This book could have been entertaining reading if the writer had only stuck to the story line. It was diverting the way the book hopscotched here there and everywhere.

This is a good example of the old adage, "You can't tell a book by it's cover". At first glance the reader might expect a lusty romantic novel, but instead Mr. Nicastro's novel of John Paul Jones is a pleasant and memorable read, the kind of prose one likes to savor in large doses. He sets his tale up in France at the turn of the 18th Century, using the characters and the vernacular language to put the reader in the tone of the times. As the events of the American Revolution and the early exploits of our hero unfold, using now the present day vernacular, this reader was captivated by the stories. They were at once easy to follow and very often quite witty and clever. Without giving the entire novel away, let me say that fictitious characters blend so well with the real people and the real events blend so well with the humorous interpretations that one would like to believe that every detail was, in fact, true. The story, and the writing of it, is so good that I hope we shall have a sequel to enjoy for next summer's favorite book of the season!

Gripped by the flawed bravado of John Paul Jones, I was further pulled in by the book's clever framing device--a bet that revolves around a potential menage a trois. Nicholas Nicastro delivers an amusing historical tale that takes the reader in directions one would never expect from a book about America's first naval hero. Though the author presents the virtues of his character he seems to take greater relish presenting the character's flaws--a tactic that only adds to the reader's enjoyment while giving flesh and blood to an, up-until-now, dusty figure in American Revolutionary lore.

Forget about high school history books that describes Jones in one paragraph with the inevitable quote "I have not yet begun to fight." Did he actually say this? Who cares seems to be Nicastro's answer as he departs from this tired question, and doesn't even bother with that particular battle, when it was supposedly stated. Nicastro instead takes us into lesser known, choppier waters--more day to day battles that Jones fought as an imperious gnat leading an almost non-existent American navy against the powerful seafaring British. Jones's incursions against the Brits, as amusingly described in this book, amount to strange, even funny, misadventures.

The book also gets into Jones's post-war hobnobbing in France with such dignitaries as a very randy Benjamin Franklin.

As a lover of history and very human adventures I was only disappointed that the book wasn't longer. This fan waits with excitement for Nicastro's second book. If the author actually reads these, he should know that he's building a fan base.

When I made my first trip to New York in the late '70s, I ignored the advice of friends and made my way to Times Square and 42nd Street. A number of the theatres listed in this book were still standing, mostly playing porno films, sad reminders of bygone days. It was a sad moment, and I wished I could have seen these houses in their full glory.

Looking through this book allowed me to experience just a little of what some of those theatres looked like when they were among "the" entertainment houses in the country. It also allowed me to take a nostalgic trip back to theatres I had visited during that trip which have now disappeared -- the Helen Hayes, the Morosco and several others -- gone due to neglect, mismanagement, or political deals. There are also some surprises, such as discovering Earl Carroll's theatre ended life as a Woolworth's, with dressing rooms and decorations still intact behind drop ceilings and sealed elevator shafts.

No single volume has the room to deal fully with the scope of this subject, but this volume is an excellent appetizer if the subject interests you. My main quibble? Not enough color photos of the theatres themselves, though I know it is likely none exist for some of the earliest theatres.

Anyone interested in the history of American Theatre or the history of New York City, itself, will want to dip into this exhaustive survey of the "lost" theatres of Broadway.

It is also, unfortunately, a history of commerce overtaking art; of pleasure palaces giving way to parking lots because only thirteen of the fifty four theatres in the book still exist.

Here are original, fascinating black and white photographs of theatres many of us have never even heard of, never mind seen:

For example, built expressly for intimate, short plays The Princess on West 39th Street, became the home of the Jerome Kern musicals. Imagine, before vocal amplification, seeing a musical in a theatre with only 299 seats! And Henry Miller's Theatre which does still stand on West 43 Street. It housed musicals, plays and then to keep the doors open, it showed movies, then adult movies and was, most recently, reinvented as a nightclub. Or, Hammerstein's Theatre on Broadway and 53rd Street which was a home to plays, musicals and the Federal Theatre Project WPA, long before it became the studio for Dave Letterman's television show. The pictures show us, also, how the streets looked in those days--what was playing at the theatres and how people dressed, how the cars looked that they drove.

