A Jewish journalist once observed that when writing about Nazism, objectivity is regarded with suspicion and writers feel obliged to pile on the invective. Just see some of the editorial reviews above. This makes it all the more remarkable that Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has written such a balanced book on Savitri Devi, who taught that we should love all God's creatures--except Jews. Although the author makes it clear that he does not share Devi's views, he lets her speak for herself, and he actually passes silently over some of her more unattractive and fanatical statements, which would surely be insuperable barriers to otherwise open-minded readers.

I have only two objections to this book. First, the author does not adequately discuss Devi's deep philosophical debt to Nietzsche, who provides the framework for her interpretations of Akhnaton and Hinduism and makes possible their synthesis with National Socialism. Second, he never really captures Devi's unique and powerful personality--with its wild extremes of sentimentality and savagery, cold logic and enthusiastic rapture, love of cats and hatred for most human beings--which is stamped on all of her writings. It is her personality as much as her ideas that contributes to the haunting effect that she has on so many readers.

Devi has already influenced the world we live in today--far more for her work on behalf of Hindu nationalism than National Socialism. This influence will only increase as global capitalism continues to ravage the natural world and homogenize the cultural world, thereby drawing new people to the deep-ecological rejection of anthropocentrism and to the politics of difference. This is a wonderful book. Read it, and the world will seem a richer and stranger place.

_Savitri Devi_ by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke is an extremely bizarre read on one of the more mystical figures in the neo-Nazi movement. Devi was born Maximiani Portas of Greek and English heritage in the south of France, and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics. She grew up feeling disillusioned with Western liberalism, and set out to India in the 1920's to study India's caste system as an example of racial segregation and the Hindu scriptures, in particular the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita, which she considered the most ancient examples of Aryan wisdom. She found India, the world's last Aryan pagan nation, to be a place poor but with an unbroken spirit, especially among the high caste Brahmins. She also viewed it as being under cultural assault by British colonization and its growing Muslim population. She joined the ant-British, anti-Muslim Hindu Mission (to spread Hinduism) and the Hindu Nationalist movement in India (groups which were to the right of Gandhi and favored militancy) which was under the leadership of V. D. Savarkar. Devi married a Brahmin, Asit Krishna Mukherji, who was well traveled in Europe and published a racialist and pro-Nazi magazine under the auspices of the German Consulate in India. Following the defeat of Germany in WWII, Devi went on three Nazi propaganda missions in Germany and even spent time in prison for subversive activities. During this time and the 1950s and 60s, Devi made contact with well known British and American neo-Nazis, among whom were George Lincoln Rockwell, Colin Jordan and John Tyndall. She also became aquainted with ex-Nazis such as the ace Hans Ulrich-Rudel and Leon Degrelle and others who had fled Germany and set up a networks in Spain, Latin America and the Middle East. She returned to India in 1971 and corresponded with Holocaust revisionist Ernst Zundel and the South American Nazi occultist Miguel Serrano. Devi published a number of books popular among the far-right and and also far-left environmentalist groups: _The Impeachment of Man_ (an argument for animal rights against a human-centered outlook), _A Warning to the Hindus_ (some of the aims of the Hindu Nationalist movement), _Pilgrimage_ (her reflections on her visit to post-WWII Germany), _Son of the Son_ (a study of Akhnaton who initiated the solar cult in Egypt, which Devi considered to be a forerunner of Nazism), and _The Lightning and the Sun_. _The Lightning and the Sun_ is Devi's most notorious book, in which she argues that Hitler is an incarnation of the god Vishnu the
Preserver, a "Man Against Time" who intervened and fought against the process of decay in today's modern world, which is known as the Kali Yuga of the Hindus. Thus Savitri Devi managed to provide a theological justification for outright Hitler-worship in the context of an Aryan/pagan revival. Altogether, this is an even-handed book on a highly controversial and eccentric woman.

Wonderful, brilliant, moving, excptional..Savitri Devi was truly an astounding woman! The author's negative comments do nothing to detract from the overall text. It's just a shame that he (the author) was not wise enough to personally realize the true brilliance of Savitri Devi. A highly reccomended book about a magnificent, noble, beautiful person.

