All too easily the spiritual path is perceived as an inner experience that unfolds under certain conditions- by an alter, on the top of a mountain, with a teacher. This book was a passionate wake-up call- one that had me walk outside and take my neighborhood and world in with fresh eyes. In-so-doing, my spirit felt enlivened and enlarged.

Barbara Gates writes with a revealing power of observation and an innate appreciation of the mystery, pain and beauty within and around us. Through her eyes, we learn how to deepen our attention, and discover the way our being, our very reality, is shaped by our biological context, our culture, our web of relationships. For anyone who seeks to live and love more fully, this book is a gift to the soul.

I have never read a book before that so eloquently intertwines the concept of spirit and place. Ms. Gates' book has caused me to reexamine my own sense of place in my body, my spirit, my home, and my neighborhood. At times I found myself journeying inward and outward almost at the same time. I encourage readers to challenge themselves by joining Ms. Gates on a path which leads toward home.

It's a geological, psychological, and ecological adventure story: And each adventure takes on metaphoric resonance. Gates meditates on the graves of the people who lived in her Victorian house; she also grabbles with a rat in her refrigerator, and her skunk sprayed dog. ALREADY HOME is also filled with accessible insight, wisdom and humor. Barbara Gates expands the definition of "terrain" by including her body and mind, as well as the canyons and creeks near her Berkeley, CA home. As a detective, Gates uncovers the layers of "home" and discovers that where she lives was once the site of an Ohlone Indian Shellmound and a place where livestock once grazed. She helped me rethink what I call "my home" by helping me to realize that I share it with generations before and after me. She also helped me to look inside because she is such a courageous role model for plumbing the depths of herself, her neighborhood, family, and breast cancer diagnosis. What I particularly loved is Gates' brutal honesty about her own inner violence and fears about her life and death. Her love for her husband and daughter moved me deeply. This is a beautiful book, to be read and reread many times over.

Just finished this fascinating collection of papers. Very well done and extremely readable I thought this a great find.

I have lived in Paris for over two years, but this guide remains my favorite for restaurant ideas, bars, cafés, and days I just want to change my neighborhood. While prices are in francs, and some of the stuff about bar and club trends is a bit dated, it's still the best resource I've found besides word-of-mouth for how to see the City of Lights on a budget. The restaurant suggestions are especially well-chosen.

An excellent, though dated (1989) guide to Berkeley. It covers restaurants, history, neighborhoods, and has several self guided tours. A must if you want to know much more about Berkeley.

This is an excellent and very informative account of Berkeley's theory of vision - a topic that deserves to be studied on its own and not only (as has often been the case) as a minor side of his subjective idealism. Atherton's book is a must for all students of Berkeley and highly recommendable to those who are interested in the philosophical aspects of the theory of vision or in the development of epistemology in early modern philosophy.

Reading the empiricists is a rare treat. Because of their style, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume seem to be more accessible to the novice and general reader than much of philosophy. However, the three essays included in this volume are welcome additions to the Oxford University Press's "Past Masters" series, and anyone reading this book will gain a greater appreciation for the empriricits. Highly recommended.

Extremely useful. Well written guide by someone who clearly knows and loves the area. Lots of excellent "insider" tips and recommendations. A "must have" for anyone living or visiting Berkeley, Oakland, and the surrounding areas!

Although this is the fourth volume of the new edition of WJ's correspondence, in a way it is really the first, and would be a good place for a reader desiring a more intimate acquaintance with William James and his world to start. Volumes 1-3 were devoted to the letters to and from his equally famous novelist brother -- an appealing idea and one probably calculated to increase interest and sales, but perhaps questionable on more fundamental grounds. Be that as it may, as a reading experience Volume 4 can scarcely be recommended too highly. William James is probably one of the most lovable letter writers ever to set pen to paper. In these letters every sentence comes alive and breathes.

