful telling of the history of slavery in the United States than to read it and hear it from the slaves' own mouths. Their recollections are, for the most part, graphic and chilling, but the diversity of these life experiences are also rich with good stories, too....slaves bonding together, looking out for one another and at times outwitting their masters and overseers. While the general knowledge of salvery has been known to many Americans for years, it is the actual detailed accounts of day-to-day life that make this book come alive. I hadn't known, for instance, that slaves were required to have passes in order to travel off the plantations or that Christmas and New Year's were largely times of rejoicing for both slave families and their master's families. Yet for the rest of the year the hardships and conditions that most slaves witnessed was incredible....beatings often for no reason, no shoes or lack of other clothing during the winter cold and often not nearly enough food. The clarity with which these former slaves recall their life 80 years or more before is an indication of how etched in their young minds life had been. The accompanying audio cassettes were the main reason l bought the book and they simply added a human dimension to the whole story. l had only two small disappointments with the audio segment....l would rather have had none of the actors read the transcripts...(the actual slave voices are far more powerful) and l wish that photos of the slave speakers could have been provided.... while there were many photos of the former slaves in the book they were not the photos of the slaves who made the audio tapes. In a time where revisionist history seems to be the rage it is, in a strange way, rather comforting to hear these stories told by the people who lived them. How these men and women suffered under bondage and lived for so many years afterward to finally tell about it is a tribute to their spirit and courage.

I am currently a high school student that read part of this for a Civil War class and let me say this is one powerful book. With people who were the slaves themselves tell you their stories, you learn alot about the antebellum period. I would recommend this book for any mature person due to the fact that some of these stories show the true horror of slavery.

For several years I've been reading powerful thought-provoking slave narratives. This is probably the most moving due to accompanying tapes of slaves discussing their thoughts and conditions when they were slaves. This book and tapes should be used in every high school American and World history classes. I recommend this book to everyone above the age of twelve. If you want to begin educating your children earlier about American history, specifically slavery have them read K.J. McWilliams books; The Journal of Darien Duff, an Emancipated Slave, The Diary of a Slave Girl, Ruby Jo, and The Journal of Leroy Jones, a Fugitive Slave. They are based on slave narratives such as this one and include many interesting photos as well as additional information.

Take it from the title, "The Wrong Case," is not a happy story. In fact, private detective fiction seldom gets more hardboiled or as down and dirty as this one. Crumley's "hero," the recently unemployed private snoop Milo, is a man shattered by a terrible upbringing and by alcohol. But despite his cynical and distrustful nature, he takes a case he knows will be a loser in a last ditch effort to both redeem himself and to find love. The results are about what you would expect.

Milo is a completely different character than Crumley's other private detective hero C.W. Sughrue, the party animal star of "The Last God Kiss" among others. Milo has been scarred far deeper by life and fully expects to lose himself to his addictions at some point. His best friends are homeless winos with one foot firmly planted in their graves. Brooding, violent and with a perfectly shocking ending, "The Wrong Case" is one of THE great hardboiled detective novels.

Milo Milodragovitch is an alcoholic, empathetic and reluctantly dangerous private detective. His creator, James Crumley, has managed to take what is potentially a rather tired stereotype and infuse the character with such raw beauty and complexity, that I was completely hooked from page one. If you're looking for a genuine successor to Chandler, here he is. Crumley is as cynical as James Ellroy, but not in Ellroy's distancing way; he manages to have an unsentimental character (Milo) nevertheless display that hardest to write of emotions:tenderness. This is a very good book and might even be..gasp.. literature. But buy it anyway.It's also extremely entertaining.

This gritty detective mystery has everything a good hardboiled book should have. A beautiful, yet troubled woman who has entered the detective's office looking for help, the down-on-his-luck detective who talks hard and drinks harder, a city that is in the grip of a crime-wave and a cracker of a mystery that builds to a terrific and unexpected ending.