As noted by other reviewers, this reading of Hegel is a post-Nietzsche, post-Marx, post-Heidegger one (meaning it incorporates or synthesizes these post-Hegel, though influenced-by-Hegel, strains of thought). It is therefore scorned by some Hegel 'purists' like Mr. Trejo below. However, having read quite a few commentaries on and interpretations of the Phenomenology I can say that this one is the most well-written, in the sense that it illuminates some very difficult Hegelian concepts (like "Spirit" itself) in a searingly direct manner. I have also never read another writer so convincing in their argument as to Hegel's essential rightness in his description of the Concept which brings closure to the riddle of Western metaphysics.

I would agree with the 'purists' in not taking this book as the 'definitive' interpretation of Hegel - it can't excuse not reading Hegel in the original, or other commentaries - but I would call it essential within the spectrum of Hegelian thought.

Interestingly, this book shows Hegel, though famously critical of Kant, to be essentially the extender of the Kantian philosophy to it's logical conclusion which is the completion of the Concept of Experience, identified as Time itself (ZeitGeist). That is, Human Time, initiated by the emergence of specifically Human Desires (i.e.; for recognition), as the Absolute Subject which constructs itself rationally via reflection on it's Object-negating or given-negating activity or creativity, not in the classical notion of a rational Time as existing somehow outside or independently of a Subject).

Kojeve's reading however, though convincing in it's demonstration of anthropologically necessary Historical development toward Hegelian 'harmony' between the Subject and it's Object, leaves out Hegel's attempt at the absolute identity of the Object itself. This can be read in two ways that Kojeve touches on. First, in the truer-to-Hegel sense that the Object is necessarily different from the Subject to ensure the ability of the Subject to realize itself as Self, as free Subject of Object-negating, creative, activity. Another way to read this is as simply Kojeve's dismissal of Hegel's Philosophy of Nature and it's more cosmic attempt at spiritualizing the notion of matter. Either way, as many Hegel commentator's have noted, one is left, though undoubtedly further enlightened regarding the nature of subjectivity, with a sense that there is still something 'out there' and unknown, ala Kant's 'thing-in-itself'. This can be understood as the Heidegger-influenced side of Kojeve's reading.

My own conclusion at the moment is that both Hegel and the existentialist school following him ala Heidegger and Kojeve can be understood as essentially philosophers of subjectivity in the Western tradition who have rationally illuminated, but also thoroughly exhausted the questioning of the Self about it's nature. As our great contemporary philosopher in the Continental tradtion Jurgen Habermas has noted, it's high time to move beyond the philosophy of monological subjectivity. For fresh thinking in this area and where to pick up the pieces after Hegel, Heidegger, Kojeve, etc. (rather than taking the nihilistic road of 'post-modernism') I highly recommend Habermas's _The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity_. Habermas as successor to this line of thought is convincingly stated in the opening chapter "Modernity's Consciousness of Time and It's Need For Self-Reassurance" and in his call for moving on to a paradigm of "Intersubjectivity" and Reason understood anew as Communicative Action.

As noted by other reviewers, this reading of Hegel is a post-Nietzsche, post-Marx, post-Heidegger one (meaning it incorporates or synthesizes these post-Hegel, though influenced-by-Hegel, strains of thought). It is therefore scorned by some Hegel 'purists' like Mr. Trejo below. However, having read quite a few commentaries on and interpretations of the Phenomenology I can say that this one is the most well-written, in the sense that it illuminates some very difficult Hegelian concepts (like "Spirit" itself) in a searingly direct manner. I have also never read another writer so convincing in their argument as to Hegel's essential rightness in his description of the Concept which brings closure to the riddle of Western metaphysics.

I would agree with the 'purists' in not taking this book as the 'definitive' interpretation of Hegel - it can't excuse not reading Hegel in the original, or other commentaries - but I would call it essential within the spectrum of Hegelian thought.

Interestingly, this book shows Hegel, though famously critical of Kant, to be essentially the extender of the Kantian philosophy to it's logical conclusion which is the completion of the Concept of Experience, identified as Time itself (ZeitGeist). That is, Human Time as the Absolute Subject constructing itself rationally via reflection on it's Object-negating activity (creativity in transforming the given or present), not in the classical notion of a rational Time as existing somehow outside or independentaly of a Subject.