James possessed to a high degree qualities of attention, powers of observation, and an adorable desire to render experience vividly. It is a cliche to say that "a world comes alive" in pages like these, but that is the feeling I have when, for example, I read a letter written from Dresden to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. on May 15, 1868: "Wendell of my entrails! At the momentous point where the last sheet ends I was interrupted by the buxom maid calling me to tea and through various causes have not got back till now. As I sit by the open window waiting for my bkfst. and look out on the line of Droschkies drawn up on the side of the dohna Platz, and see the coachmen, red faced, red collared, & blue coated with varnished hats, sitting in a variety of indolent attitudes upon their boxes, one of them looking in upon me and probably wondering what the devil I am, When I see the big sky with a monstrous white cloud battening and bulging up from behind the houses into the blue, with a uniform coppery film drawn over cloud & blue which makes one anticipate a soaking day, when I see the houses opposite with their balconies & windows filled with flowers & greenery -- ha! on the topmost balcony of one stands a maiden, black jaketted, red petticoated, fair and slim under the striped awning leaning her elbow on the rail and her peach like chin upon her rosy finger tips -- Of whom thinkest thou, maiden, up there aloft? here, *here!* beats that human heart for wh. in the drunkenness of the morning hour thy being vaguely longs, & tremulously, but recklessly and wickedly posits elsewhere, over those distant housetops which thou regardest..."

This jocular yet earnest mood is perhaps the most pervasive one in these letters. Yet we also get glimpses into the deep and suicidal depressions he fought during his early years. Several of the letters in this volume blossom into fascinating six- or seven-page ruminations on some of the deepest questions of philosophy and religion, for these are the years in which James, "swamped in an empirical philosophy," won through to a view of the world that found room for consciousness, will, and spirit. It is in his letters to (and from) Holmes, the physician Henry Bowditch, and his bosom friend Tom Ward that we feel most intensely James's mind and heart grappling with the ideas he cares most deeply about.

But James is not always mulling over deep principles. At eighteen years of age he briefly considered becoming a painter, and began studies to that end, so it is in his character to be fully alive to surface details of the scene about him. A commentary on cultural and political matters full of interesting judgments runs though these letters. Readers will also come to feel they know well every member of the James family. WJ's letters to his sister Alice are especially remarkable.

Though my initial reaction to the policy of extremely restrained annotation practiced by the editorial team was one of frustration, in the end I came to appreciate the free hand it gives us to reread letters more carefully and to feel ourselves into the wonderful and mysterious crannies of the inner life of a great human being. To this end, I recommend deferring the introduction by Giles Gunn until after they have concluded the letters. Professor Gunn (of UC Santa Barbara) has interesting and pertinent things to say -- especially about James's relation to his father, the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James, Sr., on whose work Gunn has written -- but there is nothing there that cannot wait until readers have first immersed themselves in the primary texts.

The volumes of this series are beautiful in their craftsmanship, and it is an aesthetic as well as intellectual delight to manipulate and peruse them. This volume would make an excellent gift for a bright high school senior or college freshman, since the problems of youth and of finding a vocation hold a special place here -- for anyone struggling with a chronic or debilitating illness (James is plagued with back and eye problems through most of these years) -- or indeed, for anyone who reads!

I am very pleased with The Passport's Regional Guide to the Cotswolds. This book is not large but packs a lot into the 128 pages. I am especially impressed with the maps in this book. Each area has a smaller map with areas of interest which are highlighted. In addition, there is a four page larger detailed map of the entire area in the back of the book.I found these maps to be very easy to read and follow. This book is attractive, easy to read and has great photography. I reccommend it for those who are planning a trip to this wonderful area.

This is an expensive item, and it obviously is not for everyone. That said, it is a valuable work and should be considered an adjunct to Fraser's "Works of George Berkeley." In Jesseph's book, he presents two of Berkeley's essays - "De Motu", and "The Analyst", to which he provides extensive introductions and references. Both essays (and Jesseph's supporting material) will be reviewed in turn.

"De Motu" (On Motion) was originally written in Latin. Jesseph's first service is that he provides an English translation along with the Latin version. In this essay, Berkeley described and critiqued then-contemporary theories on the nature of motion. Jesseph does the reader a great service by introducing 17th century physics to the reader, explaining terms, and tracking down Berkeley's references.