We are introduced to Milo Milodragovitch and his hard-drinking, drug-taking, skirt-chasing ways. Milo's on the edge after two failed marriages, a failing business and a drinking problem. He makes no apologies for any of his bad habits and is prepared to blow off anyone who has a problem with him. The woman who has entered his office steals his heart and asks him to find her brother who has been missing for the past three weeks. It's a case that he doesn't really want to take, but does because, as he freely admits, she is such a stunning woman he'd do anything on the off-chance she might go to bed with him.

If anyone ever wanted to get a taste for modern hardboiled noir fiction, this would be the perfect book to read. I found myself drawn right into the book and could picture the town of Meriwether perfectly and at times I could picture myself occupying a stool at Mahoney's bar, the imagery is so vivid.

I felt the book was well written, but, I have always wondered why some relevant information was left out. I only hope that Mr. Tobin and his editor will contact me. My Grandfather was Captain Myron T. Hess one of the officers Mr. pyle was with that day he was killed. My Grandfather and his 1st Sargeant were responsible for killing the Sniper which took Mr. Pyle's life. I have for years had the literature which substantiates this claim. As a proud Grandson, I have always wished that My Grandfather and his 1st Sargeant were given some text. But I have yet to find it in published books or film.

The author, James Tobin, recounts Ernie Pyle's life from his childhood in Indiana to his 1945 death in the Pacific Theatre. The text notes "Sadness verging on bitterness always colored Ernie Pyle's memories of his early years," and relates that his adult personal life also was basically unhappy. In 1928 while working for the Washington Daily News, Pyle began writing an aviation column that ultimately was carried by all Scripps-Howard newspapers. Foreshadowing his WWII reporting style, Pyle' favorite subjects were the anonymous airmail pilots telling "tales of the pilot's feats of bravery and improvisation."

From 1935 to 1942 he roamed the western hemisphere where he wrote a column on his wanderings for the News and developed into a consummate craftsman of short prose and as Tobin noted "...in the process created "Ernie Pyle." Reflecting what would be his wartime style the author notes, "...he studied unknown people doing extraordinary things." The text relates Pyle's activities as a war correspondence in Tunsia where he shared the dangers and discomforts of the infantrymen at the front, and developed a bond with the American infantryman where his "writing transcended propaganda; it was richer, more heartfelt." At home Pyle's editors were delighted with the rapid growth of his popular column. After Tunisia, he followed the troops in the invasion of Sicily and later into Italy.

In Italy, he completed construction of his mythical hero, the long-suffering G.I. The text notes that the "inescapable force of Pyle's war writings is to establish an unwritten covenant between the soldier at the front and the civilian back home." Tobin also notes "Soldiers could see an image of themselves that they liked in his heroic depiction of the war...The G.I. myth worked for them too." However, as Pyle was becoming the "Number-One Correspondent" he became troubled because he had been "credited with having written the truth...He had told as much of what he saw as people could read without vomiting. It was the part that would make them vomit that bothered him..."

Pyle covered the Normandy landing in June 1944. In contrast to today's instant TV battlefront coverage, Pyle admitted to readers "Indeed it will be some time before we have a really clear picture of what has happened or what is happening at the moment." Pyle followed the infantry into France. The book notes, "The hedgerow country of Normandy was a killing field such as Ernie had never seen, and as the weeks passed, the constant presence of 'too much death' whittled down his will to persist." Once again the G.I.'s affection for him had risen after they saw Pyle force himself to share their dangers, which sometime made him, scream in his sleep. Those with today's anti-French attitude would agree with Pyle when he wrote that in Paris he felt as "though I were living in a whorehouse-not physically but spiritually."