Kojeve's reading however, though convincing in it's demonstration of anthropologically necessary development toward Hegelian 'harmony' between Subject and Object, leaves out Hegel's attempt at the absolute identity of the Object itself. This can be read in two ways that Kojeve touches on. First, in the truer-to-Hegel sense that the Object is necessarily different from the Subject to ensure the ability of the Subject to realize itself as Self, as free Subject of Object-negating, creative, activity. Another way to read this is as simply Kojeve's dismissal of Hegel's Philosophy of Nature and it's more cosmic attempt at spiritualizing the notion of matter. Either way, as many Hegel commentator's have noted, one is left, though certainly further enlightened as to the nature of subjectivity, with a sense that there is still something 'out there' and unknown, ala Kant's 'thing-in-itself'. This can be understood as the Heidegger-influenced side of Kojeve's reading.

My own conclusion at the moment is that both Hegel and the existentialist school following him ala Heidegger and Kojeve can be understood as essentially philosophers of subjectivity in the Western tradition who have exhausted the questioning of the Self about it's nature. As our great contemporary philosopher in the Continental tradtion Jurgen Habermas has noted, it's high time to move beyond the philosophy of the monological subject. For fresh thinking in this area and where to pick up the pieces after Hegel, Heidegger, Kojeve, etc. (rather than taking the nihilistic road of 'post-modernism') I highly recommend Habermas's _The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity_. Habermas as successor to this line of thought is convincingly stated in the opening chapter "Modernity's Consciousness of Time and It's Need For Self-Reassurance" and in his call for moving on to a paradigm of "Intersubjectivity" and Reason understood anew as Communicative Action.

As noted by other reviewers, this reading of Hegel is a post-Nietzsche, post-Marx, post-Heidegger one (meaning it incorporates or synthesizes these post-Hegel, though influenced-by-Hegel, strains of thought). It is therefore scorned by some Hegel 'purists' like Mr. Trejo below. However, having read quite a few commentaries on and interpretations of the Phenomenology I can say that this one is the most well-written, in the sense that it illuminates some very difficult Hegelian concepts (like "Spirit" or Geist itself) in a searingly direct manner. I have also never read another writer so convincing in their argument as to Hegel's essential rightness in his description of the Concept which brings closure to the riddle of Western metaphysics.

I would agree with the 'purists' in not taking this book as the 'definitive' interpretation of Hegel - it can't excuse not reading Hegel in the original, or other commentaries - but I would call it essential within the spectrum of Hegelian thought.

Interestingly, this book shows Hegel, though famously critical of Kant, to be essentially the extender of the Kantian philosophy to it's logical conclusion which is the completion of the Concept of Experience, identified as Time itself (ZeitGeist). That is, Human Time, initiated by Human Desire, as the Absolute Subject constructing itself rationally via reflection on it's Object-negating activity or creativity, not in the classical notion of a rational Time as existing somehow outside or independently of a Subject).

Kojeve's reading however, though convincing in it's demonstration of anthropologically necessary Historical development toward Hegelian 'harmony' between Subject and Object, leaves out Hegel's attempt at the absolute identity of the Object itself. This can be read in two ways that Kojeve touches on. First, in the truer-to-Hegel sense that the Object is necessarily different from the Subject to ensure the ability of the Subject to realize itself as Self, as free Subject of Object-negating, creative, activity. Another way to read this is as simply Kojeve's dismissal of Hegel's Philosophy of Nature and it's more cosmic attempt at spiritualizing the notion of matter. Either way, as many Hegel commentator's have noted, one is left, though certainly further enlightened as to the nature of subjectivity, with a sense that there is still something 'out there' and unknown, ala Kant's 'thing-in-itself'. This can be understood as the Heidegger-influenced side of Kojeve's reading.