Those are just a few of the facts one can find in this fascinating, informative, entertaining book.

Most students of theatre learn about actors, plays and producers. However, we very rarely learn about the theatres that played such an integral part of the development of Broadway.

"Lost Broadway Theatres" really fills that gap in early 20th-century Theatre History. It includes photos and historical data on the construction, productions and demise of some of the earliest theatres on the Great White Way. Although major theatres such as the Roxy and the Hippodrome are mentioned, the author also pays attention to interesting smaller venues, such as the Punch and Judy Theatre. A few of the theatres mentioned in the book have been restored; others have been altered; however, most no longer exist.

One of the nicest features of this book is the street map on the first two pages, which clearly shows the locations of both the "lost" and current Broadway houses. This definitely gives one a new perspective of the Times Square area: how sad to think that cars are now parked where grand theatres once stood!

Most of the theatres in this book were torn down years before I was born, and have left few monuments behind. It has been wonderful, then, to have the chance to read about them and learn more about the history of Broadway.

One can tell that Nicholas Orme has done extensive research on this book, digging up any and all facts about medieval children, and I applaud him for making the effort for what promised to be interesting subject matter. However, the fact remains that children were NOT extensively documented then, like they are today, and Orme digresses (distractingly often) into the realm of personal conjecture and an almost constant apology for the lack of sources. What I found most irritating was that about half of his sources date from Tudor England, which is better categorized as Renaissance rather than Medieval, and NONE of his sources predate ~AD 1,000. But the illustrations are heavenly, the hardback editon is a joy to handle, and I did learn quite a lot, but overall, the project was rather more ambitious than the material he had to work with.

A couple of years ago Steven Osment published a book called "Ancestors," which sought to criticize the views of Philippe Aries that people in the past had treated their children incredibly callously. Unforuntately, Osment's book was brief and somewhat superficial, even though he was basically right. This book is one that Osment should have written, except that Osment is a historian of Reformation Germany and Orme is a historian of medieval England. Contra Aries, Orme and his fellow scholars "have gathered copious evidence to show that adults regarded childhood as a distinct phase or phases of life, that parents treated children like children as well as like adults, that they did so with care and sympathy, and that children had cultural activities and possessions of their own." They book is lavishly illustrated and based on all sorts of information, from archival studies, to records of the royal family (the family most studied), to an abundance of visual evidence (Pieter Brugel's "Children's Games" is used to special effect). Orme has also found archealogical evidence of toys and school books that children have scribled on.

Orme starts off with conception: "Medieval Christians came to believe that God put the soul into the foetus when it took human shape, at about forty-six days for a male, and ninety for a female; until that point, the embryo was not human and had neither human life nor human soul." This view was held by Innocent III and Thomas Aquinas. We discuss the ceremonies of baptism, the responsibilities of godparents, and the naming of children. We discuss the relative rarity (though not absence) of birthdays. We learn about cradles and swadling, about weaning and day and night time activities. Infanticide was viewed with disapproval, and we learn about accidents and possible abuse. Perhaps 42.5% of children died before they were ten in the late 1500s. We learn about changing views of the fate of unbaptised children.

Especially interesting are children's use of rhymes and songs, to which Orme devotes a whole chapter to. We also learn about the use of toys, a practice well developed by the Middle Ages. Orme talks about dolls, windmills, and tops. He shows use pictures of toy knights on horsebacks which were mass-produced from moulds. "Children, of course, have never confined themselves to toys made specially for them. Poor or rich, they have fashioned their own from anything lying at hand. Gerald of Wales, describing his childhood...in the 1150s, recalls how he and his brothers played with sand and dust...They built towns and palaces, and he made churches and monasteries." Orme goes on about games, such as marbles and chess, as well as playing at war.