Ernie Pyle returned to the United States in mid-September 1944. After a much needed rest, in January 1945 Pyle left for the Pacific Theatre. Here Pyle was in a different environment. He couldn't relate to the hot food and warm beds aboard Navy ships, the comfortable living conditions of airmen stationed on Pacific islands and the generally pleasant environment on Pacific islands. He wrote, "It was such a contrast to what I'd known for so long in Europe that I felt almost ashamed.... They're...safe and living like kings and don't know it." Even when relaxing with an aunt's grandson, a B-29 pilot who tried to relate the real combat conditions in the Pacific, Ernie just didn't understand the Pacific Theatre.

With the Army's 77th Division, "He went ashore" on a small island north of Okinawa "on the 17th of April 1945, talked with infantrymen during the afternoon and spent the night near the beach in a Japanese ammunition-storage bunker." The next morning he hitched a ride when at ten o'clock the jeep he was riding in came under Japanese machine gun fire. After jumping into a ditch with the jeep's other riders, Pyle raised his head and was killed instantly. Far from home, Ernie Pyle died among his beloved infantrymen.

In closing James Tobin writes "Ernie and his G.I.'s made America look good. The Common Man Triumphant, the warrior-with-a-heart-of-gold-this was the self-image America carried into the post-war era."

While the technology of war reporting has changed greatly since WWII, the author is correct when he observes, "As a practitioner of the craft of journalism, Pyle was perhaps without peer. After him, no war correspondent could pretend to have gotten the real story without having moved extensively among the front-line soldiers who actually fought."

The book ends with a nice touch, an Appendix that contains a potpourri of Pyle's articles.

I first became aware of Ernie Pyle as a young lad when I ran across a dusty old paperback in my grandparents attic. I voraciously devoured each page only to be saddened when I realized he never made it home from the war.

Here is a wonderful tribute to Ernie and his easy going manner mirrored with his elequent style of writing. From the absense of life, back through his lifes struggles, this work is a journey into Ernie's life. It will bring back floods of memories from older readers and give new readers insight into a great journalist who was taken from us in the prime of his career.

Ernie's manner of writing was a joy to read and Tobin has done a superb job in relaying his stories in regards to the common man, and the private soldier.

This is another good book in the dragon series. If you liked the first you will surely like this one. The one disappointment I had with this book was that it leads you to believe there is much magic involved with the plot. However, in the final grudge there is really no magic but more strategy and war than any magic battle. The final ending does bring you back up to speed with an unsusspected surprise. Once again the mid-evil thriiler will grab you in the end and bring you back to the next book in the series.

This book is very exciting and does a good job how life was probably like in the middle ages, but it also has alot of suspence and action, and alot of times when you can't help to wonder how Jim(aka the Dragon Knight) can get out of his situation. It also has the interesing twist of comedy that makes you laugh every once and a while. This was a very good book but, I still like The Dragon and the George, better then this one, but they are both pretty simular. Never the less, this is a great book and I recomend it

This incredible book takes the best characteristics of a fantasy book and mixes them with a very particular way of seing every-day life during the Middle Ages. The author narrates the story with the fine humour that we see in all his work, capturing the reader with the crazy situations in which Jim and Brian are involved and trying to show us how beautiful and horrible can a life surrounded by magic and by unusual things can be. An excellent book full of magic, fantasy and optimism that any reader will enjoy a great deal!!!

Just bought "The Unofficial Guide to PCs" from Amazon and found a couple of good ideas in it already. To me "Recovering from a PC Disaster", "Taming Tech Support", and the "Resource Directory" plus "Important Documents" in the Appendix alone are worth the bargain price I paid Amazon.

Whether you've put off moving up from a Windows 3.1 machine, haven't owned a computer before, or want more information about using Windows 95/98 and working with common packages, this book is a tremendous resource. It distills the years of experience the authors have had with Win9x and presents general methods to use when purchasing your computer, fixing hardware and software conflicts, and working with applications. It also contains a good set of web sites as starting points for learning more.

Win9x experts probably won't gain much from this book. However, they're not the intended audience, and I wholeheartedly believe The Unofficial Guide to PCs is well worth the price for any new Windows user.