My own conclusion at the moment is that both Hegel and the existentialist school following him ala Heidegger and Kojeve can be understood as essentially philosophers of subjectivity in the Western tradition who have rationally illuminated, but also exhausted the questioning of the Self about it's nature. As our great contemporary philosopher in the Continental tradtion Jurgen Habermas has noted, it's high time to move beyond the philosophy of monological subjectivity. For fresh thinking in this area and where to pick up the pieces after Hegel, Heidegger, Kojeve, etc. (rather than taking the nihilistic road of 'post-modernism') I highly recommend Habermas's _The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity_. Habermas as successor to this line of thought is convincingly stated in the opening chapter "Modernity's Consciousness of Time and It's Need For Self-Reassurance" and in his call for moving on to a paradigm of "Intersubjectivity" and Reason understood anew as Communicative Action.

I collect and have read hundreds of books about the Marine Corps and have long considered Eugene B. Sledge's WITH THE OLD BREED: at Peleliu and Okinawa as the finest book ever written about Marines in combat in any war.I consider it so because of his realistic no holds barred approach to the subject of which he is writing. The word pictures he chose to use to describe WWII certainly exposed a lot of brains, blood and bone. This realism is what makes his book a classic. PHASE LINE GREEN written by Nicholas Warr is as realistic a description of war as can be written. Warr's description of the brutal fighting in the street's of Hue during the Tet Offensive of 1968 are vivid, vicious and obscene. He recounts his experiences, mincing no words and sparing no pain. Simply and directly, this is how it was in the battle for Hue. He spares few in the telling, including himself. This book is a perfect definition for the word war. Nowhere will you find the courage, tenacity and bravery of Marines, or the unforgetable reality of combat better described. This book, in my opinion, is just as good as the one written by Sledge. Both books should be required reading for Marines or for anyone interested in military history. PHASE LINE GREEN should also be read by Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy and the other fools responsible for Vietnam and the rules of engagement that left men like Nicholas Warr so embittered.

I have read more than a hundred books on the Vietnam war. I found this one to be the best. I'm astonished how any one could give less than five stars. I found his honesty refreshing. His integrity as top notch. The book is a must read for anyone who wants the dirty truth of how political correctness can be more important than mens lives. The micromanagement that lead to the the failure of the entire Vietnam war is made plain and clear by Mr Warr. I can understand how Mr Warr received a carthsis effect by writing this book. He does us all an honor by sharing the truth with us. I beleive he deserves a silver star for telling the truth. I shall read this book again and again.

Nicholas Warr has written an extremely powerful account of the fighting in Hue during the Tet offensive. Rather than dealing with the strategic-level accounts of the Vietnam war, Warr presents a worms-eye view of one of the most vicious battles ever fought in Vietnam. Warr sugar-coats nothing - the horror and agony of war, as well as the humorous instances that occur during war, are presented for all to see. Warr's writing style keeps the book moving along quickly, as he has the unique ability to include a lot of detail without bogging the reader down - much like Cornelius Ryan or John Toland. If you have even a remote interest in the Vietnam war, or the United States Marine Corp, you can't miss this.

The seventh of Dorothy Dunnett's eight book House of Niccolo series is Caprice and Rondo. The Niccolo books have never engaged me quite as thoroughly as her earlier series The Lymond Chronicles did. Those are among my very favorite historical novels ever. The Niccolo novels are good, but I have tended to find them a bit harder to follow. However, in the particular case of Caprice and Rondo, I was able to follow the action quite readily. Perhaps as the series comes to a conclusion the answers to the many mysteries are becoming clear.

