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One of the greatest novelists of all time, Balzac was most at home in the Paris of Post-Napoleonic Paris. In a time when the middle class was showing its strength and starting to reach towards the aristocracy, Balzac shows just how selfish and grubby and greedy humans can be in attaining and how treacherous they can be in keeping their all important upward mobility.

Colonel Chabert is a man disfigured in the Napoleonic Wars who was left for dead on a battlefield. After digging his way out of a mass grave, he finds that he has no legal right to his title or his massive estate. Nobody will believe his true identity. For ten longe years he goes about trying to communicate his plight to anyone who will listen. They only see a crazy bum, and his wife rebuffs his letters. She already has a new husband and kids. Finally Chabert is able to convince a lawyer named Dervilles to accept his case, namely that of reclaiming his title, lands, and wife. The problem is that noone is really interested in his life being resurrected. Most people would rather that he remained dead. So begins the ludicrous battle of a man against the law to prove his own existence.

This short but great novel, or novella, is a tragic take on the world's thirst for social status and the judgement by visuals that our society is only too guilty of to this day. If it walks like a bum, talks like a bum, it must be a bum. Colonel Chabert has such a hard time convincing people of his identity because of how they perceive him. It sounds echoes of Frankenstein in that a good man is reduced to a monster when all he really needs is love. The fact that even his wife wishes he were dead just drives home the isolated suffering of the book. As in all Balzac novels, you feel a world moving under the mantle of the book. The Human Comedy of Balzac is one of the crowning achievements of literature and ranks right up there with Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy.

"Colonel Chabert" is the story of a soldier--a great favourite of Napoleon's who is left for dead following the battle of Eylau. Chabert literally digs himself out of a mass grave and is nursed slowly back to health. Unfortunately, Chabert's severe head wound caused permanent memory loss, and it is years before Chabert clearly remembers who he is.

After fragments of his memory return, Chabert contacts his wife--unfortunately, she has remarried and is now the Countess Ferraud, and it is in her best interests that Chabert remain dead and forgotten and that she remain the sole wealthy recipient of the Chabert fortune. So she ignores the letters Chabert sends.

Desperately poor, in bad health, and nursing a growing sense of injustice, Chabert seeks out the services of an ambitious and fascinating young lawyer named Derville. Derville is intrigued with Chabert's story and decides that Chabert is either the victim of a terrible injustice or "the most accomplished actor" he has ever seen. And so Derville sets out to regain at least a portion of Chabert's fortune....

Balzac is one of my favourite authors, and I've read many of his works. "Colonel Chabert" is novella length, but it is better described as a sketch of a novel. For anyone trying Balzac for the first time, I recommend starting with either "Cousin Bette" or "The Black Sheep." "Colonel Chabert" is perhaps not the best Balzac novel to start with as it is certainly not a good example of Balzac's extraordinary talent, but the novella certainly serves nicely as a later supplement to Balzac's better novels. I have to say that the film version is actually even better than the novel--and it's usually the other way around. In the novel, Countess Ferraud is a grasping, selfish, pitiless ambitious woman--in the film, she is portrayed much more sympathetically. Also, the visual media of film allowed much greater scope for such scenes as the dead on the frozen battlefield--this was not conveyed with such power in the novel. Nonetheless, "Colonel Chabert" follows Balzac's favourite themes--greed and human motivation---displacedhuman--Amazon Reviewer.

Balzac, one of the greatest writers who ever lived, did not trip up with this one. I read it with great pleasure and conclude, as people so often say, that the movie based on the story did not equal the original. Ever the cynic (some might say 'the realist') Balzac portrays here the efforts of a noble-minded soldier, who rose from an orphanage to serve his country under Napoleon in Egypt and eastern Europe, only to reap the all-too-common fate of dedicated and true warriors---to be forgotten and ignored. Death (which he accepted) might have seized him, but he found a living death, a denial of his sanity and identity, as the reward of his service. Reported killed at the battle of Eylau, against the Russians, after a heroic action, the soldier literally crawls from his grave to a kind of shadowy survival. In his earlier life, Colonel Chabert had raised a woman to his own status, but now finds that she is unwilling to let others learn of her origins and does not want to recognize that he is, in fact, her long lost husband. Honestly thinking she was widowed, she married a highborn aristocrat who knew nothing of her humble beginnings.