I've never been much into "how to" books for PCs since I have been using them for more than a decade. I always figured I could write one myself. But having read your Underground Guides I figured I'd check it out. And I'm glad I did. There are all sorts of useful tips contained in the book that either novice or export PC users will find extremely helpful. I kept reading things, nodding my head and thinking "that's a good idea!" The idea of your NEAT box for a home PC is brilliant, and worth the price of the book by itself. I'm making one up for mine now. Great book.

There are eight translations in this book; KJV, NASB, New Century, Contemporary English Version, NIV, New Living Translation, New King James and The Message. There are 4 translations to a page so you can see all translations for the same passage at the same time. The open book shows you all eight at once. There is a 2 page preface for each version in the front of the book. It gives a brief summary of how we got that version. This book is easy to read. The format is great. It doesnt have any frills though, no concordance etc. Great book for the price. Makes comparisons simple and easy.

I am extremely pleased with this "parallel" New Testament. My biggest (pleasant) surprise was the fact that this collection is actually quite compact in size and weight. (I was expecting the book to be much wider and heavier.) It is easy to carry around (unlike most hardcover books of this type).

Aside from that, it's great to have these particular translations "side by side," as it were. With the notable exception of the King James Version, each of these translations is written in modern (American) English; they are a joy to read and make studying the scriptures a meaningful experience.

I would recommend this volume to anyone who enjoys comparing (or who has an analytical mind).

I use this parallel NT each time I am preparing a sermon or
Bible study on a passage in the NT. It is very good, the
translation choices are from the wide spectrum of English
translations, literal to paraphrase. I wish the publisher
had placed the NKJV next to the KJV and the NASB next to
the NIV. It would have made this resource even more useful.
But this deserves a place on every pastor's study desk.
Highly recommended.

Written by America's most inventive poet, "The Enormous Room" is a book of prose set in a French detention camp during World War One. It is a coming-of-age story in which events happen, not always to the narrator (E.E. Cummings), but to the inhabitants of a place that serves as a microcosm for all the folly and brutality of war itself. As a war narrative it is unique -- unlike Hemingway's "Farewell to Arms" or Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front," the central story doesn't take place on the front lines. The plot of the book is basically non-linear, with the exception of the first three or four chapters, and several passages are written in French (thankfully a glossary of foreign terms is printed at the back of the book). I would describe Cummings' story as a stream-of-consciousness dialogue with himself, written in the language of a talented budding poet. Most memorable are the wonderful characters Cummings encountered during his short stay at La Ferte Mace, the name of the camp in which he was interned. They are objects of torn humanity and how terrible it must have been for him to leave them, knowing that upon his release many would languish in prison for the rest of their lives. "The Enormous Room" is a unique historical fiction. It is not an easy read, but it is one of those books that is even more difficult to put down. I have never read another book quite like it. [P.S.: There are two editions of the book, one published by Boni & Liveright and the other by Penquin Classics. The Liveright edition is the better one (and naturally harder to locate online or in book stores), and includes samples of drawings that Cummings made during his confinement.]

Some works of literature that I have read in the past required several scans of certain passages due to their thick and wholly unconsumable nature. While reading E. E. Cummings' The Enormous Room, I found myself skimming back over entire paragraphs simply for the sheer joy of reading them again. Cummings' ability to turn a phrase is astonishing. It's not hard to glean from reading only this work that the author has a poetic nature.

The personal journey recounted here amounts to a fantastic tale that happens to be (for the most part) completely true. By turns, bleak and hopeless - then joyous and brimming with a kind of spiritual joy, The Enormous Room takes the reader to extremities of all sorts in its relatively short span of chapters.

Though it takes place during a three month stint in a French concentration camp during the latter parts of World War One, it could just as well be set on another planet, for all of its fantastic characters, settings and behavioral interactions that never cease to alternately amaze and confound the reader.

Even if it seems a cruel statement to make, after having the pleasure of experiencing this world through the prose of E. E. Cummings you will be thankful that he found himself in this squalid and vile place so that we now have the honor of sharing in it.