This book opens with Nicholas in Poland. He's been kicked out of his company and exiled from Scotland and the Netherlands as a result of his actions in the last book. (This is another reason the Niccolo books are a bit harder to like: Nicholas does some pretty clearly bad stuff. Whenever Lymond seemed to be up to something bad, it turned out he was being misunderstood.) In Poland he spends a winter womanizing and drinking with the pirate Pauel Benecke, who wants him to join in a pirate mission the following summer. But Anselm Adorne, the upright burgomaster from Bruges who misunderstands Nicholas pretty comprehensively, and who stands in a role vaguely similar to Lymond's brother Richard Crawford in the Lymond books: a good man who tends to regard the hero as an enemy because he doesn't understand him, shows up on a mission to try to recover damages from an earlier piracy committed by Benecke. Also, Adorne and the Patriarch of Antioch, Ludovico da Bologna, intend to head to Tabriz to negotiate with the Persian Uzum Hasan for support against the Turks. (So far, every character I have mentioned except Nicholas is an actual historical character. Dunnett does this extravagantly, on occasion, I think, using characters mentioned very briefly in historical records, which allows her to claim a character is historical but treat said person just like a fictional character.) And Nicholas' long-time friend Julius and his wife Anna also intend to go East, to Caffa in the Crimea, to negotiate new trade agreements for their part of Nicholas' former Bank. Inevitably, Nicholas is drawn into accompanying Anna and the Patriarch to Caffa and Tabriz, and he's also drawn into (or does he do it on purpose???) shooting Julius so he can't come, and frustrating Adorne's plans so he has to go home, mad at Nicholas again. Follows then plenty of action and danger and sexual tension, (this last as Nicholas, frustrated by 8 years of separation from his wife Gelis, must resist his attraction to Julius' beautiful wife), as things go horribly bad in Caffa, and Nicholas ends up trekking to Moscow, and a meeting with the mysterious Greek with a Wooden Leg, Acciajouli, who was involved in the very first of Nicholas' escapades from Book 1.

In parallel, we follow Gelis and Katelijne back in Scotland and Bruges, as the evil David de Salmeton hoves into view again, ready perhaps to revenge himself on Nicholas by attacking those close to him. At the same time Gelis begins to work to resolve her conflicted feeling about Nicholas. Of course, eventually Nicholas is lured back to the west, to confront difficult revelations about his family, and about his relationship with Gelis, and with others, and to try to rebuff various threats to his family and friends.

Much is resolved: perhaps almost too much. Some of the eventual revelations are a bit lurid, and perhaps a bit too reminiscent of some "revelations" in the Lymond books. Nonetheless, the book is fascinating reading, absorbing, colourful, complex. Another fine chapter in an excellent series of historical novels.

This the seventh book in the Niccolo series does offer some explanations of Nicholas's early life and gives some reasons as to why he did the things that he did. Brilliant Nicholas has been exciled to Poland. He tries to forget all of his previous life and become a devil-may-care pirate, but his history keeps coming in to interfere, and he has to resume his life in order to protect those that are dearest to him. In this book we contine to see the beautiful Anna, Julius's wife, and without giving the story away she is certainly not what she seems.
We also see Nicholas and Gelis get back together at the end of the story. That is indeed a happy occasion, but it puzzles me where Katalejne fits into this. We don't see much of her in this story, and that is a great loss since I for one feel that she is by far the superior heroine in this series.

I can't wait to read the last book in the series. Perhaps then things will all make sense. I found that there were some similarities between this series and the Lymond series, and that disappoints a bit, since the Lymond series is so superior. But this is still a good series and it's well worth the time spent to read it. I recommend reading all the books in the series in the order that they written.

Caprice was everything I expected from Dorothy Dunnet, and I expect a lot. Great atmosphere, great story. But warning, don't start with this book. Read others in the series first. Like all the Niccolo and Lymond books, Caprice is beautifully researched and difficult to follow in the beginning pages. There are dozens of characters, most witty, and they often read each other's minds. Even minor players have large roles, so that following their conversations--and indeed who's talking--takes some getting used to. But there's a reward. Soon, you catch on and and it's a joy. Dunnet's ellipses let you participate much more than a simpler presentation that gives every character's every thought to you straight up. These people become your own family, friends, acquaintances and enemies. Unlike another reviewer, I found the characters exquisite, but then I know them from several prior books. It really helps to read the first book, Niccolo Rising, if not the ones between, to understand Nicolas and sympathize with him. And I doubt Gelis, Nicolas'wife, or her actions would have any meaning at all to readers who had not sufferred through her betrayal in earlier books. But it's still a great story. This edition does have a nice list of characters and summary of the plots from previous books, which are very welcome.

Basketball Legends :Michael Jordan is an excellent book written by Sean Dolan. No one in the history of basketball has ever owned as many ways to score a hoop as M.J. can. But he wasn't into basketball his whole life. His first passion was baseball while he was growing up in Wilmington, North Carolina. I like this book because on most of the pages it has a picture with some information. Also at the end of the story it has an index and some other interesting facts on Michael. These elements of the book provide convenient summaries. So if you like Michael Jordan and would like to learn more, read this book.