What makes "De Motu" something other than a period piece is Berkeley's methodology. In "A Treatise Concerning the Principals of Human Knowledge", Berkeley laid out an argument against terms denoting entities which could not be experienced or imagined. An example of such a thing was Newton's absolute space. In "De Motu", Berkeley wrote:

"And so let us imagine that all bodies have been destroyed and reduced to nothing. What remains they call absolute space, all relation which arose from the position and distances of bodies having been removed along with the bodies themselves. Now this space is infinite, immobile, indivisible, insensible, without relation and without distinction. That is, all of its attributes are privative and negative: it seems therefore to be merely nothing. ... Therefore let us take from absolute space just the words, and nothing will remain in the sense, imagination, or intellect; therefore they designate nothing, except pure privation or negation, that is, merely nothing."

While Berkeley granted that such terms could be useful in calculation, he argued that they led only to meaningless wrangling when imagined as real. He held up a difference between Newton and Torricelli on force as an example:

"Newton says that impressed force consists solely in action, and it is the action exerted on a body to change its state, nor does it remain after the action. Torricelli contends that a certain accumulation or aggregate of impressed forces is received by percussion in a mobile body, and that the same remains and constitutes impetus. ... And in truth, though Newton and Torricelli seem to disagree, nevertheless, each advances a consistent account, and the matter is adequately explained by both. For all forces attributed to bodies are ... mathematical hypotheses. Mathematical entities, however, have no stable essence in the nature of things: they depend on the notion of the definer: whence the same thing can be explained in different ways."

In sum, "De Motu" is valuable both as a general critique of science and as a fascinating application of Berkeley's epistimological ideas and is well worth reading on that basis.

The other Berkeley essay Jesseph covers is "The Analyst". This essay attacked the soundness of the mathematical foundations of Newton's calculus. Because Newton's notation, method, and terminology are no longer in use, the essay is difficult for the modern reader to follow. Jesseph's introduction to "The Analyst" is a fine piece of scholarship and immensely helpful, even necessary, to full understanding of Berkeley's essay.

"The Analyst" was motivated by apologetic purposes. Berkeley was annoyed at the contrast set up by "free thinkers" between religious belief and math and the sciences, and he sought to demonstrate that mathematics has its mysteries as much as religion. His target was Newton's calculus: in particular, fluxions. Fluxions were infinitesimal quantities, which Berkeley attacked as being literally inconceivable, following his general principals of meaning, and further that Newton did not handle them consistently - sometimes rounding them to zero, and other times not, with the only criterion being whichever was necessary to make the answers come out right.

"The Analyst" set off a firestorm among mathemeticians. Berkeley's acid style led to angry responses, but the mathematical problems Berkeley had attacked were real, and the defenders of Newton offered very different (and incompatible) approaches to resolving the problems Berkeley had raised, and they soon began attacking each other. It was only in the nineteeth century that the problems surrounding the foundations of Calculus were finally settled.

Certainly, "The Analyst" is of interest as a part of the history of mathematics, but it is also of interest as an application of Berkeley's general approach. The paragraph below on infinitesmals, for example, clearly follows the same approach as that on absolute space quoted previously:

"Now to conceive a Quantity infinitely small, that is, infinitely less than any sensible or imaginable Quantity, or than the least finite Magnitude, is, I confess, above my Capacity. But to conceive a Part of such infinitely small Quantity, that shall be infinitely less than it, and consequently though multiply'd infinitely shall never equal the minutest finite Quantity, is, I suspect, an infinite Difficulty to any man whatsoever...Nothing is easier to devise Expressions or Notations, for Fluxions and Infinitesimals of the first, second, third, fourth and subsequent Orders, proceeding in the same regular form without end or limit ... dx, ddx, dddx, ddddx, &c. These Expressions indeed are clear and distinct, and the Mind finds no difficulty in conceiving them to be continued beyond any assignable Bounds. But if we remove the Veil and look underneath, if laying aside the Expressions we set ourselves attentively to consider the things themselves, which are supposed to be expressed or marked thereby, we shall discover much Emptiness, Darkness, and Confusion..."

The last thing worth noting about "The Analyst" is that Berkeley wrote two follow-on essays in response to Newton's defenders, both of which are available in Fraser's "Works".