Reading Cumming's poetry was never a priority in my school days, except such excerpts as appeared in my far from comprehensive American Lit book. After reading this, I wish I'd paid more attention to this truly gifted writer.

The Enormous Room is the story of Cumming's three month incarceration at La Ferte Mace, a squalid French prison camp. Cummings is locked up as accessory to exercise of free speech, his friend B. (William Brown) having written a letter with some pro German sentiments. What Cummings experienced in those three months and the stories of the men and women he met are, despite the straits of the polyglot texture of the book, never other than fascinating. At moments touching (the stories of the Surplice and The Wanderer's family), hilarious (the description of the Man In the Orange Cap is hysterical), and maddening (the smoking of the four les putains), this is a brilliant weft of memorable characters and not a little invective for the slipshod French goverment.

Something I noticed. Though the book claims as its primary influence Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, I noticed a similarity with Thoreau's Walden. In both books, there is the idea of self-abnegation breeding liberty and peace of mind. The idea is to shear away all luxuries, all privileges. But Thoreau had one very important luxury to his credit: Free will. Whereas Thoreau chose his isolated and straitened existence near Walden Pond, Cummings' was involuntary. So, if the touchstone of freedom both men share is valid, is not Cummings, by virtue of the unrequested nature of his imprisonment, the freer of the two men?

This is a fascinating, thought provoking, ribald and intelligent book. I only regret that the Fighting Sheeney was never given commupance...

Judy Valentine always hid from life behind her drums. It was always her dream to be part of a rock band, as well as her older brother's dying wish for her. Three years after her brother's suicide, Judy finds her band, Wedding Night. Opening for Nick Praetorious, the hottest act in the country, brings the band national attention and forces Judy at sixteen years old to deal with success, attention, and being idolized while still developing her own identity.

Chinese Handcuffs by Chris Crutcher tells the similar story of a teenage boy named Dillon who also loses his older brother to suicide. Dillon escapes his pain through triathalons, an extreme contrast to Judy's music writing and playing. Crutcher tends to write novels centered around sports because more young people can relate to sports analagies than they can to introspecitve song lyrics. For me, it was nice to read a young adult novel with a storyline that I could relate to rather than merely understand.

"You can give her all your money, till you're totally broke./ You can christen her with diamonds, You can sprinkle her with coke./ But you'll never have her and you'll never know her/ 'cause she's the girl, she's the girl inside the girl."(Pg. 36) Judy "wrote" this song,"The Girl Inside the Girl". Many other full song lyrics are included throughout the book so that one can truly hear the sounds of a Wedding Night concert as well as visualize it. One even begins to understand the rock and roll lifestlye through a teenager's eyes. Once seen from behind closed doors, a rock star's life loses it's luster and glamourous image. Yet, the passion never dies for the music, not for Judy Valentine.

This book was written for "young adults", so it might be a little below an older teen's reading level. However, the storyline is just so unique, I would still recommend it to any music lover.

A magnificient book, although tad childish and naive. The author weaves a beautiful tale of the protagonist Judy, a drummer who recovering fromt eh death ofher brother, is yearning to discover herself through her 'band'. SHe finds this band when she answers mysterious want ad. and meets Strobe, together they assemble this band...Irwin. Maddox and Mark the Music. The descirpitions that the author uses when describing music being made is painfully beautiful. His descriptions of Mark the Music playing the guitar are exceptionally beautiful....leads you to believe the author is a guitarist...The story is very tight and Judy's voyage of discovery, in the company of 'Wedding Night', the band, is told very well. The ending is beautiful...ANyone with music in their hearts will fall in love with this book.

This is one of the most wonderful books from my early adolescence I ever read...it can to me at just the time I needed it and that I will never forget. I felt just like the heroine of the book the whole time... her against the world in a desperate desire to simply make music and find out who she is. Read it...and give it to your teens...