Michael is a boy that always listens.One day he got his father's ax and cut his toe .When he got big and got accepted on the chicago bull team he got excited for the news.
I was shocked because he didn't respect his father.I think that it is a good book to read because it is of basket ball.
I recommend it to anybody who likes to read about basket ba

The book I read was Michael Jordan written by Sean Dolan. I thought it was a very good book because it tells a lot about Michael Jordan. The book tells all about his high school years, to his college years, and his NBA career. I also liked the book because it tells how dedicated he was to basketball and how he loved the game. The book tells about all the awards he won, like three championships in a row, the MVP Award, and best defensive player of the year. He also won a dunk contest with some amazing dunks. I think this book is for all the basketball players and all the fans of Michael Jordan.

This is Amos Oz at his best. In the "Same Sea" Oz continues to grow and explore the boundries of literature and of the human condition.
His ability to synthesize prose and poetry is superb. He is among the greatest contemporay authors. He defines the relationships between the characters to each other to themselves and to the universe with grace. Beyond that he introduces himself as both chronicler and character without hubris and with grace. This is a literary feat. Many have failed at it. The best book I've read this year.

When we get tired of fight each other, we start trying to understand mutually and unexorablly search for peace. Life is a chain of simple-day-after-day actions, but finally we come to love, as Leonard Cohen said once "as refugees". It is useless to speak of many oceans or seas, cause in the end we all share the same sea. As Carl Sagan once said "we'll all will end sharing the same destiny, good or bad". This book comes to simple things of life, with simple but powerful truths. Amos Oz has a global and positive perspective and remember us that we have more in common, that what we belive. A great piece of stylistic literature, refreshing and motivational. "Life is very short and there is no time for fighting and fussing" (Lennon/Macartney): we share the same sea and if the sea level grows, we all will end paying the price.

This book illustrates the way in which a gifted author can use words to paint a world filled with beautiful and haunting imagery. Although it was initially hard to keep the story line straight, it was worth the effort. The language hovers on the line between prose and poetry and each section can stand on its own or be read as part of the whole. I look forward to reading more from this author.

This is not the quality binding you would expect from Library of America! I have not yet read this book but I have my copy here in my hand. The binding appears to be glued, not sewn. The covers
are not cloth, but flimsy, slick cardboard. This is really a disappointing sight from the project which made its name with
sturdy cloth editions. This might still make a nice gift book, but it is not what I expected from this publisher.

Baseball, in the time frame that it happened. This book is an excellent view of events in their time. It is a compilation of articles from writers, players, comentaters and owners. Although the book sometimes seems to jump around this can be expected when you are piecing together articles by so many different people. Where else could you find articles in the same book by Satchel Paige, Stephen King and A. Bartlett Giamatti. Baseball seems timeless and this book presents that. With first hand acounts of people and events that are long gone.

Of particular interest to me was the chapter where Lawrence Ritter talks to Sam Crawford. Sam's views on life and people are engrossing, his assessement of opposing players provocative and his memories of the game eye-opening.

Overall this book should be read by any fan of baseball. It's a unique book and is full (over 700 pages) of interesting reading. The entire history of baseball is covered in this book.

When Ted Williams died a few months ago, someone described "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," John Updike's chronicle of Williams' final game, as "the most perfect piece of sports writing ever." I looked for it in this collection, and there it was. When the baseball season ended last week (for us Mariners fans, anyway), another friend quoted Bart Giamatti's famous elegy that begins, "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart." Like they say about the spaghetti sauce, "It's in there."

More than any other sport, I think, baseball seems to inspire writing that's lyrical without being cheesy or cloying. That much is apparent in this collection, which also treats us to "Casey at the Bat" (naturally), Owen Johnston, Ring Lardner, Nelson Algren, Jimmy Breslin, Roger Angell, and much more (but, I observe without comment, no George Will). When my lovely bride gave me this collection back in June, I knew it would be a perfect companion for the season. Now I'm finding it an even better companion for the still young off-season. So as we try to figure out how many days are left until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, this great collection of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and prose will carry us forward, and back, to summer.