Orme devotes another chapter to the church, and like today some churches were tolerant of small children wandering around, and others were more easily irritated. There are, rather surprisingly, two chapters on reading, one on learning how to do it, and another on literature for children. Since most children did not know how to read in medieval England this might be a bit excessive. It is interesting to learn about the different alphabets and how children were taught to learn syllables, but perhaps this is a bit much. On the other hand, Orme forcefully reminds us that literacy was not the result of the invention of printing. Instead increased literacy encouraged the development of the printing press. Orme is part of a historical trend which emphasizes the importance, if not the predominance, of literacy in the late medieval period as opposed to the supposed ubiquity of an exclusively oral tradition. Orme concludes with a chapter on growing up. He reminds us that contrary to what many people think, the marriage of children or their execution was a rather rare event. Nor was a callous greedy apprenticeship that common either. All in all, Orme has provided a thorough dissection of the child's role in medieval England. No doubt much of this is applicable to the rest of Europe. One only wishes, giving that so much of Orme's account deals with the Church, about how Jews raised their children.

Everything you ever wanted to know about medieval childhood but didn't know who to ask. And some beautiful illustrations as well.
Other reviews have summarized the contents nicely, so I won't bother.
I took one star away, because a few of his statistics strike me as questionable. (I'm not sure that they are wrong, so I won't down-grade him more than one star.) For example, he claims that the average age at marriage was 26 for women, 28 for men. Which seems quite high to me. (While it is a myth that everyone married at 15, early 20's seems more realistic. Unless he is including remarriage of widows/widowers in his figures, which would, of course, bring the average up.) He also claims an average birthrate of about 3 children per family, with a 'survival-past-childhood' rate of less than 2 ... a figure which would have resulted in the total disappearence of the population within a few generations. And finally, while he doesn't give specific literacy figures, he seems to imply that literacy was quite widespread ... which was not the case, and continued to be not the case for quite some time after the introduction of movable type. (Books were extremely expensive, well beyond the means of even the middle classes, let alone the vast peasant/working classes. Most people had no use for reading. The gentry/nobility were usually literate [at least the male half]. Below that level of society, outside the monestaries, very few people could read or write.

Despite these flaws, the book has a lot of interesting information. (Though he does seem to be trying VERY hard to demonstrate that various objects/stories/songs/games/activities were used/read/sung/played/done by children ... rather than by society as a whole.)Well worth the read, though it might be worth waiting to see if it comes out in paperback.

In Homer's "Iliad" the one reference to Oedipus suggests he ruled in Thebes until he was killed in battle. However, in the more famous version of the tale, told by Sophocles in his classic Greek tragedy "Oedipus the King," Oedipus blinds himself and leaves Thebes. In "Oedipus at Colonus" Sophocles tells of the final fate of the exiled figure. Colonus is a village outside Athens, where the blind, old man has become a benevolent source of defense to the land that has given him his final refuge.

"Oedipus at Colonus was produced posthumously in 401 B.C.E., and the legend is that it was used by Sophocles as his defense against the charge of senility brought by his children. In terms of its lack of dramatic structure (the scenes are connected by the character of Oedipus rather than by the loosely constructed plot) and the melancholy of its lyric odes it is the most atypical of the extant plays of Sophocles. "Oedipus at Colonus" is the most poetic of his plays while being the least dramatic as well. But it is the characterization of Oedipus as a noble figure that stands out. This is still the same proud and hot-tempered figure who vowed to solve the reason for the curse on Thebes in the earlier play. But this is also an Oedipus who has accepted his punishment, even though he insists that he is innocent. After all, the sin responsible for his exile was really that of his mother; if you read "Oedipus the King" carefully you will see that the incestuous part of the prophecy was added by the Oracle after Jocasta tried to have her infant son killed in order to save her husband's life. Consequently, when Oedipus claims to be a helpless victim of destiny, there is ample reason to agree with his interpretation of events.

