This is an amazing book and I am surprised it is not better known. It tells about the life of a Polish Jew who escaped from what he considered the stifling atmosphere of Polish Hasidic life and went to Germany to become part of the German Enlightenment. He translated Kant into Yiddish for the edification of his compatriots back home. The scenes depicting Maimon's marriage at the age of 12 and of Jewish life in eighteenth century Poland are very memorable. Someone told me recently that this book might not actually have been written by Maimon at all but by the "editor," the German writer Karl Philip Moritz, who apparently had a similar life. Perhaps that is why the book has not been reprinted.

The bee-thrum of consciousness at work, this book is about the words in it. If ours were a just society, all children would have to recite Coolidge's "St. Jerome" poem. He writes down what he sees by "the lights in here," and you just might recognize these strata of language-thought/thought-language from your own bewildered experiences of thrownness. Read it, and if you like it, pass out free copies to your congressman and his staff.

This work is particularly important since most of the people interviewed, including William Faulkner, are no longer living. The reconstruction of Colonel Falkner's life is crucial to understanding the Nobel prize winning grandson, William Faulkner. The Old Colonel was the source of Colonel John Sartoris in Faulkner's fictional world.

Great romance including the antics of twins.

From back cover: Double Delight and Danger, Sophia, gentel and sensitive; Augusta, witty and high-spirited. And many eleigble young men came to call, a testimony to the twin's charms.


Harry, the Duke of Carnmoor, courted Sophia but secretly yearned for Augusta. Even though she shared a yen for Harry too, Augusta would not betray her sister. Soon Lord Armstead stepped in, Sophia's childhood friend who wanted to be more. And then, the dynamics took a new and dangerous twist when a greed-minded charmer, Bramforth Wixton, sets aims on winning one of the twins in marriage, and more importantly a stake in their hefty dowries.

This book is excellent! It encourages you to re-access your life. Clark's straight forward style is warm and welcoming as it gently leads you to change. It is a light read with deep effects! Enjoy!

Heartbreaking, especially as the book is non-fictional and about a close friend whose brave and stoic public front masked the anguish that the book brings to light. Not easy to read given the book's subject matter, but well-written without trying to crassly sensationalise terminal illness.

These books are great for anyone traveling the open world. It's great to just sit back, relax, close your eyes and enjoy the book! This book is wonderful for family road trips, only if there are no young kids! I read a lot but everyone knows its difficult to read in the wind or bright sunshine so why not read without the words! Plus these books will keep you in suspense forever and its great conversation if you listen to it with friends!

Levy and Scott-Clark are excellent story tellers, and do they ever have a story to tell. Tracing the history of imperial green jade, or jadeite, they begin in the late 18th century with Chinese emperor Qianlong and 400 rivetting pages later end in present day Myanmar. Along the way the reader is exposed to the unrestrained profligacy of the Chinese emperors and the equally unrestrained ignorance and arrogance of the British colonialists. There is scheming and plots within plots as players in the Chinese dynasties kill their own progeny to ensure a malleable emperor will succeed. The plundering by the British of the old Imperial summer palace is shocking, and the primitive warfare of the Kachin in Burma is horrifying. Levy and Scott-Clark's descriptions put the reader right into the midst of the action: the writing is so effective that you can feel the clinging humidity of the Burmese jungle as 19th century British explorers plod along in search for the mines from whence the jadeite is extracted.

Also of tremendous interest were the passages about the Dowager Empress Cixi. If all you know about the last emperor Pu Yi is from the wonderful movie "The Last Emperor," this book will help round out some of the events and issues driving the Pu Yi story along that were alluded to in the movie. Besides, the movie's only allusion to Cixi is in the very beginning when the toddler Pu Yi is brought to the Forbidden City. Levy and Scott-Clark reveal to the reader from where Cixi came and how her desire for the jadeite was often at the core of her political machinations.

And then there are the final chapters that reveal a scenario so horrifying, so shocking that even the surrealistic visions of Francis Ford Coppola in "Apocolypse Now" cannot compare.

This is definitely the best book I've read so far this year, and probably the best book I've read in the past five years. After reading this book you will not be able to look at another piece of jadeite, no matter how beautiful, and not whince because now you know the stone's infamous history.

Christie Bailey lives alone in his struggling young orange grove in Florida. A generous impulse on the part of a young woman introduces him to the world of Christianity as he and she begin to correspond. Love blooms and finally finds its way past misunderstandings. A charming look at turn of the century America.

Smith is one of the THE giants of the legendary WEIRD TALES authors, and deservedly so. No one else, including Poe and Oscar Wilde, has ever parleyed world-class poetry into world-class prose. Smith is not a writer for the timid reader. HIs work is dense, colorful, and inifnitely rewarding,but it is not a "fast" read. This book contains much material never published in Smith's lifetime (or after it, for that matter), including the draft of his projected novel, which will make any reader wish he had completed it! Smith's fantasies are mordant, droll, lyrical, romantic, and skin-crawlingly horrifying by turns --- sometinmes all at the same time!