This book is arranged in an a-z format but is VERY difficult to find what you are looking for. At first glance, it may seem like the arrangement of topics is a benefit, almost like a dog behavior encyclopedia. It's quite the contrary, I'm afraid.

There is but one topic for each letter of the alphabet and, thanks in part to the limited and lacking index, requires practically a cover-to-cover read to find all of the potentially useful topics in this book. Dog behaviors are like allergy symptoms in humans, no two dogs will have the same set of defects in their behavior. It's a waste of time to have to page through each of 26 chapters highlighting and focusing on your own dog's behavior, while tripping through chapter after chapter of other people's dog's problems.

Perhaps the worst part of the format is the series of chapters idiotically placed where other dog behaviors wouldn't fit. I? Imprinting problems (what?). K? Kissing. Q? Quarreling (doesn't that require the dog to be able to speak?). G? Geriatric Behavior Problems. X & Z? I'll let you ask somebody else, because you might not believe it from me. Come on, Dodman!

We bought three books to help us through our newly-adopted dog's troublesome first few weeks at home, and this is completely useless by comparison. The other 2 books we bought were 'Help for your Shy Dog' by Deborah Wood and 'The Dog Whisperer' by Paul Owens & Norma Eckroate. Both of these books have much better info, arranged for readers who aren't interested in random, sometimes bizarre topics.

if you suspect your dog is unusually unruly, above and beyond puppy nuisance, the sooner you read and absorb every word of this book, the better off you and your dog and your family will be!!!

I highly recommend that anyone considering adding a puppy to their home read this book cover to cover. I have used many of the techniques in this book successfully. I find that it is much easier trying to deal with a behavior issue when you know why the dog is exhibiting the behavior in the first place. I've lent my copy out countless times and recommended that several people purchase it.

In 1991, Nicholas Mosley resigned from the judging panel for England's prestigious Booker Prize when none of his choices made the shortlist. Writing about the affair in The Times of London, Mosley related that all of his choices were rejected because they were 'novels of ideas, or novels in which characters were subservient to ideas.' He went on to opine, in a statement that seems to apply as much to his Whitbread Prize-winning novel 'Hopeful Monsters' as to his view of his Booker choices: 'My point was that humans were beings who did have ideas, who were often influenced by ideas, to whom ideas were important. If they were not, then there was some lack in being human.'

'Hopeful Monsters' is a novel where character development is subservient to ideas, where narrative action takes place against big historical events. While it ostensibly tells the story of a life-long romantic relationship between Max Ackerman, an English physicist, and Eleanor Anders, a German-Jewish anthropologist, the romance is as much a vehicle for the promulgation and exploration of ideas as it is a tale of a man and a woman in the twentieth century.

'Hopeful Monsters' begins at the end of World War I. Max is ten years old and lives outside Cambridge, England. His father is a biologist who specializes in genetic inheritance and his mother is a woman of seeming artistic interests who had been 'brought up on the fringes of what was even then known as the Bloomsbury Group.' His parents have had long ties to the Cambridge University community. Eleanor, too, lives in an intellectual milieu, one in which ideas predominate. Eleanor lives in Berlin, where her mother is a Marxist and follower of Rosa Luxemburg and her father is a lecturer in philosophy. From such beginnings, novels of ideas are made!

From this starting point, 'Hopeful Monsters' narrates the story of Max and Eleanor through the rise of Nazism in Germany, the post-Lenin rise to power of Joseph Stalin, the Spanish Civil War, and the development of the Atomic Bomb. It does this while, all the time, interweaving Darwinism (and its Lamarckian heresy), Marxism, quantum physics and the uncertainty principle, Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian archetypes, and even suggestions of Jewish mysticism. It is a story that runs from 1918 until the 1970s and continually challenges the reader to think about the ideas, the opinions, the intellectual sensibilities and feelings of Max, Eleanor and the books other characters. It is a magnificent and challenging novel of ideas, a novel that deservedly won the Whitbread Prize in 1990.