The fact that this was the last play written by Sophocles offers a line of analysis for understanding "Oedipus at Colonus" as well. You can read in certain lyrics, such as the first "staismon" with its ode to Colonus and the characterization of King Theseus of Athens, the playwright's praise for the democratic institutions and proud history of Athens. On a more psychological level you can consider the play as articulating Sophocles' views on death. These other considerations tend to reduce the importance of the title character, but there is the compelling argument of the play that through his personal suffering Oedipus has been purified.

In Homer's "Iliad" the one reference to Oedipus suggests he ruled in Thebes until he was killed in battle. However, in the more famous version of the tale, told by Sophocles in his classic Greek tragedy "Oedipus the King," Oedipus blinds himself and leaves Thebes. In "Oedipus at Colonus" Sophocles tells of the final fate of the exiled figure. Colonus is a village outside Athens, where the blind, old man has become a benevolent source of defense to the land that has given him his final refuge.

"Oedipus at Colonus was produced posthumously in 401 B.C.E., and the legend is that it was used by Sophocles as his defense against the charge of senility brought by his children. In terms of its lack of dramatic structure (the scenes are connected by the character of Oedipus rather than by the loosely constructed plot) and the melancholy of its lyric odes it is the most atypical of the extant plays of Sophocles. "Oedipus at Colonus" is the most poetic of his plays while being the least dramatic as well. But it is the characterization of Oedipus as a noble figure that stands out. This is still the same proud and hot-tempered figure who vowed to solve the reason for the curse on Thebes in the earlier play. But this is also an Oedipus who has accepted his punishment, even though he insists that he is innocent. After all, the sin responsible for his exile was really that of his mother; if you read "Oedipus the King" carefully you will see that the incestuous part of the prophecy was added by the Oracle after Jocasta tried to have her infant son killed in order to save her husband's life. Consequently, when Oedipus claims to be a helpless victim of destiny, there is ample reason to agree with his interpretation of events.

The fact that this was the last play written by Sophocles offers a line of analysis for understanding "Oedipus at Colonus" as well. You can read in certain lyrics, such as the first "staismon" with its ode to Colonus and the characterization of King Theseus of Athens, the playwright's praise for the democratic institutions and proud history of Athens. On a more psychological level you can consider the play as articulating Sophocles' views on death. These other considerations tend to reduce the importance of the title character, but there is the compelling argument of the play that through his personal suffering Oedipus has been purified.

Many people make the mistake of only reading part 1 of this trilogy. In my opinion, it is a horrible mistake to ignore parts 2 and 3. The blind Oedipus is touchingly lead by his daughter. (I can not help but suspect this inspired the relationship between Edgar and Gloucester in Shakespeare's "King Lear.") It is also in this play that we see Creon is not exactly an outstanding citizen. He seemed nice enough in part 1, but once he has Oedipus' power, he is somewhat of a tyrant. It is also in part 2 that we are able to get a closer look at Oedipus. (REMEMBER, HE DID NOT KNOW HE HAD KILLED HIS FATHER, MARRIED HIS MOTHER, AND HAD CHILDREN WITH HIS MOTHER.) It is in this play that we see the human side of Oedipus. I can not overestimate the beauty of the scene where "seemingly sighted" he enters the Greek Version of heaven. Again remember, the story does not end here. You MUST read "Antigone" (Part 3).

This book constitutes the best text in its field, providing a conceptual framework for understanding the dynamics of sexual assault on the part of the offender. It has stood the test of time, having been in print for over twenty years, and remains as relevant today as the day it was written. [It will be reissued in a paperback format by Perseus in December 2001.] MEN WHO RAPE is essential reading for everyone whose work brings them into contact with victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse. It remains the classic text on the psychodymanics of rape.