The tale is one of greed, intrigue, loyalty and disloyalty. As usual, Balzac manages to cast a light, pitiless and bright, on every rotten corner of the human condition, while offering a few inspiring examples in contrast. Every detail of a lawyer's life in 19th century Paris is scrutinized, every glimpse of urban dairyman or elite country squirehood rings true. No wonder I admire him so much, no wonder I have no hesitation in urging you to read COLONEL CHABERT and any other volume of Balzac you can lay your hands on.

This is one of the few text books I kept after the class. It's an invaluable general botany reference. The text is very readable, yet covers the material in great depth, which is no small feat considering the scope of the book.

After meditating upon chapter one by the river a top the mountain, my essence dissociated from my body and i saw Buddha in a vission.

Translation: get this book!

When I first looked at this book I didn't tought I would learn so much from it. The book can get you interested even if you aren't interested from the beginning. The layout is excellent and written in a very userfriendly way. Really recommend it!

The Little Mouse book has a wonderful interplay between the reader and story as it introduces concepts of sharing and how to deal with the threat of a bully.

This is one of my 3 year old son's favorite books. The illustrations are GREAT; I recommend the larger hard cover book. This book starts with "Hello little mouse, what are you doing?", as you "catch" the mouse picking a strawberry. The adult gets to enjoy the mischief of the narrator, who tricks the mouse into sharing and eating the strawberry by convincing the mouse that the big hungry bear is on the way to eat the strawberry. The finer point that there probably is no bear is not necessary for the child to understand to enjoy and participate in the story. My son enjoyed from the age of 2 the clever ways in which the mouse tries to hide the strawberry, and always acts out his part of taking his half of the strawberry and eating it.

Both my kids loved this book and I have given it to lots of people. I like the big hardcover because the pictures are so great (although the smaller Board Book is nice). In The mouse offers up the strawberry to the reader to share, and even Mom and Dad feel like they ought to take a piece. Simple story - and although the narrator tells the mouse he ought to take care of his strawberry or a great big hungry bear will eat it, my kids were never scared.

It is VERY nice book. Especially for medical students and residents.
You can understand from detail to basic of diseases. With this book, you know how to approach and make your list of differential diagnosis.
I worked for infectious disease patients for a while, and this book was very useful because you can get the general knowledge not only about infectious diseases but also general internal medicine, skin lesions, bone diseases, and so on. I especially recommend the chart of antibiotics(Chart 37). I like this book because we can also get the update etiology of diseases. So nice.

Very concise, covering a large number of conditions with information about clinical features, diagnosis and treatment... just the best medical book for students, residents and general prationers.

This book packs in all the important aspects of client treatment into each section. The headings are a little hard to see when skimming, but the information is excellent. A must have for Nurse Practitioner school!