If 'Hopeful Monsters' has any shortcomings, it is that ideas and historical events predominate at the expense of character development. It also suffers, at times, from a somewhat turgid prose style. In particular, Mosley is fond of introducing statements by Eleanor and Max with the clauses 'I said' and 'You said'. It is a construction that helps the reader follow long spoken exchanges, but gets a bit tedious. Mosley also tends to write sentences as statements with a question mark at the end. This, too, can be annoying, suggesting a rising inflection by the speaker that can hardly be the intent. These are, however, relatively minor failings in a novel which is majestic in the breadth and depth of its intellectual suggestiveness, a really big modern novel that deserves to be more widely read.

Interplay of biology, physics, philosophy and politics. Going beyond the usual banal comparisons, the author presents the period between the world wars as a political and human investigation into uncertainty, quantum mechanics and relativity. Following 2 young people, a British boy and a German girl, the book proceeds in a series of backlooking narratives that take place in the major cockpits of the 20th century - from Berlin in the 20's to Russia and Spain in the 30's; politics plays a strong part, with Fascism and Communism playing for dominance across the continent. Through all this the characters try to find a way to create a meaningful life. Significant characters whose views permeate the book include the Lamarckian scientists Kammerer and Lysenko, Wittgenstein, Heideigger, Einstein, and many others. Never does the book bog down in didactic presentation, while still presenting a clear understanding of the major intellectual trends of the 20th century. Many other books have used this period as a background, but in this case, it's an essential element to the plot.

Great for book club discussions - you'll find no end of ways to interpret and discuss this book.

This book was recommended to me a decade ago and I loved it then, have reread it several times and will always be moved by it.Complex, challenging and always idiosyncratic while adhering to the grand tradition of the novel of ideas it has passages so dense and stimulating you want to memorize them or read it out aloud to whoever is listening. It tells the story of two idealistic individuals who are caught up in some of the crazier movements of the 20th century and manage what is so hard to do; to adventure from each other's safety and still stay true to the idea of each other. Despite the depth of the political analysis and the complexity of the portrayed philosophies I have always thought of it as primarily a love story that is both starcrossed and redeemed. By the time the author imagines them at rest as "one of these everlastingly happy couples on an Etruskan tomb" and the cancer( of fanaticism? of loneliness?) is dying it never fails to make me happy when I'm sad or sad when I'm happy.
It reminds me of Niels Bohr who said that you recognize a profound truth by its opposite also being a profound truth.
You guessed it: highly recommended

Fitzgerald, in this book as with another I've read, shows herself to be a precise and evocative miniaturist. The sweep of the events surrounding the main character, the English gentleman Frank, is brought into his small world, one of limited perceptions and a desperate need for equilibrium. A great deal of the novel is happening out of the range of Frank, and just as much is unperceived or misperceived by Frank. So that the ending is a series of shocks, some of which are not quite comprehensible.

Frank sees it all in domestic terms: his wife has left him, and left him with the chidlren; he is advised by his friend, the seemingly muddle-headed idealist Selwyn; visited by his brother-in-law, also seeming to be muddle-headed, Charlie. But the Russian Revolution is swirling around him, and encroaches upon that world, re-defining this crisis in Frank's small life.

Fitzgerald at once brings a wry humor to the novel, but it has an Austen edge to it, and is in an environment that adds a shadow of pervading seriousness. At the same time, we see more than Frank but less than many others, caught between the English humor and the socio-political storm.

It is a subtle and provocative book. And short.

This book was really good. It showed Russia's personality beautifully. Although it was an intriguing story, it lacked a lot of action. If you're looking for a book with a somewhat non-existent plot, then this would be great for you. Just when you expect the story to get more interesting, it ends. There isn't much of a conclusion so the story doesn't really wrap itself up. I found it somewhat frustrating, how it just ended in a sentence. It is a very well written novel. It wasn't very long, which was nice. Fitzgerald does an excellent job describing Russia and the characters' feelings. Although it can be boring and dry at times, the reader truly becomes thrown into the lifestyle of a very interesting Russian family.

A truly beautiful and moving book permeated with humor, insight and compassion. It describes an English family living amidst the overwhelming chaos of life in Moscow in the early nineteenth century. Penelope Fitzgerald reminds one of Jane Austen with her soft, ironic touches and delicately-drawn characters.