This book constitutes the best in it's field providing a conceptual framework for understanding the dynamics of sexual assault on the part of the offender. After twenty years it remains relevant and fortunately will be reissued in a paperback format in December 2001. It essential reading for everyone whose work brings them into contact with victims and/or perpetrators of sexual abuse.

This text stands above most others in providing a depth, an intimacy, and a science to the perplexing question of men who rape. It even suggests, against all pc correctness, that men may also be victims of tragic circumstances that lead to their criminal acts. Provides good science, with little politics.

My own struggles with multiple chemical sensitivities led me to purchase Chemical Exposures, hoping to glean some helpful info. There may be helpful info; unfortunately the book is printed on such a toxic paper and/or ink that merely opening it makes me sick. Not much help there for the people who need it most. Too bad.

excellent review of the available data on this difficult subject. Lots of evidence based data and peer reviewed literature is used as the basis of discussion of this controversial subject. Highly recommended although it may also raise more questions that it answers. The authors are highly qualified (Prof at MIT with experience in environmental affairs and practicing MD allergist)

Ashford and Miller don't care what is politically incorrect. They are after facts and facts alone.

When the authors wrote the book they felt that a single case definition of MCS may be premature, if not unscientific. They felt that perhaps MCS is part of a new, poorly-understood mechanism of disease-- in other words, a whole new class of disease.

They accept that some people who react to fragrances may be experiencing a somatization disorder. "Etiologies for these conditions can be wholly physical, wholly psychological, or varying combinations of the two", write Ashford and Miller (pgs. 221-222). But the majority of such sufferers appear to have an actual sensitivity to chemicals. Since MCS sufferers are frequently intolerant of various foods, drugs (medicines), alcohol, and caffeine, they feel that "MCS" is not the best term. They propose the term "Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance" (TILT).

According to authors' research, the bodies of MCS/TILT sufferers become, in essence, addicted to the substances they're intolerant of. Thus, not only do they experience symptoms from exposures to substances they're intolerant of/ sensitive to, but then also from withdrawl from such exposures. It is a truly remarkable aspect of the condition(s?).

The authors thoroughly examine the writings of anti-MCS authors, including Gots (whose 96 work was labeled by the authors as "recycled opinion"). The authors severely criticize the notion that "the dose makes the poison", and make Gots look like an uninformed- or dishonest-- fanatic; and he is.

Ashford and Miller are the ideal for objective scientists. Their rigorous analyses of data in regards to chemical sensitivity are inspiring. They also expose the politics surrounding the MCS "debate", why [biological] recognition has been slow and unjustifiably challenged.

This book is an excellent scientific resource for those who are seriously interested in obtaining [factual] knowledge about chemical sensitivity. If you are one such person and you choose to not own a copy of this book, you will be making a huge mistake.

I read these poems 25 years ago in a City Lights edition. While EH is a major part of my life through the inscrutable (or perhaps ultimately scrutable) elegance and beauty of his prose, this is some of the worst poetry I've ever read. It is clumsy, it doesn't flow, it is cliche; none of the things that turn language into poems is there. This does nothing to lessen his importance as one of our greatest writers, but not everybody can be transcendant in every medium. (Ever seen one of his paintings? Save yourself the pain. Check out some of Picasso's poems. No, don't.)

I read this short volume without a clear conception of what Hemingway's poetry would turn out to be. I'd always heard it said that Hemingway's economy in his prose rendered paragraphs into a poetry of their own. But the dynamics of poetry are somewhat different from those of prose: While giving one untrammeled use of the English language (heck, you can even be forgiven a few perversions of grammar), you have to have an ear for meter, let the cadence exalt each verse into a brief apotheosis, where prose writing could take twice as much time to shoot its load. Thankfully, Hemingway was as brilliant (and troubled) a poet as he was a novelist.