Aldrich is a leading figure in organizational sociology. The organization is, with no doubt, a domain of sociology. But organization is not the object only sociology, especially because the company is the dominant form of organization under capitalism. The firm has been the object of various disciplines. Since the firm is an organization, if one studies the company, he participates in organizational studies. Organizational sociology has also zeroed in on the firm, rather than other form of organization. So now organizational sociology is not much discernible from economic sociology in the empirical research. Both have focused on the firm and the market as research domain. Most universities in the States offer both specialties as one course rather than separate course. Moreover, such a blending of field is intensified as more and more researchers from various disciplines take the firm and market as their research agenda. we¡¯ve seen the ascendance of organizational economics over past decades, breaking decades of ignorance of firm in economics. One-of-a-kind move could be spotted even in political science. ¡®Varieties of Capitalism¡¯ (2001), edited by Peter Hall and David Soskice, for instance, is a example of such a trend. In this book they examine the influence of national regulatory system on the business system and competitive advantage. Now the organizational study is increasingly interdisciplinary affair in social sciences. The more come into play, the more divergent the field become. Aldrich identifies seven perspectives in organizational studies: ecological approach, institutionalism, interpretive approach, organizational learning approach, resource dependence approach, transaction cost economics, and evolutionary approach. The diversity of approaches is not only tolerable but also necessary, given the interdisciplinary nature of organizational studies. But seven perspectives in only one field is too much. So Aldrich attempts to launch the overarching framework based on evolutionary approach, while preserving the value of other approach. The advantage of evolutionary approach lies in its simplicity. It consists of only 4 principles: variation, se4lection, retention, and struggle. Each relates to the other with if-then clauses. But they are abstract in nature. The specific accounts of events should be provided by other niche approaches. Evolution is the name of process, not of substance or what takes place in the field. This is the overall architecture of the book. It seems Aldrich succeeds in the ambitious project to provide the umbrella framework linking competing perspectives under one roof. In doing so, he reviews tons of researches to validate the effectiveness of his proposal. It seems to work with empirical studies. But the devil lies in details. He dumps too many into the limited space in cursory manner. So reader has some difficulty in following through the lines. Overall framework of the book is reasonable, and that it must be the breakthrough in organizational studies. But reading through it is another matter. It¡¯s a painful travail.

Howard Aldrich's ORGANIZATIONS EVOLVING is truly a tour de force. Those who know his 1979 ORGANIZATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS are familiar with his sharp insights into the field of organizations and his lucid writing. In ORGANIZATIONS EVOLVING, Aldrich develops a compelling, broadly evolutionary, perspective on organizations that integrates the best ideas from diverse organizational theories. He makes the best, most sophisticated, case yet for an evolutionary perspective on the organization.

this book will revolutionize the way sociologists look at (evolving) organizations...lots of examples and an excellent organization of topics.

Kim tells you what it really takes to make money in NWM. And she tells you what works! If you are a beginner, or if you have been around for a bit, you will enjoy reading this.

As the others have pointed out, this book is an EXCELLENT training manual and a great starter guide.

I also found that the comic book style made this book extremely accessable. People who might be intimidated by a 200-300 page book (and there are more than you'd think) will be willing to read this book because its essentially a large comic book.

But don't let the format fool you. The information density is very high and this is a book that belongs in everyone's library as a reference.

I also liked the emphasis on doing this business TOGETHER as a team. That's missing in a lot of books.

If there was ever a book on network marketing that made me want to go back into it, this is THE book. I started with A----in 1977, and sure enough, was told to tell my family and friends.(The Pukeys)
Kim Klaver has changed all that with her wonderful sense of humor and all too uncommon good sense.
With Ms. Studs ROM (Reach Out Methods), I am all fired up and rarin' to go again.
I will require my first line people to read and re-read this book. It will make a good gift for anyone who is "leader"
material.

Wow, this was my very first Simpsons Comic Book that I have bought and trust me I was very impressed. I didn't really have high expectations for it but this really took me by suprise. This Comic is amazingly funny! You just have to get this book, trust me you won't regret it with classic strips such as "A Trip to Simpsons Mountain" where Grandpa tells his days when there was no television and "Get Fatty" where the town of Springfield is known as the most overweight town in the country and every food that now sells is nutritional and so the whole town has to lose some weight in order to be awarded a waterpark. I would get this Comic book if I were you because now I have at least a dozen Simpson Comics in my room after buying this one.

More super stories from the great characters of Springfield! Here's what this issue has to offer:

"A Trip to Simpson Mountain": Grandpa tells a story of his childhood days before television that sounds oddly enough like a cross between The Waltons, Beverly Hills 90210, Leave It To Beaver, The Brady Bunch, and the Partridge Family (must be a coincidence).

"Kill-er Up With Regular": A classic Itchy and Scratchy short from the "1930s".

"Waitresses in the Sky": Patty and Selma lose their jobs at the DMV and end up living with the Simpsons. Can they find the job of their dreams at Mr. Burns' airline (you'll love the insignia on the planes) or will they break under the pressure (actually, the "No Smoking" sign)? Would make a hilarious T.V. episode.

"Apu's Incredible 96-Hour Shift (without Getting a Break)": The legend is true, but not so impresive considering Apu didn't have a customer for 95 hours and 54 minutes of the famed shift.

"What's the Frequency Simpson": Similar to the T.V. episode where Lisa and Bart co-anchor a kids' news program. In this comic, Bart and Lisa take over a public access channel to start a new sensation: SimpTV. SimpTV offers such entertaining and informative programs as "Geek Patrol" hosted by Martin Prince, "Bad Boy" starring Nelson Munz, and "In the Kitchen With Wiggum" where Ralph creates many tantalizing dishes involving paste. The television elite of Springfield (aka Krusty the Klown, Troy McClure, Bumblebee Man, Kent Brockman, and Dr. Nick) try to shut the renegade channel down.

"Bumblebee Man in !Ay, Que Lastima!": Short about the trying personal life of the yellow and black striped character we thought we knew.

"The Dame and the Clown": Dragnet take-off where Otto is Detective Friday and Moe helps Marge escape an abusive relationship to return to her true love (Homer the Sailor Man).

"Get Fatty": One of the funniest of this book. This comic has a topic similar to the T.V. show where Springfield is named the nation's fattest city. In this comic, President Clinton plans to shape up the country's fattest town with the "worst cholesterol count in modern history." He sends his fitness ambassador Rainier Wolfcastle (aka McBain) to whip Springfield into shape. The worst offenders must lose 10 pounds in two weeks or face the consequences. Can they (or, more to the point, CAN HOMER) do it?

"The Quest for Yaz": This comic continues the storyline started in the T.V. episode "Three Men and a Comic Book." Milhouse's dream is to own a 1973 Carl Yastzremski baseball card when he had big sideburns--but is Milhouse willing to steal to get it?

This is the first simpsons thing I had ever bought-and once I read it I went and bought a lot more>! This is one of fav. simpsons comics.

Not as strong as his later book Transeptor, but Spider Garden is a cool dream world of bondage and domination. Buy it for the art...and you'll be taken to places that will fill your dreams for years to come.

the fetishism isn't cheesy. the sex isn't cheesy. the storyline is engaging and artwork is absolutely beautiful. it left me wanting more . . . and within two minutes of me showing my copies to various friends they were shoving money into my hands, begging me to order them their own books.

Many of my favorite comix share the quality of appearing to be self-contained artifacts dropped in from a different world, like the encyclopedia volume in Borges' "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." They create little worlds with a totally persuasive ecology and aesthetic. Some examples of this have been THB #1 by Paul Pope, Louis by Metaphrog, New Hat by Tom Hart, and Cave-In by Brian Ralph (only the last of those is available through Amazon, unfortunately).

The Spider Garden and its sequel, Hydrophidian, overflow with this quality. Drawing on Japanese woodblock prints and Cyberpunk science fiction, Manning creates an engrossing world of intrigue and decadence.

It's worth emphasizing that Spider Garden is also extremely kinky and explicit fetish porn. It's rare that someone creates a work of artistically ambitions erotica where the sexual heat is not stifled by the author's pretentions, but here the intricate and subtle plot and the extensive sex scenes achieve a symbiotic relationship that increases the power of both.

Manning has only begun to explore the world he suggests in these books, and his output is notoriously slow. I hope to see many more volumes of this story before he ends the series.

Note: Unfortunately, like so many NBM books, the binding is lousy. The content bears repeated re-readings, but the spine does not.

This book is only for office issues with w2k, this is not suitable for issues which a rise with the advanced home user. My bad.

This is a great book. Very clearly laid out, easy to find answers to everyday questions.

It covers the material with a good amount of detail with more explanation than "Windows 2000 Administrator's Pocket Consultant" by William Stanek (another great book) while still being concisely written.

Also good to read straight through if you want an overview of Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory.

Highly recommended.