Hemingway's early poetry is a good indication of what he was soon to create. From the facetious poems about baseball and high school track teams mimicking the verse of his idols,to the smart allecky "Blank Verse" (written as an imposed classroom assignment), we get a good sense of the wry, often witty Hemingway that was to emerge in parts of books such as the Sun Also Rises. Yes, despite the suicide, despite the preoccupation with war and violent sports (bullfight, anyone?) Hemingway had a knack for giving life to people tersely, but with all the effect that a more prolix writer could. (Take the descriptions of Jake drinking wine from a native's winesack on a bus, exultant at the thought of a fishing trip forthcoming.) This, not to say joyful, but at least sometimes happy side to Pappa's poetry is almost completely supplanted by the style that dominated his years in Europe as a WWII correspondent, Cuba, and Idaho. These poems are more technically adroit, sometimes beautiful, but introspective and often a bit more than morose. Ironic: The same man who inveighed against Dorothy Parker for her failed suicide attempts blew his mind out in some corner of Idaho decades after he'd made a name for himself in literature so rockfast that, as long as there are the literate, there will be the Hemingway-lovers.

That notwithstanding, Hemingway made a name with Farewell to Arms, The Battler, et al. These poems are brilliant, but, for the two of you who've never read a Hemingway prose volume, remember: His novels are just glorious poems with more action, characters and plot. And are far more reflective of his genius than even these wonderful selections.

Originally published as 88 Poems in 1979. This is an updated version with a new afterword. Shows the breadth of work Hemingway did, not only novels, short stories, journalism and literary non-fiction but poetry too. The earliest was when he was 12 yrs old and foreshadows his great range. They span to age 56. Some were for small publications. Many were written to individuals and were never intended for publication. This volume is exquisitely annotated. Some are earthy as you would expect from a man who was involved with war, wingshooting, big-game fishing. Some are delicate and sensitive. The book is worth reading to explore the great range of Hemingway.

What distinguishes this edition of the Monadology from all others is the extra material included by Rescher. Rescher has collected material from Leibniz's other writings which shed great light on the concepts in the Monadology. In addition, he had included his own commentary on each of the 90 sections.

If you read the bare Monadology, you will probably be confused since it is too brief. If you read this edition, you are actually reading Leibniz's own commentary on the Monadology, and your understanding will be greatly enhanced.

Leibniz' "Monadology" offers a deeply thought out alternative to the physicalist world view implicit in Galileo and the mechanistic side of Descartes. Leibniz outlines a fascinating and distinct view of the relationship of mind and body, the nature of organisms, and the nature of the universe. Rescher's edition is nothing short of spectacular, offering elaboration of each proposition in the "Monadology" with extensive quotes from Leibniz' other works, as well as his own commentary. This edition is one of the best available ways of becoming acquainted with Leibniz' thought and with the substantive issues involved. Readers who find this book interesting might also enjoy reading Heidegger's commentaries on Leibniz in his book "The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic." Here Heidegger is at his best, offering detailed textual exegesis and a sincere attempt to find the inner logic of Leibiz' thought.

Leibniz was a master of logical thinking and metaphysics. Leibniz envisioned the "Monadology" as a precise argument and elucidation of his metaphysical system. It is almost universally agreed upon that he is among the top theistic philosophers to ever live. Intelligent people should be able to see this, iff they are not blinded by dogma und superstition. I myself believe in no God of the kind Leibniz describes, however he, with Rescher's help, brings me to question this belief more than any other writer I have read. Rescher does a very comprehensive job supplamenting "The Monadology" and his comments should be of help for students and philosophers alike.

Enjoyable and amusing yarn on the subject of luck! Interesting how some people view their success as a result of their hard work or background while it just might have been that they were lucky? And others were just plain unlucky. Not sure if luck can really be managed according to the author? Sometimes luck just happens!

Philosophy lends itself to the discovery of, and arguments over, Great Questions. For instance, the Question of Evil--how does evil exist in a world created by an all-powerful, all-good Creator?--has been debated for centuries since its discovery by early Christian thinkers.

Much of Mr. Rescher's book is an engaging, well-researched series of observations about the role of luck in human affairs, many of which are used to make the frequent point that nothing is 'responsible' for the operation of luck. "Luck pivots on unpredictability," says the author, and backs this up with both historical and hypothetical events in which fate acts in defiance of what its object deserves--either for good or ill.

Yet in making these points, the author either avoids or ignores larger questions that naturally follow from his examples. While he observes that chance frowned upon the passengers of the Titanic and the Jews of World War Two-era Poland, he avoids the related observation that chance frowned more heavily upon the poor passengers and Jews than upon the wealthy and influential. The author defends as rational the impulse to buy a lottery ticket, since a chance at a fortune is better than no chance, yet he ignores that a person who is already wealthy has no need of this fortune, and thus feels no such 'rational' urge.

About two-thirds of the way through the book, the author considers that individual traits bestowed or withheld by luck might have some moral significance, yet--in a tone that seems directly the opposite of the book's previous chapters--he satisfies himself with an oddly bourgeois rule: we are responsible for our moral virtue, regardless of how much of that virtue has been chosen for us by luck or fate. The author wants to insist on this rule so that villains can be condemned for being villains before they perform any wicked acts. Yet this seemingly common-sense position leads to a far more puzzling question: to what degree can one reasonably separate chance from intent? The author points out that a drunk driver who gets home safely is lucky, while a sober driver who kills another motorist by accident is unlucky, but does this distinction of luck really make the drunkard more morally reprehensible than the killer? What if the sober driver was an alcoholic, but had simply not had the chance to get drunk?

The toughest questions arise when the author sternly observes that "We are not morally responsible for _choosing_ our bad character (character is not the sort of thing that is up for choice), but we are morally responsible--and morally reprehensible--for _having_ it." If we are somehow responsible for having bad character chosen for us, are we also responsible for bad circumstances chosen for us? Is a poor child somehow morally responsible for being born into poverty rather than wealth? "Identity must precede luck," states the author. But where environment informs identity, and luck informs environment, can such a statement remain true, if it ever was?

What the author ends up doing in this book is brushing the snow away from around a Great Question: how is justice possible in a world where chance is the predominant force for action? By failing to consider this question and the lesser questions that attend it, Mr. Rescher's book, while enjoyable, remains less than what it could have been.

The author explains why luck is an inescapable ingredient in human life. He makes clear that this random ingredient is essential if we are to conceive of ourselves as having free will. He eases concerns that bad luck is somehow the result of lack of worthiness and verifies that good luck often is experienced by unsavory people. He establishes that, by its very nature, luck is not controlled by other characteristics or occurrences of our lives, but there are things we can do to fully benefit from the good luck that we do have.

Prior to becoming a civil engineer I operated heavy equipment. I am currently empolyed by a excavating contractor. I find the book very useful in answering questions that some experience equipment operators can't answer. The book does not teach one how to operate equipment. It describes methods of performing specific tasks(laying pipe, paving roads). It also tells how to deal with unsuitable soil, working with rock, working in mud, etc. I recommend this book to anyone involved in excavation work.

This is a book written for apprentice operating engineers. As such, it teaches the basics of road survey, grading, compaction, pipe laying, stakeout, drainage. It goes into detail on how to read survey stakes, mark and read witness lath, calculate differences in height, read and use a hand level, stake slopes, layout a subdivison, find the bottom elevation of pipelines, proper compaction of road base, and just about anything else a road worker could think of. This is an easy to use paperback book with many drawings which help explain the text. I can't tell you how useful this book has been to me.For those readers that are involved with excavation, survey, inspection (me), contracting, this book IS MUST HAVE.

I have read the first edition of this book and it answered all my questions and then some. This book is ideal for young engineers who don't have field experience. It covers survey staking, grading, excavation, drainage, paving, water and sewer pipes from a contractor's perspective. I am going to buy the revised edition.