This is an excellent book for those new to the field and new to Windows 2000. This book covers the essentials and is well organized. I recommend it to all of my students that are trying to learn Windows 2000 and want to be able to support the operating system. This book covers all of the important topics in a way that makes it easy for students to understand and absorb.

Great work Mr. Tate!

I am a proud owner of the Big Aiiiieee. It is absolutely refreshing to hear from other voices than the popular writers such as Tan, Kingston, and Hwang. Chin certainly has made many great and valid points. Tan, Kingston, and Hwang, together, represent a body of cultural sensationalism against especially 'Asian American' men. I agree with Chin on many points; however, Tan, Kingston, and Hwang are wholly to be blamed.
First of all, the term "Asian American" should be eradicated. I am not an Asian American. I am a Chinese-Vietnamese American, as specific as that. With that in mind, this anthology is mainly composed of Chinese and Japanese-American perspectives. Where are representational voices of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and South Asian people (India, Parkistan, Burma).
Secondly, I agree with Mr. Chin that Tan's and Kingston's portrayal of Chinese culture is primitive and backward. Tan's Joy Luck Club contains lot of images that promote cultural sensationalism and exoticism. For example, An Mei's mother cuts her flesh from her arm and dumps them into her grandmother's soup. The non-asian readers will subsequently thrive on this stereotype and apply it for all "Asians." This is like another form of canibalism. Another example of cultural sensationalism is the uncle eating live, jumping shrimps with his chopsticks (or Did I miss something?). As for Kingston, the Woman Warrior clearly was written with an intention as a feminist piece. Because there is no greatly equal novel to dispute its exaggerated feminism, mainstream readers take this as a true portrayal of Chinese/Asian men -- brutal rapists.
Furthermore and on a positive note, what makes this anthology fresh is the fact that it includes other fresh(not new)but neglected voices such as Louis Chu, John Okana, Monica Sone, Gish Jen, and so on, writers that are not given a fair chance in mainstream publishing.
Finally, I think this is a great anthology. Unfortunately, it does not truly represent me and my Vietnamese American community. What I got from reading this anthology is a sense of freshness as far as perspective is concerned; however, emotionally, I am more identified with Flannery O'connor, Toni Morrison, and Duong Thu Huong.
For those dire fans of Mr. Chin and harsh critics of interracial relationship: He married a caucasian woman, so are some of his colleagues.
Beware of whom you worship!

My boyfriend (he's Chinese) saw my copies of Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston books, he wasn't happy with my selections of these so-called Asian-American books, so he gave me the Big Aiiieeeee! I was surprised what Tan and Kingston have done (read Frank Chin's article...it's a blast!). I have to admit that I still like their (Tan and Kingston) books, but they don't represent Asian-Americans that's for sure. There are some Asian girls I know who are ashamed of being... well, Asians, so they go out with White guys (ever heard of that bimbo Margaret Cho?). I don't have a problem with that (with people going out with different races other than their own), but it seems that they're ashamed of their own heritage. They should get this book and read Sui Sin Far. Now, my favorite author! She writes about how a White woman falls in love with a Chinese man. And in spite of laws banning interracial marriage she was still not ashamed of him!

Since the publication of this book, it has been criticized for it's "machismo, misogynist" morale. Guess who these criticisms are coming from? White feminists (or those who support them). They cannot look beyond history and textual matter, instead they force and assume their principles and try (and unforunately, they succeeded) to make this a battle of Women's rights. I have read Chin's "Come All Ye Asian American Writers of the Real and of the Fake" and in nowhere is there any misogynistic dictum. Why? Because this isn't a matter of Women's views or MEN'S! It's about history and how it should be interpreted. People like Kingston, Hwang, and Tan want to deconstruct Asian American history. Feminists want to help Kingston's and Tan's deconstructive views by arbitrarily labeling Chin as a misogynist. If Chin or the editors of The Big Aiiieeeee! were misogynist why would they have women writers in this anthology? Just because there aren't that many women writers doesn't mean it's totally and utterly sexist. Could it be because there aren't that many authentic Asian American women writers?! If there are no authentic texts to Asia America, would it hurt to say that stereotypes (or whatever) are actually right?